10588	----	SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS Selected And Edited With Introductions, Etc. By Francis W. Halsey _Editor of "Great Epochs in American History" Associate Editor of "The Worlds Famous Orations and of The Best of the World's Classics" etc._ In Ten Volumes Illustrated Vol. I Great Britain And Ireland Part One GENERAL INTRODUCTION A two-fold purpose has been kept in view during the preparation of these volumes--on the one-hand, to refresh the memories and, if possible, to enlarge the knowledge, of readers who have already visited Europe; on the other, to provide something in the nature of a substitute for those who have not yet done so, and to inspire them with new and stronger ambitions to make the trip. Readers of the first class will perhaps find matter here which is new to them--at least some of it; and in any case should not regret an opportunity again to see standard descriptions of world-famed scenes and historic monuments. Of the other class, it may be said that, in any profitable trip to Europe, an indispensable thing is to go there possest of a large stock of historical knowledge, not to say with some distinct understanding of the profound significance to our American civilization, past, present, and future, of the things to be seen there. As has so often been said, one finds in Europe what one takes there--that is, we recognize there exactly those things which we have learned to understand at home. Without an equipment of this kind, the trip will mean little more than a sea-voyage, good or bad, a few rides on railroads somewhat different from our own, meals and beds in hotels not quite like ours, and opportunities to shop in places where a few real novelties may be found if one searches for them long enough. No sooner has an American tourist found himself on board a ship, bound for Europe, than he is conscious of a social system quite unlike the one in which he was born and reared. On French ships he may well think himself already in France. The manners of sailors, no less than those of officers, proclaim it, the furniture proclaims it, and so do woodwork, wall decorations, the dinner gong (which seems to have come out of a chateau in old Touraine), and the free wine at every meal. The same is quite as true of ships bound for English and German ports; on these are splendid order, sober taste, efficiency in servants, and calls for dinner that start reminiscences of hunting horns. The order and system impress one everywhere on these ships. Things are all in their proper place, employees are at their proper posts, doing their work, or alert to do it when the need comes. Here the utmost quiet prevails. Each part of the great organization is so well adjusted to other parts, that the system operates noiselessly, without confusion, and with never a failure of cooperation at any point. So long as the voyage lasts, impressions of a perfected system drive themselves into one's consciousness. After one goes ashore, and as long as he remains in Europe, that well ordered state will impress, delight and comfort him. Possibly he will contrast it with his own country's more hurried, less firmly controlled ways, but once he reflects on causes, he will perceive that the ways of Europe are products of a civilization long since settled, and already ancient, while the hurried and more thoughtless methods at home are concomitants of a civilization still too young, too ambitious, and too successful to bear the curbs and restraints which make good manners and good order possible among all classes. It is from fine examples in these social matters, no less than from visits to historic places, that the observing and thoughtful tourist derives benefit from a European tour. The literature of travel in Europe makes in itself a considerable library. Those who have contributed to it are, in literary quality, of many kinds and various degrees of excellence. It is not now so true as it once was that our best writers write for the benefit of tourists. If they do, it is to compile guide-books and describe automobile trips. In any search for adequate descriptions of scenes and places, we can not long depend on present-day writers, but must hark back to those of the last century. There we shall find Washington Irving's pen busily at work for us, and the pens of others, who make up a noble company. The writings of these are still fresh and they fit our purposes as no others do. Fortunately for us, the things in Europe that really count for the cultivated traveler do not change with the passing of years or centuries. The experience which Goethe had in visiting the crater of Vesuvius in 1787 is just about such as an American from Kansas City, or Cripple Creek, would have in 1914. In the old Papal Palace of Avignon, Dickens, seventy years ago, saw essentially the same things that a keen-eyed American tourist of today would see. When Irving, more than a century ago, made his famous pilgrimage to Westminster Abbey, he saw about everything that a pilgrim from Oklahoma would see today. It is believed that these volumes, alike in their form and contents, present a mass of selected literature such as has not been before offered to readers at one time and in one place. FRANCIS W. HALSEY. INTRODUCTION TO VOLS. I AND II Great Britain and Ireland The tourist who has embarked for the British Isles lands usually at Liverpool, Fishguard, or Plymouth, whence a special steamer-train takes him in a few hours to London. In landing at Plymouth, he has passed, outside the harbor, Eddystone, most famous of lighthouses, and has seen waters in which Drake overthrew the Armada of Philip II. Once the tourist leaves the ship he is conscious of a new environment. Aboard the tender (if there be one) he will feel this, in the custom house formalities, when riding on the steamer-train, on stepping to the station platform at his destination, when riding in the tidy taxicab, at the door and in the office of his hotel, in his well-ordered bedroom, and at his initial meal. First of all, he will appreciate the tranquility, the unobtrusiveness, the complete efficiency, with which service is rendered him by those employed to render it. When Lord Nelson, before beginning the battle of Trafalgar, said to his officers and sailors that England expected "every man to do his duty," the remark was merely one of friendly encouragement and sympathy, rather than of stern discipline, because every man on board that fleet of ships already expected to do his duty. Life in England is a school in which doing one's duty becomes a fundamental condition of staying "in the game." Not alone sailors and soldiers know this, and adjust their lives to it, but all classes of public and domestic servants--indeed, all men are subject to it, whether servants or barristers, lawmakers or kings. Emerging from his hotel for a walk in the street, the tourist, even tho his visit be not the first, will note the ancient look of things. Here are buildings that have survived for two, or even five, hundred years, and yet they are still found fit for the purposes to which they are put. Few buildings are tall, the "skyscraper" being undiscoverable. On great and crowded thoroughfares one may find buildings in plenty that have only two, or at most three, stories, and their windows small, with panes of glass scarcely more than eight by ten. The great wall mass and dome of St. Paul's, the roof and towers of Westminster Abbey, unlike the lone spire of old Trinity in New York, still rise above all the buildings around them as far as the eye can reach, just about as they did in the days of Sir Christopher Wren. Leaving a great thoroughfare for a side street, a stone's throw may bring one to a friend's office, in one of those little squares so common in the older parts of London. How ancient all things here may seem to him, the very street doorway an antiquity, and so the fireplace within, the hinges and handles of the doors. From some upper rear window he may look out on an extension roof of solid lead, that has survived, sound and good, after the storms of several generations, and beyond may look into an ancient burial ground, or down upon the grass-plots and ample walks around a church (perchance the Temple Church), and again may see below him the tomb of Oliver Goldsmith. In America we look for antiquities to Boston, with her Long Wharf, or Faneuil Hall; to New York, with her Fraunccs Tavern and Van Cortlandt Manor House; to Jamestown with her lone, crumbling church tower; to the Pacific coast with her Franciscan mission houses; to St. Augustine with her Spanish gates; but all these are young and blushing things compared with the historic places of the British Isles. None of them, save one, is of greater age than a century and a half. Even the exception (St. Augustine) is a child in arms compared with Westminster Hall, the Tower of London, St. Martin's of Canterbury, the ruined abbey of Glastonbury, the remains of churches on the island of Iona, or the oldest ruins found in Ireland. What to an American is ancient history, to an Englishman is an affair of scarcely more than yesterday. As Goldwin Smith has said, the Revolution of 1776 is to an American what the Norman conquest is to an Englishman--the event on which to found a claim of ancestral distinction. More than seven hundred years divide these two events. With the Revolution, our history as a nation began; before that we were a group of colonies, each a part of the British Empire. We fought single-handed with Indians, it is true, and we cooperated with the mother country in wresting the continent from the French, but all this history, in a technical sense, is English history rather than the history of the United States. Our Revolution occurred in the reign of the Third George; back of it runs a line of other Hanoverian kings, of Stuart kings, of Tudor kings, of Plantagenet kings, of Norman kings, of Saxon kings, of Roman governors, of Briton kings and queens, of Scottish tribal heads and kings, of ancient Irish kings. Long before Caesar landed in Kent, inhabitants of England had erected forts, constructed war chariots, and reared temples of worship, of which a notable example still survives on Salisbury Plain. So had the Picts and Scots of Caledonia reared strongholds and used war chariots, and so had Celts erected temples of worship in Ireland, and Phoenicians had mined tin in Cornwall. When Cavaliers were founding a commonwealth at Jamestown and the Puritans one on Massachusetts Bay, the British Isles were six hundred years away from the Norman conquest, the Reformation of the English church had been effected, Chaucer had written his "Tales," Bacon his "Essays," and Shakespeare all but a few of his "Plays." Of the many races to whom belong these storied annals--Briton, Pict, Scot, Saxon, Dane, Celt, Norman--we of America, whose ancestral lines run back to those islands, are the far-descended children, heirs actual. Our history, as a civilized people, began not in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, not at Jamestown, not at Plymouth Rock, but there in the northeastern Atlantic, in lands now acknowledging the sway of the Parliament of Westminster, and where, as with us, the speech of all is English. Not alone do we share that speech with them, but that matchless literature, also English, and more than that, racial customs, laws and manners, of which many are as old as the Norman conquest, while others, for aught we know, are survivals from an age when human sacrifices were made around the monoliths of Stonehenge. It is not in lands such as these that any real American can ever feel himself a stranger. There lies for so many of us the ancestral home--in that "land of just and of old renown," that "royal throne of kings," that "precious stone set in the silver sea," that "dear, dear land, dear for her reputation through the world." F.W.H. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND--PART ONE GENERAL INTRODUCTION AND INTRODUCTION TO VOLS. I AND II--By the Editor I--LONDON A GENERAL SKETCH--By Goldwin Smith WESTMINSTER ABBEY--By Washington Irving THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT--By Nathaniel Hawthorne ST. PAUL'S--By Augustus J.C. Hare THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND THE CRYSTAL PALACE--By H.A. Taine THE TEMPLE'S GALLERY OF GHOSTS PROM DICKENS--By J.R.G. Hassard THE TEMPLE CHURCH--By Augustus J.C. Hare LAMBETH CHURCH AND PALACE--By Augustus J.C. Hare DICKENS'S LIMEHOUSE HOLE--By J.E.G. Hassard WHITEHALL--By Augustus J. C. Hare THE TOWER--By W. Hepworth Dixon ST. JAMES'S PALACE--By Augustus J. C. Hare LITERARY SHRINES OF LONDON--By William Winter II--CATHEDRALS AND ABBEYS CANTERBURY--By the Editor OLD YORK--By William Winter YORK AND LINCOLN COMPARED--By Edward A. Freeman DURHAM--By Nathaniel Hawthorne ELY--By James M. Hoppin SALISBURY--By Nathaniel Hawthorne EXETER--By Anna Bowman Dodd LICHFIELD--By Nathaniel Hawthorne WINCHESTER--By William Howitt WELLS--By James M, Hoppin BURY ST. EDMUNDS--By H. Claiborne Dixon GLASTONBURY--By H. Claiborne Dixon TINTERN--By H. Claiborne Dixon III--CASTLES AND STATELY HOMES LIVING IN GREAT HOUSES--By Richard Grant White WINDSOR--By Harriet Beecher Stowe BLENHEIM--By the Duke of Marlborough WARWICK--By Harriet Beecher Stowe KENILWORTH--By Sir Walter Scott ALNWICK--By William Howitt HAMPTON COURT--By William Howitt CHATSWORTH AND HADDON HALL--By Elihu Burritt EATON HALL--By Nathaniel Hawthorne HOLLAND HOUSE--By William Howitt ARUNDEL--By Anna Bowman Dodd PENSHURST--By William Howitt IV--ENGLISH LITERARY SHRINES STRATFORD-ON-AVON--By Washington Irving NEWSTEAD ABBEY--By Nathaniel Hawthorne HUCKNALL-TORKARD CHURCH (Byron's Grave)--By William Winter DR. JOHNSON'S BIRTHPLACE--By Nathaniel Hawthorne _(English Literary Shrines continued in Vol. II)_ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME I FRONTISPIECE TRAFALGAR SQUARE, LONDON PRECEDING PAGE I WESTMINSTER ABBEY RIVER FRONT OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL INTERIOR OF ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL CHAPEL OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, WESTMINSTER ABBEY THE TOWER OF LONDON CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL TINTERN ABBEY DRYEURGH ABBEY WINDSOR CASTLE FOLLOWING PAGE 95 THE ALBERT MEMORIAL CHAPEL, WINDSOR THE THRONE ROOM, WINDSOR CASTLE POETS' CORNER, WESTMINSTER ABBEY THE GREAT HALL AT PENSHURST THE ENTRANCE HALL OF BLENHEIM PALACE GUY'S TOWER AND THE CLOCK TOWER, WARWICK CASTLE WARWICK CASTLE THE BEAUCHAMP CHAPEL, WARWICK THE RUINS OF KENILWORTH CASTLE CHATSWORTH ALNWICK CASTLE HOLLAND HOUSE EATON HALL I LONDON A GENERAL SKETCH [Footnote: From articles written for the Toronto "Week." Afterward (1888) issued by The Macmillan Company in the volume entitled "The Trip to England."] BY GOLDWIN SMITH The huge city perhaps never imprest the imagination more than when approaching it by night on the top of a coach you saw its numberless lights flaring, as Tennyson says, "like a dreary dawn." The most impressive approach is now by the river through the infinitude of docks, quays, and shipping. London is not a city, but a province of brick and stone. Hardly even from the top of St. Paul's or of the Monument can anything like a view of the city as a whole be obtained. It is indispensable, however, to make one or the other of these ascents when a clear day can be found, not so much because the view is fine, as because you will get a sensation of vastness and multitude not easily to be forgotten. There is, or was not long ago, a point on the ridge which connects Hampstead with Highgate from which, as you looked over London to the Surrey Hills beyond, the modern Babylon presented something like the aspect of a city. The ancient Babylon may have vied with London in circumference, but the greater part of its area was occupied by open spaces; the modern Babylon is a dense mass of humanity.... The Empire and the commercial relations of England draw representatives of trading committees or subject races from all parts of the globe, and the faces and costumes of the Hindu, the Parsee, the Lascar and the ubiquitous Chinaman mingle in the motley crowd with the merchants of Europe and America. The streets of London are, in this respect, to the modern what the great Palace of Tyre must have been to the ancient world. But pile Carthage on Tyre, Venice on Carthage, Amsterdam on Venice, and you will not make the equal, or anything near the equal, of London. Here is the great mart of the world, to which the best and richest products are brought from every land and clime, so that if you have put money in your purse you may command every object of utility or fancy which grows or is made anywhere without going beyond the circuit of the great cosmopolitan city. Parisian, German, Russian, Hindu, Japanese, Chinese industry is as much at your service here, if you have the all-compelling talisman in your pocket, as in Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Benares, Yokohama, or Peking. That London is the great distributing center of the world is shown by the fleets of the carrying trade of which the countless masts rise along her wharves and in her docks. She is also the bank of the world. But we are reminded of the vicissitudes of commerce and the precarious tenure by which its empire is held when we consider that the bank of the world in the middle of the last century was Amsterdam. The first and perhaps the greatest marvel of London is the commissariat. How can the five millions be regularly supplied with food, and everything needful to life, even with such things as milk and those kinds of fruits which can hardly be left beyond a day? Here again we see reason for excepting to the sweeping jeremiads of cynicism, and concluding that tho there may be fraud and scamping in the industrial world, genuine production, faithful service, disciplined energy, and skill in organization, can not wholly have departed from the earth. London is not only well fed, but well supplied with water and well drained. Vast and densely peopled as it is, it is a healthy city. Yet the limit of practical extension seems to be nearly reached. It becomes a question how the increasing multitude shall be supplied not only with food and water, but with air. The East of London, which is the old city, is, as all know, the business quarter. Let the worshiper of Mammon when he sets foot in Lombard Street adore his divinity, of all whose temples this is the richest and the most famous. Note the throng incessantly threading those narrow and tortuous streets. Nowhere are the faces so eager or the steps so hurried, except perhaps in the business quarter of New York. Commerce has still its center here; but the old social and civic life of the city has fled. What once were the dwellings of the merchants of London are now vast collections of offices. The merchants dwell in the mansions of the West End, their clerks in villas and boxes without number, to which when their offices close they are taken by the suburban railways. On Sunday a more than Sabbath stillness reigns in those streets, while in the churches, the monuments of Wren's architectural genius which in Wren's day were so crowded, the clergyman sleepily performs the service to a congregation which you may count upon your fingers. It is worth while to visit the city on a Sunday. Here and there, in a back street, may still be seen what was once the mansion of a merchant prince, ample and stately, with the rooms which in former days displayed the pride of commercial wealth and resounded with the festivities of the olden time; now the sound of the pen alone is heard. These and other relics of former days are fast disappearing before the march of improvement, which is driving straight new streets through the antique labyrinth. Some of the old thoroughfares as well as the old names remain. There is Cheapside, along which, through the changeful ages, so varied a procession of history has swept. There is Fleet Street, close to which, in Bolt Court, Johnson lived, and which he preferred, or affected to prefer, to the finest scenes of nature. Temple Bar, once grimly garnished with the heads of traitors, has been numbered with the things of the past, after furnishing Mr. Bright, by the manner in which the omnibuses were jammed in it, with a vivid simile for a legislative deadlock.... Society has migrated to the Westward, leaving far behind the ancient abodes of aristocracy, the Strand, where once stood a long line of patrician dwellings, Great Queen Street, where Shaftesbury's house may still be seen; Lincoln's Inn Fields, where, in the time of George II, the Duke of Newcastle held his levee of office-seekers, and Russell Square, now reduced to a sort of dowager gentility. Hereditary mansions, too ancient and magnificent to be deserted, such as Norfolk House, Spencer House and Lansdowne House, stayed the westward course of aristocracy at St. James's Square and Street, Piccadilly, and Mayfair; but the general tide of fashion has swept far beyond. In that vast realm of wealth and leisure, the West End of London, the eye is not satisfied with seeing, neither the ear with hearing. There is not, nor has there ever been, anything like it in the world. Notes of admiration might be accumulated to any extent without aiding the impression. In every direction the visitor may walk till he is weary through streets and squares of houses, all evidently the abodes of wealth, some of them veritable palaces. The parks are thronged, the streets are blocked with handsome equipages, filled with the rich and gay. Shops blaze with costly wares, and abound with everything that can minister to luxury. On a fine bright day of May or early June, and days of May or early June are often as bright in London as anywhere, the Park is probably the greatest display of wealth and of the pride of wealth in the world. The contrast with the slums of the East End, no doubt, is striking, and we can not wonder if the soul of the East End is sometimes filled with bitterness at the sight. A social Jeremiah might be moved to holy wrath by the glittering scene. The seer, however, might be reminded that not all the owners of those carriages are the children of idleness, living by the sweat of another man's brow; many of them are professional men or chiefs of industry, working as hard with their brains as any mechanic works with his hands, and indispensable ministers of the highest civilization. The number and splendor of the equipages are thought to have been somewhat diminished of late by the reduction of rents. The architecture of the West End of London is for the most part drearily monotonous; its forms have too plainly been determined by the builder, not by the artist, tho since the restoration of art, varieties of style have been introduced, and individual beauty has been more cultivated. It is the boundless expanse of opulence, street after street, square after square, that most impresses the beholder, and makes him wonder from what miraculous horn of plenty such a tide of riches can have been poured. A beautiful city London can not be called. In beauty it is no match for Paris. The smoke, which not only blackens but corrodes, is fatal to the architecture as well as to the atmosphere. Moreover, the fine buildings, which if brought together would form a magnificent assemblage, are scattered over the immense city, and some of them are ruined by their surroundings. There is a fine group at Westminster, and the view from the steps under the Duke of York's column across St. James's Park is beautiful. But even at Westminster meanness jostles splendor, and the picture is marred by Mr. Hankey's huge tower of Babel rising near. London has had no edile like Haussmann. The Embankment on the one side of the Thames is noble in itself, but you look across from it at the hideous and dirty wharves of Southwark. Nothing is more charming than a fine water street; and this water street might be very fine were it not marred by the projection of a huge railway shed. The new Courts of Law, a magnificent, tho it is said inconvenient, pile, instead of being placed on the Embankment or in some large open space, are choked up and lost in rookeries. London, we must repeat, has had no edile. Perhaps the finest view is that from a steamboat on the river, embracing the Houses of Parliament, Somerset House, and the Temple, with St. Paul's rising above the whole. WESTMINSTER ABBEY [Footnote: From "The Sketch Book." Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.] BY WASHINGTON IRVING On one of those sober and rather melancholy days in the latter part of Autumn, when the shadows of morning and evening almost mingle together and throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I passed several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. I spent some time in Poet's Corner, which occupies an end of one of the transepts or cross aisles of the abbey. The monuments are generally simple; for the lives of literary men afford no striking themes for the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have statues erected to their memories; but the greater part have busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions. Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials, I have always observed that the visitors to the abbey remained longest about them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes the place of that cold curiosity or vague admiration with which they gaze on the splendid monuments of the great and heroic. They linger about these as about the tombs of friends and companions; for indeed there is something of companionship between the author and the reader. Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse between the author and his fellow men is ever new, active and immediate. From Poet's Corner I continued my stroll toward that part of the abbey which contains the sepulchers of the kings. I wandered among what once were chapels, but which are now occupied by the tombs and monuments of the great. At every turn I met with some illustrious name; or the cognizance of some powerful house renowned in history. As the eye darts into these dusky chambers of death, it catches glimpses of quaint effigies; some kneeling in niches, as if in devotion; others stretched upon the tombs, with hands piously prest together; warriors in armor, as if reposing after battle; prelates with croziers and miters; and nobles in robes and coronets, lying, as it were, in state. In glancing over this scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form is so still and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a mansion of that fabled city where everything had been suddenly transmuted into stone. In the opposite transept to Poet's Corner stands a monument which is among the most renowned achievements of modern art, but which to me appears horrible rather than sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs. Nightingale, by Roubillac. The bottom of the monument is represented as throwing open its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is falling from its fleshless frame as he launches his dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband's arms, who strives, with vain and frantic effort, to avert the blow. The whole is executed with terrible truth and spirit; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of the specter. But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors round the tombs of those we love? The grave should be surrounded by everything that might inspire tenderness and veneration for the dead; or that might win the living to virtue. It is the place, not of disgust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation. I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb, and from chapel to chapel. The day was gradually wearing away; the distant tread of loiterers about the abbey grew less and less frequent; the sweet-tongued bell was summoning to evening prayers; and I saw at a distance the choristers, in their white surplices, crossing the aisle and entering the choir. I stood before the entrance to Henry the Seventh's chapel. A flight of steps lead up to it, through a deep and gloomy but magnificent arch. Great gates of brass, richly and delicately wrought, turn heavily upon their hinges, as if proudly reluctant to admit the feet of common mortals into this most gorgeous of sepulchers. On entering, the eye is astonished by the pomp of architecture and the elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very walls are wrought into universal ornament, incrusted with tracery and scooped into niches, crowded with statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, suspended aloft, as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb. Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the Knights of the Bath, richly carved of oak, tho with the grotesque decorations of Gothic architecture. On the pinnacles of the stalls are affixt the helmets and crests of the knights, with their scarfs and swords; and above them are suspended their banners, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and contrasting the splendor of gold and purple and crimson with the cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand mausoleum stands the sepulcher of its founder--his effigy, with that of his queen, extended on a sumptuous tomb, and the whole surrounded by a superbly wrought brazen railing.... When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they were those of men scattered far and wide about the world, some tossing upon distant seas; some under arms in distant lands; some mingling in the busy intrigues of courts and cabinets; all seeking to deserve one more distinction in this mansion of shadowy honors; the melancholy reward of a monument. Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a touching instance of the equality of the grave; which brings down the oppressor to a level with the opprest, and mingles the dust of the bitterest enemies together. In one is the sepulcher of the haughty Elizabeth; in the other is that of her victim, the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day but some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of the latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of Elizabeth's sepulcher continually echo with sighs of sympathy heaved at the grave of her rival. A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary lies buried. The light struggles dimly through windows darkened by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by time and weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb, round which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem--the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down to rest myself at the monument, revolving in my mind the chequered and disastrous story of poor Mary.... Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear, falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and rolling, as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord with this mighty building! With what pomp do they swell through its vast vaults, and breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death, and make the silent sepulcher vocal! And now they rise in triumph and acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes, and piling sound on sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft, and warble along the roof, and seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn cadences! What solemn, sweeping concords! It grows more and more dense and powerful--it fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls--the ear is stunned--the senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding up in full jubilee--it is rising from the earth to heaven--the very soul seems rapt away and floated upward on this swelling tide of harmony!... I rose and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended the flight of steps which lead into the body of the building, my eye was caught by the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and I ascended the small staircase that conducts to it, to take from thence a general survey of this wilderness of tombs. The shrine is elevated upon a kind of platform, and close around it are the sepulchers of various kings and queens. From this eminence the eye looks down between pillars and funeral trophies to the chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs; where warriors, prelates, courtiers and statesmen lie moldering in their "beds of darkness." Close by me stood the great chair of coronation, rudely carved of oak, in the barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age. The scene seemed almost as if contrived, with theatrical artifice, to produce an effect upon the beholder. Here was a type of the beginning and the end of human pomp and power; here it was literally but a step from the throne to the sepulcher. Would not one think that these incongruous mementos had been gathered together as a lesson to living greatness, to show it, even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, the neglect and dishonor to which it must soon arrive; how soon that crown which encircles its brow must pass away, and it must lie down in the dust and disgraces of the tomb, and be trampled upon by the feet of the meanest of the multitude?... The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the painted windows in the high vaults above me; the lower parts of the abbey were already wrapt in the obscurity of twilight. The chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into shadows; the marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain light; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the grave; and even the distant footfall of a verger, traversing the Poet's Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters the door, closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes. I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I had been contemplating, but found they were already fallen into indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all become confounded in my recollection, tho I had scarcely taken my foot from off the threshold. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchers but a treasury of humiliation; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown and the certainty of oblivion! It is, indeed, the empire of death; his great shadowy palace, where he sits in state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and spreading dust and forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present, to think of the characters and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of to-morrow. "Our fathers," says Sir Thomas Browne, "find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors." History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? What is the security of a tomb, or the perpetuity of an embalmment? The remains of Alexander the Great have been scattered to the wind, and his empty sarcophagus is now the mere curiosity of a museum. "The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth; Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams." [Footnote: Sir Thomas Browne.] What, then, is to insure this pile which now towers above me from sharing the fate of mightier mausoleums? The time must come when its gilded vaults, which now spring so loftily, shall lie in rubbish beneath the feet; when, instead of the sound of melody and praise, the wind shall whistle through the broken arches, and the owl hoot from the shattered tower--when the garish sunbeam shall break into these gloomy mansions of death, and the ivy twine round the fallen column; and the foxglove hang its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. Thus the man passes away; his name perishes from record and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin. THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1870-1898.] BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE A little before twelve, we took a cab, and went to the two Houses of Parliament--the most immense building, methinks, that ever was built; and not yet finished, tho it has now been occupied for years. Its exterior lies hugely along the ground, and its great unfinished tower is still climbing toward the sky; but the result (unless it be the river-front, which I have not yet seen) seems not very impressive. The interior is much more successful. Nothing can be more magnificent and gravely gorgeous than the Chamber of Peers--a large oblong hall, paneled with oak, elaborately carved, to the height of perhaps twenty feet. Then the balustrade of the gallery runs around the hall, and above the gallery are six arched windows on each side, richly painted with historic subjects. The roof is ornamented and gilded, and everywhere throughout there is embellishment of color and carving on the broadest scale, and, at the same time, most minute and elaborate; statues of full size in niches aloft; small heads of kings, no bigger than a doll; and the oak is carved in all parts of the paneling as faithfully as they used to do it in Henry VII.'s time--as faithfully and with as good workmanship, but with nothing like the variety and invention which I saw in the dining-room of Smithell's Hall. There the artist wrought with his heart and head; but much of this work, I suppose, was done by machinery. It is a most noble and splendid apartment, and, tho so fine, there is not a touch of finery; it glistens and glows with even a somber magnificence, owing to the deep, rich hues and the dim light, bedimmed with rich colors by coming through the painted windows. In arched recesses, that serve as frames, at each end of the hall, there are three pictures by modern artists from English history; and tho it was not possible to see them well as pictures, they adorned and enriched the walls marvelously as architectural embellishments. The Peers' seats are four rows of long sofas on each side, covered with red morocco; comfortable seats enough, but not adapted to any other than a decorously exact position. The woolsack is between these two divisions of sofas, in the middle passage of the floor--a great square seat, covered with scarlet, and with a scarlet cushion set up perpendicularly for the Chancellor to lean against. In front of the woolsack there is another still larger ottoman, on which he might lie at full length--for what purpose intended, I know not. I should take the woolsack to be not a very comfortable seat, tho I suppose it was originally designed to be the most comfortable one that could be contrived. The throne is the first object you see on entering the hall, being close to the door; a chair of antique form, with a high, peaked back, and a square canopy above, the whole richly carved and quite covered with burnished gilding, besides being adorned with rows of rock crystals--which seemed to me of rather questionable taste.... We next, after long contemplating this rich hall, proceeded through passages and corridores to a great central room, very beautiful, which seems to be used for purposes of refreshment, and for electric telegraphs; tho I should not suppose this could be its primitive and ultimate design. Thence we went into the House of Commons, which is larger than the Chamber of Peers, and much less richly ornamented, tho it would have appeared splendid had it come first in order. The Speaker's chair, if I remember rightly, is loftier and statelier than the throne itself. Both in this hall and in that of the Lords we were at first surprized by the narrow limits within which the great ideas of the Lords and Commons of England are physically realized; they would seem to require a vaster space. When we hear of members rising on opposite sides of the House, we think of them but as dimly discernible to their opponents, and uplifting their voices, so as to be heard afar; whereas they sit closely enough to feel each other's spheres, to note all expression of face, and to give the debate the character of a conversation. In this view a debate seems a much more earnest and real thing than as we read it in a newspaper. Think of the debaters meeting each other's eyes, their faces flushing, their looks interpreting their words, their speech growing into eloquence, without losing the genuineness of talk! Yet, in fact, the Chamber of Peers is ninety feet long and half as broad and high, and the Chamber of Commons is still larger. ST. PAUL'S [Footnote: From "Walks in London."] BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE It will be admitted that, tho in general effect there is nothing in the same style of architecture which exceeds the exterior of St. Paul's, it has not a single detail deserving of attention, except the Phenix over the south portico, which was executed by Cibber, and commemorates the curious fact narrated in the "Parentalia," that the very first stone which Sir Christopher Wren directed a mason to bring from the rubbish of the old church to serve as a mark for the center of the dome in his plans was inscribed with the single word _Resurgam_--I shall rise again. The other ornaments and statues are chiefly by Bird, a most inferior sculptor. Those who find greater faults must, however, remember that St. Paul's, as it now stands, is not according to the first design of Wren, the rejection of which cost him bitter tears. Even in his after work he met with so many rubs and ruffles, and was so insufficiently paid, that the Duchess of Marlborough, said, in allusion to his scaffold labors, "He is dragged up and down in a basket two or three times in a week for an insignificant £200 a year."... The interior of St. Paul's is not without a grandeur of its own, but in detail it is bare, cold, and uninteresting, tho Wren intended to have lined the dome with mosaics, and to have placed a grand baldacchino in the choir. Tho a comparison with St. Peter's inevitably forces itself upon those who are familiar with the great Roman basilica, there can scarcely be a greater contrast than between the two buildings. There, all is blazing with precious marbles; here, there is no color except from the poor glass of the eastern windows, or where a tattered banner waves above a hero's monument. In the blue depths of the misty dome the London fog loves to linger, and hides the remains of some feeble frescoes by Thornhill, Hogarth's father-in-law. In St. Paul's, as in St. Peter's, the statues on the monuments destroy the natural proportion of the arches by their monstrous size, but they have seldom any beauty or grace to excuse them. The week-day services are thinly attended, and, from the nave, it seems as if the knot of worshipers near the choir were lost in the immensity, and the peals of the organ and the voices of the choristers were vibrating through an arcaded solitude.... The most interesting portion of the church is the Crypt, where, at the eastern extremity, are gathered nearly all the remains of the tombs which were saved from the old St. Paul's. Here repose the head and half the body of Sir Nicholas Bacon (1579), Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in the reign of Elizabeth, and father of Francis, Lord Bacon. Other fragments represent William Cokain, 1626; William Hewit, 1597; and John Wolley and his wife, 1595. There are tablets to "Sir Simon Baskerville the rich," physician to James I. and Charles I., 1641; and to Brian, Bishop of Chester, 1661. The tomb of John Martin, bookseller, and his wife, 1680, was probably the first monument erected in the crypt of new St. Paul's.... In the Crypt, not far from the old St. Paul's tombs, the revered Dean Milman, the great historian of the church (best known, perhaps, by his "History of the Jews," his "History of Latin Christianity," and his contributions to "Heber's Hymns"), is now buried under a simple tomb ornamented with a raised cross. In a recess on the south is the slab of Sir Christopher Wren, and near him, in other chapels, Robert Mylne, the architect of old Blackfriars Bridge, and John Rennie, the architect of Waterloo Bridge. Beneath the pavement lies Sir Joshua Reynolds (1742), who had an almost royal funeral in St. Paul's, dukes and marquises contending for the honor of being his pallbearers. Around him are buried his disciples and followers--Lawrence (1830), Barry (1806), Opie (1807), West (1820), Fuseli (1825); but the most remarkable grave is that of William Maillord Turner, whose dying request was that he might be buried as near as possible to Sir Joshua. Where the heavy pillars and arches gather thick beneath the dome, in spite of his memorable words at the battle of the Nile--"Victory or Westminster Abbey"--is the grave of Lord Nelson. Followed to the grave by the seven sons of his sovereign, he was buried here in 1806, when Dean Milman, who was present, "heard, or seemed to hear, the low wail of the sailors who encircled the remains of their admiral." They tore to pieces the largest of the flags of the "Victory," which waved above his grave; the rest were buried with his coffin. The sarcophagus of Nelson was designed and executed for Cardinal Wolsey by the famous Torregiano, and was intended to contain the body of Henry VIII. in the tomb-house at Windsor. It encloses the coffin made from the mast of the ship "L'Orient," which was presented to Nelson after the battle of the Nile by Ben Hallowell, captain of the "Swiftsure," that, when he was tired of life, he might "be buried in one of his own trophies." On either side of Nelson repose the minor heroes of Trafalgar, Collingwood (1810) and Lord Northesk; Picton also lies near him, but outside the surrounding arches. A second huge sarcophagus of porphyry resting on lions is the tomb where Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, was laid in 1852, in the presence of 15,000 spectators, Dean Milman, who had been present at Nelson's funeral, then reading the services. Beyond the tomb of Nelson, in a ghastly ghost-befitting chamber hung with the velvet which surrounded his lying in state at Chelsea, and on which, by the flickering torchlight, we see emblazoned the many Orders presented to him by foreign sovereigns, is the funeral car of Wellington, modeled and constructed in six weeks, at an expense of £13,000, from guns taken in his campaigns. In the southwest pier of the dome a staircase ascends by 616 steps to the highest point of the cathedral. No feeble person should attempt the fatigue, and, except to architects, the undertaking is scarcely worth while. An easy ascent leads to the immense passages of the triforium, in which, opening from the gallery above the south aisle, is the Library, founded by Bishop Compton, who crowned William and Mary, Archbishop Seeker refusing to do so. It contains the bishop's portrait and some carving by Gibbons. At the corner of the gallery, on the left, a very narrow stair leads to the Clock, of enormous size, with a pendulum 16 feet long, constructed by Langley Bradley in 1708. Ever since, the oaken seats behind it have been occupied by a changing crowd, waiting with anxious curiosity to see the hammer strike its bell, and tremulously hoping to tremble at the vibration. Returning, another long ascent leads to the Whispering Gallery, below the windows of the cupola, where visitors are requested to sit down upon a matted seat that they may be shown how a low whisper uttered against the wall can be distinctly heard from the other side of the dome. Hence we reach the Stone Gallery, outside the base of the dome, whence we may ascend to the Golden Gallery at its summit. This last ascent is interesting, as being between the outer and inner domes, and showing how completely different in construction one is from the other. The view from the gallery is vast, but generally, beyond a certain distance, it is shrouded in smoke. Sometimes, one stands aloft in a clear atmosphere, while beneath the fog rolls like a sea, through which the steeples and towers are just visible "like the masts of stranded vessels." Hence one may study the anatomy of the fifty-four towers which Wren was obliged to build after the Fire in a space of time which would only have properly sufficed for the construction of four. The same characteristics, more and more painfully diluted, but always slightly varied, occur in each. Bow Church, St. Magnus, St. Bride, and St. Vedast are the best. The Great Bell of St. Paul's (of 1716), which hangs in the south tower, bears the inscription, "Richard Phelps made me, 1716." It only tolls on the deaths and funerals of the royal family, of Bishops of London, Deans of St. Paul's, and Lord Mayors who die in their mayoralty. THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND THE CRYSTAL PALACE [Footnote: From "Notes on England." By arrangement with the publishers, Henry Holt & Co.] BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE I have letters of introduction and a ticket of admission to the British Museum. About the Grecian marbles, the original Italian drawings, about the National Gallery, the Hampton Court galleries, the pictures at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, and the private collections, I shall say nothing. Still, what marvels and what historical tokens are all these things, five or six specimens of high civilization manifested in a perfect art, all differing greatly from that which I now examine, and so well adapted for bringing into relief the good and the evil. To do that would fill a volume by itself. The Museum library contains six hundred thousand volumes; the reading-room is vast, circular in form, and covered with a cupola, so that no one is far from the central office, and no one has the light in his eyes. All the lower stage of shelves is filled with works of reference--dictionaries, collections of biographies, classics of all sorts--which can be consulted on the spot, and are excellently arranged. Moreover, a small plan placed on each table indicates where they are placed and the order in which they stand. Each seat is isolated; there is nothing in front but the woodwork of the desk, so that no one is annoyed by the presence of his neighbor. The seats and the tables are covered with leather, and are very clean; there are two pens to each desk, the one being steel, the other a quill pen; there is also a small stand at the side, upon which a second volume, or the volume from which the extracts are being copied may be placed. To procure a book, the title is written on a form, which is handed to the central office. The attendant brings the book to you himself, and does so without delay. I have made trial of this, even in the case of works seldom asked for. The holder of the book is responsible till he has received back the form filled up when he applied for it. For ladies a place is reserved, which is a delicate piece of attention. What a contrast if we compare this with our great library at the Louvre, with its long room, with half of the readers dazzled by the light in their eyes, the readers being packed together at a common table, the titles of the books being called out in loud tones, the long time spent in waiting at the central office. The French Library has been reformed according to the English model, yet without being rendered as convenient. Nevertheless, ours is the more liberally conducted; its doors are opened to all comers. Here one must be a "respecable" person; no one is admitted unless vouched for by two householders. This is said to be enough; as it is, those gain admission who are worse than shabby--men in working clothes, and some without shoes--they have been introduced by clergymen. The grant for buying new books is seven or eight times larger than ours. When shall we learn to spend our money in a sensible way? In other matters they are not so successful, such as the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, for instance, which formed the building for the Great Exhibition, and which is now a sort of museum of curiosities. It is gigantic, like London itself, and like so many things in London, but how can I portray the gigantic? All the ordinary sensations produced by size are intensified several times here. It is two miles in circumference and has three stories of prodigious height; it would easily hold five or six buildings like our Palace of Industry, and it is of glass; it consists, first, of an immense rectangular structure rising toward the center in a semicircle like a hothouse, and flanked by two Chinese towers; then, on either side, long buildings descend at right angles, enclosing the garden with its fountains, statues, summer houses, strips of turf, groups of large trees, exotic plants, and beds of flowers. The acres of glass sparkle in the sunlight; at the horizon an undulating line of green eminences is bathed in the luminous vapor which softens all colors and spreads an expression of tender beauty over an entire landscape. Always the same English method of decoration--on the one side a park and natural embellishments, which it must be granted, are beautiful and adapted to the climate; on the other, the building, which is a monstrous jumble, wanting in style, and bearing witness not to taste, but to English power. The interior consists of a museum of antiquities, composed of plaster facsimiles of all the Grecian and Roman statues scattered over Europe; of a museum of the Middle Ages; of a Revival museum; of an Egyptian museum; of a Nineveh museum; of an Indian museum; of a reproduction of a Pompeiian house; of a reproduction of the Alhambra. The ornaments of the Alhambra have been molded, and these molds are preserved in an adjoining room as proofs of authenticity. In order to omit nothing, copies have been made of the most notable Italian paintings, and these are daubs worthy of a country fair. There is a huge tropical hothouse, wherein are fountains, swimming turtles, large aquatic plants in flower, the Sphinx and Egyptian statues sixty feet high, specimens of colossal or rare trees, among others the bark of a Sequoia California 450 feet in height and measuring 116 feet in circumference. The bark is arranged and fastened to an inner framework in such a manner as to give an idea of the tree itself. There is a circular concert room, with tiers of benches as in a Colosseum. Lastly, in the gardens are to be seen life-size reproductions of antediluvian monsters, megatheriums, dinotheriums, and others. In these gardens Blondin does his tricks at the height of a hundred feet. I pass over half the things; but does not this conglomeration of odds and ends carry back one's thoughts to the Rome of Caesar and the Antonines? At that period also pleasure-palaces were erected for the sovereign people; circuses, theaters, baths wherein were collected statues, paintings, animals, musicians, acrobats, all the treasures and all the oddities of the world; pantheons of opulence and curiosity; genuine bazaars where the liking for what was novel, heterogeneous, and fantastic ousted the feeling of appreciation for simple beauty. In truth, Rome enriched herself with these things by conquest, England by industry. Thus it is that at Rome the paintings, the statues, were stolen originals, and the monsters, whether rhinoceroses or lions, were perfectly alive and tore human beings to pieces; whereas here the statues are made of plaster and the monsters of goldbeater's skin. The spectacle is one of second class, but of the same kind. A Greek would not have regarded it with satisfaction; he would have considered it appropriate to powerful barbarians, who, trying to become refined, had utterly failed. THE TEMPLE'S GALLERY OF GHOSTS FROM DICKENS [Footnote: From "A Pickwickian Pilgrimage." The persons mentioned in Mr. Hassard's Pilgrimage to the Temple and its neighborhood will be recognized as characters In the novels of Charles Dickens. By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1881.] BY JOHN R.G. HASSARD The Temple is crowded with the ghosts of fiction. Here were the neglected chambers, lumbered with heaps and parcels of books, where Tom Pinch was set to work by Mr. Fips, and where old Martin Chuzzlewit revealed himself in due time and knocked Mr. Pecksniff into a corner. Here Mr. Mortimer Lightwood's dismal office-boy leaned out of a dismal window overlooking the dismal churchyard; and here Mortimer and Eugene were visited by Mr. Boffin offering a large reward for the conviction of the murderer of John Harmon; by that honest water-side character, Rogue Riderhood, anxious to earn "a pot o' money" in the sweat of his brow by swearing away the life of Gaffer Hexam; by Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam; by "Mr. Dolls," negotiating for "three-penn'orths of rum." It was in Garden Court of The Temple, in the house nearest the river, that Pip, holding his lamp over the stairs one stormy night, saw the returned convict climbing up to his rooms to disclose the mystery of his Great Expectations. Close by the gateway from The Temple into Fleet Street, and adjoining the site of Temple Bar, is Child's ancient banking house, the original of Tellson's Bank in a "Tale of Two Cities." The demolition of Temple Bar made necessary some alterations in the bank, too; and when I was last there the front of the old building which so long defied time and change was boarded up. Chancery Lane, opposite The Temple, running from Fleet Street to Holborn--a distance only a little greater than that between the Fifth and Sixth Avenues in New York--is the principal pathway through the "perplexed and troublous valley of the shadow of the law." At either end of it there are fresh green spots; but the lane itself is wholly given up to legal dust and darkness. Facing it, on the farther side of Holborn, in a position corresponding with that of The Temple at the Fleet Street extremity, is Gray's Inn, especially attractive to me on account of the long grassy enclosure within its innermost court, so smooth and bright and well-kept that I always stopt to gaze longingly at it through the railed barrier which shuts strangers out--as if here were a tennis lawn reserved for the exclusive vise of frisky barristers. At No. 2 Holborn Court, in Gray's Inn, David Copperfield, on his return from abroad near the end of the story, found the rooms of that rising young lawyer, Mr. Thomas Traddles. There was a great scuttling and scampering when David knocked at the door; for Traddles was at that moment playing puss-in-the-corner with Sophy and "the girls." Thavies' Inn, on the other side of Holborn, a little farther east, is no longer enclosed; it is only a little fragment of shabby street which starts, with mouth wide open, to run out of Holborn Circus, and stops short, after a few reds, without having got anywhere. The faded houses look as if they belonged to East Broadway; and in one of them lived Mrs. Jellyby.... The buildings within the large enclosure of Lincoln's Inn are a strange mixture of aged dulness and new splendor; but the old houses and the old court-rooms seem to be without exception dark, stuffy, and inconvenient. Here were the chambers of Kenge and Carboy, and the dirty and disorderly offices of Sergeant Snubbin, counsel for the defendant in the suit of Bardell against Pickwick. Here the Lord Chancellor sat, in the heart of the fog, to hear the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. At the back of the Inn, in the shabby-genteel square called Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mr. Tulkinghorn was murdered in his rusty apartment. The story of "Bleak House" revolves about Lincoln's Inn. The whole neighborhood has an air of mystery and a scent like a stationer's shop. Always I found Mr. Guppy there, with a necktie much too smart for the rest of his clothes, and a bundle of documents tied with red tape. Jobling and young Smallweed sometimes stopt to talk with him. The doors of the crowded court-rooms opened now and then, and gentlemen in gowns and horsehair wigs came out to speak with clients who waited under the arches.... The climax of "Bleak House" is the pursuit of Lady Dedlock, and the finding of the fugitive, cold and dead, with one arm around a rail of the dark little graveyard where they buried the law-copyist, "Nemo," and where poor Jo, the crossing-sweeper, came at night and swept the stones as his last tribute to the friend who "was very good" to him. There are three striking descriptions of this place in the novel. "A hemmed-in churchyard, pestiferous and obscene--a beastly scrap of ground which a Turk would reject as a savage abomination, and a Kafir would shudder at. With houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate--with every villainy of life in action close on death, and every poisonous element of death in action close on life; here they lower our dear brother down a foot or two; here sow him in corruption to be raised in corruption; an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside; a shameful testimony to future ages how civilization and barbarism walked this boastful island together." The exact situation of the graveyard is not defined in the novel; but it was evidently near Lincoln's Inn, and Mr. Winter told us, in one of his delightful London letters, that it was also near Drury Lane. So strangely hidden away is it among close and dirty houses that it was only after three long searches through all the courts thereabouts that I found the "reeking little tunnel," and twice I passed the entrance without observing it. Opening out of Drury Lane, at the back and side of the theater, is a network of narrow, flagged passages built up with tall houses. There are rag and waste-paper shops in this retreat, two or three dreadful little greengrocers' stalls, a pawnbroker's, a surprizing number of cobblers, and in the core of the place, where the alley widens into the semblance of a dwarfed court, a nest of dealers in theatrical finery, dancing-shoes, pasteboard rounds of beef and cutlets, stage armor, and second-hand play-books. Between Marquis Court on the one hand, Russell Court on the other, and a miserable alley called Cross Court which connects them, is what appears at first sight to be a solid block of tenements. The graveyard is in the very heart of this populous block. The door of one of the houses stood open, and through a barred staircase window at the back of the entry I caught a glimpse of a patch of grass--a sight so strange in this part of London that I went around to the other side of the block to examine further. There I found the "reeking little tunnel." It is merely a stone-paved passage about four feet wide through the ground floor of a tenement. House doors open into it. A lamp hangs over the entrance. A rusty iron gate closes it at the farther end. Here is the "pestiferous and obscene churchyard," completely hemmed in by the habitations of the living. Few of the graves are marked, and most of the tombstones remaining are set up on end against the walls of the houses. Perhaps a church stood there once, but there is none now. The burials are no longer permitted in this hideous spot, the people of the block, when they shut their doors at night, shut the dead in with them. The dishonoring of the old graves goes on briskly. Inside the gate lay various rubbish--a woman's boot, a broken coal scuttle, the foot of a tin candlestick, fragments of paper, sticks, bones, straw--unmentionable abominations; and over the dismal scene a reeking, smoke-laden fog spread darkness and moisture. THE TEMPLE CHURCH [Footnote: From "Walks in London."] BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE By Inner Temple Lane we reach the only existing relic of the residence of the Knights Templars in these courts, their magnificent Temple Church (St Mary's), which fortunately just escaped the Great Fire in which most of the Inner Temple perished. The church was restored in 1839-42 at an expense of £70,000, but it has been ill-done, and with great disregard of the historic memorials it contained. It is entered by a grand Norman arch under the western porch, which will remind those who have traveled in France of the glorious door of Loches. This opens upon the Round Church of 1185 (fifty-eight feet in diameter), built in recollection of the Round Church of the Holy Sepulcher, one of the only four remaining round churches in England; the others being at Cambridge, Northampton, and Maplestead in Essex. Hence, between graceful groups of Purbeck marble columns, we look into the later church of 1240; these two churches, built only at a distance of fifty-five years from each other, forming one of the most interesting examples we possess of the transition from Norman to Early English architecture. The Round Church is surrounded by an arcade of narrow Early English arches, separated by a series of heads, which are chiefly restorations. On the pavement lie two groups of restored effigies of "associates" of the Temple (not Knights Templars), carved in freestone, being probably the "eight images of armed knights" mentioned by Stow in 1598.... Against the wall, behind the Marshalls, is the effigy of Robert Ros, Governor of Carlisle in the reign of John. He was one of the great Magna Charta barons, and married the daughter of a king of Scotland, but he was not a Templar, for he wears flowing hair, which is forbidden by the rites of the Order; at the close of his life, however, he took the Templars' habit as an associate, and was buried here in 1227. On the opposite side is a Purbeck marble sarcophagus, said to be that of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, but her effigy is at Fontevrault, where the monastic annals prove that she took the veil after the murder of Prince Arthur. Henry II. left five hundred marks by his will for his burial in the Temple Church, but was also buried at Fontevrault. Gough considers that the tomb here may be that of William Plantagenet, fifth son of Henry III., who died in infancy, and (according to Weaver) was buried in the Temple in 1256. A staircase in the walls leads to the triforium of the Round Church, which is now filled with the tombs, foolishly removed from the chancel beneath. Worthy of especial notice is the colored kneeling effigy of Martin, Recorder of London, and Reader of the Middle Temple, 1615. Near this is the effigy--also colored and under a canopy--of Edmund Plowden, the famous jurist, of whom Lord Ellenborough said that "better authority could not be cited"; and referring to whom Fuller quaintly remarks: "How excellent a medley is made, when honesty and ability meet in a man of his profession!" There is also a monument to James Howell (1594-1666), whose entertaining letters, chiefly written from the Fleet, give many curious particulars relating to the reigns of James I. and Charles I.... The church (eight-two feet long, fifty-eight wide, thirty-seven high), begun in 1185 and finished in 1240, is one of our most beautiful existing specimens of Early English Pointed architecture: "the roof springing, as it were, in a harmonious and accordant fountain, out of the clustered pillars that support its pinioned arches; and these pillars, immense as they are, polished like so many gems." [Footnote: Hawthorne.] In the ornaments of the ceiling the banner of the Templars is frequently repeated--black and white, "because," says Fawyne, "the Templars showed themselves wholly white and fair toward the Christians, but black and terrible to them that were miscreants." The letters "Beausean" are for "Beauseant," their war cry. In a dark hole to the left of the altar is the white marble monument of John Selden, 1654, called by Milton "the chief of learned men reputed in this land." The endless stream of volumes which he poured forth were filled with research and discrimination. Of these, his work "On the Law of Nature and of Nations" is described by Hallam as among the greatest achievements in erudition that any English writer has performed, but he is perhaps best known by his "Table Talk," of which Coleridge says, "There is more weighty bullion sense in this book than I ever found in the same number of pages of any uninspired writer."... On the right of the choir, near a handsome marble piscina, is the effigy of a bishop, usually shown as that of Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, by whom the church was consecrated, but he left England in a fury, after Henry II. refused to perform his vow of joining the Crusades in person, to atone for the murder of Becket. The figure more probably represents Silverston de Eversdon, Bishop of Carlisle, 1255. In the vestry are monuments to Lords Eldon and Stowell, and that of Lord Thurlow (1806) by Rossi. The organ, by Father Smydt or Smith, is famous from the long competition it underwent with one by Harris. Both were temporarily erected in the church. Blow and Purcell were employed to perform on that of Smith; Battista Draghi, organist to Queen Catherine, on that of Harris. Immense audiences came to listen, but tho the contest lasted a year they could arrive at no decision. Finally, it was left to Judge Jefferies of the Inner Temple, who was a great musician, and who chose that of Smith. LAMBETH--CHURCH AND PALACE [Footnote: From "Walks in London."] BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE The Church of St. Mary, Lambeth, was formerly one of the most interesting churches in London, being, next to Canterbury Cathedral, the great burial place of its archbishops, but falling under the ruthless hand of "restorers" it was rebuilt (except its tower of 1377) in 1851-52 by Hardwick, and its interest has been totally destroyed, its monuments huddled away anywhere, for the most part close under the roof, where their inscriptions are of course wholly illegible!... Almost the only interesting feature retained in this cruelly abused building is the figure of a pedler with his pack and dog (on the third window of the north aisle) who left "Pedlar's Acre" to the parish, on condition of his figure being always preserved on one of the church windows. The figure was existing here as early as 1608. In the churchyard, at the east end of the church, is an altar tomb, with the angles sculptured like trees, spreading over a strange confusion of obelisks, pyramids, crocodiles, shells, etc., and, at one end, a hydra. It is the monument of John Tradescant (1638) and his son, two of the earliest British naturalists. The elder was so enthusiastic a botanist that he joined an expedition against Algerine corsairs on purpose to get a new apricot from the African coast, which was thenceforth known as "the Algier Apricot." His quaint medley of curiosities, known in his own time as "Tradeskin's Ark," was afterward incorporated with the Ashmolean Museum.... "Lambeth, envy of each band and gown," has been for more than 700 years the residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, tho the site of the present palace was only obtained by Archbishop Baldwin in 1197, when he exchanged some lands in Kent for it with Glanville, Bishop of Rochester, to whose see it had been granted by the Countess Goda, sister of the Confessor. The former proprietorship of the Bishops of Rochester is still commemorated in Rochester Row, Lambeth, on the site of a house which was retained when the exchange was made, for their use when they came to attend Parliament. The Palace is full of beauty in itself and intensely interesting from its associations. It is approached by a noble Gateway of red brick with stone dressings, built by Cardinal Moreton in 1490. It is here that the poor of Lambeth have received "the Archbishops' Dole" for hundreds of years. In ancient times a farthing loaf was given twice a week to 4,000 people. Adjoining the Porter's Lodge is a room evidently once used as a prison. On passing the gate we are in the outer court, at the end of which rises the picturesque Lollards' Tower, built by Archbishop Chicheley, 1434-45; on the right is the Hall. A second gateway leads to the inner court, containing the modern (Tudor) palace, built by Archbishop Howley (1828-48), who spent the whole of his private fortune upon it rather than let Blore the architect be ruined by exceeding his contract to the amount of £30,000. On the left, between the buttresses of the hall, are the descendants of some famous fig trees planted by Cardinal Pole. The Hall was built by Archbishop Juxon in the reign of Charles II., on the site of the hall built by Archbishop Boniface (1244), which was pulled down by Scot and Hardyng, the regicides, who purchased the palace when it was sold under the Commonwealth. Juxon's arms and the date 1663 are over the door leading to the palace. The stained window opposite contains the arms of many of the archbishops, and a portrait of Archbishop Chicheley. Archbishop Bancroft, whose arms appear at the east end, turned the hall into a Library, and the collection of books which it contains has been enlarged by his successors, especially by Archbishop Seeker, whose arms appear at the west end, and who bequeathed his library to Lambeth. Upon the death of Laud, the books were saved from dispersion through being claimed by the University of Cambridge, under the will of Bancroft, which provided that they should go to the University if alienated from the see; they were restored by Cambridge to Archbishop Sheldon. The library contains a number of valuable MSS., the greatest treasure being a copy of Lord Rivers's translation of the "Diets and Sayings of the Philosophers," with an illumination of the Earl presenting Caxton on his knees to Edward IV. Beside the King stand Elizabeth Woodville and her eldest son, and this, the only known portrait of Edward V., is engraved by Vertue in his Kings of England. A glass case contains: The Four Gospels in Irish, a volume which belonged to King Athelstan, and was given by him to the city of Canterbury; a copy of the Koran written by Sultan Allaruddeen Siljuky in the fifteenth century, taken in the Library of Tippoo Saib at Seringapatam; the Lumley Chronicle of St. Alban's Abbey; Queen Elizabeth's Prayer-Book, with illuminations from Holbein's Dance of Death destroyed in Old St. Paul's; an illuminated copy of the Apocalypse, of the thirteenth century; the Mazarine Testament, fifteenth century; and the rosary of Cardinal Pole. A staircase lined with portraits of the Walpole family, leads from the Library to the Guard Room, now the Dining-Hall. It is surrounded by an interesting series of portraits of the archbishops from the beginning of the sixteenth century. Through the paneled room, called Cranmer's Parlor, we enter the Chapel, which stands upon a Crypt supposed to belong to the manor-house built by Archbishop Herbert Fitzwalter, about 1190. Its pillars have been buried nearly up to their capitals, to prevent the rising of the river tides within its wall. The chapel itself, tho greatly modernized, is older than any other part of the palace, having been built by Archbishop Boniface, 1244-70. Its lancet windows were found by Laud--"shameful to look at, all diversely patched like a poor beggar's coat," and he filled them with stained glass, which he proved that he collected from ancient existing fragments, tho his insertion of "Popish images and pictures made by their like in a mass book" was one of the articles in the impeachment against him. The glass collected by Laud was entirely smashed by the Puritans: the present windows were put in by Archbishop Howley. In this chapel most of the archbishops have been consecrated since the time of Boniface.... Here Archbishop Parker erected his tomb in his lifetime "by the spot where he used to pray," and here he was buried, but his tomb was broken up, with every insult that could be shown, by Scot, one of the Puritan possessors of Lambeth, while the other, Hardyng, not to be outdone, exhumed the Archbishop's body, sold its leaden coffin, and buried it in a dunghill. His remains were found by Sir William Dugdale at the Restoration, and honorably reinterred in front of the altar, with the epitaph, "Corpus Matthaei Archiepiscopi tandem hic quiescit." His tomb, in the ante-chapel, was re-erected by Archbishop Sancroft, but the brass inscription which encircled it is gone. The screen, erected by Laud, was suffered to survive the Commonwealth. At the west end of the chapel, high on the wall, projects a Gothic confessional, erected by Archbishop Chicheley. It was formerly approached by seven steps. The beautiful western door of the chapel opens into the curious Post Room, which takes its name from the central wooden pillar, supposed to have been used as a whipping-post for the Lollards. The ornamented flat ceiling which we see here is extremely rare. The door at the northeast corner, by which the Lollards were brought in, was walled up, about 1874. Hence we ascend the Lollard's [Footnote: The name Lollard was used as a term of reproach for the followers of Wyclif. Formerly derived from Peter Lollard, a Waldensian pastor of the thirteenth century, more recently from the Middle Dutch "lollen," to hum.] Tower, built by Chicheley--the lower story of which is now given up by the Archbishop for the use of Bishops who have no fixt residence in London. The winding staircase, of rude slabs of unplaned oak, on which the bark in many cases remains, is of Chicheley's time. In a room at the top is a trap-door, through which as the tide rose prisoners, secretly condemned, could be let down unseen into the river. Hard by is the famous Lollard's Prison (13 feet long, 12 broad, 8 high), boarded all over walls, ceiling, and floor. The rough-hewn boards bear many fragments of inscriptions which show that others besides Lollards were immured here. Some of them, especially his motto "Nosce te ipsum," are attributed to Cranmer. The most legible inscription is "IHS cyppe me out of all al compane. Amen." Other boards bear the notches cut by prisoners to mark the lapse of time. The eight rings remain to which the prisoners were secured: one feels that his companions must have envied the one by the window. Above some of the rings the boards are burned with the hot-iron used in torture. The door has a wooden lock, and is fastened by the wooden pegs which preceded the use of nails; it is a relic of Archbishop Sudbury's palace facing the river, which was pulled down by Chicheley. From the roof of the chapel there is a noble view up the river, with the quaint tourelle of the Lollard's Tower in the foreground. The gardens of Lambeth are vast and delightful. Their terrace is called "Clarendon's Walk" from a conference which there took place between Laud and the Earl of Clarendon. The "summer-house of exquisite workmanship," built by Cranmer, has disappeared. A picturesque view may be obtained of Cranmer's Tower, with the Chapel and the Lollard's Tower behind it. DICKENS'S LIMEHOUSE HOLE [Footnote A: From "A Pickwickian Pilgrimage." The persons mentioned in Mr. Hassard's account of Limehouse Hole will be recognized as characters in the novels of Charles Dickens. By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1881.] BY JOHN R.G. HASSARD I took a steamboat one day at Westminster Bridge, and after a voyage of 40 minutes or so landed near Limehouse Hole, and followed the river streets both east and west. It was easy enough to trace the course of Mortimer Lightwood and Eugene Wrayburn, as they walked under the guidance of Riderhood through the stormy night from their rooms in The Temple, four miles away, past the Tower and the London Docks, and down by the slippery water's edge to Limehouse Hole, when they went to cause Gaffer Hexam's arrest, and found him drowned, tied to his own boat. The strictly commercial aspect of the Docks--the London Docks above and the West India Docks below--shades off by slight degrees into the black misery of the hole. The warehouses are succeeded by boat-builders' sheds; by private wharves, where ships, all hidden, as to their hulls, behind walls and close fences, thrust unexpected bowsprits over the narrow roadway; by lime-yards; by the shops of marine store-dealers and purveyors to all the wants and follies of seamen; and then by a variety of strange establishments which it would be hard to classify. Close by a yard piled up with crates and barrels of second-hand bottles, was a large brick warehouse devoted to the purchase and sale of broken glass. A wagon loaded with that commodity stood before the door, and men with scoop-shovels were transferring the glass into barrels. An enclosure of one or two acres, in an out-of-the-way street, might have been the original of the dust-yard that contained Boffin's Bower, except that Boffin's Bower was several miles distant, on the northern outskirt of London. A string of carts, full of miscellaneous street and house rubbish, all called here by the general name of "dust," were waiting their turn to discharge. There was a mountain of this refuse at the end of the yard; and a party of laborers, more or less impeded by two very active black hogs, were sifting and sorting it. Other mounds, formed from the sittings of the first, were visible at the sides. There were huge accumulations of broken crockery and of scraps of tin and other metal, and of bones. There was a quantity of stable-manure and old straw, and a heap, as large as a two-story cottage, of old hoops stript from casks and packing-cases. I never understood, until I looked into this yard, how there could have been so much value in the dust-mounds at Boffin's Bower. Gradually the streets became narrower, wetter, dirtier, and poorer. Hideous little alleys led down to the water's edge where the high tide splashed over the stone steps. I turned into several of them, and I always found two or three muddy men lounging at the bottom; often a foul and furtive boat crept across the field of view. The character of the shops became more and more difficult to define. Here a window displayed a heap of sailor's thimbles and pack-thread; there another set forth an array of trumpery glass vases or a basket of stale fruit, pretexts, perhaps, for the disguise of a "leaving shop," or unlicensed pawnbroker's establishment, out of which I expected to see Miss Pleasant Riderhood come forth, twisting up her back hair as she came. At a place where the houses ceased, and an open space left free a prospect of the black and bad-smelling river, there was an old factory, disused and ruined, like the ancient mill in which Gaffer Hexam made his home, and Lizzie told the fortunes of her brother in the hollow by the fire. I turned down a muddy alley, where 12 or 15 placards headed "Body Found," were pasted against the wall. They were printed forms, filled in with a pen. Mr. Forster tells us in his life of Dickens that it was the sight of bills of this sort which gave the first suggestion of "Our Mutual Friend." At the end of the alley was a neat brick police-station; stairs led to the water, and several trim boats were moored there. Within the station I could see an officer quietly busy at his desk, as if he had been sitting there ever since Dickens described "the Night Inspector, with a pen and ink ruler, posting up his books in a whitewashed office as studiously as if he were in a monastery on the top of a mountain, and no howling fury of a drunken woman were banging herself against a cell-door in the back yard at his elbow." A handsome young fellow in uniform, who looked like a cross between a sailor and a constable, came out and asked very civilly if he could be of use to me. "Do you know," said I, "where the station was that Dickens describes in 'Our Mutual Friend'?" "Oh, yes, sir! this is the very spot. It was the old building that stood just here: this is a new one, but it has been put up in the same place." "Mr. Dickens often went out with your men in the boat, didn't he?" "Yes, sir, many a night in the old times." "Do you know the tavern which is described in the same book by the name of The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters?" "No, sir, I don't know it; at least not by that name. It may have been pulled down, for a lot of warehouses have been built along here, and the place is very much changed; or it may be one of those below." Of course, I chose to think that it must be "one of those below." I kept on a little farther, by the crooked river lanes, where public houses were as plentiful as if the entire population suffered from a raging and inextinguishable thirst for beer. The sign-boards displayed a preference for the plural which seems not to have escaped the observation of the novelist. If I did not see The Six Porters, I came across The Three Mariners, The Three Cups, The Three Suns, The Three Tuns, The Three Foxes, and the Two Brewers; and in the last I hope that I found the original of the tavern so often mentioned in the story. I had first noticed it from the steamboat--"a narrow, lop-sided wooden jumble of corpulent windows heaped one upon another as you might heap as many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden veranda impending over the water,"--a tavern of dropsical appearance, which had not a straight floor in its whole constitution, and hardly a straight line. I got at the entrance on the land side after a search among puzzling alleys, and there I found still stronger reminders of "Our Mutual Friend." Stuck against the wall was an array of old and new hand-bills, headed, "Drowned," and offering rewards for the recovery of bodies. The value set upon dead persons in Limehouse Hole is not excessive: the customary recompense for finding them seems to be ten shillings, and in only one instance did the price reach the dazzling amount of one pound. By the side of the house is an approach to the river: most of the buildings near are old and irregular, and at low tide a great deal of the shore must be exposed. Going upon the slippery stones, beside which lay a few idle and rickety boats, I found the expected range of windows with "red curtains matching the noses of the regular customers." I looked in at the door. A long passage opened a vista of pleasant bar-parlor, or whatever it may have been, on the river-side; and, perhaps, I should have seen Miss Abbey Potterson if I had gone to the end. Several water-side characters were drinking beer at the lead-covered counter, waited upon by a sharp young woman, who seems to have replaced Bob Gliddery. Instead of the little room called "Cozy," where the Police Inspector drank burned sherry with Lightwood and Wrayburn, there was an apartment labelled "The Club." A party of "regular customers," all evidently connected with water (or mud), sat around a table: beyond question they were Tootle, and Mullins, and Bob Glamour, and Captain Joey; and at ten o'clock Miss Abbey would issue from the bar-parlor, and send them home. If The Jolly Fellowship Porters is still extant, this must be it. WHITEHALL [Footnote: From "Walks in London."] BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE The present Banqueting-House of Whitehall was begun by Inigo Jones, and completed in 1622, forming only the central portion of one wing in his immense design for a new palace, which, if completed, would have been the finest in the world. The masonry is by a master-mason, Nicholas Stone, several of whose works we have seen in other parts of London. "Little did James think that he was raising a pile from which his son was to step from the throne to a scaffold." The plan of Inigo Jones would have covered 24 acres, and one may best judge of its intended size by comparison with other buildings. Hampton Court covers 8 acres; St. James's Palace, 4 acres; Buckingham Palace, 2-1/2 acres. It would have been as large as Versailles, and larger than the Louvre. Inigo Jones received only 8s. 4d. a day while he was employed at Whitehall, and £46 per annum for house-rent. The huge palace always remained unfinished. Whitehall attained its greatest splendor in the reign of Charles I. The mask of Comus was one of the plays acted here before the king; but Charles was so afraid of the pictures in the Banqueting-House being injured by the number of wax lights which were used, that he built for the purpose a boarded room called the "King's Masking-House," afterward destroyed by the Parliament. The gallery toward Privy Garden was used for the king's collection of pictures, afterward either sold or burned. The Banqueting-House was the scene of hospitalities almost boundless. The different accounts of Charles I.'s execution introduce us to several names of the rooms in the old palace. We are able to follow him through the whole of the last scenes of the 30th of January, 1648. When he arrived, having walked from St. James's, "the King went up the stairs leading to the Long Gallery" of Henry VIII, and so to the west side of the palace. In the "Horn Chamber" he was given up to the officers who held the warrant for his execution. Then he passed on to the "Cabinet Chamber," looking upon Privy Garden. Here, the scaffold not being ready, he prayed and conversed with Bishop Juxon, ate some bread, and drank some claret. Several of the Puritan clergy knocked at the door and offered to pray with him, but he said that they had prayed against him too often for him to wish to pray with them in his last moments. Meanwhile, in a small distant room, Cromwell was signing the order to the executioner, and workmen were employed in breaking a passage through the west wall of the Banqueting House, that the warrant for the execution might be carried out which ordained it to be held "in the open street before Whitehall.".... Almost from the time of Charles's execution Cromwell occupied rooms in the Cockpit, where the Treasury is now, but soon after he was installed "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth" (December 16, 1653), he took up his abode in the royal apartments, with his "Lady Protectress" and his family. Cromwell's puritanical tastes did not make him averse to the luxury he found there, and, when Evelyn visited Whitehall after a long interval in 1656, he found it "very glorious and well furnished." But the Protectress could not give up her habits of nimble housewifery, and "employed a surveyor to make her some little labyrinths and trap-stairs, by which she might, at all times, unseen, pass to and fro, and come unawares upon her servants, and keep them vigilant in their places and honest in the discharge thereof." With Cromwell in Whitehall lived Milton, as his Latin Secretary. Here the Protector's daughters, Mrs. Rich and Mrs. Claypole, were married, and here Oliver Cromwell died (September 3, 1658) while a great storm was raging which tore up the finest elms in the Park, and hurled them to the ground, beneath the northern windows of the palace. In the words of Hume, Cromwell upon his deathbed "assumed more the character of a mediator, interceding for his people, than that of a criminal, whose atrocious violation of social duty had, from every tribunal, human and divine, merited the severest vengeance." Having inquired of Godwin, the divine who attended him, whether a person who had once been in a state of grace could afterward be damned, and being assured it was impossible, he said, "Then I am safe, for I am sure that I was once in a state of grace." Richard Cromwell continued to reside in Whitehall till his resignation of the Protectorate. On his birthday, the 29th of May, 1660, Charles II returned to Whitehall. The vast labyrinthine chambers of the palace were soon filled to overflowing by his crowded court. The queen's rooms were facing the river to the east of the Water Gate. Prince Rupert had rooms in the Stone Gallery, which ran along the south side of Privy Gardens, beyond the main buildings of the palace, and beneath him were the apartments of the king's mistresses, Barbara Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine, afterward Duchess of Cleveland, and Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. The rooms of the latter, who first came to England with Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, to entice Charles II into an alliance with Louis XIV., and whose "childish, simple, baby-face" is described by Evelyn, were three times rebuilt to please her, having "ten times the richness and glory" of the queen's. Nell Gwynne did not live in the palace, tho she was one of Queen Catherine's Maids of Honor! Charles died in Whitehall on February 6, 1684. With his successor the character of the palace changed. James II, who continued to make it his principal residence, established a Roman Catholic chapel there. It was from Whitehall that Queen Mary Beatrice made her escape on the night of December 9, 1688. The adventure was confided to the Count de Lauzun and his friend M. de St. Victor, a gentleman of Avignon. The queen on that terrible evening entreated vainly to be allowed to remain and share the perils of her husband; he assured her that it was absolutely necessary that she should precede him, and that he would follow her in twenty-four hours. The king and queen went to bed as usual to avoid suspicion, but rose soon after, when the queen put on a disguise provided by St. Victor. The royal pair then descended to the rooms of Madame de Labadie, where they found Lauzun, with the infant Prince James and his two nurses. The king, turning-to Lauzun, said, "I confide my queen and my son to your care: all must be hazarded to convey them with the utmost speed to France." Lauzun then gave his hand to the queen to lead her away, and, followed by the two nurses with the child, they crossed the Great Gallery, and descended by a back staircase and a postern gate to Privy Gardens. At the garden gate a coach was waiting, the queen entered with Lauzun, the nurses, and her child, who slept the whole time, St. Victor mounted by the coachman, and they drove to the "Horse Ferry" at Westminster, where a boat was waiting in which they crossed to Lambeth. On the 11th the Dutch troops had entered London, and James, having commanded the gallant Lord Craven, who was prepared to defend the palace to the utmost, to draw off the guard which he commanded, escaped himself in a boat from the water-entrance of the palace at three o'clock in the morning. At Feversham his flight was arrested, and he returned amid bonfires, bell-ringing, and every symptom of joy from the fickle populace. Once more he slept in Whitehall, but in the middle of the night was aroused by order of his son-in-law, and hurried forcibly down the river to Rochester, whence, on December 23, he escaped to France. On the 25th of November the Princess Anne had declared against her unfortunate father, by absconding at night by a back staircase from her lodgings in the Cockpit, as the northwestern angle of the palace was called, which looked on St. James's Park. Compton, Bishop of London, was waiting for her with a hackney coach, and she fled to his house in Aldersgate Street. Mary II arrived in the middle of February, and "came into Whitehall, jolly as to a wedding, seeming quite transported with joy." But the glories of Whitehall were now over. William III., occupied with his buildings at Hampton Court and Kensington, never cared to live there, and Mary doubtless stayed there as little as possible, feeling opprest by the recollections of her youth spent there with an indulgent father whom she had cruelly wronged, and a stepmother whom she had once loved with sisterly as well as filial affection, and from whom she had parted with passionate grief on her marriage, only nine years before. The Stone Gallery and the late apartments of the royal mistresses in Whitehall were burned down in 1691, and the whole edifice was almost totally destroyed by fire through the negligence of a Dutch maidservant in 1697. The principal remaining fragment of the palace is the Banqueting-House of Inigo Jones, from which Charles I. passed to execution. Built in the dawn of the style of Wren, it is one of the most grandiose examples of that style, and is perfect alike in symmetry and proportion. That it has no entrance apparent at first sight is due to the fact that it was only intended as a portion of a larger building. In the same way we must remember that the appearance of two stories externally, while the whole is one room, is due to the Banqueting-House being only one of four intended blocks, of which one was to be a chapel surrounded by galleries, and the other two divided into two tiers of apartments. The Banqueting-House was turned into a ehapel by George I., but has never been consecrated, and the aspect of a hall is retained by the ugly false red curtains which surround the interior of the building. It is called the Chapel Royal of Whitehall, is served by the chaplains of the sovereign, and is one of the dreariest places of worship in London. The ceiling is still decorated with canvas pictures by Rubens (1635) representing the apotheosis of James I. The painter received £3,000 for these works. The walls were to have been painted by Vandyke with the History of the Order of the Garter. "What," says Walpole, "had the Banqueting-House been if completed?" Over the entrance is a bronze bust of James I. attributed to Le Soeur. THE TOWER [Footnote: From "Her Majesty's Tower."] BY W. HEPWORTH DIXON Half-a-mile below London Bridge, on ground which was once a bluff, commanding the Thames from St. Saviour's Creek to St. Olave's Wharf, stands the Tower; a mass of ramparts, walls, and gates, the most ancient and most poetic pile in Europe.... The Tower has an attraction for us akin to that of the house in which we were born, the school in which we were trained. Go where we may, that grim old edifice on the Pool goes with us; a part of all we know, and of all we are. Put seas between us and the Thames, this Tower will cling to us, like a thing of life. It colors Shakespeare's page. It casts a momentary gloom over Bacon's story. Many of our books were written in its vaults; the Duke of Orleans's "Poesies," Raleigh's "Historie of the World," Eliot's "Monarchy of Man," and Penn's "No Cross, No Crown." Even as to length of days, the Tower has no rival among places and prisons, its origin, like that of the Iliad, that of the Sphinx, that of the Newton Stone, being lost in the nebulous ages, long before our definite history took shape. Old writers date it from the days of Caesar; a legend taken up by Shakespeare and the poets in favor of which the name of Caesar's tower remains in popular use to this very day. A Roman wall can even yet be traced near some parts of the ditch. The Tower is mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle in a way not incompatible with the fact of a Saxon stronghold having stood upon this spot. The buildings as we have them now in block and plan were commenced by William the Conqueror; and the series of apartments in Caesar's tower--hall, gallery, council-chamber, chapel--were built in the early Norman reigns, and used as a royal residence by all our Norman kings. What can Europe show to compare against such a tale? Set against the Tower of London--with its 800 years of historic life, its 1,900 prisons of traditional fame--all other palaces and prisons appear like things of an hour. The oldest bit of palace in Europe, that of the west front of the Burg in Vienna, is of the time of Henry the Third. The Kremlin in Moscow, the Doge's Palazzo in Venice, are of the fourteenth century. The Seraglio in Stamboul was built by Mohammed the Second. The oldest part of the Vatican was commenced by Borgia, whose name it bears. The old Louvre was commenced in the reign of Henry the Eighth; the Tuilleries in that of Elizabeth. In the time of our civil war Versailles was yet a swamp. Sans Souci and the Escurial belong to the eighteenth century. The Serail of Jerusalem is a Turkish edifice. The palaces of Athens, of Cairo, of Teheran, are all of modern date. Neither can the prisons which remain in fact as well as in history and drama--with the one exception of St. Angelo in Rome--compare with the Tower. The Bastile is gone; the Bargello has become a museum; the Piombi are removed from the Doge's roof. Vincennes, Spandau, Spilberg, Magdeburg, are all modern in comparison with a jail from which Ralph Flambard escaped so long ago in the year 1100, the date of the First Crusade. Standing on Tower Hill, looking down on the dark lines of wall--picking out keep and turret, bastion and ballium, chapel and belfry--the jewel-house, armory, the mounts, the casemates, the open leads, the Bye-ward-gate, the Belfry, the Bloody tower--the whole edifice seems alive with story--the story of a nation's highest splendor, its deepest misery, and its darkest shame. The soil beneath your feet is richer in blood than many a great battle-field; for out upon this sod has been poured, from generation to generation, a stream of the noblest life in our land. Should you have come to this spot alone, in the early days when the Tower is noisy with martial doings, you may haply catch in the hum which rises from the ditch and issues from the wall below you--broken by roll of drum, by blast of bugle, by tramp of soldiers--some echoes, as it were, of a far-off time, some hints of a Mayday revel, of a state execution, of a royal entry. You may catch some sound which recalls the thrum of a queen's virginal, the cry of a victim on the rack, the laughter of a bridal feast. For all these sights and sounds--the dance of love and the dance of death--are part of that gay and tragic memory which clings around the Tower. From the reign of Stephen down to that of Henry of Richmond, Caesar's tower (the great Norman keep, now called the White Tower), was a main part of the royal palace; and for that large interval of time the story of the White Tower is in some part that of our English society as well as of our English kings. Here were kept the royal wardrobe and the royal jewels; and hither came with their goody wares the tiremen, the goldsmiths, the chasers and embroiderers, from Flanders, Italy, and Almaigne. Close by were the Mint, the lion's den, the old archery-grounds, the Court of King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, the Queen's gardens, the royal banqueting-hall, so that art and trade, science and manners, literature and law, sport and politics, find themselves equally at home. Two great architects designed the main parts of the Tower: Gundulf the Weeper and Henry the Builder; one a poor Norman monk, the other a great English king. Gundulf, a Benedictine friar, had, for that age, seen a great deal of the world; for he had not only lived in Rouen and Caen, but had traveled in the East. Familiar with the glories of Saracenic art, no less than with the Norman simplicities of Bec, St. Ouen, and St. Etienne, a pupil of Lanfranc, a friend of Anselm, he had been employed in the monastery of Bec to marshal with the eye of an artist all the pictorial ceremonies of his church. But he was chiefly known in that convent as a weeper. No monk at Bec could cry so often and so much as Gundulf. He could weep with those who wept, nay, he could weep with those who sported, for his tears welled forth from what seemed to be an unfailing source. As the price of his exile from Bec, Gundulf received the crozier of Rochester, in which city he rebuilt the cathedral and perhaps designed the castle, since the great keep on the Medway has a sister's likeness to the great keep on the Thames. His works in London were the White Tower, the first St. Peter's Church, and the old barbican, afterward known as the Hall Tower, and now used as the Jewel House. The cost of these works was great; the discontent caused by them was sore. Ralph, Bishop of Durham, the able and rapacious minister who had to raise the money, was hated and reviled by the Commons with peculiar bitterness of heart and phrase. He was called Flambard, or Firebrand. He was represented as a devouring lion. Still the great edifice grew up, and Gundulf, who lived to the age of fourscore, saw his great keep completed from basement to battlement. Henry the Third, a prince of epical fancies as Corffe, Conway, Beaumaris and many other fine poems in stone attest, not only spent much of his money in adding to its beauty and strength, ... but was his own chief clerk of the works. The Water Gate, the embanked wharf, the Cradle Tower, the Lantern, which he made his bedroom and private closet, the Galleyman Tower, and the first wall appear to have been his gifts. But the prince who did so much for Westminster Abbey, not content with giving stone and piles to the home in which he dwelt, enriched the chambers with frescoes and sculptures, the chapels with carving and glass, making St. John's Chapel in the White Tower splendid with saints, St. Peter's Church on the Tower Green musical with bells. In the Hall Tower, from which a passage led through the Great Hall into the King's bedroom in the Lantern, he built a tiny chapel for his private use--a chapel which served for the devotions of his successors until Henry the Sixth was stabbed to death before the cross. Sparing neither skill nor gold to make the great fortress worthy of his art, he sent to Purbeck for marble and to Caen for stone. The dabs of lime, the spawls of flint, the layers of brick which deface the walls and towers in too many places are of either earlier or later times. The marble shafts, the noble groins, the delicate traceries, are Henry's work. Traitor's Gate was built by him. In short, nearly all that is purest in art is traceable to his reign. Edward the First may be added, at a distance, to the list of builders. In his reign the original Church of St. Peter's fell into ruin; the wrecks were carted away, and the present edifice was built. The bill of costs for clearing the ground is still extant in Fetter Lane. Twelve men, who were paid twopence a day wages, were employed on the work for twenty days. The cost of pulling down the old chapel was forty-six shillings and eight pence; that of digging foundations for the new chapel forty shillings. That chapel has suffered from wardens and lieutenants; yet the shell is of very fine Norman work. From the days of Henry the builder down to those of Henry of Richmond the Tower, as the strongest place in the south of England, was by turns the magnificent home and the miserable jail of all our princes. Here Richard the Second held his court and gave up his crown. Here Henry the Sixth was murdered. Here the Duke of Clarence was drowned in wine. Here King Edward and the Duke of York was slain by command of Richard. Here Margaret of Salisbury suffered her tragic fate. Henry of Richmond kept his royal state in the Tower, receiving his ambassadors, counting his angels, making presents to his bride, Elizabeth of York. Among other gifts to that lady on her nuptial day was a Royal Book of verse, composed by a prisoner in the keep. ST. JAMES'S PALACE [Footnote: From "Walks in London."] BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE The picturesque old brick gateway of St. James's Palace still looks up St. James's Street, one of the most precious relics of the past in London, and enshrining the memory of a greater succession of historical events than any other domestic building in England, Windsor Castle not excepted. The site of the palace was occupied, even before the Conquest, by a hospital dedicated to St. James, for "fourteen maidens that were leprous." Henry VIII. obtained it by exchange, pensioned off the sisters, and converted the hospital into "a fair mansion and park," in the same year in which he was married to Anne Boleyn, who was commemorated here with him in love-knots, now almost obliterated, upon the side doors of the gateway, and in the letters "H.A." on the chimney-piece of the presence-chamber or tapestry room. Holbein is sometimes said to have been the king's architect here, as he was at Whitehall. Henry can seldom have lived here, but hither his daughter, Mary I., retired, after her husband Philip left England for Spain, and here she died, November 17, 1558. James I., in 1610, settled St. James's on his eldest son, Prince Henry, who kept his court here for two years with great magnificence, having a salaried household of no less than two hundred and ninety-seven persons. Here he died in his nineteenth year, November 6, 1612. Upon his death, St. James's was given to his brother Charles, who frequently resided here after his accession to the throne, and here Henrietta Maria gave birth to Charles II., James II., and the Princess Elizabeth. In 1638 the palace was given as a refuge to the queen's mother, Marie de Medici, who lived here for three years, with a pension of £3,000 a month! Hither Charles I. was brought from Windsor as the prisoner of the Parliament, his usual attendants, with one exception, being debarred access to him, and being replaced by common soldiers, who sat smoking and drinking even in the royal bedchamber, never allowing him a moment's privacy, and hence he was taken in a sedan chair to his trial at Whitehall. On the following day the king was led away from St. James's to the scaffold. His faithful friends, Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, the Duke of Hamilton, and Lord Capel were afterward imprisoned in the palace and suffered like their master. Charles II., who was born at St. James's (May 29, 1630), resided at Whitehall, giving up the palace to his brother, the Duke of York (also born here, October 25, 1633), but reserving apartments for his mistress, the Duchess of Mazarin, who at one time resided there with a pension of £4,000 a year. Here Mary II. was born, April 30, 1662; and here she was married to William of Orange, at eleven at night, November 4, 1677. Here for many years the Duke and Duchess of York secluded themselves with their children, in mourning and sorrow, on the anniversary of his father's murder. Here also Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, died, March 31, 1671, asking, "What is truth?" of Blandford, Bishop of Worcester, who came to visit her. In St. James's Palace also, James's second wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to her fifth child, Prince James Edward ("the Old Pretender") on June 10, 1688. It was to St. James's that William III. came on his first arrival in England, and he frequently resided there afterward, dining in public, with the Duke of Schomberg seated at his right hand and a number of Dutch guests, but on no occasion was any English gentleman invited. In the latter part of William's reign the palace was given up to the Princess Anne, who had been born there February 6, 1665, and married there to Prince George of Denmark July 28, 1683. She was residing here when Bishop Burnet brought her the news of William's death and her own accession. George I., on his arrival in England, came at once to St. James's. "This is a strange country," he remarked afterward; "the first morning after my arrival at St. James's I looked out of the window, and saw a park with walks, and a canal, which they told me were mine. The next day Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of my park, sent me a fine brace of carp out of my canal; and I was told I must give five guineas to Lord Chetwynd's servant for bringing me my own carp, out of my own canal, in my own park." The Duchess of Kendal, the king's mistress, had rooms in the palace, and, toward the close of his reign, George I. assigned apartments there on the ground floor to a fresh favorite, Miss Anne Brett. When the king left for Hanover, Miss Brett had a door opened from her rooms to the royal gardens, which the king's granddaughter, Princess Anne, who was residing in the palace, indignantly ordered to be walled up. Miss Brett had it opened a second time, and the quarrel was at its height when the news of the king's death put an end to the power of his mistress. With the accession of George II. the Countesses of Yarmouth and Suffolk took possession of the apartments of the Duchess of Kendal. As Prince of Wales, George II. had resided in the palace till a smoldering quarrel with his father came to a crisis over the christening of one of the royal children, and the next day he was put under arrest, and ordered to leave St. James's with his family the same evening. Wilhelmina Caroline of Anspach, the beloved queen of George II., died in the palace, November 20, 1737, after an agonizing illness, endured with the utmost fortitude and consideration for all around her. Of the daughters of George II. and Queen Caroline, Anne, the eldest, was married at St. James's to the Prince of Orange, November, 1733, urged to the alliance by her desire for power, and answering to her parents, when they reminded her of the hideous and ungainly appearance of the bridegroom, "I would marry him, even if he were a baboon!" The marriage, however, was a happy one, and a pleasant contrast to that of her younger sister Mary, the king's fourth daughter, who was married here to the brutal Frederick of Hesse Cassel, June 14, 1771. The third daughter, Caroline, died at St. James's, December 28, 1757, after a long seclusion consequent upon the death of John, Lord Harvey, to whom she was passionately attached. George I. and George II. used, on certain days to play at Hazard at the grooms' postern at St. James's, and the name "Hells," as applied to modern gaming-houses is derived from that given to the gloomy room used by the royal gamblers. The northern part of the palace, beyond the gateway (inhabited in the reign of Victoria by the Duchess of Cambridge), was built for the marriage of Frederick Prince of Wales. The State Apartments (which those who frequent levees and drawing-rooms have abundant opportunities of surveying) are handsome, and contain a number of good royal portraits. The Chapel Royal, on the right on entering the "Color Court," has a carved and painted ceiling of 1540. Madame d'Arblay describes the pertinacity of George III. in attending service here in bitter November weather, when the queen and court at length left the king, his chaplain, and equerry "to freeze it out together."... When Queen Caroline (wife of George II.) asked Mr. Whiston what fault people had to find with her conduct, he replied that the fault they most complained of was her habit of talking in chapel. She promised amendment, but proceeding to ask what other faults were objected to her, he replied, "When your Majesty has amended this I'll tell you of the next." It was in this chapel that the colors taken from James II. at the Battle of the Boyne were hung up by his daughter Mary, an unnatural exhibition of triumph which shocked the Londoners. Besides that of Queen Anne, a number of royal marriages have been solemnized here; those of the daughters of George II., of Frederick Prince of Wales to Augusta of Saxe Cobourg, of George IV. to Caroline of Brunswick, and of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert. The Garden at the back of St. James's Palace has a private entrance to the Park. It was as he was alighting from his carriage here, August 2, 1786, that George III. was attacked with a knife by the insane Margaret Nicholson. "The bystanders were proceeding to wreak summary vengeance on the (would-be) assassin, when the King generously interfered in her behalf. 'The poor creature,' he exclaimed, 'is mad: do not hurt her; she has not hurt me.' He then stept forward and showed himself to the populace, assuring them that he was safe and uninjured." LITERARY SHRINES OF LONDON [Footnote: From "Shakespeare's England." By arrangement with the publishers, Moffat, Yard & Co. Copyright by William Winter, 1878-1910.] BY WILLIAM WINTER The mind that can reverence historic associations needs no explanation of the charm that such associations possess. There are streets and houses in London which, for pilgrims of this class, are haunted with memories and hallowed with an imperishable light that not even the dreary commonness of everyday life can quench or dim. Almost every great author in English literature has here left some personal trace, some relic that brings you at once into his living presence. In the time of Shakespeare,--of whom it should be noted that, wherever found, he is found in elegant neighborhoods,--Aldersgate was a secluded, peaceful quarter of the town, and there the poet had his residence, convenient to the theater in Blackfriars, in which he owned a share. It is said that he dwelt at No. 134 Aldersgate Street (the house was long ago demolished), and in that region, amid all the din of traffic and all the discordant adjuncts of a new age, those who love him are in his company. Milton was born in a court adjacent to Bread Street, Cheapside, and the explorer comes upon him as a resident in St. Bride's churchyard,--where the poet Lovelace was buried,--and at No. 19 York Street, Westminster, in later times occupied by Jeremy Bentham and by William Hazlitt. When secretary to Cromwell he lived in Scotland Yard, now the headquarters of the London police. His last home was in Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields, but the visitor to that spot finds it covered by the Artillery barracks. Walking through King Street, Westminster, you will not forget the great poet Edmund Spenser, who, a victim to barbarity, died there, in destitution and grief. Ben Jonson's terse record of that calamity says: "The Irish having robbed Spenser's goods and burnt his house and a little child new-born, he and his wife escaped, and after he died, for lack of bread, in King Street." Ben Jonson is closely associated with places that can still be seen. He passed his boyhood near Charing Cross--having been born in Hartshorn Lane, now Northumberland Street; he attended the parish school of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields; and persons who roam about Lincoln's Inn will call to mind that he helped to build it--a trowel in one hand and a volume of Horace in the other. His residence, in his day of fame, was outside the Temple Bar, but all that neighborhood is new. The Mermaid,--which Jonson frequented, in companionship with Shakespeare, Fletcher, Herrick, Chapman, and Donne,--was in Bread Street, but no trace of it remains, and a banking house stands now on the site of the old Devil Tavern, in Fleet Street, a room in which, called "The Apollo," was the trysting place of the club of which he was the founder. The famous inscription, "O, rare Ben Jonson!" is three times cut in the Abbey; once in Poets' Corner and twice in the north aisle, where he was buried,--a little slab in the pavement marking his grave. Dryden once dwelt in a quaint, narrow house, in Fetter Lane,--the street in which Dean Swift has placed the home of "Gulliver," and where the famous Doomsday Book was kept,--but, later, he removed to a liner dwelling, in Gerrard Street, Soho, which was the scene of his death. (The house in Fetter Lane was torn down in 1891.) Edmund Burke's house, also in Gerrard Street, is a beer-shop, but the memory of the great orator hallows the abode, and an inscription upon it proudly announces that here he lived. Dr. Johnson's house, in Gough Square, bears (or bore) a mural tablet, and standing at its time-worn threshold, the visitor needed no effort of fancy to picture that uncouth figure shambling through the crooked lanes that afford access to this queer, somber, melancholy retreat. In that house he wrote the first dictionary of the English language and the characteristic, memorable letter to Lord Chesterfield. The historical antiquarian society that has marked many of the literary shrines of London has rendered a signal service. The custom of marking the houses that are associated with renowned names is, obviously, a good one, because it provides instruction, and also because it tends to vitalize, in the general mind, a sense of the value of honorable repute: it ought, therefore, to be everywhere adopted and followed. A house associated with Sir Joshua Reynolds and a house associated with Hogaith, both in Leicester Square, and houses associated with Benjamin Franklin and Peter the Great, in Craven Street; Sheridan, in Savile Row; Campbell, in Duke Street; Carrick, in the Adelphi Terrace; Mrs. Siddons, in Baker Street, and Michael Faraday, in Blandford Street, are only a few of the notable places which have been thus designated. More of such commemorative work remains to be done, and, doubtless, will be accomplished. The traveler would like to know in which of the houses in Buckingham Street Coleridge lodged, while he was translating "Wallenstein"; which house in Bloomsbury Square was the residence of Akenside, when he wrote "The Pleasures of Imagination," and of Croly, when he wrote "Salathiel"; or where it was that Gray lived, when he established his residence in Russel Square, in order to be one of the first (as he continued to be one of the most constant) students at the then newly opened British Museum (1759).... These records, and such as these, may seem trivialities, but Nature has denied an unfailing source of innocent pleasure to the person who can feel no interest in them. For my part, when rambling in Fleet Street it is a special delight to remember even so little an incident as that recorded of the author of the "Elegy"--that he once saw there his contemptuous critic, Dr. Johnson, shambling along the sidewalk, and murmured to a companion, "Here comes Ursa Major." For true lovers of literature "Ursus Major" walks oftener in Fleet Street to-day than any living man. A good leading thread of literary research might be profitably followed by the student who should trace the footsteps of all the poets, dead and gone, that have held, in England, the office of laureate. John Kay was laureate in the reign of King Edward the Fourth; Andrew Bernard in that of King Henry the Seventh; John Skelton in that of King Henry the Eighth, and Edmund Spenser in that of Queen Elizabeth. Since then the succession has included the names of Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson, Sir William Devenant, John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell, Nahum Tate, Nicholas Rowe, Lawrence Eusden, Colley Cibber, William Whitehead, Thomas Warton, Henry James Pye, Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and Alfred Tennyson. Most of those bards were intimately associated with London, and several of them are buried in the Abbey. It is, indeed, because so many storied names are written upon gravestones that the explorer of the old churches of London finds in them so rich a harvest of instructive association and elevating thought. Few persons visit them, and you are likely to find yourself comparatively alone, in rambles of this kind. I went one morning into St. Martin's,--once "in-the-fields," now at the busy center of the city,--and found there only a pew-opener, preparing for the service, and an organist, practising music. It is a beautiful structure, with graceful spire and with columns of weather-beaten, gray stone, curiously stained with streaks of black, and it is almost as famous for theatrical names as St. Paul's, Covent Garden, or St. George's, Bloomsbury, or St. Clement Danes. There, in a vault beneath the church, was buried the bewitching, generous Nell Gwynn; there is the grave of James Smith, joint author with his brother Horace,--who was buried at Tunbridge Wells,--of "The Rejected Addresses"; there rests Richard Yates, the original "Sir Oliver Surface"; and there were laid the ashes of the romantic Mrs. Centlivre, and of George Farquhar, whom neither youth, genius, patient labor, nor sterling achievement could save from a life of misfortune and an untimely, piteous death. A cheerier association of this church is with the poet Thomas Moore, who was there married. At St. Giles's-in-the-Fields are the graves of George Chapman, who translated Homer; Andrew Marvel, who wrote such lovely lyrics; Rich, the manager, who brought out "The Beggar's Opera," and James Shirley, the fine dramatist and poet, whose immortal couplet has often been murmured in such solemn haunts as these: Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust. Shirley was one of the most fertile, accomplished, admirable, and admired of writers, during the greater part of his life (1596-1666), and the study of his writing amply rewards the diligence of the student. His plays, about forty in number, of which "The Traitor" is deemed the best tragedy and "The Lady of Pleasure" the best comedy, comprehend a wide variety of subject and exhibit refinement, deep feeling, and sustained fluency of graceful expression. His name is associated with St. Albans, where he dwelt as a school-teacher, and, in London, with Gray's Inn, where at one time he resided. II CATHEDRALS AND ABBEYS CANTERBURY [Footnote: From "Two Months Abroad." Printed privately. (1878.)] BY THE EDITOR An Anglo-Saxon man may get down to first principles in Canterbury. He reaches the dividing point in England between the old faith of Pagans and the new religion of Jesus the Christ. The founder of the new gospel had been dead five hundred years when England accepted Him, and acceptance came only after the Saxon King Ethelbert had married Bertha, daughter of a Frankish prince. Here in Canterbury Ethelbert held his court. Bertha, like her father, was a Christian. After her marriage, Bertha herself for some years held Christian services here alone in little St. Martin's Church, but Ethelbert still loved his idols; indeed, for many years, he continued to worship Odin and Thor. St. Patrick had been in Ireland a full century before this. Bertha as a Christian stood almost alone in Saxon England, but her persistence at last so wrought upon Ethelbert that he wrote a letter to Pope Gregory the Great, asking that a missionary be sent to England. This was in the sixth century. St. Augustine and forty monks were dispatched by Gregory to the English shore. To-day I have seen the church where this great missionary preached. It still contains the font from which he baptized his many English converts. In this church King Ethelbert himself embraced Christianity, and so it was that the union of Church and State was here effected. Canterbury then became the mother of the Church of England--a title she has retained through all succeeding years. Few towns in England can interest an educated man more. Its foundation dates from years before the Christian era--how long before no man knows. It is rich in history, secular as well as ecclesiastical. The Black Prince, beloved and admired as few princes ever were, had a strong attachment for it, and here lies buried. Opposite his tomb sleeps Henry IV, the king who dethroned Richard II, son of this same Black Prince. Thomas à Becket, and those marvelous pilgrimages that followed his murder for three hundred years, have given it lasting renown. The "father of English poetry" has still further immortalized it in his "Tales." Indeed, there are few towns possessing so many claims on the attention of the churchman, the antiquarian, and the man of letters. One of the densest fogs I ever knew settled upon the ancient town the morning after my arrival. It was impossible to see clearly across streets. This fog increased the gloom which long ago came over these ancient monuments and seemed to add something unreal to the air of solemn greatness that appeared in every street and corner. Chance threw me into Mercury Lane. Here at once was historic ground. On a corner of the lane stands the very old inn that is mentioned by Chaucer as the resort of the pilgrims whose deeds he has celebrated. It is now used by a linen-draper. The original vaulted cellars and overhanging upper stories still remain. Pressing onward, I soon reached a Gothic gateway, handsomely carved, but sadly old and decayed. It led into the grass-covered cathedral yard. Through the thick fog could now be distinguished some of the lofty outlines of the majestic cathedral. Its central tower, which is among the best specimens of the pointed style in England, could be seen faintly as it rose ponderously into the clouded air. No picture, no figures, no mere letter, can place before the reader's mind this enormous edifice. Its total length is 520 feet--Westminster Abbey is more than 100 feet less. As we enter, the immensity of it grows. It is a beautiful theory that these great Gothic churches, as outgrowths of the spirit of Christianity, in their largeness and in the forms of their windows and aisles, were meant to represent the universality and lofty ideals of the Christian faith. Pagans worshiped largely in family temples which none but the rich could build. The new faith opened its temples to all men, and it built churches large enough for all classes and conditions to enter and find room. Two styles of architecture are shown in the interior of Canterbury, Norman and Early Gothic. In the former style are the transept, choir and Becket chapel, each with its noble series of lofty columns and arches. Beneath the choir and chapel is a crypt, also Norman and the oldest part of the cathedral, some of it undoubtedly dating from St. Augustine's time. He is known to have built a church soon after his arrival upon ground formerly occupied by Christians in the Roman army, and this is believed to be its site. The crypt, in a splendid state of preservation, extends under the entire Norman portion of the building. When the Gothic style came into vogue, succeeding the Norman, the remainder of the present edifice was added. Either part--Norman or Gothic--would in itself make a large church. One will meet few grander naves anywhere than this Gothic nave in Canterbury, formed of white stone and wonderfully symmetrical in all its outlines. A screen, richly wrought, divides the Norman from the Gothic part. Two flights of stone steps lead from one to the other. It will not be easy to forget the impression made that dark December morning when I entered the little doorway of this cathedral and first walked down its long, gray, lofty nave to this flight of steps. The chanting in the choir of the morning service which echoed throughout the vast edifice gave profound solemnity to a scene that can never pass from recollection. When the service had closed, an intelligent verger acted as my guide. New chapels and aisles seemed to open in all directions. Before we had completed the circuit, it seemed as if we were going through another Westminster Abbey. In one cornear is the "Warrior's Chapel," crowded with the tombs of knights whose effigies, in full armor, lie recumbent on elaborate bases. Henry IV. and his second queen lie in the Becket Chapel under an elegant canopy, between two immense Norman pillars. On the other side, between two other pillars, lies the Black Prince, with recumbent statue in full armor. Suspended above the canopy are his coat of mail and the helmet and shield he wore at Cressy. In the center of this chapel, and between these two monuments, formerly stood Thomas à Becket's famous shrine. The chapel was added to the cathedral for the express purpose of receiving his remains. At the height of the pilgrimages, about 100,000 people are said to have visited it every year. The steps that lead to it show how they were deeply worn by pilgrims, who ascended in pairs on their knees. Where stood the shrine the pavement has also been worn deeply down to the shape of the human knee by pilgrims while in prayer. Each pilgrim brought an offering, and nothing less than gold was accepted. Not alone the common people, but princes, kings and great church dignitaries from foreign lands came with gifts. Erasmus was here in 1510 and wrote of the Becket shrine that it "shone and glittered with the rarest and most precious jewels of an extraordinary largeness, some larger than the egg of a goose." The brilliant duration of these pilgrimages came finally to a sudden end. During the Reformation, Henry VIII. seized and demolished the shrine. The treasure, filling two large chests, and which eight men could with difficulty carry, was seized, and on the adjoining pavement the bones of the saint were burned. Not a single relic of Becket now remains in Canterbury. With no ordinary feeling does one stand amid the scene of this most interesting and curious chapter in church history. Not far from the shrine is the place where the murder of Becket was committed. You are shown the actual stone that was stained with his blood. A piece of this stone, about four inches square, was cut out of the pavement at the time of the murder and sent to Rome, where it is still preserved. Among many interesting tombs not already referred to are those of the great St. Dunstan; of Admiral Rooke, the hero of Gibraltar; of Stephen Langton (immortal with Magna Charta), and of Archbishop Pole, of Mary Tudor's time, who died the same day as that queen, and thus made clear Elizabeth's path to a restoration of Protestantism. After the cathedral, the most interesting place in Canterbury is St. Martin's Church. With few exceptions--including, perhaps, a very early and well-preserved church in Ravenna--it is doubted if an older Christian church now remains in Europe. There certainly is none that can claim more interest for Englishmen and for descendants of Englishmen in the New World. St. Martin's is somewhat removed from the town, where it stands alone on a sloping knoll, and is very simple in form. The tower that rises over the doorway is built of plain Roman brick and broken flint stones, and has occasionally a piece of drest stone on corners. The tower is square and rises about ten feet above the roof. Almost any mason could have built this church. A luxuriant growth of ivy covers nearly all its parts. Rude in outline and finish are all its parts, ivy has added to St. Martin's the only beauty it could possibly claim. The interior bears heavier marks of age than do the walls outside. The chancel has walls built almost entirely of Roman brick, and the nave is without columns. The old font--certainly one of the first constructed in England--stands in the chancel. It was probably from this font that King Ethelbert was baptized. Both chronicle and tradition say good Bertha was buried here. A recess in the wall of the chancel contains an old stone coffin, which is believed to contain the dust of England's first Christian queen. Standing within this ancient structure, one feels that he has reached the source for Anglo-Saxon people of this modern faith, Christianity, and the civilization it has given to the world. A new race of pilgrims, as numerous as those who went to Becket's shrine, might well find as worthy an object of their gifts and their journeys in this ivy-mantled relic of ancient days. OLD YORK [Footnote: From "Gray Days and Gold." By arrangement with the publishers, Moffat, Yard & Co. Copyright by William Winter, 1890.] BY WILLIAM WINTER The pilgrim to York stands in the center of the largest shire in England, and is surrounded by castles and monasteries, now mostly in ruins, but teeming with those associations of history and literature that are the glory of this delightful land. From the summit of the great central tower of the cathedral, which is reached by 237 steps, I gazed, one morning, over the vale of York and beheld one of the loveliest spectacles that ever blest the eyes of man. The wind was fierce, the sun brilliant, and the vanquished storm-clouds were streaming away before the northern blast. Far beneath lay the red-roofed city, its devious lanes and its many great churches,--crumbling relics of ancient ecclesiastical power,--distinctly visible. Through the plain, and far away toward the south and east, ran the silver thread of the Ouse, while all around, as far as the eye could see, stretched forth a smiling landscape of green meadow and cultivated field; here a patch of woodland, and there a silver gleam of wave; here a manor house nestled amid stately trees, and there an ivy-covered fragment of ruined masonry; and everywhere the green lines of the flowering hedge.... In the city that lies at your feet stood once the potent Constantine, to be proclaimed Emperor, A.D. 306, and to be vested with the imperial purple of Rome. In the original York Minster (the present is the fourth church that has been erected upon this site) was buried that valiant soldier, "old Siward," whom "gracious England" lent to the Scottish cause, under Malcolm and Macduff, when time at length was ripe for the ruin of Glamis and Cawdor. Close by is the field of Stamford, where Harold defeated the Norwegians with terrible slaughter, only nine days before he was himself defeated, and slain, at Hastings. Southward, following the line of the Ouse, you look down upon the ruins of Clifford's Tower, built by King William the Conqueror in 1068, and destroyed by the explosion of its powder magazine in 1684. Not far away is the battlefield of Towton. King Henry the Sixth and Queen Margaret were waiting in York for news of the event of that fatal battle,--which, in its effect, made them exiles, and bore to supremacy the rightful standard of the White Rose. In this church King Edward the Fourth was crowned, 1464, and King Richard the Third was proclaimed king and had his second coronation. Southward you can see the open space called the Pavement, connecting with Parliament Street, and the red brick church of St. Crux. In the Pavement the Earl of Northumberland was beheaded for treason against Queen Elizabeth, in 1572, and in St. Crux, one of Wren's churches, his remains lie buried, beneath a dark blue slab which is shown to visitors. A few miles away, but easily within reach of your vision, is the field of Marston Moor, where the impetuous Prince Rupert imperiled and well-nigh lost the cause of King Charles the First in 1644; and as you look toward that fatal spot you almost hear, in the chamber of your fancy, the paeans of thanksgiving for the victory, that were uttered in the church beneath. Cromwell, then a subordinate officer in the Parliamentary army, was one of the worshipers. Of the fifteen kings, from William of Normandy to Henry of Windsor, whose sculptured effigies appear upon the chancel screen in York Minster, there is scarcely one who has not worshiped in this cathedral.... There it stands, symbolizing, as no other object on earth can ever do, except one of its own great kindred, the promise of immortal life to man and man's pathetic faith in that promise. Dark and lonely it comes back upon my vision, but during all hours of its daily and nightly life sentient, eloquent, vital, participating in all the thought, conduct, and experience of those who dwell around it.... York is the loftiest of all the English cathedrals, and the third in length,--both St. Alban's and Winchester being longer. The present structure is 600 years old, and more than 200 years were occupied in the building of it. They show you, in the crypt, some fine remains of the Norman church that preceded it on the same site, together with traces of the still older Saxon church that preceded the Norman. The first one was of wood, and was totally destroyed. The Saxon remains are a fragment of stone staircase and a piece of wall built in the ancient herring-bone fashion. The Norman remains are four clustered columns, embellished in the zig-zag style. There is not much of commemorative statuary at York, and what there is of it was placed chiefly in the chancel. YORK AND LINCOLN COMPARED [Footnote: From "English Towns and Districts."] BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN The towers of Lincoln, simply as towers, are immeasurably finer than those of York; but the front of York, as a front, far surpasses the front of Lincoln. As for the general outline, there can be no doubt as to the vast superiority of Lincoln. Lincoln has sacrificed a great deal to the enormous pitch of its roofs, but it has its reward in the distant view of the outside. The outline of York is spoiled by the incongruity between the low roofs of the nave and choir and the high roofs of the transepts. The dumpiness of the central tower of York--which is, in truth, the original Norman tower cased--can not be wholly made a matter of blame to the original builders. For it is clear that some finish, whether a crown like those at Newcastle and Edinburgh or any other, was intended. Still the proportion which is solemn in Romanesque becomes squat in perpendicular, and, if York has never received its last finish, Lincoln has lost the last finish which it received. Surely no one who is not locally sworn to the honor of York can doubt about preferring the noble central tower of Lincoln, soaring still, even tho shorn of its spire. The eastern transept, again, is far more skilfully managed at Lincoln than at York. It may well be doubted whether such a transept is really an improvement; but if it is to be there at all, it is certainly better to make it the bold and important feature which it is at Lincoln, than to leave it, as it is at York, half afraid, as it were, to proclaim its own existence. Coming to the east end, we again find, as at the west, Lincoln throwing away great advantages by a perverse piece of sham. The east window of Lincoln is the very noblest specimen of the pure and bold tracery of its own date. But it is crusht, as it were, by the huge gable window above it--big enough to be the east window of a large church--and the aisles, whose east windows are as good on their smaller scale as the great window, are absurdly finished with sham gables, destroying the real and natural outline of the whole composition. At York we have no gables at all; the vast east window, with its many flimsy mullions, is wonderful rather than beautiful; still the east end of York is real, and so far it surpasses that of Lincoln. On entering either of these noble churches, the great fault to be found is the lack of apparent height. To some extent this is due to a cause common to both. We are convinced that both churches are too long. The eastern part of Lincoln--the angels' choir--is in itself one of the loveliest of human works; the proportion of the side elevations and the beauty of the details are both simply perfect. But its addition has spoiled the minster as a whole. The vast length at one unbroken height gives to the eastern view of the inside the effect of looking through a tube, and the magnificent east window, when seen from the western part of the choir, is utterly dwarfed. And the same arrangement is open to the further objection that it does not fall in with the ecclestiastical arrangements of the building.... In the nave of York, looking eastward or westward, it is hard indeed to believe that we are in a church only a few feet lower than Westminster or Saint Ouens. The height is utterly lost, partly through the enormous width, partly through the low and crushing shape of the vaulting-arch. The vault, it must be remembered, is an imitation of an imitation, a modern copy of a wooden roof made to imitate stone. This imitation of stone construction in wood runs through the greater part of the church; it comes out specially in the transepts, where a not very successful attempt is made to bring the gable windows within the vault--the very opposite to the vast space lost in the roofs at Lincoln. Yet with all this, many noble views may be got in York nave and transepts, provided only the beholder takes care never to look due east or west. The western view is still further injured by the treatment of the west window--in itself an admirable piece of tracery--which fits into nothing, and seems cut through the wall at an arbitrary point. But the nave elevation, taken bay by bay, is admirable. Looking across out of the aisle--the true way to judge--the real height at last comes out, and we are reminded of some of the most stately minsters of France.... DURHAM [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1870 and 1898.] BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE Durham Cathedral has one advantage over the others I have seen, there being no organ-screen, nor any sort of partition between the choir and nave; so that we saw its entire length, nearly 500 feet, in one vista. The pillars of the nave are immensely thick, but hardly of proportionate height, and they support the round Norman arch; nor is there, as far as I remember, a single pointed arch in the cathedral. The effect is to give the edifice an air of heavy grandeur. It seems to have been built before the best style of church architecture had established itself; so that it weighs upon the soul, instead of helping it to aspire. First, there are these round arches, supported by gigantic columns; then, immediately above, another row of round arches, behind which is the usual gallery that runs, as it were, in the thickness of the wall, around the nave of the cathedral; then, above all, another row of round arches, enclosing the windows of the clerestory. The great pillars are ornamented in various ways--some with a great spiral groove running from bottom to top; others with two spirals, ascending in different directions, so as to cross over one another; some are fluted or channeled straight up and down; some are wrought with chevrons, like those on the sleeve of a police inspector. There are zigzag cuttings and carvings, which I do not know how to name scientifically, round the arches of the doors and windows; but nothing that seems to have flowered out spontaneously, as natural incidents of a grand and beautiful design. In the nave, between the columns of the side aisles, I saw one or two monuments.... I left my seat, and after strolling up and down the aisle a few times sallied forth into the churchyard. On the cathedral door there is a curious old knocker, in the form of a monstrous face, which was placed there, centuries ago, for the benefit of fugitives from justice, who used to be entitled to sanctuary here. The exterior of the cathedral, being huge, is therefore grand; it has a great central tower, and two at the western end; and reposes in vast and heavy length, without the multitude of niches, and crumbling statues, and richness of detail, that make the towers and fronts of some cathedrals so endlessly interesting. One piece of sculpture I remember--a carving of a cow, a milkmaid, and a monk, in reference to the legend that the site of the cathedral was, in some way, determined by a woman bidding her cow go home to Dunholme. Cadmus was guided to the site of his destined city in some such way as this. It was a very beautiful day, and tho the shadow of the cathedral fell on this side, yet, it being about noontide, it did not cover the churchyard entirely, but left many of the graves in sunshine. There were not a great many monuments, and these were chiefly horizontal slabs, some of which looked aged, but on closer inspection proved to be mostly of the present century. I observed an old stone figure, however, half worn away, which seemed to have something like a bishop's miter on its head, and may perhaps have lain in the proudest chapel of the cathedral before occupying its present bed among the grass. About fifteen paces from the central tower, and within its shadow, I found a weather-worn slab of marble, seven or eight feet long, the inscription on which interested me somewhat. It was to the memory of Robert Dodsley, the bookseller, Johnson's acquaintance, who, as his tombstone rather superciliously avers, had made a much better figure as an author than "could have been expected in his rank of life." But, after all, it is inevitable that a man's tombstone should look down on him, or, at all events, comport itself toward him "de haut en bas." I love to find the graves of men connected with literature. They interest me more, even tho of no great eminence, than those of persons far more illustrious in other walks of life. I know not whether this is because I happen to be one of the literary kindred, or because all men feel themselves akin, and on terms of intimacy, with those whom they know, or might have known, in books. I rather believe that the latter is the case. We went around the edifice, and, passing into the close, penetrated through an arched passage into the crypt, which, methought, was in a better style of architecture than the nave and choir.... Thence we went into the cloisters, which are entire, but not particularly interesting. Indeed, this cathedral has not taken hold of my affections, except in one aspect, when it was exceedingly grand and beautiful. ELY [Footnote: From "Old England: Its Scenery, Art, and People." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.] BY JAMES M. HOPPIN I was attracted around by the way of Ely, to see the cathedral there, instead of taking the Huntingdon route more directly to Cambridge. This was quite a loss, for Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntingdon. Hinchinbroke House, the property of his family, now belongs to the Earl of Sandwich. But Ely Cathedral was not to be lost. It is frozen history as well as "frozen music." I value these old structures because such wealth of English history is embodied in them; their human interest, after all, is greater than their artistic. Ely is said to be derived from "willow," or a kind of willow or ozier island, upon which the abbey and town were built in the midst of marshes. Among these impenetrable marshes Hereward the Saxon retreated; and here, too, we have that bit of genuine antique poetry which from its simplicity must have described a true scene; and we catch a glimpse of that pleasing and soothing picture, amid those rude and bloody days, of King Canute and his knights resting for a moment upon their toiling oars to hear the vesper song of the monks. The foundation of the cathedral was laid in 1083, and it was finished in 1534. In printed lists of its bishops, as in those of other English cathedral churches, I have noticed that they are given in their chronological succession, right on, the bishops of the Reformed Church being linked upon the Roman Catholic bishops. The bishopric of Ely was partially carved out of the bishopric of Lincoln, and comprizes Cambridge in its jurisdiction. It has, therefore, had all the riches, influence, taste, and learning of the University to bear upon the restoration of its noble old cathedral; and of all the old churches of England this one exhibits indications of the greatest modern care and thought bestowed upon it. It glows with new stained-glass windows, splendid marbles, exquisite sculptures, and bronze work. Its western tower, 266 feet in height, turreted spires, central octagon tower, flying buttresses, unequaled length of 517 feet, and its vast, irregular bulk soaring above the insignificant little town at its foot, make it a most commanding object seen from the flat plain. What is called the octagon, which has taken the place of the central tower that had fallen, is quite an original feature of the church. Eight arches, rising from eight ponderous piers, form a windowed tower, or lantern, which lets in a flood of light upon the otherwise gloomy interior. Above the keystone of each arch is the carved figure of a saint. The new brasses of the choir are wonderfully elaborate. The bronze scroll and vine work of the gates and lamps, for grace and Oriental luxuriance of fancy, for their arabesque and flower designs, might fitly have belonged to King Solomon's Temple of old. The modern woodwork of the choir compares also well with the ancient woodwork carving. Gold stars on azure ground, and all vivid coloring and gilding, are freely used. The new "reredos," or altar screen, is one marvelous crystallization of sculptures. The ancient Purbeck marble pillars have been scraped and re-polished, and form a fine contrast to the white marbles on which they are set. If, indeed, one wishes to see what modern enthusiasm, art, and lavish wealth can do for the restoration and adorning of one of these old temples, he must go to Ely Cathedral. SALISBURY [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1870 and 1898.] BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE I do not remember any cathedral with so fine a site as this, rising up out of the center of a beautiful green, extensive enough to show its full proportions, relieved and insulated from all other patchwork and impertinence of rusty edifices. It is of gray stone, and looks as perfect as when just finished, and with the perfection, too, that could not have come in less than six centuries of venerableness, with a view to which these edifices seem to have been built. A new cathedral would lack the last touch to its beauty and grandeur. It needs to be mellowed and ripened, like some pictures; altho I suppose this awfulness of antiquity was supplied, in the minds of the generation that built cathedrals, by the sanctity which they attributed to them. Salisbury Cathedral is far more beautiful than that of York, the exterior of which was really disagreeable to my eye; but this mighty spire and these multitudinous gray pinnacles and towers ascend toward heaven with a kind of natural beauty, not as if man had contrived them. They might be fancied to have grown up, just as the spires of a tuft of grass do, at the same time that they have a law of propriety and regularity among themselves. The tall spire is of such admirable proportion that it does not seem gigantic; and, indeed, the effect of the whole edifice is of beauty rather than weight and massiveness. Perhaps the bright, balmy sunshine in which we saw it contributed to give it a tender glory, and to soften a little its majesty. When we went in, we heard the organ, the forenoon service being near conclusion. If I had never seen the interior of York Cathedral, I should have been quite satisfied, no doubt, with the spaciousness of this nave and these side aisles, and the height of their arches, and the girth of these pillars; but with that recollection in my mind they fell a little short of grandeur. The interior is seen to disadvantage, and in a way the builder never meant it to be seen; because there is little or no painted glass, nor any such mystery as it makes, but only a colorless, common daylight, revealing everything without remorse. There is a general light hue, moreover, like that of whitewash, over the whole of the roof and walls of the interior, pillar, monuments, and all; whereas, originally, every pillar was polished, and the ceiling was ornamented in brilliant colors, and the light came, many-hued, through the windows, on all this elaborate beauty, in lieu of which there is nothing now but space. Between the pillars that separate the nave from the side aisles there are ancient tombs, most of which have recumbent statues on them. One of these is Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, son of Fair Rosamond, in chain mail; and there are many other warriors and bishops, and one cross-legged Crusader, and on one tombstone a recumbent skeleton, which I have likewise seen in two or three other cathedrals. The pavement of the aisles and nave is laid in great part with flat tombstones, the inscriptions on which are half obliterated, and on the walls, especially in the transepts, there are tablets, among which I saw one to the poet Bowles, who was a canon of the cathedral.... Between the nave and the choir, as usual, there is a screen that half destroys the majesty of the building, by abridging the spectator of the long vista which he might otherwise have of the whole interior at a glance. We peeped through the barrier, and saw some elaborate monuments in the chancel beyond; but the doors of the screen are kept locked, so that the vergers may raise a revenue by showing strangers through the richest part of the cathedral. By and by one of these vergers came through the screen with a gentleman and lady whom he was taking around, and we joined ourselves to the party. He showed us into the cloisters, which had long been neglected and ruinous, until the time of Bishop Dennison, the last prelate, who has been but a few years dead. This bishop has repaired and restored the cloisters in faithful adherence to the original plan; and they now form a most delightful walk about a pleasant and verdant enclosure, in the center of which sleeps good Bishop Dennison, with a wife on either side of him, all three beneath broad flat stones. Most cloisters are darksome and grim; but these have a broad paved walk beneath the vista of arches, and are light, airy, and cheerful; and from one corner you can get the best possible view of the whole height and beautiful proportion of the cathedral spire. On one side of this cloistered walk seems to be the length of the nave of the cathedral. There is a square of four such sides; and of places for meditation, grave, yet not too somber, it seemed to me one of the best. While we stayed there, a jackdaw was walking to and fro across the grassy enclosure, and haunting around the good bishop's grave. He was clad in black, and looked like a feathered ecclesiastic; but I know not whether it were Bishop Dennison's ghost or that of some old monk. On one side of the cloisters, and contiguous to the main body of the cathedral, stands the chapterhouse. Bishop Dennison had it much at heart to repair this part of the holy edifice; and, if I mistake not, did begin the work; for it had been long ruinous, and in Cromwell's time his dragoons stationed their horses there. Little progress, however, had been made in the repairs when the bishop died; and it was decided to restore the building in his honor, and by way of monument to him. The repairs are now nearly completed; and the interior of this chapter-house gave me the first idea, anywise adequate, of the splendor of these Gothic church edifices. The roof is sustained by one great central pillar of polished marble--small pillars clustered about a great central column, which rises to the ceiling, and there gushes out with various beauty, that overflows all the walls; as if the fluid idea had sprung out of that fountain, and grown solid in what we see. The pavement is elaborately ornamented; the ceiling is to be brilliantly gilded and painted, as it was of yore, and the tracery and sculptures around the walls are to be faithfully renewed from what remains of the original patterns. EXETER [Footnote: From "Cathedral Days." By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Little, Brown & Co. Copyright, 1887.] BY ANNA BOWMAN DODD A very obvious part of the charm of Exeter Cathedral lies in the fact that it has to be sought for. It is so well and dexterously concealed from view, as one passes along High Street, that one might be some days in town without so much as suspecting that one of the finest cathedrals in England was a near neighbor. It was almost by chance, I remember, that as we turned into a long, quaint alley-way, filled up with little, low shops, we caught a glimpse of a green plot of grass and some trees in the distance. Our guiding instinct divined these to be the cathedral close.... To analyze the beauties of Exeter is only to add another note to one's joy in them, their quality and rarity being of such an order as to warrant one's cooler admiration. The front is as unique in design as it is architecturally beautiful. There is that rarest of features in English cathedrals--an elaborately sculptured screen, thoroughly honest in construction. In originality of conception this front is perhaps unrivalled, at least on English soil; there are three receding stories, so admirably proportioned as to produce a beautiful effect in perspective. The glory of the great west window is further enhanced by the graduated arcades which have the appearance of receding behind it. Above the west window rises a second and smaller triangular window in the gabled roof. Thus the triangular motif is sustained throughout, from the three low doorways in the screen up to the far-distant roof. This complete and harmonious front is nobly enriched by the splendid note of contrast in the two transeptal Norman towers, whose massive structural elegance and elaborateness of detail lend an extraordinary breadth and solidity to the edifice. The grandeur which distinguishes the exterior is only a fitting preparation for the solemnity and splendor of the interior. Passing beneath the thickly massed sculptures of the low portals, the effect of the vastness of the nave is striking in its immensity. Curiously enough, in this instance, this effect of immensity is not due to an unbroken stretch of nave-aisles or to a lengthy procession of pier-arches, but to the magnificent sweep of the unencumbered vaulting in the roof. An organ screen intercepts the line of vision at the entrance to the choir. This, however, is the sole obstruction which the eye encounters. Above, the great roof, with its unbroken 300 feet of interlacing lines, rises like some mighty forest, its airy loftiness giving to the entire interior a certain open-air atmosphere of breadth and vastness.... What most deeply concerned us was the desire to secure an uninterrupted session of contemplative enjoyment. We had lost our hearts to the beauty of the cathedral, and cared little or nothing for a clever dissecting of its parts. We came again and again; and it was the glory of the cathedral as a whole--its expressive, noble character, its breadth and grandeur, the poetry of its dusky aisles, and the play of the rich shadows about its massive columns--that charmed and enchained us. It was one of the few English cathedrals, we said to each other, that possess the Old-World continental charm, the charm of perpetual entertainment, and whose beauty has just the right quality of richness and completeness to evoke an intense and personal sympathy; for in all the greatest triumphs of art there is something supremely human. LICHFIELD [Footnote: From "Our Old Home." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.] BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE I know not what rank the Cathedral of Lichfield holds among its sister edifices in England, as a piece of magnificent architecture. Except that of Chester (the grim and simple nave of which stands yet unrivaled in my memory), and one or two small ones in North Wales, hardly worthy of the name of cathedrals, it was the first that I had seen. To my uninstructed vision, it seemed the object best worth gazing at in the whole world; and now, after beholding a great many more, I remember it with less prodigal admiration only because others are as magnificent as itself. The traces remaining in my memory represent it as airy rather than massive. A multitude of beautiful shapes appeared to be comprehended within its single outline; it was a kind of kaleidoscopic mystery, so rich a variety of aspects did it assume from each altered point of view, through the presentation of a different face, and the rearrangement of its peaks and pinnacles and the three battlemented towers, with the spires that shot heavenward from all three, but one loftier than its fellows. Thus it imprest you, at every change, as a newly created structure of the passing moment, in which yet you lovingly recognized the half-vanished structure of the instant before, and felt, moreover, a joyful faith in the indestructible existence of all this cloudlike vicissitude. A Gothic cathedral is surely the most wonderful work which mortal man has yet achieved, so vast, so intricate, and so profoundly simple, with such strange, delightful recesses in its grand figure, so difficult to comprehend within one idea, and yet all so consonant that it ultimately draws the beholder and his universe into its harmony. It is the only thing in the world that is vast enough and rich enough. Inside of the minster there is a long and lofty nave, transepts of the same height, and side-aisles and chapels, dim nooks of holiness, where in Catholic times the lamps were continually burning before the richly decorated shrines of saints. In the audacity of my ignorance, as I humbly acknowledge it to have been, I criticized this great interior as too much broken into compartments, and shorn of half its rightful impressiveness by the interposition of a screen betwixt the nave and chancel. It did not spread itself in breadth, but ascended to the roof in lofty narrowness. A great deal of white marble decorates the old stonework of the aisles, in the shape of altars, obelisks, sarcophagi, and busts. Most of these memorials are commemorative of people locally distinguished, especially the deans and canons of the cathedral, with their relatives and families; and I found but two monuments of personages whom I had ever heard of--one being Gilbert Walmesley, and the other Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a literary acquaintance of my boyhood. It was really pleasant to meet her there; for after a friend has lain in the grave far into the second century, she would be unreasonable to require any melancholy emotions in a chance interview at her tombstone. It adds a rich charm to sacred edifices, this time-honored custom of burial in churches, after a few years, at least, when the mortal remains have turned to dust beneath the pavement, and the quaint devices and inscriptions still speak to you above.... A large space in the immediate neighborhood of the cathedral is called the Close, and comprises beautifully kept lawns and a shadowy walk, bordered by the dwellings of the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the diocese. All this row of episcopal, canonical, and clerical residences has an air of the deepest quiet, repose, and well-protected, tho not inaccessible seclusion. They seemed capable of including everything that a saint could desire, and a great many more things than most of us sinners generally succeed in acquiring. Their most marked feature is a dignified comfort, looking as if no disturbance or vulgar intrusiveness could ever cross their thresholds, encroach upon their ornamented lawns, or straggle into the beautiful gardens that surround them with flower-beds and rich clumps of shrubbery. The episcopal palace is a stately mansion of stone, built somewhat in the Italian style, and bearing on its front the figures of 1687, as the date of its erection. A large edifice of brick, which, if I remember, stood next to the palace, I took to be the residence of the second dignitary of the cathedral; and in that case it must have been the youthful home of Addison, whose father was Dean of Lichfield. I tried to fancy his figure on the delightful walk that extends in front of those priestly abodes, from which and the interior lawns it is separated by an open-work iron fence, lined with rich old shrubbery, and overarched by a minster-aisle of venerable trees. WINCHESTER [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."] BY WILLIAM HOWITT On entering the cathedral enclosure on its north side from High Street, you are at once struck with the venerable majesty and antique beauty of the fine old pile before you, and with the sacred quietude of the enclosure itself. In the heart of this tranquil city it has yet a deeper tranquillity of its own. Its numerous tombs and headstones, scattered over its greensward, and its lofty avenues of limetrees, seem to give you a peaceful welcome to the Christian fame and resting-place of so many generations. If you enter at the central passage, you tread at once on the eastern foundations of the Conqueror's palace, and pass close to the spot on which formerly rose the western towers of Alfred's Newan Mynstre, and where lay his remains, after having been removed from the old mynstre, till Hyde Abbey was built. It is impossible to walk over this ground, now so peaceful, without calling to mind what scenes of havoc and blood, of triumph and ecclesiastical pomp, it has witnessed--the butchery of the persecution of Diocletian, when the Christians fell here by thousands; the repeated massacres and conflagrations of the Danes; the crowning of Saxon and of English kings; the proud processions of kings and queens, nobles, mitered prelates, friars, and monks, to offer thanksgivings for victory, or penance for sins, from age to age; and, finally, the stern visitation of the Reformers and the Cromwellian troopers. The venerable minster itself bears on its aspect the testimonies of its own antiquity. The short and massy tower in the center, the work of Bishop Walkelin, the cousin of the Conqueror, has the very look of that distant age, and, to eyes accustomed to the lofty and rich towers of some of our cathedrals, has an air of meanness. Many people tell you that it never was finished; but besides that there is no more reason that the tower should remain unfinished through so many centuries than any other part of the building, we know that it was the character of the time, of which the tower of the Norman church of St. Cross affords another instance just at hand. In fact, the spire was then unknown. Having arrived at the west front, we can not avoid pausing to survey the beauty of its workmanship--that of the great William of Wykeham; its great central doorway, with its two smaller side-doors; the fretted gallery over it, where the bishop in his pontificals was wont to stand and bless the people, or absolve them from the censures of the church; its noble window, rich with perpendicular tracery; its two slender lantern turrets; its crowning tabernacle, with its statue of the builder; and its pinnacled side aisles. I must confess that of all the cathedrals which I have entered, none gave me such a sensation of surprize and pleasure. The loftiness, the space, the vast length of the whole unbroken roof above, I believe not exceeded by any other in England; the two rows of lofty clustered pillars; the branching aisles, with their again branching and crossing tracery; the long line of the vaulted roof, embossed with armorial escutcheons and religious devices of gorgeous coloring; the richly painted windows; and, below, the carved chantries and mural monuments, seen amid the tempered light; and the sober yet delicate hue of the Portland stone, with which the whole noble fabric is lined, produce a tout ensemble of sublime loveliness which is not easily to be rivaled.... But we have made the circuit of the church without beholding the choir, and we must not quit its precincts without entering there. Ascending the flight of steps which lead to it, we front that elegant screen with which modern good taste has replaced the screen of Inigo Jones, who, blind to all the beauty of the Gothic architecture, not only placed here a Grecian screen, but also affixt a Grecian bishop's throne to the beautiful Gothic canopy-work of the choir. In the niches of this screen are two bronze statues of James I and Charles I. We are now on the spot of the ancient rood-loft, where formerly stood the great rood, or crucifix, with the attendant figures of the Virgin and St. John, of vast size and value, being of silver, which were bequeathed to the minster by the notorious Archbishop Stigand, before the Conquest. As we enter the choir through the door in the screen, we are struck with the great beauty of the place. Around us rises the rich dark woodwork of the stalls, contrasting well with the pale delicacy of the walls above. Overhead is seen to swell the fine vault of the roof, with its rich tracery, and its central line, and orbs at the junction of its timbers, embossed with bold armorial shields of the houses of Tudor, Lancaster, and Castile, as united in John of Gaunt and Beaufort, with those of various episcopal sees, and stretching on to the splendid east window in that direction, emblazoned with "the several implements of our Savior's Passion--the cross, crown of thorns, nails, hammer, pillar, scourges, reed, sponge, lance, sword, with the ear of Malchus upon it, lantern, ladder, cock, and dice; also the faces of Pilate and his wife, of the Jewish high priest, with a great many others, too numerous to be described, but worthy of notice for the ingenuity of design," and the richness of their tints. They are, indeed, emblazoned in the most gorgeous colors--scarlet, blue and gold; and, to a fanciful eye, may resemble, many of them, huge sacred beetles of lordly shapes and hues. On each side rise up, into the very roof, the tall pointed windows glowing with figures of saints, prophets, and apostles, who seem to be ranged on either hand, in audience of the divine persons in the great east window--the Savior and the Virgin, with apostles and other saints. But what is the most striking to the eye and mind of the spectator is to behold, on the floor of the sanctuary before him, a plain beveled stone of dark marble--the tomb of William Rufus; and arranged on the top of the beautiful stone partitions on each side of the sanctuary, dividing it from the aisles, are six mortuary chests, three on a side, containing the bones of many of the most eminent Saxon princes. The bones which, from the repeated rebuildings and alterings of the cathedral, must have been in danger of being disturbed, and the places of their burial rendered obscure, or lost altogether, Bishop de Blois, in the twelfth century, collected and placed in coffins of lead over the Holy Hole. At the rebuilding of the choir, as it was necessary again to remove them, Bishop Fox had them deposited in these chests, and placed in this situation. The chests are carved, gilt, and surmounted with crowns, with the names and epitaphs, in Latin verse and black letter, inscribed upon them. But if we had quitted Winchester Cathedral without paying a visit to the grave of one of the best and most cheerful-hearted old men who lie in it, we should have committed a great fault. No, we stood on the stone in the floor of Prior Silkstede's chapel in the old Norman south transept, which is inscribed with the name of Izaak Walton. There lies that prince of fishermen, who, when Milner wrote his history of this city, was so little thought of that he is not once mentioned in the whole huge quarto! WELLS [Footnote: From "Old England: Its Scenery, Art and People." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.] BY JAMES M. HOPPIN The city of Wells, which we now visit, has a romantic situation on the southern slope of the Mendip Hills, twenty miles equi-distant from Bath, Bistol, and Bridgewater. It takes its name from the ancient well dedicated to St. Andrew, which rises within the Episcopal grounds, and runs through the city down the sides of the principal streets in clear, sparkling' streams. There is no place which, taken altogether, preserves a more antique air of tranquil seclusion than Wells. In the precincts of Chester Cathedral, and at many other points in England, there broods the same antique calm, but here the whole place is pervaded by this reposeful spirit of the past; and this culminates in the neighborhood of St. Andrew's Cathedral, the bishop's palace, the old moat, the conventual buildings, and the three venerable gates, or "eyes," as they are called, of the cathedral yard. The moat about the bishop's palace, overhung by a thick curtain of aged elms mingled with ivy, growing like a warrior's crest upon the high-turreted interior walls, and reflected in deep shadows in the smooth, dark mirror of the water, has a thoroughly feudal look, which is heightened by the drawbridge over the moat, and the frowning castellated gateway. How strange the state of society when a Christian bishop lived in such jealously armed seclusion, behind moated walls and embattled towers! What a commentary, this very name of "the close"! One of these old bishops was himself a famous fighting character, who, at the age of sixty-four, commanded the king's artillery at the battle of Sedgmoor.... The Cathedral of St. Andrew was built upon the site of a still more ancient church founded by Ina, king of the West Saxons in 704. It also goes back to a remote antiquity, for its choir and nave were rebuilt in the middle of the twelfth century. The central tower, which is the noblest and most finished part of the structure, is of the early English style to the roof; the upper part is of the Decorated, with a mixture of the early Perpendicular styles. It has an elegant appearance from its rich pinnacles, and is of a softened and gray tint. Beginning to show signs of sinking, it was raised in the fourteenth century, and was strengthened by the introduction beneath it of inverted buttressing-arches, which give to the interior a strange effect. These arches, architecturally considered, are undoubtedly blemishes, but they are on such a vast scale, and so bold in their forms, and yet so simple, that they do not take away from the plain grandeur of the interior. They are quite Oriental or Saracenic. The top of the eastern window is seen bright and glowing over the lower part of the upper arch. The west front, 235 feet in length, has two square towers, with a central screen terminated by minarets, and is divided into distinct compartments of eight projecting buttresses; all of these projections and recessed parts are covered with rich sculpture and statuary, of which there are 153 figures of life-size, and more than 450 smaller figures.... The other most striking features of Wells Cathedral are the Chapter House and the Ladye Chapel. The first of these, on the rear of the church, is an otagonal structure with pinnacled buttresses at each angle. It is approached from the interior by a worn staircase of 20 steps of noble architectural design. Among the grotesque carvings that line the staircase, I remember in particular one queer old figure with a staff, or rather crutch, thrust in a dragon's mouth, supporting a column. While thus holding up the cathedral with its head and hand above, and choking a writhing dragon beneath, he looks smiling and unconcerned, as if it were an everyday affair with him, as indeed it is. The whole church abounds in these old sculptures, little demoniac figures with big heads, faces with enormous fish mouths, old men with packs on their backs, and angels with huge armfuls of flowers. They seem to let one into the interior chambers of fancy, the imaginative workings of the human mind in the middle ages.... Wells Cathedral, on the whole, is distinguished for a dignified but rich simplicity, arising from its plain large surfaces, mingled and edged here and there with fine-cut and elegant ornamentation. The court and buildings of the Wells Theological College have a thoroughly quaint, old-fashioned look, quiet, rigid, and medieval; as if the students reared there could not but be Churchmen of the "Brother Ignatius" stamp, gentlemen, scholars, and--priests. I can not leave Wells without speaking of the two splendid "cedars of Lebanon" standing in the environs of the church. They are not very tall, but they sweep the ground majestically, and grow in a series of broad, heavy masses of foliage, gracefully undulating in their outline. BURY ST. EDMUNDS [Footnote: From "The Abbeys of Great Britain."] BY H. CLAIBORNE DIXON The history of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, altho veiled in much legendary and mythical lore, tells, nevertheless, in its actual history of the progress of civilization and of the enlightenment of the human mind. Sigberet, King of the East Angles, is said to have founded the first monastery at Beodericsworth (a town known to the Romans, ancient Britains, Saxons, and Danes), and to have subsequently laid aside his royal dignity by joining the brotherhood which he had established. Following his example of religious devotion, Edmund, last King of the Angles, sacrificed not only his crown but his life in defense of the Christian faith, for he was beheaded by the Danes at Eglesdene in 870.... His head was cast into a forest, and, as the story goes, was miraculously discovered and found to be guarded by a wolf. It was then buried with the body at the village of Hoxne, where it remained until 903. In this year, "the precious, undefiled, uncorrupted body of the glorious king and martyr" was translated to the care of the secular priests at Beodericsworth, since when the town has been called St. Edmundsbury, in memory of the sainted monarch. Other wonderful traditions are associated with the shrine of St. Edmund. Sweyn, the violent Danish king, coming in hot pursuit of a woman who had claimed sanctuary, was miraculously killed by an imaginary spear which came out of the shrine when he was about to seize the woman who was clinging to its side. Bishop Herfastus, too, was struck blind, when on a visit to the abbot, in the attempt to establish his new see in the monastical demesne, and afterward miraculously healed. For centuries the highest in the land brought gifts and laid them before the venerated shrine. Canute was the actual founder of the monastery proper, for in the eleventh century he brought over Benedictine monks from Hulm, granting them a charter and many benefactions. The monastery yearly became more prosperous, and, with the exception of Glastonbury, exceeded in magnificence and privileges all other ecclestiastical establishments in the country. In the height of its glory it must have been a most beautiful and dignified structure. Leland writes: "A monastery more noble, whether one considers the endowments, largeness, or unparalleled magnificence, the sun never saw. One might think the monastery alone a city: it has three grand gates for entrances, some whereof are brass, many towers, high walls, and a church than which nothing can be more magnificent." The immense minster, with its lofty western and central towers, rose above the monastic buildings, which were enclosed by a wall. To the north was a great cloister, with the various conventual offices, to the southwest lay the cemetery and church of St. Mary, while immediately before the west front of the church stood the Norman tower leading to St. James's Church. Sufficient is left of the reverend walls to convey some idea of the former vastness of the abbey and its attendant buildings. Of the minster itself little remains--some arches of the west front, now converted into private houses, and the bases of the piers which supported the central tower. The site of St. Edmunds' Chapel--the part of the building which contained the famous and much-visited shrine--is at the east end of the church. Besides these relics of the minster, there still exists the Norman tower--built during the time of Abbot Anselm, and formerly known as the principal entrance to the cemetery of St. Edmund, and latterly as the "Churchgate" and bell tower of St. James's Church--the abbot's bridge (Decorated) of three arches; portions of the walls, and the abbey gateway.... First among the abbots of Bury stands the name of Samson, "the wolf who raged among the monks." Many of the brothers had become entangled with Jewish money-lenders in the twelfth century, and Abbot Samson, while protecting the Jews at the time of the massacre, discharged all the debts of his house, established many new rules, and set a godly and strenuous example to his followers. Later, in 1205, the chief barons met at Bury in opposition to King John, and swore at the second meeting, four years later, in the presence of the king and Archbishop Langton, to stand by their cause till the king should be induced to sign the Great Charter, and to establish those liberties which we still enjoy. GLASTONBURY [Footnote: From "The Abbeys of Great Britain."] BY H. CLAIBORNE DIXON Tho once surrounded by fenland, the Abbey of Glastonbury--a veritable treasure-house of legendary lore--stands now amid orchards and level pasture lands engirt by the river Bure. The majestic Tor overshadows this spot, where, undoubtedly, the first British Christian settlement was established. The name of the new builder of the first early church can never be ascertained, so that in want of more substantial evidence the old legend of St. Joseph of Arimathaea must be accepted, however slight its claims to historical authority. Certain it is that Christianity was introduced into this land on the island of Yniswytryn, or "Isle of Glass" (so called on account of its crystal streams), in the very early centuries. According to the Arthurian legends, St. Philip, Lazarus, Martha, Mary and Joseph of Arimathaea, having been banished by their countrymen, journeyed to Marseilles, from whence Joseph, with twelve companions and holy women, was sent by St. Philip to Britain. They landed on the southwest coast and made their way to Glastonbury, then Avalon (and so named in allusion to its apple orchards), and by means of preaching and many miraculous deeds persuaded the people to adopt Christianity. Gaining the good will of King Arviragus, they built a church of wattle and twigs on the ground given to them by their royal patron. The Benedictine, with its later developments in Norman times of Augustine and Cluniac orders, was the first religious order introduced into this country. It was instituted in Italy early in the sixth century by St. Benedict of Nursia. Many monasteries established before the Conquest came under its sway, and were, centuries later, after the Dissolution, converted into cathedral churches. A sharp distinction should be drawn between the monasteries established previous to the Conquest and those subsequently founded by the Cistercian and other orders. The former were national houses--in every way belonging to the English people and untouched by Papal influence; while the latter, which were under the immediate control of the Bishop of Rome, were essentially of foreign foundation.... King Ina, persuaded by St. Aldhelm, rebuilt and reendowed the abbey in the eighth century, renounced his royal state, and lived as an ordinary civilian, being induced to do so by extraordinary devices on the part of his wife Ethelburgh. On one occasion, after King Ina had given a great feast to his barons, he and his queen left the castle and proceeded to another of the royal residences. Before leaving, Ethelburgh had commanded the servants to strip the castle of all its valuables, furniture, etc., and to fill it with rubbish, and to put a litter of pigs in the king's bed. A short distance on their journey, Ethelburgh persuaded the king to return, and, showing him over the desecrated palace, exhorted him to consider the utter worthlessness of all earthly splendor and the advisability of joining her on a pilgrimage to Rome. Imprest by her words, Ina acted as she advised, and later endowed a school in Rome in which Anglo-Saxon children might become acquainted with the customs of foreign countries. Ina and Ethelburgh spent the remainder of their days in privacy in the Holy City. The famous Dunstau, one of the greatest of ecclesiastical statesmen, was born in Glastonbury, and, after proving his many marvelous capabilities and aptitude for learning, was made abbot of the Benedictine house in his native town in the reign of Edmund the Magnificent. Many strange stories are told of him--the most fantastic, perhaps, being that of his interview with the natural enemy of man, the Devil himself, during which the reverend man became either so irritated or terrified that he was provoked to seize the nose of his ghostly visitor with a pair of red-hot pincers.... The fame belonging to this noble foundation exceeded that of any other great building in England. An old writer tells us, "Kings and queens, not only of the West Saxons, but of other kingdoms; several archbishops and bishops; many dukes; and the nobility of both sexes thought themselves happy in increasing the revenues of this venerable house, to ensure themselves a place of burial therein." The story of the burial of St. Joseph of Arimathaea at Glastonbury, to us a mere shadowy legend, was accepted as a fact in the early English ages, and that it figured in the mind of these worthies as endowing Glastonbury with extraordinary sanctity is beyond doubt. At the time of the Dissolution no corruption whatever was revealed at Glastonbury, nor any blame recorded against its management. It was still doing splendid work, having daily services and extending its educational influence for miles around. There was but scanty comfort for its inmates, who rested on a straw mattress and bolster on their narrow bedstead in a bare cell, and whose food, duties and discipline were marked by an austere simplicity. Nor were they idle, these monks of Glastonbury--some taught in the abbey school, others toiled in the orchards, and the beauty of the stained glass, designed within the abbey walls, found fame far and wide. Richard Whiting was Abbot of Glastonbury when, in 1539, Henry VIII. ordered inquiries to be made into the condition and property of the abbey. Altho he recognized the monarch as supreme head of the church, he respected the Glastonbury traditions and met the "visitors" in a spirit of passive resistance. With the object of preserving them from desecration, the abbot had concealed some of the communion vessels, and for this offense the venerable man was tried and condemned to death. His head, white with the touch of eighty years, was fixt upon the abbey gate, and the rest of his body quartered and sent to Bath, Wells, Bridgwater, and Ilchester. The abbey building--one of the most perfect examples of architecture in the land--served as a stone quarry, much of the material being used to make a road over the fenland from Glastonbury to Wells. The revenue at the time of the Dissolution was over £3,000, a big income in those days. TINTERN [Footnote: From "The Abbeys of Great Britain."] BY H. CLAIBORNE DIXON More than one great artist has immortalized the secluded vale, where, on a bend of the Wye and surrounded by wooded hills, the ruins of Tintern Abbey stand. The somber-looking heights, which close in to the east and west, create the atmosphere of loneliness and separation from the world so sought after by the Cistercian monks, who doubtless found inspiration in the grandeur of the surrounding mountains and in the peacefulness of the sweet valley below. Tho the church of the Early English abbey is roofless and the central tower gone, the noble structure, with its many graceful arches, seems to attest to the spirit of religious fervor and devotion so intimately associated with the history of its gray and lichen-covered walls. The finest part of the ruins is undoubtedly the church, which, with the exception of the roof and the north piers of the nave, still stands complete. It has a nave of six bays with aisles, a choir of four bays with aisles, the transepts with eastern aisles having two chapels. A transverse Galilee stood formerly beyond the western entrance. In the north transept are remains of the dormitory stairs, and on this side the cloisters, too, were situated. The aumbry, parlor, sacristy, chapterhouse, slype to the infirmary, day-stairs to dormitory and undercroft were on the east side of the cloisters; the postern and river gate, over which was the abbot's lodge on the north side, and also the buttery, refectory, and kitchen. The delicacy of design and execution to be seen in the ruins is unrivaled in the kingdom--the tracery of the windows being particularly fine. The ruined church possesses the grace and lightness of architecture peculiar to the twelfth century, and is, even in its decay, of truly sublime and grand proportions. Time has been unable to obliterate the skilful work of our forefathers, for the Early English transition arches, the delicate molding, and the exquisite stone tracery in the windows still delight the eye. The history of Tintern is almost a hidden page in the chronicles of time. On the surrender of Raglan Castle to the Cromwellian troops by the Marquis of Worcester, the castle was razed to the ground, and with it were lost the abbey records, which had been taken from Tintern when the abbey was granted to the Marquis's ancestor by Henry VIII. It is known, however, that the first foundation on the site was in the hands of a cousin of William the Conqueror, Richard Bienfaite by name. He founded the abbey in 1131, and was succeeded by his nephew, Gilbert "Strongbow." His granddaughter Isabel married the then Earl of Pembroke, and her daughter, marrying Hugh Bigod, brought the estates to the ducal house of Norfolk. III CASTLES AND STATELY HOMES LIVING IN GREAT HOUSES [Footnote: From "England Without and Within." By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1881.] BY RICHARD GRANT WHITE Now I will tell you a little--it can be but a little--about life in the "great houses," as they are called here. When you are asked to come to one, a train is suggested, and you are told that a carriage will be at the station to meet you. Somehow the footman manages to find you out. At ---- which is a little station at which few people get out, I had hardly left the train when a very respectable-looking person, not a footman, stept up to me and said, "Lord ----'s carriage is waiting for you, sir." The carriage and the footman and coachman were, of course, on the other side of the building. My drive from the station to ---- took quite as long a time as it took me to come down by rail from London, altho we went at a grand trot. The country was beautiful, stretching off on both sides in broad fields and meadows, darkened in lines by hedges, and in spots by clumps of trees. The roads were very narrow--they seemed rather like lanes--and this effect was increased by the high walls and hedges on either side. Two carriages had hardly room to pass in some places, with careful driving. Being in Lord ----'s well-known carriage, I was quite in state, and the country folk, most of them, bowed to me as I went on; and of course I followed the apostolic injunction, and condescended unto men of low estate. And, by the way, yesterday afternoon (for a day has passed since I began this letter, and I am now at ----) Lady ---- drove me through their park and off to ----, the dowager Lady ----'s jointure house, and I had the honor of acknowledging for her all the numerous bobs and ducks she received from the tenants and their children. So, you see, I shall be in good training when I come into my estate. When and where I entered the park, either here or at ----, I could not exactly make out. There were gates and gates, and the private grounds seemed to shade off gradually into the public. I know that the park extended far beyond the lodge. The house at ---- is very ugly. It was built by Inigo Jones, and, never handsome, was altogether spoiled by tasteless alterations in the last century. The ugliness of English country houses built at that time is quite inexpressible. I ought to have said that the ----s are in mourning;... and it was very kind of them to invite me. I was met at the door by a dignified personage in black, who asked me if I would go up to Lady ----'s room. She welcomed me warmly, said that Lord ---- had been called away for a few hours, and offered me tea from a tiny table at her side. And, by the way, you are usually asked to come at a time which brings you to five-o'clock tea. This gives you an opportunity to rub off the rough edge of strangeness, before you dress for dinner. Lady ----'s own room was large and hung with tapestry, and yet it was cosy and homelike. The hall is large and square, and the walls are covered with old arms. The staircase is good, but not so grand as others that I have seen; that at ----, for instance, where there was an oriel window on the first landing. This one has no landing; it is of polished oak, but is carpeted. Lady ---- is a very attractive and elegant woman, sensible, sensitive, and with a soft, gentle way of speech and action, which is all the more charming, as she is tall. Her tea was good. She talked well, and we got on together very satisfactorily. Presently a nurse brought in her two little daughters. I thought she must have approved of her savage Yankee guest; for she encouraged them to come to me and sit upon my knees; and all mothers are shy about that. Soon in popped Lord ----, and gave me the heartiest welcome that I have received since I have been in England. He has altered somewhat since he was in New York; is grown a little stouter, and a very little graver, but is just the same frank, simple fellow as when you saw him. About seven o'clock I was asked if I would like to go up to my room. He went with me,--an attention which I found general; and "directly he had left me," according to the phrase here, a very fine-mannered person, in a dress coat and a white tie, appeared, and asked me for my keys. I apprehended the situation at once, and submitted to his ministrations. He did everything for me except actually to wash my face and hands and put on my clothes. He laid everything that I could need, opened and laid out my dressing-case, and actually turned my stocking's. Dinner at eight. I take in Lady ----. Butler, a very solemn personage, but not stout nor red-faced. I have seen no stout, red-faced butler since I have been in England. Dining room large and handsome. Some good portraits. Gas in globes at the walls; candles on the table. Dinner very good, of course. Menu written in pencil on a porcelain card, with the formula in gilt and a coronet. Indeed, the very cans that came up to my bedroom with hot water were marked with coronet and cipher. I was inclined to scoff at this, at first, as ostentatious; but after all, as the things were to be marked, how could it be done better? After dinner, a very pleasant chat in the drawing-room until about eleven o'clock, when Lord ---- sent Lady ---- to bed. She shakes hands on bidding me good-night, and asks if half-past nine o'clock is too early for breakfast for me. I was tempted to say that it was, and to ask if it couldn't be postponed till ten; but I didn't. The drawing-room, by the way, altho it was handsome and cheerful, was far inferior in its show to a thousand that might be found in New York, many of which, too, are quite equal to it in comfort and in tasteful adornment. Lord ---- and I sit up awhile and chat about old times and the shooting on Long Island, and when I go to my room I find that, altho I am to stay but two days, my trunk has been unpacked and all my clothes put into the wardrobe and the drawers, and most carefully arranged, as if I were going to stay a month. My morning dress has been taken away. In the morning the same servant comes, opens my window, draws my bed curtain, prepares my bath, turns my stockings, and in fact does everything but actually bathe and dress me, and all with a very pleasant and cheerful attentiveness. At a quarter past nine the gong rings for prayers. These are generally read by the master of the household in the dining-room, with the breakfast table laid; but here in a morning-room. After breakfast you are left very much to yourself. Business and household affairs are looked after by your host and hostess; and you go where you please and do what you like. On Sunday I of course went to church with the family: a charming old church; tower of the time of Edward III.; some fine old monuments. We merely walked through the park a distance of about the width of Washington Square, passed through a little door in the park wall, and there was the church just opposite. It was Harvest Thanksgiving day, a festival recently introduced in England, in imitation of that which has come down to us from our Puritan forefathers. There was a special service; and the church was very prettily drest with oats, flowers, grass, and grapes, the last being substituted for hops, as it was too late for them. The offerings were for the Bulgarians; for everything now in England is tinged with the hue of "Turkish horrors." After service Lord ---- took me to the chantry, where the tombs of the family are. It was to show me a famous statue, that of a Lady ---- and her baby, at the birth of which she died, it dying soon, too. The statue is very beautiful, and is the most purely and sweetly pathetic work in sculpture that I ever saw. It had a special interest for me because I remembered reading about it in my boyhood; but I had forgotten the name of the subject, and I had no thought of finding it here in a little country church. WINDSOR [Footnote: From "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands."] BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE About eleven o'clock we found ourselves going up the old stone steps to the castle. It was the last day of a fair which had been holden in this part of the country, and crowds of the common people were flocking to the castle, men, women, and children pattering up the stairs before and after us. We went first through the state apartments. The principal thing that interested me was the ball room, which was a perfect gallery of Vandyke's paintings. Here was certainly an opportunity to know what Vandyke is. I should call him a true court painter--a master of splendid conventionalities, whose portraits of kings are the most powerful arguments for the divine right I know of. The queen's audience chamber is hung with tapestry representing scenes from the book of Esther. This tapestry made a very great impression upon me. A knowledge of the difficulties to be overcome in the material part of painting is undoubtedly an unsuspected element of much of the pleasure we derive from it; and for this reason, probably, this tapestry appeared to us better than paintings executed with equal spirit in oils. We admired it exceedingly, entirely careless what critics might think of us if they knew it.... From the state rooms we were taken to the top of the Round Tower, where we gained a magnificent view of the Park of Windsor, with its regal avenue, miles in length, of ancient oaks; its sweeps of greensward; clumps of trees; its old Herne oak, of classic memory; in short, all that constitutes the idea of a perfect English landscape. The English tree is shorter and stouter than ours; its foliage dense and deep, lying with a full, rounding outline against the sky. Everything here conveys the idea of concentrated vitality, but without that rank luxuriance seen in our American growth. Having unfortunately exhausted the English language on the subject of grass, I will not repeat any ecstasies upon that topic. After descending from the tower we filed off to the proper quarter, to show our orders for the private rooms. The state apartments, which we had been looking at, are open at all times, but the private apartments can only be seen in the queen's absence, and by special permission, which had been procured for us on this occasion by the kindness of the Duchess of Sutherland. One of the first objects that attracted my attention when entering the vestibule was a baby's wicker wagon, standing in one corner; it was much such a carriage as all mothers are familiar with; such as figures largely in the history of almost every family. It had neat curtains and cushions of green merino, and was not royal, only maternal. I mused over the little thing with a good deal of interest.... In the family breakfast room we saw some fine Gobelin tapestry, representing the classical story of Meleager. In one of the rooms, on a pedestal, stood a gigantic china vase, a present from the Emperor of Russia, and in the state rooms before we had seen a large malachite vase from the same donor. The toning of this room, with regard to color, was like that of the room I described in Stafford House--the carpet of green ground, with the same little leaf upon it, the walls, chairs, and sofas covered with green damask. The whole air of these rooms was very charming, suggestive of refined taste and domestic habits. The idea of home, which pervades everything in England, from the cottage to the palace, was as much suggested here as in any apartments I have seen. The walls of the different rooms were decorated with portraits of the members of the royal family, and those of other European princes. After this we went thro the kitchen department--saw the silver and gold plate of the table; among the latter were some designs which I thought particularly graceful. To conclude all, we went through the stables. The men who showed them told us that several of the queen's favorite horses were taken to Osborne; but there were many beautiful creatures left, which I regarded with great complacency. The stables and stalls were perfectly clean, and neatly kept; and one, in short, derives from the whole view of the economies of Windsor that satisfaction which results from seeing a thing thoroughly done in the best conceivable manner. BLENHEIM [Footnote: From "Famous Homes of Great Britain and Their Stories." A.H. Malan, Editor. By arrangement with the publishers, G.P. Putnam's Sons. Copyright, 1899.] BY THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. The architecture of the house itself clearly indicates the taste and training of its builder. Vanbrugh shared the enthusiasm of the day for classical work, as understood and developed, whether well or ill, by the Italians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but with characteristic disregard of law, he thought to combine classical severity with the fancifulness natural in a northerner and a playwright. Thus, while the general scheme of the south front, for instance, is distinctly severe, the massive towers at its ends are surmounted by fantastic masses of open stone-work, most quaintly finished off with arrangements of cannon-balls and coronets. Throughout he repeatedly made use of classical members with strange disregard to their structural intention. Silvester, the French artist employed to make designs for the decoration of the salon, sniffed contemptuously at Vanbrugh's Gothic tendencies. "I can not approve of that double line of niches. It suggests the façade of a Gothic church." And then with savage delight he announced his discovery that much of the design was merely an unintelligent imitation of the Palazzo Farnese at Florence. Certainly, in spite of Vanbrugh's attempt to achieve at once dignity and lightness, the probable impression made by the building on the casual observer is, that it is ponderous without being stately, and irregular without being tasteful. But the final feeling of any one whose fate it is to study it at leisure will assuredly be one of respect, even of enthusiasm, for the ability of Vanbrugh. It takes time to realize the boldness of the general design and the solidity of the masonry. In many parts there are about as many feet of solid stone as a modern architect would put inches of lath and plaster. The negative qualities of integrity and thoroughness are rare enough in work of the present day, now that the architect has delegated to the contractor the execution of his design. The interior proportions of the rooms are generally admirable, and so perfectly was the work carried out that it is possible to look through the keyholes of ten doors, and see daylight at the end, over three hundred feet off. It is noticeable, further, that the whole was designed by a single man, there being no subsequent additions, as there are, for instance, at Chatsworth and Wentworth. Vanbrugh is responsible for good and bad qualities alike. One would imagine a priori that he had everything in his favor--unlimited money and a free hand. Far from this being the case, the stupendous work was accomplished under difficulties greater than any long-suffering architect ever had to contend with. The beginning of the building was most auspicious. In 1705, the year after Blenheim, Queen Anne, in accordance with an address of the Commons, granted Marlborough the royal estate of which Woodstock was the center, with moneys to build a suitable house. The nation was anxious to show its gratitude to the General under whom English troops had won their first considerable victory on foreign soil since Agincourt; the Queen was for doing all in her power for her dear Mrs. Freeman; Marlborough saw in the scheme a dignified and legitimate method of perpetuating his fame; and so Vanbrugh was commissioned to build a house which should be worthy of all three. The work was at once begun on the existing scale. Difficulties sprang up when the Duchess began to lose, by her abuse of it, the power which she had always possessed over the Queen; when, too, it was seen that the architect's estimate bore no sort of relation to the actual cost. Vanbrugh was often in the greatest straits for money, and wrote piteously to the Duchess and the Lord Treasurer Godolphin without the slightest effect. Things naturally grew worse when both the Duke and Duchess were dismissed from all their posts, in 1711; and at last, in 1721, the disputes culminated in a lawsuit successfully brought against the Duke by the workmen for arrears of pay, the defendant's contention being that the Treasury was liable for the whole expense. The Duchess vented her displeasure on the unfortunate architect, whom she never credited with doing anything right. She carefully kept his letters, and made spiteful endorsements on them for the benefit of her counsel at the trial. While Sarah was perpetually involving herself in quarrels with her architect, the Duke was indirectly furthering the progress of the building by a succession of victories abroad. Without taking an active part, he was yet much interested in the house, always looking forward to the time when he should live there in peace with his wife. When on a campaign he wrote to her nearly every other day, and in almost every letter there is a personal touch, showing his ever-present love for her, his keen anxiety to keep her love, and to win her approval of everything he did. The main interest of Marlborough's later life centered in Blenheim. The Duchess had done the lion's share of the work of superintendence; it remained for him to arrange the many works of art he had bought and had been given during the war. There still exists an account of the prices he paid for tapestries made in Brussels, most of which are now on the walls of the house. Over the south front was placed a bust of Louis XIV., a trophy taken from the gates of Tournay.... Changes of fashion and of taste have left their mark on Blenheim; and, as the old oaks recall the joyousness of the Middle Ages, and the elms and cedars have a certain air of eighteenth-century stateliness, so perhaps the orchids, with their exotic delicacy, may be held typical of the decadent present. From the house many treasures, once part of its adornment, are now missed; and while books, pictures, and gems have disappeared, modern ideas of comfort have suggested the insertion of electric lights and telephones. To regret the treasures of the past is a commonplace; it would seem fitter to make the best of the advantages of the present. WARWICK [Footnote: From "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands."] BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE When we came fairly into the courtyard of Warwick Castle, a scene of magnificent beauty opened before us. I can not describe it minutely. The principal features are the battlements, towers, and turrets of the old feudal castle, encompassed by grounds on which has been expended all that princely art of landscape gardening for which England is famous--leafy thickets, magnificent trees, openings, and vistas of verdure, and wide sweeps of grass, short, thick, and vividly green, as the velvet moss we sometimes see growing on rocks in New England. Grass is an art and a science in England--it is an institution. The pains that are taken in sowing, tending, cutting, clipping, rolling, and otherwise nursing and coaxing it, being seconded by the misty breath and often falling tears of the climate, produce results which must be seen to be appreciated.... Here, under the shade of lofty cedars, has sprung and fallen an hereditary line of princes. One can not but feel, in looking on these majestic trees, with the battlements, turrets, and towers of the old castle everywhere surrounding him, and the magnificent parks and lawns opening through dreamy vistas of trees into what seems immeasurable distance, the force of the soliloquy which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of the dying old king-maker, as he lies ebreathing out his soul in the dust and blood of the battlefield.... I have described the grounds first, but, in fact, we did not look at them first, but went into the house where we saw not only all the state rooms, but, through the kindness of the noble proprietor, many of those which are not commonly exhibited; a bewildering display of magnificent apartments, pictures, gems, vases, arms and armor, antiques, all, in short, that the wealth of a princely and powerful family had for centuries been accumulating. The great hall of the castle is sixty-two feet in length and forty in breadth, ornamented with a richly carved Gothic roof, in which figures largely the family cognizance of the bear and ragged staff. There is a succession of shields, on which are emblazoned the quarterings of successive Earls of Warwick. The sides of the wall are ornamented with lances, corselets, shields, helmets, and complete suits of armor, regularly arranged as in an armory. Here we saw the helmet of Cromwell, a most venerable relic. Before the great, cavernous fireplace was piled up on a sled a quantity of yew-tree wood. The rude simplicity of thus arranging it on the polished floor of this magnificent apartment struck me as quite singular. I suppose it is a continuation of some ancient custom. Opening from this apartment on either side are suites of rooms, the whole series being three hundred and thirty-three feet in length. These rooms are all hung with pictures, and studded with antiques and curiosities of immense value. There is, first, the red drawing-room, and then the cedar drawing-room, then the gilt drawing-room, the state bedroom, the boudoir, etc., etc., hung with pictures by Vandyke, Rubens, Guido, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Paul Veronese, any one of which would require days of study. I walked to one of the windows of these lordly apartments, and while the company were examining buhl cabinets, and all other deliciousness of the place, I looked down the old gray walls into the amber waters of the Avon, which flows at their base, and thought that the most beautiful of all was without. There is a tiny fall that crosses the river just above here, whose waters turn the wheels of an old mossy mill, where for centuries the family grain has been ground. The river winds away through the beautiful parks and undulating foliage, its soft, grassy banks dotted here and there with sheep and cattle, and you catch farewell gleams and glitters of it as it loses itself among the trees. Gray moss, wallflowers, ivy, and grass were growing here and there out of crevices in the castle walls, as I looked down, sometimes trailing their rippling tendrils in the river. This vegetative propensity of walls is one of the chief graces of these old buildings. In the state bedroom were a bed and furnishings of rich crimson velvet, once belonging to Queen Anne, and presented by George III. to the Warwick family. The walls are hung with Brussels tapestry, representing the gardens of Versailles as they were at the time. The chimney-piece, which is sculptured of verde antique and white marble, supports two black marble vases on its mantel. Over the mantel-piece is a full-length portrait of Queen Anne, in a rich brocade dress, wearing the collar and jewels of the garter, bearing in one hand a scepter, and in the other a globe. There are two splendid buhl cabinets in the room, and a table of costly stone from Italy; it is mounted on a richly carved and gilt stand. The boudoir, which adjoins, is hung with pea-green satin and velvet. In this room is one of the most authentic portraits of Henry VIII., by Holbein, in which that selfish, brutal, unfeeling tyrant is veritably set forth, with all the gold and gems which, in his day, blinded mankind; his fat, white hands were beautifully painted.... After having examined all the upper stories, we went down into the vaults underneath--vaults once grim and hoary, terrible to captives and feudal enemies, now devoted to no purpose more grim than that of coal cellars and wine vaults. In Oliver's time, a regiment was quartered there; they are extensive enough, apparently, for an army. The kitchen and its adjuncts are of magnificent dimensions, and indicate an ancient amplitude in the way of provision for good cheer worthy an ancient house; and what struck me as a still better feature was a library of sound, sensible, historical, and religious works for the servants. We went into the beer vaults, where a man drew beer into a long black jack, such as Scott describes. It is a tankard, made of black leather, I should think half a yard deep. He drew the beer from a large hogshead, and offered us some in a glass. It looked very clear, but, on tasting, I found it so exceedingly bitter that it struck me there would be small virtue for me in abstinence. KENILWORTH [Footnote: From Scott's "Kenilworth." Kenilworth is now the most stately ruined castle in England. Its destruction dates from the Civil War, when it was dismantled by soldiers under Cromwell. Then it was allowed to decay. Scott describes it as it was in Queen Elizabeth's time.] BY SIR WALTER SCOTT The outer wall of this splendid and gigantic structure enclosed seven acres, a part of which was occupied by extensive stables, and by a pleasure garden, with its trim arbors and parterres, and the rest formed the large base-court, or outer-yard, of the noble castle. The lordly structure itself, which rose near the center of this spacious enclosure, was composed of a huge pile of magnificent castellated buildings, apparently of different ages, surrounding an inner court, and bearing in the names attached to each portion of the magnificent mass, and in the armorial bearings which were there blazoned, the emblems of mighty chiefs who had long passed away, and whose history, could ambition have lent ear to it, might have read a lesson to the haughty favorite, who had now acquired and was augmenting the fair domain. A large and massive keep, which formed the citadel of the castle, was of uncertain tho great antiquity. It bore the name of Cæsar, perhaps from its resemblance to that in the Tower of London so called. Some antiquaries ascribe its foundation to the time of Kenelph, from whom the castle had its name, a Saxon King of Mercia, and others to an early era after the Norman Conquest. On the exterior walls frowned the escutcheon of the Clintons, by whom they were founded in the reign of Henry I., and of the yet more redoubted Simon de Montfort, by whom, during the Barons' wars, Kenilworth was long held out against Henry III. Here Mortimer, Earl of March, famous alike for his rise and his fall, had once gaily revelled in Kenilworth, while his dethroned sovereign, Edward II. languished in its dungeons. Old John of Gaunt, "time-honored Lancaster," had widely extended the castle, erecting that noble and massive pile which yet bears the name of Lancaster's buildings: and Leicester himself had outdone the former possessors, princely and powerful as they were, by erecting another immense structure, which now lies crusht under its own ruins, the monument of its owner's ambition. The external wall of this royal castle was, on the south and west sides, adorned and defended by a lake partly artificial, across which Leicester had constructed a stately bridge, that Elizabeth might enter the castle by a path hitherto untrodden, instead of the usual entrance to the northward, over which he had erected a gate-house, or barbican, which still exists, and is equal in extent, and superior in architecture, to the baronial castle of many a northern chief. Beyond the lake lay an extensive chase, full of red-deer, fallow-deer, roes, and every species of game, and abounding with lofty trees, from among which the extended front and massive towers of the castle were seen to rise in majesty and beauty. We can not but add that of this lordly palace, where princes feasted and heroes fought, now in the bloody earnest of storm and siege, and now in the games of chivalry, where beauty dealt the prize which valor won, all is now desolate. The bed of the lake is but a rushy swamp and the massive ruins of the castle only serve to show what their splendor once was, and to impress on the musing visitor the transitory value of human possessions, and the happiness of those who enjoy a humble lot in virtuous contentment. ALNWICK [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."] BY WILLIAM HOWITT A visit to Alnwick is like going back into the old feudal times. The town still retains the moderate dimensions and the quiet air of one that has grown up under the protection of the castle, and of the great family of the castle. Other towns, that arose under the same circumstances, have caught the impulse of modern commerce and manufacture, and have grown into huge, bustling, and noisy cities, in which the old fortified walls and the old castle have either vanished, or have been swallowed up, and stand, as if in superannuated wonder, amid a race and a wilderness of buildings, with which they have nothing in common. When, however, you enter Alnwick, you still feel that you are entering a feudal place. It is as the abode of the Percys has presented itself to your imagination. It is still, quaint, gray, and old-worldish.... In fact, the whole situation is fine, without being highly romantic, and worthy of its superb old fabric. In the castle itself, without and within, I never saw one on English ground that more delighted me; because it more completely came up to the beau ideal of the feudal baronial mansion, and especially of that of the Percys, the great chieftains of the British Border--the heroes of Otterburn and Chevy Chase. Nothing can be more striking than the effect at first entering within the walls from the town; when, through a dark gloomy gateway of considerable length and depth, the eye suddenly emerges into one of the most splendid scenes that can be imagined; and is presented at once with the great body of the inner castle, surrounded with fair semi-circular towers, finely swelling to the eye, and gaily adorned with pinnacles, battlements, etc. The impression is still further strengthened by the successive entrances into the second and third courts, through great massy towers, till you are landed in the inner court, in the very center of this great citadel. An idea may be formed of the scale of this brave castle, when we state that it includes, within its outer walls, about five acres of ground; and that its walls are flanked with sixteen towers, which now afford a complete set of offices to the castle, and many of them retain not only their ancient names, but also their original uses. The castle courts, except the center one, are beautifully carpeted with green turf, which gives them a very pleasant aspect. In the center of the second court is a lion with his paw on a ball, a copy of one of the lions of St. Mark at Venice.... The inner court is square, with the corners taken off; and on the wall opposite to the entrance are medallion portraits of the first Duke and Duchess. Near the gateway appear the old wheels and axle which worked the great well, over which is the figure of a pilgrim blessing the waters. Within the gateway you enter an octagon tower, where the old dungeon still remains in the floor, covered with its iron grate. It is eleven feet deep, by nine feet eight inches and a half square at the bottom. In the court are two other dungeons, now or formerly used for a force-pump to throw water up to the top of the castle; and one now not used at all--which could all be so closed down as to exclude the prisoners from both sound and light.... Having wandered thus around this noble pile, it is time to enter it. Of the interior, however, I shall not say much more than that it is at once a fitting modern residence for a nobleman of the high rank and ancient descent of the proprietor, and in admirable keeping with its exterior. The rooms are fitted up with light Gothic tracery on the walls, very chaste and elegant; and the colors are so delicate and subdued, that you are not offended with that feeling of over-fineness that is felt at Raby. You ascend by a noble staircase, surrounded with armorial escutcheons instead of a cornice, to a suite of very spacious and handsome rooms, of which the principal are the saloon, dining-room, breakfast-room, library, and chapel. The ceilings are finely worked into compartments with escutcheons and pendants. The walls of the saloon are covered with crimson silk, sprigged with yellow flowers; those of the dining-room, with pale buff, and white moldings, rich tracery and elegant compartmented ceiling. In the center of some of the arches you see the crescent, the crest of the Percys. On the whole, it is a noble and highly satisfactory mansion; but still it is when you get without again that you feel the real antiquity and proud dignity of the place. The fame of the Percy and the Douglas seems to be whispered by every wind that plays around those old towers. HAMPTON COURT [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."] BY WILLIAM HOWITT To the visitors of cultivated taste and historic knowledge, Hampton Court abounds with subjects of reflective interest of the highest order. It is true, that, compared with some of our palaces, it can lay no claims to antiquity; but from the days of Henry VIII. to those of George III., there are few of them that have witnessed more singular or momentous events. Overbearing despot as Wolsey [who built it] was, there is something magnificent in the sweep of his ambition, and irresistibly interesting in the greatness of his fall. He was the last of those haughty prelates in the good old Catholic times who rose up from the dust of insignificance into the most lordly and overgrown magnificence; outdoing monarchs in the number of their servants, and in the pomp of their state. Equaling the great Cardinals who have figured on the Continent, Ximenes, Richelieu, Mazarin, and De Retz, in political ability and personal ambition, he exceeded all in the wealth which he unhesitatingly seized, and the princely splendor in which he lived. When we enter, therefore, the gates of Hampton Court, and are struck with the magnificent extent of the erection, which at that time not only, according to Rapin, "was a stately palace, and outshined all the king's houses," but was one of the most splendid structures in Europe, we can not help figuring to ourselves the proud Cardinal surveying its progress, and musing over the wonders of that career which had brought him, if not from the humble estate of the son of a butcher, yet from an origin of no great condition, or it could not have remained dubious to this period--the wealthiest man in Europe, the most potent in political influence, and the ardent aspirant to the Popedom itself.... It was only at Hampton Court that his vast train of servants and attendants, with the nobility and ambassadors who flocked about him, could be fully entertained. These, as we learn from his gentleman-usher, Cavendish, were little short of a thousand persons; for there were upon his "cheine roll" eight hundred persons belonging to his household, independent of suitors, who were all entertained in the hall. In this hall he had daily spread three tables. At the head of the first presided a priest, a steward; at that of the second a knight, as treasurer; and at the third his comptroller, who was an esquire.... Besides these, there was always a doctor, a confessor, two almoners, three marshals, three ushers of the hall, and groom. The furnishing of these tables required a proportionate kitchen; and here were two clerks, a clerk-comptroller, and surveyor of the dressers; a clerk of the spicery; two cooks, with laborers and children for assistants: turnspits a dozen; four scullery-men; two yeomen of the pastry, and two paste-layers. In his own kitchen was his master-cook, daily drest in velvet or satin, and wearing a gold chain. Under him were two other cooks and their six laborers; in the larder a yeoman and groom; in the scullery a yeoman and two grooms; in the ewry two yeomen and two grooms; in the buttery the same; in the cellar three yeomen and three pages; in the chandlery and the wafery, each two yeomen; in the wardrobe the master of the wardrobe and twenty assistants; in the laundry, yeoman, groom, thirteen pages, two yeoman-purveyors and groom-purveyor; in the bake-house, two yeomen and two grooms; in the wood-yard one yeoman and groom; in the barn a yeoman; at the gate two yeomen and two grooms; a yeoman of his barge; the master of his horse; a clerk and groom of the stables; the farrier; the yeoman of the stirrup; a maltster; and sixteen grooms, each keeping four horses. There were the dean and sub-dean of his chapel; the repeater of the choir; the gospeler, the epistler, or the singing priest; the master of the singers, with his men and children. In the vestry were a yeoman and two grooms. In the procession were commonly seen forty priests, all in rich copes and other vestments of white satin, or scarlet, or crimson. The altar was covered with massy plate, and blazed with jewels and precious stones. But if such were his general establishment, not less was the array of those who attended on his person. In his privy chamber he had his chief chamberlain, vice-chamberlain, and two gentlemen-ushers. Six gentlemen-waiters and twelve yeomen; and at their head nine or ten lords to attend on him, each with their two or three servants, and some more, to wait on them, the Earl of Derby having five. Three gentlemen-cupbearers, gentlemen-carvers, and servers to the amount of forty in the great and the privy chamber; six gentlemen-ushers and eight grooms. Attending on his table were twelve doctors and chaplains, clerk of the closet, two clerks of the signet, four counsellors learned in the law, and two secretaries. He had his riding-clerk; clerk of the crown; clerk of the hamper and chaffer; clerk of the cheque for the chaplains; clerk for the yeomen of the chamber; and "fourteen footmen garnished with rich running-coates, whensoever he had any journey;" besides these, a herald-at-arms, sergeant-at-arms, a physician, an apothecary, four minstrels, a keeper of the tents, an armorer; an instructor of his wards in chancery; "an instructor of his wardrop of roabes;" a keeper of his chamber; a surveyor of York, and clerk of the green cloth.... I am afraid the story of Henry VIII. coming to see this splendid palace on its first being built, and saying in a jealous surprize, "My Lord Cardinal, is this a dwelling for a subject?" and the courtly Cardinal replying, "My gracious liege, it is not intended for a subject; it is meant only for the greatest and most bounteous king in Christendom," is too good to be true; for altho Wolsey did give up this favorite palace to his royal master, it was long afterward, and only on the palpable outbreak of his displeasure, as a most persuasive peace-offering; an offering which, tho especially acceptable, failed nevertheless to ensure lasting peace. The sun of the great Cardinal was already in its decline.... Henry VIII. used to keep his court here frequently in great state, and here he used to celebrate Christmas in all its ancient festivity. Here he lost his third wife, Jane Seymour, a few days after the birth of his son Edward VI., and felt or affected much grief on that account, perhaps because he had not had the pleasure of cutting off her head. Here he married his sixth wife, Lady Catherine Parr, widow of Neville, Lord Latimer, and sister of the Marquis of Northampton. This lady, who had the hardihood to marry this royal Bluebeard, after he had divorced two wives and chopped off the heads of two others, narrowly escaped the fate she so rashly hazarded. The very warrant for her committal to the Tower, whence she was only to be brought forth to be burned at the stake for heresy, was signed, and on the point of execution, when she accidentally became aware of it, and managed to soothe the ferocious tyrant by the most artful submission to his conceit of his theological learning, and by rubbing his ulcerated leg. Here, as we have said, Edward VI. was born; and three days after he was baptized in the king's chapel in the palace in great state--Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, and the Duke of Norfolk, being god-fathers. Hampton Court was appropriated by the guardians of Edward as his residence, and he was residing here when the council rose against the authority of the Protector Somerset, and was removed by him hence to Windsor Castle, lest the council should obtain possession of his person. Here Bloody Mary, and her husband, Philip of Spain, passed their honeymoon in great retirement; and here--when they were desirous of effacing from the mind of their sister, the Princess Elizabeth, the recollection of her imprisonment at Woodstock, and the vain attempts of their arch-rascal priest Stephen Gardiner, Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Winchester, to coerce her into popery, or to convict her of heresy, and probably bring her to the flaming stake--they invited her to spend some time with them, and set on foot banquets, maskings, and all sorts of revelries. Here they kept Christmas with her as royally as the father, Henry VIII., had kept it in his day; Elizabeth being seated at the royal table with their majesties, next the cloth of state, and, at the removal of the dishes, served with a perfumed napkin and plate of confect by the Lord Paget. Here, too, during her stay, they gave a grand tournament, wherein two hundred spears were broken by contending knights. Here Elizabeth also, when she was become the potent queen instead of the jealously-watched sister, continued occasionally to assemble her brilliant court, and to hold merry Christmas, as Mary, Edward, and her father had done before. Here also the especial festivals of the Christmases of 1572 and 1593 were kept by her.... The entrance to the portion of the palace built by Wolsey is by a sort of outer court of great extent, the gates of which have their pillars surmounted by a large lion and unicorn as supporters of the crown royal, and each of the side gates by a military trophy. Along the left side of the area are barracks and such offices; the greater part of the right side is open toward the river, and there stand nine as lofty and noble elms, in a row, as perhaps any part of England can match. Two gateways are before you; the one to the left leading to the kitchen-court, the center one to the first quadrangle. This chief gateway has been restored, in excellent keeping with the old building, and has a noble aspect as you approach it, being flanked with octagon towers, pierced with a fine pointed arch, over which are cut, in rich relief, the royal arms, and above them projects a large and handsome bay-window, framed of stone. You now enter by a Gothic archway the first of the courts of Wolsey remaining. These two are said to have been the meanest then in the palace. There were originally five; the three finest of which were pulled down to make way for William III.'s great square mass of brickwork. The writers who saw it in its glory, describe it in entireness as the most splendid palace in Europe. Grotius says, "other palaces are residences of kings, but this is of the gods." Hentzner, who saw it in Elizabeth's time, speaks of it with astonishment, and says, "the rooms being very numerous, are adorned with tapestry of gold, silver, and velvet, in some of which were woven history pieces; in other Turkish and Armenian dresses, all extremely natural. In one chamber are several excessively rich tapestries, which are hung up when the queen gives audience to foreign ambassadors. All the walls of the palace shine with gold and silver. Here is likewise a certain cabinet called Paradise, where, besides that every thing glitters so with silver, gold, and jewels, as to dazzle one's eyes, there is a musical instrument made all of glass except the strings." It was, indeed, a Dutch taste which leveled all these stately buildings to the ground, to erect the great square mass which replaced them. A glorious view, if old drawings are to be believed, must all that vast and picturesque variety of towers, battlements, tall mullioned windows, cupolas and pinnacles, have made, as they stood under the clear heaven glittering in the sun.... The hall, the chapel, the withdrawing-room, are all splendid specimens of Gothic grandeur, and possess many historic associations. In the hall, Surrey wrote on a pane of glass some of his verses to Géraldine; and there, too, it is said, the play of Henry VIII., exhibiting the fall of Wolsey in the very creation of his former glory, was once acted, Shakespeare himself being one of the performers! CHATSWORTH AND HADDON HALL [Footnote: From "A Walk From London to John O'Groats."] BY ELIHU BURRITT It was a pleasure quite equal to my anticipation to visit Chatsworth for the first time, after a sojourn in England, off and on, for sixteen years. It is the lion number three, according to the American ranking of the historical edifices and localities of England. Stratford-upon-Avon, Westminster Abbey and Chatsworth are the three representative celebrities which our travelers think they must visit if they would see the life of England's ages from the best standpoints. And this is the order in which they rank them. Chatsworth and Haddon Hall should be seen the same day if possible; so that you may carry the impression of the one fresh and active into the other. They are the two most representative buildings in the kingdom. Haddon is old English feudalism edificed. It represents the rough grandeur, hospitality, wassail and rude romance of the English nobility five hundred years ago. It was all in its glory about the time when Thomas-à-Becket, the Magnificent, used to entertain great companies of belted knights of the realm in a manner that exceeded regal munificence in those days--even directing fresh straw to be laid for them on his ample mansion floor, that they might not soil the bravery of their dresses when they bunked down for the night. The building is brimful of the character and history of that period. Indeed, there are no two milestones of English history so near together, and yet measuring such a space of the nation's life and mariners between them, as this hall and that of Chatsworth. It was built, of course, in the bow and arrow times, when the sun had to use the same missiles in shooting its barbed rays into the narrow apertures of old castles--or the stone coffins of fear-hunted knights and ladies, as they might be called. What a monument this to the dispositions and habits of the world, outside and inside of that early time! Here is the porter's or warder's lodge just inside the huge gate. To think of a living being with a human soul in him burrowing in such a place!--a big, black sarcophagus without a lid to it, set deep in the solid wall. Then there is the chapel. Compare it with that of Chatsworth, and you may count almost on your fingers the centuries that have intervened between them. It was new-roofed soon after the discovery of America, and, perhaps, done up to some show of decency and comfort. But how small and rude the pulpit and pews--looking like rough-boarded potato-bins! Here is the great banquet-hall, full to overflowing with the tracks and cross-tracks of that wild, strange life of old. There is a fire-place for you, and the mark in the chimney-back of five hundred Christmas logs. Doubtless this great stone pavement of a floor was carpeted with straw at banquets, after the illustrious Becket's pattern. Here is a memento of the feast hanging up at the top of the kitchenward door--a pair of roughly-forged, rusty handcuffs amalgamated into one pair of jaws, like a muskrat trap. What was the use of that thing, conductor? "That sir, they put the 'ands in of them as shirked and didn't drink up all the wine as was poured into their cups, and there they made them stand on tiptoe up against that door, sir, before all the company, sir, until they was ashamed of theirselves." Descend into the kitchen, all scarred with the tremendous cookery of ages. Here they roasted bullocks whole, and just back in that dark vault with a slit or two in it for the light, they killed and drest them. There are relics of the shambles, and here is the great form on which they cut them up into manageable pieces. It would do you good, you Young America, to see that form, and the cross-gashes of the meat ax in it. It is the half of a gigantic English oak, which was growing in Julius Caesar's time, sawed through lengthwise, making a top surface several feet wide, black and smooth as ebony. Some of the bark still clings to the under side. The dancing-hall is the great room of the building. All that the taste, art and wealth of that day could do, was done to make it a splendid apartment, and it would pass muster still as a comfortable and respectable salon. As we pass out, you may decipher the short prayer cut in the wasting stone over a side portal, "God Save the Vernons." I hope this prayer has been favorably answered; for history records much virtue in the family, mingled with some romantic escapades, which have contributed, I believe, to the entertainment of many novel readers. Just what Haddon Hall is to the baronial life and society of England five hundred years ago, is Chatsworth to the full stature of modern civilization and aristocratic wealth, taste and position. Of this it is probably the best measure and representative in the kingdom; and as such it possesses a special value and interest to the world at large. Were it not for here and there such an establishment, we should lack way-marks in the progress of the arts, sciences and tastes of advancing civilization. EATON HALL [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By permission of, and by arrangement with, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1870 and 1898.] BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE The Church of St. John is outside of the city walls of Chester. Entering the East gate, we walked awhile under the Rows, bought our tickets for Eaton Hall and its gardens, and likewise some playthings for the children; for this old city of Chester seems to me to possess an unusual number of toy-shops. Finally we took a cab, and drove to the Hall, about four miles distant, nearly the whole of the way lying through the wooded Park. There are many sorts of trees, making up a wilderness, which looked not unlike the woods of our own Concord, only less wild. The English oak is not a handsome tree, being short and sturdy, with a round, thick mass of foliage, lying all within its own bounds. It was a showery day. Had there been any sunshine, there might doubtless have been many beautiful effects of light and shadow in these woods. We saw one or two herds of deer, quietly feeding, a hundred yards or so distant. They appeared to be somewhat wilder than cattle, but, I think, not much wilder than sheep. Their ancestors have probably been in a half-domesticated state, receiving food at the hands of man, in winter, for centuries. There is a kind of poetry in this, quite as much as if they were really wild deer, such as their forefathers were, when Hugh Lupus used to hunt them. Our miserable cab drew up at the steps of Eaton Hall, and, ascending under the portico, the door swung silently open, and we were received very civilly by two old men--one, a tall footman in livery; the other, of higher grade, in plain clothes. The entrance-hall is very spacious, and the floor is tessellated or somehow inlaid with marble. There was statuary in marble on the floor, and in niches stood several figures in antique armor, of various dates; some with lances, and others with battle-axes and swords. There was a two-handed sword, as much as six feet long; but not nearly so ponderous as I have supposed this kind of weapon to be, from reading of it. I could easily have brandished it. The plainly drest old man now led us into a long corridor, which goes, I think, the whole length of the house, about five hundred feet, arched all the way, and lengthened interminably by a looking-glass at the end, in which I saw our own party approaching like a party of strangers. But I have so often seen this effect produced in dry-goods stores and elsewhere, that I was not much imprest. There were family portraits and other pictures, and likewise pieces of statuary, along this arched corridor; and it communicated with a chapel with a scriptural altar-piece, copied from Rubens, and a picture of St. Michael and the Dragon, and two, or perhaps three, richly painted windows. Everything here is entirely new and fresh, this part having been repaired, and never yet inhabited by the family. This brand-newness makes it much less effective than if it had been lived in; and I felt pretty much as if I were strolling through any other renewed house. After all, the utmost force of man can do positively very little toward making grand things or beautiful things. The imagination can do so much more, merely on shutting one's eyes, that the actual effect seems meager; so that a new house, unassociated with the past, is exceedingly unsatisfactory, especially when you have heard that the wealth and skill of man has here done its best. Besides, the rooms, as we saw them, did not look by any means their best, the carpets not being down, and the furniture being covered with protective envelops. However, rooms can not be seen to advantage by daylight; it being altogether essential to the effect, that they should be illuminated by artificial light, which takes them somewhat out of the region of bare reality. Nevertheless, there was undoubtedly great splendor--for the details of which I refer to the guide-book. Among the family portraits, there was one of a lady famous for her beautiful hand; and she was holding it up to notice in the funniest way--and very beautiful it certainly was. The private apartments of the family were not shown us. I should think it impossible for the owner of this house to imbue it with his personality to such a degree as to feel it to be his home. It must be like a small lobster in a shell much too large for him. After seeing what was to be seen of the rooms, we visited the gardens, in which are noble conservatories and hot-houses, containing all manner of rare and beautiful flowers, and tropical fruits. I noticed some large pines, looking as if they were really made of gold. The gardener (under-gardener I suppose he was) who showed this part of the spectacle was very intelligent as well as kindly, and seemed to take an interest in his business. He gave S---- a purple everlasting flower, which will endure a great many years, as a memento of our visit to Eaton Hall. Finally, we took a view of the front of the edifice, which is very fine, and much more satisfactory than the interior--and returned to Chester. HOLLAND HOUSE [Footnote: From "Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets."] BY WILLIAM HOWITT Of Holland House, the last residence of Addison, it would require a long article to give a fitting idea. This fine old mansion is full of historic associations. It takes its name from Henry Rich, earl of Holland, whose portrait is in Bilton. It was built by his father-in-law, Sir Walter Cope, in 1607, and affords a very good specimen of the architecture of that period. The general form is that of a half H. The projection in the center, forming: at once porch and tower, and the two wings supported on pillars, give great decision of effect to it. The stone quoins worked with a sort of arabesque figure, remind one of the style of some portions of Heidelberg Castle, which is what is called on the Continent roccoco. Here it is deemed Elizabethan; but the plain buildings attached on each side to the main body of the house, with their shingled and steep-roofed towers, have a very picturesque and Bohemian look. Altogether, it is a charming old pile, and the interior corresponds beautifully with the exterior. There is a fine entrance-hall, a library behind it, and another library extending the whole length of one of the wings and the house upstairs, one hundred and five feet in length. The drawing-room over the entrance-hall, called the Gilt Room, extends from front to back of the house, and commands views of the gardens both way; those to the back are very beautiful. In the house are, of course, many interesting and valuable works of art; a great portion of them memorials of the distinguished men who have been accustomed to resort thither. In one room is a portrait of Charles James Fox, as a child, in a light blue dress, and with a close, reddish, woolen cap on his head, under which show lace edges. The artist is unknown, but is supposed to be French. The countenance is full of life and intelligence, and the "child" in it is, most remarkably, "the father of the man." The likeness is wonderful. You can imagine how, by time and circumstance, that child's countenance expanded into what it became in maturity. There is also a portrait of Addison, which belonged to his daughter. It represents him as much younger than any other that I have seen. In the Gilt Room are marble busts of George IV. and William IV. On the staircase is a bust of Lord Holland, father of the second earl and of Charles Fox, by Nollekens. This bust, which is massy, and full of power and expression, is said to have brought Nollekens into his great repute. The likeness to that of Charles Fox is very striking. By the same artist there are also the busts of Charles Fox, the late Lord Holland, and the present earl. That of Frere, by Chantry, is very spirited. There are also, here, portraits of Lord Lansdowne, Lord John Russell, and family portraits. There is also a large and very curious painting of a fair, by Callot, and an Italian print of it. In the library, downstairs, are portraits of Charles James Fox--a very fine one; of the late Lord Holland; of Talleyrand, by Ary Scheffer, perhaps the best in existence, and the only one which he said that he ever sat for; of Sir Samuel Romilly; Sir James Mackintosh; Lord Erskine, by Sir Thomas Lawrence; Tierney; Francis Horner, by Raeburn, so like Sir Walter Scott, by the same artist, that I at first supposed it to be him; Lord Macartney, by Phillips; Frere, by Shea; Mone, Lord Thanet; Archibald Hamilton; late Lord Darnley; late Lord King, when young, by Hoppner; and a very sweet, foreign fancy portrait of the present Lady Holland. We miss, however, from this haunt of genius, the portraits of Byron, Brougham, Crabbe, Blanco White, Hallam, Rogers, Lord Jeffrey, and others. In the left wing is placed the colossal model of the statue of Charles Fox, which stands in Bloomsbury Square. In the gardens are various memorials of distinguished men. Among several very fine cedars, perhaps the finest is said to have been planted by Charles Fox. In the quaint old garden is an alcove, in which are the following lines, placed there by the late earl: "Here Rogers sat--and here for ever dwell With me, those pleasures which he sang so well." Beneath these are framed and glazed a copy of verses in honor of the same poet, by Mr. Luttrell. There is also in the same garden, and opposite this alcove, a bronze bust of Napoleon, on a granite pillar, with a Greek inscription from the Odyssey, admirably applying the situation of Ulysses to that of Napoleon at St. Helena: "In a far-distant isle he remains under the harsh surveillance of base men." The fine avenue leading down from the house to the Kensington road is remarkable for having often been the walking and talking place of Cromwell and General Lambert. Lambert then occupied Holland House; and Cromwell, who lived next door, when he came to converse with him on state affairs, had to speak very loud to him, because he was deaf. To avoid being overheard, they used to walk in this avenue. The traditions regarding Addison here are very slight. They are, simply, that he used to walk, when composing his "Spectators," in the long library, then a picture gallery, with a bottle of wine at each end, which he visited as he alternately arrived at them; and that the room in which he died, tho not positively known, is supposed to be the present dining-room, being then the state bed-room. The young Earl of Warwick, to whom he there address the emphatic words, "See in what peace a Christian can die!" died also, himself, in 1721, but two years afterward. The estate then devolved to Lord Kensington, descended from Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, who sold it, about 1762, to the Right Honorable Henry Fox, afterward Lord Holland. Here the early days of the great statesman, Charles James, were passed. ARUNDEL [Footnote: From "Cathedral Days." By permission of, and by arrangement with, the publishers, Little, Brown & Co. Copyright, 1887.] BY ANNA BOWMAN DODD Such a vast architectural mass as Arundel Castle, implanted in Saxon, Roman, and feudal military necessities, strikes its roots deep and wide. The town appeared, in comparison, to be but an accidental projection on the hillside. The walls grow out of the town as the trunks of a great tree shoot forth from the ground--of a different growth, but an integral part of it. Topographically, Arundel has only a few features, yet they are fine enough to form a rich ensemble. There is the castle, huge, splendid, impressive, set like a great gray pearl on the crown of the hill. On one side spreads the town; on the other, the tall trees of the castle park begirt its towers and battlements. At the foot of the hill runs the river--a beautiful sinuous stream, which curves its course between the Down hillsides out through the plains to the sea. Whatever may have been the fate of the town in former times, held perhaps at a distance far below in the valley, during troublous times when the castle must be free for the more serious work of assault or defense, it no longer lies at the foot of its great protector. In friendly confidence it seems to sit, if not within its arms, at least beside its knee.... There is no escaping the conclusion that a duke, when one is confronted with his castle, does seem an awfully real being. The castle was a great Catholic stronghold, the Dukes of Norfolk being among the few great families which have remained faithful, since the Conquest, to the See of Rome. The present Duke of Norfolk, by reason of the fervor of his piety, his untiring zeal and magnificent generosity, is recognized as the head of the Catholic party in England. To learn that he was at present on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, and that such was his yearly custom, seemed to shorten distance for us. It made the old--its beliefs, its superstitions, its unquestioning ardor of faith--strangely new. It invested the castle, which appealed to our consciousness as something remote and alien, with the reality of its relation to medieval life and manners. The little cathedral which crowns the hill--the most prominent object for miles about, after the castle--is the gift of the present Duke. It is a pretty structure, pointed Gothic in style, consciously reproduced with all the aids of flying buttresses, niches, pinnacles, and arches. It was doubtless a splendid gift. Perhaps in the twenty-first century, when the weather has done its architectural work on the exterior, and when the interior has been finely dimmed with burned incense, when stained glass and sculptured effigies of saints have been donated by future dukes, it will be a very imposing edifice indeed. But all the beauty of ecclesiastical picturesqueness lies across the way. Hidden behind the lovely beech-arched gateway rests the old parochial church. In spite of restoration the age of six centuries is written unmistakably on the massive square bell-tower, the thirteenth-century traceries, and the rich old glass. It is guarded by a high wall from the adjoining castle-walls, as if the castle still feared there were something dangerously infectious in the mere propinquity of such heresies. It has had its turn at the sieges that have beset the castle. From the old tower there came a rattling hail when Waller's artillery flashed forth its fire upon the Royalist garrison in the castle. The old bells that peal out the Sunday chimes seem to retain something of the jubilant spirit of that martial time. There was a brisk military vigor in their clanging, suggestive of command rather than of entreaty, as if they were more at home when summoning fighters than worshipers. All is peace now. The old church sits in the midst of its graves, like an old patriarch surrounded by the dead whom he has survived.... In looking up at the castle from the river, as a foreground, one has a lovely breastwork of trees, the castle resting on the crown of the hill like some splendid jewel. Its grayness makes its strong, bold outlines appear the more distinct against the melting background of the faint blue and white English sky and the shifting sky scenery.... The earliest Saxon who built his stronghold where the castle now stands must have had an eye for situation, pictorially considered, as well as that keen martial foresight which told him that the warrior who commanded the first hill from the sea, with that bastion of natural fortifications behind him, the Downs, had the God of battle already ranged on his side. The God of battle has been called on, in times past, to preside over a number of military engagements which have come off on this now peaceful hillside. There have been few stirring events in English history in which Arundel Castle has not had its share. As Norman barons, the Earls of Arundel could not do less than the other barons of their time, and so quarreled with their king. When the Magna Charta was going about to gain signers, these feudal Arundel gentlemen figured in the bill, so to speak. The fine Baron's Hall, which commemorates this memorable signing, in the castle yonder, was built in honor of those remote but far-sighted ancestors. The Englishman, of course, has neither the vanity of the Frenchman nor the pride of the Spaniard. But for a modest people, it is astonishing what a number of monuments are built to tell the rest of the world how free England is. The other events which have in turn destroyed or rent the castle--its siege and surrender to Henry I., the second siege by King Stephen, and later the struggle of the Cavaliers and Roundheads for its possession, during the absence abroad of the then reigning Earl--have been recorded with less boastful emphasis. The recent restorations, rebuildings, and enlargements have obliterated all traces of these rude shocks. It has since risen a hundred times more beautiful from its ruins. It is due to these modern renovations that the castle presents such a superb appearance. It has the air of careful preservation which distinguishes some of the great royal residences--such as Windsor, for instance, to which it has often been compared; its finish and completeness suggests the modern chisel. It is this aspect of completeness, as well as the unity of its fine architectural features, which makes such a great castle as this so impressive. As a feudal stronghold it can hardly fail to appeal to the imagination. As the modern palatial home of an English nobleman, it appeals to something more virile--to the sense that behind the medieval walls the life of its occupants is still representative, is still deep and national in importance and significance. Pictorially, there is nothing--unless it be a great cathedral, which brings up quite a different order of impressions and sensations--that gives to the landscape such pictorial effect as a castle. PENSHURST [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."] BY WILLIAM HOWITT England, among her titled families, can point to none more illustrious than that of Sidney. It is a name which carries with it the attestation of its genuine nobility. Others are of older standing in the realm. It is not one of those to be found on the roll of Battle Abbey. The first who bore it in England is said to have come hither in the reign of Henry III. There are others, too, which have mounted much higher in the scale of mere rank; but it may be safely said that there is none of a truer dignity, nor more endeared to the spirits of Englishmen. Of this distinguished line, the most illustrious and popular was unquestionably Sir Philip. The universal admiration that he won from his contemporaries is one of the most curious circumstances of the history of those times. The generous and affectionate enthusiasm with which he inspired both his own countrymen and foreigners, has, perhaps, no parallel.... The first view which I got of the old house of Penshurst, called formerly both Penshurst Place and Penshurst Castle, was as I descended the hill opposite to it. Its gray walls and turrets, and high-peaked and red roofs rising in the midst of them; and the new buildings of fresh stone, mingled with the ancient fabric, presented a very striking and venerable aspect. It stands in the midst of a wide valley, on a pleasant elevation; its woods and park stretching away beyond, northward; and the picturesque church, parsonage, and other houses of the village, grouping in front. From whichever side you view the house, it strikes you as a fitting abode of the noble Sidneys. Valleys run out on every side from the main one in which it stands; and the hills, which are everywhere at some distance, wind about in a very pleasant and picturesque manner, covered with mingled woods and fields, and hop-grounds. The house now presents two principal fronts. The one facing westward, formerly looked into a court, called the President's Court, because the greater part of it was built by Sir Henry Sidney, the father of Sir Philip, and Lord President of the Council established in the Marches of Wales. The court is now thrown open, and converted into a lawn surrounded by a sunk fence, and overlooking a quiet valley of perhaps a mile in length, terminated by woody hills of great rural beauty. This front, as well as the northern one, is of great length. It is of several dates and styles of architecture. The façade is of two stories, and battlemented. The center division, which is of recent erection, has large windows of triple arches, with armorial shields between the upper and lower stories. The south end of the façade is of an ancient date, with smaller mullioned windows; the northern portion with windows of a similar character to those in the center, but less and plainer. Over this façade shows itself the tall gable of the ancient banqueting-hall which stands in the inner court. At each end of this façade projects a wing, with its various towers of various bulk and height; some square, of stone, others octagon, of brick, with a great diversity of tall, worked chimneys, which, with steep roofs, and the mixture of brick-work and stone-work all through the front, give a mottled, but yet very venerable aspect to it. The north and principal front, facing up the park, has been restored by its noble possessor, and presents a battlemented range of stone buildings of various projections, towers, turrets, and turreted chimneys, which, when the windows are put in, which is not yet fully done, will have few superiors among the castellated mansions of England.... In the center of the inner court stands the old banqueting-hall, a tall gabled building with high red roof, surmounted with the ruins of a cupola, erected upon it by Mr. Perry, who married the heiress of the family, but who does not seem to have brought much taste into it. On the point of each gable is an old stone figure--the one a tortoise, the other a lion couchant--and upon the back of each of these old figures, so completely accordant with the building itself, which exhibits under its eaves and at the corners of its windows numbers of those grotesque corbels which distinguish our buildings of an early date, both domestic and ecclesiastical, good Mr. Perry clapped a huge leaden vase which had probably crowned aforetime the pillars of a gateway, or the roof of a garden-house.... The south side of the house has all the irregularity of an old castle, consisting of various towers, projections, buttresses, and gables. Some of the windows show tracery of a superior order, and others have huge common sashes, introduced by the tasteful Mr. Perry aforesaid. The court on this side is surrounded by battlemented walls, and has a massy square gatehouse leading into the old garden, or pleasaunce, which sloped away down toward the Medway, but is now merely a grassy lawn, with the remains of one fine terrace running along its western side.... The old banqueting-hall is a noble specimen of the baronial hall of the reign of Edward III., when both house and table exhibited the rudeness of a martial age, and both gentle and simple revelled together, parted only by the salt. The floor is of brick. The raised platform, or dais, at the west-end, advances sixteen feet into the room. The width of the hall is about forty feet, and the length of it about fifty-four feet. On each side are tall Gothic windows, much of the tracery of which has been some time knocked out, and the openings plastered up. At the east end is a fine large window, with two smaller ones above it; but the large window is, for the most part, hidden by the front of the music gallery. In the center of the floor an octagon space is marked out with a rim of stone, and within this space stands a massy old dog, or brand-iron, about a yard and a half wide, and the two upright ends three feet six inches high, having on their outer sides, near the top, the double broad arrow of the Sidney arms. The smoke from the fire, which was laid on this jolly dog, ascended and passed out through the center of the roof, which is high, and of framed oak, and was adorned at the spring of the huge groined spars with grotesque projecting carved figures, or corbels, which are now taken down, being considered in danger of falling, and are laid in the music gallery. IV ENGLISH LITERARY SHRINES STRATFORD-ON-AVON [Footnote: From "The Sketch Book." Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.] BY WASHINGTON IRVING Thou soft flowing Avon, by thy silver stream Of things more than mortal sweet Shakespeare would dream; The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, For hallowed the turf is which pillowed his head. GARRICK. I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My first visit was to the house where Shakespeare was born, and where, according to tradition, he was brought up to his father's craft of wool-combing. It is a small, mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster, a true nestling-place of genius, which seems to delight in hatching its offspring in by-corners. The walls of its squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions in every language, by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and conditions, from the prince to the peasant; and present a striking instance of the spontaneous and universal homage of mankind to the great poet of nature. The house is shown by a garrulous old lady, in a frosty red face, lighted up by a cold blue anxious eye, and garnished with artificial locks of flaxen hair, curling from under an exceedingly dirty cap. She was peculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the relics with which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds. There was the shattered stock of the very matchlock with which Shakespeare shot the deer, on his poaching exploits. There, too, was his tobacco-box; which proves that he was a rival smoker of Sir Walter Raleigh; the sword also with which he played Hamlet; and the identical lantern with which Friar Laurence discovered Romeo and Juliet at the tomb! There was an ample supply also of Shakespeare's mulberry-tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers of self-multiplication as the wood of the true cross; of which there is enough extant to build a ship of the line. The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is Shakespeare's chair. It stands in the chimney-nook of a small gloomy chamber, just behind what was his father's shop. Here he may many a time have sat when a boy, watching the slowly-revolving spit, with all the longing of an urchin; or, of an evening, listening to the crones and gossips of Stratford, dealing forth churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of the troublesome times in England. In this chair it is the custom of everyone who visits the house to sit: whether this be done with the hope of imbibing any of the inspiration of the bard, I am at a loss to say; I merely mention the fact; and mine hostess privately assured me that, tho built of solid oak, such was the fervent zeal of devotees, that the chair had to be new-bottomed at least once in three years. From the birthplace of Shakespeare a few paces brought me to his grave.... We approached the church through the avenue of limes, and entered by a Gothic porch, highly ornamented with carved doors of massive oak. The interior is spacious, and the architecture and embellishments superior to those of most country churches. There are several ancient monuments of nobility and gentry, over some of which hang funeral escutcheons, and banners dropping piecemeal from the walls. The tomb of Shakespeare is in the chancel. The place is solemn and sepulchral. Tall elms wave before the pointed windows, and the Avon, which runs at a short distance from the walls, keeps up a low perpetual murmur. A flat stone marks the spot where the bard is buried. There are four lines inscribed on it, said to have been written by himself, and which have in them something extremely awful. If they are indeed his own, they show that solicitude about the quiet of the grave which seems natural to fine sensibilities and thoughtful minds: "Good friend, for Jesus' sake, forbeare To dig the dust inclosèd here. Blessed be he that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones." The inscription on the tombstone has not been without its effect. It has prevented the removal of his remains from the bosom of his native place to Westminster Abbey, which was at one time contemplated. A few years since also, as some laborers were digging to make an adjoining vault, the earth caved in, so as to leave a vacant space almost like an arch, through which one might have reached into his grave. No one, however, presumed to meddle with the remains so awfully guarded by a malediction; and lest any of the idle or the curious, or any collector of relics, should be tempted to commit depredations, the old sexton kept watch over the place for two days, until the vault was finished, and the aperture closed again. He told me that he had made bold to look in at the hole, but could see neither coffin nor bones; nothing but dust. It was something, I thought, to have seen the dust of Shakespeare. I had now visited the usual objects of a pilgrim's devotion, but I had a desire to see the old family seat of the Lucy's at Charlecot, and to ramble through the park where Shakespeare, in company with some of the roisterers of Stratford, committed his youthful offense of deer-stealing. The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding park still remain in the possession of the Lucy family, and are peculiarly interesting from being connected with this whimsical but eventful circumstance in the scanty history of the bard. As the house stood at little more than three miles' distance from Stratford, I resolved to pay it a pedestrian visit, that I might stroll leisurely through some of those scenes from which Shakespeare must have derived his earliest ideas of rural imagery. My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the Avon, which made a variety of the most fanciful doublings and windings through a wide and fertile valley; sometimes glittering from among willows, which fringed its borders; sometimes disappearing among groves, or beneath green banks; and sometimes rambling out into full view, and making an azure sweep around a slope of meadow land. This beautiful bosom of country is called the Vale of the Red Horse. A distant line of undulating blue hills seems to be its boundary, while all the soft intervening landscape lies in a manner enchained in the silver links of the Avon. After pursuing the road for about three miles, I turned off into a foot-path, which led along the borders of fields and under hedgerows to a private gate of the park; there was a stile, however, for the benefit of the pedestrian; there being a public right of way through the grounds. I delight in these hospitable estates, in which everyone has a kind of property--at least as far as the foot-path is concerned. I now found myself among noble avenues of oaks and elms, whose vast size bespoke the growth of centuries. The wind sounded solemnly among their branches, and the rooks cawed from their hereditary nests in the tree tops. The eye ranged through a long lessening vista, with nothing to interrupt the view but a distant statue, and a vagrant deer stalking like a shadow across the opening. I had now come in sight of the house. It is a large building of brick, with stone quoins, and is in the Gothic style of Queen Elizabeth's day, having been built in the first year of her reign. The exterior remains very nearly in its original state, and may be considered a fair specimen of the residence of a wealthy country gentleman of those days. A great gateway opens from the park into a kind of courtyard in front of the house, ornamented with a grass-plot, shrubs, and flower-beds. The gateway is in imitation of the ancient barbican; being a kind of outpost and flanked by towers; tho evidently for mere ornament, instead of defense. The front of the house is completely in the old style; with stone shafted casements, a great bow-window of heavy stone work, and a portal with armorial bearings over it, carved in stone. At each corner of the building is an octagon tower, surmounted by a gilt ball and weathercock. The Avon, which winds through the park, makes a bend just at the foot of a gently sloping bank, which sweeps down from the rear of the house. Large herds of deer were feeding or reposing upon its borders; and swans were sailing majestically upon its bosom. After prowling about for some time, I at length found my way to a lateral portal, which was the every-day entrance to the mansion. I was courteously received by a worthy old housekeeper, who, with the civility and communicativeness of her order, showed me the interior of the house. The greater part has undergone alterations, and been adapted to modern tastes and modes of living; there is a fine old oaken staircase; and the great hall, that noble feature in an ancient manor-house, still retains much of the appearance it must have had in the days of Shakespeare. The ceiling is arched and lofty; and at one end is a gallery, in which stands an organ. The weapons and trophies of the chase, which formerly adorned the hall of a country gentleman, have made way for family portraits. There is a wide hospitable fire-place, calculated for an ample old-fashioned wood fire, formerly the rallying place of winter festivity. On the opposite side of the hall is the huge Gothic bow-window, with stone shafts, which looks out upon the court-yard. Here are emblazoned in stained glass the armorial bearings of the Lucy family for many generations, some being dated in 1558.... I regretted to find that the ancient furniture of the hall had disappeared; for I had hoped to meet with the stately elbow-chair of carved oak, in which the country Squire of former days was wont to sway the scepter of empire over his rural domains; and in which might be presumed the redoubted Sir Thomas sat enthroned in awful state, when the recreant Shakespeare was brought before him. As I like to deck out pictures for my entertainment, I pleased myself with the idea that this very hall had been the scene of the unlucky bard's examination on the morning after his captivity in the lodge. I fancied to myself the rural potentate, surrounded by his body-guard of butler, pages, and the blue-coated serving-men with their badges; while the luckless culprit was brought in, forlorn and chapfallen, in the custody of game-keepers, huntsmen, and whippers-in, and followed by a rabble rout of country clowns. I fancied bright faces of curious housemaids peeping from the half-opened doors; while from the gallery the fair daughters of the Knight leaned gracefully forward, eying the youthful prisoner with that pity "that dwells in womanhood." Who would have thought that this poor varlet, thus trembling before the brief authority of a country Squire, and the sport of rustic boors, was soon to become the delight of princes; the theme of all tongues and ages; the dictator to the human mind; and was to confer immortality on his oppressor by a caricature and a lampoon! I now bade a reluctant farewell to the old hall. My mind had become so completely possest by the imaginary scenes and characters connected with it, that I seemed to be actually living among them. Everything brought them as it were before my eyes; and as the door of the dining-room opened, I almost expected to hear the feeble voice of Master Silence quavering forth his favorite ditty: "Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all, And welcome merry Shrove-tide!" On returning to my inn, I could not but reflect on the singular gift of my poet; to be able thus to spread the magic of his mind over the very face of nature; to give to things and places a charm and character not their own, and to turn this "working-day world" into a perfect fairy land. He is indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart. Under the wizard influence of Shakespeare I had been walking all day in complete delusion. I had surveyed the landscape through the prism of poetry, which tinged every object with the hues of the rainbow. I had been surrounded with fancied beings; with mere airy nothings, conjured up by poetic power; yet which, to me, had all the charm of reality. I had heard Jacques soliloquize beneath his oak; had beheld the fair Rosalind and her companion adventuring through the woodlands; and, above all, had been once more present in spirit with fat Jack Falstaff, and his contemporaries, from the august Justice Shallow down to the gentle Master Slender, and the sweet Anne Page. NEWSTEAD ABBEY [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By permission of, and by arrangement with, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1870-1898.] BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE Our drive to Newstead lay through what was once a portion of Sherwood Forest, tho all of it, I believe, has now become private property, and is converted into fertile fields, except where the owners of estates have set out plantations.... The post-boy calls the distance ten miles from Nottingham. He also averred that it was forbidden to drive visitors within the gates; so we left the fly at the inn, and set out to walk from the entrance to the house. There is no porter's lodge; and the grounds, in this outlying region, had not the appearance of being very primly kept, but were well wooded with evergreens, and much overgrown with ferns, serving for cover for hares, which scampered in and out of their hiding-places. The road went winding gently along, and, at the distance of nearly a mile, brought us to a second gate, through which we likewise passed, and walked onward a good way farther, seeing much wood, but as yet nothing of the Abbey. At last, through the trees, we caught a glimpse of its battlements, and saw, too, the gleam of water, and then appeared the Abbey's venerable front. It comprises the western wall of the church, which is all that remains of that fabric, a great, central window, entirely empty, without tracery or mullions; the ivy clambering up on the inside of the wall, and hanging over in front. The front of the inhabited part of the house extends along on a line with this church wall, rather low, with battlements along its top, and all in good keeping with the ruinous remnant. We met a servant, who replied civilly to our inquiries about the mode of gaining admittance, and bade us ring a bell at the corner of the principal porch. We rang accordingly, and were forthwith admitted into a low, vaulted basement, ponderously wrought with intersecting arches, dark and rather chilly, just like what I remember to have seen at Battle Abbey; and, after waiting here a little while, a respectable elderly gentlewoman appeared, of whom we requested to be shown round the Abbey. She courteously acceded, first presenting us to a book, in which to inscribe our names. I suppose ten thousand people, three-fourths of them Americans, have written descriptions of Newstead Abbey; and none of them, so far as I have read, give any true idea of the place; neither will my description, if I write one. In fact, I forget very much that I saw, and especially in what order the objects came. In the basement was Byron's bath--a dark and cold and cellar-like hole, which it must have required good courage to plunge into; in this region, too, or near it, was the chapel, which Colonel Wildman has decorously fitted up, and where service is now regularly performed, but which was used as a dogs' kennel in Byron's time. After seeing this, we were led to Byron's own bed-chamber, which remains just as when he slept in it--the furniture and all the other arrangements being religiously preserved. It was in the plainest possible style, homely, indeed, and almost mean--an ordinary paper-hanging, and everything so commonplace that it was only the deep embrasure of the window that made it look unlike a bed-chamber in a middling-class lodging-house. It would have seemed difficult, beforehand, to fit up a room in that picturesque old edifice so that it should be utterly void of picturesqueness; but it was effected in this apartment, and I suppose it is a specimen of the way in which old mansions used to be robbed of their antique character, and adapted to modern tastes, before medieval antiquities came into fashion. Some prints of the Cambridge colleges, and other pictures indicating Byron's predilections at the time, and which he himself had hung there, were on the walls. This, the housekeeper told us, had been the Abbot's chamber, in the monastic time. Adjoining it is the haunted room, where the ghostly monk whom Byron introduces into "Don Juan," is said to have his lurking-place. It is fitted up in the same style as Byron's, and used to be occupied by his valet or page. No doubt, in his lordship's day, these were the only comfortable bedrooms in the Abbey; and by the housekeeper's account of what Colonel Wildman has done, it is to be inferred that the place must have been in a most wild, shaggy, tumble-down condition, inside and out, when he bought it. It is very different now. After showing us these two apartments of Byron and his servant, the housekeeper led us from one to another and another magnificent chamber, fitted up in antique style, with oak paneling, and heavily carved bedsteads, of Queen Elizabeth's time, or of the Stuarts, hung with rich tapestry curtains of similar date, and with beautiful old cabinets of carved wood, sculptured in relief, or tortoise-shell and ivory. The very pictures and realities, these rooms were, of stately comfort; and they were called by the names of kings--King Edward's, King Charles II.'s, King Henry VII.'s, chamber; and they were hung with beautiful pictures, many of them portraits of these kings. The chimney-pieces were carved and emblazoned; and all, so far as I could judge, was in perfect keeping, so that if a prince or noble of three centuries ago were to come to lodge at Newstead Abbey, he would hardly know that he had strayed out of his own century. And yet he might have known by some token, for there are volumes of poetry and light literature on the tables in these royal bed-chambers, and in that of Henry VII. I saw "The House of the Seven Gables," and "The Scarlet Letter," in Routledge's edition. Certainly the house is admirably fitted up; and there must have been something very excellent and comprehensive in the domestic arrangements of the monks, since they adapt themselves so well to a state of society entirely different from that in which they originated. The library is a very comfortable room, and provocative of studious ideas, tho lounging and luxurious. It is long, and rather low, furnished with soft couches, and, on the whole, tho a man might dream of study, I think he would be most likely to read nothing but novels there. I know not what the room was in monkish times, but it was waste and ruinous in Lord Byron's. Here, I think, the housekeeper unlocked a beautiful cabinet, and took out the famous skull which Lord Byron transformed into a drinking-goblet. It has a silver rim and stand, but still the ugly skull is bare and evident, and the naked inner bone receives the wine. There was much more to see in the house than I had any previous notion of; but except the two chambers already noticed, nothing remained the least as Byron left it. Yes, another place there was--his own small dining-room, with a table of moderate size, where, no doubt, the skull-goblet has often gone its rounds. Colonel Wildman's dining-room was once Byron's shooting-gallery, and the original refectory of the monks. It is now magnificently arranged, with a vaulted roof, a music-gallery at one end, suits of armor and weapons on the walls, and mailed arms extended, holding candelabras. We parted with the housekeeper, and I with a good many shillings, at the door by which we entered; and our next business was to see the private grounds and gardens. A little boy attended us through the first part of our progress, but soon appeared the veritable gardener--a shrewd and sensible old man, who has been very many years on the place. There was nothing of special interest as concerning Byron until we entered the original old monkish garden, which is still laid out in the same fashion as the monks left it, with a large oblong piece of water in the center, and terraced banks rising at two or three different stages with perfect regularity around it; so that the sheet of water looks like the plate of an immense looking-glass, of which the terraces form the frame. It seems as if, were there any giant large enough, he might raise up this mirror and set it on end. In the monks' garden, there is a marble statue of Pan, which the gardener told us, was brought by the "Wicked Lord" (great-uncle of Byron) from Italy, and was supposed by the country people to represent the devil, and to be the object of his worship--a natural idea enough, in view of his horns and cloven feet and tail, tho this indicates at all events, a very jolly devil. There is also a female statue, beautiful from the waist upward, but shaggy and cloven-footed below, and holding a little cloven-footed child by the hand. This, the old gardener assured us was Pandora, wife of the above-mentioned Pan, with her son. Not far from this spot, we came to the tree on which Byron carved his own name and that of his sister Augusta. It is a tree of twin stems,--a birch-tree, I think--growing up side by side. One of the stems still lives and flourished, but that on which he carved the two names is quite dead, as if there had been something fatal in the inscription that has made it for ever famous. The names are still very legible, altho the letters had been closed up by the growth of the bark before the tree died. They must have been deeply cut at first. There are old yew-trees of unknown antiquity in this garden, and many other interesting things; and among them may be reckoned a fountain of very pure water, called the "Holly Well," of which we drank. There are several fountains, besides the large mirror in the center of the garden; and these are mostly inhabited by carp, the genuine descendants of those which peopled the fishponds in the days of the monks. Coming in front of the Abbey, the gardener showed us the oak that Byron planted, now a vigorous young tree; and the monument which he erected to his Newfoundland dog, and which is larger than most Christians get, being composed of a marble, altar-shaped tomb, surrounded by a circular area of steps, as much as twenty feet in diameter. The gardener said, however, that Byron intended this, not merely as the burial-place of his dog, but for himself, too, and his sister. HUCKNALL-TORKARD CHURCH [Footnote: From "Gray Days and Gold." By permission of, and by arrangement with, the publishers, Moffat, Yard & Co. Copyright by William Winter, 1890-1911.] [Byron's Grave] BY WILLIAM WINTER It was near the close of a fragrant, golden summer day when, having driven from Nottingham, I alighted in the market-place of the little town of Hucknall-Torkard, on a pilgrimage to the grave of Byron. The town is modern and commonplace in appearance,--a straggling collection of low brick dwellings, mostly occupied by colliers. On that day it appeared at its worst; for the widest part of its main street was filled with stalls, benches, wagons, and canvas-covered structures for the display of vegetables and other commodities, which were thus offered for sale, and it was thronged with rough, noisy, dirty persons, intent on barter and traffic, and not indisposed to boisterous pranks and mirth, as they pushed and jostled each other among the crowded booths. This main street terminates at the wall of the graveyard in which stands the little gray church wherein Byron was buried. There is an iron gate in the center of the wall, and in order to reach this it was necessary to thread the mazes of the marketplace, and to push aside the canvas flaps of a pedler's stall which had been placed close against it. Next to the churchyard wall is a little cottage, with a bit of garden, devoted, at that time, to potatoes; and there, while waiting for the sexton, I talked with an aged man, who said that he remembered, as an eye-witness, the funeral of Byron. He stated his age and said that his name was William Callandyne. Pointing to the church, he indicated the place of the Byron vault. "I was the last man," he said, "that went down into it before he was buried there. I was a young fellow then, and curious to see what was going on. The place was full of skulls and bones. I wish you could see my son; he's a clever lad, only he ought to have more of the _suaviter in modo_." Thus, with the garrulity of wandering age, he prattled on, but his mind was clear and his memory tenacious and positive. There is a good prospect from the region of Hucknall-Torkard Church, and pointing into the distance, when his mind had been brought back to the subject of Byron, my aged interlocutor described, with minute specification of road and lane,--seeming to assume that the names and the turnings were familiar to me,--the course of the funeral train from Nottingham to the church. "There were eleven carriages," he said. "They didn't go to the Abbey" (meaning Newstead), "but came directly here. There were many people to look at them. I remember all about it, and I'm an old man--eighty-two. You're an Italian, I should say," he added. By this time the sexton had come and unlocked the gate, and parting from Mr. Callandyne we presently made our way into the Church of St. James, locking the churchyard gate to exclude rough and possibly mischievous followers. A strange and sad contrast, I thought, between this coarse, turbulent place, by a malign destiny ordained for the grave of Byron, and that peaceful, lovely, majestic church and precinct at Stratford-upon-Avon which enshrine the dust of Shakespeare.... The sexton of the Church of St. James and the parish clerk of Hucknall-Torkard was Mr. John Brown, and a man of sympathetic intelligence, kind heart, and interesting character I found him to be,--large, dark, stalwart, but gentle alike in manner and feeling, and considerate of his visitor. The pilgrim to the literary shrines of England does not always find the neighboring inhabitants either sympathetic with his reverence or conscious of especial sanctity or interest appertaining to the relics which they possess; but honest, manly John Brown of Hucknall-Torkard understood both the hallowing charm of the place and the sentiment, not to say the profound emotion, of the traveler who now beheld for the first time the tomb of Byron. The church has been considerably altered since Byron was buried in it, 1824, yet it retains its fundamental structure and its ancient peculiarities. The tower, a fine specimen of Norman architecture, dark, ragged, and grim, gives indication of great age. It is of a kind often met with in ancient English towns; you can see its brothers at York, Shrewsbury, Canterbury, Worcester, Warwick, and in many places sprinkled over the northern heights of London; but amid its tame surroundings in this little colliery settlement it looms with a peculiar frowning majesty, a certain bleak loneliness, both unique and impressive. The edifice is of the customary crucial form,--a low stone structure, having a peaked roof, which is supported by four great pillars on each side of the center aisle. The ceiling, which is made of heavy timbers, forms almost a true arch above the nave. There are four large windows on each side of the nave, and two on each side of the chancel, which is beneath a roof somewhat lower than that of the main building. Under the pavement of the chancel, and back of the altar rail,--at which it was my privilege to kneel while gazing upon this sacred spot,--is the grave of Byron.... Nothing is written on the stone that covers his sepulcher except the simple name of BYRON with the dates of his birth and death, in brass letters, surrounded by a wreath of leaves in brass, the gift of the King of Greece; and never did a name seem more stately or a place more hallowed. The dust of the poet reposes between that of his mother on his right hand, and that of his Ada,--"sole daughter of my house and heart,"--on his left. The mother died on August 1, 1811; the daughter, who had by marriage become the Countess of Lovelace, in 1852. "I buried her with my own hands," said the sexton, John Brown, when, after a little time, he rejoined me at the altar-rail. "I told them exactly where he was laid when they wanted to put that brass on the stone; I remembered it well, for I lowered the coffin of the Countess of Lovelace into this vault, and laid her by her father's side." And when presently we went into the vestry, he produced the Register of Burials and displayed the record of that interment in the following words: "1852. Died at 69 Cumberland Pl. London. Buried December 3. Aged thirty-six.--Curtis Jackson." The Byrons were a short-lived race. The poet himself had just turned thirty-six; his mother was only forty-six when she passed away. This name of Curtis Jackson in the register was that of the rector or curate then incumbent but now departed.... A book has been kept for many years, at the church of Hucknall-Torkard, in which visitors desiring to do so, can write their names. The first book provided for this purpose was an album given to the church by the poet, Sir John Bowling, and in that there was a record of visitations during the years from 1825 to 1834.... The catalog of pilgrims to the grave of Byron during the last eighty years is not a long one. The votaries of that poet are far less numerous than those of Shakespeare. Custom has made the visit to Stratford "a property of easiness," and Shakespeare is a safe no less than a rightful object of worship. The visit to Hucknall-Torkard is neither as easy nor as agreeable. Torkard is neither as easy nor as agreeable.... On the capital of a column near Byron's tomb I saw two moldering wreaths of laurel, which had hung there for several years; one brought by the Bishop of Norwich, the other by the American poet Joaquin Miller. It was good to see them, and especially to see them beside the tablet of white marble which was placed on that church wall to commemorate the poet, and to be her witness in death, by his loving and beloved sister Augusta Mary Leigh,--a name that is the synonym of noble fidelity, a name that cruel detraction and hideous calumny have done their worst to tarnish. That tablet names him "The Author of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," and if the conviction of thoughtful men and women throughout the world can be accepted as an authority, no name in the long annals of English literature is more certain of immortality than the name of Byron. His reputation can afford the absence of all memorial to him in Westminster Abbey,--can endure it, perhaps, better than the English nation can,--and it can endure the neglect and censure of the precinct of Nottingham. That city rejoices in many interesting associations, but all that really hallows it for the stranger is its association with the name of Byron. The stranger will look in vain, however, for any adequate sign of his former connection with that place. It is difficult even to find prints or photographs of the Byron shrine, in the shops of Nottingham. [Footnote: Since this paper was written the buildings that flanked the front wall of Hucknall-Torkard churchyard have been removed, the street in front of it has been widened, and the church has been "restored" and considerably altered.--Author's note to the Editor.] DR. JOHNSON'S BIRTHPLACE [Footnote: From "Our Old Home." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.] BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE Seeking for Dr. Johnson's birthplace, I found it in St. Mary's Square (Lichfield), which is not so much a square as the mere widening of a street. The house is tall and thin, of three stories, with a square front and a roof rising steep and high. On a side-view, the building looks as if it had been cut in two in the midst, there being no slope of the roof on that side. A ladder slanted against the wall, and a painter was giving a livelier hue to the plaster. In a corner-room of the basement, where old Michael Johnson may be supposed to have sold books, is now what we should call a dry-goods store, or, according to the English phrase, a mercer's and haberdasher's shop. The house has a private entrance on a cross-street, the door being accessible by several much worn stone-steps, which are bordered by an iron balustrade. I set my foot on the steps and laid my hand on the balustrade, where Johnson's hand and foot must many a time have been, and ascending to the door, I knocked once, and again, and again, and got no admittance. Going round to the shop-entrance, I tried to open it, but found it as fast bolted as the gate of Paradise. It is mortifying to be so balked in one's little enthusiasms; but looking round in quest of somebody to make inquiries of, I was a good deal consoled by the sight of Dr. Johnson himself, who happened, just at that moment, to be sitting at his ease nearly in the middle of St. Mary's Square, with his face turned toward his father's house. Of course, it being almost fourscore years since the doctor laid aside his weary bulk of flesh, together with the ponderous melancholy that had so long weighed him down--the intelligent reader will at once comprehend that he was marble in his substance, and seated in a marble chair, on an elevated stone-pedestal. In short, it was a statue, sculptured by Lucas, and placed here in 1838, at the expense of Dr. Law, the reverend chancellor of the Diocese. The figure is colossal (tho perhaps not much more so than the mountainous doctor himself) and looks down upon the spectator from its pedestal of ten or twelve feet high, with a broad and heavy benignity of aspect, very like in feature to Sir Joshua Reynold's portrait of Johnson, but calmer and sweeter in expression. Several big books are piled up beneath his chair, and, if I mistake not, he holds a volume in his hand, thus blinking forth at the world out of his learned abstraction, owl-like, yet benevolent at heart. The statue is immensely massive, a vast ponderosity of stone, not finely spiritualized, nor indeed, fully humanized, but rather resembling a great stone-boulder than a man. You must look with the eyes of faith and sympathy, or possibly, you might lose the human being altogether, and find only a big stone within your mental grasp. On the pedestal are three bas-reliefs. In the first, Johnson is represented as hardly more than a baby, bestriding an old man's shoulders, resting his chin on the bald head which he embraces with his little arms, and listening earnestly to the high-church eloquence of Dr. Sacheverell. In the second tablet, he is seen riding to school on the shoulders of two of his comrades, while another boy supports him in the rear. The third bas-relief possesses, to my mind, a great deal of pathos, to which my appreciative faculty is probably the more alive, because I have always been profoundly imprest by the incident here commemorated, and long ago tried to tell it for the behoof of childish readers. It shows Johnson in the market-place of Uttoxeter, doing penance for an act of disobedience to his father, committed, fifty years before. He stands bare-headed, a venerable figure, and a countenance extremely sad and wo-begone, with the wind and rain driving hard against him, and thus helping to suggest to the spectator the gloom of his inward state. Some market-people and children gaze awe-stricken into his face, and an aged man and woman, with clapsed and uplifted hands, seem to be praying for him. These latter personages (whose introduction by the artist is none the less effective, because, in queer proximity, there are some commodities of market-day in the shape of living ducks and dead poultry,) I interpreted to represent the spirits of Johnson's father and mother, lending what aid they could to lighten his half-century's burden of remorse. I had never heard of the above-described piece of sculpture before; it appears to have no reputation as a work of art, nor am I at all positive that it deserves any. For me, however, it did as much as sculpture could under the circumstances, even if the artist of the Libyan Sibyl had wrought it, by reviving my interest in the sturdy old Englishman, and particularly by freshening my perception of a wonderful beauty and pathetic tenderness in the incident of the penance. The next day I left Lichfield for Uttoxeter, on one of the few purely sentimental pilgrimages that I ever undertook, to see the very spot where Johnson had stood. Boswell, I think, speaks of the town (its name is pronounced Yuteox'eter) as being about nine miles off from Lichfield, but the county-map would indicate a greater distance; and by rail, passing from one line to another, it is as much as eighteen miles. I have always had an idea of old Michael Johnson sending his literay merchandise by carrier's wagon, journeying to Uttoxeter afoot on market-day morning, selling "books" through the busy hours, and returning to Lichfield at night. This could not possibly have been the case. Arriving at the Uttoxeter station, the first objects that I saw, with a green field or two between them and me, were the tower and gray steeple of a church, rising among red-tiled roofs and a few scattered trees. A very short walk takes you from the station up into the town. It had been my previous impression that the market-place of Uttoxeter lay immediately round about the church; and, if I remember the narrative aright, Johnson, or Boswell in his behalf, describes his father's book-stall as standing in the market-place close beside the sacred edifice. It is impossible for me to say what changes may have occurred in the topography of the town, during almost a century and a half since Michael Johnson retired from business, and ninety years, at least, since his son's penance was performed. But the church has now merely a street of ordinary width passing around it, while the market-place, tho near at hand, neither forms a part of it nor is really contiguous, nor would its throng and bustle be apt to overflow their boundaries and surge against the churchyard and the old gray tower. Nevertheless, a walk of a minute or two brings a person from the center of the market-place to the church-door; and Michael Johnson might very conveniently have located his stall and laid out his literary ware in the corner at the tower's base; better there, indeed, than in the busy center of an agricultural market. But the picturesque arrangement and full impressiveness of the story absolutely require that Johnson shall not have done his penance in a corner, ever so little retired, but shall have been the very nucleus of the crowd--the midmost man of the market-place--a central image of Memory and Remorse, contrasting with and overpowering the petty materialism around him. He himself, having the force to throw vitality and truth into what persons differently constituted might reckon a mere external ceremony, and an absurd one, would not have failed to see this necessity. I am resolved, therefore, that the true site of Dr. Johnson's penance was in the middle of the market-place. How strange and stupid it is that tradition should not have marked and kept in mind the very place! How shameful (nothing less than that) that there should be no local memorial of this incident, as beautiful and touching a passage as can be cited out of any human life! No inscription of it, almost as sacred as a verse of Scripture on the wall of the church! No statue of the venerable and illustrious penitent in the market-place to throw a wholesome awe over its earthliness, its frauds and petty wrongs of which the benumbed fingers of conscience can make no record, its selfish competition of each man with his brother or his neighbor, its traffic of soul-substance for a little worldly gain! Such a statue, if the piety of the people did not raise it, might almost have been expected to grow up out of the pavement of its own accord on the spot that had been watered by the rain that dript from Johnson's garments, mingled with his remorseful tears. 
42958	----	[Illustration: MUCKROSS BAY, KILLYBEGS, DONEGAL] ULSTER Described by Stephen Gwynn Pictured by Alexander Williams [Illustration] BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY 1911 Beautiful Ireland LEINSTER ULSTER MUNSTER CONNAUGHT _Uniform with this Series_ Beautiful England OXFORD THE ENGLISH LAKES CANTERBURY SHAKESPEARE-LAND THE THAMES WINDSOR CASTLE CAMBRIDGE NORWICH AND THE BROADS THE HEART OF WESSEX THE PEAK DISTRICT THE CORNISH RIVIERA DICKENS-LAND WINCHESTER THE ISLE OF WIGHT CHESTER AND THE DEE YORK TABLE OF CONTENTS Page AT THE GAP OF THE NORTH 5 "THE BLACK NORTH" 13 THE MAIDEN CITY 28 TIRCONNELL 37 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Muckross Bay, Killybegs, Donegal _Frontispiece_ Narrow Water Castle, Carlingford Lough 8 Cave Hill, Belfast 14 Carrickfergus Castle, Belfast Lough 20 The Giants' Causeway 26 Fair Head, Co. Antrim 32 Londonderry from the Waterside 36 Tory Island from Falcarragh Hill, Donegal 42 Muckish and Ards from Rosapenna, Sheephaven, Donegal 46 Mount Errigal from the Gweedore River, Donegal 50 Glenveagh, Donegal 54 The Entrance to Mulroy Bay, Donegal 58 [Illustration: ULSTER] AT THE GAP OF THE NORTH Ulster is a province much talked of and little understood--a name about which controversy rages. But to those who know it and who love it, one thing is clear--Ulster is no less Ireland than Connaught itself. No better song has been written in our days than that which tells of an Irishman's longing in London to be back "where the mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea"; nor indeed is the whole frame of mind which that song dramatises, with so pleasant a blending of humour and pathos, better expressed in any single way than in the phrase "thinking long"--an idiom common to all Ulster talk, whether in Down or Donegal. And when I who write these lines "think long" for Ireland, it is to Ulster that my thought goes back, back to the homely ways and the quaint speech of northern folk, hard yet kindly, with the genial welcome readier even in their rough accent than in smoothest Munster: for these things there rises in my mind the vague aching, half-remembrance, half-desire, which we call "thinking long". It is a far cry from Belfast, with its clang of riveters, to the vast loneliness of Slieve League or Dunlewy; and yet the great captain of industry, nurtured and proven in the keenest commerce, has upon his tongue, in his features, in the whole cast of his nature, these very traits which endear themselves to me in some Irish-speaking schoolmaster of western Donegal. Soil, climate, and common memories--these are what identify and what bind. No man gets his living too easily in Ulster, and need makes neighbourly. Protestant and Catholic have to fight the same battle with hard weather--of which perhaps even the summer traveller may form some judgment; they are rewarded by the same loveliness which makes a fine day in Ulster the most enchanting upon earth; and they fend against the stress of storm by the same warm shelter, the same glow of the turf-piled hearth. The Ulster of which I shall write in these few pages is the Ulster of four sea-bordering counties only, Donegal, Derry, Antrim, and Down, since beyond doubt these exceed the other five in attractions. Only let a word be said of two great lakes. Lough Erne, which belongs mainly to Fermanagh, though bordering Donegal in part, is to its champions the Cinderella of Irish waters, and some day it will come into its inheritance of fame. Lough Neagh, with its eighty miles of shore, divided among five counties, has never been seen by me but in tranquil loveliness, one vast sheet of shimmering blue; and whether at Antrim, where many memories have their monuments, or at Toomebridge, where the Bann flows out majestically, has seemed well worth a day's journey--the more because its beauty is set among lands not fertile, yet prosperously tilled and inhabited by people, not rich indeed, yet safely removed from the stress of poverty. Not far from it is Armagh, a cathedral city, richer in associations than any in Ireland. If I do not write of Armagh, it is because the oldest of these associations has its monument also at the southern gate of Ulster, where the division of the province is best marked. Carlingford Lough, according to modern geography, marks that division, but in truth the lough's southern shore, the rocky promontory of Cooley, belongs to Ulster by all titles, though it be included in the modern county of Louth. A steamer will carry you from Holyhead to Greenore (where is a hotel with the inevitable golf links) and land you nominally in Leinster. But all that mountainous headland is inhabited by folk who still keep the Gaelic speech alive among them, and whose remote forbears owned in far distant times the overlordship of Ireland's most famous champion, when Ulster had a pagan chivalry, the Red Branch Circle, which is to Irish legend what the story of Arthur's knighthood is to British romance, or the tale of the Nibelungs to Germany. Cooley (in Irish, _Cuailgne_) was the fief of Cuchulain; and the Brown Bull of Cooley was the object of that great foray made by the rest of Ireland upon Ulster, which is related in the oldest and finest of all Celtic hero tales. Cuchulain's dwelling was outside Cooley, outside Ulster proper; his stronghold was Dundealgan, the "Thorn Fort" which gives its name to Dundalk. It was an outpost guarding that pass in the hills, the gap of the north, through which the railway, leaving the plains of Leinster, winds into the mountainous and threatening regions of Armagh and Down. [Illustration: NARROW WATER CASTLE, CARLINGFORD LOUGH] All the story of Cuchulain's hero-feats can be read in Lady Gregory's admirable version, _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_; but Cuchulain's fort you can see for yourself. It stands close to the town of Dundalk, visible from the railway, a flat-topped mount, surrounded by a trench some thirty feet deep, with a steep outer rampart surrounding this in its turn. The whole is now tree-covered. Mr. Tempest, an antiquary of Dundalk, whose exertions have saved this monument from the spade and plough, thinks that he has identified, a couple of miles south of Dundalk, the place where Cuchulain died. Cloghafarmore, the "Big Man's Stone", at Ratheddy is one of the "standing stones" found through Ireland, as through other Celtic countries, and tradition identifies it with the pillar to which Cuchulain made his way from his last fight. For ninety days, he and his charioteer Laeg, and his pair of horses, Black Sanglain and the Grey of Macha, had harassed and held back the host of Ireland, destroying champion after champion, singly or by groups, in fights at each ford, and raining missiles upon the main body with marvellous sling-throwing; but at last, encompassed and at bay, he had got his death-wound with his own charmed spear, which passed through the bodies of nine men in its last flight from his hand. When, flung back at him by Lugaidh, last survivor of the sons whose father Cuchulain had slain, it had ripped his body open, the wounded warrior, holding his bowels together with one hand, staggered to this pillar stone, and bound himself to it by his scarf, so that even in death and defeat he might still stand upright. So he stood propped, while the Grey of Macha, loosed from its harness, defended him with teeth and hoof, letting none approach, till men saw that on the hero's shoulder a raven had lighted. "It is not on that pillar birds were used to settle", said one of his foemen. Then the grey horse knew that life had ebbed away, and she left the body to its despoilers. But the man who struck off Cuchulain's head, and took it with him, had his own head struck off by a comrade of the Red Branch before he reached the plains of Liffey. Such is the fierce temper of that old hero-cycle; but if its heroes are not to be outdone in fierceness neither are they in generosity. How much is legend, sheer invention, none can say: the great earthworks at Armagh, Cuchulain's fort at Dundealgan, and a hundred other things testify to a truth behind the tale. And it is fairly well established that the race which had its centre at Armagh was not the race which governed from Tara: the Red Branch was Pictish, Tara was Milesian. How distinct the racial types show where they have survived tolerably pure is hardly realized, save by some such chance as befell me, when, at an exhibition in Limerick, I was summoned to look at a strange foreign folk from the north. They were girls from an Irish-speaking district in Donegal--not far from Rosapenna--pretty girls, too, but among the big, buxom, oval-faced, soft-bodied Southerners their short profiles, their high cheek bones, and hard, bright colour showed as strange as if they had been from another quarter of the world. All the subsequent stages in Irish history meet you about the shores of Carlingford--Carline-fiord; its name tells of Danish settlements. The old castle in Carlingford town was erected by de Courcy at King John's bidding; the monastery was Norman built too, by Richard de Burgo, Earl of Ulster, but the Norman rule in Ulster was closely limited to a few strongholds on the coast. The Narrow Water Castle, which Mr. Williams has drawn against its background of the steep richly wooded slopes which make the chief beauty of this beautiful lough, is on the site of a thirteenth-century fortress, but that was destroyed in the Great War of 1641, and this building dates from Charles II's reign. At Warrenpoint a tall obelisk records the name of Ross of Bladensburg, one of the many brilliant officers whom Ireland gave to Wellington's armies--with how many thousands of the unnamed peasants to fill the ranks that they led! All those wooded hills behind Rostrevor, the little watering-place that nestles snug among them, looking south to the sun and the hills of Cooley, speak of comfortable days and territorial dominion. Behind those same wooded hills lies the southernmost point of industrial Ulster, Newry town, with its whirring looms. These are some of the stepping-stones to guide one through Irish history; yet how many more might be added! Where the road and rail strike north from Dundalk, as they rise to that pass which is the famous Gap, you reach Faughart, scene of the battle where Edward Bruce ended his disastrous adventure of conquest in Ireland. And on the plain below, William and Schomberg had their camp and mustered their army before it set out to march upon the Boyne. Memories of war--Pict and Connachtman contending for Cuchulain's head; the Dane plundering and trading; the Norman building his strongholds; the Scot heading Ireland's endeavour to shake off the Norman yoke; that other convulsion in 1641, and then new castles built; the Dutchman landing, and his triumphant march; and from the subdued Ireland, thousands, tens of thousands, of soldiers, gentle and simple, issuing forth to uphold the English name. Yes, but other memories are there too. Some maintain that here Patrick landed on his mission. But at all events at Faughart, in the fifth century, Brigid was born, the "Mary of the Gael", "mother of all the saints of Ireland". Her work was done in Leinster, but surely her birthplace here on the threshold of Ulster should not be overlooked. "THE BLACK NORTH" I shall assume that from Dundalk and its neighbouring beauty, that narrow lough winding among the hills, you go straight to Belfast, with the glorious range of Mourne Mountains on your right hand to make the journey attractive. At "Portadown upon the Bann", where the Pope has a bad name, you are not far from the focus of the industrial north--at all events of the great linen industry. From the train you will see fields white as snow with bleaching webs; and it is said that one cause of this trade's localization is a special suitability of climate, like that which makes Lancashire head of the world for cotton-spinning. Belgium can beat Ireland in producing flax--can get 50 per cent more for the same weight of finished fibre--but in the spinning and weaving Ulster is unapproachable. Unhappily, as in all textile trades, the individual withers and the machine grows more and more: hand-loom damask weavers, who can still make a product marvellous for craftsmanship, find their occupation gone--the machine runs them too close. What the linen trade has been worth to Ulster can never be counted. It was the one industry which England's jealousy spared, and even (after long refusal) grudgingly fostered, in those very decades when her manufacturers were urging Parliament to stamp out and destroy the woollen trade. Its existence preserved in this corner of the country that industrial habit which means not only an inherited skill but the transmitted aptitude for factory work, with its regular hours and mechanical routine, so unlike the conditions of labour on the land, in which all the rest of Ireland has found--since 1800--its only resource. Even agriculture has been helped by the proximity of towns where all, down to the labouring classes, have money to buy with. The district which centres about Portadown is to-day foremost of all Ireland for the culture of fruit and flowers, though neither climate nor soil specially favours it. One beauty that Ulster has far more generally than any other province is the flower-bordered cottage. They grow orange lilies in fine profusion, but they grow other and less emblematic blossoms as well. [Illustration: CAVE HILL, BELFAST] Belfast--when you reach it--is not calculated to charm the eye. It has the features of any English manufacturing town so far as its buildings are concerned, and the finest structures it can show (without disparaging its handsome Town Hall) are the vast fabrics which rise in the dockyards, such ships as have never been built in the world before--marvels of symmetry and strength. To see them in the building up is to watch, perhaps, the most impressive exhibition of human skill and energy. Ireland, for all its defective development, can boast of heading the world in certain enterprises: Guinness's brewery, Harland and Wolff's engineering works, and Barbour's great net and rope factory at Lisburn are, each in its kind, the biggest and best in Europe, or out of it. Once you get down to the water in Belfast, beauty is abundant, and for my part I like best the view from the docks. But Mr. Williams has chosen a distant indication of the town under the bold headland, at whose foot it lies so well. This aspect of Cave Hill does not show its strange feature--the vast Napoleonic profile flung up against an eastern sky. Time was when Belfast must have been curiously divided about that portent; for in the Revolution period northern Ireland was fiercely republican. It was on Cave Hill that Wolfe Tone, most formidable of all Irish rebels, with a group of young Ulster democrats, founded the Society of United Irishmen. Belfast does not dwell much on these memories to-day, nor indeed on any memories; her interest is in the prosperous present, the growing future. And although it has its absurdities, notably in the claim to be more populous than Dublin (a result achieved by omitting Rathmines and Pembroke, townships separately governed, but as much part of Dublin as Kensington and Chelsea are of London), the strong pride of Belfast is amply justified. It is not its proximity to Scotch coalfields nor its moist climate (dear to spinners) which really makes its fortune, it is the hard-bitten, restless, courageous spirit of its people. Like Dublin, it has close access to places of great natural charm. Just beyond Cave Hill, on the north shore of the lough, is Carrickfergus Castle, whose grim strength Mr. Williams has excellently suggested. It was built within six years of the Norman invasion, by de Courcy, first grantee of Ulster; and here, as at Carlingford, the invaders managed to retain their grip. The Bruces wrested it, after a fierce siege, from de Lacy, who then held it, Robert Bruce aiding his brother; but on Edward Brace's defeat it fell back to the English. In the ultimate conquest of Ireland it marked a great moment, for here William of Orange landed, and pious care has recorded the flagstone on which he first set his foot. At Carrickfergus you are already well advanced on the prettiest road in all Ireland--that which skirts the northern shore of Belfast Lough, then, crossing the neck of Island Magee peninsula, carries you past Larne's inland water, and from Larne follows the cliffy shoreline up to where Fair Head marks the northern limit of Antrim's eastward-looking coast. Then, cutting in behind the Head, it emerges on the pleasant town of Ballycastle, sheltered in its bay, and so follows the coast again past the castles of Dunseverick and Dunluce, famous ruins, and past the Giant's Causeway, that still more famous piece of an older and more majestic architecture. Portrush ends your journey if you be a golfer; but dearer to me than the links at Portrush are the sandhills beyond Portstewart and the long strand at the entrance to Lough Foyle--ten miles of a stretch, but the Bann's outflow divides it. No other beach that I have known is rich in such a variety of shells; on no other sandhills do the little delicate sandflowers, ladies'-slipper, thyme, ladies'-bedstraw, and the rest, grow so charmingly. Now, in all that long coastline what to write about? First, perhaps, its geography. A line of high hills, or low mountains, runs north from Belfast, and beyond Larne they approach close to the sea. Westward of them is prosperous industrial country, draining into Lough Neagh or the Bann--a country of thriving towns, Ballymena and Ballymoney, with many factories. But east of this is the marginal land, running steeply down with short watercourses to the sea, and this is the country of the Glens of Antrim; lordship of the MacDonnells, who were also Lords of the Isles. The sea here--_Sruth na Maoile_, the Stream of the Moyle, is a link rather than a barrier; you could row across with no great danger in a skin-covered boat; and at this point the Gael of Alba and the Gael of Eire have been always one race. The Irish that I heard spoken by old men whom a Feis of the Glens had gathered together in Glen Ariff was few removes in sound and even in idiom from the Highland speech; and all tradition, whether Ossianic, in the stories of Finn and his companions, or that older cycle of the Red Branch, brings the Scotch islands and west coast into full touch with Irish legend. It was to the Isle of Skye that Cuchulain went for his training, to be taught by a woman warrior--whose name that island keeps as the Coolin Hills preserve his name; it was from the Scottish shore that Cuchulain's son by the daughter of this warrior-queen came over to contend with the Red Branch heroes, refusing his name in order--so the deserted witch designed it--that his father, the one man able to master him, might unknowingly slay his own son. I took down from the lips of an Ulster peasant, not able to read or write, and perhaps with ten generations behind him of folk who never used the pen, the carefully guarded text of a poem framed not later (from its language) than the fifteenth century, which told the tragedy of that slaying. There is a touch in that ballad fine as any I know, when the dying lad says to his vanquisher: "Cuchulain, beloved father, How is it you did not know me When I flung my spear so sluggishly Against your bristling blade?" That was the only sign he could give. Knowing himself, knowing his antagonist, yet sworn not to reveal the secret, he could only make a cast so half-hearted that surely Cuchulain might pause to wonder whether it was indeed an enemy who threw the spear. These legends linking the coasts together suggest the charm of that eastern shore; not the magic of infinite distance, not the Atlantic's illimitable blue, but a continual tempting of the eye with that shore beyond the sea, sometimes not visible at all, often faint, an exquisite mirage, yet sometimes so vivid and distinct that you can discern even the whitewashed cabins on the farther side. The mountains of the glens have no marvel of beauty. Slemish, lying back from the rest, is best marked, with its flat top, which is indeed evidently the crater of some volcano, forced up in the wild convulsion that has left its other traces in the basalt of Fair Head and the Causeway. Marked, too, it is in history; for on its slopes Patrick in captivity herded his master Dichu's swine. Yet this was on the landward of the hills, in the valley of the Braid, which drains west into Lough Neagh, and stands outside the grouping of the glens. Tibullia, another peak easily discerned, is distinguished by having on its summit a formation of flints where man of the Stone Age had a regular factory; chipped and flaked implements, marred in the making, can be found there (by the knowing) in basketfuls. But the true distinction of these hills is that they have found their poet. Samuel Ferguson first in his ballad of "Willy Gilliland" (which has its climax by the walls of Carrickfergus) celebrated the stretch of green "from Slemish foot to Collon top". But it is a later singer, the poetess, "Moira O'Neill", who in her _Songs of the Glens of Antrim_, has made all their names resound: from "Slemish and Trostan, dark with heather", to "ould Lurgethan" where it "rises green by the sea". And not the hills only but the glens--Glenann, for which the emigrant "does be thinking long"; "lone Glen Dun and the wild glen flowers", with the little town at the outflow of its river, Cushendun, _Cois-an-duin_, Dun-foot. Her volume should be in the hands of every traveller in the glens, unless its verses are already written in his memory. [Illustration: CARRICKFERGUS CASTLE, BELFAST LOUGH] This Antrim coast has one charm distinguishing it above the rest of Ireland--its variety of geological formation. At the foot of Glen Ariff, Red Bay is called after the sandstone cliffs past which the road is cut, and in one place the rock makes an arch near an old castle. There is a cave, too, at various times inhabited. At Fair Head one reaches the basalt, and this huge promontory faces the sea with cliffs whose columnar formation gives that odd suggestion of human workmanship which reaches its climax at the Causeway. This black basalt with the numberless fissures is a good rock for birds to build in, but a very bad and treacherous dependence for those who climb to pry after their nests. Beyond the Causeway comes a line of white chalk cliff, such as is familiar to all in the south of England, but very strange to us in Ireland; though the sea off the Antrim coast is too deep to have that opaline appearance--as though milk were spilt into it--which the Margate tripper knows. I have never yet been able to bring myself to write about the Causeway, which is a geological freak very curious to look at, and quite worth the sixpence you have to pay for admission, since a company enclosed it some years ago. But in Ireland we expect to have our cliff scenery free. The guides there will tell visitors plenty of comic stories about Finn MacCool. But Finn, in authentic Irish legend, is not a comic figure: he is the centre of the Ossianic tales. That country north of the glens--which stop at Ballycastle, where Glen Shesk and Glen Tow have their meeting--is called the Route, and so keeps alive a memory of a period older than the Ossianic legends. Dal Riada, or Dal Reuda, that is, the "Portion of Reuda", was the name given to a principality established by one Reuda, who about the second century broke off with a body of followers from the kingdom of Ulster, and established rule on both sides of the narrow seas. Reuda was of the Pictish race, probably; and here in the north the Picts held out longest against the invading Milesians, who came (according to modern theories) drilled foot soldiers, to defeat the earlier chariot-fighting warriors. But the Milesians pushed their conquest here also in about the sixth century, and Fergus, an offshoot of the northern Hy-Neill (Sons of Niall), the dominant Milesian house, made a petty kingdom for himself on both shores; and from him the kings of Scotland traced their descent. This prince, Fergus Mac Erc, has left his name on the Irish coast, for Carrickfergus is shown as the rock on which he came to wreck, when sent adrift by tempest in one of his crossings between the two portions of his kingdom. Shortly after its establishment, this kingship, or chieftainship, lost its Irish character and centred in Scotland. But relations were constant--though by no means constantly friendly--and the Lords of the Isles held Rathlin Island for many centuries. However near the Irish coast this island lies--only divided by some five miles from the base of Fair Head--the sound between it and the mainland is so dangerous, with its racing tides, as to be an effectual barrier; and very often passage may be easier made from the Scotch coast than from the bay of Ballycastle. At all events, the Mac Donnells owned Rathlin when Robert Bruce needed a refuge, and the castle is still there in which the Bruce sheltered for seven years--and in which it was that he watched the spider's patience and drew the moral for his own far-off designs. The Mac Donnells were one of three great clans who divided a disputed lordship in Ulster before Ulster (last of the provinces) was finally subdued. The Mac Donnell lordship was the least authoritative and (although it traced descent to the sixth century) the latest in date. O'Neill and O'Donnell, the true Gaelic overlords of Ulster, sprang from two sons of Niall of the Nine Hostages, High King of Ireland from 379 to 405. Of their sons, Conall settled himself on Donegal Bay, and Eoghan (or Owen) on the Inishowen hills. Tyrconnell--_Tir Chonaill_--takes its name from the one son; Tyrone--_Tir Eoghain_--from the other. About these centres power grouped itself, each chief having sub-chiefs or _urraghts_ under him, each with his own sept. It was only in the tenth century when Brian Boru was High King that the hereditary surnames came to be adopted--O'Neill for the lord of Tyrone, O'Donnell for the princes of Tyrconnell. Their country was remote of access, difficult of passage for troops; their people were hardy; and so it happened that in the reign of Henry VIII, and even of Elizabeth, when all else in Ireland had been fairly brought within British sovereignty (even the O'Briens of Thomond submitting) O'Neill and O'Donnell could still hold their own. But mutual jealousies and border feuds weakened the Gael; the O'Neills were the strongest people, yet the O'Donnells on one flank and the Mac Donnells on the other often sought advantage by English alliance. Shane O'Neill, perhaps the most dangerous foe that Elizabeth had to meet in Ireland, of whom Sir Henry Sidney wrote that "this man could burn, if he liked, up to the gates of Dublin, and go away unfought", met his crushing defeat at the hand of Irish enemies, the O'Donnells, who routed him on the Swilly river near Letterkenny; and in his trouble he fled to unfriends on the other side, the Mac Donnells, in whose camp at Cushendun he was poniarded, and his head sold to the English. Yet after his day another O'Neill, Hugh the great Earl of Tyrone, levied desperate war on the English, in close league with a successor of the O'Donnell who defeated Shane; and though the Mac Donnells gave them no direct assistance, they also made an effort at that time to throw off the invader's yoke. The history of Ireland under Elizabeth is largely the history of war with these three clans--and a shameful history it is, full of horrible records of treachery and cruelty. Each of the three peoples threw up remarkable leaders in the final struggles under the Tudors, and no figure of those days is more notable than the MacDonnell chief, Somhairle Buidhe, "Yellow Charles", Sorley Boy, as the English wrote him: and often the State Papers had occasion to write his name between 1558, when he came to lordship of the North, and 1590, when he died (singularly enough) a natural death in his own castle of Duneynie and was buried among all the Mac Donnells in the Abbey at Bonamargy near Ballycastle. Two sayings of his are memorable. They showed him the head of his son impaled above the gate of Dublin Castle. "My son," he retorted, "has many heads." And in truth that stock sprung up like nettles after cutting.--Elizabeth, in one of the phases of her diplomacy, sought to enlist this warrior on her side, and sent him a patent for his estates and chieftaincy as Lord of the Pale, engrossed on parchment. They brought him the writing to his castle of Dunluce, and he hacked the scroll to shreds. "With the sword I won it," he said; "I will never keep it with the sheepskin." Nevertheless, time brought him counsel, and when Sir John Perrot, Henry VIII's bastard, came and battered Dunluce with cannon, Sorley, now eighty years of age, made his submission and travelled to Dublin, to pay his homage to the Queen's picture, going on his knees to kiss the embroidered pantoufle on the royal foot. After his death, his son Randal joined the rising of Hugh O'Neill and Hugh O'Donnell; but when that last great effort to throw off England's power was foiled by the defeat at Kinsale, the Mac Donnell made submission, and Elizabeth's successor, James, who after all had a natural kindness for the Mac Donnells (seeing that they were to the last Scotch rather than Irish) accepted his submission and endowed him with the whole territory from the Cutts of Coleraine to the Curran of Larne. Dunluce, which stands on a projecting rock, approached only by a narrow footway over a very deep natural trench, has to stand a battery more continuous than Perrot's cannon could bring to bear. The sea is under it, for a cave pierces the rock, and wind and wave are for ever straining at the old fortress. Part of it fell in 1639, and to-day they say the whole ruin is menaced with collapse; and, since it stands in private grounds, no public authority can intervene to save it. [Illustration: THE GIANTS' CAUSEWAY] For some heads the crossing of that wall into Dunluce has a danger; and a fall would be serious. But the real test of resistance to giddiness can be made at the famous hanging bridge which joins the mainland with the island rock of Carrickarede, near Port Ballintoy. The bridge consists of planks laid two abreast, and lashed to ropes; a single rope is the only handrail. The people use it to get out to their nets and boats for the salmon fishing, which are kept out here, and also, since there is grass on the island, for carrying sheep across on their backs. For my own part I stepped on to it readily enough; but when it bent down steeply under me, and inclined to swing, the surprise was not pleasant. And though I forced myself to cross it a second time, back and forward, to convince myself that there was no necessity for qualms, I cannot say that the qualms wholly disappeared. As for carrying a sheep over, or a bale of nets, heaven defend me! But I never heard that anyone, native or tourist, drunk or sober, came to grief there! The drop is about eighty feet into deep water between cliffs. THE MAIDEN CITY Adjoining the Route, and divided from it by the River Bann, is County Derry, which was once the territory of the O'Cahans, chief _urraghts_ or sub-chiefs of the O'Neills. When the O'Neill was by adoption of the clans installed after the Irish usage at Tullaghogue in County Tyrone, it was the O'Cahan who performed the ceremony of inauguration. With these facts two memories connect themselves for me. The first is that when the Gaelic League was established, to save the language of Ireland from oblivion and decay, amongst those who joined it was the Reverend Dr. Kane, a mighty orator on every Twelfth of July, when the anniversary of the Boyne is celebrated. "I may be an Orangeman," he wrote, "but I do not forget that I am an O'Cahan." Many of us who did not share his politics cherish his memory for that saying. The other associated idea for me is that, once setting out with other nationalist speakers, I was followed by a strong body of police. Asking why, I was told they were to prevent an attack on us in Tullaghogue, which is now a strong Orange centre! Coleraine is where you join the train to get to Derry, and the rail skirts the shore of Lough Foyle--easternmost of the great succession of sea loughs which make the distinctive beauty of Donegal. Inishowen, its western shore, is included in that county by English geography, though this peninsula never formed part of Tyrconnell. Its lordship was always disputed between O'Neill and O'Donnell, and the best evidence of its separateness is given by the ecclesiastical boundary, which here, as always, follows the old tribal demarcation. All the rest of Donegal is comprised in the diocese of Raphoe, but Inishowen falls under the see of Derry. One result of that was traceable in the fact that _poteen_ (illicit whisky) was freely procurable in Inishowen long after its manufacture had ceased in any other part of Donegal; for the austere decree which the present bishop of Raphoe--an O'Donnell and a ruler of men--proclaimed against this "smuggling" had no effect east of the Swilly, though throughout Tyrconnel it was heard and obeyed, to the great advantage of his people, whom the old traffic (which I remember flourishing in spite of law and police, fines, seizures, and imprisonments) had seriously demoralized. Derry and Raphoe have for a century been in the Protestant Church one united see, and in the days before disestablishments, made a princely preferment. You can see the proof of it at Castlerock, where the line from Coleraine strikes out on the shore of Lough Foyle by the long Magilligan strand. Here is Downhill, the seat built in the eighteenth century by that amazing prelate Lord Augustus Adolphus Hervey, Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, who took a leading and not a very pacific part in organizing the volunteers and in winning Ireland's legislative independence. "He appeared always", says Sir Jonah Barrington, "dressed with peculiar care and neatness, generally entirely in purple, and he wore diamond knee and shoe buckles; but what I most observed was that he wore white gloves with gold fringe round the wrists and large gold tassels hanging from them." A troop of horse headed by his nephew used to escort him everywhere and to mount guard at his door. Later, growing tired of Ireland, he migrated to Italy on the plea of ill health; and though many of his costly purchases were sent home to Downhill, where unhappily a fire destroyed the most valuable, he never came back, but remained abroad (says the austere Lecky, himself born on the shore of Lough Foyle), "adopting the lax moral habits of Neapolitan society", and in extreme old age writing letters to Emma, Lady Hamilton, "in a strain of most unepiscopal fervour". There are no such bishops nowadays, but my childhood was familiar with the last of Lord Bristol's successors under the old order--the late Bishop Alexander, most eloquent of divines, afterwards Primate of Ireland. His talents brought him to the episcopate, while still a young man, only a year or two before disestablishment, and the life-interest in his £12,000 a year came to be compounded, not only for his own benefit, but for that of the Church. While the financial negotiation was still in progress, my father, then rector of a parish in Donegal, and financier-in-chief to the diocese, sent his bishop out for a day's driving in charge of a young curate, and trysted to meet them on Mulroy Bay. Arrived there, he saw with dismay the bishop, not on land but afloat, being sculled by the curate through the numberless rocks and swirling currents of Mulroy in a battered curragh--a hundred thousand pounds of ecclesiastical capital divided from submersion by a piece of tarred calico. And the famous orator, even at that period of his life, could not have weighed less than eighteen stone. Long years after, the curate, become venerable in his turn, remembered and recalled for me the rating which he received when at last he landed his passenger. Another memory from the same source may be worth recalling. Downhill is the house which Charles Lever describes in his novel, _The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly_, though the story has no historic connection with the house or any of its inmates. But Lever knew this "Bishop's Folly" in the days when he was a dispensary doctor at Portstewart, and my father remembers well how _Harry Lorrequer_ came out by instalments in the _Dublin Morning Magazine_, with what delight he heard them read aloud, and how sudden was the addition of interest when one day the news came in that the anonymous author was no other than their own dispensary doctor--the brilliant young collegian for whom a place had been suddenly created in this outlying village during one of the visitations of cholera. After that, whenever the doctor came to call, a shy boy used to creep into the drawing-room and ensconce himself, apparently with a book, out of sight behind a sofa, where, undisturbed by apprehensions, he could be all ears for the rattling talk of that wonderful tale-teller. Lever learnt a good deal in Portstewart from a neighbour, W. H. Maxwell, author of _Wild Sport of the West_, who lived in those days at Portrush. But it was the west and south of Ireland that always drew Lever--his florid taste in incident and humour found its choice elsewhere than in the discreet greys and browns of Ulster character. And east of Lough Foyle he was still in the Ulster which politicians mean--the country of the plantations. Derry is in reality its frontier town, though the Scotch strain and the Protestant element ramify out from Derry a certain distance into Donegal. [Illustration: FAIR HEAD, CO. ANTRIM] But the frontier town, like all frontier towns in a country that has been much fought over, keeps an intense, militant, and aggressive character. Derry stands for the extreme type of Protestant assertion--oddly enough, for in the beginning of its history, it was the monastic seat, Doire Coluimchille, "Columba's Oakgrove", to which that great apostle of Christianity looked back from his mission overseas--"thinking long" in Iona for-- "Derry mine, my own oakgrove, Little cell, my home, my love". There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of that Irish poem, transmitted in ancient manuscript, which a scholar has thus translated--Columba's lyric cry towards the Ireland which he had left. Yet, after all, the new is more to us than the old, and Derrymen have good right to be proud of Derry walls. The famous siege was a great event, the resistance was indeed heroic, though I think that popular fame has selected the wrong man to be the centre of hero-worship. A tall column which rises from the walls behind the bishop's palace is Walker's monument, and Walker was no soldier but an elderly, loquacious, and somewhat vain, preacher. If contemporary records are any safe guide, the true organizer and inspirer of that long resistance was Murray--whose fame, I am glad to say, is kept alive by a Murray club. Yet the man who best of all, perhaps, deserves commemoration has no memorial in Derry. The siege had lasted from April 18, and on June 13 the town was already starving when a fleet was sighted in Lough Foyle. Kirke, who commanded it, lay outside, intimidated by the defences of the narrow channel. So it went on for six weeks; but there was at least one Derry man with the fleet who could brook the delay no longer. This was Captain Browning, of the _Mountjoy_, and he insisted that attempts should be made to run the batteries and to break the boom, whose site is still preserved in the name "Boom Hall". The _Mountjoy_ was a merchant-man, and another, the _Phoenix_, of Coleraine, joined the venture, and a frigate was sent with them to help in drawing the enemy's fire. The _Mountjoy_, with Browning himself at the helm, headed straight for the boom under full sail, struck it, and with the impact the boom gave. But the shock caused a rebound which flung the ship back on a mudbank, and at the same moment Browning was shot down at his post. The _Phoenix_ had slipped already through the gap and was away with her full cargo of meal. Boats were out from the forts to seize the _Mountjoy_; but she fired a broadside, and the recoil lifted her off the bank, and she too slipped through, carrying the body of her dying skipper to the wharf of the city which his courage and determination had rescued from famine and from enforced surrender. Life stayed in him long enough to let him hear the cries of welcome, to know that the goal was reached, the blockade broken, and his city saved, before the rush of blood from his pierced lungs finally choked him: and surely no man ever died a more enviable death. Yet in truth it was the people who had rescued themselves. In the previous month of December, before hostilities were really declared, King James had been imbecile enough to withdraw the troops which held the city. A fresh garrison under Lord Antrim was marching in, and was seen actually outside the walls. The city fathers deliberated; it was thirteen prentice boys of the town who armed themselves, rushed to the Ferryquay gate, seized the keys, and locked it in the teeth of Antrim's men, when they were within sixty yards of the entrance. This deed is commemorated annually on December 18th, when Lundy, the officer who commanded in James's interest, is duly burnt in effigy--or used to be. Nowadays Catholic and Protestant are so evenly balanced in the "Maiden City" that such demonstrations risk a formidable riot, and are accordingly kept in check. But the embers are always hot, and crave wary walking. Once a concert was being held, "strictly non-sectarian", and it had been decided to omit "God save the King", which in Ireland is made into a party tune. All went off smoothly, and the building was being emptied, when suddenly war rose. The organist, a stranger, had thought it would be proper to play the people out with "Auld Lang Syne"--not knowing that to this tune is sung "Derry Walls", most aggressive of Protestant melodies. Derry walls are there, broad and solid--you can drive a coach on them. But, what is more important, you can there find the best entertainment that I know in Ireland. A little hotel, whose doorway gives on to the east wall, is kept by Mrs. MacMahon, and all persons of understanding go there to get the kind of meal which you may hope for in the pleasantest north of Ireland country home: the fruits of the earth, the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, each according to his kind (not omitting Lough Swilly oysters), with the home-made bread, which is one of Ulster's greatest charms. It is not an elaborate modern hotel. If it were, you would not get the sort of entertainment that I describe; but to stay there is to get an insight, and a most happy insight, into the homeliness, the hospitality, the shrewdness, and the good housewifery of Ulster. [Illustration: LONDONDERRY FROM THE WATERSIDE] TIRCONNELL Donegal has become to-day the best pleasure ground in Ireland. Second only to Kerry in natural beauty, and superior to it in grandeur, for Kerry has no cliff scenery to compare with Slieve League and Horn Head, it has far more variety of resource than the southern county--or, in two words, it has golf and Kerry has not; and it has much more free fishing. It is equipped as a playground, and as a playground I shall write of it--with this preface. When I was a boy, between thirty and forty years ago, there were only two passable hotels west of Lough Swilly, Lord George Hill's at Gweedore, and Mr. Connolly's at Carrick. Both of these were built for men who wanted to fish and shoot; and to reach them meant in literal truth a day's journey into the wilderness. There was no railway in the county except the little line from Derry to Buncrana; and it was the regular usage for strangers to bring introductions which got them hospitality from the resident gentry. I remember scores of such casual visitors at the big, old rectory where I was brought up. To-day there is hardly any point in the county more than ten miles distant from a rail--Irish miles of course, and hilly ones. But when the train takes you from Derry to Burtonport, curving in behind Lough Swilly, and following all the northern coast to its extreme remotest corner, you may fume, as I have often fumed, at the vagaries of that wonderful organization; you may think it amazing to be a matter of three hours late in a journey of four hours, as has happened to me; still, it is well to remember how you might have had to drive the same distance on an outside car in such wind and rain as Donegal can furnish. And of course the delays I speak of are probably not so usual as at the first wild beginnings of that traffic. No longer, probably, will you see the engine driver getting out to replenish his supply of fuel from a wayside turf stack; no longer will you need to scour the whole countryside for a truckload of luggage casually mislaid. It is only fair to add that where I finally unearthed our possessions was at a mountain siding near two excellent salmon pools, with which I then became acquainted and where I subsequently caught fish. If the engine does break down anywhere on that run there is sure to be a little river within a mile or so, and it is quite worth putting up your rod and going out to have a try; at least one man to my knowledge returned triumphantly with a good salmon--the messenger sent to fetch him having come in handy to gaff it. But in all seriousness tourists have got to remember that these lines are not there for holiday traffic. Goods and passengers travel together, and the real purpose of the whole is to give a market to the thousands of cottagers along that wild yet populous shore. What it means is that the coast fisherman who nets a salmon now can sell it for perhaps twopence a pound less than it will fetch in Billingsgate--tenpence, a shilling even, for summer fish. In the old days there was no one to give him more than perhaps a shilling for his whole fish. And in truth in the old days a Donegal peasant hardly conceived that he could be the legitimate possessor of a salmon. That is the real change. In the days that I remember, the country was owned by the landlords, was governed by them and by their agents, with assistance from the Church of Ireland clergy. To-day a great part of the land is owned by the people who till it; it is all governed by them. And in increasing measure they own even the game, most jealously guarded of seigniorial rights. Take, for example, the little town of Milford. I remember it a miserable line of hovels, with only two decent buildings, the agent's house and the always imposing police barrack. To-day it has an excellent hotel, and every look of prosperity. I remember when every soul in it and for ten miles round was in the grip of a really tyrannical landlord, whose murder, when it ultimately came, was indeed an act of what Bacon calls "wild justice". Much of the improvement visible here is due to the able and courageous man who succeeded the "old lord". But, good landlord or bad landlord, no man can ever again hold that countryside at his pleasure, cowering under the threat of eviction. Rent is fixed by a court, and while a man pays his rent he is irremovable. And within a short period every man will be paying, not rent, but instalments of purchase for the land which he and his predecessors have worked--which in nine cases out of ten they have reclaimed from bog and barren moor. With the ownership of the land the game rights must ultimately go, and in many cases already they have gone. The hotel proprietor at Milford, an enterprising man, had, I found, bargained with not a few tenant purchasers for the exclusive fishing of little lakes in their property and for the shooting over their moors and bogs. That is the attraction which he has to offer to visitors, who, now that the country is opened up, come in shoals. On Lough Fern, the big lake adjoining, it was unusual to see two boats fishing, three made a rarity. Now, in summer, there will be fifteen or sixteen out. And not only that, but boats have been put on seven or eight of the numberless smaller lakes and bogholes which nobody ever fished at all, except once in a blue moon, when a curragh would be carted over. Some of them breed good trout, and now these are being stocked with a new strain of fish. All this means the circulation of money in the country where poverty before was universal, where famine even was not unknown. A failure of the potato crop to-day is a grievous loss: thirty years ago it meant something like starvation. What took me to Milford the other day was significant of the new order. I was with a departmental committee appointed to consider how the fisheries of Ireland would be affected by the substitution of peasant proprietary for landlord ownership; and our main purpose was to emphasize the value of the interests involved, the possibility of increasing that value, and the necessity for combination unless the whole were to be destroyed. And here was no question merely of providing an attraction for the summer visitor: it meant conserving a mainstay of livelihood for hundreds of labouring men. When I was a boy a regular feature in that countryside was the fish pedlar--some old man or old woman with a donkey and two creels, hawking round fish that had been carted up from the coast by Sheephaven. Along the prosperous settled shores of Lough Swilly, by Ramelton and Letterkenny, these poor folk found a market at the end of a day's journey. It was a poor market and a small one. But since the railroad was instituted, the fish pedlar takes a back place. Fish goes straight to the great towns, and it has been worth men's while to organize for catching the summer run of salmon which skirt the coast in June and July. From Malin Head to Arranmore, and from Arranmore into Donegal Bay, scores of thousands of pounds must have been earned in this way during the past seven or eight years by the coast-dwelling folk, half-farmers, half-fishermen, working through the short nights in their four-oared yawls. A lucky crew will earn ten pounds a man in two months' fishing--in a country from which each year thousands go across to Scotland or Lancashire for field labour and are content if they bring home ten pounds for their season's toil. It is easy to see how great an added source of prosperity this fishing means. Yet if the fish are killed out in the breeding streams, it ends the fishing; and when a river is divided into a hundred interests instead of one, no individual has a sufficient inducement to preserve the stock of salmon. A lesson in citizenship has to be learnt; public opinion has to be created. Donegal is leading in the attempt to develop co-operative preservation of game and fish, and whoever helps that endeavour is doing a good turn, not only to the interests of sport, but to the interests of Ireland. [Illustration: TORY ISLAND FROM FALCARRAGH HILL, DONEGAL] Golf, which for the present is even a greater attraction than sport, does not extend into the wilder parts of the country; though, indeed, twenty years ago Port Salon and Rosapenna, where the most famous links are, were outlandish enough: it is golf that has brought them well into the pale of civilization--over-civilization, some of us grumble, when we see smart frocks among the sandhills by Downings Bay. Yet anyone who goes to Rosapenna, and has curiosity enough to enquire, can learn the whole history of a great industry's development within a score of years--for Downings is the centre of a most prosperous herring fishery, and the girls and boys from that outlying region are fetched at high wages to do skilled work in curing herring wherever herring are being caught, as far south as Dublin Bay, and very likely beyond. And if I had any choice of all the fine places in Ireland to spend a holiday in, I would choose the one which makes the centre of Mr. Williams's sketch from Rosapenna--the low headland of Ards, jutting into Sheephaven, with wood of oak, and fir, and beech, and ash, so exquisitely blended, spread for a covering over ground so beautifully diversified; with little bays and creeks of blue water over the cleanest and tawniest sand running up into the heart of wooded or heathery slopes. Nowhere else is the scent of the brine so clean and strong across the other pungencies of heath, and bog-myrtle, of oak, and of bracken; nowhere else that I know does a perfect day give such fulfilment of desire. Rosapenna shore and the village of Carrigart are too much dominated by the hotel and by foreign ways for my liking; but on the opposite shore, where Portnablah gives a harbour (not safe, alas!) to the boats of my friends, is the place of all my affections. This rocky little townland is set thick with whitewashed cottages, and here it has been an old custom for Irish folk from Derry and Letterkenny to come to the salt water and find homely quarters. The "bathers", as they are called, have of late years grown to be a multitude: if you want rooms in a farmhouse there you must bespeak them far in advance, and no wonder. If my ghost haunts any place it will be there, where the white road to Dunfanaghy (white, for this is a limestone tract), leaving the wall of Ards demesne, rises to a crest with a few houses (filled with bathers) on the right; and on your left is Sessiagh Lake, prosperously stocked with trout, and watched over by an old herring fisher, still able to pull a stout oar when the strong gale catches that high-lying water, but for the most part happy to drift contentedly and spin yarns about the men and the things and the fish that he has known. Quick with his tongue, too, in a leisurely way. "I suppose people very seldom die here," said a stranger, commenting on the healthiness of the situation. "Never more nor once," said old Tom. Beyond the houses and the limekiln and the glimpse of Sessiagh's delusive waters (Heaven knows how many blank days I fished there!) is a line of grassy hillocks--the mass of Horn Head blocks the view beyond them to the west, but full north, suddenly, held in the curve between two of these little summits, you catch sight of the Atlantic blue. Blue, it may be, or purple, or greyish green, or black almost, with white spray flying; but there it is, held as if in a cup--the very quintessence of the saltness, the strength, and the freedom of the sea. When the herring are in, you shall see it dotted over with smacks and yawls, and here and there a curragh crawling slowly on the water like some black insect; or at night all a-twinkle with lights, till you rub your eyes and wonder if a town has not suddenly sprung into being. And all about, the steep shores of the bay are patched and striped with careful tillage, crops, well-tended, nestling in for shelter under every rocky hummock; and nestled, too, into the folds of the ground, are the white-fronted houses, with stone pegs across their eaves for cording to lash the roof secure against their terrible gales. It is worth while being there in bad weather, to watch the run of sea on those cliffs; sometimes, in a sinister calm, rolling in mountain-high, tearing itself to whiteness on the long black spines of rock; and then, after this forerunner, comes the storm itself. It is then, when you see the smacks running in for shelter, or when, after a night of this, you see them put out to pick up costly nets that have been cut adrift to save men's lives, and that still must be recovered even at grave peril--it is then you will realize how these people take a grip of their country and cling to the foothold for which all life is a struggle. Yet life goes merrily there. In the winter through some parishes there will be dancing almost every night in one cottage or another, and the crowd is thick on the floor and about the big turf fire. [Illustration: MUCKISH AND ARDS FROM ROSAPENNA, SHEEPHAVEN, DONEGAL] These people are for the most part pure Irish, and west of Dunfanaghy all are Irish speakers. Under Irish rule it was the territory of the M'Swineys, chief urraghts of the O'Donnell, and Doe Castle, at the outfall of the Lackagh, was the fortress of the chief of the name. Owen Roe O'Neill made his landing here, Cromwell's most formidable opponent in Ireland--removed at last either by sickness or poison. Here Red Hugh O'Donnell was fostered by Owen M'Swiney of the Battle Axes before the treacherous kidnapping at Rathmullen. There were three M'Swiney clans--M'Swiney Doe, M'Swiney Banaght in the west of the county, and M'Swiney Fanad in the peninsula that divides Mulroy from Swilly. Each had its own war tune, and a schoolmaster friend of mine--himself a Sweeny--who collected native airs, had got two of the three, but not the third; until at last he heard of an old bedridden man in Fanad who might have it. He rode the twenty miles from his home at Gartan, with fiddle on his back, and found the old peasant wavering on the brink of death, yet still able to frame feebly the whistle or lilt, which my friend picked up on the strings of the fiddle bit by bit, till gradually he had it all, and, there and then, by the dying man's bedside, set the cabin ringing with the oldtime war march of his clan. Another M'Sweeny that I have known was Turlough, the famous piper of Gweedore, whose repute has travelled far overseas. Aristocrat he is to the finger tips--saddened indeed because those fine finger tips have been coarsened by spade labour. "Look," he said to me; "can there be any music in these hands?" He told me his own generations, connecting him back with the hereditary bards of the M'Swineys, and I said that he must know the history of the county better than most. "No," he answered; "I was never curious of these things, except just as they concerned myself and my own people." Mr. Williams's picture shows Errigal where it rises by Gweedore over Dunlewy Lake--one of the grandest among Ireland's mountains. But the most striking view of it is east of Gweedore, where the little river flows out by Gortahork; and here is a thing of much interest, the Cloghaneely College, where folk go to study Ulster Irish amongst those who have it for their native speech. Still farther east is Falcarragh, and the view which Mr. Williams has given adds less than due emphasis to the astonishing castellated outline of Tory where it rises out of a tremendous depth of water. I never landed there, though I often talked with the Tory fishers, including one who had made his fortune at the goldfields and come back to the place of his birth among the rocks and the fish heads. There is one sheltered spot, one growing bush, and one only, on Tory. There, of course, Irish is the language, and they maintain the practice of verse, chiefly for purposes of satire; quarrels are revenged in rhyme. I talked to a red-bearded mountainy man near Gortahork about this, but he said it was a peevish thing to do; he would rather have a skelp at a man. In truth there is an old feud between Tory and the shore, and fierce battles have been waged. I do not know why so few people stop at Falcarragh: there is a good little hotel, the views are beautiful, there are three little rivers, all holding salmon, and, at the point where the longest of them flows out across the long range of sand beach west of Horn Head, there is a view of Tory and of Horn Head that passes all I know. Running water across sand, clean sand dunes and grey bent, pure illimitable sea and high cliffs, sunsmitten or in shadow--there is landscape reduced to the simplest terms of a broad elemental beauty. Also at Falcarragh there must be the makings of a links equal to any in Ireland. The line of dunes runs for several miles along the sea, ending in one of the strangest natural features I know, the huge mountain of clean sand which centuries of westerly gales have piled up against the rocky mass of Horn Head. That famous head is in truth an island, the counterpart of Tory on its seaward face, yet in the gap between it and Dunfanaghy such a deposit of sand has accumulated that only a small causeway has been needed to give access from the mainland to the tiny farms and the one demesne. If in Donegal you want to buy Donegal homespun, Falcarragh is a good market for the product, since some weaving is done about there with an eye to local wear; and what the Donegal man means to wear, the Donegal housewife "tramps" in soapsuds and water till the web thickens into a fabric fit to turn weather. On the western shore, by Carrick and Ardara, where is now the headquarters of this industry, cloth is produced solely for export, and the English ladies and gentlemen for whom it is designed seek softness and fineness rather than solidity. Indeed the countryfolk themselves treat this merchandise with frank scorn: they fancy something far less flimsy for their own use, and in old days, when nothing but homespun was worn, it used to be sent to a tacking mill and battered till the cloth had the thickness of felt. But the tacking mill at Bunlin, whose big wooden mallets rising and falling used to interest us children, is a ruin now; and the homespun of to-day, with its multitude of pleasant colours, is very different from the massive greys or heavy indigo-dyed frieze which used to come from that mill. The industry has been a godsend to that country, and one wet day in the little village of Carrick was redeemed to me by the chance of seeing all these folk, men and women, come marching over the hills with the baled cloth on their backs, and then watching the bargaining that proceeded among the various buyers. I bought, too, but I believe the merchants will not allow the people to sell to tourists any more. [Illustration: MOUNT ERRIGAL FROM THE GWEEDORE RIVER, DONEGAL] I have not written yet of that western shore which stretches southward from Dungloe (much haunted by sea-trout fishers) to Glenties, Ardara, Carrick, and Killybegs. The most beautiful place that I know on it is at the mouth of the Gweebarra River where it flows out due west between a line of sandhills which shine dazzling white in the sun against the immensity of blue. No place is less known; but you can reach it easily from Portnoo, where is a hotel. And off Portnoo is an island where on certain days in summer a pilgrimage takes place, at spring tides, for it is essential to walk barefoot to the island. The ceremonies performed with certain stones are Christianized in form, but evidently had an origin long before Christianity. Glenties, some eight or ten miles farther south, is at a point where several glens converge (_na Gleantai_, the Glens) in the valley of the Ownea River, famous for its salmon fishing, which is now vested in purchasing tenants who have attempted to introduce co-operative preservation. If the experiment succeeds it will mean better preservation than has ever been known before; if it fail, I fear that one great source of the salmon supply will be wiped out, with loss to sport, and with loss much graver to all the labouring fishers who live by that industry. But, as things stand, the man who wants good fishing is more likely to get it cheap at Glenties or Ardara than any other place known to me. In both towns there is a decent hotel. Ardara stands near the outfall of the Ownea but actually on a smaller river, the Owentogher, which is not only very picturesque, but a good stream for salmon and sea trout, if only it could be preserved. And one of the most pleasant bits of fishing I ever had was on a tiny stream, the Brocky, which comes down a mile farther on and was fishable before the tearing flood had subsided in the bigger rivers. Glenties and Ardara are places where you go for sport, though the beauty of mountain and river is all about you. But for scenery Carrick and Killybegs are your destination. Killybegs is the terminus of that light railway which runs from Donegal town along the north shore of Donegal bay, past the Marquis of Cunningham's wooded demesne at first, but gradually getting into wilder country, till at last it reaches this trim little town on its magnificent harbour. Warships use that harbour, and there is nowadays a good fishing fleet operating from it for the herring and mackerel; but of other commerce it knows little. Yet for the lover of boating and bathing it would be hard to discover a more attractive spot. There, too, you can see the parent factory of the Donegal carpet trade; and pretty it is to see the big looms, with a row of six or seven little girls bareheaded (and often barefooted) in front of each, with nimble fingers knotting on the tufts of richly coloured wool, or driving them down into their place in the solid fabric, while the pattern grows slowly before you on the wide warp. It is odd that so rare a merchandise should come out of these impoverished regions, for no costlier carpets are made; but labour is cheap, and willing, and skilful, and nowhere else is factory work done under more wholesome or happy conditions. All the big room seemed to be a-ripple and a-play with the young faces and the swift, graceful movements of these children, for most of them are no more than children; and small though the wage they earn, it is a big thing in that countryside, where the old-age pensioner with five shillings a week seemed at first to himself or herself rich beyond imagination. There is another of the factories at Kilcar, halfway to Carrick, built in a sheltered nook almost by the sea; and another in the wild tract between Gweedore and Falcarragh. To the west of Killybegs begins that wonderful line of cliff stretching away past Carrick and Glen Columbkille, and girdling all the projecting headland till it runs back to Loughros Bay, near Ardara. For wildness and for majesty this region has no equal, except in Achill; and it has what Achill lacks, the charm of rivers. Mr. Williams's pictures illustrate well the coastline, which even when it is low runs out with huge flag stones and giant boulders into the deep--fit buttress against such waves as roll in there even on a day of calm. Everything is big there; distances are long, and a mile never seems to get you far in any direction. It is a country to walk, the finest of all the countries known to me; but I would gladly supplement my walking with a bicycle, travelling one of the roads as far as it will carry me and then leaving it simply by the ditch at the roadside, among the osmunda fern which grows everywhere free as the heather. It commits you to return that way; but what you leave by the roadside is as safe as if Argus watched it--unless, indeed, some mountainy heifer should pass that way and eat it: they will chew anything from a fishing rod to a suit of clothes. I have seen embarrassed bathers pursuing an active cow, who carried essential garments in her mouth, still masticating them even while she pranced in her clumsy gallop.--Carrick is the centre for this country and Slieve League the great excursion; it is a fine walk down by the little port of Teelin and then up the track which winds along the cliff edge of the mountain--perhaps the finest view of all is when you are halfway, with seven or eight hundred feet of sheer cliff below you and the steep face towering up another thousand above. At the somewhat overrated hazard of the One Man's Pass you would fall, I dare say, sixteen hundred feet before you reached the water; but from the top a pebble may be dropped two thousand feet plumb into the sea. [Illustration: GLENVEAGH, DONEGAL] Horn Head is only seven or eight hundred feet; yet because the cliff face there is undercut, and the Horns themselves project so oddly, it always seemed to me a dizzier place than the greater cliff. The really marvellous thing at Slieve League is that view across Donegal Bay to the mountains of Sligo, Benbulbin of magic fame, and along the wild Mayo coast that stretches out and out to the west till the long promontory is finished off by island rocks, the Stags of Broadhaven. Yet, since I scorn to deceive, what endears Carrick to me is not its cliff scenery, but its little rivers and its people. I know the rivers are too small: you cannot seriously hope to kill salmon there except in a raging flood, and then your flood runs off in a couple of hours: I hooked four fish there inside the first hour after breakfast, killed two of them, and never touched another all day. But for sheer beauty; for infinite variety in the shape and colour of flowing water (the most beautiful thing to me on God's earth); for pools where the eddy swirls past clean rock with glossy ferns in every crevice; for banks where the scent of bog-myrtle is all about as you brush through the heather; for anything that can entice the eye of an angler, I never saw the equal of that main stream. The little Owen Buidhe, too, in its boggy glen, has attractions of its own, deeper pools and seductive corners; but it is the Glen River, flowing down from Meenaneary, that haunts my vision when in London I crave for the things that I desired in boyhood, and love more in middle age. And of all the human beings whom I have known among the peasant folk of Ireland, none had ever quite the charm of old Charlie Carr, the gillie who fished with me at Carrick. By an odd chance, he was no sportsman. He would want you to be pleased, and to catch fish, if so you fancied it; but I remember how my vanity was hurt when, on a difficult day, I had hooked and landed a fine sea trout, the first that anyone had seen for a long time. "Them O'Hagans was great people too", he said as he shook the fish out of the net, calmly pursuing his discourse about the ancient days and the generations of old, and the lore of those few books which he had, and studied with passion. He was no true shanachie; what of Irish legend and song his memory kept had no real value. He was a lover of knowledge, not for vanity, not for the sense of power, but simply because it added to the richness of life--one of God's gifts that he welcomed as the sunshine. If ever I met a happy nature, a soul without spot, it was this Irish peasant; if ever I have seen letters full of grace and simplicity they were those that reached me once in a rare while from that lonely glen, asking, never for himself, but perhaps that I would give a prize to some school children, or the like, and always full of an affection that knew no difference between man and man. I can see now the wonderful blue eyes in that kind face, a handsome peasant face with its fringe of grey close-cropped whisker. If I remember a word of complaint from him, it was when he saw his neighbour go by on a car--a man no soberer, no more industrious, no better educated than himself, yet one who had had the instinct for buying and selling, for putting penny to penny and pound to pound. The neighbour was a good man too, in his way; kindly and friendly, prompt to do a service, yet not to be reckoned amongst those elect upon earth whom everyone using discernment will have recognized on his way through life, of whom not a few that I have known have been Donegal peasants. But none had quite the grace, the simplicity, and the distinction of this old dreamer and student who carries net and basket by the Glen River without repute among men. For all my love of Carrick I could hardly conceive of living there. It is too bare, too vast. And though there is no frost, though every second bush you see in summer is crimson fuchsia full of blossoms, yet winter must be of a terrible loneliness. But the Donegal that I was brought up in--Donegal of more inhabited and habitable shores by Lough Swilly and Sheephaven and Mulroy--does seem to me a place not for summer visitants only. However, this book concerns itself with summer, and nowhere is summer more delightful. Of course it rains often, and sometimes hard. "Did it rain ony wi' ye?" "It didna tak time to rain; it just cam doun buckets," is a fragment of descriptive dialogue. But take the country as I saw it in mid-July, when London was stewing on a griddle of asphalt and flags, and when English country was all one monotonous deadened green with heavy haze dimming the blueness. Out at Bunlin, beyond Milford, all was green too; I looked from the steep road across a glen breast-deep in bracken, with the curve of Cratlagh wood beyond, and nearer me trim fields of green oats and turnips. There was beauty of line there in Mulroy with its score of scattered islands, in the hills, not very high, but very mountainous, bold, and jagged, falling from the peak of Lough Salt to the glen, and to the Mulroy water, crest by crest, sharp to the last little rocky hillock. There was beauty of colour too, for the green of the bracken was broken by silvery grey stone, with glint of mica in it, showing up through the fern, and crowned or set about with purple cushions of heath, here and there a foxglove adding another and a brighter purple. There was wonderful beauty of detail in the wooding nestled into the hills--wild growth, scrub oak, light, feathery ash and birch, with the gleam of silvery stems, Scotch fir and larch--planted trees, yet falling naturally into forestation which had none of the heaviness, the citizen look of elm and sycamore. All was light, hardy and strong--not a wilderness, but a cared-for country where the eye wandered over a fair expanse of varied beauty, lying there in full summer without summer's drowsiness or blowsiness. Lightness, airiness, was the note of it all--light air, breath of bog-myrtle across the salt of the sea; and even the decent homely people, lacking the graces of Cork and Kerry, had yet in their motion and in their eye just the dash of wildness which marks the Celtic strain. [Illustration: THE ENTRANCE TO MULROY BAY, DONEGAL] Next day was Donegal all over--fresh breeze, clouds driving swiftly, and then bright sun, lighting up a lovely blueness. We were out on small lakes up among the hills, two of us who fancied ourselves not a little as fishermen, and got no encouragement for that faith; but after all what could be pleasanter, airier, or more resting and more bracing at once? and how good one's lunch is on the stones by a reedy shore! I had to go back to London, and the car took me to Rathmullen on the Swilly shore; and when the little steamer put out from the pier it seemed to me that of these lovely loughs this is after all the most beautiful. All was grey and green in the westering light; the hills on the Inishowen shore opposite showed softer than the crags by Mulroy. They were green now, with the olive green of young heather; in another month they would be glowing purple. The lough as we crossed it was a great round lake throwing arms west and south-west to Ramelton and Letterkenny, beyond which all was bathed in a sunny haze. As we ran farther out, the western mountains of Inishowen came in sight, then suddenly beyond Dunree the sea gap opened, letting the eye out to limitless ocean; and soon the sheer crag of the Binn of Fanad was disclosed flanking that portal on the west. Looking back to the shore we left, the Devil's Backbone writhed sinister and jagged along the crest of the Knockalla range behind Rathmullen; and away to the west in the sun haze, accustomed eyes could make out the faint shapes of Errigal and Dooish. History was all about us, evident in actual landmarks. On the hills which divide the lough from Derry stood out boldly the ring of stone, the great circular fort, which was the Grianan of Aileach, chief seat of the northern Hy Niall, whose kinsfolk reigned in Tara. Here Patrick preached about 450 A.D., baptized Eoghan, founder of the great Tyrone clan, the O'Neills. Here, in a later age, came an O'Brien of Thomond, one of Brian Boru's earliest successors, to avenge a raid of these Northerners on Clare, and the stones of Aileach were carried away to be built into the cathedral at Limerick. Over at Rathmullen is the beach from which the boy Hugh O'Donnell was rowed out to see the English ship which lay at anchor, offering hospitality with black treachery behind; for the crew cut their cables while the young chief and his company were below seeing the vessel's stores, and sailed off with the prisoner so dishonourably made, to the Castle of Dublin, where Hugh lay for years immured, captured but not submissive; attempting escape after escape with unfailing heart till at last he got loose, and after bare deliverance from death in the snow-covered hills was free to exact a reckoning for the wrongs he had suffered. On a low hill beyond Inch Island rises the square town of Birt, which has memories of another chief, Cahir O'Dogherty, lord of Inishowen. Cahir was fostered by the M'Devitts of Birt, and when Red Hugh claimed lordship over Inishowen, the M'Devitts sought English protection for their foster-brother and got it. The O'Dogherty became the Englishmen's ally and helped to pronounce forfeiture on O'Donnell and O'Neill after the two great earls took their flight in 1607--setting out from this same ill-omened port of Rathmullen. But a new governor of Derry arrived, quarrelled with Cahir O'Dogherty and struck him. The blow was dearly paid for. Cahir went back to Birt, called out the M'Devitts, and sacked and burnt Derry. But the Irish power had been broken beyond retrieving when the earls fled, and O'Dogherty was soon a mere outlaw on his keeping. They ran him to earth finally by Doon Well, near Kilmacrenan, where he was shot dead in the encounter. Doon Well is famous to-day, but I doubt if many there remember Cahir O'Dogherty's fate, or even that on the Rock of Doon took place the installation of each O'Donnell prince. What is remembered is the sanctity of the holy well, whose water still draws thousands of pilgrims and still works miracles of healing. History more modern is in view at Lough Swilly, for here the English fleet brought in their prizes after the action with Bonaparte in 1798, and brought more than they knew, for they had captured Theobald Wolfe Tone, the most dangerous enemy to England that Ireland had in those or perhaps any other days. To-day there is a strong guard on Lough Swilly. Dunree--_Dun Riogh_--means the King's Fort and the king has his fort there, of the most modern type, commanding the entrance to this great haven, with an armament very unlike that of the martello towers which are dotted about, marking another of England's recurring scares--the scare of the "French colonels" under the lesser Napoleon. All these things came into my mind as I sat on the beach by Fahan and watched the colour fade out and new colour take its place--masses of dark green where there had been shimmers of grey and blue. Other memories came there too--less historical: it was there that somewhere in the 'seventies I had my first sight of a real railway train. I carry away from Lough Swilly my earliest as well as my latest impression of pleasant, beautiful Ulster, enhanced by a grateful thought of the dinner which Mrs. MacMahon provided for one about to take a long night journey. And whoever leaves the north of Ireland with such impressions on his mind will have no cause to quarrel with the close of his holiday. Yet it is not well to depart leaving unexplored the mountainous peninsula of Inishowen which separates Lough Swilly from Lough Foyle. This great ridge of land is dominated by the graceful shape of Slieve Snacht ("Snow Mountain"), a model of what mountains should be: bold and peaked, yet with swelling curves that balance on either flank, it fills the centre of a distance more impressively than far loftier hills. Inishowen was owned by the O'Doghertys, a clan who, tossed between Tyrone and Tirconnell, had at least great staying power, for the saying is--you cannot beat a bush in Inishowen without "rising" an O'Dogherty. Their castles remain, and at Green Castle, on Lough Foyle, is the work of greater men, Norman-planned, Richard de Burgo's fortress. Many traces, too, of a far older period are to be seen. At Carrowmore, not far from Culdaff, is a "souterrain" with five chambers--a great mansion, in short, for these burrowers. Rivers and lakes, too, are there with fair fishing, though I believe that a certain old professor in Derry has skimmed the cream of it all in his learned leisure, any time this fifty years. But the Castle River at Buncrana is a fine salmon stream still, and the links there constitute an attraction for very capable golfers--though not equal to those at Port Salon on the opposite shore. In a word, if you cannot get to the west of Lough Swilly you may be very well content with the east of it; and though much of infinite beauty and interest lies beyond, when you have seen and known Lough Swilly and its shores, and the people who live on them--that mixed race, Scot and Irish, lowland and highland, Protestant and Catholic, all neighbourly together--why, at least you will have had a very fair chance to know and love, not the Ulster that people rant about or rail at, but Ulster as it really is. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN _At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland_ Transcriber's Notes The Table of Contents has been added for convenience. Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks. Page 34: Replaced the oe ligature with oe in the two instances of "Phoenix." 
12078	----	IRELAND HISTORIC AND PICTURESQUE BY CHARLES JOHNSTON ILLUSTRATED 1902 CONTENTS. I. VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. II. THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. III. THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. IV. THE DE DANAANS. V. EMAIN OF MACA. VI. CUCULAIN THE HERO. VII. FIND AND OSSIN. VIII. THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. IX. THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. X. THE RAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN. XI. THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. XII. THE NORMANS. XIII. THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. XIV. THE JACOBITE WARS. XV. CONCLUSION. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Photogravures made by A.W. ELSON & Co. PEEP HOLE, BLARNEY CASTLE IN THE DARGLE, CO. WICKLOW MUCKROSS ABBEY, KILLARNEY BRANDY ISLAND, GLENGARRIFF SUGAR LOAF MOUNTAIN, GLENGARRIFF RIVER ERNE, BELLEEK WHITE ROCKS, PORTRUSH POWERSCOURT WATERFALL, CO. WICKLOW HONEYCOMB, GIANT'S CAUSEWAY GRAY MAN'S PATH, FAIR HEAD COLLEEN BAWN CAVES, KILLARNEY RUINS ON SCATTERY ISLAND VALLEY OF GLENDALOUGH AND RUINS OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES ANCIENT CROSS, GLENDALOUGH ROUND TOWER, ANTRIM GIANT'S HEAD AND DUNLUCE CASTLE, CO. ANTRIM ROCK CASHEL, RUINS OF OLD CATHEDRAL, KING CORMAC'S CHAPEL AND ROUND TOWER DUNLUCE CASTLE MELLIFONT ABBEY, CO. LOUTH HOLY CROSS ABBEY, CO. TIPPERARY DONEGAL CASTLE TULLYMORE PARK, CO. DOWN THOMOND BRIDGE, LIMERICK SALMON FISHERY, GALWAY O'CONNELL'S STATUE, DUBLIN IRELAND. I. VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. Here is an image by which you may call up and remember the natural form and appearance of Ireland: Think of the sea gradually rising around her coasts, until the waters, deepened everywhere by a hundred fathoms, close in upon the land. Of all Ireland there will now remain visible above the waves only two great armies of islands, facing each other obliquely across a channel of open sea. These two armies of islands will lie in ordered ranks, their lines stretching from northeast to southwest; they will be equal in size, each two hundred miles along the front, and seventy miles from front to rear. And the open sea between, which divides the two armies, will measure seventy miles across. Not an island of these two armies, as they lie thus obliquely facing each other, will rise as high as three thousand feet; only the captains among them will exceed a thousand; nor will there be great variety in their forms. All the islands, whether north or south, will have gently rounded backs, clothed in pastures nearly to the crest, with garments of purple heather lying under the sky upon their ridges. Yet for all this roundness of outline there will be, towards the Atlantic end of either army, a growing sternness of aspect, a more sombre ruggedness in the outline of the hills, with cliffs and steep ravines setting their brows frowning against the deep. Hold in mind the image of these two obliquely ranged archipelagoes, their length thrice their breadth, seaming the blue of the sea, and garmented in dark green and purple under the sunshine; and, thinking of them thus, picture to yourself a new rising of the land, a new withdrawal of the waters, the waves falling and ever falling, till all the hills come forth again, and the salt tides roll and ripple away from the valleys, leaving their faces for the winds to dry; let this go on till the land once more takes its familiar form, and you will easily call up the visible image of the whole. As you stand in the midst of the land, where first lay the channel of open sea, you will have, on your northern horizon, the beginning of a world of purple-outlined hills, outliers of the northern mountain region, which covers the upper third of the island. On all sides about you, from the eastern sea to the western ocean, you will have the great central plain, dappled with lakes and ribbed with silver rivers, another third of the island. Then once more, to the south, you will have a region of hills, the last third of Ireland, in size just equal to the northern mountains or the central plain. The lines of the northern hills begin with the basalt buttresses of Antrim and the granite ribs of Down, and pass through northern Ulster and Connacht to the headlands of Mayo and Galway. Their rear is held by the Donegal ranges, keeping guard against the blackness of the northern seas. The plain opens from the verge of these hills; the waters that gather on its pleasant pastures and fat fields, or among the green moss tracts of its lowlands, flow eastward by the Boyne or southwestward by the Shannon to the sea. Then with the granite mountains of Dublin and Wicklow begin the southern hills, stretching through south Leinster and Munster to the red sandstone ridges of Cork and Kerry, our last vantage-ground against the Atlantic. Finally, encircling all, is the perpetual presence of the sea, with its foaming, thunderous life or its days of dreamy peace; around the silver sands or furrowed cliffs that gird the island our white waves rush forever, murmuring the music of eternity. Such is this land of Eiré, very old, yet full of perpetual youth; a thousand times darkened by sorrow, yet with a heart of living gladness; too often visited by evil and pale death, yet welling ever up in unconquerable life,--the youth and life and gladness that thrill through earth and air and sky, when the whole world grows beautiful in the front of Spring. For with us Spring is like the making of a new world in the dawn of time. Under the warm wind's caressing breath the grass comes forth upon the meadows and the hills, chasing dun Winter away. Every field is newly vestured in young corn or the olive greenness of wheat; the smell of the earth is full of sweetness. White daisies and yellow dandelions star all our pastures; and on the green ruggedness of every hillside, or along the shadowed banks of every river and every silver stream, amid velvet mosses and fringes of new-born ferns, in a million nooks and crannies throughout all the land, are strewn dark violets; and wreaths of yellow primroses with crimped green leaves pour forth a remote and divine fragrance; above them, the larches are dainty with new greenery and rosy tassels, and the young leaves of beech and oak quiver with fresh life. Still the benignance of Spring pours down upon us from the sky, till the darkening fields are hemmed in between barriers of white hawthorn, heavy with nectar, and twined with creamy honeysuckle, the finger-tips of every blossom coral-red. The living blue above throbs with the tremulous song of innumerable larks; the measured chant of cuckoos awakens the woods; and through the thickets a whole world's gladness sings itself forth from the throat of thrush and blackbird. Through the whole land between the four seas benediction is everywhere; blue-bells and the rosy fingers of heath deck the mountain-tops, where the grouse are crooning to each other among the whins; down the hillsides into every valley pour gladness and greenness and song; there are flowers everywhere, even to the very verge of the whispering sea. There, among the gray bent-spikes and brackens on the sandhills, primroses weave their yellow wreaths; and little pansies, golden and blue and purple, marshal their weird eyes against the spears of dark blue hyacinths, till the rich tribute of wild thyme makes peace between them. The blue sky overhead, with its flocks of sunlit clouds, softly bends over the gentle bosom of the earth. A living spirit throbs everywhere, palpable, audible, full of sweetness and sadness immeasurable--sadness that is only a more secret joy. Then the day grows weary, making way for the magic of evening and the oncoming dark with its mystery. The tree-stems redden with the sunset; there is a chill sigh in the wind; the leaves turn before it, burnished against the purple sky. As the gloom rises up out of the earth, bands of dark red gather on the horizon, seaming the clear bronze of the sky, that passes upward into olive-color, merging in dark blue overhead. The sun swings down behind the hills, and purple darkness comes down out of the sky; the red fades from the tree-stems, the cloud-colors die away; the whole world glimmers with the fading whiteness of twilight. Silence gathers itself together out of the dark, deepened, not broken, by the hushing of the wind among the beech-leaves, or the startled cluck of a blackbird, or a wood-pigeon's soft murmur, as it dreams in the silver fir. Under the brown wings of the dark, the night throbs with mystic presences; the hills glimmer with an inward life; whispering voices hurry through the air. Another and magical land awakes in the dark, full of a living restlessness; sleepless as the ever-moving sea. Everywhere through the night-shrouded woods, the shadowy trees seem to interrupt their secret whispers till you are gone past. There is no sense of loneliness anywhere, but rather a host of teeming lives on every hand, palpable though hidden, remote from us though touching our lives, calling to us through the gloom with wordless voices, inviting us to enter and share with them the mystical life of this miraculous earth, great mother of us all, The dark is full of watching eyes. Summer with us is but a brighter Spring, as our Winter only prolongs the sadness of Autumn. So our year has but two moods, a gay one and a sad one. Yet each tinges the other--the mists of Autumn veiling the gleam of Spring--Spring smiling through the grief of Autumn. When the sad mood comes, stripping the trees of their leaves, and the fields of their greenness, white mists veil the hills and brood among the fading valleys. A shiver runs through the air, and the cold branches are starred with tears. A poignant grief is over the land, an almost desolation,--full of unspoken sorrow, tongue-tied with unuttered complaint. All the world is lost and forlorn, without hope or respite. Everything is given up to the dirges of the moaning seas, the white shrouds of weeping mist. Wander forth upon the uplands and among the lonely hills and rock-seamed sides of the mountains, and you will find the same sadness everywhere: a grieving world under a grieving sky. Quiet desolation hides among the hills, tears tremble on every brown grass-blade, white mists of melancholy shut out the lower world. Whoever has not felt the poignant sadness of the leafless days has never known the real Ireland; the sadness that is present, though veiled, in the green bravery of Spring, and under the songs of Summer. Nor have they ever known the real Ireland who have not divined beneath that poignant sadness a heart of joy, deep and perpetual, made only keener by that sad outward show. Here in our visible life is a whisper and hint of our life invisible; of the secret that runs through and interprets so much of our history. For very much of our nation's life has been like the sadness of those autumn days,--a tale of torn leaves, of broken branches, of tears everywhere. Tragedy upon tragedy has filled our land with woe and sorrow, and, as men count success, we have failed of it, and received only misery and deprivation. He has never known the true Ireland who does not feel that woe. Yet, more, he knows not the real Ireland who cannot feel within that woe the heart of power and joy,--the strong life outlasting darkest night,--the soul that throbs incessantly under all the calamities of the visible world, throughout the long tragedy of our history. This is our secret: the life that is in sorrow as in joy; the power that is not more in success than in failure--the one soul whose moods these are, who uses equally life and death. For the tale of our life is mainly tragedy. And we may outline now the manner in which that tale will be told. We shall have, first, a long, dim dawn,--mysterious peoples of the hidden past coming together to our land from the outlying darkness. A first period, which has left abundant and imperishable traces everywhere among our hills and valleys, writing a large history in massive stone, yet a history which, even now, is dim as the dawn it belongs to. What can be called forth from that Archaic Darkness, in the backward and abysm of Time, we shall try to evoke; drawing the outlines of a people who, with large energies in our visible world, toiled yet more for the world invisible; a people uniform through the whole land and beyond it, along many neighboring shores; a people everywhere building; looking back into a long past; looking forward through the mists of the future. A people commemorating the past in a form that should outlast the future. A people undertaking great enterprises for mysterious ends; whose works are everywhere among us, to this day, imperishable in giant stone; yet a people whose purposes are mysterious to us, whose very name and tongue are quite unknown. Their works still live all around us in Ireland, spread evenly through the four provinces, a world of the vanished past enduring among us into the present; and, so mightily did these old builders work, and with such large simplicity, that what they built will surely outlast every handiwork of our own day, and endure through numberless to-morrows, bridging the morning and evening twilight of our race. After this Archaic Dawn we shall find a mingling of four races in Ireland, coming together from widely separated homes, unless one of the four be the descendant of the archaic race, as well it may be. From the surging together of these four races we shall see, in almost pre-historic times, the growth of a well-knit polity; firm principalities founded, strong battles fought, a lasting foundation of law. In this Second Epoch, every thing that in the first was dim and vague grows firm in outline and defined. Names, places, persons,--we know them all as if they were of to-day. This is the age which flowered in the heroic days of Emain of Maca, Emain 'neath the beech-trees, the citadel of northeastern Ireland. Here we shall find the court of Fergus mac Roeg, a man too valiant, too passionate, too generous to rule altogether wisely; his star darkened by the gloomy genius of Concobar his stepson, the evil lover of ill-fated Deirdré. Cuculain, too, the war-loving son of Sualtam, shall rise again,--in whom one part of our national genius finds its perfect flower. We shall hear the thunder of his chariot, at the Battle of the Headland of the Kings, when Meave the winsome and crafty queen of Connacht comes against him, holding in silken chains of her tresses the valiant spirit of Fergus. The whole life of that heroic epoch, still writ large upon the face of the land, shall come forth clear and definite; we shall stand by the threshold of Cuculain's dwelling, and move among the banquet-halls of Emain of Maca. We shall look upon the hills and valleys that Meave and Deirdré looked on, and hear the clash of spear and shield at the Ford of the river,--and this even though we must go back two thousand years. To this will follow a Third Epoch, where another side of Ireland's genius will write itself in epic all across the land, with songs for every hillside, and stories for every vale and grove. Here our more passionate and poetic force will break forth in the lives of Find, son of Cumal, the lord of warriors; in his son Ossin, most famous bard of the western lands, and Ossin's son Oscar, before whose might even the fiends and sprites cowered back dismayed. As the epoch of Cuculain shows us our valor finding its apotheosis, so shall we find in Find and Ossin and Oscar the perfect flower of our genius for story and song; for romantic life and fine insight into nature; for keen wit and gentler humor. The love of nature, the passion for visible beauty, and chiefly the visible beauty of our land, will here show itself clearly,--a sense of nature not merely sensuous, but thrilling with hidden and mystic life. We shall find such perfection in this more emotional and poetic side of Irish character as will leave little for coming ages to add. In these two early epochs we shall see the perfecting of the natural man; the moulding of rounded, gracious and harmonious lives, inspired with valor and the love of beauty and song. Did our human destiny stop there, with the perfect life of individual men and women, we might well say that these two epochs of Ireland contain it all; that our whole race could go no further. For no man lived more valiant than Cuculain, more generous than Fergus, more full of the fire of song than Ossin, son of Find. Nor amongst women were any sadder than Deirdré and Grania; craftier than Meave, more winsome than Nessa the mother of Concobar. Perfected flowers of human life all of them,--if that be all of human life. So, were this all, we might well consent that with the death of Oscar our roll of history might close; there is nothing to add that the natural man could add. But where the perfecting of the natural man ends, our truer human life begins--the life of our ever-living soul. The natural man seeks victory; he seeks wealth and possessions and happiness; the love of women, and the loyalty of followers. But the natural man trembles in the face of defeat, of sorrow, of subjection; the natural man cannot raise the black veil of death. Therefore for the whole world and for our land there was needed another epoch, a far more difficult lesson,--one so remote from what had been of old, that even now we only begin to understand it. To the Ireland that had seen the valor of Cuculain, that had watched the wars of Fergus,--to the Ireland that listened to the deeds of Find and the songs of Ossin,--came the Evangel of Galilee, the darkest yet brightest message ever brought to the children of earth. If we rightly read that Evangel, it brought the doom of the natural man, and his supersession by the man immortal; it brought the death of our personal perfecting and pride, and the rising from the dead of the common soul, whereby a man sees another self in his neighbor; sees all alike in the one Divine. Of this one Divine, wherein we all live and live forever, pain is no less the minister than pleasure; nay, pain is more its minister, since pleasure has already given its message to the natural man. Of that one Divine, sorrow and desolation are the messengers, alike with joy and gladness; even more than joy and gladness, for the natural man has tasted these. Of that one Divine, black and mysterious death is the servant, not less than bright life; and life we had learned of old in the sunshine. [Illustration: In the Dargle, Co. Wicklow] There came, therefore, to Ireland, as to a land cherished for enduring purposes, first the gentler side, and then the sterner, of the Galilean message. First, the epoch almost idyllic which followed after the mission of Patrick; the epoch of learning and teaching the simpler phrases of the Word. Churches and schools rose everywhere, taking the place of fort and embattled camp. Chants went up at morning and at evening, with the incense of prayer, and heaven seemed descended upon earth. Our land, which had stood so high in the ranks of valor and romance, now rose not less eminent for piety and fervid zeal, sending forth messengers and ministers of the glad news to the heathen lands of northern and central Europe, and planting refuges of religion within their savage bounds. Beauty came forth in stone and missal, answering to the beauty of life it was inspired by; and here, if anywhere upon earth through a score of centuries, was realized the ideal of that prayer for the kingdom, as in heaven, so on earth. Here, again, we have most ample memorials scattered all abroad throughout the land; we can call up the whole epoch, and make it stand visible before us, visiting every shrine and sacred place of that saintly time, seeing, with inner eyes, the footsteps of those who followed that path, first traced out by the shores of Gennesaret. Once more, if the kingdom come upon earth were all of the message, we might halt here; for here forgiveness and gentle charity performed their perfect work, and learning was present with wise counsel to guide willing feet in the way. Yet this is not all; nor, if we rightly understand that darkest yet brightest message, are we or is mankind destined for such an earthly paradise; our kingdom is not of this world. Here was another happiness, another success; yet not in that happiness nor in that success was hid the secret; it lay far deeper. Therefore we find that morning with its sunshine rudely clouded over, its promise swept away in the black darkness of storms. Something more than holy living remained to be learned; there remained the mystery of failure and death--that death which is the doorway to our real life. Therefore upon our shores broke wave after wave of invasion, storm after storm of cruelest oppression and degradation. In the very dust was our race ground down, destitute, afflicted, tormented, according to prophecy and promise. Nor was that the end. Every bitterness that the heart of man can conceive, that the heart of man can inflict, that the heart of man can endure, was poured into our cup, and we drained it to the dregs. Of that saddest yet most potent time we shall record enough to show not only what befell through our age of darkness, but also, so far as may be, what miraculous intent underlay it, what promise the darkness covered, of our future light; what golden rays of dawn were hidden in our gloom. Finally, from all our fiery trials we shall see the genius of our land emerge, tried indeed by fire, yet having gained fire's purity; we shall see that genius beginning, as yet with halting speech, to utter its most marvelous secret of the soul of man. We shall try at least to gain clear sight of our great destiny, and thereby of the like destiny of universal man. For we cannot doubt that what we have passed through, all men and all nations either have passed through already, or are to pass through in the time to come. There is but one divine law, one everlasting purpose and destiny for us all. And if we see other nations now entering that time of triumph which passed for us so long ago, that perfecting of the natural man, with his valor and his song, we shall with fear and reverence remember that before them also lie the dark centuries of fiery trial; the long night of affliction, the vigils of humiliation and suffering. The one Divine has not yet laid aside the cup that holds the bitter draught,--the drinking of which comes ever before the final gift of the waters of life. What we passed through, they shall pass through also; what we suffered, they too shall suffer. Well will it be with them if, like us, they survive the fierce trial, and rise from the fire immortal, born again through sacrifice. Therefore I see in Ireland a miraculous and divine history, a life and destiny invisible, lying hid within her visible life. Like that throbbing presence of the night which whispers along the hills, this diviner whisper, this more miraculous and occult power, lurks in our apparent life. From the very gray of her morning, the children of Ireland were preoccupied with the invisible world; it was so in the darkest hours of our oppression and desolation; driven from this world, we took refuge in that; it was not the kingdom of heaven upon earth, but the children of earth seeking a refuge in heaven. So the same note rings and echoes through all our history; we live in the invisible world. If I rightly understand our mission and our destiny, it is this: To restore to other men the sense of that invisible; that world of our immortality; as of old our race went forth carrying the Galilean Evangel. We shall first learn, and then teach, that not with wealth can the soul of man be satisfied; that our enduring interest is not here but there, in the unseen, the hidden, the immortal, for whose purposes exist all the visible beauties of the world. If this be our mission and our purpose, well may our fair mysterious land deserve her name: Inis Fail, the Isle of Destiny. II. THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. Westward from Sligo--Town of the River of Shells--a tongue of land runs toward the sea between two long bays. Where the two bays join their waters, a mountain rises precipitous, its gray limestone rocks soaring sheer upwards, rugged and formidable. Within the shadow of the mountain is hidden a wonderful glen--a long tunnel between cliffs, densely arched over with trees and fringed with ferns; even at midday full of a green gloom. It is a fitting gateway to the beauty and mystery of the mountain. Slowly climbing by stony ways, the path reaches the summit, a rock table crowned with a pyramid of loose boulders, heaped up in olden days as a memorial of golden-haired Maeve. From the dead queen's pyramid a view of surpassing grandeur and beauty opens over sea and land, mingled valley and hill. The Atlantic stretches in illimitable blue, curved round the rim of the sky, a darker mirror of the blue above. It is full of throbbing silence and peace. Across blue fields of ocean, and facing the noonday brightness of the sun, rise the tremendous cliffs of Slieve League, gleaming with splendid colors through the shimmering air; broad bands of amber and orange barred with deeper red; the blue weaves beneath them and the green of the uplands above. The vast amber wall rises out of the ocean, and passes eastward in a golden band till it merges in the Donegal highlands with their immeasurable blue. Sweeping round a wide bay, the land drawls nearer again, the far-away blue darkening to purple, and then to green and brown. The sky is cut by the outlines of the Leitrim and Sligo hills, a row of rounded peaks against the blue, growing paler and more translucent in the southern distance. Under the sun, there is a white glinting of lakes away across the plain, where brown and purple are blended with green in broad spaces of mingling color. To the west the ground rises again into hills crowded behind each other, sombre masses, for ages called the Mountains of Storms. Far beyond them, vague as blue cloud-wreaths in the blue, are the hills that guard our western ocean. From their sunset-verges the land draws near again, in the long range of the Mayo cliffs,--fierce walls of rock that bar the fiercer ocean from a wild world of storm-swept uplands. The cliffs gradually lessen, and their colors grow clearer, till they sink at last toward the sand-banks of Ballysadare, divided from us only by a channel of shallow sea. The whole colored circle of sea and land, of moor and mountain, is full of the silence of intense and mighty power. The ocean is tremulous with the breath of life. The mountains, in their stately beauty, rise like immortals in the clear azure. The signs of our present works are dwarfed to insignificance. Everywhere within that wide world of hill and plain, and hardly less ancient than the hills themselves, are strewn memorials of another world that has vanished, sole survivors of a long-hidden past. A wordless history is written there, in giant circles of stone and cromlechs of piled blocks, so old that in a land of most venerable tradition their very legend has vanished away. Close under us lies Carrowmore, with its labyrinth of cromlechs and stone circles, a very city of dead years. There is something awe-inspiring in the mere massiveness of these piled and ordered stones, the visible boundaries of invisible thoughts; that awe is deepened by the feeling of the tremendous power lavished in bringing them here, setting them up in their ordered groups, and piling the crowns of the cromlechs on other only less gigantic stones; awe gives place to overwhelming mystery when we can find no kinship to our own thoughts and aims in their stately grouping. We are in presence of archaic purposes recorded in a massive labyrinth, purposes darkly hidden from us in the unknown. There are circles of huge boulders ranged at equal distances, firmly set upright in the earth. They loom vast, like beads of a giant necklace on the velvet grass. There are cromlechs set alone--a single huge boulder borne aloft in the air on three others of hardly less weight. There are cromlechs set in the midst of titanic circles of stone, with lesser boulders guarding the cromlechs closer at hand. There are circles beside circles rising in their grayness, with the grass and heather carpeting their aisles. There they rest in silence, with the mountain as their companion, and, beyond the mountain, the ever-murmuring sea. Thus they have kept their watch through long dark ages. When sunrise reddens them, their shadows stretch westward in bars of darkness over the burnished grass. From morning to midday the shadows shrink, ever hiding from the sun; an army of wraiths, sprite-like able to grow gigantic or draw together into mere blots of darkness. When day declines, the shadows come forth again, joining ghostly hands from stone to stone, from circle to circle, under the sunset sky, and merging at last into the universal realm of night. Thus they weave their web, inexorable as tireless Time. There are more than threescore of these circles at Carrowmore, under Knocknarea. Yet Carrowmore is only one among many memorials of dead years within our horizon. At Abbey-quarter, within the town-limits of Sligo itself, there is another great ring of boulders, the past and the present mingling together. On the northern coast, across the Bay of Sligo, where the headland of Streedagh juts forth into the sea, there is another giant necklace of gray blocks ranged upon the moor. Farther along the shore, where Bundoran marks the boundary of Donegal, a cromlech and a stone circle rise among the sand-banks. All have the same rugged and enduring massiveness, all are wrapped in the same mystery. Eastward from Sligo, Lough Gill lies like a mirror framed in hills, wreathed with dark green woods. On a hill-top north of the lake, in the Deer-park, is a monument of quite other character--a great oblong marked by pillared stones, like an open temple. At three points huge stones are laid across from pillar to pillar. The whole enclosure was doubtless so barred in days of old, a temple of open arches crowning the summit of the hill. The great ruin by the lake keeps its secret well. Another ring of giant stones rests on a hillside across the lake, under the Cairn hill, with its pyramid crown. All these are within easy view from our first vantage-point on Knocknarea, yet they are but the outposts of an army which spreads everywhere throughout the land. They are as common in wild and inaccessible places as on the open plain. Some rise in lonely islands off the coast; others on the summits of mountains; yet others in the midst of tilled fields. They bear no relation at all to the land as it is to-day. The very dispersion of these great stone monuments, scattered equally among places familiar or wild, speaks of a remote past--a past when all places were alike wild, or all alike familiar. Where the gale-swept moors of Achill Island rise up toward the slope of Slievemore Mountain, there are stone circles and cromlechs like the circles of Carrowmore. The wild storms of the Atlantic rush past them, and the breakers roar under their cliffs. The moorland round the towering mountain is stained with ochre and iron under a carpet of heather rough as the ocean winds. Away to the south from Slievemore the horizon is broken by an army of mountains, beginning with the Twelve Peaks of Connemara. Eastward of these hills are spread the great Galway lakes; eastward of these a wide expanse of plain. This is the famous Moytura of traditional history, whose story we shall presently tell. Ages ago a decisive battle was fought there; but ages before the battle, if we are not greatly misled, the stone circles of the plain were already there. Tradition says that these circles numbered seven in the beginning, but only two remain unbroken. Between Galway Bay and the wide estuary of the Shannon spread the moorlands of Clare, bleak under Atlantic gales, with never a tree for miles inward from the sea. Like a watch-tower above the moorlands stand. Slieve Callan, the crown of the mountain abruptly shorn. Under the shoulder of the great hill, with the rolling moorlands all about it, stands a solitary cromlech; formed of huge flat stones, it was at first a roomy chamber shut in on all four sides, and roofed by a single enormous block; the ends have fallen, so that it is now an open tunnel formed of three huge stones. The coast runs southward from the Shannon to the strand of Tralee, the frontier of the southern mountain world, where four ranges of red sandstone thrust themselves forth towards the ocean, with long fiords running inland between them. On a summit of the first of these red ranges, Caherconree above Tralee strand, there is a stone circle, massive, gigantic, dwelling in utter solitude. We have recorded a few only out of many of these great stone monuments strewn along our Atlantic coast, whether on moor or cliff or remote mountain-top. There are others as notable everywhere in the central plain, the limestone world of lakes and rivers. On a green hill-crest overlooking the network of inlets of Upper Erne there is a circle greater than any we have recorded. The stones are very massive, some of them twice the height of a tall man. To one who stands within the ring these huge blocks of stone shut out the world; they loom large against the sky, full of unspoken secrets like the Sphinx. Within this mighty ring the circle of Stonehenge might be set, leaving a broad road all round it on the grass. From Fermanagh, where this huge circle is, we gain our best clue to the age of all these monuments, everywhere so much like each other in their massive form and dimensions, everywhere so like in their utter mystery. Round the lakes of Erne there are wide expanses of peat, dug as fuel for centuries, and in many places as much as twelve feet deep, on a bed of clay, the waste of old glaciers. Though formed with incredible slowness, this whole mass of peat has grown since some of the great stone monuments were built; if we can tell the time thus taken for its growth we know at least the nearer limit of the time that divides us from their builders. Like a tree, the peat has its time of growth and its time of rest. Spring covers it with green, winter sees it brown and dead. Thus thin layers are spread over it, a layer for a year, and it steadily gains in thickness with the passing of the years. The deeper levels are buried and pressed down, slowly growing firm and rigid, but still keeping the marks of the layers that make them up. It is like a dry ocean gradually submerging the land. Gathering round the great stone circles as they stand on the clay, this black sea has risen slowly but surely, till at last it has covered them with its dark waves, and they rest in the quiet depths, with a green foam of spring freshness far above their heads. At Killee and Breagho, near Enniskillen, the peat has once more been cut away, restoring some of these great stones to the light. If we count the layers and measure the thickness of the peat, we can tell how many years are represented by its growth. We can, therefore, tell that the great stone circle, which the first growth of peat found already there, must be at least as old, and may be indefinitely older. By careful count it is found that one foot of black peat is made up of eight hundred layers; eight hundred summers and eight hundred winters went to the building of it. One foot of black peat, therefore, will measure the time from before the founding of Rome or the First Olympiad to the beginning of our era. Another foot will bring us to the crowning of Charlemagne. Yet another, to the death of Shakespeare and Cervantes. Since then, only a few inches have been added. Here is a chronometer worthy of our great cromlechs and stone circles. Some of these, as we saw, rest on the clay, with a sea of peat twelve feet deep around and above them. Every foot of the peat stands for eight centuries. Since the peat began to form, eight or ten thousand years have passed, and when that vast period began, the great monuments of stone were already there. How long they had stood in their silence before our chronometer began to run we cannot even guess. At Cavancarragh, on the shoulder of Toppid Mountain, some four miles from Enniskillen, there is one of these circles; a ring of huge stone boulders with equal spaces between stone and stone. A four-fold avenue of great blocks stretches away from it along the shoulder of the hill, ending quite abruptly at the edge of a ravine, the steep channel of a torrent. It looks as if the river, gradually undermining the hillside, had cut the avenue in halves, so that the ravine seems later in date than the stones. But that we cannot be quite sure of. This, however, we do certainly know: that since the avenue of boulders and the circle of huge red stones were ranged in order, a covering of peat in some parts twelve feet thick has grown around and above them, hiding them at last altogether from the day. In places the peat has been cut away again, leaving the stones once more open to the light, standing, as they always stood, on the surface of the clay. Here again we get the same measurement. At eight hundred annual layers to the foot, and with twelve feet of peat, we have nine thousand six hundred years,--not for the age of the stone circles, but for that part of their age which we are able to measure. For we know not how long they were there before the peat began to grow. It may have been a few years; it may have been a period as great or even greater than the ten thousand years we are able to measure. The peat gradually displaced an early forest of giant oaks. Their stems are still there, standing rooted in the older clay. Where they once stood no trees now grow. The whole face of the land has changed. Some great change of climate must lie behind this vanishing of vast forests, this gradual growth of peat-covered moors. A dry climate must have changed to one much damper; heat must have changed to cold, warm winds to chilly storms. In the southern promontories, among red sandstone hills, still linger survivors of that more genial clime--groves of arbutus that speak of Greece or Sicily; ferns, as at Killarney, found elsewhere only in the south, in Portugal, or the Canary Islands. [Illustration: Muckross Abbey, Killarney.] On the southwestern horizon from Toppid Mountain, when the sky is clear after rain, you can trace the outline of the Curlew hills, our southern limit of view from Knocknarea. Up to the foot of the hills spreads a level country of pastures dappled with lakes, broken into a thousand fantastic inlets by the wasting of the limestone rock. The daisies are the stars in that green sky. Just beyond the young stream of the Shannon, where it links Lough Garra to Lough Key, there is a lonely cromlech, whose tremendous crown was once upheld by five massive pillars. There is a kindred wildness and mystery in the cromlech and the lonely hills. Southward again of this, where the town of Lough Rea takes its name from the Gray Lake, stands a high hill crowned by a cromlech, with an encircling earthwork. It marks a green ring of sacred ground alone upon the hill-top, shut off from all the world, and with the mysterious monument of piled stones in its centre; here, as always, one huge block upheld in the air by only lesser blocks. The Gray Lake itself, under this strange sentry on the hill, was in long-passed ages a little Venice; houses built on piles lined its shores, set far enough out into the lake for safety, ever ready to ward off attack from the land. This miniature Venice of Lough Rea is the type of a whole epoch of turbulent tribal war, when homes were everywhere clustered within the defence of the waters, with stores laid up to last the rigors of a siege. The contrast between the insecurity and peril of the old lake dwellings and the present safety of the town, open on all sides, unguarded and free from fear, is very marked. But not less complete is the contrast between the ancient hamlet, thus hidden for security amid the waters, and the great cromlech, looming black against the sky on the hill's summit, exposed to the wildness of the winds, utterly unguarded, yet resting there in lonely serenity. A little farther south, Lough Gur lies like a white mirror among the rolling pasture-lands of Limerick, set amongst low hills. On the lake's shore is another metropolis of the dead, worthy to compare with Carrowmore on the Sligo headland. Some of the circles here are not formed of single stones set at some distance from each other, but of a continuous wall of great blocks crowded edge to edge. They are like round temples open to the sky, and within one of these unbroken rings is a lesser ring like an inner shrine. All round the lake there are like memorials--if we can call memorials these mighty groups of stone, which only remind us how much we have forgotten. There are huge circles of blocks either set close together or with an equal space dividing boulder from boulder; some of the giant circles are grouped together in twos and threes, others are isolated; one has its centre marked by a single enormous block, while another like block stands farther off in lonely vastness. Here also stands a chambered cromlech of four huge flat blocks roofed over like the cromlech under Slieve Callan across the Shannon mouth. The southern horizon from Lough Gur is broken by the hills of red sandstone rising around Glanworth. Beside the stream, a tributary of the Blackwater, a huge red cromlech rises over the greenness of the meadows like a belated mammoth in its uncouth might. To the southwest, under the red hills that guard Killarney on the south, the Sullane River flows towards the Lee. On its bank is another cromlech of red sandstone blocks, twin-brother to the Glanworth pile. Beyond it the road passes towards the sunset through mountain-shadowed glens, coming out at last where Kenmare River opens into a splendid fiord towards the Atlantic Ocean. At Kenmare, in a vale of perfect beauty green with groves of arbutus and fringed with thickets of fuchsia, stands a great stone circle, the last we shall record to the south. Like all the rest, it speaks of tremendous power, of unworldly and mysterious ends. The very antiquity of these huge stone circles suggests an affinity with the revolving years. And here, perhaps, we may find a clue to their building. They may have been destined to record great Time itself, great Time that circles forever through the circling years. There is first the year to be recorded, with its revolving days; white winter gleaming into spring; summer reddening and fading to autumn. Returning winter tells that the year has gone full circle; the sun among the stars gives the definite measure of the days. A ring of thirty-six great boulders, set ten paces apart, would give the measure of the year in days; and of circles like this there are more than one. In this endless ring of days the moon is the measurer, marking the hours and weeks upon the blue belt of night studded with golden stars. Moving stealthily among the stars, the moon presently changes her place by a distance equal to her own breadth; we call the time this takes an hour. From her rising to her setting, she gains her own breadth twelve times; therefore, the night and the day are divided each into twelve hours. Meanwhile she grows from crescent to full disk, to wane again to a sickle of light, and presently to lose herself in darkness at new moon. From full moon to full moon, or from one new moon to another, the nearest even measure is thirty days; a circle of thirty stones would record this, as the larger circle of thirty-six recorded the solar year. In three years there are thrice twelve full moons, with one added; a ring of thirty-seven stones representing this would show the simplest relation between sun and moon. The moon, as we saw, stealthily glides among the fixed stars, gaining her own width every hour. Passing thus along the mid belt of the sphere, she makes the complete circuit in twenty-seven days, returning to the same point among the stars, or, if it should so happen, to the same star, within that time. Because the earth has meanwhile moved forward, the moon needs three days more to overtake it and gain the same relative position towards earth and sun, thus growing full again, not after twenty-seven, but after thirty days. Circles of twenty-seven and thirty days would stand for these lunar epochs, and would, for those who understood them, further bear testimony to the earth's movement in its own great path around the sun. Thus would rings of varying numbers mark the measures of time; and not these only, but the great sweep of orbs engendering them, the triumphal march of the spheres through pathless ether. The life of our own world would thus be shown bound up with the lives of others in ceaseless, ever-widening circles, that lead us to the Infinite, the Eternal. All the cromlechs and circles we have thus far recorded are in the western half of our land; there are as many, as worthy of note, in the eastern half. But as before we can only pick out a few. One of these crowns the volcanic peak of Brandon Hill, in Kilkenny, dividing the valleys of the Barrow and Nore. From the mountain-top you can trace the silver lines of the rivers coming together to the south, and flowing onward to the widening inlet of Wexford harbor, where they mingle with the waters of the River Suir. On the summit of Brandon Hill stands a great stone circle, a ring of huge basalt blocks dominating the rich valleys and the surrounding plain. In Glen Druid of the Dublin hills is a cromlech whose granite crown weighs seventy tons. Not far off is the Mount Venus cromlech, the covering block of which is even more titanic; it is a single stone eighty tons in weight. Near Killternan village, a short distance off, is yet another cromlech whose top-most boulder exceeds both of these, weighing not less than ninety tons. Yet vast as all these are, they are outstripped by the cromlech of Howth, whose upper block is twenty feet square and eight feet thick, a single enormous boulder one hundred tons in weight. This huge stone was borne in the air upon twelve massive pillars of quartz, seven feet above the ground, so that a man of average height standing on the ground and reaching upward could just touch the under surface of the block with his finger-tips. Even a tall man standing on the shoulders of another as tall would quite fail to touch the upper edge of the stone. If we give this marvelous monument the same age as the Fermanagh circles, as we well may, this raising of a single boulder of one hundred tons, and balancing it in the air on the crest of massive pillars may give us some insight into the engineering skill of the men of ten thousand years ago. Across the central plain from Howth Head the first break is the range of Loughcrew hills. Here are great stone circles in numbers, not standing alone like so many others, but encompassing still stranger monuments; chambered pyramids of boulders, to which we shall later return. They are lesser models of the three great pyramids of Brugh on the Boyne, where the river sweeps southward in a long curve, half-encircling a headland of holy ground. From near Howth to the Boyne and north of it, the coast is low and flat; sandhills matted with bent-grass and starred with red thyme and tiny pansies, yellow and purple and blue. Low tide carries the sea almost to the horizon, across a vast wilderness of dripping sand where the gulls chatter as they wade among the pools. Where the shore rises again towards the Carlingford Mountains, another cromlech stands under the shadow of granite hills. A long fiord with wooded walls divides the Carlingford range from the mountains of Mourne. The great dark range thrusts itself forth against the sea in somber beauty, overhanging the wide strand of Dundrum Bay. The lesser bay, across whose bar the sea moans under the storm-winds, is dominated by the hill of Rudraige, named in honor of a hero of old days; but under the shadow of the hill stands a more ancient monument, that was gray with age before the race of Rudraige was born. On five pillars of massive stone is upreared a sixth, of huge and formidable bulk, and carrying even to us in our day a sense of mystery and might. The potent atmosphere of a hidden past still breathes from it, whispering of vanished years, vanished races, vanished secrets of the prime. There are two circles of enormous stones on the tongue of land between Dundrum Bay and Strangford, both very perfect and marked each in its own way from among the rest. The first, at Legamaddy, has every huge boulder still in place. There is a lesser ring of stones within the first circle, with many outliers, of enormous size, dotted among the fields. It looks as if a herd of huge animals of the early world had come together in a circle for the night, the young being kept for safety within their ring, while others, grazing longer or wandering farther from the rest, were approaching the main herd. But nightfall coming upon them with dire magic turned them all to stone; and there they remain, sentient, yet motionless, awaiting the day of their release. By fancies like this we may convey the feeling of mystery breathing from them. On the hill-top of Slieve-na-griddle is another circle of the same enormous boulders. A cromlech is piled in the midst of it, and an avenue of stones leads up to the circle. Its form is that of many circles with enclosed cromlechs at Carrowmore, though in these the avenue is missing. The thought that underlies them is the same, though they are separated by the whole width of the land; a single cult with a single ideal prompted the erection of both. At Drumbo, on the east bank of the Lagan before it reaches Belfast Lough, there is a massive cromlech surrounded by a wide ring of earth piled up high enough to cut off the sacred space within from all view of the outer world. Like the earthwork round the cromlech of Lough Rea, it marks the boundary of a great nature temple, open to the sky but shut off from mankind. Even now its very atmosphere breathes reverence. At Finvoy, in northern Antrim, among the meadows of the Bann, there is a cromlech within a great stone circle like that on Slieve-na-griddle in Down, and like many of the Carrowmore rings. The Black Lion cromlech in Cavan is encircled with a like ring of boulders, and another cromlech not far off rivals some of the largest in the immense size of its crowning block. Three cromlechs in the same limestone plain add something to the mystery that overhangs all the rest. The first, at Lennan in Monaghan, is marked with a curious cryptic design, suggesting a clue, yet yielding none. There is a like script on the cromlech at Castlederg in Tyrone, if indeed the markings were ever the record of some thought to be remembered, and not mere ornament. The chambered cromlech of Lisbellaw in Fermanagh has like markings; they are too similar to be quite independent, yet almost too simple to contain a recorded thought. We come once more to Donegal. On the hill-top of Beltaney, near Raphoe, there is a very massive circle formed of sixty-seven huge blocks. Here again the Stonehenge ring might be set up within the Irish circle, leaving an avenue eight paces wide all round it. The sacred fire was formerly kindled here to mark the birth of Spring. The name of the old festival of Beltane still lingers on the hill. At Culdaff in north Donegal, at the end of the Inishowen peninsula, stands another great stone circle, with which we must close our survey of these titanic monuments. We have mentioned a few only among many; yet enough to show their presence everywhere throughout the land, in the valleys or on mountain summits, in the midst of pastures or on lonely and rugged isles. One group, as we have seen, cannot be younger than ten thousand years, and may be far older. The others may be well coeval. Their magnitude, their ordered ranks, their universal presence, are a startling revelation of the material powers of the men of that remote age; they are a testimony, not less wonderful, of the moral force which dedicated so much power to ideal ends. Finally, they are a monument to remind us how little we yet know of the real history of our race. III. THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. In every district of Ireland, therefore, there remain these tremendous and solemn survivors of a mighty past. The cromlechs, with their enormous masses upheld in the air, rising among the fertile fields or daisy-dotted pastures; the great circles of standing stones, starred everywhere, in the valleys or upon the uplands, along the rough sides of heather-covered hills. They have everywhere the same aspect of august mystery, the same brooding presence, like sentinels of another world. It is impossible not to feel their overshadowing majesty. Everywhere they follow the same designs in large simplicity; inspired by the same purpose, and with the same tireless might overcoming the tremendous obstacles of their erection; they are devoted everywhere not to material and earthly ends, but to the ideal purposes of the invisible and everlasting, linked with the hidden life of those who pass away from us through the gates of death. Can we find any clue to the builders of these grand and enduring memorials, the conditions of their building, the age of our land to which they belong? If we wisely use the abundant knowledge of the past already in our possession, there is good reason to believe we can, establishing much with entire certainty and divining more. The standing stones and cromlechs, as we know, are everywhere spread over Ireland, so that it is probable that throughout the whole country one is never out of sight of one of these solemn monuments. Their uniform and universal presence shows, therefore, a uniform race dwelling everywhere within the four seas, a universal stability and order, allowing such great and enduring works to be undertaken and completed. We must believe, too, that the builders of these giant stone monuments were dominant throughout the land, possessing entire power over the labor of thousands everywhere; and even then the raising of these titanic masses is almost miraculous. But the history of the standing stones and cromlechs is not a page of Irish history only, nor can we limit to our own isle the presence of their builders, the conditions of dominion and order under which alone they could have been raised. We shall gain our first trustworthy clue by tracing the limits of the larger territory, beyond our island, where these same gray memorials are found. [Illustration: Brandy Island, Glengarriff.] The limits of the region in which alone we find these piles and circles of enormous stones are clearly and sharply defined, though this region itself is of immense and imposing extent. It is divided naturally into two provinces, both starting from a point somewhere in the neighborhood of Gibraltar or Mount Atlas, and spreading thence over a territory of hundreds of miles. The southern cromlech province, beginning at the Strait of Gibraltar, extends eastward along the African coast past Algiers to the headland of Tunis, where Carthage stood, at a date far later than the age of cromlechs. Were it not for the flaming southern sun, the scorched sands, the palms, the shimmering torrid air, we might believe these Algerian megaliths belonged to our own land, so perfect is the resemblance, so uniform the design, so identical the inspiration. The same huge boulders, oblong or egg-shaped, formidable, impressive, are raised aloft on massive supporting stones; there are the same circles of stones hardly less gigantic, with the same mysterious faces, the same silent solemnity. Following this line, we find them again in Minorca, Sardinia and Malta; everywhere under warm blue skies, in lands of olives and trailing vines, with the peacock-blue of the Mediterranean waves twinkling beneath them. Northward from Minorca, but still in our southern cromlech province, we find them in southeastern Spain, in the region of New Carthage, but far older than the oldest trace of that ancient city. In lesser numbers they follow the Spanish coast up towards the Ebro, through vinelands and lands of figs, everywhere under summer skies. This province, therefore, our southern cromlech province, covers most of the western Mediterranean; it does not cover, nor even approach, Italy or Greece or Egypt, the historic Mediterranean lands. We must look for its origin in the opposite direction--towards Gibraltar, the Pillars of Hercules. From the same point, the Pillars of Hercules, begins our second or northern cromlech region, even larger and more extensive than the first, though hardly richer in titanic memorials. From Gibraltar, the cromlech region passes northward, covering Portugal and western Spain; indeed, it probably merges in the other province to the eastward, the two including all Spain between them. From northern Spain, turning the flank of the giant Pyrenees at Fontarrabia, the cromlech region goes northward and ever northward, along the Atlantic coast of France, spreading eastward also through the central provinces, covering the mountains of the Côte d'Or and the Cevennes, but nowhere entering north Italy or Germany, which limit France to the east. There is a tremendous culmination of the huge stone monuments on the capes and headlands of Brittany, where France thrusts herself forward against the Atlantic, centring in Carnac, the metropolis of a bygone world. Nowhere are there greater riches of titanic stone, in circles, in cromlechs, in ranged avenues like huge frozen armies or ordered hosts of sleeping elephants. From Brittany we pass to Ireland, whose wealth, inherited from dead ages, we have already inventoried, and Britain, where the same monuments reappear. More numerous to the south and west, they yet spread all over Britain, including remote northern Scotland and the Western Isles. Finally, there is a streamer stretching still northeastward, to Norway and some of the Baltic Islands. We are, therefore, confronted with the visible and enduring evidence of a mighty people, spreading in two main directions from the Pillars of Hercules--eastward through Gibraltar Strait to sunny Algeria, to southern Spain and the Mediterranean isles; and northward, along the stormy shores of the Atlantic, from within sight of Africa almost to the Arctic Circle, across Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland, Britain, and the lands of the Baltic and the North Sea. Throughout this vast territory there must have been a common people, a common purpose and inspiration, a common striving towards the hidden world; there must have been long ages of order, of power, of peace, during which men's hearts could conceive and their hands execute memorials so vast, so evidently meant to endure to a far distant future, so clearly destined to ideal ends. There must have been a great spiritual purpose, a living belief in the invisible world, and a large practical power over natural forces, before these huge monuments could be erected. Some of the stones upheld in the air in the Irish cromlechs weigh eighty or ninety or a hundred tons. If we estimate that a well-built man can lift two hundred pounds, it would demand the simultaneous work of a thousand men to erect them; and it is at least difficult to see how the effort of a thousand men could be applied. We are led, therefore, by evidence of the solidest material reality to see this great empire on the Atlantic and along the western Mediterranean; this Atlantean land of the cromlech-builders, as we may call it, for want of a better name. As the thought and purpose of its inhabitants are uniform throughout its whole vast extent, we are led to see in them a single homogeneous race, working without rivals, without obstacles, without contests, for they seem everywhere to have been free to choose what sites they would for their gigantic structures. And we are irresistibly led to believe that these conditions must have endured throughout a vast extent of time, for no nation which does not look back to a distant past will plan for a distant future. The spiritual sweep and view of the cromlech-builders are, therefore, as great as the extent of their territory. This mysterious people must have had a life as wonderful as that of Greece or Rome or Egypt, whose territories we find them everywhere approaching, but nowhere invading. What we now know of the past history of our race is so vast, so incredibly enormous, that we have ample space for such a territory, so widespread, so enduring, as we have seen demanded by the position of the cromlechs and standing stones; more than that, so overwhelming are the distances in the dark backward and abysm of time, to which we must now carry the dawn of human history, that the time needed for the building of the cromlechs may seem quite recent and insignificant, in view of the mightier past, stretching back through geologic ages. The nineteenth century may well be called the age of resurrection, when long-forgotten epochs of man were born again into our knowledge. We can carry back that knowledge now to the early Miocene period, to which belong the human relics found by the Abbé Bourgeois on the uplands of Thenay, in central France; and no one believes that the early Miocene age can be as recent as a million years ago. A vast space separates the Thenay relics from the later traces of man found in Pliocene sands with the bones of the archaic meridional elephant,--at a date when the German ocean was a forest, full of southern trees and huge beasts now long since departed from the earth. A period hardly less vast must separate these from the close of the glacial age, when man roamed the plains of Europe, and sketched the herds of mammoths as they cropped the leaves. That huge beast, too, has long since departed into the abyss; but man the artist, who recorded the massive outline, the huge bossed forehead, the formidable bulk of the shaggy arctic elephant, engraved in firm lines on a fragment of its tusk,--man still remains. Man was present when rhinoceros and elephant were as common in Britain as they are to-day in Southern India or Borneo; when the hippopotamus was as much at home in the waters of the Thames as in the Nile and Niger; when huge bears like the grizzly of the Rockies, cave-lions and sabre-toothed tigers lurked in Devon caverns or chased the bison over the hills of Kent. Yet this epoch of huge and ferocious monsters, following upon the Age of Ice, is a recent chapter of the great epic of man; there lies far more behind it, beyond the Age of Ice to the immensely distant Pliocene; beyond this as far as the early Miocene; beyond this, again, how much further we know not, towards the beginningless beginning, the infinite. We are, therefore, face to face with an ordered series of almost boundless ages, geologic epochs of human history succeeding each other in majestic procession, as the face of our island was now tropical, now arctic; as the seas swelled up and covered the hills, or the bottom of the deep drove back the ocean and became dry land, an unbroken continent. The wild dreams of romance never approached the splendid outlines of this certain history. There are dim outlines of man throughout all these ages, but only at a comparatively recent date have we traditions and evidence pointing to still surviving races. At a period of only a few thousand years ago, we begin to catch glimpses of a northern race whom the old Greeks and Romans called Hyperboreans or Far-Northerners; a race wild and little skilled in the arts of life; a race of small stature, slight, dusky, with piercing eyes, low brows, and of forbidding face. This race was scattered over lands far north of the Mediterranean, dwelling in caves and dens of the earth, and lingering on unchanged from the days of mammoth and cave-bear. We have slight but definite knowledge of this very ancient race--enough to show us that its peculiar type lingers to this day in a few remote islands on the Galway and Kerry coast, mingled with many later races. This type we find described in old Gaelic records as the Firbolgs, a race weak and furtive, dusky and keen-eyed, subjected by later races of greater force. Yet from this race, as if to show the inherent and equal power of the soul, came holy saints and mighty warriors; to the old race of the Firbolgs belong Saint Mansuy, apostle of Belgium, and Roderick O'Conor, the last king of united Ireland. In gloomy mountain glens and lonely ocean islands still it lingers, unvanquished, tenacious, obscurely working out its secret destiny. This slight and low-browed race, of dark or sallow visage, and with black crisp hair, this Hyperborean people, is the oldest we can gain a clear view of in our island's history; but we know nothing of its extension or powers which would warrant us in believing that this was the race which built the cromlechs. Greek and Roman tradition, in this only corroborating the actual traces we ourselves possess of these old races, tells us of another people many thousand years ago overrunning and dominating the Firbolgs; a race of taller stature, of handsome features, though also dark, but with softer black hair, not crisp and tufted like the hair of the dwarfish earlier race. Of this second conquering race, tall and handsome, we have abundant traces, gathered from many lands where they dwelt; bodies preserved by art or nature, in caverns or sepulchres of stone; ornaments, pottery, works decorative and useful, and covering several thousand years in succession. But better than this, we have present, through nearly every land where we know of them in the past, a living remnant of this ancient race, like it in every particular of stature, form, complexion and visage, identical in character and temper, tendency and type of mind. In Ireland we find this tall, dark race over all the west of the island, but most numerous in Kerry, Clare, Galway and Mayo; in those regions where, we know, the older population was least disturbed. In remote villages among the mountains, reached by bridle-paths between heath-covered hills; in the settlements of fishermen, under some cliff or in the sheltered nook of one of our great western bays; or among the lonely, little visited Atlantic islands, this dark, handsome race, with its black hair, dark-brown eyes, sallow skin and high forehead, still holds its own, as a second layer above the remnant of the far more ancient Firbolg Hyperboreans. We find the same race also among the Donegal highlands, here and there in the central plain or in the south, and nowhere entirely missing among the varied races towards the eastern sea. [Illustration: Sugar Loaf Mountain, Glengarriff.] But it is by no means in Ireland only that this tall, dark, western race is found. It is numerously represented in the nearest extension of the continent, among the headlands and bays and isles of Brittany--a land so like our own western seaboard, with its wild Atlantic storms. Following the ocean southward, we find the same race extending to the Loire, the Garonne, the Pyrenees; stretching somewhat inland also, but clinging everywhere to the Atlantic, as we also saw it cling in Ireland. In earlier centuries, long before our era opened, we find this same race spread far to the east,--as far, almost, as the German and Italian frontier,--so that at one time it held almost complete possession of France. South of the Pyrenees we find it once more; dominant in Portugal, less strongly represented in Spain, yet still supplying a considerable part of the population of the whole peninsula, as it does in Ireland at the present day. But it does not stop with Spain, or even Europe. We find the same race again in the Guanches of the Canary islands, off the African coast; and, stranger still, we find mummies of this race, of great antiquity, in the cave-tombs of Teneriffe. Further, we have ample evidence of its presence, until displaced by Moorish invaders, all along northern Africa as far as Tunis; and we come across it again amongst the living races in the Mediterranean isles, in Sardinia, Sicily and Southern Italy. Finally, the Tuaregs of the Central Sahara belong to the same type. Everywhere the same tall, dark race, handsome, imaginative; with a quite definite form of head, of brow, of eyes; a well-marked character of visage, complexion, and texture of hair. Thus far the southern extension of this, our second Irish race; we may look for a moment at its distribution in the north. Across the shallow sea which separates us from Britain we find the same race, clinging always to the Atlantic seaboard. It dominates south Wales, where its presence was remarked and commented on by the invading Romans. It is present elsewhere through the Welsh mountains, and much more sparsely over the east of England; but we have ample evidence that at one time this tall, dark race held the whole of England in undisputed possession, except, perhaps, for a remnant of the Hyperborean dwarfs. In the west of Scotland, and especially in the Western Isles, it is once more numerous; and we find offshoots of the same race in the dark-haired Norwegians,--still holding to the seaboard of the Atlantic. Such is the distribution of this once dominant but now dwindled race, which has gradually descended from the summit of power as ancient Rome descended, as Greece descended, or Assyria or Egypt. But we can look back with certainty to a time when this race, and this race only, held complete possession of all the lands we have mentioned, in north or south, in Europe or northern Africa; holding everywhere to the Atlantic coast, or, as in the Mediterranean isles, evidently pressing inward from the Atlantic, past the Pillars of Hercules, through the Strait of Gibraltar. It is evident at once that the territory of this race corresponds exactly, throughout many countries, with the territory of the cromlechs and standing stones; where we find the one, as in Ireland, Brittany, Spain, we find the other; where the one is absent, as in Germany, or northern Italy or Greece, the other is likewise absent. The identity is complete. We are justified, therefore, in giving the same provisional name to both, and calling them Atlantean, from their evident origin not far from Atlas, and their everywhere clinging to the Atlantic coast. We can find traces of no other race which at all closely fulfills the necessary conditions of uniform and undisputed extension, through a long epoch, over the whole cromlech region--the only conditions under which we can conceive of the erection of these gigantic monuments, or of the long established and universally extended spiritual conditions which make possible such vast ideal enterprises. In this race, therefore, which we have called Atlantean, we find the conditions fulfilled; of this race, and of no other, we still find a lingering remnant in each of the cromlech countries; and we hardly find a trace of this race, either now or in the past, in the lands which have no cromlechs or standing stones. We have already seen that the standing stones of Cavancarragh, four miles from Fermanagh, were, within the memory of men still living or of their fathers, buried under ten or twelve feet of peat, which had evidently formed there after their erection. We have here a natural chronometer; for we know the rate at which peat forms, and we can, therefore, assign a certain age to a given depth. We have given one mode of reckoning already; we find it corroborated by another. In the Somme valley, in northern France, we have a Nature's timepiece; in the peat, at different levels, are relics of the Roman age; of the Gaulish age which preceded it; and, far deeper, of pre-historic races, like our Atlanteans, who preceded the Gauls. The date of the Roman remains we know accurately; and from this standard we find that the peat grows regularly some three centimeters a century, or a foot in a thousand years. On the mountain side, as at Cavancarragh, the growth is likely to be slower than in a river valley; yet we may take the same rate, a foot a thousand years, and we shall have, for this great stone circle, an antiquity of ten or twelve thousand years at least. This assumes that the peat began to form as soon as the monument was completed; but the contrary may be the case; centuries may have intervened. We may, however, take this as a provisional date, and say that our cromlech epoch, the epoch of the Atlantean builders, from Algeria to Ireland, from Ireland to the Baltic, is ten or twelve thousand years ago; extending, perhaps, much further back in the past, and in certain regions coming much further down towards the present, but having a period of twelve thousand years ago as its central date. It happens that we have traditions of a great dispersion from the very centre we have been led to fix, the neighborhood of Atlas or Gibraltar, and that to this dispersion tradition has given a date over eleven thousand years ago; but to this side of the subject we cannot more fully allude; it would take us too far afield. We have gone far enough to make it tolerably certain, first, that these great and wonderful monuments were built when uniform conditions of order, uniform religious beliefs and aspirations, and a uniform mastery over natural forces extended throughout a vast region spreading northward and eastward from Mount Atlas or Gibraltar; we have seen, next, that these conditions were furnished when a well-defined race, whom we have called Atlantean, was spread as the dominant element over this whole region; and, finally, we have seen reason to fix on a period some eleven or twelve thousand years ago as the central period of that domination, though it may have begun, and probably did begin, many centuries earlier. The distribution of the cromlechs is certain; the distribution of the race is certain; the age of one characteristic group of the monuments is certain. Further than this we need not go. When we try to form a clearer image of the life of this tall archaic race of cromlech-builders, we can divine very much to fill the picture. We note, to begin with, that not only do they always hold to the Atlantic ocean as something kindred and familiar, but that they are found everywhere in islands at such distances from the nearest coasts as would demand a certain seamanship for their arrival. This is true of their presence in Malta, Minorca, Sardinia; it is even more true of Ireland, the Western Isles of Scotland, the Norwegian Isles; all of which are surrounded by stormy and treacherous seas, where wrecks are very common even in our day. We must believe that our tail, dark invaders were a race of seamen, thoroughly skilled in the dangerous navigation of these dark seas; Caesar marveled at, and imitated, the ship-building of the natives of Brittany in his day; we equally admire the prowess of their sons, the Breton fishermen, in our own times. We find, too, that in the western districts and ocean islands of our own Ireland the tall, dark race often follows the sea, showing the same hereditary skill and daring; a skill which certainly marked the first invaders of that race, or they would never have reached our island at all. We are the more justified in seeing, in these dark cromlech-builders, the Fomorians of old Gaelic tradition, who came up out of the sea and subjugated the Firbolgs. Even to those familiar with the geological record of man it is sufficiently startling to find that the Firbolgs, the early dwarfish race of Hyperboreans, in all probability were ignorant of boats; that they almost certainly came to our island dry-shod, as they had come earlier to Britain, migrating over unbroken spaces of land to what afterwards became the isle of Erin; for this race we find everywhere associated with the mammoth--on the continent, in Britain, in our own island--and the mammoths certainly never came over in ships. Needless to say, there is abundant geological evidence as well, to show our former union with continental Europe,--though of course at a time immensely more remote than ten or twelve thousand years ago. We are, therefore, led to identify our Atlantean race of hardy seamen with the Fomorians who came up out of the sea and found the furtive Firbolgs in possession of our island; and to this race, the Fomorians of the sea, we credit the building of cromlechs and standing stones, not only among ourselves, but in Norway, in Britain, in Brittany, in Spain, in Africa. We shall presently pick up the thread of tradition, as we find it in Ireland, and try to follow the doings and life of the Fomorian invaders; but in the meantime we may try to gain some insight into the most mysterious and enduring of their works. The cromlechs which have been excavated in many cases are found to contain the funereal urns of a people who burned their dead. It does not follow that their first and only use was as tombs; but if we think of them as tombs only, we must the more marvel at the faith of the builders, and their firm belief in the reality and overwhelming import of the other world which we enter at death. For of dwellings for the living, of fortresses or storehouses, of defences against the foes who later invaded them, we find few traces; nothing at all to compare with their massive mausoleums. The other world, for them, was a far weightier concern than this, and to the purposes of that world, as they conceived it, all their energies were directed. We can hardly doubt that, like other races who pay extreme reverence to the dead, their inner vision beheld these departed ones still around them and among them, forming with them a single race, a single family, a single life. This world was for them only the threshold of the other, the place of preparation. To that other their thoughts all turned, for that other they raised these titanic buildings. The solemn masses and simple grandeur of the cromlechs fitly symbolize the mood of reverence in which they drew near to the sublime world of the hidden; the awe with which their handiwork affirmed how greatly that world outweighs this. At these houses of the dead they were joined in spirit and communion with those who had passed away; once more united with their fathers and their fathers' fathers, from the dim beginning of their race. The air, for them, was full of spirits. Only the dead truly lived. The circles of standing stones are also devoted to ideal ends. Though the men who set them up could have built not less wonderful forts or dwellings of stone, we find none of these; nor has any worldly purpose ever been assigned to the stone circles. Yet there seems to be a very simple interpretation of their symbology; the circle, through all antiquity, stood for the circling year, which ever returns to its point of departure, spring repeating spring, summer answering to summer, winter with its icy winds only the return of former winters: the circling year and its landmarks, whether four seasons, or twelve months, or twenty-seven lunar mansions, through one of which the wandering moon passes in a day. We should thus have circles of twelve or twenty-seven stones, or four outlying stones at equal distances, for the four seasons, the regents of the year. By counting the stones in each circle we can tell to which division of the year they belonged, whether the solar months or the lunar mansions. But with all ancient nations the cycle of the year was only the symbol of the spiritual cycle of the soul, the path of birth and death. We must remember that even for ourselves the same symbolism holds: in the winter we celebrate the Incarnation; in spring, the Crucifixion; in summer, the birth of the beloved disciple; in autumn, the day of All Souls, the feast of the dead. Thus for us, too, the succeeding seasons only symbolize the stages of a spiritual life, the august procession of the soul. We cannot think it was otherwise with a people who lived and built so majestically for the hidden world; these great stone circles symbolized for them, we must believe, the circling life of the soul, the cycle of necessity, with the door of liberation to the home of the blest, who have reached perfect freedom and go no more out. We may picture in imagination their solemn celebrations; priests robed, perhaps, in the mingled green and purple of their hills, passing within the circle, chanting some archaic hymn of the Divine. IV. THE DE DANAANS. In the dim days of Fomorian and Firbolg, and for ages after, Erin was a land of forests, full of wild cattle and deer and wolves. The central plain was altogether hidden under green clouds of oak-woods, full of long, mysterious alleys, dimpled with sunny glades, echoing in spring and summer to the songs of innumerable birds. Everywhere through the wide and gloomy forests were the blue mirrors of lakes, starred with shaggy islands, the hanging hills descending verdant to the water's edge. Silver rivers spread their network among the woods, and the lakes and the quiet reaches of the rivers teemed with trout and salmon. The hilly lands to the north and south showed purple under the sky from among their forests, oak mingling with pine; and the four seas beat around our island with their white fringe of hovering gulls. Over all, the arch of the blue, clearer and less clouded then than now. A pleasant land, full of gladness and mystery. We can but obscurely image to ourselves the thoughts and deeds of the earliest dwellers in our island. We know that they were skilled in many arts of peace and inured to the shock of war. The sky spread above them as over us, and all around them was the green gloom of the forests, the whiteness of lakes and rivers, the rough purple of the heather. The great happenings of life, childhood and age and death, were for them what they are for us, yet their blood flowed warmer than ours. Browned by wind and sun, wet by the rain and the early dew of the morning, they delighted in the vigor of the prime. Their love for kindred, for their friends and lovers, was as ours; and when friends and kindred passed into the darkness, they still kept touch with their souls in the invisible Beyond. [Illustration: River Erne, Belleek.] The vision of our days is darkened by too much poring over earthly things; but the men of old, like many of our simpler races now, looked confidently and with intent faith across the threshold. For them the dead did not depart--hidden but from their eyes, while very near to their souls. Those in the beyond were still linked to those on earth; all together made one undivided life, neither in the visible world alone nor in the hidden world alone, but in both; each according to their destinies and duties. The men of old were immeasurably strong in this sense of immortality--a sense based not on faith but on knowledge; on a living touch with those who had gone before. They knew both over-world and under-world, because they held their souls open to the knowledge of both, and did not set their hearts on earthly things alone. A strong life close to the life of the natural world, a death that was no separation, the same human hearts as ours,--further we need not go in imagining that far-off time. A third people was presently added to these two, at an epoch fixed by tradition some four thousand years ago. A vivid picture of their coming has been handed down to us, and this picture we shall reproduce, as many circumstances and particulars of our knowledge drawn from other sources concur to show that our old legend is near to the truth, both in time and happenings. The name these newcomers bore was Tuata De Danaan, the De Danaan tribes; they were golden-haired and full of knowledge, and their coming was heavy with destiny for the dark races of Fomor and Firbolg. Even to-day, mysterious whispers of the De Danaans linger among the remote valleys and hillsides of our island, and truth is hidden in every legend of their deeds. They have borne a constant repute for magical knowledge, and the first tradition of their coming not only echoes that repute, but shows how first they came by it. The De Danaans came from the north; from what land, we shall presently inquire. They landed somewhere on the northeast coast of our island, says the tradition; the coast of Antrim was doubtless the place of their arrival, and we have our choice between Larne and the estuary of the Foyle. All between, lofty cliffs face a dark and angry sea, where no one not familiar with the coast would willingly approach; their later course in the island makes it very probable that they came to the Foyle. There, still within sight of the Caledonian isles and headlands hovering in blue shadows over the sea, they entered, where the sun rose over long silver sands and hills of chalk, with a grim headland on the west towering up into sombre mountains. Once within the strait, they had a wide expanse of quiet waters on all sides, running deep among the rugged hills, and receiving at its further end the river Foyle, tempting them further and further with their ships. Up the Foyle went the De Danaan fleet, among the oak-woods, the deer gazing wide-eyed at them from dark caverns of shadow, the wolves peering after them in the night. Then, when their ships would serve them no further, they landed, and, to set the seal on their coming, burned their boats, casting in their lot with the fate of their new home. Still following the streams of the Foyle, for rivers were the only pathways through the darkness of the woods, they came to the Lakes of Erne, then, as now, beautiful with innumerable islands, and draped with curtains of forest. Beyond Erne, they fixed their first settlement at Mag Rein, the Plain of the Headland, within the bounds of what afterwards was Leitrim; and at this camp their legend takes up the tale. It would seem that the Fomorians were then gathered further to the west, as well as in the northern isles. The Firbolgs had their central stronghold at Douin Cain, the Beautiful Eminence, which, tradition tells us, later bore the name of Tara. The chief among their chiefs was Eocaid, son of Ere, remembered as the last ruler of the Firbolgs. Every man of them was a hunter, used to spear and shield, and the skins of deer and the shaggy hides of wolves were their garments; their dwellings were built of well-fitted oak. To the chief, Eocaid, Erc's son, came rumor of the strangers near the Lakes of Erne; their ships, burned at their debarking, were not there to tell of the manner of their coming, and the De Danaans themselves bruited it abroad that they had come hither by magic, borne upon the wings of the wind. The chiefs of Tara gathered together, within their fort of earth crowned with a stockade, and took counsel how to meet this new adventure. After long consultation they chose one from among them, Sreng by name, a man of uncommon strength, a warrior tried and proven, who should go westward to find out more of the De Danaans. Doubtless taking certain chosen companions with him, Sreng, the man of valor from among the Firbolgs, set forth on his quest. As in all forest-covered countries, the only pathways lay along the river-banks, or, in times of drought, through the sand or pebbles of their beds. Where the woods pressed closest upon the streams, the path wound from one bank to the other, crossing by fords or stepping-stones, or by a bridge of tree-trunks. So went Sreng, careful and keen-eyed, up the stream of the Blackwater, and thence to the Erne, and so drew near to the Plain of the Headland, where was the De Danaan camp. They, too, had word of his coming from their scouts and hunters, and sent forth Breas, one among their bravest, to meet the envoy. They sighted each other and halted, each setting his shield in the earth, peering at his adversary above its rim. Then, reassured, they came together, and Breas first spoke to Sreng. After the first words they fell, warrior-like, to examining each other's weapons; Sreng saw that the two spears of Breas the De Danaan were thin, slender and long, and sharp-pointed, while his own were heavy, thick and point-less, but sharply rounded. Here we have a note of reality, for spears of these two types are well known to us; those of Sreng were chisel-shaped, round-edged, socketed celts; the De Danaan lances were long and slender, like our spears. There are two materials also--a beautiful golden bronze, shining and gleaming in the sunlight, and a darker, ruddier metal, dull and heavy; and these darker spears have sockets for greatly thicker hafts. Both also carried swords, made, very likely, the one of golden, the other of dull, copper-colored bronze. Then, putting these pleasant things aside, they turned to weightier matters, and Breas made a proposal for the De Danaan men. The island was large, the forests wide and full of game, the waters sweet and well-stocked with fish. Might they not share it between them, and join hands to keep out all future comers? Sreng could give no final answer; he could only put the matter before the Firbolg chiefs; so, exchanging spears in sign of friendship and for a token between them, they returned each to his own camp. Sreng of the Firbolgs retraced his path some four-score miles among the central forests, and came to the Beautiful Eminence, where the Firbolgs had their settlement. Eocaid, Erc's son, their chieftain, called the lesser chiefs around him, and Sreng made full report of what he had seen and heard. The Firbolgs, pressed on by their fate, decided to refuse all terms with the De Danaans, but to give them battle, and drive them from the island. So they made ready, each man seeing to the straps of his shield, the burnishing of his thick sword and heavy spear. Eyes gleamed out beneath lowering brows all about the dwellings of Tara, and hot words were muttered of the coming fight. The dark faces of the Firbolgs were full of wrath. Breas, returning to the camp of the Tuata De Danaan, gave such account of the fierceness and strength of Sreng, and the weight and sturdiness of his weapons, that the hearts of the golden-haired newcomers misgave them, and they drew away westward to the strip of land that lies between the lakes of Corrib and Mask. There, tradition tells us, they made an encampment upon the hill of Belgadan, near the stream that flows through caverns beneath the rocks from the northern to the southern lake. From their hill-top they had clear view of the plain stretching eastward, across which the Firbolg warriors must come; to the right hand and to the left were spread the great white waters of the lakes, stretching far away to the northern and southern verge of the sky. Islands dotted the lakes, and trees mirrored themselves in the waters. Behind them, to the westward, rose a square-topped mountain, crowned by a clear tarn; and, behind that, tier upon tier of hills, stretching dark and sombre along Lough Mask to the north, and spreading westward to the twelve crystal hills of Connemara. Across the plain to the east, then called the Plain of Nia, but thereafter Mag Tuiread or Moytura, the Plain of the Pillars, lay the forests, and thence issued forth the hosts of the Firbolgs, encamping on the eastern verge of the open space. Nuada, the De Danaan king, once more sought a peaceful issue to their meeting, but Erc's son Eocaid refused all terms, and it was plain to all that they must fight. It was midsummer. The air was warm about them, the lake-shores and the plain clothed in green of many gently blended shades. The sun shone down upon them, and the lakes mirrored the clear blue above. From their hill of encampment descended the De Danaans, with their long slender spears gleaming like bright gold, their swords of golden bronze firmly grasped, their left hands griping the thong of their shields. Golden-haired, with flowing tresses, they descended to the fight; what stately battle-song they chanted, what Powers they called on for a blessing, we cannot tell; nor in what terms the dark-browed Firbolgs answered them as they approached across the plain. All that day did the hosts surge together, spear launched against spear, and bronze sword clashing against shield; all that day and for three days more, and then the fate of the Firbolgs was decided. Great and dire was the slaughter of them, so that Erc's son Eocaid saw that all was lost. Withdrawing with a hundred of his own men about him, Eocaid was seeking water to quench his thirst, for the heat of the battle was upon him, when he was pursued by a greater band of the De Danaans, under the three sons of Nemed, one of their chieftains. Eocaid and his bodyguard fled before Nemed's sons, making their way northeastward along the Moy river, under the shadow of the Mountains of Storms, now wrongly named Ox Mountains. They came at last to the great strand called Traig Eotaile, but now Ballysadare, the Cataract of the Oaks,--where the descending river is cloven into white terraces by the rocks, and the sea, retreating at low tide, leaves a world of wet sand glinting under the moonlight. At the very sea's margin a great battle was fought between the last king of the Firbolgs with his men, and the De Danaans under Nemed's sons; so relentless was the fight along the tideways that few remained to tell of it, for Erc's son Eocaid fell, but Nemed's three sons fell likewise, The three De Danaan brothers were buried at the western end of the strand, and the place was called The Gravestones of the Sons of Nemed, in their memory. The son of Erc was buried on the strand, where the waves lap along the shore, and his cairn of Traig Eotaile still stands by the water-side, last resting-place of the last ruler of the Firbolgs. Meanwhile the fighting had gone on at Mag Tuiread by the lakes, till but three hundred of the Firbolgs were left, with Sreng, the fierce fighter, at their head. Sreng had gained enduring fame by meeting Nuada, the De Danaan king, in combat, and smiting him so that he clove the shield-rim and cut down deep into Nuada's shoulder, disabling him utterly from the battle. Seeing themselves quite outnumbered, therefore, the survivors of the Firbolgs with Sreng demanded single combat with De Danaan champions, but the victors offered them worthy terms of peace. The Firbolgs were to hold in lordship and freedom whichever they might choose of the five provinces; the conquerors were to have the rest. Sreng looked around among his band of survivors,--a little band, though of great valor,--and he remembered the hosts of his people that had entered the battle three days before, but now lay strewn upon the plain; and thinking that they had done enough for valor he accepted the offered terms, choosing the Western Province for his men. In memory of him it was called Cuigead Sreing for generations, until Conn of the Five-Score Battles changed the name for his own, calling the province Connacht, as it is to this day. It fared less well with the victors, and with their victory were sown seeds of future discord. For Nuada, the king, being grievously wounded, was in no state to rule, so that the chief power was given to Breas, first envoy of the De Danaans. Now Breas was only half De Danaan, half Fomor, and would not recognize the De Danaan rites or laws of hospitality, but was a very tyrannous and overbearing ruler, so that much evil came of his government. Yet for seven years he was endured, even though meat nor ale was dispensed at his banquets, according to De Danaan law. Mutterings against Breas were rife among the chiefs and their followers when the bard Cairbré, whose mother Etan was also a maker of verses, came to the assembly of Breas. But the bard was shown little honor and given a mean lodging,--a room without fire or bed, with three dry loaves for his fare. The bard was full of resentment and set himself to make songs against Breas, so that all men repeated his verses, and the name of Breas fell into contempt. All men's minds were enkindled by the bard, and they drove Breas forth from the chieftainship. Breas fled to his Fomor kindred in the isles, with his heart full of anger and revenge against the De Danaans. He sought help of his kindred, and their design was told to the Fomorian chieftains--to Balor of the Evil Eye, and to Indec, son of De Domnand, chiefs of the Isles. These two leaders gathered ships from all the harbors and settlements of the Fomorians, from the Hebrides, the Shetlands, and far-distant Norway, so that their fleet was thick as gulls above a shoal of fish along the north shores of Erin. Coming down from the northern isles, they sighted the coast of Erin, the peaks of the northwestern mountains rising purple towards the clouds, with white seas foaming around them. Past towering headlands they sailed; then, drawing in towards the shore, they crept under the great cliffs of Slieve League, that rose like a many-colored wall from the sea to the sky--so high that the great eagles on their summits were but specks seen from beneath, so high that the ships below seemed like sea-shells to those who watched them from above. With the wall of the cliffs on their left hand, and the lesser headlands and hills of Sligo on their right, they came to that same strand of Ballysadare, the Cataract of the Oaks, where the last of the Firbolgs fell. Drawing their long ships up on the beach, with furled sail and oars drawn in, they debarked their army on the shore. It was a landing of ill-omen for the Fomorians, that landing beside the cairn of Eocaid; a landing of ill-omen for Indec, son of De Domnand, and for Balor of the Evil Eye. It was the fall of the leaf when they came; the winds ran crying through the forests, tearing the leaves and branches from the oaks, and mourning among the pines of the uplands. The sea was gray as a gull's back, with dark shadows under the cliffs and white tresses of foam along the headlands. At evening a cold wind brought the rain beating in from the ocean. Thus the Fomorians landed at the Cataract of the Oaks, and marched inland to the plain now called Tirerril in Sligo. The murky sky spread over the black and withered waste of the plain, hemmed in with gloomy hills, wild rocks and ravines, and with all the northern horizon broken by distant mountains. Here Indec and Balor, and Breas the cause of their coming, fixed their camp. They sent a message of defiance to the De Danaans, challenging them to fight or surrender. The De Danaans heard the challenge and made ready to fight. Nuada, now called the chieftain of the Silver Arm, because the mischief wrought by Sreng's blow on his shoulder had been hidden by a silver casing, was once more ruler since Breas had been driven out. Besides Nuada, these were De Danaan chieftains: Dagda, the Mighty; Lug, son of Cian, son of Diancect, surnamed Lamfada, the Long Armed; Ogma, of the Sunlike Face; and Angus, the Young. They summoned the workers in bronze and the armorers, and bid them prepare sword and spear for battle, charging the makers of spear-haft and shield to perfect their work. The heralds also were ready to proclaim the rank of the warriors, and those skilled in healing herbs stood prepared to succor the wounded. The bards were there also to arouse valor and ardor with their songs. Then marching westward to the plain of the battle among the hills, they set their camp and advanced upon the Fomorians. Each man had two spears bound with a thong to draw them back after the cast, with a shield to ward off blows, and a broad-bladed sword of bronze for close combat. With war-chants and invocations the two hosts met. The spears, well poised and leveled, clove the air, hissing between them, and under the weight of the spear-heads and their sharp points many in both hosts fell. There were cries of the wounded now, mingled with battle-songs, and hoarse shouting for vengeance among those whose sons and brothers and sworn friends fell. Another cast of the spears, seaming the air between as the hosts closed in, and they fell on each other with their swords, shields upraised and gold-bronze sword-points darting beneath like the tongues of serpents. They cut and thrust, each with his eyes fixed on the fierce eyes of his foe. They fought on the day of the Spirits, now the Eve of All Saints; the Fomorians were routed, and their chieftains slain. But of the De Danaans, Nuada, once wounded by Sreng of the Firbolgs, now fell by the hand of Balor; yet Balor also fell, slain by Lug, his own daughter's son. Thus was the might of the Fomorians broken, and the De Danaans ruled unopposed, their power and the works of their hands spreading throughout the length and breadth of the land. Many monuments are accredited to them by tradition, but greatest and most wonderful are the pyramids of stone at Brugh on the Boyne. Some nine miles from the sandy seashore, where the Boyne loses itself in the waves, there is a broad tongue of meadowland, shut in on three sides southward by the Boyne, and to the northeast cut off by a lesser stream that joins it. This remote and quiet headland, very famous in the annals, was in old days so surrounded by woods that it was like a quiet glade in the forest rimmed by the clear waters of the Boyne. The Mourne Mountains to the north and the lesser summits on the southern sky-line were hidden by the trees. The forest wall encircled the green meadowland, and the river fringed with blue forget-me-nots. In this quiet spot was the sacred place of the De Danaans, and three great pyramids of stone, a mile apart along the river, mark their three chief sanctuaries. The central is the greatest; two hundred thousand tons of stone heaped up, within a circular wall of stone, itself surrounded by a great outer circle of standing stones, thirty in number, like gray sentinels guarding the shrine. In the very heart of the pyramid, hushed in perpetual stillness and peace, is the inmost sanctuary, a chamber formed like a cross, domed with a lofty roof, and adorned with mysterious tracings on the rocks. Shrines like this are found in many lands, whether within the heart of the pyramids of Egypt or in the recesses of India's hills; and in all lands they have the same purpose. They are secret and holy sanctuaries, guarded well from all outward influence, where, in the mystic solitude, the valiant and great among the living may commune with the spirits of the mighty dead. The dead, though hidden, are not passed away; their souls are in perpetual nearness to ours. If we enter deep within ourselves, to the remote shrine of the heart, as they entered that secluded shrine, we may find the mysterious threshold where their world and our world meet. In the gloom and silence of those pyramid-chambers, the De Danaans thus sought the souls of their mighty ones--the Dagda, surnamed the Mighty, and Lug the Long-Armed, and Ogma of the Sunlike Face, and Angus the Young. From these luminous guardians they sought the inbreathing of wisdom, drawing into themselves the might of these mightier ones, and rising toward the power of their immortal world. And to these sacred recesses they brought the ashes of their mighty dead, as a token that they, too, had passed through the secret gateway to the Land of the Ever Young. Some thirty miles to the west of Brugh, on the Boyne, a low range of hills rises from the central plain, now bearing the name of Slieve na Calliagh, the Witch's Hill. In the days of the great forest this was the first large open space to the west coming from Brugh, and, like it, a quiet and remote refuge among the woods. On the hillsides of Slieve na Calliagh are other pyramids of stone, in all things like those of Brugh, and with the same chambered sanctuaries, but of lesser size; belonging, perhaps, to a later age, when the De Danaans were no longer supreme in the land, but took their place beside newcome invaders. These lesser shrines were also sacred places, doorways to the hidden world, entrance-gates to the Land of the Ever Young. There also was beheld the vision of the radiant departed; there also were fonts of baptism, basins wrought of granite brought hither from the distant hills of Mourne or Wicklow. As in all lands, these fonts were used in the consecration of the new birth, from which man rises conscious of his immortality. In harmony with this faith of theirs, our present tradition sees in the De Danaans a still haunting impalpable presence, a race invisible yet real, dwelling even now among our hills and valleys. When the life of the visible world is hushed, they say, there is another life in the hidden, where the Dagda Mor and Ogma and Lug and Angus still guard the De Danaan hosts. The radiance of their nearness is all through the land, like the radiance of the sun hidden behind storm-clouds, glimmering through the veil. [Illustration: White Rocks, Portrush] In the chambers of those pyramid-shrines are still traces of the material presence of the De Danaans; not only their baptismal fonts, but more earthly things--ornaments, beads of glass and amber, and combs with which they combed their golden locks. These amber beads, like so many things in the De Danaan history, call us to far northern lands by the Baltic, whence in all likelihood the De Danaans came; for in those Baltic lands we find just such pyramid shrines as those at Brugh and on the hillsides of Slieve na Calliagh, and their ornaments are the same, and the fashion of their spear-heads and shields. The plan of the Danish pyramid of Uby is like the pyramids of Newgrange and Nowth and Dowth by the Boyne, and the carvings on King Gorm's stone by the Baltic are like the carvings of stones in our own island. On the Baltic shores, too, of most ancient date and belonging to forgotten times, are still found fragments and even perfect hulls of just such long ships as were needed for the Danaans' coming, like the ships they burnt along the reaches of the Foyle. By the Baltic, too, and nowhere else, were there races with hair yellow as their own amber, or, as our island bards say, "so bright that the new-molten gold was not brighter; yellow as the yellow flag-lilies along the verges of the rivers." Therefore, in character of race, in face and feature, in color and complexion, in the form and make of sword and spear and shield, in their knowledge of ships and the paths of the sea, as in their ornaments and decorative art, and in those majestic pyramids and shrines where they sought mystic wisdom, and whither they carried the ashes of their dead, as to a place of sacred rest--in all these the life of the De Danaans speaks of the Baltic shores and the ancient race of golden-haired heroes who dwelt there. The honoring of bards, the heraldic keeping of traditions and the names of ancestors, also speak of the same home; and with a college of heraldic bards, well-ordered and holding due rank and honor, we can well see how the stories of their past have come down even to our days, lingering among our hills and valleys, as the De Danaan themselves linger, hidden yet not departed. The traditional time of their coming, too, agrees well with all we know. Without bronze tools they could not have carved the beautifully adorned stones that are built into the pyramids by the Boyne; yet there is a certain early ruggedness about these stones that falls far short of the perfection of later times. Early in the bronze age, therefore, they must be placed; and the early bronze age, wherever its remoteness can be measured, as in the Swiss lakes or the peat-mosses of Denmark, cannot be less than four thousand years ago, thus well agreeing with our De Danaan tradition. We are, therefore, led to believe that the tale told by these traditions is in the main a true one; that the races recorded by them came in the recorded order; that their places of landing are faithfully remembered; that all traditions pointing to their earlier homes are worthy of belief, and in full accord with all our other knowledge. V. EMAIN OF MACA. B.C. 50--A.D. 50. The battles of Southern and Northern Moytura gave the De Danaans sway over the island. After they had ruled for many centuries, they in their turn were subjected to invasion, as the Firbolg and Fomorian had been before them. The newcomers were the Sons of Milid, and their former home was either Gaul or Spain. But whether from Gaul or Spain, the sons of Milid were of undoubted Gaelic race, in every feature of character and complexion resembling the continental Gauls. We must remember that, in the centuries before the northward spread of Rome, the Gauls were the great central European power. Twenty-six hundred years ago their earlier tribal life was consolidated into a stable empire under Ambigatos; Galicia in Eastern Austria and Galicia in Western Spain mark their extreme borders towards the rising and setting sun. Several centuries before the days of Ambigatos, in the older period of tribal confederation, was the coming of the Gaelic Sons of Milid to Ireland. Tradition places the date between three and four thousand years ago. Yet even after that long interval of isolation the resemblance between the Irish and continental Gaels is perfect; they are tall, solidly built, rather inclined to stoutness; they are fair-skinned, or even florid, easily browned by sun and wind. Their eyes are gray, greenish or hazel, not clear blue, like the eyes of the Baltic race; and though fair-haired, they are easily distinguished from the golden-haired Norsemen. Such are the descendants of the Sons of Milid. Coming from Gaul or Spain, the Sons of Milid landed in one of the great fiords that penetrate between the mountains of Kerry--long after so named from the descendants of Ciar. These same fiords between the hills have been the halting-place of continental invaders for ages; hardly a century has passed since the last landing there of continental soldiers; there was another invasion a century before that, and yet another a hundred years earlier. But the Sons of Milid showed the way. They may have come by Bantry Bay or the Kenmare River or Dingle Bay; more probably the last, for tradition still points to the battlefield where they were opposed, on the hills of Slieve Mish, above the Dingle fiord. But wherever they debarked on that southwestern coast they found a land warm and winning as the south they had left behind--a land of ever-green woods, yew and arbutus mingling with beech and oak and fir; rich southern heaths carpeting the hillsides, and a soft drapery of ferns upon the rocks. There were red masses of overhanging mountain, but in the valleys, sheltered and sun-warmed, they found a refuge like the Isles of the Blest. The Atlantic, surging in great blue rollers, brought the warmth of tropical seas, and a rich and vivid growth through all the glens and vales responded to the sun's caress. The De Danaans must ere this have spread through all of the island, except the western province assigned to the Firbolgs; for we find them opposing,--but vainly opposing,--the Sons of Milid, at the very place of their landing. Here again we find the old tradition verified; for at the spot recorded of old by the bards and heralds, among the hills by the pass that leads from Dingle to Tralee Bay, numberless arrow-heads have been gathered, the gleanings after a great combat. The De Danaans fought with sword and spear, but, unless they had added to their weapons since the days of Breas and Sreng, they did not shoot with the bow; this was, perhaps, the cause of their defeat, for the De Danaans were defeated among the hills on that long headland. From their battlefield they could see the sea on either hand, stretching far inland northward and southward; across these arms of the sea rose other headlands, more distant, the armies of hills along them fading from green to purple, from purple to clear blue. But the De Danaans had burned their boats; they sought refuge rather by land, retreating northward till they came to the shelter of the great central woods. The Sons of Milid pursued them, and, overtaking them at Tailten on the Blackwater, some ten miles northwest of Tara, they fought another battle; after it, the supremacy of the De Danaans definitely passed away. Yet we have no reason to believe that, any more than the Fomorians or Firbolgs, the De Danaans ceased to fill their own place in the land. They seem, indeed, to have been preponderant in the north, and in all likelihood they hold their own there even now; for every addition to our knowledge shows us more and more how tenacious is the life of races, how firmly they cling to their earliest dwellings. And though we read of races perishing before invaders, this is the mere boasting of conquerors; more often the newcomers are absorbed among the earlier race, and nothing distinctive remains of them but a name. We have abundant evidence to show that at the present day, as throughout the last three thousand years, the four races we have described continue to make up the bulk of our population, and pure types of each still linger unblended in their most ancient seats; for, though races mingle, they do not thereby lose their own character. The law is rather that the type of one or other will come out clear in their descendants, all undefined forms tending to disappear. Nor did any subsequent invasion add new elements; for as all northern Europe is peopled by the same few types, every newcomer,--whether from Norway, Denmark, Britain or Continental Europe,--but reinforced one of these earlier races. Yet even where the ethnical elements are alike, there seems to be a difference of destiny and promise--as if the very land itself brooded over its children, transforming them and molding them to a larger purpose. The spiritual life of races goes far deeper than their ethnic history. It would seem that with the coming of the Sons of Milid the destiny of Ireland was rounded and completed; from that time onward, for more than two thousand years, was a period of uniform growth and settled life and ideals; a period whose history and achievements we are only beginning to understand. At the beginning of that long epoch of settled life the art of working gold was developed and perfected; and we have abundance of beautiful gold-work from remote times, of such fine design and execution that there is nothing in the world to equal it. The modern work of countries where gold is found in quantities is commonplace, vulgar and inartistic, when compared with the work of the old Irish period. Torques, or twisted ribbons of gold, of varying size and shape, were worn as diadems, collars, or even belts; crescent bands of finely embossed sheet-gold were worn above the forehead; brooches and pins of most delicate and imaginative workmanship were used to catch together the folds of richly colored cloaks, and rings and bracelets were of not less various and exquisite forms. We are at no loss to understand the abundance of our old goldsmiths' work when we know that even now, after being worked for centuries, the Wicklow gold-mines have an average yearly yield of some five hundred ounces, found, for the most part, in nuggets in the beds of streams flowing into the two Avons. One mountain torrent bears the name of Gold Mines River at the present day, showing the unbroken presence of the yellow metal from the time of its first discovery, over three thousand years ago. It seems probable that a liberal alloy of gold gave the golden bronze its peculiar excellence and beauty; for so rich is the lustre, so fine the color of many of our bronze axes and spears, that they are hardly less splendid than weapons of pure gold. From the perfect design and workmanship of these things of gold and bronze, more than from any other source, we gain an insight into the high culture and skill in the arts which marked that most distinctively Irish period, lasting, as we have seen, more than two thousand years. Early in this same epoch we find traditions of the clearing of forests, the sowing of cornfields, the skill of dyers in seven colors, earliest of which were purple, blue and green. Wells were dug to insure an easily accessible supply of pure water, so that we begin to think of a settled population dwelling among fields of golden grain, pasturing their cattle in rich meadows, and depending less on the deer and wild oxen of the forest, the salmon of lake and river, and the abundant fish along the shores. Tradition speaks persistently of bards, heralds, poets and poetesses; of music and song; of cordial and generous social life; and to the presence of these bards, like the skalds of the Northmen, we owe pictures, even now full of life and color and movement, of those days of long ago. At a period rather more than two thousand years ago, a warrior-queen, Maca by name, founded a great fort and citadel at Emain, some two miles west of Armagh, in the undulating country of green hills and meadows to the south of Lough Neagh. The ramparts and earthworks of that ancient fortress can still be traced, and we can follow and verify what the ancient bards told of the greatness of the stronghold of Maca. The plans of all forts of that time seem to have been much the same--a wide ring of earthwork, with a deep moat, guarded them, and a stockade of oak stakes rose above the earthwork, behind which the defenders stood, firing volleys of arrows at the attacking host. Within this outer circle of defence there was almost always a central stronghold, raised on a great mound of earth; and this was the dwelling of the chief, provincial ruler, or king. Lesser mounds upheld the houses of lesser chiefs, and all alike seem to have been built of oak, with plank roofs. Safe storehouses of stone were often sunk underground, beneath the chief's dwelling. In the fort of Emain, as in the great fort of Tara in the Boyne Valley, there was a banqueting-hall for the warriors, and the bards thus describe one of these in the days of its glory: "The banquet-hall had twelve divisions in each wing, with tables and passages round them; there were sixteen attendants on each side, eight for the star-watchers, the historians and the scribes, in the rear of the hall, and two to each table at the door,--a hundred guests in all; two oxen, two sheep and two hogs were divided equally on each side at each meal. Beautiful was the appearance of the king in that assembly--flowing, slightly curling golden hair upon him; a red buckler with stars and beasts wrought of gold and fastenings of silver upon him; a crimson cloak in wide descending folds upon him, fastened at his breast by a golden brooch set with precious stones; a neck-torque of gold around his neck; a white shirt with a full collar, and intertwined with threads of gold, upon him; a girdle of gold inlaid with precious stones around him; two wonderful shoes of gold with runings of gold upon him; two spears with golden sockets in his hand." We are the more disposed to trust the fidelity of the picture, since the foundations of the Tara banquet-hall are to be clearly traced to this day--an oblong earthwork over seven hundred feet long by ninety wide, with the twelve doors still distinctly marked; as for the brooches and torques of gold, some we have surpass in magnificence anything here described, and their artistic beauty is eloquent of the refinement of spirit that conceived and the skill that fashioned them. Spear-heads, too, are of beautiful bronze-gold, with tracings round the socket of great excellence and charm. [Illustration: Powerscourt Waterfall, Co. Wicklow] For a picture of the life of that age, we cannot do better than return to Emain of Maca, telling the story of one famous generation of warriors and fair women who loved and fought there two thousand years ago. The ideal of beauty was still the golden hair and blue eyes of the De Danaans, and we cannot doubt that their race persisted side by side with the Sons of Milid, retaining a certain predominance in the north and northeast of the island, the first landing-place of the De Danaan invaders. Of this mingled race was the great Rudraige, from whom the most famous rulers of Emain descended. Ros was the son of Rudraige, and from Roeg and Cass, the sons of Ros, came the princes Fergus and Factna. Factna, son of Cass, wedded the beautiful Nessa, and from their union sprang Concobar, the great hero and ruler of Ulster--in those days named Ulad, and the dwellers there the Ulaid. Factna died while Concobar was yet a boy; and Nessa, left desolate, was yet so beautiful in her sadness that Fergus became her slave, and sued for her favor, though himself a king whose favors others sued. Nessa's heart was wholly with her son, her life wrapt up in his. She answered, therefore, that she would renounce her mourning and give her widowed hand to Fergus the king, if the king, on his part, would promise that Nessa's son Concobar should succeed him, rather than the children of Fergus. Full of longing, and held in thrall by her beauty, Fergus promised; and this promise was the beginning of many calamities, for Nessa, the queen, feeling her sway over Fergus, and full of ambition for her child, won a promise from Fergus that the youth should sit beside him on the throne, hearing all pleadings and disputes, and learning the art of ruling. But the spirit of Concobar was subtle and strong and masterful, and he quickly took the greater place in the councils of the Ulaid, until Nessa, still confident in her charm, took a promise from Fergus that Concobar should reign for one year. Fergus, great-hearted warrior, but tender and gentle and fond of feasts and merrymaking, was very willing to lift the cares of rule from his shoulders to the younger shoulders of Nessa's son, and the one year thus granted became many years, so that Fergus never again mounted his throne. Yet for the love he bore to Nessa, Fergus willingly admitted his stepson's rule, and remained faithfully upholding him, ever merry at the banquets, and leading the martial sports and exercises of the youths, the sons of chieftains, at the court. Thus Concobar, son of Nessa, came to be ruler over the great fort of Emain, with its citadel, its earthworks and outer forts, its strong stockade and moat; ruler of these, and of the chiefs of the Ulaid, and chief commander of all the fighting-men that followed them. To him came the tribute of cattle and horses, of scarlet cloaks and dyed fabrics, purple and blue and green, and the beryls and emeralds from the mountains of Mourne where the sea thunders in the caves, near the great fort of Rudraige. Fergus was lord only of the banqueting-hall and of the merrymakings of the young chiefs; but in all else the will of Concobar was supreme and his word was law. It happened that before this a child had been born, a girl golden-haired and with blue eyes, of whom the Druids had foretold many dark and terrible things. That the evil might not be wrought through this child of sad destiny, the king had from her earliest childhood kept her securely hidden in a lonely fort, and there Deirdré grew in solitude, daily increasing in beauty and winsomeness. She so won the love of those set in guard over her that they relaxed something of the strictness of their watch, letting her wander a little in the meadows and the verges of the woods, gathering flowers, and watching the life of birds and wild things there. Among the chieftains of the court of Emain was one Usnac, of whom were three sons, with Naisi strongest and handsomest of the three. Naisi was dark, with black locks hanging upon his shoulders and dark, gleaming eyes; and so strongly is unlike drawn to unlike that golden-haired Deirdré, seeing him in one of her wanderings, felt her heart go forth to him utterly. Falling into talk with him, they exchanged promises of enduring love. Thus the heart of Naisi went to Deirdré, as hers had gone to him, so that all things were changed for them, growing radiant with tremulous hope and wistful with longing. Yet the fate that lay upon Deirdré was heavy, and all men dreaded it but Naisi; so that even his brothers, the sons of Usnac, feared greatly and would have dissuaded him from giving his life to the ill-fated one. But Naisi would not be dissuaded; so they met secretly many times, in the twilight at the verge of the wood, Deirdré's golden hair catching the last gleam of sunlight and holding it long into the darkness, while the black locks of Naisi, even ere sunset, foreshadowed the coming night. In their hearts it was not otherwise; for Deirdré, full of wonder at the change that had come over her, at the song of the birds that echoed ever around her even in her dreams, at the radiance of the flowers and trees, the sunshine on the waters of the river, the vivid gladness over all,--Deirdré knew nothing of the dread doom that was upon her, and was all joy and wonderment at the meetings with her lover, full of fancies and tender words and shy caresses; but Naisi, who knew well the fate that overshadowed them like a black cloud above a cliff of the sea, strove to be glad and show a bold face to his mistress, though his heart many a time grew cold within him, thinking on what had befallen and what might befall. For the old foretelling of the star-watchers was not the only doom laid upon Deirdré. Concobar the king, stern and masterful, crafty and secret in counsel though swift as an eagle to slay,--Concobar the king had watched Deirdré in her captivity, ever unseen of her, and his heart had been moved by the fair softness of her skin, the glow of her cheek, the brightness of her eyes and hair; so that the king had steadfastly determined in his mind that Deirdré should be his, in scorn of all prophecies and warnings; that her beauty should be for him alone. This the king had determined; and it was known to Naisi the son of Usnac. It was known to him also that what Concobar the king determined, he steadfastly carried out; for the will of Concobar was strong and masterful over all around him. Therefore at their meetings two clouds lay upon the heart of Naisi: the presentment of the king's power and anger, and his relentless hand pursuing through the night, and the darker dread of the sightless doom pronounced of old at the birth of Deirdré, of which the will of Concobar was but the tool. There was gloom in his eyes and silence on his lips and a secret dread in his heart. Deirdré wondered at it, her own heart being so full of gladness, her eyes sparkling, and endearing words ever ready on her lips. Deirdré wondered, yet found a new delight and wonderment in the silence of Naisi, and the gloomy lightning in his eyes, as being the more contrasted with herself, and therefore the more to be beloved. Yet the time came when Naisi determined to tell her all and risk the worst that fate could do against them, finding death with her greatly better than life without her. Yet death with her was not to be granted to him. Deirdré heard, wondering and trembling, and Naisi must tell her the tale many times before she understood,--so utter had been her solitude and so perfect was yet her ignorance of all things beyond the fort where she was captive, and of all the doings of men. Concobar was not even a name to her, and she knew nothing of his power or the stronghold of Emain, the armies of the Ulaid, or the tributes of gold and cattle and horses. Spears and swords and those who wielded them were not even dreams to her until the coming of Naisi, when his gloom blended with her sunshine. Talking long through the twilight, until the red gold of the west was dulled to bronze over the hills, and the bronze tarnished and darkened with the coming of the eastern stars, they planned together what they should do; and, the heart of Deirdré at last growing resolute, they made their way through the night to where the brothers of Naisi were, and all fled together towards the northern sea. Amongst the fishermen of the north they found those who were willing to carry them beyond the reach of Concobar's anger, and with a southerly breeze set sail for the distant headlands of Scotland, that they had seen from the cliff-top lying like blue clouds along the horizon. They set forth early in the morning, as the sun came up out of the east over blue Alban capes, and when the sun went down it reddened the dark rocks of Islay; so that, making for the shore, they camped that night under the Islay Hills. On their setting forth again, the sea was like a wild grey lake between Jura on the left and the long headland of Cantyre on their right; and thus they sped forward between long ranks of gloomy hills, growing ever nearer them on both sides, till they passed through the Sound of Jura and rounded into Loch Etive. There they made the land, drawing up under the shadow of dark hills, and there they dwelt for many a day. Very familiar to Deirdré, though at first strange and wild and terrible beyond words, grew that vast amphitheatre of hills in their eternal grayness, with the long Loch stretching down like a horn through their midst. Very familiar to inland-bred Deirdré, though at first strange and fearful, grew the gray surges of the incoming tides, the white foam of the waves seething along boulders of granite, and the long arms of seaweed waving as she peered downward into the clear green water. Very familiar to Deirdré, though at first strange and confusing, grew the arms of Naisi around her in the darkness and his warm lips on her cheek. Happy were those wild days in the great glen of Etive, and dear did the sons of Usnac grow to her heart, loved as brothers by her who never knew a brother, or the gentleness of a mother's watching, or the solace of dear kindred. The sons of Usnac sped forth before dawn among the hills from their green dwelling roofed with pine branches and reeds and moss; early they went forth to track the deer, pursuing them with their arrows, till the red flank of the buck was laced with brighter red. One of the three ever stayed behind with Deirdré, whether it was Naisi himself, or Alny, or Ardan, and the two thus remaining were like children playing together, whether gathering sticks and dry rushes and long spears of withered grass for their fire, or wandering by the white curling waves, or sending flat pebbles skipping over the wavelets; and the sound of their laughter many a time echoed along the Loch's green waters and up the hills, till the does peered and wondered from among the heather, and the heron, startled at his fishing, flew upwards croaking, with flapping wings. Happy were those days for Deirdré, and with utter sadness she looked back to them afterwards, when the doom foretold had fallen upon her. Happy sped the days, till once in the gray of the dawn, while Deirdré was resting in their green refuge with Naisi, she cried out in her sleep and waked, telling him, weeping, that she had heard the voice of the bird of doom in her dreams. The voice she heard was indeed the voice of their doom; yet it was a cheerful voice, full of friendly gladness; the voice of Fergus, son of Roeg, former King of Emain, and now come to Loch Etive as messenger of Concobar, Fergus came up from the sea-beach towards the answering shout of the sons of Usnac, and glad greetings passed among them at the door of their refuge. Fergus looked long in admiration at the blue eyes and golden locks, the clear skin and gentle breast of Deirdré, nor wondered, as he looked, that Naisi had dared fate to possess her. Then Fergus told the story of his coming; how they had discovered the flight of the sons of Usnac from Emain, and how terrible was the black anger of Concobar; what passionate fire had gleamed in his eyes as he tossed the golden locks back from his shoulders and grasped the haft of his spear, and pledged himself to be avenged on Naisi and all his kin, swearing that he would have Deirdré back again. Thus Fergus told the tale, laughingly, as at a danger that was past, a storm-cloud that had lost its arrows of white hail and was no longer fearful. For, he said, Concobar had forgotten his anger, had promised a truce to the sons of Usnac, and most of all to Naisi, and had bidden them return as his guests to Emain of Maca, where Deirdré should dwell happy with her beloved. The comrades of Fergus by this time had tied their boat and come up from the shore, and the sons of Usnac were ready to depart. Yet Deirdré's heart misgave her as she thought of the days among those purple hills and granite rocks, by the long green water of the Loch, and her clear-seeing soul spoke words of doom for them all: words soon to be fulfilled. Amongst the comrades of Fergus were certain of the adherents of Concobar, treacherous as he; for he had no thought of pardoning the sons of Usnac, nor any intent but to draw Deirdré back within his reach; the image of her bright eyes and the redness of her lips, and her soft breast and shining hair was ever before him, and his heart gnawed within him for longing and the bitterness of desire. Therefore he had designed this embassy; and Fergus, believing all things and trusting all things, had gladly undertaken to be the messenger of forgiveness; fated, instead, to be the instrument of betrayal. So they turned their faces homewards towards Emain, Deirdré full of desponding, as one whose day of grace is past. They set sail again through the long Sound of Jura, with the islands now on their right hand and the gray hills of Cantyre on their left. So they passed Jura, and later Islay, and came at last under the cliffs of Rathlin and the white Antrim headlands. Deirdré's heart never lightened, nor did laughter play about her lips or in her eyes through all the time of her journey, but sadness lay ever upon her, like the heavy darkness of a winter's night, when a storm is gathering out of the West. But Fergus made merry, rejoicing at the reconciling; bidden to a treacherous banquet by the partisans of Concobar, his heart never misgave him, but giving the charge of Deirdré and the sons of Usnac to his sons, he went to the banquet, delaying long in carousing and singing, while Deirdré and the three brothers were carried southwards to Emain. There the treachery plotted against them was carried out, as they sat in the banquet-hall; for Concobar's men brought against them the power of cowardly flames, setting fire to the hall, and slaying the sons of Usnac as they hurried forth from under the burning roof. One of the sons of Fergus shamefully betrayed them, bought by the gold and promises of Concobar, but the other bravely fell, fighting back to back with one of the sons of Usnac, when they fell overpowered by the warriors of Concobar. Thus was the doom of Deirdré consummated, her lover treacherously done to death, and she herself condemned to bear the hated caress of Concobar, thinking ever of those other lips, in the days of her joy among the northern hills. This is the lament of Deirdré for Usnac's sons: The lions of the hill are gone, And I am left alone, alone; Dig the grave both wide and deep, For I am sick and fain would sleep! The falcons of the wood are flown, And I am left alone, alone; Dig the grave both deep and wide, And let us slumber side by side. Lay their spears and bucklers bright By the warriors' sides aright; Many a day the three before me On their linked bucklers bore me. Dig the grave both wide and deep, Sick I am and fain would sleep. Dig the grave both deep and wide, And let us slumber side by side. VI. CUCULAIN THE HERO. B.C. 50--A.D. 50. The treacherous death of Naisi and his brothers Ardan and Alny, and her own bereavement and misery, were not the end of the doom pronounced at her birth for Deirdré, but rather the beginning. Yet the burden of the evils that followed fell on Concobar and his lands and his warriors. For Fergus, son of Roeg, former king over Emain, who had stayed behind his charges feasting and banqueting, came presently to Emain, fearing nothing and thinking no evil, but still warm with the reconciliation that he had accomplished; and, coming to Emain of Maca, found the sons of Usnac dead, with the sods still soft on their graves, and his own son also dead, Deirdré in the hands of Concobar, and the plighted word of Fergus and his generous pledge of safety most traitorously and basely broken; broken by Concobar, whom he himself had guarded and set upon the throne. Fergus changed from gladness to fierce wrath, and his countenance was altered with anger, as he uttered his bitter indignation against Concobar to the warriors and heroes of Emain and the men of Ulad. The warriors were parted in two by his words, swaying to the right and to the left, as tall wheat sways before one who passes through it. For some of them sided with Fergus, saying that he had done great wrong to put Concobar on the throne, and that even now he should cast him down again, for the baseness and treachery of his deed; but others took Concobar's part, saying that the first betraying was Naisi's, who stole away Deirdré,--the hostage, as it were, of evil doom, so that he drew the doom upon himself. They further said that Concobar was chief and ruler among them, the strong and masterful leader, able to uphold their cause amongst men. So indeed it befell, for the sedition of Fergus and his fight to avenge his wrong upon Concobar failed, so that he fled defeated to Meave, Queen of Connacht, at her stronghold amid the lakes whence issues forth the Shannon. [Illustration: Honeycomb, Giant's Causeway.] Meave, whose power and genius overtopped her lord Ailill, received the exiled king gladly, and put many honors upon him, holding him as the pillar of her army, with the two thousand men of the Ulaid who came with him;--those who had fought for him against the party of Concobar. At Cruacan, on the hillside, with the lakes of the Great River all around them, with the sun setting red behind the Curlew hills, with green meadows and beech-woods to gladden them, Meave and Ailill kept their court, and thence they sent many forays against Emain of Maca and Concobar, with Fergus the fallen king ever raging in the van, and, for the wrong that was done him, working measureless wrong on his own kingdom and the kingdom of his fathers. After many a foray had gone forth against Ulad, crossing the level plains, it befell that Meave and Ailill her lord disputed between them as to which had the greatest wealth; nor would either yield until their most precious possessions had been brought and matched the one against the other. Their jewels of gold, wonderfully wrought, and set with emeralds and beryls and red carbuncles, were brought forth, their crescents for the brow, with hammered tracery upon them, their necklets and torques, like twisted ribbons of gold, their bracelets and arm-rings set with gold, their gems of silver and all their adornments, cloaks of scarlet and blue and purple, were all brought, and no advantage in the one was found over the other. Their battle-steeds also were brought, their horses for chariots; and likewise their herds of lowing wealth, their sheep with soft fleeces. When the cattle were driven up before them, it was found that among the herds of Ailill was one bull, matchless, with white horns shining and polished; and equal to this bull was none among the herds of the queen. She would not admit her lord's advantage, but sent forthwith to seek where another bull like the bull of Ailill might be found, and tidings were brought to her of the brown bull of Cuailgne,--of Cuailgne named after a chief of the Sons of Milid, fallen ages ago in the pursuit of the De Danaans, when the De Danaans retreated before the Sons of Milid from the southern headland of Slieve Mish to the ford at green Tailten by the Boyne, and thence further northwards to where Cuailgne of the Sons of Milid was killed. At that same place had grown up a dwelling with a fortress, and there was the brown bull that Meave heard the report of. She sent, therefore, and her embassy bore orders to Dairé, the owner of the bull, asking that the bull might be sent to her for a year, and offering fifty heifers in payment. Dairé received her messengers well, and willingly consented to her request; but the messengers of Meave from feasting fell to drinking, from drinking to boasting; one of them declaring that it was a small thing that Dairé had granted the request, since they themselves would have compelled him, even unwillingly, and would have driven off the brown bull by force. The taunt stung Dairé, after his hospitality, and in wrath he sent them forth empty-handed, and so they came slighted to Meave. The queen, conceiving her honor impeached, would by no means suffer the matter so to rest, but stirred up wrath and dissension, till the armies of Connacht with their allies set forth to sack and burn in Ulad, and at all hazards to bring the brown bull. Fergus and the men who fought by his side went with them, and marching thus eastwards they came, after three days march through fair lands and fertile, to the river Dee--the frontier of Ulad, and the scene of many well-fought fights. The army of Ulad was not yet ready to meet them, but one champion with his band confronted them at the ford. That champion was Cuculain, whose true name was Setanta, son of Sualtam, chief at Dundelga, and of Dectira the sister of Concobar. Cuculain was accounted the greatest and most skillful warrior of his time, and bards for ages after told how he kept the ford. For by the laws of honor, amongst them, the host from Connacht could not pass the ford so long as Cuculain held the ford and offered single combat to the champions. They must take up his challenge one by one; and while he stood there challenging, the host could not pass. Many of their champions fell there by the ford, so that queen Meave's heart chafed within her, and her army was hot to do battle, but still Cuculain kept the ford. Last of the western champions came forth Ferdiad, taught in the famous northern school of arms, a dear friend and companion of Cuculain, who now must meet him to slay or be slain. This is the story of their combat, as the traditions tell it: When they ceased fighting on the first day, they cast their weapons away from them into the hands of their charioteers. Each of them approached the other forthwith, and each put his hand round the other's neck, and gave him three kisses. Their horses were in the same paddock that night, and their charioteers at the same fire; and their charioteers spread beds of green rushes for them, with wounded men's pillows to them. The men of healing came to heal and solace them, applying herbs that should assuage to every cut or gash upon their bodies, and to all their wounds. Of every healing herb that was laid on the hurts of Cuculain, he sent an equal share to Ferdiad, sending it westward over the ford, so that men might not say that through the healing virtue of the herbs he was able to overcome him. And of all food and invigorating drink that was set before Ferdiad, he sent an equal portion northwards over the ford to Cuculain, for those that prepared food for him were more than those who made ready food for Cuculain. Thus that night they rested. They fought with spears on the next day, and so great was the strength of each, so dire their skill in combat, that both were grievously wounded, for all the protection of their shields. The men of healing art could do little for them beyond the staunching of their blood, that it might not flow from their wounds, laying herbs upon their red wounds. On the third day they arose early in the morning and came forward to the place of combat. Cuculain saw that the face of Ferdiad was dark as a black cloud, and thus addressed him: "Thy face is darkened, Ferdiad, and thine eye has lost its fire, nor are the form and features thine!" And Ferdiad answered, "O, Cuculain, it is not from fear or dread that my face is changed, for I am ready to meet all champions in the fight." Cuculain reproached him, wondering that, for the persuasions of Meave, Ferdiad was willing thus to fight against his friend, coming to spoil his land. But Ferdiad replied that fate compelled him, since every man is constrained to come unto the sod where shall be his last resting-place. That day the heroes fought with swords, but such was the skill of both that neither could break down the other's guard. In the dusk they cast away their weapons, ceasing from the fight; and though the meeting of the two had been full of vigor and friendship in the morning, yet was their parting at night mournful and full of sorrow. That night their horses were not in the same enclosure, nor did their charioteers rest at the same fire. Then Ferdiad arose early in the morning and went forth to the place of contest, knowing well that that day would decide whether he should fall or Cuculain; knowing that the sun would set on one of them dead that night. Cuculain, seeing him come forth, spoke thus to his charioteer: "I see the might and skill of Ferdiad, coming forth to the combat. If it be I that shall begin to yield to-day, do thou stir my valor, uttering reproaches and words of condemnation against me, so that my wrath shall grow upon me, enkindling me again for the battle." And the charioteer assented and promised. Great was the deed that was performed that day at the ford by the two heroes, the two warriors, the two champions of western lands, the two gift-bestowing hands of the northwest of the world, the two beloved pillars of the valor of the Gael, the two keys of the bravery of the Gael, brought to fight from afar through the schemes of Meave the queen. They began to shoot with their missiles from the dawn of the day, from early morning till noon. And when midday came the ire of the men waxed more furious, and they drew nearer together. Then Cuculain sprang from the river-bank against the boss of the shield of Ferdiad, son of Daman, to strike at his head over the rim of the shield from above. But Ferdiad gave the shield so strong a turn with his left arm that he cast Cuculain from him like a bird. Cuculain sprang again upon him, to strike him from above. But the son of Daman so struck the shield with his left knee that he cast Cuculain from him like a child. Then the charioteer of Cuculain spoke to chide him: "Woe for thee, whom the warrior thus casts aside as an evil mother casts away her offspring. He throws thee as foam is thrown by the river. He grinds thee as a mill would grind fresh grain. He pierces thee as the ax of the woodman cleaves the oak. He binds thee as the woodbine binds the tree. He darts on thee as the hawk darts on finches, so that henceforth thou hast no claim or name or fame for valor, until thy life's end, thou phantom sprite!" Then Cuculain sprang up fleet as the wind and swift as the swallow, fierce as a dragon, strong as a lion, advancing against Ferdiad through clouds of dust, and forcing himself upon his shield, to strike at him from above. Yet even then Ferdiad shook him off, driving him backwards into the ford. Then Cuculain's countenance was changed, and his heart swelled and grew great within him till he towered demoniac and gigantic, rising like one of the Fomor upon Ferdiad. So fierce was the fight they now fought that their heads met above and their feet below and their arms in the midst, past the rims of the shields. So fierce was the fight they fought that they cleft the shields to their centers. So fierce was the fight they fought that their spears were shivered from socket to haft. So fierce was the fight they fought that the demons of the air screamed along the rims of the shields, and from the hilts of their swords and from the hafts of their spears. So fierce was the fight they fought that they cast the river out of its bed, so that not a drop of water lay there unless from the fierceness of the champion heroes hewing each other in the midst of the ford. So fierce was the fight they fought that the horses of the Gael fled away in fright, breaking their chains and their yokes, and the women and youths and camp-followers broke from the camp, flying forth southwards and westwards. They were fighting with the edges of their swords, and Ferdiad, finding a break in the guard of Cuculain, gave him a stroke of the straight-edged sword, burying it in his body until the blood fell into his girdle, until the ford was red with the blood of the hero's body. Then Cuculain thrust an unerring spear over the rim of the shield, and through the breast of Ferdiad's armor, so that the point of the spear pierced his heart and showed through his body. "That is enough, now," said Ferdiad: "I fall for that!" Then Cuculain ran towards him, and clasped his two arms about him, and bore him with his arms and armor across the ford northwards. Cuculain laid Ferdiad down there, bowing over his body in faintness and weakness. But the charioteer cried to him, "Rise up, Cuculain, for the host is coming upon us, and it is not single combat they will give thee, since Ferdiad, son of Daman, son of Dairé, has fallen before thee!" "Friend," Cuculain made answer, "what avails it for me to rise after him that has fallen by me?" Thus did Cuculain keep the ford, still known as the ford of Ferdiad, Ath-Fhirdia on the Dee, in the midst of the green plain of Louth. And while he fought at the ford of Ferdiad the army of Ulad assembled, and coming southwards over the hills before Emain, turned back the host of Meave the queen and pursued them. The army of Meave fled westwards and southwards towards Connacht, passing the Yellow Ford of Athboy and the Hill of Ward, the place of sacrifice, where the fires on the Day of Spirits summoned the priests and Druids to the offering. Fleeing still westwards from the Yellow Ford, they passed between the lakes of Owel and Ennel, with the men of Ulad still hot in their rear. Thus came pursued and pursuers to Gairec, close by Athlone--the Ford of Luan--and the wooded shore of the great Lough Ree. There was fought a battle hardly less fatal to victors than to vanquished, for though the hosts of Meave were routed, yet Concobar's men could not continue the pursuit. Thus Meave escaped and Fergus with her, and came to their great fort on the green hillside of Cruacan amid the headwaters of the Shannon. The victory of Concobar's men was like a defeat. There was not food that pleased him, nor did sleep come to him by flight, so that the Ulad wondered, and Catbad the right-wonderful Druid, himself a warrior who had taught Concobar and reared him, went to Concobar to learn the secret of his trouble. Therefore Catbad asked of Concobar what wound had wounded him, what obstinate sickness had come upon him, making him faint and pale, day after day. "Great reason have I for it," answered Concobar, "for the four great provinces of Erin have come against me, bringing with them their bards and singers, that their ravages and devastations might be recorded, and they have burned our fortresses and dwellings, and Ailill and Meave have gained a battle against me. Therefore I would be avenged upon Meave the queen." "Thou hast already avenged it sternly, O Red-handed Concobar," Catbad made answer, "by winning the battle over the four provinces of Erin." "That is no battle," Concobar answered, "where a strong king falls not by hard fighting and by fury. That an army should escape from a goodly battle! Unless Ailill should fall, and Meave, by me in this encounter with valorous hosts, I tell you that my heart will break, O Catbad!" "This is my counsel for thee," replied Catbad, "to stay for the present. For the winds are rough, and the roads are foul, and the streams and the rivers are in flood, and the hands of the warriors are busy making forts and strongholds among strangers. So wait till the summer days come upon us, till every grassy sod is a pillow, till our horses are full of spirit and our colts are strong, till our men are whole of their wounds and hurts, till the nights are short to watch and to ward and to guard in the land of enemies and in the territories of strangers. Spring is not the time for an invasion. But meanwhile let tidings be sent to thy friends in absence, in the islands and throughout the northern seas." Therefore messengers were sent with the tidings, and the friends in absence of Concobar were summoned. They set forth with ships from the islands of the northern seas, and came forward with the tide to the Cantyre headland. The green surges of the tremendous sea rose about them, and a mighty storm rose against them. Such was the strength of the storm that the fleet was parted in three. A third of them, with the son of Amargin, came under the cliffs of Fair Head, to the Bay of Murbolg, where huge columns tower upward on the face of the cliff, high as the nests of the eagles; cliffs ruddy and mighty, frowning tremendous across the channel to Cantyre and Islay and far-away Jura. A third of the ships came to the safer harbor of Larne, where bands of white seam the cliff's redness, where the great headland is thrust forth northwards, sheltering the bay from the eastern waves. A third of the fleet came to the strand beside Dundelga, hard by the great hill of earth where was reared the stronghold of Cuculain. At that same time came Concobar with a thousand men to the fort of Cuculain, and feasting was prepared for him at the House of Delga. Nor was Concobar long there till he saw the bent spars of sails and the full-crewed ships, and the scarlet pavilions, and the many-colored banners, and the blue bright lances, and the weapons of war. Then Concobar called on the chiefs that were about him, for the territory and land he had bestowed upon them, and for the jewels he had given them, to stand firm and faithful. For he knew not whether the ships were ships of his foes, of the Galian of Lagin, now called Leinster, or the Munstermen of great Muma, or the men of Olnemact, called afterwards Connacht; for the estuary of the river and the strand were full of men. Then Senca son of Ailill answered for the chieftains: "I give my word, indeed, that Erin holds not a soldier who lays his hand in the hand of a chieftain that is not known to me. If they be the men of Erin thy foes that are there, I shall ask a truce of battle from them; but if they be thy friends and allies, thou shalt the more rejoice." Then Senca son of Ailill went forward to the place where the ships were, and learned that they were the friends in absence of Concobar, come to be his allies against the four provinces of Erin. Then Concobar spoke to Cuculain: "Well, O Cuculain, let the horses of the plain of Murtemni be caught by thee; let four-wheeled chariots be harnessed for them; bring with them hither my friends from the ships in chariots and four-wheeled cars, that feasting and enjoyment may be prepared for them." [Illustration: Gray Man's Path, Fair Head.] They were brought in chariots to the feast, and carvers carved for them, and serving-men carried the cups of mead. Songs were sung to them, and they tarried there till sunrise on the morrow. Then Concobar spoke again to Cuculain: "It is well, Cuculain. Let messengers now be sent through the lands of the Ulaid to the warriors of the Ulaid, that the foreign friends may be ministered to by them also, while I make my camp here by the river. And bid the thrice fifty veteran champions come hither to me, that I may have their aid and counsel in battle." But Cuculain would not. Therefore Concobar went himself to summon the veterans. When they asked the cause of his coming, Concobar answered, "Have you not heard how the four provinces of Erin came against us, bringing with them their bards and singers, that their ravages and devastations might the better be recorded, and burning and plundering our fortresses and dwellings? Therefore I would make an expedition of hostility against them, and with your guidance and counsel would I make the expedition." "Let our old steeds be caught by thee," they answered, "and let our old chariots be yoked by thee, so that we may go on this journey and expedition with thee." Then their old chargers were caught, and their old chariots yoked, so that they too came to the camp at the Water of Luachan. This was told to the four provinces. The Three Waves of Erin thundered in the night; the Wave of Clidna at Glandore in the South; the Wave of Rudraige along the bent-carpeted sandhills of Dundrum, under the Mountains of Mourne; and the Wave of Tuag Inbir, at the bar of northern Bann. For these are the Three Waves of Fate in Erin. Then the four provinces hosted their men. The son of Lucta, the north Munster king, assembled his tribes at the Hill of Luchra, between the Shannon mouth and the Summit of Prospects. Ailill and Meave hosted the men of the west at Cruacan. Find, son of Ros, king over the Galian of Leinster, gathered his army at Dinn-Rig by the Barrow. Cairpré Nia Fer assembled his host about him at Tara, in the valley of the Boyne. This was the proposal of Eocu, son of Lucta, king of north Munster by the Shannon: That everything should have its payment, and that reparation should be made to Concobar for the invasion; that a fort should be paid for every fort, for every house a house, for every cow a cow, for every bull a bull; that the great brown bull should be sent back, that the breadth of the face of the bull in red gold should be given to Concobar, and that there should be no more hostility among the men of Erin. This was reported to Meave, but the queen answered, "A false hand was his who gave this counsel. For so long as there shall be among us one who can hold a sword, who can wear the shield-strap about his neck, that proposal shall not go to him." "Thy counsel is not mine," replied Ailill, "for not greater shall be our part of that payment than the part of all the four provinces who went on that raid for the bull." Therefore Meave consented, and messengers were sent, and came to Tara by the Boyne, where were Find, son of Ros, king of Leinster, and his brother Cairpré Nia Fer, king of Tara. Thence they sent messengers to treat with Concobar, but Concobar rejected the terms. "I give my word, indeed," answered Concobar, "that I will not take terms from you till my tent has been pitched in every province of Erin." "Good, O Concobar," they replied; "where wilt thou now make thy encampment to-night?" "In the Headland of the Kings, by the clear bright Boyne," answered Concobar, for Concobar concealed not ever from his enemy the place in which he would take station or camp, that they might not say that it was fear or dread that caused him not to say it. Concobar, therefore, marched toward the Headland of the Kings, across the Boyne to the southward, and facing the northern bank where are the pyramids of the Dagda Mor and the De Danaans. But the southern armies were there already, so Concobar halted before the river. Then were their positions fixed and their pavilions pitched, their huts and their tents were made. Their fires were kindled, cooking and food and drink were prepared; baths of clean bathing were made by them, and their hair was smooth-combed; their bodies were minutely cleansed, supper and food were eaten by them; and tunes and merry songs and eulogies were sung by them. Then Concobar sent men to reconnoitre the southern and western armies. Two went and returned not, falling indeed into the hands of the foe. It seemed long to Concobar that the two were gone. He spoke, therefore, to his kinsman: "Good indeed, Irgalac, son of Macclac, son of Congal, son of Rudraige, sayest thou who is proper to go to estimate and to reconnoitre the army?" "Who should go there," answered Irgalac, "but Iriel good at arms, great-kneed son of Conall Cernac. He is a Conall for havoc, a Cuculain for dexterity of feats. He is a Catbad, a right-wonderful Druid, for intelligence and counsel, he is a Senca son of Ailill for peace and for good speech, he is a Celtcair son of Utecar for valor, he is a Concobar son of Factna Fatac for kingliness and wide-eyed-ness, for giving of treasures and of wealth and of riches. Who but Iriel should go?" Therefore Iriel went forward: standing on the pyramid of the Dagda, he began measuring and reconnoitering the army. His spirit, or his mind, or his thoughts did not fret over them at all. He brought their description with him to the place in which Concobar was. "How, my life, Iriel?" said Concobar. "I give my word truly," said Iriel; "it seems to me that there is not ford on river, or stone on hill, nor highway nor road in the territory of Breg or Mide, that is not full of their horse-teams and of their servants. It seems to me that their apparel and their gear and their garments are the blaze of a royal house from the plain." "Good, O Ulaid," said Concobar, "what is your advice to us for the battle?" "Our advice is," said the Ulaid, "to wait till our strong men and our leaders and our commanders and our supporters of battle come." Not long was their waiting, and not great was their stay, till they saw three chariot-warriors approaching them, and a band of twelve hundred along with each rider of them. It is these that were there--three of the goodly men of science of the Ulaid, to wit, Catbad the right-wonderful Druid, and Aiterni the Importunate, and Amargin the man of science and art. After them came other valiant leaders with troops. Then Concobar arose and took his gear of battle and of conflict and of combat about him, saying, "Why should we not give battle?" A third of the army of the Ulaid rose with him, too. And they went over the river Boyne. And the other armies arose against them as they were crossing the river. And each of them took to hacking and to cutting down the other, destroying and wounding till there was no similitude of the Ulaid at that point of time, unless it were a huge sturdy oakwood in the middle of the plain, and a great army were to go close to it, and the slender and the small of the wood were cut off, but its huge sturdy oaks were left behind. Thus their young were cut off, and none but their champions and their battle-warriors and their good heroes of valor were left. The shield of Concobar was struck so that it moaned, and the three Waves of Erin, the Wave of Clidna, the Wave of Rudraige, and the Wave of Tuag Inbir echoed that moan, and all the shields of the Ulaid resounded, every one of them that was on their shoulders and in their chariots. As the Ulaid were retreating, fresh troops came up for them under Conall Cernac. A tree of shelter and a wreath of laurel and a hand above them was Conall to them. So their flight was stayed. Then Conall drew the sharp long sword out of its sheath of war and played the music of his sword on the armies. The ring of Conall's sword was heard through the battalions on both sides. And when they heard the music of Conall's sword their hearts quaked and their eyes fluttered and their faces whitened, and each of them withdrew back into his place of battle and of combat. But so fierce was the onset of the southern armies that the fight of the Ulaid against them was as a breast against a great flood, or an arrow against the rock, or the striking of a head against cliffs. Yet through the great might of Cuculain the Ulaid prevailed, and Cairpré the King of Tara was slain. After the battle, Concobar spoke thus: "There were three sons of Ros Ruad the king--Find in Alend, Ailill in Cruac, Cairpré in Tara; together they performed their deeds of valor, the three brothers in every strife; together they used to give their battle. They were three pillars of gold about their hills, abiding in strength; great is their loss since the third son has fallen." VII. FIND AND OSSIN. A.D. 200--290. Seventeen centuries ago, two hundred summers after the death of Cuculain the hero, came the great and wonderful time of Find the son of Cumal, Ossin the son of Find, and Find's grandson Oscur. It was a period of growth and efflorescence; the spirit and imaginative powers of the people burst forth with the freshness of the prime. The life of the land was more united, coming to a national consciousness. The five kingdoms were now clearly defined, with Meath, in the central plain, predominant over the others, and in a certain sense ruling all Ireland from the Hill of Tara. The code of honor was fixed; justice had taken well-defined forms; social life had ripened to genial urbanity. The warriors were gathered together into something like a regular army, a power rivaling the kings. Of this army, Find, son of Cumal, was the most renowned leader--a warrior and a poet, who embodied in himself the very genius of the time, its fresh naturalness, its ripeness, its imagination. No better symbol of the spirit of his age could be found than Find's own "Ode to Spring": "May-day! delightful time! How beautiful the color! The blackbirds sing their full lay. Would that Laigay were here! The cuckoos call in constant strains. How welcome is ever the noble brightness of the season. On the margin of the leafy pools the summer swallows skim the stream. Swift horses seek the pools. The heath spreads out its long hair. The white, gentle cotton-grass grows. The sea is lulled to rest. Flowers cover the earth." Find's large and imaginative personality is well drawn in one of the poems of his golden-tongued son Ossin, though much of the beauty of Ossin's form is lost in the change of tongue: "Six thousand gallant men of war We sought the rath o'er Badamar; To the king's palace home we bent Our way. His bidden guests we went. 'Twas Clocar Fair, And Find was there, The Fians from the hills around Had gathered to the race-course ground. From valley deep and wooded glen Fair Munster sent its mighty men; And Fiaca, Owen's son, the king, Was there the contest witnessing. 'Twas gallant sport! With what delight Leaped thousand pulses at the sight. How all hearts bound As to the ground First are brought forth the Fian steeds, Then those from Luimnea's sunny meads. Three heats on Mac Mareda's green They run; and foremost still is seen Dill Mac Decreca's coal-black steed. At Crag-Lochgur he takes the lead. "His is the day--and, lo! the king The coal-black steed soliciting From Dill the Druid!--'Take for it A hundred beeves; for it is fit The black horse should be mine to pay Find for his deeds of many a day.' "Then spoke the Druid, answering His grandson, Fiaca the king: 'Take my blessing; take the steed, For the hero's fitting meed: Give it for thy honor's sake.' And to Find the King thus spake "'Hero, take the swift black steed, Of thy valor fitting meed; And my car, in battle-raid Gazed on by the foe with fear; And a seemly steed for thy charioteer. Chieftain, be this good sword thine, Purchased with a hundred kine, In thine hand be it our aid. Take this spear, whose point the breath Of venomed words has armed with death, And the silver-orbèd shield, Sunbeam of the battlefield! And take with thee My grayhounds three, Slender and tall, Bright-spotted all, Take them with thee, chieftain bold, With their chainlets light Of the silver white, And their neck-rings of the tawny gold. Slight not thou our offering, Son of Cumal, mighty king!" "Uprose Find our chieftain bold, Stood before the Fian ranks, To the king spoke gracious thanks, Took the gifts the monarch gave; Then each to each these champions brave Glorious sight to see and tell, Spoke their soldier-like farewell! "The way before us Find led then; We followed him, six thousand men, From out the Fair, six thousand brave, To Caicer's house of Cloon-na-Dave. "Three nights, three days, did all of us Keep joyous feast in Caicer's house; Fifty rings of the yellow gold To Caicer Mac Caroll our chieftain told; As many cows and horses gave To Caicer Mac Caroll our chieftain brave. Well did Find of Innisfail Pay the price of his food and ale. "Find rode o'er the Luacra, joyous man, Till he reached the strand at Barriman; At the lake where the foam on the billow's top Leaps white, did Find and the Fians stop. "'Twas then that our chieftain rode and ran Along the strand of Barriman; Trying the speed Of his swift black steed,-- Who now but Find was a happy man? "Myself and Cailté at each side, In wantonness of youthful pride, Would ride with him where he might ride. Fast and furious rode he, Urging his steed to far Tralee. On from Tralee by Lerg duv-glass, And o'er Fraegmoy, o'er Finnass, O'er Moydeo, o'er Monaken, On to Shan-iber, o'er Shan-glen, Till the clear stream of Flesk we win, And reach the pillar of Crofinn; O'er Sru-Muny, o'er Moneket, And where the fisher spreads his net To snare the salmon of Lemain, And thence to where our coursers' feet Wake the glad echoes of Loch Leane; And thus fled he, Nor slow were we; Through rough and smooth our course we strain. "Long and swift our stride,--more fleet Than the deer of the mountain our coursers' feet! Away to Flesk by Carnwood dun; And past Mac Scalvé's Mangerton, Till Find reached Barnec Hill at last; There rested he, and then we passed Up the high hill before him, and: 'Is there no hunting hut at hand?' He thus addressed us; 'The daylight Is gone, and shelter for the night We lack.' He scarce had ended, when Gazing adown the rocky glen, On the left hand, just opposite, He saw a house with its fire lit; 'That house till now I've never seen, Though many a time and oft I've been In this wild glen. Come, look at it!' "Yes, there are things that our poor wit Knows little of,' said Cailté; 'thus This may be some miraculous Hostel we see, whose generous blaze Thy hospitality repays, Large-handed son of Cumal!'--So On to the house all three we go...." Of their entry to the mysterious house, of the ogre and the witch they found there, of the horrors that gathered on all sides, when "From iron benches on the right Nine headless bodies rose to sight, And on the left, from grim repose, Nine heads that had no bodies rose,..." Ossin likewise tells, and how, overcome, they fell at last into a deathlike trance and stupor, till the sunlight woke them lying on the heathery hillside, the house utterly vanished away. The scenes of all the happenings in the story are well known: the rath of Badamar is near Caher on the Suir, in the midst of the Golden Vale, a plain of wonderful richness and beauty, walled in by the red precipices of the Galtee Mountains, and the Knock-Mealdown Hills. From the rath of Badamar Find could watch the western mountains reddening and glowing in front of the dawn, as the sun-rays shot level over the burnished plain. Clocar is thirty miles westward over the Golden Vale, near where Croom now stands; and here were run the races; here Find gained the gift of the coal-black steed. It is some forty miles still westwards to the Strand of Tralee; the last half of the way among hills carpeted with heather; and the Strand itself, with the tide out, leaves a splendid level of white sand as far as the eye can reach, tempting Find to try his famous courser. The race carried them southwards some fifteen miles to the beautiful waters of Lough Leane, with its overhanging wooded hills, the Lake of Killarney, southward of which rises the huge red mass of Mangerton, in the midst of a country everywhere rich in beauty. The Hill of Barnec is close by, but the site of the magic dwelling, who can tell? Perhaps Find; or Cailté, or golden-tongued Ossin himself. There was abundant fighting in those days, for well within memory was the time of Conn of the Five-score Fights, against whom Cumal had warred because Conn lord of Connacht had raised Crimtan of the Yellow Hair to the kingship of Leinster. Cumal fought at the Rath that bears his name, now softened to Rathcool, twelve miles inward from the sea at Dublin, with the hills rising up from the plain to the south of the Rath. Cumal fought and fell, slain by Goll Mac Morna, and enmity long endured between Find and Goll who slew his sire. But like valiant men they were reconciled, and when Goll in his turn died, Find made a stirring poem on Goll's mighty deeds. Another fateful fight for Find was the battle of Kinvarra, among the southern rocks of Galway Bay; for though he broke through the host of his foeman Uincé, that chieftain himself escaped, and, riding swiftly with a score of men, came to Find's own dwelling at Druim Dean on the Red Hills of Leinster, and burned the dwelling, leaving it a smoldering ruin. Find pursuing, overtook them, slaying them at the ford called to this day Ath-uincé, the ford of Uincé. Returning homewards, Find found his house desolate, and the song he sang still holds the memory of his sorrow. Two poems he made, on the Plain of Swans and on Roirend in Offaly, full of vivid pictures and legends; and one of romantic tragedy, telling how the two daughters of King Tuatal Tectmar were treacherously slain, through the malice of the Leinster king. But of romances and songs of fair women in the days of Find, the best is the Poem of Gael, who composed it to win a princess for his bride. Of fair Credé of the Yellow Hair it was said that there was scarce a gem in all Erin that she had not got as a love-token, but that she would give her heart to none. Credé had vowed that she would marry the man who made the best verses on her home, a richly-adorned dwelling in the south, under the twin cones of the Paps, and within sight of Lough Leane and Killarney. Cael took up the challenge, and invoking the Genius that dwelt in the sacred pyramid of Brugh on the Boyne he made these verses, and came to recite them to yellow-haired Credé: "It would be happy for me to be in her home, Among her soft and downy couches, Should Credé deign to hear me; Happy for me would be my journey. A bowl she has, whence berry-juice flows, With which she colors her eyebrows black; She has clear vessels of fermenting ale; Cups she has, and beautiful goblets. The color of her house is white like lime; Within it are couches and green rushes; Within it are silks and blue mantles; Within it are red gold and crystal cups. Of its sunny chamber the corner stones Are all of silver and yellow gold, Its roof in stripes of faultless order Of wings of brown and crimson red. Two doorposts of green I see, Nor is the door devoid of beauty; Of carved silver,--long has it been renowned,-- Is the lintel that is over the door. Credé's chair is on your right hand, The pleasantest of the pleasant it is; All over a blaze of Alpine gold, At the foot of her beautiful couch... The household which is in her house To the happiest fate has been destined; Grey and glossy are their garments; Twisted and fair is their flowing hair. Wounded men would sink in sleep, Though ever so heavily teeming with blood, With the warbling of the fairy birds From the eaves of her sunny summer-room. If I am blessed with the lady's grace, Fair Credé for whom the cuckoo sings, In songs of praise shall ever live, If she but repay me for my gift.... There is a vat of royal bronze, Whence flows the pleasant; nice of malt; An apple-tree stands over the vat, With abundance of weighty fruit. When Credé's goblet is filled With the ale of the noble vat, There drop down into the cup forthwith Four apples at the same time. The four attendants that have been named, Arise and go to the distributing, They present to four of the guests around A drink to each man and an apple. She who possesses all these things, With the strand and the stream that flow by them, Credé of the three-pointed hill, Is a spear-cast beyond the women of Erin. Here is a poem for her,--no mean gift. It is not a hasty, rash composition; To Credé now it is here presented: May my journey be brightness to her!" [Illustration: Colleen Bawn Caves, Klllarney.] Tradition says that the heart of the yellow-haired beauty was utterly softened and won, so that she delayed not to make Cael master of the dwelling he so well celebrated; master, perhaps, of all the jewels of Erin that her suitors had given her. Yet their young love was not destined to meet the storms and frosts of the years; for Cael the gallant fell in battle, his melodious lips for ever stilled. Thus have these two become immortal in song. We have seen Cailté with Ossin following Find in his wild ride through the mountains of Killarney, and to Cailté is attributed the saying that echoes down the ages: "There are things that our poor wit knows nothing off!" Cailté was a great lover of the supernatural, yet there was in him also a vein of sentiment, shown in his poem on the death of Clidna--"Clidna the fair-haired, long to be remembered," who was tragically drowned at Glandore harbor in the south, and whose sad wraith still moans upon the bar, in hours of fate for the people of Erin. In a gayer vein is the poem of Fergus the Eloquent, who sang the legend of Tipra Seangarmna, the Fountain of the Feale River, which flows westward to the sea from the mountains north of Killarney. The river rises among precipices, gloomy caverns and ravines, and passes through vales full of mysterious echoes amid mist-shrouded hills. There, as Fergus sings, were Ossin and his following hunting, when certain ominous fair women lured them to a cave,--women who were but insubstantial wraiths,--to hold them captive till the seasons ran full circle, summer giving place again to winter and spring. But Ossin, being himself of more than human wisdom, found a way to trick the spirits; for daily he cut chips from his spear and sent them floating down the spring, till Find at last saw them, and knew the tokens as Ossin's, and, coming, delivered his son from durance among ghosts. The great romantic theme of the time binds the name of Find, son of Cumal, with that of Cormac, son of Art, and grandson of Conn of the Five-score Battles. This Cormac was himself a notable man of wisdom, and here are some of the Precepts he taught to Cairbré, his son: "O grandson of Conn, O Cormac," Cairbré asked him, "what is good for a king?" "This is plain," answered Cormac. "It is good for him to have patience and not to dispute, self-government without anger, affability without haughtiness, diligent attention to history, strict observance of covenants and agreements, justice tempered by mercy in the execution of the laws. It is good for him to make fertile land, to invite ships, to import jewels of price from across the sea, to purchase and distribute raiment, to keep vigorous swordsmen who may protect his territory, to make war beyond his territory, to attend to the sick, to discipline his soldiers. Let him enforce fear, let him perfect peace, let him give mead and wine, let him pronounce just judgments of light, let him speak all truth, for it is through the truth of a king that God gives favorable seasons." "O grandson of Conn, O Cormac," Cairbré again asked him, "what is good for the welfare of a country?" "This is plain," answered Cormac. "Frequent assemblies of wise and good men to investigate its affairs, to abolish every evil and retain every wholesome institution, to attend to the precepts of the seniors; let every assembly be convened according to the law, let the law be in the hands of the noblest, let the chieftains be upright and unwilling to oppress the poor." "O grandson of Conn, O Cormac," again asked Cairbré, "what are duties of a prince in the banqueting-house?" "A prince on the Day of Spirits should light his lamps and welcome his guests with clapping of hands, offering comfortable seats; the cup-bearers should be active in distributing meat and drink. Let there be moderation of music, short stories, a welcoming countenance, a greeting for the learned, pleasant conversation. These are the duties of a prince and the arrangement of a banqueting-house." "O grandson of Conn, O Cormac, for what qualifications is a king elected over countries and tribes of people?" "From the goodness of his shape and family, from his experience and wisdom, from his prudence and magnanimity, from his eloquence and bravery in battle, and from the number of his friends." "O grandson of Conn, O Cormac, what was thy deportment when a youth?" "I was cheerful at the banquet of the House of Mead, I was fierce in battle, but vigilant and careful. I was kind to friends, a physician to the sick, merciful to the weak, stern toward the headstrong. Though possessed of knowledge, I loved silence. Though strong, I was not overbearing. Though young, I mocked not the old. Though valiant, I was not vain. When I spoke of one absent I praised and blamed him not, for by conduct like this are we known to be courteous and refined." "O grandson of Conn, O Cormac, what is good for me?" "If thou attend to my command, thou wilt not scorn the old though thou art young, nor the poor though thou art well clad, nor the lame though thou art swift, nor the blind though thou seest, nor the weak though thou art strong, nor the ignorant though thou art wise. Be not slothful, be not passionate, be not greedy, be not idle, be not jealous; for he who is so is hateful to God and man." "O grandson of Conn, O Cormac, I would know how to hold myself with the wise and the foolish, with friends and strangers, with old and young." "Be not too knowing or simple, too proud or inactive, too humble or haughty, talkative or too silent, timid or too severe. For if thou art too knowing, thou wilt be mocked at and abused; if too simple, thou wilt be deceived; if proud, thou wilt be shunned; if too humble, thou wilt suffer; if talkative, thou wilt be thought foolish; if too severe, men will speak ill of thee; if timid, thy rights will suffer." "O grandson of Conn, O Cormac, how shall I discern the characters of women?" "I know them, but I cannot describe them. Their counsel is foolish, they are forgetful of love, most headstrong in their desires, fond of folly, prone to enter rashly into engagements, given to swearing, proud to be asked in marriage, tenacious of enmity, cheerless at the banquet, rejectors of reconciliation, prone to strife, of much garrulity. Until evil be good, until hell be heaven, until the sun hide his light, until the stars of heaven fall, women will remain as we have declared. Woe to him, my son, who desires or serves a bad woman, woe to him who has a bad wife." Was there some thought of his daughter Grania in Cormac's mind, behind these keen-edged; words?--of Grania, beloved of Diarmuid? When the winters of the years were already white on Find, son of Cumal, when Ossin his son had a son of his own, Oscur the valiant, the two old men, Cormac the king and Find leader of the warriors, bethought them to make a match between Find and Grania, one of the famous beauties of the olden time. A banquet was set in the great House of Mead, and Find and his men were there, Diarmuid son of Duibné being also there, best beloved among Find's warriors. There was a custom, much in honor among the chieftains, that a princess should send her goblet to the guests, offering it to each with gentle courtesy. This grace fell to the lady Grania, whose whole heart rose up against her grey-bearded lover, and was indeed set on Diarmuid the son of Duibné. Grania compounded a dreamy draught to mix with the mead, so that all the chieftains and warriors, with Cormac and Find himself, even while praising the drink, fell straightway a-nodding, and were soon in silent sleep, all except Ossin and Diarmuid, whom Grania had bidden not to drink. Then Grania, her voice all tremulous with tears, told to Ossin the fate that awaited her, looking at him, but speaking for Diarmuid; bewailing bitterly the misery of fair youth in the arms of withered eld, and at last turning and openly begging Diarmuid to save her from her fate. To carry away a king's daughter, betrothed to the leader of the warriors, was a perilous thing, and Diarmuid's heart stood still at the thought of it; yet Grania's tears prevailed, and they two fled forth that night to the hills and forests. Dire and ruinous was the wrath of Cormac and of Find when they awoke and found that these two were fled; and whatever might was in the king's hand, whatever power in the hosts of Find, was straightway turned against them in pursuit. Yet the two fled as the deer might fly, visiting with their loves every wood and valley in Erin, till the memory of them lingers throughout all the hills. Finally, after a year's joyful and fearsome fleeing, the Fian warriors everywhere aiding them for love of Diarmuid, swift death came upon Diarmuid, and Grania was left desolate. But Angus the Ever-Young, guardian Genius of the pyramid-shrine of Brugh by the Boyne, De Danaan dweller in the secret house, Angus of the Immortals received the spirit of Diarmuid, opening for him the ways of the hidden world. But enmity grew between Find with his warriors and Cormac the king, till at last a battle was fought where Find's men fell, and Cairbré, the well-instructed son of Cormac also fell. Thus passed away the ruling spirits of that age, the flowering time of the genius of Erin. VIII. THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. A.D. 410-493. The valor of Fergus and Cuculain, the rich imaginative life of Find and Ossin, were the flower of heroic centuries. Strong men had fought for generations before Concobar reigned at Emain of Maca. Poets had sung their deeds of valor, and the loves of fair women, and the magical beauty of the world, through hardly changing ages. The heroes of fame were but the best fruit in the garden of the nation's life. So ripe was that life, more than two thousand years ago, that it is hard to say what they did not know, of the things which make for amenity and comity. The colors of the picture are everywhere rich, yet perfectly harmonized. The earliest forms of Irish writing seem to have come from the Baltic runes, and these, in their turn, from an old Greek script of twenty-five hundred years ago. The runes spread as far as the Orkneys, and there they were well within the horizon of Ireland's knowledge. Nothing would be more natural than the keeping of written records in Erin for three or four hundred years before Cuculain's birth, nineteen hundred years ago. The arts of life were very perfect; the gold-work of that time is unsurpassed--has never been surpassed. At a far earlier time there were beautifully moulded and decorated gold-bronze spears, that show what richness of feeling and imagination, what just taste and fine skill were there. All our knowledge goes to show that the suitor of Credé has drawn a true picture of her house and the generous social life belonging to it. We know, too, that the great dining-hall of Tara has been faithfully celebrated by the bards; the picture of the king in his scarlet cloak is representative of the whole epoch. The story of Credé also shows the freedom and honor accorded to women, as does the queenship of Meave, with the record of her separate riches. The tragedies of Deirdré and Grania would never have been remembered, had not the freedom and high regard of women been universal. Such decorative skill as is shown in the metal-work and pottery that have come down to us must have borne fruit in every realm of social life, in embroideries, tapestries, well-designed and beautifully adorned homes. Music is everywhere spoken of in the old traditions, and the skill of the poets we can judge for ourselves. In all that concerns the natural man, therefore, a very high perfection had been reached. A frame of life had grown habitual, which brought out the finest vigor and strength and beauty. Romantic love added its riches to valor, and dignity was given by the ever-present memory of the heroic past, merging on the horizon with the divine dawn of the world. Manhood and womanhood had come to perfect flower. The crown rested on the brow of the nation's life. When the life of the natural man is perfected, the time comes to strike the note of the immortal, to open the door of our real and enduring destiny. Sensual success, the ideal of unregenerate man, was perfectly realized in Concobar and ten thousand like him. The destiny of triumphant individual life, the strong man victorious over nature and other men, was fulfilled. Individual prowess, individual accomplishment, could go no further. Nor should we overlook the dark shadows of the picture. Glory is to the victor, but woe to the vanquished. The continual warfare between tribe and tribe, between chief and chief, which made every valley a home of warriors dominated by a rath-fortress, bore abundant fruits of evil. Death in battle need not be reckoned, or may be counted as pure gain; but the fate of the wounded, maimed and miserable, the destitution of women and children left behind, the worse fate of the captives, sold as they were into exile and slavery,--all these must be included in the total. Nor are these material losses the worst. The great evil of the epoch of tribal war is its reaction on the human spirit. The continual struggle of ambition draws forth egotism, the desire to dominate for mere domination, the sense of separation and antagonism between man and man, tribe and tribe, province and province. But our real human life begins only when these evil tendencies are abated; when we learn to watch the life of others as if it were our own,--as being indeed a part of our own life,--and in every act and motion of our minds do only that which shall be to the best advantage of both ourselves and our neighbor. For only thus, only by the incessant practice of this in imagination and act, can the door of our wider and more humane consciousness be opened. [Illustration: Ruins on Scattery Island.] Nor is this all. There are in us vast unexplored tracts of power and wisdom; tracts not properly belonging to our personal and material selves, but rather to the impersonal and universal consciousness which touches us from within, and which we call divine. Our personal fate is closed by death; but we have a larger destiny which death does not touch; a destiny enduring and immortal. The door to this larger destiny can only be opened after we have laid down the weapons of egotism; after we have become veritably humane. There must be a death to militant self-assertion, a new birth to wide and universal purposes, before this larger life can be understood and known. With all the valor and rich life of the days of Cuculain and Ossin, the destructive instinct of antagonism was very deeply rooted in all hearts; it did endless harm to the larger interests of the land, and laid Ireland open to attack from without. Because the genius of the race was strong and highly developed, the harm went all the deeper; even now, after centuries, it is not wholly gone. The message of the humane and the divine, taught among the Galilean hills and on the shores of Gennesaret, was after four centuries brought to Ireland--a word of new life to the warriors and chieftains, enkindling and transforming their heroic world. Britain had received the message before, for Britain was a part of the dominion of Rome, which already had its imperial converts. Roman life and culture and knowledge of the Latin tongue had spread throughout the island up to the northern barrier between the Forth and Clyde. Beyond this was a wilderness of warring tribes. Where the Clyde comes forth from the plain to the long estuary of the sea, the Messenger of the Tidings was born. His father, Calpurn, was a Roman patrician; from this his son, whose personal name was Succat, was surnamed Patricius, a title raised by his greatness into a personal name. His letters give us a vivid picture of his captivity, and the stress of life which gradually aroused in him the inspiration of the humane and divine ripened later into a full knowledge of his apostolate. "I Patricius, a sinner," he writes, "and most unlearned of believers, looked down upon by many, had for my father the deacon Calpurn, son of the elder Potitus, of a place called Bannova in Tabernia, near to which was his country home. There I was taken captive, when not quite sixteen. I knew not the Eternal. Being led into captivity with thousands of others, I was brought to Ireland,--a fate well deserved. For we had turned from the Eternal, nor kept the laws of the Eternal. Nor had we heeded the teachers who urged us to seek safety. Therefore the Eternal, justly wroth, scattered us among unbelievers, to the uttermost parts of the earth; here, where my poor worth is now seen among strangers, where the Eternal liberated the power hid in my unenkindled heart, that even though late I should recognize my error, and turn with all my heart to the Eternal.... "I have long had it in mind to write, but until now have hesitated; for I feared blame, because I had not studied law and the sacred writings,--as have others who have never changed their language, but gone on to perfection in it; but my speech is translated into another language, and the roughness of my writing shows how little I have been taught. As the Sage says, 'Show by thy speech thy wisdom and knowledge and learning.' But what profits this excuse? since all can see how in my old age I struggle after what I should have learned as a boy. For then my sinfulness hindered me. I was but a beardless boy when I was taken captive, not knowing what to do and what to avoid; therefore I am ashamed to show my ignorance now? because I never learned to express great matters succinctly and well;--great matters like the moving of the soul and mind by the Divine Breath.... Nor, indeed, was I worthy that the Master should so greatly favor me, after all my hard labor and heavy toil, and the years of captivity amongst this people,--that the Master should show me such graciousness as I never knew nor hoped for till I came to Ireland. "But daily herding cattle here, and aspiring many times a day, the fear of the Eternal grew daily in me. A divine dread and aspiration grew in me, so that I often prayed a hundred times a day, and as many times in the night. I often remained in the woods and on the hills, rising to pray while it was yet dark, in snow or frost or rain; yet I took no harm. The Breath of the Divine burned within me, so that nothing remained in me unenkindled. "One night, while I was sleeping, I heard a voice saying to me, 'You have fasted well, and soon you shall see your home and your native land.' Soon after, I heard the voice again, saying, 'The ship is ready for you.' But the ship was not near, but two hundred miles off, in a district I had never visited, and where I knew no one. Therefore I fled, leaving the master I had served for six years, and found the ship by divine guidance, going without fear.... "We reached the land after three days' sail; then for twenty-eight days we wandered through a wilderness.... Once more, after years of exile, I was at home again with my kindred, among the Britons. All welcomed me like a son, earnestly begging me that, after the great dangers I had passed through, I would never again leave my home. "While I was at home, in a vision of the night I saw one who seemed to come from Ireland, bringing innumerable letters. He gave me one of the letters, in which I read, 'The voices of the Irish ...;' and while I read, it seemed to me that I heard the cry of the dwellers by the forest of Foclut, by the Western Ocean, calling with one voice to me, 'Come and dwell with us!' My heart was so moved that I awoke, and I give thanks to my God who after many years has given to them according to their petition. "On another night, whether within me or without me I know not, God knows, One prayed with very wonderful words that I could not comprehend, till at last He said, 'It is He who gave His soul for you, that speaks!' I awoke for joy. And once in a vision I saw Him praying within me, as it were; I saw myself, as it were, within myself; and I heard Him praying urgently and strongly over the inner man; I being meanwhile astonished, and wondering who thus prayed within me, till at the end He declared that I should be an overseer for Him.... "I had not believed in the living Divine from childhood, but had remained in the realm of death until hunger and nakedness and daily slavery in Ireland--for I came there as a captive--had so afflicted me that I almost broke down. Yet these things brought good, for through that daily suffering I was so changed that I work and toil now for the well-being of others, I who formerly took no care even for myself.... "Therefore I thank Him who kept me faithful in the day of trial, that I live to offer myself daily as a living offering to Him who saves and guards me. Well may I say, 'Master, what am I, what is my calling, that such grace and divine help are given to me--that I am every day raised to greater power among these unbelievers, while I everywhere praise thy name? Whatever comes to me, whether happiness or misery, whether good or evil fortune, I hold it all the same; giving Thee equal thanks for it, because Thou hast unveiled for me the One, sure and unchanging, in whom I may for ever believe. So that in these latter days, even though I am ignorant, I may dare to undertake so righteous a work, and so wonderful, that makes me like those who, according to His promise, should carry His message to all people before the end of the world. "It were long in whole or even in part to tell of my labours, or how the all-powerful One many times set me free from bondage, and from twelve perils wherein my life was in danger, and from nameless pitfalls. It were ill to try the reader too far, when I have within me the Author himself, who knows all things even before they happen, as He knows me, His poor disciple. The voice that so often guides me is divine; and thence it is that wisdom has come to me, who had no wisdom, knowing not Him, nor the number of my days: thence comes my knowledge and heart's joy in His great and healing gift, for the sake of which I willingly left my home and kindred, though they offered me many gifts with tears and sorrow. "Many of the older people also disapproved, but through divine help I would not give way. It was no grace of mine, but the divine power in me that stood out against all, so that I came to bear the Message here among the people of Ireland, suffering the scorn of those who believed not, and bearing derision and many persecutions, and even chains. Nay, I even lost my patrician rank for the good of others. But if I be worthy to do something for the Divine, I am ready with all my heart to yield service, even to the death, since it has been permitted that through me many might be reborn to the divine, and that others might be appointed to teach them.... "The people of Ireland, who formerly had only their idols and pagan ritual, not knowing the Master, have now become His children. The sons of the Scoti and their kings' daughters are now become sons of the Master and handmaidens of the Anointed. And one nobly born lady among them, a beautiful woman whom I baptized myself, came soon after to tell me that she was divinely admonished to live in maidenhood, drawing nearer to Him. Six days later she entered the grade that all the handmaidens of the Anointed desire, though their fathers and mothers would hinder them, reproaching and afflicting them; nevertheless, they grow in number, so that I know not how many they are, besides widows and continent women, who suffer most from those who hold them in bondage. Yet they stand firm, and God grants grace to many of them worthily to follow Him. "Therefore I might even leave them, to go among the Britons,--for willingly would I see my own kindred and my native land again, or even go as far as Gaul to visit my brothers, and see the faces of my Master's holy men. But I am bound in the Spirit, and would be unfaithful if I went. Nor would I willingly risk the fruit of all my work. Yet it is not I who decide, but the Master, who bid me come hither, to spend my whole life in serving, as indeed I think I shall.... "Therefore I should ever thank Him who was so tolerant of my ignorance and sluggishness, so many times; treating me not in anger but as a fellow-worker, though I was slow to learn the work set for me by the Spirit. He pitied me amongst many thousands, for he saw that I was very willing, but did net know how to offer my testimony. For they all opposed my mission, and talked behind my back, saying, 'He wishes to risk his life among enemies who know nothing of the Master'; not speaking maliciously, but opposing me because I was so ignorant. Nor did I myself at once perceive the power that was in me.... "Thus simply, brothers and fellow-workers for the Master, who with me have believed, I have told you how it happened that I preached and still preach, to strengthen and confirm you in aspiration, hoping that we may all rise yet higher. Let that be my reward, as 'the wise son is the glory of his father.' You know, and the Master knows, how from my youth I have lived among you, in aspiration and truth and with single heart; that I have declared the faith to those among whom I dwell, and still declare it. The Master knows that I have deceived no man in anything, nor ever shall, for His sake and His people's. Nor shall I ever arouse uncharity in them or in any, lest His name should be spoken evil of.... "I have striven in my poor way to help my brothers and the handmaidens of the Anointed, and the holy women who often volunteered to give me presents and to lay their jewels on my altar; but these I always gave back to them, even though they were hurt by it; and I have so lived my life, for the hope of the life eternal, that none may find the least cause of offence in my ministry; that my least act might not tarnish my good name, so that unbelievers might speak evil of me.... "If I have asked of any as much as the value of a shoe, tell me. I will repay it and more. I rather spent my own wealth on you and among you, wherever I went, for your sakes, through many dangers, to regions where no believer had ever come to baptize, to ordain teachers or to confirm the flock. With the divine help I very willingly and lovingly paid all. Sometimes I gave presents to the kings,--in giving presents to their sons who convoyed us, to guard us against being taken captive. Once they sought to kill me, but my time was not yet come. But they took away all we possessed, and kept me bound, till the Master liberated me on the fourteenth day, and all our goods were given back, because of the Master and of those who convoyed us. You yourselves know what gifts I gave to those who administer the law through the districts I visited oftenest. I think I spent not less than the fine of fifteen men among them, in order that I might come among you. Nor do I regret it, nor count it enough, for I still spend, and shall ever spend, happy if the Master allows me to spend my soul for you....For I know certainly that poverty and plain living are better for me than riches and luxury. The Anointed our Master was poor for us. I am poorer still, for I could not have wealth if I wished it. Nor do I now judge myself, for I look forward daily to a violent death, or to be taken captive and sold into slavery, or some like end. But I fear none of these ...but let me not lose the flock I feed for Him, here in the uttermost parts of the earth.... "I am willing for His sake to shed my blood, to go without burial, even though my body be torn by dogs and wild beasts and the fowls of the air; for I know that thus I should through my body enrich my soul. And I know that in that day we shall arise in the brightness of the sun, in the glory of the Anointed Master, as sons of the divine and co-heirs with Him, made in His likeness. For the sun we see rises daily by divine ordinance; but it is not ordained to rise for ever, nor shall its light last for ever. The sun of this world shall fade, with those that worship it; but we bow to the spiritual Sun, the Anointed, that shall never perish, nor they who do His will, but shall endure for ever like the Anointed himself, who reigns with the Father and the Divine Spirit now and ever.... "This I beg, that no believer or servant of the Master, who reads or receives this writing, which I, Patricius, a sinner and very unlearned, wrote in Ireland,--I beg that none may say that whatever is good in it was dictated by my ignorance, but rather that it came from Him. This is my Confession, before I die." That is the story of the most vital event in the life of Ireland, in the words of the man who was chiefly instrumental in bringing it about. Though an unskilled writer, as he says himself he has nevertheless succeeded in breathing into every part of his epistle the power and greatness of his soul, the sense and vivid reality of the divine breath which stirred in him and transformed him, the spiritual power, humane and universal, which enkindled him from within; these are the words of a man who had first-hand knowledge of the things of our deeper life; not a mere servant of tradition, living on the words and convictions of other men. He has drawn in large and universal outline the death to egotism--reached in his case through hunger, nakedness and slavery--and the new birth from above, the divine Soul enkindling the inner man, and wakening him to new powers and a knowledge of his genius and immortal destiny. Not less vivid is the sense he conveyed, of the world in which he moved; the feeling of his dignity as a Roman Patrician, having a share of the greatness of empire; the sense of a dividing-line between the Christian realms of Rome and the outer barbarians yet in darkness. Yet the picture he gives of these outer realms is as certainly true. There are the rival chieftains, each with his own tribe and his own fort, and bearing the title of king. They are perpetually striving among themselves, so that from the province of one he must move to the province of another with an escort, led by the king's son, who receives gifts in return for this protection. This is the world of Concobar and Cuculain; of Find and Ossin, as they themselves have painted it. The world of Find and Ossin, of Cael and Credé, was marked by a certain urbanity and freedom, a large-mindedness and imaginative power. We are therefore prepared to expect that the Messenger of the new life would be received with openness of mind, and allowed to deliver his message without any very violent opposition. It was the meeting of unarmed moral power and armed valor; and the victory of the apostle was a victory of spiritual force, of character, of large-heartedness; the man himself was the embodiment of his message, and through his forceful genius his message was effective. He visibly represented the New Way; the way of the humane and the divine, transforming the destructive instinct of self-assertion. He visibly represented the divine and the immortal in us, the new birth from above. Yet there were tragedies in his apostolate. In another letter a very vivid and pathetic account is given of one of these. Coroticus, a chieftain of Britain, and therefore nominally a Christian and a citizen of Rome, had sent marauding bands to Ireland to capture slaves. Some of the new converts were taken captive by these slave-hunters, an outrage which drew forth an indignant protest from the great Messenger: "My neophytes in their white robes, the baptismal chrism still wet and glistening on their foreheads, were taken captive with the sword by these murderers. The next day I sent letters begging them to liberate the baptized captives, but they answered my prayer with mocking laughter. I know not which I should mourn for more,--those who were slain, those who were taken prisoner, or those who in this were Satan's instruments, since these must suffer everlasting punishment in perdition." He appeals indignantly to the fellow-Christians of Coroticus in Britain: "I pray you, all that are righteous and humble, to hold no converse with those who do these things. Eat not, drink not with them, accept no gifts from them, until they have repented and made atonement, setting free these newly-baptized handmaidens of Christ, for whom He died.... They seem to think we are not children of one Father!" The work and mission of this great man grow daily better known. The scenes of each marked event are certainly identified. His early slavery, his time of probation, was spent in Antrim, on the hillside of Slieve Mish, and in the woods that then covered its flanks and valleys. Wandering there with his flocks to the hill-top, he looked down over the green darkness of the woods, with the fertile open country stretching park-like beyond, to the coast eight miles away. From his lonely summit he could gaze over the silvery grayness of the sea, and trace on the distant horizon the headlands of his dear native land. The exile's heart must have ached to look at them, as he thought of his hunger and nakedness and toil. There in deep pity came home to him the fate of the weak ones of the earth, the vanquished, the afflicted, the losers in the race. Compassion showed him the better way, the way of sympathy and union, instead of contest and dominion. A firm and fixed purpose grew up within him to make the appeal of gentleness to the chiefs and rulers, in the name of Him who was all sympathy for the weak. Thus the inspiration of the Message awakened his soul to its immortal powers. Later, returning with the clear purpose of his message formed, he began his great work not far from his first place of captivity. His strong personality led him always to the presence of the chiefs and warriors, and he talked to them freely as an equal, gradually giving them an insight into his own vision of life, of the kinship between soul and soul, of our immortal power and inheritance. He appealed always to his own inner knowledge of things divine, to the light and power unveiled within himself; and the commanding genius in his words lit a like fire in the hearts of those who heard, awakening an enthusiasm for the New Way. He had a constant sense of his divine mission: "Was it without divine promise, or in the body only, that I came to Ireland? Who led me? Who took captive my soul, that I should no more see friends and kindred? Whence came my inspiration of pity for the race that had enslaved me?" The memory of his first victories is perpetuated in the name, Downpatrick,--that is: the Dwelling of Patrick.--where Dicu son of Tricem, chief of the district, gave him a tract of land to build a place of meeting and prayer for his disciples; while the church was being built, the chief offered his barn as a meeting-place, an incident commemorated in the name of Saul, on a hill above the town,--a name softened from Sabal, "a barn." This first victory was won among the rounded hills south of the Quoyle River, where it widens toward Strangford Lough; from the hill-top of Saul there is a wide prospect over the reed-covered flats with the river winding among them, the hills with their oak-woods in the bends of the river, and the widening lough with its innumerable islands, its sand-flats lit up with red under the dawn. The sun sets among the mountains of Mourne, flushing from behind the purple profile of the hills, and sending golden arrows over the rich fertility of the plain. The year 432 is the probable date of this first conversion. The strong genius of the Messenger carried him after a few months to the center of power in the land, to Tara with its fortresses, its earthworks, its great banquet-halls and granaries and well-adorned dwellings of chief and king. A huge oval earthwork defended the king's house; northward of this was the splendid House of Mead,--the banquet-hall, with lesser fortresses beyond it. Southward of the central dwelling and its defence was the new ringed fort of Laogaire the king, son of the more famous king Nial of the Hostages. At this circular fort, Rath-Laogaire, on Easter day, Saint Patrick met the king face to face, and delivered to him the message of the New Way, telling him of the unveiling of the Divine within himself, of the voice that had bidden him come, of the large soul of immortal pity that breathed in the teachings among the hills of Galilee, of the new life there begun for the world. Tradition says that the coming of the Messenger had been foretold by the Druids, and the great work he should accomplish; the wise men of the West catching the inner brightness of the Light, as the Eastern Magians had caught it more than four centuries before. The fruits of that day's teaching in the plain of Tara, in the assembly of Laogaire the king, were to be gathered through long centuries to come. In the year 444, the work of the teacher had so thriven that he was able to build a larger church on a hill above the Callan River, in the undulating country south of Lough Neagh. This hill, called in the old days the Hill of the Willows, was only two miles from the famous fortress of Emain of Maca. It was a gift from the ruler Dairé, who, like so many other chiefs, had felt and acknowledged the Messenger's power. Later, the hill came to be called Ard-Maca, the Height of Maca; a name now softened into Armagh, ever since esteemed the central stronghold of the first Messenger's followers. The Messenger passed on from chief to chief, from province to province, meeting with success everywhere, yet facing grave perils. Later histories take him to the kings of Leinster and Munster, and he himself tells us that the prayer of the children of Foclut was answered by his coming, so that he must have reached the western ocean. It was a tremendous victory of moral force, of the divine and immortal working through him, that the Messenger was able to move unarmed among the warriors of many tribes that were often at war with each other; everywhere meeting the chiefs and kings, and meeting them as an equal: the unarmed bringer of good tidings confronting the king in the midst of his warriors, and winning him to his better vision. For sixty years the Messenger worked, sowing seed and gathering the fruit of his labor; and at last his body was laid at rest close to his first church at Saul. Thus one of the great men of the world accomplished his task. IX. THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. A.D. 493-750. It would be hard to find in the whole history of early Christianity a record of greater and more enduring success than the work of St. Patrick. None of the Messengers of the New Way, as they were called first by St. Luke, unless the phrase is St. Paul's, accomplished single-handed so wonderful a work, conquering so large a territory, and leaving such enduring monuments of his victory. Amongst the world's masters, the son of Calpurn the Decurion deserves a place with the greatest. Not less noteworthy than the wide range of his work was the way in which he gained success. He addressed himself always to the chiefs, the kings, the men of personal weight and power. And his address was almost invariably successful,--a thing that would have been impossible had he not been himself a personality of singular force and fire, able to meet the great ones of the land as an equal. His manner was that of an ambassador, full of tact, knowledge of men and of the world. Nor can we find in him--or, indeed, in the whole history of the churches founded by him--anything of that bitter zeal and fanaticism which, nearly two centuries nearer to apostolic times, marred the work of the Councils under Constantius; the fierce animosity between Christian and Christian which marked the Arian controversy. The Apostle of Ireland showed far more urbanity, far more humane and liberal wisdom, far more gentleness, humor and good feeling, in his treatment of the pre-Christian institutions and ideals of Ireland than warring Christian sects have generally been willing to show to each other. It was doubtless due to this urbane wisdom that the history of the conversion of Ireland is without one story of martyrdom. The change was carried out in open-hearted frankness and good-will, the old order giving place to the new as gently as spring changes to summer. The most marvelous example of St. Patrick's wisdom, and at the same time the most wonderful testimony to his personal force, is his action towards the existing civil and religious law of the country, commonly known as the Brehon Law. Principles had by long usage been wrought into the fabric of the Brehon Laws which were in flat contradiction to St. Patrick's teaching of the New Way. Instead of fiercely denouncing the whole system, he talked with the chief jurists and heralds,--custodians of the old system,--and convinced them that changes in their laws would give effect to more humane and liberal principles. They admitted the justice of his view, and agreed to a meeting between three great chieftains or kings, three Brehons or jurists, and three of St. Patrick's converts, to revise the whole system of law, substituting the more humane principles, which they had already accepted as just and right. These changes were made and universally applied; so that, without any violent revolution, without strife or bloodshed, the better way became the accepted law. It would be hard to find in all history a finer example of wisdom and moderation, of the great and worthy way of accomplishing right ends. We have seen the great Messenger himself founding monasteries, houses of religious study, and churches for his converts, on land given to him by chieftains who were moved by his character and ideals. We can judge of the immediate spread of his teaching if we remember that these churches were generally sixty feet long, thus giving room for many worshippers. They seem to have been built of stone--almost the first use of that material in Ireland since the archaic days. Among the first churches of this type were those at Saul, at Donaghpatrick on the Blackwater, and at Armagh, with others further from the central region of St. Patrick's work. The schools of learning which grew up beside them were universally esteemed and protected, and from them came successive generations of men and women who worthily carried on the work so wisely begun. The tongues first studied were Latin and Irish. We have works of very early periods in both, as, for instance, the Latin epistles of St. Patrick himself, and the Irish poems of the hardly less eminent Colum Kill. But other languages were presently added. [Illustration: Valley of Glendalough and Ruins of the Seven Churches.] These schools and churches gradually made their way throughout the whole country; some of the oldest of them are still to be seen, as at Donaghpatrick, Clonmacnoise and Glendalough. Roofed with stone, they are well fitted to resist the waste of time. An intense spiritual and moral life inspired the students, a life rich also in purely intellectual and artistic force. The ancient churches speak for themselves; the artistic spirit of the time is splendidly embodied in the famous Latin manuscript of the Gospels, called the Book of Kells, the most beautiful specimen of illumination in the world. The wonderful colored initial letters reproduce and develop the designs of the old gold work, the motives of which came, it would seem, from the Baltic, with the De Danaan tribes. We can judge of the quiet and security of the early disciples at Kells, the comfort and amenity of their daily life, the spirit of comity and good-will, the purity of inspiration of that early time, by the artistic truth and beauty of these illuminated pages and the perfection with which the work was done. Refined and difficult arts are the evidence of refined feeling, abundant moral and spiritual force, and a certain material security and ease surrounding the artist. When these arts are freely offered in the service of religion, they are further evidence of widespread fervor and aspiration, a high and worthy ideal of life. Yet we shall be quite wrong if we imagine an era of peace and security following the epoch of the first great Messenger. Nothing is further from the truth. The old tribal strife continued for long centuries; the instincts which inspired it are, even now, not quite outworn. Chief continued to war against chief, province against province, tribe against tribe, even among the fervent converts of the first teachers. Saint Brigid is one of the great figures in the epoch immediately succeeding the first coming of the Word. She was the foundress of a school of religious teaching for women at Kildare, or Killdara, "The Church of the Oak-woods," whose name still records her work. Her work, her genius, her power, the immense spiritual influence for good which flowed from her, entitle her to be remembered with the women of apostolic times, who devoted their whole lives to the service of the divine. We have seen the esteem in which women were always held in Ireland. St. Brigid and those who followed in her steps gave effect to that high estimation, and turned it to a more spiritual quality, so that now, as in all past centuries, the ideal of womanly purity is higher in Ireland than in any country in the world. This great soul departed from earthly life in the year 525, a generation after the death of the first Messenger. To show how the old order continued with the new, we may record the words of the Chronicler for the following year: "526: The battle of Eiblinne, by Muirceartac son of Erc; the battle of Mag-Ailbe; the battle of Almain; the battle of Ceann-eic; the plundering of the Cliacs; and the battle of Eidne against the men of Connacht." Three of these battles were fought at no great distance from St. Brigid's Convent. The mediaeval Chronicler quotes the old Annalist for the following year: "The king, the son of Erc, returned to the side of the descendants of Nial. Blood reached the girdle in each plain. The exterior territories were enriched. Seventeen times nine chariots he brought, and long shall it be remembered. He bore away the hostages of the Ui-Neill with the hostages of the plain of Munster." Ten years later we find the two sons of this same king, Muirceartac son of Erc, by name Fergus and Domnall, fighting under the shadow of Knocknarea mountain against Eogan Bel the king of Connacht; the ancient Annalist, doubtless contemporary with the events recorded, thus commemorated the battle in verse: "The battle of the Ui-Fiacrac was fought with the fury of edged weapons against Bel; "The kine of the enemy roared with the javelins, the battle was spread out at Crinder; "The River of Shells bore to the great sea the blood of men with their flesh; "They carried many trophies across Eaba, together with the head of Eogan Bel." During this stormy time, which only carried forward the long progress of fighting since the days of the prime, a famous school of learning and religion had been founded at Moville by Finian, "the tutor of the saints of Ireland." The home of his church and school is a very beautiful one, with sombre mountains behind rising from oak-woods into shaggy masses of heather, the blue waters of Lough Foyle in front, and across the mouth of the lough the silver sands and furrowed chalk hills of Antrim, blending into green plains. Here the Psalms and the Gospels were taught in Latin to pupils who had in no wise given up their love for the old poetry and traditions of their motherland. Here Colum studied, afterwards called Colum Kill, "Saint Colum of the Churches," and here arose a memorable dispute concerning a Latin manuscript of the Psalms. The manuscript belonged to Finian, founder of the school, and was esteemed one of the treasures of his college. Colum, then a young student, ardently longed for a copy, and, remaining in the church after service, he daily copied a part of the sacred text. When his work was completed, Finian discovered it, and at once claimed the copy of his book as also his. The matter was submitted to an umpire, who gave the famous decision: "Unto every cow her calf; unto every book its copy"--the copy belonged to the owner of the book. This early decision of copyright was by no means acceptable to the student Colum. He disputed its justice, and the quarrel spread till it resulted in a battle. The discredit attaching to the whole episode resulted in the banishment of Colum, who sailed away northward and eastward towards the isles and fiords of that land which, from the Irish Scoti who civilized it, now bears the name of Scotland. Let us recall a few verses written by Colum on his departure, in a version which echoes something of the original melody and form: "We are rounding Moy-n-Olurg, we sweep by its head and We plunge through the Foyle, Whose swans could enchant with their music the dead and Make pleasure of toil.... Oh, Erin, were wealth my desire, what a wealth were To gain far from thee, In the land of the stranger, but there even health were A sickness to me! Alas for the voyage, oh high King of Heaven, Enjoined upon me, For that I on the red plain of bloody Cooldrevin Was present to see. How happy the son is of Dima; no sorrow For him is designed, He is having this hour, round his own Kill in Durrow, The wish of his mind. The sound of the wind in the elms, like the strings of A harp being played, The note of the blackbird that claps with the wings of Delight in the glade. With him in Ros-grenca the cattle are lowing At earliest dawn, On the brink of the summer the pigeons are cooing And doves on the lawn...." In another measure, he again mourns his exile: "Happy to be on Ben Edar, before going over the sea; white, white the dashing of the wave against its face; the bareness of its shore and its border.... "How swiftly we travel; there is a grey eye Looks back upon Erin, but it no more Shall see while the stars shall endure in the sky, Her women, her men, or her stainless shore...." This great-hearted and impetuous exile did not waste his life in useless regrets. Calling forth the fire of his genius, and facing the reality of life, he set himself to work, spreading the teaching of the New Way among the Picts of the north--the same Picts who, in years gone by, had raged against the barrier of Hadrian between Forth and Clyde. The year of his setting out was 563; the great center of his work was in the sacred isle of Iona, off the Ross of Mull. Iona stands in the rush of Atlantic surges and fierce western storms, yet it is an island of rare beauty amid the tinted mists of summer dawns. Under the year 592, a century after Saint Patrick's death, we find this entry in the Chronicle: "Colum Kill, son of Feidlimid, Apostle of Scotland, head of the piety of the most part of Ireland and Scotland after Patrick, died in his own church in Iona in Scotland, after the thirty-fifth year of his pilgrimage, on Sunday night, the ninth of June. Seventy-seven years was his whole age when he resigned his spirit to heaven." The corrected date is 596. We can see in Colum of the Churches the very spirit of turbulence and adventure, the fierce impetuosity and readiness for dispute, which led to the contests between the chieftains of Ireland, the wars between province and province, often between valley and valley. It is the same spiritual energy, working itself out in another way, transmuted by the sacred fire into a divine mission. In the same way the strong will of Meave, the romantic power of Deirdré and Grania, transmuted to ideal purposes, was the inspiration of Saint Brigid and so many like her, who devoted their powers to the religious teaching of women. We should doubtless fail utterly to understand the riddle of history, were we to regret the wild warring of these early times as a mere lamentable loss of life, a useless and cruel bloodshed. We are too much given to measuring other times and other moods of the soul by our own, and many false judgments issue from this error. Peaceful material production is our main purpose, and we learn many lessons of the Will embodied in the material world when we follow this purpose honestly. But before our age could begin, it was necessary for the races to come to personal consciousness. This end seems everywhere to have been reached by a long epoch of strife, the contending of man against man, of tribe against tribe. Thus were brought to full consciousness the instinct of personal valor, personal honor and personal readiness to face death. Only after this high personal consciousness is kindled can a race enter the wider path of national life, where vivid and intense individuals unite their forces to a common end, reaching a common consciousness, and holding their power in common for the purposes of all. After the lessons of fighting come the lessons of work. For these lessons of work, for the direct touch with the everlasting Will gained in all honest work, our own age is to be valued, far more than for the visible and material fruits which that work produces. In like manner the old epoch of war is to be esteemed for the lessons it taught of high valor, sacrifice, heroic daring. And to what admirable ends these same qualities may tend we can see in a life like that of Colum Kill, "head of the piety of the most part of Ireland and Scotland after Patrick." Yet the days of old were grim enough to live in. Let this record of some half-century later testify. It is but one year culled from a long red rank of years. We give the Chronicler's own words: "645: The sixth year of Conall and Ceallac. Mac Laisre, abbot of Bangor, died on May 16. Ragallac son of Uatac, King of Connacht, was killed by Maelbrigde son of Motlacan, of which was said: "Ragallac son of Uatac was pierced on the back of a white steed; Muiream has well lamented him; Catal has well avenged him. Catal is this day in battle, though bound to peace in the presence of kings; Though Catal is without a father, his father is not without vengeance. Estimate his terrible revenge from the account of it related: He slew six men and fifty; he made sixteen devastations; I had my share like another in the revenge of Ragallac,-- I have the gray beard in my hand, of Maelbrigde son of Motlacan." These are evidently the very words of one who fought in the battle. Nor need this in any way surprise us, for we have far older Chronicles set down year by year in unbroken record. The matter is easy to prove. The Chronicles of Ulster record eclipses of the sun and moon as early as 495,--two years after Saint Patrick's death. It was, of course, the habit of astronomers to reckon eclipses backwards, and of annalists to avail themselves of these reckonings. The Venerable Bede, for example, has thus inserted eclipses in his history. The result is that the Venerable Bede has the dates several days wrong, while the Chronicles of Ulster, where direct observation took the place of faulty reckoning, has them right, to the day and hour. It is only in quite modern times that we have reached sufficiently accurate knowledge of the moon's movements to vindicate the old Ulster Annalists, who began their work not less than a hundred and fifty years before the battle we have just recorded. Nor should we exaggerate the condition of the time, thinking of it as altogether given over to ravaging and devastation. Even though there were two or three expeditions and battles every year, these would only affect a small part of the whole country. Over all the rest, the tending of cattle in the glades of the forest, the sowing and reaping of wheat and oats, the gathering of fruit and nuts, continued in quiet contentment and peace. The young men practiced the arts of war and exercised themselves in warlike games. The poets sang to them, the heralds recounted the great doings of old, how Cuculain kept the ford, how Concobar thirsted in his heart for Deirdré, how the son of Cumal went to war, how golden-tongued Ossin was ensnared by the spirits. The gentle life of tillage and the keeping of cattle could never engage the whole mental force of so vigorous a race. What wonder, then, that, when a chieftain had some real or imagined wrong to avenge, or some adventure to propose,--what wonder that bold spirits were ever ready to accompany him, leaving the women to their distaffs and the tending of children and the grinding of corn? Mounting their horses, they rode forth through the woods, under the huge arms of the oak-trees; along the banks of swift-gliding rivers, through passes of the lowering hills. While still in familiar territory, the time of the march was passed in song and story. Then came increased precaution, and gradually heightened pulses marked the stages of the way. The rival chieftain, warned by his scouts and outlying tribesmen, got word of their approach, and hastily replenishing his granaries and driving the cattle into the great circle of his embankments, prepared to meet the coming foe. Swords, spears, bows, arrows were the arms of both sides. Though leather tunics were common, coats of mail came only at a later date. The attackers under cover of the night sped across the open ground before the fort, and tried to storm the fortress, the defenders meanwhile showering down keen-pointed arrows on them from above. Both parties, under the chieftains' guidance, fought fiercely, in a fever of excitement, giving no heed to wounds, seeing nothing but the foe and the battlements to be scaled. Then either a successful sortie broke the ranks of the assailants and sent them back to their forest camp in wild disorder, or, the stockade giving way, the stormers swept in like a wave of the sea, and all was chaos and wild struggle hand to hand. Whatever the outcome, both sides thought of the wild surge of will and valor in that hour as the crowning event of their lives. Meanwhile, within the quiet enclosures of the monasteries and religious schools, the spirit of the time was working with not less fervor, to invisible and ideal ends. At Bangor, on the neck of the northern Ards; at Moville, where Lough Foyle spreads its inland sea; at Saul, where the first Messenger won his first convert; at Devenish Island amid the waters of Lough Erne; at Monasterboice in the plain of Louth; at Grlendalough, among the solemn hills of Wicklow; at Kildare, beneath the oak-woods; at Durrow, amid the central marshes, and many another ancient seat of learning, the way of wisdom and holiness was trod with gladness. Latin had been taught since the early days of the Message; the native tongue of Ireland, consecrated in the hymns of St. Patrick and the poems of St. Colum of the Churches, was the language in which all pupils were taught, the modern ministrant to the classical speech of Rome. Nor were the Scriptures alone studied. Terence, Virgil, Ovid, the Augustans and the men of the silver age, were familiar in the Irish schools; and to these Latin writers were soon added the Greeks, more especially--as was natural--the Greek Fathers, the religious philosophers, and those who embodied the thought and controversies of the early Christian centuries. To Greek, Hebrew was added, so that both Old and New Testaments were known in their proper tongues. About the time when "Ragallac son of Uatac was pierced on the back of a white steed," Saint Camin in his island school at Inis Caltra, where red mountains hem in Lough Derg of the Shannon, was writing his Commentary on the Psalms, recording the Hebrew readings on the margin of the page. A few years before that battle, in 634, Saint Cummian of Durrow, some thirty miles to the east of Camin's Holy Island, wrote to his brother, the Abbot of Iona in the northern seas, quoting Latin writers sacred and secular, as well as Origen, Cyril and Pachomius among the Greeks. The learned man discusses the astronomical systems of the Mediterranean world, giving the names of months and cycles in Hebrew, Greek and Egyptian, and telling of his researches into the true time of Easter, while on a journey to Italy and Rome. This letter, which has come down to our days, is first-hand testimony to the learning of the early Irish schools. [Illustration: Ancient Cross, Glendalough.] Fifty years later, in 683, we hear of the Saxons for the first and almost the last time in the history of Ireland. It is recorded that the North Saxons raided Mag Breag in the East of Meath, attacking both churches and chieftains. They carried away many hostages and much spoil, but the captives were soon after set at liberty and sent home again, on the intercession of a remarkable man, Adamnan, the biographer of Colum of the Churches, whose success in his mission was held to be miraculous. For more than a century after this single Saxon raid Ireland was wholly undisturbed by foreign invasion, and the work of building churches, founding schools, studying Hebrew and Greek and Latin, went on with increasing vigor and success. An army of missionaries went forth to other lands, following in the footsteps of Colum of the Churches, and of these we shall presently speak. The life of the church was so rich and fruitful that we are led to think of this as a period of childlike and idyllic peace. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. The raids, devastations and wars between province and province, tribe and tribe, went on without a year's interruption. This was the normal course of the nation's life, the natural outlet of the nation's energy: not less a visible sign of invisible inward power than the faith and fervor of the schools. We shall get the truest flavor of the times by quoting again from the old Annals. That they were recorded year by year, we have already seen; the records of frosts, great snow-storms, years of rich harvests and the like, interspersed among the fates of kings, show how faithfully the annals were kept,--as, for example, the winter of great cold, "when all the rivers and lakes of Ireland were frozen over," in the year after the Saxon raid. Here again, under the year 701, is the word of a man then living: "After Loing Seac son of Angus son of Domnall had been eight years in the sovreignty of Ireland, he was slain in the battle of Ceann by Cealleac of Lough Cime, the son of Ragallac, as Cealleac himself testifies: "'For his deeds of ambition he was slain in the morning at Glas Cuilg; I wounded Loing Seac with a sword, the monarch of Ireland round.'" Two years later Saint Adamnan died, after governing the Abbey of Iona for six and twenty years. It was said of him that "He made a slave of himself to his virtues," and his great life-work, the Latin history of Saint Colum of the Churches, founder of the Iona Abbey, to this day testifies to his high learning and wisdom. Fourteen years later "Leinster was five times devastated by the Ui-Neill," the descendants of Nial, and a battle was fought between the men of Connacht and Munster. Thus the lives of saints and warriors were interwoven. On very rare occasions the two lives of the race came into collision. Thus, a quarrel arose between Congus the Abbot and Aed Roin king of Ulad. Congus summoned to his aid the chief of the Ui-Neill, Aed Allan by name, in these verses: "Say to the cold Aed Allan that I have been oppressed by a feeble enemy: Aed Roin insulted me last night at Cill Cunna of the sweet music." Aed Allan made these verses on his way to battle to avenge the insult: "For Cill Cunna the church of my spiritual father, I take this day a journey on the road. Aed Roin shall leave his head with me, Or I shall leave my head with him." The further history of that same year, 733, is best told in the words of the Annals: "Aed Allan, king of Ireland, assembled his forces to proceed into Leinster, and he arrived at the Ford of Seannait (in Kildare). The Leinstermen collected the greatest number they were able, to defend their rights against him. The king Aed Allan himself went into the battle, and the chieftains of the north along with him. The chieftains of Leinster came with their kings into the battle, and bloodily and heroically was the battle fought between them. Heroes were slaughtered and bodies were hacked. Aed Allan and Aed, son of Colgan, king of Leinster, met each other, and Aed son of Colgan was slain by Aed Allan. The Leinstermen were killed, slaughtered, cut off, and dreadfully exterminated in this battle, so that there escaped of them but a small remnant and a few fugitives." To round out the picture, to contrast the two streams of the nation's life, let us give this, from the following year: "734: Fifth year of Aed Allan. Saint Samtain, virgin, of Cluain Bronaig (Longford), died on December 19. It was of her that Aed Allan gave this testimony: "Samtain for enlightening various sinners, A servant who observed stern chastity, In the wide plain of fertile Meath Great suffering did Samtain endure; She undertook a thing not easy,-- Fasting for the kingdom above. She lived on scanty food; Hard were her girdles; She struggled in venomous conflicts; Pure was her heart amid the wicked. To the bosom of the Lord, with a pure death, Samtain passed from her trials." X. THE RAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN. A.D. 750-1050. Aed Allan, the king who so feelingly wrote the epitaph of the saintly virgin Samtain, needed an epitaph himself four years later, for he fell in battle with Domnall son of Murcad son of Diarmaid, who succeeded him on the throne. It is recorded that, in the following year, the sea cast ashore a whale under the mountains of Mourne, to the great wonder of those who dwelt by the hill of Rudraige. Thus do the Chronicles establish their good faith, by putting on record things trifling or grave, with equal impartiality. They were presently to have something more memorable to record than the loss of a battle or the stranding of a whale. But before we come to this new chapter in the life of Ireland, let us show the continuity of the forces we have already depicted. The old tribal turmoil went on unabated. In 771, the first year of Doncad son of Domnall in the sovereignty over Ireland, that ruler made a full muster of the Ui-Neill and marched into Leinster. The Leinstermen moved before the monarch and his forces, until they arrived at the fort called Nectain's Shield in Kildare. Domcad with his forces was entrenched at Aillin, whence his people continued to fire, burn, plunder and devastate the province for the space of a week, when the Leinstermen at last submitted to his will. Seventeen years later it is recorded that the church and abbey of Ardmaca, or, as we may now begin to call it, Armagh, were struck by lightning, and the night was terrible with thunder, lightning and wind. We see, therefore, that the double life of the people, the life of valor and the life of wisdom, were following their steady course in camp and school. We may call up a very interesting witness to the whole condition of Ireland during this epoch: Alfred king of the Northumbrian Saxons, who spent several years traveling through the land and studying in the schools. On his departure, he wrote an ode of acknowledgment to the country he was leaving, in the verse of the native Irish tongue. From this ode we may quote a few picturesque lines, taking them from a version which preserves something of the original rhythm: "I traveled its fruitful provinces round, And in every one of the five I found, Alike in church and in palace hall, Abundant apparel and food for all. Gold and silver I found, and money, Plenty of wheat and plenty of honey; I found God's people rich in pity; Found many a feast and many a city.... I found in each great church moreo'er, Whether on island or on shore, Piety, learning, fond affection, Holy welcome and kind protection.... I found in Munster unfettered of any Kings and queens and poets a many, Poets well skilled in music and measure; Prosperous doings, mirth and pleasure. I found in Connacht the just, redundance Of riches, milk in lavish abundance; Hospitality, vigor, fame, In Crimean's land of heroic name.... I found in Ulster, from hill to glen, Hardy warriors, resolute men. Beauty that bloomed when youth was gone, And strength transmitted from sire to son.... I found in Leinster the smooth and sleek, From Dublin to Slewmargy's peak, Flourishing pastures, valor, health, Song-loving worthies, commerce, wealth.... I found in Meath's fair principality Virtue, vigor, and hospitality; Candor, joyfulness, bravery, purity-- Ireland's bulwark and security. I found strict morals in age and youth, I found historians recording truth. The things I sing of in verse unsmooth I found them all; I have written sooth." The modern form of the names used by the translator gives this version a slightly misleading tone. Ulster, Munster, Leinster were still known by their old names: Ulad, Mumain and Lagin. The Danish termination by which we know them had not been added. In like manner, Dublin in those days and far later was still called At-Cliat, the Ford of the Hurdles. Yet the tribute which the Saxon king paid to Ireland has a true ring. It thoroughly supports what we have said: that incessant tribal warfare rather expressed than detracted from the vigor of the nation's life. It had this grave defect, however: it so kindled and cherished the instinct of separateness that union in face of a common foe was almost impossible. Long years of adverse fate were needed to merge the keen individual instinct of old into the common consciousness of to-day. Modern historians generally write as if the onslaught of the Northmen had had this unifying effect; as if it had been a great calamity, overwhelming the country for several centuries, and submerging its original life under a tide of conquest. Here again the history of the time, as recorded year by year in the Annals, leads us to a wholly different conclusion. We find inroads of the Northmen, it is true; but they are only interludes in the old national life of storm and struggle. That enduring tribal conflict, of which we have already seen so much, did not cease even for a year. Nor can it have greatly mattered to the dwellers in some remote valley whether they were sacked, their cattle driven off, and their children taken captive by strangers or by men of their own land. There was one chief difference: the foreigners, being still heathens, did not spare the churches and the schools. The golden or silver reliquaries, the jeweled manuscript-cases, the offerings of precious stones and rich ornaments laid on the altars: these things proved an irresistible temptation to the roving sea-kings. They often burned or cast away the manuscripts, eager only to take the jeweled coverings, and in this way many monuments of the olden time have been lost, and many gaps in the history of the nation made irreparable. Yet it would seem that even the loss of manuscripts has been exaggerated, since such lavish abundance remains to us from the times before the first northern raiders came. Many a remote shrine was never even approached by the northern wanderers; and, in the long times of peace between raid and raid, one school had time to gain from another copies of the books which were lost. We may hope that the somewhat rigid views of copyright expressed in the matter of St. Finian's Psalter were not invariably adhered to. We have Chronicles kept with unbroken regularity year by year through the whole of the epoch of Northern raids, and they by no means indicate a period of national depression, nor justify us in thinking of these raids as much more than episodes in the general fighting of the nation,--the martial state through which every modern country has passed before emerging to homogeneous life. To come to the events themselves, as they appeared to the men who witnessed them. We find the first record of the Northern raiders under the year 795: "The burning of Lambay by the Gentiles. The shrines were broken and plundered." This Lambay is an island of considerable extent, off the Dublin coast, some six or seven miles north of Howth. It rises gradually from the south extremity into a purple cliff of porphyry facing the northern sea, and on the sheltered slope under the sun a little church colony with schools and dwelling-houses had been built. Against this peaceful solitude the raiders came, burning and plundering, and when they rowed away again in their long ships towards the north, a smoldering black ruin bore testimony that they were indeed Gentiles, unblessed by Christian baptism. Three years later the little island of St. Patrick, six miles north of Lambay, met with a like fate. It was "burned by the Gentiles," as the Chronicles say. And from that time forth we hear of their long ships again and again, hovering hawk-like around the coasts of Ireland and Scotland. In 802, and again in 806, the Scottish Iona of Colum of the Churches was raided, and the next year we find the pirates making a descent upon Inismurray, off the Sligo coast, between the summit of Knocknarea and the cliffs of Slieve League. This last settlement of saints and scholars was founded by Molaise,--he who had pronounced sentence of exile on Colum of the Churches, the banishment that was the beginning of grace for the northern Picts. His oratory still remains on the island, beside the Church of the Men, the Church of the Women and the circular stone fort, which was very likely built to guard against new attacks, after this first raid. There are holy wells and altars there also, and Inismurray, better than any other place, gives us a picture of the old scholastic life of that remote and wonderful time. Five years later, the Northern raiders made their way further round the coast, under the shadow of the western mountains and the great cliffs of Achill; we read of "a slaughter of the people of Connemara by the Gentiles" in that year, and the year following, other battles with Gentiles are recorded in the same part of Ireland. In 818, if we are to believe the Annalist, a singular thing happened: "An army was led by Murcad, having the Ui-Neill of the North with him. Concobar king of Ireland with the Ui-Neill of the South and the Leinstermen came from the South on the other hand. When they came to one place, it happened, through a miracle of God, that they separated from each other for that time without slaughter or one of them spilling a drop of the other's blood." That entry better than any other shows the restless spirit of the times. It shows, too, that the first shock of Norse invasion had not in any sense warned the people and chieftains of Ireland of coming danger, nor had it in any degree checked the steady course of the nation's growth through storm and strife to personal consciousness, as the stepping-stone to the wider common consciousness of the modern world. The year following we read of "a plundering of Howth by the Gentiles, who carried off a great prey of women." These captives were doubtless the first to bring the Message of the New Way to the wild granite lands of the north, where the mountains in their grandeur frown upon the long inlets of the fiords. They taught to their children in those wild lands of exile the lessons of grace and holiness, so rudely interrupted when the long ships of the Norsemen were sighted from the Hill of Howth. A year later, in 820, the raiders had found their way to the southernmost extremity of the island; to Cape Clear, off the coast of Cork. This once again brings to our notice the position of so many of the early religious settlements,--on rocky islands off the coasts, well out of the turmoil of tribal strife which raged uninterrupted on the mainland. St. Patrick's Island and Lambay on the east, Clear Island on the south, and Inismurray on the northwest, so well protected by the sea from disturbance at home, were, by that very isolation, terribly exposed to these foreign raiders from the sea. Howth, Moville and Bangor, all on peninsulas, all by the seashore, enjoyed a like immunity and were open to a like danger. Therefore we are not surprised to find that, two years later, Bangor was "plundered by the Gentiles." It will be remembered that St. Patrick's first church was built on land given him by Dicu, chieftain of the district round Downpatrick, a name which commemorates the presence of the Messenger. Two sons of this same Dicu had been held as hostages by Laogaire the king, and their marvelous escape from durance was recorded in the name, Dun-da-lath-glas, the Dwelling of the Two Broken Fetters, given to Downpatrick. The place was of old renown. Known to Ptolemy as Dunum, it was, during Concobar's sway at Emain of Maca, the fortress of the strong chief, Celtcar, whose huge embattled hill of earth still rises formidable over the Quoyle River. In the year 823, we read, Dundalathglas was plundered by the Gentiles; but the story does not stop here, for we are further told that these same Gentiles were beaten by the Ulad armies not far from the great fort of Celtcar. This is the first entry of this tenor. Hitherto, the Northmen seem to have fallen only on outlying religious communities, in remote islands or on the seashore; but this last raid brought them to one of the very few church-schools which had been built close to a strong fortress, with the result that the Northmen were beaten and driven back into their ships. Three years later the Gentiles plundered Lusk on the mainland opposite Lambay, but in that same year they were twice defeated in battle, once by Cairbré son of Catal, and once by the king of Ulad. The raids of the Norse warriors grow more frequent and determined from this time; in itself a testimony to the wealth and prosperity of the country, the abundance of gold and of accumulated riches, whether cattle or corn, ornaments or richly dyed stuffs, red and purple and blue. Word seems to have been carried to the wild hills and fiords of frozen Scandinavia that here was booty in abundance, and the pirate hordes came down in swarms. Thus we read that Armagh, the center of St. Patrick's work, and the chief home of learning, was thrice plundered in 830, the raiders sailing up Carlingford Lough and then making a dash of some fifteen miles across the undulating country separating them from the city of churches. This is the first time they ventured out of sight of their boats. Two years later they plundered Clondalkin, nine miles inland from the Dublin coast, where the Round Tower still marks the site of the old church and school. To the growing frequency of these raids, it would seem, the building of Round Towers is to be attributed; they were at once belfries and places of refuge. We find, therefore, that the door is almost always many feet above the ground, being reached by a ladder afterwards drawn up by those inside. The number of these Round Towers all over the country, and the perfect preservation of many of them, show how universal this precaution was, and how effective were the refugees thus provided. It is instructive to read under this same year, 832, that "a great number of the family of Clonmacnoise were slain by Feidlimid king of Cashel, all their land being burned by him up to the door of the church." Thus the progress of tribal struggle was uninterrupted by the Gentile raids. Four years later, a fleet of sixty Norse fighting galleys sailed up the Boyne. Sixty long ships entered the Liffey in the same year, and a year later they captured the fortress of the Ford of the Hurdles, At-Cliat,--the old name of Dublin. Three years later we find the king of Munster plundering Meath and West Meath, showing that no sense of common danger disturbed the native kings. This strengthens the view we have already taken: that the attacks of the Norse sea-kings were only an interlude in the incessant contests between the tribes of province and province; contests perfectly natural and normal to the development of the land, and through which every country has at some period passed. [Illustration: Round Tower, Antrim.] It would seem that the Northmen who captured the Ford of the Hurdles departed from their former usage. Fortifying themselves, or strengthening the existent fortress, they determined to pass the winter in Ireland, instead of returning, as they had always done up to this time, before the autumn storms made dangerous the navigation of the wild northern seas. Their presence in this fort gave the native powers a center upon which to concentrate their attack, and as a result the year 846 was marked by a signal victory over the Northmen, twelve hundred of those at At-Cliat being slain. Four other successful contests with the raiders are recorded for the same year, and we can thoroughly trust the Annalists who, up to this time, have so faithfully recorded the disasters of their own race. About the same time the Northmen gained a second point of vantage by seizing and fortifying a strong position where the town of Cork now stands. Indeed their instinct of seamanship, their knowledge of good harbors and the conditions which make them, led them to fix their first entrenchments at Dublin, Cork and Limerick,--which remained for centuries after the great ports of the country on the east, south and west; and the Norse flavor still lingers in the names of Carlingford, Wexford and Waterford, the Fiords of Cairlinn, Weis and Vadre. A wonderful side-light on the whole epoch is shed by this entry for 847: "In this year sevenscore ships of the Gentiles from abroad fought against the Gentiles in Ireland." It would seem that the earlier comers, who had drawn up their long ships on the beach, and thrown up earthworks round their camp, instantly resented the attempt of later arrivals to poach on their preserves, and that a fierce fight was the result. During the whole of the following century we find signs of like rivalry between different bands of raiders, and it becomes evident that they were as much divided amongst themselves as were the native tribes they fought against. Two years later a further light is shed on this mutual strife when we are told that "Dark Gentiles came to At-Cliat and slaughtered the Fair Gentiles, plundering their fort and carrying away both people and property." The next year saw a new struggle between the Dark Gentiles and the Fair Gentiles, with much mutual slaughter. This leads us to realize that these raiders, vaguely grouped by modern writers under the single name of Danes, really belonged to several different races, and doubtless came from many parts of the Baltic coasts, as well as from the fiords of the great Scandinavian peninsula. The Dark Foreigners are without doubt some of that same race of southern origin which we saw, ages earlier, migrating northwards along the Atlantic seaboard,--a race full of the spirit of the sea, and never happier than when the waves were curling and breaking under their prows. They found their way, we saw, as far northwards as the coast of Scotland, the Western Isles, and distant Norway over the foam, where the long fiords and rugged precipices gave them a congenial home. We find them hovering over the shores of Ireland at the very dawn of her history; and, in later but still remote ages, their power waned before the De Danaan tribes. This same dark race returning now from Norway, swooped hawk-like upon the rich shrines of the Irish island sanctuaries, only to come into hostile contact once more with sons of that golden-haired race which scattered the dark Fomorians at Mag Tuiread of the North. For the Fair Gentiles of our mediaeval Chronicle are no other than the golden-haired Scandinavians; the yellow-locked Baltic race that gave conquerors and a new ideal of beauty to the whole modern world. And this Baltic race, as we saw in an earlier epoch, was the source and mother of the old De Danaans, whose hair was like new-smelted gold or the yellow flag-lilies of our lakes and rivers. Thus after long ages the struggle of Fomor and De Danaan was renewed at the Ford of the Hurdles between the Dark and Fair Strangers, rivals for the plunder of the Irish religious schools. Though the personalities of this age do not stand forth with the high relief of Cuculain and Concobar, though we can hardly quote poems to equal the songs of Find son of Cumal and Ossin of the golden tongue, yet genuine inspiration never failed in the hearts of the warriors and on the lips of the bards. Thus in 860 did a poet lament the death of a king: "Mournfully is spread her veil of grief over Erin Since Maelseaclain, chieftain of our race has perished,-- Maelseaclain of the flowing Shannon. Many a moan resounds in every place; It is mournful news among the Gael. Red wine has been spilled into the valley: Erin's monarch has died. Though he was wont to ride a white charger. Though he had many steeds, His car this day is drawn by a yoke of oxen. The king of Erin is dead." Four years afterwards the contest between the raiders and the chieftains grew keener, more centered, more like organized war. "A complete muster of the North was made by Aed Finnliat, so that he plundered the fortresses of the foreigners, wherever they were in the north; and he carried off their cattle and accoutrements, their goods and chattels. The foreigners of the province came together at Lough Foyle. After Aed king of Ireland had heard that this gathering of strangers was on the borders of his country, he was not negligent in attending to them. For he marched towards them with all his forces, and a battle was fought fiercely and spiritedly between them. The victory was gained over the foreigners, and a slaughter was made of them. Their heads were collected to one place, in the presence of the king, and twelve-score heads were reckoned before him, which was the number slain in that battle, besides the numbers of those who were wounded and carried off by him in the agonies of death, and who died of their wounds some time afterwards." A renewal of tribal warfare in the second year after this, when this same Aed the king was attacked by Flann the lord of Breag in Meath, called forth certain battle-verses full of the fire and fervor of the time. A poet sang: "At Kiladerry this day the ravens shall taste sips of blood: A victory shall be gained over the magic host of the Gentiles and over Flann." The mother of Flann sang: "Happiness! Woe! Good news! Bad news! The gaining of a great triumphant battle. Happy the king whom it makes victorious; unhappy the king who was defeated. Unhappy the host of Leat Cuin, to have fallen by the sprites of Slain; Happy the reign of great Aed, and unhappy the loss of Flann." Aed the victorious king sang: "The troops of Leinster are with him, with the added men of swift Boyne; This shows the treachery of Flann: the concord of Gentiles at his side." After ten years, a bard thus sings the dirge of Aed: "Long is the wintry night, with rough gusts of wind; Under pressing grief we meet it, since the red-speared king of the noble house lives not. It is fearful to watch how the waves heave from the bottom; To them may be compared all those who with us lament him. A generous, wise, staid man, of whose renown the populous Tara was full. A shielded oak that sheltered the palace of Milid's sons. Master of the games of the fair hilled Taillten, King of Tara of a hundred conflicts; Chief of Fodla the noble, Aed of Oileac who died too soon. Popular, not forgotten, he departed from this world, A yew without any blemish upon him was he of the long-flowing hair." Nor must it be thought that these repeated raids which we have recorded in any way checked the full spiritual life of the nation. It is true that there was not that quiet serenity from which came the perfect beauty and art of the old Book of Kells, but a keenness and fire kindled the breasts of those who learned the New Way and the Ancient Learning. The schools sent forth a host of eminent men who over all western Europe laid the intellectual basis of the modern world. This view of Ireland's history might well be expanded almost without limit or possibility of exaggeration. Receiving, as we saw, the learning and traditions of Rome while Rome was yet mighty and a name of old imperial renown, Ireland kept and cherished the classical wisdom and learning, not less than the lore of Palestine. Then the northern garrisons of Rome were beaten back, and Britain and Gaul alike were devastated by hordes from beyond the Rhine. The first wild deluge of these fierce invaders was now over, and during the lull of the storm teachers went forth from Ireland to Scotland, as we have seen; they went also to Britain; to Belgium; to northern, central and southern Gaul; and to countries beyond the Rhine and in the south; to Switzerland and Austria, where one Irishman gave his name to the Canton of St. Gall, while another founded the famous see of Salzburg, a rallying-point through all the Middle Ages. It was not only for pure spiritual zeal and high inspiration that these teachers were famed. They had not less renown for all refined learning and culture. The famous universities of Oxford, Paris and Pavia count among the great spirits at their inception men who were worthy pupils of the schools of Devenish and Durrow, of Bangor and Moville. We have recorded the tribute paid by Alfred the Saxon king to the Ireland of his day. Let us add to it the testimony of a great divine of France. Elias, Bishop of Angoulême, who died in 875, wrote thus: "What need to speak of Ireland; setting at nought, as it does, the difficulties of the sea, and coming almost in a body to our shores, with its crowd of philosophers, the most intelligent of whom are subjecting themselves to a voluntary exile." We have traced the raids of the Northmen for nearly a century. They continued for a century and a quarter longer. Through all this time the course of the nation's life was as we have described it: a raid from the sea, or from one of their seaboard fortresses by the Dark Gentiles or the Fair; an assembling of the hosts of the native chieftains against them; a fierce and spirited battle against the pirates in their mail-coats and armed with great battle-axes. Sometimes the chosen people prevailed, and sometimes the Gentiles; but in either case the heads of the slain were heaped up at the feet of the victor, many cattle were driven away as spoil, and young men and maidens were taken into captivity. It would seem that at no time was there any union between the foreigners of one and another seaboard fortress, any more than there was unity among the tribes whom they raided and who defeated them in their turn. It was a strife of warring units, without fusion; small groups round chosen leaders, and these merging for awhile in greater groups. Thus the life of the times, in its warlike aspect. Its spiritual vigor we have sufficiently shown, not less in the inspirations of the saints than in the fiery songs of the bards, called forth by battles and the death of kings. Everywhere there was fierce force and seething energy, bringing forth fruit of piety or prowess. The raiders slowly lost their grasp of the fortresses they had seized. Newcomers ceased to fill their thinning ranks. Their force was finally shattered at the battle of Clontarf, which the Annalist thus records: "1013: The Foreigners of the west of Europe assembled against Brian and Maelseaclain, and they took with them a thousand men with coats of mail. A spirited, fierce, violent, vengeful and furious battle was fought between them, the likeness of which was not to be found in that time, at Cluain-tarb, the Lawn of the Bulls. In this battle was slain Brian son of Ceinneidig, monarch of Ireland, who was the Augustus of all the west of Europe, in the eighty-eighth year of his age." The scene of this famous conflict is on the coast, between Dublin and the Hill of Howth. A wide strand of boulders is laid bare by the receding tide, with green sea-grass carpeting the stones. At the very verge of the farthest tide are two huge sand-banks, where the waves roar and rumble with a sound like the bellowing of bulls, and this tumultuous roaring is preserved in the name of the place unto this day. XI. THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. A.D. 1013-1250. There was, as we have seen, no "Danish Conquest" of Ireland, nor anything approaching a conquest. What really happened during the ninth and tenth centuries was this: Raiders from the shores of the Northern seas, from the Scandinavian peninsula and the Western Isles of Scotland, sailed in their long ships among the islands of the Irish coast, looking for opportunities to plunder the treasuries of the religious schools, and carrying off the gold and silver reliquaries and manuscript cases, far more valuable to these heathen seamen than the Latin or Gaelic manuscripts they contained. These raids had little connection with each other; they were the outcome of individual daring, mere boat's-crews from one or another of the Northern fiords. A few of the more persistent gradually grew reluctant to retreat with their booty to the frozen north, and tried to gain a footing on the shores of the fertile and wealthy island they had discovered. They made temporary camps on the beach, always beside the best harbors, and threw up earthworks round them, or perhaps more lasting forts of stone. Thus they established a secondary base for raids inland, and a place of refuge whither they might carry the cattle, corn and captives which these raids brought them from the territories of the native clans. These camps on the shore were the germ of a chain of sea-ports at Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork and Limerick. From these points raiding went on, and battles were fought in which the raiders were as often vanquished as victorious. There was little union between the various Norse forts, and indeed we sometimes find them fighting valiantly among themselves. Meanwhile, the old tribal contest went on everywhere throughout the island. The south invaded the north and was presently invaded in return. The east and the west sent expeditions against each other. Clan went forth against clan, chief against chief, and cattle and captives many times changed hands. These captives, it would seem, became the agricultural class in each clan, being made to work as the penalty for unsuccessful fighting. The old tribal life went on unbroken during the whole of this period; nor did it subsequently yield to pressure from without, but rather passed away, during succeeding centuries, as the result of inward growth. Meanwhile the religious schools continued their work, studying Latin and Greek as well as the old Gaelic, and copying manuscripts as before; and one fruit of their work we see in the gradual conversion of the heathen Norsemen, who were baptized and admitted to the native church. The old bardic schools likewise continued, so that we have a wealth of native manuscripts belonging to this time, embodying the finest tradition and literature of the earlier pagan ages. [Illustration: Giant Head and Dunluce Castle, Co. Antrim.] If the Danes and Northern raiders never conquered Ireland, on the other hand they never were expelled. Through the cessation of the original impulse of unrest which brought them, they gradually ceased to receive accessions from the North, and at the same time the forces of amalgamation were slowly merging them into the national and tribal life of their new home. Their separate influence grew less and less, but their race continued, and continues to this day in the sea-ports we have named. We shall presently have to record another series of Norse inroads, this time not directly from the North, but mediately, through France and Britain, and we shall find that much of our subsequent history was influenced by the new elements and principles then added. We shall do well, therefore, to linger for a moment before this new transition, to gain a clear view of the tendencies of the epoch then closed, the wider significance of that chapter of our nation's life. The culture of Ireland, during the period before the Northern raids, bridged over the abyss between the classical and the mediaeval world. During the whole of that period the rest of Europe was hidden under the clouds of the Dark Ages. Ireland stood alone as the one cultured nation. Receiving the classical learning from Roman Gaul and Britain and Italy, while the old world was still alive, Ireland carried that culture onward when Rome and the Roman Empire fell, crushed under the hordes of Northern barbarians: the Franks in Gaul; the Lombards, Goths and Vandals in Spain and Italy; the Angles, Saxons and Danes in Britain; and the Picts and Northmen in the Scottish lowlands. Austria was meanwhile overrun by Asian nomads, the Huns and Magyars; Russia and Germany, with the Scandinavian lands, were still pagan. Thus all Europe was submerged under a deluge of heathenism, and the old Latin culture was swept away. The tradition of ancient Greece still lingered at Constantinople behind the wall of the Balkans, but it had no influence at all on the northern nations beyond the wall. Ireland was thus the one exception, the ark of safety for the old wisdom and beauty of classical days. And from Ireland, when the tide of heathen invasion slackened, the light of classical times and the spirit of the New Way went forth to all the nascent nations, the great pagan tribes that were to form the modern world. Thus Ireland was the bridge over the Dark Ages, the first of modern nations, keeping the old and blending it with the new. Yet another view of Ireland's significance must not be forgotten. Of the original life of the great pagan world which swept over the Roman Empire we know almost nothing. How much do we realize of the thought and genius of Aleman, Frank and Vandal, of Angle and Lombard and Burgundian? Nothing at all. The darkness that shrouds them is complete. But what a contrast when we come to Ireland! If we leave out the basin of the Mediterranean, with its Asian and African traditions, Ireland is the one European nation which has clear records of its pagan history. And how excellent that history was, how full of humanity and the rich wine of life, the stories of Fergus and Concobar and Cuculain, of Find and Ossin and Gael, of Meave and Deirdré and Credé bear sufficient witness. The tide of Irish life to which they belong, and which brought them forth, flowed on without break to a time so recent that their whole tradition has come down to us, practically at first hand, from the heralds and bards themselves. Ireland is, therefore, our one doorway to the history of northern Europe through the long era of pagan times. That history was everywhere a fierce tale of tribal warfare. Its heroes are valiant fighters, keen leaders of forays, champion swordsmen and defenders of forts. The air throbs to the battle-drum, rings to the call of the war-trumpet. Every tribe, every clan, is in turn victor and vanquished, raider and victim of raids. Everywhere are struggle and unrest, tales of captivity and slaughter. We fall into vain lamenting over this red rapine and wrath, until we divine the genius and secret purpose of that wonderful epoch, so wholly different in inspiration from our own. The life of races, like the life of men, has its ordered stages, and none can ripen out of season. That was the epoch of dawning individual consciousness, when men were coming to a keen and vivid realization of themselves and their powers. Keen consciousness and strong personal will could be developed only through struggle--through long ages of individual and independent fighting, where the best man led, and often fought for his right to lead with the best of his followers. Innumerable centers of initiative and force were needed, and these the old tribal life abundantly gave. The territory of a chief hardly stretched farther than he could ride in a day, so that every part of it had a real place in his heart. Nor was he the owner of that territory. He was simply the chosen leader of the men who lived there, perhaps the strongest among many brothers who shared it equally between them. If another thought himself the better man, the matter was forthwith decided by fighting. The purpose of all this was not the "survival of the fittest" in the material sense, but a harvest purely spiritual: the ripening of keen personal consciousness and will in all the combatants, to the full measure of their powers. The chiefs were the strongest men who set the standard and served as models for the rest, but that standard held the minds of all, the model of perfect valor was in the hearts of all. Thus was personal consciousness gained and perfected. If we keep this in mind as the keynote of the whole pagan epoch, we shall be better able to comprehend the new forces which were added to that epoch, and which gradually transformed it. The greatest was the Message of the New Way. Deeds are stronger than words, and in the deeds of the first Messengers we can see the new spirit bearing fruit. The slave of Slemish mountain returned breathing not vengeance for his captivity but pity and generous kindness towards his captors. Colum the exile did not seek to enlist the Picts against his native land, but sought rather to give the message of that land to the wild Pictish warriors, and to spread humane and generous feeling among them. Thus was laid the foundation of a wide and universal consciousness; a bridge was built between soul and soul. From the waning of the Norsemen to the first coming of the Normans is a period of about a hundred and fifty years. We shall best gain an insight into the national and religious life of that time by gleaning from the Annals the vivid and living pictures they never fail to give,--pictures which are the records of eye-witnesses. The strictly contemporary character of the records is vouched for by the correct entry of eclipses: for instance, "on the day before the calends of September, in the year 1030, there was a darkening of the sun." We see the genius of the Norsemen suffering a like eclipse the year before: "1029: Olaf son of Sitric, lord of the Foreigners, was taken prisoner by Matgamain Ua Riagain lord of Breag, who exacted twelve hundred cows as his ransom, together with seven score British horses, three score ounces of gold, the sword of Carlus, the Irish hostages, sixty ounces of white silver as the ransom of his fetters, eighty cows for word and supplication, and four hostages to Ua Riagain as a security of peace." Two generations later we read: "1088: Tigearnac Ua Briain, chief successor of Ciaran and Coman, died. He was a paragon of learning and history." The work of the paragon Tigearnac, a history of Ireland, is extant and writ in choice Latin, a monument at once of the classical learning of our schools and of the historical spirit carried down from the days of the pagan heralds and bards. Tigearnac quotes abundantly from Greek and Latin authors, fortifying his conclusions with passages from Eusebius, Orosius, Julius Africanus, Josephus, Jerome and Bede. A half-century later we get a quaint and vivid glimpse into the religious life of the time: "1145: A lime-kiln which was sixty feet every way was erected opposite Emain Maca by Gilla Mac Liag, the successor of Patrick, and Patrick's clergy in general." Here is the glow of that devotion through work which gave us the great mediaeval cathedrals, the fervor and artistic power, which in former times adorned the Gospels of the Book of Kells, now working out its way in lasting stone. The date of this lime-kiln lies indeed just half-way between the consecration of Cormac's Chapel at Cashel in 1134 and the foundation of the beautiful cathedral beside it by the lord of Tuaid-Muma or Thomond in 1152. Cormac's Chapel is a very pure example of native style, untouched by foreign or continental influence. [Illustration: Rock of Cashel, Ruins of Old Cathedral, King Cormac's Chapel and Round Tower,] We can divine the figure of one of the great men of the religious world in the records for the year 1148: "A synod was convened at Saint Patrick's Isle by Maelmaedog, called also Malachias, successor of Patrick, at which were present fifteen bishops and two hundred priests, to establish rules and morals for all. Maelmaedog by the advice of the synod went a second time to Rome, to confer with the successor of Peter." A few months later we read this record of his death: "Malachias, that is, Maelmaedog Ua Morgair, Archbishop of the chair of Patrick, chief head of the piety of the West of Europe, legate of the successor of Peter, the only head whom the Irish and the Foreigners obeyed, chief paragon of wisdom and piety, a brilliant lamp which illumined territories and churches by preaching and good works, faithful shepherd of the church in general,--after having ordained bishops and priests and persons of every degree; after having consecrated many churches and cemeteries; after having performed every ecclesiastical work throughout Ireland; after having bestowed jewels and food upon the mighty and the needy; after having founded churches and monasteries, for by him was repaired in Ireland every church which had been consigned to decay and neglect, and they had been neglected from times remote;--after leaving every rule and every good moral in the churches of Ireland in general; after having been the second time in the legateship; after having been fourteen years in the primacy; and after the fifty-fourth year of his age, resigned his spirit to heaven on the second day of November, and was buried in the monastery of Saint Bernard at Claravallis in France." This is the same worthy under whose influence was built the great lime-kiln over against the fort of Emain, where Concobar once ruled. Even from the scant notices which we have quoted he stands forth clear and strong, full of spiritual and moral vigor, a great man in every sense, and one in whom we divine a lovable and admirable spirit. At that time there were four archbishoprics in Ireland, at Armagh, Cashel, Dublin and Tuam; the primacy belonging to the first, as the seat of the Damliag Mor or Great Stone Church, built by Saint Patrick himself. A sentence in the Annals shows how the revenues were raised: "A horse from every chieftain, a sheep from every hearth." A few passages like these are enough to light up whole epochs of that mediaeval time, and to show us how sympathetic, strong and pure that life was, in so many ways. We find, meanwhile, that the tribal struggle continued as of old: "1154: Toirdealbac Ua Concobar brought a fleet round Ireland northwards, and plundered Tir-Conaill and Inis Eogain. The Cinel Eogain sent to hire the fleets of the Hebrides, Arran, Cantyre and Man, and the borders of Alba in general, and they fell in with the other fleet and a naval battle was fiercely and spiritedly fought between them. They continued the conflict from, the beginning of the day till evening, but the foreign fleet was defeated." This records perhaps the only lesson learned from the Norsemen, the art of naval warfare. We may regret that the new knowledge was not turned to a more national end. Four years later, "a wicker bridge was made by Ruaidri Ua Concobar at Athlone, for the purpose of making incursions into Meath. There was a pacific meeting between Ruaidri Ua Concobar and Tigearnan, and they made peace, and took mutual oaths before sureties and relics." This is our first meeting with a king as remarkable in his way as the great archbishop his contemporary. Ruaidri descendant of Concobar was king of Connacht, holding the land from the western ocean up to the great frontier of the river Shannon. Eager to plunder his neighbors and bring back "a countless number of cows," he undertook this wonderful work, a pile bridge across the river, seemingly the first of its kind to be built there, and in structure very like the famous bridge which Caesar built across the Rhine,--or like many of the wooden bridges across the upper streams of the Danube at the present day. We shall record a few more of this enterprising and large-minded prince's undertakings, following the course of the years. In parenthesis, we find a clue to the standard of value of the time in this record: "1161: The visitation of Osraige was made by Flaitbeartac, successor of Colum Kill; the tribute due to him was seven score oxen, but he selected, as a substitute for these, four hundred and twenty ounces of pure silver." The price of an ox was, therefore, three ounces of silver. The old-time barter, an echo of which still lingers in the word "pecuniary" from the Latin name for "cattle," was evidently yielding to the more convenient form of exchange through the medium of the metals, which are easily carried and divided, and suffer no detriment from the passage of time. With the wicker bridge and the lime-kiln, this change from a tribute in cattle to a payment in silver may remind us that we are on the threshold of the modern world. In 1162 we find the king of Connacht in a new adventure: "An army was led by Muirceartac Ua Lochlain, accompanied by the people of the north of Ireland, the men of Meath, and a battalion of the Connacht men, to At-Cliat, to lay siege to the Foreigners and the Irish; but Ua Lochlain retired without battle or hostages after having plundered the Fair Strangers. A peace was afterwards concluded between the Foreigners and the Gaels; and six score ounces of gold were given by the Foreigners to Ua Lochlain, and five score ounces of gold were paid by Diarmaid Ua Maelseaclain to Ruaidri Ua Concobar for West Meath." Here again we see the "countless cows" giving place to counted gold in the levying of tribute. We note also, in the following year, that "a lime-kiln measuring seventy feet every way was made by the successor of Colum Kill and the clergy of Colum Kill in twenty days," in evident emulation of the work of the Armagh see. The synod already recorded as having been held in the little island of Saint Patrick off the Dublin coast, gives us a general view of the church at that time, the number of sees and parishes, and the spirit animating them. We gain a like view of the civil state in the record of a great assembly convened in 1167 by the energetic and enterprising Connacht king: "A great meeting was called together by Ruaidri Ua Concobar and the chiefs of Leat Cuin, both lay and ecclesiastic, and the chiefs of At-boy,--the Yellow Ford across one of the streams of the Boyne in Meath. To it came the successor of Patrick, the archbishop of Connacht, the archbishop of Leinster, the lord of Breifne, the lord of Oirgialla, the king of Ulster, the king of Tara, and Ragnall son of Ragnall, lord of the Foreigners. The whole of their gathering and assemblage was 19,000 horsemen, of which 6000 were Connachtmen, 4000 with the lord of Breifne, 2000 with the king of Tara, 4000 with the lord of Oirgialla and the king of Ulster, 2000 with the chief of Ui-Failge, and 1000 with the Foreigners of At-Cliat. They passed many good resolutions at this meeting, respecting veneration for churches and clerics, and control of tribes and territories, so that women used to traverse Ireland alone; and a restoration of his prey was made by the chief of the Ui-Failge at the hands of the kings aforesaid. They afterwards separated in peace and amity, without battle or controversy, or without anyone complaining of another at that meeting, in consequence of the prosperousness of the king, who had assembled these chiefs with their forces at one place." Here is a foreshadowing of the representative assemblies of our modern times, and the same wise spirit is shown in another event of the same year, thus recorded: "A hosting and a mustering of the men of Ireland, with their chieftains, by Ruaidri Ua Concobar; thither came the lord of Deas-muma, the lord of Tuaid-muma, the king of Meath, the lord of Oirgialla and all the chieftains of Leinster. They arrived in Tir-Eogain, and allotted the part of it north of Slieve Gullion,--now the eastern part of Derry,--to Nial Ua Lochlain for two hostages, and allotted the part of the country of the clan to the south of the mountain to Aed Ua Neill for two other hostages. Then the men of Ireland returned back southwards over Slieve Fuaid, through Tir-Eogain and Tir-Connaill, and over Assaroe--the Cataract of the Erne--and Ruaidri Ua Concobar escorted the lord of Deas-muma with his forces southwards through Tuaid-muma as far as Cnoc-Ainé--in Limerick--and the lord of Deas-muma departed with gifts of many jewels and riches." While the Norse foreigners were a power at Dublin, Waterford, Cork and Limerick, there were not wanting occasions when one of the native tribes called on them for aid against another tribe, sharing with them the joys of victory or the sorrow of defeat, and, where fortune favored, dividing with them the "countless cows" taken in a raid. In like manner the Cinel Eogain, as we saw, hired the fleet of the Norsemen of the Western Isles of Scotland to help them to resist a raid of the Connachtmen. The example thus set was followed repeatedly in the coming years, and we find mention of Flemings, Welshmen and Saxons brought over to take one side or other in the tribal wars. In the same year that saw the two assemblings of the chieftains under Ruaidri Ua Concobar, another chieftain, Diarmaid son of Murcad brought in from "the land of the Saxons," as it was called, one of these bands of foreign mercenaries, for the most part Welsh descendants of the old Gaelic Britons, to aid him in his contest for "the kingdom of the sons of Ceinnsealaig." Two years later, Ruaidri Ua Concobar "granted ten cows every year from himself and from every king that should follow him for ever, to the Lector of Ard Maca, in honor of Patrick, to instruct the youths of Ireland and Alba in Literature." For the next year, 1170, we find this record: "Robert Mac Stepni and Ricard Mac Gillebert--Iarl Strangbow--came from Saxonland into Erin with a numerous force, and many knights and archers, in the army of the son of Murcad, to contest Leinster for him, and to disturb the Gaels of Erin in general; and the son of Murcad gave his daughter to Iarl Strangbow for coming into his army. They took Loch Garman--Wexford--and Port Lairge--Waterford--by force; and they took Gillemaire the officer of the fortress and Ua Faelain lord of the Deisi and his son, and they killed seven hundred persons there. Domnall Breagac with numbers of the men of Breag fell by the Leinstermen on that occasion. An army was led by Ruaidri Ua Concobar with the lord of Breifne and the lord of Oirgialla against Leinster and the Foreigners aforesaid, and there was a challenge of battle between them for the space of three days." This contest was indecisive. The most noteworthy event of the battle was the plundering and slaughter of the Danes of At-Cliat by the newcomers under Iarl Strangbow. The Danes had long before this given up their old pagan faith, converted by their captives and their Gaelic neighbors. Christ Church Cathedral in At-Cliat or Dublin was founded early in the preceding century by Sitric son of Olaf, king of the Danes of Dublin, and Donatus the first Danish bishop; but the oldest part of the present structure belongs to the time we are now speaking of: the close of the twelfth century. The transepts with their chevron mouldings and the principal doorway are of that period, and we may regard them as an offering in expiation of the early heathen raids on Lambay, Saint Patrick's Isle, and the early schools of the church. The ambitious Diarmaid Mac Murcad died shortly after the last battle we have recorded, "perishing without sacrament, of a loathsome disease;" a manifest judgment, in the eyes of the Chronicler, for the crime of bringing the Normans to Ireland. In the year that saw his death, "Henry the Second, king of the Saxons and duke of the Normans, came to Ireland with two hundred and forty ships." He established a footing in the land, as one of many contesting powers, but the immediate results of his coming were slight. This we can judge from the record of three years later: "A brave battle was fought by the Foreigners under Iarl Strangbow and the Gaels under Ruaidri Ua Concobar at Thurles, in which the Foreigners were finally defeated by dint of fighting. Seventeen hundred of the Foreigners were slain in the battle, and only a few of them survived with the Iarl, who proceeded in sorrow to his home at Port Lairge--Waterford." Iarl Strangbow died two years later at Dublin. Norman warriors continue to appear during the succeeding years, fighting against the native chieftains and against each other, while the native chieftains continue their own quarrels, just as in the days of the first Norse raids. Thus in the year of Iarl Strangbow's death, Kells was laid waste by the Foreigners in alliance with the native Ui-Briain, while later in the same year the Foreigners were driven from Limerick by Domnall Ua-Briain, who laid siege to them and forced them to surrender. Two years later, four hundred and fifty of the followers of De Courcy, another great Norman warrior, were defeated at Maghera Conall in Louth, some being drowned in the river, while others were slain on the battlefield. In the same year De Courcy was again defeated with great slaughter in Down, and escaped severely wounded to Dublin. For At-Cliat, from being a fortress of the Danes and Norsemen, was gradually becoming a Norman town. The doorway of Christ Church Cathedral, which dates from about this time, is of pure Norman style. In 1186 we find a son of the great Ruaidri Ua Concobar paying a band of these same Foreigners three thousand cows as "wages," for joining him in some plundering expedition against his neighbors. The genius of strife reigned supreme, and the newcomers were as completely under its sway as the old clansmen. Just as we saw the Dark Norsemen of the ninth century coming in their long ships to plunder the Fair Norsemen of At-Cliat, and the Fair Norsemen not less vigorously retaliating, so now we find wars breaking out among the Normans who followed in the steps of the Norsemen. In 1205 the Norman chieftain who held a part of Meath under his armed sway, and who had already built a strong castle at Kells, was at war with the De Bermingham family, who at that time held the old Danish stronghold of Limerick. Two years later another contest broke out between the De Berminghams and William Marescal, and yet another struggle between Hugo de Lacy and De Bermingham, very disastrous to the retainers of the latter, for the Chronicler tells us that "nearly all his people were ruined." Thus the old life of tribal struggle went on. The country was wealthy, full of cattle and herds, silver and gold, stored corn and fruit, rich dyed stuffs and ornaments. The chieftains and provincial kings lived in state within their forts, with their loyal warriors around them, feasting and making merry, and the bards and heralds recited for their delight the great deeds of the men of old, their forefathers; the harpers charmed or saddened them with the world-old melodies that Deirdré had played for Naisi, that Meave had listened to, that Credé sang for her poet lover. The life of the church was not less vigorous and vital. There are many churches and cathedrals of that period of transition, as of the epoch before the first Norman came, which show the same fervor and devotion, the same faith made manifest by works of beauty. In truth no country in the world has so full and rich a record in lasting stone, beginning with the dwellings of the early saints who had seen the first Messenger face to face, and passing down through age after age, showing the life and growth of the faith from generation to generation. The schools, as we saw, carried on the old classical tradition, bringing forth monuments like the Annals of Tigearnac; and there was the same vigor and vital force in every part of the nation's life. The coming of the Normans changed this in no essential regard. There was something added in architecture, the Norman modifying the old native style; the castle and keep gradually taking the place of the earthwork and stone fort. And in the tenure of land certain new principles were introduced. But the sum of national life went on unbroken, less modified, probably, than it had been by the old Norse raids. XII. THE NORMANS. A.D. 1250-1603. When summing up each epoch of Irish history, we may find both interest and profit in considering what the future of the land and the people might have been had certain new elements not been added. Thus we may try to picture to ourselves what would have been our history had our life moved forward from the times of Cuculain and Concobar, of Find and Cormac son of Art, without that transforming power which the fifth century brought. We may imagine the tribal strife and stress growing keener and fiercer, till the whole life and strength of the people was fruitlessly consumed in plundering and destroying. Or we may imagine an unbroken continuance of the epoch of saintly aspiration, the building of churches, the illumination of holy books, so dividing the religious from the secular community as almost to make two nations in one, a nation altogether absorbed in the present life, with another nation living in its midst, but dwelling wholly in the thought of the other world. Religion would have grown to superstition, ecstasy would have ruled in the hearts of the religious devotees, weakening their hold on the real, and wafting them away into misty regions of paradise. We should have had every exaggeration of ascetic practice, hermitages multiplying among the rocks and islands of the sea, men and women torturing their bodies for the saving of their souls. The raids of the Norsemen turned the strong aspirations of the religious schools into better channels, bringing them to a sense of their identity with the rest of the people, compelling them to bear their part of the burden of calamity and strife. The two nations which might have wandered farther and farther apart were thus welded into one, so that the spirit of religion became what it has ever since remained, something essential and inherent in the life of the whole people. After the waning of the Norsemen, a period opened full of great national promise in many ways. We see the church strengthened and confirmed, putting forth its power in admirable works of art, churches and cathedrals full of the fire and fervor of devotion, and conceived in a style truly national, with a sense of beauty altogether its own. Good morals and generous feeling mark the whole life of the church through this period, and the great archbishop whose figure we have drawn in outline is only one of many fine and vigorous souls among his contemporaries. [Illustration: Dunluce Castle.] The civil life of the nation, too, shows signs of singular promise at the same time, a promise embodied in the person of the king of Connacht, Ruaidri Ua Concobar, some of whose deeds we have recorded. There was a clearer sense of national feeling and national unity than ever before, a recognition of the method of conciliation and mutual understanding, rather than the old appeal to armed force, as under the genius of tribal strife. We see Ruaidri convoking the kings, chieftains and warriors to a solemn assembly, presided over by the king and the archbishops of the realm, and "passing good resolutions" for the settlement of religious and civil matters, and the better ordering of territories and tribes. That assembly was convened a half-century before the famous meeting between King John and his barons, at Runnymead among the Windsor meadows; and the seed then sown might have brought forth fruit as full of promise and potency for the future as the Great Charter itself. The contrast between these two historic assemblies is instructive. In the one case, we have a provincial king from the rich and beautiful country beyond the Shannon, gradually gaining such influence over the kings of the provinces and the chieftains of the tribes that he had come to be regarded as in a sense the overlord of the whole land, not through inherent sovreignty or divine right, but first as the chosen chief of his own tribe, and then as the elect of the whole body of chieftains, first among his peers. In this character we see Ruaidri settling disputes between two sections of the great Northern clan, and fixing a boundary between them; giving presents to the chieftains of the south for their support in this difficult decision, and exercising a beneficent influence over the whole people, a moral sway rather than a sovereign and despotic authority. It is pleasant to find the same king establishing a college foundation for the instruction of the youth of Ireland and Scotland in literature. This is what we have on the one hand. On the other, we have the Norman king surrounded by his barons, over whom he claimed, but could not exercise, despotic authority; and the Norman barons taking advantage of his necessity to extort promises and privileges for their own order rather than for the whole people. For we must remember that the Angles and Saxons had been reduced by conquest to a servile condition, from which they never wholly recovered. The ruling classes of Britain at the present day are at least nominal descendants of those same Norman barons; and between them and the mass of the people--the sons of the Saxons and Angles--there is still a great gulf fixed. It is quite impossible for one of the tillers of the soil to stand on a footing of equality with the old baronial class, and the gulf has widened, rather than closed, since the battle of Hastings and the final overthrow of the Saxon power. We see here the full contrast between the ideal of kingship in Ireland and that which grew up among the Norman conquerors of the Saxons. The Irish king was always in theory and often in fact a real representative, duly elected by the free suffrage of his tribesmen; he was not owner of the tribal land, as the duke of the Normans was; he was rather the leader of the tribe, chosen to guard their common possessions. The communal system of Ireland stands here face to face with the feudal system of the Normans. It would be a study of great interest to consider what form of national life might have resulted in Ireland from the free growth of this principle of communal chieftainship. There are many analogies in other lands, all of which point to the likelihood of a slow emergence of the hereditary principle; a single family finally overtopping the whole nation. Had this free development taken place, we might have had a strong and vigorous national evolution, an abundant flowering of all our energies and powers through the Middle Ages, a rich and vigorous production of art and literature, equal to the wonderful blossoming of genius in the Val d'Arno and Venice and Rome; but we should have missed something much greater than all these; something towards which events and destiny have been leading us, through the whole of the Middle Ages and modern times. From this point forward we shall have to trace the working of that destiny, not manifested in a free blossoming and harvesting of our national life, but rather in the suppression and involution of our powers; in a development arrested by pressure from without and kept thus suspended until the field was ready for its real work. Had our fate been otherwise, we might now be looking back to a great mediaeval past, as Spain and Austria look back; it is fated that we shall look not back but forwards, brought as we are by destiny into the midst of the modern world, a people with energy unimpaired, full of vigorous vital force, uncorrupted by the weakening influence of wealth, taught by our own history the measureless evil of oppression, and therefore cured once for all of the desire to dominate others. Finally, the intense inner life towards which we have been led by the checking of our outward energies has opened to us secrets of the invisible world which are of untold value, of measureless promise for all future time. We have, therefore, to trace the gradual involution of our national life; the checking and restraining of that free development which would assuredly have been ours, had our national life grown forward unimpeded and uninfluenced from without, from the days when the Norse power waned. The first great check to that free development came from the feudal system, the principle of which was brought over by Robert FitzStephen, Richard FitzGilbert, the De Courcys, the De Lacys, the De Berminghams and their peers, whose coming we have recorded. They added new elements to the old struggle of district against district, tribe against tribe, but they added something more enduring--an idea and principle destined almost wholly to supplant the old communal tenure which was the genius of the native polity. The outward and visible sign of that new principle was manifested in the rapid growth of feudal castles, with their strong keeps, at every point of vantage gained by the Norman lords. They were lords of the land, not leaders of the tribe, and their lordship was fitly symbolized in the great gloomy towers of stone that everywhere bear witness to their strength, almost untouched as they are by the hand of time. When the duke of the Normans overthrew the Saxon king at Hastings, he became real owner of the soil of England. His barons and lords held their estates from him, in return for services to be rendered to him direct. To reward them for supporting him, first in that decisive battle, and then in whatever contests he might engage in, they were granted the right to tax certain tracts of country, baronies, earldoms, or counties, according to the title they bore. This tax was exacted first in service, then in produce, and finally in coin. It was the penalty of conquest, the tribute of the subject Saxons and Angles. There was no pretence of a free contract; no pretence that the baron returned to the farmer or laborer an equal value for the tax thus exacted. It was tribute pure and simple, with no claim to be anything else. That system of tribute has been consecrated in the land tenure of England, and the class enriched by that tribute, and still bearing the territorial titles which are its hall-mark, has always been, as it is to-day, the dominant class alike in political and social life. In other words, the Norman subjugation of Saxon and Angle is thoroughly effective at this moment. This principle of private taxation, as a right granted by the sovereign, came over to Ireland with the De Courcys and De Lacys and their like. But it by no means overspread Ireland in a single tide, as in England, after Hastings was lost and won. Its progress was slow; so slow, indeed, that the old communal system lingers here and there at the present day. The communal chiefs lived their lives side by side with the Norman barons, fighting now with the barons, now with each other; and the same generous rivalry, as we have seen, led to abundant fighting among the barons also. The principle of feudal ownership was working its way, however. We shall see later how great was its ultimate influence,--not so much by direct action, as in the quite modern reaction which its abuse provoked--a reaction from which have been evolved certain principles of value to the whole world. Leaving this force to work its way through the centuries, we may turn now to the life of the times as it appeared to the men and women who lived in them, and as they themselves have recorded it. We shall find fewer great personalities; nor should we expect this to be otherwise, if we are right in thinking that the age of struggle, with its efflorescence of great persons, had done its work, and was already giving way before the modern spirit, with its genius for the universal rather than the personal. We shall have contests to chronicle during the following centuries, whether engendered within or forced upon us from without; but they are no longer the substance of our history. They are only the last clouds of a departing storm; the mists before the dawn of the modern world. The most noteworthy of these contests in the early Norman age was the invasion under Edward Bruce, brother of the Scottish king, who brought a great fleet and army to Larne, then as now the Irish port nearest to the northern kingdom. The first sufferers by this invasion were the Normans of Heath, and we presently find these same Normans allied with Feidlimid son of Aed Ua Concobar and the Connachtmen, fighting side by side against the common foe. This was in 1315; two years later Robert Bruce joined his brother, and it was not till 1319 that Edward Bruce finally fell at Dundalk, "and no achievement had been performed in Ireland for a long time before," the Chronicler tells us, "from which greater benefit had accrued to the country than from this; for during the three and a half years that Edward had spent in it, a universal famine prevailed to such a degree that men were wont to devour one another." A ray of light is thus shed on the intellectual and moral life of the time: "1398: Garrett Earl of Desmond--or Deas-muma--a cheerful and courteous man, who excelled all the Normans and many of the Irish in the knowledge of the Irish language, poetry, history and other learning, died after the victory of peace." We see that the Normans are already fallen under the same influence of assimilation which had transformed the Danes two hundred years before. A half-century later, we get a vigorous and lurid picture of the survival of the old tribal strife: "1454: Donell O'Donell was installed in the lordship of Tyrconnell, in opposition to Rury O'Donell. Not long after this, Donell was treacherously taken captive and imprisoned in the castle of Inis--an island in Lough Swilly. As soon as Rury received tidings of this, he mustered an army thither, and proceeded to demolish the castle in which Donell was imprisoned with a few men to guard him. Rury and his army burned the great door of the castle, and set the stairs on fire; whereupon Donell, thinking that his life would be taken as soon as the army should reach the castle,--it being his dying request, as he thought--that he might be loosed from his fetters, as he deemed it a disgrace to be killed while imprisoned and fettered. His request was granted, and he was loosed from his fetters; after which he ascended to the battlements of the castle, to view the motions of the invading army. And he saw Rury beneath, with eyes flashing enmity, and waiting until the fire should subside, that he might enter and kill him. Donell then, finding a large stone by his side, hurled it directly down upon Rury, so that it fell on the crest of his helmet, on the top of his head, and crushed it, so that he instantly died. The invading forces were afterwards defeated, and by this throw Donell saved his own life and acquired the lordship of Tyrconnell." There is a whole historical romance in that single picture; the passage could not easily be surpassed for direct and forcible narrative. A few years later, we come on one of the most amusing things in the whole series of annals, a perfect contrast to the grim ferocity of the feud of the O'Donells. In 1472 "a wonderful animal was sent to Ireland by the king of England. She resembled a mare, and was of a yellow color, with the hoofs of a cow, a long neck, a very large head, a large tail, which was ugly and scant of hair. She had a saddle of her own. Wheat and salt were her usual food. She used to draw the largest sled-burden behind her. She used to kneel when passing under any doorway, however high, and also to let her rider mount." It is evident that the Gaelic language in the fifteenth century lacked a name for the camel. The same year, we are told, "the young earl of Desmond was set at liberty by the MacCarthys; he disabled Garrett, son of the earl of Kildare." Here is another passage which vies in vividness and force with the story of the death of Rury O'Donell: "1557: Two spies, Donough and Maurice by name, entered the camp of John O'Neill by Lough Swilly, and mingled with the troop without being noticed; for in consequence of the number and variety of the troops who were there, it was not easy for them to discriminate between one another, even if it were day, except by recognizing their chieftains alone. The two persons aforesaid proceeded from one fire to another, until they came to the great central fire, which was at the entrance of the son of O'Neill's tent; and a huge torch, thicker than a man's body, was continually flaming at a short distance from the fire, and sixty grim and redoubtable warriors with sharp, keen axes, terrible and ready for action, and sixty stern and terrific Scots, with massive, broad and heavy striking swords in their hands, ready to strike and parry, were guarding the son of O'Neill. When the time came for the troops to dine, and food was divided and distributed among them, the two spies whom we have mentioned stretched out their hands to the distributor like the rest, and that which fell to their share was a measure of meal, and a suitable complement of butter. With this testimony of their adventure they returned to their own people." Here again, what a picture of the camp-life of the age; the darkness of night, the great central fire with the sixty grim and redoubtable warriors armed with keen axes, terrible and ready for action, and the sixty stern and terrific Scots with their massive swords. The admirable manner of the narrative is as striking as the fierce vigor of the life portrayed. So we might go on, adding red pages of martial records, but in reality adding nothing to our understanding of the times. The life of the land was as full and abundant as of old, and one outcome of that life we may touch on rather more at length. We have said much of the old religious schools of Ireland, with their fine and vigorous intellectual life, which did so much to carry forward the torch of culture to our modern world. For nearly seven hundred years these great schools seem to have developed wholly along indigenous lines, once they had accepted the body of classical culture from the Roman Empire, then tottering to its fall. The full history of that remarkable chapter in the world's spiritual life has yet to be written; but this we can foretell, that when written, it will abound with rich material and ample evidence of a sound and generous culture, inspired throughout with the fervor of true faith. About the time when the Norman warriors began to mingle with the fighting chieftains of the old native tribes, a change came over the religious history of the country. After sending forth men of power and light to the awakening lands of modern Europe, Ireland began to receive a returning tide, to reap a harvest from these same lands, in the friars and abbots of the great Continental orders founded by men like Saint Bernard, Saint Dominick and Saint Francis of Assisi. A change in the church architecture of the period visibly records this spiritual change; continental forms appear, beginning with the rounded arches of the Normans, and passing gradually into the various forms of pointed arches which we know as Gothic. Very beautiful Abbeys belonging to this epoch remain everywhere throughout the island, making once more evident--what strikes us at every point of our study--that no country in the world is so rich in these lasting records of every step of our national life, whether in pagan or Christian times. We have said much of the archaic cromlechs. We have recorded the great Pyramids by the Boyne telling us of the genius of the De Danaans. The Milesian epoch is even now revealed to us in the great earthworks of Tara and Emain and Cruacan. We can, if we wish, climb the mound of heaped-up earth where was the fortress of Cuculain, or look over the green plains from the hill of Find. [Illustration: Mellifont Abbey, Co. Louth.] In like manner, there is an unbroken series of monuments through the early Christian epoch, beginning with the oratories of the sixth century, continuing through the early churches of Killiney, Moville, Dalkey, Glendalough and Monasterboice, from before the Norse inroads; followed by the epoch of Round Towers, or protected belfries, with their churches, nearly three score of these Round Towers remaining in fair preservation, while many are perfect from base to apex; and culminating in Cormac's chapel and the beautiful group of buildings on Cashel Rock. For the next period, the age of transition after the waning of the Norsemen and the coming of the first Normans, we have many monuments in the Norman style, like the door of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, with its romance of Danish conversion and Norse religious fervor. Finally, we come to the age whose progress we have just recorded, which covers the whole of the Middle Ages. For this period, which was for Ireland an epoch of foreign influence much more than of foreign rule, we have many beautiful Abbeys, built for those foreign orders whose coming was in a sense a return tide, a backward flow of the old missionary spirit which went forth from Ireland over nascent modern Europe. The life of these abbeys was full of rich imaginative and religious power; it abounded in urbanity and ripe culture of a somewhat selfish and exclusive type. Yet we cannot but feel a limitless affection and sympathy for the abbots and friars of the days of old who have left us such a rich heritage of beauty and grace. All these abbeys seem to have been formed on a single plan: a cruciform church symbolized the source of all their inspiration, its choir extending towards the east, whence the Light had come; the nave, or main body of the church, was entered by the great western door, and the arms of the cross, the transepts, extended to the north and south. Here is a very beautiful symbol, a true embodiment of the whole spirit and inspiration of the monastic orders. From one of the transepts a side door generally led to the domestic buildings, the dormitory, the refectory, the chapter house, where the friars assembled in conclave under the presidency of the abbot. There were lesser buildings, store-rooms, granaries, work-rooms, but these were the kernel of the establishment. The church was the center of all things, and under its floor the friars were at last laid to rest, while brother friars carved tombs for them and epitaphs, adding a new richness of decoration to the already beautiful church. We may record a few of these old foundations, showing at the same time the present state of the old abbey buildings. At Newtown on the northern bank of the Boyne, about a mile below Trim, Simon Rochfort founded an abbey for the Augustinian Canons in 1206, dedicating it to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The capitals of the pillars in the church, the vaulting of the roof and the shafts of the arches which supported the tower are full of singular grace and beauty, even now when the abbey is roofless and in part destroyed, while the corbels and mouldings round the lancet-shaped windows are full of luxuriant fancy and charm. We can divine from them the full and rich spiritual life which brought forth such exquisite flowers of beauty; we can imagine the fine aroma of fervor and saintly peace which brooded over these consecrated aisles. A few miles below Trim, and an equal distance from the old royal palace of Tara, Bective Abbey stands on the northern bank of the Boyne, with a square, battlemented tower overshadowing its cloistered quadrangle. The cinque-foil cloister arches, the fillets that bind the clustered shafts of the pillars, the leaf ornaments of the plinths at their base all speak of a luxuriant sense of beauty and grace, of a spirit of pure and admirable artistic work. This rich creative power thus breaking forth in lovely handiwork is only the outward sign of a full inner life, kindled by the fire of aspiration, and glowing with the warm ardor of devotion. Bective Abbey dates from about 1150. We are told that the king of Meath who founded it for the Cistercian order "endowed it with two hundred and forty-five acres of land, a fishing-weir and a mill." From this meager outline we can almost restore the picture of the life, altogether idyllic and full of quiet delight, that the old Friars lived among the meadows of the Boyne. Grey Abbey was founded a little later, in 1193, for the same Cistercian order, where the promontory of the Ards divides Strangford Lough from the eastern sea. Over the waters of the lough, the red sandstone hills of north Down make a frame for the green of the meadows, as the tide laps and murmurs close to the old monastic church. Grey Abbey owes its foundation to the piety of a princess of the Isle of Man, wedded to De Courcy, the Norman warrior whose victories and defeats we have recorded. The great beauty of its church is due to the soaring loftiness of the eastern window, and the graceful daring of the arches which in former days upheld the central tower. Other Cistercian foundations are commemorated in the names of Abbey-leix in Queen's county, and Abbey-dorney and Abbey-feale in Kerry; all three dating from after the reformation of the order by Saint Bernard the Younger, though the work of that ardent missionary did not apparently extend its influence to Ireland until a later date. This reformer of the Cistercians must not be confused with the elder Saint Bernard, whose hospice guards the pass of the Alps which bears his name. Saint Bernard of the Alps died in 1008, while Saint Bernard the reformer was born in 1093, dying sixty years later as abbot of Clara vallis or Clairvaux, on the bank of the Aube in northern France. It was at this Abbey of the Bright Vale, or Clara vallis, that Archbishop Maelmaedog resigned his spirit to heaven, five years before the death of the younger Saint Bernard, then abbot there. This is a link between the old indigenous church and the continental orders of the Friars. Killmallock Abbey, in Limerick, belonged to the order of the Dominicans, founded by the scion of the Guzmans, the ardent apostle of Old Castile, known to history as Saint Dominick. Here again we have a beautiful abbey church with a square central tower, upborne on soaring and graceful arches from the point where the nave joined the choir. There is only one transept--on the south--so that the church is not fully cruciform, a peculiarity shared by several other Dominican buildings. The eastern window and the window of this transept are full of delicate grace and beauty, each containing five lights, and marked by the singularly charming manner in which the mullions are interlaced above. Enough remains of the cloister and the domestic buildings for us to bring back to life the picture of the old monastic days, when the good Friars worked and prayed there, with the sunlight falling on them through the delicate network of the windows. Holycross Abbey, near Thurles in Tipperary, was another of the Cistercian foundations, its charter, dating from 1182, being still in existence. Its church is cruciform; the nave is separated from the north aisle by round arches, and from the south aisle by pointed arches, which gives it a singular and unusual beauty. The great western window of the nave, with its six lights, is also very wonderful. Two chapels are attached to the north transept, with a passage between them, its roof supported by a double row of pointed arches upheld by twisted pillars. The roof is delicately groined, as is the roof of the choir, and the whole abbey breathes a luxuriant richness of imagination, bearing everywhere the signs of high creative genius. The same lavish imagination is shown everywhere in the interlaced tracery, the black limestone giving the artist an admirable vehicle for his work. Though the charter dates from the twelfth century, some of the work is about two centuries later, showing finely the continuity of life and spiritual power in the old monastic days. [Illustration: Holy Cross Abbey, Co. Tipperary.] The Friars of Saint Augustine, who were in possession of the abbey at Newtown on the Boyne, had another foundation not far from West port in Mayo, in the Abbey of Ballintober, founded in 1216 by a son of the great Ruaidri Ua Concobar. Here also we have the cruciform church, with four splendid arches rising from the intersection of nave and choir, and once supporting the tower. The Norman windows over the altar, with their dog-tooth mouldings, are very perfect. In a chapel on the south of the choir are figures of the old abbots carved in stone. One of the Ui-Briain founded a Franciscan Abbey at Ennis in Clare about 1240, which is more perfectly preserved than any of those we have described. The tower still stands, rising over the junction of nave and choir; the refectory, chapter house, and some other buildings still remain, while the figure of the patron, Saint Francis of Assisi, still stands beside the altar at the north pier of the nave. Clare Abbey, a mile from Ennis, was founded for the Augustine Friars in 1195, and here also the tower still stands, dominating the surrounding plain. Three miles further south, on the shore of Killone Lake, was yet another abbey of the same period, while twenty miles to the north, at Corcomroe on the shore of Galway Bay, the Cistercians had yet another home. We might continue the list indefinitely. Some of the most beautiful of our abbeys still remain to be recorded, but we can do no more than give their names: Bonamargy was built for the Franciscans in Antrim in the fifteenth century; the Dominican priory at Roscommon dates from 1257; the Cistercian Abbey of Jerpoint in Kilkenny was begun in 1180; Molana Abbey, in Waterford, was built for the Augustinians on the site of a very old church; and finally Knockmoy Abbey in Galway, famous for its fourteenth century frescoes, was begun in 1189. We must remember that every one of these represents, and by its variations of style indicates, an unbroken life through several centuries. The death-knell of the old life of the abbeys and priories, in Ireland as in England, was struck in the year 1537 by the law which declared their lands forfeited to the crown; as the result of the religious controversies of the beginning of the sixteenth century. XIII. THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. A.D. 1603-1660. The confiscation of the abbey lands, as the result of religious controversy, closed an epoch of ecclesiastical life in Ireland, which we cannot look back on without great regret for the noble and beautiful qualities it brought forth in such abundance. There is a perennial charm and fascination in the quiet life of the old religious houses--in the world, yet not of the world--which appeals to aesthetic and moral elements in our minds in equal degree. From their lovely churches and chapter-houses the spirits of the old monks invite us to join them in an unworldly peace on earth, a renewal of the golden age, a life full of aspiration and self-forgetfulness, with all the burdens of egotism laid aside. Yet after all is said, we can hardly fail to see that out of the spoliation and scattering of the religious orders much good came. There was a danger that, like the older indigenous schools which they supplanted, these later foundations might divide the nation in two, all things within their consecrated walls being deemed holy, while all without was unregenerate, given up to wrath. A barrier of feelings and hopes thus springing up, tends to harden from year to year, till at last we have a religious caste grown proud and arrogant, and losing all trace of the spiritual fervor which is its sole reason for being. The evils which surround a wealthy church are great and easily to be understood, nor need we lay stress on them. There is, indeed, cause for wonder in the spectacle of the followers of him "who had not where to lay his head" become, in the Middle Ages, the greatest owners of land in Europe; and we can see how temptations and abuses without number might and did often arise from this very fact. Ambition, the desire of wealth, the mere love of ease, led many to profess a religious life who had never passed through that transformation of will and understanding which is the essence of religion. The very purpose of religion was forgotten, or allowed to be hidden away under things excellent in themselves, yet not essential; and difference of view about these unessential things led to fierce and bitter controversy, and later to open strife and war. We take religion, in its human aspect, to mean the growth of a new and wider consciousness above the keen, self-assertive consciousness of the individual; a superseding of the personal by the humane; a change from egotism to a more universal understanding; so that each shall act, not in order to gain an advantage over others, but rather to attain the greatest good for himself and others equally; that one shall not dominate another for his own profit, but shall rather seek to draw forth in that other whatever is best and truest, so that both may find their finest growth. Carried far enough, this principle, which makes one's neighbor a second self, will bring to light in us the common soul, the common life that has tacitly worked in all human intercourse from the beginning. Individual consciousness is in no way effaced; something new, wider and more humane, something universal, is added to it from above; something consciously common to all souls. And through the inspiration of that larger soul, the individual life for the first time comes to its true power--a power which is held by all pure souls in common. We can see that something like this was the original inspiration of the religious orders. Their very name of Friars or Brothers speaks of the ideal of a common life above egotism. They sought a new birth through the death of selfishness, through self-sacrifice and renunciation. All their life in common was a symbol of the single soul inspiring them, the very form of their churches bearing testimony to their devotion. More than that, the beauty and inspiration which still radiate from the old abbey buildings show how often and in how large a degree that ideal was actually attained. Nevertheless we can very well see how the possession of large wealth and costly offerings might be a hindrance to that spirit, fanning back to life the smouldering fires of desire. We can see even more clearly that the division between the secular and the religious life would tend to raise a moral barrier, hardening that very sense of separation which the humane and universal consciousness seeks to kill. Finally, we should see what the world has often seen: the disciples of the Nazarene dwelling in palaces, and vying with princes in the splendor of their retinues. This is hardly the way to make real the teaching of "the kingdom not of this world." This world, in the meaning of that saying, is the old world of egotism, of self-assertion, of selfish rivalry, of the sense of separation. The kingdom is that very realm of humane and universal consciousness added from above, the sense of the one soul common to all men and working through all men, whether they know it or not. We can, therefore, see that the confiscation of the monasteries, and even the persecution of the religious orders, might be the cause of lasting spiritual good; it was like the opening of granaries and the scattering of grain abroad over the fields. The religious force, instead of drawing men out of the world, thenceforth was compelled to work among all men, not creating beautiful abbeys but transforming common lives. Persecution was the safeguard of sincerity, the fire of purification, from which men's spirits came forth pure gold. Among all nations of the world, Ireland has long held the first place for pure morals, especially in the relations of sex; and this is increasingly true of those provinces where the old indigenous element is most firmly established. We may affirm that the spiritualizing of religious feeling through persecution has had its share in bringing this admirable result, working, as it did, on a race which has ever held a high ideal of purity. Thus out of evil comes good; out of oppression, rapacity and confiscation grow pure unselfishness, an unworldly ideal, a sense of the invisible realm. We shall presently see the same forces of rapacity and avarice sowing the seeds for a not less excellent harvest in the world of civil life. The principle of feudalism, though introduced by the first Norman adventurers in the twelfth century, did not gain legal recognition over the whole country until the seventeenth. The old communal tenure of the Brehon law was gradually superseded, so that, instead of innumerable tribal territories with elected chiefs, there grew up a system of estates, where the land was owned by one man and tilled by others. The germ of this tenure was the right of private taxation over certain districts, granted by the Norman duke to his barons and warriors as the reward for their help in battle. Feudal land tenure never was, and never pretended to be, a contract between cultivator and landowner for their mutual benefit. It was rather the right to prey on the farmer, assigned to the landowner by the king, and paid for in past or present services to the king. In other words, the head of the Norman army invited his officers to help themselves to a share of the cattle and crops over certain districts of England, and promised to aid them in securing their plunder, in case the Saxon cultivator was rash enough to resist. The baronial order presently ceased to render any real service to their duke, beyond upholding him that he might uphold them. But there was no such surcease for the Saxon cultivator. The share of his cattle and crops which he was compelled to give up to the Norman baron became more rigidly defined, more strictly exacted, with every succeeding century, and the whole civil state of England was built up on this principle. The baronial order assembled at Runnymead to force the hand of the king. From that time forward their power increased, while the king's power waned. But there was no Runnymead for the Saxon cultivator. He continued, as to this day he continues, to pay the share of his cattle and crops to the Norman baron or his successor, in return for services--no longer rendered--to the king. The whole civil state of England, therefore, depends on the principle of private taxation; the Norman barons and their successors receiving a share of the cattle and crops of the whole country, year after year, generation after generation, century after century, as payment for services long become purely imaginary, and even in the beginning rendered not to the cultivator who was taxed, but to the head of the armed invaders, who stood ready to enforce the payment. The Constitution of England embodies this very principle even now, in the twentieth century. Two of the three Estates,--King, Lords and Commons,--in whom the law-making power is vested, represent the Norman conquest, while even the third, still called the Lower House, boasts of being "an assembly of gentlemen," that is, of those who possess the right of private taxation of land, the right to claim a share of the cattle and crops of the whole country without giving anything at all in return. This is the system which English influence slowly introduced into Ireland, and with the reign of the first Stuarts the change was practically complete, guaranteed by law, and enforced by armed power. The tribesmen were now tenants of their former elected chief, in whom the ownership of the tribal land was invested; the right of privately taxing the tribesmen was guaranteed to the chief by law, and a share of all cattle and crops was his by legal right, not as head of the tribe, but as owner of the land, with power to dispossess the tribesmen if they failed to pay his tax. But very many districts had long before this come under the dominion of Norman adventurers, like the De Courcys, the De Lacys, and the rest, of whose coming we have told. They also enjoyed the right of private taxation over the districts under their dominion, and, naturally, had power to assign this right to others,--not only to their heirs, but to their creditors,--or even simply to sell the right of taxing a certain district to the highest bidder in open market. The tribal warfare of the Middle Ages had brought many of the old chiefs and Norman lords into open strife with the central power, with the result that the possessions of unsuccessful chiefs and lords were continually assigned by the law-courts to those who stood on the side of the central power, the right to tax certain districts thus changing hands indefinitely. The law-courts thus came into possession of a very potent weapon, whether for rewarding the friends or punishing the enemies of the central power, or simply for the payment of personal and partisan favors. During the reign of the first Stuarts the full significance of this weapon seems to have been grasped. We see an unlimited traffic in the right to tax; estates confiscated and assigned to time-serving officials, and endless abuses arising from the corruption of the courts, the judges being appointed by the very persons who were presently to invoke the law to their own profit. The tribal system was submerged, and the time of uncertainty was taken advantage of to introduce unlimited abuses, to assign to adventurers a fat share of other men's goods, to create a class legally owning the land, and entitled, in virtue of that ownership, to a share of the cattle and crops which they had done nothing to produce. The Stuarts were at this very time sowing the seeds of civil war in England by the introduction of like abuses, the story of which has been repeatedly told; and we are all familiar with the history of the great uprising which was thereby provoked, to the temporary eclipse of the power of the crown. The story of the like uprising at the same epoch, and from kindred causes, in Ireland, is much more obscure, but equally worth recording, and to this uprising we may now turn. Its moral causes we have already spoken of. There was, first, the confiscation of the abbey lands, and the transfer of church revenues and buildings to Anglican clergy--clergy, that is, who recognized the sovreign of England as the head of the church. This double confiscation touched the well-springs of intense animosity, the dispossessed abbots using all the influences of their order in foreign lands to bring about their re-installation, while the controversy as to the headship of the church aroused all the fierce and warring passions that had been raging on the Continent since the beginning of the sixteenth century. There were, besides, the griefs of the dispossessed chieftains, whose tribal lands had been given to others. Chief among these was the famous house of O'Neill, the descendants of Nial, the old pagan monarch whose wars are thought to have brought the captive of Slemish Mountain to Ireland. The O'Neills, like their neighbors the O'Donnells, descendants of Domnall, had been one of the great forces of tribal strife for eighty generations, and they now saw their lands confiscated and given over to strangers. But they were only representatives of a feeling which was universal; an indignant opposition to arbitrary and tyrannous expropriation. The head of the O'Neills had made his peace with the Tudors on the very day Queen Elizabeth died, and the tribal lands had been guaranteed to him in perpetuity. But within four years plots were set on foot by the central authorities, possibly acting in good faith, to dispossess him and the chief of the O'Donnells on a charge of treason; and in 1607 both fled to the Continent. Their example was followed by numberless others, and the more restless and combative spirits among the tribesmen, who preferred fighting to the tilling of their fields, entered the continental armies in large numbers. When the chiefs of the north fled to the Continent, their lands were held to have reverted to the crown; and not only was the right to tax the produce of these lands assigned to adherents of the central power, but numbers of farmers from the Scottish lowlands, and in lesser degree from England, were brought over and settled on the old tribal territory. The tribesmen, with their cattle, were driven to less fertile districts, and the valleys were tilled by the transplanted farmers of Scotland. This was the Plantation of Ulster, of 1611,--four years after the flight of O'Neill and O'Donnell. The religious controversies of Scotland were thereby introduced into Ireland, so that there were three parties now in conflict--the old indigenous church, dispossessed of revenues and buildings, and even of civil rights; the Anglicans who had received these revenues and buildings, and, lastly, the Dissenters--Presbyterians and Puritans--equally opposed to both the former. The struggle between the king and Parliament of England now found an echo in Ireland, the Anglican party representing the king, while the Scottish and English newcomers sympathized with the Parliament. A cross-fire of interests and animosities was thus aroused, which greatly complicated the first elements of strife. The Parliament at Dublin was in the hands of the Puritan party, and was in no sense representative of the other elements of the country. There was a Puritan army of about ten thousand, as a garrison of defence for the Puritan newcomers in Ulster, and there were abundant materials of an opposing national army in the tribal warriors both at home and on the Continent. These national materials were presently drawn together by the head of the O'Neills, known to history as Owen Roe, an admirable leader and a most accomplished man, who wrote and spoke Latin, Spanish, French and English, as well as his mother-tongue. Owen Roe O'Neill had won renown on many continental battlefields, and was admirably fitted by genius and training to lead a national party, not only in council but in the field. The nucleus of his army he established in Tyrone, gaining numbers of recruits whom he rapidly turned into excellent soldiers. This took place at the end of 1641 and the beginning of 1642, and the other forces of the country were organized about the same time. The lines of difference between the Anglican and Catholic parties were at this time very lightly drawn, and the Norman lords found themselves able to co-operate with the Catholic bishops in forming a General Assembly at Kells, which straightway set itself to frame a Constitution for the country. The Norman lords had meanwhile assembled and organized their retainers, so that there were now three armies in Ireland: the garrison of the Scottish settlers under Monroe, strongly in sympathy with the Puritans; the tribal army under Owen Roe O'Neill; and the army of the Norman lords. The General Assembly outlined a system of parliamentary representation in which the Lords and Commons were to form a single House, the latter, two hundred and twenty-six in number, representing all the important cities and towns. A supreme Cabinet was to be formed, composed of six members for each of the four provinces, twenty-four in all, who might be lords spiritual or temporal, or commoners, according to the choice of the Parliament. This Cabinet, thus selected from the whole Parliament, was the responsible executive of the country; and under the Supreme Council a series of Provincial Councils and County Councils were to be formed along the same lines. [Illustration: Donegal Castle.] This plan was adopted at a general meeting of all the influential forces of the country, which assembled in May at Kilkenny, where many Parliaments had sat during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Writs were issued for elections under the new Constitution, and the date of the first assembly of the new Parliament was fixed for October. The new national body enjoyed abundant revenues, and no small state marked its deliberations in Kilkenny. We read of an endless series of illuminations, receptions, banquets and balls,--the whole of the Norman nobility of Leinster lavishing their great wealth in magnificent display. The Supreme Council journeyed in state from Kilkenny to Wexford, from Wexford to Waterford, from Waterford to Limerick and Galway, surrounded by hundreds of horsemen with drawn swords, and accompanied by an army of officials. We hear of "civil and military representations of comedies and stage plays, feasts and banquets, and palate-enticing dishes." The General Assembly, duly elected, finally met on October 23, 1642, at Kilkenny. On the same day was fought the battle of Edgehill, between the king of England and the forces of the English Parliament. This battle was the signal for division of counsels in the new Assembly. The Norman lords of Leinster, who stood on the ground of feudalism, and lived under the shadow of royal authority, were strongly drawn to take the side of the king against the English Parliament, and overtures of negotiation were made, which came near gaining a recognition and legalization of the General Assembly by the English Crown. While the leaders at Kilkenny were being drawn towards the royalists of England, Owen Roe O'Neill was successfully holding Ulster against the Puritan forces under Monroe and Leslie, with their headquarters at Carrickfergus. Thus matters went on till the autumn of 1643, when we find him inflicting a serious defeat on the English army under Monk and Moore at Portlester in Meath, in which Moore was killed and his forces driven back within the walls of Drogheda. The General Assembly continued to exercise sovreign authority at Kilkenny, collecting revenues, maintaining courts of justice in the provinces, and keeping several armies in the field, most effective of which was undoubtedly that of Owen Roe O'Neill. We find matters still in this condition three years later, in May, 1646, when Monroe and the Scottish forces prepared to inaugurate an offensive campaign from their base at Carrickfergus. General Robert Monroe had about seven thousand men at Carrickfergus; his brother George had five hundred at Coleraine; while there was a Scottish army at Derry, numbering about two thousand men. It was decided to converge these three forces on Clones, in Monaghan, and thence to proceed southwards against the government of the General Assembly, then centered at Limerick. Clones was sixty miles from Derry, and rather more from Coleraine and Carrickfergus, the two other points of departure. Owen Roe O'Neill was then at Cavan, fourteen miles south of Clones, with five thousand foot and five hundred horse, all "good, hopeful men," to use his own words. General Robert Monroe, starting from Carrickfergus, and marching by Lisburn and Armagh, expected to reach Glasslough, some sixteen miles from Clones, on June 5th. By a forced march from Cavan, Owen Roe O'Neill reached Glasslough a day earlier, and marching along the northern Blackwater, pitched his camp on the north bank of the river. Here he was directly in the line between the two Monroes, who could only join their forces after dislodging him; and Robert Monroe, who by that time had reached Armagh, saw that it would be necessary to give battle without delay if the much smaller forces from the north were not to be cut off. Robert Monroe began a movement northwards towards Owen Roe's position at dawn on June 5th, and presently reached the Blackwater, to find himself face to face with Owen Roe's army across the river. The two forces kept parallel with each other for some time, till Robert Monroe finally forded the Blackwater at Caledon, Owen Roe then retiring in the direction of the current, which here flows north. Owen Roe, in his movement of withdrawal, brought his army through a narrow pass, which he left in charge of one of his best infantry regiments, with orders to hold it only so long as the enemy could be safely harassed, meanwhile carrying his main body back to the hill of Knocknacloy, the position he had chosen from the first for the battle, and to gain which he had up to this time been manoeuvering. At Knocknacloy he had the center of his army protected by the hill, the right by a marsh, and the left by the river, so that, a flanking movement on Monroe's part being impossible, the Scottish general was forced to make a frontal attack. Under cover of the rearguard action at the pass, which caused both delay and confusion to Monroe's army, Owen Roe formed his men in order of battle. His first line was of four columns, with considerable spaces between them; his cavalry was on the right and left wings, behind this first line; while three columns more were drawn up some distance farther back, behind the openings in the front line, and forming the reserve. We should remember that not only was Owen Roe's army outnumbered by Monroe's, but also that Owen Roe had no artillery, while Monroe was well supplied with guns. Meanwhile Monroe's army came into touch with Owen Roe's force, and the Scottish general opened fire with guns and muskets, to which the muskets of Owen Roe as vigorously replied. The Scottish artillery was planted on a hillock a quarter-mile from Owen Roe's center, and under cover of its fire an infantry charge was attempted, which was brilliantly repulsed by the pikemen of Owen Roe's army. A second attack was made by the Scottish cavalry, who tried to ford the river, and thus turn the left flank of the Irish army, but they were met and routed by the Irish horse. This was about six in the evening, and the sun, hanging low in the sky, fell full in the faces of the Scottish troops. Owen Roe promptly followed up the rout of the Scottish horse by an advance, making a sweeping movement from right to left, and thereby forcing Monroe towards the junction of two streams, where he had no space to move. At this point Owen Roe's army received a notable accession of strength in the form of four squadrons of cavalry, sent earlier in the day to guard against the possible approach of George Monroe from Coleraine. At a signal from Owen Roe, his army advanced upon Monroe's force, to be met by a charge of the Scottish cavalry, instantly replied to by a charge of the Irish cavalry through the three open spaces in the front infantry line of Owen Roe's army. Monroe's first line was broken, and the Irish pikemen, the equivalent of a bayonet charge, steadily forced him backwards. It was a fierce struggle, hand to hand, eye to eye, and blade to blade. The order of Owen Roe's advance was admirably preserved, while the Scottish and English forces were in confusion, already broken and crowded into a narrow and constricted space between the two rivers. Finally the advancing Irish army reached and stormed the hillock where Monroe's artillery was placed, and victory was palpably won. The defeat of the Scottish and English army became an utter rout, and when the sun set more than three thousand of them lay dead on the field. It is almost incredible that the Irish losses were only seventy, yet such is the number recorded, while not only was the opposing army utterly defeated and dispersed, but Monroe's whole artillery, his tents and baggage, fifteen hundred horses, twenty stand of colors, two months' provisions and numbers of prisoners of war fell into the hands of Owen Roe; while, as a result of the battle, the two auxiliary forces were forced to retreat and take refuge in Coleraine and Derry, General Robert Monroe escaping meanwhile to Carrickfergus. It is only just to him to say that our best accounts of the battle come from officers in Monroe's army, Owen Roe contenting himself with the merest outline of the result gained, but saying nothing of the consummate generalship that gained it. For the next two years we see Owen Roe O'Neill holding the great central plain, the west and most of the north of Ireland against the armies of the English Parliamentarians and Royalists alike, and gaining victory after victory, generally against superior numbers, better armed and better equipped. We find him time after time almost betrayed by the Supreme Council, in which the Norman lords of Leinster, perpetually anxious for their own feudal estates, were ready to treat with whichever of the English parties was for the moment victorious, hoping that, whatever might be the outcome of the great English struggle, they themselves might be gainers. At this time they were in possession of many of the abbey lands, and there was perpetual friction between them and the ecclesiastics, their co-religionists, who had been driven from these same lands, so that the Norman landowners were the element of fatal weakness throughout this whole movement, willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike. While praying for the final defeat of the English parliamentary forces, they dreaded to see this defeat brought about by Owen Roe O'Neill, in whom they saw the representative of the old tribal ownership of Gaelic times, a return to which would mean their own extinction. Matters went so far that the Supreme Council, representing chiefly these Norman lords, had practically betrayed its trust to the Royalist party in England, and would have completed that betrayal had not the beheading of King Charles signalized the triumph of the Parliamentarians. Even then the Norman lords hoped for the Restoration, and strove in every way to undermine the authority of their own general, Owen Roe O'Neill, who was almost forced to enter into an alliance with the Puritans by the treachery of the Norman lords. It is of the greatest interest to find Monroe writing thus to Owen Roe in August, 1649: "By my own extraction, I have an interest in the Irish nation. I know how your lands have been taken, and your people made hewers of wood and drawers of water. If an Irishman can be a scourge to his own nation, the English will give him fair words but keep him from all trust, that they may destroy him when they have served themselves by him." On November 6, 1649, this great general died after a brief illness, having for seven years led his armies to constant victory, while the Norman lords, who were in name his allies, were secretly plotting against him for their own profit. Yet so strong and dominant was his genius that he overcame not only the forces of his foes but the treacheries of his friends, and his last days saw him at one with the Normans, while the forces of the Parliamentarians in Ireland were calling on him for help. We sea, therefore, that for full eight years, from the beginning of 1642 to the close of 1649, Ireland had an independent national government, with a regularly elected Representative Assembly, and a central authority, the Supreme Council, appointed by that Assembly, with judges going circuit and holding their courts regularly, while the Supreme Council held a state of almost regal magnificence, and kept several armies continuously in the field. While Owen Roe O'Neill lived, that part of the army under his command was able not only to secure an unbroken series of victories for itself, but also to retrieve the defeats suffered by less competent commanders, so that at his death he was at the summit of power and fame. If regret were ever profitable, we might well regret that he did not follow the example of the great English commander, his contemporary, and declare himself Lord Protector of Ireland, with despotic power. After his death, the work he had done so well was all undone again, in part by treachery, in part by the victories of Oliver Cromwell. Yet ten years after the Lord Protector's arrival in Ireland, his own work was undone not less completely, and the Restoration saw once more enthroned every principle against which Cromwell had so stubbornly contended. XIV. THE JACOBITE WARS. A.D. 1660-1750. The Restoration saw Cromwell's work completely undone; nor did the class which helped him to his victories again rise above the surface. The genius of the Stuarts was already sowing the seeds of new revolutions; but the struggle was presently to be fought out, not between the king and the people, but between the king and the more liberal or more ambitious elements of the baronial class, who saw in the despotic aspirations of the Stuarts a menace to their own power. These liberal elements in England selected as their champion Prince William of Nassau, before whose coming the English king found it expedient to fly to France, seeking and finding a friend in that apostle of absolutism, Louis XIV. We have already seen how the interests of the feudal lords of Ireland, with the old Norman families as their core, drew them towards the Stuarts. The divine right of the landowner depended, as we saw, on the divine right of kings; so that they naturally gravitated towards the Stuarts, and drew their tenants and retainers after them. Thus a considerable part of Ireland was enlisted on the side of James II, and shared the misfortunes which presently overtook him--or in truth did not overtake him, as the valiant gentleman outran them and escaped. Nothing is more firmly fixed in the memories of the whole Irish people than a good-natured contempt for this runaway English king, whose cause they were induced by the feudal lords to espouse. We shall follow the account of an officer in the Jacobite army in narrating the events of the campaigns that ensued. James, having gained courage and funds from his sojourn at the court of Louis XIV, presently made his appearance in Ireland, relying on the support of the feudal lords. He landed at Kinsale, in Cork, on March 12, 1688, according to the Old Style, and reached Dublin twelve days later, warmly welcomed by Lord and Lady Tyrconnell. The only place in the country which strongly declared for William was the walled city of Derry, whence we have seen the Puritan forces issuing during the wars of the preceding generation. James, this officer says, went north to Derry, in spite of the bitterness of the season, "in order to preserve his Protestant subjects there from the ill-treatment which he apprehended they might receive from the Irish," and was mightily surprised when the gates were shut in his face and the citizens opened fire upon him from the walls. [Illustration: Tullymore Park, Co. Down.] James withdrew immediately to Dublin, assembled a Parliament there, and spent several months in vain discussions, not even finding courage to repeal the penal laws which Queen Elizabeth had passed against all who refused to recognize her as the head of the church. James was already embarked on a career of duplicity, professing great love for Ireland, yet fearing to carry out his professions lest he might arouse animosity in England, and so close the door against his hoped-for return. Enniskillen, on an island in Lough Erne, dominated by a strong castle, was, like Derry, a settlement of Scottish and English colonists brought over by the first of the Stuarts. These colonists were up in arms against the grandson of their first patron, and had successfully attacked his forces which were besieging Derry. James, therefore, sent a small body of troops against them; but the expedition ended in an ignominious rout rather than a battle, for the Jacobite army seems hardly to have struck a blow. The Irish leader, Lord Mountcashel, who manfully stood his ground in the general panic, was wounded and taken prisoner. The armies of James, meanwhile, made no headway against the courageous and determined defenders of Derry, where the siege was degenerating into a blockade, the scanty rations and sickness of the besieged being a far more formidable danger than the attacks of the besiegers. James even weakened the attacking forces by withdrawing a part of the troops to Dublin, being resolved at all risks to protect himself. So devoid of resolution and foresight was James that we only find him taking means to raise an army when Schomberg, the able lieutenant of William, was about to invade the north of Ireland. Schomberg landed at Bangor in Down in August, 1689, and marched south towards Drogheda, but finding that James was there before him, he withdrew and established a strongly fortified camp near Dundalk. James advanced to a point about seven miles from Schomberg, and there entrenched himself in turn, and so the two armies remained; as one of Schomberg's officers says, "our General would not risk anything, nor King James venture anything." The long delay was very fatal to Schomberg's army, his losses by sickness and disease being more than six thousand men. Early in November, as winter was already making itself felt, James decided to withdraw to Dublin; as our narrator says, "the young commanders were in some haste to return to the capital, where the ladies expected them with great impatience; so that King James, being once more persuaded to disband the new levies and raising his camp a little of the soonest, dispersed his men too early into winter quarters, having spent that campaign without any advantage, vainly expecting that his Protestant subjects of England who were in the camp of Schomberg would come over to him. And now the winter season, which should be employed in serious consultations, and making the necessary preparations for the ensuing campaign, was idly spent in revels, in gaming, and other debauches unfit for a Catholic court. But warlike Schomberg, who, after the retreat of James, had leisure to remove his sickly soldiers, to bury the dead, and put the few men that remained alive and were healthy into winter quarters of refreshment, took the field early in spring, before Tyrconnell was awake, and reduced the castle of Charlemont, the only place that held for James in Ulster, which was lost for want of provisions; and the concerns of the unfortunate James were ill-managed by those whom he entrusted with the administration of public affairs." We come thus to the spring of 1690. Derry was still holding out valiantly against the horrors of famine and sickness, the blockade being maintained, though nothing like a determined storm was attempted. A little of the courage shown by the apprentices of Derry, had he possessed it, might have revived the drooping fortunes of the fugitive English king. It seems, however, that even Schomberg's withdrawal to Carrickfergus failed to arouse him to more vigorous and valiant measures. It is clear that he was ready to abandon his Irish allies, hoping by their betrayal to gain favor with his "subjects in England," whom he confidently expected to recall him, as they had recalled his brother Charles thirty years before. James found an able lieutenant in Tyrconnell, who thoroughly entered into his master's schemes of duplicity; and it is fairly clear that these two worthies, had occasion offered, would have betrayed each other with a perfectly good grace. Thus matters dragged on quite indecisively until June, 1690, when King William landed at Carrickfergus with a mixed force of English, Scottish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and German troops, and joined his forces to the remnant of Schomberg's army. James, as we saw, had disbanded his army on breaking up his camp in the previous autumn, and had made no effective effort to get a new army together. Nor could he have used a strong army, had he possessed one. Nevertheless James marched north with such troops as were available, leaving Dublin on June 16th. He took up a strong position on the borders of Ulster and Leinster, thus blocking William's way south to the capital, only to abandon it again on the news of William's approach, when he retired to Drogheda and encamped there. He thus gave the whole advantage of initiative into the hands of his opponent, a brave man and a skillful general. James seems to have hoped that William's army would be mowed down by disease, as Schomberg's had been in the preceding campaign. And there is reason to believe that Tyrconnell, foreseeing the defeat of James, wished to avoid any serious fighting, which would be an obstacle in his way when he sought to patch up a peace with the victor and make terms for himself. But his opponent was inspired by a very different temper, and William's army advanced steadily southwards, to find James encamped on the southern bank of the Boyne. There were several fords by which William's army would have to cross on its way south. But James was such an incapable general that he did not even throw up trenches to defend the fords. William's army arrived and encamped on the north bank of the river, and the next day, June 30th, was employed in an artillery duel between the two armies, when considerable injury was inflicted on William's forces, although he was far stronger in artillery than his opponent. During that night, James, already certain of defeat, sent away most of his artillery to Dublin, leaving only six guns with his army on the Boyne. It seems tolerably certain that, when the battle began again next day, William's army numbered between forty-five and fifty thousand, with the usual proportion of cavalry,--probably a tenth of the whole. James, on the other hand, had from twenty to twenty-five thousand men, about a tenth of them, probably, being mounted; he had, by his own fault, only six guns against about fifty in William's batteries. William's line of battle was formed, as usual, with the infantry in the center and the cavalry on the wings. He gave the elder Schomberg command of the center, while Schomberg's son, with the cavalry of the right wing, was sent four or five miles up the river to Slane, to cross there and turn the left flank of the opposing army. William himself led the cavalry on the left wing, and later on in the battle, descending the river, crossed at a lower ford. He could thus attack the right flank of his opponent; the infantry composing the center of his army advancing, meanwhile, under cover of a heavy artillery fire, and forcing the fords of the Boyne. The river is shallow here, and in the middle of summer the water is nowhere too deep for wading, so that it was a very slight protection to the army of James. A better general would at least have chosen a stronger position, and one which would have given him some manifest advantage. Such positions were to be found all along the road by which William had advanced from Carrickfergus. The country on both sides of the Boyne is flat; rolling meadows with the shallow river dividing them--a country giving every opportunity to cavalry. William's right, under the younger Schomberg, made several unsuccessful attempts to cross the river at Slane, being repeatedly beaten back by Arthur O'Neill's horse. Finally, however, the way was cleared for him by a vigorous cannonade, to which O'Neill, having no cannon, was unable to reply, and William's right wing thus forced the passage of the Boyne. William's center now advanced, and began the passage of the river, under cover of a heavy artillery fire. Every foot of the advance was stubbornly contested, and such headway was made by the Irish troops that Schomberg's bodyguard was scattered or cut to pieces, and he himself was slain. The center of William's army was undoubtedly being beaten back, when, crossing lower down with eighteen squadrons of cavalry, he fiercely attacked the right flank of the Irish army and thus turned the possibility of defeat into certain victory. That the Irish troops, although outnumbered two to one and led by a coward, fought valiantly, is admitted on all sides. They charged and re-charged ten times in succession, and only gave way at last under pressure of greatly superior numbers. The retreat of the Irish army was orderly,--the more so, doubtless, because the former king of England was no longer among them, having most valiantly fled to Dublin, and thence to Kinsale, where he took ship for France, leaving behind him a reputation quite singular in the annals of Ireland. Within a week after the battle, the Irish army, which had preserved order and discipline even in the face of the flight of James, occupied Limerick, and made preparations to hold that strong position, with the untouched resources of the western province behind them, and the hope, unshaken by their rude experience, that the runaway king might reinforce them by sea. Through all the events that followed, presently to be narrated, it must be understood that Tyrconnell was steadily seeking to undermine the resolution of the Irish army, hoping the sooner to make his peace with King William, to secure his Irish estates, and, very possibly, be appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, under the new king. William meanwhile brought his army southwards, being welcomed to Dublin by the large English element there, and presently continued his march to Waterford, which was surrendered to him, as was alleged, by Tyrconnell's orders. He also reduced Kilkenny, to which Tyrconnell had failed to send reinforcements, though repeatedly appealed to by its commander. About this time, on July 28th or a day or two later, the brave garrison of Derry was relieved by some of William's ships, which broke the line of blockade across the river and brought abundant provisions to the emaciated defenders. A section of William's army under Douglas was sent to take Athlone, the strong fortress which guarded the ford, and later the bridge across the Shannon--the high road from Leinster to the western province of Connacht, beyond the river. Douglas, after a fierce attack lasting seven days, was compelled to retreat again to the main army encamped at Waterford. The French auxiliaries under Lauzun, who had not hitherto greatly distinguished themselves for valor, losing less than a score of men at the Boyne, now deserted Limerick and retreated to Galway, taking with them, if the fugitive king may be credited, a great quantity of ammunition from the fortress of Limerick. [Illustration: Thormond Bridge, Limerick.] Finally, on August 9th, William's army appeared before Limerick, and the famous siege began. Tyrconnell signalized himself by deserting the fords over the Shannon and departing to Galway, declaring that the town would certainly surrender within a week. The city, however, was of a different opinion. The garrison, under Sarsfield, made vigorous preparation for a defence, and a party under Sarsfield himself cut off one of William's convoys from Dublin, destroying the siege-train which was being brought for the attack on the city. William's cavalry, taking advantage of Tyrconnell's retreat, crossed the ford of the Shannon to complete the investment of the city on that side, but they presently returned, having done nothing effective. We hear of more attempts by Tyrconnell to undermine the resolution of the army, and of attacks by William's force, which gave him possession of the outworks, so that he was able presently to begin cannonading the walls, to make a breach for an assault. The officer in the Irish army whom we have already quoted, gives this account of the siege: "Never was a town better attacked and better defended than the city of Limerick. William left nothing unattempted that the art of war, the skill of a great captain and the valor of veteran soldiers could put in execution to gain the place; and the Irish omitted nothing that courage and constancy could practice to defend it. The continual assaults of the one and the frequent sallies of the other consumed a great many brave men both of the army and the garrison. On the nineteenth day, William, after fighting for every inch of ground he gained, having made a large breach in the wall, gave a general assault which lasted for three hours; and though his men mounted the breach, and some even entered the town, they were gallantly repulsed and forced to retire with considerable loss. William, resolving to renew the assault next day, could not persuade his men to advance, though he offered to lead them in person. Whereupon, all in a rage, he left the camp, and never stopped till he came to Waterford, where he took shipping for England; his army in the meantime retiring by night from Limerick." During this first siege of Limerick the garrison numbered some twenty thousand, by no means well armed. William's besieging army was about forty thousand, with forty cannon and mortars. His loss was between three and four thousand, while the loss of the defenders was about half that number. William, presently arriving in England, sent reinforcements to his generals in Ireland, under Lord Churchill, afterwards famous as the Duke of Marlborough. Tyrconnell had meantime followed his runaway king to France, as was involved in a maze of contradictory designs, the one clear principle of which was the future advantage of Tyrconnell. Louis XIV, who had reasons of his own for wishing to keep the armies of William locked up in Ireland, was altogether willing to advise and help a continuance of hostilities in that country. James seems to have recognized his incapacity too clearly to attempt anything definite, or, what is more probable, was too irresolute by nature even to determine to give up the fight. Tyrconnell himself sincerely wished to make his peace with William, so that he might once more enjoy the revenues of his estates. The Irish army was thoroughly determined to hold out to the end. With these conflicting desires and designs, no single-hearted and resolute action was possible. Matters seem to have drifted till about January, 1691, when Tyrconnell returned; "but he brought with him no soldiers, very few arms, little provision and no money." A month later a messenger came direct to Sarsfield, then with the army at Galway, from Louis XIV, promising reinforcements under the renowned soldier Saint Ruth. This letter to a great extent revealed the double part Tyrconnell had been playing at the French court, and did much to undermine his credit with the better elements in the Irish army. The French fleet finally arrived at Limerick in May, 1691, under Saint Ruth, bringing a considerable quantity of provisions for the Irish army; but it is doubtful whether this arrival added any real element of strength to the army. The Irish army, soon after this, was assembled at Athlone, to defend the passage of the Shannon. Much vigorous fighting took place, but Ginkell, William's general, finally captured that important fortress in June. The road to Galway was now open, and Ginkell's army prepared to march on that important city, the strongest place in Connacht. Saint Ruth prepared to resist their approach, fixing his camp at Aughrim, The Hill of the Horses, some eighteen miles from Athlone and thirty-five from Galway. We may once more tell the story in the words of an eye-witness: "Aughrim was then a ruined town, and the castle was not much better, situated in a bottom on the north side of the hill, where the Irish army encamped. The direct way from Ballinasloe was close by the castle, but there was another way about, on the south-east side of the hill. The rest of the ground fronting the camp was a marsh, passable only for foot. The army of Ginkell appeared in sight of Aughrim on July 12th. The Irish army, composed of about ten thousand foot, two thousand men-at-arms, and as many light horse, was soon drawn up by Saint Ruth in two lines; the cavalry on both wings flanking the foot; and having placed Chevalier de Tessé on the right wing of the horse, and Sarsfield on the left, and giving their several posts to the rest of the chief commanders, Saint Ruth obliged himself to no certain place, but rode constantly from one side to another to give the necessary orders where he saw occasion. Ginkell being now come up at so near a distance that his guns and other battering engines might do execution, he ordered them to be discharged, and as he had a vast number of them he made them play incessantly on the Irish army, hoping by that means to force them from the hill, which was of great advantage. But the Irish, encouraged by the presence and conduct of Saint Ruth, kept their ground and beat the English as often as they advanced towards them. The fight continued from noon till sunset, the Irish foot having still the better of the enemy; and Saint Ruth, observing the advantage of his side, and that the enemy's foot were much disordered, was resolved, by advancing with the cavalry, to make the victory complete, when an unlucky shot from one of the terrible new engines, hitting him in the head, made an end of his life, and took away the courage of his army. For Ginkell, observing the Irish to be in some disorder, gave a notable conjecture that the general was either killed or wounded, whereupon he commanded his army to advance. The Irish cavalry, discouraged by the death of Saint Ruth, and none of the general officers coming to head them in his place, gave back, and quitted the field. The foot who were engaged with the enemy, knowing nothing of the general's death or the retreat of the cavalry, continued fighting till they were surrounded by the whole English army; so that the most of them were cut off, and no quarter given but to a very few; the rest, by favor of the night then approaching, for Saint Ruth was killed about sunset, made their escape." To this we may add the testimony of the runaway monarch: "The Irish behaved with great spirit. They convinced the English they had to do with men no less resolute than themselves. Never assault was made with greater fury nor sustained with greater obstinacy. The Irish foot repulsed the enemy several times, particularly in the center. They even looked upon the victory as certain.... The Irish lost four thousand men. The loss of the English was not much inferior." The army of Ginkell, thus in possession of the key of Connacht, advanced upon its most important city, arriving before Galway a few days after the battle of Aughrim. Galway, however, was full of divided counsels, and speedily surrendered, so that Limerick alone remained. Limerick was greatly weakened, now that Galway, and with Galway the whole of Connacht to which alone Limerick could look for supplies, was in the hands of the enemy. Ginkell turned all his efforts in the direction of Limerick, appearing before the city and pitching his camp there on August 25, 1691. Beginning with the next day, our narrator tells us, "he placed his cannon and other battering engines, which played furiously night and day without intermission, reducing that famous city almost to ashes. No memorable action, however, happened till the night between September 15 and 16, when he made a bridge of boats over the Shannon, which being ready by break of day, he passed over with a considerable body of horse and foot on the Connacht side of the river, without any opposition. This so alarmed Sheldon, who commanded the cavalry at that time, that without staying for orders, he immediately retired to a mountain a good distance from Limerick, and marched with such precipitation and disorder, that if a hundred of the enemy's horse had charged him in the rear, they would in all likelihood have defeated his whole party, though he had near upon four thousand men-at-arms and light horse; for the man, if he was faithful, wanted either courage or conduct, and the party were altogether discouraged to be under his command. But Ginkell did not advance far, and after showing himself on that side of the bridge, returned back into his camp the same day. Yet Sheldon never rested till he came, about midnight, fifteen miles from the Shannon, and encamped in a fallow field where there was not a bit of grass to be had: as if he had designed to harass the horses by day and starve them by night.... Ginkell, understanding that the Irish horse was removed to such a distance, passed the river on the twenty-third day with the greatest part of his cavalry, and a considerable body of foot, and encamped half-way between Limerick and the Irish horse camp, whereby he hindered all communication between them and the town. On the twenty-fourth, the captains within Limerick sent out a trumpet, desiring a parley," and as a result of this parley, a treaty was ultimately signed between the two parties, Limerick was evacuated, and the war came to an end. This was early in October, 1691. The war had, therefore, lasted nearly four years, a sufficient testimony to the military qualities of the Irish, seeing that throughout the whole period they had matched against them greatly superior numbers of the finest troops in Europe, veterans trained in continental wars, and at all points better armed and equipped than their adversaries. What moves our unbounded admiration, however, is to see the troops displaying these qualities of valor not only without good leadership, but in face of the cowardice of the English king, and of duplicity amounting to treachery on the part of his chief adherents. Foremost among these time-servers was Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell, whose name shows him to have sprung from one of the Norman families, and we see here the recurrence of a principle which had worked much harm in the eight years' war of the preceding generation. The Duke of Ormond, sprung from the Norman Butlers, was then the chief representative of the policy of intrigue, and many of the reverses of both these wars are to be attributed to the same race. It is tragical to find the descendants of the old Norman barons, who at any rate were valiant fighters, descending thus to practices quite unworthy; yet we can easily understand how the fundamental injustice of the feudal principle on which they stood, not less than the boundless abuse of that already bad principle under the first Stuarts, could not fail to undermine their sense of honor and justice, preparing them at length for a policy of mere self-seeking, carried on by methods always doubtful, and often openly treacherous. The old tribal chieftains lived to fight, and went down fighting into the night of time. Owen Roe O'Neill, last great son of a heroic race, splendidly upheld their high tradition and ideal. No nobler figure, and few more gifted captains, can be found in the annals of those warlike centuries. The valor of Cuculain, the wisdom of Concobar, the chivalry of Fergus--all were his, and with them a gentle and tolerant spirit in all things concerning religion, very admirable in an age when so many men, in other things not lacking in elements of nobility, were full of bitter animosity, and zealous to persecute all those who differed from them concerning things shrouded in mystery. It may be said, indeed, that Owen Roe is in this only a type of all his countrymen, who, though they suffered centuries of persecution for a religious principle, never persecuted in return. Their conduct throughout the epoch of religious war and persecution was always tolerant and full of the sense of justice, contrasting in this, and contrasting to their honor, with the conduct of nearly every other nation in Christendom. The history of Ireland, for the half century which followed this war, offers few salient features for description. The Catholics during all this time were under the ban of penal laws. The old tribal chiefs were gone. The Norman lords were also gone. The life of the land hardly went beyond the tilling of the fields and the gathering of the harvests. And even here, men only labored for others to enter into their labor. The right of private taxation, confirmed by law, and now forfeited by the feudal lords, was given as a reward to the adherents of the dominant party in England, and their yearly exactions were enforced by an armed garrison. The more vigorous and restless elements of our race, unable to accept these conditions of life, sailed in great numbers to the continent, and entered the armies of many European powers. It is estimated that, during the half century after the Treaty of Limerick, fully half a million Irishmen fell in the service of France alone. XV. CONCLUSION. A.D. 1750-1901. The Treaty of Limerick, signed when the army of Sarsfield came to terms with the besiegers, guaranteed equal liberty to all Ireland, without regard to difference of religion. There is no doubt that William of Nassau, scion of a race which had done much for liberty, a house that had felt the bitterness of oppression, would willingly have carried this treaty out in a spirit of fidelity and honor. But he was, helpless. The dominant powers in England and Ireland were too strong for him, and within the next few years the treaty was violated in letter and spirit, and the indigenous population of Ireland was disarmed, deprived of civil rights, reduced to servitude. It is best, wherever possible, to secure the word of witnesses who cannot be suspected of prejudice or favor. We shall do this, therefore, in describing the condition of Ireland during the eighteenth century. We find the Lord Chancellor of England declaring, during the first half of that period, that "in the eye of the law no Catholic existed in Ireland." The Lord Chief Justice affirms the same doctrine: "It appears plain that the law does not suppose any such person to exist as an Irish Roman Catholic." The law, therefore, as created by England for Ireland, deprived of all civil, religious, intellectual and moral rights four-fifths of the whole population, and gave them over as a lawful prey to the remaining fifth: a band of colonists and adventurers, who favored the policy of the party then dominant in England. This was the condition of the law. We shall see, presently, what was its result on the life of the nation. It should be a warning, for all time, of the dangers which arise when one nation undertakes to govern another. For it must be clearly understood that the Sovreign and Parliament of England believed that in this they stood for honor and righteousness, and had a true insight into the spirit and will of the Most High. It was, indeed, on this superior knowledge of the divine will that they based their whole policy; for what else is the meaning of legal discrimination against the holders of a certain form of faith? [Illustration: Salmon Fishery, Galway.] In the second half of the eighteenth century, in 1775, the Congress of the United States sent its sympathy in these words to the people of Ireland: "We know that you are not without your grievances; we sympathize with you in your distress, and we are pleased to find that the design of subjugating us has persuaded the administration to dispense to Ireland some vagrant rays of ministerial sunshine. Even the tender mercies of the government have long been cruel to you. In the rich pastures of Ireland many hungry parasites are fed, and grow strong to labor for her destruction." Three years later, in 1778, Benjamin Franklin wrote thus to the Irish people: "The misery and distress which your ill-fated country has been so frequently exposed to, and has so often experienced, by such a combination of rapine, treachery and violence as would have disgraced the name of government in the most arbitrary country in the world, has most sincerely affected your friends in America, and has engaged the most serious attention of Congress." It must be assumed that the men who drew up the Declaration of Independence knew the value of words, and that when they spoke of misery and cruelty, of rapine, treachery and distress, they meant what they said. Franklin's letter brings us to the eve of the Volunteer Movement, of which much has been said in a spirit of warm praise, but which seems to have wrought evil rather than good. This Movement, at first initiated wholly by the Scottish and English colonists and their adherents, was later widened so as to include a certain number of the indigenous population; and an armed force was thus formed, which was able to gain certain legislative favors from England, with the result that a Parliament sitting in Dublin from 1782 to 1799 passed laws with something more resembling justice than Ireland was accustomed to. But this Parliament was in no sense national or representative. It was wholly composed of the Scottish and English colonists and their friends, and the indigenous population had no voice in its deliberations. It is, therefore, the more honor to Henry Grattan that we find him addressing that Parliament thus: "I will never claim freedom for six hundred thousand of my countrymen while I leave two million or more of them in chains. Give the Catholics of Ireland their civil rights and their franchise; give them the power to return members to the Irish Parliament, and let the nation be represented." At this time, therefore, four-fifths of the nation had neither civil rights nor franchise,--because they differed from the dominant party in England as to the precedence of the disciples of Jesus. It may be supposed, however, that, even without civil or religious rights, the fate of the people of Ireland was tolerable; that a certain measure of happiness and well-being was theirs, if not by law, at least by grace. The answer to this we shall presently see. The Volunteer Movement, as we saw, included certain elements of the indigenous population. The dominant party in England professed to see in this a grave danger, and determined to ward off that danger by sending an army to Ireland, and quartering troops on the peasants of all suspected districts. We must remember that the peasants, on whom a hostile soldiery was thus quartered, had no civil rights as a safeguard; that the authorities were everywhere bitterly hostile, full of cowardly animosity towards them. The result we may best describe in the words of the English generals at the head of this army. We find Sir Ralph Abercrombie speaking thus: "The very disgraceful frequency of great crimes and cruelties, and the many complaints of the conduct of the troops in this kingdom--Ireland--has too unfortunately proved the army to be in a state of licentiousness that renders it formidable to everyone except the enemy." Sir Ralph Abercrombie declared himself so frightened and disgusted at the conduct of the soldiers that he threw up his commission, and refused the command of the army. General Lake, who was sent to take his place, speaks thus: "The state of the country, and its occupation previous to the insurrection, is not to be imagined, except by those who witnessed the atrocities of every description committed by the military,"--and he gives a list of hangings, burnings and murders. Finally, we have the testimony of another English soldier, Sir William Napier, speaking some years later: "What manner of soldiers were these fellows who were let loose upon the wretched districts, killing, burning and confiscating every man's property? ... We ourselves were young at the time; yet, being connected with the army, we were continually among the soldiers, listening with boyish eagerness to their experiences: and well remember, with horror, to this day, the tales of lust, of bloodshed and pillage, and the recital of their foul actions against the miserable peasantry, which they used to relate." The insurrection against this misery and violence, which began in May, 1798, and its repression, we may pass over, coming to their political consequences. It is admitted on all hands that the morality and religion of England reached their lowest ebb at this very time; we are, therefore, ready to learn that the Act of Union between England and Ireland, which followed on the heels of this insurrection, was carried by unlimited bribery and corruption. The Parliament of Ireland, as we know, was solely composed of Protestants, the Catholics having neither the right to sit nor the right to vote; so that the ignominy of this universal corruption must be borne by the class of English and Scottish settlers alone. The curious may read lists of the various bribes paid to secure the passage of the Act of Union in 1800, the total being about six million dollars--a much more considerable sum then than now. And it must be remembered that this entire sum was drawn from the revenues of Ireland, besides the whole cost of an army numbering 125,000 men, which England maintained in Ireland at the time the Act was passed. What the amenities of the last three years of the eighteenth century cost Ireland we may judge from these figures: in 1797, while the hangings, burnings and torturings which brought about the insurrection of the following year were in an early stage, the national debt of Ireland was under $20,000,000; three years later that debt amounted to over $130,000,000. It is profitless to pursue the subject further. We may close it by saying that hardly can we find in history a story more discreditable to our common humanity than the conduct of England towards Ireland during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The French Revolution wrought a salutary change of heart in the governing class in England, for it must in justice be added that the tyranny of this class was as keenly felt by the "lower orders" in England as in Ireland itself. It is fairly certain that only the Reform Bill and the change of sovreigns which shortly followed prevented an insurrection of the peasants and servile classes in England which would have outdone in horrors the French Revolution itself. The Reform Bill was the final surrender of the baronial class in England; a surrender rather apparent than real, however, since most of the political and all the social power in the land still remains in the hands of the same class. [Illustration: O'Connell's Statue, Dublin.] Through the salutary fear which was inspired by the horrors of the French Revolution, and perhaps through a certain moral awakening, the governing classes in England came to a less vicious mind in their dealings with Ireland. They were, therefore, the more ready to respond to the great national movement headed by Daniel O'Connell, with his demand that Irishmen might all equally enjoy civil and political rights, regardless of their form of faith. In 1829, as the result of this great movement, the Catholics were finally relieved of the burden of penal laws which, originally laid on them by the Tudors, were rendered even more irksome and more unjust by Cromwell and William of Nassau,--men in other things esteemed enlightened and lovers of liberty. Thus the burden of persecution was finally taken away. To those who imposed it, the system of Penal Laws will remain a deep dishonor. But to those who bore that burden it has proved a safeguard of spiritual purity and faith. The religion of the indigenous race in Ireland was saved from the degeneration and corruption which ever besets a wealthy and prosperous church, and which never fails to engender hypocrisy, avarice and ambition. In England, the followers of the Apostles exercise the right to levy a second tax on the produce of all tilled lands, a second burden imposed upon the conquered Saxons. As a result, the leaders of the church live in palaces, while the people, the humbler part of their congregation; have sunk into practical atheism. In France, the reaction against a like state of things brought the church to the verge of destruction, and led the masses to infidelity and materialism. The result to the moral life of the people is too well known to need remark. Not less evil consequences have flowed from the enriching of the church in other lands. That wealth has always carried with it the curse, so prophetically pronounced, against those who trust in riches. For the ministers of religion, in a supreme degree, the love of money has been the root of evil. We may, therefore, see in the spirituality and unworldliness of the native church in Ireland a result of all the evil and persecution the church suffered during almost three hundred years. From this purification by fire it comes that the people of Ireland are almost singular throughout Christendom in believing sincerely in the religion of gentleness and mercy--the kingdom which is not of this world. In 1829 the Catholics were at last freed from the galling burdens which had weighed on them since 1537, when they failed to recognize Henry VIII as the representative of God on earth. They were still, however, under the shadow of a grave injustice, which continued to rest on them for many years. When their church lands were confiscated and their faith proscribed by law under the Tudors, a new clergy was overlaid on the country, a clergy which consented to recognize the Tudors and their successors as their spiritual head. As a reward, these new ministers of religion were allowed to levy a second tax on land, exactly as in England; and this tax they continued to collect until their privilege was finally taken away by Gladstone and the English Liberals. Needless to say that through three centuries and more four-fifths of this tax was levied on the indigenous Catholics, in support of what was to them an alien, and for most of the time a persecuting church. One heavy disability still lay on the whole land. With its partial removal a principle has emerged of such world-wide importance in the present, and even more in the future, that we may well trace its history in detail. The Normans, as we saw, paid themselves for conquering the Saxons and Angles by assuming a perpetual right to tax their produce; a right still in full force, and forming the very foundation of the ruling class in England. The land tenure thus created was, under the Tudors and the first Stuarts, bodily transferred to Ireland. In Ireland the land had ever been owned by the people, each tribe, as representing a single family, holding a certain area by communal tenure, and electing a chief to protect its territory from aggression. For this elective chieftainship the English law-courts substituted something wholly different: a tenure modeled on the feudal servitude of England. This new principle made the land of the country the property not of the whole people but of a limited and privileged class: the favorites of the ruling power--"hungry parasites" as the Congress of 1775 called them. This "landed" class continued to hold absolute sway until quite recently, and it was this class which succumbed to bribery in 1800, and passed the Act of Legislative Union with England. The clergy of the Established church were little more than the private chaplains of the "landed" class, the two alien bodies supporting each other. Folly, however, was the child of injustice; for so shortsighted were these hungry parasites that they developed a system of land-laws so bad as to cause universal poverty, and bring a reaction which is steadily sweeping the "landed" class of Ireland to extinction and oblivion. The fundamental principle of these bad land-laws was this: the tenant was compelled to renew his lease from year to year; and whenever, during the year, he had in any way improved the land in his possession,--by draining marshes, by reclaiming waste areas, by adding farm-buildings, the "owner" of the land could demand an enhanced rent, as the condition of renewing the lease. The tenant had to submit to a continually ascending scale of extortion, sanctioned by law and exacted by armed force; or, as an alternative, he had to give up the fruit of his industry without compensation and without redress. Anything more certain to destroy energy, to cut at the roots of thrift, to undermine all the best qualities of manhood, it would be impossible to imagine. The slave on the plantation could in time purchase his freedom. The tiller of the soil in Ireland found, on the contrary, that the greater his industry, the greater was the sum he had to pay for the right to exercise it. We saw that there never was any pretence of free contract in the feudal land-tenure of England; that there never was any pretence of an honest bargain between farmer and landlord, for their mutual benefit. The tenant paid the landlord for services rendered, not to him, but to his Norman conqueror. So it was, in an even greater degree, in Ireland. There was no pretence at all that tenant and landlord entered into a free contract for their mutual benefit. Nor did either law, custom, religion or opinion require the landlord to make any return to his tenants for the share of the fruit of their toil he annually carried away. The tiller of the soil, therefore, labored from year to year, through droughts and rains, through heat and cold, facing bad seasons with good. At the end of the year, after hard toil had gathered in the fruit of the harvest, he saw the best part of that fruit legally confiscated by an alien, who would have been speechless with wonder, had it been suggested to him that anything was due from him in return. Nor was that all. This alien was empowered, and by the force of public opinion incited, to exact the greatest possible share of the tiller's produce, and, as we saw, he was entitled to the whole benefit of whatever improvements the tiller of the soil had made; and could--and constantly did--expel the cultivator who was unable or unwilling to pay a higher tax, as the penalty for improving the land. It may be said that bad as this all was, it was not without a remedy; that the cultivator had the choice of other occupations, and might let the land lie fallow, while its "owner" starved. But this only brings to mind the fact that during the eighteenth century England had legislated with the deliberate intention of destroying the manufactures and shipping of Ireland, and had legislated with success. It should be added that this one measure affected all residents in Ireland equally, whatever faith or race. There was practically no alternative before the cultivator. He had the choice between robbery and starvation. It would be more than miraculous if this condition of things had not borne its fruit. The result was this: it ceased to be the interest of the cultivator of the land to till it effectively, or to make any improvement whatever, whether by drainage, reclaiming waste land, or building, or by adopting better agricultural methods. In every case, his increase of labor, of foresight and energy, would have met with but one reward: when the time came to renew the lease, he would have been told that his land had doubled in value during the year, and that he must, therefore, pay twice as much for the privilege of tilling it. If he refused, he at once forfeited every claim to the fruit of his own work, the whole of his improvements becoming the property of the land owner. The cultivators, as an inevitable consequence, lost every incentive to labor, energy, foresight and the moral qualities which are fostered by honestly rewarded work. They worked as little as possible on their farms, and the standard of cultivation steadily declined, while the mode of living grew perpetually worse. If it were intended to reduce a whole population to hopeless poverty, no better or more certain way could be imagined. The steady lowering of the arts of cultivation, the restriction of crops, the tendency to keep as close as possible to the margin of sustenance, thus zealously fostered, opened the way for the disastrous famine of 1846 and 1847, which marks the beginning of a rapid decline in population,--a decrease which has never since been checked. The inhabitants of Ireland shortly before the famine numbered considerably over eight millions. Since that time, there has been a decrease of about four millions--a thing without parallel in Christendom. The amendment of the land-laws, which were directly responsible for these evil results, was by no means initiated in consequence of the famine. It was due wholly to a great national agitation, carried out under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, which led to the land-acts of 1881 and 1887. These new laws at last guaranteed to the cultivator the fruit of his toil, and guarded him against arbitrary increase of the tax levied on him by the "owner" of the land. But they did not stop here; they initiated a principle which will finally make the cultivator absolute owner of his land, and abolish the feudal class with their rights of private taxation. This cannot fail to react on England, so that the burdens of the Angles and Saxons will at last be lifted from their shoulders, as a result of the example set them by the Gaels, for generations working persistently, and persistently advancing towards their goal. Nor will the tide thus set in motion spread only to Saxon and Angle; its influence will be felt wherever those who work are deprived unjustly of the fruit of their toil, whether by law or without law. The evils suffered by Ireland will thus be not unavailing; they will rather bring the best of all rewards: a reward to others, of whatever race and in whatever land, who are victims of a like injustice. The story of Ireland, through many centuries, has thus been told. The rest belongs to the future. We have seen the strong life of the prime bringing forth the virtues of war and peace; we have seen valor and beauty and wisdom come to perfect ripeness in the old pagan world. We have seen that old pagan world transformed by the new teaching of gentleness and mercy, a consciousness, wider, more humane and universal, added from above to the old genius of individual life. With the new teaching came the culture of Rome, and something of the lore of Hellas and Palestine, of Egypt and Chaldea, warmly welcomed and ardently cherished in Ireland at a time when Europe was submerged under barbarian inroads and laid waste by heathen hordes. We have seen the faith and culture thus preserved among our western seas generously shared with the nascent nations who emerged from the pagan invasions; the seeds of intellectual and spiritual life, sown with faith and fervor as far as the Alps and the Danube, springing up with God-given increase, and ripening to an abundant harvest. To that bright epoch of our story succeeded centuries of growing darkness and gathering storm. The forces of our national life, which until then had found such rich expression and flowered in such abundant beauty, were now checked, driven backward and inward, through war, oppression and devastation, until a point was reached when the whole indigenous population had no vestige of religious or civil rights; when they ceased even to exist in the eyes of the law. The tide of life, thus forced inward, gained a firm possession of the invisible world, with the eternal realities indwelling there. Thus fixed and founded in the real, that tide turned once again, flowing outwards and sweeping before it all the barriers in its way. The population of Ireland is diminishing in numbers; but the race to which they belong increases steadily: a race of clean life, of unimpaired vital power, unspoiled by wealth or luxury, the most virile force in the New World. It happens very rarely, under those mysterious laws which rule the life of all humanity, the laws which work their majestic will through the ages, using as their ministers the ambitions and passions of men--it happens rarely that a race keeps its unbroken life through thirty centuries, transformed time after time by new spiritual forces, yet in genius remaining ever the same. It may be doubted whether even once before throughout all history a race thus long-lived has altogether escaped the taint of corruption and degeneration. Never before, we may confidently say, has a single people emerged from such varied vicissitudes, stronger at the end in genius, in spiritual and moral power, than at the beginning, richer in vital force, clearer in understanding, in every way more mature and humane. For this is the real fruit of so much evil valiantly endured: a deep love of freedom, a hatred of oppression, a knowledge that the wish to dominate is a fruitful source of wrong. The new age now dawning before us carries many promises of good for all humanity; not less, it has its dangers, grave and full of menace; threatening, if left to work unchecked, to bring lasting evil to our life. Never before, it is true, have there been so wide opportunities for material well-being; but, on the other hand, never before have there been such universal temptations toward a low and sensual ideal. Our very mastery over natural forces and material energies entices us away from our real goal, hides from our eyes the human and divine powers of the soul, with which we are enduringly concerned. Our skill in handling nature's lower powers may be a means of great good; not less may it bring forth unexampled evil. The opportunities of well-being are increased; the opportunities of exclusive luxury are increased in equal measure; exclusion may bring resentment; resentment may call forth oppression, armed with new weapons, guided by wider understanding, but prompted by the same corrupt spirit as of old. In the choice which our new age must make between these two ways, very much may be done for the enduring well-being of mankind by a race full of clean vigor, a race taught by stern experience the evil of tyranny and oppression, a race profoundly believing the religion of gentleness and mercy, a race full of the sense of the invisible world, the world of our immortality. We see in Ireland a land with a wonderful past, rich in tradition and varied lore; a land where the memorials of the ages, built in enduring stone, would in themselves enable us to trace the life and progress of human history; we see in Ireland a land full of a singular fascination and beauty, where even the hills and rivers speak not of themselves but of the spirit which builds the worlds; a beauty, whether in brightness or gloom, finding its exact likeness in no other land; we see all this, but we see much more: not a memory of the past, but a promise of the future; no offering of earthly wealth, but rather a gift to the soul of man; not for Ireland only, but for all mankind. INDEX. Abbey-Dorney, 303 Abbey-feale, 303 Abbey-leix, 303 Abbey of Ballintober, 305 Abbey-quarter, 29 Abercrombie, Sir Ralph, words of, 369, 370 Achill Island, 30 Act of Union, 371 Aed Allan, 225, 231 Aed Finnliat, 247 Aed Roin, 225 Aed, son of Colgan, 226 Ailill, 130, 131, 132, 141, 142, 146, 147, 152 Aiterni, 150 Alfred, king of the Northumbrian Saxons, 232 Alfred, king, ode of to the country he visited, 232, 233 Alny, 120, 129 Amargin, 150 Ambigatos, 103 Ancient seats of learning, 221 Ancient seats of learning, studies therein, 221, 222 Anglicans, 322 Angus, the Young, 92, 95, 96, 173 "Annals," history of the times as recorded in the, 235, 252 "Annals," quotations from, 224, 244, 264, 277, 293 Antrim, 5, 196 Archaic Darkness, 11 Archaic Dawn, 12 Ardan, 120, 129 Ard-Maca, 200 Armagh, 200, 208, 232, 241 At-Cliat, 242, 243, 275 Athlone, 140, 350, 354 Ath-uincé, 163 Aughrim, 354, 355 Ballinasloe, 354 Ballysadare, 27, 87, 90 Balor of the Evil Eye, 90, 91, 93 Bangor, 221, 239, 240, 250, 342 Bann, 146 Bantry Bay, 104 Barrow, valley of the, 42 Battle of Kinvarra, 162 Battle of the Headland of the Kings, 13 Battle-verses, 248, 249 Bay of Murbolg, 143 Bay of Sligo, 29 Bective Abbey, 301 Bede, Venerable, 218 Belgadan, 85 Beltane, festival of, 47 Beltaney, 47 Black Lion Cromlech, 46 Blackwater, 39, 82 Bonamargy Abbey, 306 Book of Kells, 209, 249 Boyne, the, 5, 150, 242, 350 Brandon Hill, 42 Breagho, 34 Breas, 83, 84, 99, 91, 105 Breg, 149 Brehon Laws, the, 206 Brehon Laws, changes of, effected by St. Patrick, 207, 316 Bruce, Edward, invasion by, 292 Bruce, Edward, death of, 293 Brugh, on the Boyne, 93, 95 Bundoran, 29 Cael, 163, 165, 194, 262 Cael, poem of, 164, 165 Caher, 161 Caherconree, 32 Cailté, 162, 166 Cairbré, 89, 167, 168, 173, 241 Cairpré Nia Fer, 146, 147, 132 Callan River, 199 Calpurn, 182 Cantyre, 119, 123, 143 Carlingford Lough, 241 Carlingford Mountains, 44 Carrickfergus, 331, 344, 345, 347 Carrowmore, 27, 29 Cataract of the Oaks, 87, 90, 91 Catbad, 141, 142, 150 Cavan, 46 Cavancarragh, 35, 66 Cealleac, 224 Charlemont, castle of, 343 Chevalier de Tessé, 355 Chiefs of Tara, 82 Chieftain of the Silver Arm, 91 Chronicler's record of battles fought, 210, 211, 212, 217, 218 Chronicles of Ulster, 218 Church architecture, 298 Ciar, 104 Cistercian Abbey, 306 Clare, 31, 62 Clare Abbey, 306 Clidna, 166 Clocar, 161 Clondalkin, 241 Clonmacnoise, 208 Cluain Bronaig, 226 Coleraine, 331 Colum Kill, 208, 212 Colum Kill, death of, 215 Colum Kill, verses written by, 213, 214 Colum of the Churches, 223, 237 Conall Cernac, 149, 151 Concobar, 13, 113, 114, 117, 121, 122, 123, 124, 129, 130, 131, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 177, 194, 246, 258, 262, 360 Conditions existing in early years, 219, 220, 221, 222 Congus the Abbot, 225 Connacht, 5, 88, 133, 140, 144, 350, 357 Connemara, 85 Conn, lord of Connacht, 162 Conn of the Five-Score Battles, 88, 162 Copyright decision, an early, 213 Cork, 5 Cormac, 167, 171, 172 Cormac, precepts of, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171 Coroticus, 195 Corrib, 85 Credé of the Yellow Hair, 163, 178, 194, 262 Crimtan of the Yellow Hair, 162 Cromlech-builders, the, 51, 68 Cromlech of Howth, 43 Cromlech of Lisbellaw. 47 Cromlech of Lough Rea, 46 Cromlechs, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 37, 39, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 51, 52. 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58 Cromwell, 334, 339 Croom, 161 Cruacan, 131, 141, 146 Cryptic Designs on cromlechs, 47 Cuailgne, 132 Cuigead Sreing, 88 Culdaff, 47 Cumal, 162 Curlew hills, 37, 131 Cuculain, 13, 14, 15, 16, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 143, 144, 145, 152, 155, 181, 194, 246, 262, 360 DAGDA Mor, 96, 148 Dagda, the Mighty, 92, 95 Dairé, 132, 133, 200, 262 Danes, conversion of the, 275 Danish Pyramid of Uby, 97 Dark Ages, the, 260, 261, 262 Day of Spirits, 140 De Danaans, the, 77, 79, 80, 82, 84, 86, 87, 89, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 103, 105, 106, 112, 132, 148 De Courcey, 277 De Courceys, the, 319 Deer-park, 29 Deirdré, 13, 14, 15, 115, 123, 124, 129, 130, 178, 262 Deirdré, the fate of, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122 Deirdré, the Lament of, 125 De Lacys, the, 319 Deny, 331, 341, 342, 344, 350 Devenish, 250 Devenish Island, 221 Diarmuid, 171, 172, 173 Dicu, 240 Dingle Bay, 104 Dinn-Rig by the Barrow, 146 Dissenters, 322 Domnall, 211, 231 Donaghpatrick, 208 Doncad, 231, 232 Donegal, 29, 47 Donegal Highlands, 26 Donegal ranges, 5 Douglas, 350 Douin Cain, 81 Down, 5, 46 Downpatrick, 198, 240 Drogheda, 342, 345 Druids, 140 Druim Dean, 162 Drumbo, 46 Dublin, 5, 252, 340, 345 Dublin Parliament, 368 Duke of Ormond, 359 Dundalathglas, 240 Dundalk, 342 Dundelga, 143 Dundrum, 146 Dundrum Bay, 44, 45 Durrow, 221, 250 Early churches, 208 Early schools of learning, tongues first studied in, 208 Eclipses of the sun and moon, record of, 218 Edgehill, battle of, 326 Elias, Bishop of Angoulême, France, testimony of, 250, 251 Elizabeth, Queen, 321, 341 Emain, Banquet-hall of, 111 Emain of Maca, 13, 110, 112, 115, 122, 123, 129, 131, 140 Engineering skill ten thousand years ago, 43 Enniskillen, 34, 35, 341 Eocaid, son of Erc, 81, 84, 86, 87 Eocu, 146 Erin, 141, 144 Established Church, clergy of the, 376 Etan, 89 Evangel of Galilee, the, 16 Factna, son of Cass, 113 Fair Head, 143 Feidlimid, 242 Ferdiad, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140 Fergus mac Roeg, 13, 15, 16, 113, 114, 121, 122, 123, 124, 129, 130, 131, 133 Fergus the Eloquent, 166, 177, 262, 360 Fermanagh, 33 Feudal system, the, 289 Feudal ownership, 291 Find, ode to Spring of, 156 Find, son of Cumal, 14, 16, 155, 161, 162, 163, 166, 167, 171, 172, 173, 177, 194, 246, 262 Find, son of Ros, 146, 147, 152 Finian, school of learning and religion founded by, 212 Finvoy, 46 Firbolgs, 60, 61, 69. 70, 77, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 105, 106 Flann, 248 Fomorians, 69, 70, 77, 81, 90, 91, 92, 93, 106, 246 Ford of Ferdiad, Ath-Fhirdia, 140 Ford of Luan, 140 Ford of Seannait, 226 Ford of the Hurdles, 242, 243, 246 Ford of the river, 14 Franklin, Benjamin, letter of to Irish people, 367 French Revolution, the, 372 Gairec, 140 Galian of Lagin, 144 Galtee Mountains, 161 Galway, 5, 62, 350, 357 Galway Bay, 31, 162 Galway Lakes, 31 Gauls, the, 103 Giant Stones, 30 Ginkell, 354, 355, 357, 358 Gladstone, 375 Glanworth, 39 Glendalough, 208, 221 Glen Druid, 42 Gold Mines River, 109 Golden Vale, 161 Goll Mac Norna, 162 Grania, 15, 171, 172, 173, 178 Grattan, Henry, address of, to Dublin Parliament, 368 Gray Lake, 37 Grey Abbey, 302 Headland of the Kings, 148 Hill of Barnec, 162 Hill of Howth, 239, 252 Hill of Luchra, 146 Hill of Rudraige, 44 Hill of Tara, 155 Hill of the Willows, 200 Hill of Ward, 140 Holycross Abbey, 304 House of Delga, 143 House of Mead, 199 Howth, 239 Howth Head, 43 Hyperboreans, 60, 61, 62, 64, 69 Iarl Strangbow, 275 Indec, son of De Domnand, 90, 91 Inis Fail, the Isle of Destiny, 21 Inismurray, 237, 238, 239 Iona, 215 Ireland, art of working gold in, 108, 178 Ireland, causes of uprising in, 320 Ireland, condition of, in the eighteenth century, 365, 366, 367 Ireland, English influence in, 318 Ireland, life in, two thousand years ago, 177, 178, 179, 180 Ireland, national debt of, 372 Ireland, sympathy of U. S. Congress for people of, 366, 367 Ireland, traditions of, 110 Ireland, the Insurrection of, 370, 371, 372 Ireland, visible and invisible, 3 Irgalac, 149 Iriel, 149 Irish writing, earliest forms of, 177 Islay, 143 Islay Hills, 119 James II., 340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 353 Jura, 119, 123, 143 Kenmare, 39 Kenmare Kiver, 39, 104 Kerry, 5, 62 Kildare, 210, 221, 232 Kilkenny, 42, 325, 326, 349 Killarney, 36, 39, 163 Killee, 34 Killmallock Abbey, 303 Killteran Village, 43 Kinsale, 340, 349 King Gorm's Stone, 97 King William, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 352, 365 Knock-Mealdown Hills, 161 Knockmoy Abbey, 306 Knocknarea, 30 Lake, General, statement of, 370 Lake of Killarney, 161 Lakes of Erne, 81 Lambay, 236, 239, 241 Land of the Cromlech-builders, 57 Land of the Ever Young, 95, 96 Land tenure, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380 Laogaire, 199, 240 Lame, 143 Lauzun, 350 Legamaddy, 45 Leinster, 5, 162, 225, 226, 232, 345, 350 Leitrim, 81 Leitrim Hills, 26 Lennan in Monaghan, 46 Life of the Cromlech-builders, 68 Liffey, the, 242 Limerick, 349, 350, 351, 354, 357 Leinstermen, 232, 238 Loing Seac, 224 Lough Erne, 341 Loch Etive, 119, 121 Lough Foyle, 247 Lough Garra, 37 Lough Gill, 29 Lough Gur, 38, 39 Lough Key, 37 Lough Leane, 161, 163 Lough Mask, 85 Lough Neagh, 110, 200 Lough Ree, 140 Loughcrew Hills, 43 Louis XIV, 337, 340, 353 Lug, surnamed Lamfada, the Long-Armed, 92, 93 Lusk, 241 Maca, Queen, 110 Maelbridge, 217 Mag Breag, 223 Mag Rein, 81 Mag Tuiread, 85, 87, 246 Mangerton, 162 Marlborough, Duke of, 352 Mask, 85 Mayo, 5, 62 Mayo Cliffs, 26 Meave, Queen of Connacht, 13, 14, 15, 25, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 137, 140, 141, 142, 146, 147, 178, 262 Meath, 155, 242 Men of Oluemacht, 144 Message of the New Way, 264 Messenger of the Tidings, 182 Mide, 149 Miocene Age, the, 58 Modern form of old Irish names, 234 Monasterboice, 221 Monk, 326 Molana Abbey, 306 Molaise, 237 Monasteries and religious schools, 221 Monroe, 324, 326, 327, 323, 329, 330, 331, 333 Monument of Pillared Stones, 30 Moore, 326 Mount Venus Cromlech, 42 Mountcashel, Lord, 342 Mountains of Mourne, 44, 94, 146, 193, 231 Mountains of Storms, 26, 87 Moville, 221, 239, 262 Moytura, 31, 85 Munster, 5 Munstermen of Great Muma, 144 Murcad, 238 Naisi, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122, 129, 130 Napier, Sir William, testimony of, 370 Nectain's Shield, 232 Nemed's sons, 87 Nessa, 15, 113 Norsemen, waning of the, 284 Northern Cromlech Region, 54 Northmen, 234, 235, 236, 243, 251 Nuada, the De Danaan king, 85, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93 O'Connell, Daniel, 373 O'Donnell, 321, 322 O'Neill, Owen Roe, 321, 322, 323, 324, 332, 333, 334, 338 O'Neill, death of, 333 O'Neill, defeat of English army by, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331, 360 Ogma, of the Sunlike Face, 92, 95, 96 Oscar, son of Ossin, 14 Oscur, 155, 171 Ossin, son of Find, 14, 15, 16, 155, 161, 162, 167, 171, 172, 177, 181, 194, 246, 262 Ox Mountains, 87 Parliament at Dublin, 323 Parliament of Ireland, 371 Parnell, Charles Stewart, 380 Patricius, 182 Patricius, appeal of, to fellow-Christians of Coroticus, 195, 196 Patricius, birthplace of, 182 Patricius, letter of, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193 Patrick, 17 Patrick, his first victory commemorated, 198 Patrick, the dwelling of, 198 Peat, age of, 34, 36 Peat, rate of growth of, 33, 35, 66, 67 Penal Laws, the system of, 373 Plain of Nia, 85 Plain of the Headland, 82 Plain of the Pillars, 85 Plain of Tirerril, 91 Plantation of Ulster, 322 Poem of Ossin, 156 Potitus, 182 Prince William of Nassau, 339, 340, 342 Private taxation, 291 Pyramids of stone, 93, 94 Quoyle River, 198, 240 Ragallac, 217 Raid of the Northmen, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243 Raids on islands of Irish coast, 257, 258, 259 Raphoe, 47 Rathcool, 162 Rath-Laogaire, 199 Rath of Badamar, 161 Red Hills of Leinster, 162 Reform Bill, the, 372 Restoration, the, 339 Roderick O'Conor, 61 Ros Ruad, 152 Ros, son of Rudraige, 112 Rudraige, 44, 112 Rudraige, hill of, 44, 231 Runnymead, 317 Saint Adamnan, 223, 224 Saint Bernard, 298 Saint Brigid, 210 Saint Camin's "Commentary on the Psalms," 222 "Saint Colum of the Churches," 212 Saint Dominick, 298 Saint Francis of Assisi, 298 Saint Mansuy, 60 Saint Patrick, body of laid at rest, 201 Saint Patrick, delivery of message by, to King Laogaire, 199 Saint Patrick, visit of to kings of Leinster and Munster, 200 Saint Patrick, work of, 199, 205 Saint Ruth, 354, 355 Saint Ruth, death of, 356 Saint Samtain, 226 Saint Samtain, epitaph of the saintly virgin, 226, 227 Sarsfield, 351, 353, 355 Saul, 208, 221 Schomberg, 342, 343, 344, 345, 347, 348 Second Epoch, 13 Senca, 144 Shannon, the, 5, 32, 37, 130, 141, 146, 350, 354, 357 Sheldon, 357, 358 Slane, 347, 348 Slieve Callan, 31, 39 Slieve League, 26, 90 Slieve Mish, 104, 132, 196 Slievemore Mountain, 30 Slieve na Calliagh, 95, 97 Slieve-na-griddle, 45, 46 Sligo, 25, 29, 90, 91 Sligo Hills, 26 Sons of Milid, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 112, 132 Sound of Jura, 119, 123 Southern Cromlech Province, 53 Sreng, 82, 83, 84, 91, 93, 105 Stone Circles, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 42, 45, 46, 47, 51, 52, 53, 55, 72 Stone Circles, clue to their building, 40 Stone Circles, measure of their years, 40 Strand of Tralee, 161 Strangford, 45 Strangford Lough, 198 Stuarts, the, 339 Sualtam, 13 Succat, 182 Suir, 161 Sullane River, 39 Summit of Prospects, 146 Tailten, 106, 132 Talbott, Earl of Tyrconnell, 359 Tara, 81, 84, 106, 146, 147, 198 Tara, Banquet-hall of, 112 "The Church of the Oak-woods," 210 The Gravestones of the Sons of Nemed, 87 Thenay Relics, the, 58 Third Epoch, 14 Three Waves of Erin, the, 146 Tigearnac, 265 Toppid Mountain, 35, 36 Traig Eotaile, 87 Tralee, 32 Treaty of Limerick, 361, 365 Tuata De Danaan, 79, 84 Twelve Peaks of Connemara, 31 Tyrconnell, Lady, 340 Tyrconnell, Lord, 340, 343, 344, 345, 349, 351, 352, 353 Uincé, 162 Ui-Neill, the, 225, 232 Ulad, 113, 130, 131, 133, 141, 151 Ulaid, 113, 145, 150, 152 Ulaid, Councils of the, 113 Ulaid, men of the, 130 Ulster, 5, 345 Upper Erne, 32 Usnae, 115 Venice of Lough Rea, 37 Volunteer Movement, the, 367, 369 Waterford, 349, 350, 352 Water of Luachan, 146 Wave of Clidna, the, 146, 151 Wave of Rudraige, the, 146, 151 Wave of Tuag Inbir, the, 146, 151 Waves of Erin, the three, 146, 151 Weight of Cromlech-stones, 56 Wexford Harbor, 42 Wicklow, 5 Wicklow Gold-mines, the, 108, 109 Yellow Ford of Athboy, 140 
40465	----	JUST IRISH [Illustration: LISMORE CASTLE] JUST IRISH CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS _Author of "Cheerful Americans," "A Bath in an English Tub," "A Holiday Touch," "The Knack of It," "Little Maude's Mamma," Etc., Etc.,_ _With many illustrations from photographs by the Author._ BOSTON RICHARD G. BADGER THE GORHAM PRESS 1911 _Copyright 1909 and 1910 by Richard G. Badger_ _All rights reserved_ _The Gorham Press, Boston_ Dedicated to my first friends in Ireland, the Todds of 'Derry PREFACE The first edition of this book was printed before I had thought to write a preface. Now, my readers may not care for a preface, but as a writer I do not feel that a book is completed until the author has said a word or two. You don't hand a man a glass of wine or even an innocuous apple in silence: you say, "Here's looking at you," or, "Have an apple?" and the recipient says, "Thanks, I don't care if I do," or, "Thanks, I don't eat apples." In either case you have done what you expected of yourself, and that, let me tell you, is no small satisfaction. So now that my publisher has thought it worth while to get out an illustrated edition of this unpretentious record of pleasant (though rainy) days in Ireland, it is my pleasure to say to all who may be about to pick it up, "Don't be afraid of it--it won't hurt you. It was written by a Protestant, but while he was in Ireland his only thought was that God was good to give him such a pleasant time and to make people so well disposed toward him. It was written by a man without a drop of Irish blood in his veins (as far as he knows), but he felt that he was among his brothers in race, because their ideas so chimed in with his, and every one made him so comfortable." This is a good opportunity to thank those of Irish birth or extraction who in their papers and magazines said such nice things about the book. The pictures, all snap shots, were taken by me, and even the Irish atmosphere was friendly to my purpose, and gave me considerable success. A pleasanter five weeks of travel I never had, and if you who read this have never visited Ireland, don't get too old before doing so. And if you do visit it give yourself up to it, and you'll have a good time. Here's the book--like it if you can, drop it if you don't. Never waste time over a book that is not meant for you. CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS. ILLUSTRATIONS Lismore Castle A Real Irish Bull Government Cottage, Rent a Shilling a Week Horses in County Kerry To the Men of '98 Prosperity in Limerick Mackerel Seller, Bundoran, Donegal In Donegal The Bungalow of Seumas McManus A Sky Line at Bundoran The Rocks at Bundoran on the West Coast Geese in Galway Dublin Bay A Dublin Ice Cart O'Connell's Monument, Dublin On the Road to Lismore, in a Rain Storm Milk Wagon, Mallow Green Coat Hospital, Cork A Bit of Killarney Street in Youghal Thatched Cottage, Wicklow Wicklow Peasants Lost in his Lunch, Mallow, County Kerry A Side Street, Wexford Picturesque Galway A String of Fishermen, Galway Waiting for the Circus, Galway Gaelic Sign, Donegal Gone to America TABLE OF CONTENTS _I. A Taste of Irish Hospitality_ _II. Around about Lough Swilly_ _III. A Joyful Day in Donegal_ _IV. The Dull Gray Skies of Ireland_ _V. The Joys of Third-Class Travel_ _VI. A Few Irish Stories_ _VII. Snapping and Tipping_ _VIII. Random Remarks on Things Corkonian_ _IX. A Visit to Mount Mellaray_ _X. A Dinner I Didn't Have_ _XI. What Ireland Wants_ _XII. A Hunt for Irish Fairies_ _XIII. In Galway with a Camera_ _XIV. The New Life in Ireland_ JUST IRISH CHAPTER I _A Taste of Irish Hospitality_ "Irish hospitality." I have often heard the term used, but I did not suppose that I should get such convincing evidence of it within twelve hours of my arrival at this northern port. This is to be a straightforward relation of what happened to some half dozen Americans, strangers to each other, a week ago, and strangers to all Ireland upon arrival. In details it is somewhat unusual, but in spirit I am sure it is characteristic of what might have befallen good Americans in any one of the four provinces. To be dumped into the tender that came down the Foyle to meet the Caledonia at Moville at the chilly hour of two in the morning seemed at the time a hardship. We had wanted to see the green hills of old Ireland and here were blackness and bleakness and crowded humanity. But the loading process was long drawn out, and when at last we began our ascent of the Foyle there were indubitable symptoms of morning in the eastern skies, and we saw that our entrance into the tender was like the entrance of early ones into a theater before the lights are turned up. After a while the curtain is lifted and the scenic glories are revealed to eyes that have developed a proper amount of eagerness and receptivity. With the first steps of day a young Irishman returning to his native land mounted a seat and recited an apostrophe, "The top of the mornin' to ye," and then a mist lifting suddenly, Ireland, dewily green and soft and fair, lay revealed before our appreciative eyes. [Illustration: A REAL IRISH BULL] The sun, when he really began his morning brushwork, painted the trees and grasses in more vivid greens, but there was a suggestiveness of early spring in the first soft tones that was fully valued by eyes that had been used to leaden skies for more than half the days of the voyage. But I am no poet to paint landscapes on paper, so we will consider ourselves landed at Londonderry and furnished with a few hours of necessary sleep, and anxious to begin our adventures. Our party consisted of a half dozen whose itineraries were to run in parallels for a time. There were four ladies and two of us were men. One of the men had to come to Ireland on business, and he found he had awaiting him an invitation to lunch that day with a country gentleman with whom he had corresponded on business matters. As the one least strange to the country this American had tendered his good offices, American fashion, to the ladies who would be traveling without male companions after we left them, and so he dispatched a messenger with a note to the effect that he must regretfully decline, and stating his reasons for so doing. While we were lunching at the hotel a return note came to him, this time from the good man's wife, cordially asking that we all come and have afternoon tea. Here was a chance to see an Irish household that was hailed with delight by all, a delight that was not unappreciative of the warmth of the invitation. We would go to the pleasant country house, but--our trunks had not come. Would our traveler's togs worthily represent our country? But our friend said, "Don't let clothes stand between us and this thing. I'm sure this lady will be glad to welcome us as Americans, and for my part I never reflect credit on my tailor, and people never clamor for his address when they see me. As for you ladies, I'd think any tea of mine honored by such fetching gowns, if that's the proper term. I'm going to write her that we're coming just as we are." So he sent another messenger out into the country--telephones seem as scarce as snakes here--saying, well, he used a good assortment of words and arranged them worthily. The two young girls of the party clamored for jaunting cars, and so two were ordered for four o'clock. One of them had red cushions and was as glittering in its glass and gold as a circus wagon. My friend, on ordering this one, said to the "jarvey" (by the way, they call them drivers here in this part of Ireland, but jarvey has always seemed so delightfully Irish that I prefer to stick to it), "Get another car as nice as this." "Sure, there's none as nice as this," said he, pride forcing the confession, "but I'll get a good one." It was a beautiful day except for the extreme heat--and yet they say it always rains in Ireland. I felt that it must be exceptional, and said to the waiter at lunch, "I suppose it's unusual to have such weather as this?" "Sure, every day is like this," said he with patriotic mendacity. When the jaunty jaunting cars drew up a little before four o'clock there were portentous black clouds in the sky, but the jarvies assured us that they were there more for looks than anything else--that there might be a matter of a spit or two, but that we'd have a fine afternoon. So we mounted the sides of the cars, and holding on to the polished rails, as we had been told was the proper fashion, we set out bravely on our way, little wotting what a wetting all Ireland was soon to have. In a half hour or so we would be walking over Irish lawns and admiring Irish laces as they decked the forms of gaily clad femininity gathered for sociability and tea alongside the rhododendrons and fuchsia bushes. [Illustration: GOVERNMENT COTTAGE, RENT A SHILLING A WEEK] A few drops of rain fell, but the wind was south and we seemed to be going east. "Isn't this gay?" called the young girls, as we jiggled along in holiday mood. Suddenly a silver bolt of jagged lightning cleft the sky to the south, and almost instantaneously a peal of thunder that sounded as if it had been born and bred on Connecticut hills, so loud was it, told us that the people living to the south of us were going to get wet. And then we came to a bend in the road and turned south. "Ah, 'twill be nothin'," said our driver, in answer to a question. To give up what one has undertaken is a poor way of playing a game and we were all for going on. "It's not so far," said the jarvey, but this was a sort of truth that depended on what he was comparing the distance with. It was not so far as Dublin, for instance, but 'twas far enough as the event proved. We put on our cravenettes, hoisted what umbrellas we had, and gave the blankets an extra tucking in and after that--the deluge! Bang, kerrassh! A bolt from heaven followed by a bolt from each horse. A sort of echo as it were. The drivers reined them in and ours started to seek shelter under a tree. As I sometimes read the newspapers when at home I told our driver to keep in the open. The lightning now became more and more frequent and was so close that we let go our hold on the brass rails, preferring to pitch out rather than act as conductor on a jaunting car--such things as conductors being unknown anyway. It was terrifying, and to add to my discomfort I found I was sitting in a pool of water, the rain having an Irish insinuatingness about it that was irresistible. And now, just to show us what could be gotten up on short notice for American visitors, it began to hail and the wind blew it in long, white, slanting, winter-like lines across the air and into our faces, and the roads having become little brooks, the horses had to be urged to the driver's utmost of threats and cajolery. I thought of that waiter who had told me it was always sunny in Ireland and I wished him out in the pelting storm. "I've not seen the like in twinty yairs, sirr," said the driver. To go back was to get the storm in fuller fury, for the wind had shifted. To go ahead was to arrive like drowned rats, but we were anxious for shelter, and still the driver said, "It's not far," and so we went on. I have been in many places in all sorts of weathers, but it is years since I've been out in such a storm. The hailstones were not as large as hen's eggs, but they were as large as French peas. There was not a dry stitch on us and the red of the gay cushion went through to my skin. My cravenette treacherously refused to let the water depart from me, but shed it on the wrong side--which may be an Irish bull, for all I know. "Here we are now, sirr," said our driver, as he turned in at a beautiful driveway. A winding drive of a minute or two and we arrived like wet hens--all of us--at the house of these people who had never heard of us until that day. But the warmth of the welcome from our host and hostess who came out to the door to greet us made us not only glad we had come, but even glad we were wet. Had there been the least stiffness we should have wished the storm far enough (and indeed all Ireland did wish it, for it turned out to be the most tremendous thunder and hailstorm in a score or more of years), but our new found friends frankly laughed with us at our funny appearance, and we were hurried off to various rooms to change our clothes. Our protestations of regret at putting them to trouble were met with protestations of delight at being able to serve us, and as my host brought me some union garments that had been made for a man of three times my size and I wrapped them round and round me until they were giddy, I was glad I had not turned back to spend a damp afternoon in a lonely hotel. The rest of the party fared well in getting clothes that became them, but when I was fully dressed I looked like Francis Wilson in Erminie. As I turned up my sleeves and triple turned up my trousers I knew I would be good for a laugh in any theater in Christendom. There was but one thing to do--go down and look unconscious of my misfit appearance. It would never do to stay in my room through a mistaken sense of personal dignity. So I went down, and meeting host and hostess and my compatriots, a laugh went up that would have broken the ice in a Pittsburgh millionaire's drawing room. And then we were taken to the tearoom and in a few minutes I forgot that I was no longer the glass of fashion and the mold of form, for I was made to feel that I was just a friend who had dropped in (or, perhaps, dripped in would be better), and when a couple of hours later we drove home through the soft Irish verdure, doubly green after its rough but invigorating bath, we all felt that Irish hospitality was no mere traveler's tale, but a thing that had intensity and not a little emotion in it. [Illustration: HORSES IN COUNTY KERRY] CHAPTER II _Around about Lough Swilly_ To a tired New Yorker who has sixteen days at his disposal I would recommend a day on Lough Swilly at Rathmullan. It is separated from the island of Manhattan by little else than the Atlantic, and every one knows that a sea voyage is good for a wearied man. Take a boat for Londonderry from the foot of Twenty-fourth Street, and then for the mere cost of a shilling (if you travel third class, and that is the way to fall in with characters) you will be railroaded and ferried to Rathmullan, where you'll find as clean an inn and as faithful service as heart could wish. And such scenery! And every one will be glad to see you, because you are from America. ("Welcome from the other side," and a hearty hand grip from leathery hands.) Of course a day is a short time in which to get the full benefit of the peaceful atmosphere of the place and perhaps you will stay on as we are doing for several days. Then you can return for a shilling to 'Derry, take Saturday's steamer to the foot of Twenty-fourth Street, New York, and you'll soon be walking the streets of the metropolis filled with pleasant memories of one of nature's beauty spots. Lough Swilly is an arm of the Atlantic and its waters are salt. At Rathmullan the lough is surrounded by lofty green hills, mostly treeless, gently sloping to the water, and for the better part of the time softened in tone by an Indian summer haze indescribably beautiful. We came down according to the program I have outlined, and traveled third class for the reason I have stated, but as the only other occupant of the coach was a lone "widow woman" we were unable to get any characteristic conversation. In fact, up here in Donegal, as far as I have observed, the natives talk more like the Scotch than they do like the Irish made known to us by certain actors. When I get south I expect to hear rich brogues, but here the burr is Scotch. We were ferried from Fahan in a side-wheel steamer, and soon the painfully neat-looking white houses of Rathmullan lay before us and we disembarked, and carrying our own grips unmolested (a sure sign of an unusual place) we made our way up the stone pier between restless steers who were waiting for us to get out of the way so that they could go to the slaughter house. There had been a cattle fair that day in Rathmullan. We knew little of the town save what Stephen Gwynn says of it in his delightful "Highways and Byways in Donegal and Antrim." There is a most picturesque and ivy-grown ruin of an abbey dating back to the fifteenth century. It is much more beautiful than Kenilworth. We bent our steps to the plain-looking little inn, and entering the taproom we asked for lodgings for the night. The inn is kept by a widow who still bears trace of a beauty that must have been transcendent in her girlhood. As it is, she could serve as a model to some artist for an allegorical painting representing "Sorrowful Ireland"; the arched eyebrows, the melting eyes, the long, classic nose, and the grieving mouth--very Irish and very lovely. We have seen many pretty women here in Ireland, but in her day this inn keeper must have been the peer of any. Her husband kept the inn formerly, but as an Irishman told me, "He died suddenly. Throuble with the head," said he, tapping his own. "'Twas heart disease, I think." This is the first Irish bull I've heard. [Illustration: TO THE MEN OF '98 OLIVER SHEPHARD, SCULPTOR] My companion thought he would like a room fronting Lough Swilly and so did I. The maid who had taken charge of us said that that wouldn't be possible, as the only available rooms having such an outlook had been engaged by wire. "But," said my insistent friend, who is the type of American who gets what he wants by smiles if possible, but who certainly gets it, "they won't be here to-day, will they?" "No, not to-day; to-morrow." "Well, let us have the rooms for to-night." "But, will ye give them up when they come?" said she, still hesitating. "Surely. Depend upon it. Count on us to vamoose just as soon as you give the word." "But these people come every year," said she tenaciously. "I don't wonder at it," said O'Donnell. (My friend is of Irish descent.) "I would, too, if I didn't live so far away. Don't you worry, honey. We'll just go out like little lambs as soon as you give the word." There was something delightfully quaint in the notion that because people were coming to the rooms to-morrow night we ought not to have them to-night--the girl was perfectly sincere. She evidently knew the lure of sunrise on the mountains and the lake and feared her ability to oust us once we were ensconced. "We're passing on to-morrow and will be _just_ as _careful_ of the rooms," said O'Donnell in the tone of one who talks to a child, and the pretty maid succumbed, and our valises were deposited in the coveted rooms. But just as she left us she said once more, "You'll go when they come, won't you?" "We sure will," said O'Donnell, with a solemnity that carried conviction with it. "Now about dinner," said he; "we'd like dinner at six thirty. It's now four." "We haven't begun to serve dinners at night yet," said the maid. The summer season had evidently not begun. "Oh, that's too bad," said O'Donnell, "but you'll make an exception in our case now, won't you?" She thought a minute, and O'Donnell smiled on her. I can imagine ice banks melting under that smile. "I suppose we could give you hot roast chicken," said she. "Why, of course you could. Roast chicken is just what you _could_ give us, and potatoes with their jackets on----" "And soup," said the girl, evidently excited over the prospect. "Yes, we'll leave the rest to you." So we went out and walked through the lovely countryside, noting that in Ireland fuchsias grow to the proportions of our lilac bushes and are loaded with the pretty red flowers. We were unable to name most of the trees we saw (but that sometimes happens in America), yet we were both sure we had not seen their like at home. And the freshness of them all, the brilliant quality of their green, fulfilled all expectations. We took a long walk and arrived at the inn with appetites sharpened. Friends in America had told me that I'd not fare very well in Ireland except in the large towns. I would like to ask at what small hotel--New York or Chicago or Philadelphia--I would get as well cooked or as well served a dinner as was brought to me in Londonderry for three shillings and sixpence. If one is looking for Waldorf magnificence and French disguises he'll not find them here unless it is at Dublin, but if one is blessed with a good appetite and is willing to put up with plain cooking I fancy he will do better here than at like hotels at home. [Illustration: PROSPERITY IN LIMERICK] The Irish are such good cooks that we in the east (of America) have been employing them for two generations. Let us not forget that. We entered the dining-room and had an appetizing soup and then the Irish potatoes (oh, such Irish potatoes!) and anything tenderer or better cooked than the chicken it would have been hard to find. We looked at each other and decided that we would not go on to Port Salon next day, but would spend another night in Rathmullan, and we said so to the maid. "But you'll take other rooms?" said she, alarmed at once. "Oh, yes, honey, we'll go anywhere you put us." Now you know we had an itinerary, and to stay longer at Rathmullan was to cut it short somewhere else, but the stillness and calm, the purple shadows on the mountains and the lake (Lough Swilly means Lake of Shadows), had us gripped and we were content to stay and make the most of it. A simple, golden rule sort of people the inhabitants are. We came on a man clipping hawthorn bushes and asked him how far it was to a certain point and whether we could "car" it there. He told us we could and then he said, "Were ye thinkin' of hirin' a car, sir?" "Yes," said O'Donnell. "I have one," said he. "Well," said O'Donnell, "we've talked to the landlady about hiring hers----" "Ah, yes," said the man. "Sure I don't want ye to take mine if she expects to rint hers." Such altruism! We had comfortable beds in the rooms that had been engaged by wire "for to-morrow," and indeed they were so comfortable that we never saw the sunrise at all. But the view from our windows was worth the price of the rooms and that was--listen!--two shillings and sixpence apiece! Wheat porridge and fresh eggs (oh, so fresh!) and yellow cream and graham bread and jam for breakfast. What more do you want? Oh, yes, I know your kind, my dear sir. "What! no steak? No chops, and fried ham and buckwheat cakes and oranges and grapefruit and hot rolls? What sort of a hotel is this for an American? You tell the landlady that they don't know how to run hotels in this country. You tell her to come to God's country, that's what. Then she'll learn how." Yes, then she'll learn how to set out ten or twelve dinkey little saucers of peas and corn and beans and turnips and rice, all tasting alike. But Mr. O'Donnell and I will continue to like the simplicity of this inn. We astonished the easy-going natives by climbing the mountain on Inch Island in the morning for the magnificent view and going fishing for young cod in the afternoon. The young fellow who took us out had the somewhat Chinese name of Toye, but he was Irish. When it came time to settle for the use of the boat and his services for a matter of two hours he wanted to leave it with us. "No, sir," said O'Donnell. "Your Uncle Dudley doesn't do business that way," with one of his beaming smiles. "Oh, I don't know what to charge, sir, pay me what's right." "That's just it. I don't know what's right." "Well, ye were not out so long. Is two shillin's apiece right?" "Very good, indeed, and here's sixpence extra for you," said O'Donnell, paying him. "Oh, thank you, sir," said the boy, evidently thinking the tip far too much. But as we had caught forty-eight fish in the hour we were at the fishing grounds we felt that it was worth it. Sixpence--and to be sincerely thanked for it! There are those who are not money grubbers. [Illustration: MACKEREL SELLER, BUNDORAN, DONEGAL] They use a tackle here that they call "chop sticks"--two pieces of bamboo fastened at right angles, from which depend the gut and hooks, while back of them is the heavy sinker. The sinker rests on the bottom and the ugly red "lugs" (bait) play around in the water until they are gulped by the voracious coddlings, or cod. We had small hooks and caught only the youngsters. Time after time we threw in our lines, got "two strikes" at once and pulled in two cod as fast as we could pull in the line. No sport in the way of fight on the part of the party of the second part, but not a little excitement in thus hauling in toothsome food. We had them for supper and I tell you, O tired business man, if you want to know how good fish can taste, come over here and go a-fishin'. Like us you will stay on and on. Oh, yes, about those other people. No, we didn't get out of our rooms, because the landlady had relatives in America and so she made other arrangements for her expected guests and we stayed on and overlooked Lough Swilly. Americans are popular over here. But I hope they won't spoil these simple folk with either excessive tipping or excessive grumbling. CHAPTER III _A Joyful Day in Donegal_ Holland is noted the world over for its neatness. The Dutch housewives spend a good part of each morning in scrubbing the sidewalks in front of their houses. Philadelphia is also a clean town and there you will see house-maids out scrubbing the front stoops and the brick pavements. Now a good part of the inhabitants of Donegal emigrate to Philadelphia. (We in America all know the song, "For I'm Off to Philadelphia in the Morning.") Well, the third neatest place that occurs to me is Rathmullan, in Lough Swilly, in County Donegal. Whether Philadelphia is neat because of the Irish or the Irish of Donegal go to Philadelphia because it is neat, I leave to others to determine. All my life I've read and have been told that the north of Ireland was very different from the south; that the people were better off and more thrifty, but I did not expect to see such scrupulous neatness. The houses are mostly white and severely plain in line, built of stone faced with plaster, sometimes smooth and sometimes rough finished, but always in apple-pie order (unless they were on parade the three days I was there). Even the alleys are sweet and clean, and where the people keep their pigs is a mystery to me. I snapped one, but he was being driven hither and thither after the manner of Irish pigs, and may not have lived in Rathmullan at all. Here in the town of Donegal while the houses are not of Philadelphia neatness, they show evidence of housewifely care, and if there is abject poverty it is carefully concealed. (I have been a week in Ireland and I have not seen a beggar or a drunken man, although I have kept my eyes moving rapidly.) [Illustration: IN DONEGAL] How often must an emigrant who has elected to live in noisome tenements in American cities long for the white cottages and the green lanes and noble mountains and verdant valleys of Donegal! Every hotel at which I have stopped so far has had hot and cold water baths and I have only been to small towns. I heard a bathing story from a vivacious Irish lady at an evening gathering that may never have seen American printer's ink. She said that in former times a lady stopping at a primitive hotel in the west of Ireland asked for a bath. She was told by the maid that a colonel was performing his ablutions in the room in which the bathing pan was set. "But he'll not be long, I'm thinkin', miss," said the maid. This lady waited awhile in her room, and at last growing impatient, she stepped out into the hall and found the maid with her eye to the keyhole of the bathroom. On hearing the lady's footstep she turned around quite unabashed and said, "He'll be ready in a minute, miss. He's just after gettin' out of the tub." This story was told me in a drawing-room with many young people present, so it must be true, but candor compels me to say that I have observed nothing of the kind on this trip. There are no terrors like those of a bath in an English tub of which I had occasion to speak last year. Speaking of anecdotes, I heard one that concerned the father of the man who showed us through the lovely ruins of McSwiney's castle at Rathmullan. Son, father, and grandfather have all in their turn acted as caretakers of the ruins, and proud enough is the son of his position. But it is of the father that the story goes. The wife of an English admiral, whose family were in the habit of being buried in the graveyard adjoining the abbey whenever they died, departed this life, and to "Jimmy" fell the task of digging her grave. Meeting the admiral some two weeks later he said, "It'll be ten shillings for yon grave." "Is it ten shillings, man?" said the admiral. "Why that's extortionate. I'll pay five shillings and that's a shilling more than usual, but I'll not pay ten shillings." "Ah, well," said Jimmy, composedly, "if ye'll not pay ten shillings then I'll dig her up again." And the admiral, knowing Jimmy to be a man of his word, paid him what does not look to be an exorbitant price. Among the most impressive ruins in the world are those of the Grianan (or summer palace) of Aileach on Elagh mountain. Here is a circular fort of rocks some three hundred feet in circumference that antedates Christ's nativity by from two thousand to three thousand years. It is supposed to have been a temple of the sun worshippers and occupies a magnificent and awesome position from which to see either the arrival or the departure of the sun god, for the half of County Donegal lies north, south, east, and west at your feet. Such an extended view is seldom vouchsafed to the dwellers within towns and I don't wonder that the sun worshippers built there a temple to their deity. There it still stands, its walls eighteen feet high and twelve feet thick. It has been somewhat restored by Dr. Bernard, of Derry, but does not seem to vie with the Giant's Causeway as an attraction to visitors. There were only three persons there when we went up, but there is a holy well just outside of it and from the number of bandages fluttering in the wind there I imagine that a good many maimed people manage to scale the steep ascent. I said that Elagh mountain afforded a fine view for the dwellers within towns. It is only six miles by car and a mile by foot (I suppose seven miles in any manner would cover it) from Derry. By the way, for ease and comfort to a naturally lazy man, commend me to a jaunting car. The cushioned top with which they cover the "well" that lies between the sidewise seats is an admirable place on which to "slop over" and loll on from the seat, and so far from being an insecure perch, it is just as safe as a dog cart or a buggy. And the motion is pleasantly stimulating to the system. The well-built, vigorous, well-fed cob trots with the regularity of a metronome or a London cab horse, reeling off mile after mile. We did our twelve miles to and from Elagh mountain in less than two hours and at a cost of three shillings apiece, exclusive of the sixpenny tip. They don't do those things as cheap in New York or Chicago. At Donegal my friend had to see a solicitor on business and after it was over he came to me and said that the solicitor would like to take us sailing down Donegal Bay. I was delighted to go, but I wondered whether we would walk down to the bay or ride there. I knew that it was several miles out, for I had seen it across the wet sands that stretch from the town's center seaward. My uncertainty was soon dispelled, for two minutes' walk brought us to where the bare sands had been a few hours before, and lo, Donegal Bay had come to us and the solicitor's boat was riding on the water waiting to be off. A tide is a handy thing to have about. As one leaves the inlet and looks back he gets a picture that might have been composed by an exceedingly successful landscape gardener. The trim little town showing a bit of the ruins of Donegal castle and one graceful church spire, wooded hills running up from the town on either side; back of all this hills of greater magnitude, destitute of trees, and then, towering up in the distance, the great, gaunt Barnesmore that forms part of a heaven-kissing train. We sailed well out into the bay with favoring winds, and had most noble views of purple mountains on every side, but when we turned to go back the wind made off to sea, laughing at us, and we came back laggingly, but in plenty of time for a cozy supper in the solicitor's home and an all evening chat with him. We had never met until that day, but his welcome was as hearty as if he had been anxiously awaiting our coming. As I got off the train at Donegal a heavy hand clapped me on the shoulder, and, turning, I saw Seumas McManus, whose Irish stories are so well known in America. He lives at Mount Charles, a village lying three Irish miles from Donegal, and nothing would do but my friend and I must have dinner with him. We accepted with pleasure, and next day walked up there, meeting more pretty girls returning from mass than it seemed right for two to meet when there were so many people in the world who seldom see a pretty face. But we tried to bear our good fortune meekly and strode on, quite conscious in the warm sun that an Irish mile has an English mile beaten by many yards. That ought to be cause for satisfaction to any Irishman. McManus has a bungalow on top of Mount Charles, and at his feet lie seven counties. They have a way of throwing counties at your feet in this part of Ireland that makes the view superb. The furthermost land that is his to look at on a clear day lies a hundred miles to the south. Such a view ought to stimulate a man to noble thoughts, and I was not surprised to learn that McManus is a member of the Sinn Fein (Shinn Fane) Society (it means, "Ourselves Alone"), what one might call bloodless revolutionists, although it comprises much of the best blood and the youngest blood in Ireland. [Illustration: THE BUNGALOW OF SEUMAS MCMANUS] McManus is an ardent believer in a glorious future for Ireland when she shall have shaken off the shackles that bind her, and as a good American, I wrote in his guest book, "May Ireland come to her own before I die." CHAPTER IV _The Dull Gray Skies of Ireland_ I am coming more and more to believe that we have better weather in America than we give the poor country credit for. What passes for good weather here would make a poor substitute for the American article. I will not deny that it is soft and insinuating, but it is also not to be depended upon. I went out to climb a wild-looking mountain near Bundoran, on the northwest coast. To my inexperienced eye the day looked promising--that is promising rain--but the driver, of whom I had ordered a car to take me to the base of the mountain, said there'd be no rain. All those ugly clouds hovering over the summit of it were merely reminders that there was such a thing as rain, and so we started. [Illustration: A SKY LINE AT BUNDORAN] And here let me make a few remarks about Irish weather in general. You are out walking in a fine "mizzle," that penetrates ordinary cloth with the utmost ease, and you meet a countryman to whom you observe "Not very pleasant." "Oh, it's a bit soft, but it's pleasant enough." What a blessing it is to be easily satisfied. You strike a day without sun and positively chilly, and the natives assure you it is fine, that they had awful weather last week, but that, according to the barometer, the weather is going to be steady for awhile. They have borrowed the barometer habit from the English, and it really is a comfort when you're going for a long walk or drive to see that it points to fair. "Fair to middling" would be better. Well, my driver and I set out for the mountain, and on the way I asked him the question I ask all of the peasants with whom I hold conversation, "Would you like to go to America?" "Sure I would. I'll not be stayin' here long. I've an aunt an' a brother an' a cousin an' a sister an' an uncle beyant. There's no chance here." I wonder whether the reason why there is no chance is because the Irishman is lacking in application. I fell in with a delightful man at a little town in County Fermanagh. I wanted a little thing done to my watch and I asked him how long it would take to do it. He assured me that he was driven to death with work and was up till late every night trying to get ahead, but that he would try to find time to mend my watch some time before seven o'clock, when he nominally closed. Then he followed me to the door of his shop and began to ask me questions about America, which I was glad to answer, as I had a half hour to kill before starting for some sight or other, and I killed that half hour most agreeably with the little man's help. He pointed out different passers by and told me their life histories. And every once in a while he would say, "I've not had a day off for nearly a year, not even bank holiday. Never a minute for anything but work. I've an order now that's going to keep me busy, except for the time I'll give to your watch, all the rest of the day. And dinner eaten in my workshop to save time." I told him I wished he wasn't so driven, but I knew how it was with a man who did good work, and then I bade him good day and didn't go near there until seven in the evening. I found him outside the shop discussing the strike of the constabulary at Belfast with a neighbor. "Awfully sorry, sir, but I've been so busy to-day that I've been unable to finish that job. It'll not take over twenty minutes when I get to it. Can you come in the morning?" I told him I could, say about eight o'clock. "Oh, dear no. We don't open the shops until nine." "Very well, then, nine will do." And having some more time that I wished to kill I entered into a discussion with him and his neighbor as to the extent to which the constabulary disaffection would spread, and it was eight o'clock when I went back to my hotel. Next morning I was at the shop at nine and he was just taking down the shutters. Said he'd worked until ten the night before, but seemed further behind than before. If I'd come up into his workroom he'd fix my watch while I waited. Up there he had some photographs to show me that he had taken a year ago and had only just found time to develop, and we talked photography for a matter of twenty minutes, and then he fixed my watch in a jiffy when he got to work. [Illustration: THE ROCKS AT BUNDORAN ON THE WEST COAST] He's typical not only of Irishmen, but of Yankees, too--men who can work fast if you seal their mouths. I was sorry I had to journey on, because our talks had been pleasant and it had never once entered his head that he was wasting that time of which he had so little, although he dealt in watches. But to return to my driver. When we reached the base of the mountain he put the horse up in a stone stable that belonged to a poor woman. Think of a poor woman housing her cow in a stone stable, built to stand the wear and tear of generations! We had no sooner begun our climb of the hill or mountain than the rain came down in earnest, and my shoes were soon wet through, but I persevered, somewhat to the disappointment of the boy, who was better used to being wet on his car than on foot. But when we reached the top the view of all Donegal bay and the mountains beyond, and many other bits of geography not half as beautiful on the map as they are in nature, repaid me for my climb and wetting. And when I said, "It's too bad it rained just as we got here," my driver said, "It's always rainin' on the mountains," although when he was getting me for a passenger he had assured me it wouldn't rain on the mountain. We made our way down through the wet, but still beautifully purple heather, and just as we reached the level the rain stopped. It was as if our feet upon the mountain had precipitated the rain. But at the close of the drive I found a comfortable inn and a most agreeable dinner of fresh caught fish, and that mutton that we never seem to get in America, and I still felt that the climb was worth the wetting. But the weather never ceases to astonish me. Dull gray skies at home would depress me, but here I am thankful for dull gray skies if they only stop leaking long enough to enable me to do my accomplished task of walking or driving. But real rain has no terrors for countryman or city man in Ireland. I attended a concert at the exhibition in Dublin (and it would not have been a tax on the imagination to pretend one was at Lunar Park in Coney Island or at the French Exposition or the Pan-American). There was the usual bandstand, and the Dublin populace to the extent of several thousands were seated on little chairs listening to the combined bands of H. M. Second Life Guards, the Eighty-seventh Royal Irish Fusiliers (Faugh-a-Ballaghs) and the Forty-second Royal Highlanders (the Black Watch). Outside the circle of those in seats passed and repassed a slowly promenading crowd made up of pretty Dublin girls and their escorts, with mustaches as spindle-waxed as ever any Frenchman's, a sprinkling of English, and the ever-present Americans, with their alert eyes, the Americans straw-hatted, the English derbied, and the Irish, almost to a man, wearing huge, soft green or gray-visored cloth caps. Suddenly the rain began to fall. I know at least two Americans who put for shelter, but the Irish people present merely put up umbrellas and went on promenading and sitting and listening to the music. Gay strains from "The Mikado" (there were no Japanese present), somber umbrellas, colorful millinery and drizzling rain. An American crowd would have made for the main exhibition building, but I doubt if the Dubliners noticed that it was raining. Their umbrellas went up under subconscious direction. After the concert the crowds went home in the double-decker electric trams, and every seat on the roof of every car was filled by the holiday crowd, although the rain was still coming down in a relentless fashion. In the north they would have called it a bit soft. I know we felt like mush when we arrived at our hotel. CHAPTER V _The Joys of Third-Class Travel_ In Ireland, if you wish to travel third class, it is well to get into a carriage marked "non smoking." If there is no sign on it it is a smoking compartment, quite probably, the custom here being often the direct opposite of that in Great Britain. If you are traveling with women in the party the second class is advisable, but the third has this advantage--it saves you money that you can spend on worthless trinkets that may be confiscated by our customs house officers. I have been ten days in the north of Ireland and I met my first drunken man in a third-class carriage. Will the W. C. T. U. kindly make a note of this? Allow me to repeat for the benefit of those who took up the paper after I had begun--I have been ten days in Ireland and have traveled afoot, acar, and on train and tram through half a dozen northern counties and have been on the outlook for picturesque sights, and I saw my first drunken man yesterday afternoon--the afternoon of the tenth day. He was in a third-class smoking compartment, and in my hurry to make my train I stepped in without noticing the absence of the sign. He was a very old and rather nice-looking, clean-shaven man, and his instincts were for the most part of the kindliest, but he would have irritated Charles Dickens exceedingly, for he was an inveterate spitter, of wonderful aim, and, like the beautiful lady in the vaudeville shows whose husband surrounds her with knives without once touching her, I was surrounded but unharmed. When the old man saw my straw hat a gleam of interest came into his dull eye, and he came over and sat down right opposite me. "Are ye a Yankee?" said he. I assured him that I was. "I thought so be your hat, but you don't talk like a Yankee." So I handed him out a few "by Goshes," which he failed to recognize and told me plainly that he doubted my nationality. Except for my hat I was no Yankee. Now my hat was made in New York, but I knew that this was a subtlety that would pass him, so I again proclaimed my nationality, and he asked me with great politeness if I objected to his smoking (keeping up his fusillade all the time) and I with polite insincerity told him that I didn't. For his intentions were of the kindliest. I believe he would have stopped spitting if I had asked him to, but I hated to deprive so old a man of so quiet a pleasure. The talk now turned to the condition of Ireland, and he told me in his maudlin, thickly articulated way that Ireland was on the eve of a great industrial revival. As I had repeatedly heard this from the lips of perfectly sober people I believed it. I told him that he would live to see a more prosperous Ireland. [Illustration: GEESE IN GALWAY] This he refused to believe and once more asked me if I was as American as my hat. I assured him that perhaps I was even more so and that his grandchildren would surely live to see Triumphant Ireland. This he accepted gladly, and coming to his place of departure, bade me kindly farewell, and stumbled over his own feet out of the compartment. And I immediately changed to one where smoking was not allowed. It was on the same journey that I stopped at a place called Omagh, and while waiting for a connection we were at the station some time. I was reading, but suddenly became conscious that some young people were having a very happy time, for peal after peal of laughter rang through the station. After awhile I looked up and found that I was the cause of all this joy on the part of young Ireland. There were three or four girls absolutely absorbed in me and my appearance. I supposed it was again the American hat, but suddenly one of the girls "pulled a face" that I recognized as a caricature of my own none too merry countenance, and the group went off into new peals of merriment. "How pleasant a thing it is," thought I, "that by the mere exhibition of the face nature gave me in America I can amuse perfect strangers in a far-off land," and I smiled benignantly at the young women, which had the effect of nearly sending them into hysterics. Life was a little darker for them after the train pulled out, but I could not stay in Omagh for the mere purpose of exciting their risibles by the exposition of my gloomy features. Everywhere I go I am a marked man. I feared for a time that there was something the matter with my appearance, but at Enniskillen I fell in with a young locomotive engineer from California, and he told me that he too aroused attention wherever he went, and that in Cork youngsters followed him shouting "Yankee!" Fancy a "Yankee" from California! At Enniskillen I went for a walk with this young engine driver and we passed two pretty young girls, of whom he inquired the way to the park. It seems that the young women were on their way there themselves and they very obligingly showed us how to go. It occurred to the gallant young Californian that such an exhibition of kindliness was worth rewarding, and he asked the ladies if they did not care to stroll through the park. They, having nothing else to do and the evening being fine, consented, and we made a merry quartette. I have been somewhat disappointed in the Irishman as a wit in my actual contact with him on his native heath, but these girls showed that wit was still to be found. They were very quick at decorous repartee, and although my San Francisco friend neglected to introduce me to them (possibly because he did not know their names), I paid a tribute to their gifts of conversation. Nor should it be imagined for a moment that they were of that sisterhood so deservedly despised by that estimable and never to be too well thought of Mrs. Grundy--they were simply working girls who were out for an evening stroll and who saw in a chance conversation with representatives of the extreme east and west of America an opportunity for mental improvement. They were, it may be, unconventional, but how much more interesting are such people than those whose lives are ordered by rule. We left the young women in the park intent upon the glories of a day that was dying hard (after eighteen hours of daylight) and as we made our way to the hotel we agreed that a similar readiness to converse with strangers on the part of young women in New York would have given reasonable cause for various speculations. But Ireland has a well-earned reputation for a certain thing, which the just published table of vital statistics for the year 1906 goes far to strengthen. In the morning the young locomotive pusher and myself had attended a cattle show at Enniskillen fair grounds. I don't mind saying that I had stayed over a day in order to go to the fair, for I have not read Irish literature for nothing, and I was perfectly willing to see a fight and ascertain the strength of a shillelagh as compared with a Celtic skull. It was a great day for Enniskillen and for the Enniskillen Guards, who were out in force. There were also pretty maidens from all the surrounding counties and not a few of the gentry who had been attracted by the jumping contests. But--what a disappointment. Irishmen? Why, you'll see more Irishmen any pleasant day below Fourteenth Street in New York. And those that were there were so painfully well behaved and quiet. And as for speaking the Irish dialect--well, I wish that some of the Irish comedians who have been persuaded that Irishmen wear green whiskers would come over here and listen to Irishmen speak. They wouldn't understand them, they speak so like other people. For ginger and noise and varied interests any New England cattle show has this one beaten to a pulp--if one may use so common an expression in a newspaper. The noisiest things there were the bulls, and they were vociferous and huge. But the men were soft spoken and there seemed little of the "Well, I swan! I hain't seen you for more'n two years. How's it goin'?" "Oh, fair to middlin'. Able to set up an' eat spoon vittles" atmosphere in the place, although undoubtedly it was a great gathering of people who seldom met. Not a single side show. Not a three-card monte man or a whip seller or a vendor of non-intoxicants. There was just one man selling what must have been mock oranges, for such mockeries of oranges I never saw. They were the size of peaches and the engineer told me they were filled with dusty pulp. I bought none. The racing and fence jumping in the afternoon were interesting, but there was no wild Yankee excitement on the part of the crowd and no hilarity. There was only one man that I noticed as having taken more than was necessary, and the only effect it had on him was to unlock the flood gates of an incoherent eloquence that caused a great deal of amusement to those who were able to extricate a sequence of ideas from the alcoholic freshet of words. One venerable-looking man, with a flowing white beard of the sort formerly worn by Americans of the requisite years, fell from a fence where he was viewing the jumping and was knocked out for a time. He had been "overcome by the heat," at which, out of respect to him, I took off my overcoat. The Irish idea of heat is different from the New York one. The splendid old fellow had served thirty-three years on the police force and had been a police pensioner for thirty-one years, and as he must have been twenty-one when he joined the force he was upwards of eighty-five. Would Edward Everett Hale view a race from a picket fence? There is something in the Irish air conducive to longevity. In the evening I saw the old man standing in the doorway of a temperance hotel talking with men some seventy years younger than he. A local tradesman told me that in the town of Enniskillen where formerly any public gathering was sure to be followed by a public fight, he had seen the Catholic band and the Orangemen's band playing amicably the same tune (I'll bet it wasn't "The Wearing of the Green"), as they marched side by side up the main street. The world do move. CHAPTER VI _A Few Irish Stories_ If you enter Ireland by the north, as I did, you will not hear really satisfying Irish dialect until you reach Dublin. The dialect in the north is very like Scotch, yet if it were set down absolutely phonetically it would be neither Scotch nor Irish to the average reader, but a new and hard dialect, and he would promptly skip the story that was clothed in this strange dress. But in Dublin one hears two kinds of speech, the most rolling, full and satisfying dialect and also the most perfect English to be found in the British Isles. It is a delight to hear one's mother tongue spoken with such careless precision, with just the suspicion of a brogue to it. I am told it is really the way that English was spoken when the most successful playwright was not Shaw, but Shakespeare. [Illustration: _DUBLIN BAY_] The folk tale that follows was told me, not by a Dublin jarvey, but by a Dublin artist whose command of the right word was as great as his command of his brush. He regaled me with many stories of Irishmen and Ireland and never let pass a chance to abuse the English in the most amusingly good-natured way. To him the English as a race were a hateful, selfish lot. Most of the Englishmen he knew personally were exceptions to this rule, but he was convinced that the average Englishman was a man who was nurtured in selfishness and hypocritical puritanism. But this is far afield from his story of the first looking glass. Once upon a time (said my friend) a man was out walking by the edge of the ocean and he picked up a looking glass. Into the glass he looked and he saw there the face of himself. "Oh," said he, "'tis a picture of my father," and he took it to his cabin and hung it on the wall. And often he would go to look at it, and always he said, "'Tis a picture of my father." But one day he took to himself a wife, and when she went to the mirror and looked in she said: "I thought you said this was a picture of your father. Sure, it is a picture of an ugly, red-headed woman. Who is she?" "What have ye?" said the man. "Step away and let me to it." So she stepped away and let him to it and he looked at it again. "Ah," said he with a sigh (for his father was dead), "'tis a picture of my father." "Step away," said she, "and let me see if it's no eyes at all I have. What have you with pictures of women?" So he stepped away and let her to it, and she looked in it again. "An ugly, red-headed woman it is," said she. "You had a lover before me," and she was very angry. "Sure we'll leave it to the priest," said he. And when the priest passed by they called him in and said, "Father, tell us what it is that this picture is about. I say it is my father, who is dead." "And I say it is a red-haired woman I never saw," said the woman. "Step away," said the priest, with authority, "and let me to it." So they stepped away and let the priest to it, and he looked at it. "Sure neither you nor the woman was right. What eyes have ye? It is a picture of a holy father. I will take it to adorn the church." And he took it away with him, to the gladness of the wife, who hated the woman her husband had in the frame, and to the grief of the man, who could see his father no more. But in the church was the picture of a holy man. Quite the folklore quality. I heard a story of a well-known Dublin priest, Father Healy, very witty and very kindly, who was invited by a millionaire, probably a brewer, to go on a cruise with him. Over the seas they sailed and landed at many ports, and the priest could not put his hand into his pocket, for he was the guest of the millionaire. At last they returned to Dublin and the millionaire, being a man of simplicity of character, the two took a tram to their destination. "Now it's my turn," said the priest, with a twinkle in his eye, and, putting his hand in his pocket, he paid the fare for the two. [Illustration: A DUBLIN ICE CART] And here's another. Two Irishmen were in Berlin at a music hall, and just in front of them sat two officers with their shakos on their heads. Leaning forward, with a reputation for courtesy to sustain, one of the Irishmen said, pleasantly, "Please remove your helmet; I can't see the stage for the plume." By way of reply the German officer insolently flipped the Irishman in the face with his glove. In a second the Irishman was on his feet and in another second the officer's face was bleeding from a crashing blow. Satisfaction having been thus obtained, the two Irishmen left the cafe and returned to their hotel, where they boasted of the affair. Fortunately kind friends at once showed them the necessity of immediately crossing the frontier. That the Irishman had not been run through by the officer's sword was due to the fact that he was a foreigner. Speaking of fights, the other day an American friend of mine was taking a walk in Dublin and he came on a street fight. Four men were engaged in it, and no one else was interfering. Passers by glanced over their shoulders and walked on. Two women, evidently related to the contestants, stood by awaiting the result. My friend mounted a flight of steps and watched the affair with unaffected interest. A member of the Dublin constabulary happened to pass the street, and, glancing down, saw to his disgust that it was up to him to stop a fight. Slowly he paced toward them, giving them time to finish at least one round. But the two women saw him coming and, rushing into the mixture of fists and arms and legs, hustled the combatants into the house, and the policeman went along his beat twirling, not his club, but his waxed mustache. I told a Dublin man of this incident, deploring my luck in not having come across it with my camera in my hand. He said: "That policeman was undoubtedly sorry that he happened on the row. He would much have preferred to let them fight it out while he sauntered by on another street all unknowing. Not that he was afraid to run them in, but that an Irishman loves a fight." Another sight that I saw myself at a time when my camera was not with me was two little boys, not five years apiece, engaged in a wrestling match under the auspices of their father, who proudly told me that they were very good at it. The little fellows shook hands, flew at each other, and wrestled for all they were worth. And from the time they clinched until one or the other was thrown they were laughing with joy. They wrestled for several rounds, but the laughter never left them. How much better it is for little children to learn to fight under the watchful and appreciative eye of a kind father than to learn at the hands of vindictive strangers. [Illustration: O'CONNELL'S MONUMENT, DUBLIN] CHAPTER VII _Snapping and Tipping_ The poor man never knows the cares and responsibilities that beset the man of wealth, and the man without a kodak does not know how keen is the disappointment of a picture missed--be the cause what it may. Heretofore I have traveled care free for two reasons: one was I never had any money to speak of, and the other was I never carried a camera. I looked at the superb view, or the picturesque street group, solely for its passing interest, with never a thought of locking it up in a black box for the future delectation of my friends, and to bore transient visitors who, as I have noticed, always begin to look up their time tables when the snapshot album is produced of a rainy Sunday afternoon. But this year some one with the glib tongue of a salesman persuaded me of the delights that were consequent on the pressing of a button, and I purchased a camera of the sort that makes its owner a marked man. The first two or three days I was as conscious as a man who has just shaved his mustache on a dare, and who expects his wife home from the country any minute. I fancied that every one knew I was a novice, although even I hadn't seen any of my pictures as yet. I snapped a number of friends on the steamer, and even had the audacity to make the captain look pleasant--but in his case it came natural, and really, when it was printed, even strangers could hear his hearty laugh whenever they looked at the picture, so true to life was it. Of course it was beginner's luck, but as I went on snapping and getting the films developed I found that I had picked up a fine lens, and the pictures I was taking were really worth while, and then-- Say, have you ever had hen fever? Has your pulse ever quickened at sight of an egg you could call your own? Have you ever breathed hard, when the old hen led forth thirteen fluffy chickens and you reflected that thirteen chickens would reach the egg-laying stage in seven months, and that if each of them hatched out thirteen you would have one hundred and sixty-nine inside of a year--and then have you gone out and bought twenty old hens, so as to have wholesale success--with deplorable results? If you have done all these things you know what a man does whose first snapshots are successful. I laid in supplies of films till my pockets bulged and my purse looked lean. And the first time the sun shone after landing at 'Derry, I went out to see the Giant's Causeway--and left my camera behind me. Then I experienced for the first time the sensation as of personal loss, when the views that might have been mine were left where they grew. On my way back I came on a hardened old sinner of sixty odd years teaching a little kiddie of four to smoke a cigarette. If I had had my camera I could have batted the old man over the head with it. But it was in the hotel. When I show my views to visitors they will say, "And didn't you go to the Giant's Causeway?" nor will they accept my reason for the lack of a view. And I feel that the set is incomplete. As time went on I noticed several things that are probably obvious to every amateur. One was that on the days on which I remembered to take my camera I saw very commonplace subjects and only snapped because I had the habit. Another was that no matter how fine the weather was when I set out with my camera, it was sure to cloud up, just as we reached the castle or met the pretty peasant girl, who was only too willing to be taken. [Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO LISMORE, IN A RAIN STORM] One day I was walking from Cappoquin to Lismore, all unconscious of what lay before me, and just for wantonness I took trees and pictures that might have been in any country. At last I had but two films left, and then the meeting of several droves of cattle coming from Lismore told me that it must be Fair Day there. Just then lovely, noble, glorious Lismore castle burst on my view and I had to take it. And then I came on the fair and saw pictures at every turn. Funny little donkeys with heads quite buried in burlap bags the while they sought for oats, gay-petticoated and pretty-faced women in groups, grizzled farmers that looked the part, waterbutts on wheels in Rembrandtesque passageways, leading to sunlit courtyards beyond--regular prize winners if one had any sort of luck. And then a man with an ingratiating brogue asked me to take him and his cart and almost before I knew it I had taken a sow that weighed all of five hundred pounds, and my snapshooting was over for the day. You may be sure that next day I went well prepared, but Fair Day is only once a month, and fair days are not much more plentiful, and it rained all day, and the only thing I saw worth taking was a sort of Don Quixote windmill that had been run by a horse probably years before the expression "the curse o' Crummel" (Cromwell) came to be used, and I was in a swiftly moving train and there was a woman in the way--oh! there's no doubt that camerading is fascinating, but it is also vexatious. Still, my advice to those about to travel is--take a camera. If it's a very rainy Sunday you may want them to leave on an early train. Tipping is a subject that is always worth discussing. A man does not like to give less than the usual tip, and he ought not to give more, because it makes it hard for the next man, who may not be able to afford much of an expenditure. Tipping in Ireland is a very mild thing compared to continental tipping. I'll never forget my first experience in Amsterdam. I have spent many agreeable and useful years since then, and the world has been better for my presence, for eighty-four months at least, since that day, but the comic opera features of that first wholesale tipping stand out as if I heard the whole thing last night at some Broadway theater. There were two of us, and we had spent two delightful days in Amsterdam, doing the picture galleries and confirming Baedeker as hard as we could, and now we must give up the two huge rooms on the first floor that we occupied at the Grand Hotel (to give it a name) and make our way to other Dutch hostelries. I said to Massenger, "How about tipping? Does it obtain in Holland?" "Oh, yes," said Massenger, with a gleam in his eye. "It obtains all right. You leave it to them." "How much shall I leave to them?" said I, looking at the small coins I had withdrawn from my pocket. "Well, we have been royally treated, and there are a good many waiters and chambermaids and 'portiers,' and a proprietor or two, and the equivalent for boots, and the 'bus driver." "But how are we to get them all?" "Just pay your bill and you'll get them all right," said Massenger. (I should explain that whoever travels with me is called Massenger. It saves trouble.) I did not quite understand, but I signified my intention of paying my bill, and the proprietor or his steward was all bows and smiles, and handed it to me, at the same time ringing a bell. Then the chorus began to assemble. Lads and maidens in the persons of waiters whom I had never seen, and chambermaids of whom I had never heard, began to swarm into the office. After they had ranged themselves picturesquely the boots began to arrive. Some from neighboring hotels who had heard the bell came running in, and grouped themselves behind the maids. Then a head waiter who looked like a tenor came seriously in and I expected that in a moment I would hear: "'Tis the very first of May, Though we've not a thing to say, We will stand here, anyway Stand awhile and sing." I looked at Massenger and asked him what it all meant. "It's in our honor," said he. "We've got to shell out." And sure enough it was. We had to disgorge pro rata to all the assembled ones, and Massenger said afterward that he thought one or two of the guests came in for certain of our gratuities. When we stepped into the 'bus, quite innocent of coins of any sort, I listened, expecting to hear: "Now, in spite of rainy day, We have gone and made our hay. And I don't care what you say, When the Yankees come this way We get what they bring." They got it all right, but I was quite unnerved for some time. The attack had been so sudden. In Ireland there is nothing to equal this for system, and a copper does make a man feel grateful--or at least it does make him express gratitude. I have yet to hear curses in Ireland. But when you visit private houses you don't know what to do. Tips are expected there--not by everybody, but by maid and coachman, anyhow, and you wonder what is the right thing to do. To be sure you have caused trouble. You have placed your boots outside your door, just as you have latterly learned to do at home, and it was a maid who gave them that dull polish that wears out in a half hour. Leave polish behind when you leave America--that seems, by the way, to be the motto of a good many traveling Americans, but I referred to the kind that you can see your face in when imparted by an Italian. [Illustration: MILK WAGON, MALLOW] I had an experience when on my way to visit Lady ----, in County Monaghan, in the central part of Ireland. Just how much to tip a coachman of a "Lady" I did not know. A shilling did not seem enough, and two shillings seemed a good deal, and the fellow did not have the arrogance of an English coachman. He was simple and kindly, and was willing to talk to me, although he never ventured a word unless I spoke to him. When I had alighted at Ballybully station a ragged man had seized my valise, and on ascertaining my destination had carried it to a smart jaunting car driven by a liveried driver. I offered him a copper, and he looked at it and said, "Sure, you're too rich a man to be contint with that." So to contint meself I gave him sixpence, just what I had paid for having my trunk carried one hundred and eighty miles, and climbed to the car. On the way to the estate of Lady Clancarty (to give her a name also) I figured on what I'd better give. To give too much would be as bad as to give too little. Still, if it cost a sixpence for my suit case to go a hundred yards, a three-mile drive should be worth a half pound at least. At last, just as we were driving in at the lodge gates, I foresaw that I must make haste--as it would never do to hand out my tip in the presence of my hostess--so I reached over the "well" and handed two shillings to the driver. He seemed surprised and pulled a bit hard on the left line. There was a swerve, a loud snap, and the step of the car was broken short off against the gate! I was conscience-stricken, but said not a word for a minute. Then the driver said, "I've been driving for twinty-three years and niver had an accident before." He had jumped out and thrown the step into the "well" between us. I had visions of the sacking of the old family driver, and all because I had not known how much of a gratuity to give him. But when I offered to make up the damage he said, "Indeed an' I'll be able to fix it myself." And fix it he did, so that no one was the wiser. But the pain of those few moments when I expected to be driven into the presence of my hostess with the car a wreck will not soon fade. As a matter of fact, it was a good half mile to the house after we left the lodge, and when we arrived I jumped from the seat without using the step, and no one ever knew the humiliation that had come to the driver after twenty-three years. CHAPTER VIII _Random Remarks on Things Corkonian_ They told me that Cork was a very dirty city. They even said it was filthy, and they said it in such a way as to reflect on Irishmen in general and Corkonians in particular. Yes, they said that Cork was a dirty city, and so I found it--almost as dirty as New York. This may sound like a strong statement, but I mean it. When I arrived in Cork I saw a hill and made for it at once, because after railway there is nothing that so takes the kinks out of a fellow's legs as a walk up a stiff hill. And anyhow I was on a walking tour. I arrived at the top about sunset. On reading this sentence over I find that it sounds as if the hill was an all-day journey, but it was only a matter of a few squares, and when I started the sun had long since made up its mind to set. In Ireland the sun takes on Irish ways, and is just a little dilatory. It always means to set, and it always does set in time to avoid being out in the dark, but it's "an unconscionably long time a dying." At the summit of the hill I saw a church steeple that appealed to my esthetic sense, and I asked a little boy what church it was. "Shandon churrch, sirr," said he with the rapid and undulating utterance of the Corkonian. "Where the bells are?" said I. "Yes," said he, smiling. "And over beyont is the Lee." "The pleasant waters of the river Lee," I quoted at him, and he smiled again. Probably every traveler who goes to Cork quotes the lovely old bit of doggerel, but the Corkonian smiles and smiles. The river Lee runs through the center of Cork, and at evening it is a favorite place for fishing, also for learning to swim on dry land. The fishermen seem to fish for the love of casting, and the little boys swim on the pavement--two pursuits as useless as they are pleasant. Over the bridge the fishermen leaned, and cast their lines in anything but pleasant places--for the river is malodorous--and the little boys stood on benches and dived to the pavement, where they spat and then went through the motions of swimming. There were dozens of the little boys, and most of them seemed to be brothers. Some of them were quite expert in diving backward, and all of them were dirty, but they seemed to be happy. I could not help thinking how soon the Celtic mind begins to use symbols, for it was easy to see that when the boys spat it signified a watering place to them. I dare say they were breaking a city ordinance in spitting, and if they knew that they were that much happier--stolen sweets are the sweetest. During the time I watched the setting sun--which was still at it and, by the way, performed some lovely variations on a simple color scheme in the sky--not even an eel was caught, but the fishermen cast under the bridge, let their bait float down the (un) pleasant waters, and drew in their lines again and again--mute examples of a patience that one does not associate with Ireland. At last I left them and started out to find Shandon church, which seemed but a few squares away. My pathway led through the slums, and up a hill so steep that I hope horses only use it as a means of descent. I passed one fireside where the folks looked cosy and happy and warm. It was a summer evening, but chilly, and the place into which I looked was a shop for the sale of coal. Shoemakers' children are generally barefooted, but these people were burning their own coal, and the mother and the dirty children sprawled around the store or home, in a shadow-casting way, that would have delighted Mynheer Rembrandt if he had passed by. I was struck with the population of Cork. It was most of it on the sidewalk, and nearly all of it was under sixteen. Pretty faces, too, among them, and happy looking. I think that sympathy would have been wasted on them. They had so much more room than they would have had in New York, and they were not any dirtier--than New Yorkers of the same class. After I had reached the top of the hill I turned and looked for Shandon church and it was gone. I asked a boy what had become of it, and he told me that in following my winding way through the convolutions known as streets I had gotten as far from the church as I could in the time. He told me pleasantly just how to go to get to the church, and it involved going to the foot of the hill and beginning again. I asked a number of times after that, and always got courteous but rapid answers. The Irish are great talkers, but the Corkonian could handicap himself with a morning's silence, and beat his brothers from other counties before evening. At last I came on the church, passing, just before I reached it, the Greencoat Hospital National School, with its quaint and curious (to quote three of Poe's words) statues of a green-coated boy and girl. I asked a man when the bells began to ring (for I had been told that they only rang at night). "'Every quar-rter of an hour, sirr, they'll be ringing in a couple of minutes, sirr." [Illustration: GREEN COAT HOSPITAL, CORK] One likes to indulge in a bit of sentiment sometimes, and I stood and waited to hear the bells of Shandon that sound so grand on the pleasant waters of the river Lee. I had left the Lee to the fishermen and the make-believe swimmers, but the bells would sound sweetly here under the tower that held them. A minute passed, and then another, and then I heard music--music that called forth old memories of days long since dead. How it pealed out its delight on the (icy) air of night. And how well I knew the tune: "Down where the Wurzburger flows." No, it was not the chimes, but a nurse in the hospital at a piano. Before she had finished, Shandon bells began, but they played what did not blend with what she sang, and I went on my way thinking on the potency of music. I passed on down where the river Lee flowed, and the fishermen were still fishing, but the little boys had tired of swimming. Two signs met me at nearly every corner. One read, "James J. Murphy & Co.," and the other "Beamish & Crawford," or "Crawford & Beamish," I forget which. Both marked the places of publicans (and sinners, I doubt not), and both were brewers' names. The publican's own name never appeared, but these names were omnipresent. Again I thought of Shandon bells, and the romantic song, "Down Where the Wurzburger Flows," and leaving the Lee still flowing I sought my hotel. I would like to make a revolutionary statement, that is more often thought than uttered, but before I make it, I would like to say that there are two classes of travelers: those who think there is nothing in Europe that compares with similar things in America, and those who think there is nothing in America that can hold a candle to similar things in Europe. I hope I belong to neither class. If I mistake not, I am a Pharisee, and thank my stars that I am not as other men are. Most of us are Pharisees, but few will admit it. I began being a Pharisee when I was a small child, and that is the time that most people begin. I kept it up. In this, I am--like the multitude. Having thus stated my position, let me go on to say, that I am perfectly willing to admit that this or that bit of scenery in France, or Switzerland, or England, or Ireland, lays over anything of the sort I ever saw in America, if I think it does, and I am equally willing to say, that America has almost unknown bits that are far better than admired and poet-ridden places in Europe. Twin Lakes in Connecticut is one of them, and Killarney is a poet-ridden place. Why, even in Ireland there are places just as lovely as Killarney, but they have not been written up, and so no one goes to visit them. I felt that one of the worst things about Killarney was the American sightseer, and I came away soon. Cook's tourists have never heard of Twin Lakes, thank fortune, and it will be some time before they (the lakes) are spoiled. The Lakes of Killarney are so beautiful that they are worthy of the pen of a poet, but the pen of a poet does not make any lake more beautiful, and I am quarreling because so many people refuse to believe the evidence of their own senses, and take their natural beauties at the say so of another. There is a tower going up in New York at present, a tower that with the exception of the Eiffel Tower is the tallest on earth. Many persons look at it, reflect that it is a skyscraper, and then dismiss it as therefore hideous. But it is really very beautiful, and seen from certain vantage points, it is architecturally one of the glories of New York. [Illustration: A BIT OF KILLARNEY] If it ever gains a reputation for beauty, you will find persons raving over it, who to-day class it among the "hideous skyscrapers." A hundred years ago there were some skyscrapers in Switzerland, and they were thought to be hideous. After awhile a man with a poet's eyes and a courageous tongue visited them, and he said "The Alps are beautiful." When their reputation for beauty was established, travelers left the region round about the Rockies to go and rave over the beauties of Switzerland. That's all. CHAPTER IX _A Visit to Mount Mellaray_ Many persons whom I met in Ireland told me that I ought to go to Mount Mellaray "for my sins." Mount Mellaray (to those who don't know) is a Trappist monastery, set among hills that would be at once the temptation and despair of a colorist in landscape. To it go the brain and heart weary from all countries, and the good monks (there's no doubt that they are good) welcome them whether they have money or not. They tell of a man who went to Mount Mellaray and accepted the hospitality of the inmates and on his going away he did no more than bid them good by. Not a penny did he leave behind him, although he had sat at table with the other guests several days. Next year he came again for his soul's rest, and the monks received him as an old friend. Those who were not under vows of silence spoke to him, the others nodded to him, and once more he rested on the side of the purple hills and partook of their hospitality. When it came time for him to go away he left behind him--a pleasant impression, but not a cent did he give to the cause of charity. Another year passed by, and he came again. Hundreds had come in the meantime, and none so poor but had left something in return for the restfulness and peace that are to be had there. Quite as an old friend he was now received and was made to feel welcome. No one knew who he was--perhaps he was nobody--but on his going away for the third time he showed that he had been but _acting_ the part of an ingrate, for he gave the father who acts as keeper of the gate a hundred pounds. This story I told to the jarvey who took me up the hilly road to the monastery, and he listened with interest, and when I had finished he said, "It's quite true." As I did not expect to visit it again I made up my mind to do my giving on leaving the place, but my hundred pound notes are all in the future, and therefore no one can ever tell a similar tale of me. I must confess that, being a Protestant, I felt a little compunction about going to the place, but I had been assured that my sect would make no difference, that the fathers were glad to receive all who came, and that I would be as well treated as though I were a saint. On my way up my jarvey told me of the amount of good that the monks do, not only in a spiritual, but in a material way, by providing work for the able-bodied men of the vicinity. We passed a neat stone cottage with ivy growing on it, and a vigorous fuchsia tree blooming in the garden, and he told me that it was a government cottage and rented for the absurd sum of a shilling a week. "And how much can a man earn in the fields?" said I. "A matter of ten shillings a week," was his reply. Query: If a man gets ten dollars a week in New York and lives in a crowded Harlem flat for which he pays at least five dollars a week, is he as well off as this Irishman, in his native land, with all the fresh air in the world, fowls and fresh eggs, and butter of his wife's making, and one of the loveliest views imaginable before him? But you'll find the man in the neat little government cottage anxious to fly to the land of dollars--and when he's there he'll hand out more dollars to his landlord for inadequate accommodations than he could earn at home in a month of Sundays. Human nature is human nature, and the daisies in the field over the pond are always more beautiful than the ones that lie at your feet. I was received at the monastery by a monk, who on learning that I wished to become a guest, took me over to the guest house, and there a white-robed father took my surname, and I began to feel that I had renounced the world, and that perhaps I was trying something that I would regret, and wouldn't mamma come and get me. But the bearded man before me was kindly, and when I told him (not wishing to sail under false colors) that I was a Protestant, he told me that it was a fast day, and had I dined. Fortunately I had eaten heartily at noon. "If ye have not dined we can give you something substantial," said he, but I decided that it would be better to be treated as the other guests were to be treated, and so I told him, and he said that at six o'clock there would be tea, and that at eight I would retire to my room, and at ten all lights must be out. It was raining dismally, but he said that I could go for a walk in the garden, or stay in my room, or go to the "smoke shed," to smoke a pipe or a cigar. I chose the smoke shed as I understood there were other human beings there, and although I had only been in the monastery five minutes, I felt the need of companionship. After a brother had taken my traps to my room, I went out to the smoke shed, and found there some ten or twelve guests, five or six of them priests, and all Catholics but myself. They were very quiet as I came up, and I feared to speak above a whisper myself, but a jolly-looking priest, seeing a newspaper sticking out of my raincoat pocket, said: "Is that to-day's paper?" and on my saying it was, he asked me if he might borrow it, and then he stood up in front of them all and said: "The news of the day.... 'Irish Ireland. A Leaguer's Point of View.' 'The French Trunk Horror.' 'The Bachelor Tax,' discussed by Mr. Dooley." "Rade that, father," said a young chap with a twinkling eye. "Sure it's in dialect," said the priest with a smile, and his own brogue. "Never mind. Go ahead. 'Tis a dreary day." The paper was the Dublin Independent, and in a moment more I was listening to the familiar humor of the funniest man in America, and that in a monastery, of all places. "'This here pa-aper says,' said Mr. Hennessy, 'that they're goin' to put a tax on bachelors. That's r-right. Why shudden't there be a tax on bachelors? There's one on dogs.'" Loud was the laughter in the smoke shed at this sally, and none laughed louder than those professional bachelors, the priests. [Illustration: STREET IN YOUGHAL] "'I suppose,' said Mr. Dooley, 'that next year ye expect to see me throttin' around with a leather collar an' a brass tag on me neck. If me tax isn't paid th' bachelor wagon'll come around, an' th' bachelor catcher'll lasso me an' take me to the pound, an' I'll be kept there three days, an' thin, if still unclaimed, I'll be dhrowned, onless th' pound keeper takes a fancy to me.'" (Loud laughter by priests and laymen.) The ice thus broken by my friend Dunne, I was soon in conversation with the group, and discovered two compatriots from Indiana, one a native of Ireland returning to visit it once more before he departed, the other his son. Vesper bells broke up the talk, and I went with the rest to chapel. After vespers came "tea," which I had supposed would be literally nothing else, but there was the most delicious graham bread I have had since I came to Ireland, and unlimited milk. There was no butter, as it was a fast day. This I regretted keenly. Talk went on among us all until a bearded monk in white came in and began to read passages from Thomas à Kempis. His enunciation was peculiarly pure, and I doubt not that he was a gentleman born. It was a pleasure to hear such English. While he read we were all silent. After supper we went out to the garden, and in a sheltered place (although we did not need a shelter, as the fickle rain had stopped) those who wished played a spirited game that consisted of tossing stones into a little pocket of earth. One of the priests was an adept, and he carried all before him. In such simple pleasures, or in walking, the evening was spent until it came time to go to chapel again. One of my companions (and they were there from all parts of Ireland, and you might hear the Scotch accent of the north, the pure Dublin and Wicklow Elizabethan English, the slightly thickened Waterford variety, and the hurried talk of the Corkonian, as well as other styles I could not place--probably west coast dialects, mournful and slow) asked me what I thought of Ireland, and I told him my impressions had been tremendously favorable so far. He said that a man who had returned not long since told him that Ireland was hopelessly behind the times, and I told him, for his comfort, that to take one instance in which Ireland was up to date, the tram service in Dublin was far ahead of that of New York, both in the elegance of its rolling stock, its cheapness, and the civility of its employes. He was much amused at the idea of horse cars in New York. (Electric cars play an important part in all the large Irish cities, and a ride on the top of one to Howth, a lovely suburb of Dublin, is worth every bit of the eight cents it costs). They have yet to introduce the transfer system, but in other particulars, like Mr. O'Reilly, "they're doin' dam' well." All this I told him. At eight I sought my room, where there was reading matter suitable to the place, but the candle was not conducive to extended reading unless I held it close to the book, and then it dazzled me, and at nine o'clock I was in my bed, and until two in the morning the house was quiet, save for a snore here and there. But at two the bells began to ring, and kept it up at intervals all through the night. I was told this, but "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," came to my aid, and I dreamed it was a feast day and that all the monks were sitting at the breakfast table, singing at each other joyfully. Next day was a feast day (to my relief). I was up at six, but it was some time after that that I heard steps in the hall. I had looked out of the window from time to time, hoping to see some one in the garden. The table of the duties of the day hung in my room, and I noticed that breakfast was at nine. Luckily I had some chocolate, or I might have felt I was likely to faint by the wayside. I did not go to early devotion, and when I heard the footsteps in the hall I opened my door and found that it was Father David, the keeper of the gate, going around to see if any were still in bed. When he saw me, he said to the brother who accompanied him, "Oh, it doesn't make any difference with him." Then to me, "Would you like to walk in the garden?" I said that I would, and walked round and round its lonely paths for over an hour, now and then eating a square of chocolate to keep off death. But before eight the good father came and asked me if I'd like to see the interior of the monastery, and he showed me the bakeshop with its most up to date ovens, and oh, how hungry the smell of baking made me, and the steam-saw, and the creamery, and the library with its old newspaper telling to Irishmen that Cromwell had departed to his rest the day before. Not very sorrowful news, that, I imagine, to the Irishman of that day. And Father David showed me and the other Americans an incubator, and explained the process, with an innocent circumstantiality that we respected. Why tell him that the woods were full of incubators in America? The things that appealed most to him, however, was the big circular saw that would saw up a log of wood in a "minyit." With his permission I took a photograph of a beautiful Irish cross in the graveyard, but when I suggested my taking him, he averted his palms at me. Such vanities were not for him. At breakfast there were eggs and milk and tea, and delicious butter in abundance, and the reading of some holy book by Father David, which did not stop all conversation. Being a feast day, there was one priest who felt his tongue could be loosened, and he kept up an undercurrent of conversation, to Father David's annoyance, but it was a human touch that was not out of place. The monks are themselves vegetarians, but a school is run in connection with the monastery, and the students are allowed meats. At nine my jarvey called for me and took me to the boat for Youghal, and I made my offering and shook hands with Father David, and felt that I had been benefited by my stay in the retreat. I even felt that had I more time at my disposal, I would stay on for several days, talking with the guests, pitching stones into the hole, and looking at the rolling landscape and the awe-inspiring hills behind the chapel spire. One thing in America had interested Father David--the Thaw trial--and he wanted to know if Thaw would be hanged. One day the only American news in the 'Derry papers was to the effect that Evelyn Thaw thought of going on the stage. Not our art, or our literature, or our suppression of the boss, but the Thaw trial, is the thing that has made a deep impress on Great Britain and Ireland, and everywhere I am asked to give an opinion. The Thaw trial was a matter of moment to the good old man, with his incubators and his steam saw and his absence of personal vanity. As half way down the mountain I turned and looked back at the spire against the somber hills (for it had begun to rain) I wished that my camera would take them for me, but I knew that snapshots of hills are like literary snapshots--inadequate. CHAPTER X _A Dinner I Didn't Have_ The best laid schemes of mice and men aft gang aglee, or words to that effect, and in a small village in County Wicklow I fared differently from what had been my expectation. I had a letter to a literary man of whom I had heard nothing but pleasant words, and I looked forward to spending several hours with him. I had dispatched my letter of introduction to him over night, intending to perch on his door sill during a flight from Dublin further south: Waterford and Cork. The day was beautiful (whenever the clouds rolled away from before the sun) and as I left my grips in the station and fared forth I imagined how pleasantly we would talk together on matters and things, how soon we would find we had mutual friends, how possible it was that one or the other of us would commit the bromide of "It's a small world after all, isn't it?" It was a long time before the dinner hour, but if he invited me to stay on and dine I would certainly do it. Tasteful napery, handsome women, light and joyous talk, delicate viands and sparkling wines-- "Plaze, sorr, would ye help a poor man to's dinner. I've walked from Ovoca the day an' devil a bit or a sup is in me." A beggar! The idea of a man who never saw me before asking me and evidently expecting me to help him to a dinner. But of course when you meet a fellow out in the country away from professional beggars you naturally feel like helping him, particularly if the Irish weather is so fine that it hasn't rained for a quarter of an hour-- [Illustration: THATCHED COTTAGE, WICKLOW] "Oh, thank ye, sorr. May your bed in heaven be aisy an' may ye oversleep on the day of judgment." A kind wish. As I walked on I couldn't help thinking how similar was his case to my own. In all probability he had the price of a meal in his pocket when he met me and I too had the price of several meals in my pocket and even as he had "braced" a total stranger, so I was about to do the same thing, only I expected intellectual talk, a dinner, possibly a drive around the country, and when all was said and done I wouldn't be able for my _quid pro quo_ to call down such a blessing as he had given me. At last I came to the lodge of Heatherdale and asked if Mr. W---- was in. He was not. He had gone by an early train to Dublin and would not be back until seven. Oh, such a noise of falling air castles. My letter had been to him, not to his wife. I could not, or at least I felt that I could not present my card to her and explain that I was very much disappointed, and would Mrs. W---- kindly entertain me with intellectual talk and food and drink. I turned sadly away and put on my raincoat (for it had begun to rain dismally as soon as the lodgekeeper had told me Mr. W---- was out) and made my way back to the station, intending to take the next train. The urbane station master, resplendent in a gay new uniform, told me kindly but firmly that there was no train until seven o'clock, that that train did not go as far as Waterford, only to Wexford, and that my through ticket to Waterford was good for this day only and would be waste cardboard when the morning dawned, and I took the first train from Wexford there. That meant the price of an excellent dinner thrown away---- An excellent dinner. It was twelve o'clock; time to begin to think of a dinner of some kind. No (said the station master) there was no hotel in the place. I might get something at some farmhouse, but no dinner anywhere. And Mr. W---- in Dublin for the day. What good had the tramp's blessing done me? I left the station and walked toward the village. At last I came to a "public" and there I found my tramp drinking porter with gusto--but nothing else. His hunger had evidently departed. Perhaps the same thing that had put it to flight would allay mine. But the first incivility that I have received since I came to Ireland was offered me here. The proprietress of the public laughed at me and said that they had nothing but bread in the house--and she evidently did not care to part with that. "There's a good hotel at Rathdrum, sorr," said the tramp to me. "It's not five miles away an' the road light as a feather, barrin' the mud." I had no notion of going five miles on the light road on the light breakfast I had eaten--and no certainty that there would be a dinner at Rathdrum, so I left the public, and the rain having stopped and the sunshine having come out with a most businesslike air, as much as to say, "See here, you clouds have been running things altogether too much lately; it's now my turn at the wheel," I set out as blithely as I could (with the thought of my letter of introduction crossing Mr. W---- on his way to town and me a homeless wanderer) and before long I came to a little whitewashed cabin in front of which a handsome old woman in a man's cap was bending over some flowers. "Good morning. Can you let me have something to eat?" "Sure 'tis little I have," said she, with a smile that took five years off her age. "Some fresh eggs, perhaps, or some milk?" "Aye, I can give ye those, but me house is no place for the likes----" "That'll be just what I want," said I, and she went into the house and bade me follow. Fresh eggs and unlimited milk are not the same as brill and young lamb and sauterne and cigars and witty conversation, but when you are hungry from outdoor exercise they are not so bad. And Mrs. Kelly, like every other man, woman, and child in the whole of Ireland, had relatives in America. She'd a son there long since and Ja-mes just turned twenty-one had gone there this summer to the "states of Indiana. Did I know the states of Indiana?" I told her I did, that I'd been to them many a time. And where did "Ja-mes go to--to what city?" To Lafayette (with as French an accent as you'd wish) and was I ever there? I was. Her face lighted up. If I went there again would I ask for Ja-mes Kelly an' he'd be her son an' as fine a boy as ever left Ireland (with a true Dublin roll of the r). Still thinking of the dinner I had not had at Heatherdale house I asked her if she knew Mr. W----. "Sure I do, an' the finest man in all Ireland. Me boy Ja-mes worked there at gardening and whin he was leaving for America Mr. W---- gave a dinner for him to all the villagers and gave him a watch with his name on it and 'in remimbrance of Heatherdale' in it. Oh, yes, a fine man an' humble. Sure, if Jimmy'd be sick for a day it's Mr. W---- would be down here in me cottage askin' afther him an' could he be doing annything for him. "Humbleness. That what the blissed Lord taught us. He could have been borrn in a palace, but he was borrn in a stable in Bethleh_a_m. Are you a Catholic?" "No--" "Ah, never mind. There's arl kinds of good people----" "Is Mr. W---- a Protestant?" "Sure, I dunno," was Mrs. Kelly's guarded reply. "He goes to the Protestant church, but I don't know what he is, on'y he's a good man--none better in all Ireland. "The good Lord," she continued, as she filled up my cup with rich milk (she had no tumblers at all, she said), "taught us to be kind to one another and to be humble, the same as He was kind and humble, although He could have had a palace if He'd chosen, and if we keep His commandments we'll all go to heaven, but if we don't (here the good Mrs. Kelly lowered her voice) we'll be damned in everlasting fire. The Lord tells us so." I told her that I had heard such things, that I had a grandmother who taught me all about "Bethleh_a_m" and the rest---- "Oh, the good woman," said Mrs. Kelly, feelingly. "Well, it's true. Be kind and be good and be humble and ye'll be rewarrded." After I had finished the lunch she asked me if I could take a picture of her. I told her that I could, but she must come out of doors. Off came her man's cap and she arranged her wisps of white hair and washed her face and then said, "Be sure to get me eyes good and clear. I do take a fairly (very) good picture, and me eyes always come out fine." The good woman had eyes she might well be proud of in spite of her desire to be humble, and they danced and snapped with joy as I leveled the camera at her and took her photograph. All the afternoon I climbed the beautiful heather purpled hills in the vicinity with her youngest son, a boy of nineteen, eating wild fraochans, a kind of whortle-berry, and had "afternoon tea" with her at six and then went on to catch my train. The son was a very intelligent boy and I was struck with his easy and correct use of English. He told me that it was easier to understand me than an Englishman, and I took it as a compliment, for I certainly never heard better English spoken than is talked in the Dublin district by rich and poor alike. London and New York should come to Dublin and vicinity to learn the proper pronunciation of English. [Illustration: WICKLOW PEASANTS] As I left the village I felt that I had lost one good time to have another, and the day on the hills made me sleep like a top. CHAPTER XI _What Ireland Wants_ Before I went to Ireland I imagined the Irish standing in a crowd with their right hands pointing to heaven and all of them demanding home rule. But talk about shades of opinion and political differences at home, why, it's nothing to the mixture here. I meet a man to-day and as I shake his hand I tell him with heartfelt sympathy that I hope he'll get home rule, that most of us are with him in the United States, and he wrings my hand and tells me that American sympathy is the thing that has kept Ireland up. My bosom swells with pride and I feel that I have hit on just the right phrase to use. Next day I meet another Irishman, a Protestant from Belfast, and as I wring his hand with emotional fervor, I tell him that I hope he'll get home rule, and he pulls his hand from my grasp to bring it down on desk or counter or table with impetuosity, as he says, "Ireland doesn't want home rule. If the phrase had never been coined Ireland would be happy to-day. What Ireland wants is less sympathy from outsiders. If my child bumps his head and begins to cry, I say, 'Sure it's nothing. Brave boys like to bump their heads,' and he begins to laugh and forgets about it. But if a stranger says, 'Poor Patsy. It must hurt awfully,' then he sets up a howl about it and fancies he's injured. What Ireland needs is to forget her troubles and her political disabilities and work. An Irish workingman in Ireland is the laziest man alive. When he goes to America or Canada or Australia and is released from priestly authority he's a hard worker and a success, but Paddy in the fields is always looking for saints' days--and finding them--and when he finds them he takes a holiday." I am silent because I really know so little about it, but next day I meet another Protestant and I say to him, "I suppose it's Rome rule that is killing Ireland?" He's up in the air at once and tells me that it is the priests who are interesting the peasants in the revival of industries long dormant. "Aren't the priests fine-looking men?" says he. "Yes," breaks in another Irishman, "and they ought to be the fathers of families. All that good blood going to waste and their lines ending with them instead of enriching the blood of Ireland in future generations. That's what celibacy does." Another Irishman chimes in, "Oh, the priests are not such a fine lot. The constabulary are, I'll admit, but the most of them are as useless as the priests. Most of their time is spent training canaries, for there's little else for them to do in the country districts. But the priests; sure a man says, 'Oh, Jimmy's no good at all at all. Let's make a priest of him.'" "It's folly you're talking," says the one who spoke for the priests. "There's not a finer body of men in Ireland than the priests." "Oh," says the other, with Irish wit, "there's white sheep in every fold, I'll admit, but if Ireland was free from political and religious domination, she'd be able to stand upright and she wouldn't need home rule." All of which is very perplexing to the man who came to Ireland thinking that with the exception of a few Orangemen all Ireland was working morning, noon, and night for home rule. Next day I meet a man I know to be a Protestant and I say to him in my easy-going way (being all things to all men when I am traveling, in order to save wear and tear), "The Catholic religion is keeping Ireland back, is it not?" He looks at me for a moment and then a spiritual light illumines his eyes and he says: "Protestantism is always death to arts. Look at Shakespeare, the last Catholic that England had, as you might say, and look at his work with its artistry, its absence of dogmatism, and then look at Protestant and tiresome Wordsworth and Protestant and didactic Tennyson. Spenser was a great artist. Spenser was a Catholic. Catholicism emancipates the artistic side of a man's nature, puritanism seals it up, dams it, condemns him to preach sermons. "The Irish are the most artistic people on the face of the earth when Protestantism has not been allowed to stamp their idealism out of them." "But I thought you were a Protestant. Then I suppose that you think that the priests----" "I think that the priests ought never to be allowed to tamper with education. Spiritually they release Irishmen from puritan fetters (I speak as a Protestant and the son of a Protestant) but politically and educationally they are millstones about Ireland's neck." I leave him and going to Hibernia Hall in Dublin, where the work of Irish industries is being displayed, and where stands temporarily St. Gaudens's splendid statue of Parnell, and I see there Augustine Birrell, whom I believe to be one of Ireland's warmest and truest friends. I am talking to a handsome six-foot priest. "Ah, there's Birrell," I say to him. "Yes," says he with a twinkle in his Irish eyes, "'twould be a fine chance to drop a little dynamite under him." I leave the hall hurriedly and listen outside for the explosion, meanwhile wondering why a priest who wants home rule hates Birrell, who has tried to give Ireland a modified version of it. I meet a literary Catholic and ask him whether home rule would mean Rome rule and he tells me that it would not; that the Catholics would not stand for priestly interference with politics; that the priests themselves would not desire to interfere. Next day I ask a jarvey if he wants home rule and he says, "Begorry, higher wages would be better. I'd not be botherin' with home rule if there was enough to keep me sons busy." "Well, Michael, would home rule mean Rome rule?" "Sure it would. Isn't the pope the head of the church?" Ireland seems to be a house divided against itself. I like the father of the family very much. We'll say he comes from the south of Ireland and is a Catholic. He's a witty man, a hospitable man, a cheery man, but won't speak to his oldest son, because he's a Belfast Unionist and believes in letting well enough alone. [Illustration: LOST IN HIS LUNCH, MALLOW, COUNTY KERRY] Now the eldest son is a delightful fellow. A little more reserved than his southern father, but just as hospitable, just as cheery--almost as witty. The mother is a Sinn Feiner, an idealist of the idealists. She believes that Irishmen ought to withdraw from Parliament. She urges her son, who is in Parliament, to resign, to boycott England, to get his brother members of Parliament to come home and form a National Council in Dublin. She doesn't believe in war, but she hates England with an animosity that is positively amusing to one whose forbears fought England and had done with the fight long ago. She won't speak to her daughter, who believes in working for home rule in season and out of season in London. The mother is witty and cheery, and, oh, so hospitable, but when I visit the daughter I don't mention the old lady to her, for in spite of the ingrained love for parents that is almost as strong in an Irishman as it is in a Chinaman, she says very sharp things about her unpractical mother. But when we leave politics alone, she is cheery and witty, and always as hospitable as she can be. Now, if by means of arousing a truly national spirit (and the Gaelic League is going about it in the right way) this family of witty and cheery and hospitable people can be induced to sink minor differences and act together they'll get what they want--whatever that is. And then won't they be the happy family? And I'm sure I do hope with all my heart that they'll get it. For they won't be happy till they get it. CHAPTER XII _A Hunt for Irish Fairies_ "I'll niver forget wan gintleman that kem here from America. He'd been borrn here, but had gone to Chicago whin he was a lad, an' he had made a fortune. "He had hundreds under him, an' he told me he had niver touched a drop of liquor. Oh, he was the kind man. He hired me car every day he was here, an' he said anny time I wanted to sind anny of me sons over, to sind them to him an' he'd take them on an' pay them good wages. "Oh, he was the ginerous man, too ginerous in fact. He'd scatter his money like water whin he'd be in liquor----" "Why, I thought you said he never touched a drop, Michael." "Oh," with a toss of the head. "Sure that was in America. Bein' on a holiday here he tasted it, an' likin' the taste he kep' on. "Sure he'd fling money out be the handfuls if I'd let him. I told him if he done that the news of it would spread an' some of the wilder ones would demand it of him, an' wance I refused to go anny further till he'd promise to stop throwin' money away--half soverigns, mind ye. "Ah, but he was the kind man, drunk or sober. The day before he left--an' he was here two or three weeks huntin' for his birthplace--he said: "'Michael, I've drank too much, but it tasted good. After to-day not a drop I touch, an' me goin' back to America.' "Sure, I hope he didn't, for he had a fine business of manufactures of some sort, an' he says: "'Sind them along, Mike, when they does be old enough an' I'll give them good jobs. Only they must l'ave liquor alone.' "Ah, a kind man he was an' a true American. Wance I met Larrd Kinmare, an' I took off me hat to him. 'Who's that?' says he. 'Larrd Kinmare,' says I. 'Why do you take off your hat to him?' says he; 'he's only a man like yourself.' I'll never forget that. Only a man like meself." I asked this same jarvey if he would like to see home rule. "Sure, better wages would be better." There are many like him in Ireland, men of the practical kind, who would rather see prosperity than home rule, and who evidently do not believe the two are synonymous terms. Perhaps a little more of this jarvey's talk will not be uninteresting. "What do you think of King Edward, Michael?" He looked at me seriously. "He's not had a thri'l yit, but he seems a nice man. When he was Prince of Wales he was here to visit with his mother, the Queen of England, and he wint to a nunnery, an' him a Protestant, an' he kep' his hat off his head all the time he was in. An' him a Protestant, mind you. He seems a nice man, but he hasn't had a thri'l yit." There's simplicity for you. One need not have the acknowledged tact of the best king in Europe to keep off his hat in a nunnery, but Michael had treasured the anecdote forty years as the measure of a ruler's merit. But I am treading on dangerous ground and it would be better to venture on fairy ground. One needs to live long among the Irish peasants to get at their folklore. They are invariably agreeable to strangers, as Michael has shown himself to have been to me, and are more than willing to talk about America and the sorrows of Ireland, but if the subject of fairy folk is broached they seem to be anxious to change the subject. I was fortunate enough to get a little insight into their beliefs, but before I touch on the topic I would like to scatter a few thoughts on the subject of Irish wit. Here I have set down a conversation of a typical Irishman, but you will notice that there is nothing witty in what he says. In books he is witty, and in Scotland the Scotchman is witty, as I had occasion to notice many times last year when I was there, but in Ireland (I record personal impression) the Irishman is not witty, as I met him in the peasant class. I have conversed with dozens and scarcely a witty reply have I had. Humor often, but wit seldom. I sometimes think that it is because I have used the wrong tactics. Perhaps if I had bantered them they would have retaliated. I fancy that their reputation for wit is largely of English manufacture, and that the Englishman calls it forth by his undoubted feeling of superiority. The wit is at his expense. We were passing a little opening in the woods the day I rode with Michael and I said to him: "That would be a fine place for fairies." He quickly turned his head and looked at me. "So it would," said he, "but they're all gone now. Whin I was a boy the old folks did be talkin' of them, but there's none of them now." "I suppose so," said I sympathetically, "but a friend of mine in Connecticut, an Irishman, told me he'd been led by them into a bog with their false lights." "Oh," said Michael, quick as a wink, "so have I. They'd lade you to folly the light, an' the first thing ye'd know ye'd be up to your waist in a bog. But there's none of them hereabouts now." And that ended Michael's remarks about fairies. And that was further than most of them would go until I met an old woman on the west coast. She, after I had gained her confidence, talked quite freely. I asked her if she had ever seen any of the red leprechauns (I am not sure of the spelling) that are so mischievous to housewives and are so fond of cream, and while she had not seen any herself a friend of hers had seen two of them. "Wan had a red cap on an' the other was dressed all in green and they was wrestlin' in a field. "An wance I looked out of the winder," she had grown absorbed in her own talk now--"an' I saw over there on the mountain side a fair green field that never was there before"--the mountain was bald and rocky and bleak--"an' in it was a lot of young lads and gerruls, all dressed gayly, the lads and the gerruls walking like this"--illustrating by undulatory motions--"and full of happiness. "Oh, yes; I've seen the little folk, but I don't mind them at all. The sight of them comes to me when I'd not be thinking of it, and it's little I care." She tossed her head in evident superiority, perhaps feeling that I might think it folly for a woman as old as she to see things so out of the ken of an ordinary mortal. But I showed an interest that was perfectly genuine, and she went further into her revelations. "Wance I was lookin' out of this same winder, an' a queen of the air came out of the heavens ridin' on a cloud. Oh, she was the most beautifully made woman I ever saw, with a stride on her like a queen. "She had a short skirt on her, and her calves were lovely, and around her waist was a sash with a loose knot in it for a dagger, an' the dagger raised in her right hand--an' a crown upon her head." "And did she look angry?" "Indeed she didn't. A beautiful face she had, an' she come straight for this winder, an' when she was almost before it I put up my hands to my eyes, for I thought that if she was coming out of the other space and I was the first she met here she might do harm to me, and 'twas well not to look at her--and when I opened my eyes again she was gone. [Illustration: A SIDE STREET, WEXFORD] "Oh, never will I see so finely made a woman again; the calves of her beautiful legs, and the arm raised high above her head like a queen." Margaret stood looking out of the window at the mountain opposite, and I said nothing for fear she would stop talking. After a few moments she went on: "Wan day I saw an elephant over on the mountain side an' him filling his trunk, with water for a long journey--Oh, it's manny the thing I see, but I don't mind if I never see them, only they come to me." Filling one's trunk with water for a long journey would not appeal to a drummer, but this flippant thought I did not extend to Margaret. Perhaps she would not have understood, as drummers are bagmen on the other side. That is they are bagmen in books. In hotels they are commercial men. Margaret was not yet through telling me the things she had seen. I was told that there were some people that she would not talk to on occult subjects, fearing their badinage, but her sincerity was so evident that I could not have joked with her on the subject if I had thought of doing so. "Wance I saw the present King Edward, an' him about to be crowned, an' he was in the heavens lying on a bed, and his wife standing near, dressed in a dress with short sleeves an' point lace on them, an' I said to me master,"--Margaret was living in service,--"'Sure he'll not be crowned this time.' "An' that very evening the news came that the King was ill, and he was not crowned that time at all. An' the pitchers in the papers afterward showed the Queen in point lace as I had seen her." Afterward I talked to the gentleman for whom this ancient woman kept house, and he said there was no end to the queer things she had seen. He told me that once she saw in "the heavens" a funeral cortége issuing from a smallish house, with big black horses, plumed and draped, and drawing a hearse, and in it either the pope or the queen. "Some one high up," Margaret said. That evening came the news of the death of Queen Victoria. Of course this is "merely" second sight, but if you don't believe in such things you don't feel like scoffing when people see visions that come true. I was unfortunate enough not to meet a Galway woman, an ignorant peasant, who saw a vision that shaped itself around a ruined castle. She said to my informant (one of the leaders in the Gaelic revival) that while she was looking at the castle one day a band of young gentlemen on horseback and strangely dressed came riding up to the castle, and in the windows of it were many handsome women, gayly dressed and with their hair brushed up from their foreheads, and they were laughing and talking. And when the young horsemen came to the ditch that was around the castle a platform that was laid against the wall was let down by chains, and over the bridge thus made the gay young men rode and joined the chattering ladies. This was a woman who would not have heard of moats and drawbridges, and but little of the castle remained save the four walls. She had seen a vision, so my informant, a woman of forceful intellect, told me--and I believed it then, and half believe it now. If one has visions why not see them? I wish I might myself. But it is very hard for the traveler to get at these revelations. The natives are shy of strangers, who like as not do not believe in fairies--never having seen Tinker Bell--and they will not talk. But for my part I hope the time will come when it will be proved beyond a doubt that there are fairies, and if the revelation ever does manifest itself at all, doubting Thomases and the rest, I am sure that their habitat will prove to be Ireland. And when they are proved to exist, remember that I said I believed in them. CHAPTER XIII _In Galway with a Camera_ Galway comes as near as any Irish city that I ever saw to rivaling New York's East Side for dirtiness, and yet a fair-minded observer would be compelled to tell Galway, when the time for awarding the leather medal came, that she was only a close second. This does not so much mean that New York is dirtier than I realized she was when I was there as it means that Ireland is not as dirty as English and Irish and American writers have pictured it. Perhaps in some parts of Ireland the pig still sleeps in the room with the family, but as a faithful chronicler of actual sights I cannot say that I saw such a sight in any of the numerous slums and villages I visited in twenty counties. I hate to destroy so poetic an illusion. [Illustration: PICTURESQUE GALWAY] There was something idyllic in the thought of a pink little pig and a pink little boy, the two of them the pink of neatness, lying side by side in a happy-hearted Irishman's cabin, while pig and boy and Irishman starved to death, but the truth was something better than that. There were pigs and little boys, but they were not neatly pink and they were not starving, and the old man did not swing a shillelagh or sing songs as I was passing by. Shillelaghs were never so plentiful as they are now, but they are made to supply the foreign demand for them, and the Irishman is amused and perhaps a bit contemptuous as he sees Americans, with never a drop of Irish blood in them, buying shillelaghs to take home for the sake of sentiment. I wish I might write that I saw evidences of destitution on every side--it would please the sentimentalists--but I did not. There were beggars, but not so many as I had feared I would see, and they did not chase me any harder than youngsters have chased me in City Hall Park in New York demanding a cent to buy sterilized milk. In Sligo I was followed by a poor woman carrying a baby, and as she raised her hand for alms her shawl dropped off and disclosed her nakedness to the waist, but I was assured by a Sligo gentleman that she was a professional beggar from out of town, and that possibly the baby was not hers, and I know for a fact that she went to a public house with the money I gave her. And all the time I was fumbling in my pocket for coppers she was wishing me happy days. She stands out in my recollection as the most abject beggar I saw. But in Galway there is dirt and squalor and it is picturesque. There in the Claddagh one meets with old hags who are hideous enough and Spanish looking enough to have just left Velasquez's studio, where one can imagine them posing as models for some masterpiece of the great realist. Barefooted they are, and the homely ones have a great desire to be photographed. Many and many were the pretty women I saw in Ireland, but my camera recorded but few of their lineaments, while I was asked more than once by plain women to take their pictures. One nailed me as I was passing her vegetable shop in the Claddagh. She was cross-eyed, poor thing, and in a land where pretty features are as plentiful as blackberries, she was plain, but she besought me to take her picture. Now, when a woman asks you to photograph her you don't feel like refusing her, and I was too much of a novice to make a feint at snapping the shutter and passing on, so I stopped and tried to see a picture in the carrots and cabbages that were displayed at the door. Such a simpering, conscious face as she displayed! I tried to engage her in talk so that she would at least look naturally homely, but it was no use. Every time my finger strayed up to the little lever her lips would become set in a smile, one eye would look at the camera and one would look at me, and she would become the incarnation of consciousness. At last I snapped her and passed on. After that I took good care to hurry past plain women. The day before, at a railway station, I had gone in to get a bit of lunch and discovered that one of the waitresses was a little beauty. The thought came into my head, What a model for "An Irish Beauty," just as one of the others, who had no claim to beauty, said, "Take me picture?" I told her that I was not a professional, looking all the while at the pretty one, but she suggested that I take all three waitresses just for fun, and in order to get the beauty at any cost I assented, and the girls stood in expectant attitudes. [Illustration: A STRING OF FISHERMEN, GALWAY] The beauty was so luscious looking that the other two were simply obliterated in the finder, and I felt myself lucky at having such a chance to carry away a permanent impression of Irish maidenhood. My hand was raised to the lever, in another instant the face would be mine, but just then the door opened and a man came in to buy a measly sandwich. One of the girls left the group--I could see that in the finder, but I snapped hastily and then looked up. It was the beauty. I have the other two. They are undeveloped. In the Claddagh a pretty little child came up to me and asked me to take her "piccher," hoping for some coppers in payment. I nodded my head to her, but a barefooted derelict ahead of me heard her request, and wheeling around suddenly bade the child be off and offered to pose for me herself. Velasquez would have jumped at the chance, but I am not Velasquez and I shook my head and hurried on. The vehemence of the old woman's vituperative assault on the little girl had collected a lot of loungers of both sexes, and I was besieged for pictures, the pretty little girl saying incessantly, "I as't you firrst. I as't you firrst. I as't you firrst." I managed to make her understand that if she walked on far enough I would take her picture, and only one other heard her, another little girl who was pretty enough to grace a film. These two kept on, while the others dropped away when they saw I was adamant. And when my models were far enough from the others to enable me to get them before it was suspected what I was at I snapped them and put my hand into my pocket to get up a couple of coppers and found nothing but a sixpence. Of course the children could not change it, and I could not very well divide it, so I appealed to some fishermen who were lounging on the quay, asking them if they could give me coppers for a sixpence. They gave me to understand that both coppers and sixpences were strangers to them, and evidently felt that, as a "rich American" I could easily give each child a shilling. But this would have been to get the whole pack on me, for they already smelt money and were coming up. So I gave the sixpence to the one who had first spoken to me and told her to keep fourpence for herself and to give tuppence to her little friend. I'm afraid they came to blows over it. As for me, I left the picturesque Claddagh and saw it no more. It was that same morning that I had seen the entire population lining one of the narrowest streets in that part of Galway, and there I got shot after shot of the picturesque groups. I asked what they were waiting for, and one of the mackerel selling and barefooted Velasquez women told me that an American circus was coming. I felt it was worth waiting to see an American circus in Galway. The circus was called "Buff Bill's Wild West Show." Not Buffalo Bill, mind you, but Buff Bill. For a long time I waited and at last my patience was rewarded. I knew just what it would be. There would be fifty or sixty cowboys on their broncos, a bevy of female sharpshooters, and the Deadwood stage; and for the circus part of it an elephant or two and the $10,000 beauty, followed up by dens of wild beasts and representatives of all the countries of the world. At last music was heard. The band was approaching. Around a bend in the street came the usual crowd of small boys and girls running ahead. Then came a yellow wagon, with a cowboy band discoursing the latest New York favorite. [Illustration: WAITING FOR THE CIRCUS, GALWAY] Next came one dreadful dwarf, made up as a hideous clown. Behind him rode an ordinary negro, not costumed in any special manner. He was enough novelty as he was. And behind these two rode a man of the toothpowder vender type, with long hair, _boiled shirt_, sombrero, and no necktie. He was Buff Bill. And that made up the parade. It was worth waiting for, if only to see what it is that constitutes a wondrous spectacle to a small boy. Fifty years from now some prosperous Chicagoan will take his grandson to see a four-mile parade of some great circus of the period, with half a hundred elephants, a thousand noble horsemen, and scores of gilded chariots; and when the small boy voices his rapture the old man will say with sincerity: "It's pretty good, I suppose, but you ought to have seen the circus that came to Galway when I was a boy of eight. That beat any circus I've ever seen since. I couldn't sleep for weeks thinking about it." XIV _The New Life in Ireland_ No one can be in Ireland long without realizing that when sturdy, practical John Bull forcibly married dreamy Hibernia, with her artistic temperament, it was a very foolish marriage, and as a good American I could have predicted trouble from the very start. John Bull is accustomed to be obeyed at the drop of the hat, and Hibernia, for all her dreaminess, is a lady of spirit and will not become a willing slave. John Bull has no more knowledge of the real needs and capabilities of this Irish wife of his than the average American has of the real needs and capabilities of an Indian, and the result of the union has been a series of bickerings that show John up in his worst light and that do not serve to call out the most agreeable aspects of his unfortunate wife's nature. He suspects her, and what good woman will stand being suspected by her husband without resentment? In her temperamental qualities--qualities that could be cultivated to express something noble--he sees only idleness and shiftlessness. He treats his wife as a child, and the wife who is treated as a child becomes a mighty poor mother. That Hibernia is a failure as a mother is shown by the fact that thousands of her sons are still willing and even anxious to leave her instead of staying and showing by their industry and sobriety and willingness to make the most of the opportunities that undoubtedly exist in Ireland, that they are capable of developing and governing their native land without interference of any kind from John Bull. Ordinarily I'm quite opposed to divorce, and I know that Catholics abhor it, but it seems as if Hibernia ought to get a decree against John Bull on the plea of incompatibility of temper. And I wouldn't advise Hibernia to rush into marriage again after she gets her freedom. But through what courts she is to get her decree is beyond my knowledge. She's a most attractive lady and she has fertile farms and some say undeveloped mines, and there is certainly land enough, setting aside the fact of ownership, to support all the sons who have stayed by her. Every Irishman in America who loves Ireland, and I can't imagine that there are any who do not, ought to advise against further immigration. Ireland needs every able-bodied man to help carry on the work there is to do--a work that the Gaelic League is doing so much to foster. The Gaelic League with its fostering of the artistic spirit that is dormant in the Irish nature, and that already finds expression in the weaving of rugs and in embroidery and in bookbinding and the making of stained glass, and the Irish Agricultural Organization Society, with its introduction of modern scientific methods of farming, its model hospitals and schoolhouses and dwellings--these movements are waking great interest among the younger people. And Ireland cannot afford to part with a single man or woman from now on. The study of Gaelic increases year by year, and whereas in former times Irishmen, subdued by the English spirit, punished their children if they were caught talking Gaelic, now Irishmen encourage them and they are freely learning Gaelic in all parts of Ireland. This movement cannot help revivifying a national spirit. In a railway carriage I talked with some young women who, with their brothers, were returning from a three days' fast and an all night vigil at a little village near Bundoran. They were of course Roman Catholics. They asked me if I was going to the national festival about to be held in Dublin, the Oireachtas, and when I found out what it meant I told them that I was, and asked them if they were members of the Gaelic League. [Illustration: GAELIC SIGN, DONEGAL] "Indeed we are," said one, and her eyes glowed with enthusiasm as she said it. "And do you speak Gaelic?" "Oh, yes. We've learned it, you understand, learned it since growing up." They were heart and soul in the new movement that it is hoped will regenerate and cultivate and spiritualize Ireland, and while I was talking to them and felt their sincerity and ardor, I was sure that the Gaelic League was doing more than all the politicians ever could. It is not the Catholics only that have joined this movement; it is non-sectarian. I talked with a young drug clerk in a northern town and he "had the Irish" (could talk Gaelic), and wrote his name in Gaelic characters, but he was a Protestant. He offered to give me a line to a well-known Dublin literary man, which shows how democratic the movement is. To-day you'll meet with a land-owning aristocrat who is interested in what the league is doing, and to-morrow you'll meet a jarvey who is learning Gaelic, and the next day a young lady of gentle birth who is teaching the poor children of the neighborhood how to weave rugs, and then you'll meet an artist who was formerly a land owner and a Protestant, and who was one of the first to sell his property to his tenants under the Wyndham act--and being an artist and not a business man he got ruinous prices for it--and has been forced ever since to rely on his brush for his support. He, too, is heart and soul in the movement. Now when the yeast permeates the lump to such an extent there is bound to be a rising--but of the peaceful kind. "Pat," in his "Economics for Irishmen," says, "Were I a priest, I should, I think, regard it as a sin on my soul every time a young person emigrated from my parish while I might have shown him how he could have made an excellent living at home." It must strike every American, no matter whether he is a Protestant, an atheist, an agnostic, or a Roman Catholic, so long as he is open minded, that the size and evident costliness of the churches in the country districts is out of all proportion to the costliness of the houses of the peasants. In a poor community money that is put into costly bricks and stone that might have been put into books and bread is money inadequately expended, even if Ruskin rise from his grave to contradict me. A better temple to God than a granite church is a granite constitution, and the light of health and sanity and cheerful industry in the eye of an Irish lad is better than the light of a thousand candles. This is not a question of religion, but of common sense. If all the money that has been spent upon the extra embellishment of churches of all denominations in Ireland had been spent on the physical and educational and moral betterment of Irishmen, they would have ceased to emigrate long since. But this is thin ice, and as I can't swim I'll give up the skating on it until the weather is colder. But the priests are also interested in this Gaelic revival of which Americans have already heard so much, and which is non-sectarian and non-political. And the nuns are doing a blessed work all over Ireland. Let me close this somewhat serious chapter--one can't help being serious in Ireland when he sees that her regeneration is at hand--with a parable that I made all by my lonesome: Once there was a man who had a sugar maple, and there being a demand for maple sugar he allowed the sap to run early and late, and disposed of the sugar thus obtained. But there came by a man who said: [Illustration: GONE TO AMERICA] "Why, you're ruining that tree. The sap that is being made into sugar for the whole United States is the life blood of that green old tree. If you keep on, your tree will wither and die." And the man took the advice and the tree renewed its youth. Close up the sap holes and keep in the sap, for the sap is the life blood of Ireland, and we in America have learned how to make sugar out of many things--even out of beets--and we no longer need the Irish young man. But the old tree needs her young blood in order to keep her fresh and green. Transcriber's Note: Archaic and inconsistent spelling and punctuation retained. 
14510	----	[Illustration: MAP TO ILLUSTRATE DIARY OF AN AMERICAN.] IRELAND UNDER COERCION THE DIARY OF AN AMERICAN BY WILLIAM HENRY HURLBERT VOL. I. _SECOND EDITION_. 1888 "Upon the future of Ireland hangs the future of the British Empire." CARDINAL MANNING TO EARL GREY, 1868 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Although barely a month has elapsed since the publication of these volumes, events of more or less general notoriety have so far confirmed the views taken in them of the actual state and outlook of affairs in Ireland, that I gladly comply with the request of my publisher for a Preface to this Second Edition. Upon one most important point--the progressive demoralisation of the Irish people by the methods of the so-called political combinations, which are doing the work of the Agrarian and Anti-Social Revolution in Ireland, some passages, from a remarkable sermon delivered in August in the Cathedral of Waterford by the Catholic bishop of that diocese, will be found to echo almost to the letter the statement given to me in June by a strong Protestant Home Ruler, that "the Nationalists are stripping Irishmen as bare of moral sense as the bushmen of South Africa." Speaking of what he had personally witnessed in one of the lanes of Waterford, the Bishop says, in the report which I have seen of his sermon, "the most barbarous tribes of Africa would justly feel ashamed if they were guilty of what I saw, or approached to the guilt I witnessed, on that occasion." As a faithful shepherd of his people, he is not content with general denunciations of their misconduct, but goes on to analyse the influences which are thus reducing a Christian people to a level below that of the savages whom Cardinal Lavigerie is now organising a great missionary crusade to rescue from their degradation. He agrees with Archbishop Croke in attributing much of this demoralisation to the excessive and increasing use of strong drink, striking evidences of which came under my own observation at more than one point of my Irish journeys. But I fear Archbishop Croke would scarcely agree with the Bishop of Waterford in his diagnosis of the effects upon the popular character of what has now come to pass current in many parts of Ireland as "patriotism." The Bishop says, "The women as well as the men were fighting, and when we sought to bring them to order, one man threatened to take up a weapon and drive bishop, priests, and police from the place! On the Quay, I understand, it was one scene of riot and disorder, and what made matters worse was that when the police went to discharge their duty for the protection of the people, the moment they interfered the people turned on them and maltreated them in a shocking way. I understand that some police who were in coloured clothes were picked out for the worst treatment--knocked down and kicked brutally. One police officer, I learn, had his fingers broken. This is a state of things that nothing at all would justify. It is not to be justified or excused on any principle of reason or religion. What is still worse, sympathy was shown for those who had obstructed and attacked the police. The only excuse I could find that was urged for this shameful misconduct was that it was dignified with the name of 'patriotism'! All I can say is, that if rowdyism like this be an indication of the patriotism of the people, as far as I am concerned, I say, better our poor country were for ever in political slavery than attain to liberty by such means." This is the language of a good Catholic, of a good Irishman, and of a faithful Bishop. Were it more often heard from the lips of the Irish Episcopate the true friends of Ireland might look forward to her future with more hope and confidence than many of the best and ablest of them are now able to feel. As things actually are, not even the Papal Decree has yet sufficed to restrain ecclesiastics, not always of the lowest degree, from encouraging by their words and their conduct "patriotism" of the type commemorated by the late Colonel Prentiss of Louisville, in a story which he used to tell of a tipsy giant in butternut garments, armed with a long rifle, who came upon him in his office on a certain Fourth of July demanding the loan of a dollar on the ground that he felt "so confoundedly patriotic!" The Colonel judiciously handed the man a dollar, and then asked, "Pray, how do you feel when you feel confoundedly patriotic?" "I feel," responded the man gravely, "as if I should like to kill somebody or steal something." It is "patriotism" of this sort which the Papal Decree was issued to expel from within the pale of the Catholic Church. And it is really, in the last analysis of the facts of the case, to the suppression of "patriotism" of this sort that many well-intentioned, but certainly not well-informed, "sympathisers" with what they suppose to be the cause of Ireland, object, in my own country and in Great Britain, when they denounce as "Coercion" the imprisonment of members of Parliament and other rhetorical persons who go about encouraging or compelling ignorant people to support "boycotting" and the "Plan of Campaign." Yet it would seem to be sufficiently obvious that "patriotism" of this sort, once full-blown and flourishing on the soil of Ireland, must tend to propagate itself far beyond the confines of that island, and to diversify with its blood-red flowers and its explosive fruits the social order of countries in which it has not yet been found necessary for the Head of the Catholic Church to reaffirm the fundamental principles of Law and of Liberty. Since these volumes were published, too, the Agrarian Revolution in Ireland has been brought into open and defiant collision with the Catholic Church by its leader, Mr. Davitt, the founder of the Land League. In the face of Mr. Davitt's contemptuous and angry repudiation of any binding force in the Papal Decree, it will be difficult even for the Cardinal-Archbishop of Sydney to devise an understanding between the Church and any organisation fashioned or led by him. It may be inferred from Mr. Davitt's contemporaneous and not less angry intimation, that the methods of the Parnellite party are inadequate to the liberation of Ireland from the curse of landlordism, that he is prepared to go further than Mr. George, who still clings in America to the shadowy countenance given him by the Cardinal-Archbishop of Baltimore, and that the Nationalisation of the Land will ere long be urged both in Ireland and in Great Britain by organisations frankly Anti-Catholic as well as Anti-Social. This is to be desired on many accounts. It will bring the clergy in Ireland face to face with the situation, which will be a good thing both for them and for the people; and it should result in making an end of the pernicious influence upon the popular mind of such extraordinary theological outgivings; for example, as the circular issued in 1881 to the clergy and laity of Meath by the Bishop of that diocese, in which it was laid down that "the land of every country is the common property of the people of that country, because its real owner, the Creator who made it, has transferred it as a voluntary gift to them." Language of this sort addressed to ignorant multitudes must do harm of course whenever and by whomsoever used. It must tend to evil if addressed by demagogues to the Congress of a Trade Union. But it must do much more harm when uttered with the seeming sanction of the Church by a mitred bishop to congregations already solicited to greed, cunning, and dishonesty, by an unscrupulous and well-organised "agitation." Not less instructive than Mr. Davitt's outburst from the Church is his almost furious denunciation of the Irish tenants who obeyed an instinct, thought honourable to mankind in most ages and countries, by agreeing together to present to their landlord, Earl Fitzwilliam, a token of their respect and regard on the celebration of his golden wedding day. These tenants are denounced, not because they were paying homage to a tyrannical or an unworthy landlord, though Mr. Davitt was so transported beyond his ordinary and cooler self with rage at their action that he actually stooped to something like an insinuation of disbelief in the excellence of Lord Fitzwilliam's character. The true and avowed burden of his diatribe was that no landlord could possibly deserve well of his tenants. The better he is as a man, the more they ought to hate him as a landlord. The ownership of land, in other words, is of itself in the eyes of Mr. Davitt what the ownership of a slave was in the eyes of the earlier Abolitionists--crime so monstrous as to be beyond pardon or endurance. If this be true of Great Britain and Ireland, where no allodial tenure exists, how much more true must it be of New York? And if true of the man who owns a thousand acres, it must be equally true of the man who owns an acre. There could not be a better illustration than Mr. Davitt has given in his attack on the Fitzwilliam tenants of the precise accuracy of what I have had occasion to say in these volumes of the "irrepressible conflict" between his schemes and the establishment of a peasant proprietorship in Ireland. It is more than this. It is a distinct warning served upon the smallest tenants as well as upon the greatest landlords in the United Kingdom that fixity of any form of individual tenure is irreconcilable with the Agrarian agitations. I anticipated this demonstration, but I did not anticipate that it would come so fully or so soon. I anticipated also abundant proof from my own side of the water of the accuracy of my impressions as to the drift of the American-Irish towards Protection and Republicanism in American politics. This, too, has come earlier and not less fully than I had expected. Mr. Patrick Ford, the most influential leader of the American-Irish, issued early in August a statement of his views as to the impending Presidential election. "The issue to-day," he says, "is the Tariff. It is the American system _versus_ the British Colonial system. The Irish are instinctively Protectionists." And why? Mr. Ford goes on to explain. "The fact," he observes, "that the Lion and the Unicorn have taken the stump for Cleveland and Thurnan is not calculated to hurt Harrison and Morton in the estimation of the Irish, who will, I promise, give a good account of themselves in the coming Presidential election." Hatred of England, in other words, is an axiom in their Political Economy! Mr. Davitt's menacing allusion to Parnell as a landlord, and Mr. O'Leary's scornful treatment in a letter to me of the small-fry English Radicals,[1] when taken together, distinctly prefigure an imminent rupture between the Parnellite party and the two wings--Agrarian and Fenian--of the real revolutionary movement in Ireland. It is clear that clerical agitators, high and low, must soon elect between following Mr. George, Dr. M'Glynn, and Mr. Davitt, and obeying fully the Papal Decree. It is a most curious feature of the situation in Ireland that much more discontent with the actual conditions of life in that country seems to be felt by people who do not than by people who do live in Ireland. It is the Irish in America and Australia, who neither sow nor reap in Ireland, pay no taxes there, and bear no burdens, who find the alien oppression most intolerable. This explains the extreme bitterness with which Mr. Davitt in some recent speeches and letters denounces the tameness of the Irish people, and rather amusingly berates the British allies of his Parnellite associates for their failure to develop any striking and sensational resistance to the administration of law in Ireland. I have printed in this edition[2] an instructive account, furnished to me by Mr. Tener, of some recent evictions on the Clanricarde property in Galway, which shows how hard it is for the most determined "agitators" to keep the Irish tenants up to that high concert pitch of resistance to the law which alone would meet the wishes of the true agrarian leaders; and how comparatively easy it is for a just and resolute man, armed with the power of the law resolutely enforced, to break up an illegal combination even in some of the most disturbed regions of Ireland.[3] While this is encouraging to the friends of law and order in Ireland, it must not be forgotten that it involves also a certain peril for them. The more successfully the law is enforced in Ireland, the greater perhaps is the danger that the British constituencies, upon which, of course, the administrators of the law depend for their authority, may lose sight and sense of the Revolutionary forces at work there. History shows that this has more than once happened in the past. Englishmen and Scotchmen will be better able than I am to judge how far it is unlikely that it should happen again in the future. As to one matter of great moment--the effect of Lord Ashbourne's Act--a correspondent sends me a statement, which I reproduce here, as it gives a very satisfactory account of the automatic financial machinery upon which that Act must depend for success:-- "Out of £90,630 of instalments due last May, less than £4000 is unpaid at the present moment, on transactions extending over three years with all classes of tenants. The total amount which accrued, due to the Land Commission in respect of instalments since the passing of the Act to the 1st November 1887, was £50,910. Of this there is only now unpaid £731, 17s. 9d. There accrued a further amount to the 1st May 1888 of £39,720, in respect of which only £4071, 16s. 11d. is now unpaid, making in all only £4803, 14s. 8d. unpaid, out of a total sum of £90,630 due up to last gale day, some of which by this time has been paid off." This would seem to be worth considering in connection with the objection made to any serious extension of Lord Ashbourne's Act by Mr. Chamberlain in his extremely clear and able preface to a programme of "Unionist Policy for Ireland" just issued by the "National Radical Union." LONDON, _21st Sept_. 1888. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CLUE MAP _Frontispiece_ PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION v PROLOGUE xxi-lxvii CHAPTER I. London to Dublin, Jan. 20, 1888, 1 Irish Jacobite, 1 Proposed Mass in memory of Charles Edward, 2 Cardinal Manning, 3 President Cleveland's Jubilee Gift to Leo XIII, 4 Arrival at Kingstown, 5 Admirable Mail Service, 5 "Davy," the newsvendor, 6 Mr. Davitt, 7 Coercion in America and Ireland, 8 Montgomery Blair's maxim, 8 Irish cars, 9 Maple's Hotel, 9 Father Burke of Tallaght, 10, 11 Peculiarities of Post-offices, 12, 13 National League Office, 13 The Dublin National Reception, 14 Mr. T.D. Sullivan, M.P., 14 Dublin Castle, 15 Mr. O'Brien, Attorney-General, 16 The Chief-Secretary, Mr. Balfour, 17-24 Fathers M'Fadden and M'Glynn, 18 Come-outers of New England, 18 Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, 19, 20 Sir West Ridgway, 24 Divisional Magistrates, 24 Colonel Turner, 25 The Castle Service, 25-29 Visit of the Prince of Wales, 27 Lord Chief-Justice Morris, 29-37 An Irish Catholic on Mr. Parnell, 31-33 Mr. Justice Murphy, 36 Lord Ashbourne, 37, 38 Unionist meeting, 39 Old Middle State type of American-Irish Protestant, 39 Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in America, 41 Difficulties of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, 43 Dr. Jellett, 43 Dinner at the Attorney-General's, 43-46 Sir Bernard Burke, 46-49 Irish Landlords at Kildare Street Club, 49-52 The people and the procession, 53-55 Ripon and Morley, 54, 55 CHAPTER II. Dublin to Sion, Feb 3, 56 Poor of the city, 57 Strabane, 58-60 Sion flax-mills, 60-62 Dr. Webb, 63-65 Gweedore, Feb 4, 65 A good day's work, 65 Strabane, 66 Names of the people, 66 Bad weather judges, 67 Letterkenny, p 67, 68 Picturesque cottages, 67 Communicative gentleman, 68 Donegal Highlands, 68-70 Glen Veagh, 71 Errigal, 72 Dunlewy and the Clady, 72 Gweedore, Feb 5, 73 Lord George Hill, 74 Gweedore 1838 to 1879, 75-81 Gweedore 1879 to 1888, 81-91 Father M'Fadden, 83-104 A Galway man's opinions, 84-89 Value of tenant-right, 83 Condition of tenantry, 84 Woollen stuffs, 87, 88 Distress in Gweedore, 88, Do. in Connemara, 88 Mr Burke, 90 Plan of Campaign, 93 Emigration, 94, 95 Settlement with Captain Hill, 94 Landlord and tenant, 96-98 Land Nationalisation, 98 Father M'Fadden's plan, 98 Gweedore, Feb 6, 104 On the Bunbeg road, 104-110 Falcarragh, 111-123 Ballyconnell House, 112-123 Townland and Rundale, 118 Use and abuse of tea, 119 Lord Leitrim, 121 A "Queen of France," 121 The Rosses, 123 CHAPTER III. Dungloe, Feb. 7, 124 From Gweedore, 124 Irish "jaunting car," 125 "It will fatten four, feed five, and starve six," 125 Natural wealth of the country, 125 Isle of Arran and Anticosti, p 12 The Gombeen man, 126-130 Dungloe, 126-131 Burtonport, 129 Lough Meela, 128 Attractions of the Donegal coast, 128 Compared with Isles of Shoals and Appledore, 129 Wonderful granite formations, 129 Material for a new industry, 129 Father Walker, 131 Migratory labourers, 133 Granite quarries, 133 Stipends of the Roman Catholic clergy, 134-137 Herring Fisheries, 137 Arranmore, 137 Dungloe woollen work, 138 Baron's Court, Feb 8, 139 Dungloe to Letterkenny, 139-141 Doocharry Red Granite, 140 Fair at Letterkenny, 142 Feb 9, 143 On Clare and Kerry, 143 A Priest's opinion on Moonlighters, 143 The Lixnaw murder, 143 Baron's Court, 144 James I.'s three castles, 145 Ulster Settlement, 146 Descendants of the old Celtic stock, 146 The park at Baron's Court, 146 A nonogenarian O'Kane, 148 Irish "Covenanters," 150 Shenandoah Valley people, 151 The murderers of Munterlony, 151 A relic of 1689, 152 Woollen industry, 152-155 Londonderry Orange symposium, 156 February 11, 157 Sergeant Mahony on Father M'Fadden, 157-163 CHAPTER IV. Abbeyleix, Feb. 12, 164 Newtown-Stewart, 164 An absentee landlord, 164 "The hill of the seven murders," 165 Newry, Dublin, Maple's Hotel, Maryborough, 165 "Hurrah for Gilhooly," 166 Abbeyleix town, chapel, and church, 168 Embroidery and lace work, 169 Wood-carving, 170 General Grant, 171 Kilkenny, 172 Kilkenny Castle, 173 Muniment-room, 174 Table and Expense Books, 176 Dublin once the most noted wine-mart of Britain, 177, 178 Cathedral of St. Canice, 178 The Waterford cloak, 179 The College, 180 Irish and Scotch whisky, 180 Duke of Ormonde's grants, 181 The Plan of Campaign, 182-186 Ulster tenant-right, 186, 187 CHAPTER V. Dublin, Feb. 14, 188 The Irish National Gallery, 188-191 Feb. 15, 192 London: Mr. Davitt, 192 Irish Woollen Company, 193 Mr. Davitt and Mr. Blunt, 193 Mr. Davitt's character and position, 192-199 CHAPTER VI. Ennis, Feb. 18, 200 Return to Ireland, 200 Irish Nationalists, 200, 201 Home Rule and Protection, 202 Luggacurren and Mr. O'Brien, 204 Dublin to Limerick and Ennis, 204, 205 Colonel Turner, 205 Architecture of Ennis Courthouse--Resemblance to White House, Washington, 206 Number of public-houses in Ennis, and in Ireland, 207, 208 Innkeepers of Milltown Malbay, 208,209 Father White (see Note E), 209 Sir Francis Head, 210, 211 Different opinions in Ennis, 212, 213 State of trade in Ennis, 213, 214 Edenvale, Heronry, 215 _seq._ Feb. 19, 215 The men of Ennis at Edenvale, 216 Killone Abbey, 218-221 Stephen J. Meany, 220 "Holy Well" of St. John, 221 Superstition as to rabbits, 222 Religious practices under Penal Laws, 222 Experiences under National League, 223, 224 Case of George Pilkington, 224-226 Trees at Edenvale, 227 Moonlighters, a reproduction of Whiteboys, 227, 228 Difficulty in getting men to work, 228 A testimonial to Mr. Austen Mackay, 229-232 Effect of testimonials, 232 Feb. 20, 232 The case of Mrs. Connell at Milltown Malbay, 232 _seq._ Estate accounts and prices, 240 A rent-warner, 245 Mr. Redmond, M.P., 245 Father White's Sermon, 246 A photograph, 246 APPENDIX. NOTES-- A. Mr. Gladstone and the American War (Prologue xxix), 249 B. Mr. Parnell and the Dynamiters (Prologue xxxiii), 251 C. The American "Suspects" of 1881 (Prologue xlvii), 255 D. The Parnellites and the English Parties (Prologue l.), 262 E. The "Boycott" at Miltown-Malbay (p. 209) 264 PROLOGUE. I. This book is a record of things seen, and of conversations had, during a series of visits to Ireland between January and June 1888. These visits were made in quest of light, not so much upon the proceedings and the purposes of the Irish "Nationalists,"--with which, on both sides of the Atlantic, I have been tolerably familiar for many years past--as upon the social and economical results in Ireland of the processes of political vivisection to which that country has been so long subjected. As these results primarily concern Great Britain and British subjects, and as a well-founded and reasonable jealousy exists in Great Britain of American intromission in the affairs of Ireland, it is proper for me to say at the outset, that the condition of Ireland interests me not because I believe, with Cardinal Manning, that upon the future of Ireland hangs the future of the British Empire, but because I know that America is largely responsible for the actual condition of Ireland, and because the future condition of Ireland, and of the British Empire, must gravely influence the future of my own country. In common with the vast majority of my countrymen, who come with me of what may now not improperly be called the old American stock--by which I mean the three millions of English-speaking dwellers in the New World, who righteously resented, and successfully resisted, a hundred years ago, the attempt--not of the Crown under which the Colonies held their lands, but of the British Parliament in which they were unrepresented--to take their property without their consent, and apply it to purposes not passed upon by them, I have always felt that the claim of the Irish people to a proper control of matters exclusively Irish was essentially just and reasonable. The measure of that proper control is now, as it always has been, a question not for Americans, but for the people of Great Britain and of Ireland. If Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his associates had succeeded in expelling British authority from Ireland, and in founding an Irish Republic, we should probably have recognised that Republic. Yet an American minister at the Court of St. James's saw no impropriety in advising our Government to refuse a refuge in the United States to the defeated Irish exiles of '98. It is undoubtedly the opinion of every Irish American who possesses any real influence with the people of his own race in my country, that the rights and liberties of Ireland can only be effectually secured by a complete political separation from Great Britain. Nor can the right of Irish American citizens, holding this opinion, to express their sympathy with Irishmen striving in Ireland to bring about such a result, and with Englishmen or Scotchmen contributing to it in Great Britain, be questioned, any more than the right of Polish citizens of the French Republic to express their sympathy with Poles labouring in Poland for the restoration of Polish nationality. It is perhaps even less open to question than the right of Americans not of Irish race, and of Frenchmen not of Polish race, to express such sympathies; and certainly less open to question than the right of Englishmen or Americans to express their sympathy with Cubans bent on sundering the last link which binds Cuba to Spain, or with Greeks bent on overthrowing the authority of the Sultan in Crete. But for all American citizens of whatever race, the expression of such sympathies ceases to be legitimate when it assumes the shape of action transcending the limits set by local or by international law. It is of the essence of American constitutionalism that one community shall not lay hands upon the domestic affairs of another; and it is an undeniable fact that the sympathy of the great body of the American people with Irish efforts for self-government has been diminished, not increased, since 1848, by the gradual transfer of the head-quarters and machinery of those efforts from Ireland to the United States. The recent refusal of the Mayor of New York, Mr. Hewitt, to allow what is called the "Irish National flag" to be raised over the City Hall of New York is vastly more significant of the true drift of American feeling on this subject than any number of sympathetic resolutions adopted at party conventions or in State legislatures by party managers, bent on harpooning Irish voters. If Ireland had really made herself a "nation," with or without the consent of Great Britain, a refusal to hoist the Irish flag on the occasion of an Irish holiday would be not only churlish but foolish. But thousands of Americans, who might view with equanimity the disruption of the British Empire and the establishment of an Irish republic, regard, not only with disapprobation, but with resentment, the growing disposition of Irish agitators in and out of the British Parliament to thrash out on American soil their schemes for bringing about these results with the help of Irishmen who have assumed the duties by acquiring the rights of American citizenship. It is not in accordance with the American doctrine of "Home Rule" that "Home Rule" of any sort for Ireland should be organised in New York or in Chicago by expatriated Irishmen. No man had a keener or more accurate sense of this than the most eloquent and illustrious Irishman whose voice was ever heard in America. In the autumn of 1871 Father Burke of Tallaght and San Clemente, with whom I had formed at Rome in early manhood a friendship which ended only with his life, came to America as the commissioned Visitor of the Dominican Order. His mission there will live for ever in the Catholic annals of the New World. But of one episode of that mission no man living perhaps knows so much as I, and I make no excuse for this allusion to it here, as it illustrates perfectly the limits between the lawful and the unlawful in the agitation of Irish questions upon American soil. While Father Burke was in New York Mr. Froude came there, having been invited to deliver before a Protestant Literary Association a series of lectures upon the history of Ireland. My personal relations with Mr. Froude, I should say here, and my esteem for his rare abilities, go back to the days of the _Nemesis of Faith_, and I did not affect to disguise from him the regret with which I learned his errand to the New World. That his lectures would be brilliant, impressive, and interesting, was quite certain; but it was equally certain, I thought, that they would do a world of mischief, by stirring up ancient issues of strife between the Protestant and the Catholic populations of the United States. That they would be answered angrily, indiscreetly, and in a fashion to aggravate prejudices which ought to be appeased on both sides of the questions involved, was much more than probable. All this accordingly I urged upon Father Burke, begging him to find or make time in the midst of his engrossing duties for a systematic course of lectures in reply. What other men would surely say in heat and with virulence would be said by him, I knew, temperately, loftily, and wisely. Three strenuous objections he made. One was that his work as a Catholic missionary demanded all his thought and all his time; another that he was not historically equipped to deal with so formidable an antagonist; and a third that America ought not to be a battle-ground of Irish contentions. It was upon the last that he dwelt most tenaciously; nor did he give way until he had satisfied himself, after consulting with the highest authorities of his Church, and with two or three of the coolest and most judicious Irish citizens of New York, that I was right in believing that his appearance in the arena as the champion of Ireland, would lift an inevitable controversy high above the atmosphere of unworthy passion, and put it beyond the reach of political mischief-makers. How nobly he did his work when he had become convinced that he ought to do it, is now matter of history. But it is a hundredfold more needful now than it was in 1871 and 1872, that the spirit in which he did it should be known and published abroad. In the interval between the delivery of two of his replies to Mr. Froude, Mr. Froude went to Boston. A letter from Boston informed me that upon Mr. Froude's arrival there, all the Irish servants of the friend with whom he was to stay had suddenly left the house, refusing to their employer the right to invite under his roof a guest not agreeable to them. I handed this letter, without a word, to Father Burke a few hours before he was to speak in the Academy of Music. He read it with a kind of humorous wrath; and when the evening came, he prefaced his lecture with a few strong and stirring words, in which he castigated with equal sense and severity the misconduct of his country-people, anticipating thus by many a year the spirit in which the supreme authority of his Church has just now dealt with the social plague of "boycotting," whereof the strike of the servant girls at Boston sixteen years ago was a precursory symptom. Father Burke understood that American citizenship imposes duties where it confers rights. Nobody expects the European emigrant who abjures his foreign allegiance to divest himself of his native sympathies or antipathies. But American law, and the conditions of American liberty, require him to divest himself of the notion that he retains any right actively to interfere in the domestic affairs of the country of his birth. For public and political purposes, the Irishman who becomes an American ceases to be an Irishman. When Mr. Gladstone's Government in 1881 seized and locked up indefinitely, on "suspicion" of what they might be about to do, American citizens of Irish birth, these "suspects" clamoured, and had a right to clamour, for the intervention of the American Government to protect them against being dealt with as if they were Irishmen and British subjects. But by the abjuration of British allegiance which gave them this right to clamour for American protection, they had voluntarily made themselves absolute foreigners to Ireland, with no more legal or moral right to interfere in the affairs of that country than so many Chinamen or Peruvians. Having said this, I ought, in justice to my fellow-citizens of Irish birth, to say that these elementary truths have too often been obscured for them by the conduct of public bodies in America, and of American public men. No American public man of reputation, holding an executive office in the Federal Government, has ever thrust himself, it is true, so inexcusably into the domestic affairs of Great Britain and Ireland as did Mr. Gladstone into the domestic affairs of the United States when, speaking at Newcastle in the very crisis of our great civil war, he gave all the weight of his position as a Cabinet Minister to the assertion that Mr. Jefferson Davis had created not only an army and a navy, but a nation, and thereby compelled the Prime Minister of Great Britain to break the effect of this declaration by insisting that another Cabinet Minister, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, should instantly make a speech countering it, and covering the neutrality of the British Government.[4] Nor has either House of the Congress of the United States ever been guilty of the impertinence of adopting resolutions of sympathy with the Home Rule, or any other movement affecting directly the domestic affairs of the British Empire, though, within my own knowledge, very strong pressure has been more than once put upon the Foreign Affairs Committees of both Houses to bring this about. But such resolutions have been repeatedly adopted by State Legislatures, and individual members, both of the Federal Senate and of the Federal Lower House, have discredited themselves, and brought such discredit as they could upon the Congress, by effusions of the same sort. The bad citizenship of Irish-American citizens, however, is not the less bad citizenship because they may have been led into it by the recklessness of State Legislatures--which have no responsibility for our foreign relations--or the sycophancy of public men. If it were proved to demonstration that Home Rule would be the salvation of Ireland, no American citizen would have any more right to take an active part in furthering it than to take an active part in dethroning the Czar of all the Russias. The lesson which Washington administered to Citizen Genet, when that meddlesome minister of the French Republic undertook to "boom" the rights of men by issuing letters of marque at Charleston, has governed the foreign relations of the United States ever since, and it is as binding upon every private citizen as upon every public servant of the Republic. I must ask my readers, therefore, to bear it constantly in mind that all my observations and comments have been made from an American, not from a British or an Irish point of view. How or by whom Ireland shall be governed concerns me only in so far as the government of Ireland may affect the character and the tendencies of the Irish people, and thereby, through the close, intimate, and increasing connection between the Irish people and the people of the United States, may tend to affect the future of my country. This being my point of view, it will be apparent, I think, that I have at least laboured under no temptation to see things otherwise than as they were, or to state things otherwise than as I saw them. With Arthur Young, who more clearly than any other man of his time saw the end from the beginning of the fatuous and featherheaded French Revolution of 1789, I have always been inclined to think "the application of theory to methods of government a surprising imbecility in the human mind:" and it will be found that in this book I have done little more than set down, as fully and clearly as I could, what I actually saw and heard in Ireland. My method has been as simple as my object. During each day as occasion served, and always at night, I made stenographic notes of whatever had attracted my attention or engaged my interest. As I had no case to make for or against any political party or any theory of government in Ireland, I took things great and small, and people high and low, as they came, putting myself in contact by preference, wherever I could, with those classes of the Irish people of whom we see least in America, and concerning myself, as to my notes, only that they should be made under the vivid immediate impress of whatever they were to record. These notes I have subsequently written out in the spirit in which I made them, in all cases taking what pains I could to verify statements of facts, and in many cases, where it seemed desirable or necessary, submitting the proofs of the pages as finally printed to the persons whom, after myself, they most concerned. I have been more annoyed by the delay than by the trouble thus entailed upon me; but I shall be satisfied if those who may take the pains to read the book shall as nearly as possible see what I saw, and hear what I heard. I have no wish to impress my own conclusions upon others who may be better able than I am accurately to interpret the facts from which these conclusions have been drawn. Such as they are, I have put them into a few pages at the end of the book. It will be found that I have touched only incidentally upon the subject of Home Rule for Ireland. Until it shall be ascertained what "Home Rule for Ireland" means, that subject seems to me to lie quite outside the domain of my inquiries. "Home Rule for Ireland" is not now a plan--nor so much as a proposition. It is merely a polemical phrase, of little importance to persons really interested in the condition of Ireland, however invaluable it may be to the makers of party platforms in my own country, or to Parliamentary candidates on this side of the Atlantic. It may mean anything or nothing, from Mr. Chamberlain's imperialist scheme of four Provincial Councils--which recalls the outlines of a system once established with success in New Zealand--to that absolute and complete separation in all particulars of the government of Ireland from the government of Great Britain, which has unquestionably been the aim of every active Irish organisation in the United States for the last twenty years, and which the accredited leader of the "Home Rule" party in the British Parliament, Mr. Parnell, is understood in America to have pledged himself that he will do anything to further and nothing to impede. On this point, what I took to be conclusive documentary evidence was submitted to me in New York several years ago by Mr. Sheridan, at a time when the fever-heat of British indignation excited by those murders in the Phoenix Park, for which I believe it is now admitted by the best informed authorities that Mr. Sheridan had no responsibility, was driving Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates into disavowals of the extreme men of their connection, which, but for Mr. Sheridan's coolness and consciousness of his well-assured domination over them, might have led to extremely inconvenient consequences to all concerned.[5] But whatever "Home Rule" may or may not mean, I went to Ireland, not to find some achromatic meaning for a prismatic phrase, which is flashed at you fifty times in England or America where you encounter it once in Ireland, but to learn what I could of the social and economical condition of the Irish people as affected by the revolutionary forces which are now at work in that country. I have watched the development of these forces too long and too closely to be under any illusion as to the real importance relatively with them of the so-called "Parliamentary" action of the Irish Nationalists. II. The visits to Ireland, of which this book is a record, were made on my return from a sojourn in Rome during the celebration of the Jubilee of His Holiness Leo XIII. What I then and there learned convinced me that the Vatican was on the eve of grappling in Ireland with issues substantially identical with those which were forced, in my own country, two years ago, upon a most courageous and gifted member of the American Catholic hierarchy, the Archbishop of New York, by the open adhesion of an eminent Irish American ecclesiastic, the Rev. Dr. M'Glynn, to the social revolution of which Mr. Henry George is the best-equipped and most indefatigable apostle. Entertaining this conviction (which events have since shown to have been well-founded), I was anxious to survey on the spot the conditions under which the conflict so vigorously encountered by the Archbishop in New York must be waged by the Vatican in Ireland. To suppose that the Vatican, in dealing with this conflict, either in Ireland or in America, is troubling itself about the balancing of political acrobats, British or American, upon the tight-rope of "Home Rule," is as absurd as it would have been to suppose that in 1885 the Vatican concerned itself with the subterranean intrigues which there is reason to believe the Irish Nationalists then sought to carry on with the wire-pullers of the two great British political parties. To get a correct perspective of the observations which I came from Rome this year to make in Ireland, my readers, as I have already said, must allow me to take them across the Atlantic, and must put aside as accessory and incidental the forensic and polemic phenomena of Irish politics, with which they are perhaps only too familiar. It is as easy to go too far back as it is not to go back far enough in the study of such a revolutionary movement as that of which Ireland is just now the arena. Many and sore are the historical grievances of the Irish people. That they are historical and not actual grievances would seem to be admitted by so sympathetic and minutely well-informed a writer as Dr. Sigerson, when he gives it as his opinion, that after the passage of the Land Act of 1870, "the concession in principle of the demands of the cultivators as tenants" had "abolished the class war waged between landlords and their tenantry." The class war between the tenantry and their landlords, therefore, which is now undoubtedly waging in Ireland cannot be attributed to the historical grievances of the Irish people. The tradition and the memory of these historical grievances may indeed be used by designing or hysterical traders in agitation to inflame the present war. But the war itself is not the old war, nor can it be explained by recurring to the causes of the old war. It has the characteristics no longer of a defensive war, nor yet of a war of revenge absolutely, but of an aggressive war, and of a war of conquest. In his able work on "The Land Tenure and the Land Classes of Ireland," Dr. Sigerson, writing in 1871, looked forward to the peaceful co-existence in Ireland of two systems of land-holding, "whereby the country might enjoy the advantage of what is good in the 'landlord,' or single middleman system, and in the peasant proprietary or direct system." What we now see in Ireland, after nearly twenty years of legislation, steadily tending to the triumph of equal rights, is an agitation threatening not only the "co-existence" of these two systems, but the very existence of each of these systems. To get at the origin and the meaning of this agitation we must be content, I believe, to go no further back than ten years, and to look for them, not in Ireland, but in America, not to Mr. Parnell and Mr. Gladstone primarily, but to Mr. Davitt and Mr. Henry George. III. In a very remarkable letter written to Earl Grey in 1868, after the Clerkenwell explosions had brought the disestablishment of the Irish Protestant Church into Mr. Gladstone's scheme of "practical politics," the Archbishop of Westminster, not then a Cardinal, called the attention of Englishmen to the fact, not yet I fear adequately apprehended by them, that "the assimilating power of America upon the Irish people, if seven days slower than that of England in reaching Ireland, is sevenfold more penetrating and powerful upon the whole population." By this the Archbishop meant, what was unquestionably true, that even in 1868, only twenty years after the great Irish exodus to America began, the social and political ideas of America were exerting a seven-fold stronger influence upon the character and the tendencies of the Irish people than the social and political ideas of England. Thanks to the development of the cables and the telegraph since 1868, and to the enormous progress of America since that time in wealth and population, this "assimilating power" reaches Ireland much more rapidly, and exerts upon the Irish people a very much more drastic influence than in 1868. This establishes, of course, a return current westward, which is as necessary to he watched, and is as much neglected by American as the original eastward current is by British public men. In this letter of 1868 to Earl Grey, the Archbishop of Westminster desiring, as an Englishman, to counteract, if possible, this influence which was drawing Ireland away from the British monarchy, and towards the American Republic, maintained that by two things the "heart of Ireland" might be won, and her affections enlisted with her interests in the support of the unity, solidity, and prosperity of the British Empire. One of these two things was "perfect religious equality between the Catholics and the Protestants of Ireland." The other was that the Imperial Legislature should by statute make it impossible for any landlord in Ireland to commit three wrongs,--"first, the wrong of abusing his rights by arbitrary eviction; secondly, by exacting an exorbitant rent; thirdly, by appropriating to his own use the improvements effected by the industry of his tenants." Perfect religious equality has since been established between the Catholics and the Protestants of Ireland. The three wrongs which the Archbishop called upon the Imperial Legislature to make impossible to Irish landlords have since been made impossible by Statute. Yet it is on all hands admitted that the "unity, solidity, and prosperity" of the British Empire have never been so seriously threatened in Ireland as during the last ten years. Was the Archbishop wrong, therefore, in his estimate of the situation in 1868? Or has the centripetal influence of remedial British legislation since 1868 failed to check a centrifugal advance "by leaps and bounds," in the "assimilating power" of America upon Ireland? IV. Just ten years ago, in 1878, Mr. Michael Davitt and Mr. John Devoy (the latter of whom had been commissioned in 1865 by the Fenian leader Stephens, as "chief organiser of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in the British army"), being then together in America, promulgated, Mr. Davitt in a speech at Boston, and Mr. Devoy in a letter sent to the _Freeman's Journal_ in Dublin, the outlines of a scheme for overthrowing British rule in Ireland by revolutionising the ownership of land in that country. The basis of this scheme had been laid thirty years before, in 1848, by Finton Lalor, John Mitchel, and the present Archbishop of Cashel, then a simple curate. It was thus stated by Lalor in his paper, the _Irish Felon_:-- "The entire ownership of Ireland, moral and material, up to the sun and down to the centre of the earth, is vested, as of right, in the people of Ireland. The soil of the country belongs as of right to the entire people of the country, not to any one class, but to the nation." This was a distinct denial of the right of private property in land. If true of Ireland and the Irish people this proposition was true of all lands and of all peoples. Lalor, though more of a patriot than of a philosopher, saw this plainly; and in one of the three numbers of his paper which appeared before it was suppressed by the British Government, he said "the principle I propose goes to the foundations of Europe, and sooner or later will cause Europe to uprise." Michael Davitt saw this as clearly in 1878 as Finton Lalor thirty years before. He had matured his plans in connection with this principle during the weary but not wasted years of his imprisonment as a Fenian at Dartmoor, a place, the name of which is connected in America with many odious memories of the second war between England and the United States; and going out to America almost immediately after his release on a ticket of leave, he there found the ideas of Finton Lalor and his associates of 1848, ripened and harvested in the mind of an American student of sociology, Henry George. Nowhere in the world has what a shrewd English traveller calls "the illegitimate development of private wealth" attained such proportions in modern times as in America, and especially in California. Nowhere, too, in the world is the ostentatious waste of the results of labour upon the antics of a frivolous plutocracy a more crying peril of our times than in America. Henry George, an American of the Eastern States, who went to the Pacific coast as a lad, had grown up with and watched the progress of this social disease in California; and when Davitt reached America in 1878, Henry George was preparing to publish his revolutionary book on _Progress and Poverty_, which appeared in 1879. Dates are important from this point, as they will trace for the reader the formation of the strongest forces which, as I believe, are to-day at work to shape the future of Ireland, and, if Cardinal Manning is right, with the future of Ireland, the future of the British Empire. The year 1878 saw the "Home Rule" movement in Irish politics brought to an almost ludicrous halt by the success of Mr. Parnell, then a young member of Parliament for Meath, in unhorsing the leader of that movement, Mr. Butt. As the Irish members then had no coherent purpose or policy, Mr. Parnell had, without much trouble, dominated and brigaded them to follow him blindly into a system of parliamentary obstruction, which there is reason to suppose was suggested to him by a friend who had studied the Congressional proceedings of the United States, the native country of his mother, and especially the tactics which had enabled Mr. Randall of Pennsylvania, the leader of the Democratic minority in the House of Representatives, to check the so-called "Civil Rights Bill," sent down by the Senate to that House, during a continuous session of forty-six hours and a half, with no fewer than seventy-seven calls of the house, in the month of January 1875, some time before Mr. Parnell first took his seat in the House of Commons. When Mr. Parnell, early in 1878, thanks to this system, had ousted Mr. Butt, and got himself elected as President of the Irish "Home Rule Confederation," he found himself, as an Irish friend of mine wrote to me at the time, in an awkward position. He had command of the "Home Rule" members at Westminster, but he had no notion what to do with them, and neither they nor he could see anyway open to securing a permanent hold upon the Irish voters. Three bad harvests in succession had thrown the Irish tenants into a state which disinclined them to make sacrifices for any sentimental policy, but prepared them to lend their ears eagerly to Michael Davitt, when, on his return from the United States in the early spring of 1879, he proclaimed anew, at Irishtown in his native county of Mayo, the gospel of 1848 giving the land of Ireland to the people of Ireland. Clearly Mr. Davitt held the winning card. As he frankly put the case to a special correspondent, whom I sent to see him, and whose report I published in New York, he saw that "the only issue upon which Home Rulers, Nationalists, Obstructionists, and each and every shade of opinion existing in Ireland could be united was the Land Question," and of that question he took control. Naturally enough, Mr. Parnell, himself a landowner under the English settlement, shrank at first from committing himself and his fortunes to the leadership of Mr. Davitt. But no choice was really left him, and there is reason to believe that a decision was made easier to him by a then inchoate undertaking that he should be personally protected against the financial consequences to himself of the new departure, by a testimonial fund, such as was in fact raised and presented to him in 1883. In June 1879 he accepted the inevitable, and in a speech at Westport put himself with his parliamentary following and machinery at the service of the founder of the Irish Land League, uttering the keynote of Mr. Davitt's "new departure" in his celebrated appeal to the Irish tenants to "keep a firm grip of their homesteads." In the middle of October 1879, Mr. Davitt formally organised the Irish National Land League, "to reduce rack-rents and facilitate the obtaining of the ownership of the land of Ireland by the occupiers," and Mr. Parnell was made its first President. He was sent out to America in that capacity, at the end of the year to explain to the Irish-American leaders the importance of supplying the new organisation with funds sufficient to enable it to take and keep the field at Westminster with a force of paid members not dependent for their support upon the Irish constituencies. It was obviously impossible either to guarantee any considerable number of Irishmen holding property against loss by a policy aimed at the foundations of property, or to count upon finding for every Irish seat a member of local weight and stake, imbued with the spirit of martyrdom. Mr. Parnell landed at New York on the 1st of January 1880. An interview with him, written out on board of the steamer which took him to America by a correspondent detailed for that purpose, was published on the morning after his arrival. It made on the whole an unfavourable impression in America, which was not improved by an injudicious quarrel into which he drifted with a portion of the American press, and which was distinctly deepened by his inexcusable misrepresentations of the conduct of Queen Victoria during the famine of 1847, and by his foolish attacks upon the management and objects of the Duchess of Marlborough's fund for the relief of Irish distress. The friends of Mr. Davitt in America, however, and the leaders of the most active Irish organisations there, came to the rescue, and as the two American parties were preparing their lines of battle for the Presidential conflict of 1880, Mr. Parnell was not only "put through" the usual course of "receptions" by Mayors and State legislatures, but invited on an "off-day" to address the House of Representatives at Washington. His tour, however, on the whole, harmed more than it helped the new Irish movement on my side of the Atlantic, and when he was called back to take his part in the electoral contest precipitated by Lord Beaconsfield's dissolution of Parliament at Easter 1880, Mr. Davitt went out to America himself to do what his Parliamentary associate had not succeeded in doing. During this visit of Mr. Davitt to the United States, Mr. Henry George finally transferred his residence from San Francisco to New York, and made his arrangements to visit England and Ireland, and bring about a practical combination between the advocates of "the land for the people" on both sides of the ocean. These arrangements he carried out in 1881-82, publishing in 1881, in America, his treatise on the Irish Land question, while Mr. Davitt, who had been arrested after his return to Europe by Mr. Gladstone's Government in February 1881, on a revocation of his ticket-of-leave, lay a prisoner at Portland. Mr. George himself, while travelling in Ireland with an academical English friend, came under "suspicion" in the eyes of one of Mr. Forster's officers, and was arrested, but at once released. During the protracted confinement of Mr. Davitt at Portland, the utter incapacity of Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates to manage the social revolution initiated by the founder of the Land League became fully apparent, not only to impartial, but even to sympathetic observers in America, long before it was demonstrated by the incarceration of Mr. Parnell in Kilmainham, the disavowal, under pressure, of the no-rent manifesto by Archbishop Croke, and the suppression of the Land League. In sequestrating Mr. Davitt, Mr. Forster, as was shown by the extraordinary scenes which in the House of Commons followed his arrest, had struck at the core of the revolution, and had the Irish Secretary not been deserted by Mr. Gladstone, under influences which originated at Kilmainham, and were reinforced by the pressure of the United States Government in the spring of 1882, history might have had a very different tale to tell of the last six years in Ireland and in Great Britain.[6] V. It was after the return of Mr. George from Ireland to New York in 1882 that the first black point appeared on the horizon, of the conflict, inevitable in the nature of things, between the social revolution and the Catholic Church, which assumed such serious proportions two years ago in America, and which is now developing itself in Ireland. Among the ablest and the most earnest converts in America to the doctrine of the new social revolution was the Rev. Dr. M'Glynn, a Catholic priest, standing in the front rank of his order in New York, in point alike of eloquence in the pulpit, and of influence in private life. Finding, like Michael Davitt, in the doctrine of Henry George an outcome and a confirmation of the principle laid down in 1848 for the liberation of Ireland by Finton Lalor, Dr. M'Glynn threw himself ardently into the advocacy of that doctrine,--so ardently that in August 1882 the Prefect of the Propaganda, Cardinal Simeoni, found it necessary to invite the attention of Cardinal M'Closkey, then Archbishop of New York, to speeches of Dr. M'Glynn, reported in the _Irish World_ of New York, as "containing propositions openly opposed to the teachings of the Catholic Church." It did not concern the Propaganda that these propositions ran on all-fours with the policy of the Irish Land League established by Mr. Davitt, and accepted by Mr. Parnell. What concerned the Propaganda in the propositions of Dr. M'Glynn at New York in 1882 was precisely what concerns the Propaganda in the programme of Mr. Davitt as mismanaged by Mr. Dillon in Ireland in 1888--the incompatibility of these propositions, and of that programme, with the teachings of the Church. Upon receiving the instructions of the Propaganda in August 1882, Cardinal M'Closkey sent for Dr. M'Glynn, and set the matter plainly before him. Dr. M'Glynn professed regret for his errors, promised to abstain in future from political meetings, and begged the Cardinal to inform the authorities at Home of his intention to walk more circumspectly. The submission of Dr. M'Glynn was approved at Rome, but it was gently intimated to him that it needed to be crowned by public reparation for the scandal he had caused. He disregarded this pastoral hint, and when the Archbishop Coadjutor of New York, Dr. Corrigan, went to Rome in 1883 to represent the Cardinal, who was unequal to the journey, he found the Propaganda by no means satisfied with the attitude of Dr. M'Glynn. Two years after this, in October 1885, Cardinal M'Closkey died, and Dr. Corrigan succeeded him as Archbishop of New York. Between the first admonition given to the sacerdotal ally of Mr. George in 1882 and this event much had come to pass in Ireland. The Land League suppressed by Mr. Forster had been suffered to reappear as the National League by Earl Spencer and Mr. Trevelyan. Sir William Harcourt's stringent and sweeping "Coercion Act" of July 11th, 1882, passed under the stress of the murders in the Phoenix Park, expiring by its own terms in July 1885, Mr. Gladstone found himself forced either to alienate a number of his Radical supporters by proposing a renewal of that Act, or to invite a catastrophe in Ireland by attempting to rule that country under "the ordinary law." He elected to escape from the dilemma by inviting a defeat in Parliament on a secondary question of the Budget. He went out of power on the 9th of June 1885, leaving Lord Salisbury to send the Earl of Carnarvon as Viceroy to Ireland, and the Irish party in Parliament to darken the air on both sides of the Atlantic with portentous intimations of a mysterious compact, under which they were to secure Home Rule for Ireland by establishing the Conservatives in their places at the general election in November.[7] What came of all this I may briefly rehearse. Going out to America in November 1885, and returning to England in January 1886, I remained in London long enough to assure myself, and to publish in America my conviction of the utter hopelessness of Mr. Gladstone's "Home Rule" measure, the success of which would have made his government the ally and the instrument of Mr. Parnell in carrying out the plans of Mr. Davitt, Mr. Henry George, and the active Irish organisations of the United States. All this is matter of history. The effect of Mr. Gladstone's speech of April 8, 1886, introducing his Home Rule Bill, upon the Irish in America was simply intoxicating. They saw him, as in a vision, repeating for the benefit of Ireland at Dublin, on a grander scale, the impressive scene of his surrender in 1858 at Corfu of the Protectorate of the Ionian Islands to Greece. Upon thousands also of Americans, interested more or less intelligently in British affairs, but neither familiar, nor caring to be, with the details of the political situation in Great Britain, this appearance of the British Premier, as the champion of Home Rule for Ireland, denouncing the "baseness and blackguardism" of Pitt and his accomplices, the framers of the Union of 1800, naturally produced a very profound impression. What might be almost called a "tidal wave" of sympathy with the Irish National League, and with him as its ally, made itself felt throughout the United States. Had I witnessed the drama from the far-off auditorium in New York, I might doubtless have shared the conviction of so many of my countrymen that we were about to behold the consummation tunefully anticipated so many years ago by John Quincy Adams, and-- "Proud of herself, victorious over fate, See Erin rise, an independent state." The moment seemed propitious for a resolute forward move in America of Mr. Henry George, and the other American believers in the doctrine of "the land for the people." It would have been more propitious had not the political managers of the Irish party, misapprehending to the last moment the drift of things in the British Parliament, and counting firmly upon a victory for Mr. Gladstone, either at Westminster or at the polls, insisted upon holding a great convention of the Irish in America at Chicago in August 1886. A proposition to do this had been made in the spring of 1885, and put off, in judicious deference to the disgust which many independent Americans of both parties then felt at the course pursued by Mr. Parnell's friends, Mr. Egan and Mr. Sullivan in 1884, when these leaders openly led the Irish with drums beating and green flags flying out of the Democratic into the Republican camp. As it was, however, Mr. Gladstone having gone out of power a second time, on the second day of June in 1886, the non-parliamentary and real leader in Ireland of the Irish revolutionary movement, Mr. Davitt, came overtly to the front, and crossed the Atlantic to ride the whirlwind and direct the storm at the Convention appointed to be held in Chicago on the 18th of August. In New York he found Mr. Henry George quietly preparing to put the emotions of the moment to profit at the municipal election which was to occur in that city in November, and Dr. M'Glynn more enamoured than ever of the doctrine of "the land for the people," and more defiant than ever of the Propaganda and of his ecclesiastical superiors. It was resolved that Mr. George should come forward as a candidate for the mayoralty in November, and Dr. M'Glynn determined to take the field in support of him. VI. We now come to close quarters. Dr. Corrigan, as I have said, had become the Archbishop of New York in October 1885. The Irish-American Convention met at Chicago, Mr. Davitt dominating its proceedings by his courageous and outspoken support of his defeated Parliamentary allies in England. The candidacy of Mr. Henry George had not yet been announced in New York. But Dr. M'Glynn resumed his practice of addressing public meetings in support of the doctrines of Mr. Davitt and of Henry George. The Archbishop's duty was plain. It was not pleasant. A Catholic prelate of Irish blood living in New York might have been pardoned for avoiding, if he could, an open intervention at such a moment, to prevent an able and popular priest from disobeying his ecclesiastical superiors in his zeal for a doctrine hostile to "landlordism," and cordially approved by the most influential of the Irish leaders. But on the 21st August 1886, while all the Irishmen in New York were wild with excitement over the proceedings at Chicago, Archbishop Corrigan did his duty, and admonished Dr. M'Glynn to restrain his political ardour. The admonition was thrown away. A month later, the canvass of Mr. Henry George being then fully opened, Dr. M'Glynn sent Mr. George himself to wait upon the Archbishop with a note of introduction as his "very dear and valued friend," in the hope of inducing the Archbishop to withdraw his inhibition and allow him to speak at a great meeting, then about to be held, of the supporters of Mr. George. The Archbishop replied in a firm but friendly note, forbidding Dr. M'Glynn "in the most positive manner" to attend the meeting referred to, or "any other political meeting whatever." Dr. M'Glynn deliberately disobeyed this order, attended the meeting, and threw himself with ever increasing heat into the war against landlordism. On the 2d of October 1886, therefore, he was formally "suspended" from his priestly functions--nor has he ever since been permitted to resume them. Another priest presides over the great church of St. Stephen, of which he was the rector. More than once the door of repentance and return has been opened to him; but, I believe, he is still waging war in his own way, and beyond the precincts of the priesthood, both upon the right of private property in land and upon the Pope. He is a man of vigorous intellect; and he has defined the issue between himself and the Church in language so terse and clear that I reproduce it here. It defines also the real issue of to-day between the Church speaking through the Papal Decree of April 20, 1888, and the National League of Ireland acting through the "Plan of Campaign." No heed having been paid by Dr. M'Glynn to several successive intimations summoning him to go to Rome and explain his attitude, he finally, on the 20th of December 1886, wrote a letter in which, with a single skilful turn of his wrist, he took out the core of Henry George's doctrine as to land, which really is the core also of the Irish Plan of Campaign, and thus laid it before the Archbishop of New York:-- "My doctrine about land has been made clear in speeches, in reports of interviews, and in published articles, and I repeat it here. I have taught, and I shall continue to teach in speeches and writings, as long as I live, that land is rightfully the property of the people in common, and that private ownership of land is against natural justice, no matter by what civil or ecclesiastical laws it may be sanctioned; and I would bring about instantly, if I could, such change of laws all over the world as would confiscate private property in land without one penny of compensation to the miscalled owners." There is no shuffling here. With logical precision Dr. M'Glynn strips Mr. George's doctrine of its technical disguise as a form of taxation, and presents it to the world as a simple Confiscation of Rents. Many acute critics of _Progress and Poverty_ have failed to see that when Mr. George calls upon the State to take over to itself, and to its own uses, the whole annual rental value of the bare land of a country, the land, that is, irrespectively of improvements put upon it by man, he proposes not "a single tax upon land" at all, but an actual confiscation of the rental of the land--which for practical purposes is the land--to the uses of the State, without a levy, and without compensation to "the miscalled owners." When a tax is levied, the need by the State levying it of a certain sum of money must first be ascertained by competent authority, legislative or executive, as the case may be, and the law-making power must then, according to a prescribed form, enact that to raise such a sum a certain tax shall be levied on designated property or occupations. If the exigencies of the State are held to require it, a tax may be levied upon property of more than its value, as in the case, for example, of the customs duty which was imposed in one of our "tariff revisions" upon plate glass imported into the United States by way of "protecting" a single plate-glass factory then existing in the United States. This was an abominable abuse of a constitutional power, but it was not "confiscation." What Henry George proposes is confiscation, as Dr. M'Glynn plainly sees and courageously says. What he proposes is that the State shall compel the annual rental value of all land to be paid into the public treasury, without regard to the question whether the State does or does not need such a sum of money. That is confiscation pure and simple, the State, in the assumed interest of the State, proceeding against the private owners of land, or the "miscalled owners," to use Dr. M'Glynn's significant phrase, precisely as under the feudal system the State proceeded against the private property of rebels and traitors. No good reason can be shown why the process should not be applied to personalty and to debts as well as to land. This was the doctrine indorsed at the polls in New York in November 1886 by 68,000 voters. Nor can there be much doubt that it would have been indorsed by the few thousand more votes needed to defeat Mr. Hewitt, the actual Mayor of New York, and to put Mr. Henry George into the Chief Magistracy of the first city of the New World, had not its teachers and preachers been confronted by the quiet, cool, and determined prelate who met it as plainly as it was put. "Your letter," said the Archbishop, "has brought the painful intelligence that you decline to go to Rome, and that you have taught, and will continue to teach, the injustice of private ownership of land, no matter by what laws of Church or State it may be sanctioned. In view of such declarations, to permit you to exercise the holy ministry would be manifestly wrong." In these few words of the Archbishop of New York, we have plainly affirmed in 1886 the principle underlying the Papal Decree of 1888 against the Plan of Campaign and Boycotting in Ireland. There is no question of parties or of politics in the one case or in the other. When Dr. M'Glynn talked about the private ownership of land in New York as "against natural justice," he flung himself not only against the Eighth Commandment and the teachings of the Catholic Church, touching the rights of property, but against the constitutions of the State of New York and of the United States. That "private property shall not be taken for public uses without just compensation" is a fundamental provision of the Constitution of the United States, which is itself a part of the Constitution of every State of the Union; and the right of private ownership in land is defined and protected beyond doubt or cavil in New York under the State Constitution. An Act passed in 1830 provides and declares that all lands within the State "are allodial, so that, subject only to the liability to escheat, the entire and absolute property is vested in the owners according to the nature of their respective estates." By this Act "all feudal tenures of every description, with all their incidents," were "abolished." Most of the "feudal incidents" of the socage tenure had been previously abolished by an Act passed in 1787, under the first Constitution of the State, adopted at Kingston in 1777, a year after the Declaration of American Independence; and socage tenure by fixed and determinate service, not military or variable by the lord at his will, had been adopted long before by an Act of the first Assembly of the Province of New York held in 1691 under the first Royal Governor, after the reconquest of the province from Holland, and in the reign of William and Mary. This Act provided that all lands should "be held in free and common socage according to the tenure of East Greenwich in England." It is an interesting circumstance that the right of private ownership in land, thus rooted in our history, should have been defended against a threatening revolutionary movement in New York by the courage and loyalty to the Constitution of his country as well as to his Church of a Catholic Archbishop. For this same Assembly of the Province of New York in 1693, in an Act "to maintain Protestant ministers and churches," enacted that "every Jesuit and popish priest" found in the Province after a certain day named, should be put into "perpetual imprisonment," with the proviso that if he escaped and was retaken he should suffer death. And even in the Constitution of 1777 the Protestantism of New York expressed its hostility to the Catholic Church by exacting subjection "in all matters ecclesiastical as well as civil." The position of the Archbishop, both as a churchman and as a citizen, was impregnable. When Dr. M'Glynn advocated the plan of Henry George, he advocated at one and the same time the immoral seizure and confiscation of the whole income of many persons within the protection of the Constitution of New York, and the overthrow of the Constitution of that State and of the United States. It may be within the competency of the British Parliament to enact such a confiscation of rent without a revolution, there being not only no allodial tenure of land in Great Britain, but, it would appear, no limit to the power of a British Parliament over the lives, liberties, and property of British subjects, but the will of its members. But it is not within the competency of the Congress of the United States, or of the Assembly of New York, to do such a thing, the powers of these bodies being controlled and denned by written Constitutions, which can only be altered or amended in a prescribed manner and through prescribed and elaborate forms. VII. By the middle of October 1886 it became clear that Mr. George, whose candidacy had at first been regarded with indifference by the party managers, both Democratic and Republican, in New York, would command a vote certainly larger than that of one of these parties, and possibly larger than that of either of them. To put him at the head of a poll of three parties would elect him. This was so apparent that he and his friends, including Dr. M'Glynn and Mr. Davitt, were warranted in expecting a victory. It was hardly therefore by a mere coincidence that this precise time was selected for opening the war in Ireland against Rent. It is quite possible that if Mr. Dillon and his Parliamentary friends had been in less of a hurry to open this war before the return of Mr. Davitt from America, it might have been opened in a manner less "politically stupid," if not less "morally wrong." But, of course, if Mr. Henry George had been elected Mayor of New York, as he came so near to being in November 1886, and Mr. Davitt had returned to Ireland with the prestige of contributing to place him in the municipal chair of the most important city in the New World, Mr. Dillon and his Parliamentary friends would probably have found it necessary to accept a much less conspicuous part in the conduct of the campaign. It was on the 17th of October 1886 that Mr. John Dillon, M.P., first promulgated the "Plan of Campaign" at Portumna, in a speech which was promptly flashed under the Atlantic to New York, there to feed the flame, already fanned by the eloquence of Dr. M'Glynn, into a blaze of enthusiasm for the apostle of the New Gospel of Confiscation. Had the "Plan of Campaign" then been met by the highest local authority of the Catholic Church in Ireland, as Henry George's doctrine of Confiscation was met in New York by Archbishop Corrigan, it might never have been necessary to issue the Papal Decree of April 1888. But while the Bishop of Limerick unhesitatingly denounced the "Plan of Campaign" as "politically stupid and morally wrong," the Archbishop of Dublin bestowed upon it what may be called a left-handed benediction. Admitting that it empowered one of the parties to a contract to "fix the terms on which that contract should continue in force," the Archbishop actually condoned the claim of this immoral power by the tenant, on the ground that the same immoral power had been theretofore exercised by the landlord! Peter having robbed Paul from January to July, that is, Paul should be encouraged by his spiritual guides to rob Peter from July to January! That the Catholic Church should even seem for a time to speak with two voices on such a point as the moral quality of political machinery, or that speaking with one voice upon such a point in America, it should even seem to speak with another voice in Ireland, would clearly be a disaster to the Church and to civilisation. From the moment therefore, in 1886, when the issue between Dr. M'Glynn and the Archbishop of New York was defined, as I have shown, and the Irish National League, with a quasi-indorsement from the Archbishop of Dublin, had arrayed itself practically and openly on the side of Dr. M'Glynn and against the Archbishop of New York, interests far transcending those of any political party in Ireland, in Great Britain, or in the United States, were involved. Unfortunately for the immediate and decisive settlement by Rome of the issue between Dr. M'Glynn and the Archbishop of New York, a certain vague but therefore more vexatious measure of countenance had been given, before that issue was raised, to the theories of Mr. Henry George by another American prelate, the Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore, and by more than one eminent ecclesiastic in Europe. Of course this would have been impossible had these ecclesiastics penetrated, like Dr. M'Glynn, to the heart of Mr. George's contention, or discerned with the acumen of the Archbishop of New York the fundamental difference between any imaginable exercise of the power of taxation by a Constitutional Government, and Mr. George's doctrine of the Confiscation of Rent. But this having occurred, it was inevitable that Rome, which has to deal with a world-wide and complex system of the most varied and delicate human affairs, should proceed in the matter with infinite patience and care. In January 1887 the Propaganda accordingly cabled thus to the Archbishop of New York,--Dr. M'Glynn persisting in his refusal to go to Rome--"for prudential reasons Propaganda has heretofore postponed action in the case of Dr. M'Glynn. The Sovereign Pontiff has now taken the matter into his own hands." In the hands of his Holiness the matter was safe; and in the Papal Decree of April 20, 1888, we have at once the most conclusive vindication of the wisdom and courage shown by the Archbishop of New York in 1886, and the most emphatic condemnation of the attitude assumed in 1886 by the Archbishop of Dublin. VIII. It must not be assumed that Mr. George has been finally defeated in America. On the contrary, he was never more active. A legacy left to him by an Irish-American for the propagation of his doctrines has just been declared by the Vice-Chancellor of New Jersey, to be invalid on the ground that George's doctrines are "in opposition to the laws"; and this decision has bred an uproar in the press which is reviving popular attention all over the country to the doctrines and to their author. He is astute, persevering, as much in earnest as Mr. Davitt, and as familiar with the weak points in the political machinery of the United States as is Mr. Davitt with the weak points in the political machinery of Great Britain. This is a Presidential year. The election of 1888 will be decided, as was the election of 1884, in New York. The Democratic party go into the contest with a New York candidate, President Cleveland, who was presented to the Convention at St. Louis for nomination, not by an Irishman from New York, but by an Irishman from the hopelessly Republican State of Pennsylvania, and whose renomination, distasteful to the Democratic Governor of the State, was also openly opposed by the Democratic Mayor of the city of New York, Mr. Hewitt, Mr. George's successful competitor in the Municipal election of 1886. Leaving Dr. M'Glynn to uphold the Confiscation of Land against the Pope in New York, as Mr. Davitt, Mr. Dillon, and a certain number of Irish priests uphold the Plan of Campaign and Boycotting against the Pope in Ireland, Mr. George supports President Cleveland, and in so doing cleverly makes a flank movement towards his "exclusive taxation of land," by promoting, under the cover of "Revenue Reform," an attack on the indirect taxation from which the Federal Revenues are now mainly derived. Meanwhile the Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore, who is also a political supporter of President Cleveland, has not yet been confronted by the supreme authority at Rome with such a final sentence upon the true nature of Mr. George's "exclusive taxation of land," as the clear-sighted Archbishop of New York is said to be seeking to obtain from the Holy Office. What the end will be I have little doubt. But for the moment, it will be seen, the situation in America is only less confused and troublesome than the situation in Ireland. It is confused and troubled too, as I have tried in this prologue to show, by forces identical in character with those which confuse and trouble the situation in Ireland. Of the social conditions amid and against which those forces are working in America, I believe myself to have some knowledge. To get an actual touch and living sense of the social conditions amid and against which they are working in Ireland was my object, I repeat, in making the visits, of which this book is a record. More than this I could not hope, in the time at my disposal, to do. With very much less than this, it appears to me, many persons, whose views of Irish affairs I had been inclined, before making these visits, to regard with respect, must have found it possible to rest content. CHAPTER I. DUBLIN, _Monday, Jan. 30, 1888._--I left London last night. The train was full of people going to attend levees and drawing-rooms about to be held at Dublin Castle. Near Watford we lost half an hour by the breaking of a connecting-rod: but the London and North-Western is a model railway, and we ran alongside the pier at Holyhead exactly "on time." There is no such railway travelling in America, excepting on the Pennsylvania Central; and the North-Western sleeping-carriages, if less monumental and elaborate than ours, are better ventilated, and certainly not less comfortable. I had expected to come upon unusual things and people in Ireland, but I had not expected to travel thither in company with an Irish Jacobite. Two of my fellow-passengers, chatting as they smoked their cigarettes in the little vestibule between the cabins of the carriage, had much to say about Lord Ashburnham, and the "Order of the White Rose," and the Grand Mass to be celebrated to-morrow morning at the Church of the Carmelites in London, in memory of Charles Edward Stuart, who died at Rome in 1788, and now lies buried as Charles III., King of Great Britain and Ireland, in the vaults of the Vatican, together with his father "James III.," and his brother "Henry IX." One of the two was as hot and earnest about the "Divine Right of Kings" as the parson who, less than forty years ago, preached a sermon to prove that the great cholera visitation of 1849 was a direct chastisement of the impiety of the Royal Mint in dropping the letters D.G. from the first florins of Queen Victoria issued in that year. He bewailed his sad fate in being called over to Ireland by family affairs at such a moment, and evidently did not know that the Mass in question had been countermanded by the Cardinal Archbishop. The incident, odd enough in itself, interested me the more that yesterday, as it happens, the Cardinal had spoken with me of this curious affair. He heard of it for the first time on Saturday, and, sending at once for the priest in charge of the Carmelite Church, forbade the celebration. Later on in the evening, two strangers came to the Archbishop's house, and in great agitation besought him to allow the arrangements for the Mass to go on. He declined to do this, and sent them away impaled on a dilemma. "What you propose," said the Cardinal, "is either a piece of theatrical tomfoolery, in which case it is unfit to be performed in a church, or it is flat treason, in which case you should be sent to the Tower!" They went away, like the Senatus of Augsburg from the presence of Napoleon--"_très mortifiés et peu contents_." After they had gone, the Cardinal remembered that for some time past queer documents had reached him through the post-office, setting forth the doctrine of Divine Right, and the story of the Stuarts. One of these, which with the rest he had thrown into the fire, was an elaborate genealogical chart, designed to show that the crowns of Great Britain and Ireland ought rightfully to be worn by a certain princess in Bavaria! If there is anything more in all this than a new variety of the "blue China craze," may it not be taken as a symptom of that vague but clearly growing dissatisfaction with the nineteenth century doctrine of government by mere majorities, which is by no means confined to Europe? This feeling underlies the "National Association" for getting a preamble put into the Constitution of the United States, "recognising Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in Civil Government." There was such a recognition in the Articles of Confederation of 1781. Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia should have mentioned to His Holiness the existence of this Association, when he presented to Leo XIII., the other day at Rome, President Cleveland's curious Jubilee gift of an emblazoned copy of what a Monsignore of my acquaintance calls "the godless American Constitution."[8] We made a quick quiet passage to Kingstown. These boats--certainly the best appointed of their sort afloat--are owned, I find, in Dublin, and managed exclusively by their Irish owners, to whom the credit therefore belongs of making the mail service between Holyhead and Kingstown as admirable, in all respects, as the mail services between Dover and the Continental ports are not. I landed at Kingstown with Lord Ernest Hamilton, M.P. for North Tyrone, with whom I have arranged an expedition to Gweedore in Donegal, one of the most ill-famed of the "congested districts" of Ireland, and just now made a point of special interest by the arrest of Father M'Fadden, the parish priest of the place, for "criminally conspiring to compel and induce certain tenants not to fulfil their legal obligations." I could understand such a prosecution as this in America, where the Constitution makes it impossible even for Congress to pass laws "impairing the validity of contracts." But as the British Parliament has been passing such laws for Ireland ever since Mr. Butt in 1870 raised the standard of Irish Land Reform under the name of Home Rule, it seems a little absurd, not to say Hibernian, of the British authorities to prosecute Father M'Fadden merely for bettering their own instruction in his own way. I could better understand a prosecution of Father M'Fadden on such grounds by the authorities of his own Church. A step from the boat at Kingstown puts you into the train for Dublin. Before we got into motion, a weird shape as of one just escaped from the Wild West show of Buffalo Bill peered in at the window, inviting us to buy the morning papers, or a copy of "the greatest book ever published, 'Paddy at Home!'" This proved to be a translation of M. de Mandat Grancey's lively volume, _Chez Paddy_. The vendor, "Davy," is one of the "chartered libertines" of Dublin. He is supposed to be, and I dare say is, a warm Nationalist, but he has a keen eye to business, and alertly suits his cries to his customers. Recognising the Conservative member for North Tyrone, he promptly recommended us to buy the _Irish Times_ and the _Express_ as "the two best papers in all Ireland." But he smiled approval when I asked for the _Freeman's Journal_ also, in which I found a report of a speech delivered yesterday by Mr. Davitt at Rathkeale, chiefly remarkable for a sensible protest against the ridiculous and rantipole abuse lavished upon Mr. Balfour by the Nationalist orators and newspapers. I am not surprised to see this. Mr. Davitt has the stuff in him of a serious revolutionary leader, and no such man can stomach the frothy and foolish vituperation to which parliamentary agitators are addicted, not in Ireland only. Unlike Mr. Parnell, who is forced to have one voice for New York and Cincinnati, and another voice for Westminster, Mr. Davitt is free to be always avowedly bent on bringing about a thorough Democratic revolution in Ireland. I believe him to be too able a man to imagine, as some of the Irish agitators do, that this can be done without the consent of Democratic England, and he has lived too much in England, and knows the English democracy too well, I suspect, not to know that to abuse an executive officer for determination and vigour is the surest way to make him popular. Calling Mr. Forster "Buckshot" Forster did him no harm. On the contrary, the epithet might have helped him to success had not Mr. Gladstone given way behind him at the most critical moment of his grapple with the revolutionary organisation in Ireland. We hear a great deal about resistance to tyrants being obedience to God, but I fear that obedience to God is not the strongest natural passion of the human heart, and I doubt whether resistance to tyrants can often be promoted by putting about a general conviction that the tyrant has a thumping big stick in his hand, and may be relied upon to use it. Even Tom Paine had the wit to see that it was his "good heart" which brought Louis XVI. to the scaffold. Nobody who had not learned from the speeches made in England, and the cable despatches sent to America, that freedom of speech and of the press has been brutally trampled under foot in Ireland by a "Coercion" Government would ever suspect it from reading the Dublin papers which I this morning bought. As a Democratic journalist I had some practical knowledge of a true "Coercion" government in America a quarter of a century ago. The American editor who had ventured in 1862 to publish in a New York or Philadelphia newspaper a letter from Washington, speaking of the Unionist Government by President Lincoln, as the letter from London published to-day in the _Freeman's Journal_ speaks of the Unionist Government of Lord Salisbury, would have found himself in one of the casemates of Fort Lafayette within twenty-four hours. Our Republican rulers acted upon the maxim laid down by Mr. Tilden's friend, Montgomery Blair,[9] that "to await the results of slow judicial prosecution is to allow crime to be consummated, with the expectation of subsequent punishment, instead of preventing its accomplishment by prompt and direct interference." Perhaps Americans take their Government more seriously than Englishmen do. Certainly we stand by it more sternly in bad weather. Even so good a Constitutionalist as Professor Parsons at Harvard, I remember, when a student asked him if he would not suspend the _Habeas Corpus_ in the case of a man caught hauling down the American flag, promptly replied, "I would not suspend the _Habeas Corpus_; I would suspend the _Corpus_." We found no "hansoms" at the Dublin Station, only "outside cars," and cabs much neater than the London four-wheelers. One of these brought us at a good pace to Maple's Hotel in Kildare Street, a large, old-fashioned but clean and comfortable house. My windows look down upon a stately edifice of stone erecting on Kildare Street for all sorts of educational and "exhibitional" purposes, with the help of an Imperial grant, I am told, and to be called the Leinster Hall. The style is decidedly composite, with colonnades and loggie and domes and porticos, and recalls the ancient Roman buildings depicted in that fresco of a belated slave-girl knocking at her mistress's door which with its companion pieces is fast fading away upon the walls of the "House of Livia" on the Palatine. At one end of this street is the fashionable and hospitable Kildare Street Club; at the other the Shelburne Hotel, known to all Americans. This seems to have been "furbished-up" since I last saw it. There, for the last time as it proved, I saw and had speech of my friend of many years, the prince of all preachers in our time, Father Burke of Tallaght and of San Clemente. I had telegraphed to him from London that I should halt in Dublin for a day, on my way to America, to see him. He came betimes, to find me almost as badly-off as St. Lawrence upon his gridiron. The surgeon whom the hotel people had hastily summoned to relieve me from a sudden attack of that endemic Irish ecstasy, the lumbago, had applied what he called the "heroic treatment" on my telling him that I had no time to be ill, but must spend that day with Father Burke, dine that night with Mr. Irving and Mr. Toole, and go on the next day to America. "What has this Inquisitor done to you?" queried Father Tom. "Cauterised me with chloroform." "Oh! that's a modern improvement! Let me see--" and, scrutinising the results, he said, with a merry twinkle in his deep, dark eyes--"I see how it is! They brought you a veterinary!" This was in 1878. On that too brief, delightful morning, we talked of all things--supralunar, lunar, and sublunary. Much of Wales, I remember, where he had been making a visit. "A glorious country," he said, "and the Welsh would have been Irish, only they lost the faith." Full of love for Ireland as he was, he was beginning then to be troubled by symptoms in the Nationalist movement, which could not be regarded with composure by one who, in his youth at Rome, had seen, with me, the devil of extremes drive Italy down a steep place into the sea. Five years afterwards I landed at Queenstown, in July 1883, intending to visit him at Tallaght. But when the letter which I sent to announce my coming reached the monastery, the staunchest Soldier of the Church in Ireland lay there literally "dead on the field of honour." Chatham, in the House of Lords, John Quincy Adams, in the House of Representatives, fell in harness, but neither death so speaks to the heart as the simple and sublime self-sacrifice of the great Dominican, dragging himself from his dying bed into Dublin to spend the last splendour of his genius and his life for the starving children of the poor in Donegal. What would I not give for an hour with him now! After breakfast I went out to find Mr. Davitt, hoping he might suggest some way of seeing the Nationalist meeting on Wednesday night without undergoing the dismal penance of sitting out all the speeches. I wished also to ask him why at Rathkeale he talked about the Dunravens as "absentees." He was born in Lord Lucan's country, and may know little of Limerick, but he surely ought to know that Adare Manor was built of Irish materials, and by Irish workmen, under the eye of Lord Dunraven, all the finest ornamental work, both in wood and in stone, of the mansion, being done by local mechanics; and also that the present owners of Adare spend a large part of every year in the country, and are deservedly popular. He was not to be found at the National League headquarters, nor yet at the Imperial Hotel, which is his usual resort, as Morrison's is the resort of Mr. Parnell. So I sent him a note through the Post-Office. "You had better seal it with wax," said a friend, in whose chambers I wrote it. "Pray, why?" "Oh! all the letters to well-known people that are not opened by the police are opened by the Nationalist clerks in the Post-Offices. 'Tis a way we've always had with us in Ireland!" I had some difficulty in finding the local habitation of the "National League." I had been told it was in O'Connell Street, and sharing the usual and foolish aversion of my sex to asking questions on the highway, I perambulated a good many streets and squares before I discovered that it has pleased the local authorities to unbaptize Sackville Street, "the finest thoroughfare in Europe," and convert it into "O'Connell Street." But they have failed so ignominiously that the National League finds itself obliged to put up a huge sign over its doorways, notifying all the world that the offices are not where they appear to be in Upper Sackville Street at all, but in "O'Connell Street." The effect is as ludicrous as it is instructive. Oddly enough, they have not attempted to change the name of another thoroughfare which keeps green the "pious and immortal memory" of William III., dear to all who in England or America go in fear and horror of the scarlet woman that sitteth upon the seven hills! There is a fashion, too, in Dublin of putting images of little white horses into the fanlights over the doorways, which seems to smack of an undue reverence for the Protestant Succession and the House of Hanover. What you expect is the thing you never find in Ireland. I had rather thoughtlessly taken it for granted the city would be agog with the great Morley reception which is to come off on Wednesday night. There is a good deal about it in the _Freeman's Journal_ to-day, but chiefly touching a sixpenny quarrel which has sprung up between the Reception Committee and the Trades Council over the alleged making of contracts by the Committee with "houses not employing members of the regular trades." For this the typos and others propose to "boycott" the Committee and the Reception and the Liberators from over the sea. From casual conversations I gather that there is much more popular interest in the release, on Wednesday, of Mr. T.D. Sullivan, ex-Lord Mayor, champion swimmer, M.P., poet, and patriot. A Nationalist acquaintance of mine tells me that in Tullamore Mr. Sullivan has been most prolific of poetry. He has composed a song which I am afraid will hardly please my Irish Nationalist friends in America: "We are sons of Sister Isles, Englishmen and Irishmen, On our friendship Heaven smiles; Tyrant's schemes and Tory wiles Ne'er shall make us foes again." There is to be a Drawing-Room, too, at the Castle on Wednesday night. One would not unnaturally gather from the "tall talk" in Parliament and the press that this conjuncture of a great popular demonstration in favour of Irish nationality, with a display of Dublin fashion doing homage to the alien despot, might be ominous of "bloody noses and cracked crowns." Not a bit of it! I asked my jarvey, for instance, on an outside car this afternoon, whether he expected a row to result from these counter currents of the classes and the masses. "A row!" he replied, looking around at me in amazement. "A row is it? and what for would there be? Shure they'll be through with the procession in time to see the carriages!" Obviously he saw nothing in either show to offend anybody; though he could clearly understand that an intelligent citizen might be vexed if he found himself obliged to sacrifice one of them in order to fully enjoy the other. Lady Londonderry, it seems, is not yet well enough to cross the Channel; but the Duchess of Marlborough, who is staying here with her nephew the Lord-Lieutenant, has volunteered to assist him in holding the Drawing-Room, whereupon a grave question has arisen in Court circles as to whether the full meed of honours due to a Vice-Queen regnant ought to be paid also to an ex-Vice-Queen. This is debated by the Dublin dames as hotly as official women in Washington fight over the eternal question of the relative precedence due to the wives of Senators and "Cabinet Ministers." It will be a dark day for the democracy when women get the suffrage--and use it. At luncheon to-day I met the Attorney-General, Mr. O'Brien, who, with prompt Irish hospitality, asked me to dine with him to-morrow night, and Mr. Wilson of the London _Times_, an able writer on Irish questions from the English point of view. Mr. Balfour, who was expected, did not appear, being detained by guests at his own residence in the Park. I went to see him in the afternoon at the Castle, and found him in excellent spirits; certainly the mildest-mannered and most sensible despot who ever trampled in the dust the liberties of a free people. He was quite delightful about the abuse which is now daily heaped upon him in speeches and in the press, and talked about it in a casual dreamy way which reminded me irresistibly of President Lincoln, whom, if in nothing else, he resembles alike in longanimity and in length of limb. He had seen Davitt's _caveat_, filed at Rathkeale, against the foolishness of trying to frighten him out of his line of country by calling him bad names. "Davitt is quite right," he said, "the thing must be getting to be a bore to the people, who are not such fools as the speakers take them to be. One of the stenographers told me the other day that they had to invent a special sign for the phrase 'bloody and brutal Balfour,' it is used so often in the speeches." About the prosecution of Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, he knew nothing beyond the evidence on which it had been ordered. This he showed me. If the first duty of a government is to govern, which is the American if not the English way of looking at it, Father M'Fadden must have meant to get himself into trouble when he used such language as this to his people: "I am the law in Gweedore; I despise the recent Coercion Act; if I got a summons to-morrow, I would not obey it." From language like this to the attitude of Father M'Glynn in New York, openly flouting the authority of the Holy See itself, is but an easy and an inevitable step. Neither "Home Rule" nor any other "Rule" can exist in a country in which men whose words carry any weight are suffered to take up such an attitude. It is just the attitude of the "Comeouters" in New England during my college days at Harvard, when Parker Pillsbury and Stephen Foster used to saw wood and blow horns on the steps of the meeting-houses during service, in order to free their consciences "and protest against the Sabbatarian laws." To see a Catholic priest assume this attitude is almost as amazing as to see an educated Englishman like Mr. Wilfrid Blunt trying to persuade Irishmen that Mr. Balfour made him the confidant of a grisly scheme for doing sundry Irish leaders to death by maltreating them in prison. I see with pleasure that the masculine instincts of Mr. Davitt led him to allude to this nonsense yesterday at Rathkeale in a half contemptuous way. Mr. Balfour spoke of it to-day with generosity and good feeling. "When I first heard of it," he said, "I resented it, of course, as an outrageous imputation on Mr. Blunt's character, and denounced it accordingly. What I have since learned leads me to fear that he really may have said something capable of being construed in this absurd sense, but if he did, it must have been under the exasperation produced by finding himself locked up." I heard the story of Mr. Balfour's meeting with Mr. Blunt very plainly and vigorously told, while I was staying the other day at Knoyle House, in the immediate neighbourhood of Clouds, where the two were guests under conditions which should be at least as sacred in the eyes of Britons as of Bedouins. In Wiltshire nobody seemed for a moment to suppose it possible that Mr. Blunt can have really deceived himself as to the true nature of any conversation he may have had with Mr. Balfour. This is paying a compliment to Mr. Blunt's common sense at the expense of his imagination. In any view of the case, to lie in wait at the lips of a fellow guest in the house of a common friend, for the counts of a political indictment against him, is certainly a proceeding, as Davitt said yesterday of Mr. Blunts tale of horror, quite "open to question." But, as Mr. Blunt himself has sung, "'Tis conscience makes us sinners, not our sin," and I have no doubt the author of the _Poems of Proteus_ really persuaded himself that he was playing lawn tennis and smoking cigarettes in Wiltshire with a modern Alva, cynically vain of his own dark and bloody designs. Now that he finds himself struck down by the iron hand of this remorseless tyrant, why should he not cry aloud and warn, not Ireland alone, but humanity, against the appalling crimes meditated, not this time in the name of "Liberty," but in the name of Order? What especially struck me in talking with Mr. Balfour to-day was his obviously unaffected interest in Ireland as a country rather than in Ireland as a cock-pit. It is the condition of Ireland, and not the gabble of parties at Westminster about the condition of Ireland, which is uppermost in his thoughts. This, I should say, is the best guarantee of his eventual success. The weakest point of the modern English system of government by Cabinets surely is the evanescent tenure by which every Minister holds his place. Not only has the Cabinet itself no fixed term of office, being in truth but a Committee of the Legislature clothed with executive authority, but any member of the Cabinet may be forced by events or by intrigues to leave it. In this way Mr. Forster, when he filled the place now held by Mr. Balfour, found himself driven into resigning it by Mr. Gladstone's indisposition or inability to resist the peremptory pressure put upon the British Premier at a critical moment by our own Government in the spring of 1882. Mr. Balfour is in no such peril, perhaps. He is more sure, I take it, of the support of Lord Salisbury and his colleagues than Mr. Forster ever was of the support of Mr. Gladstone; and the "Coercion" law which it is his duty to administer contains no such sweeping and despotic clause as that provision in Mr. Gladstone's "Coercion Act" of 1881, under which persons claiming American citizenship were arrested and indefinitely locked up on "suspicion," until it became necessary for our Government, even at the risk of war, to demand their trial or release. But if Mr. Balfour were Chief Secretary for Ireland "on the American plan"; if he held his office, that is, for a fixed term of years, and cared nothing for a renewal of the lease, he could not be more pre-occupied than he seems to be with simply getting his executive duty done, or less pre-occupied than he seems to be with what may be thought of his way of getting it done. If all executive officers were of this strain, Parliamentary government might stand in the dock into which Prince Albert put it with more composure, and await the verdict with more confidence. Surely if Ireland is ever to govern herself, she must learn precisely the lesson which Mr. Balfour, I believe, is trying to teach her--that the duty of executive officers to execute the laws is not a thing debateable, like the laws themselves, nor yet determinable, like the enactment of laws, by taking the yeas and the nays. How well this lesson shall be taught must depend, of course, very much upon the quality of the men who make up the machine of Government in Ireland. That the Irish have almost as great a passion for office-holding as the Spanish, we long ago learned in New York, where the percentage of Irish office-holders considerably exceeds the percentage of Irish citizens. And as all the witnesses agree that the Irish Government has for years been to an inordinate degree a Government by patronage, there must doubtless be some reasonable ground for the very general impression that "the Castle" needs overhauling. It is not true, however, I find, although I have often heard it asserted in England, that the Irish Government is officered by Englishmen and Scotchmen exclusively. The murdered Mr. Burke certainly was not an Englishman; and there is an apparent predominance of Irishmen in the places of trust and power. That things at the Castle cannot be nearly so bad, moreover, as we in America are asked to believe, would seem to be demonstrated by the affectionate admiration with which Lord Spencer is now regarded by men like Mr. O'Brien, M.P., who only the other day seemed to regard him as an unfit survival of the Cities of the Plain. If what these men then said of him, and of the Castle generally, was even very partially true--or if being wholly false, these men believed it to be true--every man of them who now touches Lord Spencer's hand is defiled, or defiles him. But that concerns them. Their present attitude makes Lord Spencer a good witness when he declares that the Civil servants of the Crown in Ireland, called "the Castle," are "diligent, desire to do their duty with impartiality, and to hold an even balance between opposing interests in Ireland," and maintains that they "will act with impartiality and vigour if led by men who know their own minds, and desire to be firm in the Government of the country." All this being true, Mr. Balfour ought to make his Government a success. Mr. Balfour introduced me to Sir West Ridgway, the successor of Sir Redvers Buller, who has been rewarded for the great services he did his country in Asia, by being flung into this seething Irish stew. He takes it very composedly, though the climate does not suit him, he says; and has a quiet workmanlike way with him, which impresses one favourably at once. All the disorderly part of Ireland (for disorder is far from being universal in Ireland) comes under his direct administration, being divided into five divisions on the lines originally laid down in 1881 by Mr. Forster. Over each of these divisions presides a functionary styled a "Divisional Magistrate." The title is not happily chosen, the powers of these officers being rather like those confided to a French Prefect than like those which are associated in England and America with the title of a "magistrate." They have no judicial power, and nothing to do with the trial of offenders. Their business is to protect life and property, and to detect and bring to justice offenders against the law. They can only be called Magistrates as the Executive of the United States is sometimes called the "Chief Magistrate." One of the most conspicuous and trusted of these Divisional Magistrates, I find, is Colonel Turner, who was Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, under Lord Aberdeen. He is now denounced by the Irish Nationalists as a ruthless tyrant. He was then denounced by the Irish Tories as a sympathiser with Home Rule. It is probable, therefore, that he must be a conscientious and loyal executive officer, who understands and acts upon the plain lines of his executive duty. I dined to-night at the Castle, not in the great hall or banqueting-room of St. Patrick, which was designed by that connoisseur in magnificence, the famous Lord Chesterfield, during his Viceroyalty, but in a very handsome room of more moderate dimensions. Much of the semi-regal state observed at the Castle in the days of the Georges has been put down with the Battle-Axe Guards of the Lord-Lieutenant, and with the basset-tables of the "Lady-Lieutenant," as the Vice-queen used to be called. At dinner the Viceroy no longer drinks to the pious and immortal memory of William III., or to the "1st of July 1690." No more does the band play "Lillibullero," and no longer is the pleasant custom maintained, after a dinner to the city authorities of Dublin, of a "loving cup" passed around the table, into which each guest, as it passed, dropped a gold piece for the good of the household. Only so much ceremonial is now observed as suffices to distinguish the residence of the Queen's personal representative from that of a great officer of State, or an opulent subject of high rank. Dublin Castle indeed is no more of a palace than it is of a castle. Its claim to the latter title rests mainly on the fine old "Bermingham" tower of the time of King John; its claim to the former on the Throne Room, the Council Chamber, and the Hall of St. Patrick already mentioned. This last is a very stately and sumptuous apartment. Just twenty years ago the most brilliant banquet modern Dublin has seen was given in this hall by the late Duke of Abercorn to the Prince and Princess of Wales, to celebrate the installation of the Prince as a Knight of St. Patrick. It is a significant fact, testified to by all the most candid Irishmen I have ever known, that upon the occasion of this visit to Ireland in 1868 the Prince and Princess were received with unbounded enthusiasm by the people of all classes. Yet only the year before, in 1867, the explosion of some gunpowder at Clerkenwell by a band of desperadoes, to the death and wounding of many innocent people, had brought the question of the disestablishment of the Irish Church, in the mind of Mr. Gladstone, within the domain of "practical politics"! By parity of reasoning, one would think, the reception of the heir-apparent and his wife in Ireland ought to have taken that question out of the domain of "practical politics." The Prince of Wales, it is known, brought away from this visit an impression that the establishment of a prince of the blood in Ireland, or a series of royal visits to Ireland, would go far towards pacifying the relations between the two Islands. Mr. Gladstone thought his Disestablishment would quite do the work. Events have shown that Mr. Gladstone made a sad mistake as to the effect of his measure. The pains which, I am told, were taken by Mr. Deasy, M.P., and others to organise hostile demonstrations at one or two points in the south of Ireland, during a subsequent visit of the Prince and Princess, would seem to show that in the opinion of the Nationalists themselves, the impression of the Prince was more accurate than were the inferences of the Premier. There is nothing froward or formidable in the aspect of Dublin Castle. It has neither a portcullis nor a drawbridge. People go in and out of it as freely as through the City Hall in New York. There is a show of sentries at the main entrance, and in one of the courts this morning the picturesque band of a Scotch regiment was playing to the delectation of a small but select audience of urchins and little girls. A Dublin mob, never so little in earnest and led by a dozen really determined men, ought to be able to make as short work of it as the hordes of the Faubourgs in Paris made of the Bastille, with its handful of invalids, on that memorable 14th of July, about which so many lies have passed into history, and so much effervescent nonsense is still annually talked and printed. The greater part of the Castle as it existed when the Irish Parliaments sat there under Elizabeth, and just before the last Catholic Viceroy made Protestantism penal, and planned the transformation of Ireland into a French province, was burned in the time of James II. The Earl of Arran then reported to his father that "the king had lost nothing but six barrels of gunpowder, and the worst castle in the worst situation in Christendom." Here, as at Ottawa, a viceregal dinner-table is set off by the neat uniforms and skyblue facings of the aides-de-camp and secretaries. For some mysterious reason Lord Spencer put these officers into chocolate coats with white facings. But the new order soon gave place to the old again. At the dinner to-night was Lord Ormonde, who is returning to London, but kindly promised to make arrangements for showing me at Kilkenny Castle the muniment room of the Butlers, which contains one of the most valuable private collections of charters and State papers in the realm. _Tuesday, Jan. 31._--I lunched to-day with Sir Michael Morris, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, whom I had last seen in Rome at the Jubilee Mass of His Holiness. Sir Michael is one of the recognised lights of social life and of the law in Dublin. While he was in Rome some one highly commended him in the presence of that staunch Nationalist the Archbishop of Dublin, who assented so far as to say, "Yes, yes, there are worse fellows in Dublin than that Morris!" It would be hard to find a more typical Irishman of the better sort than Sir Michael, a man more sure, in the words of Sheridan, to "carry his honour and his brogue unstained to the grave." The brogue of Sir Michael, it is said, made his fortune in the House of Commons. It has hardly the glow which made the brogue of Father Burke a memory as of music in the ears of all who heard it, and differs from that miraculous gift of the tongue as a ripe wine of Bordeaux differs from a ripe wine of Burgundy. But to the ordinary brogue of the street and the stage, it is as is a Brane Mouton Rothschild of 1868 to the casual Médoc of a Parisian restaurant. "Do you know Father Healy?" said one of the company to whom I spoke of it; "he was at a wedding with Sir Michael. As the happy pair drove off under the usual shower of rice and old slippers, Sir Michael said to the Father, 'How I wish I had something to throw after her!' 'Ah, throw your brogue after her,' replied the Father." This brogue comes to Sir Michael lawfully enough. He belongs to one of the fourteen tribes of Galway. His father, Mr. Martin Morris, was High Sheriff of the County of Galway City in 1841, being the first Catholic who had served that office since the time of Tyrconnel. His mother was a Blake of Galway, and the family seat, Spiddal, came to them through a Fitzpatrick. "Remember these things," said one of the guests to me, a Catholic from the south of Ireland, "and remember that Sir Michael, like myself, and, so far as I know, like every Irish Catholic in this room to-day, is a thoroughgoing Unionist, who would think it midsummer madness to hand Ireland over to the 'Home Rule' of the 'uncrowned king,' Mr. Parnell, who hasn't a drop, I believe, of Irish blood in his veins, and who, whatever else he may be, is certainly not a Catholic. Didn't Parnell vote at first against religion and in favour of Bradlaugh? and didn't he do this to force the bargain for the clerical franchise at the Parliamentary conventions?" "But there are some good Catholics, are there not," I answered, "and some good Christians, and of Irish blood too, among the associates of Mr. Parnell?" "Associates!" he exclaimed; "if you know anything of Mr. Parnell, you must know that he has no associates. He has followers, and he has instruments, but he has no associates. The only Irishmen whom he has really taken counsel with, or treated, I was about to say, with ordinary civility, were Egan and Brennan. His manner with them was always conspicuously different from his cold and almost contemptuous bearing towards the men whom he commands in Parliament, and Egan, who directs his forces in your country, rewards him by calling him 'the great and gifted leader of _our_ race!' 'Our race' indeed! Parnell comes of the conquering race in Ireland, and he never forgets it, or lets his subordinates forget it. I was in Galway when he came over there suddenly to quell the revolt organised by Healy. The rebels were at white-heat before he came. But he strode in among them like a huntsman among the hounds--marched Healy off into a little room, and brought him out again in ten minutes, cowed and submissive, but filled, as anybody can see, ever since, with a dull smouldering hate which will break out one of these days, if a good and safe opportunity offers." "How do you account, then," I asked, "for the support which all these men give Mr. Parnell?" "For the support which they give him!" exclaimed my new acquaintance, "for the support they give him! Bless your heart, my dear sir, it is he gives them the support! Barring Biggar, who, to do him justice, is as free with his pocket as he is with his tongue--and no man can say more for anybody than that--barring Biggar and M'Kenna and M'Carthy, and perhaps a dozen more, all these men are nominated by Mr. Parnell, and draw salaries from the body he controls; they are paid members, like the working-men members. Support indeed!" "But the constituencies," I urged, "surely the voters must know and care something about their representatives?" The gentleman from the south of Ireland laughed aloud. "Very clear it is," he said, "that you have made your acquaintance with my dear countrymen in America, or in England perhaps--not in Ireland. Look at Thurles, in January '85! The voters selected O'Ryan; Parnell ordered him off, and made them take O'Connor! The voters take their members to-day from the League--that is, from Mr. Parnell, just as they used to take them from the landlords. What Lord Clanricarde said in Galway, when he made all those fagot votes by cutting up his farms, that he could return his grey mare to Parliament if he liked, Mr. Parnell can say with just as much truth to-day of any Nationalist seat in the country. I tell you, the secret of his power is that he understands the Irish people, and how to ride them. He is a Protestant-ascendency man by blood, and he is fighting the unlucky devils of landlords to-day by the old 'landlord' methods that came to him with his mother's milk--that is rightly speaking, I should say, with his father's," and here he burst out laughing at his own bull--"for his mother, poor lady, she was an American." "Thank you," I said. "Oh, no harm at all! But did you ever know her? An odd woman she was, and is." "Her father," I replied, "was a gallant American sailor of Scottish blood." "Oh yes, and is it true that he got a great hatred of England from being captured in the _Chesapeake_ by the English Captain Broke? I always heard that." I explained that there were historical difficulties in the way of accepting this legend, and that Commodore Stewart's experiences, during the war of 1812, had been those of a captor, not of a captive. "Well, a clever woman she is, only very odd. She was a great terror, I remember, to a worthy Protestant parson, near Avondale; she used to come at him quite unexpectedly with such a power of theological discussion, and put him beside himself with questions he couldn't answer." "Very likely," I replied, "but she has transferred her interest to politics now; and she had the good sense, at the Chicago Convention in 1886, to warn the physical-force men against showing their hand too plainly in support of her son." A curious conversation, as showing the personal bitterness of politics here. It reminded me of Dr. Duche's description in his famous letter to Washington of the party which carried the Declaration of Independence through the Continental Congress. But it had a special interest for me as confirming the inferences I have often drawn as to Mr. Parnell's relations with his party, from his singular and complete isolation among them. I remember the profound astonishment of my young friend Mr. D----, of New York, who, as the son of, perhaps, the most conspicuous and influential American advocate of Home Rule, had confidently counted upon seeing Mr. Parnell in London, when he found that the most important member of the Irish Parliamentary party, in point of position, was utterly unable to get at Mr. Parnell for him, or even to ascertain where Mr. Parnell could be reached by letter. Though a staunch Unionist, Sir Michael is no blind admirer of things as they are, nor even a thick-and-thin partisan of English rule in Ireland. "If you will have the Irish difficulty in a nutshell," he is reported to have said to a prosy British politician, "here it is: It is simply a very dull people trying to govern a very bright people." He has quick and wide intellectual sympathies, or, as he put it to a lawyer who was kindly enlightening him about some matters of scientific notoriety, "I don't live in a cupboard myself." His own terse summing up of the Irish difficulty could hardly be better illustrated than by the current story of the discomfiture of an English Treasury official, who came into his official chambers to complain of the expenditure for fuel in the Court over which he presides. The Lord Chief-Justice looked at him quietly while he set forth his errand, and then, ringing a bell on his table, said to the servant who responded: "Tell Mary the man has come about the coals." At Sir Michael's I had some conversation also with Mr. Justice Murphy, who won a great reputation in connection with those murders in the Phoenix Park, which went near to breaking the heart and hope of poor Father Burke, and with Lord and Lady Ashbourne, whom I had not seen since I met them some years ago under the hospitable roof of Lord Houghton. Lord Ashbourne was then Mr. Gibson, Q.C. He is now the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and the author of the Land Purchase Act of 1885, which many well-informed and sensible men regard as the Magna Charta of peace in Ireland, while others of equal authority assure me that by reversing the principle of the Bright clauses in the Act of 1871 it has encouraged the tenants to expect an eventual concession of the land-ownership to them on merely nominal terms. Naturally enough, he is carped at and reviled almost as much by his political friends as by his political foes. In the time of Sir Michael Hicks Beach I remember hearing Lord Ashbourne denounced most bitterly by a leading Tory light as "a Home Ruler in disguise, who had bedevilled the Irish Question by undertaking to placate the country if it could be left to be managed by him and by Lord Carnarvon." The disguise appears to me quite impenetrable, and after my talk with him, I remembered a characteristic remark about him made to me by Lord Houghton after he had gone away: "A very clever man with a very clever wife. He ought to be on our side, but he has everything the Tories lack, so they have stolen him, and will make much of him, and keep him. But one of these days he will do them some great service, and then they'll never forgive him!" Lord Ashbourne went off early to look up some fine old wooden mantelpieces and wainscotings in the "slums" of Dublin. A brisk trade it seems has for some time been driven in such relics of the departed splendour of the Irish capital. In the last century, when Dublin was further from London than London now is from New York, the Irish landlords were more fond of living in Dublin than a good many of the Irish Nationalists I know now are. In this way the Iron Duke came to be born in Dublin, where his father and mother had a handsome town house, whereas when they went up to London they used to lodge, according to old Lady Cork, "over a pastry-cook's in Oxford Street." In those days there must have been a good many fine solidly built and well decorated mansions in Dublin, of a type not unlike that of the ample rather stately and periwigged houses, all British brick without, and all Santo Domingo mahogany within, which, in my schoolboy days, used to give such a dignified old-world air to Third and Fourth Streets in Philadelphia. It is among such of these as are still standing, and have come to vile uses, that the foragers from London now find their harvest. From the Chief-Justice's I went with Lord Ernest Hamilton to a meeting of the Irish Unionists. Admission was by tickets, and the meeting evidently "meant business." I suppose Presbyterian Ulster was largely represented: but Mr. Smith Barry of Fota Island, near Cork, one of the kindest and fairest, as well as one of the most determined and resolute, of the southern Irish landlords, was there, and the most interesting speech I heard was made by a Catholic lawyer of Dublin, Mr. Quill, Q.C., who grappled with the question of distress among the Irish tenants, and produced some startling evidence to show that this distress is by no means so great or so general as it is commonly assumed to be.[10] Able speeches were also made by Mr. T.W. Russell, M.P. for Tyrone, and by Colonel Saunderson, the champion of Ulster at Westminster. Both of these members, and especially Colonel Saunderson, "went for" their Nationalist colleagues with an unparliamentary plainness of speech which commanded the cordial sympathy of their audience. "Is it possible," asked Colonel Saunderson, "that you should ever consent, on any terms, to be governed by such--, well, by such wretches as these?" to which the audience gave back an unanimous "Never," neither thundered nor shouted, but growled, like Browning's "growl at the gates of Ghent,"--a low deep growl like the final notice served by a bull-dog, which I had not heard since the meetings which, at the North, followed the first serious fighting of the Civil War. I was much struck, too, by the prevalence among the audience of what may be called the Old Middle State type of American face and head. A majority of these men might have come straight from those slopes of the Alleghany which, from Pennsylvania down to the Carolinas, were planted so largely by the only considerable Irish emigrations known to our history, before the great year of famine, 1847, the Irish emigrations which followed the wars against the woollen industries in the seventeenth century, and the linen industries in the eighteenth. A staunch, doggedly Protestant people, loving the New England Puritans and the Anglicans of Eastern Virginia little better than the Maryland Catholics, but contributing more than their full share of traditional antipathy to that extreme dislike and dread of the Roman Church which showed itself half-a-century ago in the burning of convents, and thirty years ago gave life and fire to the Know-Nothing movement. Even so late as at the time of Father Burke's grand and most successful mission to America, I remember how much astonished and impressed he was by the vigour and the virulence of these feelings. One of the bishops, he told me, in a great diocese tried (though of course in vain) to dissuade him on this account from wearing his Dominican dress. These anti-Catholic passions are much stronger in America to-day than it always suits our politicians to remember, though to forget it may some day be found very dangerous. Even now two of the ablest prelates of the most liberal of the Protestant American bodies, Bishop Cleveland Coxe of Western New York, and Bishop Beckwith of Georgia, the latter of whom I met the other day in Rome on his return from Palestine, are promoting what looks very much like a crusade against the plan for establishing a Catholic University at Washington. Bishop Cleveland Coxe's denunciations of what he calls "the alien Church," point straight to a revival of the "Native American" movement; and I fear that President Cleveland's gift of a copy of the Constitution to Leo XIII. will hardly make American Catholics forget either the hereditary anti-Catholic feeling which led him, when Governor of New York, to imperil the success of the Democratic party by his dogged resistance to the Catholic demand for the endowment of Catholic schools and protectories, or the scandalous persecution (it can be called by no other name) of Catholics in Alaska, which was carried on in the name and under the patronage of his sister, Miss Cleveland, by a local missionary of the Presbyterian Church, to the point of the removal by the President of a Federal judge, who dared to award a Catholic native woman from Vancouver the custody of her own child. It is hard to imagine a greater misfortune for the Church in Ireland, and for both the Church and the Irish race in America, than the identification of the Home Rule movement with the Church, and its triumph, after being so identified, and with the help of British sympathisers and professional politicians, over the resistance of Protestant Ireland. This dilemma of the Church in Ireland, plainly seen at Rome, as I know, to-day, was forcibly presented in the speech of Colonel Saunderson. The chair at this Loyalist meeting was filled by the Provost of Trinity, Dr. Jellett, a man of winning and venerable aspect, a kind of "angelic doctor," indeed, whose musical and slightly tremulous voice gave a singular pathos and interest to his brief but very earnest speech.[11] To-night I dined with the Attorney-General, Mr. O'Brien. Among the company were the Chief-Baron Palles, whose appointment dates back to Mr. Gladstone's Administration of 1873, but who is now an outspoken opponent of Home Rule; Judge O'Brien, an extremely able man, with the face of an eagle; Mr. Carson, Q.C.; and other notabilities of the bench and bar. My neighbours at table were a charming and agreeable bencher of the King's Inn, Mr. Atkinson, Q.C., a leader of the Irish bar, and Mr. T.W. Russell, M.P., who told me some amusing things of one of his colleagues, an ideal Orangeman, who writes blood-curdling romances in the vein of La Tosca, and goes in fear of the re-establishment of the Holy Office in Dublin and London. In view of the clamours about the severity of the bench in Ireland, it was edifying to find an Irish Judge astonished by the drastic decisions of our Courts in regard to the anarchists who were hanged at Chicago, after a thorough and protracted review of the law in their cases. He thought no Court in Great Britain or Ireland could have dealt with them thus stringently, it being understood that the charge of murder against them rested on their connection, solely as provocative instigators to violence, with the actual throwing of the bombs among the police. Some good stories were told by the lawyers; one of a descendant of the Irish Kings, a lawyer more remarkable for his mental gifts than for his physical graces. A peasant looking him carefully over at Cork whispered to a neighbour, "And is he really of the ould blood of the Irish kings now, indeed?" "He is indeed!" "Well, then, I don't wonder the Saxons conquered the Island!" Of the Home Rule movement one of the lawyers said to me, "The whole thing is a business operation mainly--a business operation with the people who see in it the hope of appeasing their land hunger--and a business operation for the agitators who live by it. Its main strength, outside of the priests, who for one reason or another countenance or foment it, is in the small country solicitors. The five hundred thousand odd Irish tenants are the most litigious creatures alive. They are always after the local lawyer with half-a-crown to fight this, that, or the other question with some neighbour or kinsman, usually a kinsman. So the solicitors know the whole country." "When the League has chosen a spot in which to work the 'Plan of Campaign,' the local attorney whips up the tenants to join it. The poorer tenants are the most easily pushed into the plan, having least to lose by it. But the lawyer takes the well-to-do tenants in hand, and promises them that if they yield to the patriotic pressure of the League, and come to grief by so doing, the landlord will at all events have to pay the costs of the proceedings. It is this promise which finally brings down most of them. To enjoy the luxury of a litigation without paying for it tempts them almost as strongly as the prospect of getting the land without paying for it. You will find that the League always insists, when things come to a settlement, that the landlord shall pay the costs. If the landlord through poverty of spirit or of purse succumbs to this demand, the League scores a victory. If the landlord resists, it is a bad job for the League. The local lawyer is discredited in the eyes of his clients, and if he is to get any fees he must come down upon his clients for them. Naturally his clients resent this. If Mr. Balfour keys up the landlords to stand out manfully against paying for all the trouble and loss they are continually put to, he will take the life of the League so far as Ireland is concerned. As things now stand, it is almost the only thriving industry in Ireland!" _Wednesday, Feb. 1._--This morning I called with Lord Ernest Hamilton upon Sir Bernard Burke, the Ulster King-at-Arms, and the editor or author of many other well-known publications, and especially of the "Peerage," sometimes irreverently spoken of as the "British Bible." Sir Bernard's offices are in the picturesque old "Bermingham" tower of the castle. There we found him wearing his years and his lore as lightly as a flower, and busy in an ancient chamber, converted by him into a most cosy modern study. He received us with the most cordial courtesy, and was good enough to conduct us personally through his domain. Many of the State papers formerly kept here have been removed to the Four Courts building. But Sir Bernard's tower is still filled with documents of the greatest historical interest, all admirably docketed and arranged on the system adopted at the Hôtel Soubise, now the Palace of the Archives in Paris. These documents, like the tower itself, take us back to the early days when Dublin was the stronghold of the Englishry in Ireland, and its citizens went in constant peril of an attack from the wild and "mere Irish" in the hills. The masonry of the tower is most interesting. The circular stone floors made up of slabs held together without cement, like the courses in the towers of Sillustani, by their exact adjustment, are particularly noteworthy. High up in the tower Sir Bernard showed us a most uncomfortable sort of cupboard fashioned in the huge wall of the tower, and with a loophole for a window. In this cell the Red Hugh O'Donnell of Tyrconnel was kept as a prisoner for several years under Elizabeth. He was young and lithe, however, and after his friends had tried in vain to buy him out, a happy thought one day struck him. He squeezed himself through the loophole, and, dropping unhurt to the ground, escaped to the mountains. There for a long time he made head against the English power. In 1597 he drove Sir Conyers Clifford from before the castle of Ballyshannon, with great loss to the English, and when he could no longer keep the field, he sought refuge in Spain. He was with the Spanish, as Prince of Tyrconnel, at the crushing defeat of Kinsale in 1601. Escaping again, he died, poisoned, at Simancas the next year. Sir Bernard showed us, among other curious manuscripts, a correspondence between one Higgins, a trained informer, and the Castle authorities in 1798. This correspondence shows that the revolutionary plans of the Nationalists of 1798 were systematically laid before the Government. When one thinks how very much abler were the leaders of the Irish rebellion in 1798 than are the present heads of the Irish party in Parliament, how much greater the provocations to rebellion given the Irish people then were than they are now even alleged to be--how little the Irish people in general have now to gain by rebellion, and how much to lose, it is hard to resist a suspicion that it must be even easier now than it was in 1798 for the Government to tap the secrets of the organisations opposed to it. Sir Bernard showed us also a curious letter written by Henry Grattan to the founder of the great Guinness breweries, which have carried the fame of Dublin porter into the uttermost parts of the earth. The Guinnesses are now among the wealthiest people of the kingdom, and Ireland certainly owes a great deal to them as "captains of industry," but they are not Home Rulers. At the Kildare Street Club in the afternoon I talked with two Irish landlords from the north of Ireland, who had come up to take their womenkind to the Drawing-Room. I was struck by their indifference to the political excitements of the day. One of them had forgotten that the Ripon and Morley reception was to take place to-night. The other called it "the love-feast of Voltaire and the Vatican." Both were much more fluent about hunting and farming. I asked if the hunting still went on in their part of the island. "It has never stopped for a moment," he replied. "No," added the other, "nor ever a dog poisoned. They were poisoned, whole packs of them, in the papers, but not a dog really. The stories were printed just to keep up the agitation, and the farmers winked at it so as not to be 'bothered.'" Both averred that they got their rents "fairly well," but both also said that they farmed much of their own land. One, a wiry, energetic, elderly man, of a brisk presence and ruddy complexion, said he constantly went over to the markets in England. "I go to Norwich," he said, "not to Liverpool. Liverpool is only a meat-market, and overdone at that. Norwich is better for meat and for stores." Both agreed this was a great year for the potatoes, and said Ireland was actually exporting potatoes to America. One mentioned a case of two cargoes of potatoes just taken from Dundrum for America, the vessel which took them having brought over six hundred tons of hay from America. They were breezy, out-of-door men, both of them. One amused us with a tale of espying, the other day, two hounds, a collie dog, a terrier, and eighteen cats all amicably running together across a farmyard, with their tails erect, after a dairymaid who was to feed them. The other capped this with a story of a pig on his own place, which follows one of his farm lads about like a dog,--"the only pig," he said, "I ever saw show any human feeling!" The gentleman who goes to Norwich thought the English landlords were in many cases worse off than the Irish. "Ah, no!" interfered the other, "not quite; for if the English can't get their rents, at least they keep their land, but we can neither get our rents nor keep our land!" They both admitted that there had been much bad management of the land in Ireland, and that the agents had done the owners as well as the tenants a great deal of harm in the past, but they both maintained stoutly that the legislation of late years had been one-sided and short-sighted. "The tenants haven't got real good from it," said one, "because the claims of the landlord no longer check their extravagance, and they run more in debt than ever to the shopkeepers and traders, who show them little mercy." Both also strenuously insisted on the gross injustice of leaving the landlords unrelieved of any of the charges fixed upon their estates, while their means of meeting those charges were cut down by legislation. "You have no landlords in America," said one, "but if you had, how would you like to be saddled with heavy tithe charges for a Disestablished Church at the same time that your tenants were relieved of their dues to you?" I explained to him that so far from our having no landlords in America, the tenant-farmer class is increasing rapidly in the United States, while it is decreasing in the Old World, while the land laws, especially in some of our older Western States, give the landlords such absolute control of their tenants that there is a serious battle brewing at this moment in Illinois[12] between a small army of tenants and their absentee landlord, an alien and an Irishman, who holds nearly a hundred thousand acres in the heart of the State, lives in England, and grants no leases, except on the condition that he shall receive from his tenants, in addition to the rent, the full amount of all taxes and levies whatsoever made upon the lands they occupy. "God bless my soul!" exclaimed the gentleman who goes to Norwich, "if that is the kind of laws your American Irish will give us with Home Rule, I'll go in for it to-morrow with all my heart!" After an early dinner, I set out with Lord Ernest to see the Morley-Ripon procession. It was a good night for a torchlight parade--the weather not too chill, and the night dark. The streets were well filled, but there was no crowding--no misconduct, and not much excitement. The people obviously were out for a holiday, not for a "demonstration." It was Paris swarming out to the Grand Prix, not Paris on the eve of the barricades; very much such a crowd as one sees in the streets and squares of New York on a Fourth of July night, when the city fathers celebrate that auspicious anniversary with fireworks at the City Hall, and not in the least such a crowd as I saw in the streets of New York on the 12th of July 1871, when, thanks to General Shaler and the redoubtable Colonel "Jim Fiske," a great Orange demonstration led to something very like a massacre by chance medley. Small boys went about making night hideous with tom-toms, extemporised out of empty fig-drums, and tooting terribly upon tin trumpets. There was no general illumination, but here and there houses were bright with garlands of lamps, and rockets ever and anon went up from the house-tops. We made our way to the front of a mass of people near one of the great bridges, over which the procession was to pass on its long march from Kingstown to the house of Mr. Walker, Q.C., in Rutland Square, where the distinguished visitors were to meet the liberated Lord Mayor, with Mr. Dwyer Gray, and other local celebrities. A friendly citizen let us perch on his outside car. The procession presently came in sight, and a grand show it made--not of the strictly popular and political sort, for it was made up of guilds and other organised bodies on foot and on horseback, marching in companies--but imposing by reason of its numbers, and of the flaring torches. Of these there were not so many as there should have been to do justice to the procession. The crowd cheered from time to time, with that curious Irish cheer which it is often difficult to distinguish from groaning, but the only explosive and uproarious greeting given to the visitors in our neighbourhood came from a member of "the devout female sex," a young lady who stood up between two friends on the top of a car very near us, and imperilled both her equilibrium and theirs by wildly waving her hand-kerchief in the air, and crying out at the top of a somewhat husky voice, "Three cheers for Mecklenburg Street! Three cheers for Mecklenburg Street!" This made the crowd very hilarious, but as Lord Ernest's local knowledge did not enable him to enlighten me as to the connection between Mecklenburg Street and the liberation of Ireland, I must leave the mystery of their mirth unsolved till a more convenient season. At Rutland Square the crowd was tightly packed, but perfectly well-behaved, and the guests were enthusiastically cheered. But even before they had entered the house of Mr. Walker it began to break up, and long files of people wended their way to see "the carriages" hastening with their lovely freight to the Castle. Thither Lord Ernest has just gone, arrayed in a captivating Court costume of black velvet, with cut-steel buttons, sword, and buckles--just the dress in which Washington used to receive his guests at the White House, and in which Senator Seward, I remember, insisted in 1860 on getting himself presented by Mr. Dallas to Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace. CHAPTER II. SION HOUSE, COUNTY TYRONE, _Feb. 3d._--Hearing nothing from Mr. Davitt yesterday, I gave up the idea of attending the Ripon-Morley meeting last night. As I have come to Ireland to hear what people living in Ireland have to say about Irish affairs, I see no particular advantage in listening to imported eloquence on the subject, even from so clever a man as his books prove Mr. Morley to be, and from so conscientious a man as an acquaintance, going back to the days when he sat with Kingsley at the feet of Maurice, makes me believe Lord Ripon to be. How much either of them knows about Ireland is another matter. A sarcastic Nationalist acquaintance of mine, with whom I conversed about the visitors yesterday, assured me it had been arranged that Lord Ripon should wear the Star of the Garter, "so the people might know him from Morley." When I observed that Dublin must have a short memory to forget so soon the face of a Chief Secretary, he replied: "Forget his face? Why, they never saw his face! It's little enough he was here, and indoors he kept when here he was. He shook hands last night with more Irishmen than ever he spoke to while he was Chief Secretary; for he used to say then, I am told, in the Reform Club, that the only way to get along with the Irish was to have nothing to do with them!" There was a sharp discussion, I was told, in the private councils of the Committee yesterday as to whether the Queen should be "boycotted," and the loyal sentiments usual in connection with her Majesty's name dropped from the proceedings. I believe it was finally settled that this might put the guests into an awkward position, both of them having worn her Majesty's uniform of State as public servants of the Crown. During the day I walked through many of the worst quarters of Dublin. I met fewer beggars in proportion than one encounters in such parts of London as South Kensington and other residential regions not over-frequented by the perambulating policemen; but I was struck by the number of persons--and particularly of women--who wore that most pathetic of all the liveries of distress, "the look of having seen better days." In the most wretched streets I traversed there was more squalor than suffering--the dirtiest and most ragged people in them showing no signs of starvation, or even of insufficient rations; and certainly in the most dismal alleys and by-streets, I came upon nothing so revolting as the hives of crowded misery which make certain of the tenement house quarters of New York more gruesome than the Cour des Miracles itself used to be. This morning at 7.25 A.M. I left Dublin with Lord Ernest Hamilton for Strabane. My attention was distracted from the reports of the great meeting by the varied and picturesque beauty of the landscape, through which we ran at a very respectable rate in a very comfortable carriage. We passed Dundalk, where Edward Bruce got himself crowned king of Ireland, after his brother Robert had won a throne in Scotland. These masterful Normans, all over Europe from Apulia to Britain, worked out the problem of "satisfied nationalities" much more successfully and simply than Napoleon III. in our own day. If Edward Bruce broke down where Robert succeeded, the causes of his failure may perhaps be worth considering even now by people who have set themselves the task in our times of establishing "an Irish nationality." Leaving out the Cromwellian English of Tipperary and the South, and the Scotch who have done for Ulster, what he aimed at for all Ireland, they have very much the same materials to deal with as those which he dismally failed to fashion. Drogheda stands beautifully in a deep valley through which flows the Boyne Water, spanned by one of the finest viaducts in Europe. Here, two years after the discovery of America, Poyning's Parliament enacted that all laws passed in Ireland must be subject to approval by the English Privy Council. I wonder nobody has proposed a modification of this form of Home Rule for Ireland now. Earl Grey's recent suggestion that Parliamentary government be suspended for ten years in Ireland, which I heard warmly applauded by some able lawyers and business men in Dublin, involves like this an elimination of the Westminster debates from the problem of government in Ireland. As we passed Drogheda, Father Burke's magnificent presence and thrilling voice came back to me out of the mist of years, describing with an indignant pathos, never to be forgotten, the fearful scenes which followed the surrender of Sir Arthur Ashton's garrison, when "for the glory of God," and "to prevent the further effusion of blood," Oliver ordered all the officers to be knocked on the head, and every tenth man of the soldiers killed, and the rest shipped as slaves to the Barbadoes. But how different was the spirit in which the great Dominican recalled these events from that in which the "popular orators," scattering firebrands and death, delight to dwell upon them! At Strabane station we found a handsome outside car waiting on us, and drove off briskly for this charming place, the home of one of the most active and prosperous manufacturers in Ireland. A little more than half way between the station and Sion House, Mr. Herdman met us afoot. We jumped off and walked up with him. Sion House, built for him by his brother, an accomplished architect, is a handsome Queen Anne mansion. It stands on a fine knoll, commanding lovely views on all sides. Below it, and beyond a little stream, rise the extensive flax-mills which are the life of the place, under the eye and within touch of the hand of the master. These works were established here by Mr. Herdman's father, after he had made a vain attempt to establish them at Ballyshannon in Donegal, half a century ago. As all salmon fishers know, the water-power is admirable at Ballyshannon, where the Erne pours in torrents down a thirty feet fall. But the ignorance and indolence of the people made Ballyshannon quite impossible, with this result, that while the Erne still flows unvexed to the sea, and the people of Ballyshannon live very much as they lived in 1835, here at Sion the Mourne enables 1100 Irish operatives to work up £90,000 worth of Irish flax every year into yarn for the Continent, and to divide among themselves some £20,000 a year in wages. After luncheon we walked with Mr. Herdman through the mills and the model village which has grown up around them. Everywhere we found order, neatness, and thrift. The operatives are almost all people of the country, Catholics and Protestants in almost equal numbers. "I find it wise," said Mr. Herdman, "to give neither religion a preponderance, and to hold my people of both religions to a common standard of fidelity and efficiency." The greatest difficulty he has had to contend with is the ineradicable objection of some of the peasantry to continuous industry. He told us of a strapping lass of eighteen who came to the mills, but very soon gave up and went back to the parental shebeen in the mountains rather than get up early in the morning to earn fourteen shillings a week. Three weeks of her work would have paid the year's rent of the paternal holding. In the village, which is regularly laid out, is a reading-room for the workpeople. There are cricket clubs, and one of the mill buildings (just now crammed with bales of flax) has been fitted up by Mr. Herdman as a theatre. There is a drop-curtain representing the Lake of Como, and the flies are flanked by life-size copies in plaster of the Apollo Belvidere and the Medicean Venus. This is a development I had hardly looked to see in Ulster. After we had gone over the works thoroughly, Mr. Herdman took us back, on a transparent pretext of enlightened curiosity touching certain qualities of spun flax, to give us a glimpse of the "beauty of Sion"--a well-grown graceful girl of fifteen or sixteen summers. She concentrated her attention, as soon as we appeared, upon certain mysterious bobbins and spindles, with an exaggerated determination which proved how completely she saw through our futile and frivolous devices. Mr. Herdman told us, as we came away discomfited, a droll story of the ugliest girl ever employed here--a girl so preternaturally ugly that one of his best blacksmiths having been entrapped into offering to marry her, lost heart of grace on the eve of the sacrifice, and, taking ship at Derry for America, fled from Sion for ever. In the evening came, with other guests, Dr. Webb, Q.C., Regius Professor of Laws and Public Orator of Trinity at Dublin, well known both as a Grecian capable of composing "skits" as clever as the verses yclept Homerstotle--in which the _Saturday Review_ served up the Donnelly nonsense about Bacon and Shakespeare--and as a translator of _Faust_. He was abused by the Loyalists at Dublin, in 1884, for his defence of P.N. Fitzgerald, the leader who beat Parnell and Archbishop Croke so badly at Thurles the other day; and he is in a fair way now to be denounced with equal fervour by the Nationalists as a County Court judge in Donegal. He finds this post no sinecure. "I do as much work in five days," he said to-night, "as the Superior Judges do in five weeks." He is a staunch Unionist, and laughs at the notion that the Irish people care one straw for a Parliament in Dublin. "Why should they?" he said. "What did any Parliament in Dublin ever do to gratify the one real passion of the Irish peasant--his hunger for a bit of land? So far as the Irish people are concerned, Home Rule means simply agrarian reform. Would they get that from a Parliament in Dublin? If the British Parliament evicts the landlords and makes the tenants lords of the land, they will be face to face with Davitt's demand for the nationalising of the land. Do you suppose they will like to see the lawyers and the politicians organising a labour agitation against the 'strong farmers'? The last thing they want is a Parliament in Dublin. Lord Ashbourne's Act carries in its principle the death-warrant of the 'National League.'" Some excellent stories were told in the picturesque smoking-room after dinner, one of a clever and humorous, sensible and non-political priest, who, being taken to task by some of his brethren for giving the cold shoulder to the Nationalist movement, excused himself by saying, "I should like to be a patriot; but I can't be. It's all along of the rheumatism which prevents me from lying out at nights in a ditch with a rifle." The same priest being reproached by others of the cloth with a fondness for the company of some of the resident landlords in his neighbourhood, replied, "It's in the blood, you see. My poor mother, God rest her soul! she always had a liking for the quality. As for my dear father, he was just a blundering peasant like the rest of ye!" GWEEDORE, _Saturday, 4th Feb._--A good day's work to-day! We left our hospitable friends at Sion House early in the morning. The sun was shining brightly; the air so soft and bland that the thrushes were singing like mad creatures in the trees and the shrubbery; and the sky was more blue than Italy. "A foine day it is, sorr," said our jarvey as we took our seats on the car. There is some point in the old Irish sarcasm that English travellers in Ireland only see one side of the country, because they travel through it on the outside car. But to make this point tell, four people must travel on the car. In that case they must sit two on a side, each pair facing one side only of the landscape. It is a very different business when you travel on an outside car alone, with the driver sitting on one side of it, or with one companion only, when the driver occupies the little perch in front between the sides of the car. When you travel thus, the outside car is the best thing in the world, after a good roadster, for taking you rapidly over a country, and enabling you to command all points of the horizon. Double up one leg on the seat, let the other dangle freely, using the step as a stirrup, and you go rattling along almost as if you were on horseback. We drove through a long suburb of Strabane into the busiest quarter of the busy little place. The names on the shops were predominantly Scotch--Maxwells, Stewarts, Hamiltons, Elliotts. I saw but one Celtic name, M'Ilhenny, and one German, Straub. I changed gold for enormous Bank of Ireland notes at a neat local bank, and the cheery landlord of the Abercorn Arms gave us a fresh car to take us on to Letterkenny, a drive of some twenty miles. The car came up like a small blizzard, flying about at the heels of an uncanny little grey mare. Lord Ernest knew the beast well, and said she was twenty-five years old. She behaved like an unbroken filly at first, but soon striking her pace, turned out a capital goer, and took us on without turning a hair till her work was done. The weather continued to be good, but clouds rolled up around the horizon. "It'll always be bad weather," said our saturnine jarvey, "when the Judges come to hold court, and never be good again till they rise." Here is a consequence of alien rule in Ireland, never, so far as I know, brought to the notice of Parliament. "Why is this?" I asked; "is it because of the time of the year they select?" "The time of year, sorr?" he replied, glancing compassionately at me. "No, not at all; it's because of the oaths!" We reached Letterkenny in time for a very good luncheon at "Hegarty's," one of the neatest little inns I have ever found in a place of the size. It stands on the long main street which is really the town. At one end of this street is a very pretty row of picturesque ivy-clad brick cottages, built by a landlord whose property and handsome park bound the town on the west; and the street winds alongside the slope of a hill rising from the bank of the Swilly river. A fair was going on. The little market-place was alive with bustling, chattering, and chaffering country-folk. Smartly-dressed young damsels tripped in and out of the neat well-filled shops, and in front of a row of semidetached villas, like a suburban London terrace, on the hill opposite "Hegarty's," a German band smote the air with discordant fury. Decidedly a lively, prosperous little town is Letterkenny, nor was I surprised to learn from a communicative gentleman, nursing his cane near the inn-door, that advantage would be taken of the presence of the Hussars sent to keep order at Dunfanaghy, to "give a ball." "But I thought all the country was in arms about the trials at Dunfanaghy," I said. "In arms about the trials at Dunfanaghy? Oh no; they'll never be locked up, Father M'Fadden and Mr. Blane. And the people here at Letterkenny, they've more sinse than at Dunfanaghy. Have you heard of the champagne?" Upon this he proceeded to tell me, as a grand joke, that Father M'Fadden and Mr. Blane, M.P., having declined to accept the tea offered them by the authorities during their detention, they had been permitted to order what they liked from the local hotel-keeper. After the trial was over, and they were released on bail to prosecute their appeal, the hotel-keeper demanded of the authorities payment of his bill, including two bottles of champagne ordered to refresh the member for Armagh! A conspicuous, smart, spick-and-span house on the main street, built of brick and wood, with a verandah, and picked out in bright colours, was pointed out to me by this amiable citizen as the residence of a "returned American." This was a man, he said, who had made some money in America, but got tired of living there, and had come back to end his days in his native place He was a good man, my informant added, "only he puts on too many airs." A remarkably handsome, rosy-faced young groom, a model of manhood in vigour and grace, presently brought us up a wagonette with a pair of stout nags, and a driver in a suit of dark-brown frieze, whose head seemed to have been driven down between his shoulders. He never lifted it up all the way to Gweedore, but he proved to be a capital jarvey notwithstanding, and knew the country as well as his horses. Not long after leaving the town by a road which passes the huge County Asylum (now literally crammed, I am told, with lunatics), we passed a ruined church on the banks of a stream. Here the country people, it seems, halt and wash their feet before entering Letterkenny, failing which ceremony they may expect a quarrel with somebody before they get back to their homes. This wholesome superstition doubtless was established ages ago by some good priest, when priests thought it their duty to be the preachers and makers of peace. We soon left the wooded country of the Swilly and began to climb into the grand and melancholy Highlands of Donegal. The road was as fine as any in the Scottish Highlands, and despite the keen chill wind, the glorious and ever-changing panoramas of mountain and strath through which we drove were a constant delight, until, just as we came within full range of Muckish, the giant of Donegal, the weather finally broke down into driving mists and blinding rain. We pulled up near a picturesque little shebeen, to water the horses and get our Highland wraps well about us. Out came a hardy, cheery old farmer. He swept the heavens with the eye of a mountaineer, and exclaimed:--"Ah! it's a coorse day intirely, it is." "A coorse day intirely" from that moment it continued to be. Happily the curtain had not fallen before we caught a grand passing glimpse of the romantic gorge of Glen Veagh, closed and commanded in the shadowy distance by the modern castle of Glenveagh, the mountain home of my charming country-woman, Mrs. Adair. Thanks to its irregular serpentine outline, and to the desolate majesty of the hills which environ it, Lough Veagh, though not a large sheet of water, may well be what it is reputed to be, a rival of the finest lochs in Scotland. No traces are now discernible on its shores of the too celebrated evictions of Glen Veagh. But from the wild and rugged aspect of the surrounding country it is probable enough that these evictions were to the evicted a blessing in disguise, and that their descendants are now enjoying, beyond the Atlantic, a measure of prosperity and of happiness which neither their own labour nor the most liberal legislation could ever have won for them here. We caught sight, as we drove through Mrs. Adair's wide and rocky domain, of wire fences, and I believe it is her intention to create here a small deer forest. This ought to be as good a stalking country as the Scottish Highlands, provided the people can be got to like "stalking" stags better than landlords and agents. Long before we reached Glen Veagh we had bidden farewell, not only to the hedges and walls of Tyrone and Eastern Donegal, but to the "ditches," which anywhere but in Ireland would be called "embankments," and entered upon great stone-strewn wastes of land seemingly unreclaimed and irreclaimable. Huge boulders lay tossed and tumbled about as if they had been whirled through the air by the cyclones of some prehistoric age, and dropped at random when the wild winds wearied of the fun. The last landmark we made out through the gathering storm was the pinnacled crest of Errigal. Of Dunlewy, esteemed the loveliest of the Donegal lakes, we could see little or nothing as we hurried along the highway, which follows its course down to the Clady, the river of Gweedore; and we blessed the memory of Lord George Hill when suddenly turning from the wind and the rain into what seemed to be a mediaeval courtyard flanked by trees, we pulled up in the bright warm light of an open doorway, shook ourselves like Newfoundland dogs, and were welcomed by a frank, good-looking Scottish host to a glowing peat fire in this really comfortable little hotel, the central pivot of a most interesting experiment in civilisation. GWEEDORE, _Sunday, Feb. 5th._--A morning as soft and bright almost as April succeeded the stormy night. Errigal lifted his bold irregular outlines royally against an azure sky. The sunshine glinted merrily on the swift waters of the Clady, which flows almost beneath our windows from Dunlewy Lough to the sea. The birds were singing in the trees, which all about our hotel make what in the West would be called an "opening" in the wide and woodless expanse of hill and bog. This hotel was for many years the home of Lord George Hill, who built it in the hope of making Gweedore, what in England or Scotland it would long ago have become, a prosperous watering-place. Now that a battle-royal is going on between Lord George's son and heir and the tenants on the estate, organised by Father M'Fadden under the "Plan of Campaign," it is important to know something of the history of the place. Is this a case of the sons of the soil expropriated by an alien and confiscating Government to enrich a ruthless invader? I was told by a Nationalist acquaintance in Dublin that the owner of Gweedore is a near kinsman of the Marquis of Londonderry, and that the property came to him by inheritance under an ancient confiscation of the estates of the O'Dounels of Tyrconnel. All of this I find is embroidery. The "Carlisle" room, which our landlord has assigned to us, contains a number of books, the property of the late Lord George, and ample materials are here for making out the annals of Gweedore. Lord George, it seems, was a posthumous son of the fourth Marquis of Downshire, and a nephew of that Marchioness of Salisbury who was burned to death with the west wing of Hatfield House half a century ago. He inherited nothing in Donegal, nor was any provision made for him under his father's will. His elder brothers made up and settled upon him a sum of twenty thousand pounds. He entered the Army, and being quartered for a time at Letterkenny, shot and fished all about Donegal. He found the people here kindly and friendly, but in a deplorable state of ignorance and of destitution. Their holdings under sundry small proprietors were entirely unimproved, and as their families increased, these holdings were cut up by themselves into even smaller strips under the system known as "rundale,"--each son as he grew up taking off a slice of the paternal holding, putting up a hut with mud, and scratching the soil after his own rude fashion. This custom, necessarily fatal to civilisation, doubtless came down from the traditional times when the lands of a sept were held in common by the sept, before the native chieftains had converted themselves into landlords, and defeated Sir John Davies's attempt to convert their tribal kinsmen into peasant proprietors. Whatever its origin, it had reduced Gweedore, or "Tullaghobegly," fifty years ago to barbarism. Nearly nine thousand people then dwelt here with never a landlord among them. There was no "Coercion" in Gweedore, neither was there a coach nor a car to be found in the whole district. The nominal owners of the small properties into which the district was divided knew little and cared less about them. The rents were usually "made by the tenants,"--a step in advance, it will be seen, of the system which the collective wisdom of Great Britain has for the last twenty years been trying to establish in Ireland. But they were only paid when it was convenient. An agent of one of these properties who travelled fourteen miles one day to collect some rents gave it up and drove back again, because the "day was too bad" for him to wander about in the mountains on the chance of finding the tenants at home and disposed to give him a trifle on account. On most of the properties there were arrears of eight, ten, and twenty years' standing. There was one priest in the district, and one National School, the schoolmaster, with a family of nine persons, receiving the munificent stipend of eight pounds a year. These nine thousand people, depending absolutely upon tillage and pasture, owned among them all one cart and one plough, eight saddles, two pillions, eleven bridles, and thirty-two rakes! They had no means of harrowing their lands but with meadow rakes, and the farms were so small that from four to ten farms could be harrowed in a day with one rake. Their beds were of straw, mountain grass, or green and dried rushes. Among the nine thousand people there were but two feather-beds, and but eight beds stuffed with chaff. There were but two stables and six cow-houses in the whole district. None of the women owned more than one shift, nor was there a single bonnet among them all, nor a looking-glass costing more than threepence. The climate and the scenery took the fancy of Lord George. He made up his mind to see what could be done with this forgotten corner of the world, and to that end bought up as he could the small and scattered properties, till he had invested the greater part of his small fortune, and acquired about twenty thousand acres of land. Of this, little was fit for cultivation, even with the help of capital and civilised management. There was not a road in the district, nor a drain. Lord George came and established himself here. He went to work systematically to improve the country, reclaiming bog-lands, building roads, and laying out the property into regular farms. He went about among the people himself, trying to get their confidence, and to let them know what he wanted to do for them, and with their help. For a long time they wouldn't believe him to be a lord at all, "because he spoke Irish"; and the breaking up of the rundale system, under which they had lived in higgledy-piggledy laziness, exasperated them greatly. Of the first man who took a fenced and well-defined farm from Lord George, and went to work on it, the others observed that he would come to no good by it, because he would "have to keep a maid just to talk to his wife." Men could not be got for any wages to work at draining, or at making the "ditches" or embankments to delineate the new holdings; and when Lord George found adventurous "tramps" willing to earn a few shillings by honest work of the kind, conspiracies were formed to undo by night what was done by day. However, Lord George persevered. There was not a shop, nor a dispensary, nor a doctor, nor a warehouse, nor a quay for landing goods in this whole populous and sea-washed region. He put up storehouses, built a little harbour at Bunbeg, established a dispensary, got a doctor to settle in the district, and finally put up the hotel in which we are. He advanced money to tenants disposed to improve their holdings. Finding the women, as usual, more thrifty and industrious than the men, and gifted with a natural aptitude for the loom and the spindle, he introduced the weaving of woollen yarn into stout frieze stuffs and foot-gear for both sexes. This was in 1840, and in 1854 Gweedore hand-knit socks and stockings were sold to the amount of £500, being just about the annual estimated rents of all the properties bought by Lord George at the time when he bought them in 1838! But with this difference: The owners from whom Lord George bought the properties got their £500 very irregularly, when they got it at all; whereas the wives and daughters of the tenants, who made the socks and stockings, were paid their £500 in cash. Clearly in Gweedore I have a case not of the children of the soil despoiled and trampled upon by the stranger, but of the honest investment of alien capital in Irish land, and of the administration by the proprietor himself of the Irish property so acquired for the benefit alike of the owner and of the occupiers of the land. That the deplorable state in which he found the people was mainly due to their own improvidence and gregarious incapacity is also tolerably clear. On the west coast of Norway, dear to the heart of the salmon-fisher, you find people living under conditions certainly no more favourable than here exist. North of the Hardanger Fjord, the spring opens only in June. The farmers grow only oats and barley; but they have no market except for the barley, and live chiefly by the pasturage. It is as rocky a region as Donegal. But the Norsemen never try to make the land do more than it is capable of doing. With them the oldest son takes the farm and works it. The juniors are welcome to work on the farm if they like for their brother, but they are not allowed to cut it up. There is no rundale in Norway; and when the cadets see that there is no room for them they quietly "pull up stakes," and go forth to seek a new home, no matter where. For fourteen years Lord George Hill spent on Gweedore all the rents he received from it, and a great deal more. During that time the relations between the people and their new landlord seem to have been, in the main, most friendly, notwithstanding his constant efforts to break up their old habits, or, to use their own language, to "bother them." But there were no "evictions"; rents were not raised even where the tenants were visibly able to pay better rents; prizes were given annually for the best and neatest cottages, for the best crops of turnips (neither turnips, parsnips, nor carrots were there at Gweedore when Lord George bought the estate), for the best pigs (there was not a pig in Gweedore in 1838!), for calves and colts, for the best fences, the best ordered tillage farms, the best labourers' cottages, the best beds and bedding, the best butter, the best woollen goods made on the estate. The old rundale plan of dividing up the land among the children was put a stop to, and every tenant was encouraged not to make his holding smaller, but to add to and enlarge it. A corn-mill, saw-mill, and flax-mill were established. In 1838 there was not a baker within ten miles. In 1852 the local baker was driving a good business in good bread. The tenant's wife, for whom in 1838 a single shift was a social superiority, in 1852 went shopping at Bunbeg for the latest fashions from Derry or Dublin. Whatever "landlordism" may mean elsewhere in Ireland, it is plain enough that in the history of Gweedore it has meant the difference between savage squalor and civilisation. Lord George Hill died in 1879, the year in which the Land League began its operations. He bequeathed this property to his son, Captain Hill, by whom the management of it has been left to agents. After Lord George's death two tracts of mountain pasture, reserved by him to feed imported sheep, were let to the tenants, who by that time had come to own quite a considerable number, some thousands, of live stock, cattle, horses, and sheep. Concurrently with this concession to the tenants the provisions made by Lord George against the subdivision of holdings began to give way. Father M'Fadden, combining the position of President of the National League with that of parish priest, seems to have favoured this tendency, and to have encouraged the putting up of new houses on reduced holdings to accommodate an increasing population. A flood which in August 1880 damaged the chapel and caused the death of five persons gave him an opportunity of bringing before the British public the condition of the people in a letter to the London _Times_, which elicited a very generous response, several hundred pounds, it is said, having been sent to him from London alone. Large contributions of relief were also made to Gweedore from the Duchess of Marlborough's Fund, and Gweedore became a standing butt of British benevolence. Two results seem to have followed, naturally enough,--a growing indisposition on the part of the tenants to pay rent, and a rapid rise in the value of tenant rights. With the National League standing between them and the landlord, with the British Parliament legislating year after year in favour of the Irish tenant and against the Irish landlord, and with the philanthropic public ready to respond to any appeal for help made on their behalf, the tenants at Gweedore naturally became a privileged class. In no other way at least can I explain the extraordinary fact that tenant rights at Gweedore have been sold, according to Lord Cowper's Blue-book of 1886, during the period of the greatest alleged distress and congestion in this district, at prices representing from forty to a hundred-and-thirty years' purchase of the landlord's rent! In this Blue-book the Rev. Father M'Fadden appears as receiving no less than £115 sterling for the tenant-right sold by him of ground, the head rent of which is £1, 2s. 6d. a year. The worst enemy of Father M'Fadden will hardly suspect him, I hope, of taking such a sum as this from a tenant farmer for the right to starve to death by inches.[13] A shrewd Galway man, now here, who seems to know the region well, and likes both the scenery and the people, tells me that the troubles which have now culminated in the arrest of Father M'Fadden have been aggravated by the vacillation of Captain Hill, and by the foibles of his agent, Colonel Dopping, who not long ago brought down Mr. Gladstone with his unloaded rifle. That the tenants as a body have been, or now are, unable to pay their rent he does not believe. On the contrary, he thinks them, as a body, rather well off. Certainly I have seen and spoken with none of them about the roads to-day who were not hearty-looking men, and in very good case. Colonel Dopping, according to my Galwegian, is not an Englishman, but a Longford Irishman of good family, who got his training in India as an official of the Woods and Forests in Bengal. "He is not a bad-hearted man, nor unkind," said my Galwegian, "but he is too much of a Bengal tiger in his manner. He went into the cottages personally and lectured the people, and that they never will stand. They don't require or expect you to believe what they say--in fact they have little respect for you if you do--but they like to have the agent pretend that he believes them, and then go on and show that he don't. But he must never lose his temper about it. Colonel Dopping, I have heard, argued with an old woman one day who was telling him more yarns than were ever spun into cloth in Gweedore, till she picked up her cup of tea and threw it in his face. He flounced out of the cottage, and ordered the police to arrest her. That did him more harm than if he had shot a dozen boys." "What with the temper of Colonel Dopping and the vacillation of Captain Hill, who is always of the mind of the last man that speaks to him, Father M'Fadden has had it all his own way. Captain Hill's claim was for £1800 of arrears, long arrears too, and £400 of costs. How much the people paid in under the Plan of Campaign nobody knows but Father M'Fadden. But he is a clever _padre_, and he played Captain Hill till he finally gave up the costs, and settled for £1450." "And this sum represents what?" "It represents in round numbers about two years' income from an estate in which Captain Hill's father must have invested, first and last, more nearly £40,000 than £20,000 of money that never came out of it." "That doesn't sound like a very good operation. But isn't the question, Whether the tenants have earned this sum, such as it is, out of the land let to them by Captain Hill?" "No, not exactly, I think. You must remember there are some twelve hundred families living here on land bought with Lord George's money, and enjoying all the advantages which the place owes to his investment and his management, much more than to any labour or skill of theirs. You must look at their rents as accommodation rents. Suppose they earn the rent in Scotland, or England, or Tyrone, or wherever you like, the question is, What do they get for it from Captain Hill? They get a holding with land enough to grow potatoes on, and with as much free fuel as ever they like, and with free pasture for their beasts, and all this they get on the average, mind you, for no more than ten shillings a year! Why, there was a time, I can assure you, when the women here earned the value of all the Hill rents by knitting stockings and making woollen stuffs. You see the stuffs lying here in this window that they make even now, and good stuffs too. But before the League boycotted the agency here, the agency ten years ago used to pay out £900 in a year, where it pays less than £100 to the women for their work." "Why did the League do this?" "Why? Why, because it wanted to control the work itself, and to know just what it brings into the place. You must remember Father M'Fadden is the President of the League, and the people will do anything for him. I have heard of one old woman who sat up of nights last year knitting socks to send up to London, to pay the Christmas dues to the Father,--six shillings' worth." "And are these stuffs here in the hotel made for the agency you speak of?" "Oh no; these are just made by women that know the hotel, and Mr. Robinson here, he kindly takes in the stuffs. You see the name of every woman on every one of them that made it, and the price. If a stranger buys some, he pays the money to Mr. Robinson, and so it goes to the women, and no commission charged." The "stuffs" are certainly excellent, very evenly woven; and the patterns, all devised, I am told, by the women themselves, very simple and tasteful. The only dyes used are got by the women also from the sea-weeds and the kelp, which must be counted among the resources of the place. The browns and ochres thus produced are both soft and vivid; while nothing can be better than a peculiar warm grey, produced by a skilful mingling of the undyed wools. "What, then, causes the distress for which the name of Gweedore is a synonym?" I asked. "It doesn't exist," responded my Galwegian; "that is, there is no such distress in Gweedore as you find in Connemara, for instance;[14] but what distress there is in Gweedore is due much more to the habits the people have been getting into of late years, and to the idleness of them, than to any pressure of the rents you hear about, or even to the poverty of the soil. Go down to the store at Bunbeg, and see what they buy and go in debt for! You won't find in any such place as Bunbeg in England such things. And even this don't measure it; for, you see, two-thirds of them are not free to deal at Bunbeg." "Why not? Is Bunbeg 'boycotted'?" "No, not at all. But they are on the books of the 'Gombeen man'--Sweeney of Dungloe and Burtonport. They're always in debt to him for the meal; and then he backs the travelling tea-pedlars, and the bakers that carry around cakes, and all these run up the accounts all the time. Tot up what these people lay out for tea at four shillings a pound--and they won't have cheap tea--and what they pay for meal, and what they pay for interest, and the 'testimonials,'--they paid for the monument here to O'Donnell, the Donegal man that murdered Carey,--and the dues to the priest, and you'll find the £700 or so they don't pay the landlord going in other directions three and four times over." "Then they are falling back into all the old laziness, the men sauntering about, or sitting and smoking, while the women do all the work." The maid having told us Mass would be performed at noon, I walked with Lord Ernest a mile or so up the road to Derrybeg, to see the people thronging down from the hills; the women in their picturesque fashion wearing their bright shawls drawn over their heads. But the maid had deceived us. The Mass was fixed for eleven, and I suspect her of being a Protestant in disguise. On the way back we met Mr. Burke, the resident magistrate. He has a neat house here, with a garden, and had come over from Dunfanaghy to see his wife. He meant to return before dark. The country was quiet enough, he said; but there were some troublesome fellows about, keeping up the excitement over the arrest at Father M'Fadden's trial of Father Stephens--a young priest recently from Liverpool, who has become the curate of quite another Father M'Fadden--the parish priest of Falcarragh, and is giving his local superior a great deal of trouble by his activity in connection with the "Plan of Campaign." Mr. Wybrants Olphert of Ballyconnell, the chief landlord of Falcarragh, has been "boycotted," on suspicion of promoting the arrest of the two priests. Five policemen have been put into his house. At Falcarragh, where six policemen are usually stationed, there are now forty. Mr. Burke evidently thinks, though he did not say so, that Father Stephens has been spoiled of his sleep by the laurels of Father M'Fadden of Gweedore. He is to be tried at Dunfanaghy on Tuesday, and there are now 150 troops quartered there--Rifles and Hussars. "Are they not boycotted?" I asked. "No. The people rather enjoy the bustle and the show, not to speak of the money the soldiers spend." Lord Ernest, who knows Mr. Olphert, sent him over a message by Mr. Burke that we would drive over to-morrow, and pay our respects to him at Ballyconnell. From this Mr. Burke tried to dissuade us, but what he told us naturally increased our wish to go. After luncheon I ordered a car, and drove to Derrybeg, to call there on Father M'Fadden, Lord Ernest, who has already seen him, agreeing to call there for me on his return from a walk. We passed much reclaimed bogland, mostly now in grass, and looking fairly well; many piles of turf and clusters of cottages, well-built, but not very neatly kept. From each, as we passed, the inevitable cur rushed out and barked himself hoarse. Then came a waste of bog and boulders, and then a long, neat stone wall, well coped with unhewn stone, which announced the vicinity of Father M'Fadden's house, quite the best structure in the place after the chapel and the hotel. It is of stone, with a neat side porch, in which, as I drove up, I descried Father M'Fadden, in his trim well-fitting clerical costume, standing and talking with an elderly lady. I passed through a handsome iron wicket, and introduced myself to him. He received me with much courtesy, and asked me to walk into his well-furnished comfortable study, where a lady, his sister, to whom he presented me, sat reading by the fire. I told Father M'Fadden I had come to get his view of methods and things at Gweedore, and he gave it to me with great freedom and fluency. He is a typical Celt in appearance, a M'Fadden Roe, sanguine by temperament, with an expression at once shrewd and enthusiastic, a most flexible persuasive voice. All the trouble at Gweedore, he thought, came of the agents. "Agents had been the curse both of Ireland and of the landlord. The custom being to pay them by commissions on the sums collected, and not a regular salary, the more they can screw either out of the soil, or out of any other resources of the tenants, the better it is for them. At Gweedore the people earn what they can, not out of the soil, but out of their labour exported to Scotland, or England, or America. Only yesterday," he continued, turning to his neat mahogany desk and taking up a letter, "I received this with a remittance from America to pay the rent of one of my people." "This was in connection," I asked, "with the 'Plan of Campaign' and your contest here?" "Yes," he replied; "and a girl of my parish went over to Scotland herself and got the money due there for another family, and brought it back to me here. You see they make me a kind of savings-bank, and have done so for a long time, long before the 'Plan of Campaign' was talked about as it is now." This was interesting, as I had heard it said by a Nationalist in Dublin that the "Plan of Campaign" was originally suggested by Father M'Fadden. He made no such claim himself, however, and I made no allusion to this aspect of the matter. "I have been living here for fifteen years, and they listen to me as to nobody else." In these affairs with the agents, he had always told his people that "whenever a settlement came to be made, cash alone in the hand of the person representing them could make it properly." "Cash I must have," he said, "and hold the cash ready for the moment. When I had worked out a settlement with Captain Hill, I had a good part of the money in my hand ready to pay down. £1450 was the sum total agreed upon, and after the further collection, necessitated by the settlement, there was a deficit of about £200. I wrote to Professor Stuart," he added, after a pause, "that I wanted about £200 of the sum-total. But more has come in since then. This remittance, from America yesterday, for example." "Do they send such remittances without being asked for them?" I inquired. "Yes; they are now and again sending money, and some of them don't send, but bring it. Some of them go out to America now as they used to go to England--just to work and earn some money, and come back. "If they get on tolerably well they stay for a while, but they find America is more expensive than Ireland, and if, for any cause, they get out of work there, they come back to Ireland to spend what they have. Naturally, you see," said Father M'Fadden, "they find a certain pleasure to be seen by their old friends in the old place, after borrowing the four pounds perhaps to take them to America, coming back with the money jingling in their pockets, and in good clothes, and with a watch and a chain--and a high hat. And there is in the heart of the Irishman an eternal longing for his native land constantly luring him back to Ireland. All do not succeed, though, in your country," he said. "We hear of two out of ten perhaps who do very well. They take care we hear of that. The rest disappear, and are never heard of again." "Then you do not encourage emigration?" I, asked, "even although the people cannot earn their living from the soil?" Father M'Fadden hesitated a moment, and then replied, "No, for things should be so arranged that they may earn their living, not out of the country, but on the soil at home. It is to that I want to bring the condition of the district." At this point Lord Ernest Hamilton came up and knocked at the door. He was most courteously received by Father M'Fadden. To my query why the Courts could not intervene to save the priests from taking all this trouble on themselves between the owners and the occupiers of the land, Father M'Fadden at first replied that the Courts had no power to intervene where, as in many cases in Gweedore, the holdings are subdivided. "The Courts," he said, "may not be, and I do not think they are, all that could be desired, though they undoubtedly do supply a more or less impartial arbitrator between the landlord and the tenant. It is an improvement on the past when the landlords fixed the rents for themselves." I did not remind him of what Lord George Hill tells us, that in the olden time at Gweedore the tenants fixed their own rents--and then did not pay them--but I asked him how this could be said when the tenant clearly must have accepted the rent, no matter who fixed it. "Oh!" said Father M'Fadden, "that may be so, but the tenant was not free, he was coerced. With all his life and labour represented in the holding and its improvements, he could not go and give up his holding. It's a stand-and-deliver business with him--the landlord puts a pistol to his head!" "But is it not true," I said, "that under the new Land Bill the Land Commissioner's Court has power to fix the rents judicially without regard to landlord or tenant during fifteen years?" "Yes, that is so," said Father M'Fadden. "Under Mr. Gladstone's Act of 81, and under the later Act of the present Government, the rents so fixed from '81 to '86 inclusive are subject to revision for three years; but the people have no confidence in the constitution of the Courts, and, as a matter of fact, the improvements of the tenants are confiscated under the Act of '81, and the reductions allowed under the Act of '87 are incommensurate with the fall in prices by 100 per cent. And there still remains the burden of arrears. I feel that I must stand between my people and obligations which they are unable to meet. To that end I take their money, and stand ready to use it to relieve them when the occasion offers. That is my idea of my work under the 'Plan of Campaign'; and, furthermore, I think that by doing it I have secured money for the landlord which he couldn't possibly have got in any other way." This struck me as a very remarkable statement, nor can I see how it can be interpreted otherwise than as an admission that if the people had the money to pay their rents, they couldn't be trusted to use it for that purpose, unless they put it into the control of the priest or of some other trustee. Reverting to what he had said of the necessity for some change in the conditions of life and labour here, I asked if, in his opinion, the people could live out of the land if they got the ownership of it. In existing circumstances he thought they could not. Was he in favour, then, of Mr. Davitt's plan of Land Nationalisation? "Well, I have not considered the question of Nationalisation of the land." To my further question, What remedies he would himself propose for a state of things in which it was impossible for the people to live out of the land either as occupiers or as owners--emigration being barred, Father M'Fadden, without looking at Lord Ernest, replied, "Oh, I think abler men who draw up Parliamentary Acts and live in public life ought to devise remedies, and that is a matter which would be best settled by a Home Government." The glove was well delivered, but Lord Ernest did not lift it. "But, Father M'Fadden," I said, "I am told you are a practical agriculturist and engineer, and that you have contrived to get excellent work done by the people here, dividing them off into working squads, and assigning so many perches to so many--surely then you must understand better than a dozen members of Parliament what they can be got to do?" He smiled at this, and finally admitted that he had a plan of his own. It was that the Government should advance sums for reclaiming the land. "The people could live on part of their earnings while thus employed, and invest the surplus in sheep to be fed on the hill pastures. When the reclamation was effected the families could be scattered out, and the holdings increased. In this district alone there are 350 holdings of reclaimable land of 20 acres each, the reclamation of which, according to a competent surveyor, "would pay well." And the district could be improved by creating employment on the spot, establishing factories, developing fisheries, giving technical education, and encouraging cottage industries, which are so vigorously reviving in this district owing to the benevolent efforts of the Donegal Industrial Fund." Father M'Fadden spoke freely and without undue heat of his trial, and gave us a piquant account of his arrest. This was effected at Armagh, just as he was getting into an early morning train. A sergeant of police walked up as the train was about to start, and asked-- "Are you not Father M'Fadden of Gweedore?" "What interest have you in my identity?" responded the priest. "Only this, sir," said the officer, politely exhibiting a warrant. "I had been in Armagh the previous day," said Father M'Fadden, "attending the month's memory of the late deceased Primate of All Ireland, Dr. M'Gettigan, and stayed at a private residence, that of Surgeon-Major Lavery, not suspecting that while enjoying the genial hospitality of the Surgeon-Major my steps were dogged by a detective, and that gentleman's house watched by police." Of the trial Father M'Fadden spoke with more bitterness. His eyes glowed as he exclaimed, "Can you imagine that they refused me bail, when bail had been allowed to such a felon as Arthur Orton? Why should I have been locked up over two Sundays, for ten days, when I offered to pledge my honour to appear?" He made no other complaint of the magistrate, and none of the prosecutor, Mr. Ross. He praised his own lawyer, too, but he strongly denounced the stenographer who took down his speech, or the parts of it which I told him I had seen in Dublin. "Why, just think of it," he exclaimed; "it took the clerk just eight minutes to read the report given by that stenographer of a speech which it took me an hour and twenty minutes to deliver! I do not speak from the lips, I speak from the heart, and consequently rather rapidly; and a stenographer who can take down 190 words a minute has told me I run ahead of him!" I suggested that the report, without pretending even to be a full summary of his speech, might be accurate as to phrases and sentences pronounced by him. "Yes, as to phrases," he answered, "that might be; but the phrases may be taken out of their true connection, and strung together in an untruthful, yet telling way. Even my words were not fully set down," he said, with some heat. "I was made to call a man 'level,' when I said in the American way that he was 'level-headed.'" _A propos_ of this, I am told that the American word "spree" has become Hibernian, and is used to describe meetings of the National League and "other political entertainments." When I told Father M'Fadden I had just come from Rome, where, as I had reason to believe, the Vatican was anxious to get evidence from others than Archbishop Walsh and Monsignore Kirby, of the Irish College, as to the attitude of the priests in Ireland towards the laws of the United Kingdom, he said he knew that "some Italian prelates neither understood nor approved the 'Plan of Campaign,' nor is the Irish Land question understood at Rome;" but this did not seem to disturb him much, as he was quite sure that in the end the "Plan of Campaign" would be legalised by the British Government. "I think I see plainly," he said, "that Lord Ernest's government is fast going to pieces, though I can't expect him to admit it!" Lord Ernest laughed good-naturedly, and said that Father M'Fadden saw more in Donegal than he (Lord Ernest) was able to see in Westminster. Upon my asking him whether the "Plan of Campaign" did not in effect abrogate the moral duty of a man to meet the legal obligations he had voluntarily incurred, Father M'Fadden advanced his own theory of the subject, which was that, "if a man can pay a fair year's rent out of the produce of his holding, he is bound to pay it. But if the rent be a rack-rent, imposed on the tenant against his will, or if the holding does not produce the rent, then I don't think that is a strict obligation in conscience." In America, the courts, I fear, would make short work of this theory of Father M'Fadden. If a tenant there cannot pay his first quarter's rent (they don't let him darken his soul by a year's liabilities) they promptly and mercilessly put him out. Interesting as was our conversation with the parish priest of Gweedore, I felt that we might be trespassing too far upon his kindness and his time. So we rose to go. He insisted upon our going into the dining-room, where, as he told us, he had hospitably entertained sundry visiting statesmen from England, and there offered us a glass of the excellent wine of the country. He excused himself from joining us as being "almost a teetotaller." On our return to the hotel I met the Galwegian strolling about. When I told him of Father M'Fadden's courteous hospitality, he said, "I am very glad you took that glass he offered. I really believe his quarrel with Captain Hill dates back to Hill's declining that same courtesy under Father M'Fadden's roof." GWEEDORE, _Monday, Feb. 6._--Another very beautiful morning--as a farmer said with whom I chatted on my morning stroll, "A grand day, sorr!" Errigal, which in this mountain atmosphere seems almost to hang over our hotel, but is in reality three or four miles away, stood out superbly against a clear azure sky, wreaths of soft luminous mist floating like a divine girdle half way up his bare volcanic peak. I walked up to the Bunbeg road with Lord Ernest to call upon some peasants whom he knows. In one stone cabin, very well built and plastered, standing sidewise to the road, with doors on either side, we found the house apparently in charge of a little girl of nine or ten years, a weird but pretty child with very delicate well-cut features, who lay couchant upon her doubled-up arm on a low bed in a corner of the main room, and peered at us over her elbow with sparkling inquisitive eyes. By her side sat a man with his cap on, who might have been the "young Pretender," or the "old Kaiser," so far as his looks went towards indicating his age. He never rose or welcomed us, being, as we afterwards found out, only a visitor like ourselves, and a kinsman of Mrs. M'Donnell, the head of the house. "Mrs. M'Donnell," he said, "is gone to the store at Bunbeg." This main room rose perhaps ten feet in height to the open roof. It had one large and well-glazed window. When Lord George Hill came here there were not ten square feet of window-glass in the whole parish outside of the Church, the national school, and the residence of the chief police-officer. Windows when there were any were closed with dried sheepskins, through which the cats ran in and out as freely as through the curious tunnel which the kindly Master of Blantyre has constructed at Sheba's Cross for their special benefit. There were two beds in the main room; rather high than low, one of rushes, on which lay the child of whom I have spoken, and one of greater pretensions vacant in another corner. The door stood wide open, but the cabin was warm and comfortable, and a peat fire smouldered, sending up, to me, most agreeable odours. An inner room seemed to be a sort of granary, full of hay and straw. There the cow is kept at night. "It's handy if you want a drink of milk," said the visitor. In comparison with the dwellings of small farmers in Eastern France or in Southern Italy this Donegal cabin was not only clean but attractive. It was more squalid perhaps, but less dreary than the extemporised and flimsy dwellings of settlers in the extreme Far West of the United States, and I should say decidedly a more wholesome habitation than the hermetically sealed and dismal wooden houses of hundreds of struggling farmers in the older Eastern States. I am sure my old friend Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, who made the only thorough surveys of agricultural life in the United States before the Civil War, would have pronounced it in all respects superior, so far as health and comfort go, to the average home of the average "poor buccra," between the Chesapeake and the Sabine. I am afraid a great deal of not wholly innocuous nonsense has been written and spoken about this part of the United Kingdom by well-meaning philanthropists who have gauged the condition of the people here by their own standards of comfort and enjoyment. Most things in this life of ours are relative. I well remember hearing an American millionaire, who began life in New York as the patentee of a mouse-trap, express his profound compassion for a judge of the Supreme Court condemned to live "upon a pittance of eight thousand dollars a year." These dwellers in the cabins of Donegal are millionaires, so far as those essentials of life are concerned, which we call room and air and freedom to move and breathe, in comparison with hundreds and thousands of their own race in the slums of New York and Chicago and Liverpool and London. Mrs. M'Donnell's cousin, however, took dark views of things. The times "were no good at all." The potatoes, I had heard, were doing well this year. "No! they wouldn't keep the people; indeed, they wouldn't. There would have to be relief." "Why not manure the land?" "Manure? oh yes, the sea-stuff was good manure, but the people couldn't get it. They had no boats; and it cost eighteenpence a load to haul it from Bunbeg. No! they couldn't get it off the rocks. At the Rosses they might; the Rosses were not so badly off as Derrybeg or Gweedore, for all they might say." "But Father M'Fadden had urged me," I said, "to see the Rosses, because the people there were worse off than any of the people." "Well, Father M'Fadden was a good man; he was a friend of the people; and they were bad indeed at the Rosses, but they could get the sea-stuff there, and hadn't to pay for cartage. And indeed, if you put the sea-stuff on the bogland, the land was better in among the rocks' at the Rosses than was the bogland, it was indeed: the stuff did no good at all the first year. The second and the third it gave good crops--but then you must burn it--and by the fourth year and the fifth it was all ashes, and no good at all! This was God's truth, it was; and there must be relief." "But could the people earn nothing in Scotland or in Tyrone?" "Oh no, they could earn nothing at all. They could pay no rent." So he sat there, a Jeremiah among the potsherds, quite contented and miserable--well and hearty in a ragged frieze coat, with his hat over his eyes. While we talked, a tall lusty young beggar-girl wandered in and out unnoticed. Chickens pecked and fluttered about, and at intervals the inevitable small dog suddenly barked and yelped. On our way back we met the elder daughter of Mrs. M'Donnell, a girl of sixteen, the "beauty of Gweedore." A beauty she certainly is, and of a type hardly to have been looked for here. Her lithe graceful figure, her fine, small, chiselled features, her shapely little head rather defiantly set on her sloping shoulders, her fair complexion and clear hazel eyes, her brown golden hair gathered up behind into a kind of tress, all these were Saxon rather than Celtic. Her trim neat ankles were bare, after the mountain fashion, but she was prettily dressed in a well-fitting dark blue gown, wore a smartly trimmed muslin apron, with lace about her throat, and carried over her arm a new woollen shawl, very tasteful and quiet in colour. She greeted us with a self-possessed smile. "No," she had not, been shopping with her mother. The shawl was a present from one of her cousins. Did we not think it very pretty? She was only out for a walk, and had no notion where her mother might be. A stalwart red-bearded man who lounged and loitered behind her on the road was "only a friend," she said, "not a relation at all!" Nor did she show, I am sorry to say, any compassion for the evident uneasiness with which, from a distance, he regarded her long and affable parley with two strangers. We asked her whether she expected and wished to live in Gweedore, or would like to follow elsewhere some calling or trade. "Oh yes," she unhesitatingly replied, "I should like to be a dress-maker in Deny; but," she added pensively, "it's no use my thinking about it, for I know I shouldn't be let!" "Wouldn't you like Dublin as well?" I asked. "Perhaps; but I shouldn't be let go to Dublin either!" Would she like to go to America? "No!" she didn't think much of "the Americans who came back," and America must be "a very hard country for work, and very cold in the winter." Now this was a widow's daughter, living in such a cabin as I have described, and upon a small holding in a parish reputed to be the most "distressful" in Donegal![15] Returning to the hotel we found our car ready for Falcarragh. Our driver was a quiet, sensible fellow, who did not seem to care sixpence about the great Nationality question, though he knew the country very well. Iron was visible in the rocks as we drove along, and we passed some abandoned mining works, "lead and silver mines;" he said, "they were given up long before his time." We got many fine views of the mountains Errigal, Aghla More, and Muckish. Lough Altan, a wild tarn, lies between Errigal and Aghla More. The peasants we met stared at us curiously, but, were very civil, even at a place bearing the ominous name of Bedlam, against which Mr. Burke had warned us as the most troublesome on the way. All the countryside was there attending a fair, and we drove through throngs of red-shawled, barelegged women, ponies, horses, cattle, and sheep. Of Tory Island, with its famous tower, dating back to the fabled "Fomorians," we had some grand glimpses. The white surf, flashing and leaping high in the air on the nearer islets accented and gave life to the landscape. In one glorious landlocked bay, we saw not a single boat riding. Our driver said, "The fishermen all live on Tory Island, and send their fish to Sligo. The people on the mainland don't like going out in the boats." Lord Ernest tells me there is a movement to have a telegraph station set up on Tory Island, to announce the Canadian steamers coming into Moville for Deny. We found Falcarragh, or "Cross-Roads," a large clean-looking village, consisting of one long and broad street, through which horses and cattle were wandering in numbers, apparently at their own sweet will. Ballyconnell House, the seat of Mr. Wybrants Olphert, is the manor house of the place. As we drew near, no signs appeared of the dreadful "Boycott." The great gates of the park stood hospitably open, and we drove in unchallenged past a pretty ivy-clad lodge, and through low, but thickly planted groves. A huge boulder, ruddy with iron ore, bears the uncanny and unspellable name of the "Clockchinnfhaelaidh," or "Stone of Kinfaele." Upon this stone, tradition tells us, Balor, a giant of Tory Island, chopped off the head of an unreasonable person named Mackinfeale, for complaining that Balor, under some prehistoric "Plan of Campaign," had driven away his favourite cow, Glasgavlan. Ballyconnell House, a substantial mansion of the Georgian era, stands extremely well. Over a fine sloping lawn in front, you have a glorious view of the sea, and of a very fine headland, known as "the Duke's Head," from the really remarkable resemblance it bears to the profile of Wellington. The winds have such power here that there are but few well-grown trees, and those near the house. About them paraded many game-hens, spirited birds, looking like pheasants. These, as we learned, never sleep save in the trees. The "boycotted" lord of the manor came out to greet us--a handsome, stalwart man of some seventy years, with a kindly face, and most charming manners. His family, presumably of Dutch origin, has been established here since Charles II. He himself holds 18,133 acres here, valued at £1802 a year; and he is a resident landlord in the fullest sense of the term. For fifty years he has lived here, during all which time, as he told us to-day, he has "never slept for a week out of the country." His furthest excursions of late years have been to Raphoe, where he has a married daughter. "Absenteeism" clearly has nothing to do with the quarrel between Mr. Olphert and his tenants, or with the "boycotting" of Ballyconnell. The dragoons from Dunfanaghy had just ridden away as we came up. They had come over in full fig to show themselves, and to encourage the respectable Catholics of Falcarragh, who side with their parish priest, Father M'Fadden of Glena, and object to the vehement measures, promoted by his young curate, Father Stephens, recently of Liverpool. The people had received them with much satisfaction. "They had never seen the cavalry before, and were much delighted!" Before we sat down to luncheon young Mr. Olphert came in. It was curious to see this quiet, well-bred young gentleman throw down his belt and his revolver on the hall table, like his gloves and his umbrella. "Quite like the Far West," I said. "And we are as far in the West as we can get," he replied laughingly. Our luncheon was excellent--so good, in fact, that we felt a kind of remorse as if we had selfishly quartered ourselves upon a beleaguered garrison. But Mr. Olphert said he had no fear of being starved out. Personally he was, and always had been, on the best terms with the people of Falcarragh. The older tenants, even now, if he met them walking in the fields when no one was in sight, would come up and salute him, and say how "disgusted" they were with what was going on. It was the younger generation who were troublesome--more troublesome, he added, to their own parish priest than they were to him. Three or four years ago a returned American Irishman, an avowed unbeliever, but an active Nationalist and one of Mr. Forster's "suspects," had come into the neighbourhood and done his worst to break up the parish. He used to come to Falcarragh on a Sunday, and get up on a stone outside the chapel while Father M'Fadden was saying Mass or preaching, and harangue such people as would listen to him, and caricature the priest and the sermon going on within sound of his own voice. "I am myself a Protestant," said Mr. Olphert, "but I have a great respect for priests who do their duty; and the conduct of Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, in countenancing this man, who tried to overthrow the authority of Father M'Fadden of Glena, excited my indignation. As to what is going on now," said Mr. Olphert, "it is to Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, and to Father Stephens here, that the trouble is chiefly to be charged." This tallies with what I heard at Gweedore from my Galwegian acquaintance. He thought Mr. Olphert, and Mr. Hewson, the agent, ought to have made peace on the terms which Father Stephens said he was willing to accept for the tenants, these being a reduction of 3s. 4d. in the pound, if Mr. Olphert would extend the reduction to the whole year. My Galwegian thought this reasonable, because in this region the rent, it appears, is only collected once a year. With this impartial temper, my Galwegian still maintained that but for the two priests--the parish priest of Gweedore and the curate of Falcarragh--there need have been no trouble at Falcarragh. There had been no "evictions." When the tenants first went to Mr. Olphert they asked a reduction of 4s. in the pound on the non-judicial rents, and this Mr. Olphert at once agreed to give them. The tenants had regularly paid their rents for ten years before. That they are not going down in the world would appear from the fact that the P.O. Savings Banks' deposits at Falcarragh, which stood at £62, 15s. 10d. in 1880, rose in 1887 to £494, 10s. 8d. A small number of them had gone into Court and had judicial rents fixed; and it was on the contention promoted by the two priests, through these judicial tenants, he said, that all the difficulty hinged. Father M'Fadden of Glena, who thought the quarrel unjustifiable and silly, had an interview with Mr. Blane, M.P., and with Father Stephens, and tried to arrange it all. He would have succeeded, my Galwegian thought, had not the agent, Mr. Hewson, obstinately fought with the obstinate curate, Father Stephens, over the suggestion made by the latter, that the terms granted on the fine neighbouring estate of Mr. Stuart of Ards--a man of wealth, who lives mainly at Brighton, though Ards is one of the loveliest places in Ireland--should be extended by Mr. Olphert for a whole year to his own people, who had never asked for anything of the kind! Mr. Olphert said he knew Gweedore well. He owns a "townland"[16] there, on which he has thirty-five tenants, none of them on a holding at more more than £4 a year. Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, he said, finding that the people on Mr. Olphert's townland were going back to the "Rundale" practices, tried to induce Mr. Olphert to return all these subdivisions as "tenancies." This he refused to do. As to the resources of the peasantry, he thought them greater than they appeared to be. "This comes to light," said Mr. Olphert, "whenever there is a tenant-right for sale. There is never any lack of money to buy it, and at a round good price." The people also, he thinks, spend a great deal on what they regard as luxuries, and particularly on tea. "A cup of tea could not be got for love or money in Gweedore, when Lord George Hill came there. You might as well have asked for a glass of Tokay." Now they use and abuse it in the most deleterious way imaginable. They buy the tea at exorbitant rates, often at five shillings a pound, and usually on credit, paying a part of one bill on running up another, put it into a saucepan or an iron pot, and boil, or rather stew, it over the fire, till they brew a kind of hell-broth, which they imbibe at odd moments all day long! Oddly enough, this is the way in which they prepare tea in Cashmere and other parts of India, with this essential difference, though, that the Orientals mitigate the astringency of the herb with milk and almonds and divers ingredients, tending to make a sort of "compote" of it. Taken as it is taken here, it must have a tremendous effect on the nerves. Mr. Olphert thinks it has had much to do with the increase of lunacy in Ireland of late years. From his official connection with the asylum at Letterkenny, he knows that while it used to accommodate the lunatics of three counties, it is now hardly adequate to the needs of Donegal alone. Everything about Ballyconnell House is out of key with the actual military conditions of life here. It is essentially what Tennyson calls "an ancient home of ordered peace." In the ample hall hang old portraits and trophies of the chase. The large and handsome library, panelled in rich dark wood, is filled full of well-bound books. Prints, busts, the thousand and one things of "bigotry and virtue" which mark the dwelling-place of educated and thoughtful people are to be seen on every side. Mr. Olphert showed us a cabinet full of bronzes, picked up on the strand of the sea. Among these were brooches, pins, clasps, buckles, two very fine bronze swords, and a pair of bronze links engraved with distinctly Masonic emblems, such as the level, the square, and the compasses. When were these things made, and by what people? So far as I know, Masonry in the British Islands cannot be historically traced back much, if at all, beyond the Revolution of 1688. Mr. Olphert and his son walked about the place with us. They have no fears of an attack, but think it wise to keep a force of police on the premises. The only demonstration yet made of any kind against the house was the march from Falcarragh some time ago of a mob of young men, who promptly withdrew on catching sight of half-a-dozen policemen within the park gates. As to getting his work done, some of his people had steadily refused to acknowledge the "boycott," and they were now strengthened by the attitude of those who had surrendered to the pressure, and were now sullen and angry with the League which had given them nothing to do, and no supplies. At Falcarragh we met a person who knew much about the late Lord Leitrim, who was murdered in this neighbourhood on the highway some years ago. He spoke freely of the murderer by name, as if it were matter of common notoriety. Of the murdered man, he said that he had made himself extremely unpopular and odious, not so much by certain immoralities freely alleged at the time of his death, as by vexatious meddling with the prejudices and whims of his tenants. "He used to go into the houses and pull down cartoons and placards, if he saw them put up on the walls." "No! he had no party feeling in the matter; he used to pull down William III. and the Pope with an equal hand." It seems that in this region, too, a local legend has grown up of the birth at a place called Cashelmore of a "Queen of France." The case is worth noting as throwing light on the genesis and accuracy of local traditions. The "Queen of France" referred to proves, on inquiry, to have been Miss Patterson, who married Jerome Bonaparte, brother of the first Emperor, afterwards created by him King of Westphalia! This Avas the lady so well known in America as Mrs. Patterson Bonaparte of Baltimore, who died at a great age only a few years ago. I have no reason to suppose that she was born at Cashelmore at all or in Ireland. But her father, reputed in the time of Washington to be the richest man in the United States, who came from the North of Ireland and settled in Baltimore as a merchant, may very well have been born there. To my great regret Father M'Fadden of Glena, or Falcarragh, was absent from home. As we drove homeward we met on the way a young lady on a smart jaunting-car, with a servant in livery. This was the daughter, our driver told us, of Mr. Griffiths, the Protestant clergyman, past whose residence our road lay. His church stands high upon a commanding cliff, and is a feature in the landscape. We met the parson himself also, walking with a friend. The road from Bedlam to Derrybeg goes by a region of the "Rosses," reputed the most woe-begone part of the Gweedore district. This is the scene of a curious tale told about Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, by his ill-wishers in these parts, to the effect that he advises English Members of Parliament and other "sympathising" visitors who come here to make a pilgrimage to "the Bosses," where, no matter at what time of day they appear, they invariably find sundry of the people sitting in their huts and eating stewed seaweed out of iron pots. I cannot vouch for this tale, but certainly I have seen no people here of either sex, or of any age, who look as if they lived on stewed seaweed. Another person at Falcarragh told us, as an illustration of the influence exerted by Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, in this parish, over which he has no proper authority, that, in obedience to an intimation from him, the persons whose seats in the chapel had been occupied on two successive Sundays by the policemen now stationed here, yesterday refused to allow the policemen to occupy them, the only exception being in the case of a man who had been arrested at the same time with Father Stephens, and who had been so well treated by the police, that he felt bound to repay their courtesy by offering one of them his seat. CHAPTER III. DUNGLOE, _Tuesday, Feb. 7._--We rose early this morning at Gweedore; the sun shining so brightly that we were forced to drop the window-shades at breakfast, while I read my letter from Rome, telling me of the bitter cold there, and of a slight snow-fall last week. Here the birds were singing, and the air was as soft and exhilarating as that of an April morning in the Highlands of Mexico or Costa Rica. Our host gave us a capital car, with a staunch nag and a wide-awake jarvey, thanks to all which I found the thirteen miles drive to this place too short. No doubt it will be a great thing for Donegal when "light railways" are laid down here. But I pity the traveller of the future here, if he is never to know the delight of traversing these wild and picturesque wastes in such weather as we have had to-day, on a car, well-balanced by a single pleasant companion, drinking, as he goes, deep draughts of the Atlantic air! Truly on a jaunting-car "two are company and three are none." You have almost the free companionship of a South American journey in the saddle, jumping off to walk, when you like, more freely still. We drove near the house of the "beauty of Gweedore," but she was not visible, though we met her mother (by no means a _pulchra mater_) as we crossed the Clady at Bryan's Bridge. We soon passed from the bogland into a wilderness of granite. Our jarvey, however, maintained that there was "better land among the stones than any bogland could be." He was a shrewd fellow, and summed up the economical situation, I thought, better than some of his betters, when he said of the whole region that "it will fatten four, feed five, and starve six." It may well fatten six, though, I should say, if the natural wealth of this vast granite range can be properly turned to account. On every side of us lay vast blocks of granite of all hues and grades, all absolutely unworked, but surely not unworkable. We stopped and picked up many specimens, some of them almost as rich in colour as porphyry. Of lakes and lakelets supplying water-power the name too, is legion. Beyond Annagary we caught a glimpse of the Isle of Arran, the scene, a few years ago, of so much suffering, and that of a kind I should think as much beyond the control of legislation as the misery and destruction which have overtaken successive attempts to establish settlements on Anticosti in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This town of Dungloe sprawls along the shore of the sea. It is reputed the most ill-favoured town in Donegal, and it certainly is not a dream of beauty. But it blooms all over with evidences of the prosperity of that interesting type of Irish civilisation, the "Gombeen man," of whom I had heard so much at Gweedore. Over the doorways of most of the shops appear the names of various members of the family of Sweeney, all of them, I am told, brought here and established within a few years past by the head of the sept, who is not only the great "Gombeen man" of the region, but a leading local member of the National League, and Her Majesty's Postmaster. The Sweeneys, in fact, commercially speaking, dominate Dungloe, their, only visible rivals being a returned Irish American, who has built himself a neat two-story house and shop just at the entrance of the village, and our own host, Mr. Maurice Boyle, whose extremely neat little inn just faces a large shop, the stronghold of the Chief of the Sweeneys. I am sorry to find that this important citizen of Dungloe is not now here. We went into his chief establishment to make some purchases, and found it full of customers, chiefly women, neatly dressed after the Donegal fashion, and busily chaffering with the shopgirls and shopmen, who had their hands full, exhibiting goods such as certainly would not be found in any New York or New England village of this sort. When we secured the attention of the chief shopman, a nattily dressed, dark-haired young man who would not have discredited the largest "store" in Grand Street or the Bowery of New York, we asked him to show us some of the home-made woollen goods of the country. These, he assured us, had no sale in Dungloe, and he did not keep them. But he showed us piles of handsome Scottish tweeds at much higher prices. Now as this is an exclusively agricultural region, it is evident that the tenants must be able to make it worth a trader's while to keep on hand such goods as we here found, and therefore that they cannot be exactly on "the ragged edge" of things. Mr. Sweeney is also the proprietor of the chief "hotel" of Dungloe; our host, Mr. Boyle, being in fact supposed to be "boycotted" for entertaining officers of the police. This "boycott," however, has entailed no practical inconvenience upon us; and Mr. Boyle's pretty and plucky daughters, who manage his house for him, laughed scornfully at the notion of being "bothered" by it. After luncheon we took a car and drove out to Burtonport, on the Roads of Arranmore, to visit the parish priest there, Father Walker, and Mr. Hammond, the agent of the Conyngham estates. We passed near a large inland lake, Lough Meela, and the seaward views along the coast were very fine. With peace and order this corner of Ireland might easily become the chosen site of the most delightful seaside homes in the United Kingdom. The Recorder of Cork has discovered this, and passes a great part of the year here. This Donegal coast is no further from the great centres of British wealth and population than are Mount Desert and the other summer resorts of Maine and New Hampshire from New York and Philadelphia; and the islands which break the great roll of the Atlantic here cannot well be more nearly in "a state of nature" than were the Isles of Shoals, for example, in my college days, long after Mr. Lowell first wandered there with the transcendental Thaxters to celebrate the thunders of the surf at Appledore. The wonderful granitic formations we had seen on the way from Gweedore stretch all along the coast to the Roads of Arranmore. At Burtonport they lie on the very water's edge. At a place called Lickeena, masses of beautiful salmon-and rose-coloured granite actually trend into the tidewater, and at Burtonport proper is a promontory of that richly-mottled granite which I had supposed to be the peculiar heritage of Peterhead, and which is now largely exported from Scotland to the United States. Why should not this Irish granite be shipped directly from Donegal to America, there to be built up into cathedrals, and shaped into monuments for the Exiles of Erin? All these formations which we have seen present themselves in great cubical blocks, so jointed that they may be detached without blasting, with great comparative ease, and with little of the waste which results from the squaring of shapeless masses. At the same time, as we saw while coming from Gweedore, the many lakes of this region offer all the water-power necessary for polishing-works, columnar lathes, and the general machinery used in developing such quarries. Without being an expert in granites, I have seen enough of the granite works at home to feel quite sure that a moderate and judiciously managed investment here ought to return a handsome result. If the National League is as well off as it is reputed to be, it might go into this business open a new and remunerative industry to the people of a "congested" district, and earn dividends large enough to enable it to pay the expenses of the war against England at Westminster, without drawing on the savings of the servant-girls in America, The only person likely to suffer would be the "Gombeen man," if the peasantry earned enough to pay off their debts to him, and stop the flow of interest into his coffers. At Burtonport we found the "Gombeen man," of Dungloe, represented by a very large "store." He runs steamers between this place and various ports on the Scottish and Irish coasts, bringing in goods and taking out the crops which his debtors turn over to him. This Burtonport "store" towers high above the modest home of the parish priest, Father Walker. To our great regret he was absent on parochial duty, but his niece very kindly welcomed us into his modest study, where we left a note begging him to honour us with his company at dinner in Dungloe. Mr. Hammond, too, was absent, so after paying our respects to his wife, we drove back to Dungloe, and walked about the village till dark, chatting with the good-natured, civil people. The local sensation here they tell us is not the trial of the priests at Dunfanaghy, but a "row" breeding between the chief of the Sweeneys and one of his brethren over the possession of Her Majesty's Post-office. It seems there is an official regulation or custom that the post-office once established in a particular building shall not be moved thence without positive cause shown. The head of the Sweeneys, having completed his new and grand establishment, wishes to move the post-office thither; but the brother to whom he confided the office in the older building, where he left it while making the change of his own business, now desires to keep the office where it is, and, I suppose, to become postmaster himself![17] A trivial matter enough, but not without edification for students of the actual situation in this most curious country. About seven o'clock Father Walker made his appearance--a fine-looking, dignified, most amiable man. He is a teetotaller, which we esteemed a stroke of good fortune, a bottle of port wine which we obtained, despite the "boycott," from the Gombeen shop, proving to be of such a quality that it might have been concocted in the last century, expressly to discredit the Methuen treaty. Father Walker is the President of the National League branch. Like Father M'Fadden at Gweedore, he speaks of the landlords in this part of Donegal as really owning, not so much farms as residential grounds for tenants who export their thews and sinews to Scotland and other countries, and live by that traffic mainly. It is a common practice here, he tells me, for the children, who are very sharp and bright, to be taken by their parents into Tyrone and other parts of the North, and put out to live with the people there, who prize them, and pay very good wages. I asked him if he thought the official estimate I had seen of the proportion of these "migratory labourers" to the whole population of Ulster, as about one-tenth of one per cent., an under-statement. He thought it was an under-statement for this part of the county of Donegal, but to be explained, perhaps, by the fact that so much of the migration is merely from one county into another, and not out of the kingdom. He agreed that the practice goes on upon a much more extensive scale in the County Mayo, where more than thirteen per cent, of all the adult male population are said to belong to the category of migratory labourers. The Irish population of England seems to be recruited at regular seasons in this way, very much as is the Albanian population of Constantinople. Father Walker was full of information about the granite quarries, and much interested in the prospect of their development. He told us that a practical engineer from Liverpool had, not long ago, been here seeking a lease of the quarries--or, in other words, of the quarrying rights over sixty or seventy miles of Donegal--from the agent of Lord Conyngham. This engineer had come to Donegal on a sporting expedition last year, and gone back full of the capabilities of the granite region. Father Walker had been told by him that similar quarries also exist in the County Mayo at Belmullet, where preparations are now making, he thinks, to develop them, though on a smaller scale than would be both practicable and desirable here. In Mayo, as in Donegal, labour must be plentiful enough, and the comparatively unskilled labour required in such quarries would be particularly abundant here. It would be a great thing, Father Walker thought, to introduce here the custom of a regular pay-day, and with it gradually habits of exactness and economy, not easily developed without it. He gave me also, at my request, some valuable information as to the stipends of the Catholic clergy, and the sources from which they are derived. This subject has been agitated in the local press of this part of Ireland in connection with estimates of Father M'Fadden's income at Gweedore, which Father M'Fadden declares, I believe, to be greatly exaggerated. Father Walker has been parish priest at Burtonport for about nine years. In all that time the highest sum reached in one year by the stipend has been £560; this sum having to be divided between the parish priest, who received £280, and two curates receiving £140 each. The annual stipend, however, has more than once fallen below £480, and Father Walker thinks £520 a fair average, giving £260 to the parish priest, and £130 each to his curates. Where there are only two priests in a parish, as is the case, for example, in each of the parishes of Gweedore and Falcarragh, the parish priest receives two-thirds, and the curate one-third of the stipend. The sources of this stipend are various, and in speaking upon this point Father Walker desired me to note that he could only speak positively of the rules of this particular diocese, as they do not cover in their entirety the usages of other provinces, or even of other dioceses in this province of Ireland. One general and invariable rule indeed exists throughout Ireland, which is that every parish priest is bound to offer the Holy Sacrifice, _pro populo_, for the whole people, without fee or reward, on all Sundays and Holy Days, making in all some eighty-seven times a year. In the diocese of Raphoe, to which Burtonport belongs, there are four recognised methods by which the revenues of the priests are raised. The first is an annual fixed stipend of four shillings for each household or family. "Sometimes," said Father Walker, "but rarely, the better-off families give more than this; and not unfrequently the poorer families fail to give anything under this head." The second is a fixed stipend of one pound upon the occasion of a marriage. "Sometimes, but not often, this sum is exceeded by generous and prosperous parishioners." The third is a standard stipend of two shillings for a baptism. "This also suffers, but on rare occasions," said the good priest, "a favourable exception. I mention the exceptions as well as the rules," said the good Father, "in order to make grateful allusion to the donors." The fourth and last consists of the offerings at interments. "These vary very much indeed, but they constitute an important, and, I may say, a necessary item in the incomes of the clergy." Besides these four forms of stipend, the priests derive a revenue from "those who ask them to offer the Holy Sacrifice 'for their special intention.'" In such cases it is customary to offer a sum, usually of two shillings, but sometimes of half-a-crown, which is intended both as a remuneration for the priest, and to cover the cost of altar requisites. Father Walker estimates the families in his own parish in round numbers at about thirteen hundred, and in Gweedore and Falcarragh at about nine hundred each. We had some conversation about the great fisheries, which one would think ought to exist, but do not exist, on this coast, such fishing as is done here by the natives being on a very limited scale. Father Walker tells me that formerly £80,000 worth of herring were taken on this coast, though he is not sure that Donegal fishermen took them. But of late years he thinks the herring have deserted these waters. He admits, however, that the people have no liking for the sea. "Going over once," he said, "to Arranmore from the mainland in a boat with a priest of the country, the water was a little rough, and the poor man nearly pinched a piece out of my arm holding on to me!" Father Walker himself thought the trip across the "sound" to Tory Island rather a ticklish piece of business. Yet the natives make it sometimes in their little corraghs or canvas boats, which would seem to show that some of them must be capable of seamanship. Most of these islands, notably Arranmore, Father Walker thought quite incapable of supporting the people who dwell on them, without constant help from the mainland. Is it not an open question whether an age which countenances the condemnation of private property in houses declared unfit for human habitation ought to hesitate at dealing in the same spirit with nurseries of chronic penury and intermittent famine? On one of these islands, known as Scull Island, Father Walker tells me great quantities of human bones are found in circular graves or trenches, very shallow, and going all around the island. There are legends of great battles fought on the little island, and of pestilences, to account for these. But it is likely enough that the island was simply used as a cemetery by the dwellers on the shore at some early date. Father Walker when he was last, there had brought away some of these relics. One he showed us, the beautifully formed jawbone of a young child, apparently ten or twelve years old, with exquisite pearly teeth. The chin was not in the least prognathous, but very well formed. In this district of Dungloe, too, the women weave and knit as well as at Gweedore; and Father Walker, before he left us for his home, after a most agreeable evening, promised to send me some specimens of their handiwork. He is sure that with a proper organisation this industry might be so developed as to materially relieve the people here from the pressure of their debts to the dealers of all kinds, a pressure much more severe than that of the rent. According to the dealers themselves, no tenant really in debt to them can now expect to work himself free of the burden under four or five years. It is obvious how much power, political as well as social, is thus lodged in the hands of the dealers, and especially of the "Gombeen men." BARON'S COURT, _Wednesday, Feb. 8._--Since last night I have travelled from one extreme to the other of Irish life--from the desolation of the Rosses of Donegal to the grandly wooded, picturesque, and beautiful demesne of Baron's Court. We made an early start from Dungloe on a capital car for Letterkenny, where we were to strike the railway for Strabane and Newtown-Stewart. The morning was clear, but cold. On leaving Dungloe we drove directly into a region of reclaimed land, where improvements of various kinds seemed to be going on. All this our jarvey informed us, with a knowing look, belonged to Mr. Sweeney. "Was he a squire of this country?" I asked innocently. "A squire of this country, sorr? He is just Mr. Sweeney, the Gombeen man; he and his brothers, they all came here from where I don't know." An energetic man, certainly, Mr. Sweeney, and not likely, I should think, to allow the National League, to push matters here to the point of nationalising the land of Donegal, if he can prevent it. In the highway we met, two or three miles out of Dungloe, a very trim dainty little lady, in a long, well-fitting London waterproof ulster, with a natty little umbrella in her hand, walking merrily towards the town. How weatherwise she was soon appeared, the rain coming up suddenly, and coming down sharply, in the whirling way it has among the hills everywhere. The scenery was desolate, but grand. Countless little lochs give sparkle and life to it. Everywhere the granite. About Doocharry, a romantic little spot, where Lord Cloncurry has a fishing-box in the heart of a glorious landscape, masses crop out of a rich red granite, finer in colour than any we had previously seen. In that neighbourhood the wastes of Donegal take on an aspect which recalls, though upon quite a different key in colour, the inimitable beauty of those treeless North-western highlands of Scotland, upon which Nature has lavished all the wealth of her palette. Vast spaces of brown and red and gold shimmer away under the softly luminous mountain atmosphere to the dark blues and purples of the hills. We passed Glen Veagh again, but from quite a different point of view, which gave us a beautiful picture of Lough Veagh in its length, and of the smiling pastoral landscape upon its further shore. As we drew near the eastern boundary of Donegal, hedges and civilised agriculture reappeared. With these we came upon mud cottages, such as I had not seen in Donegal, being the huts provided for their labourers by the tenant-farmers, whose comfortable stone-houses and out-buildings stood well back under the long ranges of the hills. We passed through much striking scenery, perhaps the finest point being a magnificent Gap in the hills, guarded and defined by three colossal headlands, one of them a vast long rampart, the other two gigantic counterscarps. The immediate approach to Letterkenny, too, from the west is charming, passing in full view of the extensive and beautiful park and the large mansion of Colonel Stewart of the Guards, and skirting the well-kept estate of Mr. Boyd, the owner of the ivy-clad cottages which so took my fancy the other day. In the Ulster settlement under King James I. a patent for Letterkenny was issued to one of the Crawfords. Then, as the records tell us, "Sir George Marburie dwelt there, and there were forty houses all inhabited by British tenants. A great market town, and standeth well for the King's service." Again we found a fair going on--this time attended by swarms of peddlers vending old clothes and all sorts of small wares, bread-cartmen, and tea-vendors. These latter aver that it is easier to sell tea in the "congested" districts at 4s. 6d. than at 2s. 6d. The people have no test of its quality but its price! The town was gay with soldiers and police--whose advent had created such a demand for bread and meat, a man told us, that all the butchers and bakers in Letterkenny and Dunfanaghy were at their wits' ends to meet it. "But they don't complain of that!" We reached Newtown-Stewart by railway after dark. As we passed Sion the mills were all lighted up, giving it the look of an English or New England town. A New England snow-storm, too, awaited us at our journey's end; and, after a wild drive of several miles through the whirling white mists, it was a delectable thing to find ourselves welcomed in a hall full of light and warmth and flowers by merry children and lively dogs, the guard of honour of the most gracious and charming of hostesses. BARON'S COURT, _Thursday, Feb. 9._--Among a batch of letters received this morning I find one from a most estimable and accomplished priest in the West of Ireland, to whom I wrote from Dublin announcing my intention of visiting the counties of Clare and Kerry. "I shall be very glad," he says, "to learn that no evil hath befallen you during your visit to that solitary plague-spot, where dwell the disgraceful and degraded 'Moonlighters.' Would not 'martial law,' if applied to that particular spot, suffice to stamp out, these-insensate pests of society?" This language, strong, but not too strong in view of the hideous murder last week near Lixnaw of a farmer in the presence of his daughter for the atrocious crime of taking a farm "boycotted" by the National League, shows that the open alliance between this organisation and the criminal classes in certain parts of Ireland is beginning (not a day too soon) to arouse the better order of priests in Ireland to the peril of playing with edged tools. For my correspondent is not only a priest, but a Nationalist. I have sent him in reply a letter received by me, also to-day, touching the conduct in connection with the Lixnaw murder of a priest, a curate, I think, comparatively new to the place, who, standing by the corpse of the murdered man, endeavoured, so my informant states, to make his unfortunate daughter give up the names of the murderers, the effect of which would have been to put them on their guard, and "under the protection of that public conspiracy of silence, which is the shield of all such criminals in these parts!" Baron's Court is a very large, stately mansion, lacking elevation perhaps like Blenheim, but imposing by its mass and the area it covers. It was rebuilt almost entirely by the late Duke of Abercorn, who also made immense plantations here which cover the country for miles around. His grandfather, the handsome Marquis of the days of the Prince Regent, came here a great deal towards the end of his life, but did little towards making the mansion worthy of its site. Two very good portraits of him here show that he deserved his reputation as the finest-looking man of his day, a reputation attested by a diamond ring, the history of which is still preserved in the family. A fine though irregular pearl given by Philip of Spain to his hapless spouse, Mary Tudor, is another of the heirlooms of Baron's Court; but the ring and the note left by Mary Stuart to Claud Hamilton, Lord Paisley, mysteriously disappeared during the long minority of the late Duke under the trusteeship of the fourth Earl of Aberdeen, and have since, it is said, come into the possession of the Duke of Hamilton. Of the three castles given to Lord Claud Hamilton by James I., to enable him to hold this country, one which stood at Strabaue has disappeared, the memory of it surviving only in the name of Castle Street in that town. The ivy-clad ruins of another adorn a height in this beautiful park. They are "bosomed high in tufted trees," and overlook one of three most lovely lakes, stretching in a shining chain through the length of the demesne. Another ruined tower of the time of King John stands on an island in one of these lakes. When the Ulster settlement was made, these lands with all the countryside were held by the O'Kanes. With the other Celtic and Catholic inhabitants, they were driven by the masterful invaders into the mountains and bogs. There still remain their descendants, still Celtic and still Catholic, and still dreaming of the day when they shall descend into the low country and drive the Protestant Scotch and English from the "fat lands" which they occupy. In this way the racial and religious animosities are kept alive, which have died out in Tipperary and Waterford, for example, where the Cromwellian English have become more Irish and often more Catholic than the Irish themselves. I took a long drive and walk with Lord Ernest this afternoon through the park, which rivals Curraghmore in extent. It is nowhere divided from the lands of the adjoining tenants, and with great liberality is thrown open to the people, not only of Newtown-Stewart and Strabane, but of all the country. Parties, sometimes of seven hundred people, from Belfast come down to pass the day in these sylvan solitudes, and it is to be recorded to the praise of Ireland that these visitors always behave with perfect good sense and good feeling. The "terrible trippers" of the English midlands, as I once heard an old verger in a northern Cathedral call them, who chip off relics from monuments, pull up flowers by the roots, and scatter sandwich papers and empty gingerbeer bottles broadcast over well-rolled lawns, are not known, Lord Ernest tells me, in this island. As he neatly puts it, the Irishman, no matter what his station in life may be, or how great a blackguard he may really be, always instinctively knows when he ought to behave like a gentleman, and knows how to do so. In the lakes were hundreds of wild fowl. The sky was a sky of Constable--silvery-white clouds, floating athwart a dome of clear Italian blue. The soil here must be extraordinarily fertile. The woods and groves are dense beyond belief. Cut down what you like, the growth soon overtakes you, as lush almost as in the tropics. There was a great cyclone here a year or two ago, which prostrated in a night over a hundred thousand trees. You see the dentated gaps left by this disaster in the great circle of firs and birches on the surrounding hills, but they make hardly a serious break in the thoroughly sylvan character of the landscape. We visited the centre of the devastation, where I found myself in what seemed to be a backwoods clearing in America. An enterprising Scot, Kirkpatrick by name, has taken a contract under the Duke, built himself a neat wooden cabin and stables, set up a small saw-mill driven by steam, and is hard at work turning the fallen trees into timber, and making a very good thing of it, both for the Duke and for himself. He has one or two of his own people with him, but employs the labour of the country, and has no fear of disturbance. He thinks, however, that he must get "a good wicked dog" to frighten away the tramps, who sometimes stray into his woodland, and put the enterprise in peril by smoking and drowsing under haystacks. Near this clearing is a model village, the houses scrupulously neat, with trees and flowers, and here we met the Duchess with her devoted dog walking briskly along to visit one of her people, a wonderful old man, bearing the ancient name of the O'Kanes, and five years older than the Kaiser William. Until six months ago this veteran was an active carpenter, coming and going, about his work at ninety-six like a man in middle age. Then he went to bed with a bad cold, and will probably never rise again. In all his life he never has touched meat or soup, and when they are now offered him rejects them angrily. He has lived, and preferred to live, entirely on oatmeal in the form of cakes and porridge, and on potatoes; so I make a present of him as a glorious example to the vegetarians. As in so many other cases, his memory of recent events is dim and clouded--of events long past, clear and photographic: the negatives taken in youth quite perfect, the lenses which now take, dimmed and fractured. He perfectly recollects, for example, the assembling here of the recruits going out to the Continent before the battle of Waterloo, and can give the names and describe the peculiarities of stalwart lads long since crumbled into dust around Mont St. Jean. With the curious unconcern about death which marks his people, this expectant emigrant into the unknown world chats about his departure as if it were for Dublin, and his kinsfolk chat with him. "Ye'll be going soon!" "Oh yes, I shan't trouble ye more than an hour or two more." In quite another part of the domain we came upon a Covenanter--a true, authentic Covenanter, who might have walked out of _Old Mortality_; the name of him, Keyes. He greeted Lord Ernest cheerily enough, nodded to me in a not unfriendly way, and at once broke into exhortation: "It's a very short life we live; man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble. Well for them that are the children of light--if seeing the light they sin not against it"; and so on with amazing volubility. There are eighty-five of these Covenanters here. They touch not nor have touched the accursed thing. To them all parties and all governments are alike evil. The Whigs persecuted the Solemn League and Covenant--so did the Tories. Nationalists and Unionists are to them alike abominable, sold under sin. Withal they are shrewd, canny, successful farmers--and, as I inferred from sundry incidents, before Lord Ernest confided the fact to me, not averse from a "right gude williewaught" now and then. Mr. Keyes, I thought, was not a blue-ribbon man, nor a ribbon-man of any kind. The Duchess told me afterwards she had vainly endeavoured more than once to get these people to vote at elections. We had a sprinkling of such people, and very good people in quiet times they were, in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, to whom Federals and Confederates were alike anathema. We wound up our drive to-day just beyond "the Duke's seat," a little rustic bench put up by the late Duke on a hill range which commands a magnificent view over the whole domain of hill and forest and lakes, and far away to the mountains of Munterlony. There, in the bogs and woods James Hamilton, "lord baron of Strabane," with "other rebels, unknown, in his company," hid himself till, after the fall of Charlemont in August 1650, he was captured by a party of the Commonwealth's men--whereby, as the record here runs, "all and singular his manors, towns, lands, and so forth were forfeited to the Commonwealth of England." Under this pressure he sought "protection," and got it a fortnight later from Cromwell's General, Sir Charles Coote, whose descendants still nourish in Wicklow. But on the 31st of December 1650 he "broke the said protection, and joined himself with Sir Phelim O'Neill, being then in rebellion." Troublous times those, and a "lord baron of Strabane" needed almost the alacrity in turning his coat of a harlequin or a modern politician! It is a comfort to know that at last, on the 16th of June 1655, he found rest, dying at Ballyfathen, "a Roman Catholic and a papist recusant." As we came back into the gardens and grounds, Lord Ernest showed me, imbedded in the earth, a huge anchor presented to the present Duke by the Corporation of Waterford, as having belonged to the French 28-gun frigate, on which in 1689 James II. and Lord Abercorn sailed away from Ireland for Prance. I believe that because of its weight the present First Lord of the Admiralty avers that it is no anchor at all, but a buoy fixture. It might have been ten times as heavy, and yet not have availed to keep James from getting to sea at that particular time. BARON'S COURT, _Friday, Feb. 10._--Here also, in County Tyrone, the Irish women show their skill in women's work. Mrs. Dixon, the English wife of the house-steward of Baron's Court, has charge of a woollen industry founded here, after a discourse on thrift, delivered at a temperance meeting of the people by the then Marquis of Hamilton, had stirred the country up to consider whether the peasant women might not possibly find some better and more profitable way of passing their winter evenings than in sitting huddled around a peat fire with their elbows on their knees, gossiping about their neighbours. Lord Hamilton cited the women of Gweedore as proofs that such a way might by searching be found. The Duke and Duchess found the funds, the stewardess invested them in buying the necessary yarn and knitting-needles, and the Marchioness of Hamilton acted as corresponding clerk and business agent of the new industry. The clothing department of the British army lent a listening ear to the business proposals made to it, and the work began. From that time on it has been the main substantial resource against suffering and starvation of the families of some three hundred labourers in the hill country near Baron's Court. These labourers work for the small farmers from April to November; and between the autumn and the spring their wives and daughters knit, and by the Baron's Court machinery are enabled to dispose of, nearly twenty thousand pairs of woollen socks. The yarns are brought from Edinburgh to the store-house at Baron's Court. Thither every Wednesday come the knitters. Mrs. Dixon weighs the hanks of yarn, and gives them out. On the following Wednesday the knitters reappear, each with her bale of stockings or socks. These are again weighed, and the knitters receive their pay according to the weight, quality, and size of the goods. In some families there are four, five, or six knitters. All these people, with four or five exceptions, are small cottars living on wretched little mountain farms, not on the Duke of Abercorn's property; and but for this industry they would be absolutely without employment all the winter through. Some of them come from a distance of twelve or fourteen miles, and but for this resource would literally starve. They are nearly all of them Catholics, and the Protestants here being Unionists, they are probably Nationalists. About three hundred knitters in all are employed. In the year 1886-87 the orders given for Baron's Court work enabled Mrs. Dixon to pay out regularly about five pounds a week, not including casual private orders. For the current year the orders have been much larger, and the expenditure proportionally greater. Mrs. Dixon's storehouse was full of goods to-day. The long knickerbocker stockings which she showed us were remarkably good, some in "cross-gartered" patterns, handsomer, I thought, than similar goods in the Scottish Highlands--and all of them staunch and well-proportioned. For socks such as are supplied to the volunteers and the troops the War Office pays 8-3/4d. a pair. It was pleasant to learn from Mrs. Dixon that these people thoroughly appreciate the spirit which prompted and still directs this enterprise. Last spring when the Duchess was thought for a time to be hopelessly ill, a young girl came down to Baron's Court weeping bitterly. On her arm was a basket, in which were two young chanticleers crowing lustily. The poor girl said these were all she had, and she had brought them "to make soup for the Duchess, for she heard that was what the great people lived on, and it might save her life." This afternoon I went over by the railway to Derry with Lord Ernest to attend a meeting there. The "Maiden City" stands picturesquely on the Foyle, and has a fine, though not large, cathedral of St. Colomb, restored only last year, of which it may be noted that the work never was undertaken while the Protestant Church of Ireland was established by law, and has been successfully carried out since the disendowment of that Church. The streets were white with snow, but the meeting in the old Town Hall was largely attended. It was, in fact, a sort of Orange symposium--tea being served at long tables, and the platform decorated with a pianoforte. The Mayor of the city presided, and between the speeches, songs, mostly in the Pyramus or condoling vein, were sung by a local tenor of renown. It was very like an American tea-fight in the country, and the audience were unquestionably enthusiastic. They quite cheered themselves hoarse when Lord Ernest Hamilton reminded them that he had made his first political speech in that hall on a "memorable occasion," when, being an as yet unfledged Parliamentarian, he had taken a hand in a successful attempt to prevent the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mr. Dawson, from making a speech in Derry. One of my neighbours, a merchant in the city, told me that a project is afoot for tearing down the old hall in which we met "to enlarge the street," but he added that "the people of Derry were too proud of their history to allow it!" I understood him to say it is one of the very few buildings in Derry which witnessed the famous siege, and the breaking of the boom. We left the "revel" early, caught a fast train to Newtown-Stewart, and returned here an hour ago through a driving snowstorm, most dramatically arranged to enhance the glow and genial charm of our welcome. BARON'S COURT, _Saturday, Feb. 11th._--All the world was white with snow this morning. Alas! for the deluded birds we have been listening to for days past; thrushes, larks, and as, I believe, blackbirds, though there is a tradition in these parts that no man ever heard the blackbird sing before the 15th of February. I suspect it grew out of the date of St. Valentine's Day. We had some lovely music, however, within doors this morning; and, in spite of the snow and the chill wind, a little fairy of a girl, with her groom, went off like mad across country on her pony, "Guinea Pig," to fetch the mails from Newtown-Stewart. Not long after breakfast came in from Letterkenny Sergeant Mahony of the constabulary, on whose testimony Father M'Fadden was convicted. We had heard at Letterkenny that he was now on leave at Belfast, and Lord Ernest had kindly arranged matters so that he should come here and tell us his story of Gweedore. An admirable specimen he is of a most admirable body of men. He is as thoroughly Celtic in aspect as he is by name--a dark Celt, with a quiet resolute face, and a wiry well-built frame. Nothing could be better than his manner and bearing, at once respectful and self-respectful: that manner of a natural gentleman one so often sees in the Irish peasant. He is a devout Catholic, but no admirer of Father M'Fadden. As to his evidence, he explains very clearly that he was not sent to report Father M'Fadden's speech at all, but to note and take down and report language used in the speech of a sort to excite the people against the law. He was selected for this duty for three reasons: he is a Donegal man who has lived at Gweedore for sixteen years; he is a fair stenographer; and he speaks Irish, in which language Father M'Fadden made his speech. "I speak Irish quite as well as he does," said the Sergeant quietly, "and he knows I do. What I did was to put down in English words what I heard said in Irish. This I had to do because I have no stenographic signs for the Irish words." He tells me he taught himself stenography. "As for Father M'Fadden," he said, "he told the people that' he was the law in Gweedore, and they should heed no other.' He spoke the truth, too, for he makes himself the law in Gweedore. He dislikes me because I am a living proof that he is not the only law in Gweedore!" Of the business shrewdness and ability of Father M'Fadden, Sergeant Mahony expressed a very high opinion, though hardly in terms which would have gratified such an ecclesiastic as the late Cardinal Barnabo. Possibly Cardinal Cullen might have relished them no better. "Certainly he has the finest house in Gweedore, sir, and what's more he made it the finest himself." "Do you mean that he built it?" "He did, indeed; and did you not notice the beautiful stone fences he is putting up all about it, and the four farms he has?" "Then he is certainly a man of substance?" "And of good substance, sir! The Government, they gave him a hundred pounds towards the house. But it was the flood that was the blessed thing for him and made a great man of him!" "The flood?" I asked, with some natural astonishment; "the flood? What flood?" "And did you never hear of the great flood of Gweedore? It was in August 1880. You will mind the water that comes down behind the chapel? Well, there was a flood, and it swelled, and it swelled, and it burst the small pipe there behind the chapel: too small it was entirely for carrying off' the great water, and nobody took notice of it, or that there was anything wrong, and so the water was piled up behind the chapel, and at Mass on the Sunday, while the chapel was full, the walls gave way, and the water rushed in, and was nine feet deep. There were five people that couldn't get out in time, and were drowned--two old people and three children, young people. It was a great flood. And Father M'Fadden wrote about it--oh, he is a clever priest with the pen--and they made a great subscription in London for the poor people and the chapel. I can't rightly say how much, but it was in the papers, a matter of seven hundred pounds, I have heard say. And it was all sent to Father M'Fadden." "And it was spent, of course," I said, "on the repairs of the chapel, or given to the relatives of the poor people who were drowned." "Oh, no doubt; very likely it was, sir! But the repairs of the chapel--there isn't a mason in Donegal but will tell you a hundred pounds would not be wanted to make the chapel as good as it ever was. And for the people that were drowned--two of them were old people, as I said to you, sir, that had no kith or kin to be relieved, and for the others they were of well-to-do people that would not wish to take anything from the parish." "What was done with it, then?" "Oh! that I can't tell ye. It was spent for the people some way. You must ask Father M'Fadden. He is the fund in Gweedore, just as he is the law in Gweedore. Oh! they came from all parts to see the great ruin of the flood at Gweedore. They did, indeed. And some of them, it was poor sight they had; they couldn't see the big rift in the walls, when Father M'Fadden pointed it out to them. 'Whisht! there it is!' he would say, pointing with his finger. Then they saw it!" I asked him at what figure he put the income of Father M'Fadden from his parish. Without a moment's hesitation he answered, "It's over a thousand pounds a year, sir, and nearer twelve hundred than eleven." I expressed my surprise at this, the whole rental of Captain Hill, the landlord, falling, as I had understood, below rather than above £700 a year; and Gweedore, as Father Walker had told me, containing fewer houses than Burtonport. "Fewer houses, mayhap," said the sergeant, "though I'm not sure of that; but if fewer they pay more. There's but one curate--poor man, he does all the parish work, barring the high masses, and a good man he is, but he gets £400 a year, and that is but a third of the income!" I asked by what special stipends the priest's income at Gweedore could be thus enhanced. "Oh, it's mainly the funeral-money that helps it up," he replied. "You see, sir, since Father M'Fadden came to Gweedore it's come to be the fashion." "The fashion?" I said. "Yes, sir, the fashion. This is the way it is, you see. When a poor creature comes to be buried--no matter who it is, a pauper, or a tenant, or any one--the people all go to the chapel; and every man he walks up and lays his offering for the priest on the coffin; and the others, they watch him. And, you see, if a man that thinks a good deal of himself walks up and puts down five shillings, why, another man that thinks less of him, and more of himself, he'll go up and make it a gold ten-shilling piece, or perhaps even a sovereign! I've known Father M'Fadden, sir, to take in as much as £15 in a week in that way." Sergeant Mahony told us a curious tale, too, of the way in which Father M'Fadden dealt with the people of the neighbouring parish of Falcarragh. He would go down to the parish boundary, if he wanted to address the people of Falcarragh, and stand over the line, with one foot in each parish! At our request Sergeant Mahony made some remarks in Irish; very wooing and winning they were in sound. Before he left Baron's Court he promised to make out and send me a schedule of the parochial income at Gweedore, under the separate heads of the sources whence it is derived. Obviously Sergeant Mahony would make a good "devil's advocate" at the canonization of Father M'Fadden. But, all allowances made for this, one thing would seem to be tolerably clear. Of the three personages who take tribute of the people of Gweedore, the law intervenes in their behalf with only one--the landlord. The priest and the "Gombeen man" deal with them on the old principle of "freedom of contract." But it is by no means so clear which of the three exacts and receives the greatest tribute. We leave Baron's Court in an hour for Dublin, whence I go on alone to-night into Queen's County. CHAPTER IV. ABBEYLEIX, _Sunday, Feb. 12._--Newtown-Stewart, through which I drove yesterday afternoon with Lord Ernest to the train, is a prettily situated town, with the ruins of a castle in which James II. slept for a night on his flight to France. He was cordially received, and by way of showing his satisfaction left the little town in flames when he departed. Here appears to be a case, not of rack-renting, but of absenteeism. The town belongs to a landlord who lives in Paris, and rarely, if ever, comes here. There are no improvements--no sanitation--but the inhabitants make no complaint. "Absenteeism" has its compensations as well as its disadvantages. They pay low rents, and are little troubled; the landlord drawing, perhaps, £400 a year from the whole place. The houses are small, though neat enough in appearance, but the town has a sleepy, inert look. On the railway between Dundalk and Newry, we passed a spot known by the ominous name of "The Hill of the Seven Murders," seven agents having been murdered there since 1840! I suppose this must be set down to the force of habit. At Newry a cavalry officer whom Lord Ernest knew got into our carriage. He was full of hunting, and mentioned a place to which he was going as a "very fine country." "From the point of view of the picturesque?" I asked. "Oh no! from the point of view of falling off your horse!" At Maple's Hotel I found a most hospitable telegram, insisting that I should give up my intention of spending the night at Maryborough, and come on to this lovely place in my host's carriage, which would be sent to meet me at that station. I left Kingsbridge Station in Dublin about 7 P.M. We had rather a long train, and I observed a number of people talking together about one of the carriages before we started; but there was no crowd at all, and nothing to attract special attention. As we moved out of the station, some lads at the end of the platform set up a cheer. We ran on quietly till we reached Kildare. There quite a gathering awaited our arrival on the platform, and as we slowed up, a cry went up from among them of, "Hurrah for Mooney! hurrah for Mooney!" The train stopped just as this cry swelled most loudly, when to my surprise a tall man in the gathering caught one or two of the people by the shoulder, shaking them, and called out loudly, "Hurrah for Gilhooly--you fools, hurrah for Gilhooly!" This morning I learned that I had the honour, unwittingly, of travelling from Dublin to Maryborough with Mr. Gilhooly, M.P., who appears to have been arrested in London on Friday, brought over yesterday by the day train, and sent on at once from Dublin to his destined dungeon. An hour's drive through a rolling country, showing white and weird under its blanket of snow in the night, brought us to this large, rambling, delightful house, the residence of Viscount de Vesci. Mr. Gladstone came here from Lord Meath's on his one visit to Ireland some years ago. I find the house full of agreeable and interesting people; and the chill of the drive soon vanished under the genial influences of a light supper, and of pleasant chat in the smoking-room. A good story was told there, by the way, of Archbishop Walsh, who being rather indiscreetly importuned to put his autograph on a fan of a certain Conservative lady well known in London, and not a little addicted to lion-hunting, peremptorily refused, saying, "no, nor any of the likes of her!" And another of Father Nolan, a well-known priest, who died at the age of ninety-seven. When someone remonstrated with him on his association with an avowed unbeliever in Christianity, like Mr. Morley, Father Nolan replied, "Oh, faith will come with time!" The same excellent priest, when he came to call on Mr. Gladstone, here at Abbeyleix, on his arrival from the Earl of Meath's, pathetically and patriarchally adjured him, on his next visit to Ireland, "not to go from one lord's house to another, but to stay with the people." This was better than the Irish journal which, finding itself obliged to chronicle the fact that Mr. Gladstone, with his wife and daughter, was visiting Abbeyleix, gracefully observed that he "had been entrapped into going there!" Some one lamenting the lack of Irish humour and spirit in the present Nationalist movement, as compared with the earlier movements, Lord de Vesci cited as a solitary but refreshing instance of it, the incident which occurred the other day at an eviction in Kerry,[18] of a patriotic priest who chained himself to a door, and put it across the entrance of the cabin to keep out the bailiffs! It is discouraging to know that this delightful act was bitterly denounced by some worthy and well-meaning Tory in Parliament as an "outrage"! Despite the snow the air this morning, in this beautiful region, is soft and almost warm, and all the birds are singing again. The park borders upon and opens into the pretty town of Abbeyleix, the broad and picturesque main thoroughfare of which, rather a rural road than a street, is adorned with a fountain and cross, erected in memory of the late Lord de Vesci. There is a good Catholic chapel here (the ancient abbey which gave the place its name stood in the grounds of the present mansion), and a very handsome Protestant Church. It is a curious fact that two of the men implicated in the Phoenix Park murders had been employed, one, I believe, as a mason, and one as a carver, in the construction of this church. Both the chapel and the church to-day were well attended. I am told there has been little real trouble here, nor has the Plan of Campaign been adopted here. Sometimes Lord de Vesci finds threatening images of coffins and guns scratched in the soil, with portraits indicating his agent or himself; but these mean little or nothing. Lady de Vesci, who loves her Irish home, and has done and is doing a good deal for the people here, tells me, as an amusing illustration of the sort of terrorism formerly established by the local organisations, that when she met two of the labourers on the place together, they used to pretend to be very busy and not to see her. But if she met one alone, he greeted her just as respectfully as ever. The women here do a great deal of embroidery and lace work, in which she encourages them, but this industry has suffered what can only be a temporary check, from the change of fashion in regard to the wearing of laces. Why the loveliest of all fabrics made for the adornment of women should ever go "out of fashion" would be amazing if anything in the vagaries of that occult and omnipotent influence could be. The Irish ladies ought to circulate Madame de Piavigny's exquisite _Lime d'Heures_, with its incomparable illustrations by Carot and Meaulle, drawn from the lace work of all ages and countries, as a tonic against despair in respect to this industry. In one of the large rooms of her own house, Lady de Vesci has established and superintends a school of carving for the children of poor tenants. It has proved a school of civilisation also. The lads show a remarkable aptitude for the arts of design, and of their own accord make themselves neat and trim as soon as they begin to understand what it is they are doing. They are always busy at home with their drawings and their blocks, and some of them are already beginning to earn money by their work. What I have seen at Adare Manor near Limerick, where the late Earl of Dunraven educated all the workmen employed on that mansion as stone-cutters and carvers, suffices to show that the people of this country have not lost the aptitudes of which we see so many proofs in the relics of early Irish art. Among the guests in the house is a distinguished officer, Colonel Talbot, who saw hard service in Egypt, and in the advance on Khartoum, with camels across the desert--a marvellous piece of military work. I find that he was in America in 1864-65, with Meade and Hunt and Grant before Petersburg, being in fact the only foreign officer then present. He there formed what seem to me very sound and just views as to the ability of the Federal commanders in that closing campaign of the Civil War, and spoke of Hunt particularly with much admiration. Of General Grant he told me a story so illustrative of the simplicity and modesty which were a keynote in his character that I must note it. The day before the evacuation of Petersburg by the Con federates, Grant was urged to order an attack upon the Confederate positions. He refused to do so. The next day the Confederates were seen hastily abandoning them. Grant watched them quietly for a while, and then putting down his glass, said to one of the officers who had urged the assault, "You were right, and I was wrong. I ought to have attacked them." It is provoking to know that the notes taken by this British officer at that time, being sent through the Post Office by him some years ago to Edinburgh for publication, were lost in the transmission, and have never been recovered. Curiously enough, however, he thinks he has now and then discerned indications in articles upon the American War, published in a newspaper which he named, going to show that his manuscripts are in existence somewhere. ABBEYLEIX, _Monday, Feb. 13._--To-day, in company with Lord de Vesci and a lady, I went over to Kilkenny. We left and arrived in a snowstorm, but the trip was most interesting. Kilkenny, chiefly known in America, I fear, as the city of the cats, is a very picturesque place, thanks to its turrets and towers. It has two cathedrals, a Bound Tower (one of these in Dublin was demolished in the last century!), a Town Hall with a belfry, and looming square and high above the town, the Norman keep of its castle. The snow enlivened rather than diminished the scenic effect of the place. Bits of old architecture here and there give character to the otherwise commonplace streets. Notable on the way to the castle is a bit of mediaeval wall with Gothic windows, and fretted with the scutcheon in stone of the O'Sheas. The connection of a gentleman of this family with the secret as well as the public story of the Parnellite movement may one day make what Horace Greeley used to call "mighty interestin' reading." A dealer in spirits now occupies what is left of the old Parliament House of Kilkenny, in which the rival partisans of Preston and O'Neill outfought the legendary cats, to the final ruin of the cause of the Irish confederates, and the despair of the loyal legate of Pope Innocent. Of Kilkenny Castle, founded by Strongbow, but two or three towers remain. The great quadrangle was rebuilt in 1825, and much of it again so late as in 1860. There is little, therefore, to recall the image of the great Marquis who, if Rinuccini read him aright, played so resolutely here two centuries and a half ago for the stakes which Edward Bruce won and lost at Dundalk. The castle of the Butlers is now really a great modern house. The town crowds too closely upon it, but the position is superb. The castle windows look clown upon the Nore, spanned by a narrow ancient bridge, and command, not only all that is worth seeing in the town, but a wide and glorious prospect over a region which is even now beautiful, and in summer must be charming. Over the ancient bridge the enterprise of a modern brewer last week brought a huge iron vat, so menacingly ponderous that the authorities made him insure the bridge for a day. Within the castle, near the main entrance, are displayed some tapestries, which are hardly shown to due advantage in that position. They were made here at Kilkenny in a factory established by Piers Butler, Earl of Ormonde, in the sixteenth century, and they ought to be sent to the Irish Exhibition of this year in London, as proving what Irish art and industry well directed could then achieve. They are equally bold in design and rich in colour. The blues are especially fine. The grand gallery of the castle, the finest in the kingdom, though a trifle narrow for its length, is hung with pictures and family portraits. One of the most interesting of these is a portrait of the black Earl of Ormon'de, a handsome swarthy man, evidently careful of his person, who was led by that political flirt, Queen Elizabeth, to believe that she meant to make him a visit in Ireland, and, perhaps, to honour him with her hand. He went to great expenses thereupon. At a parley with his kinsman, the Irish chieftain O'Moore of Abbeyleix, this black earl was traitorously captured, and an ancient drawing representing this event hangs beneath his portrait. The muniment room, where, thanks to Lord Ormonde's courtesy, we found everything prepared to receive us, is a large, airy, and fire-proof chamber, with well-arranged shelves and tables for consulting the records. These go back to the early Norrnan days, long before Edward III. made James Butler Earl of Ormonde, upon his marriage with Alianore of England, granddaughter of Edward I. The Butlers came into Ireland with Henry II., and John gave them estates, the charters of some of which, with the seals annexed, are here preserved. There are fine specimens of the great seals also of Henry III., and of his sons Edward I. and Edmund Crouchback, and of the Tudor sovereigns, as well as many private seals of great interest. The wax of the early seals was obviously stronger and better than the wax since used. Of Elizabeth, who came of the Butler blood through her mother, one large seal in yellow wax, attached to a charter dated Oct. 24, 1565, is remarkable for the beauty of the die. The Queen sits on the obverse under a canopy; on the reverse she rides in state on a pacing steed as in her effigy at the Tower of London. The seals of James I. follow the design of this die. Two of these are particularly fine. At the Restoration something disappears of the old stateliness. A seal of Charles II., of 1660, very large and florid in style, shows the monarch sitting very much at his ease, with one knee thrown negligently over the other. Many of the private letters and papers of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, during which Kilkenny, as it had been often before, was a great centre of Irish politics and intrigues, have been bound up in volumes, and the collection has been freely drawn upon by historians. But it would obviously bear and reward a more thorough co-ordination and examination than it has ever yet received. There is a curious Table Book here preserved of Charles I. while at Oxford in 1644, from which it appears that while the colleges were melting up their plate for the King, his Majesty fared better than might have been expected. His table was served with sixty pounds of mutton a day; and he wound up his dinner regularly with "sparaguss" so long as it lasted, and after it went out with artichokes. An Expense Book, too, of the great Marquis, after he became the first Duke of Ormonde, Colonel Blood's Duke, kept at Kilkenny in 1668 throws some interesting light on the cost of living and the customs of great houses at that time. The Duke, who was in some respects the greatest personage in the realm, kept up his state here at a weekly cost of about £50, a good deal less--allowing for the fall in the power of the pound sterling--than it would now cost him to live at a fashionable London hotel. He paid £9, 10s. a week for the keep of nineteen horses, 18 shillings board wages for three laundry-maids, and £1, 17s. 4d. for seven dozen of tallow-candles. The wines served at the ducal table were Burgundy, Bordeaux, "Shampane," Canary, "Renish," and Portaport, the last named at a shilling a bottle, while he paid no more than £3, 18s. for six dozen bottles of Bordeaux, and £1, 1s. for a dozen and a half of "Shampane." This of course was not the sparkling beverage which in our times is the only contribution of Champagne to the wine markets of the world, for the _Ay Mousseux_ first appears in history at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was the red wine of Champagne, which so long contested the palm with the vintages of Burgundy. St. Evremond, who with the Comte d'Olonne and the great _gourmets_ of the seventeenth century thought Champagne the best, as the Faculty of Paris also pronounced it the most wholesome of wines, doubtless introduced his own religion on the subject into England--but the entry in the Duke's Expense Book of 1668 is an interesting proof that the duel of the vintages was even then going as it finally went in favour of Burgundy. While the Duke got his Champagne for 1s. 2d. a bottle, he had to pay twenty shillings a dozen, or 1s. 8d. a bottle, for five dozen of Burgundy. He got his wines from Dublin, which then, as long before, was the most noted wine mart of Britain. The English princes drew their best supplies thence in the time of Richard II. From the castle we drove through the snow to the Cathedral of St. Canice, a grand and simple Norman edifice of the twelfth century, now the Church of the Protestant bishop. An ancient Round Tower of much earlier date stands beside it like a campanile, nearly a hundred feet in height. There is a legend that Rinuccini wanted to buy and carry away one of the great windows of this Cathedral, in which mass was celebrated while he was here. The Cathedral contains some interesting monuments of the Butlers, and there are many curiously channelled burial slabs in the floor, like some still preserved in the ruins of Abbeyleix. Lord de Vesci pointed out to me several tombs of families of English origin once powerful here, but now sunk into the farmer class. On one of these I think it was that we saw a remarkably well-preserved effigy of a lady, wearing a plaited cap under a "Waterford cloak"--one of the neatest varieties of the Irish women's cloak--garment so picturesque at once, and so well adapted to the climate, that I am not surprised to learn from Lady de Vesci that it is very fast going out of fashion. This morning before we left Abbeyleix she showed us two such cloaks, types from two different provinces, each in its way admirable. Put on and worn about the room by two singularly stately and graceful ladies, they fell into lines and folds which recalled the most exquisitely beautiful statuettes of Tanagra; and all allowance made for the glamour lent them by these two "daughters of the gods, divinely tall," it was impossible not to see that no woman could possibly look commonplace and insignificant in such a garment. Yet Lady de Vesci says that more than once she has known peasant women, to whom such cloaks had been presented, cut off the characteristic and useful hood, and trim the mangled robe with tawdry lace. So it is all over the world! Women who are models for an artist when they wear some garment indigenous to their country and appropriate to its conditions, prefer to make guys of themselves in grotesque travesties of the latest "styles" from London and Paris and Dublin! Kilkenny boasts that its streets are paved with marble. It is in fact limestone, but none the worse for that. The snow did not improve them. So without going on a pilgrimage to the Kilkenny College, at which Swift, Congreve, and Farquhar,--an odd concatenation of celebrities--were more or less educated, we made our way to the Imperial Hotel for luncheon. The waiter was a delightful Celt. Upon my asking him whether the house could furnish anything distantly resembling good Irish whisky, he produced a bottle of alleged Scotch whisky, which he put upon the table with a decisive air, exclaiming, "And this, yer honour, is the most excellent whisky in the whole world, or I'm not an Irishman!" Urged by the cold we tempered it with hot water and tasted it. It shut us up at once to believe the waiter a Calmuck or a Portuguese--anything, in short, but an Irishman. It is an extraordinary fact that, so far, the whisky I have found at Irish hotels has been uniformly quite execrable. I am almost tempted to think that the priests sequestrate all the good whisky in order to discourage the public abuse of it, for the "wine of the country" which they offer one is as uniformly excellent. Kilkenny ought to be and long was a prosperous town. In 1702, the second Duke of Ormonde made grants (at almost nominal ground-rents) of the ground upon which a large portion of the city of Kilkenny was then standing, or upon which houses have since been built. These grants have passed from hand to hand, and form the "root of title" of very many owners of house property in Kilkenny. The city is the centre of an extensive agricultural region, famous, according to an ancient ditty, for "fire without smoke, air without fog, water without mud, and land without bog"; but of late it has been undeniably declining. For this there are many reasons. The railways and the parcel-post diminish its importance as a local emporium. The almost complete disappearance of the woollen manufacture, the agricultural depression which has made the banks and wholesale houses "come down" upon the small dealers, and the "agitation," bankrupting or exiling the local gentry, have all conspired to the same result. From Abbeyleix station we walked back to the house through the park under trees beautifully silvered with the snow. At dinner the party was joined by several residents of the county. One of them gave me his views of the working of the "Plan of Campaign." It is a plan, he maintains, not of defence as against unjust and exacting landlords, but of offence against "landlordism," not really promoted, as it appears to be, in the interest of the tenants to whose cupidity it appeals, but worked from Dublin as a battering engine against law and order in Ireland. Every case in which it is applied needs, he thinks, to be looked into on its own merits. It will then be found precisely why this or that spot has bees selected by the League for attack. At Luggacurren, for instance, the "Plan of Campaign" has been imposed upon the tenants because the property belongs to the Marquis of Lansdowne, who happens to be Governor-General of Canada, so that to attack him is to attack the Government. The rents of the Lansdowne property at Luggacurren, this gentleman offers to prove to me, are not and never have been excessive; and Lord Lansdowne has expended very large sums on improving the property, and for the benefit of the tenants. Two of the largest tenants having got into difficulties through reckless racing and other forms of extravagance found it convenient to invite the league into Luggacurren, and compel other tenants in less embarrassed circumstances to sacrifice their holdings by refusing to pay rents which they knew to be fair, and were abundantly able and eager to pay. At Mitchelstown the "Plan of Campaign" was aimed again, not at the Countess of Kingston, the owner, but at the Disestablished Protestant Church of Ireland, the trustees of which hold a mortgage of a quarter of a million sterling on the estates. On the Clanricarde property in Galway the "Plan of Campaign" has been introduced, my informant says, because Lord Clanricarde happens to be personally unpopular. "Go down to Portumna and Woodford," he said, "and look into the matter for yourself. You will find that the rents on the Clanricarde estates are in the main exceptionally fair, and even low. The present Marquis has almost never visited Ireland, I believe, and he is not much known even in London. People who dislike him for one reason or another readily believe anything that is said to his disadvantage as a landlord. Most people who don't like the cut of Dr. Fell's whiskers, or the way in which he takes soup, are quite disposed to listen to you if you tell them he beats his wife or plays cards too well. The campaigners are shrewd fellows, and they know this, so they start the 'Plan of Campaign' on the Portumna properties, and get a lot of English windbags to come there and hobnob with some of the most mischievous and pestilent parish priests in all Ireland--and then you have the dreadful story of the 'evictions,' and all the rest of it. Lord Clanricarde, or his agent, or both of them, getting out of temper, will sit down and do some hasty or crabbed or injudicious thing, or write a provoking letter, and forthwith it is enough to say 'Clanricarde,' and all common sense goes out of the question, to the great damage, not so much of Lord Clanricarde--for he lives in London, and is a rich man, and, I suppose, don't mind the row--but of landlords all over Ireland, and therefore, in the long-run, of the tenants of Ireland as well." At Luggacurren, this gentleman thinks, the League is beaten. There are eighty-two tenants there, evicted and living dismally in what is called the Land League village, a set of huts erected near the roadside, while their farms are carried on for the owner by the Land Corporation. As they were most of them unwilling to accept the Plan, and were intimidated into it for the benefit of the League, and of the two chief tenants, Mr. Dunn and Mr. Kilbride, men of substance who had squandered their resources, the majority of the evicted are sore and angry. "At first each man was allowed £3 a month by the League for himself and his family. But they found that Mr. Kilbride, who has been put into Parliament by Mr. Parnell for Kerry, a county with which he has no more to do than I have with the Isle of Skye, was getting £5 a week, and so they revolted, and threatened to bolt if their subsidy was not raised to £4 a month." "And this they get now? Out of what funds?" "Out of the League funds, or, in other words, out of their own and other people's money, foolishly put by the tenants into the keeping of the League to 'protect' it! They give it the kind of 'protection' that Oliver gave the liberties of England: once they get hold of it, they never let go!" I submitted that at Gweedore Father M'Fadden had paid over to Captain Hill the funds confided to him. "No doubt; but there the landlord gave in, and the more fool he!" With another guest I had an interesting conversation about the Ulster tenant-right, which got itself more or less enacted into British law only in 1870, and of which Mr. Froude tells me he sought in vain to discover the definite origin. "The best lawyers in Ireland" could give him no light on this point. He could only find that it did not exist apparently in 1770, but did exist apparently twenty years later. The gentleman with whom I talked to-night tells me that the custom of Ulster was really once general throughout Ireland, and is called the "Ulster" custom, only because it survived there after disappearing elsewhere. There is a tradition too, he says, in Ulster that the recognition of this tenant-right as a binding custom there is really due to Lord Castlereagh. It would be a curious thing, could this be verified, to find Lord Castlereagh, whose name has been execrated in Ireland for fourscore years, recommending and securing a century ago that recognition of the interest of the Irish tenant in his holding, which, in our time, Mr. Gladstone, just now the object of Irish adulation, was, with much difficulty and reluctance, brought to accord in the Compensation for Disturbances clause of his Act of 1870! Of this clause, too, I am told to-night that the scale of compensation fixed for the awards of the Court in the third section of it was devised (though Mr. Gladstone did not know this) by an Irish member in the interest of the "strong farmers," who wish to root out the small farmers. There is an apparent confirmation of this story in the fact that under this section the small farmers, under £10, may be awarded against the landlord seven years' rent as compensation for disturbance, while the number of years to be accounted for in the award diminishes as the rental increases, a discrimination not unlikely to strengthen the preference of the landlords for the large farm system. CHAPTER V. DUBLIN, _Tuesday, Feb. 14th._--I left Abbeyleix this morning for Dublin, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Henry Doyle. Mr. Doyle, C.B., a brother of that inimitable master of the pencil, and most delightful of men, Richard Doyle, is the Director of the Irish National Gallery. He was kind enough to come and lunch with me at Maple's, after which we went together to the Gallery. It occupies the upper floors of a stately and handsome building in Merrion Square, in front of which stands a statue of the founder, Mr. William Dargan, who defrayed all the expenses of the Dublin Exhibition in 1853, and declined all the honours offered to him in recognition of his public spirited liberality, save a visit paid to his wife by Queen Victoria. The collection now under Mr. Doyle's charge was begun only in 1864, and the Government makes it an annual grant of no more than £2500, or about one-half the current price, in these days, of a fine Gainsborough or Sir Joshua! "They manage these things better in France," was evidently the impression of a recent French tourist in Ireland, M. Daryl, whose book I picked up the other day in Paris, for after mentioning three or four of the pictures, and gravely affirming that the existence here of a gallery of Irish portraits proves the passionate devotion of Dublin to Home Rule, he dismisses the collection with the verdict that "_ce ne vaut pas le diable_." Nevertheless it already contains more really good pictures than the Musée either of Lyons or of Marseilles, both of them much larger and wealthier cities than Dublin. Leaving out the Three Maries of Perugino at Marseilles, and at Lyons the Ascension, which was once the glory of San Pietro di Perugia, the Moses of Paul Veronese, and Palma Giovanni's Flagellation, these two galleries put together cannot match Dublin with its Jan Steen, most characteristic without being coarse, its Terburg, a life-size portrait of the painter's favourite model, a young Flemish gentleman, presented to him as a token of regard, its portrait of a Venetian personage by Giorgione, with a companion portrait by Gian Bellini, its beautiful Italian landscape by Jan Both, its flower-wreathed head of a white bull by Paul Potter, its exquisitely finished "Vocalists" by Cornells Begyn, its admirable portrait of a Dutch gentleman by Murillo, and its two excellent Jacob Ruysdaels. A good collection is making, too, of original drawings, and engravings, and a special room is devoted to modern Irish art. I wish the Corcoran Gallery (founded, too, by an Irishman!) were half as worthy of Washington, or the Metropolitan Museum one-tenth part as worthy of New York! The National Gallery in London has loaned some pictures to Dublin, and Mr. Doyle is getting together, from private owners, a most interesting gallery of portraits of men and women famous in connection with Irish history. The beautiful Gunnings of the last century, the not less beautiful and much more brilliant Sheridans of our own, Burke, Grattan, Tom Moore, Wellington, Curran, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, O'Connell, Peg Woffington, Canning, and Castlereagh, Dean Swift, Laurence Sterne are all here--wits and statesmen, soldiers and belles, rebels and royalists, orators and poets. Two things strike one in this gallery of the "glories of Ireland." The great majority of the faces are of the Anglo-Irish or Scoto-Irish type; and the collection owes its existence to an accomplished public officer, who bears an Irish name, who is a devout Catholic, and who is also an outspoken opponent of the Home Rule contention as now carried on. The gallery is open on liberal conditions to students. Mr. Doyle tells me that a young sister of Mr. Parnell was at one time an assiduous student here. He used to stop and chat with her about her work as he passed through the gallery. One day he met her coming out. "Mr. Doyle," she said, "are you a Home Ruler?" "Certainly not," he replied good-naturedly. Whereupon, with an air of melancholy resignation, the young lady said, "Then we can never more be friends!" and therewith flitted forth. A small room contains some admirable bits of the work of Richard Doyle, among other things a weird and grotesque, but charming cartoon of an elfish procession passing through a quaint and picturesque mediaeval city. It is a _conte fantastique_ in colour--a marvel of affluent fancy and masterly skill. I found here this morning letters calling me over to Paris for a short time, and one also from Mr. Davitt, in London, explaining that my note to him through the National League had never reached him, and that he had gone to London on his woollen business. I have written asking him to meet me to-morrow in London, and I shall cross over to-night. LONDON, _Wednesday, Feb. 15th._--Mr. Davitt spent an hour with me to-day, and we had a most interesting conversation. His mind is just now full of the woollen enterprise he is managing, which promises, he thinks, in spite of our tariff, to open the American markets to the excellent woollen goods of Ireland. He has gone into it with all his usual earnestness and ability. This is not a matter of politics with him, but of patriotism and of business. He tells me he has already secured very large orders from the United States. I hope he is not surprised, as I certainly am not, to find that the Parliamentarian Irish party give but a half-hearted and lukewarm support to such enterprises as this. Perhaps he has forgotten, as I have not, the efforts which a certain member of that party made in 1886 to persuade an Irish gentleman from St. Louis, who had brought over a considerable sum of money for the relief of the distress in North-Western Ireland, into turning it over to the League, on the express ground that the more the people were made to feel the pinch of the existing order of things, the better it would be for the revolutionary movement. The Irish Woollen Company will, nevertheless, be a success, I believe, and a success of considerably more value to Ireland than the election of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt as M.P. for Deptford would be. As to this election, Mr. Davitt seems to feel no great confidence. He has spoken in support of Mr. Blunt's candidacy, and is hard at work now to promote it. But he is not sanguine as to the result, as on all questions, save Home Rule for Ireland, Mr. Blunt's views and ideas, he thinks, antagonise the record of Mr. Evelyn and the local feeling at Deptford. I was almost astonished to learn from Mr. Davitt that Mr. Blunt, by the way, had told him at Ballybrack, long before he was locked up, how Mr. Balfour meant to lock up and kill four men, the "pivots" of the Irish movement, to wit, Mr. O'Brien, Mr. Harrington, Mr. Dillon, and Mr. Davitt himself. But I was not at all astonished to learn that Mr. Blunt told him all this most seriously, and evidently believed it. "How did you take it?" I asked. "Oh, I only laughed," said Mr. Davitt, "and told him it would take more than Mr. Balfour to kill me, at any rate by putting me in prison. As for being locked up, I prefer Cuninghame Graham's way of taking it, that he meant 'to beat the record on oakum!'" If all the Irish "leaders" were made of the same stuff with Mr. Davitt, the day of a great Democratic revolution, not in Ireland only, but in Great Britain, might be a good deal nearer than anything in the signs of the times now shows it to be. Mr. Parnell and the National League are really nothing but the mask of Mr. Davitt and the Land League. Mr. Forster knew what he was about when he proclaimed the Land League in October 1881, six months or more after he had arrested and locked up Mr. Davitt in Portland prison. This was shown by the foolish No-Rent manifesto which Mr. Parnell and his associates issued from Kilmainham shortly after their incarceration, and without the counsel or consent at that time of Mr. Davitt--a manifesto which the Archbishop of Cashel, despite his early sympathies and connection with the agrarian agitation of 1848, found it expedient promptly to disavow. It would have been still more clearly shown had not Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Forster parted company under the restiveness of Mr. Gladstone's Radical followers, and the pressure of the United States Government in the spring of 1882. But after the withdrawal of Mr. Forster, and the release of Mr. Davitt, the English lawyers and politicians who led Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan into allowing the Land League to be revived under the transparent alias of the National League, gave Mr. Davitt an opportunity, of which he promptly availed himself, to regain the ground lost by the blundering of the men of Kilmainham. From that time forth I have always regarded him as the soul of the Irish agitation, of the war against "landlordism" (which is incidentally, of course, a war against the English influence in Ireland), and of the movement towards Irish independence. Whether the agitation, the war, and the movement have gone entirely in accordance with his views and wishes is quite another matter. I have too good an opinion of his capacity to believe that they have; and when the secret history of the Chicago Convention comes to be written, I expect to find such confirmation therein of my notions on this subject as I could neither ask nor, if I asked, could expect to get from him. Meanwhile the manliness and courage of the man must always command for him the respect, not to say the admiration, even of those who most sternly condemn his course and oppose his policy. Born the child of an evicted tenant, in the times when an eviction meant such misery and suffering as are seldom, if ever, now caused by the process--bred and maimed for life in an English factory--captured when hardly more than a lad in Captain M'Cafferty's daring attempt to seize Chester Castle, and sent for fifteen years by Lord Chief-Justice Cockburn into penal servitude of the most rigorous kind, Michael Davitt might have been expected to be an apostle of hate not against the English Government of Ireland alone, but against England and the English people. The truculent talk of too many of his countrymen presents Ireland to the minds of thoughtful men as a flagrant illustration of the truth so admirably put by Aubrey de Vere that "worse than wasted weal is wasted woe." But woe has not been wasted upon Michael Davitt, in this, that, so far as I know (and I have watched his course now with lively personal interest ever since I made his acquaintance on his first visit to America), he has never made revenge and retaliation upon England either the inspiration or the aim of his revolutionary policy. I have never heard him utter, and never heard of his uttering, in America, such malignant misrepresentations of the conduct of the English people and their sovereign during the great famine of 1847, for example, as those which earned for Mr. Parnell in 1880 the pretty unanimous condemnation of the American press. How far he went with Mr. Parnell on the lines of that speech at New Ross, in which murder was delicately mentioned as "an unnecessary and prejudicial measure of procedure" in certain circumstances, I do not know. But he can hardly have gone further than certain persons calling themselves English Liberals went when the assassins of Napoleon III. escaped to England. And he has a capacity of being just to opponents, which certainly all his associates do not possess. I was much struck to-day by the candour and respect with which he spoke of John Bright, whose name came incidentally into our conversation. He seemed to feel personally annoyed and hurt as an Irishman, that Irishmen should permit themselves to revile and abuse Mr. Bright because he will not go with them on the question of Home Rule, in utter oblivion of the great services rendered by him to the cause of the Irish people "years before many of those whose tongues now wag against him had tongues to wag." I was tempted to remind him that not with Irishmen only is gratitude a lively sense of favours to come. I find Mr. Davitt quite awake to the great importance of the granite quarries of Donegal. He is bestirring himself in connection with some men of Manchester, in behalf of the quarries at Belmullet in Mayo, which, if I am not mistaken, is his native county. This bent of his mind towards the material improvement of the condition of the Irish people, and the development of the resources of Ireland, is not only a mark of his superiority to the rank and file of the Irish politicians--it goes far to explain the stronger hold which he undoubtedly has on the people in Ireland. "Home Rule," as now urged by the Irish politicians, certainly excites much more attention and emotion in America and England than it seems to do in Ireland. It seems so simple and elementary to John Bull and Brother Jonathan that people should be suffered to manage their own affairs! Yet the North would not suffer the South to do this--and what would become of India if England turned it over in fragments to the native races? The Land Question, on the contrary, touches the "business and bosom" of every Irishman in Ireland, while it is so complicated with historical conditions and incidents as to be troublesome and therefore uninteresting to people not immediately affected by it. If I am right in my impressions the collapse of the National League will hardly weaken the hold of Mr. Davitt on the Irish people in Ireland, and it may even strengthen his hold on the agrarian movement in Wales, England, and Scotland, unless he identifies himself too completely in that collapse with his Parliamentary instruments. On the other hand, the triumph of the National League on its present lines of action would diminish the value for good or evil of any man's hold upon the Irish people, for the obvious reason that by driving out of Ireland, and ruining, the class of "landlords" and capitalists, it would leave the country reduced to a dead level of peasant-holdings, saddled with a system of poor-rates beyond the ability of the peasant-holders to carry, and at the mercy, therefore, of the first bad year. The "war against the landlords," as conducted by the National League, would end where the Irish difficulty began, in a general surrender of the people to "poverty and potatoes." CHAPTER VI. ENNIS, _Saturday, Feb. 18._--I found it unnecessary to go on to Paris, and so returned to Ireland on Thursday night; we had a passage as over a lake. In the train I met a lively Nationalist friend, whose acquaintance I made in America. He is a man of substance, but not overburdened with respect for the public men, either of his own party or of the Unionist side. When I asked him whether he still thought it would be safe to turn over Ireland to a Parliament made up of the Westminster members, of whom he gave me such an amusing but by no means complimentary account, he looked at me with astonishment:-- "Do you suppose for a moment we would send these fellows to a Parliament in Dublin?" He told me some very entertaining tales of the methods used by certain well-meaning occupants of the Castle in former days to capture Irish popularity, as, for example, one of a Vice-Queen who gave a fancy dress ball for the children of the local Dublin people of importance, and had a beautiful supper of tea and comfits, and cakes served to them, after which she made her appearance, followed by servants bearing huge bowls of steaming hot Irish potatoes, which she pressed upon the horrified and overstuffed infants as "the true food of the country," setting them herself the example of eating one with much apparent gusto, and a pinch of salt! "Now, fancy that!" he exclaimed; "for the Dublin aristocracy who think the praties only fit for the peasants!" Of a well-known and popular personage in politics, he told me that he once went with him on a canvassing tour. It was in a county the candidate had never before visited. "When we came to a place, and the people were all out crying and cheering, he would whisper to me, 'Now what is the name of this confounded hole?' And I would whisper back, 'Ballylahnich,' or whatever it was. Then he would draw himself up to the height of a round tower, and begin, 'Men of Ballylahnich, I rejoice to meet you! Often has the great Liberator said to me, with tears in his voice, 'Oh would I might find myself face to face with the noble men of Ballylahnich!" "A great man he is, a great man! "Did you ever hear how he courted the heiress? He walked up and down in front of her house, and threatened to fight every man that came to call, till he drove them all away!" A good story of more recent date, I must also note, of a well-known priest in Dublin, who being asked by Mr. Balfour one day whether the people under his charge took for gospel all the rawhead and bloody-bones tales about himself, replied, "Indeed, I wish they only feared and hated the devil half as much as they do you!" In a more serious vein my Nationalist friend explained to me that for him "Home Rule" really meant an opportunity of developing the resources of Ireland under "the American system of Protection." About this he was quite in earnest, and recalled to me the impassioned protests made by the then Mayor of Chicago, Mr. Carter Harrison, against the Revenue Reform doctrines which I had thought it right to set forth at the great meeting of the Iroquois Club in that city in 1883. "Of course," he said, "you know that Mr. Harrison was then speaking not only for himself, but for the whole Irish vote of Chicago which was solidly behind him? And not of Chicago only! All our people on your side of the water moved against your party in 1884, and will move against it again, only much more generally, this year, because they know that the real hope of Ireland lies in our shaking ourselves free of the British Free Trade that has been fastened upon us, and is taking our life." I could only say that this was a more respectable, if not a more reasonable, explanation of Mr. Alexander Sullivan's devotion to Mr. Blaine and the Republicans, and of the Irish defection from the Democratic party than had ever been given to me in America, but I firmly refused to spend the night between London and Dublin in debating the question whether Meath could be made as prosperous as Massachusetts by levying forty per cent. duties on Manchester goods imported into Ireland. He had seen the reception of Mr. Sullivan, M.P., in London. "I believe, on my soul," he said, "the people were angry with him because he didn't come in a Lord Mayor's coach!" When I told him I meant to visit Luggacurren, he said, a little to my surprise, "That is a bad job for us, and all because of William O'Brien's foolishness! He always thinks everybody takes note of whatever he says, and that ruins any man! He made a silly threat at Luggacurren, that he would go and take Lansdowne by the throat in Canada, and then he was weak enough to suppose that he was bound to carry it out. He couldn't be prevented! And what was the upshot of it? But for the Orangemen in Canada, that were bigger fools than he is, he would have been just ruined completely! It was the Orangemen saved him!" I left Dublin this morning at 7.40 A.M. The day was fine, and the railway journey most interesting. Before reaching Limerick we passed through so much really beautiful country that I could not help expressing my admiration of it to my only fellow-traveller, a most courteous and lively gentleman, who, but for a very positive brogue, might have been taken for an English guardsman. "Yes, it is a beautiful country," he said, "or would be if they would let it alone!" I asked him what he specially objected to in the recent action of Parliament as respects Ireland? "Object?" he responded; "I object to everything. The only thing that will do Ireland any good will be to shut up that talking-mill at Westminster for a good long while!" This, I told him, was the remedy proposed by Earl Grey in his recent volume on Ireland. "Is it indeed? I shall read the book. But what's the use? 'For judgment it is fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason.'" This he said most cheerily, as if it really didn't matter much; and, bidding me good-bye, disappeared at Limerick, where several friends met him. In his place came a good-natured optimistic squire, who thinks "things are settling down." There is a rise in the price of cattle. "Beasts I gave £8 for three mouths ago," he said, "I have just sold for £12. I call that a healthy state of things." And with this he also left me at Ardsollus, the station nearest the famous old monastery of Quin. At Ennis I was met by Colonel Turner, to whom I had written, enclosing a note of introduction to him. With him were Mr. Roche, one of the local magistrates, and Mr. Richard Stacpoole, a gentleman of position and estate near Ennis, about whom, through no provocation of his, a great deal has been said and written of late years. Mr. Stacpoole at once insisted that I should let him take me out to stay at his house at Edenvale, which is, so to speak, at the gates of Ennis. Certainly the fame of Irish hospitality is well-founded! Meanwhile my traps were deposited at the County Club, and I went about the town. I walked up to the Court-house with. Mr. Roche, in the hope of hearing a case set down for trial to-day, in which a publican named Harding, at Ennis--an Englishman, by the way--is prosecuted for boycotting. The parties were in Court; and the defendant's counsel, a keen-looking Irish lawyer, Mr. Leamy, once a Nationalist member, was ready for action; but for some technical reason the hearing was postponed. There were few people in Court, and little interest seemed to be felt in the matter. The Court-house is a good building, not unlike the White House at Washington in style. This is natural enough, the White House having been built, I believe, by an Irish architect, who must have had the Duke of Leinster's house of Carton, in Kildare, in his mind when he planned it. Carton was thought a model mansion at the beginning of this century; and Mr. Whetstone, a local architect of repute, built the Ennis Court-house some fifty years ago. It is of white limestone from quarries belonging to Mr. Stacpoole, and cost when built about £12,000. To build it now would cost nearly three times as much. In fact, a recent and smaller Court-house at Carlow has actually cost £36,000 within the last few years. I was struck by the extraordinary number of public-houses in Ennis. A sergeant of police said to me, "It is so all over the country." Mr. Roche sent for the statistics, from which it appears that Ennis, with a population of 6307, rejoices in no fewer than 100 "publics"; Ennistymon, with a population of 1331, has 25; and Milltown Malbay, with a population of 1400, has 36. At Castle Island the proportion is still more astounding--51 public-houses in a population of 800. In Kiltimagh every second house is a public-house! These houses are perhaps a legacy of the old days of political jobbery.[19] No matter when or why granted, the licence appears to be regarded as a hereditary "right" not lightly to be tampered with; and of course the publicans are persons of consequence in their neighbourhood, no matter how wretched it may be, or how trifling their legitimate business. Three police convictions are required to make the resident magistrates refuse the usual yearly renewal of a licence; and if an application is made against such a renewal, cause must be shown. The "publics" are naturally centres of local agitation, and the publicans are sharp enough to see the advantage to them of this. The sergeant told me of a publican here in Ennis, into whose public came three Nationalists, bent not upon drinking, but upon talking. The publican said nothing for a while, but finally, in a careless way, mentioned "a letter he had just received from Mr. Parnell on a very private matter." Instantly the politicians were eager to see it. The publican hesitated. The politicians immediately called for drinks, which were served, and after this operation had been three times repeated, the publican produced the letter, began with a line or two, and then said, "Ah, no! it can't be done. It would be a betrayal of confidence; and you know you wouldn't have that! But it's a very important letter you have seen!" So they went away tipsy and happy. Only yesterday no fewer than twenty-three of these publicans from Milltown Malbay appeared at Ennis here to be tried for "boycotting" the police. One of them was acquitted; another, a woman, was discharged. Ten of them signed, in open court, a guarantee not further to conspire, and were thereupon discharged upon their own recognisances, after having been sentenced with their companions to a month's imprisonment with hard labour. The magistrate tells me that when the ten who signed (and who were the most prosperous of the publicans) were preparing to sign, the only representative of the press who was present, a reporter for _United Ireland_, approached them in a threatening manner, with such an obvious purpose of intimidation, that he was ordered out of the court-room by the police. The eleven who refused to sign the guarantee (and who were the poorest of the publicans, with least to lose) were sent to gaol. An important feature of this case is the conduct of Father White, the parish priest of Milltown Malbay. In the open court, Colonel Turner tells me, Father White admitted that he was the moving spirit of all this local "boycott." While the court was sitting yesterday all the shops in Milltown Malbay were closed, Father White having publicly ordered the people to make the town "as a city of the dead." After the trial was over, and the eleven who elected to be locked up had left in the train, Father White visited all their houses to encourage the families, which, from his point of view, was no doubt proper enough; but one of the sergeants reports that the Father went by mistake into the house of one of the ten who had signed the guarantee, and immediately reappeared, using rather unclerical language. All this to an American resembles a tempest in a tea-pot. But it is a serious matter to see a priest of the Church assisting laymen to put their fellow-men under a social interdict, which is obviously a parody on one of the gravest steps the Church itself can take to maintain the doctrine and the discipline of the Faith. What Catholics, if honest, must think of this whole business, I saw curiously illustrated by some marginal notes pencilled in a copy of Sir Francis Head's _Fortnight in Ireland_, at the hotel in Gweedore. The author of the _Bubbles from the Brunnen_ published this book in 1852. At page 152 he tells a story, apparently on hearsay, of "boycotting" long before Boycott. It is to the effect that, in order to check the proselyting of Catholics by a combination of Protestant missionary zeal with Protestant donations of "meal," certain priests and sisters in the south of Ireland personally instructed the people to avoid all intercourse of any sort with any Roman Catholic who "listened to a Protestant clergyman or a Scripture Reader"; and Sir Francis cites an instance--still apparently on hearsay--of a "shoemaker at Westport," who, having seceded from the Church, found that not a single "journeyman dared work for him"; that only "one person would sell him leather"; and, "in short, lost his custom, and rapidly came to a state of starvation." On the margin of the pages which record these statements, certain indignant Catholics have pencilled comments, the mildest of which is to the effect that Sir Francis was "a most damnable liar." It is certainly most unlikely that Catholics should have arrogated to themselves the Church's function of combating heresy and schism in the fashion described by Sir Francis. But without mooting that question, these expressions are noteworthy as showing how just such proceedings, as are involved in the political "boycottings" of the present day, must be regarded by all honest and clear-headed people who call themselves Catholics; and it is a serious scandal that a parish priest should lay himself open to the imputation of acting in concert with any political body whatever, on any pretext whatever, to encourage such proceedings. I asked one of the sergeants how the publicans who had signed the guarantee would probably be treated by their townspeople. He replied, there was some talk of their being "boycotted" in their turn by the butchers and bakers. "But it's all nonsense," he said, "they are the snuggest (the most prosperous) publicans in this part of the country, and nobody will want to vex them. They have many friends, and the best friend they have is that they can afford to give credit to the country people. There'll be no trouble with them at all at all!" Walking about the town, I saw many placards calling for subscriptions in aid of a newsvendor who has been impounded for selling _United Ireland_. "It'll be a good thing for him," said a cynical citizen, to whom I spoke of it, "a good deal better than he'd be by selling the papers." And, in fact, it is noticeable all over Ireland how small the sales of the papers appear to be. The people about the streets in Ennis, however, seemed to me much more effervescent and hot in tone than the Dublin people are--and this on both sides of the question. One very decent and substantial-looking man, when I told him I was an American, assured me that "if it was not for the soldiers, the people of Ennis would clear the police out of the place." He told me, too, that not long ago the soldiers of an Irish regiment here cheered for Home Rule in the Court-house, "but they were soon sent away for that same." On the other hand, a Protestant man of business, of whom I made some inquiries about the transmission of an important paper to the United States in time to catch to-morrow's steamer from Queenstown, spoke of the Home Rulers almost with ferocity, and thought the "Coercion" Government at Dublin ought to be called the "Concession" Government. He was quite indignant that the Morley and Ripon procession through the streets of Dublin should not have been "forbidden." There are some considerable shops in Ennis, but the proprietor of one of the best of them says all this agitation has "killed the trade of the place." I am not surprised to learn that the farmers and their families are beginning seriously to demand that the "reduction screw" shall be applied to other things besides rent. "A very decent farmer," he says, "only last week stood up in the shop and said it was 'a shame the shopkeepers were not made to reduce the tenpence muslin goods to sixpence!'" This shopkeeper finds some dreary consolation for the present state of things in standing at his deserted shop-door and watching the doors of his brethren. He finds them equally deserted. In his own he has had to dismiss a number of his attendants. "When a man finds he is taking in ten shillings a day, and laying out three pounds ten, what can he do but pull up pretty short?" As with the shopkeepers, so it is with the mechanics. "They are losing custom all the time. You see the tenants are expecting to come into the properties, so they spend nothing now on painting or improvements. The money goes into the bank. It don't go to the landlords, or to the shopkeepers, or the mechanics; and then we that have been selling on credit, and long credit too, where are we? Formerly, from one place, Dromoland, Lord Inchiquin's house, we used regularly to make a bill of a hundred pounds at Christmas, for blankets and other things given away. Now the house is shut up and we make nothing!" It is a short but very pleasant drive from Ennis to Edenvale--and Edenvale itself is not ill-named. The park is a true park, with fine wide spaces and views, and beautiful clumps of trees. A swift river flows beyond the lawn in front of the spacious goodly house--a river alive with wild fowl, and overhung by lofty trees, in which many pairs of herons build. A famous heronry has existed here for many years, and the birds are held now by Mr. and Mrs. Stacpoole as sacred as are the storks in Holland. Where the river widens to a lake, fine terraced gardens and espalier walls, on which nectarines, apricots, and peaches ripen in the sun, stretch along the shore. Deer come down to the further bank to drink, and in every direction the eye is charmed and the mind is soothed by the loveliest imaginable sylvan landscapes. EDENVALE, _Sunday, Feb. 19._--I was awakened at dawn by the clamour of countless wild ducks, to a day of sunshine as brilliant and almost as warm as one sees at this season in the south of France. Mrs. Stacpoole speaks of this place with a kind of passion, and I can quite understand it. Clearly this, again, is not a case of the absentee landlord draining the lifeblood of the land to lavish it upon an alien soil! The demesne is a sylvan sanctuary for the wild creatures of the air and the wood, and they congregate here almost as they did at Walton Hall in the days of that most delightful of naturalists and travellers, whose adventurous gallop on the back of a cayman was the delight of all English-reading children forty years ago, or as they do now at Gosford. Yet the crack of the gun, forbidden in the precincts of Walton Hall, is here by no means unknown--the whole family being noted as dead shots. I asked Mr. Stacpoole this morning whether the park had been invaded by trespassers since the local Nationalists declared war upon him. He said that his only experience of anything like an attack befell not very long ago, when his people came to the house on a Sunday afternoon and told him that a crowd of men from Ennis, with dogs, were coming towards the park with a loudly proclaimed intent to enter it, and go hunting upon the property. Upon this Mr. Stacpoole left the house with his brother and another person, and walked down to the park entrance. Presently the men of Ennis made their appearance on the highway. A very brief parley followed. The men of Ennis announced their intention of marching across the park, and occupying it. "I think not," the proprietor responded quietly. "I think you will go back the way you came. For you may be sure of one thing: the first man who crosses that park wall, or enters that gate, is a dead man." There was no show of weapons, but the revolvers were there, and this the men of Ennis knew. They also knew that it rested with themselves to create the right and the occasion to use the revolvers, and that if the revolvers were used they would be used to some purpose. To their credit, be it said, as men of sense, they suddenly experienced an almost Caledonian respect for the "Sabbath-day," and after expressing their discontent with Mr. Stacpoole's inhospitable reception, turned about and went back whence they had come. This morning an orderly from Ennis brought out news of the arrest yesterday, at the Clare Road, of Mr. Lloyd, a Labour delegate from London, on his return from an agitation meeting at Kildysart. Harding, the Englishman I saw awaiting his trial yesterday, became bail for Lloyd. In the afternoon we took a delightful walk to Killone Abbey, a pile of monastic ruins on a lovely site near a very picturesque lake. The ruins have been used as a quarry by all the country, and are now by no means extensive. But the precincts are used as a graveyard, not only by the people of Ennis, but by the farmers and villagers for many miles around. Nothing can be imagined more painful than the appearance of these precincts. The graves are, for the most part, shallow, and closely huddled together. The cemetery, in truth, is a ghastly slum, a "tenement-house" of the dead. The dead of to-day literally elbow the dead of yesterday out of their resting-places, to be in their turn displaced by the dead of to-morrow. Instead of the crosses and the fresh garlands, and the inscriptions full of loving thoughtfulness, which lend a pathetic charm to the German "courts of peace"--instead of the carefully tended hillocks and flower-studded turf which make the churchyard of a typical old English village beautiful,--all here is confusion, squalor, and neglect. Fragments of coffins and bones lie scattered among the sunken and shattered stones. We picked up a skull lying quite apart in a corner of the enclosure. A clean round bullet hole in the very centre of the frontal bone was dumbly and grimly eloquent. Was it the skull of a patriot or of a policeman? of a "White-boy" or of a "landlord"? One thing only was apparent from the conformation of the grisly relic. It was the skull of a Celt. Probably, therefore, not of a land agent, shot to repress his fiduciary zeal, but perhaps of some peasant selfishly and recklessly bent on paying his rent. While we wandered amid the ruins we came suddenly upon a woman wearing a long Irish cloak, and accompanied by two well-dressed men. One of the men started upon catching sight of Colonel Turner, who was of our party, grew quite red for a moment, and then very civilly exchanged salutations with him. The party walked quietly away on a lower road leading to Ennis. When they had gone Colonel Turner told us that the man who had spoken to him was a local Nationalist of repute and influence in Ennis. "He would never have ventured to be civil to me in the town," he said. A discussion arose as to the probable object of the party in visiting these ruins. A gentleman who was with us half-laughingly suggested that they might have been putting away dynamite bombs for an attack on Edenvale. Colonel Turner's more practical and probable theory was that they were looking about for a site for the grave of the Fenian veteran, Stephen J. Meany, who died in America not long ago. He was a native, I believe, of Ennis, and his remains are now on their way across the Atlantic for interment in his birth-place. "Would a processional funeral be allowed for him?" I asked. Colonel Turner could see no reason why it should not be. One exception I noted to the general slovenliness of the graves. A new and handsome monument had just been set up by a man of Ennis, living in Australia, to the memory of his father and mother, buried here twenty years ago. But this touching symbol of a heart untravelled, fondly turning to its home, had been so placed, either by accident or by design, as to block the entrance way to the vault of a family living, or rather owning property, in this neighbourhood. Until within a year or two past this family had occupied a very handsome mansion in a park adjoining the park of Edenvale. But the heir, worn out with local hostilities, and reduced in fortune by the pressure of the times and of the League, has now thrown up the sponge. His ancestral acres have been turned over for cultivation to Mr. Stacpoole. His house, a large fine building, apparently of the time of James II., containing, I am told, some good pictures and old furniture, is shut up, as are the model stables, ample enough for a great stud; and so another centre of local industry and activity is made sterile. Near the ruins of Killone is a curious ancient shrine of St. John, beside a spring known as the Holy Well. All about the rude little altar in the open air simple votive offerings were displayed, and Mrs. Stacpoole tells me pilgrims come here from Galway and Connemara to climb the hill upon their knees, and drink of the water. Last year for the first time within the memory of man the well went dry. Such was the distress caused in Ennis by this news, that on the eve of St. John certain pious persons came out from the town, drew water from the lake, and poured it into the well! As we walked away one of the party pointed to a rabbit fleeing swiftly into a hole in one of the graves. "I was on this hill," he said, "one day not very long ago when a funeral train came out from Ennis. As it entered the precincts a rabbit ran rapidly across the grounds. Instantly the procession broke up; the coffin was literally dropped to the ground, and the bearers, the mourners, and the whole company united in a hot and general chase of bunny. Of course, I need not say," he added, "that there was no priest with them. The fixed charge of the priest for a burial is twenty shillings, but there is usually no service at the grave whatever." This may possibly be a trace of the practices which grew up under the Penal Laws against Catholics. When Rinuccini came to Ireland in the time of the Civil War, he found the observances of the Church all fallen into degradation through these laws. The Holy Sacrifice was celebrated in the cabins, and not unfrequently on tables which had been covered half-an-hour before with the remains of the last night's supper, and would be cleared half-an-hour afterwards for the midday meal, and perhaps for a game of cards. Several guests joined us at dinner. One gentleman, a magistrate familiar with Gweedore, told me he believed the statements of Sergeant Mahony as to the income of Father M'Fadden to fall within the truth. While he believes that many people in that region live, as he put it, "constantly within a hair's-breadth of famine," he thinks that the great body of the peasants there are in a position, "with industry and thrift, not only to make both ends meet, but to make them overlap." Mr. Stacpoole told us some of his own experiences nearer home. Not long ago he was informed that the National League had ordered some decent people, who hold the demesne lands of his neighbour, Mr. Macdonald (already alluded to) at a very low rental, to make a demand for a reduction, which would have left Mr. Macdonald without a penny of income. To counter this Mr. Stacpoole offered to take the lands over for pasture at the existing rental, whereupon the tenants promptly made up their minds to keep their holdings in defiance of the League. Last year a man, whom Mr. Stacpoole had regarded as a "good" tenant, came to him, bringing the money to pay his rent. "I have the rint, sorr," the man said, "but it is God's truth I dare not pay it to ye!" Other tenants were waiting outside. "Are you such a coward that you don't dare be honest?" said Mr. Stacpoole. The man turned rather red, went and looked out of all the windows, one after another, lifted up the heavy cloth of the large table in the room, and peeped under it nervously, and finally walked up to Mr. Stacpoole and paid the money. The receipt being handed to him, he put it back with his hand, eyed it askance as if it were a bomb, and finally took it, and carefully put it into the lining of his hat, after which, opening the door with a great noise, he exclaimed as he went out, "I'm very, very sorry, master, that I can't meet you about it!" This man is now as loud in protestation of his "inability" to pay his rent as any of the "Campaigners." Mr. Stacpoole thinks one great danger of the actual situation is that men who were originally "coerced" by intimidation into dishonestly refusing to pay just rents, which they were abundantly able to pay, are beginning now to think that they will be, and ought to be, relieved by the law of the land from any obligation to pay these rents. It seems to be his impression that things look better, however, of late for law and order. On Monday of last week at Ennis an example was made of a local official, which, he thinks, will do good. This was a Poor-Law Guardian named Grogan. He was bound over on Monday last to keep the peace for twelve months towards one George Pilkington. Pilkington, it appears, in contempt of the League, took and occupied, in 1886, a certain farm in Tarmon West. For this he was "boycotted" from that time forth. In December last he was summoned, with others, before the Board of Guardians at Kilrush, to fix the rents of certain labourers' cottages. While he sat in the room awaiting the action of the Board, Grogan, one of its members, rose up, and, looking at Pilkington, said in a loud voice, "There's an obnoxious person here present that should not be here, a land-grabber named Pilkington." There was a stir in the room, and Pilkington, standing up, said, "I am here because I have had notice from the Guardians. If I am asked to leave the place, I shall not come back." The Chairman of the Board upon this declared that "while the ordinary business of the Board was transacting, Mr. Pilkington would be there only by the courtesy of the Board;" and treating the allusions of Grogan to Pilkington as a part of the business of the Board, he said, "A motion is before the Board, does any one second it?" Another guardian, Collins, got up, and said "I do." Thereupon the Chairman put it to the vote whether Pilkington should be requested to leave. The ayes had it, and the Chairman of the Board thereupon invited Pilkington to leave the meeting which the Board had invited him to attend! Grogan has now been prosecuted for the offence of "wrongfully, and without legal authority, using violence and intimidation to and towards George Pilkington of Tarmon West, with a view to cause the said Pilkington to abstain from doing an act which he had a legal right to do, namely, to hold, occupy, and work on a certain farm of land at Tarmon West." Plainly this case is one of a grapple between the two Governments which have been and are now contending for the control of Ireland: the Government of the Queen of Ireland, which authorises Pilkington to take and farm a piece of land, and the Government of the National League, which forbids him to do this. Is it possible to doubt which of the two is the government of Liberty, as well as the government of Law? It illustrates the demoralising influence upon society in Ireland of the protracted toleration of such a contest as has been waging between the authority of the Law and the authority of the League, that, when this case came up for consideration ten days ago, an official here actually thought it ought to be put off. Colonel Turner insisted it should be dealt with at once; and so Mr. Grogan was proceeded against, with the result I have stated. The trees on this demesne are the finest I have so far seen in Ireland, beautiful and vigorous pencil-cedars, ilexes, Scotch firs, and Irish yews. There is one noble cedar of Lebanon here worth a special trip to see. In conversation about the country to-night, Mr. Stacpoole mentioned that tobacco was grown here, strong and of good quality, and he was much interested, as I remember were also the charming châtelaine of Newtown Anner and Mr. Le Poer of Gurteen four or five years ago, to learn how immensely successful has been the tobacco-culture introduced into Pennsylvania only a quarter of a century ago, as a consequence of the Civil War. The climatic conditions here are certainly not more unfavourable to such an experiment in agriculture than they were at first supposed to be in the Pennsylvanian counties of York and Lancaster. Of course the Imperial excise would deal with it as harshly as it is now dealing with a similar experiment in England. But the Irish tobacco-growers would not now have to fear such hostile legislation as ruined the Irish linen industries in the last century. The "Moonlighters" of 1888 lineally represent, if they do not simply reproduce, the "Whiteboys" of 1760; and the domination of the "uncrowned king" constantly reminds one of Froude's vivid and vigorous sketch of the sway wielded by "Captain Dwyer" and "Joanna Maskell" from Mallow to Westmeath, between the years 1762 and 1765. On that side of the quarrel there seems to be nothing very new under the sun in Ireland. But the spirit and the forms of the Imperial authority over the country have unquestionably undergone a great change for the better, not only since the last century, but since the accession of Queen Victoria. Upon the question of land improvements, Mr. Stacpoole told me, to-night, that he borrowed £1000 of the Government for drainage improvements on his property here, the object of which was to better the holdings of tenants. Of this sum he had to leave £400 undrawn, as he could not get the men to work at the improvements, even for their own good. They all wanted to be gangers or chiefs. It reminded me of Berlioz's reply to the bourgeois who wanted his son to be made a "great composer." "Let him go into the army," said Berlioz, "and join the only regiment he is fit for." "What regiment is that?" "The regiment of colonels." In the course of the evening a report was brought out from Ennis to Colonel Turner. He read it, and then handed it to me, with an accompanying document. The latter, at my request, he allowed me to keep, and I must reproduce it here. It tells its own tale. A peasant came to the authorities and complained that he was "tormented" to make a subscription to a "testimonial" for one Austen Mackay of Kilshanny, in the County Clare, producing at the same time a copy of the circular which had been sent about to the people. It is a cheaply-printed leaflet, not unlike a penny ballad in appearance, and thus it runs:-- "_Testimonial to_ Mr. AUSTEN MACKAY, _Kilshanny_, _County Clare_. "We, the Nationalists and friends of Mr. Austen Mackay, at a meeting held in March 1887, agreed and resolved on presenting the long-tried and trusted friend--the persecuted widow's son--with a testimonial worthy of the fearless hero who on several occasions had to hide his head in the caves and caverns of the mountains, with a price set on his body. First, for firing at and wounding a spy in his neighbourhood, as was alleged in '65, for which he had to stand his trial at Clare Assizes. Again, for firing at and wounding his mother's agent and under-strapper while in the act of evicting his widowed mother in the broad daylight of Heaven, thus saved his mother's home from being wrecked by the robber agent, the shock of which saved other hearths from being quenched; but the noble widow's son was chased to the mountains, where he had to seek shelter from a thousand bloodhounds. "The same true widow's son nobly guarded his mother's homestead and that of others from the foul hands of the exterminators. This is the same widow's son who bravely reinstated the evicted, and helped to rebuild the levelled houses of many; for this he was persecuted and convicted at Cork Assizes, and flung into prison to sleep on the cold plank beds of Cork and Limerick gaols. Many other manly and noble services did he which cannot be made known to the public. At that meeting you were appointed collector with other Nationalists of Clare at home and abroad. This is the widow's son, Austen Mackay, whom we, the Committee to this testimonial, hope and trust every Irishman in Clare will cheerfully subscribe, that he may be enabled in his present state of health to get into some business under the protection of the Stars and Stripes, where he is a citizen of." "Subscriptions to be sent to Henry Higgins, Ennis. "Treasurers: Daniel O'Loghlen, Lisdoonvarna; James Kennedy, Ennistymon." Then follow, with the name of the Society, the names of the committee. In behalf of the Stars and Stripes, "where he is a citizen of," I thanked Colonel Turner for this interesting contribution to the possible future history of my country, there being nothing to prevent the election of any heir of this illustrious "widow's son," born to him in America, to the Presidency of the Republic. The use of this phrase, the "widow's son," by the way, gives a semi-masonic character to this curious circular. One officer says in his report upon this Committee: "All the persons named are well known to their respective local police, and, except one, have little or no following or influence in their respective localities. They are all members of the National League." The same officer subjoins this instructive observation: "I beg to add that I find no matter how popular a man may be in Clare, start a testimonial for him, and from that time forth his influence is gone." Can it be possible that the "testimonial," which, as the papers tell me, is getting up all over Ireland for Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, can have been "started" with a sinister eye to this effect, by local patriots jealous of any alien intrusion into their bailiwick? I am almost tempted to suspect this, remembering that a Nationalist with whom I talked about Mr. Blunt in Dublin, after lavishing much praise upon his disinterested devotion to the cause of Ireland, moodily remarked, "For all that, I don't believe he will do us any good, for he comes of the blood of Mountjoy, I am told!" EDENVALE, _Monday, Feb. 20._--This morning Colonel Turner called my attention to the report in the papers of a colloquy between the Chief Secretary for Ireland and Mr. J. Redmond, M.P., in the House, on the subject of last week's trials at Ennis. In speaking of the boycotting at Milltown Malbay of a certain Mrs. Connell, Mr. Balfour described the case as one of barbarous inhumanity shown to a helpless old woman. Mr. Redmond denying this, asserted that he had seen the woman Connell a fortnight ago in Court, and that so far from her being a decrepit old woman, she was only fifty years of age, hale and hearty, but disreputable and given to drink; he also said she was drunk at the trial, so drunk that the Crown prosecutor, Mr. Otter, was obliged to order her down from the table. "What are the facts?" I asked. "Mr. Balfour speaks from report and belief, Mr. Redmond asserts that he speaks from actual observation." "The facts," said Colonel Turner quietly, "are that Mr. Balfour's statement is accurate, and that Mr. Redmond, speaking from actual observation, asserts the thing that is not." "Where is this old woman?" I asked. "Would it be possible for me to see her?" "Certainly; she is at no great distance, and I will with pleasure send a car with an officer to bring her here this afternoon!" "Meanwhile, how came the old woman into Court? and what is her connection with the cases of boycotting last week tried?" "Those cases arose out of her case," said Colonel Turner; "the publicans last week arraigned, 'boycotted' a fortnight ago the police and soldiers who were called in to keep the peace during the trial of the dealers who 'boycotted' her. "Her case was first publicly made known by a letter which appeared in the Dublin _Express_ on the 28th of January. That day a line was sent to me from Dublin ordering an inquiry into it. I endorsed upon the order, 'Please report. I imagine this is greatly exaggerated.' This was on January 30th. The next day, January 31st, I received a full report from Milltown Malbay. Here it is,"--taking a document from a portfolio and handing it to me--"and you may make what use you like of it." It is worth giving at length:-- "James Connell, ex-soldier, and his mother, Hannah Connell, of Fintamore, in this sub-district are boycotted, and have been since July last. James Connell held a farm and a garden from one Michael Carroll, a farmer, who was evicted from his holding for non-payment of three years' rent, July 14, 1886. After the period of redemption, six months, had passed, the agent made Connell a tenant for his house and garden, giving him in addition about half an acre (Irish) of the evicted farm which adjoins his house. In consequence Connell was regarded by the National League here as a 'land-grabber.' About the same time the agent also appointed him a rent-warner. "On the 22d June last Connell received a letter through the Post-Office threatening him if he did not give up his place as a rent-warner. I have no doubt the letter was written by (here a resident was named). On the 10th, and again on the 17th, of July, Connell was brought before indoor meetings of the National League here for having taken the half acre of land, when he through fear declared he had not done it. "At the first meeting the Rev. J.S. White, P.P., suggested that in order to test whether Connell had taken the land, Carroll, the evicted tenant, should go and cut the meadowing on it, which he did, when Connell interfered and prevented him. At the next meeting Carroll brought this under notice, and Connell was thereupon boycotted. Immediately afterwards the men who had been engaged fishing for Connell refused to fish, saying that if they fished for him the sale of the fish would be boycotted, which was true. "Since then Connell has been deprived of his means of livelihood, and no one dare employ him. He, however, through his mother, was able to procure the necessaries of life until about the 22d of November last, when his mother was refused goods by the tradesmen with whom she had dealt, owing to a resolution passed at a meeting of the 'suppressed' branch of the League here, to the effect that any person supplying her would be boycotted. December 23d she came into Milltown Malbay for goods, and was refused. The police accompanied her, but no person would supply her. On the 2d of January she came again, when one trader supplied her with some bread, but refused groceries. The police accompanied her to several traders, who all refused. Ultimately she was supplied by the post-mistress. On the 7th of January she came, and the police accompanied her to several traders, all of whom refused her even bread. Believing she wanted it badly, we, the police, supplied her with some. On these three occasions she was followed by large numbers of young people about the street, evidently to frighten and intimidate her, and their demeanour was so hostile that we were obliged to disperse them and protect her home. On a subsequent occasion she stated that stones were thrown at her. Since then she has not come here for goods, and, in my opinion, it would not be safe for her to do so without protection. She and her son are now getting goods from Mrs. Moroney's shop at Spanish Point, which she opened a few years ago to supply boycotted persons. "The Connells find it hard to get turf, and are obliged to bring it a distance in bags so that it may not be observed. As for milk, the person who did supply them privately for a considerable time declined some weeks ago to do so any longer. They are now really destitute, as any little money Connell had saved is spent, and, although willing and anxious to work, no person will employ him. Summonses have been issued against the tradesmen for refusing to supply Hannah Connell on the occasions already referred to. I have only to add that I have from time to time reported fully the foregoing facts with regard to the persecution of this poor man and his aged mother; and I regret to say that boycotting and intimidation never prevailed to a greater extent here than at present. Connell's safety is being looked after by patrols from this and Spanish Point station." Three things seem to me specially noteworthy in this tale of cowardly and malignant tyranny. The victims of this vulgar Vehmgericht are neither landlords nor agents. They are a poor Irish labourer and his aged mother. The "crime" for which these poor creatures are thus persecuted is simply that one of them--the man--chose to obey the law of the land in which he lives, and to work for his livelihood and that of his mother. And the priest of the parish, instead of sheltering and protecting these hunted creatures, is presented as joining in the hunt, and actually devising a trap to catch the poor frightened man in a falsehood. Upon this third point, a correspondence which passed between Father White and Colonel Turner, after the conviction of the boycotters of Mrs. Connell, and copies of which the latter has handed to me at my request, throws an instructive light. When the report of January 31st reached him, Colonel Turner ordered the tradespeople implicated in the persecution to be proceeded against. Six of them were put on their trials on the 3d and 4th of February. All the shops in Milltown Malbay were closed, by order of the local League, during the trial, and the police and the soldiers called in were refused all supplies. On the 4th, one of the persons arraigned was bound over for intimidation, and the five others were sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labour. A week later, February 11th, Colonel Turner addressed the following letter to Father White, twenty-six publicans of Milltown Malbay having meanwhile been prosecuted for boycotting the police and the soldiers:-- "DEAR SIR,--I write to you as a clergyman who possesses great influence with the people in your part of the country, to put it to you whether it would not be better for the interests of all concerned if the contemptible system of petty persecution, called boycotting, were put an end to in and about Milltown Malbay, which would enable me to drop prosecutions. If it is not put a stop to, I am determined to stamp it out, and restore to all the ordinary rights of citizenship. "But I should very greatly prefer that the people should stop it themselves, and save me from taking strong measures, which I should deplore. The story of a number of men combining to persecute a poor old woman is one of the most pitiful I ever heard.--I am, sir, yours truly, ALFRED TURNER." As the cost of the extra policemen sent to Milltown Malbay at this time falls upon the people there, this letter in effect offered the priest an opportunity to relieve his parish of a burden as well as to redeem its character. The next day Father White replied:-- "DEAR SIR,--No one living is more anxious for peace in this district than I. During very exciting times I have done my best to keep it free from outrage, and with success, except in one mysterious instance.[20] There is but one obstacle to it now. If ever you can advise Mrs. Moroney to restore the evicted tenant, whose rent you admitted was as high as Colonel O'Callaghan's, I can guarantee on the part of the people the return of good feelings; or, failing that, if she and her employees are content with the goods which she has of all kinds in her own shop, there need be no further trouble. "I have a promise from the people that the police will be supplied for the future. This being so, if you will kindly have prosecutions withdrawn, or even postponed for say a month, it will very much strengthen me in the effort I am making to calm down the feeling. Regarding Mrs. Connell, the head-constable was told by me that she was to get goods, and she did get bread, till the police went round with her. This upset my arrangements, as I had induced the people to give her what she might really want. In fact she was a convenience to Mrs. Moroney for obvious reasons, and her son is now in her employment in place of Kelly, who has been dismissed since his very inconvenient evidence. It is, and was, well known they were not starving as they said, they having a full supply of their accustomed food.--Thanking you for your great courtesy, I am, dear sir, truly yours, "J. White." On the 14th Colonel Turner replied:-- "My dear Sir,--We cannot adjourn the cases. But if those who are prosecuted are prepared to make reparation by promising future good conduct in Court, I can then see my way to interfere, and to prevent them from suffering imprisonment. "These cases have nothing whatever to do with Mrs. Moroney.[21] They are simply between the defendants and the police and other officials, who were at Milltown Malbay that day. I am greatly pleased at your evident wish to co-operate with me in calming down the ill-feeling which unfortunately exists, and I am satisfied that success will attend our efforts." On Thursday and Friday last, as I have recorded, the cases came on of the twenty-six publicans charged. Between February 4th, when the offences were committed, and the 17th of February, one of these publicans had died, one had fled to America, and there proved to be an informality in the summons issued against a third. Twenty-three only were put upon their trial. As I have stated, one was acquitted and the others were found guilty, and sentenced to be imprisoned. In accordance with his promise made to Father White, Colonel Turner offered to relieve them all of the imprisonment if they would sign an undertaking in Court not to repeat the offence. Ten, the most prosperous and substantial of the accused, accepted this offer and signed, as has been already stated. One, a woman, was discharged without being required to sign the guarantee, the other eleven refused to sign, and were sent to prison. Father White, whose own evidence given at the trial, as his letter to Colonel Turner would lead one to expect, had gone far to prove the existence of the conspiracy, encouraged the eleven in their attitude. This was his way of "co-operating" with Colonel Turner to "calm down the ill-feeling which exists"! During the morning Mrs. Stacpoole sent for the clerk and manager of the estate, and asked him to show me the books. He is a native of these parts, by name Considine, and has lived at Edenvale for eighteen years. In his youth he went out to America, but there found out that he had a "liver," an unpleasant discovery, which led him to return to the land of his birth, and to the service of Mr. Stacpoole. He is perfectly familiar with the condition of the country here, and as the accounts of this estate are kept minutely and carefully from week to week, he was able this morning to show me the current prices of all kinds of farm produce and of supplies in and about Ennis--not estimated prices, but prices actually paid or received in actual transactions during the last ten years. I am surprised to see how narrow has been the range of local variations during that time; and I find Mr. Considine inclined to think that the farmers here have suffered very little, if at all, from these fluctuations, making up from time to time on their reduced expenses what they have lost through lessened receipts. The expenses of the landlord have however increased, while his receipts have fallen off. In 1881 Edenvale paid out for labour £466, 0s. 1-1/2d., in 1887 £560, 6s. 3-1/2d., though less labour was employed in 1887 than in 1881. The wages of servants, where any change appears, have risen. In 1881 a gardener received £14 a year, in 1888 he receives 15s. a week, or at the rate of £39 a year. A housemaid receiving £12 a year in 1881, receives now £17 a year. A butler receiving in 1881 £26 a year, now receives £40 a year. A kitchen maid receiving in 1881 £6, now receives £10, 10s. a year. Meanwhile, the Sub-Commissioners are at this moment cutting down the Edenvale rents again by £190, 3s. 2d., after a walk over the property in the winter. Yet in July 1883 Mr. Reeves, for the Sub-Commission, "thought it right to say there was no estate in the County Clare so fairly rented, to their knowledge, or where the tenants had less cause for complaint." In but one case was a reduction of any magnitude made by the Commission of 1883, and in one case that Commission actually increased the rent from £11, 10s. to £16. In January 1883 the rental of this property was £4065, 5s. 1d. The net reduction made by the Commissioners in July 1883 was £296, 14s. 0-1/2d. After luncheon a car came up to the mansion, bringing a stalwart, good-natured-looking sergeant of police, and with him the boycotted old woman Mrs. Connell and her son. The sergeant helped the old woman down very tenderly, and supported her into the house. She came in with some trepidation and uneasiness, glancing furtively all about her, with the look of a hunted creature in her eyes. Her son, who followed her, was more at his ease, but he also had a worried and careworn look. Both were warmly but very poorly clad, and both worn and weatherbeaten of aspect. The old woman might have passed anywhere for a witch, so wizened and weird she was, of small stature, and bent nearly double by years and rheumatism. Her small hands were withered away into claws, and her head was covered with a thick and tangled mat of hair, half dark, half grey, which gave her the look almost of the Fuegian savages who come off from the shore in their flat rafts and clamour to you for "rum" in the Straits of Magellan. Her eyes were intensely bright, and shone like hot coals in her dusky, wrinkled face. It was a raw day, and she came in shivering with the cold. It was pathetic to see how she positively gloated with extended palms over the bright warm, fire in the drawing-room, and clutched at the cup of hot tea which my kind hostess instantly ordered in for her. This was the woman of whom Mr. Redmond wrote to Mr. Parnell that she was "an active strong dame of about fifty." When Mr. Balfour, in Parliament, described her truly as a "decrepit old woman of eighty," Mr. Redmond contradicted him, and accused her of being "the worse for liquor" in a public court. "How old is your mother?" I asked her son. "I am not rightly sure, sir," he replied, "but she is more than eighty." "The man himself is about fifty," said the sergeant; "he volunteered to go to the Crimean War, and that was more than thirty years ago!" "I did indeed, sir," broke in the man, "and it was from Cork I went. And I'd be a corpse now if it wasn't for the mercy of God and the protection. God bless the police, sir, that protected my old mother, sir, and me. That Mr. Redmond, sir, they read me what he said, and sure he should be ashamed of his shadow, to get up there in Parliament, and tell those lies, sir, about my old mother!" I questioned Connell as to his relations with Carroll, the man who brought him before the League. He was a labourer holding a bit of ground under Carroll. Carroll refused to pay his own rent to the landlord. But he compelled Connell to pay rent to him. When Carroll was evicted, the landlord offered to let Connell have half an acre more of land. He took it to better himself, and "how did he injure Carroll by taking it?" How indeed, poor man! Was he a rent-warner? Yes; he earned something that way two or three times a year; and for that he had to ask the protection of the police--"they would kill him else." What with worry and fright, and the loss of his livelihood, this unfortunate labourer has evidently been broken down morally and physically. It is impossible to come into contact with such living proofs of the ineffable cowardice and brutality of this business of "boycotting" without indignation and disgust. While Connell was telling his pitiful tale a happy thought occurred to the charming daughter of the house. Mrs. Stacpoole is a clever amateur in photography. "Why not photograph this 'hale and hearty woman of fifty,' with her son of fifty-three?" Mrs. Stacpoole clapped her hands at the idea, and went off at once to prepare her apparatus. While she was gone the sergeant gave me an account of the trial, which Mr. Redmond, M.P., witnessed. He was painfully explicit. "Mr. Redmond knew the woman was sober," he said; "she was lifted up on the table at Mr. Redmond's express request, because she was so small and old, and spoke in such a low voice that he could not hear what she said. Connell had always been a decent, industrious fellow--a fisherman. But for the lady, Mrs. Moroney, he and his mother would have starved, and would starve now. As for the priest, Father White, Connell went to him to ask his intercession and help, but he could get neither." The sergeant had heard Father White preach yesterday. "It was a curious sermon. He counselled peace and forbearance to the people, because they might be sure the wicked Tory Government would very soon fall!" Presently the sun came out with golden glow, and with the sun came out Mrs. Stacpoole. It was a job to "pose" the subjects, the old woman evidently suspecting some surgical or legal significance in the machinery displayed, and her son finding some trouble in making her understand what it meant. But finally we got the tall, personable sergeant, with his frank, shrewd, sensible face, to put himself between the two, in the attitude as of a guardian angel; the camera was nimbly adjusted, and lo! the thing was done. Mrs. Stacpoole thinks the operation promises a success. I suppose it would hardly be civil to send a finished proof of the group to Mr. J. Redmond, M.P. APPENDIX. NOTE A. MR. GLADSTONE AND THE AMERICAN WAR. (Prologue, p. xxix.) This statement as to the action of Lord Palmerston in connection with Mr. Gladstone's Newcastle speech of October 7th, 1862, made upon the authority of a British public man whose years and position entitle him to speak with confidence on such a subject, appeared to me of so much interest, that after sending it to the printer I caused search to be made for the speech referred to as made by Sir George Cornewall Lewis. My informant's statement was that Lord Palmerston insisted that Sir George Lewis should find or make an immediate opportunity of covering what Mr. Gladstone had said at Newcastle. He was angry about it, and his anger was increased by an article which Mr. Delane printed in the _Times_, intimating that Mr. Gladstone's speech was considered by many people to be a betrayal of Cabinet secrets. Sir George Lewis was far from well (he died the next spring), and reluctant to do what his chief wished; but he did it on the 17th of October 1862 in a speech at Hereford. Mr. Milner-Gibson was also put forward to the same end, and after Parliament met, in February 1863, Mr. Disraeli gave the Government a sharp lashing for sending one or two Ministers into the country in the recess to announce that the Southern States would be recognised, and then putting forward the President of the Board of Trade (Milner-Gibson) to attack the Southern States and the pestilent institution of slavery. Mr. Gladstone's speech at Newcastle, coming as it did from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after the close of a session during which everybody knew that the Emperor of the French had been urging upon England the recognition of the Confederate States, and that Mr. Mason had been in active correspondence on that subject with Lord Russell, was taken at Newcastle, and throughout the country, to mean that the recognition was imminent. Mr. Gladstone even went so far as to say he rather rejoiced that the Confederates had not been able to hold Maryland, as that might have made them aggressive, and so made a settlement more difficult, it being, he said, as certain as anything in the future could be that the South must succeed in separating itself from the Union. This remark about Maryland distinctly indicated consultation as to what limits and boundaries between the South and the North should be recognised in the recognition, and on that account, it seems, was particularly resented by Earl Russell as well as by Lord Palmerston. Sir George Cornewall Lewis's speech of October 17, 1862, was a most skilful and masterly attempt to protect the Cabinet against the consequences of what the _Times_, on the 9th of October, had treated as the "indiscretion or treason" of his colleague. But it did not save the Government from the scourge of Mr. Disraeli, or much mitigate the effect in America of Mr. Gladstone's performance at Newcastle, which was a much more serious matter from the American point of view than any of the speeches recently delivered about "Home Rule" in the American Senate can be fairly said to be from the British point of view. NOTE B. MR. PARNELL AND THE DYNAMITERS. (Prologue, p. xxxiii.) The relation of Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates to what is called the extreme and "criminal" section of the Irish American Revolutionary Party can only be understood by those who understand that it is the ultimate object of this party not to effect reforms in the administration of Ireland as an integral part of the British Empire, but to sever absolutely the political connection between Ireland and the British Empire. Loyal British subjects necessarily consider this object a "criminal" object, just as loyal Austrian subjects considered the object of the Italian Revolutionists of 1848 to be a "criminal" object. But the Italian Revolutionists of 1848 did not accept this view of their object. On the contrary, they held their end to be so high and holy that it more or less sanctified even assassination when planned as a means to that end. Why should the Italian Revolutionists of 1848 be judged by one standard and the Irish Revolutionists of 1888 by another? If Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates were to declare in unequivocal terms their absolute loyalty to the British Crown, and their determination to maintain in all circumstances the political connection between Great Britain and Ireland, they might or might not retain their hold upon Mr. Davitt and upon their constituents in Ireland, but they would certainly put themselves beyond the pale of support by the great Irish American organisations. Nor do I believe they could retain the confidence of those organisations if it were supposed that they really regarded the most extreme and violent of the Irish Revolutionists, the "Invincibles" and the "dynamiters" as "criminals," in the sense in which the "Invincibles" and the "dynamiters" are so regarded by the rest of the civilised world. Can it, for example, be doubted that any English or Scottish public man who co-operates with Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates would instantly hand over to the police any "Invincible" or "dynamiter" who might come within his reach? And can it for a moment be believed that Mr. Parnell, or any one of his Parliamentary associates, would do this? There are thousands of Irish citizens in the United States who felt all the horror and indignation expressed by Mr. Parnell at the murders in the Phoenix Park, but I should be very much surprised to learn that any one of them all ever did, or ever would do, anything likely to bring any one of the authors of these murders to the bar of justice. Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates are held and bound by the essential conditions of their political existence to treat with complaisance the most extreme and violent men of their party. Nor is this true of them alone. There is no more respectable body of men in the United States than the Hibernian Society of Philadelphia. This society was instituted in 1771, five years before the declaration of American Independence. It is a charitable and social organisation only, with no political object or colour. It is made up of men of character and substance. Its custom has always been to celebrate St. Patrick's Day by a banquet, to which the most distinguished men of the country have repeatedly been bidden. Immediately after the inauguration of Mr. Cleveland as President, on the 4th of March 1885, Mr. Bayard, the new Secretary of State of the United States, was invited by this Society to attend its one hundred and fourteenth banquet. It will be remembered that, on the 30th of May 1884, London had been startled and shocked by an explosion of dynamite in St. James's Square, which shattered many houses and inflicted cruel injuries upon several innocent people. It was not so fatal to life as that explosion at the Salford Barracks, which Mr. Parnell treated as a "practical joke." But it excited lively indignation on both sides of the Atlantic, and Mr. Bayard, who at that time was a Senator of the United States, sternly denounced it and its authors on the floor of the American Senate. What he had said as a Senator he thought it right to repeat as the Foreign Secretary of the United States in his reply to the invitation of the Hibernian Society in March 1885. This reply ran as follows:-- "WASHINGTON, D.C., _March_ 9, 1885. "NICHOLAS J. GRIFFIN, Esq., _Secretary of the Hibernian Society of Philadelphia._ "Dear Sir,--I have your personal note accompanying the card of invitation to dine with your ancient and honourable Society on their one hundred and fourteenth anniversary, St. Patrick's Day, and I sincerely regret that I cannot accept it. The obvious and many duties of my public office here speak for themselves, and to none with more force than to American citizens of Irish blood or birth who are honestly endeavouring to secure liberty by maintaining a government of laws, and who realise the constant attention that is needful. "In the midst of anarchical demonstrations which we witness in other lands, and the echoes of which we can detect even here in our own free country, where base and silly individuals seek to stain the name of Ireland by associating the honest struggle for just government with senseless and wicked crimes, there are none of our citizens from whom honest reprobation can be more confidently expected than from such as compose your respected and benevolent Society. Those who worthily celebrate the birthday[22] of St. Patrick will not forget that he drove out of Ireland the reptiles that creep and sting. "The Hibernian Society can contain no member who will not resent the implication that sympathy with assassins can dwell in a genuine Irish heart, which will ever be opposed to cruelty and cowardice, whatever form either may take. "Present to your Society my thanks for the kind remembrance, and assure them of the good-will and respect with which I am--Your obedient servant, T.F. BAYARD." What was the response of this Society, representing all the best elements of the Irish American population of the United States, to this letter of the Secretary of State, the highest executive officer of the American Government after the President, upon whom under an existing law the succession of the chief magistracy now devolves in the event of the death or disability of the President and the Vice-President? _The letter was not read at the banquet._ But it was given to the press by the officers of the Society, and the most influential Irish American newspaper in the United States did not hesitate to describe it as an "insulting letter," going to show that its author was "an Englishman in spirit who will not allow any opportunity to go by, however slight, without testifying his sympathy with the British Empire and his antipathy for its foes." This was capped by an American political journal which used the following language: "Lord Granville himself would hardly strike a more violent attitude against the dynamite section of the Irish people. When Lord Wolseley, whom it is proposed to make Governor-General of the Soudan, is offering a reward for the head of Ollivier Pain, it is hardly in good taste for an American Secretary of State to condemn so bitterly a class of Irishmen which, while it includes bad men no doubt, also includes men who are moved by as worthy motives as Lord Wolseley." In the face of this testimony to the "solidarity" of all branches of the Irish revolutionary movement in America, how can Mr. Parnell, or any other Parliamentary Irishman who depends upon Irish American support, be expected by men of sense to condemn in earnest "the dynamite section of the Irish people"? NOTE C. THE AMERICAN "SUSPECTS" OF 1881. (Prologue, p. xlvii.) In his recently published and very interesting _Life of Mr. Forster_, Mr. Wemyss Reid alludes to some action taken by the United States Government in the spring of 1882 as one of the determining forces which brought about the abandonment at that time by Mr. Gladstone of Mr. Forster's policy in Ireland. Without pretending to concern myself here with what is an essentially British question as between Mr. Forster and Mr. Gladstone, it may be both proper and useful for me to throw some light, not, perhaps, in the possession of Mr. Reid, upon the part taken in this matter by the American Government. Sir William Harcourt's "Coercion Bill" was passed on the 2d of March 1881, two days before the inauguration of General Garfield as President of the United States. Mr. Blaine, who was appointed by the new President to take charge of the Foreign Relations of the American Government, received, on the 10th of March, at Washington, a despatch written by Mr. Lowell, the American Minister in London, on the 26th of February, being the day after the third reading in the Commons of the "Coercion Bill." In this despatch Mr. Lowell called the attention of the American State Department to a letter from Mr. Parnell to the Irish National Land League, dated at Paris, February 13, 1881, in which Mr. Parnell attempted to make what Mr. Lowell accurately enough described as an "extraordinary" distinction between "the American people" and "the Irish nation in America." "This double nationality," said Mr. Lowell, "is likely to be of great practical inconvenience whenever the 'Coercion Bill' becomes law." By "this double nationality" in this passage, the American Minister, of course, meant "this claim of a double nationality;" for neither by Great Britain nor by the United States is any man permitted to consider himself at one and the same time a citizen of the American republic and a subject of the British monarchy. Nor was he quite right in anticipating "great practical inconvenience" from this "claim," upon which neither the British nor the American Government for a moment bestowed, or could bestow, the slightest attention. The "great practical inconvenience" which, first to the American Legation in England, then to the United States Government at Washington, and finally to the Cabinet of Mr. Gladstone, did, however, arise from the application of Sir William Harcourt's Coercion Act of 1881 to American citizens in Ireland, had its origin not in Mr. Parnell's preposterous idea of an Irish nationality existing in the United States, but in the failure of the authorities of the United States to deal promptly and firmly with the situation created for American citizens in Ireland by the administration of Sir William Harcourt's Act. As I have said, Sir William Harcourt's Act became law on the 2d of March 1881, two days before the inauguration of President Garfield at Washington. Without touching the question of the relations between Great Britain and Ireland, and between the British Parliament and the Irish National Land League, it was clearly incumbent upon the Secretary of State of the United States, who entered upon his duties three days after Sir William Harcourt's Bill went into force in Ireland, to inform himself minutely and exactly as to the possible effects of that Bill upon the rights and interests of American citizens travelling or sojourning in that country. This was due not only to his own Government and to its citizens, but to the relations which ought to exist between his own Government and the Government of Great Britain. It was no affair of an American Secretary of State either to impede or to further the execution of "Coercion Acts" in Ireland against British subjects. But it was his affair to ascertain without delay the nature and the measure of any new and unusual perils, or "inconveniences," to which American citizens in Ireland might be exposed in the execution there by the British authorities of such Acts. And it is on record, under his own hand, in a despatch to the American Minister in London, dated May 26, 1881, that Mr. Blaine had not so much as seen a copy of Sir William Harcourt's Coercion Act at that date, three months after it had gone into effect; three months after many persons claiming American citizenship had been arrested and imprisoned under it; and two months after his own official attention had been called by the American Minister in London, in an elaborate despatch, to the arrest under it of one such person, a man of Irish birth, who based his claim of American citizenship upon allegations of military service during the Civil War, of residence and citizenship in New York, and of the granting to him, by an American Secretary of State, of a citizen's passport. And when he did finally take the trouble to look at this Act, Mr. Elaine seems to have examined it so cursorily, and with such slight attention, that he overlooked a provision made in it, under which, had its true force and meaning been perceived by him, the State Department of the United States might, in the early summer of 1881, have secured for American citizens in Ireland the consideration due to them as the citizens of a friendly State. A curious despatch from Mr. Sackville West, the British Minister at Washington, to Earl Granville, published in a British Blue-book now in my possession, plainly intimates that in the summer of 1881 the American Secretary of State had given the British Minister to understand that no representations made to him or to his Government by the Government of the United States touching American-Irish "suspects" need be taken at all seriously. The whole diplomatic correspondence on this subject which went on between the two Governments while Mr. Blaine was Secretary of State, from the 4th of March 1881 to the 20th of December 1881, was of a sort to lull the British Government into the belief that "suspects" might be freely and safely arrested and locked up all over Ireland, with no more question of their nationality than of any evidence to establish their guilt or their innocence. During the whole of that time the State Department at Washington seems to have substantially remained content with the declaration of Earl Granville, in a letter sent to the American Legation on the 8th of July 1881, four months after the Coercion Act went into effect, that "no distinction could be made in the circumstances between foreigners and British subjects, and that in the case of British subjects the only information given was that contained in the warrant." No fault can be found with the British Government for standing by this declaration so long as it thus seemed to command the assent of the Government of the United States. But when Mr. Frelinghuysen was called into the State Department by President Arthur in December 1881, to overhaul the condition into which our foreign relations had been brought by his predecessor, he found that in no single instance had Mr. Blaine succeeded in inducing the British Government, either to release any American citizen arrested under a general warrant without specific charges of criminal conduct, and on "suspicion" in Ireland, or to order the examination of any such citizen. The one case in which an American citizen arrested under the Coercion Act in Ireland during Mr. Blaine's tenure of office had been liberated when Mr. Frelinghuysen took charge of the State Department, was that of Mr. Joseph B. Walsh, arrested at Castlebar, in Mayo, March 8, 1881, and discharged by order of the Lord-Lieutenant, October 21, 1881, not because he was an American citizen, nor after any examination, but expressly and solely on the ground of ill-health. When Mr. Frelinghuysen became Secretary of State in December 1881 the Congress of the United States was in session. So numerous were the American "suspects" then lying in prison in Ireland, some of whom had been so confined for many months, that the doors of Congress were soon besieged by angry demands for an inquiry into the subject. A resolution in this sense was adopted by the House of Representatives, and forwarded, through the American Legation in London, to the British Foreign Office. Memorials touching particular cases were laid before both Houses of the American Congress. On the 10th of February 1882, Mr. Bancroft Davis, the Assistant-Secretary of State, instructed the American Minister at London to take action concerning one such case, and to report upon it. The Minister not moving more rapidly than he had been accustomed to do under Mr. Blaine, Mr. Davis grew impatient, and on the 2d of March 1882 (being the anniversary of the adoption of the Coercion Act in England) the American Secretary of State cabled to the Minister in London significantly enough, "Use all diligence in regard to the late cases, especially of Hart and M'Sweeney, and report by cable." Mr. Lowell replied the next day, giving the views in regard to Hart of the American Vice-Consul, and of the British Inspector of Police at Queenstown, and adding an expression of his own opinion that neither Hart nor M'Sweeney was "more innocent than the majority of those under arrest." This was an unfortunate despatch. It roused the American Secretary of State into responding instantly by cable in the following explicit and emphatic terms: "Referring to the cases of O'Connor, Hart, M'Sweeney, M'Enery, and D'Alton, American citizens imprisoned in Ireland, say to Lord Granville that, without discussing whether the provisions of the Force Act can be applied to American citizens, the President hopes that the Lord-Lieutenant will be instructed to exercise the powers intrusted to him by the first section to order early trials in these and all other cases in which Americans may be arrested." There was no mistaking the tone of this despatch. It was instantly transmitted to the British Foreign Secretary, who replied the same day that "the matter would receive the immediate attention of Her Majesty's Government." The reference made to the Coercion Act by Mr. Frelinghuysen touched a plain and precise provision, that persons detained under the Act "should not be discharged or tried by any court without the direction of the Lord-Lieutenant." Had the Coercion Act received from Mr. Blaine in March 1881 the attention bestowed upon it in March 1882 by Mr. Frelinghuysen, this provision might have been used to obviate the dangerous accumulation of injustice to individuals, and of international irritation, resulting from the application to possibly innocent foreign citizens in Ireland of the despotic powers conferred by that Act upon Mr. Gladstone's Government, powers as nearly as possible analogous with those which Mr. Gladstone himself, years before, had denounced in unmeasured terms when they were claimed and exercised by the Government of Naples in dealing with its own subjects. After the consideration by Her Majesty's Government of this despatch of the United States Government, it is understood in America that Mr. Forster, as Chief Secretary for Ireland, was invited to communicate with the Lord-Lieutenant, and request him to exercise his discretion in the sense desired, and that Mr. Forster positively refused to do this. How this may be I do not pretend to say. But as no satisfactory reply was made to the American despatch, and as public feeling in the United States grew daily more and more determined that a stop should be put to the unexplained arrest and the indefinite detention of American citizens in Ireland, the American Secretary of State made up his mind towards the end of the month of March to repeat his despatch of March 3d in a more terse and peremptory form. As a final preliminary to this step, however, Mr. Frelinghuysen was induced to avail himself of the unusual and officious intervention of his most distinguished living predecessor in the State Department, Mr. Hamilton Fish. After measuring the gravity of the situation, Mr. Fish at the end of March sent a despatch to an eminent public man, well known on both sides of the Atlantic, and now resident in London, with authority to show it personally to Mr. Gladstone, to the effect that if any further delay occurred in complying with the moderate and reasonable demand of the American Government for the immediate release or the immediate trial of the American "suspects," the relations between Great Britain and the United States would be very seriously "strained." This despatch was at once communicated to Mr. Gladstone. Within the week, the liberation was announced of six American "suspects." Within a fortnight, Mr. Parnell, Mr. O'Kelly, and Mr. Dillon, it is understood, imprisoned members of Parliament, were offered their liberty if they would consent to a sham exile on the Continent for a few weeks, or even days; and within a month Mr. Forster, in his place in Parliament, was imputing to his late chief and Premier the negotiation of that celebrated "Treaty of Kilmainham," which was repudiated with equal warmth by the three Irish members already named, and by Mr. Gladstone. NOTE D. THE PARNELLITES AND THE ENGLISH PARTIES. (Prologue, p. 1.) As I am not writing a history of English parties, I need not discuss here the truth or falsehood of this contention. But I cannot let it pass without a word as to two cases which came under my own observation, and which aggravate the inherent improbability of the tale. In November 1885 I went to America, and on my way passed through Stockport, where my friend, Mr. Jennings, long my correspondent in England, was then standing as a Conservative candidate. I attended one of his meetings and heard him make an effective speech, much applauded, which turned exclusively upon imperial and financial issues. That he had no understanding whatever with the "managers" of the Irish vote in Stockport, I have the best reason to believe. But he was assured by them that the Irish intended to vote for him; and at a subsequent time he was rashly assailed in the House of Commons by an Irish member with the charge that he had broken faith with the Irish who elected him. It was an unlucky assault for the assailant, as it gave Mr. Jennings an opportunity, which he promptly improved, to show that he owed nothing to the Irish voters of Stockport. Whether they voted for him in any number in 1885 was more than doubtful; while in 1886 they voted solidly against him, with the result of swelling his majority from 369 to 518 votes. In January 1886 I returned to Europe, and going on a visit into Yorkshire, there met a prominent Irish Nationalist, who told me that he had come into the north of England expressly to regiment the Irish voters, and throw their votes for the Conservative candidates, on the ground that it was necessary to make the Liberals fully understand their power. He had fully expected in this way to elect a Conservative member for the city of York. Great was his chagrin, therefore, when he found the Liberal candidate returned. Upon investigation he discovered, as he told me, that the catastrophe was due to the activity of a local Irish priest, _who was a devoted Fenian_, utterly opposed to the Parliamentary programme, and who had exerted his authority over the local Irish to bring them to the polls for the Liberal candidate. Sir Frederick Milner, Bart., the defeated Conservative candidate for York, afterwards told me that the local priest referred to here was a most excellent man, and that so far from playing the part thus ascribed to him, he took the trouble, as a matter of fair dealing, to see his parishioners on the morning of the election and warn them against believing a pamphlet which was sedulously circulated among the Irish voters on the night before the polling, with a message to the effect that Sir Frederick despised the Irish, and wanted nothing to do with them or their votes. Sir Frederick has no doubt, from his knowledge of what occurred during the canvass, that direct instructions were sent by Mr. Parnell or his agents to the Irish voters in York to throw their votes against the Radical candidates. These latter brought down a Home Rule lecturer to counteract the effect of these instructions, and the pamphlet above referred to was an eleventh-hour blow in the same interest. It was successful; the Irish votes, some 500 in number, being polled early in the morning under the impression produced by it. The moral of this incident would seem to be, not that there was any real understanding in 1885 between the Parnellites and the English Conservatives at all, but simply that the English Radical wirepullers are more alert and active than either the Irish Parnellites or the English Conservatives. It is interesting, too, as it illustrates the deep dread and distrust of the "Fenians" in which the Parnellites habitually go. NOTE E. THE "BOYCOTT" AT MILTOWN-MALBAY. (Vol. i. p. 209.) Father White of Miltown-Malbay, taking exception to the statement made by me, upon the authority of Colonel Turner, that he was "the moving spirit" of the local "boycott" of policemen and soldiers at that place, addressed a note to Colonel Turner on the 5th of September, in which he desired to know whether Colonel Turner, had given me grounds for making this statement. To this note Colonel Turner tells me he returned at once the following reply, which he kindly forwards to me for publication:-- "ENNIS, _6th September_ 1888. "REV. SIR,--I am in receipt of your letter of yesterday, and in reply thereto beg to state that I informed Mr. Hurlbert that you said 'in open court' that you had directed (I believe from the altar) that the town was to be 'made as a city of the dead' during the trials of 23 publicans who were charged for conspiracy in boycotting the forces of the Crown who had been employed in preserving the peace on the occasion of a former trial--this you said you did in the interests of peace. The magistrates, however, took a different view, viz., that it was done with the object of preventing the military and police from obtaining any supplies, which they were unable to do; and that their view was the correct one was proved by the fact that half of the accused pleaded guilty to the offence, and on promise of future good behaviour were allowed out on their own recognisances. That the people followed your instructions on that day, coupled with the fact that in your letter to the _Freeman's Journal_, dated 17th March of this year, you stated that you offered me peace all round on certain conditions, thereby showing that at least you consider yourself possessed of authority to bring about a state of peace or otherwise, probably led Mr. Hurlbert, to whom I showed a copy of this letter, to infer that you admitted that you were the moving spirit of all this 'local boycott,' while you only did so in the particular case above mentioned. Whether Mr. Hurlbert is correct in drawing the inference he does as to your being the moving spirit, and as to your conduct, may perhaps be gathered from the numerous numbers of _United Ireland_ and other papers which he saw giving reports of illegal meetings of the suppressed branch of the Miltown-Malbay National League, at which you were stated to have presided, and at some of which condemnatory resolutions were passed, and also from the fact that you are reported to have presided at a meeting on Sunday, April 8, which was held at Miltown-Malbay in defiance of Government proclamation.--I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully, ALFRED E. TURNER. "Rev. P. White, P.P., Miltown-Malbay." On further investigation of his records, Colonel Turner found it necessary to follow up this letter with another, a copy of which, through his courtesy, I subjoin:-- "ENNIS, _10th September_ 1888. "REV. SIR,--A slight inaccuracy has been pointed out to me in my letter to you of the 6th inst., which I hasten to correct. It occurred in transcribing my letter from the original draft. I should have said that I told Mr. Hurlbert that you stated in open court, at the trial of 23 publicans charged with boycotting the forces of the Crown on the occasion of a former trial, that you had told the people (I believe from the altar) that the town was to be made as a city of the dead during the former trial; and that in consequence the soldiers and police could get nothing to eat or drink in Miltown that day. "I also told him that this boycotting of the police was by no means new, since on the 13th March 1887, at a meeting of the Miltown-Malbay branch of the League at which you are reported to have presided, in _United Ireland_ of 19/3/87, the following resolution was unanimously adopted:-- "'That from this day any person who supplies the police while engaged in work which is opposed to the wishes of the people with drink, food, or cars, be censured by this branch, and that no further intercourse be held with them.' "I regret that through inadvertence I have had to trouble you with a second letter.--I am, Rev. Sir, yours faithfully, "ALFRED E. TURNER. "Rev. P. White, P.P." [1] Vol. ii. p. 376. [2] Vol. ii. p. 364-370. [3] The exasperation of the local agitators under the cool and determined treatment of Mr. Tener may be measured by the facts stated in the following communication received by me from Mr. Tener on the 20th of September. I leave them to speak for themselves:-- "POLICE BARRACKS, WOODFORD, _17th Sept._ 1888. "DEAR MR. HURLBERT,--I enclose you _a printed_ placard found posted up in Woodford district on Sunday morning the 9th inst. It alludes to _tenants_ who had paid me their rent,--and broken the 'unwritten law of the League.' All the men named are now in great danger. The police force of the district has been increased--for their protection; but the police are very anxious about their safety! "I send you also a _pencil_ copy taken from a more _perfect_ placard which the police preserve. John White or Whyte is the tenant whose name I already have given you. He is the tall dark man whom you saw (with an ex-bailiff) at Portumna. He was then an "Evicted Tenant." He has since been, on payment of his rent, restored to his farm by me. And now, as you see in the placard, he is held up to the vengeance of the "League of Hell," as P.J. Smyth called it.--Yours, etc. "ED. TENER. "_P.S._--The evictions were finished on the 1st of September, and on the 9th (_after_ it became known that the men whose names are in the placard had paid) the placard was issued." _(Placard.)_ "IRISHMEN!--Need we say in the face of the desperate Battle the People are making for their Hearths and Homes that the time has come for every HONEST MAN, trader and otherwise, to extend a helping hand to the MEN in the GAP. You may ask, How will that be done? The answer is plain. "Let those who have become traitors to their neighbours and their Country be shunned as if they were possessed by a devil. Let no man buy from them or sell to them, let no man work for them. Leave them to Tener and his Emergency gang. The following are a few of the greatest traitors and meanest creatures that ever walked--John Whyte, of Dooras; Fahey (of the hill) of Dooras; big Anthony Hackett, of Rossmore; Tom Moran, of Rossmore! Your Country calls on you to treat them as they deserve. Bravo Woodford! Remember Tom Larkin!--'GOD SAVE IRELAND!'" [4] Appendix, Note A. [5] Appendix, Note B. [6] Appendix, Note C. [7] Appendix, Note D. [8] Since this was written fifteen Catholic bishops in England, headed by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, have united (April 12, 1888) in a public protest against the Optional Oaths Bill, in which they say: "To efface the recognition of God in our public legislature is an act which will surely bring evil consequences." Yet how can the recognition of God be more effectually "effaced" than by the unqualified assertion that the will of the people, or of a majority, is the one legitimate source of political authority? [9] Mr. Blair was then a member of the Lincoln Cabinet, and its "fighting member." [10] Mr. Quill stated that the Savings-Banks deposits increased in Ireland during 1887 eight per cent. more than in thrifty Scotland, and _forty per cent._ more than in England and Wales! [11] This was the Provost's last appearance in public. He died rather suddenly a few weeks afterwards. [12] In the Census of 1880 it appears that of 255,741 farms in Illinois, 59,624 were held on the métayer system, pronounced by Toubeau the worst of systems, and 20,620 on a money rental. [13] I have since learned that Father M'Fadden sold another holding, rental 6s. 8d., for £80. He has three more holdings from Captain Hill, at 15s., 6s. 8d., and 11s. 2d., for which he was in arrears for two years in April 1887, when ejectment decrees were obtained against him. For his house holding he pays 2s. a year! So he was really fighting his own battle as a tenant in the Plan of Campaign. [14] Yet of Connemara, Cardinal Manning, in his letter to the Archbishop of Armagh, August 31, 1873, cites the "trust-worthy" evidence of "an Englishman who had raised himself from the plough's tail," and who had gone "to see with his own eyes the material condition of the peasantry in Ireland." It was to the effect that in abundance and quality of food, in rate of wages, and even if the comfort of their dwellings, the working men of Connemara were better off than the agricultural labourers of certain English counties. [15] For this holding, of 10 Irish acres, I have since learned the widow O'Donnell pays 10s. a year. She is in the receipt of outdoor relief, there being fever in the house (May 1888). [16] This "townland" is a curious use of a Saxon term to describe a Celtic fact. The territory of an Irish sept seems to have been divided up into "townlands," each townland consisting of four, or in some cases six, groups of holdings, occupied by as many families of the "sept." The chief of the "sept" divided up each "townland" periodically among these groups, while the common fields were cut up among the families as they increased and multiplied according to the system--against which Lord George Hill battled at Gweedore--known as "rimdale" or "rundeal," from the Celtic, "ruindioll," a "partition" or "man's share." This is quite unlike the Russian "mir" or collective village, and not more like the South Slav "zadruga" which makes each family a community, the land belonging to all, as, according to M. Eugene Simon, it does in China. But it is as inconsistent with Henry George's State ownership of the land or the rents as either of those systems. [17] From a question just asked (July 12) in the House of Commons, and answered by the Postmaster-General, I gather that this "local question" has been further complicated by the removal of Mr. Sweeney, the sub-postmaster, under an official regulation. [18] The incident occurred in Clare. See p. 45. [19] Or they may date back to the Parliament of Grattan, who wrote to Mr. Guinness that he regarded the brewery of Ireland as "the actual nurse of the people, and entitled to every encouragement, favour, and exemption." [20] This refers, I am told, to the murder, in open daylight, in 1881, of an old man, Linnane, who acted as a "caretaker" for Mrs. Moroney. It should gratify Father White to know that, as I am now informed (May 21, 1888), a clue has just been found to the assassins, who appear to have received the same price for doing their work that was paid the murderers of Fitzmaurice. [21] Mrs. Moroney, so often referred to here, is the widow of a gentleman formerly High Sheriff and Deputy-Lieutenant for the County Clare, who died in 1870. She lives at Milton House, and has fought the local League steadily and successfully. 
14511	----	IRELAND UNDER COERCION THE DIARY OF AN AMERICAN BY WILLIAM HENRY HURLBERT VOL. II. _SECOND EDITION._ 1888 "Upon the future of Ireland hangs the future of the British Empire." CARDINAL MANNING TO EARL GREY, 1868 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAPTER VII. Rossbehy, Feb. 21, 1 The latest eviction at Glenbehy, 1 Trafalgar Square, 1, 2 Father Little, 3 Mr. Frost, 3, 4 Priest and landlord, 3 Savings Banks' deposits at Six-mile Bridge, 5 Drive through Limerick, 5 Population and trade, 5, 6 Boycotting and commerce, 6, 7 Shores of the Atlantic, 7 Tralee, 7 Killorglin, 8 Hostelry in the hills, 8 Facts of the eviction, 9-13 Glenbehy Eviction Fund (see Note G2), 12 A walk on Washington's birthday, 13 A tenant at Glenbehy offers £13 in two instalments in full for £240 arrears, 13 English and Irish members, 14 "Winn's Folly," 15 Acreage and rental of the Glenbehy estate, 16 Work of eviction begun, 17 Patience of officers, 17 American and Irish evictions contrasted, 17 "Oh, he's quite familiar," 18 A modest Poor Law Guardian, 18, 19 Moonlighters' swords, 20 Father Quilter and the "poor slaves," his people, 21,22 Beauty of Lough Caragh, 23 Difficulty of getting evidence, 25 Effects of terrorism in Kerry, 25 Singular identification of a murderer, 26 Local administration in Tralee, 28 CHAPTER VIII. Cork, Feb. 23, 30 Press accounts of Glenbehy evictions astonish an eye-witness, 30 Castle Island, 31 Mr. Roche and Mr. Gladstone, 31 Opinions of a railway traveller, 31, 32 Misrepresentations of evictions, 32 Cork, past and present, 34 Mr. Gladstone and the Dean, 35 League Courts in Kerry, 36 Local Law Lords, 36 Mr. Colomb and the Fenian rising in 1867, 37 Remarkable letter of an M.P., 38 Irish Constabulary, _morale_ of the force, 40 The clergy and the Plan of Campaign, 41 Municipal history, 43 Increase of public burdens, 44 Tralee Board of Guardians, 46 Labourers and tenants, 46 Feb. 25, 47 Boycotting, 47-49 Land law and freedom of contract, 49 Rivalry between Limerick and Cork, 50 Henry VIII. and the Irish harp, 50 Municipal Parliamentary franchise, 51 Environs of Cork, 52 Churches and chapels, 53 Attractive home at Belmullet, 54 Lord Carnarvon and the Priest, 55 Feb. 26, 56 Blarney Castle, 56, 57 St. Anne's Hill, 56, 57 An evicted woman on "the Plan," 59 The Ponsonby estate, 59 Feb. 27--A day at Youghal, 60 Father Keller, 61-76 On emigration and migration, 66 Protestants and Catholics (see Note G3), 68 Meath as a field for peasant proprietors, 69 Ghost of British protection, 70 A farmer evicted from a tenancy of 200 years, 71 Sir Walter Raleigh's house and garden, 71-73 Churches of St. Mary of Youghal and St. Nicholas of Galway, 73 Monument and churchyard, 73, 74 An Elizabethan candidate for canonisation, 75 Drive to Lismore, 76 Driver's opinions on the Ponsonby estates, 77 Dromaneen Castle and the Countess of Desmond, 78 Trappist Monastery at Cappoquin, 78 Lismore, 78, 79 Castle grounds and cathedral, 79, 80 CHAPTER IX. Feb. 28, 82 Portumna, Galway, 82 Run through Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Queen's and King's County to Parsonstown, 82 A Canadian priest on the situation, 83 His reply to M. de Mandat Grancey, 83 Relations of priests with the League, 83-85 Parsonstown and Lord Rosse, 86 Drive to Portumna, 87 An abandoned railway, 88 American storms, grain, and beasts, 88, 89 Portumna Castle, 90, 91 Lord Clanricarde's estate, 92 Mr. Tener, 92-128 Plan of Campaign, 94-99 Ability of tenants to pay their rents, 95 Mr. Dillon in 1886, 96 Mr. Parnell in 1885, 97 Tenants in greater danger than landlords and agents, 100 Feb. 29, 100 Conference between evicted tenants and agent, 100-106 Castle and park, 107 The League shopkeeper and tenant, 108 Under police escort, 109 Cost of 'knocking' a man, 109 What constitutes a group, 110 Favourite spots for administering a League oath, 110 Disbursing treasurers, 111 Change of venue, 111 Bishop of Clonfert, 112-115 Bector of Portumna, 115 Father Coen, 116 Coercion on the part of the League, 118-121 Deposits in banks, 120 Should landlords and shopkeepers be placed on one footing? 121 New Castle of Portumna, 122 Portumna Union, 123, 124 Troubles of resident landlords, 125-127 Effects of the agitation on the people, 124 War against property and private rights, 127 Mr. Tener's experiences in Cavan, 127-130 Similar cases in Leitrim, 130-132 Sale of rents and value of tenant-right, 133, 134 CHAPTER X. Dublin, March 1, 135 Portumna to Woodford, 135 Evictions of October 1887, 135 Capture of Cloondadauv Castle, 137-141 A tenant and a priest, 141-144 Workmen's wages in Massachusetts compared with the profits of a tenant farmer in Ireland, 146 Loughrea, 148, 149 Murder of Finlay, 150, 151 The chrysoprase Lake of Loughrea, 154 Lord Clanricarde's estate office, acreage, and rental, 155 Woodford acreage and rental, 155,156 Drive from Loughrea to Woodlawn, 156-160 A Galway "jarvey" on the situation, 156-159 Woodlawn and the Ashtown property, 160 CHAPTER XI. Borris, March 2, 161 Mr. Kavanagh, 161-163 Borris House, 163-167 A living Banshee, 165, 166 Land Corporation--its mode of working, 167 Meeting in Dublin, 1885, 168 Rev. Mr. Cantwell, 168 Lord Lansdowne's property at Luggacurren, 169 Mr. Kavanagh's career, 170 Books and papers at Borris, 171 Strongbow, 172 "The five bloods," 172, 173 Genealogy of M'Morroghs and Kavanaghs, 173 March 4, 174 Protestant service read every morning, 174 A Catholic gentleman's views, 175 Relation of tenants to village despots, 176 Would America make a State of Ireland? 177 Land Acts since 1870, 178 The O'Grady of Kilballyowen and his rental, 179 Dispute with his tenants: its cause and effect, 180 His circular to his tenantry, 181-186 CHAPTER XII. Grenane House, March 5, 187 Visit to Mr. Seigne, 187 Beautiful situation of Grenane, 189 A lady of the country, 189 Mr. Seigne's experience of the tenants, 191-194 The beauty of Woodstock, 194-198 The watch of Waterloo, 197-200 Curious discovery of stolen property, 200 Dublin, March 6, 200 State of deposits in the Savings Banks, 200-201 Interest on "Plan of Campaign" funds, 202 CHAPTER XIII. Dublin, March 8, 203 Inch and the Coolgreany evictions, 203 Sweet vale of Avoca, 204 Dr. Dillon of Arklow, 204 Fathers O'Neill and Dunphy, 205, 206 Mr. Davitt watching the evictions, 207 Lazy and thriftless tenants better off than before, 209 A self-made committee, 211 The Brooke estate, 212 Sir Thomas Esmonde's house, 213 An Arklow dinner, 214 Dr. Dillon in his study, 215-217 Visit to Glenart Castle, 217 CHAPTER XIV. Dublin, March 9, 219 Athy, 219 A political jarvey, 220-225 "Who is Mr. Gilhooly?" 221 Lord Lansdowne's offer refused through pressure of the League, 226 Mr. Kilbride, M.P., and Mr. Dunne, 226-228 Lord Lansdowne's estate in Kerry, 228-231 Plan of Campaign at Luggacurren, 231-236 Interview with Father Maher, 236-239 A "jarvey" on a J.P., 240 "Railway amenities," 241 Dublin, March 10, 242 Mr. Brooke, 242-248 Unreasonable tenants, 243, 244 Size and rental of estate, 246 Sub-commissioner's reduction reversed, 246, 247 CHAPTER XV. Maryborough, 249 Archbishop Croke, 249 Interviews with labourers, 251-253 Views of a successful country teacher, 254, 255 A veteran of the '48, 256-260 Amount of wages to men, 261 The farmers and labourers and lawyers, 264, 265 Dublin, June 23, 268 Mr. Hamilton Stubber and Mr. Robert Staples, 268-270 From Attanagh to Ballyragget, 270 Case of "a little-good-for tenant," 271, 272 Mr. Kough and his tenants, 273-277 Mr. Richardson of Castle Comer, 277 Position of the tenants, 282 £70 a year for whisky, 282 Kilkenny Castle, 282 Mr. Rolleston of Delgany, 283-292 John O'Leary, 285-292 Boycotting private opinion, 292 The League as now conducted, 295 Poems and Ballads of "Young Ireland," 296 Law Courts and Trinity College, 297 American Civil War, 299-302 Dublin, June 24, 302 A dinner with officials, 303-306 A priest earns over £20,000, 305, 306 "Crowner's Quest Law," 309-311 CHAPTER XVI. Belfast, June 25, 313 Ulster in Irish history, 313 Moira, 315 Views of an Ulsterman, 315, 316 Beauty of Belfast, 317, 318 Its buildings, 319-321 Dr. Hanna, 322-324 Dr. Kane, 325 June 26, 326 Sir John Preston, 326-328 Mr. Cameron, of Royal Irish Constabulary, 328 Police parade, 328 Belfast steamers, 329 Scotland and America at work on Ireland, 330 EPILOGUE, p. 333-349 APPENDIX. NOTES-- F. The Moonlighters and Home Rule (pp. 10, 38), 351 G. The Ponsonby Property (pp. 59-66), 353 G2 The Glenbehy Eviction Fund (p. 12), 360 G3 Home Rule and Protestantism (p. 68), 362 H. Tully and the Woodford Evictions (p. 149), 364 H2. Boycotting the Dead (p. 151), 370 I. The Savings Banks (P.O.) (vol. i. p. 39, vol. ii. pp. 5 and 200), 371 K. The Coolgreany Evictions (p. 216), 372 L. A Ducal Supper in 1711 (p. 283), 374 M. Letter from Mr. O'Leary (p. 291), 375 N. Boycotting Private Opinion (p. 293), 377 O. Boycotting by Crowner's Quest Law (p. 312), 382 CHAPTER VII. ROSSBEHY,[1] _Feb. 21._--We are here on the eve of battle! An "eviction" is to be made to-morrow on the Glenbehy[1] estate of Mr. Winn, an uncle of Lord Headley, so upon the invitation of Colonel Turner, who has come to see that all is done decently and in order, I left Ennis with him at 7.40 A.M. for Limerick; the "city of the Liberator" for "the city of the Broken Treaty." There we breakfasted at the Artillery Barracks. The officers showed us there the new twelve-pounder gun with its elaborately scientific machinery, its Scotch sight, and its four-mile range. I compared notes about the Trafalgar Square riots of February 1886 with an Irish officer who happened to have been on the opposite side of Pall Mall from me at the moment when the mob, getting out of the hand of my socialistic friend Mr. Hyndman, and advancing towards St. James' Street and Piccadilly was broken by a skilful and very spirited charge of the police. He gave a most humorous account of his own sensations when he first came into contact with the multitude after emerging from St. Paul's, where, as he put it, he had left the people "all singing away like devils." But I found he quite agreed with me in thinking that there was a visible nucleus of something like military organisation in the mob of that day, which was overborne and, as it were, smothered by the mere mob element before it came to trying conclusions with the police. On our way to Limerick, Colonel Turner caught sight, at a station, of Father Little, the parish priest of Six Mile Bridge, in County Clare, and jumping out of the carriage invited him to get in and pursue his journey with us, which he very politely did. Father Little is a tall fine-looking man of a Saxon rather than a Celtic type, and I daresay comes of the Cromwellian stock. He is a staunch and outspoken Nationalist, and has been made rather prominent of late by his championship of certain of his parishioners in their contest with their landlord, Mr. H.V. D'Esterre, who lives chiefly at Bournemouth in England, but owns 2833 acres in County Clare at Rosmanagher, valued at £1625 a year. More than a year ago one of Father Little's parishioners, Mr. Frost, successfully resisted a large force of the constabulary bent on executing a process of ejectment against him obtained by Mr. D'Esterre. Frost's holding was of 33 Irish, or, in round numbers, about 50 English, acres, at a rental of £117, 10s., on which he had asked but had not obtained an abatement. The Poor-Law valuation of the holding was £78, and Frost estimated the value of his and his father's improvements, including the homestead and the offices, or in other words his tenant-right, at £400. The authorities sent a stronger body of constables and ejected Frost. But as soon as they had left the place Frost came back with his family, on the 28th Jan. 1887, and reoccupied it. Of course proceedings were taken against him immediately, and a small war was waged over the Frost farm until the 5th of September last, when an expedition was sent against it, and it was finally captured, and Frost evicted with his family. Upon this last occasion Father Little (who gave me a very temperate but vigorous account of the whole affair) distinguished himself by a most ingenious and original attempt to "hold the fort." He chained himself to the main doorway, and stretching the chains right and left secured them to two other doors. It was of this refreshing touch of humour that I heard the other day at Abbeyleix as happening not in Clare but in Kerry. Since his eviction Frost has been living, Father Little tells me, in a wooden hut put up for him on the lands of a kinsman of the same name, who is also a tenant of Mr. D'Esterre, and who has since been served by his landlord with a notice of ejectment for arrears, although he had paid up six months' dues two months only before the service. Father Little charged the landlord in this case with prevarication and other evasive proceedings in the course of his negotiations with the tenants; and Colonel Turner did not contest the statements made by him in support of his contention that the Rosmanagher difficulty might have been avoided had the tenants been more fairly and more considerately dealt with. It is strong presumptive evidence against the landlord that a kinsman, Mr. Robert D'Esterre, is one of the subscribers to a fund raised by Father Little in aid of the evicted man Frost. On the other hand, as illustrating the condition of the tenants, it is noteworthy that the Post-Office Savings Bank's deposits at Six-Mile Bridge rose from £382, 17s. 10d. in 1880 to £934, 13s. 4d. in 1887. After breakfast we took a car and drove rapidly about the city for an hour. With its noble river flowing through the very heart of the place, and broadening soon into an estuary of the Atlantic, Limerick ought long ago to have taken its place in the front rank of British ports dealing with the New World. In the seventeenth century it was the fourth city of Ireland, Boate putting it then next after Dublin, Galway, and Waterford. Belfast at that time, he describes as a place hardly comparable "to a small market-town in England." To-day Limerick has a population of some forty thousand, and Belfast a population of more than two hundred thousand souls. This change cannot be attributed solely, if at all, to the "Protestant ascendency," nor yet to the alleged superiority of the Northern over the Southern Irish in energy and thrift, For in the seventeenth century Limerick was more important than Cork, whereas it had so far fallen behind its Southern competitor in the eighteenth century that it contained in 1781 but 3859 houses, while Cork contained 5295. To-day its population is about half as large as that of Cork. It is a very well built city, its main thoroughfare, George Street, being at least a mile in length, and a picturesque city also, thanks to the island site of its most ancient quarter, the English Town, and to the hills of Clare and Killaloe, which close the prospect of the surrounding country. But the streets, though many of them are handsome, have a neglected look, as have also the quays and bridges. One of my companions, to whom I spoke of this, replied, "if they look neglected, it's because they are neglected. Politics are the death of the place, and the life of its publics."[2] As we approached the shores of the Atlantic from Limerick, the scenery became very grand and beautiful. On the right of the railway the country rolled and undulated away towards the Stacks, amid the spurs and slopes of which, in the wood of Clonlish, Sanders, the Nuncio sent over to organise Catholic Ireland against Elizabeth, miserably perished of want and disease six years before the advent of the great Armada. To the south-west rose the grand outlines of the Macgillicuddy's Reeks, the highest points, I believe, in the South of Ireland. We established ourselves at the County Kerry Club on our arrival in Tralee, which I found to be a brisk prosperous-looking town, and quite well built. A Nationalist member once gave me a gloomy notion of Tralee, by telling me, when I asked him whether he looked forward with longing to a seat in the Parliament of Ireland, that "when he was in Dublin now he always thought of London, just as when he used to be in Tralee he always thought of Dublin." But he did less than justice to the town upon the Lee. We left it at half-past four in the train for Killorglin. The little station there was full of policemen and soldiers, and knots of country people stood about the platform discussing the morrow. There had been some notion that the car-drivers at Killorglin might "boycott" the authorities. But they were only anxious to turn an honest penny by bringing us on to this lonely but extremely neat and comfortable hostelry in the hills. We left the Sheriff and the escort to find their way as best they could after us. Mrs. Shee, the landlady here, ushered us into a very pretty room hung with little landscapes of the country, and made cheery by a roaring fire. Two or three officers of the soldiers sent on here to prevent any serious uproar to-morrow dined with us. The constabulary are in force, but in great good humour. They have no belief that there will be any trouble, though all sorts of wild tales were flying about Tralee before we left, of English members of Parliament coming down to denounce the "Coercion" law, and of risings in the hills, and I know not what besides. The agent of the Winn property, or of Mr. Head of Reigate in Surrey, the mortgagee of the estate, who holds a power of attorney from Mr. Winn, is here, a quiet, intelligent young man, who has given me the case in a nut-shell. The tenant to be evicted, James Griffin, is the son and heir of one Mrs. Griffin, who on the 5th of April 1854 took a lease of the lands known as West Lettur from the then Lord Headley and the Hon. R. Winn, at the annual rent of £32, 10s. This rent has since been reduced by a judicial process to £26. In 1883 James Griffin, who was then, as he is now, an active member of the local branch of the National League, and who was imprisoned under Mr. Gladstone's Act of 1881 as a "suspect," was evicted, being then several years in arrears. He re-entered unlawfully immediately afterwards, and has remained in West Lettur unlawfully ever since, actively deterring and discouraging other tenants from paying their rents. He took a great part in promoting the refusal to pay which led to the famous evictions of last year. As to these, it seems the tenants had agreed, in 1886, to accept a proposition from Mr. Head, remitting four-fifths of all their arrears upon payment of one year's rent and costs. Mr. Sheehan, M.P., a hotel-keeper in Killarney, intervened, advising the tenants that the Dublin Parliament would soon be established, and would abolish "landlordism," whereupon they refused to keep their agreement.[3] Sir Redvers Buller, who then filled the post now held by Sir West Ridgway, seeing this alarming deadlock, urged Mr. Head to go further, and offer to take a half-year's rent and costs. If the tenants refused this Sir Redvers advised Mr. Head to destroy all houses occupied by mere trespassers, such as Griffin, who, if they could hold a place for twelve years, would acquire a title under the Statute of Limitations. A negotiation conducted by Sir Redvers and Father Quilter, P.P., followed, and Father Quilter, for the tenants, finally, in writing, accepted Mr. Head's offer, under which, by the payment of £865, they would be rid of a legal liability for £6177. The League again intervened with bribes and threats, and Father Quilter found himself obliged to write to Colonel Turner a letter in which he said, "Only seventeen of the seventy tenants have sent on their rents to Mr. Roe (the agent). Though promising that they would accept the terms, they have withdrawn at the last moment from fulfilment.... I shall never again during my time in Glenbehy interfere between a landlord and his tenants. I have poor slaves who will not keep their word. Now let Mr. Roe or any other agent in future deal with Glenbeighans as he likes." The farms lie at a distance even from this inn, and very far therefore from Killorglin, and the agent, knowing that the tenants would be encouraged by Griffin and by Mr. Harrington, M.P., and others, to come back into their holdings as soon as the officers withdrew, ordered the woodwork of several cottages to be burned in order to prevent this. This burning of the cottages, which were the lawful property of the mortgagee, made a great figure in the newspaper reports, and "scandalised the civilised world." The present agent thinks it was impolitic on that account, but he has no doubt it was a good thing financially for the evicted tenants. "You will see the shells of the cottages to-morrow," he said, "and you will judge for yourself what they were worth." But the sympathy excited by the illustrations of the cruel conflagration and the heartrending descriptions of the reporters, resulted in a very handsome subscription for the benefit of the tenants of Glenbehy. General Sir William Butler, whose name came so prominently before the public in connection with his failure to appear and give evidence in a recent _cause célèbre_, and whose brother is a Resident Magistrate in Kerry, was one of the subscribers. The fund thus raised has been since administered by two trustees, Father Quilter, P.P., and Mr. Shee, a son of our brisk little landlady here, who maintain out of it very comfortably the evicted tenants. Not long ago a man in Tralee tried to bribe the agent into having him evicted, that he might make a claim on this fund! At Killorglin the Post-Office Savings Bank deposits, which stood at £282, 15s. 9d. in 1880, rose in 1887 to £1299, 2s. 6d. James Griffin, despite, or because, of the two evictions through which he has passed, is very well off. He owns a very good horse and cart, and seven or eight head of cattle. His arrears now amount to about £240, and on being urged yesterday to make a proposition which might avoid an eviction, he gravely offered to pay £8 of the current half-year's rent in cash, and the remaining £5 in June, the landlord taking on himself all the costs and giving him a clean receipt! This liberal proposition was declined. The zeal of her son in behalf of the evicted tenants does not seem to affect the amiable anxiety of our trim and energetic hostess to make things agreeable here to the minions of the alien despotism. The officers both of the police and of the military appear to be on the best of terms with the whole household, and everything is going as merrily as marriage bells on this eve of an eviction. TRALEE, _Wednesday evening, Feb. 22._--We rose early at Mrs. Shee's, made a good breakfast, and set out for the scene of the day's work. It was a glorious morning for Washington's birthday, and I could not help imagining the amazement with which that stern old Virginian landlord would have regarded the elaborate preparations thought necessary here in Ireland in the year of our Lord 1888, to eject a tenant who owes two hundred and forty pounds of arrears on a holding at twenty-six pounds a year, and offers to settle the little unpleasantness by paying thirteen pounds in two instalments! We had a five miles' march of it through a singularly wild and picturesque region, the hills which lead up to the Macgillicuddy's Reeks on our left, and on the right the lower hills trending to the salt water of Dingle Bay. Our start had been delayed by the non-appearance of the Sheriff, in aid of whom all this parade of power was made; but it turned out afterwards that he had gone on without stopping to let Colonel Turner know it. The air was so bracing and the scenery so fine that we walked most of the way. Two or three cars drove past us, the police and the troops making way for them very civilly, though some of the officers thought they were taking some Nationalist leaders and some English "sympathisers" to Glenbehy. One of the officers, when I commented upon this, told me they never had much trouble with the Irish members. "Some of them," he said, "talk more than is necessary, and flourish about; but they have sense enough to let us go about our work without foolishly trying to bother us. The English are not always like that." And he then told me a story of a scene in which an English M.P., we will call Mr. Gargoyle, was a conspicuous actor. Mr. Gargoyle being present either at an eviction or a prohibited meeting, I didn't note which, with two or three Irish members, all of them were politely requested to step on one side and let the police march past. The Irish members touched their hats in return to the salute of the officer, and drew to one side of the road. But Mr. Gargoyle defiantly planted himself in the middle of the road. The police, marching four abreast, hesitated for a moment, and then suddenly dividing into two columns marched on. The right-hand man of the first double file, as he went by, just touched the M.P. with his shoulder, and thereby sent him up against the left-hand man of the corresponding double file, who promptly returned the attention. And in this manner the distinguished visitor went gyrating through the whole length of the column, to emerge at the end of it breathless, hatless, and bewildered, to the intense and ill-suppressed delight of his Irish colleagues. Our hostess's son, the trustee of the Eviction Fund, was on one of the cars which passed us, with two or three companions, who proved to be "gentlemen of the Press." We passed a number of cottages and some larger houses on the way, the inmates of which seemed to be minding their own business and taking but a slight interest in the great event of the day. We made a little detour at one of the finest points on the road to visit "Winn's Folly," a modern mediæval castle of considerable size, upon a most enchanting site, with noble views on every side, quite impossible to be seen through its narrow loopholed and latticed windows. The castle is extremely well built, of a fine stone from the neighbourhood, and with a very small expenditure might be made immediately habitable. But no one has ever lived in it. It has only been occupied as a temporary barrack by the police when sent here, and the largest rooms are now littered with straw for the use of the force. At the beginning of the century, and for many years afterwards, Lord and Lady Headley lived on the estate, and kept a liberal house. Their residence was on a fine point running out into the bay, but, I am told, the sea has now invaded it, and eaten it away. In 1809 the acreage of this Glenbehy property was 8915 Irish acres or 14,442 English acres, set down under Bath's valuation at £2299, 17s. 6d. Between 1830 and 1860 the rental averaged £5000 a year, and between these years £17,898, 14s. 5d. were expended by the landlord in improvements upon the property. This castle, which we visited, must have involved since then an outlay of at least £10,000 in the place. The present Lord Headley, only a year or two ago, went through the Bankruptcy Court, and the Hon. Rowland Winn, his uncle, the titular owner of Glenbehy, is set down among the Irish landlords as owning 13,932 Irish acres at a rental of £1382. After we passed the castle we began to hear the blowing of rude horns from time to time on the distant hills. These were signals to the people of our approach, and gave quite the air of an invasion to our expedition. We passed the burned cottages of last year just before reaching Mr. Griffin's house at West Lettur. They were certainly not large cottages, and I saw but three of them. We found the Sheriff at West Lettur. The police and the soldiers drew a cordon around the place, within which no admittance was to be had except on business; and the myrmidons of the law going into the house with the agent held a final conference with the tenant, of which nothing came but a renewal of his previous offer. Then the work of eviction began. There was no attempt at a resistance, and but for the martial aspect of the forces, and an occasional blast of a horn from the hills, or the curious noises made from time to time by a small concourse of people, chiefly women, assembled on the slope of an adjoining tenancy, the proceedings were as dull as a parish meeting. What most struck me about the affair was the patience and good-nature of the officers. In the two hours and a half which we spent at West Lettur a New York Sheriff's deputies would have put fifty tenants with all their bags and baggage out of as many houses into the street. In fact it is very likely that at least that number of New York tenants were actually so ousted from their houses during this very time. The evicted Mr. Griffin was a stout, stalwart man of middle age, comfortably dressed, with the air rather of a citizen than of a farmer, who took the whole thing most coolly, as did also his women-kind. All of them were well dressed, and they superintended the removal and piling up of their household goods as composedly as if they were simply moving out of one house into another. The house itself was a large comfortable house of the country, and it was amply furnished. I commented on Griffin's indifference to the bailiff, a quiet, good-natured man. "Oh, he's quite familiar," was the reply; "it's the third time he's been evicted! I believe's going to America." "Oh! he will do very well," said a gentleman who had joined the expedition like myself to see the scene. "He is a shrewd chap, and not troubled by bashfulness. He sat on a Board of Guardians with a man I knew four years ago, and one day he read out his own name, 'James Griffin,' among a list of applicants for relief at Cahirciveen. The chairman looked up, and said, 'Surely that is not your name you are reading, is it?' 'It is, indeed,' replied Griffin, 'and I am as much in need of relief as any one!' Perhaps you'll be surprised to hear he didn't get it. This is a good holding he had, and he used to do pretty well with it--not in his mother's time only of the flush prices, but in his own. It was the going to Kilmainham that spoiled him." "How did that spoil him?" "Oh, it made a great man of him, being locked up. He was too well treated there. He got a liking for sherry and bitters, and he's never been able to make his dinner since without a nip of them. Mrs. Shee knows that well." To make an eviction complete and legal here, everything belonging to the tenant, and every live creature must be taken out of the house. A cat may save a house as a cat may save a derelict ship. Then the Sheriff must "walk" over the whole holding. All this takes time. There was an unobtrusive search for arms too going on all the time. Three ramrods were found hidden in a straw-bed--two of which showed signs of recent use. But the guns had vanished. An officer told me that not long ago two revolvers were found in a corner of the thatch of a house; but the cartridges for them were only some time afterwards discovered neatly packed away in the top of a bedroom wall. It is not the ownership of these arms, it is the careful concealment of them which indicates sinister intent. One of the constables brought out three "Moonlighters' swords" found hidden away in the house. One of these Colonel Turner showed me. It was a reversal of the Scriptural injunction, being a ploughshare beaten into a weapon, and a very nasty weapon of offence, one end of it sharpened for an ugly thrust, the other fashioned into quite a fair grip. While I was examining this trophy there was a stir, and presently two of the gentlemen who had passed us on Mr. Shee's car came rather suddenly out of the house in company with two or three constables. They were representatives, they said, of the Press, and as such desired to be allowed to remain. Colonel Turner replied that this could not be, and, in fact, no one had been suffered to enter the house except the law-officers, the agent, and the constables. So the representatives of the Press were obliged to pass outside of the lines, one of the constables declaring that they had got into the house through a hole in the back wall! Shortly after this incident there arose a considerable noise of groaning and shouting from the hill-side beyond the highway, and presently a number of people, women and children predominating, appeared coming down towards the precincts of the house. They were following a person in a clerical dress, who proved to be Father Quilter, the parish priest, who had denounced his people to Colonel Turner as "poor slaves" of the League! A colloquy followed between Father Quilter and the policemen of the cordon. This was brought to a close by Mr. Roche, the resident magistrate, who went forward, and finding that Father Quilter wished to pass the cordon, politely but firmly informed him that this could not be done. "Not if I am the bearer of a telegram for the lawyer?" asked Father Quilter, in a loud and not entirely amiable tone. "Not on any terms whatever," responded the magistrate. Father Quilter still maintaining his ground, the women crowded in around and behind him, the men bringing up the rear at a respectable distance, and the small boys shouting loudly. For a moment faint hopes arose within me that I was about to witness one of the .exciting scenes of which I have more than once read. But only for a moment. The magistrate ordered the police to advance. As they drew near the wall with an evident intention of going over it into the highway, Father Quilter and the women fell back, the boys and men retreated up the opposite hill, and the brief battle of Glenbehy was over. A small messenger bearing a telegram then emerged from the crowd, and showing his telegram, was permitted to pass. Father Quilter, in a loud voice, commented upon this, crying out, "See now your consistency! You said no one should pass, and you let the messenger come in!" To this sally no reply was returned. After a little the priest, followed by most of the people, went up the hill to the holding of another tenant, and there, as the police came in and reported, held a meeting. From time to time cries were heard in the distance, and ever and anon the blast of a horn came from some outlying hill. But no notice was taken of these things by the police, and when the tedious formalities of the law had all been gone through with, a squad of men were put in charge of the house and the holding, the rest of the army re-formed for the march back, our cars came up, and we left West Lettur. Seeing a number of men come down the hill, as the column prepared to move, Mr. Roche, making his voice tremendous, after the fashion of a Greek chorus, commanded the police to arrest and handcuff any riotous person making provocative noises. This had the desired effect, and the march back began in silence. When the column was fairly in the road, "boos" and groans went up from knots of men higher up the hill, but no heed was taken of these, and no further incident occurred. I shall be curious to see whether the story of this affair can possibly be worked up into a thrilling narrative. We lunched at Mrs. Shee's, where no sort of curiosity was manifested about the proceedings at West Lettur, and I came back here with Colonel Turner by another road, which led us past one of the loveliest lakes I have ever seen--Lough Caragh. Less known to fame than the much larger Lake of Killarney, it is in its way quite worthy of comparison with any of the lesser lakes of Europe. It is not indeed set in a coronal of mountains like Orta, but its shores are well wooded, picturesque, and enlivened by charming seats--now, for the most part, alas!--abandoned by their owners. We had a pleasant club dinner here this evening, after which came in to see me Mr. Hussey, to whom I had sent a letter from Mr. Froude. Few men, I imagine, know this whole region better than Mr. Hussey. Some gentlemen of the country joined in the conversation, and curious stories were told of the difficulty of getting evidence in criminal cases. What Froude says of the effect of the prohibitive and protection policy in Ireland upon the morals of the people as to smuggling must be said, I fear, of the effect of the Penal Laws against Catholics upon their morals as to perjury. It is not surprising that the peasants should have been educated into the state of mind of the Irishman in the old American story, who, being solicited to promise his vote when he landed in New York, asked whether the party which sought it was for the Government or against it. Against it, he was told, "Then begorra you shall have my vote, for I'm agin the Government whatever it is." One shocking case was told of a notorious and terrible murder here in Kerry. An old man and his son, so poor that they lay naked in their beds, were taken out and shot by a party of Moonlighters for breaking a boycott. They were left for dead, and their bodies thrown upon a dunghill. The boy, however, was still alive when they were found, and it was thought he might recover. The magistrates questioned him as to his knowledge of the murderers. The boy's mother stood behind the magistrate, and when the question was put, held up her finger in a warning manner at the poor lad. She didn't wish him to "peach," as, if he lived, the friends of the murderers would make it impossible for them to keep their holding and live on it. The lad lied, and died with the lie on his lips. Who shall sit in judgment on that wretched mother and her son? But what rule can possibly be too stern to crush out the terrorism which makes such things possible? And what right have Englishmen to expect their dominion to stand in Ireland when their party leaders for party ends shake hands with men who wink at and use this terrorism? It has so wrought upon the population here, that in another case, in which the truth needed by justice and the fears of a poor family trembling for their substance and their lives came thus into collision, an Irish Judge did not hesitate to warn the jury against allowing themselves to be influenced by "the usual family lie"! A magistrate told us a curious story, which recalls a case noted by Sir Walter Scott, about the detection of a murderer, who lay long in wait for a certain police sergeant, obnoxious to the "Moonlighters," and finally shot him dead in the public street of Loughrea, after dark on a rainy night, as he was returning from the Post-Office on one side of the street to the Police Barracks on the other. The town and the neighbouring country were all agog about the matter, but no trace could be got until the Dublin detectives came down three days after the murder. It had rained more or less every one of these days, and the pools of water were still standing in the street, as on the night of the murder. One of the Dublin officers closely examining the highway saw a heavy footprint in the coarse mud at the bottom of one of these pools. He had the water drawn off, and made out clearly, from the print in the mud, that the brogan worn by the foot which made it had a broken sole-piece turned over under the foot. By this the murderer was eventually traced, captured, tried, and found guilty. Mr. Morphy, I find, is coming down from Dublin to conduct the prosecution in the case of the Crown against the murderers of Fitzmaurice, the old man, so brutally slain the other day near Lixnaw, in the presence of his daughter, for taking and farming a farm given up by his thriftless brother. "He will find," said one of the company, "the mischief done in this instance also by prematurely pressing for evidence. The girl Honora, who saw her father murdered, never ought to have been subjected to any inquiry at first by any one, least of all by the local priest. Her first thought inevitably was that if she intimated who the men were, they would be screened, and she would suffer. Now she is recovering her self-possession and coming round, and she will tell the truth." "Meanwhile," said a magistrate, "the girl and her family are all 'boycotted,' and that, mark you, by the priest, as well as by the people. The girl's life would be in peril were not these scoundrels cowards as well as bullies. Two staunch policemen--Irishmen and Catholics both of them--are in constant attendance, with orders to prevent any one from trying to intimidate or to tamper with her. A police hut is putting up close to the Fitzmaurice house. The Nationalist papers haven't a word to say for this poor girl or her murdered father. But they are always putting in some sly word in behalf of Moriarty and Hayes, the men accused of the murder." "Furthermore," said another guest, "these two men are regularly supplied while in prison with special meals by Mrs. Tangney. Who foots the bills? That is what she won't tell, nor has the Head-Constable so far been able accurately to ascertain. All we know is that the friends of the prisoners haven't the money to do it." Late in the evening came in a tall fine-looking Kerry squire, who told us, _à propos_ of the Fitzmaurice murder, that only a day or two ago a very decent tenant of his, who had taken over a holding from a disreputable kinsman, intending to manage it for the benefit of this kinsman's family, came to him and said he must give it up, as the Moonlighters had threatened him if he continued to hold it. A man of substance in Tralee gave me some startling facts as to the local administration here. In Tralee Union, he said, there were in 1879 eighty-seven persons receiving outdoor relief, at a cost to the Union of £30, 17s. 11d., being an average per head of 7s. 1d., and 1879 was a very bad year, the worst since the great famine year, 1847. A Nationalist Board was elected in 1880, and a Nationalist chairman in 1884. 1884 was a very good year, but in that year no fewer than 3434 persons received outdoor relief, at a cost of £2534, 13s. 10d., making an average per head of 14s. 9d.! And at the present time £5000 nominal worth of dishonoured cheques of the authorities were flying all over the county! "On whom," I asked, "does the burden fall of these levies and extravagances?" "On the landlords, not on the tenants," he promptly replied. "The landlord pays the whole of the rates on all holdings of less than £4 a year, and on all land which is either really or technically in his own possession. He also pays one-half of the rates on all the rest of his property." "Then, in a case like that of Griffin's, evicted at Glenbehy, with arrears going back to 1883, who would pay the rates?" "The landlord of course!"[4] CHAPTER VIII. CORK, _Thursday, Feb. 23d._--We left Tralee this morning. It was difficult to recognise the events yesterday witnessed by us at Glenbehy in the accounts which we read of them to-day when we got the newspapers. As these accounts are obviously intended to be read, not in Ireland, where nobody seems to take the least interest in Irish affairs beyond his own bailiwick, but in England and America, it is only natural, I suppose, that they should be coloured to suit the taste of the market for which they are destined. It is astonishing how little interest the people generally show in the newspapers. The Irish make good journalists as they make good soldiers; but most of the journalists who now represent Irish constituencies at Westminster find their chief field of activity, I am told, not in Irish but in British or in American journals. Mr. Roche, R.M., who travelled with us as far as Castle Island, where we left him, was much less moved by the grotesque accounts given in the local journals of his conduct yesterday than by Mr. Gladstone's "retractation" of the extraordinary attack which he made the other day upon Mr. Roche himself, and four other magistrates by name. "The retractation aggravates the attack," he said. When one sees what a magistrate now represents in Ireland, it certainly is not easy to reconcile an inconsiderate attack upon the character and conduct of such an officer with the most elementary ideas of good citizenship. After Mr. Roche left us, a gentleman in the carriage, who is interested in some Castle Island property, told us that nothing could be worse than the state of that region. Open defiance of the moral authority of the clergy is as rife there, he says, as open defiance of the civil authorities. The church was not long ago broken into, and the sacred vestments were defiled; and, but the other day, a young girl of the place came to a magistrate and asked him to give her a summons against the parish priest "for assaulting her." The magistrate, a Protestant, but a personal friend of the priest, esteeming him for his fidelity to his duties, asked the girl what on earth she meant. She proceeded with perfect coolness to say that the priest had impertinently interfered with her, "assaulted her," and told her to "go home," when he found her sitting in a lonely part of the road with her young man, rather late at night! For this, the girl, professing to be a Catholic, actually wanted the Protestant magistrate to have her parish priest brought into his court! He told the girl plainly what he thought of her conduct, whereupon she went away, very angry, and vowing vengeance both against the priest and against him. This same gentleman said that at the Bodyke evictions, of which so much has been heard, the girls and women swarmed about the police using language so revoltingly obscene that the policemen blushed--such language, he said, as was never heard from decent Irishwomen in the days of his youth. Of this business of evictions, he said, the greatest imaginable misrepresentations are made in the press and by public speakers. "You have just seen one eviction yourself," he said, "and you can judge for yourself whether that can be truly described in Mr. Gladstone's language as a 'sentence of death.' The people that were put out of these burned houses you saw, houses that never would have needed to be burned, had Harrington and the other Leaguers allowed the people to keep their pledges given Sir Redvers Buller, those very people are better off now than they were before they were evicted, in so far as this, that they get their food and drink and shelter without working for it, and I'm sorry to say that the Government and the League, between them, have been soliciting half of Ireland for the last six or eight years to think that sort of thing a heaven upon earth. An eviction in Ireland in these days generally means just this, that the fight between a landlord and the League has come to a head. If the tenant wants to be rid of his holding, or if he is more afraid of the League than of the law, why, out he goes, and then he is a victim of heartless oppression; but if he is well-to-do, and if he thinks he will be protected, he takes the eviction proceedings just for a notice to stop palavering and make a settlement, and a settlement is made. The ordinary Irish tenant don't think anything more of an eviction than Irish gentlemen used to think of a duel; but you can never get English people to understand the one any more than the other!" The fine broad streets which Cork owes to the filling up and bridging over of the canals which in the last century made her a kind of Irish Venice, give the city a comely and even stately aspect. But they are not much better kept and looked after than the streets of New York. And they are certainly less busy and animated than when I last was here, five years ago. All the canals, however, are not filled up or bridged over. From my windows, in a neat comfortable little private hotel on Morrison's Quay, I look down upon the deck of a small barque, moored well up among the houses. The hospitable and dignified County Club is within two minutes' walk of my hostelry, and the equally hospitable and more bustling City Club, but a little farther off, at the end of the South Mall. At luncheon to-day a gentleman who was at Kilkenny with Mr. Gladstone on the occasion of his visit to that city told me a story too good to be lost. The party were eight in number, and on their return to Abbeyleix they naturally looked out for an empty railway carriage. The train was rather full, but in one compartment my informant descried a dignitary, whom he knew, of the Protestant Church of Ireland, its only occupant. He went up and saluted the Dean, and, pointing to his companions, asked if he would object to changing his place in the train, which would give them a compartment to themselves. The Dean courteously, and indeed briskly, assented, when he saw that Mr. Gladstone was one of the party. After the train moved off, Mr. Gladstone said, "Was not that gentleman who so kindly vacated his place for us a clergyman?" "Yes." "I hope he won't think I have disestablished him again!" At the next station, my informant getting out for a moment to thank the Dean again for his civility, and chat with him, repeated Mr. Gladstone's remark. "Oh!" said the Dean; "you may tell him I don't mind his disestablishing me again; for he didn't disendow me; he didn't confiscate my ticket!" With this gentleman was another from Kerry, who tells me there is a distinct change for the better already visible in that county, which he attributes to the steady action of the Dublin authorities in enforcing the law. "The League Courts," he said, "are ceasing to be the terror they used to be." I asked what he meant by the "League Courts," when he expressed his astonishment at my not knowing that it was the practice of the League to hold regular Courts, before which the tenants are summoned, as if by a process of the law, to explain their conduct, when they are charged with paying their rents without the permission of the Local League. In his part of Kerry, he tells me, these Courts used not very long ago to sit regularly every Sunday. The idea, he says, is as old as the time of the United Irishmen, who used to terrorise the country just in the same way. A man whom he named, a blacksmith, acted as a kind of "Law Lord," and to him the chairmen of the different local "Courts" used to refer cases heard before them![5] All this was testified to openly two years ago, before Lord Cowper's Commission, but no decisive action has ever been taken by the Government to put a stop to the scandal, and relieve the tenants from this open tyranny. These Courts enforced, and still enforce, their decrees by various forms of outrage, ranging "from the boycott," in its simplest forms up to direct outrages upon property and the person. "This dual Government business," he said, "can only end in a duel between the two Governments, and it must be a duel to the death of one or the other." To-night at dinner I had a most interesting conversation with Mr. Colomb, Assistant Inspector-General of the Constabulary, who is here engaged with Mr. Cameron of Belfast, and Colonel Turner, in investigating the affair at Mitchelstown. Mr. Colomb was at Killarney at the time of the Fenian rising under "General O'Connor" in 1867--a rising which was undoubtedly an indirect consequence of our own Civil War in America. Warning came to two magistrates, of impending trouble from Cahirciveen. Upon this Mr. Colomb immediately ordered the arrest of all passengers to arrive that day at Killarney by the "stage-car" from that place. When the car came in at night, it brought only one person--"an awful-looking ruffian he was," said Mr. Colomb, "whom, by his square-toed shoes, we knew to be just arrived from your side of the water." He was examined, and said he was a commercial traveller, and that he had only one letter about him, a business letter, addressed to "J. D. Sheehan." "Have you any objection to show us that letter?" "Certainly not," he replied very coolly, and, taking it out of his pocket, he walked toward a table on which stood a candle, as if to read it. A gentleman who was closely watching him, caught him by the wrist, just as he was putting the letter to the flame, and saved it. It was addressed to J. D. Sheehan, Esq., Killarney [Present], and ran as follows: "_Feb. 12th, Morning_. "MY DEAR SHEEHAN,--I have the honour to introduce to you Captain Mortimer Moriarty. He will be of great assistance to you, and I have told him all that is to be done until I get to your place. The Private _Spys_ are very active this morning. Unless they smell a rat all will be done without any trouble. "Success to you. Hoping to meet soon,--Yours as ever. "(Signed) JOHN J. O'CONNOR."[6] Despatches were at once sent off to the authorities at different points. They were all transmitted, except to Cahirciveen, the wires to which place were found to have been cut. Mr. Colomb--who had a force of but seventeen men in the town of Killarney--saw the uselessness of trying to communicate with the officer at Cahirciveen, but was so strongly urged by the magistrates that he unwillingly consented to endeavour to do so, and a mounted orderly was sent. Just after this unfortunate officer had passed Glenbehy (the scene of the eviction I have just witnessed) he was shot by some of O'Connor's party, whom he tried to pass in the dark, and who were marching on Killarney, and fell from his horse, which galloped off. He managed to crawl to a neighbouring cottage, where he was not long after found by "General O'Connor" and some of his followers. The wounded man was kindly treated by O'Connor, who had him examined for despatches, but prevented one of his men from shooting him dead, as he lay on the ground, and had his wounds as well attended to as was possible. There was no response in the country to the Kerry rising, such as it was, because the intended seizure of Chester Castle by the Fenians failed, but O'Connor was not captured, though great efforts were made to seize him. How he escaped is not known to this day. At that time, as always in emergencies, Mr. Colomh says the Constabulary behaved with exemplary coolness, courage, and fidelity. His position gives him a very thorough knowledge of the force, which is almost entirely recruited from the body of the Irish people. Of late years not a few men of family, reduced in fortune, have taken service in it. Among these has been mentioned to me a young Irishman of title, and of an ancient race, who is a sergeant in the force, and who recently declined to accept a commission, as his increased expenses would make it harder for him to support his two sisters. Another constable in the ranks represents a family illustrious in the annals of England four centuries ago. As to the _morale_ of the force, he cites one eloquent fact. Out of a total of more than 13,000 men, the cases of drunkenness, proved or admitted, average no more than fourteen a week! On many days absolutely no such cases occur. This is really amazing when one thinks how many of the men are isolated on lonely posts all over the island, exposed to all sorts of weather, and cut off from the ordinary resources and amusements of social life. CORK, _Friday, Feb. 24th._--This morning after breakfast I met in the South Mall a charming ecclesiastic, whose acquaintance I made in Rome while I was attending the great celebration there in 1867 of St. Peter's Day. Father Burke introduced me to him after the Pontifical Mass at San Paolo fuori le Mure; and we had a delightful symposium that afternoon. I walked with him to his lodgings, talking over those "days long vanished," and the friend whose genius made them, like the suppers of Plato, "a joy for ever." He is sorely troubled now by the attitude of a portion of the clergy in his part of Ireland, which is one almost of open hostility, he says, to the moral authority of the Church, and indicates the development of a class of priests moving in the direction of the "conventional priests," by whom the Church was disgraced during the darkest days of the French Revolution of 1793. Almost more mischievous than these men, he thinks, who must eventually go the way of their kind in times past, are the timid priests, for the most part parish priests, who go in fear of their violent curates, and of the politicians who tyrannise their flocks. He showed me a letter written to him last week by one of these, whose parish is just now in a tempest over the Plan of Campaign. Certainly a most remarkable letter. In it the writer frankly says, "There is no justification for the Plan of Campaign on this property. "I assented to putting it in force here," he goes on, "because I did not at the time know the facts of the case, and took them on trust from persons who, I find, have practised upon my confidence. What am I to do? I am made to appear as a consenting party now, and, indeed, an assisting agent in action, which I certainly was led to believe right and necessary, but which upon the facts I now see involves much injustice to ---- (naming the landlord), and I fear positive ruin to worthy men and families of my people. I shall be grateful and glad of your counsel in these most distressing circumstances." "What can any one do to help such a man?" said my friend. "The rebellious and unruly in the Church, be they priests or laymen, can only in the end damage themselves. _Tu es Petrus_; and revolt, like schism, is a devil which only carries away those of whom it gets possession out of the Church and into the sea. But a weak sentinel on the wall or at the gate who drops his musket to wipe his eyes, that is a thing for tears!" He asked me to come and see him if possible in his own county, and he has promised to send me letters to-day for priests who will he glad to tell me what they know only too well of the pressure put upon the better sort of the people by the organised idlers and mischief-makers in Clare and Kerry. To-day at the City Club, I made the acquaintance of the Town-Clerk of Cork, Mr. Alexander M'Carthy, a staunch Nationalist and Home Ruler, who holds his office almost by a sort of hereditary tenure, having been appointed to it in 1859 in succession to his father. He gave me many interesting particulars as to the municipal history and administration of Cork, and showed me some of the responses he is receiving to a kind of circular letter sent by the municipality to the town governments of England, touching the recent proceedings against the Mayor. So far these responses have not been very sympathetic. He invited me to lunch here with him to-morrow, and visit some of the most interesting points in and around the city. Here, too, I met Colonel Spaight, Inspector of the Local Government Board, who gives me a startling account of the increase of the public burdens. Twenty years ago there were no persons whatever seeking outdoor relief in Cork. This year, out of a total population of 145,216, there are 3775 persons here receiving indoor relief, and 4337 receiving outdoor relief, making in all 8112, or nearly 6 per cent. of the inhabitants. This proportion is swelled by the influx of people from other regions seeking occupation here, which they do not find, or simply coming here because they are sure of relief. This state of things illustrates not so much the decay of industry in Cork as the development of a spirit of mendicancy throughout Ireland. In the opinion of many thoughtful people, this began with the Duchess of Marlborough's Fund, and with the Mansion House Fund. Colonel Spaight remembers that in Strokestown Union, Roscommon, when the guardians there received a supply of one hundred tons of seed potatoes, they distributed eighty tons, and were then completely at a loss what to do with the remaining twenty tons. Mr. Parnell and Mr. O'Kelly, however, came to Roscommon, and the latter made a speech out of the hotel window to the people, advising them to apply for more, and take all they could get. "With a stroke of a pen," he said, "we'll wipe out the seed rate!" Whereupon the applications for seed rose to six hundred tons! The Labourers Act, passed by the British Parliament for the benefit of the Irish labourers, who get but scant recognition of their wants and wishes from the tenant farmers, is not producing the good results expected from it, mainly because it is perverted to all sorts of jobbery. Only last week Colonel Spaight had to hand in to the Local Government Board a report on certain schemes of expenditure under this Act, prepared by the Board of Guardians of Tralee. These schemes contemplated the erection of 196 cottages in 135 electoral divisions of the Union. This meant, of course, so much money of the ratepayers to be turned over to local contractors. Colonel Spaight on inspection found that of the 196 proposed cottages, the erection of 61 had been forbidden by the sanitary authorities, the notices for the erection of 23 had been wrongly served, 20 were proposed to be erected on sites not adjoining a public road, and no necessity had been shown for erecting 40 of the others. He accordingly recommended that only 32 be allowed to be erected! For a small town like Tralee this proposition to put up 196 buildings at the public expense where only 32 were needed is not bad. It has the right old Tammany Ring smack, and would have commanded, I am sure, the patronising approval of the late Mr. Tweed. I mentioned it to-night at the County Club, when a gentleman said that this morning at Macroom a serious "row" had occurred between the local Board of Guardians there and a great crowd of labourers. The labourers thronged the Board-room, demanding the half-acre plots of land which had been promised them. The Guardians put them off, promising to attend to them when the regular business of the meeting was over. So the poor fellows were kept waiting for three mortal hours, at the end of which time they espied the elected Nationalist members of the Board subtly filing out of the place. This angered them. They stopped the fugitives, blockaded the Board-room, and forced the Guardians to appoint a committee to act upon their demands. It is certainly a curious fact that, so far, in Ireland I have seen no decent cottages for labourers, excepting those put up at their own expense on their own property by landlords. I dined to-night at the County Club with Captain Plunkett, a most energetic, spirited, and well-informed resident magistrate, a brother of the late Lord Louth,--still remembered, I dare say, at the New York Hotel as the only Briton who ever really mastered the mystery of concocting a "cocktail,"--and an uncle of the present peer. We had a very cheery dinner, and a very clever lawyer, Mr. Shannon, gave us an irresistible reproduction of a charge delivered by an Irish judge famous for shooting over the heads of juries, who sent twelve worthy citizens of Galway out of their minds by bidding them remember, in a case of larceny, that they could not find the prisoner guilty unless they were quite sure "as to the _animus furandi_ and the _asportavit_." _Saturday, Feb. 25._--I had an interesting talk this morning at the County Club with a gentleman from Limerick on the subject of "boycotting." I told him what I had seen at Edenvale of the practice as applied to a forlorn and helpless old woman, for the crime of standing by her "boycotted" son. "You think this an extreme case," he said, "but you are quite mistaken. It is a typical case certainly, but it gives you only an inadequate idea of the scope given to this infernal machinery. The 'boycott' is now used in Ireland as the Inquisition was used in Spain,--to stifle freedom of thought and action. It is to-day the chief reliance of the National League for keeping up its membership, and squeezing subscriptions out of the people. If you want proof of this," he added, "ask any Nationalist you know whether members of the League in the country allow farmers who are not members to associate with them in any way. I can cite you a case at Ballingarry, in my county, where last summer a resolution of the League was published and put on the Chapel door, that members of the National League were thenceforth to have no dealings or communication with any person not a member. This I saw with my own eyes, and it was matter of public notoriety." I lunched at the City Club with Mr. M'Carthy. Sir Daniel O'Sullivan, formerly Mayor of Cork, whose views of Home Rule seem to differ widely from those of his successor, now incarcerated here, was one of the company. In the course of an animated but perfectly good-natured discussion of the Land Law question between two other gentlemen present, one of them, a strong Nationalist, smote his Unionist opponent very neatly under the fifth rib. The latter contending that it was monstrous to interfere by law with the principle of freedom of contract, the Nationalist responded, "That cannot be; it must be right and legitimate to do it, for the Imperial Parliament has done it four times within seventeen years!" I walked with Mr. M'Carthy to his apartments, where he showed me many curious papers and volumes bearing on municipal law and municipal history in Ireland. Among these, two most elaborate and interesting volumes, being the Council Books of Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale, from 1610 to 1659, 1666 to 1687, and 1690 to 1800. The records for the years not enumerated have perished, that is, for the first five or six years after the Restoration, and for the years just preceding and just following the fall of James II. These volumes take one back to the condition of Southern Ireland immediately after English greed and intrigue had sapped the foundations of the peace which followed the submission of the great Earl of Tyrone, and brought about the flight to the Continent of that chieftain, and of his friend and ally, the Earl of Tyrconnell. They give us no picture, unfortunately, of the closing years of Elizabeth's long struggle to establish the English power, or of the occupation of Kinsale by the Spanish in the name of the Pope. But there is abundant evidence in them of the theological hatred which so embittered the conflict of races in Ireland during the seventeenth century. It was a relief to turn from these to a solemn controversy waged in our own times between Cork and Limerick over a question of municipal precedence, in which Mr. M'Carthy did battle for the City of the Galley and the Towers[7] against the City of the Gateway and Cathedral dome. The truth seems to be that King John gave charters to both cities, but to Cork twelve years earlier than to Limerick. Speaking of this contest, by the way, with a loyalist of Cork to-night, I observed that it was almost as odd to find such a question hotly disputed between two Nationalist cities as to see the champions of Irish independence marching under the banner of the harp, which was invented for Ireland by Henry VIII. "I don't know why you call Cork a Nationalist city," he replied, "for Parnell and Maurice Healy were returned for it by a clear minority of the voters. If all the voters had gone to the polls, they would both have been beaten." A curious statement certainly, and worth looking into. Mr. M'Carthy gave me also much information as to the working of the municipal system here, and a copy of the rules which govern the debates of the Town Council. One of these might be adopted with advantage in other assemblies, to wit, "that no member be permitted to occupy the time of the Council for more than ten minutes." There is an important difference between the parliamentary and the municipal constituencies of Cork. The former constituency comprises all residents within the borough boundaries occupying premises of the rateable value of £10 a year. The municipal constituency consists of no more than 1800 voters, divided among the seven wards which make up the city under the "3d and 4th Victoria," and which contain about 13,000 of the 15,116 Parliamentary voters of the borough. The same thing is true in the main of nine out of the eleven municipal boroughs of Ireland including Dublin. The 3d and 4th Victoria was amended for Dublin in 1849, so as to give that city the municipal franchise then existing in England, but no move in that direction was made for Cork, Waterford, Limerick, or any other municipal borough. The Nationalists have taken no interest in the question. Perhaps they have good reason for this, as in Belfast, where the municipal franchise has been widely extended since the present Government came into power, the democratic electorate has put the whole municipal government into the hands of the Unionists. The day being cool, though fine, Mr. M'Carthy got an "inside car," and we went off for a drive about the city. The environs of Cork are very attractive. We visited the new cemetery grounds which are very neatly and tastefully laid out. There was a conflict over them, the owners of family vaults staunchly standing out against the "levelling" tendency of a harmonious city of the dead. But all is well that ends well, and now two handsome stone chapels, one Catholic and one Protestant, keep watch and ward over the silent sleepers, standing face to face near the grand entrance, and exactly alike in their architecture. A very pretty drive took us to the water-works, which are extensive, well planned, and exceedingly well kept. They are awaiting now the arrival from America of some great turbine wheels, but the engines are of English make. In the city we visited the new Protestant cathedral of St. Finbar, a very fine church, which advantageously replaces a "spacious structure of the Doric order," built here in the reign of George II., with the proceeds of a parliamentary tax on coals. Despite his name, I imagine that admirable prelate, Dr. England, the first Catholic bishop of my native city in America, must have been a Corkonian, for he it was, I believe, who put the cathedral of Charleston under the invocation of St. Finbar, the first bishop of Cork. The church stands charmingly amid fine trees on a southern branch of the river Lea. We visited also two fine Catholic churches, one of St. Vincent de Paul, and the other the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, a grandly proportioned and imposing edifice. It was at vespers that we entered it, and found it filled with the kneeling people. This noble church is rather ignobly hidden away behind crowded houses and shops, and the contrast was very striking when we emerged from its dim religious space and silence into the thronged and rather noisy streets. There is a statue here of Father Mathew; but what I have seen to-night makes me doubt whether the present generation of Corkonians would have erected it. At dinner a gentleman gave us a most interesting account of the picturesque home which a man of taste, and a lover of natural history, has made for himself at the remote seaside village of Belmullet, in Mayo, the seat of the Mayo quarries, in which Mr. Davitt takes so much interest. The sea brings in there all sorts of wreckage, and the house is beautifully finished with mahogany and other rare woods, just as I remember finding in a noble mansion in South Wales, near a dangerous head-land, some magnificent doors and wainscotings made of that most beautiful of the Central American woods, nogarote, which I never saw in the United States, excepting in a superb specimen of it sent home by myself from Corinto. This colonist of Mayo employs all the people he can get in the fisheries there, which are very rich; and the ducks and wild geese are so numerous that he sometimes sends as far as to Wicklow for men to capture and sell them for him. He was once fortunate enough to trap a pair of the snow geese of the Arctic region, but Belmullet, in other respects a primeval paradise, is cursed with the small boy of civilisation; and one of these pests of society slew the goose with a stone. The widowed gander consoled himself by contracting family ties with the common domestic goose of the parish, and all his progeny, in other particulars indistinguishable from that familiar bird, bear the black marks distinctive of the Arctic tribe. Belmullet, this gentleman tells me, boasts a very good little inn, kept by a Mrs. Deehan, which was honoured by a visit from Lord Carnarvon with his wife and daughters during the Earl's Viceroyalty. This was in the course of a private and personal, not official tour, during which, Lord Carnarvon says, he was everywhere received with the greatest courtesy by all sorts and conditions of the people. It is an interesting illustration of the temper in which certain priests in Ireland deal with matters of State, that when Lord Carnarvon politely invited the parish priest of Belmullet to come to see him, that functionary declined to do so. Upon this the placable Viceroy sent to know whether the priest would receive the visit he refused to pay. The priest replied that he never declined to receive any gentleman who wished to see him; and the Viceroy accordingly called upon him, to the edification of the people, who afterwards listened very respectfully to a little speech which His Excellency made to them from a car. It is rather surprising that these incidents have never been adduced in proof of Lord Carnarvon's determination to take the Home Rule wind out of the sails of the Liberals! CORK, _Sunday, Feb. 26._--I went out to-day with Mr. Cameron to see Blarney Castle and St. Anne's Hill. Nothing can be lovelier than the country around Cork and the valley of the Lea. A "light railway," of the sort authorised by the Act of 1883, takes you out quickly enough to Blarney, and the train was well filled. The construction of these railways is found fault with as aggravating instead of relieving those defects in the organisation and management of the Irish railways, which are so thoroughly and intelligently exposed in the Public Works Report of Sir James Allport and his fellow-commissioners. A morning paper to-day points this out sharply. In the days of King William III. Blarney Castle must have been a magnificent stronghold. It stands very finely on a well-wooded height, and dominates the land for miles around. But it held out against the victor of the Boyne so long that, when he captured it, he thought it best, in the expressive phrase of the Commonwealth, to "slight" it, little now remaining of it but the gigantic keep, the walls of which are some six yards thick, and a range of ruined outworks stretching along and above a line of caverns, probably the work of the quarrymen who got out the stone for the Castle ages ago. The legend of the Blarney Stone does not seem to be a hundred years old, but the stone itself is one of the front battlements of the grand old tower, which has more than once fallen to the ground from the giddy height at which it was originally set. It is now made fast there by iron clamps, in such a position that to kiss it one should be a Japanese acrobat, or a volunteer rifleman shooting for the championship of the world. There are many and very fine trees in the grounds about the Castle, and there is a charming garden, now closed against the casual tourist, as it has been leased with the modern house to a tenant who lives here. In the leafy summer the place must be a dream of beauty. An avenue of stately trees quite overarching the highway leads from Blarney to St. Anne's Hill, the site of which, at least, is that of an ideal sanatorium. We walked thither over hill and dale. The panorama commanded by the buildings of the sanatorium is one of the widest and finest imaginable, worthy to be compared with the prospect from the Star and Garter at Richmond, or with that from the terrace at St. Germain. Several handsome lodges or cottages have been built about the extensive grounds. These are comfortably furnished and leased to people who prefer to bring their households here rather than take up their abode in the hotel, which, however, seems to be a very well kept and comfortable sort of place, with billiard and music rooms, a small theatre, and all kinds of contrivances for making the country almost as tedious as the town. The establishment is directed now by a German resident physician, but belongs to an Irish gentleman, Mr. Barter, who lives here himself, and here manages what I am told is one of the finest dairy farms and dairies in Ireland. Our return trip to Cork on the "light railway," with a warm red sunset lighting up the river Lea, and throwing its glamour over the varied and picturesque scenery through which we ran, was not the least delightful part of a very delightful excursion. After we got back I spent half-an-hour with a gentleman who knows the country about Youghal, which I propose to visit to-morrow, and who saw something of the recent troubles there arising out of the Plan of Campaign, as put into effect on the Ponsonby property. He is of the opinion that the Nationalists were misled into this contest by bad information as to Mr. Ponsonby's resources and relations. They expected to drive him to the wall, but they will fail to do this, and failing to do this they will be left in the vocative. He showed me a curious souvenir of the day of the evictions, in the shape of a quatrain, written by the young wife of an evicted tenant. This young woman, Mrs. Mahoney, was observed by one of the officers, as the eviction went on, to go apart to a window, where she stood for a while apparently writing something on a wooden panel of the shutter. After the eviction was over the officer remembered this, and going up to the window found these lines pencilled upon the panel:-- "We are evicted from this house, Me and my loving man; We're homeless now upon the world! May the divil take 'the Plan'!" CORK, _Monday, Feb. 27._--A most interesting day. I left alone and early by the train for Youghal, having sent before me a letter of introduction to Canon Keller, the parish priest, who has recently become a conspicuous person through his refusal to give evidence about matters, his knowledge of which he conceives to be "privileged," as acquired in his capacity as a priest. I had many fine views of the shore and the sea as we ran along, and the site of Youghal itself is very fine. It is an old seaport town, and once was a place of considerable trade, especially in wool. Oliver dwelt here for a while, and from Youghal he embarked on his victorious return to England. He seems to have done his work while he was here "not negligently," like Harrison at Naseby Field, for when he departed he left Youghal a citadel of Protestant intolerance. Even under Charles II they maintained an ordinance forbidding "any Papist to buy or barter anything in the public markets," which may be taken as a piece of cold-blooded and statutory "boycotting." Then there was no parish priest in Youghal; now it may almost be said there is nobody in Youghal but the parish priest! So does "the whirligig of time bring in his revenges"! At Youghal station a very civil young man came up, calling me by name, and said Father Keller had sent him with a car to meet me. We drove up past some beautiful grounds into the main street. A picturesque waterside town, little lanes and narrow streets leading out of the main artery down to the bay, and a savour of the sea in the place, grateful doubtless to the souls of Raleigh and the west country folk he brought over here when he became lord of the land, just three hundred years ago. Edmund Spenser came here in those days to see him, and talk over the events of that senseless rising of the Desmonds, which gave the poet of the "Faerie Queen" his awful pictures of the desolation of Ireland, and made the planter of Virginia master of more than forty thousand acres of Irish land. We turned suddenly into a little narrow wynd, and pulled up, the driver saying, "There is the Father, yer honour!" In a moment up came a tall, very fine-looking ecclesiastic, quite the best dressed and most distinguished-looking priest I have yet seen in Ireland, with features of a fine Teutonic type, and the erect bearing of a soldier. I jumped down to greet him, and he proposed that we should walk together to his house near by. An extremely good house I found it to be, well placed in the most interesting quarter of the town. Having it in my mind to drive on from Youghal to Lismore, there to make an early dinner, see the castle of the Duke of Devonshire, and return to Cork by an evening train, I had to decline Father Keller's cordial hospitalities, but he gave me a most interesting hour with him in his comfortable study. Father Keller stands firmly by the position which earned for him a sentence of imprisonment last year, when he refused to testify before a court of justice in a bankruptcy case, on the ground that it might "drift him into answers which would disclose secrets he was bound in honour not to disclose." He does not accept the view taken of his conduct, however, by Lord Selborne, that, in the circumstances, his refusal is to be regarded as the act of his ecclesiastical superiors rather than his own. He maintains it as his own view of the sworn duty of a priest, and not unnaturally therefore he looks upon his sentence as a blow levelled at the clergy; nor, as I understood him, has he abandoned his original contention, that the Court had no right to summon him as a witness. It was impossible to listen to him on this subject, and doubt his entire good faith, nor do I see that he ought to be held responsible for the interpretation put by Mr. Lane, M.P., and others upon his attitude as a priest, in a sense going to make him merely a "martyr" of Home Rule. I did not gather from what he said that, in his mind, the question of his relations with the Nationalists or the Plan of Campaign entered into that affair at all, but simply that he believed the right and the duty of a priest to protect, no matter at what cost to himself, secrets confided to him as a priest, was really involved in his consent or refusal to answer, when he was asked whether he was or was not on a certain day at the "Mall House" in Youghal. Of course from the connection of this refusal in this particular case with the Nationalist movement, Nationalists would easily glide into the idea that he refused to testify in order to serve their cause. As to the troubles on the Ponsonby estate, Father Keller spoke very freely. He divided the responsibility for them between the untractableness of the agent, and the absenteeism of the owner. It was only since the troubles began, he said, that he had ever seen Mr. Ponsonby, who lived in Hampshire, and was therefore out of touch with the condition and the feelings of the people here. In a personal interview with him he had found Mr. Ponsonby a kindly disposed Englishman, but the estate is heavily encumbered, and the agent who has had complete control of it forced the tenants, by his hard and fast refusal of a reasonable reduction more than two years ago, into an initial combination to defend themselves by "clubbing" their rents. That was before Mr. Dillon announced the Plan of Campaign at all. "It was not till the autumn of 1886," said Father Keller, "that any question arose of the Plan of Campaign here,[8] and it was by the tenants themselves that the determination was taken to adopt it. My part has been that of a peace-maker throughout, and we should have had peace if Mr. Ponsonby would have listened to me; we should have had peace, and he would have received a reasonable rental for his property. Instead of this, look at the law costs arising out of bankruptcy proceedings and sheriff's sales and writs and processes, and the whole district thrown into disorder and confusion, and the industrious people now put out of their holdings, and forced into idleness." As to the recent evictions which had taken place, Father Keller said they had taken him as well as the people by surprise, and had thus led to greater agitation and excitement. "But the unfortunate incident of the loss of Hanlon's life," he said, "would never have occurred had I been duly apprised of what was going on in the town. I had come home into my house, having quieted the people, and left all in order, as I thought, when that charge of the police, for which there was no occasion, and which led to the killing of Hanlon, was ordered. I made my way rapidly to the people, and when I appeared they were brought to patience and to good order with astonishing ease, despite all that had occurred." As to the present outlook, it was his opinion that Mr. Ponsonby, even with the Cork Defence Union behind him, could not hold out. "The Land Corporation were taking over some parts of the estate, and putting Emergency men on them--a set of desperate men, a kind of _enfants perdus_," he said, "to work and manage the land;" but he did not believe the operation could be successfully carried out. Meanwhile he confidently counted upon seeing "the present Tory Government give way, and go out, when it would become necessary for the landlords to do justice to the rack-rented people. Pray understand," said Father Keller, "that I do not say all landlords stand at all where Mr. Ponsonby has been put by his agent, for that is not the case; but the action of many landlords in the county Cork in sustaining Mr. Ponsonby, whose estate is and has been as badly rack-rented an estate as can be found, is, in my judgment, most unwise, and threatening to the peace and happiness of Ireland."[9] I asked whether, in his opinion, it would be possible for the Ponsonby tenants to live and prosper here on this estate, could they become peasant proprietors of it under Lord Ashbourne's Act, provided they increased in numbers, as in that event might be expected. This he thought very doubtful so far as a few of the tenants are concerned. "Would you seek a remedy, then," I asked, "in emigration?" "No, not in emigration," he replied, "but in migration." I begged him to explain the difference. "What I mean," he said, "is, that the people should migrate, not out of Ireland, but from those parts of Ireland which cannot support them into parts of Ireland which can support them. There is room in Meath, for example, for the people of many congested districts." "You would, then, turn the great cattle farms of Meath," I said, "into peasant holdings?" "Certainly." "But would not that involve the expropriation of many people now established in Meath, and the disturbance or destruction of a great cattle industry for which Ireland has especial advantages?" To this Father Keller replied that he did not wish to see Ireland exporting her cattle, any more than to see Ireland exporting her sons and daughters. "I mean," he said, quite earnestly, "when they are forced to export them to pay exorbitant rents, and thus deprive themselves of their capital or of a fair share of the comforts of life. I should be glad to see the Irish people sufficient to themselves by the domestic exchange of their own industries and products." At the same time he begged me to understand that he had no wish to see this development attended by any estrangement or hostile feeling between Ireland and Great Britain. "On the contrary," he said, "I have seen with the greatest satisfaction the growth of such good feeling towards England as I never expected to witness, as the result of the visits here of English public men, sympathising with the Irish tenants. I believe their visits are opening the way to a real union of the Democracies of the two countries, and to an alliance between them against the aristocratic classes which depress both peoples." This alliance Father Keller believed would be a sufficient guarantee against any religious contest between the Catholics of Ireland and the Protestants of Great Britain. "I was much astounded," he said, "the other day, to hear from an English gentleman that he had met a Protestant clergyman who told him he really believed that a persecution of the Protestants would follow the establishment of Home Rule in Ireland. I begged him to consider that Mr. Parnell was a Protestant, and I assured him Protestants would have absolutely nothing to fear from Home Rule." Reverting to his idea of re-distributing the Irish population through Ireland, under changed conditions, social and economical, I asked him how in Meath, for example, he would meet the difficulty of stocking with cattle the peasant holdings of a new set of proprietors not owning stock. He thought it would be easily met by advances of money from the Treasury to the peasant proprietors, these advances to be repaid, with interest, as in the case of Lady Burdett Coutts, and the advances made by her to the fishermen now under the direction of Father Davis at Baltimore. I was struck by the resemblance of these views to the Irish policy sketched for me by my Nationalist fellow-traveller of the other night from London. "The evil that men do lives after them"--and when one remembers how only a hundred years ago, and just after the establishment of American Independence ought to have taught England a lesson, the Irish House of Commons had to deal with the persistent determination of the English manufacturers to fight the bogey of Irish competition by protective duties in England against imports from Ireland, it is not surprising that Irishmen who allow sentiment to get the upper hand of sense should now think of playing a return game. England went in fear then not only of Irish beasts and Irish butter, but of Irish woollens, Irish cottons, Irish leather, Irish glass. Nay, absurd as it may now seem, English ironmasters no longer ago than in 1785 testified before a Parliamentary Committee that unless a duty was clapped on Irish manufactures of iron, the Irish ironmasters had such advantages through cheaper labour and through the discrimination in their favour under the then existing relations with the new Republic of the United States that they would "ruin the ironmasters of England." In Ireland, as in America, the benign spirit of Free Trade is thwarted and intercepted at every turn by the abominable ghost of British Protection. What a blessing it would have been if the meddlesome palaverers of the Cobden Club, American as well as English, could ever have been made to understand the essentially insular character of Protection and the essentially continental character of Free Trade! It should never be forgotten, and it is almost never remembered, that when the Treaty of Versailles was making in 1783 the American Commissioners offered complete free trade between the United States and all parts of the British Dominions save the territories of the East India Company. The British Commissioner, David Hartley, saw the value of this proposition, and submitted it at London. But King George III. would not entertain it. When I rose to leave him Father Keller courteously insisted on showing me the "lions" of Youghal. A most accomplished cicerone he proved to be. As we left his house we met in the street two or three of the "evicted" tenants, whom he introduced to me. One of these, Mr. Loughlin, was the holder of farms representing a rental of £94. A stalwart, hearty, rotund, and rubicund farmer he was, and in reply to my query how long the holdings he had lost had been in his family, he answered, "not far from two hundred years." Certainly some one must have blundered as badly as at Balaklava to make it necessary for a tenant with such a past behind him to go out of his holdings on arrears of a twelvemonth. Father Keller gave me, as we left Mr. Loughlin and his friend, a leaflet in which he has printed the story of "the struggle for life on the Ponsonby estate," as he understands it. A minute's walk brought us to Sir Walter Raleigh's house, now the property of Sir John Pope Hennessey. It was probably built by Sir Walter while he lived here in 1588-89, during the time of the great Armada; for it is a typical Elizabethan house, quaintly gabled, with charming Tudor windows, and delightfully wainscoted with richly carved black oak. A chimney-piece in the library where Sir John's aged mother received us most kindly and hospitably is a marvel of Elizabethan woodwork. The shelves are filled with a quaint and miscellaneous collection of old and rare books. I opened at random one fine old quarto, and found it to contain, among other curious tracts, models of typography, a Latin critical disquisition by Raphael Regini on the first edition of Plutarch's Life of Cicero, "_nuper inventâ diu desideraiâ _"--a disquisition quite aglow with the cinquecento delight in discovery and adventure. In the grounds of this charming house stand four very fine Irish yews forming a little hollow square, within which, according to a local legend, Sir Walter sat enjoying the first pipe of tobacco ever lighted in Ireland, when his terrified serving-maid espying the smoke that curled about her master's head hastily ran up and emptied a pail of water over him. In the garden here, too, we are told, was first planted the esculent which better deserves to be called the Curse of Ireland than does the Nine of Diamonds to be known as the Curse of Scotland. The Irish yew must have been indigenous here, for the name of Youghal, Father Keller tells me, in Irish signifies "the wood of yew-trees." A subterranean passage is said to lead from Sir Walter's dining-room into the church, but we preferred the light of day. The precincts of the church adjoin the grounds and garden, and with these make up a most fascinating poem in architecture. The churches of St. Mary of Youghal and St. Nicholas of Galway have always been cited to me as the two most interesting churches in Ireland. Certainly this church of St. Mary, as now restored, is worth a journey to see. Its massive tower, with walls eight feet thick, its battlemented chancel, the pointed arches of its nave and aisles, a curious and, so far as I know, unique arch in the north transept, drawn at an obtuse angle and demarcating a quaint little side-chapel, and the interesting monuments it contains, all were pointed out to me with as much zest and intelligent delight by Father Keller as if the edifice were still dedicated to the faith which originally called it into existence. It contains a fine Jacobean tomb of Richard, the "great Earl of Cork," who died here in September 1643. On this monument, which is in admirable condition, the effigy of the earl appears between those of his two wives, while below them kneel his five sons and seven daughters, their names and those of their partners in marriage inscribed upon the marble. It was of this earl that Oliver said: "Had there been an Earl of Cork in every province, there had been no rebellion in Ireland." Several Earls of Desmond are also buried here, including the founder of the church, and under a monumental effigy in one of the transepts lies the wonderful old Countess of Desmond, who having danced in her youth with Richard III. lived through the Tudor dynasty "to the age of a hundred and ten," and, as the old distich tells us, "died by a fall from a cherry-tree then." In the churchyard is a hillock, bare of grass, about a tomb. There lies buried, according to tradition, a public functionary who attested a statement by exclaiming, "If I speak falsely, may grass never grow on my grave." One of his descendants is doubtless now an M.P. Mr. Cameron had kindly written from Cork to the officer in charge of the constabulary here asking him to get me a good car for Lismore. So Father Keller very kindly walked with me through the town to the "Devonshire Arms," a very neat and considerable hotel, in quest of him. On the way he pointed out to me what remains of a house which is supposed to have served as the headquarters of Cromwell while he was here, and a small chapel also in which the Protector worshipped after his sort. Off the main street is a lane called Windmill Lane, where probably stood the windmill from which in 1580 a Franciscan friar, Father David O'Neilan, was hung by the feet and shot to death by the soldiers of Elizabeth because he refused to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of the Queen. He had been dragged through the main street at the tail of a horse to the place of execution. His name is one of many names of confessors of that time about to be submitted at Rome for canonisation. We could not find the officer I sought at the hotel, but Father Keller took me to a livery-man in the main street, who very promptly got out a car with "his best horse," and a jarvey who would "surely take me over to Lismore inside of two hours and a half." He was as good as his master's word, and a delightful drive it was, following the course of Spenser's river, the Awniduffe, "which by the Englishman is called Blackwater." Nobody now calls it anything else. The view of Youghal Harbour, as we made a great circuit by the bridge on leaving the town, was exceedingly fine. Lying as it does within easy reach of Cork, this might be made a very pleasant summer halting-place for Americans landing at Queenstown, who now go further and probably fare worse. One Western wanderer, with his family, Father Keller told me, did last year establish himself here, a Catholic from Boston, to whom a son was born, and who begged the Father to give the lad a local name in baptism, "the oldest he could think of." I should have thought St. Declan would have been "old" enough, or St. Nessan of "Ireland's Eye," or Saint Cartagh, who made Lismore a holy city, "into the half of which no woman durst enter," sufficiently "local," but Father Keller found in the Calendar a more satisfactory saint still in St. Goran or "Curran," known also as St. Mochicaroen _de Nona_, from a change he made in the recitation of that part of the Holy Office. The drive from Youghal to Lismore along the Blackwater, begins, continues, and ends in beauty. In the summer a steamer makes the trip by the river, and it must be as charming in its way as the ascent of the Dart from Dartmouth to Totness, or of the Eance from Dinard to St. Suliac. My jarvey was rather a taciturn fellow, but by no means insensible to the charms of his native region. About the Ponsonby estate and its troubles he said very little, but that little was not entirely in keeping with what I had heard at Youghal. "It was an old place, and there was no grand house on it. But the landlord was a kind-man." "Father Keller was a good man too. It was a great pity the people couldn't be on their farms; and there was land that was taken on the hills. It was a great pity. The people came from all parts to see the Blackwater and Lismore; and there was money going." "Yes, he would be glad to see it all quiet again. Ah yes! that was a most beautiful place there just running out into the Blackwater. It was a gentleman owned it; he lived there a good deal, and he fished. Ah! there's no such river in the whole world for salmon as the Blackwater; indeed, there is not! Everything was better when he was a lad. There was more money going, and less talking. Father Keller was a very good man; but he was a new man, and came to Youghal from Queenstown." We passed on our way the ruins of Dromaneen Castle, the birthplace of the lively old Countess of Desmond, who lies buried at Youghal. Here, too, according to a local tradition, she met her death, having climbed too high into a famous cherry-tree at Affane, near Dromaneen, planted there by Sir Walter Raleigh, who first introduced this fruit, as well as the tobacco plant and the potato, into Ireland. At Cappoquin, which stands beautifully on the river, I should have been glad to halt for the night, in order to visit the Trappist Monastery there, an offshoot of La Meilleraye, planted, I think, by some monks from Santa Susanna, of Lulworth, after Charles X. took refuge in the secluded and beautiful home of the Welds. The schools of this monastery have been a benediction to all this part of Ireland for more than half a century. Lismore has nothing now to show of its ancient importance save its castle and its cathedral, both of them absolutely modern! A hundred years ago the castle was simply a ruin overhanging the river. It then belonged to the fifth Duke of Devonshire, who had inherited it from his mother, the only child and heiress of the friend of Pope, Richard, fourth Earl of Cork, and third Earl of Burlington. It had come into the hands of the Boyles by purchase from Sir Walter Ealeigh, to whom Elizabeth had granted it, with all its appendages and appurtenances. The fifth Duke of Devonshire, who was the husband of Coleridge's "lady nursed in pomp and pleasure," did little or nothing, I believe, to restore the vanished glories of Lismore; and the castle, as it now exists, is the creation of his son, the artistic bachelor Duke, to whom England owes the Crystal Palace and all the other outcomes of Sir Joseph Paxton's industry and enterprise. His kinsman and successor, the present Duke, used to visit Lismore regularly down to the time of the atrocious murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish, and many of the beautiful walks and groves which make the place lovely are due, I believe, to his taste and his appreciation of the natural charms of Lismore. I dismissed my car at the "Devonshire Arms," an admirable little hotel near the river, and having ordered my dinner there, walked down to the castle, almost within the grounds of which the hotel stands. It is impossible to imagine a more picturesque site for a great inland mansion. The views up and down the Blackwater from the drawing-room windows are simply the perfection of river landscape. The grounds are beautifully laid out, one secluded garden-walk, in particular, taking you back to the inimitable Italian garden-walks of the seventeenth century. In the vestibule is the sword of state of the Corporation of Youghal, a carved wooden cradle for which still stands in the church at that place, and over the great gateway are the arms of the great Earl of Cork, but these are almost the only outward and visible signs of the historic past about the castle. Seen from the graceful stone bridge which spans the river, its grey towers and turrets quite excuse the youthful enthusiasm with which the Duke of Connaught, who made a visit here when he was Prince Arthur, is said to have written to his mother, that Lismore was "a beautiful place, very like Windsor Castle, only much finer." Lismore Cathedral was almost entirely rebuilt by the second Earl of Cork three or four years after the Restoration, and has a handsome marble spire, but there is little in it to recall the Catholic times in which Lismore was a city of churches and a centre of Irish devotion. The hostess of the "Devonshire Arms" gave me some excellent salmon, fresh from the river, and a very good dinner. She bewailed the evil days on which she has fallen, and the loss to Lismore of all that the Castle used to mean to the people. Lady Edward Cavendish had spent a short time here some little time ago, she said, and the people were delighted to have her come there. "It would be a great thing for the country if all the uproar and quarrelling could be put an end to. It did nobody any good, least of all the poor people." From Lismore I came back by the railway through Fermoy. CHAPTER IX. PORTUMNA, GALWAY, _Feb. 28._--I left Cork by an early train to-day, and passing through the counties of Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Queen's, and King's, reached this place after dark on a car from Parsonstown. The day was delightfully cool and bright. I had the carriage to myself almost all the way, and gave up all the time I could snatch from the constantly varying and often very beautiful scenery to reading a curious pamphlet which I picked up in Dublin entitled _Pour I'Irlande._ It purports to have been written by a "Canadian priest" living at Lurgan in Ireland, and to be a reply to M. de Mandat Grancey's volume, _Chez Paddy._ It is adorned with a frontispiece representing a monster of the Cerberus type on a monument, with three heads and three collars labelled respectively "Flattery," "Famine," and "Coercion." On the pedestal is the inscription--"1800 to 1887. Erected by the grateful Irish to the English Government." The text is in keeping with the frontispiece. In a passage devoted to the "atrocious evictions" of Glenbehy in 1887, the agent of the property is represented as "setting fire with petroleum" to the houses of two helpless men, and turning out "eighteen human beings into the highway in the depth of winter." Not a word is said of the agent's flat denial of these charges, nor a word of the advice given to the agent by Sir Redvers Buller that the mortgagee ought to level the cottages occupied by trespassers, nor a word about Father Quilter's letter to Colonel Turner, branding his flock as "poor slaves" of the League, and turning them over to "Mr. Roe or any other agent" to do as he liked with them, since they could not, or would not, keep their plighted faith given through their own priest. This sort of ostrich fury is common enough among the regular drumbeaters of the Irish agitation. But it is not creditable to a "Canadian priest." Still less creditable is his direct arraignment of M. de Mandat Grancey's good faith and veracity upon the strength of what he describes as M. de Mandat Grancey's amplification and distortion of a story told by himself. This was a tale of a priest called out to confess one of his parishioners. The penitent accused himself of killing one man, and trying to kill several others. The priest, as the dreadful tale went on, made a tally on his sleeve, with chalk, of the crimes recited. "Good heavens! my son," he cried at last, "what had all these men done to you that you tried to send them all into eternity? Who were they?" "Oh, Father, they were all bailiffs or tax-collectors!" "You idiot!" exclaimed the confessor, angrily rubbing at his sleeve, "why didn't ye tell me that before instead of letting me spoil my best cassock?" As I happened to have the book of M. de Mandat Grancey in my despatch-box, I compared it with the attack made upon it. The results were edifying. In the first place, M. de Mandat Grancey does not indicate the Canadian priest as his authority. He says that he heard the story, apparently at a dinner-table in France, from a _curé Irlandais_, who was endeavouring to impress upon his hearers "the sympathy of the clergy with the Land League." The "Canadian priest" now comes forward and makes it a count in his indictment against M. de Mandat Grancey that he is described as an "Irish curate," when he is in fact neither an Irishman nor a curate. What was more natural than that an ecclesiastic, claiming to live in Ireland, and telling stories in France about the sympathy of the Irish clergy with the Land League, should be taken by one of his auditors to be an Irish _curé_, particularly as the French _curé_ is, I believe, the equivalent of the Irish "parish priest"? In the next place, the "Canadian priest" declares that the story "is as old as the Round Towers of Ireland," and that M. de Mandat Grancey represents him as making himself the hero of the tale. As a matter of fact, M. de Mandat Grancey does nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he expressly says that the _curé Irlandais_, who told the story, gave it to his hearers as having occurred not to himself at all, but "to one of his colleagues." Furthermore he is at the pains to add (_Chez Paddy_, p. 43) that the story, which was not to the taste of some of the French ecclesiastics who heard it, was related "as a simple pleasantry." "But," he adds, and this I suspect is the sting which has so exasperated the "Canadian priest," "he gave us to understand at the same time that this pleasantry struck the keynote of the state of mind of many Irish priests, and, he said, that he was himself the President of the League in his district." In connection with Colonel Turner's statements as to the conduct of Father White at Milltown Malbay, and with the accounts given me of the conduct of Father Sheehan at Lixnaw, this side-light upon the relations of a certain class of the Irish clergy with the most violent henchmen of the League, is certainly noteworthy. I happen to have had some correspondence with friends of mine in Paris, who are friends also of M. de Mandat Grarncey, about his visit to Ireland before he made it, and I am quite certain that he went there, to put the case mildly, with no prejudices in favour of the English Government or against the Nationalists. Perhaps the extreme bitterness shown in the pamphlet of the "Canadian priest" may have been born of his disgust at finding that the sympathy of French Catholics with Catholic Ireland draws the line at priests who regard the assassination of "bailiffs and tax-collectors" as a pardonable, if not positively amusing, excess of patriotic zeal. It was late when I reached Parsonstown, known of old in Irish story as Birr, from St. Brendan's Abbey of Biorra, and now a clean prosperous place, carefully looked after by the chief landlord of the region, the Earl of Rosse, who, while he inherits the astronomical tastes and the mathematical ability of his father, is not so absorbed in star-gazing as to be indifferent to his terrestrial duties and obligations. I have heard nothing but good of him, and of his management of his estates, from men of the most diverse political views. But I think it more important to get a look at the Clanricarde property, about which I have heard little but evil from anybody. The strongest point I have heard made in favour of the owner is, that he is habitually described by that dumb organ of a down-trodden people, _United Ireland_, as "the most vile Clanricarde." I found a good car at the railway station, and set off at once for Portumna. Parsonstown was called by Sir William Petty, in his _Survey of Ireland_, the _umbilicus Hiberniæ_. It is the centre of Ireland, as a point near Newnham Paddox is of England, and the famous or infamous "Bog of Allan" stretches hence to Athlone. Our way fortunately took us westward. A light railway was laid down some years ago from Parsonstown to Portumna, but it did not pay, and it has now been abandoned. "What has become of the road?" I asked my jarvey. "Oh! they just take up the rails when they like, the people do." "And what do they do with them?" "Is it what they do with them? Oh; they make fences of them for the beasts." He was a dry, shrewd old fellow, not very amiably disposed, I was sorry to find, towards my own country. "Ah! it's America, sorr, that's been the ruin of us entirely." "Pray, how is that?" "It's the storms they send; and then the grain; and now they tell me it's the American beasts that's spoiling the market altogether for Ireland." "Is that what your member tells you?" "The member, sorr? which member?" "The member of Parliament for your district, I mean. What is his name?" "His name? Well, I'm not sure; and I don't know that I know the man at all. But I believe his name is Mulloy." "Does he live in Portumna?" "Oh no, not at all. I don't know at all where he lives, but I believe it's in Tullamore. But what would he know about America? Sure, any one can see it's the storms and the grain that is the death of us in Ireland." "But I thought it was the landlords and the rents?" "Oh, that's in Woodford and Loughrea; not here at all. There'll be no good till we get a war." "Get a war? with whom? What do you want a war for?" "Ah! it was the good time when we had the Crimean war--with the wheat all about Portumna. I'll show you the great store there was built. It's no use now. But we'll have a war. My son, he's a soldier now. He went out to America. But he didn't like it." "Why not?" I asked. "Oh, he didn't like it. He could get no work, but to be a porter, and it was too hard. So he came back in three months' time, and then he 'listed for a soldier. He's over in England now. He likes it very well. He's getting very good pay. They pay the soldiers well. There's a troop of Hussars here now. They bring a power of money to the place." "What do they do with the wheat lands now?" "Oh, they're for sheep; they do very well. Were you ever in Australia, sorr?" pointing to a place we were passing. "There was a man came here from Australia with a pot of money, and he bought that place; but he thought he was a bigger man than he was, and now he's found himself out. I think he would have done as well to stay in Australia where he was." In quite a different vein he spoke of the landlord of another large seat, and of the way in which the people, some of them, had misbehaved--breaking open the graves of the family on the place, "and tossing the coffins and the bones about, and all for what?" The view as we crossed the long and very fine bridge over the Shannon after dusk was very striking. It was not too dark to make out the course of the broad gleaming river, and the lights of the town made it seem larger, I daresay, than it really is. As we drove up the main street I told my jarvey to take me to the Castle. "To the Castle, is it?" he replied, looking around at me with an astonished air. "Yes," I said, "I am going to see Mr. Tener, the agent, who lives there, doesn't he?" "Oh, the new agent? Oh yes; I believe he's a very good man." "You don't expect to be 'boycotted' for going to the Castle, do you?" "And why should I be? But I haven't been inside of the Castle gates for twenty years. And--here they are!" he cried out suddenly, pulling up his horse just in time to avoid driving him up against a pair of iron gates inhospitably closed. It was by this time pitch dark. Not a light could we see within the enclosure. But presently a couple of shadowy forms appeared behind the iron gates; the iron gates creaked on their hinges, a masculine voice bade us drive in, and a policeman with a lantern advanced from a thicket of trees. All this had a fine martial and adventurous aspect, and my jarvey seemed to enjoy it as much as I. We got directions from the friendly policeman as to the roads and the landmarks, and after once nearly running into a clump of trees found ourselves at last in an open courtyard, where men appeared and took charge of the car, the horse, and my luggage. We were in a quadrangle of the out-buildings attached to the old residence of the Clanricardes, which had escaped the fire of 1826. The late Marquis for a long time hesitated whether to reconstruct the castle on the old site (the walls are still standing), or to build an entirely new house on another site. He finally chose the latter alternative, chiefly, I am told, under the advice of his oldest son, the late Lord Dunkellin, one of the most charming and deservedly popular men of his time. He was a great friend and admirer of Father Burke, whom he used to claim as a Galway cousin, and with whom I met him in Rome not long before his death in the summer of 1867. His brother, the present Marquis, I have never met, but Mr. Tener, his present agent here, who passed some time in America several years ago, learning from him that I wished to see this place, very courteously wrote to me asking me to make his house my headquarters. I found my way through queer passages to a cheery little hall where my host met me, and taking me into a pleasant little parlour, enlivened by flowers, and a merrily blazing fire, presented me to Mrs. Tener. Mr. Tener is an Ulster man from the County Cavan. He went with his wife on their bridal trip to America, and what he there saw of the peremptory fashion in which the authorities deal with conspiracies to resist the law seems not unnaturally to have made him a little impatient of the dilatory, not to say dawdling, processes of the law in his own country. He gave me a very interesting account after dinner this evening of the situation in which he found affairs on this property, an account very different from those which I have seen in print. He is himself the owner of a small landed property in Cavan, and he has had a good deal of experience as an agent for other properties. "I have a very simple rule," he said to me, "in dealing with Irish tenants, and that is neither to do an injustice nor to submit to one." It was only, he said, after convincing himself that the Clanricarde tenants had no legitimate ground of complaint against the management of the estate, not removable upon a fair and candid discussion of all the issues involved between them and himself, that he consented to take charge of the property. That to do this was to run a certain personal risk, in the present state of the country, he was quite aware. But he takes this part of the contract very coolly, telling me that the only real danger, he thinks, is incurred when he makes a journey of which he has to send a notice by telegraph--a remark which recalled to me the curious advice given me in Dublin to seal my letters, as a protection against "the Nationalist clerks in the post-offices." The park of Portumua Castle, which is very extensive, is patrolled by armed policemen, and whenever Mr. Tener drives out he is followed by a police car carrying two armed men. "Against whom are all these precautions necessary?" I asked. "Against the evicted tenants, or against the local agents of the League?" "Not at all against the tenants," he replied, "as you can satisfy yourself by talking with them. The trouble comes not from the tenants at all, nor from the people here at Portumna, but from mischievous and dangerous persons at Loughrea and Woodford. Woodford, mind you, not being Lord Clanricarde's place at all, though all the country has been roused about the cruel Clanricarde and his wicked Woodford evictions. Woodford was simply the headquarters of the agitation against Lord Clanricarde and my predecessor, Mr. Joyce, and it has got the name of the 'cockpit of Ireland,' because it was there that Mr. Dillon, in October 1886, opened the 'war against the landlords' with the 'Plan of Campaign.' It is an odd circumstance, by the way, worth noting, that when these apostles of Irish agitation went to Lord Clanricarde's property nearer the city of Gralway, and tried to stir the people up, they failed dismally, because the people there could understand no English, and the Irish agitators could speak no Irish! Nobody has ever had the face to pretend that the Clanricarde estates were 'rack-rented.' There have been many personal attacks made upon Mr. Joyce and upon Lord Clanricarde, and Mr. Joyce has brought that well-known action against the Marquis for libel, and all this answers with the general public as an argument to show that the tenants on the Clanricarde property must have had great grievances, and must have been cruelly ground down and unable to pay their way. I will introduce you, if you will allow me, to the Catholic Bishop here, and to the resident Protestant clergyman, and to the manager of the bank, and they can help you to form your own judgment as to the state of the tenants. You will find that whatever quarrels they may have had with their landlord or his agent, they are now, and always have been, quite able to pay their rents, and I need not tell you that it is no longer in the power of a landlord or an agent to say what these rents shall be."[10] "Mr. Dillon in that speech of his at Woodford (I have it here as published in _United Ireland_), you will see, openly advised, or rather ordered, the tenants here to club their rents, or, in plain English, the money due to their landlord, with the deliberate intent to confiscate to their own use, or, in their own jargon, 'grab,' the money of any one of their number who, after going into this dishonest combination, might find it working badly and wish to get out of it. Here is his own language:"-- I took the speech as reported in the _United Ireland_ of October 23rd, 1886, and therein found Mr. Dillon, M.P., using these words:--"If you mean to fight really, you must put the money aside for two reasons--first of all because you want the means to support the men who are hit first; and, secondly, because you want to prohibit traitors going behind your back. There is no way to deal with a traitor except to get his money under lock and key, and if you find that he pays his rent, and betrays the organisation, what will you do with him? I will tell you what to do with him. _Close upon his money, and use it for the organisation_. I have always opposed outrages. _This is a legal plan, and it is ten times more effective_." Not a word here as to the morality of the proceeding thus recommended; but almost in the same breath in which he bade his ignorant hearers regard his plan as "legal," Mr. Dillon said to them, "_this must be done privately, and you must not inform the public where the money is placed_!" Why not, if the plan was "legal"? Mr. Dillon, I believe, is not a lawyer, but he can hardly have deluded himself into thinking his plan of campaign "legal" in the face of the particular pains taken by his leader, Mr. Parnell, to disclaim all participation in any such plans. A year before Mr. Dillon made this curious speech, Mr. Parnell, I remember, on the 11th of October 1885, speaking at Kildare, declared that he had "in no case during the last few years advised any combination among tenants against even rack-rents," and insisted that any combination of the sort which might exist should be regarded as an "isolated" combination, "confined to the tenants of individual estates, who, of their own accord, without any incitement from us, on the contrary, kept back by us, without any urging on our part, without any advice on our part, but stung by necessity, and the terrible realities of their position, may have formed such a combination among themselves to secure such a reduction of rent as will enable them to live in their own homes." From this language of Mr. Parnell in October 1885 to Mr. Dillon's speech in October 1886, urging and advising the tenants to organise, exact contributions from every member of the organisation, and put these contributions under the control of third parties determined to confiscate the money subscribed by any member who might not find the organisation working to his advantage, is a rather long step! It covers all the distance between a cunning defensive evasion of the law, and an open aggressive violation of the law--not of the land only, but of common honesty. One of two things is clear: either these combinations are voluntary and "isolated," and intended, as Mr. Parnell asserts, to secure such a reduction of rents as will enable the tenants, and each of them, to live peacefully and comfortably at home, and in that case any member of the combination who finds that he can attain his object better by leaving it has an absolute right to do this, and to demand the return of his money; or they are part of a system imposed upon the tenants by a moral coercion inconsistent with the most elementary ideas of private right and personal freedom. This makes the importance of Mr. Dillon's speech, that by his denunciation of any member who wishes to withdraw from this "voluntary" combination as a "traitor," and by his order to "close upon the money" of any such member, "and use it for the organisation," he brands the "organisation" as a subterranean despotism of a very cheap and nasty kind. The Government which tolerates the creation of such a Houndsditch tyranny as this within its dominions richly deserves to be overthrown. As for the people who submit themselves to it, I do not wonder that in his more lucid moments a Catholic priest like Father Quilter feels himself moved to denounce them as "poor slaves." Of course with a benevolent neutral like myself, the question always recurs, Who trained them to submit to this sort of thing? But I really am at a loss to see why a parcel of conspirators should be encouraged in the nineteenth century to bully Irish farmers out of their manhood and their money, because in the seventeenth century it pleased the stupid rulers of England, as the great Duke of Ormond indignantly said, to "put so general a discountenance upon the improvement of Ireland, as if it were resolved that to keep it low is to keep it safe." On going back to the little drawing-room after dinner we found Mrs. Tener among her flowers, busy with some literary work. It is not a gay life here, she admits, her nearest visiting acquaintance living some seven or eight miles away--but she takes long walks with a couple of stalwart dogs in her company, and has little fear of being molested. "The tenants are in more danger," she thinks, "than the landlords or the agents"--nor do I see any reason to doubt this, remembering the Connells whom I saw at Edenvale, and the story of the "boycotted" Fitzmaurice brutally murdered in the presence of his daughter at Lixnaw on the 31st of January, as if by way of welcome to Lord Ripon and Mr. Morley on their arrival at Dublin. PORTUMNA, _Feb. 29th._--Early this morning two of the "evicted" tenants, and an ex-bailiff of the property here, came by appointment to discuss the situation with Mr. Tener. He asked me to attend the conference, and upon learning that I was an American, they expressed their perfect willingness that I should do so. The tenants were quiet, sturdy, intelligent-looking men. I asked one of them if he objected to telling me whether he thought the rent he had refused to pay excessive, or whether he was simply unable to pay it. "I had the money, sir, to pay the rent," he replied, "and I wanted to pay the rent--only I wouldn't be let." "Who wouldn't let you?" I asked. "The people that were in with the League." "Was your holding worth anything to you?" I asked. "It was indeed. Two or three years ago I could have sold my right for a matter of three hundred pounds." "Yes!" interrupted the other tenant, "and a bit before that for six hundred pounds." "Is it not worth three hundred pounds to you now?" "No," said Mr. Tener, "for he has lost it by refusing the settlement I offered to make, and driving us into proceedings against him, and allowing his six months' equity of redemption to lapse." "And sure, if we had it, no one would be let to buy it now, sir," said the tenant. "But it's we that hope Mr. Tener here will let us come back on the holdings--that is, if we'd be protected coming back." "Now, do you see," said Mr. Tener, "what it is you ask me to do? You ask me to make you a present outright of the property you chose foolishly to throw away, and to do this after you have put the estate to endless trouble and expense; don't you think that is asking me to do a good deal?" The tenants looked at one another, at Mr. Tener, and at me, and the ex-bailiff smiled. "You must see this," said Mr. Tener, "but I am perfectly willing now to say to you, in the presence of this gentleman, that in spite of all, I am quite willing to do what you ask, and to let you come back into the titles you have forfeited, for I would rather have you back on the property than strangers--" "And, indeed, we're sure you would." "But understand, you must pay down a year's rent and the costs you have put us to." "Ah! sure you wouldn't have us to pay the costs?" "But indeed I will," responded Mr. Tener; "you mustn't for a moment suppose I will have any question about that. You brought all this trouble on yourselves, and on us; and while I am ready and willing to deal more than fairly, to deal liberally with you about the arrears--and to give you time--the costs you must pay." "And what would they be, the costs?" queried one of the tenants anxiously. "Oh, that I can't tell you, for I don't know," said Mr. Tener, "but they shall not be anything beyond the strict necessary costs." "And if we come back would we be protected?" "Of course you will have protection. But why do you want protection? Here you are, a couple of strong grown men, with men-folk of your families. See here! why don't you go to such an one, and such an one," naming other tenants; "you know them well. Go to them quietly and sound them to see if they will come back on the same terms with you; form a combination to be honest and to stand by your rights, and defy and break up the other dishonest combination you go in fear of! Is it not a shame for men like you to lie down and let those fellows walk over you, and drive you out of your livelihood and your homes?" The tenants looked at each other, and at the rest of us. "I think," said one of them at last, "I think ---- and ----," naming two men, "would come with us. Of course," turning to Mr. Tener, "you wouldn't discover on us, sir." "Discover on you! Certainly not," said Mr. Tener. "But why don't you make up your minds to be men, and 'discover' on yourselves, and defy these fellows?" "And the cattle, sir? would we get protection for the cattle? They'd be murdered else entirely." "Of course," said Mr. Tener, "the police would endeavour to protect the cattle." Then, turning to me, he said, "That is a very reasonable question. These scoundrels, when they are afraid to tackle the men put under their ban, go about at night, and mutilate and torture and kill the poor beasts. I remember a case," he went on, "in Roscommon, where several head of cattle mysteriously disappeared. They could be found nowhere. No trace of them could be got. But long weeks after they vanished, some lads in a field several miles away saw numbers of crows hovering over a particular point. They went there, and there at the bottom of an abandoned coal-shaft lay the shattered remains of these lost cattle. The poor beasts had been driven blindfold over the fields and down into this pit, where, with broken limbs, and maimed, they all miserably died of hunger." "Yes," said one of the tenants, "and our cattle'd be driven into the Shannon, and drownded, and washed away." "You must understand," interposed Mr. Tener "that when cattle are thus maliciously destroyed the owners can recover nothing unless the remains of the poor beasts are found and identified within three days." The disgust which I felt and expressed at these revelations seemed to encourage the tenants. One of them said that before the evictions came off certain of the National Leaguers visited him, and told him he must resist the officers. "I consulted my sister," he said, "and she said, 'Don't you be such a fool as to be doing that; we'll all be ruined entirely by those rascals and rogues of the League.' And I didn't resist. But only the other day I went to a priest in the trouble we are in, and what do you think he said to me? He said, 'Why didn't you do as you were bid? then you would be helped,' and he would do nothing for us! Would you think that right, sir, in your country?" "I should think in my country," I replied, "that a priest who behaved in that way ought to be unfrocked." "Did you pay over all your rent into the hands of the trustees of the League?" I asked of one of these tenants. "I paid over money to them, sir," he replied. "Yes," I said, "but did you pay over all the amount of the rent, or how much of it?" "Oh! I paid as much as I thought they would think I ought to pay!" he responded, with that sly twinkle of the peasant's eye one sees so often in rural France. "Oh! I understand," I said, laughing. "But if you come to terms now with Mr. Tener here, will you get that money back again?" "Divil a penny of it!" he replied, with much emphasis. Finally they got up together to take their leave, after a long whispered conversation together. "And if we made it half the costs?" "No!" said Mr. Tener good-naturedly but firmly; "not a penny off the costs." "Well, we'll see the men, sir, just quietly, and we'll let you know what can be done"; and with that they wished us, most civilly, good-morning, and went their way. We walked in the park for some time, and a wild, beautiful park it is, not the less beautiful for being given up, as it is, very much to the Dryads to deal with it as they list. It is as unlike a trim English park as possible; but it contains many very fine trees, and grand open sweeps of landscape. In a tangled copse are the ruins of an ancient Franciscan abbey, in one corner of which lie buried together, under a monumental mound of brickwork, the late Marquis of Clanricarde and his wife. The walls of the Castle, burned in 1826, are still standing, and so perfect that the building might easily enough have been restored. A keen-eyed, wiry old household servant, still here, told us the house was burned in the afternoon of January 6, 1826. There were three women-servants in the house--"Anna and Mary Meehan, and Mrs. Underwood, the housekeeper"; and they were getting the Castle ready for his Lordship's arrival, so little of an "absentee" was the late Lord Clanricarde, then only one year married to the daughter of George Canning. The fires were laid on in the upper rooms, and Mrs. Underwood went off upon an errand. When she came back all was in flames. The deer-park is full of deer, now become quite wild. We heard them crashing through the undergrowth on all sides. There must be capital fishing, too, in the lake, and in the river of which it is an expansion. While they were getting the cars ready for a drive, came up another son of the soil. This man I found had only a small interest in the battle on the Clanricarde estates, holding his homestead of another landlord. But he admitted he had gone in a manner into the "combination," in that he had paid a certain, not very large, sum, which he named, to the trustees, "just for peace and quiet." He considered it gone, past recovery; and he named another man with a small holding, but doing a considerable business in other ways, who had "paid £10 or more just not to be bothered." Upon this Mr. Tener told me of a shopkeeper at Loughrea in a large way of business, a man with seven or eight thousand pounds, who, finding his goods about to be seized after the agent had turned a sharp strategic corner on him, and unexpectedly got into his shop, was about to own up to his defeat, and make a fair settlement, when the secretary of the League appeared, and requested a private talk with him. In a quarter of an hour the tradesman reappeared looking rather sullen and crestfallen. He said he couldn't pay, and must let the goods be taken. So taken they were, and duly put up under the process and sold. He bought them in himself, paying all the costs. Presently two cars appeared. We got upon one, Mr. Tener driving a spirited nag, and taking on the seat with him a loaded carbine-rifle. Two armed policeman followed us upon the other, keeping at such a distance as would enable them easily to cover any one approaching from either side of the roadway. It quite took me back to the delightful days of 1866 in Mexico, when we used to ride out to picnics at the Rincon at Orizaba armed to the teeth, and ready at a moment's notice to throw the four-in-hand mule-wagons into a hollow square, and prepare to receive cavalry. As it seems to be perfectly well understood that the regular price paid for shooting a designated person (they call it "knocking" him in these parts) is the ridiculously small sum of four pounds, and that two persons who divide this sum are always detailed by the organisers of outrage to "knock" an objectionable individual, it is obvious that too much care can hardly be taken by prudent people in coming and going through such a country. Fortunately for the people most directly concerned to avoid these unpleasantnesses a systematic leakage seems to exist in the machinery of mischief. The places where the oaths of this local "Mafia" are administered, for instance, are well known. A roadside near a chapel is frequently selected--and this for two or three obvious reasons. The sanctity of the spot may be supposed to impress the neophyte; and if the police or any other undesirable people should suddenly come upon the officiating adepts and the expectant acolyte, a group on the roadside is not necessarily a criminal gathering--though I do not see why, in such times, our old American college definition of a "group" as a gathering of "three or more persons" should not be adopted by the authorities, and held to make such a gathering liable to dispersion by the police, as our "groups" used to be subject to proctorial punishment. Mills are another favourite resort of the law-breakers. Mr. Tener tells me that a large mill between this place and Loughrea is a great centre of trouble, not wholly to the disadvantage of the astute miller, who finds it not only brings grist to his mill, but takes away grist from another mill belonging to a couple of worthy ladies, and once quite prosperous. It is no uncommon thing, it appears, for the same person to be put through the ceremony of swearing fidelity more than once, and at more than one place, with the not unnatural result, however, of diminishing the pressure of the oath upon his conscience or his fears, and also of alienating his affections, as he is expected to pay down two shillings on each occasion. Once a member, he contributes a penny a week to the general fund. It seems also to be an open secret who the disbursing treasurers are of this fund, from whom the members, detailed to do the dark bidding of the "organisation," receive their wage. "A stout gentleman with sandy hair and wearing glasses" was the description given to me of one such functionary. When so much is known of the methods and the men, why is it that so many crimes are committed with virtual impunity? For two sufficient reasons. Witnesses cannot be got to testify, or trusted, if they do testify, to speak the truth; and it is idle to expect juries of the vicinage in nine cases out of ten will do their duty. Political cowardice having made it impossible to transfer the venue in cases of Irish crime, as to which all the authorities were agreed about these points, from Ireland into Great Britain, it is found that even to transfer the trial of "Moonlighters" from Clare or Kerry into Wicklow, for example, has a most instructive effect, opening the eyes of the people of Wicklow to a state of things in their own island, of which happily for themselves they were previously as ignorant as the people of Surrey or of Middlesex. This explains the indignant wish expressed to me some time ago in a letter from a priest in another part of Ireland, that "martial law" might be proclaimed in Clare and Kerry to "stamp out the Moonlighters, those pests of society." That in Clare and Kerry priests should be found not only disposed to wink at and condone the proceedings of these "pests of society," but openly to co-operate with them under the pretext of a "national" movement, is surely a thing equally intolerable by the Church and dangerous to the cause of Irish autonomy. This I am glad to say is strongly felt, and has been on more than one occasion very vigorously stated by one of the most eminent and estimable of Irish ecclesiastics, the Bishop-Coadjutor of Clonfert, upon whom I called this morning. Dr. Healy, who is a senator of the Royal University of Ireland, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy, presides over that part of the diocese of Clonfort which includes Portumna and Woodford. He lives in a handsome and commodious, but simple and unpretentious house, set in ample grounds well-planted, and commanding a wide view of a most agreeable country. We were ushered into a well-furnished study, and the bishop came in at once to greet us with the most cordial courtesy. He is a frank, dignified, unaffected man, and in his becoming episcopal purple, with the gold chain and cross, looked every inch a bishop. I was particularly anxious to see Dr. Healy, as a type of the high-minded and courageous ecclesiastics who, in Ireland, have resolutely refused to subordinate their duties and their authority as ecclesiastics to the convenience and the policy of an organisation absolutely controlled by Mr. Parnell, who not only is not a Catholic, but who is an open ally and associate of the bitterest enemies of the Catholic Church in France and in England. Protestant historians affirm that Pope Innocent was one of the financial backers of William of Orange when he set sail from Holland to crush the Catholic faith in Great Britain and Ireland, and drive the Catholic house of Stuart into exile. But it was reserved for the nineteenth century to witness the strange spectacle of men, calling themselves Irishmen and Catholics, deliberately slandering and assailing in concord with a non-Catholic political leader the consecrated pastors and masters of the Church in Ireland. When in order to explain what they themselves concede to be "the absence from the popular ranks of the best of the priesthood," Nationalist writers find it necessary to denounce Cardinal Cullen and Cardinal M'Cabe as "anti-Irish "; and to sneer at men like Dr. Healy as "Castle Bishops," it is impossible not to be reminded of the three "patriotic" tailors of Tooley Street. Bishop Healy looks upon the systematic development of a substantial peasant proprietary throughout Ireland as the economic hope of the country, and he regards therefore the actual "campaigning" of the self-styled "Nationalists" as essentially anti-national, inasmuch as its methods are demoralising the people of Ireland, and destroying that respect for law and for private rights which lies at the foundation of civil order and of property. In his opinion, "Home Rule," to the people in general, means simply ownership of the land which they are to live on, and to live by. How that ownership shall be brought about peaceably, fairly, and without wrong or outrage to any man or class of men is a problem of politics to be worked out by politicians, and by public men. That men, calling themselves Catholics, should be led on to attempt to bring this or any other object about by immoral and criminal means is quite another matter, and a matter falling within the domain, not of the State primarily, but of the Church. As to this, Bishop Healy, who was in Rome not very long ago, and who, while in Rome, had more than one audience of His Holiness by command, has no doubt whatever that the Vatican will insist upon the abandonment and repudiation by Catholics of boycotting, and "plans of campaign," and all such devices of evil. Nor has the Bishop any doubt that whenever the Holy Father speaks the priests and the people of Ireland will obey. To say this, of course, is only to say that the Bishop believes the priests of Ireland to be honest priests, and the people of Ireland to be good Catholics. If he is mistaken in this it will be a doleful thing, not for the Church, but for the Irish priests, and for the Irish people. No Irishman who witnessed the magnificent display made at Rome this year, of the scope and power of the Catholic Church, can labour under any delusions on that point. From the Bishop's residence we went to call upon the Protestant rector of Portumna, Mr. Crawford. The handsome Anglican church stands within an angle of the park, and the parsonage is a very substantial mansion. Mr. Crawford, the present rector, who is a man of substance, holds a fine farm of the Clanricarde estate, at a peppercorn rent, and he is tenant also of another holding at £118 a year, as to which he has brought the agent into Court, with the object, as he avers, of setting an example to the other tenants, and inducing them, like himself, to fight under the law instead of against it. He is not, however, in arrears, and in that respect sets a better example, I am sorry to say, than the Catholic priest, Father Coen, who made himself so conspicuous here on the occasion of the much bewritten Woodford evictions. The case of Father Coen is most instructive, and most unpleasant. He occupies an excellent house on a holding of twenty-three acres of good laud, with a garden--in short, a handsome country residence, which was provided by the late Lord Clanricarde, expressly for the accommodation of whoever might be the Catholic priest in that part of his estate. For all this the rent is fixed at the absurd and nominal sum of two guineas a year! Yet Father Coen, who now enjoys the mansion, and has a substantial income from the parish, is actually two years and a half in arrears with this rent! This fact Mr. Tener mentioned to the Bishop, whose countenance naturally darkened. "What am I to do in such a case, my lord?" asked Mr. Tener. "Do?" said the Bishop, "do your plain duty, and proceed against him according to law." But suppose he were proceeded against and evicted, as in America he certainly would be, who can doubt that he would instantly be paraded, before the world, on both sides of the Atlantic as a "martyr," suffering for the holy cause of an oppressed and down-trodden people, at the hands of a "most vile" Marquis, and of a remorse-less and blood-thirsty agent?[11] Mr. Crawford, a tall, fine-looking man, talked very fully and freely about the situation here. He came to Portumna about eight years ago; one of his reasons for accepting the position here offered him being that he wished to take over a piece of property near Woodford from his brother-in-law, who found he could not manage it. As a practical farmer, and a straightforward capable man of business, he has gradually acquired the general confidence of the tenants here. That they are, as a rule, quite able to pay the rents which they have been "coerced" into refusing to pay, he fully believes. He told me of cases in which Catholic tenants of Lord Clanricarde came to him when the agitation began about the Plan of Campaign, and begged him privately to take the money for their rents, and hold it for them till the time should come for a settlement. The reason for this was that they did not wish to be obliged to give over the money into the "Trust" created by the Campaigners, and wanted it to be safely put beyond the reach of these obliging "friends." One very shrewd tenant came to him and begged him to buy some beasts, in order that he might pay his rent out of the proceeds. The man owed £15 to the Clanricarde property. Mr. Crawford did not particularly want to buy his beasts, but eventually agreed to do so, and gave him £50 for them. The man went off with the money, but he never paid the rent! Mr. Crawford discovering this called him to account, and refused to grant him some further favour which he asked. The result is that the "distressed tenant" now cuts Mr. Crawford when he meets him, and is the prosperous owner of quite a small herd of cattle. Mr. Crawford's opinion of the mischief done by the methods and spirit of the National League in this place is quite in accord with the opinions of the Bishop-Coadjutor. Power without responsibility, which made the Cæesars madmen, easily turns the heads of village tyrants, and there is something positively grotesque in the excesses of this subterranean "Home Rule." Mr. Crawford told me of a case here, in which a tenant farmer, whom he named, came to him in great wrath, not unmingled with terror, to say that the League had ordered him, on pain of being boycotted, to give up his holding to the heirs of a woman from whom, twenty years ago, he had bought, for £100 in cash, the tenant-right of her deceased husband! There was no question of refunding the £100. He was merely to consider himself a "land-grabber," and evict himself for the benefit of those heirs who had never done a stroke of work on the property for twenty years, and who had no shadow of a legal or moral claim on it, except that the oldest of them was an active member of the local League! Nor was this unique. In another case, the children of a tenant, who died forty years ago, came forward and called upon the League to boycott an old man who had been in possession of the holding during nearly half a century. In a third case, a tenant-farmer, some ten years ago, had in his employ as herd a man who fell ill and died. He put into the vacant place an honest, capable young fellow, who still holds it, and has faithfully and efficiently served him. Only the other day this tenant-farmer was warned by the League to expect trouble, unless he dismissed this herd, and put into his place the son, now grown to man's estate, of the herd who died ten years ago! It is amusing, if not instructive, to find the hereditary principle, just now threatened in its application to the British Senate, cropping out afresh as an element in the regeneration of Irish agriculture and the land tenure of Ireland! On our way back to the Castle we called on Mr. Place, the manager of the Portumna Branch of the Hibernian Bank, who lives in the town. He was amusing himself, after the labour of the day in the bank, with some amateur work as a carpenter, but received us very cordially. He said there was no doubt that the deposits in the bank had increased considerably since the adoption of the Plan of Campaign on the Clanricarde property. Money was paid into the bank continually by persons who wished the fact of their payments kept secret; and he knew of more than one case in which tenants, whose stock had been seized by the agent for the rents, were much delighted at the seizure, since it had paid off their rents, and so enabled them to retain their holdings and keep out of the grasp of the League, even though to do this they had undergone a forced sale and been muleted in costs. It was his opinion that the tenants on the Clanricarde property, who are not in arrears, would gladly accept a twenty-five per cent. reduction, and do very well by accepting it. But they are constrained into a hostile attitude by the tenants who are in arrears, some of them for several years (as, for example, Father Coen), although I find, to my astonishment, that in Ireland the landlord has no power to distrain for more than a twelvemonth's rent, no matter how far back the arrears may run. Mr. Place seems to think it would be well to put all the creditors of the tenants on one footing with the landlords. The shopkeepers and other creditors, he thinks, in that event would see many things in quite a new light. What is called the new Castle of Portumna is a large and handsome building of the Mansard type, standing on an eminence in the park, at some distance from the original seat. The building was finished not long before the death of his father, the late Marquis. It has never been occupied, save by a large force of police quartered in it not very long ago by Mr. Tener in readiness for an expedition against the Castle of Cloondadauv, to the scene of which he promises to drive me to-morrow on my way back to Dublin. It is thoroughly well built, and might easily be made a most delightful residence. The views which it commands of the Shannon are magnificent, and there are many fine trees about it. The old man who has charge of it is a typical Galway retainer of the old school. The "boys," he says, once tried to "boycott" him because he was the pound-master; but he showed fight, and they let him alone. He pointed out to me from the top of the house, in the distance, the residences of Colonel Hickie, and of the young Lord Avonmore, who lately succeeded on the death of his brother in the recent Egyptian expedition. The place is now shut up, and the owners live in France. We visited too the Portumna Union before driving home. The buildings of this Union are extensive for the place, and well built, and it seems to be well-ordered and neatly kept--thanks, in no small degree, I suspect, to the influence of the Sisters who have charge of the hospital, but whose benign spirit shows itself not only in the flower-garden which they have called into being, but in many details of the administration beyond their special control. The contrast was very striking between the atmosphere of this unpretending refuge of the helpless and that of certain of the "laicised" hospitals of France, which I not long ago visited, from which the devoted nuns have been expelled to make way for hired nurses. I made a remark to this effect to the clerk of the Union, Mr. Lavan, whom we found in his office. "Oh, yes," he said, "I have no doubt of that. We owe more than I can say to the Sisters, but I don't know how long we should have them here if the local guardians could have their way." In explanation of this, he went on to tell me that these local guardians, who are elected, are hostile to the whole administration, because of its relations with the Local Government Board at Dublin, which controls their generous tendency to expend the money of the ratepayers. By way of expressing their feelings, therefore, they have been trying to cut down, not only the salary of the clerk, but that of the Catholic chaplain of the Union; and as there is a good deal of irreligious feeling among the agitators here, it is his impression that they would make things disagreeable for the Sisters also were they in any way to get the management into their own hands. That there cannot be much real distress in this neighbourhood appears from two facts. There are now but 130 inmates of this Union, out of a population of 12,900, and the outlay for out-of-door relief averages between eight and ten pounds a week. In the quiet, neat chapel two or three of the inmates were kneeling at prayers; and others whom we saw in the kitchen and about the offices had nothing of the "workhouse" look which is so painful in the ordinary inmates of an English or American almshouse. "The trouble with the place," said Mr. Lavan, "is that they like it too well. It takes an eviction almost to get them out of it." We sat down with Mr. Lavan in his office, and had an interesting talk with him. He is the agent of Mr. Mathews, who lives between Woodford and Portumna. Mr. Mathews is a resident landlord, he says, who has constantly employed and has lived on friendly terms with his tenants, numbering twenty, who hold now under judicial rents. On these judicial rents two years ago they were allowed a further reduction of 15 per cent. Last year they were allowed 20 per cent. This year he offered them a reduction of 25 per cent., which they rejected, demanding 35 per cent. This demand Mr. Lavan considers to be unreasonable in the extreme, and he attributes it to the influence of the National Leaguers here, whose representatives among the local guardians constantly vote away the money of the ratepayers in "relief to evicted tenants who have ample means and can in no respect be called destitute." In his opinion the effect of the Nationalist agitation here has been to upset all ideas of right and wrong in the minds of the people where any question arises between tenants and landlords. He told a story, confirmed by Mr. Tener, of a bailiff, whom he named, on the Clanricarde property here, who was compelled two years ago to resign his place in order to prevent the "boycotting" of his mother who keeps a shop on the farm. He was familiar, too, with the details of a story told me by one of the Clanricarde tenants, a farmer near Loughrea who holds a farm at £90 a year. This man was forced to subscribe to the Plan of Campaign. The agent proceeded against him for the rent due, and he incurred costs of £10. His sheep and crop were then seized. He begged the local leaders to "permit" him to pay his rent, as he was able to do it _without drawing out the funds in their hands_! They refused, and so compelled him to allow his property to be publicly sold, and to incur further costs of £10. "His farm lies so near the town that he did not dare to risk the vengeance of the local ruffians." Mr. Lavan gave me the name also of another man who is now actually under a "boycott," because he has ventured to resist the modest demand made by the son of a man whose tenant-right he bought, paying him £100 for it, twenty years ago, that he shall give up his farm without being reimbursed for his outlay made to purchase it! In other words, after twenty years' peaceable possession of a piece of property, bought and paid for, this tenant-farmer is treated as a "land-grabber" by the self-installed "Nationalist" government of Ireland, because he will not submit to be robbed both of the money which he paid for his tenant-right, and of his tenant-right! Obviously in such a case as this the "war against landlordism" is simply a war against property and against private rights. Priests of the Catholic Church who not only countenance but aid and abet such proceedings certainly go even beyond Dr. M'Glynn. Dr. M'Glynn, so far as I know, stops at the confiscation of all private property in rent by the State for the State. But here is simply a confiscation of the property of A for the benefit of B, such as might happen if B, being armed and meeting A unarmed in a forest, should confiscate the watch and chain of A, bought by A of B's lamented but unthrifty father twenty years before! After dinner to-night Mr. Tener gave me some interesting and edifying accounts of his experience in other parts of Ireland. Some time ago, before the Plan of Campaign was adopted, one of his tenants in Cavan came to him with a doleful story of the bad times and the low prices, and wound up by saying he could pay no more than half a year's rent. "Now his rent had been reduced under the Land Act," said Mr, Tener, "and I had voluntarily thrown off a lot of arrears, so I looked at him quietly and said, 'Mickey, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You have been very well treated, and you can perfectly well pay your rent. Your wife would be ashamed of you if she knew you were trying to get out of it.'" "Ah no, your honour!" he briskly replied; "indade she would approve it. If you won't discover on me, I'll tell you the truth. It was the wife herself, she's a great schollard, and reads the papers, that tould me not to pay you more than half the rent--for she says there's a new Act coming to wipe it all out. Will you take the half-year?" "No, I will not. Don't be afraid of your wife, but pay what you owe, like a man. You've got the money there in your pocket." This was a good shot. Mickey couldn't resist it, and his countenance broke into a broad smile. "Ah no! I've got it in two pockets. Begorra, it was the wife herself made up the money in two parcels, and she put one into each pocket, to be sure--and I wasn't to give your honour but one, if you would take it. But there's the money, and I daresay it's all for the best." On another occasion, when he was collecting the rents of a property in the county of Longford, one tenant came forward as the spokesman of the rest, admitted that the rents had been accepted fairly after a reduction under the Land Act, expressed the general wish of the tenants to meet their obligations, and wound up by asking a further abatement, "the times were so bad, and the money couldn't be got, it couldn't indeed!" Mr. Tener listened patiently--to listen patiently is the most essential quality of an agent in Ireland--and finally said:-- "Very well, if you haven't got the money to pay in full, pay three-quarters of it, and I'll give you time for the rest." "Thank your honour!" said Pat, "and that'll be thirty pounds--and here it is in one pound notes, and hard enough to get they are, these times!" So Mr. Tener took the money, counted the notes twice over, and then, writing out a receipt, handed it to the tenant. "All right, Pat, there's your receipt for thirty-nine pounds, and I'm glad to see ten-pound notes going about the country in these hard times!" By mistake the "distressful" orator had put one ten-pound note into his parcel! He took his receipt, and went off without a word. But the combination to get an "abatement" broke down then and there, and the other tenants came forward and put down their money. These incidents occurred to Mr. Tener himself. Not less amusing and instructive was a similar mistake on a larger scale made by an over-crafty tenant in dealing with one of Mr. Tener's friends a few years ago in the county of Leitrim. This tenant, whom we will call Denis, was the fugleman also of a combination. He was a cattle dealer as well as a farmer, and having spent a couple of hours in idly eloquent attempts to bring about a general abatement of the rents, he lost his patience. "Ah, well, your honour!" he said, "I can't stay here all day talking like these men, I must go to the fair at Boyle. Will you take a deposit-receipt of the bank for ten pounds and give me the pound change? that'll just be the nine pounds for the half-year's rent. But all the same, yer honour, those men are all farmers, and it's not out of the farm at all I made the ten pounds, it's out of the dealing!" "But you couldn't deal without a farm, Denis, for the stock," said the agent, as he glanced at the receipt. He hastily turned it over, and went on, "Just indorse the receipt, and I'll consider your proposition." The receipt was indorsed, and at once taken off by the agent's clerk to the bank to bring back pound-notes for it, while the agent quietly proceeded to fill out the regular form of receipt for a full year's rent, eighteen pounds. Denis noted what he supposed of course to be the agent's blunder, but like an astute person held his peace. The clerk came back with the notes. Denis took up his receipt, and the agent quietly began handing him note after note across the table. "But, your honour!" exclaimed Denis, "what on earth are ye giving me all this money for?" "It's your change," said the agent, quite imperturbably. "You gave me a bank receipt for one hundred pounds. I have given you a receipt for your full year's rent, and here are eighty-two pounds in notes, and with it eighteen shillings in silver--that's five per cent. reduction. I would have made it ten per cent., only you were so very sharp, first about not having the money, and then about the full receipt!" In an instant all eyes were fastened upon Denis. Ichabod! the glory had departed. The chorus went up from his disenchanted followers:-- "Ah, glory be to God, you were not bright enough for the agent, Denis!" And so that day the agent made a very full and handsome collection--and there was a slight reduction in the deposit-accounts of the local bank! In the evening Mr. Tener gave me the details of some cases of direct intimidation with the names of the tenants concerned. One man, whose farm he visited, told him he had paid his rent not long before to the previous agent. "Well," said Mr. Tener, "show me your receipt!" On this the tenant said that he dare not keep the receipt about him, nor even in the house, lest it should be demanded by the emissaries of the League, who went round to keep the tenants up to the "Plan of Campaign," and that it was hidden in his stable. And he went out to the stable and brought it in. This, he had reason to believe, was not an uncommon case.[12] The same man, wishing to take a grass farm which the people hoped the agent would consent to have "cut up" was asked to give two names on a promissory-note to pay the rent. He demurred to this, and after a parley said, "Would a certificate do?" upon which he pulled out an old tobacco-box, and carefully unfolded from it a bank certificate of deposit for a hundred pounds sterling! This tenant held eleven Irish, or more than seventeen English, acres, and his yearly rent was £11, 16s. 6d. The people before this agitation began were generally quiet, thrifty, and industrious. They were great sheep-raisers. An old law of the Irish Parliament had exempted sheep, but not cattle or crops, from distraint, with an eye to encouraging the woollen interest in Ireland. As to the sale of tenant-right in Ireland, he told me a curious story. One woman, a widow, whom he named, owed two year' rent on a holding in Ulster at £4 a year. She was abundantly able to pay, but for her own reasons preferred to be evicted, and, finally, by an understanding with him, offered her tenant-right for sale. A man who had made money in iron-mines in the County of Durham was a bidder, and finally offered £240 for the holding. It was knocked down to him. He then saw the agent, who told him he had paid too much. The woman was then appealed to, and she admitted that the agent was right. But it was shown that others had offered £200, and the woman finally agreed to take, and received, that amount in gold, being fifty years' purchase! CHAPTER X. DUBLIN, _Thursday, March 1._--This has been a crowded day. I left Portumna very early on a car with Mr. Tener, intending to visit the scene of his latest collision with the "National" government of Ireland, on my way to Loughrea. It was a bright spring morning, more like April in Italy than like March in America, and the country is full of natural beauty. We made our first halt at the derelict house of Martin Kenny, one of the "victims" of the famous "Woodford evictions," so called, as I have said, because Woodford is the nearest town.[13] The eviction here took place October 21st, 1887. The house has been dismantled by the neighbours since that time, each man carrying off a door, or a shutter, or whatever best suited him. One of the constables who followed us as Mr. Tener's body-guard had been present at the eviction. He came into the house with us, and very graphically described the performance. The house was still full of heavy stones taken into it, partly to block the entrances, and partly as ammunition; and trunks of trees used as _chevaux defrise_ still protruded through the door and the window. These trees had been cut down by the garrison in the woodlands here and there all over the property. I asked if the law in Ireland punished depredations of this sort, and was informed that trees planted by tenants, if registered by them within a certain time, are the property of the tenants. This would astonish our landlords in America, where the tenant who sticks so much as a sunflower into his garden-patch makes a present of it to his landlord.[14] I asked if the place made a long defence. Mr. Tener and the constable both laughed, and the former told me that when the storming party arrived shortly after daybreak, they found the house garrisoned only by some small boys, who had been left there to keep watch. The men were fast asleep at some other place. The small boys ran away as fast as possible to give the alarm, but the police went in, and in a jiffey pulled to pieces the elaborate defences prepared to repel them. Father Coen, the constable said, got to Kenny's house an hour after it was all over, with a mob of people howling and groaning. But the work had been done, and other work also at the Castle of Cloondadauv, to which we next drove. This place takes its truly awe-inspiring name from a ruined Norman tower standing on a picturesque promontory of no great height, which juts out into the lovely lake here made by the Shannon. At no great expense this tower might be so restored as to make an ideal fishing-box. It now simply adorns the holding formerly occupied by Mr. John Stanislaus Burke, a former tenant of Lord Clanricarde. The story of its capture on the 17th of September is worth telling. Some days before the evictions were to come off, a meeting was held at Woodford or Loughrea, at which one of the speakers, the patriotic Dr. Tully, rather incautiously and exultingly told his hearers that the defence in 1886 of the tenant's house known as "Fort Saunders" had been a grand and gallant affair indeed, but that next time "the exterminators would have to storm a castle"! This put Mr. Tener at once on the alert, and as Mr. Burke of Cloondadauv was set down for eviction, it didn't require much cogitation to fix upon the fortress destined to be "stormed." So he set about the campaign. The County Inspector of the constabulary, who had made a secret reconnaissance, reported that he found the place too strong to be taken if defended, except "by artillery." So it was determined to take it by surprise. When the previous evictions were made, the agent and the public forces had marched from Portumna by the highway to Woodford, so that, of course, their advent was announced by the scouts and sentinels of the League from hill to hill long before they reached the scene of action, and abundant time was given to the agitators for organising a "reception." Mr. Tener profited by the experience of his predecessors. He contrived to get his force of constabulary through the town of Portumna without attracting any popular attention. And as early rising is not a popular virtue here, he resolved to steal a march on the defenders of Cloondadauv. He had brought up certain large boats to Portumna, and put them on the lake. Rousing his men before dawn, he soon had them all embarked, and on their way swiftly and silently by the river and the lake to Cloondadauv. They reached the promontory by daybreak, and as soon as the hour of legal action had arrived they were landed, and surrounded the "castle." The ancient portal was found to be blocked with heavy stones and trunks of trees, nor did any adit appear to be available, till a young gentleman who had accompanied the party as a volunteer, discovered in one wall of the tower, at some little height from the ground, the vent of one of those conduits not infrequently found running down through the walls of old castles, which were used sometimes as waste-ways for rubbish from above, and sometimes to receive water-pipes from below. Looking up into this vent, he saw a rope hanging free within it. Upon this he hauled resolutely, and finding it firmly attached above, came to the conclusion that it must have been fixed there by the garrison as a means of access to the interior. Like an adventurous young tar, he bade his comrades stand by, and nimbly "swarmed" up the rope, without thought or care of what might await him at the top. In a few moments his shouts from above proclaimed the capture of the stronghold. It was absolutely deserted; the garrison, confident that no attack would that day be made, had gone off to the nearest village. The interior of the castle was found filled with munitions of war, in the shape of huge beams and piles of stones laboriously carried up the winding stairs, and heaped on all the landing-places in readiness for use. On the flat roof of the castle was established a sort of furnace for heating water or oil, to be poured down upon the besiegers; and crowbars lay there in readiness to loosen out and dislodge the battlements, and topple them over upon the assailants. The officers soon made their way all over the building, and thence proceeded to the residence of Mr. Burke near by, a large and very commodious house. All the formalities were gone through with, a detachment of policemen was put in charge, and the rest of the forces set out on their return to Portumna, before the organised "defenders" of Cloondadauv, hastily called out of their comfortable beds or from their breakfast-tables had realised the situation, and got the populace into motion. A mass meeting was held in the neighbourhood, and many speeches were made. But the castle and the farm-house and the holding all remain in the hands of a cool, quiet, determined-looking young Ulsterman, who tells me that he is getting on very well, and feels quite able with his police-guard to protect himself. "Once in a while," he said, "they come here from Loughrea with English Parliament-men, and stand outside of the gate, and call me 'Clanricarde's dog,' and make like speeches at me; but I don't mind them, and they see it, and go away again." Of Mr. Burke, the evicted tenant here, Mr. Crawford, the Protestant clergyman at Portumna, told me that he was abundantly able to pay his rent. The whole debt for which Burke was evicted was £115; and Mr. Crawford said he had himself offered Burke £300 for the holding. Burke would have gladly taken this, but "the League wouldn't let him." When his right was put up for sale at Galway for £5, he did not dare to buy it in, and he is now living with his wife and children on the League funds. Lord Clanricarde's agent offered to take him back and restore his right if he would pay what he owed; but he dared not accept. This farm comprises over one hundred and ten English acres, which Burke held at a rent--fixed by the Land Court--of £77, the valuation for taxes being £83. To call the eviction of such a tenant in such circumstances from such a holding a "sentence of death," is making ducks and drakes of the English language. Mr. Crawford's opinion, founded upon a thorough personal knowledge of the region, is that there is no exceptional distress in this part of Ireland, and that over-renting has nothing to do with such distress as does exist here. The case of a man named Egan, one of the "victims" of the Woodford evictions of 1886, certainly bears out this view of the matter. Egan, who was a tenant, not at all of Lord Clanricarde, but of a certain Mrs. Lewis, had occupied for twenty years a holding of about sixteen Irish acres, or more than twenty English acres. This he held at a yearly rental of £8, 15s., being 9d. over the valuation. In August 1886 he was evicted for refusing to pay one year's rent then due. At that time the crops standing on the land were valued by him at £60, 13s. He also owned six beasts. In other words, this man, when he was called upon to pay a debt of £8, 15s. had in his own possession, beside the valuable tenant-right of his holding, more than a hundred pounds sterling of merchantable assets. He refused to pay, and he was evicted. This was in August 1886. But such are the ideas now current in Ireland as to the relations of landlord and tenant, that immediately after his eviction Egan sent his daughter to gather some cabbages off the farm as if nothing had happened. The Emergency men in charge actually objected, and sent the damsel away. Thereupon Egan, on the 6th of September, served a legal notice on Mrs. Lewis, his landlady, requiring her either to let him take all the crops on the farm, or to pay him their value, estimated by him, as I have said, at £60, 13s. Two days after this, on the 8th of September, more than a hundred men came to the place by night and removed the greater portion of the crops. Not wishing a return of these visitors, Mrs. Lewis, on the 16th of September, sent word to Egan to come and take away what was left of the crops; one of the horses employed in the nocturnal harvest of September 8th having been seized by the police and identified as belonging to Egan. Egan did not respond; but in July 1887 he brought an action against his landlady to recover £100 sterling for her "detention of his goods," and her "conversion of the same to her own use "! The case was heard by the Recorder at Kilmainham, and the facts which I have briefly recited were established by the evidence. The daughter of this extraordinary "victim" Egan appeared as a witness, so "fashionably dressed" as to attract a remark on the subject from the defendant's counsel. To this she replied that "her brothers in America sent her money." "If your brothers in America sent you money for such purposes," not unnaturally observed the Recorder, "why did they allow your father to sacrifice crops worth £60 for the non-payment of £8, 15s.?" "They were tired of that," said the young lady airily; "the land wasn't worth the rent!" That is to say, a farm which yielded a crop of £60, and pastured several head of cattle, was not worth £8, 15s. a year. Certainly it was not worth £8, 15s. a year if the tenant under the operation of the existing or the impending laws of Great Britain in Ireland could get, or hope to get it for the half of that rent, or for no rent at all. But this being thus, on what grounds are the rest of mankind invited to regard this excellent man as a "victim" worthy of sympathy and of material aid? How had he come to be in arrears of a year in August 1886? The proceedings at Kilmainham tell us this. In November 1885 he had demanded, with other tenants of Mrs. Lewis, a reduction of 50 per cent. This would have given him his holding at a rental of £4, 7s. 6d. Mrs. Lewis refused the concession, and a month afterwards an attempt was made to blow up her son's house with dynamite. Between that time and August 1886, all the efforts of her son, who was also her agent, to collect her dues by seizing beasts, were defeated by the driving away of the cattle, so that no remedy but an eviction was left to her. I take it for granted that Mrs. Lewis had a family to maintain, and debts of one sort and another to pay, as well as Mr. Egan--but I observe this material difference between her position and his during the whole of this period of "strained relations" between herself and her tenant, that whereas she lay completely out of the enjoyment of the rent due her, being the interest on her capital, represented in her title to the land, Mr. Egan remained in the complete enjoyment and use of the land. Clearly the tenant was in a better position than the landlord, and as we are dealing not with the history of Ireland in the past, but with the condition of Ireland at present, it appears to me to be quite beside the purpose to ask my sympathies for Mr. Egan on the ground that a century or half a century ago the ancestors of Mr. Egan may have been at the mercy of the ancestors of Mrs. Lewis. However that may have been, Mr. Egan seems to me now to have had legally much the advantage of Mrs. Lewis. Not only this. Both legally and materially Mr. Egan, the tenant-farmer at Woodford, seems to me to have had much the advantage of thousands of his countrymen living and earning their livelihood by their daily labour in such a typical American commonwealth, for example, as Massachusetts. I have here with me the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Massachusetts. From this I learn that in 1876 the average yearly wages earned by workmen in Massachusetts were $482.72, or in round numbers something over £96. Out of this amount the Massachusetts workman had to feed, clothe, and house himself, and those dependent on him. His outlay for rent alone was on the average $109.07, or in round numbers rather less than £22, making 22-1/2 per cent, of his earnings. How was it with Mr. Egan? Out of his labour on his holding he got merchantable crops worth £60 sterling, or in round numbers $300, besides producing in the shape of vegetables and dairy stuff, pigs and poultry, certainly a very large proportion of the food necessary for his household, and raising and fattening beasts, worth at a low estimate £20 or $100 more. And while thus engaged, his outlay for rent, which included not only the house in which he lived, but the land out of which he got the returns of his labour expended upon it, was £8, 15s., or considerably less than one-half the outlay of the Massachusetts workman upon the rent of nothing more than a roof to shelter himself and his family. Furthermore, the money thus paid out by the Massachusetts workman for rent was simply a tribute paid for accommodation had and enjoyed, while out of every pound sterling paid as rent by the Irish tenant there reverted to his credit, so long as he continued to fulfil his legal obligations, a certain proportion, calculable, valuable, and saleable, in the form of his tenant-right. I am not surprised to learn that the Recorder dismissed the suit brought by Mr. Egan, and gave costs against him. But the mere fact that in such circumstances it was possible for Egan to bring such a suit, and get a hearing for it, makes it quite clear that Americans of a sympathetic turn of mind can very easily find much more meritorious objects of sympathy than the Irish tenant-farmers of Galway without crossing the Atlantic in quest of them. From Cloondadauv to Loughrea we had a long but very interesting drive, passing on the way, and at no great distance from each other, Father Coen's neat, prosperous-looking presbytery of Ballinakill, and the shop and house of a local boat-builder named Tully, who is pleasantly known in the neighbourhood as "Dr. Tully," by reason of his recommendation of a very particular sort of "pills for landlords." The presbytery is now occupied by Father Coen, who finds it becoming his position as the moral teacher and guide of his people to be in arrears of two and a half years with the rent of his holding, and who is said to have entertained Mr. Blunt and other sympathising statesmen very handsomely on their visit to Loughrea and Woodford,[15] "Dr." Tully being one of the guests invited to meet them.[16] Not far from this presbytery, Mr. Tener showed me the scene of one of the most cowardly murders which have disgraced this region. Of Loughrea, the objective of our drive this morning, Sir George Trevelyan, I am told, during his brief rule in Ireland, found it necessary to say that murder had there become an institution. Woodford, previously a dull and law-abiding spot, was illuminated by a lurid light of modern progress about three years ago, upon the transfer thither in the summer of 1885 of a priest from Loughrea, familiarly known as "the firebrand priest." In November of that year, as I have already related, Mr. Egan and other tenants of Mrs. Lewis of Woodford made their demand for a 50 per cent. reduction of their rents, upon the refusal of which an attempt was made with dynamite on the 18th December to blow up the house of Mrs. Lewis's son and agent. All the bailiffs in the region round about were warned to give up serving processes, and many of them were cowed into doing so. One man, however, was not cowed. This was a gallant Irish soldier, discharged with honour after the Crimean war, and known in the country as "Balaklava," because he was one of the "noble six hundred," who there rode "into the jaws of death, into the valley of hell." His name was Finlay, and he was a Catholic. At a meeting in Woodford, Father Coen (the priest now in arrears), it is said, looked significantly at Finlay, and said, "no process-server will be got to serve processes for Sir Henry Burke of Marble Hill." The words and the look were thrown away on the veteran who had faced the roar and the crash of the Russian guns, and later on, in December 1885, Finlay did his duty, and served the processes given to him. From that moment he and his wife were "boycotted." His own kinsfolk dared not speak to him. His house was attacked by night. He was a doomed man. On the 3d March 1886, about 2 o'clock P.M., he left his house--which Mr. Tener pointed out to me--to cut fuel in a wood belonging to Sir Henry Burke, at no great distance. Twice he made the journey between his house and the wood. The third time he went and returned no more. His wife growing uneasy at his prolonged absence went out to look for him. She found his body riddled with bullets lying lifeless in the highway. The police who went into Woodford with the tale report the people as laughing and jeering at the agony of the widowed woman. She was with them, and, maddened by the savage conduct of these wretched creatures, she knelt down over-against the house of Father Egan, and called down the curse of God upon him. On the next day things were worse. No one could be found to supply a coffin for the murdered man.[17] When the police called upon the priests to exert their influence and enforce some semblance at least of Christian and Catholic decency upon the people confided to their charge, the priests not only refused to do their duty, but floutingly referred the police to Lady Mary Burke. "He did her work," they said, "let her send a hearse now to bury him." The lady thus insolently spoken of is one of the best of the Catholic women of Ireland. At her summons Father Burke, a few years only before his death, I remember, made a long winter journey, though in very bad health, from Dublin to Marble Hill to soothe the last hours and attend the death-bed of her husband. No one who knew and loved him can wish him to have lived to hear from her lips such a tale of the degradation of Catholic priests in his own land of Galway. Mr. Tener pointed out to me, at another place on the road, near Ballinagar, the deserted burying-ground in which, after much trouble, a grave was found for the brave old soldier who had escaped the Russian cannon-balls to be so foully done to death by felons of his own race. There the last rites were performed by Father Callaghy, a priest who was himself "boycotted" for resigning the presidency of the League in his parish, and for the still graver offence of paying his rent. For weeks it was necessary to guard the grave![18] From that day to this no one has been brought to justice for this crime, committed in broad daylight, and within sight of the highway. Mr. Place, whom I saw at Portumna, told me that he believed the police had no moral doubt as to the murderer of Finlay, but that it was useless to think of getting legal evidence to convict him. Mr. Tener tells me that when Mr. Wilfrid Blunt came to Woodford he went with Father Egan, and accompanied by the police, to see the widow of this murdered man, heard from her own lips the sickening story, and took notes of it. But when Mr. Rowlands, M.P., an English "friend of Home Rule," was examined the other day during the trial of Mr. Blunt, he was obliged to confess that though he had visited Woodford more than once, and conversed freely with Mr. Blunt about it, he had "never heard of the murder of Finlay." Such an incident is apparently of little interest to politicians at Westminster. Fortunately for Ireland, it is of a nature to command more attention at the Vatican. Nature has sketched the scenery of this part of Ireland with a free, bold hand. It is not so grand or so wild as the scenery of Western Donegal, but it has both a wildness and a grandeur of its own. Sir Henry Burke's seat of Marble Hill, as seen in the distance from the road, stands superbly, high up on a lofty range of wooded hills, from which it commands the country for miles. And no town I have seen in Ireland is more picturesquely placed than Loughrea. It has an almost Italian aspect as you approach it from Woodford. But no lake in Lombardy or Piedmont is so peculiarly and exquisitely tinted as the lough on which it stands. The delicate grey-green of the sparkling waters reminded me of the singular and well-defined belts and stretches of chrysoprase upon which you sometimes come in sailing through the dark azure of the Southern Seas. I have never before seen precisely such a hue in any body of fresh water. The lake is incorrectly described, Mr. Tener tells me, in the guide-books, as being one of the many curious developments of the Lower Shannon. It is fed by springs, but if, like the river-lakes, it was formed by a solution of the limestone, this fact may have some chemical relation with its very peculiar colour. It contains three picturesque islands. No stream flows into it, but two streams issue from it. The town of Loughrea is an ancient holding of the De Burghs, and the estate-office of Lord Clanricarde is here in one wing of a great barrack, standing, as I understood Mr. Tener to say, on the site of a former fortress of the family. Lord Clanricarde's property here is put down by Mr. Hussey de Burgh at 49,025 acres in County Galway, valued at £19,634, and at 3576 acres in the county of the City of Galway, valued at £1202. These, I believe, are statute acres, and in estimating the relation of Irish rentals to Irish land this fact must be always ascertained. Of the so-called "Woodford" property the present rental is no more than £1900, payable by 260 tenants. The Poor-Law valuation for taxes is £2400. There was a revision of the whole Galway property made by the father of the present Marquis. Of the 260 Woodford holdings only twelve were increased, in no case more than 6-1/4 per cent, over the valuation. In 1882 six of these twelve tenants applied to the Land Court. The rents were in no case restored to the figures before 1872, but about 7 per cent. was taken off the increased rental. The assertion repeatedly made that in 1882 rents were reduced by the Land Court 50 per cent. on the Clanricarde estates, Mr. Tener tells me, is absolutely false. In the first year of the Court no reduction went beyond 10 per cent., and in later years, even under the panic of low prices, the average has not exceeded 20 per cent. After making arrangements for a car to take me on to Woodlawn, where I was to catch the Dublin train, I went out with Mr. Tener to look at the town. My drive from Loughrea to Woodlawn was delightful. It took me over a long stretch of the best hunting country of Galway, and my jarvey was a Galwegian of the type dear to the heart of Lever. He was a "Nationalist" after his fashion, but he did not hesitate to come rattling up through the town to the Estate Office to take me up; and after we got fairly off upon the highway, he spoke with more freedom than respect of all sorts and conditions of men in and about Loughrea. "He's a sharp little man, that Mr. Tener," he said, "and he gave the boys a most beautiful beating at Burke's place." This was said with genuine gusto, and not at all in the querulous spirit of the delightful member of Parliament who complained at Westminster with unconscious humour that the agent and the police in that case had "dishonourably" stolen a march on the defenders of Cloondadauv! "But we've beaten them entirely," he said, with equal zest, "at Marble Hill. Sir Henry has agreed to pay all the costs, and the living expenses too, of the poor men that were put out.[19] I didn't ever think we'd get that; but ye see the truth is," he added confidentially, "he must have the money, Sir Henry--he's lying out of a deal, and then there's heavy charges on the property. A fine property it is indeed!" "In fact," I said, "you put Sir Henry to the wall. Is that it?" "Well, it's like that. But we shan't get that out of Clanricarde, I'm thinking. He's got a power o' money they tell me; and he's that of the ould Burke blood, he won't mind fighting just as long as you like!" As we drove along, he pointed out to me several fine stretches of hunting country, and, to my surprise, informed me that only the other day "there was as fine a meet as ever you saw, more than a hundred ladies and gentlemen--a grand sight it was." I asked if the hunting had not been "put down by the League." "Oh, now then, sir, who'd be wanting to put down the hunting here in Galway?--and Ballinasloe? Were you ever at Ballinasloe? just the grandest horse fair there is in the whole wide world!" I insisted that I had always heard a great deal about the opposition of the League to hunting. "Oh, that'll be some little lawyer fellow," he replied, "like that Healy, that can't sit on a horse! It's the grandest country in all the world for riding over. What for wouldn't they ride over it?" "Were there many went out to America from about Loughrea?" "Oh, yes; they were always coming and going. But as many came back." "Why?" "Oh, they didn't like the country. It wasn't as good a country, was it, as old Ireland? And they had to work too hard; and then some of them got money, and they'd like to spend it in the old place." The country about Woodlawn is very picturesque and well wooded, and for a long distance we followed the neatly-kept stone walls of the large and handsome park of Lord Ashtown. "The most beautiful and biggest trees in all Ireland, sorr," said the jarvey, "and it's a great pity, it is, ye can't stay to let me drive you all over it, for the finest part of the park is just what you can't see from this road. Oh, her ladyship would never object to any gentleman driving about to see the beauties of the place. She is a very good woman, is her ladyship. She gave work the last Christmas to thirty-two men, and there wasn't another house in the country there that had work for more than ten or twelve. A very good woman she is, indeed." "Yes, that is a very handsome church, it is indeed. It is the Protestant Church. Lord Ashtown built it; he was a very good man too, and did a power of good--building and making roads, and giving work to the people. He was buried there in that Castle, over the station--Trench's Castle, they called it." "All that lumber there by the station?" "That came out of the Ashtown woods. They were always cutting down the trees; there was so many of them you might be cutting for years--you would never get to the end of them." Woodlawn Station is one of the neatest and prettiest railway stations I have seen in Ireland--more like a picturesque stone cottage, green and gay with flowers, than like a station. The station-master's family of cheery well-dressed lads and lasses went and came about the bright fire in the waiting-room in a friendly unobtrusive fashion, chatting with the policeman and the porter and the passengers. It was hard to believe one's-self within an easy drive of the "cockpit of Ireland." CHAPTER XI. BORRIS, _Friday, March 2d._--This is the land of the Kavanaghs, and a lovely, picturesque, richly-wooded land it is. I left Dublin with Mr. Gyles by an afternoon train; the weather almost like June. We ran from the County of Dublin into Kildare, and from Kildare into Carlow, through hills; rural scenery quite unlike anything I have hitherto seen in Ireland. At Bagnalstown, a very pretty place, with a spire which takes the eye, our host joined us, and came on with us to this still more attractive spot. Borris has been the seat of his family for many centuries. The MacMorroghs of Leinster, whom the Kavanaghs lineally represent, dwelt here long before Dermot MacMorrogh, finding his elective throne in Leinster too hot to hold him, went off into Aquitaine, to get that famous "letter of marque" from Henry II. of England, with the help of which this king without a kingdom induced Richard de Clare, an earl without an earldom, to lend him a hand and bring the Normans into Ireland. Many of this race lie buried in the ruins of St. Mullen's Abbey, on the Barrow, in this county. But none of them, I opine, ever did such credit to the name as its present representative, Arthur MacMorrogh Kavanagh. I had some correspondence with Mr. Kavanagh several years ago, when he sent me, through my correspondent for publication in New York, a very striking statement of his views on the then condition of Irish affairs--views since abundantly vindicated; and like most people who have paid any attention to the recent history of Ireland, I knew how wonderful an illustration his whole career has been of what philosophers call the superiority of man to his accidents, and plain people the power of the will. But I knew this only imperfectly. His servant brought him up to the carriage and placed him in it. This it was impossible not to see. But I had not talked with him for five minutes before it quite passed out of my mind. Never was there such a justification of the paradoxical title which Wilkinson gave to his once famous book, _The Human Body, and its Connexion with Man_,--never such a living refutation of the theory that it is the thumb which differentiates man from the lower animals. Twenty times this evening I have been reminded of the retort I heard made the other day at Cork by a lawyer, who knows Mr. Kavanagh well, to a priest of "Nationalist" proclivities, who knows him not at all. Some allusion having been made to Borris, the lawyer said to me, "You will see at Borris the best and ablest Irishman alive." On this the priest testily and tartly broke in, "Do you mean the man without hands or feet?" "I mean," replied the lawyer, very quietly, "the man in whom all that has gone in you or me to arms and legs has gone to heart and head!" Borris House stands high in the heart of an extensive and nobly wooded park, and commands one of the finest landscapes I have seen in Ireland. As we stood and gazed upon it from the hall door, the distant hills were touched with a soft purple light such as transfigures the Apennines at sunset. "You should see this view in June," said Mrs, Kavanagh, "we are all brown and bare now." Brown and bare, like most other terms, are relative. To the eye of an American this whole region now seems a sea of verdure, less clear and fresh, I can easily suppose, than it may be in the early summer, but verdure still. And one must get into the Adirondacks, or up among the mountains of Western Virginia, to find on our Atlantic slope such trees as I have this evening seen. One grand ilex near the house could hardly be matched in the Villa d'Este. The house is stately and commodious, and more ancient than it appears to be,--so many additions have been made to it at different times. It has passed through more than one siege, and in the '98 Mr. Kavanagh tells me the townspeople of Borris came up here and sought refuge. There are vast caverns under the house and grounds, doubtless made by taking out from the hill the stone used in building this house, and the fortresses which stood here before it. In these all sorts of stores were kept, and many of the people found shelter. I need not say that there is a banshee at Borris--though no living witness, I believe, has heard its warning wail. But as we sat in the beautiful library, and watched the dying light of day, a lady present told us a tale more gruesome than many of those in which the "psychical" inquirers delight. She was sitting, she said, in an upper room of an ancient mansion here in Carlow, in which she lives, when, from the lawn below, there came up to her a low, sad, shrill cry--the croon of a woman, such as one hears from the mourners sitting among the turbaned tombstones of the hill of Eyoub at Constantinople. It startled her, and she held her breath and listened. She was alone, as she knew, in that part of the house, and the hall door below was unlocked, as is the fashion still in Ireland, despite all the troubles and turmoils. Again the sound came, and this time nearer to the house. Could it be the banshee? Again and again it rose and died away, each time nearer and nearer. Then, as she listened, all her nerves strung to the keenest sensibility, it came again, and now, beyond a doubt, within the hall below. With an effort she rose from her chair, opened a door leading into a corridor running aside from the main stairway, and fled at full speed towards the wing in which she knew that she would find some of the maids. As she sped along she heard the cry again and again far behind her, as from a creature slowly and steadily mounting the grand stairway towards the room which she had just quitted. She found the maids, who fell into a terrible fright when she told her story and dared not budge. So the bells were violently rung till the butler and footman appeared. To the first she said simply, "There is a mad woman in this house--go and find her!" "The man looked at me," she said, "as I spoke with a curious expression in his face as of one who thought, 'yes, there is a mad woman in the house, and she is not far to seek!'" But the lady insisted, and the men finally went off on their quest. In the course of half an hour it was rewarded. The mad woman--a dangerous creature--who had wandered away from an asylum in the neighbourhood, was found curled up and fast asleep in the lady's own bed! Fancy a delicate woman going alone into her bedroom at midnight to be suddenly confronted by an apparition of that sort! BORRIS, _March 3d._--After a stroll on the lawn this morning, the wide and glorious prospect bathed in the light of a really soft spring day, I had a conversation with Mr. Kavanagh about the Land Corporation, of which he is the guiding spirit. This is a defensive organisation of the Irish landlords against the Land League. When a landlord has been driven into evicting his tenants, the next step, in the "war against landlordism," is to prevent other tenants from taking the vacated lands and cultivating them. This is accomplished by "boycotting" any man who does this as a "land-grabber." The ultimate sanction of the "boycott" being "murder," derelict farms increased under this system very rapidly; and the Eleventh Commandment of the League, "Thou shalt not pay the rent which thy neighbour hath refused to pay," was in a fair way to dethrone the Ten Commandments of Sinai throughout Ireland, even before the formal adoption in 1886 of the "Plan of Campaign." Mr. Gladstone would perhaps have hit the facts more accurately, if, instead of calling an eviction in Ireland a "sentence of death," he had called the taking of a tenancy a sentence of death. Mr. Hussey at Lixnaw had two tenants, Edmond and James Fitzmaurice. Edmond Fitzmaurice was "evicted" in May 1887; but he was taken into the house of a neighbour, made very comfortable, and still lives. James Fitzmaurice took, for the sake of the family, the land from which Edmond was evicted, and for this he was denounced as a "land-grabber," boycotted, and finally shot dead in the presence of his daughter. At a meeting in Dublin in the autumn of 1885, a parish priest, the Rev. Mr. Cantwell, described it as a "cardinal virtue" that "no one should take a farm from which another had been evicted," and called upon the people who heard him to "pass any such man by unnoticed, and treat him as an enemy in their midst." Public opinion and the law, if not the authorities of his church would make short work of any priest who talked in this fashion in New York. But in Ireland, and under the British Government, it seems they order things differently. So it occurred one day to the landlords thus assailed, as it did to the sea-lions of the Cape of Good Hope when the French sailors attacked them, that they might defend themselves. To this end the Land Corporation was instituted, with a considerable capital at its back, and Mr. Kavanagh at its head. The "plan of campaign" of this Corporation is to take over from the landlords derelict lands and cultivate them, stocking them where that is necessary. It is in this way that the derelict lands on the Ponsonby property at Youghal are now worked. But Mr. Kavanagh tells me that the men employed by the Corporation, of whom Father Keller spoke as a set of desperadoes or "_enfants perdus_," are really a body of resolute and capable working men farmers. Many, but by no means all of them, are Protestants and Ulstermen; and that they are up to their work would seem to be shown by the fact stated to me, that in no case so far have any of them been deterred and driven off from the holdings confided to them. A great part of the Luggacurren property of Lord Lansdowne is now worked by the Corporation; and Mr. Kavanagh was kind enough to let me see the accounts, which indicate a good business result for the current year on that property. This is all very interesting. But what a picture it presents of social demoralisation! And what is to be the end of it all? Can a country be called civilised in which a farmer with a family to maintain, having the capital and the experience necessary to manage successfully a small farm, is absolutely forbidden, on pain of social ostracism, and eventually on pain of death, by a conspiracy of his neighbours, to take that farm of its lawful owner at what he considers to be a fair rent? And how long can any civilisation of our complex modern type endure in a country in which such a state of things tolerated by the alleged Government of that country has to be met, and more or less partially mitigated, by deviating to the cultivation of farms rendered in this way derelict large amounts of capital which might be, and ought to be, far more profitably employed in other ways? Mr. Kavanagh, after serving the office of High Sheriff thirty years ago, first for Kilkenny, and then for Carlow, sat in Parliament for fourteen years, from 1866 to 1880, as an Irish county member. He has a very large property here in Carlow, and property also in Wexford, and in Kilkenny, and was sworn into the Privy Council two years ago. If the personal interests and the family traditions of any man alive can be said to be rooted in the Irish soil, this is certainly true of his interests and his traditions. How can the peace and prosperity of Ireland be served by a state of things which condemns an Irishman of such ties and such training to expend his energies and his ability in defending the elementary right of Paddy O'Rourke to take stock and work a ten-acre farm on terms that suit himself and his landlord? In the afternoon we took a delightful walk through the woods, Mr. Kavanagh going with us on horseback. Every hill and clump of trees on this large domain he knows, and he led us like a master of woodcraft through all manner of leafy byways to the finest points of view. The Barrow flows past Borris, making pictures at every turn, and the banks on both sides are densely and beautifully wooded. We came in one place upon a sawmill at work in the forest, and Mr. Kavanagh showed us with pride the piles of excellent timber which he turns out here. But he took a greater pride in a group, sacred from the axe, of really magnificent Scotch firs, such as I had certainly not expected to find in Ireland. Nearer the mansion are some remarkable Irish yews. The gardens are of all sorts and very extensive, but we found the head-gardener bitterly lamenting the destruction by a fire in one of the conservatories of more than six thousand plants just prepared for setting out. There are many curious old books and papers here, and a student of early Irish history might find matter to keep him well employed for a long time in this region. It was from this region and the race which ruled it, of which race Mr. Kavanagh is the actual representative, that the initiative came of the first Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. Strongbow made what, from the Anglo-Norman point of view, was a perfectly legitimate bargain, with a dispossessed prince to help him to the recovery of his rights on the understanding that these rights, when recovered, should pass in succession to himself through the only daughter of the prince, whom he proposed to marry. It does not appear that Strongbow knew, or that Dermot MacMorrogh cared to tell him, how utterly unlike the rights of an Anglo-Norman prince were those of the elective life-tenant of an Irish principality. FitzStephen, the son by her second marriage of Nesta, the Welsh royal mistress of Henry Beauclerk, and his cousin, Maurice Fitzgerald, the leaders into Ireland of the Geraldines, were no more clear in their minds about this than Strongbow, and it is to the original muddle thus created that Professor Richey doubtless rightly refers the worst and most troublesome complications of the land question in Ireland. The distinction between the King's lieges and the "mere Irish," for example, is unquestionably a legal distinction, though it is continually and most mischievously used as if it were a proof of the race-hatred borne by the Normans and Saxons in Ireland from the first against the Celts. The O'Briens, the O'Neills, the O'Mullaghlins, the O'Connors, and the M'Morroghs, "the five bloods," as they are called, were certainly Celts, but whether in virtue of their being, or claiming to be, the royal races respectively of Minister, of Ulster, of Meath, of Connaught, and of Leinster, or from whatever other reason, these races were "within the king's law," and were never "mere Irish" from the first planting of the Anglo-Norman power in Ireland. The case of a priest, Shan O'Kerry, "an Irish enemy of the king," presented "contrary to the form of statute" to the vicarage of Lusk, in the reign of Edward IV. (1465), illustrates this. An Act of Parliament was passed to declare the aforesaid "Shan O'Kerry," or "John of Kevernon," to be "English born, and of English nation," and that he might "hold and enjoy the said benefice." There is a genealogy here of the M'Morroghs and Kavanaghs, most gorgeously and elaborately gotten up many years ago for Mr. Kavanagh's grandfather, which shows how soon the Norman and the native strains of blood become commingled. When one remembers how much Norman blood must have gone even into far-off Connaught when King John, in the early part of the thirteenth century, coolly gave away that realm of the O'Connors to the De Burgos, and how continually the English of the Pale fled from the exactions inflicted upon them by their own people, and sought refuge "among the savage and mere Irish," one cannot help thinking that the" Race Question" has been "worked for at least all it is worth" by philosophers bent on unravelling the 'snarl' of Irish affairs. If this genealogy may be trusted, there was little to choose between the ages which immediately preceded and the ages which followed the Anglo-Norman invasion in the matter of respect for human life. Celtic chiefs and Norman knights "died in their boots" as regularly as frontiersmen in Texas. One personage is designated in the genealogy as "the murderer," for the truly Hibernian reason, so far as appears, that he was himself murdered while quite a youth, and before he had had a chance to murder more than three or four of his immediate relatives. It was as if the son of Geoffrey Plantagenet and the Lady Constance should be branded in history as "Arthur, the Assassin." BORRIS, _March 4th._--This is a staunch Protestant house, and Mr. Kavanagh himself reads a Protestant service every morning. But there is little or nothing apparently in this part of Ireland of the bitter feeling about and against the Catholics which exists in the North. A very lively and pleasant Catholic gentleman came in to-day informally and joined the house party at luncheon. We all walked out over the property afterwards, visiting quite a different region from that which we saw yesterday--different but equally beautiful and striking, and this Catholic gentleman cited several cases which had fallen within his own knowledge of priests who begin to feel their moral control of the people slipping away from them through the operation of the "Plan of Campaign." I told him what I had heard in regard to one such priest from my ecclesiastical friend in Cork. "It does not surprise me at all," he said, "and, indeed, I not very long ago read precisely such another letter from a priest in a somewhat similar position. I read it with pain and shame as a Catholic," he continued, "for it was simply a complete admission that the priest, although entirely convinced that his parishioners were making most unfair demands upon their landlord to whom the letter was addressed, felt himself entirely powerless to bring them to a sense of their misconduct." "Had this priest given in his adhesion to the Plan of Campaign?" I asked. "Yes," was the reply, "and it was this fact which had broken his hold on the people when he tried to bring them to abandon their attitude under the Plan. His letter was really nothing more nor less than an appeal to the landlord, and that landlord a Protestant, to help him to get out of the hole into which he had put himself." Of the tenants and their relation to the village despots who administer the Plan of Campaign, this gentleman had many stories also to tell of the same tenor with all that I have hitherto heard on this subject. Everywhere it is the same thing. The well-to-do and well-disposed tenants are coerced by the thriftless and shiftless. "I have the agencies of several properties," he said, "and in some of the best parts of Ireland. I have had little or no trouble on any of them, for I have one uniform method. I treat every tenant as if he were the only man I had to deal with, study his personal ways and character, humour him, and get him on my side against himself. You can always do this with an Irishman if you will take the trouble to do it. Within the past years I have had tenants come and tell me they were in fear the Plan of Campaign would be brought upon them, just as if it were a kind of potato disease, and beg me to agree to take the rent from them in that case, and just not discover on them that they had paid it before it was due!" This gentleman is a pessimist as to the future. "I am a youngish man still," he said, "and a single man, and I am glad of it. I don't believe the English will ever learn how to govern this country, and I am sure it can never govern itself. Would your people make a State of it?" To this I replied that with Cuba and Canada and Mexico, all still to be digested and assimilated, I thought the deglutition of Ireland by the great Republic must be remitted to a future much too remote to interest either of us. "I suppose so," he said in a humorously despondent tone; "and so I see nothing for people who think as I do, but Australia or New Zealand!" Mr. Kavanagh sees the future, I think, in colouring not quite so dark. As a public man, familiar for years with the method and ways of British Parliaments, he seems to regard the possible future legislation of Westminster with more anxiety and alarm than the past or present agitations in Ireland. The business of banishing political economy to Jupiter and Saturn, however delightful it may be to the people who make laws, is a dangerous one to the people for whom the laws are made. While he has very positive opinions as to the wisdom of the concession made in the successive Land Acts for Ireland, which have been passed since 1870, he is much less disquieted, I think, by those concessions, than by the spirit by which the legislation granting them has been guided. He thinks great good has been already done by Mr. Balfour, and that much more good will be done by him if the Irish people are made to feel that clamorous resistance to the law will no longer be regarded at Westminster as a sufficient reason for changing the law. That is as much as to say that party spirit in Great Britain is the chief peril of Ireland to-day. And how can any Irishman, no matter what his state in his own country may be, or his knowledge of Irish affairs, or his patriotic earnestness and desire for Irish prosperity, hope to control the tides of party spirit in England or Scotland? Of the influence upon the people in Ireland of the spirit of recent legislation for Ireland, the story of the troubles on the O'Grady estate, as Mr. Kavanagh tells it to me, is a most striking illustration. "The O'Grady of Kilballyowen," as his title shows, is the direct representative, not of any Norman invader, but of an ancient Irish race. The O'Gradys were the heads of a sept of the "mere Irish"; and if there be such a thing--past, present, or future--as an "Irish nation," the place of the O'Gradys in that nation ought to be assumed. Mr. Thomas De Courcy O'Grady, who now wears the historic designation, owns and lives on an estate of a little more than 1000 acres, in the Golden Vein of Ireland, at Killmallock, in the county of Limerick. The land is excellent, and for the last half-century certainly it has been let to the tenants at rents which must be considered fair, since they have never been raised. In 1845, two years before the great famine, the rental was £2142. This rental was paid throughout the famine years without difficulty; and in 1881 the rental stood at £2108. There has never been an eviction on the estate until last year, when six tenants were evicted. All of these lived in good comfortable houses, and were prosperous dairy-farmers. Why were they evicted? In October 1886, during the candidacy at New York of the Land Reformer, Mr. George, Mr. Dillon, M.P., propounded the "Plan of Campaign" at Portumna in Galway. The March rents being then due on the estate of The O'Grady in Limerick, his agent, Mr. Shine, was directed to continue the abatements of 15 per cent, on the judicial rents, and of 25 per cent, on all other rents, which had been cheerfully accepted in 1885. But there was a priest at Kilballyowen, Father Ryan, who wrought upon the tenants until they demanded a general abatement of 40 per cent. This being refused, they asked for 30 per cent. on the judicial rents, and 40 per cent. on the others. This also being refused, Father Ryan had his way, and the "Plan of Campaign" was adopted. The O'Grady's writs issued against several of the tenants were met by a "Plan of Campaign" auction of cattle at Herbertstown in December 1886, the returns of which were paid into "the Fund." For this, one of the tenants, Thomas Moroney, who held, besides a a farm of 37 Irish acres, a "public," and five small houses, at Herbertstown, and the right to the tolls on cattle at the Herbertstown farm, valued at from £50 to £60 a year, and who held all these at a yearly rent of £85, was proceeded against. Judge Boyd pronounced him a bankrupt. In the spring of 1887, after The O'Grady had been put to great costs and trouble, the tenants made a move. They offered to accept a general abatement of 17-1/2 per cent., "The O'Grady to pay all the costs." Here is the same story again of the small solicitors behind the "Plan of Campaign" promoting the strife, and counting on the landlords to defray the charges of battle! The O'Grady responded with the following circular:-- KlLLBALLYOWEN, BRUFF, CO. LlMERICK, _13th August 1877_. To my Tenants on Kilballyowen and Herbertstown Estate, Co. Limerick. MY FRIENDS,--Pending the evictions by the Sheriff on my estate, caused by your refusal to pay judicial rents on offers of liberal abatements, I desire to remind you of the following facts:-- I am a resident landlord; my ancestors have dwelt amongst you for over 400 years; every tenant is personally known to me, and the most friendly relations have always existed between us. I am not aware of there ever having been an eviction by the Sheriff on my estate. Farming myself over 400 acres, and my late agent (Mr. Shine), a tenant farmer living within four miles of my property, I have every opportunity of realising and knowing your wants. On the passing of the Land Act of 1881, I desired you to have any benefit it could afford you, and as you nearly all held under lease--which precluded you from going into court--I intimated to you my wish, and offered you to allow your lands to be valued at my expense, or to let you go into court and get your rents fixed by the sub-commissioners. You elected to have a valuation made, and Mr. Edmond Moroney was agreed on as a land-valuer, possessing the confidence of tenants and landlord. I may mention, up to then I had not known Mr. Moroney personally. In 1883 Mr. Moroney valued your holdings, and, as a result, his valuation was accepted (except in three or four cases), and judicial agreements signed by you, at rents ascertained by Mr. Moroney's valuation. The late Patrick Hogan objected to Mr. Moroney's valuation of his farm, and went into court, and had his rent fixed by the County Court Judge. Thomas Moroney would not allow Mr. Edmond Moroney to value his holding, nor would he go into court, his reason no doubt being he should disclose the receipts of the amount of the tolls of the fairs. The rents were subsequently paid on Mr. Moroney's valuation with punctuality. In 1885, recognising the fall in prices of stock and produce, and at the request of my late agent, Mr. Shine, I directed him to allow you 15 per cent. on all judicial rents, or rents abated on Mr. Moroney's valuation, and 25 per cent. on all other rents, when you paid punctually and with thanks. In October last, when calling in the March 1886 rents, at the instance of Mr. Shine, I agreed to continue the abatement of 15 per cent, and 25 per cent., which, when intimated to you, were refused, and a meeting held, demanding an all-round abatement of 40 per cent. This I considered unreasonable and unjust, and I refused to give it. The Plan of Campaign was then most unjustly adopted on the estate, and you refused to pay your rents. Thomas Moroney was elected as a test case to try the legality of the sale and removal of your property to avoid payment of your rent. His tenancy was a mixed holding of house property in the village of Herbertstown, the tolls of the fairs, and 37 acres of land, at a rent of £85, and a Poor-Law valuation of £73, 5s., made as follows:-- Land valued at £42 5 0 Tolls of fair at 17 0 0 Public house and yard at 11 0 0 Five small houses and forge at 3 0 0 -------- £73 5 0 I always was led to believe the tolls of the fair averaged from £50 to £60 a year, there being four fairs in the year; and I believe his reason for refusing to allow Mr. E. Moroney to value his holding, or to go into court, was that he should disclose the amount of the tolls, and in consequence I never considered he was entitled to any abatement; but still I gave it to him, and was prepared to do so. The result of his case was that his conduct in making away with his property was unjustifiable, and his farm and holding was sold out for the benefit of his creditors, and he is no longer a tenant on the estate. I subsequently took proceedings against six other tenants, who refused payment of rent, and removed their cattle off the land to avoid payment, and having got judgment against them, the Sheriff sold out four of their farms, and writs of possession on the title were taken out against them, and are now lodged with the Sheriff for execution. I have also got judgments for possession against two other tenants for non-payment of rent, also lodged with the Sheriff. One the widow of Patrick Hogan, who got his rent fixed in the County Court, and the other Mrs. Denis Ryan, whose farm on her marriage I assented to be put in settlement for her protection, Mr. Shine, my agent, consenting to act as one of her trustees, whose name, with his co-trustee, Mr. Thomas FitzGerald, appear as defendants, they having signed her judicial agreement. The following are the names of the above tenants, the extent of their holdings, the rent, the Poor-Law valuation, and the average rent per Irish acre:-- +------------------+------------+-------------+---------+-----------+ | | Acreage in | Judicial | Rent | | | TENANT. | Irish | Rent Less 20| per | Poor Law | | | Measure. | per cent. | acre[A]| Valuation | +------------------+------------+-------------+---------+-----------+ | | A. R. P. | £ s. d. | | £ s. d. | |John Carroll, | 87 3 38 | 132 4 0 | 30/- | 127 10 0 | |Honora Crimmins, | 35 0 27 | 64 5 6 | 36/6 | 52 15 0 | |James Baggott, | 18 0 0 | 37 16 10 | 42/- | 22 5 0 | |Margaret Moloney, | 23 2 9 | 46 2 8 | 39/2 | 44 15 0 | |Mrs. Denis Ryan, | 66 2 3 | 93 2 5 | 28/- | 96 0 0 | |Maryanne Hogan, | 53 2 33 | 112 0 0 | 41/8 | 117 15 0 | | +------------+-------------+---------+-----------+ | | 294 3 30 | 485 11 5 | ... | 461 0 0 | +------------------+------------+-------------+---------+-----------+ [A] Rent per Irish acre after abatement of 20 per cent. This represents an average of 34s. the Irish acre, for some of the best land in Ireland, and shows a difference of only £24, 11s. 5d. between the rent, less 20 per cent. now offered, and Poor-Law valuation. After putting me to the cost of these proceedings, and giving me every opposition and annoyance, amongst such, compelling my agent (by threats of boycotting) to resign, boycotting myself and household, preventing my servants from attending chapel, and driving my labourers away, negotiations for a settlement were opened, and you offered to accept an all-round abatement of 17-1/2 per cent. and to pay up one year's rent, provided I paid all costs, including the costs in Moroney's case; this of course I refused, but with a desire to aid you in coming to a settlement, and to prevent the loss to the tenants of the farms under eviction on the Title, I offered to allow the 17-1/2 per cent. all round on payment of one year's rent and costs, and to give time for payment of the costs as stated in my Solicitor's letter of the 2d June 1887 to Canon Scully. This offer was refused, and the writs for possession have been lodged with the Sheriff. I never commenced these proceedings in a vindictive spirit, or with any desire to punish any of you for your ungracious conduct, but simply to protect my property from unjust and unreasonable demands. You will owe two years' rent next month (September), and I now write you this circular letter to point out to each, individually, the position of the tenants under eviction, and even at this late hour to give them an opportunity of saving their holdings, to enable them to do so, and with a view to settlement, I am now prepared to allow 20 per cent. all round, on payment of a year's rent and costs. Under no circumstance will I forego payment of costs, as they must be paid in full. If this money be paid forthwith, I will arrange with my brother, the purchaser, to restore the four holdings purchased by him at sheriff's sale to the late tenants. After this offer I disclaim any responsibility for the result of the evictions, and the loss attendant thereon, as it now remains with you to avert same. All the evictions have since been carried out, and the Land Corporation men are at work upon the estate! Whom has all this advantaged? The tenants?--Certainly not. The O'Grady?--Certainly not. The peace and order of Ireland?--Certainly not. But it has given the National League another appeal to the intelligent "sympathies" of England and America. It has strengthened the revolutionary element in Irish society. It has "driven another nail into the coffin" of Irish landlordism and of the private ownership of land throughout Great Britain. Such at least is the opinion of Mr. Kavanagh. If I were an Englishman or a Scotchman, I should be strongly inclined to take very serious account of this opinion in forecasting the future of landed property in England or Scotland. CHAPTER XII. GREENANE HOUSE, THOMASTOWN, _March 5th._--The breakfast-room at Borris this morning was gay with pink coats. A meet was to come off at a place between Borris and Thomastown, and bidding fare-well to my cordial host and hostess, I set out at 11 o'clock for a flying visit to this quaint and charming house of Mr. Seigne, one of the best known and most highly esteemed agents in this part of Ireland. My jarvey from Borris had an unusually neat and well-balanced car. When I praised it he told me it was "built by an American," not an Irish American, I understood him to say, but a genuine Yankee, who, for some mysterious reason, has established himself in this region, where he has prospered as a cart and car builder ever since. "Just the best cars in all Ireland he builds, your honour!" Why don't he naturalise them in America? All the way was charming, the day very bright, and even warm, and the hill scenery picturesque at every turn. We looked out sharply for the hunt, but in vain. My jarvey, who knew the whole country, said they must have broken cover somewhere on the upper road, and we should miss them entirely. And so we did. The silting up of the river Nore has reduced Thomastown or Ballymacanton, which was its Irish name, from its former importance as an emporium for the country about Kilkenny. The river now is not navigable above Inistiogue. But two martial square towers, one at either end of a fine bridge which spans the stream here, speak of the good old times when the masters of Thomastown took toll and tribute of traders and travellers. The lands about the place then belonged to the great monastery of Jerpoint, the ruins of which are still the most interesting of their kind in this part of Ireland. They have long made a part of the estate of the Butlers. We rattled rapidly through the quiet little town, and whisking out of a small public square into a sort of wynd between two houses, suddenly found ourselves in the precincts of Grenane House. The house takes its name from the old castle of Grenane, an Irish fortress established here by some native despot long before Thomas Fitz-Anthony the Norman came into the land. The ruins of this castle still stand some half a mile away. "We call the place Candahar," said Mr. Seigne, as he came up with two ladies from the meadows below the house, "because you come into it so suddenly, just as you do into that Oriental town." But what a charming occidental place it is! It stands well above the river, the slope adorned with many fine old trees, some of which grow, and grow prosperously, in the queerest and most improbable forms, bent double, twisted, but still most green and vigorous. They have no business under any known theory of arboriculture to be beautiful, but beautiful they are. The views of the bridge, of the towers, and of the river, from this slope would make the fortune of the place in a land of peace and order. A most original and delightful lady of the country lunched with us,--such a character as Miss Edgeworth or Miss Austen might have drawn. Shrewd, humorous, sensible, fearless, and ready with impartial hand to box the ears alike of Trojan and of Tyrian. She not only sees both sides of the question in Ireland as between the landlords and the tenants, but takes both sides of the question. She holds lands by inheritance, which make her keenly alive to the wrongs of the landlords, and she holds farms as a tenant, which make her implacably critical as to their claims. She mercilessly demolished in one capacity whatever she advanced in the other, and all with the most perfect nonchalance and good faith. This curiously dual attitude reminded me of the confederate General, Braxton Bragg, of whom his comrades in the old army of the United States used to say that he once had a very sharp official correspondence with himself. He happened to hold a staff appointment, being also a line officer. So in his quality of a staff officer, he found fault with himself in his capacity as a line officer, reprimanded himself sharply, replied defiantly to the reprimand, and eventually reported himself to himself for discipline at head-quarters. She told an excellent story of a near kinsman of hers who, holding a very good living in the Protestant Irish Church, came rather unexpectedly by inheritance into a baronetcy, upon which his women-folk insisted that it would be derogatory to a baronet to be a parson. "Would you believe it, the poor man was silly enough to listen to their cackle, and resign seven hundred a year!" "That didn't clear him," I said, "of the cloth, did it?" "Not a bit, of course, poor foolish man. He was just as much a parson as ever, only without a parsonage. Men are fools enough of themselves, don't you think, without needing to listen to women?" Mr. Seigne comes of a French Protestant stock long ago planted in Ireland, and his Gallic blood doubtless helps him to handle the practical problems daily submitted in these days to an Irish land-agent--problems very different, as he thinks, from those with which an Irish agent had to deal in the days before 1870. The Irish tenant has a vantage-ground now in his relations with his landlord which he never had in the olden time, and this makes it more important than it ever was that the agent should have what may be called a diplomatic taste for treating with individuals, finding out the bent of mind of this man and of that, and negotiating over particulars, instead of insisting, in the English fashion, on general rules, without regard to special cases. I have met no one who has seemed to me so cool and precise as Mr. Seigne in his study of the phenomena of the present situation. I asked him whether he could now say, as Mr. Senior did a quarter of century ago, that the Irish tenants were less improvident, and more averse from running into debt than the English. "I think not," he replied; "on the contrary, in some parts of Ireland now the shopkeepers are kept on the verge of bankruptcy by the recklessness with which the tenants incurred debts immediately after the passing of the Land Act of 1870--a time when shopkeepers, and bankers also, almost forced credit upon the farmers, and made thereby 'bad debts' innumerable. Farmers rarely keep anything like an account of their receipts and expenses. I know only one tenant-farmer in this neighbourhood who keeps what can be called an account, showing what he takes from his labour and spends on his living."[20] "They save a great deal of money often," he says, "but almost never in any systematic way. They spend much less on clothes and furniture, and the outward show of things, than English people of the same condition do, and they do not stint themselves in meat and drink as the French peasants do. In fact, under the operation of existing circumstances, they are getting into the way of improving their condition, not so much by sacrifices and savings, as by an insistence on rent being fixed low enough to leave full margin for improved living." "I had a very frank statement on this point," said Mr. Seigne, "not long ago from a Tipperary man. When I tried to show him that his father had paid a good many years ago the very same rent which he declares himself unable to pay now, he admitted this at once. But it was a confession and avoidance. 'My father could pay the rent, and did pay the rent,' he said, 'because he was content to live so that he could pay it. He sat on a boss of straw, and ate out of a bowl. He lived in a way in which I don't intend to live, and so he could pay the rent. Now, I must have, and I mean to have, out of the land, before I pay the rent, the means of living as I wish to live; and if I can't have it, I'll sell out and go away; but I'll be--if I don't fight before I do that same!'" "What could you reply to that?" I asked. "Oh," I said, "'that's square and straightforward. Only just let me know the point at which you mean to fight, and then we'll see if we can agree about something.'" "The truth is," said Mr. Seigne, "that there is a pressure upward now from below. The labourers don't want to live any longer as the farmers have always made them live; and so the farmers, having to consider the growing demands of the labourers, and meaning to live better themselves, push up against the landlord, and insist that the means of the improvement shall come out of him." He then told me an instructive story of his calling upon a tenant-farmer, at whose place he found the labourers sitting about their meal of pork and green vegetables. The farmer asked him into another room, where he saw the farmer's family making their meal of stirabout and milk and potatoes. "I asked you in here," said the farmer, "because we keep in here to ourselves. I don't want those fellows to see that we can't afford to give ourselves what we have to give them,"--this with strong language indicating that he must himself be given a way to advance equally with the progressive labourer, or he would know the reason why! This afternoon Mr. Seigne drove me over through a beautiful country to Woodstock, near Inistiogue, the seat of the late Colonel Tighe, the head of the family of which the authoress of "Psyche" was an ornament. It is the finest place in this part of Ireland, and one of the finest I have seen in the three kingdoms, a much more picturesque and more nobly planted place indeed than its namesake in England. The mansion has no architectural pretensions, being simply a very large and, I should think, extremely comfortable house of the beginning of this century. The library is very rich, and there are some good pictures, as well as certain statues in the vestibule, which would have no interest for the Weissnichtwo professor of _Sartor Resartus_, but are regarded with some awe by the good people of Inistiogue. The park would do no discredit to a palace, and if the vague project of establishing a royal residence in Ireland for one of the British Princes should ever take shape, it would not be easy, I should say, to find a demesne more befitting the home of a prince than this of the Tighes. At present it serves the State at least as usefully, being the "pleasaunce" of the people for miles around, who come here freely to walk and drive. It stretches for miles along the Nore, and is crowned by a gloriously wooded hill nearly a thousand feet in height. The late Colonel Tighe, a most accomplished man, and a passionate lover of trees, made it a kind of private Kew Gardens. He planted long avenues of the rarest and finest trees, araucarias, Scotch firs, oaks, beeches, cedars of Lebanon; laid out miles of the most varied and delightful drives, and built the most extensive conservatories in Ireland. The turfed and terraced walks among those conservatories are indescribably lovely, and the whole place to-day was vocal with innumerable birds. Picturesque little cottages and arbours are to be found in unexpected nooks all through the woodlands, each commanding some green vista of forest aisles, or some wide view of hill and champaign, enlivened by the winding river. From one of those to-day we looked out over a landscape to which Turner alone or Claude could have done justice, the river, spanned by a fine bridge, in the middle distance, and all the region wooded as in the days of which Edmund Spenser sings, when Ireland "Flourished in fame, Of wealth and goodnesse far above the rest Of all that bears the British Islands' name." Over the whole place broods an indefinable charm. You feel that this was the home at once and the work of a refined and thoughtful spirit. And so indeed it was. Here for the greater part of the current century the owner lived, making the development of the estate and of this demesne his constant care and chief pleasure. And here still lives his widow, with whom we took tea in a stately quiet drawing-room. Lady Louisa Tighe was in Brussels with her mother, the Duchess of Richmond, on the eve of Waterloo. She was a child then of ten years old, and her mother bade them bring her down into the historic ball-room before the Duke of Wellington left it. The duke took up his sword. "Let Louisa buckle it for you," said her mother, and when the little girl had girded it on, the great captain stooped, took her up in his arms, and kissed her. "One never knows what may happen, child," he said good-naturedly; and taking his small gold watch out of his fob, he bade her keep it for him. She keeps it still. For more than sixty years it has measured out in this beautiful Irish home the hours of a life given to good works and gracious usefulness. To-day, with all the vivacity of interest in the people and the place which one might look for in a woman of twenty, this charming old lady of eighty-three, showing barely threescore years in her carriage, her countenance, and her voice, entertained us with minute and most interesting accounts of the local industries which flourish here mainly through her sympathetic and intelligent supervision. We seemed to be in another world from the Ireland of Chicago or Westminster! Mr. Seigne drove me back here by a most picturesque road leading along the banks of the Nore, quite overhung with trees, which in places dip their branches almost into the swift deep stream. "This is the favourite drive of all the lovers hereabouts," he said, "and there is a spice of danger in it which makes it more romantic. Once, not very long ago, a couple of young people, too absorbed in their love-making to watch their horse, drove off the bank. Luckily for them they fell into the branches of one of these overhanging trees, while the horse and car went plunging into the water. There they swung, holding each other hand in hand, making a pretty and pathetic tableau, till their cries brought some anglers in a boat on the river to the rescue." We spoke of Lady Louisa, and of the watch of Waterloo. "That watch had a wonderful escape a few years ago," said Mr. Seigne. Lady Louisa, it seems, had a confidential butler whom she most implicitly trusted. One day it was found that a burglary had apparently been committed at Woodstock, and that with a quantity of jewelry the priceless watch had vanished. The butler was very active about the matter, and as no trace could be found leading out of the house, he intimated a suspicion that the affair might possibly have some connection with a guest not long before at the house. This angered Lady Louisa, who thereupon consulted the agent, who employed a capable detective from Dublin. The detective came down to Inistiogue as a commercial traveller, wandered about, made the acquaintance of Lady Louisa's maid, of the butler, and of other people about the house, and formed his own conclusions. Two or three days after his arrival he walked into the shop of a small jeweller in a neighbouring town, and affecting a confidential manner, told the jeweller he wanted to buy "some of those things from Woodstock." The man was taken by surprise, and going into a backshop produced one very fine diamond, and a number of pieces of silver plate, of the disappearance of which the butler had said nothing to his mistress. This led to the arrest of the butler, and to the discovery that for a long time he had been purloining property from the house and selling it. Many cases of excellent claret had found their way in this fashion to a public-house which had acquired quite a reputation for its Bordeaux with the officers quartered in its neighbourhood. The wine-bins at Woodstock were found full of bottles of water. Much of the capital port left by Colonel Tighe had gone--but the hock was untouched. "Probably the butler didn't care for hock," said Mr. Seigne. The Waterloo watch was recovered from a very decent fellow, a travelling dealer, to whom it had been sold: and many pieces of jewelry were traced up to London. But Lady Louisa could not be induced to go up to London to identify them or testify. DUBLIN, _Tuesday, March 6._--It is a curious fact, which I learned to-day from the Registrar-General, that the deposits in the Post-office Savings Banks have never diminished in Ireland since these banks were established.[21] These deposits are chiefly made, I understand, by the small tenants, who are less represented by the deposits in the General Savings Banks than are the shopkeepers and the cattle-drovers. In the General Savings Banks the deposit line fluctuates more; though on the whole there has been a steady increase in these deposits also throughout Ireland. Of the details of the dealings of the private banks it is very hard to get an accurate account. One gentleman, the manager of a branch of one important bank, tells me that a great deal of money is made by usurers out of the tenants, by backing their small bills. This practice goes back to the first establishment of banks in Ireland. Formerly it was not an uncommon thing for a landlord to offer his tenants a reduction, say, of twenty per cent., on condition of their paying the rent when it fell due. Such were the relations then between landlord and tenants, and so little was punctuality expected in such payments that this might be regarded as a sort of discount arrangement. The tenant who wished to avail himself of such an offer would go to some friendly local usurer and ask for a loan that he might avail himself of it. "One of these usurers, whom I knew very well," said the manager, "told me long ago that he found these operations very profitable. His method of procedure was to agree to advance the rent to the tenant at ten per cent., payable at a near and certain date. This would reduce the landlord's reduction at once, of course, for the tenant, to ten per cent., but that was not to be disdained; and so the bargain would be struck. If the money was repaid at the fixed date, it was not a bad thing for the usurer. But it was almost never so repaid; and with repeated renewals the usurer, by his own showing, used to receive eventually twenty, fifty, and, in some cases, nearly a hundred per cent, for his loan." It is the opinion of this gentleman that, under the "Plan of Campaign," a good deal of money-making is done in a quiet way by some of the "trustees," who turn over at good interest, with the help of friendly financiers, the funds lodged with them, being held to account to the tenants only for the principal. "Of course," he said, "all this is doubtless at least as legitimate as any other part of the 'Plan,' and I daresay it all goes for 'the good of the cause.' But neither the tenants nor the landlords get much by it!" CHAPTER XIII. DUBLIN, _Thursday, March 8._--At eight o'clock this morning I left the Harcourt Street station for Inch, to take a look at the scene of the Coolgreany evictions of last summer. These evictions came of the adoption of the Plan of Campaign, under the direction of Mr. Dillon, M.P., on the Wexford property of Mr. George Brooke of Dublin. The agent of Mr. Brooke's estate, Captain Hamilton, is the honorary director of the Property Defence Association, so that we have here obviously a grapple between the National League doing the work, consciously or unconsciously, of the agrarian revolutionists, and a combination of landed proprietors fighting for the rights of property as they understand them. We ran through a beautiful country for the greater part of the way. At Bray, which is a favourite Irish watering-place, the sea broke upon us bright and full of life; and the station itself was more like a considerable English station than any I have seen. Thence we passed into a richly-wooded region, with neat, well-kept hedges, as far as Rathdrum and the "Sweet Vale of Avoca." The hills about Shillelagh are particularly well forested, though, as the name suggests, they must have been cut for cudgels pretty extensively for now a great many years. We came again on the sea at the fishing port of Arklow, where the stone walls about the station were populous with small ragamuffins, and at the station of Inch I found a car waiting for me with Mr. Holmes, a young English Catholic officer, who had most obligingly offered to show me the place and the people. We had hardly got into the roadway when we overtook a most intelligent-looking, energetic young priest, walking briskly on in the direction of our course. This was Dr. Dillon, the curate of Arklow. We pulled up at once, and Mr. Holmes, introducing me to him, we begged him to take a seat with us. He excused himself as having to join another priest with whom he was going to a function at Inch; but he was good enough to walk a little way with us, and gave me an appointment for 2 P.M. at his own town of Arklow, where I could catch the train back to Dublin. We drove on rapidly and called on Father O'Neill, the parish priest. We found him in full canonicals, as he was to officiate at the function this morning, and with him were Father Dunphy, the parish priest of Arklow, and two or three more robed priests. Father O'Neill, whose face and manner are those of the higher order of the continental clergy, briefly set forth to me his view of the transactions at Coolgreany. He said that before the Plan of Campaign was adopted by the tenants, Mr. William O'Brien, M.P., had written to him explaining what the effect of the Plan would be, and urging him to take whatever steps he could to obviate the necessity of adopting it, as it might eventually result to the disadvantage of the tenants. "To that end," said Father O'Neill, "I called upon Captain Hamilton, the agent, with Dr. Dillon of Arklow, but he positively refused to listen to us, and in fact ordered us, not very civilly, to leave his office." It was after this he said that he felt bound to let the tenants take their own way. Eighty of them joined in the "Plan of Campaign" and paid the amount of the rent due, less a reduction of 30 per cent., which they demanded of the agent, into the hands of Sir Thomas Esmonde, M.P., Sir Thomas being a resident in the country, and Mr. Mayne, M.P. Writs of ejectment were obtained against them afterwards, and in July last sixty-seven of them were evicted, who are now living in "Laud League huts," put up on the holdings of three small tenants who were exempted from the Plan of Campaign, and allowed to pay their rents subject to a smaller reduction made by the agent, in order that they might retain their land as a refuge for the rest. All this Father O'Neill told us very quietly, in a gentle, undemonstrative way, but he was much interested when I told him I had recently come from Rome, where these proceedings, I was sure, were exciting a good deal of serious attention. "Yes," he said, "and Father Dunphy who is here in the other room, has just got back from Rome, where he had two audiences of the Holy Father." "Doubtless, then," I said, "he will have given his Holiness full particulars of all that took place here." "No doubt," responded Father O'Neill, "and he tells me the Holy Father listened with great attention to all he had to say--though of course, he expressed no opinion about it to Father Dunphy." As the time fixed for the function was at hand, we were obliged to leave without seeing Father Dunphy. From the Presbytery we drove to the scene of the evictions. These evictions were in July. Mr. Holmes witnessed them, and gave me a lively account of the affair. The "battle" was not a very tough one. Mr. Davitt, who was present, stood under a tree very quietly watching it all. "He looked very picturesque," said Mr. Holmes, "in a light grey suit, with a broad white beaver shading his dark Spanish face; and smoked his cigar very composedly." After it was over, Dr. Dillon brought up one of the tenants, and presented him to Mr. Davitt as "the man who had resisted this unjust eviction." Mr. Davitt took his cigar from his lips, and in the hearing of all who stood about sarcastically said, "Well, if he couldn't make a better resistance than that he ought to go up for six months!" The first house we came upon was derelict--all battered and despoiled, the people in the neighbourhood here, as elsewhere, regarding such houses as free spoil, and carrying off from time to time whatever they happen to fancy. Near this house we met an emergency man, named Bolton, an alert, energetic-looking native of Wicklow. He has four brothers; and is now at work on one of the "evicted" holdings. I asked if he was "boycotted," and what his relations were with the people. He laughed in a shrewd, good-natured way. "Oh, I'm boycotted, of course," he said; "but I don't care a button for any of these people, and I'd rather they wouldn't speak to me. They know I can take care of myself, and they give me a good wide berth. All I have to object to is that they set fire to an outhouse of mine, and cut the ears of one of my heifers, and for that I want damages. Otherwise I'm getting on very well; and I think this will be a good year, if the law is enforced, and these fellows are made to behave themselves." Near Bolton's farm we passed the holding of a tenant named Kavanagh, one of the three who were "allowed" to pay their rents. Several Land League huts are on his place, and the evicted people who occupy them put their cattle with his. He is a quiet, cautious man, and very reticent. But it seemed to me that he was not entirely satisfied with the "squatters" who have been quartered upon him. And it appears that he has taken another holding in Carlow. From his place we drove to Ballyfad, where a large house, at the end of a good avenue of trees, once the mansion of a squire, but now much dilapidated, is occupied as headquarters by the police. Here we found Mr. George Freeman, the bailiff of the Coolgreany property, a strong, sturdy man, much disgusted at finding it necessary to go about protected by two policemen. That this was necessary, however, he admitted, pointing out to us the place where one Kinsella was killed not very long ago. The son of this man Kinsella was formerly one of Mr. Brooke's gamekeepers, and is now, Mr. Freeman thinks, in concert with another man named Ryan, the chief stay of the League in keeping up its dominion over the evicted tenants. Many of these tenants, he believes, would gladly pay their rents now, and come back if they dared. "Every man, sir," he said, "that has anything to lose, would be glad to come back next Monday if he thought his life would be safe. But all the lazy and thriftless ones are better off now than they ever were; they get from £4 to £6 a month, with nothing to do, and so they're in clover, and they naturally don't like to have the industrious, well-to-do tenants spoil their fun by making a general settlement." "Besides that," he added, "that man Kinsella and his comrade Ryan are the terror of the whole of them. Kinsella always was a curious, silent, moody fellow. He knows every inch of the country, going over it all the time by night and day as a gamekeeper, and I am quite sure the Parnellite men and the Land Leaguers are just as much afraid of him and Ryan as the tenants are. He don't care a bit for them; and they've no control of him at all." Mr. Freeman said he remembered very well the occasion referred to by Father O'Neill, when Captain Hamilton refused to confer with Dr. Dillon and himself. "Did Father O'Neill tell you, sir," he said, "that Captain Hamilton was quite willing to talk with him and Father O'Donel, the parish priests, and with the Coolgreany people, but he would have nothing to say to any one who was not their priest, and had no business to be meddling with the matter at all?" "No; he did not tell me that." "Ah! well, sir, that made all the difference. Father Dunphy, who was there, is a high-tempered man, and he said he had just as much right to represent the tenants as Captain Hamilton to represent the landlord, and that Captain Hamilton wouldn't allow. It was the outside people made all the trouble. In June of last year there was a conference at my house, and all that time there was a Committee sitting at Coolgreany, and the tenants would not be allowed to do anything without the Committee." "And who made the Committee?" "Oh, they made themselves, I suppose, sir. There was Sir Thomas Esmonde--he was a convert, you know, of Father O'Neill--and Mr. Mayne and Mr. John Dillon. And Dr. Dillon of Arklow, he was as busy as he could be till the evictions were made in July. And then he was in retreat. And I believe, sir, it is quite true that he wanted the Bishop to let him come out of the retreat just to have a hand in the business." The police sergeant, a very cool, sensible man, quite agreed with the bailiff as to the influence upon the present situation of the ex-gamekeeper Kinsella, and his friend Eyan. "If they were two Invincibles, sir," he said, "these member fellows of the League couldn't be in greater fear of them than they are. They say nothing, and do just as they please. That Kinsella, when Mr. John Dillon was down here, just told him before a lot of people that he 'wanted no words and no advice from him,' and he's just in that surly way with all the people about." As to the Brooke estate, I am told here it was bought more than twenty years ago with a Landed Estates Court title from Colonel Forde, by the grandfather of Mr. Brooke. He paid about £75,000 sterling for it. His son died young, and the present owner came into it as a child, Mr. Vesey being then the agent, who, during the minority, spent a great deal on improving the property. Captain Hamilton came in as agent only a few years ago. While the Act of 1881 was impending, an abatement was granted of more than twenty per cent. In 1882 the tenants all paid except eleven, who went into Court and got their rents cut down by the Sub-Commissioners. There were appeals; and in 1885, after Court valuations, the rents cut down by the Sub-Commissioners were restored in several cases. There never was any rack-renting on the estate at all. There are upon it in all more than a hundred tenants, twelve of whom are Protestants, holding a little less in all than one-fourth of the property. There are fifteen judicial tenants, twenty-one lease-holders, and seventy-seven hold from year to year. The gross rental is a little over £2000 a year of which one-half goes to Mr. Brooke's mother. Mr. Brooke himself is a wealthy man, at the head of the most important firm of wine-merchants in Ireland, and he has repeatedly spent on the property more than he took out of it. The house of Sir Thomas Esmonde, M.P., was pointed out to me from the road. "Sir Thomas is to marry an heiress, sir, isn't he, in America?" asked an ingenuous inquirer. I avowed my ignorance on this point. "Oh, well, they say so, for anyway the old house is being put in order for now the first time in forty years." We reached Arklow in time for luncheon, and drove to the large police barracks there. These were formerly the quarters of the troops. Arklow was one of the earliest settlements of the Anglo-Normans in Ireland under Henry II., and once rejoiced in a castle and a monastery both now obliterated; though a bit of an old tower here is said to have been erected in his time. The town lives by fishing, and by shipping copper and lead ore to South Wales. The houses are rather neat and well kept; but the street was full of little ragged, merry mendicants. We went into a small branch of the Bank of Ireland, and asked where we should find the hotel. We were very civilly directed to "The Register's Office over the way." This seemed odd enough. But reaching it we were further puzzled to see the sign over the doorway of a "coach-builder"! However, we rang the bell, and presently a maid-servant appeared, who assured us that this was really the hotel, and that we could have "whatever we liked" for luncheon. We liked what we found we could get--chops, potatoes, and parsnips; and without too much delay these were neatly served to us in a most remarkable room, ablaze with mural ornaments and decorations, upon which every imaginable pigment of the modern palette seemed to have been lavished, from a Nile-water-green dado to a scarlet and silver frieze. There were five times as many potatoes served to us as two men could possibly eat, and not one of them was half-boiled. But otherwise the meal was well enough, and the service excellent. Beer could be got for us, but the house had no licence, Lord Carysfort, the owner of the property, thinking, so our hostess said, that "there were too many licences in the town already." Lord Carysfort is probably right; but it is not every owner of a house, or even of a lease in Ireland, I fear, who would take such a view and act on it to the detriment of his own property. Dr. Dillon lives in the main square of Arklow in a very neat house. He was absent at a funeral in the handsome Catholic church near by when we called, but we were shown into his study, and he presently came in. His study was that of a man of letters and of politics. Blue-books and statistical works lay about in all directions, and on the table were the March numbers of the _Nineteenth Century_, and the _Contemporary Review_. "You are abreast of the times, I see," I said to him, pointing to these periodicals. "Yes," he replied, "they have just come in; and there is a capital paper by Mr. John Morley in this _Nineteenth Century_." Nothing could be livelier than Dr. Dillon's interest in all that is going on on both sides of the Atlantic, more positive than his opinions, or more terse and clear than his way of putting them. He agreed entirely with Father O'Neill as to the pressure put upon the Coolgreany tenants, not so much by Mr. Brooke as by the agent, Captain Hamilton; but he thought Mr. Brooke also to blame for his treatment of them. "Two of the most respectable of them," said Dr. Dillon, "went to see Mr. Brooke in Dublin, and he wouldn't listen to them. On the contrary, he absolutely put them out of his office without hearing a word they had to say."[22] I found Dr. Dillon a strong disciple of Mr. Henry George, and a firm believer in the doctrine of the "nationalisation of the land." "It is certain to come," he said, "as certain to come in Great Britain as in Ireland, and the sooner the better. The movement about the sewerage rates in London," he added, "is the first symptom of the land war in London. It is the thin edge of the wedge to break down landlordism in the British metropolis." He is watching American politics, too, very closely, and inclines to sympathise with President Cleveland. Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia, he tells me, in his passage through Ireland the other day, did not hesitate to express his conviction that President Cleveland would be re-elected. Dr. Dillon was so earnest and so interesting that the time slipped by very fast, until a casual glance at my watch showed me that we must make great haste to catch the Dublin train. We left therefore rather hurriedly, but before reaching the station we saw the Dublin train go careering by, its white pennon of smoke and vapour curling away along the valley. I made the best of it, however, and letting Mr. Holmes depart by a train which took him home, I found a smart jarvey with a car, and drove out to Glenart Castle, the beautiful house of the Earl of Carysfort. This is a very handsome modern house, built in a castellated style of a very good whitish grey marble, with extensive and extremely well-kept terraced gardens and conservatories. It stands very well on one high bank of the river, a residence of the Earl of Wicklow occupying the other bank. My jarvey called my attention to the excellence of the roads, on which he said Lord Carysfort has spent "a deal of money," as well as upon the gardens of the new Castle. The head-gardener, an Englishman, told me he found the native labourers very intelligent and willing both to learn and to work. Evidently here is another centre of useful and civilising influences, not managed by an "absentee."[23] CHAPTER XIV. DUBLIN, _Friday, March 9th._--At 7.40 this morning I took the train for Athy to visit the Luggacurren estates of Lord Lansdowne. Mr. Lynch, a resident magistrate here, some time ago kindly offered to show me over the place, but I thought it as well to take my chance with the people of Athy who are reported to have been very hot over the whole matter here, and so wrote to Mr. Lynch that I would find him at the Lodge, which is the headquarters of the property. Athy is a neat, well-built little town, famous of old as a frontier fortress of Kildare. An embattled tower, flanked by small square turrets, guards a picturesque old bridge here over the Barrow, the bridge being known in the country as "Crom-a-boo," from the old war-cry of the Fitz-Geralds. It is a busy place now; and there was quite a bustle at the very pretty little station. I asked a friendly old porter which was the best hotel in the town. "The best? Ah! there's only one, and it's not the best--but there are worse--and it's Kavanagh's." I found it easily enough, and was ushered by a civil man, who emerged from the shop which occupies part of it, into a sort of reading-room with a green table. A rather slatternly but very active girl soon converted this into a neat breakfast-table, and gave me an excellent breakfast. The landlord found me a good car, and off I set for the residence of Father Maher, the curate of whom I had heard as one of the most fiery and intractable of the National League priests in this part of Ireland. My jarvey was rather taciturn at first, but turned out to be something of a politician. He wanted Home Rule, one of his reasons being that then they "wouldn't let the Americans come and ruin them altogether, driving out the grain from the markets." About this he was very clear and positive. "Oh, it doesn't matter now whether the land is good or bad, America has just ruined the farmers entirely." I told him I had always heard this achievement attributed to England. "Oh! that was quite a mistake! What the English did was to punish the men that stood up for Ireland. There was Mr. O'Brien. But for him there wasn't a man of Lord Lansdowne's people would have had the heart to stand up. He did it all; and now, what were they doing to him? They were putting him on a cold plank-bed on a stone floor in a damp cell!" "But the English put all their prisoners in those cells, don't they?" I asked. "And what of it, sir?" he retorted. "They're good enough for most of them, but not for a gentleman like Mr. O'Brien, that would spill the last drop of his heart's blood for Ireland!" "But," I said, "they're doing just the same thing with Mr. Gilhooly, I hear." "And who is Mr. Gilhooly, now? And it's not for the likes of him to complain and be putting on airs as if he was Mr. O'Brien!" "Yes, it is a fine country for hunting!" "Was it ever put down here, the hunting?" "No, indeed! Sure, the people wouldn't let it be!" "Not if Mr. O'Brien told them they must?" I queried. "Mr. O'Brien; ah, he wouldn't think of such a thing! It brings money all the time to Athy, and sells the horses." As to the troubles at Luggacurren, he was not very clear. "It was a beautiful place, Mr. Dunne's; we'd see it presently. And Mr. Dunne, he was a good one for sport. It was that, your honour, that got him into the trouble"-- "And Mr. Kilbride?" "Oh, Mr. Kilbride's place was a very good place too, but not like Mr. Dunne's. And he was doing very well, Mr. Kilbride. He was getting a good living from the League, and he was a Member of Parliament. Oh, yes, he wasn't the only one of the tenants that was doing good to himself. There was more of them that was getting more than ever they made out of the land."[24] "Was the land so bad, then?" I asked. "No, there was as good land at Luggacurren as any there was in all Ireland; but," and here he pointed off to the crests of the hills in the distance, "there was a deal of land there of the estate on the hills, and it was very poor land, but the tenants had to pay as much for that as for the good property of Dunne and Kilbride." "Do you know Mr. Lynch, the magistrate?" I asked. "If you do, look out for him, as he has promised to join me and show me the place." "Oh no, sorr!" the jarvey exclaimed at once; "don't mind about him. Hell have his own car, and your honour won't want to take him on ours." "Why not?" I persisted, "there's plenty of room." "Oh! but indeed, sir, if it wasn't that you were going to the priest's, Father Maher, you wouldn't get a car at Athy--no, not under ten pounds!" "Not under ten pounds," I replied. "Would I get one then for ten pounds?" "It's a deal of money, ten pounds, sorr, and you wouldn't have a poor man throw away ten pounds?" "Certainly not, nor ten shillings either. Is it a question of principle, or a question of price?" The man looked around at me with a droll glimmer in his eye: "Ah, to be sure, your honour's a great lawyer; but he'll come pounding along with his big horse in his own car, Mr. Lynch; and sure it'll be quicker for your honour just driving to Father Maher's." There was no resisting this, so I laughed and bade him drive on. "Whose house is that?" I asked, as we passed a house surrounded with trees. "Oh! that's the priest, Father Keogh--a very good man, but not so much for the people as Father Maher, who has everything to look after about them." We came presently within sight of a handsome residence, Lansdowne Lodge, the headquarters of the estate. Many fine cattle were grazing in the fields about it. "They are Lord Lansdowne's beasts," said my jarvey; "and it's the emergency men are looking after them." Nearly opposite were the Land League huts erected on the holding of an unevicted tenant--a small village of neat wooden "shanties." On the roadway in front of these half-a-dozen men were lounging about. They watched us with much curiosity as we drove up, and whispered eagerly together. "They're some of the evicted men, your honour," said my jarvey, with a twinkle in his eye; and then under his breath, "They'll be thinking your honour's came down to arrange it all. They think everybody that comes is come about an arrangement." "Oh, then, they all want it arranged!" "No; not all, but many of them do. Some of them like it well enough going about like gentlemen with nothing to do, only their hands in their pockets." We turned out of the highway here and passed some very pretty cottages. "No, they're not for labourers, your honour," said my jarvey; "the estate built them for mechanics. It's the tenants look after the labourers, and little it is they do for them." Then, pointing to a ridge of hills beyond us, he said: "It was Kilbride's father, sir, evicted seventeen tenants on these hills--poor labouring men, with their families, many years ago,--and now he's evicted himself, and a Member of Parliament!" Father Maher's house stands well off from the highway. He was not at home, being "away at a service in the hills," but would be back before two o'clock. I left my name for him, with a memorandum of my purpose in calling, and we drove on to see the bailiff of the estate, Mr. Hind. On the way we met Father Norris, a curate of the parish, in a smart trap with a good horse, and had a brief colloquy with him. Mr. Hind we found busy afield; a quiet, staunch sort of man. He spoke of the situation very coolly and dispassionately. "The tenants in the main were a good set of men--as they had reason to be, Lord Lansdowne having been not only a fair landlord, but a liberal and enterprising promoter of local improvements." I had been told in Dublin that Lord Lansdowne had offered a subscription of £200 towards establishing creameries, and providing high-class bulls for this estate. Similar offers had been cordially met by Lord Lansdowne's tenants in Kerry, and with excellent results. But here they were rejected almost scornfully, though accompanied by offers of abatement on the rents, which, in the case of Mr. Kilbride, for example, amounted to 20 per cent. "How did this happen, the tenants being good men as you say?" I asked of Mr. Hind. "Because they were unable to resist the pressure put on them by the two chief tenants, Kilbride and Dunne, with the help of the League. Kilbride and Dunne both lived very well." My information at Dublin was that Mr. Kilbride had a fine house built by Lord Lansdowne, and a farm of seven hundred acres, at a rent of £760, 10s. Mr. Dunne, who co-operated with him, held four town lands comprising 1304 acres, at a yearly rent of £1348, 15s. Upon this property Lord Lansdowne had expended in drainage and works £1993, 11s. 9d., and in buildings £631, 15s. 4d., or in all very nearly two years' rental. On Mr. Kilbride's holdings Lord Lansdowne had expended in drainage works £1931, 6s. 3d., and in buildings £1247, 19s. 5d., or in all more than four years' rental. Mr. Kilbride held his lands on life leases. Mr. Dunne held his smallest holding of 84 acres on a yearly tenure; his two largest holdings, one on a lease for 31 years from 1874, and the other on a life lease, and his fourth holding of 172 acres on a life lease. Where does the hardship appear in all this to Mr. Dunne or Mr. Kilbride? On Mr. Kilbride's holdings, for instance, Lord Lansdowne expended over £3000, for which he added to the rent £130 a year, or about 4 per cent., while he himself stood to pay 6-1/2 per cent, on the loans he made from the Board of Works for the expenditure. In the same way it was with Mr. Dunne's farms. They were mostly in grass, and Lord Lansdowne laid out more than £2500 on them, borrowed at the same rate from the Board, for which he added to the rent only £66 a year, or about 2-1/2 per cent. Mr. Kilbride was a Poor-Law Guardian, and Mr. Dunne a Justice of the Peace. The leases in both of these cases, and in those of other large tenants, seem to have been made at the instance of the tenants themselves, and afforded security against any advance in the rental during a time of high agricultural prices. And it would appear that for the last quarter of a century there has been no important advance in the rental. In 1887 the rental was only £300 higher than in 1862, though during the interval the landlord had laid out £20,000 on improvements in the shape of drainage, roads, labourers' cottages, and other permanent works. Moreover, in fifteen years only one tenant has been evicted for non-payment of rent. "Was there any ill-feeling towards the Marquis among the tenants?" I asked of Mr. Hind. "Certainly not, and no reason for any. They were a good set of men, and they would never have gone into this fight, only for a few who were in trouble, and I'm sure that to-day most of them would be thankful if they could settle and get back. The best of them had money enough, and didn't like the fight at all." All the trouble here seems to have originated with the adoption of the Plan of Campaign. Lord Lansdowne, besides this estate in Queen's County, owns property in a wild, mountainous part of the county of Kerry. On this property the tenants occupy, for the most part, small holdings, the average rental being about £10, and many of the rentals much lower. They are not capitalist farmers at all, and few of them are able to average the profits of their industry, setting the gains of a good, against the losses of a bad, season. In October 1886, while Mr. Dillon was organising his Plan of Campaign, Lord Lansdowne visited his Kerry property to look into the condition of the people. The local Bank had just failed, and the shopkeepers and money-lenders were refusing credit and calling in loans. The pressure they put upon these small farmers, together with the fall in the price of dairy produce and of young stock at that time, caused real distress, and Lord Lansdowne, after looking into the situation, offered, of his own motion, abatements varying from 25 to 35 per cent, to all of them whose rents had not been judicially fixed under the Act of 1881, for a term of fifteen years. As to these, Lord Lansdowne wrote a letter on the 21st of October 1886 (four days after the promulgation of the Plan of Campaign at Portumna on the Clanricarde property), to his agent, Mr. Townsend Trench. This letter was published. I have a copy of it given to me in Dublin, and it states the case as between the landlords and the tenants under judicial rents most clearly and temperately. "It might, I think," says the Marquis, "be very fairly argued, that the State having imposed the terms of a contract on landlord and tenant, that contract should not be interfered with except by the State. "The punctual payment of the 'judicial rent' was the one advantage to which the landlords were desired to look when, in 1881, they were deprived of many of the most valuable attributes of ownership. "It was distinctly stipulated that the enormous privileges which were suddenly and unexpectedly conferred upon the tenants were to be enjoyed by them conditionally upon the fulfilment on their part of the statutory obligations specified in the Act. Of those, by far the most important was the punctual payment of the rent fixed by the Court for the judicial term. "This obligation being unfulfilled, the landlord might reasonably claim that he should be free to exercise his own discretion in determining whether any given tenancy should or should not be perpetuated. "In many cases [such cases are probably not so numerous on my estate as upon many others] the resumption of the holding, and the consolidation of adjoining farms, would be clearly advantageous to the whole community. In the congested districts the consolidation of farms is the only solution that I have seen suggested for meeting a chronic difficulty. "I have no reason to believe that the Judicial Rents in force on my estate are such that, upon an average of the yield and prices of agricultural produce, my tenants would find it difficult to pay them." In spite of all these considerations Lord Lansdowne instructed Mr. Trench to grant to these tenants under judicial leases an abatement of 20 per cent. on the November gale of 1886. This abatement, freely offered, was gladly accepted. There had been no outrages or disturbances on the Kerry properties, and the relations of the landlord with his tenants, before and after this visit of Lord Lansdowne to Kerry, and these reductions which followed it, had been, and continued to be, excellent. But the tale of Kerry reached Luggacurren; and certain of the tenants on the latter estate were moved by it to demand for the Queen's County property identical treatment with that accorded to the very differently situated property in Kerry. The leaders of the Luggacurren movement, I gather from Mr. Hind, never pretended inability to pay their rents. They simply demanded abatements of 35 per cent. on non-judicial, and 25 per cent. on judicial, rents as their due, on the ground that they should be treated like the tenants in Kerry: and the Plan of Campaign being by this time in full operation in more than one part of Ireland, they threatened to resort to it if their demand was refused. Lord Lansdowne at once declared that he would not repeat at Luggacurren his concession made in Kerry as to the rents judicially fixed; but he offered on a fair consideration of the non-judicial rents to make abatements on them ranging from 15 to 25 per cent. The offer was refused, and the war began. On the 23d of March 1887 Mr. Kilbride was evicted. One week afterwards, on the 29th of March, he got up in the rooms of the National League in Dublin, and openly declared that "the Luggacurren evictions differed from most other evictions in this, that they were able to pay the rent. It was a fight," he exultingly exclaimed, "of intelligence against intelligence; it was diamond cut diamond!" In other words, it was a struggle, not for justice, but for victory. On all these points, and others furnished to me at Dublin touching this estate, much light was thrown by the bailiff, who had not been concerned in the evictions. He told me what he knew, and then very obligingly offered to conduct me to the lodge, where we should find Mr. Hutchins, who has charge now of the properties taken up by Mr. Kavanagh's Land Corporation. My patriotic jarvey from Athy made no objection to my giving the bailiff a lift, and we drove off to the lodge. On the way the jarvey good-naturedly exclaimed, "Ah! there comes Mr. Lynch," and even offered to pull up that the magistrate might overtake us. We found Mr. Hutchins at home, a cool, quiet, energetic, northern man, who seems to be handling the difficult situation here with great firmness and prudence. Mrs. Hutchins, who has lived here now for nearly a year--a life not unlike that of the wife of an American officer on the Far Western frontier--very amicably asked me to lunch, and Mr. Hutchins offered to show me the holdings of Mr. Dunne and Mr. Kilbride. Mr. Lynch proposed that we should all go on my car, but I remembered the protest of the jarvey, and sending him to await me at Father Maher's, I drove off with Mr. Hutchins. As we drove along, he confirmed the jarvey's hint as to the difference between the views and conduct of the parish priest and the views and conduct of his more fiery curate. This is a very common state of affairs, I find, all over Ireland. The house of Mr. Dunne is that of a large gentleman farmer. It is very well fitted up, but it was plain that the tenants had done little or nothing to make or keep it a "house beautiful." The walls had never been papered, and the wood-work showed no recent traces of the brush. "He spent more money on horse-racing than on housekeeping," said a shrewd old man who was in the house. In fact, Mr. Dunne, I am told, entered a horse for the races at the Curragh after he had undergone what Mr. Gladstone calls "the sentence of death" of an eviction! Some of the doors bore marks of the crowbar but no great mischief had been done to them or to the large fine windows. The only serious damage done during the eviction was the cutting of a hole through the roof. An upper room had been provisioned to stand a siege, and so scientifically barricaded with logs and trunks of trees that after several vain attempts to break through the door the assailants climbed to the roof, and in twenty minutes cut their way in from without. The dining and drawing rooms were those of a gentleman's residence, and one of the party remembered attending here a social festivity got up with much display. A large cattle-yard has been established on this place, with an original, and, as I was assured, most successful weighing-machine by the Land Corporation. We found it full of very fine-looking cattle, and Mr. Hutchins seems to think the operation of managing the estate as a kind of "ranch" decidedly promising. "I am not a bit sorry for Mr. Dunne," he said, "but I am very sorry for other quiet, good tenants who have been deluded or driven into giving up valuable holdings to keep him and Mr. Kilbride company, and give colour to the vapourings of Mr. William O'Brien." The cases of some of these tenants were instructive. One poor man, Knowles, had gone out to America, and regularly sent home money to his family to pay the rent. They found other uses for it, and when the storm came he was two years and a half in arrears. In another instance, two brothers held contiguous holdings, and were in a manner partners. One was fonder of Athy than of agriculture; the other a steady husbandman. Four years' arrears had grown up against the one; only a half-year's gale against the other. Clearly this difference originated outside of the fall of prices! In a third case, a tenant wrote to Mr. Trench begging to have something done, as he had the money to pay, and wanted to pay, but "didn't dare." From Mr. Dunne's we drove to Mr. Kilbride's, another ample, very comfortable house--not so thoroughly well fitted up with bathroom and other modern appurtenances as Mr. Dunne's perhaps--but still a very good house. It stands on a large green knoll, rather bare of trees, and commands a fine sweep of landscape. Mr. Hutchins drove me to the little road which leads up past the "Land League village" to the house of Father Maher, and there set me down. I walked up and found the curate at home--a tall, slender, well-made young priest, with a keen, intelligent face. He received me very politely, and, when I showed him the card of an eminent dignitary of the Church, with cordiality. I found him full of sympathy with the people of his parish, but neither vehement nor unfair. He did not deny that there were tenants on Lord Lansdowne's estate who were amply able to pay their rents; but he did most emphatically assert that there were not a few of them who really could not pay their rents. "I assure you," he said, "there are some of them who cannot even pay their dues to their priest, and when I say that, you will know how pinched and driven they must indeed be." It was in view of these tenants that he seemed to justify the course of Mr. Dunne and Mr. Kilbride. "They must all stand or fall together." He had nothing to say to the discredit of Lord Lansdowne; but he spoke with some bitterness of the agent, Mr. Townsend Trench, as having protested against Lord Lansdowne's making reductions here while he had himself made the same reductions on the neighbouring estate of Mrs. Adair. "In truth," he said, "Mr. Trench has made all this trouble worse all along. He is too much of a Napoleon"--and with a humorous twinkle in his eye as he spoke--"too much of a Napoleon the Third. "I was just reading his father's book when you came in. Here it is," and he handed me a copy of Trench's _Realities of Irish Life_. "Did you ever read it? This Mr. Trench, the father, was a kind of Napoleon among agents in his own time, and the son, you see, thinks it ought to be understood that he is quite as great a man as his father. Did you never hear how he found a lot of his father's manuscripts once, and threw them all in the fire, calling out as he did so, 'There goes some more of my father's vanity?'" About his people, and with his people, Father Maher said he "felt most strongly." How could he help it? He was himself the son of an evicted father. "Of course, Father Maher," I said, "you will understand that I wish to get at both sides of this question and of all questions here. Pray tell me then, where I shall find the story of the Luggacurren property most fully and fairly set forth in print?" Without a moment's hesitation he replied, "By far the best and fairest account of the whole matter you will get in the Irish correspondence of the London _Times_." How the conflict would end he could not say. But he was at a loss to see how it could pay Lord Lansdowne to maintain it. He very civilly pressed me to stay and lunch with him, but when I told him I had already accepted an invitation from Mr. Hutchins, he very kindly bestirred himself to find my jarvey. I hastened back to the lodge, where I found a very pleasant little company. They were all rather astonished, I thought, by the few words I had to say of Father Maher, and especially by his frank and sensible recommendation of the reports in the London _Times_ as the best account I could find of the Luggacurren difficulty. To this they could not demur, but things have got, or are getting, in Ireland, I fear, to a point at which candour, on one side or the other of the burning questions here debated, is regarded with at least as much suspicion as the most deliberate misrepresentation. As to Mr. Town send Trench, what Father Maher failed to tell me, I was here told: That down to the time of the actual evictions he offered to take six months' rent from the tenants, give them a clean book, and pay all the costs. To refuse this certainly looks like a "war measure." But for the loneliness of her life here, Mrs. Hutchins tells me she would find it delightful. The country is exceedingly lovely in the summer and autumn months. When my car came out to take me back to Athy, I found my jarvey in excellent spirits, and quite friendly even with Mr. Hutchins himself. He kept up a running fire of lively commentaries upon the residents whose estates we passed. "Would you think now, your honour," he said, pointing with his whip to one large mansion standing well among good trees, "that that's the snuggest man there is about Athy? But he is; and it's no wonder! Would you believe it, he never buys a newspaper, but he walks all the way into Athy, and goes about from the bank to the shops till he finds one, and picks it up and reads it. He's mighty fond of the news, but he's fonder, you see, of a penny! "There now, your honour, just look at that house! It's a magistrate he is that lives there; and why? Why, just to be called 'your honour,' and have the people tip their hats to him. Oh! he delights in that, he does. Why, you might knock a man, or put him in the water, you might, indeed, but if you came before Mr.----, and you just called him 'your honour' often enough, and made up to him, you'd be all right! You've just to go up to him with your hat in your hand, looking up at him, and to say, 'Ah! now, your honour'" (imitating the wheedling tone to perfection), "and indeed you'd get anything out of him--barring a sixpence, that is, or a penny! "Ah! he's a snug one, too!" And with that he launched a sharp thwack of the whip at the grey mare, and we went rattling on apace. At the very pretty station of Athy we parted the best of friends. "Wish you safe home, your honour." The kindly railway porter, also, who had recommended Kavanagh's Hotel, was anxious to know how I found it, and so busied himself to get me a good carriage when the train came in, that I feel bound to exempt Athy from the judgment passed by Sir James Allport's committee against the "amenities of railway travelling in Ireland." DUBLIN, _Saturday, March 10._--I called by appointment to-day upon Mr. Brooke, the owner of the Coolgreany estate, at his counting-house in Gardiner's Row. It is one of the spacious old last-century houses of Dublin; the counting-room is installed with dark, old-fashioned mahogany fittings, in what once was, and might easily again be made, a drawing-room. Pictures hang on the walls, and the atmosphere of the whole place is one of courtesy and culture rather than of mere modern commerce. One of the portraits here is that of Mr. Brooke's granduncle--a handsome, full-blooded, rather testy-looking old warrior, in the close-fitting scarlet uniform of the Prince Regent's time. "He ought to have been called Lord Baltimore," said Mr. Brooke good-naturedly; "for he fought against your people for that city at Bladensburg with Ross." "That was the battle," I said, "in which, according to a popular tradition in my country, the Americans took so little interest that they left the field almost as soon as it began." Another portrait is of a kinsman who was murdered in the highway here in Ireland many years ago, under peculiarly atrocious circumstances, and with no sort of provocation or excuse. Mr. Brooke confirmed Dr. Dillon's statement that he had ordered out of his counting-house two tenants who came into it with a peculiarly brazen proposition, of which I must presume Dr. Dillon was ignorant when he cited the fact as a count against the landlord of Coolgreany. I give the story as Mr Brooke tells it. "The Rent Audit," he says, "at which my tenants were idiots enough to join the Plan of Campaign occurred about the 12th December 1886, when, as you know, I refused to accept the terms which they proposed to me. I heard nothing more from them till about the middle of February 1887, when coming to my office one day I found two tenants waiting for me. One was Stephen Maher, a mountain man, and the other Patrick Kehoe. 'What do you want?' I asked. Whereupon they both arose, and Pat Kehoe pointed to Maher. Maher fumbled at his clothes, and rubbed himself softly for a bit, and then produced a scrap of paper. 'It's a bit of paper from the tenants, sir,' he said. A queer bit of paper it was to look at--ruled paper, with a composition written upon it which might have been the work of a village schoolmaster. It was neither signed nor addressed! The pith of it was in these words,--'in consequence of the manner in which we have been harassed, our cattle driven throughout the country, and our crops not sown, we shall be unable to pay the half-year's rent due in March, in addition to the reduction already claimed!' I own I rather lost my temper at this! Remember I had already plainly refused to give 'the reduction already claimed,' and had told them not once, but twenty times, that I would never surrender to the 'Plan of Campaign'! I am afraid my language was Pagan rather than Parliamentary--but I told them plainly, at least, that if they did not break from the Plan of Campaign, and pay their debts, they might be sure I would turn the whole of them out! I gave them back their precious bit of paper and sent them packing. "One of them, I have told you, was a mountain man, Stephen Maher. He is commonly known among the people as 'the old fox of the mountain,' and he is very proud of it! "This old Stephen Maher," said Mr. Brooke, "is renowned in connection with a trial for murder, at which he was summoned as a witness. When he was cross-examined by Mr. Molloy, Q.C., he fenced and dodged about with that distinguished counsellor for a long time, until getting vexed by the lawyer's persistency, he exclaimed, 'Now thin, Mr. Molloy, I'd have ye to know that I had a cliverer man nor iver you was, Mr. Molloy, at me, and I had to shtan' up to him for three hours before the Crowner, an' he was onable to git the throoth out of me, so he was! so he was!'" Neither did Dr. Dillon mention the fact that one of the demands made of Captain Hamilton, Mr. Brooke's agent, in December 1886, was that a Protestant tenant named Webster should be evicted by Mr. Brooke from a farm for which he had paid his rent, to make room for the return thither of a Roman Catholic tenant named Lenahan, previously evicted for non-payment of his rent. When Mr. Brooke's grandfather bought the Coolgreany property in 1864, he adopted a system of betterments, which has been ever since kept up on the estate. Nearly every tenant's house on the property has been slated, and otherwise repaired by the landlord, nor has one penny ever been added on that account to the rents. In the village of Coolgreany all the houses on one side of the main street were built in this way by the landlord, and the same thing was done in the village of Croghan, where twenty tenants have a grazing right of three sheep for every acre held on the Croghan Mountain, pronounced by the valuers of the Land Court to be one of the best grazing mountains in Ireland. Captain Hamilton became the agent of the property in 1879, on the death of Mr. Vesey. One of his earliest acts was to advise Mr. Brooke to grant an abatement of 25 per cent. in June 1881, while the Land Act was passing. At the same time, he cautioned the tenants that this was only a temporary reduction, and advised them to get judicial rents fixed. The League advised them not to do this, but to demand 25 per cent. reduction again in December 1881. This demand was rejected, and forty writs were issued. The tenants thereupon in January 1882 came in and paid the full rent, with the costs. Eleven tenants after this went into Court, and in 1883 the Sub-Commissioners cut down their rents. In five cases Mr. Brooke appealed. What was the result before the Chief Commissioner? The rent of Mary Green, which had been £43, and had been cut down by the Sub-Commissioners to £39, was restored to £43; the rent of Mr. Kavanagh, cut down from £57 to £52, was restored to £55; the rent of Pat Kehoe (one of the two tenants "ejected" from Mr. Brooke's office as already stated), cut down from £81 to £70, was restored to £81; the rent of Graham, cut down from £38 to £32, 10s., was restored to £38. Other reductions were maintained. This appears to be the record of "rack-renting" on the Coolgreany property. There are 114 tenants, of whom 15 hold under judicial rents; 22 are leaseholders, and 77 are non-judicial yearly tenants. There are 12 Protestants holding in all a little more than 1200 acres. All the rest are Catholics, 14 of these being cottier tenants. The estate consists of 5165 acres. The average is about £24, and the average rental about £26, 10s. The gross rental is £2614, of which £1000 go to the jointure of Mr. Brooke's mother, and £800 are absorbed by the tithe charges, half poor-rates and other taxes. During the year 1886, in which this war was declared against him, Mr. Brooke spent £714 in improvements upon the property: so in that year his income from Coolgreany was practically _nil_. What in these circumstances would have been the position of this landlord had he not possessed ample means not invested in this particular estate? And what has been the result to the tenants of this conflict into which it seems clear that they were led, less to protect any direct interest of their own than to jeopardise their homes and their livelihood for the promotion of a general agrarian agitation? It is not clear that they are absolutely so far out of pocket, for I find that the Post-Office Savings Bank deposits at Inch and Gorey rose from £3699, 5s. 4d. in 1880 to £5308, 13s. in 1887, showing an increase of £1609, 7s. 8d. But they are out of house and home and work, entered pupils in that school of idleness and iniquity which has been kept by one Preceptor from the beginning of time. CHAPTER XV.[25] * * * *--Mrs. Kavanagh was quite right when she told me at Borris in March that this country should be seen in June! The drive to this lovely place this morning was one long enchantment of verdure and hawthorn blossoms and fragrance. I came over from London to bring to a head some inquiries which have too long delayed the publication of this diary. My intention had been to go directly to Thurles, but a telegram which I received from the Archbishop of Cashel just before I left telling me that he could not be at home for the last three days of the week, I came directly here. Nothing can be more utterly unlike the popular notions of Ireland and of Irish life than the aspect of this most smiling and beautiful region: nothing more thoroughly Irish than its people. * * * who is one of the most active and energetic of Irish landlords, lives part of the year abroad, but keeps up his Irish property with care, at the expense, I suspect, of his estates elsewhere. From a noble avenue of trees, making the highway like the main road of a private park, we turned into a literal paradise of gardens. The air was balmy with their wealth of odours. "Oh! yes, sir," said the coachman, with an air of sympathetic pride, "our lady is just the greatest lady in all this land for flowers!" And for ivy, he might have added. We drove between green walls of ivy up to a house which seemed itself to be built of ivy, like that wonderful old mansion of Castle Leod in Scotland. Here, plainly, is another centre of "sweetness and light," the abolition of which must make, not this region alone, but Ireland poorer in that precise form of wealth, which, as Laboulaye has shown in one of the best of his lectures, is absolutely identical with civilisation. It is such places as this, which, in the interest of the people, justify the exemption from redistribution and resettlement, made in one of a series of remarkable articles on Ireland recently published in the _Birmingham Post_, of lands, the "breaking up of which would interfere with the amenity of a residence." * * * relations with all classes of the people here are so cordial and straightforward that he has been easily able to give me to-day, what I have sought in vain elsewhere in Ireland, an opportunity of conversing frankly and freely with several labouring men. For obvious reasons these men, as a rule, shrink from any expression of their real feelings. Their position is apparently one of absolute dependence either upon the farmers or the landlords, there being no other local market for their labour, which is their only stock-in-trade. As one of them said to me to-day, "The farmers will work a man just as long as they can't help it, and then they throw him away." I asked if there were no regular farm-labourers hired at fixed rates by the year? "Oh! very few--less now than ever; and there'll be fewer before there'll be more. The farmers don't want to pay the labourers or to pay the landlords; they want the land and the work for nothing, sir,--they do indeed!" "What does a farm-hand get," I asked, "if he is hired for a long time?" "Well, permanent men, they'll get 6s. a week with breakfast and dinner, or 7s. maybe, with one meal; and a servant-boy, sir, he'll get 2s. a week or may be 3s. with his board; but it's seldom he gets it." "And what has he for his board?" "Oh, stirabout; and then twice a week coorse Russian or American meat, what they call the 'kitchen,' and they like it better than good meat, sir, because it feeds the pot more." By this I found he meant that the "coorse meat" gave out more "unctuosity" in the boiling--the meat being always served up boiled in a pot with vegetables, like the "bacon and greens" of the "crackers" in the South. "And nothing else?" "Yes; buttermilk and potatoes." "And these wages are the highest?" "Oh, I know a boy got 5s., but by living in his father's house, and working out it was he got it. And then they go over to England to work." "What wages do they get there?" "Oh, it differs, but they do well; 9s. a week, I think, and their board, and straw to sleep on in the stables." "But doesn't it cost them a good deal to go and come?" "Oh no; they get cheap rates. They send them from Galway to Dublin like cattle, at £2, 5s. a car, and that makes about 1s. 6d. a head; and then they are taken over on the steamers very cheap. Often the graziers that do large business with the companies, will have a right to send over a number of men free; and they stowaway too; and then on the railways in England they get passes free often from cattle-dealers, specially when they are coming back, and the dealers don't want their passes. They do very well. They'll bring back £7 and £10. I was on a boat once, and there was a man; he was drunk; he was from Galway somewhere, and they took away and kept for him £18, all in good golden sovereigns; that was the most I ever saw. And he was drunk, or who'd ever have known he had it?" "Do the farmers build houses for the labourers?" "Build houses, is it! Glory be to God! who ever heard of such a thing? The farmers are a poor proud lot. They'd let a labourer die in the ditch!" All that this poor man said was corroborated by another man of a higher class, very familiar with the conditions of life and labour here, and indeed one of the most interesting men I have met in Ireland. Born the son of a labouring man, he was educated by a priest and educated himself, till he fitted himself for the charge of a small school, which he kept to such good purpose that in eighteen years he saved £1100, with which capital he resolved to begin life as a small farmer and shopkeeper. He had studied all the agricultural works he could get, and before he went fairly into the business, he travelled on the Continent, looking carefully into the methods of culture and manner of life of the people, especially in Italy and in Belgium. The Belgian farming gave him new ideas of what might be done in Ireland, and those ideas he has put into practice, with the best results. "On the same land with my neighbours," he said, "I double their production. Where they get two tons of hay I get four or four and a half, where they get forty-five barrels of potatoes I get a hundred. Only the other day I got £20 for a bullock I had taken pains with to fatten him up scientifically. Of course I had a small capital to start with: but where did I get that? Not from the Government. I earned and saved it myself; and then I wasn't above learning how best to use it." He thinks the people here--though by no means what they might be with more thrift and knowledge--much better off than the same class in many other parts of Ireland. There are no "Gombeen men" here, he says, and no usurious shopkeepers. "The people back each other in a friendly way when they need help." Many of the labourers, he says, are in debt to him, but he never presses them, and they are very patient with each other. They would do much better if any pains were taken to teach them. It is his belief that agricultural schools and model farms would do more than almost any measure that could be devised for bringing up the standard of comfort and prosperity here, and making the country quiet. It is the opinion of this man that the people of this place have been led to regard the Papal Decree as a kind of attack on their liberties, and that they are quite as likely to resist as to obey it. For his own part, he thinks Ireland ought to have her own parliament, and make her own laws. He is not satisfied with the laws actually made, though he admits they are better than the older laws were. "The tenants get their own improvements now," he said, "and in old times the more a man improved the worse it was for him, the agent all the while putting up the rents." But he does not want Irish independence. "The people that talk that way," he said, "have never travelled. They don't see how idle it is for Ireland to talk about supporting herself. She just can't do it." Not less interesting was my talk to-day with quite a different person. This was a keen-eyed, hawk-billed, wiry veteran of the '48. As a youth he had been out with "Meagher of the Sword," and his eyes glowed when he found that I had known that champion of Erin. "I was out at Ballinagar," he said; "there were five hundred men with guns, and five hundred pikemen." It struck me he would like to be going "out" again in the same fashion, but he had little respect for the "Nationalists." "There's too many lawyers among them," he said, "too many lawyers and too many dealers. The lawyers are doing well, thanks to the League. Oh yes!" with a knowing chuckle, and a light of mischief in his eye; "the lawyers are doing very well! There's one little bit of a solicitor not far from here was of no good at all four years ago, and now they tell me he's made four thousand pounds in three years' time, good money, and got it all in hand! And there's another, I hear, has made six thousand. The lawyers that call themselves Nationalists, they just keep mischief agoing to further themselves. What do they care for the labourers? Why, no more than the farmers do--and what would become of the poor men! * * * * here, he is making * * * * * * * and he keeps more poor men going than all the lawyers and all the farmers in the place a good part of the year." "Are the labourers," I asked, "Nationalists?" "They don't know what they are," he answered. "They hate the farmers, but they love Ireland, and they all stand together for the counthry!" "How is it with the Plan of Campaign and the Boycotting?" "Now what use have the labourers got for the Plan of Campaign? No more than for the moon! And for the Boycotting, I never liked it--but I was never afraid of it--and there's not been much of it here." "Will the Papal Decree put a stop to what there is of it?" "I wouldn't mind the Pope's Decree no more than that door!" he exclaimed indignantly. "Hasn't he enough, sure, to mind in Rome? Why didn't he defend his own country, not bothering about Ireland!" "Are you not a Catholic, then?" I asked. "Oh yes, I'm a Catholic, but I wouldn't mind the Decree. Only remember," he added, after a pause, "just this: it don't trouble me, for I've nothing to do with the Plan of Campaign--only I don't want the Pope to be meddlin' in matters that don't concern him." "It's out of respect, then, for the Pope that you wouldn't mind the Decree?" "Just that, intirely! It was some of them Englishmen wheedled it out of him, you may be sure, sir." "I am told you went out to America once." "Yes, I went there in '48, and I came back in '51." "What made you go?" I asked. "Is it what made me go?" he replied, with a sudden fierceness in his voice. "It was the evictions made me go; that we was put out of the good holding my father had, and his father before him; and I can never forgive it, never! But I came back; and it was * * * father that was the good man to me and to mine, else where would I be?" I afterwards learned from * * * * that the evictions of which the old man spoke with so much bitterness were made in carrying out important improvements, and that it was quite true that his father had greatly befriended the emigrant when he got enough of the New World and came home. It was curious to see the old grudge fresh and fierce in the old man's heart, but side by side with it the lion lying down with the lamb--a warm and genuine recognition of the kindness and help bestowed on himself. His resentment against the landlord's action in one generation did not in the least interfere with his recognition of the landlord's usefulness and liberality in the next generation. "You didn't like America?" I said. "Where did you live there?" "I lived at North Brookfield in Massachusetts, a year or two," he replied, "with Governor Amasa Walker. Did you know him? He was a good man; he was fond of the people, but he thought too much of the nagurs." "Yes," I answered; "I know all about him, and he was, as you say, a very good man, even if he was an abolitionist. But why didn't you stay in North Brookfield?" "Oh, it was a poor country indeed! A blast of wind would blow all the ground away there was! It does no good to the people, going to America," he said; "they come back worse than they went!" He is at work now in some quarries here. "The quarrymen get six shillings a week," he said, "with bread and tea and butter and meat three times a week. With nine shillings a week and board, a man'll make himself bigger than * * *!" "Was the country quiet now?" "This country here? Oh! it's very quiet; with potatoes at 3s. 6d. a barrel, it's a good year for the people. They're a very quiet people,"--in corroboration apparently of which statement he told me a story of a coroner's jury called to sit on the body of a man found on the highway shot through the head, which returned an unanimous verdict of "Died by the visitation of God." This country is dominated by the Rocky Hills climbing up to Cullenagh, which divides the Barrow valley from the Nore. We drove this afternoon to * a most lovely place. The mansion there is now shut up and dismantled, but the park and the grounds are very beautiful, with a beauty rather enhanced than diminished by the somewhat unkempt luxuriance of the vegetation. We passed a now well-grown tree planted by the Prince of Wales * * * * * * and drove over many miles of excellent road made by * * * * * * * * employs * * * * * * * * regularly, * * * men as labourers, cartmen and masons, to whom he pays out annually the sum of * * Mr. * * who, by the way, rather resented my asking him if he came of one of the Cromwellian English families so numerous here, and informed me that his people came over with Strongbow--assures me that but for these works of * * * * these men under him would be literally without occupation. In addition to these there are about a dozen more men employed * * as gamekeepers and plantation-men. At the * * places belonging to * * * * * * * * * * above eighty men find constant employment, and receive regular wages amounting to over £4000. Were * * * * dispossessed or driven out of Ireland, all this outlay would come to an end, and with what result to these working-men? As things now are, while * * * working-men receive a regular wage of five shillings, the same men, as farmers' labourers, would receive, now and then, five shillings a week, and that without food! I saw enough in the course of our afternoon's drive to satisfy me that my informant of the morning had probably not overstated matters when he told me that for at least seventy per cent. of the work done by the labourers here, from November to May, they have to look to the landlords. On the property of * * as well as on the neighbouring properties * * * * * * * the houses have been generally put up by the landlords. We called in the course of the afternoon upon a labouring man who lives with his wife in a very neat, cozy, and quite new house, built recently for him by * *. These good people have been living on this property for now nearly half a century. Their new house having been built for them, * * has had an agreement prepared, under which it may be secured to them. The terms have all been discussed and found satisfactory, but the old labourer now hesitates about signing the agreement. He gives, and can be got to give, no reason for this; but when we drove up he came out to greet us in the most friendly manner. We went in and found his wife, a shrewd, sharp-eyed, little old dame, with whom * * * * fell into a confabulation, while I went into the next room with the labourer himself. The house was neatly furnished--with little ornaments and photographs on the mantel-shelf, and nothing of the happy-go-lucky look so common about the houses of the working people in Ireland, as well as about the houses of the lesser squires. I paid him a compliment on the appearance of his house and grounds. "Yes, sir!" he answered: "it's a very good place it is, and * * * * has built it just to please us." "But I am told you want to leave it?" "Ah, no, that is not so, sir, indeed at all! We've three children you see, sir, in America--two girls and a boy we have." "And where are they?" "Ah, the girls they're not in any factory at all. They're like leddies, living out in a place they call * * in Massachusetts; and the lad, he was on a farm there. But we don't know where he is nor his sisters any more just now. And the wife, she thinks she would like to go out to America and see the children." "Do you hear from them regularly?" "Well, it's only a few pounds they send, but they're doing very well. Domestics they are, quite like leddies; there's their pictures on the shelf." "But what would you do there?" "Ah! we'd have lodgings, the wife says, sir. But I like the ould place myself." "I think you are quite right there," I replied. "And do you get work here from the farmers as the labourers do in my country?" "Work from the farmers, sir?" he answered, rather sharply. "What they can't help we get, but no more! If the farmers in America is like them, it's not I would be going there! The farmers! For the farmers, a labourer, sir, is not of the race of Adam! They think any place good enough for a labourer--any place and any food! Is the farmers that way in America?" "Well, I don't know that they are so very much more liberal than your farmers are," I replied; "but I think they'd have to treat you as being of the race of Adam! But are not the farmers here, or the Guardians, obliged to build houses for the labourers? I thought there was an Act of Parliament about that?" "And so there is but what's the good of it? It's just to get the labourers' votes, and then they fool the labourers, just making them quarrel about where the cottages shall be, what they call the 'sites'; and then there's no cottages built at all, at all. It's the lawyers, you see, sir, gets in with the farmers--the strongest farmers--and then they just make fools of the labourers as if there was no Act of Parliament at all." "But if the labourers want to go away, to emigrate," I said, "as you want to do, to America, don't the farmers, or the Government, or the landlords, help them to get away and make a start?" "Not a bit of it, sir," he replied; "not a bit of it. I believe, though," he added after a moment; "I believe they do get some help to go to Australia. But they're mostly no good that goes that way. The best is them that go for themselves, or their friends help them. But there's not so many going this year." When we drove away I asked * * if he had made any progress towards a signature of the agreement with the labourer's wife. "No; she couldn't be got to say yes or no. I asked her," said * * "what reason they had for imagining that after all these years I would try to do them an injury? She protested they never thought of such a thing; but she couldn't be brought to say she wished her husband to sign the paper. It's very odd, indeed." I couldn't help suspecting that the _materfamilias_ was at the bottom of it all, and that she was bent upon going out to America to participate in the prosperity of her two daughters, who were living "like leddies" at * * in Massachusetts. The incident recalled to me something which happened years ago when I was returning with the Storys from Rome to Boston. Our Cunarder, in the middle of the night, off the Irish coast, ran down and instantly sank a small schooner. In a wonderfully short time we had come-to, and a boat's crew had succeeded in picking up and bringing all the poor people on board. Among them was a wizened old woman, upon whom all sorts of kind attentions were naturally lavished by the ship's company. She could not be persuaded to go into a cabin after she had recovered from the shock and the fright of the accident, but, comforted and clothed with new and dry garments, she took refuge under one of the companion-ways, and there, sitting huddled up, with her arms about her knees, she crooned and moaned to herself, "I was near being in a wetter and a warmer place; I was near being in a wetter and a warmer place!" by the half hour together. We found that the poor old soul had been to Liverpool to see her son off on a sailing ship as an emigrant to America. So a subscription was soon made up to send her on our arrival to New York there to await her son. We had some trouble in making her understand what was to be done with her, but when she finally got it fairly into her head, gleams of mingled surprise and delight came over her withered face, and she finally broke out, "Oh, then, glory be to God! it's a mercy that I was drownded! glory be to God! and it's the proud boy Terence will be when he gets out to America to find his poor ould mother waiting for him there that he left behind him in Liverpool, and quite the leddy with all this good gold money in her hand, glory be to God!" On our way back to * * we passed through * * a very neat prosperous-looking town, which * * tells me is growing up on the heels of * *. * * * was one of the few places at which the "no rent" manifesto, issued by Mr. Parnell and his colleagues from their prison in Kilmainham, during the confinement of Mr. Davitt at Portland, and without concert with him, was taken up by a village curate and commended to the people. He was arrested for it by Mr. Gladstone's Government, and locked up for six weeks. DUBLIN, _Saturday, June 23d._--I left * * * yesterday morning early on an "outside car," with one of my fellow-guests in that "bower of beauty," who was bent on killing a salmon somewhere in the Nore * * We drove through a most varied and picturesque country, viewing on the way the seats of Mr. Hamilton Stubber and Mr. Robert Staples, both finely situated in well-wooded parks. Mr. Stubber was formerly master of the Queen's County hounds, a famous pack, which, as our jarvey put it, "brought a power of money into the county, and made it aisy for a poor man." But the local agitations wore out his patience, and he put the pack down some years ago. Not far from his house is an astonishing modern "tumulus," or mound of hewn and squared stones. These it seems were quarried and brought here by him, with the intention of building a new and handsome residence. This intention he abandoned under the same annoyance. "They call it Mr. Stubber's Cairn," said the jarvey; "and a sorrowful sight it is, to think of the work it would have given the people, building the big house that'll never be built now, I'm thinking." If Mr. Stubber should become an "absentee," he can hardly, I think, be blamed for it. His property marches with that of Mr. Robert Staples, who comes of a Gloucestershire family planted in Ireland under Charles I. "Mr. Staples is farming his own lands," said our jarvey, when I commented on the fine appearance of some fields as we drove by; "and he'll be doing very well this year. Ah! he comes and goes, but he's here a great deal, and he looks after everything himself; that's the reason the fields is good." This is a property of some 1500 statute acres. Only last March the landlord took over from one tenant, who was in arrears of two years and a half and owed him some £300, a farm of 90 acres, giving the man fifty pounds to boot, and bidding him go in peace. I wonder whether this proceeding would make the landlord a "land-grabber," and expose him to the pains and penalties of "boycotting"? On this place, too, it seems that Mr. Staples's grandfather put up many houses for the tenants; a thing worth noting, as one of not a few instances I have come upon to show that it will not do to accept without examination the sweeping statements so familiar to us in America, that improvements have never been made by the landlord upon Irish estates. My companion had meant to put me down at the railway station of Attanagh, there to catch a good train to Kilkenny. But we had a capital nag, and reached Attanagh so early that we determined to drive on to Ballyragget. From Attanagh to Ballyragget the road ran along a plateau which commanded the most beautiful views of the valley of the Nore and of the finely wooded country beyond. Ballyragget itself is a brisk little market town, the American influence showing itself here, as in so many other places, in such trifles as the signs on the shops which describe them as "stores." My salmon-fishing companion put me down at the station and went off to the river, which flows through the town, and is here a swift and not inconsiderable stream. An hour in the train took me to Kilkenny, where I met by appointment several persons whom I had been unable to see during my previous visit in March. These gentlemen, experienced agents, gave me a good deal of information as to the effect of the present state of things upon the "_moral_" of the tenantry in different parts of Ireland. On one estate, for example, in the county of Longford, a tenant has been doing battle for the cause of Ireland in the following extraordinary fashion. He held certain lands at a rental of £23, 4s. Being, to use the picturesque language of the agent, a "little good for tenant," he fell into arrears, and on the 1st of May 1885 owed nearly three years' rent, or £63, 12s., in addition to a sum of £150 which he had borrowed of his amiable landlord three or four years before to enable him to work his farm. Of this total sum of £213, 12s. he positively refused to pay one penny. Proceedings were accordingly taken against him, and he was evicted. By this eviction his title to the tenancy was broken. The landlord nevertheless, for the sake of peace and quiet, offered to allow him to sell, to a man who wished to take the place, any interest he might have had in the holding, and to forgive both the arrears of the rent and the £150 which had been borrowed by him. The ex-tenant flatly refused to accept this offer, became a weekly pensioner upon the National League, and declared war. The landlord was forced to get a caretaker for the place from the Property Defence Association at a cost of £1 per week, to provide a house for a police protection party, and to defray the expenses of that party upon fuel and lights. Nor was this all. The landlord found himself further obliged to employ men from the same Property Defence Association to cut and save the hay-crop on the land, and when this had been done no one could be found to buy the crop. The crop and the lands were "boycotted." It was only in May last that a purchaser could be found for the hay cut and saved two years ago--this purchaser being himself a "boycotted" man on an adjoining property. He bought the hay, paying for it a price which did not quite cover one-half the cost of sowing it! "No one denies for a moment," said the agent, "that the tenant in all this business has been more than fairly, even generously, treated by the estate; yet no one seems to think it anything but natural and reasonable that he should demand, as he now demands, to be put back into the possession of his forfeited tenancy at a certain rent fixed by himself," which he will obligingly agree to pay, "provided that the hay cut and saved on the property two years ago is accounted for to him by the estate!" In another case an agent, Mr. Ivough, had to deal with a body of five hundred tenants on a considerable estate. Of these tenants, two hundred settled their rents with the landlord before the passing of the Land Act of 1881, and valuations made by the landlord's valuer, with their full assent. There was no business for the lawyers, so far as they were concerned, and no compulsion of any sort was put on them. Among them was a man who had married the daughter of an old tenant on the estate, and so came into a holding of 12 Irish, or more than 20 statute, acres, at a rental of £18 a year. The valuer reduced this to £14, 10s., which satisfied the tenant, and as the agent agreed to make this reduced valuation retroactive, all went as smoothly as possible for two years, when the tenant began to fall into arrears. When the Sub-Commissioners, between 1885 and 1887, took to making sweeping reductions, the tenants who had settled freely under the recent valuation grumbled bitterly. As one of them tersely put it to the agent, "We were a parcel of bloody fools, and you ought to have told us these Sub-Commissioners were coming!" Mr. Sweeney, the tenant by marriage already mentioned, was not content to express his particular dissatisfaction in idle words, but kept on going into arrears. In May 1888 things came to a crisis. The agent refused to accept a settlement which included the payment by him of the costs of the proceedings forced upon him by his tenant. "You have had a good holding," said the agent, "with plenty of water and good land. In this current year two acres of your wheat will pay the whole rent. You have broken up and sold bit by bit a mill that was on the place; and above all, when Mr. Gladstone made us accept the judicial rents, he told us we might be sure, if we did this, of punctual payment. That was the one consideration held out to us. And we are entitled to that!" The tenant being out of his holding, the agent wishes to put another tenant into it. But the holding is "boycotted." Several tenants are anxious for it, and would gladly take it, but they dare not The great evicted will neither sell any tenant-right he may have, nor pay his arrears and costs, nor give up the place to another tenant. To put Property Defence men on the holding would cost the landlord £2, 10s. a week, and do him no great good, as the evicted man "holds the fort," being established in a house which he occupies on an adjoining property, and for which presumably he pays his rent. It seems as if Mr. Sweeney were inspired by the example of another tenant, named Barry, who, before the passing of the Land Act of 1881, gave up freely a holding of 20 acres, on a property managed by Mr. Kough; but as he was on such good terms with the agent that he could borrow money of him, he begged the agent to let him retain at a low rent a piece of this surrendered land directly adjoining his house. He asked this in the name of his eight or nine children, and it was granted him. The agent afterwards found that the piece of land in question was by far the best of the surrendered holding. But that is a mere detail. This ingenious tenant Barry, living now on another estate just outside the grasp of the agent, has systematically "boycotted" for the last nine years the land which he gave up, feeding his own cattle upon it freely meanwhile, and keeping all would-be tenants at a distance! "He is now," said the agent, "quite a wealthy man in his way, jobbing cattle at all the great markets!" "When the eviction of Sweeney took place," said the agent, "I was present in person, as I thought I ought to be, and the result is that I have been held up to the execration of mankind as a monster for putting out a child in a cradle into a storm. As a matter of fact," he said, "there was a cradle in the way, which the sheriff-Officer gently took up, and by direction of the tenant's wife removed. I made no remark about it at all, but a local paper published a lying story, which the publisher had to retract, that I had said 'Throw out the child!'" "Two priests," he said, "came quite uninvited and certainly without provocation, to see me, and one of them shouted out, 'Ah! we know you'll be making another Coolgreany,' which was as much as to say there 'would be bloodshed.' This was the more intolerable," he added, "that, as I afterwards found, I had already done for the sake of the tenants precisely what these ecclesiastics professed that they had come to ask me to do! "For thirty years," said this gentleman, "I have lived in the midst of these people--and in all that time I have never had so much as a threatening letter. But after this story was published of my throwing out a cradle with a child in it, I was insulted in the street by a woman whom I had never seen before. Two girls, too, called out at the eviction, 'You've bad pluck; why didn't you tell us you were coming down the day?' and another woman made me laugh by crying after me, 'You've two good-looking daughters, but you're a bad man yourself.'" Quite as instructive is the story given me on this occasion of the Tyaquin estate in the county of Galway. This estate is managed by an agent, Mr. Eichardson of Castle Coiner, in this county of Kilkenny. The rents on this Galway estate, as Mr. Richardson assures me, have been unaltered for between thirty and forty years, and some of them for even a longer period. For the last twenty-five years certainty, during which Mr. Richardson has been the agent of the estate, and probably, he thinks, for many years previous, there has never been a case of the non-payment of rent, except in recent years when rents were withheld for a time for political reasons. Large sums of money have been laid out in various useful improvements. Constant occupation was given to those requiring it, until the agrarian agitation became fully developed. On the demesne and the home farms the best systems of reclaiming waste lands and the best systems of agriculture were practically exhibited, so that the estate was an agricultural free school for all who cared to learn. When the Land Act of 1881 was passed, almost all the tenants applied, and had judicial rents fixed, many of them by consent of the agent. In 1887 the tenants were called on as usual to pay these judicial rents. A large minority refused to do so except on certain terms, which were refused. The dispute continued for many months, but as the charges on the estate had to be met, the agent was obliged to give way, and allow an abatement of four shillings in the pound on these judicial rents. Some of these charges, to meet which the agent gave way, were for money borrowed from the Commissioners of Public Works to _improve the holdings of the tenants_. For these improvements thus thrown entirely upon the funds of the estate no increase of rent or charge of any kind had been laid upon the tenants. When a settlement was agreed on, those of the tenants who had adopted the Plan came in a body to pay their rents on 3d January 1888. They stated that they were unable to pay more than the rent due up to November 1886, and that they would never have adopted the Plan had they not been driven into it by _sheer distress_. After which they handed Mr. Richardson a cheque drawn by John T. Dillon, Esq., M.P., for the amount banked with the National League. An article appeared shortly afterwards in a League newspaper, loudly boasting of the great victory won by Mr. Dillon, M.P., for the starving and poverty-stricken tenants. Two of these tenants (brothers) were under a yearly rent of £7, 10s. They declared they could only pay £3, 15s., or a half-year's rent, and this only if they got an abatement of 15s. Yet these same tenants were then paying Mr. Richardson £50 a year for a grass farm, and about £12 for meadows, as well as £30 a year more for a grass farm to an adjoining landlord. Another tenant who held a farm at £13, 5s. a year declared he could only pay £6, 12s. 6d., or a half-year's rent, if he got an abatement of £1, 6s. 6d. A very short time before, this tenant had taken a grass farm from an adjoining landlord, and he was so anxious to get it that he showed the landlord a bundle of large notes, amounting to rather more than £300 sterling, in order to prove his solvency! The same tenant has since written a letter to Mr. Richardson offering £50 a year for a grass farm! All these campaigners, Mr. Richardson says, "with one noble exception, the wife of a tenant who was ill, declined to pay a penny of rent beyond November 1st, 1886," stating that they were "absolutely unable" to do more. So they all left the May 1887 rent unpaid, and the hanging gale to November 1887, which, however, they were not even asked to pay. The morning after the settlement many of the tenants who, when they were all present in a body on the previous evening, had declared their "inability" to pay the half-year's rent due down to May 1887, individually came to Mr. Richardson unasked, and paid it, some saying they had "borrowed the money that night," but others frankly declaring that they dared not break the rule publicly, having been ordered by the League only to pay to November 1886, for fear of the consequences. These would have been injury to their cattle, or the burning of their hay, or possibly murder. Of the country about Kilkenny, I am told, as of the country about Carlow, that nearly or quite seventy per cent, of the labourers are dependent upon the landlords from November to May for such employment as they get. The shopkeepers, too, are in a bad way, being in many cases reduced to the condition of mere agents of the great wholesale houses elsewhere, and kept going by these houses mainly in the hope of recovering old debts. There is a severe pressure of usury, too, upon the farmers. "If a farmer," said one resident to me, "wants to borrow a small sum of the Loan Fund Bank, he must have two securities--one of them a substantial man good for the debt. These two indorsers must be 'treated' by the borrower whom they back; and he must pay them a weekly sum for the countenance they have given him, which not seldom amounts, before he gets through with the matter, to a hundred per cent, on the original loan." I am assured too that the consumption of spirits all through this region has greatly increased of late years. "The official reports will show you," said one gentleman, "that the annual outlay upon whisky in Ireland equals the sum saved to the tenants by the reductions in rent." This is a proposition so remarkable that I simply record it for future verification, as having been made by a very quiet, cool, and methodical person, whose information on other points I have found to be correct. He tells me too, as of his own knowledge, that in going over some financial matters with a small farmer in his neighbourhood, he ascertained, beyond a peradventure, that this farmer annually spent in whisky, for the use of his family, consisting of himself, his wife and three adult children, nearly, or quite, _seventy pounds a year_! "You won't believe this," he said to me; "and if you print the statement nobody else will believe it; but for all that it is the simple unexaggerated truth." Falstaff's reckoning at Dame Quickly's becomes a moderate score in comparison with this! I spent half an hour again in the muniment-room at Kilkenny Castle, where, in the Expense-Book of the second Duke of Ormond, I found a supper _menu_ worthy of record, as illustrating what people meant by "keeping open house" in the great families of the time of Queen Anne.[Note L.] Taking a train early in the afternoon, I came on here in time to dine last night with Mr. Rolleston of Delgany, an uncompromising Protestant "Home Ruler"--as Protestant and as uncompromising as John Mitchel--whose recent pamphlet on "Boycotting" has deservedly attracted so much attention on both sides of the Irish Sea. I was first led into a correspondence with Mr. Rolleston by a remarkable article of his published in the _Dublin University Review_ for February 1886, on "The Archbishop in Politics." In that article, Mr. Rolleston, while avowing himself to be robust enough to digest without much difficulty the _ex officio_ franchise conferred upon the Catholic clergy by Mr. Parnell to secure the acceptance of his candidates at Parliamentary conventions, made a very firm and fearless protest against the attempt of the Archbishops of Dublin and Cashel to "boycott" Catholic criticism of the National League and its methods, by declaring such criticism to be "a public insult" offered, not to the Archbishops of Cashel and Dublin personally, or as political supporters of the National League, but to the Archbishops as dignitaries of the Catholic Church, and to their Archiepiscopal office. The "boycotting," by clerical machinery, of independent lay opinion in civil matters, is to the body politic of a Catholic country what the germ of cancer is to the physical body. And though Mr. Rolleston, in this article, avowed himself to be a hearty supporter of the "political programme of the National League," and went so far even as to maintain that the social boycotting, "which makes the League technically an illegal conspiracy against law and individual liberty," might be "in many cases justified by the magnitude of the legalised crime against which it was directed," it was obvious to me that he could not long remain blind to the true drift of things in an organisation condemned, by the conditions it has created for itself, to deal with the thinkers of Ireland as it deals with the tenants of Ireland. His recent pamphlet on "Boycotting" proves that I was right. What he said to me the other day in a letter about the pamphlet may be said as truly of the article. It was "a shaft sunk into the obscure depths of Irish opinion, to bring to light and turn to service whatever there may be in those depths of sound and healthy;" and one of my special objects in this present visit to Ireland was to get a personal touch of the intellectual movement which is throwing such thinkers as Mr. Rolleston to the front. We were five at table, Mr. Rolleston's other guests being Mr. John O'Leary, whose name is held in honour for his courage and honesty by all who know anything of the story of Ireland in our times, and who was sent a quarter of a century ago as a Fenian patriot--not into seclusion with sherry and bitters, at Kilmainham, like Mr. Gladstone's "suspects" of 1881--but like Michael Davitt, into the stern reality of penal servitude; Dr. Sigerson, Dean of the Faculty of Science of the Boyal University, and an authority upon the complicated question of Irish Land Tenures; and Mr. John F. Taylor, a leading barrister of Dublin, an ally on the Land Question of Mr. Davitt, and an outspoken Repealer of the Union of 1800. I have long wished to meet Mr. O'Leary, who sent me, through a correspondent of mine, two years ago, one of the most thoughtful and well-considered papers I have ever read on the possibilities and impossibilities of Home Rule for Ireland; and it was a great pleasure to find in the man the elevation of tone, the breadth of view, and the refined philosophic perception of the strong and weak points in the Irish case, which had charmed me in. the paper. Now that "Conservative" Englishmen have come to treat the main points of Chartism almost as commonplaces in politics, it is surely time for them to recognise the honesty and integrity of the spirit which revolted in the Ireland of 1848 against the then seemingly hopeless condition of that country. Of that spirit Mr. O'Leary is a living, earnest, and most interesting incarnation. He strikes one at once as a much younger man in all that makes the youth of the intellect and the emotions than any Nationalist M.P. of half his years whom I have ever met. No Irishman living has dealt stronger or more open blows than he against the English dominion in Ireland. Born in Tipperary, where he inherited a small property in houses, he was sent to Trinity College in Dublin, and while a student there was drawn into the "Young Ireland" party mainly by the poems of Thomas Davis. Late in the electrical year of the "battle summer," 1848, he was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in a plot to rescue Smith O'Brien and other state prisoners. The suspicion was well founded, but could not be established, and after a day or two he was liberated. From Trinity, after this, he went to the Queen's College in Cork, where he took his degree, and studied medicine. When the Fenian movement became serious, after the close of our American Civil War, O'Leary threw himself into it with Stephens, Luby, and Charles Kickham. Stephens appointed him one of the chief organisers of the I.E.B. with Luby and Kickham, and he took charge of the _Irish People_--the organ of the Fenians of 1865. It was as a subordinate contributor to this journal that Sir William Harcourt's familiar Irish bogy, O'Donovan Rossa[26], was arrested together with his chief, Mr. O'Leary, and with Kickham in 1865, and found guilty, with them, after a trial before Mr. Justice Keogh, of treason-felony. The speech then delivered by Mr. O'Leary in the dock made a profound impression upon the public mind in America. It was the speech, not of a conspirator, but of a patriot. The indignation with which he repelled for himself and for his associate Luby the charges levelled at them both, without a particle of supporting evidence, by the prosecuting counsel, of aiming at massacre and plunder, was its most salient feature. The terrible sentence passed upon him, of penal servitude for twenty years, Mr. O'Leary accepted with a calm dignity, which I am glad, for the sake of Irish manhood, to find that his friends here now recall with pride, when their ears are vexed by the shrill and clamorous complaints of more recent "patriots," under the comparatively trivial punishments which they invite. In 1870, Mr. O'Leary and his companions were released and pardoned on condition of remaining beyond the British dominions until the expiration of their sentences. Mr. O'Leary fixed his residence for a time in Paris, and thence went to America, where he and Kickham were regarded as the leaders of the American branch of the I. R. B. He returned to Ireland in 1885, his term of sentence having then expired, and it was shortly after his return that he gave to my correspondent the letter upon Irish affairs to which I have already referred. He had been chosen President of the "Young Ireland Society" of Dublin before he returned, and in that capacity delivered at the Rotunda, in the Irish capital, before a vast crowd assembled to welcome him back, an address which showed how thoughtfully and calmly he had devoted himself during his long years of imprisonment and exile to the cause of Ireland. Mr. William O'Brien, M.P., and Mr. Redmond, M.P., took part in this reception, but their subsequent course shows that they can hardly have relished Mr. O'Leary's fearless and outspoken protests against the intolerance and injustice of the agrarian organisation which controls their action. In England, as well as well as in Ireland, Mr. O'Leary spoke to great multitudes of his countrymen, and always in the same sense. Mr. Rolleston tells me that Mr. O'Leary's denunciations of "the dynamite section of the Irish people," to use the euphemism of an American journal, "are the only ones ever uttered by an Irish leader, lay or clerical." The day must come, if it be not already close at hand, when the Irish leader of whom this can be truly said, must be felt by his own people to be the one man worthy of their trust. The thing that has been shall be, and there is nothing new under the sun. The Marats and the Robespierres, the Barères and the Collots, are the pallbearers, not the standard-bearers of liberty. Towards the National League, as at present administered on the lines of the agrarian agitation, Mr. O'Leary has so far preserved an attitude of neutrality, though he has never for a moment hesitated either in public or in private most vehemently to condemn such sworn Fenians as have accepted seats in the British Parliament, speaking his mind freely and firmly of them as "double-oathed men" playing a constitutional part with one hand, and a treasonable part with the other. Yet he is not at one with the extreme and fanatical Fenians who oppose constitutional agitation simply because it is constitutional. His objection to the existing Nationalism was exactly put, Mr. Rolleston tells me, by a clever writer in the Dublin _Mail_, who said that O'Connell having tried "moral force" and failed, and the Fenians having tried "physical force" and failed, the Leaguers were now trying to succeed by the use of "immoral force." Dr. Sigerson, who, as a man of science, must necessarily revolt from the coarse and clumsy methods of the blunderers who have done so much since 1885 to discredit the cause of Ireland, evidently clings to the hope that something may still be saved from the visible wreck of what has come, even in Ireland, to be called "Parnellism," and he good-naturedly persisted in speaking of our host last night and of his friends as "mugwumps." For the "mugwumps" of my own country I have no particular admiration, being rather inclined, with my friend Senator Conkling (now gone to his rest from the racket of American politics), to regard them as "Madonnas who wish it to be distinctly understood that they might have been Magdalens." But these Irish "mugwumps" seem to me to earn their title by simply refusing to believe that two and two, which make four in France or China, can be bullied into making five in Ireland. "What certain 'Parnellites' object to," said one of the company, "is that we can't be made to go out gathering grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. Some of them expect to found an Irish republic on robbery, and to administer it by falsehood. We don't."[27] This is precisely the spirit in which Mr. Rolleston wrote to me not long before I left England this week. "I have been slowly forced," he wrote, "to the conclusion that the National League is a body which deserves nothing but reprobation from all who wish well to Ireland. It has plunged this country into a state of moral degradation, from which it will take us at least a generation to recover. It is teaching the people that no law of justice, of candour, of honour, or of humanity can be allowed to interfere with the political ends of the moment. It is, in fact, absolutely divorcing morality from politics. The mendacity of some of its leaders is shameless and sickening, and still more sickening is the complete indifference with which this mendacity is regarded in Ireland." It is the spirit, too, of a letter which I received not long ago from the west of Ireland, in which my correspondent quoted the bearer of one of the most distinguished of Irish names, and a strong "Home Ruler," as saying to him, "These Nationalists are stripping Irishmen as bare of moral sense as the Bushmen of South Africa." This very day I find in one of the leading Nationalist journals here letters from Mr. Davitt, Mr. O'Leary, and Mr. Taylor himself, which convict that journal of making last week a statement about Mr. Taylor absolutely untrue, and, so far as appears, absolutely without the shadow of a foundation. These letters throw such a curious light on passing events here at this moment that I shall preserve them.[28] The statement to which they refer was thus put in the journal which made it: "We have absolute reason to know that when the last Coercion Act was in full swing this pure-souled and disinterested patriot (Mr. John F. Taylor) begged for, received, and accepted a very petty Crown Prosecutorship under a Coercion Government. As was wittily said at the time, He sold his principles, not for a mess of pottage, but for the stick that stirred the mess." This is no assertion "upon hearsay"--no publication of a rumour or report. It is an assertion made, not upon belief even, but upon a claim of "absolute knowledge." Yet to-day, in the same journal, I find Mr. Taylor declaring this statement, made upon a claim of "absolute knowledge," to be "absolutely untrue," and appealing in support of this declaration to Mr. Walker, the host of Lord Riand Mr. Morley, and to The M'Dermot, Q.C., a conspicuous Home Ruler; to which Mr. Davitt adds: "Mr. Taylor, on my advice, declined the Crown Prosecutorship for King's County, a post afterwards applied for by, and granted to, a near relative of one of the most prominent members of the Irish Party,"--meaning Mr. Luke Dillon, a cousin of Mr. John Dillon, M.P.! We had much interesting conversation last night about the relations of the Irish leaders here with public and party questions in America, as to which I find Mr. O'Leary unusually well and accurately informed. I am sorry that I must get off to-morrow into Mayo to see Lord Lucan's country there, for I should have been particularly pleased to look more closely with Mr. Rolleston into the intellectual revolt against "Parnellism" and its methods, of which his attitude and that of his friends here is an unmistakable symptom. As he tersely puts it, he sees "no hope in Irish politics, except a reformation of the League, a return to the principles of Thomas Davis." The lines for a reformation or transformation of the League, as it now exists, appear to have been laid down in the original constitution of the body. Under that constitution, it seems, the League was meant to be controlled by a representative committee chosen annually, open to public criticism, and liable to removal by a new election. As things now are, the officers of this alleged democratic organisation are absolutely self-elected, and wield the wide and indefinite power they possess over the people of Ireland in a perfectly unauthorised, irresponsible way. It is a curious illustration of the autocratic or bureaucratic system under which the Irish movement is now conducted, that Mr. Davitt, who does not pretend to be a Parliamentarian, and owes indeed much of his authority to his refusal to enter Parliament and take oaths of allegiance, does not hesitate for a moment to discipline any Irish member of Parliament who incurs his disapprobation. Sir Thomas Esmonde, for example, was severely taken to task by him the other day in the public prints for venturing to put a question, in his place at Westminster, to the Government about a man-of-war stationed in Kingstown harbour. Mr. Davitt very peremptorily ordered Sir Thomas to remember that he is not sent to Westminster to recognise the British Government, or concern himself about British regiments or ships, and Sir Thomas accepts the rebuke in silence. Whom does such a member of Parliament represent--the constituents who nominally elect him, or the leader who cracks the whip over him so sharply? I have to-day been looking through a small and beautifully-printed volume of poems just issued here by Gill and Son, Nationalist publishers, I take it, who have the courage of their convictions, since their books bear the imprint of "O'Connell," and not of Sackville Street. This little book of the _Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland _is a symptom too. It is dedicated in a few brief but vigorous stanzas to John O'Leary, as one who "Hated all things base, And held his country's honour high." And the spirit of all the poems it contains is the spirit of '48, or of that earlier Ireland of Robert Emmet, celebrated in some charming verses by "Rose Kavanagh" on "St. Michan's Churchyard," where the "sunbeam went and came Above the stone which waits the name His land must write with freedom's flame." It interests an American to find among these poems and ballads a striking threnody called "The Exile's Return," signed with the name of "Patrick Henry"; and it is noteworthy, for more reasons than one, that the volume winds up with a "Marching Song of the Gaelic Athletes," signed "An Chraoibhin Aoibbinn." These Athletes are numbered now, I am assured, not by thousands, but by myriads, and their organisation covers all parts of Ireland. If the spirit of '48 and of '98 is really moving among them, I should say they are likely to be at least as troublesome in the end to the "uncrowned king" as to the crowned Queen of Ireland. As for the literary merit of these _Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland_, it strikes one key with their political quality. One exquisite ballad of "The Stolen Child," by W. B. Yeats, might have been sung in the moonlight on a sylvan lake by the spirit of Heinrich Heine. I spent an hour or two this morning most agreeably in the libraries of the Law Courts and of Trinity College: the latter one of the stateliest most academic "halls of peace" I have ever seen; and this afternoon I called upon Dr. Sigerson, a most patriotic Irishman, of obviously Danish blood, who has his own ideas as to Clontarf and Brian Boru; and who gave me very kindly a copy of his valuable report on that Irish Crisis of 1879-80, out of which Michael Davitt so skilfully developed the agrarian movement whereof "Parnellism" down to this time has been the not very well adjusted instrument. The report was drawn up after a thorough inspection by Dr. Sigerson and his associate, Dr. Kenny, visiting physicians to the North Dublin Union, of some of the most distressed districts of Mayo, Sligo, and Galway; and a more interesting, intelligent, and impressive picture of the worst phases of the social conditions of Ireland ten years ago is not to be found. I have just been reading it over carefully in conjunction with my memoranda made from the Emigration and Seed Potato Fund Reports, which Mr. Tuke gave me some time ago, and it strongly reinforces the evidence imbedded in those reports, which goes to show that agitation for political objects in Ireland has perhaps done as much as all other causes put together to depress the condition of the poor in Ireland, by driving and keeping capital out of the country. The worst districts visited in 1879 by Dr. Sigerson and Dr. Kenny do not appear to have been so completely cut off from civilisation as was the region about Gweedore before the purchase of his property there by Lord George Hill, and the remedies suggested by Dr. Sigerson for the suffering in these districts are all in the direction of the remedies applied by Lord George Hill to the condition in which he found Gweedore. After giving full value to the stock explanations of Irish distress in the congested districts, such as excessive rents, penal laws, born of religious or "racial" animosity, and a defective system of land tenure, it seems to be clear that the main difficulties have arisen from the isolation of these districts, and from the lack of varied industries. Political agitation has checked any flow of capital into these districts, and a flow of capital into them would surely have given them better communications and more varied industries. Dr. Sigerson states that some of the worst of these regions in the west of Ireland are as well adapted to flax-culture as Ulster, and Napoleon III. showed what could be done for such wastes as La Sologne and the desert of the Landes by the intelligent study of a country and the judicious development of such values as are inherent in it. The loss of population in Ireland is not unprecedented. The State of New Hampshire, in America, one of the original thirteen colonies which established the American Union, has twice shown an actual loss in population during the past century. The population of the State declined during the decade between 1810 and 1820, and again during the decade between 1860 and 1870. This phenomenon, unique in American history, is to be explained only by three causes, all active in the case of congested Ireland,--a decaying agriculture, lack of communications, and the absence of varied industries. During the decade from 1860 to 1870 the great Civil War was fought out. Yet, despite the terrible waste of life and capital in that war, especially at the South, the Northern State of New Hampshire, peopled by the energetic English adventurers who founded New England, was actually the only State which came out of the contest with a positive decline in population. Virginia (including West Virginia, which seceded from that Commonwealth in 1861) rose from 1,596,318 inhabitants in 1860 to 1,667,177 in 1870. South Carolina, which was ravaged by the war more severely than any State except Virginia, and upon which the Republican majority at Washington pressed with such revengeful hostility after the downfall of the Confederacy, showed in 1870 a positive increase in population, as compared with 1860, from 703,708 to 705,606. But New Hampshire, lying hundreds of miles beyond the area of the conflict, showed a positive decrease from 326,073 to 318,300. During my college days at Cambridge the mountain regions of New Hampshire were favourite "stamping grounds" in the vacations, and I exaggerate nothing when I say that in the secluded nooks and corners of the State, the people cut off from communication with the rest of New England, and scratching out of a rocky land an inadequate subsistence, were not much, if at all, in advance of the least prosperous dwellers in the most remote parts of Ireland which I have visited. They furnished their full contingent to that strange American exodus, which, about a quarter of a century ago, was led out of New England by one Adams to the Holy Land, in anticipation of the Second Advent, a real modern crusade of superstitious land speculators, there to perish, for the most part, miserably about Jaffa--leaving houses and allotments to pass into the control of a more practical colony of Teutons, which I found establishing itself there in 1869. Since 1870 a change has come over New Hampshire. The population has risen to 346,984. In places waste and fallen twenty years ago brisk and smiling villages have sprung up along lines of communication established to carry on the business of thriving factories. What reason can there be in the nature of things to prevent the development of analogous results, through the application of analogous forces, in the case of "congested" Ireland? A Nationalist friend, to whom I put this question this afternoon, answers it by alleging that so long as fiscal laws for Ireland are made at Westminster, British capital invested in Great Britain will prevent the application of these analogous forces to "congested" Ireland. His notion is that were Ireland as independent of Great Britain, for example, in fiscal matters as is Canada, Ireland might seek and secure a fiscal union with the United States, such as was partially secured to Canada under the Reciprocity Treaty denounced by Mr. Seward. "Give us this," he said, "and take us into your system of American free-trade as between the different States of your American Union, and no end of capital will soon be coming into Ireland, not only from your enormously rich and growing Republic, but from Great Britain too. Give us the American market, putting Great Britain on a less-favoured footing, just as Mr. Blake and his party wish to do in the case of Canada, and between India doing her own manufacturing on the one side, and Ireland becoming a manufacturing centre on the other, and a mart in Europe for American goods, we'll get our revenge on Elizabeth and Cromwell in a fashion John Bull has never dreamt of in these times, though he used to be in a mortal funk of it a hundred years ago, when there wasn't nearly as much danger of it!" DUBLIN, _Sunday, June 24._--"Put not your faith in porters!" I had expected to pass this day at Castlebar, on the estate of Lord Lucan, and I exchanged telegrams to that effect yesterday with Mr. Harding, the Earl's grandson, who, in the absence of his wonderfully energetic grandsire, is administering there what Lord Lucan, with pardonable pride, declares to be the finest and most successful dairy-farm in all Ireland. I asked the porter to find the earliest morning train; and after a careful search he assured me that by leaving Dublin just after 7 A.M. I could reach Castlebar a little after noon. Upon this I determined to dine with Mr. Colomb, and spend the night in Dublin. But when I reached the station a couple of hours ago, it was to discover that my excellent porter had confounded 7 A.M. with 7 P.M. There is no morning train to Castlebar! So here I am with no recourse, my time being short, but to give up the glimpse I had promised myself of Mayo, and go on this afternoon to Belfast on my way back to London. At dinner last night Mr. Colomb gave me further and very interesting light upon the events of 1867, of which he had already spoken with me at Cork, as well as upon the critical period of Mr. Gladstone's experiments of 1881-82 at "Coercion" in Ireland. Mr. Colomb lives in a remarkably bright and pleasant suburb of Dublin, which not only is called a "park," as suburbs are apt to be, but really is a park, as suburbs are less apt to be. His house is set near some very fine old trees, shading a beautiful expanse of turf. He is an amateur artist of much more than ordinary skill. His walls are gay, and his portfolios filled, with charming water-colours, sketches, and studies made from Nature all over the United Kingdom. The grand coast-scenery of Cornwall and of Western Ireland, the lovely lake landscapes of Killarney, sylvan homes and storied towers, all have been laid under contribution by an eye quick to seize and a hand prompt to reproduce these most subtle and transient atmospheric effects of light and colour which are the legitimate domain of the true water-colourist. With all these pictures about us--and with Mr. Colomb's workshop fitted up with Armstrong lathes and all manner of tools wherein he varies the routine of official life by making all manner of instruments, and wreaking his ingenuity upon all kinds of inventions--and with the pleasant company of Mr. Davies, the agreeable and accomplished official secretary of Sir West Ridgway, the evening wore quickly away. In the course of conversation the question of the average income of the Irish priests arose, and I mentioned the fact that Lord Lucan, whose knowledge of the smallest details of Irish life is amazingly thorough, puts it down at about ten shillings a year per house in the average Irish parish. He rated Father M'Fadden and his curate of Gweedore, for example, without a moment's hesitation, at a thousand pounds a year in the whole, or very nearly the amount stated to me by Sergeant Mahony at Baron's Court. This brought from Mr. Davies a curious account of the proceedings in a recent case of a contested will before Judge Warren here in Dublin. The will in question was made by the late Father M'Garvey of Milford, a little village near Mulroy Bay in Donegal, notable chiefly as the scene of the murder of the late Earl of Leitrim. Father M'Garvey, who died in March last, left by this will to religious and charitable uses the whole of his property, save £800 bequeathed in it to his niece, Mrs. O'Connor. It was found that he died possessed not only of a farm at Ardara, but of cash on deposit in the Northern Bank to the very respectable amount of £23,711. Mrs. O'Connor contested the will. The Archbishop of Armagh, and Father Sheridan, C.C. of Letterkenny, instituted an action against her to establish the will. Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, lying in Londonderry jail as a first-class misdemeanant, was brought from Londonderry as a witness for the niece. But on the trial of the case it appeared that there was actually no evidence to sustain the plea of the niece that "undue influence" had been exerted upon her uncle by the Archbishop, who at the time of the making of the will was Bishop of Raphoe, or by anybody else; so the judge instructed the jury to find on all the issues for the plaintiffs, which was done. The judge declared the conduct of the defendant in advancing a charge of "undue influence" in such circumstances against ecclesiastics to be most reprehensible; but the Archbishop very graciously intimated through his lawyer his intention of paying the costs of the niece who had given him all this trouble, because she was a poor woman who had been led into her course by disappointment at receiving so small a part of so large an inheritance. Had the priest's property come to him in any other way than through his office as a priest her claim might have been more worthy of consideration, but Mr. M'Dermot, Q.C., who represented the Archbishop, took pains to make it clear that as an ecclesiastic his client, who had nothing to do with the making of the will, was bound to regard it "as proper and in accordance with the fitness of things that what had been received from the poor should be given back to the poor." I see no adequate answer to this contention of the Archbishop. But it certainly goes to confirm the estimates given me by Sergeant Mahony of Father M'Fadden's receipts at Gweedore, and the opinion expressed to me by Lord Lucan as to the average returns of an average Catholic parish, that the priest of Milford, a place hardly so considerable as Gweedore, should have acquired so handsome a property in the exercise there of his parochial functions. One form in which the priests in many parts of Ireland collect dues is certainly unknown to the practice of the Church elsewhere, I believe, and it must tend to swell the incomes of the priests at the expense, perhaps, of their legitimate influence. This is the custom of personal collections by the priests. In many parishes the priest stands by the church-door, or walks about the church--not with a bag in his hand, as is sometimes done in France on great occasions when a _quéle_ is made by the _curé_ for some special object,--but with an open plate in which the people put their offerings. I have heard of parishes in which the priest sits by a table near the church-door, takes the offerings from the parishioners as they pass, and comments freely upon the ratio of the gift to the known or presumed financial ability of the giver. We had some curious stories, too, from a gentleman present of the relation of the priests in wild, out-of-the-way corners of Ireland to the people, stories which take one back to days long before Lever. One, for example, of a delightful and stalwart old parish priest of eighty, upon whom an airy young patriot called to propose that he should accept the presidency of a local Land League. The veteran, whose only idea of the Land League was that it had used bad language about Cardinal Cullen, no sooner caught the drift of the youth than he snatched up a huge blackthorn, fell upon him, and "boycotted" him head-foremost out of a window. Luckily it was on the ground floor. Another strenuous spiritual shepherd came down during the distribution of potato-seed to the little port in which it was going on, and took up his station on board of the distributing ship. One of his parishioners, having received his due quota, made his way back again unobserved on board of the ship. As he came up to receive a second dole, the good father spied him, and staying not "to parley or dissemble," simply fetched him a whack over the sconce with a stick, which tumbled him out of the ship, head-foremost, into the hooker riding beside her! Quite of another drift was a much more astonishing tale of certain proceedings had here in February last before the Lord Chief-Justice. These took place in connection with a motion to quash the verdict of a coroner's jury, held in August 1887, on the body of a child named Ellen Gaffney, at Philipstown, in King's County, which preserves the memory of the Spanish sovereign of England, as Maryborough in Queen's preserves the memory of his Tudor consort. Cervantes never imagined an Alcalde of the quality of the "Crowner"' who figures in this story. Were it not that his antics cost a poor woman her liberty from August 1887 till December of that year, when the happy chance of a winter assizes set her free, and might have cost her her life, the story of this ideal magistrate would be extremely diverting. A child was born to Mrs. Gaffney at Philipstown on the 23d of July, and died there on the 25th of August 1887, Mrs. Gaffney being the wife of a "boycotted" man. A local doctor named Clarke came to the police and asked the Sergeant to inspect the body of the child, and call for an inquest. The sergeant inspected the body, and saw no reason to doubt that the child had died a natural death. This did not please the doctor, so the Coroner was sent for. He came to Philipstown the next day, conferred there with the doctor, and with a priest, Father Bergin, and proceeded to hold an inquest on the child in a public-house, "a most appropriate place," said Sir Michael Morris from the bench, "for the transactions which subsequently occurred." Strong depositions were afterwards made by the woman Mrs. Gaffney, by her husband, and by the police authorities, as to the conduct of this "inquest." She and her husband were arrested on a verbal order of the Coroner on the day when the inquest was held, August 27th, and the woman was kept in prison from that time till the assizes in December. The "inquest" was not completed on the 27th of August, and after the Coroner adjourned it, two priests drove away on a car from the "public-house" in which it had been held. That night, or the next day, a man came to a magistrate with a bundle of papers which he had found in the road near Philipstown. The magistrate examined them, and finding them to be the depositions taken before the Coroner in the case of Ellen Gaffney, handed them to the police. How did they come to be in the road? On the 1st of September the Coroner resumed his inquest, this time in the Court-House at Philipstown, and one of the police, with the depositions in his pocket, went to hear the proceedings. Great was his amazement to see certain papers produced, and calmly read, as being the very original depositions which at that moment were in his own custody! He held his peace, and let the inquest go on. A letter was read from the Coroner, to the effect that he saw no ground for detaining the husband, Gaffney--but the woman was taken before a justice of the peace, and committed to prison on this finding by the Coroner's jury: "That Mary Anne Gaffney came by her death; and that the mother of the child, Ellen Gaffney, is guilty of wilful neglect by not supplying the necessary food and care to sustain the life of this child "! It is scarcely credible, but it is true, that upon this extraordinary finding the Coroner issued a warrant for "murder" against this poor woman, on which she was actually locked up for more than three months! The jury which made this unique finding consisted of nineteen persons, and it was in evidence that their foreman reported thirteen of the jury to be for finding one way and six for finding another, whereupon a certain Mr. Whyte, who came into the case as the representative of Father Bergin, President of the local branch of the National League--nobody can quite see on what colourable pretext--was allowed by the Coroner to write down the finding I have quoted, and hand it to the Coroner. The Coroner read it over. He and Mr. Whyte then put six of the jury in one place, and thirteen in another; the Coroner read the finding aloud to the thirteen, and said to them, "Is that what you agree to?" and so the inquest was closed, and the warrant issued--for murder--and the woman, this poor peasant mother sent off to jail with the brand upon her of infanticide.[29] Where would that poor woman be now were there no "Coercion" in Ireland to protect her against "Crowner's quest law" thus administered? And what is to be thought of educated and responsible public men in England who, as recent events have shown, are not ashamed to go to "Crowner's quest Courts" of this sort for weapons of attack, not upon the administration only of their own Government, but upon the character and the motives of their political opponents? CHAPTER XVI. BELFAST, _Monday, June 25._--I left Dublin yesterday at 4 P.M., in a train which went off at high pressure as an "express," but came into Belfast panting and dilatory as an "excursion." The day was fine, and the line passes through what is reputed to be the most prosperous part of Ireland. In this part of Ireland, too, the fate of the island has been more than once settled by the arbitrament of arms; and if Parliamentary England throws up the sponge in the wrestle with the League, it is probable enough that the old story will come to be told over again here. At Dundalk the Irish monarchy of the Braces was made and unmade. The plantation of Ulster under James I. clinched the grasp not so much of England as of Scotland upon Ireland, and determined the course of events here through the Great Rebellion. The landing of the Duke of Schomberg at Carrickfergus opened the way for the subjugation of Jacobite Ireland by William of Orange. The successful descent of the French upon the same place in February 1760, after the close of "the Great Year," in which Walpole tells us he came to expect a new victory every morning with the rolls for breakfast, and after Hawke had broken the strength of the great French Armada off Belleisle, and done for England the service which Nelson did for her again off Trafalgar in 1805, shows what might have happened had Thurot commanded the fleet of Conflans. In this same region, too, the rout of Munro by Nugent at Ballinahinch practically ended the insurrection of 1798. There are good reasons in the physical geography of the British Islands for this controlling influence of Ulster over the affairs of Ireland, which it seems to me a serious mistake to overlook. The author of a brief but very hard-headed and practical letter on the pacification of Ireland, which appeared in the _Times_ newspaper in 1886, while the air was thrilling with rumours of Mr. Gladstone's impending appearance as the champion of "Home Rule," carried, I remember, to the account of St. George's Channel "nine-tenths of the troubles, religious, political, and social, under which Ireland has laboured for seven centuries." I cannot help thinking he hit the nail on the head; and St. George's Channel does not divide Ulster from Scotland. From Donaghadee, which has an excellent harbour, the houses on the Scottish coast can easily be made out in clear weather. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and it is as hard to see how, even with the consent of Ulster, the independence of Ireland could be maintained against the interests and the will of Scotland, as it is easy to see why Leinster, Munster, and Connaught have been so difficult of control and assimilation by England. To dream of establishing the independence of Ireland against the will of Ulster appears to me to be little short of madness. At Moira, which stands very prettily above the Ulster Canal, a small army of people returning from a day in the country to Belfast came upon us and trebled the length of our train. We picked up more at Lisburn, where stands the Cathedral Church of Jeremy Taylor, the "Shakespeare of divines." Here my only companion in the compartment from Dublin left me, a most kindly, intelligent Ulster man, who had very positive views as to the political situation. He much commended the recent discourse in Scotland of a Presbyterian minister, who spoke of the Papal Decree as "pouring water on a drowned mouse," a remark which led me to elicit the fact that he had never seen either Clare or Kerry; and he was very warm in his admiration of Mr. Chamberlain. He told me, what I had heard from many other men of Ulster, that the North had armed itself thoroughly when the Home Rule business began with Mr. Gladstone. "I am a Unionist," he said, "but I think the Union is worth as much to England as it is to Ireland, and if England means to break it up it is not the part of Irishmen who think and feel as I do to let her choose her own time for doing it, and stand still while she robs us of our property and turns us out defenceless to be trampled under foot by the most worthless vagabonds in our own island." He thinks the National League has had its death-blow. "What I fear now," he said, "is that we are running straight into a social war, and that will never be a war against the landlords in Ireland; it'll be a war against the Protestants and all the decent people there are among the Catholics." He was very cordial when he found I was an American, and with that offhand hospitality which seems to know no distinctions of race or religion in Ireland urged me to come and make him a visit at a place he has nearer the sea-coast. "I'll show you Downpatrick," he said, "where the tombs of St. Patrick and St. Bridget and St. Columb are, the saints sleeping quite at their ease, with a fine prosperous Presbyterian town all about them. And I'll drive you to Tullymore, where you'll see the most beautiful park, and the finest views from it all the way to the Isle of Man, that are to be seen in all Ireland." He was very much interested in the curious story of the sequestration of the remains of Mr. Stewart of New York, who was born, he tells me, at Lisburn, where the wildest fabrications on the subject seem to have got currency. That this feat of body-snatching is supposed to have been performed by a little syndicate of Italians, afterwards broken up by the firmness of Lady Crawford in resisting the ghastly pressure to which the widow and the executors of Mr. Stewart are believed to have succumbed, was quite a new idea to him. From Moira to Belfast the scenery along the line grows in beauty steadily. If Belfast were not the busiest and most thriving city in Ireland, it would still be well worth a visit for the picturesque charms of its situation and of the scenery which surrounds it. At some future day I hope to get a better notion both of its activity and of its attractions than it would be possible for me to attempt to get in this flying visit, made solely to take the touch of the atmosphere of the place at this season of the year; for we are on the very eve of the battle month of the Boyne. Mr. Cameron, the Town Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary, met me at the station, in accordance with a promise which he kindly made when I saw him several weeks ago at Cork; and this morning he took me all over the city. It is very well laid out, in the new quarters especially, with broad avenues and spacious squares. In fact, as a local wag said to me to-day at the Ulster Club, "You can drive through Belfast without once going into a street"--most of the thoroughfares which are not called "avenues" or "places" being known as "roads." It is, of course, an essentially modern city. When Boate made his survey of Ireland two centuries ago, Belfast was so small a place that he took small note of it, though it had been incorporated by James I. in 1613 in favour of the Chichester family, still represented here. In a very careful _Tour in Ireland_, published at Dublin in 1780, the author says of Belfast, "I could not help remarking the great number of Scots who reside in this place, and who carry on a good trade with Scotland." It seems then to have had a population of less than 20,000 souls, as it only touched that number at the beginning of this century. It has since then advanced by "leaps and bounds," after an almost American fashion, till it has now become the second, and bids fair at no distant day to become the first, city in Ireland. Few of the American cities which are its true contemporaries can be compared with Belfast in beauty. The quarter in which my host lives was reclaimed from the sea marshes not quite so long ago, I believe, as was the Commonwealth Avenue quarter of Boston, and though it does not show so many costly private houses perhaps as that quarter of the New England capital, its "roads" and "avenues" are on the whole better built, and there is no public building in Boston so imposing as the Queen's College, with its Tudor front six hundred feet in length, and its graceful central tower. The Botanic Gardens near by are much prettier and much better equipped for the pleasure and instruction of the people than any public gardens in either Boston or New York. These American comparisons make themselves, all the conditions of Belfast being rather of the New World than of the Old. The oldest building pointed out to me to-day is the whilom mansion of the Marquis of Donegal, now used as offices, and still called the Castle. This stands near Donegal Square, a fine site, disfigured by a quadrangle of commonplace brick buildings, occupied as a sort of Linen Exchange, concerning which a controversy rages, I am told. They are erected on land granted by Lord Donegal to encourage the linen trade, and the buildings used to be leased at a rental of £1 per window. The present holders receive £10 per window, and are naturally loath to part with so good a thing, though there is an earnest desire in the city to see these unsightly structures removed, and their place taken by stately municipal buildings more in key with the really remarkable and monumental private warehouses which already adorn this Square. Mr. Robinson, one of the partners of a firm which has just completed one of these warehouses, was good enough to show us over it. It is built of a warm grey stone, which lends itself easily to the chisel, and it is decorated with a wealth of carving and of architectural ornaments such as the great burghers of Flanders lavished on their public buildings. The interior arrangements are worthy of the external stateliness of the warehouse. Pneumatic tubes for the delivery of cash--a Scottish invention--electric lights, steam lifts, a kitchen at the top of the lofty edifice heated by steam from the great engine-room in the cellars, and furnishing meals to the employees, attest the energy and enterprise of the firm. The most delicate of the linen fabrics sold here are made, I was informed, all over the north country. The looms, three or four of which are kept going here in a great room to show the intricacy and perfection of the processes, are supplied by the firm to the hand-workers on a system which enables them, while earning good wages from week to week, to acquire the eventual ownership of the machines. The building is crowned by a sort of observatory, from which we enjoyed a noble prospect overlooking the whole city and miles of the beautiful country around. A haze on the horizon hid the coast of Scotland, which is quite visible under a clear sky. The Queen's Bridge over the Lagan, built in 1842 between Antrim and Down, was a conspicuous feature in the panorama. Its five great arches of hewn granite span the distance formerly traversed by an older bridge of twenty-one arches 840 feet in length, which was begun in 1682, and finished just in time to welcome Schomberg and King William. The not less imposing warehouse of Richardson and Co., built of a singularly beautiful brown stone, and decorated with equal taste and liberality, adjoins that of Robinson and Cleaver. The banks, the public offices, the clubs, the city library, the museum, the Presbyterian college, the principal churches, all of them modern, all alike bear witness to the public spirit and pride in their town of the good people of Belfast. With more time at my disposal I would have been very glad to visit some of the flax-mills called into being by the great impulse which the cotton famine resulting from our Civil War gave to the linen manufactures of Northern Ireland, and the famous shipyards of the Woolfs on Queen's Island, As things are, it was more to my purpose to see some of the representative men of this great Protestant stronghold. I passed a very interesting hour with the Rev. Dr. Hanna, who is reputed to be a sort of clerical "Lion of the North," and whom I found to be in almost all respects a complete antitype of Father M'Fadden of Gweedore. Dr. Hanna is not unjustly proud of being at the head of the most extensive Sunday-school organisation in Ireland, if not in the world; and I find that the anniversary parade of his pupils, appointed for Saturday, June 30th, is looked forward to with some anxiety by the authorities here. He tells me that he expects to put two thousand children that day into motion for a grand excursion to Moira; but although he speaks very plainly as to the ill-will with which a certain class of the Catholics here regard both himself and his organisation, he does not anticipate any attack from them. With what seems to me very commendable prudence, he has resolved this year to put this procession into the streets without banners and bands, so that no charge of provocation may be even colourably advanced against it. This is no slight concession from a man so determined and so outspoken, not to say aggressive, in his Protestantism as Dr. Hanna; and the Nationalist Catholics will be very ill-advised, it strikes me, if they misinterpret it. He spoke respectfully of the Papal decree against Boycotting and the Plan of Campaign; but he seems to think it will not command the respect of the masses of the Catholic population, nor be really enforced by the clergy. Like most of the Ulstermen I have met, he has a firm faith, not only in the power of the Protestant North to protect itself, but in its determination to protect itself against the consequences which the northern Protestants believe must inevitably follow any attempt to establish an Irish nationality. Dr. Hanna is neither an Orangeman nor a Tory. He says there are but three known Orangemen among the clerical members of the General Assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church, which unanimously pronounced against Mr. Gladstone's scheme of Home Rule, and not more than a dozen Tories. Of the 550 members of the Assembly, 538, he says, were followers of Mr. Gladstone before he adopted the politics of Mr. Parnell; and only three out of the whole number have given him their support. In the country at large, Dr. Hanna puts down the Unionists at two millions, of whom 1,200,000 are Protestants, and 800,000 Catholics; and he maintains that if the Parliamentary representatives were chosen by a general vote, the Parnellite 80 would be cut down to 62; while the Unionists would number 44. He regards the Parnellite policy as "an organised imposture," and firmly believes that an Irish Parliament in Dublin would now mean civil war in Ireland. He had a visit here last week, he says, from an American Presbyterian minister, who came out to Ireland a month ago a "Home Ruler"; but, as the result of a trip through North-Western Ireland, is going back to denounce the Home Rule movement as a mischievous fraud. When I asked him what remedy he would propose for the discontent stirred up by the agitation of Home Rule, this Presbyterian clergyman replied emphatically, "Balfour, Balfour, and more Balfour!" This on the ground, as I understood, that Mr. Balfour's administration of the law has been the firmest, least wavering, and most equitable known in Ireland for many a day. Later in the day I had the pleasure of a conversation with the Rev. Dr. Kane, the Grand Master of the Orangemen at Belfast. Dr. Kane is a tall, fine-looking, frank, and resolute man, who obviously has the courage of his opinions. He thinks there will be no disturbances this year on the 12th of July, but that the Orange demonstrations will be on a greater scale and more imposing than ever. He derides the notion that "Parnellism" is making any progress in Ulster. On the contrary, the concurrence this year of the anniversary of the defeat of the Great Armada with the anniversary of the Revolution of 1688 has aroused the strongest feelings of enthusiasm among the Protestants of the North, and they were never so determined as they now are not to tolerate anything remotely looking to the constitution of a separate and separatist Government at Dublin. BELFAST, _Tuesday, June 26._--Sir John Preston, the head of one of the great Belfast houses, and a former Mayor of the city, dined with us last night, and in the evening Sir James Haslett, the actual Mayor, came in. I find that in Belfast the office of Mayor is served without a salary, and is consequently filled as a rule by citizens of "weight and instance." In Dublin the Lord Mayor receives £3000 a year, with a contingent fund of £1500, and the office is becoming a distinctly political post. The face of Belfast is so firmly set against the tendency to subordinate municipal interests to general party exigencies, that the Corporation compelled Mr. Cobain, M.P., who sits at Westminster now for this constituency, to resign the post which he held as treasurer and cashier of the Corporation when he became a candidate for a seat in Parliament. I am not surprised, therefore, to learn that the city rates and taxes are much lower in the commercial than they are in the political capital of Ireland. Both Sir John Preston and Sir James Haslett have visited America. Sir John went there to represent the linen industries of Ireland, and to urge upon Congress the propriety of reducing our import duties upon fabrics which the American climate makes it practically imposssible to manufacture on our side of the water. Senator Sherman, who twenty years ago had the candour to admit that the wit of man could not devise a tariff so adjusted as to raise the revenue necessary for the Government which should not afford adequate incidental protection to all legitimate American industries, gave Sir John reason to hope that something might be done in the direction of a more liberal treatment of the linen industries. But nothing practical came of it. Sir John ought to have known that our typical American Protectionist, the late Horace Greeley, really persuaded himself, and tried to persuade other people, that with duties enough clapped on the Asiatic production, excellent tea might be grown on the uplands of South Carolina! In former years Sir John Preston used to visit Gweedore every year for sport and recreation. He knew Lord George Hill very well, "as true and noble a man as ever lived, who stinted himself to improve the state of his tenants." He threw an odd light on the dreamy desire which had so much amused me of the "beauty of Gweedore" to become "a dressmaker at Derry," by telling me that long ago the gossips there used to tell wonderful stories of a Gweedore girl who had made her fortune as a milliner in the "Maiden City." This morning Mr. Cameron, who as Town Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary will be responsible for public peace and order here during the next critical fortnight, held a review of his men on a common beyond the Theological College. About two hundred and fifty of the force were paraded, with about twenty mounted policemen, and for an hour and a half, under a tolerably warm sun, they were put through a regular military drill. A finer body of men cannot be seen, and in point of discipline and training they can hold their own, I should say, with the best of her Majesty's regiments. Without such discipline and training it would not be easy for any such body of men to pass with composure through the ordeal of insults and abuse to which the testimony of trustworthy eye-witnesses compels me to believe they are habitually subjected in the more disturbed districts of Ireland. As to the immediate outlook here, Mr. Cameron seems quite at his ease. Even if ill-disposed persons should set about provoking a collision between "the victors and the vanquished of the Boyne" his arrangements are so made, he says, as to prevent the development of anything like the outbreaks of former years. On the advice of Sir John Preston I shall take the Fleetwood route on my return to London to-night. This secures one a comfortable night on board of a very good and well-equipped boat, from which you go ashore, he tells me, into an excellent station of the London and North-Western Railway at Fleetwood, on the mouth of the Wyre on the Lancashire coast. Twenty years ago this was a small bathing resort called into existence chiefly by the enterprise of a local baronet whose name it bears. Its present prosperity and prospective importance are another illustration of the vigour and vitality of the North of Ireland, which is connected through Fleetwood with the great manufacturing regions of middle and northern England, as it is through Larne with the heart of Scotland. While it is as true now of the predominantly Catholic south of Ireland as it was when Sir Robert Peel made the remark forty years ago, that it stands "with its back to England and its face to the West," this Protestant Ireland of the North faces both ways, drawing Canada and the United States to itself through Moville and Derry and Belfast, and holding fast at the same time upon the resources of Great Britain through Glasgow and Liverpool. One of the best informed bankers in London told me not long ago, that pretty nearly all the securities of the great company which has recently taken over the business of the Guinnesses have already found their way into the North of Ireland and are held here. With such resources in its wealth and industry, better educated, better equipped, and holding a practically impregnable position in the North of Ireland, with Scotland and the sea at its back, Ulster is very much stronger relatively to the rest of Ireland than La Vendée was relatively to the rest of the French Republic in the last century. In a struggle for independence against the rest of Ireland it would have nothing to fear from the United States, where any attempt to organise hostilities against it would put the Irish-American population in serious peril, not only from the American Government, but from popular feeling, and force home upon the attention of the quickest-witted people in the world the significant fact that while the chief contributions, so far, of America to Southern Ireland, have been alms and agitation, the chief contributions of Scotland to Northern Ireland have been skilled agriculture and successful activity. It is surely not without meaning that the only steamers of Irish build which now traverse the Atlantic come from the dockyards, not of Galway nor of Cork, the natural gateways of Ireland to the west, but of Belfast, the natural gateway of Ireland to the north. EPILOGUE. Not once, but a hundred times, during the visits to Ireland recorded in this book, I have been reminded of the state of feeling and opinion which existed in the Border States, as they were called, of the American Union, after the invasion of Virginia by a piratical band under John Brown, and before the long-pending issues between the South, insisting upon its constitutional rights, and the North, restive under its constitutional obligations, were brought to a head by the election of President Lincoln. All analogies, I know, are deceptive, and I do not insist upon this analogy. But it has a certain value here. For to-day in Ireland, as then in America, we find a grave question of politics, in itself not unmanageable, perhaps, by a race trained to self-government, seriously complicated and aggravated, not only by considerations of moral right and moral wrong, but by a profound perturbation of the material interests of the community. I well remember that after a careful study of the situation in America at the time of which I speak, Mr. Nassau Senior, a most careful and competent observer, frankly told me that he saw no possible way in which the problem could be worked out peacefully. The event justified this gloomy forecast. It would be presumptuous in me to say as much of the actual situation in Ireland; but it would be uncandid not to say that the optimists of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee had greater apparent odds in their favour in 1861 than the optimists of Ireland seem to me to have in 1888. Ireland stands to-day between Great Britain and the millions of the Irish race in America and Australia very much as the Border States of the American Union stood in 1861 between the North and the South. There was little either in the Tariff question or in the Slavery question to shake the foundations of law and order in the Border States, could they have been left to themselves; and the Border States enjoyed all the advantages and immunities of "Home Rule" to an extent and under guarantees never yet openly demanded for Ireland by any responsible legislator within the walls of the British Parliament. But so powerful was the leverage upon them of conflicting passions and interests beyond their own borders that these sovereign states, well organised, homogeneous, prosperous communities, much more populous and richer in the aggregate in 1861 than Ireland is to-day, practically lost the control of their own affairs, and were swept helplessly into a terrific conflict, which they had the greatest imaginable interest in avoiding, and no interest whatever in promoting. I have seen and heard nothing in Ireland to warrant the very common impression that the country, as a whole, is either misgoverned or ungovernable; nothing to justify me in regarding the difficulties which there impede the maintenance of law and order as really indigenous and spontaneous. The "agitated" Ireland of 1888 appears to me to be almost as clearly and demonstrably the creation of forces not generated in, but acting upon, a country, as was the "bleeding Kansas" of 1856. But the "bleeding Kansas" of 1856 brought the great American Union to the verge of disruption, and the "agitated Ireland" of 1888 may do as much, or worse, for the British Empire. There is, no doubt, a great deal of distress in one or another part of Ireland, though it has not been my fortune to come upon any outward and visible signs of such grinding misery as forces itself upon you in certain of the richest provinces of that independent, busy, prosperous, Roman Catholic kingdom of Belgium, which on a territory little more than one-third as large as the territory of Ireland, maintains nearly a million more inhabitants, and adds to its population, on an average, in round numbers, as many people in four years as Ireland loses in five. I have seen peasant proprietors in Flanders and Brabant who could give the ideal Irish agent of the Nationalist newspapers lessons in rack-renting, though I am not at all sure that they might not get a hint or two themselves from some of the small farmers who came in my way in Ireland. Like all countries, mainly agricultural, too, Ireland has suffered a great deal of late years from the fall in prices following upon a period of intoxicating prosperity. Whether she has suffered more relatively than we should have suffered from the same cause in America, had we been foolish enough to imitate the monometallic policy of Germany in 1873, is however open to question; and I have an impression, which it will require evidence to remove, that the actual organisation known as the National Land League could never have been called into being had the British Government devoted to action upon the Currency Question, before 1879, the time and energy which it has expended before and since that date in unsettling the principles of free contract, and tinkering at the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland. But I am trenching upon inquiries here beyond the province of this book. Fortunately it is not necessary to my object in printing these volumes that I should either form or formulate any positive opinions as to the origin of the existing crisis in Ireland. Nor need I volunteer any suggestions of my own as to the methods by which order may best be maintained and civil government carried on in Ireland. It suffices for me that I close this self-imposed survey of men and things in that country with a conviction, as positive as it is melancholy, that the work which Mr. Redmond, M.P., informed us at Chicago that he and his Nationalist colleagues had undertaken, of "making the government of Ireland by England impossible," has been so far achieved, and by such methods as to make it extremely doubtful whether Ireland can be governed by anybody at all in accordance with any of the systems of government hitherto recognised in or adopted for that country. I certainly can see nothing in the organisation and conduct, down to this time, of the party known as the party of the Irish Nationalists, I will not say to encourage, but even to excuse, a belief that Ireland could be governed as a civilised country were it turned over to-morrow to their control. A great deal has been done by them to propagate throughout Christendom a general impression that England has dismally failed to govern Ireland in the past, and is unlikely hereafter to succeed in governing Ireland. But even granting this impression to be absolutely well founded, it by no means follows that Ireland is any more capable of governing herself than England is of governing her. The Russians have not made a brilliant success of their administration in Poland, but the Poles certainly administered Poland no better than the Russians have done. With an Irish representation in an Imperial British Parliament at Westminster, Ireland, under Mr. Gladstone's "base and blackguard" Union of 1800, has at least succeeded in shaking off some of the weightiest of the burdens by which, in the days of Swift, of Grattan, and of O'Connell, she most loudly declared herself to be oppressed. Whether with a Parliament at Dublin she would have fared as well in this respect since 1800 must be a matter of conjecture merely--and it must be equally a matter of conjecture also whether she would fare any better in this respect with a Parliament at Dublin hereafter. I am in no position to pronounce upon this--but it is quite certain that nothing is more uncommon than to find an educated and intelligent man, not an active partisan, in Ireland to-day, who looks forward to the reestablishment, in existing circumstances, of a Parliament at Dublin with confidence or hope. How the establishment of such a Parliament would affect the position of Great Britain as a power in Europe, and how it would affect the fiscal policy, and with the fiscal policy the well-being of the British people, are questions for British subjects to consider, not for me. That the processes employed during the past decade, and now employed to bring about the establishment of such a Parliament, have been, and are in their nature, essentially revolutionary, subversive of all sound and healthy relations between man and man, inconsistent with social stability, and therefore with social progress and with social peace, what I have seen and heard in Ireland during the past six months compels me to feel. Of the "Coercion," under which the Nationalist speakers and writers ask us in America to believe that the island groans and travails, I have seen literally nothing. Nowhere in the world is the press more absolutely free than to-day in Ireland. Nowhere in the world are the actions of men in authority more bitterly and unsparingly criticised. If public men or private citizens are sent to prison in Ireland, they are sent there, not as they were in America during the civil war, or in Ireland under the "Coercion Act" of 1881, on suspicion of something they may have done, or may have intended to do, but after being tried for doing, and convicted of having done, certain things made offences against the law by a Parliament in which they are represented, and of which, in some cases, they are members. To call this "Coercion" is, from the American point of view, simply ludicrous. What it may be from the British or the Irish point of view is another affair, and does not concern me. I may be permitted, however, I hope without incivility, to say that if this be "Coercion" from the British or the Irish point of view, I am well content to be an American citizen. Ours is essentially a government not of emotions, but of statutes, and most Americans, I think, will agree with me that the sage was right who declared it to be better to live where nothing is lawful than where all things are lawful. The "Coercion" which I have found established in Ireland, and which I recognise in the title of this book, is the "Coercion," not of a government, but of a combination to make a particular government impossible. It is a "Coercion" applied not to men who break a public law, or offend against any recognised code of morals, but to men who refuse to be bound in their personal relations and their business transactions by the will of other men, their equals only, clothed with no legal authority over them. It is a "Coercion" administered not by public and responsible functionaries, but by secret tribunals. Its sanctions are not the law and honest public opinion, but the base instinct of personal cowardice, and the instinct, not less base, of personal greed. Whether anything more than a steady, firm administration of the law is needed to abolish this "Coercion" is a matter as to which authorities differ. I should be glad to believe with Colonel Saunderson that "the Leaguers would not hold up the 'land-grabber' to execration, and denounce him as they do, unless they knew in fact that the moment the law is made supreme in Ireland the tenants would become just as amenable to it as any other subjects of the Queen." But some recent events suggest a doubt whether these "other subjects of the Queen" are as amenable to the law as my own countrymen are. That the Church to which the great majority of the Irish people have for so many ages, and through so many tribulations, borne steadfast allegiance, has been shaken in its hold upon the conscience of Ireland by the machinery of this odious and ignoble "Coercion," appears to me to be unquestionable. That the head of that Church, being compelled by evidence to believe this, has found it necessary to intervene for the restoration of the just spiritual authority of the Church over the Irish people all the world now knows--nor can I think that his intervention has come a day or an hour too soon, to arrest the progress in Ireland of a social disease which threatens, not the political interests of the empire of which Ireland is a part alone, but the character of the Irish people themselves, and the very existence among them of the elementary conditions of a Christian civilisation. It would be unjust to the Irish people to forget that this demoralising "Coercion" against which the Head of the Catholic Church has declared war, seems to me to have been seriously reinforced by the Land Legislation of the Imperial Parliament. No one denies that great reforms and readjustments of the Land Tenure in Ireland needed to be made long before any serious attempt was made to make them. But that such reforms and readjustments might have been made without cutting completely loose from the moorings of political economy, appears pretty clearly, not only from examples on the continent of Europe, and in my own country, but from the Rent and Tenancy Acts carried out in India under the viceroyalty of Lord Dufferin since 1885. The conditions of these measures were different, of course, in each of the cases of Oudh, Bengal, and the Punjab, and in none of these cases were they nearly identical with the conditions of any practicable land measure for Ireland. But two great characteristics seem to me to mark the Indian legislation, which are not conspicuous in the legislation for Ireland. These are a spirit of equity as between the landlords and the tenants, and finality. I do not see how it can be questioned that the landlords of Ireland have been dealt with by recent British legislation as if they were offenders to be mulcted, and that the tenants in Ireland have been encouraged by recent British legislation to anticipate an eventual transfer to them, on steadily improving terms, of the land-ownership of the island. Mr. Davitt is perhaps the most popular Irishman living, and I believe him to be sincerely convinced that the ownership of the land of Ireland (and of all other countries) ought to be vested in the State. But if the independence of Ireland were acknowledged by Great Britain to-morrow, and all the actual landlords of Ireland were compelled to-morrow to part with their ownership, such as it is, of the land, I believe Mr. Davitt would be further from the recognition and triumph of his principle of State-ownership than he is to-day with a British Parliament hostile to "Home Rule," but apparently not altogether unwilling to make the landlords of Ireland an acceptable burnt-offering upon the altar of imperial unity. Probably he sees this himself, and the existing state of things may not be wholly displeasing to him, as holding out a hope that the flame which he has been helped by British legislation to kindle in Ireland may already be taking hold upon the substructions and outworks of the edifice of property in Great Britain also. One thing at least is clear. The two antagonistic principles which confront each other in Ireland to-day are the principles of the Agrarian Revolution represented by Mr. Davitt, and the principle of Authority, represented in the domain of politics by the British Government, and in the domain of morals by the Vatican. With one or the other of these principles the victory must rest. If the Irish people of all classes who live in Ireland could be polled to-day, it is likely enough that a decisive majority of them would declare for the principle of Authority in the State and in the Church, could that over-riding issue be made perfectly plain and intelligible to them. But how is that possible? In what country of the world, and in what age of the world, has it ever been possible to get such an issue made perfectly plain and intelligible to any people? In the domain of morals the principle of Authority, so far as concerns Catholic Ireland, rests with a power which is not likely to waver or give way. The Papal Decree has gone forth. Those who profess to accept it will be compelled to obey it. Those who reject it, whatever their place in the hierarchy of the Church may be, must sooner or later find themselves where Dr. M'Glynn of New York now is. Catholic Ireland can only continue to be Catholic on the condition of obedience, not formal but real, not in matters indifferent, but in matters vital and important, to the Head of the Catholic Church. In the domain of politics the principle of Authority rests with an Administration which is at the mercy of the intelligence or the ignorance, the constancy or the fickleness, the weakness or the strength, of constituencies in Great Britain, not necessarily familiar with the facts of the situation in Ireland, not necessarily enlightened as to the real interests either of Great Britain or of Ireland, nor even necessarily awake, with Cardinal Manning, to the truth that upon the future of Ireland hangs the future of the British Empire. With two, three, four, or five years of a steady and cool administration of the laws in Ireland, by an executive officer such as Mr. Balfour seems to me to have shown himself to be--with a judicious abstinence of the British Legislature from feverish and fussy legislation about Ireland, with a prudent and persistent development of the material resources of Ireland, and with a genuine co-operation of the people who own land in Ireland with the people who wish to own land in Ireland, for the readjustment of land-ownership, the principle of Authority in the domain of politics may doubtless win in the conflict with the principle of the Agrarian revolution. But how many contingencies are here involved! Meanwhile the influences which imperil in Ireland the principle of Authority, in the domains alike of politics and of morals, are at work incessantly, to undermine and deteriorate the character of the Irish people, to take the vigour and the manhood out of them, to unfit them day by day, not only for good citizenship in the British Empire or the United States, but for good citizenship in any possible Ireland under any possible form of government. To arrest these influences before they bring on in Ireland a social crash, the effects of which must be felt far beyond the boundaries of that country, is a matter of primary importance, doubtless, to the British people. It is a matter, too, of hardly less than primary importance to the people of my own country. Unfortunately it does not rest with us to devise or to apply an efficient check to these influences. That rests with the people of Great Britain, so long as they insist that Ireland shall remain an integral portion of the British dominions. I do not see how they can acquit themselves of this responsibility, or escape the consequences of evading it, solely by devising the most ingenious machinery of local administration for Ireland, or the most liberal schemes for fostering the material interests of the Irish people. Such things, of course, must in due time be attended to. But the first duty of a government is to govern; and I believe that Earl Grey has summed up the situation in Ireland more concisely and more courageously than any other British statesman in his outspoken declaration, that "in order to avert the wreck of the nation, it is absolutely necessary that some means or other should be found for securing to Ireland during the present crisis a wiser and more stable administration of its affairs than can be looked for under its existing institutions." I have heard and read a good deal in the past of the "Three F's" thought a panacea for Irish discontent. Three other F's seem to me quite as important to the future of Irish content and public order. These are, Fair Dealing towards Landlords as well as Tenants; Finality of Agrarian Legislation at Westminster; and last and most essential of all, Fixity of Executive Tenure. The words I have just quoted of Earl Grey, show it to be the conviction of the oldest living leader of English Liberalism that this last is the vital point, the key of the situation. Let me bracket with his words, and leave to the consideration of my readers, the following pregnant passage from a letter written to me by an Irish correspondent who is as devoted to Irish independence as is Earl Grey to imperial unity:-- "If the present Nationalist movement succeeds, it will have the effect of putting the worst elements of the Irish nation in power, and keeping them there irremoveably. We are to have an Executive at the mercy of a House of Representatives, and the result will be a government, or series of governments, as weak and vicious as those of France, with this difference, that here all purifying changes such as seem imminent in France will be absolutely prevented by the irresistible power of England. The true model for us would be a constitution like yours in the United States, with an Executive responsible to the nation at large, and irremoveable for a term of years. But this we shall never get from England. Shall we make use of Home Rule to take it for ourselves? "Many earnest and active Irish Unionists now say that if any bill resembling Mr. Gladstone's passes, they will make separation, their definite policy. If Home Rule comes without the landlords having been bought out on reasonable terms, a class will be created in Ireland full of bitter and most just hatred of England--a class which may very likely one day play the part here which the persecuted Irish Presbyterians who fled from the tyranny of the English Church in Ireland played in your own Revolution beyond the Atlantic." <p><hr /></p> APPENDIX. NOTE F. THE "MOONLIGHTERS" AND "HOME RULE." (Vol. ii. p. 38.) On Monday, the 1st of February 1886, the _Irish Times_ published the following story from Tralee, near the scene of the "boycotting," temporal and spiritual, of the unfortunate daughters of Mr. Jeremiah Curtin, murdered in his own house by "moonlighters":-- "TRALEE, _Sunday_. "It was stated that the bishop had ordered Mass to be celebrated for them--the Curtins--but this did not take place. At the village of Firies a number of people had assembled. They stopped loitering about the place in the forenoon, waiting for a meeting of the National League, which was subsequently held. A threatening notice was discovered posted up on the door of a house formerly used as a forge. It ran as follows:-- "'NOTICE.--If we are honoured by the presence of the bloodthirsty perjurers at Mass on any of the forthcoming Sundays, take good care you'll stand up very politely and walk out. Don't be under the impression that all the Moonlighters are dead, and that this notice is a child's play, as Shawn Nelleen titled the last one. I'll be sure to keep my word, as you will see before long, so have no welcome for the Curtins, and, above all, let no one work for them in any way. As you respect the Captain, and as you value your own life, abide by this notice.'--Signed, 'A MOONLIGHTER.' "The above notice was written on tea paper in large legible style, and evidently by an intelligent person. Groups were perusing it during the day. A force of police marched through the village and back, but did not observe this document, as it is still posted on the door of the house." The "bloodthirsty perjurers" here mentioned were the daughters who had dared to demand and to promote the punishment of the assassins of their father! For this crime these daughters were to be excommunicated by the people of Firies, and denied the consolations of religion in their deep sorrow, even in defiance of the order of the Catholic bishop. As the advent of Mr. Gladstone to power in alliance with Mr. Parnell was then imminent, Mr. Sheehan, M.P., wrote a letter to the parish priest of Firies, the Rev. Mr. O'Connor, begging him in substance to put the brakes--for a time--upon the wheels of the local rack, lest the outcries of the young women subjected to this moral torture should interfere with the success of the new alliance. This, in plain English, is the only possible meaning of the letter which I here reprint from a leaflet issued by an Irish society:-- "The Rev. Father O'Connor, P.P., has received the following letter from Mr. Sheehau, M.P., in reference to this matter, under date "'House of Commons, _January 26th._ "'REV. DEAR SIR,--At this important juncture in our history, I am sorry to see reports of the Firies display. Nothing that has taken place yet in the South of Ireland has done so much harm to the National cause. If they persist they will ruin us. To-morrow evening will be most important in Parliamentary history. Our party expect the defeat of the Government and resumption of power by Mr. Gladstone. If we succeed in this, which we are confident of, the future of our country will be great, and, although an appeal to the constituencies must be made, the Irish party in those few days have made an impression in future that no Government can withstand. The Salisbury Government want to appeal to the country on the integrity of the empire, and, of course, for the last few days have tried all means to lead to this by raking up the Curtin case and all judicial cases, which _must be avoided for a short time_, as our stoppage to the Eviction Act will cover all this.--Yours faithfully, J.D. SHEEHAN.'" This letter was read, the leaflet informs us, by the Rev. Mr. O'Connor, at the National Schools and other places. NOTE G. THE PONSONBY PROPERTY. (Vol. ii. pp. 59-66.) The account which the Rev. Canon Keller gave me of "The Struggle for Life on the Ponsonby Estate," in a tract bearing that title, and authorised by him to be published by the National League, is so circumstantial and elaborate that, after reading it carefully, I took unusual pains to obtain some reply to it from the representatives of the landlord implicated. These finally led to a visit from Mr. Ponsonby himself, who was so kind as to call upon me in London on the 15th of May, with papers and documents. I give in the following colloquy the results of this interview, putting together with the allegations of Canon Keller the answers of Mr. Ponsonby, and leave the matter in this form to the judgment of my readers. _Q_. Canon Keller, I see, describes you, Mr. Ponsonby, as "a retired navy officer, and an absentee Irish landlord." He says your estate is now "universally known as the famous Ponsonby Estate," and that it is occupied "by from 300 to 400 tenants, holding farms varying in extent from an acre and a half to over two hundred acres." Are these statements correct? _A_. I am a retired navy officer certainly, and perhaps I may be called an "absentee Irish landlord." I lived on my property for some time, and I have always attended to it. I succeeded to the estate in 1868, and almost my first act was to borrow £2000 of the Board of Works for drainage purposes--the tenants agreeing to pay half the interest. As a matter of fact some never paid at all, and I afterwards wiped out the claims against them. There are about 300 tenants on the property, and the average holdings are of about 36 acres, at an average rental of £30 a holding. There are, however, not a few large farms. _Q_. Canon Keller says that "in the memory of living witnesses, and far beyond it, the Ponsonby tenants have been notoriously rack-rented and oppressed"; and that they have been committed to the "tender mercies of agents, seeing little or nothing of their landlord, and experiencing no practical sympathy from that quarter." How is this? _A_. I wish to believe Canon Keller truthful when he knows the truth. He certainly does not know the truth here. He is a newcomer at Youghal, having come there in November 1885, and hardly so much of an authority about "the memory of living witnesses and far beyond it" as the tenants on the estate, who, when I went there first with my wife, presented to me, May 25, 1868, an address of welcome, referring in very different terms to the history of the estate and of my family connection with it. Here is the original address, and a copy of it--the latter being quite at your service. This original address is very handsomely engrossed, and is signed by fifty tenants. Among the names I observed those of Martin Loughlin, Peter McDonough, Michael Gould, William Forrest, and John Heaphey, all of whom are cited by Canon Keller in his tract as conspicuous victims of the oppression and rack-renting which he says have prevailed upon the Ponsonby estates time out of mind. It was rather surprising, therefore, to find them joining with more than forty other tenants to sign an address, of which I here print the text:-- To C.W. TALBOT PONSONBY, Esq. Honoured Sir,--The Tenantry of your Estates near Youghal have heard with extreme pleasure of the arrival of yourself and lady in the neighbourhood, and have deputed us to address you on their behalf. Through us they bid you and Mrs. Ponsonby welcome, and respectfully congratulate you on your accession to the Estates. The name of Ponsonby is traditionally revered in this part of the country, being associated in the recollections and impressions of the people with all that is exalted, honourable, and generous. It has been matter of regret that the heads of the family have not (probably from uncontrollable causes) visited these Estates for many years, but the tenantry have never wavered in their sentiments of respect towards them. We will not disguise from you the conviction generally entertained that the improvement of landed property, and the condition of its occupiers, is best promoted under the personal observation and supervision of the proprietor, and your tenantry on that account hail with satisfaction the promise your presence affords of future intercourse between you and them. Again, on the part of your Tenants and all connected with your Estates, tendering you and your lady a most hearty welcome, and sincerely wishing you and her a long and happy career--We subscribe ourselves, Honoured Sir, Respectfully yours, YOUGHAL, _May_ 1868. _Q_. Did Canon Keller ever see this address, may I ask, Mr. Ponsonby? _A_. I believe not; and I may as well say at once that I suppose he has taken for gospel all the stories which any of the tenants under the terrorism which has been established on the place think it best to pour into his listening ear. As I have said, he is quite a new man at Youghal, and when he first came there he was a quiet and not at all revolutionary priest. You saw him, and saw how good his manners are, and that he is a well-educated man. But on Sunday, November 7, 1886, a great meeting was held at Youghal. It was a queer meeting for a Sunday, being openly a political meeting, with banners and bands, to hear speeches from Mr. Lane, M.P., Mr. Flynn, M.P., and others. The Rev. Mr. Keller presided, and a priest from America, Father Hayes of Georgetown, Iowa, in the United States, was present. It was ostensibly a Home Rule meeting, but the burden of the speeches was agrarian. Mr. Lane, M.P., made a bitter personal attack on another Nationalist member, Sir Joseph M'Kenna of Killeagh, calling him a "heartless and inhuman landlord;" and my property was also attended to by Mr. Lane, who advised my tenants openly not to accept my offer of 20 per cent. reduction, but to demand 40 per cent. Father Hayes in his speech bade "every man stand to his guns," and wound up by declaring that if England and the landlords behaved in America as they behaved in Ireland, the Americans "would pelt them not only with dynamite, but with the lightnings of Heaven and the fires of hell, till every British bull-dog, whelp, and cur would be pulverised and made top-dressing for the soil." Canon Keller afterwards expressed disapproval of this speech of Hayes, and this coming to the knowledge of Hayes in America, Hayes denounced Keller for not daring to do this at the time in his presence. Since then Canon Keller has been much more violent in tone. _Q_. I don't want to carry you through a long examination, Mr. Ponsonby, but I see typical cases here, about which I should like to ask a question or two. Here, is Callaghan Flavin, for instance, described by Canon Keller as one of eight tenants who "had to retreat before the crowbar brigade," and who "deserved a better fate." Canon Keller says he is assured by a competent judge that Flavin's improvements, "full value for £341, 10s.," are now "the landlord's property." What are the facts about Mr. Flavin? _A_. Mr. Flavin's farm was held by his cousin, Ellen Flavin of Gilmore, who, on the 7th of February 1872, surrendered it to the landlord on receiving from me a sum of £172, 10s. 6d. I obtained a charging order under section 27 of the Land Act, entitling me to an annuity of £8, 12s. 6d. for thirty-five years from July 3, 1872. It was let to Callaghan Flavin in preference to other applicants, July 3, 1872; and in 1873, at his request, I obtained a loan from the Board of Works for the thorough draining of a portion of the farm. Thirteen acres were drained at a cost of £84, 6s. 3d., for which the tenant promised to pay 5 per cent. interest, which I eventually forgave him. There was no house on the farm. He took it without one, and I did not want one there. He built a house himself without consulting my agent, and then wanted me to make him an allowance for it. I told him he had thirty-one years to enjoy it in, and must be content with that. About the same time he took another farm of mine at a rent of £35. Since I came into my property in 1868 I have laid out upon it in drainage, buildings, and planting--here are the accounts, which you may look at--over £15,000, including about £8000 of loans from the Board of Works. In the drainage the tenants got work for which they were paid. I gave them slates for the buildings, with timber and stone from the estate, and they supplied the labour. There is no case in which the outlays for improvements came from the tenants--not a single one. I repeat it, Canon Keller's tract is a tissue of fictions. What nonsense it is to talk about the "traditional rack-renting" of a property held by the Ponsonbys for two hundred years, the tenants on which could welcome me when I came into it with the language of the address you have here seen! I never evicted tenants for less than three years' arrears, till what Canon Keller calls the "crowbar brigade," by which he means the officers of the law, had to be put into action to meet the "Plan of Campaign" in May last. I did not proceed against the tenants because they could not pay. I selected the tenants who could pay, and who were led, or, I believe in most cases, "coerced," into refusing to pay by agitators with Mr. Lane, M.P., to inspire them, and Canon Keller, P.P., to glorify them in a tract. _Q_. What were your personal relations with the tenants when you were at Inchiquin? _A_. Always most friendly; and even the other day when I was there, while none of them would speak to me when they were all together, those I met individually touched their hats, and were as civil as ever. I believe they would all be thankful to have things as they were, and I have never refused to meet and treat with them on fair individual terms. In November 1885 my offer of an abatement of 15 per cent. being refused, a few tenants, I believe, clubbed their rents, and for the sake of peace I then offered 20 per cent., which they accepted and paid. In October 1886 I hoped to prevent trouble by making the same offer of 20 per cent. abatement on non-judicial and 10 per cent. on judicial rents. One man took the latter abatement and paid. Then another tenant demanded 40 per cent. My agent said he would give them time, and also take money on account, the effect of which would be to put me out of court, and prevent my getting an order of ejectment if I wanted to for the balance. I thought this fair, and approved it, but I refused to make a 40 per cent. all-round abatement, authorising my agent, however, to make what abatements he liked in special cases. My words were, "I don't limit you on the amount of abatement you give, or as to the number of tenants you may choose so to treat." If this was not a fair free hand, what would be? My agent afterwards told me he had no chance to make this known. The fact is they meant to force the Plan on the tenants and me, and to prevent any settlement but a "victory for the League!" In my original notes of my conversation with Father Keller at Youghal, I found the name of one tenant whom he introduced to me, and who certainly told me that his holdings amounted to some £300 a year, and that they had been in his family for "two hundred years," set down as Doyle--I so printed it with the statements made. But Father Keller, to whom I submitted my proofs, and who was so good as to revise them, struck out the name of Doyle, and inserted that of Loughlin, putting the rental down at £94 (vol. ii. p. 71). Of course I accept this correction. But on my mentioning the matter to Mr. Ponsonby by letter, he replies to me (July 27th) as follows:-- "Maurice Doyle is a son of Richard Doyle, who died in 1876, leaving his widow to carry on his farm of 74 acres 1 rood, in the townland of Ballykitty, which he held in 1858 at a rental of £50, 11s. In 1868 this was reduced to £48, 11s. In September 1871 he took in addition a farm of 159 acres 2 roods at £130, in Burgen and Ballykitty. He afterwards got a lease for thirty-one years of this larger farm, with a portion of his earlier holding, for £155. This left him to pay £21, 11s. for the residue of the earlier holding as in 1858. But at his request, in 1876, the year of his death, I reduced this to £17. "In March 1879, by the death of Mr. Henry Hall, in whose family it had been for certainly a century, the Inchiquin farm of 213 acres, valued at £258, 10s., came on my hands. This farm was valued in 1873 by one valuer at £384, 10s., and by another at £390, 10s. In an old lease I find that this farm was let at £3 an acre. Mr. Henry Hall to the day of his death held it at £306, 7s. 6d., under a lease which I made a lease for life. For this farm Mrs. Richard Doyle applied, agreeing to take it on a 31 years' lease, at £370 a year. I let it to her, and she became the lease-holder, putting in her son Maurice Doyle to take charge of it, though not as the tenant. He was an active Land Leaguer from the moment he got into the place, and in 1886 he was a leader in promoting the Plan of Campaign. Proceedings had to be taken against his mother in order to eject him, as she was the tenant, not he. I objected to this, for I always have had the greatest regard for her. Had she been let alone she would have paid her rent as she had always done. But Mr. Lane and his allies saw it would never do to let Maurice Doyle retain his place on his mother's holding. All this will show you that Maurice Doyle did not inherit the Inchiquin farm. The only inherited holding of his mother is the farm of 74 acres 1 rood in the townland of Ballykitty, held by his father in 1858. I have no doubt you saw Doyle at Youghal, by the description you gave me, and you remembered his name at once. He was a thickset heavy-looking man, florid, with a military moustache, the last time I saw him. His mother is one of the 'rack-rented' tenants you hear of, having been able in ten years to increase her acreage from 74 acres to 376 acres, and her rental from £48, 11s. to £542!" As to the general effect of all this business upon the tenants, and upon himself, Mr. Ponsonby spoke most feelingly. "The tenants are ruined where they might have been thriving. My means of being useful to them or to myself are taken away. My charges, though, all remain. I have to pay tithes for Protestant Church service, of which I can't have the benefit, the churches being closed; and the other day I had a notice that any property I had in England would be held liable for quit-rents to the Crown on my property in Ireland, of which the Government denies me practically any control or use!" NOTE G2. THE GLENBEHY EVICTION FUND. (Vol. ii. p. 12.) In the _London Times_ of September 15 appears the following letter from the Land Agent whom I saw at Glenbehy, setting forth the effect of this "Glenbehy Eviction Fund" upon the morals of the tenants and the peace of the place:-- _To the Editor of the Times._ "Sir,--Although nearly eighteen months have elapsed since the evictions on the Glenbehy estate, after which the above-named fund was started and largely subscribed to by the sympathetic British public, I think it only fair to throw a little light on the manner in which this fund has been expended, and the effects which are still felt in consequence of the money not yet being exhausted. "It was generally supposed that the tenants then evicted were in such poor circumstances as to be unable to settle, whereas, as a matter of fact, they were, and are, with a few exceptions, the most well-to-do on the estate, having, for the most part, from five to fifteen head of cattle, in addition to sheep, pigs, etc. "Among the tenants evicted at that time many had not paid rents since 1879, and had been in illegal occupation since 1884, from which latter date the landlord was responsible for taxes, provided it is proved that sufficient distress cannot be made of the lands. These tenants were offered a clear receipt to May 1, 1886, if they paid half a year's rent, which would scarcely have paid the cost of proceedings, and the landlord would therefore have been put to actual loss. These people, though well able to settle, are given to understand that as soon as they do so their participation in the eviction fund will cease, and thus it will be seen that a direct premium is being paid to dishonesty. "In one case a widow woman was summoned for being on the farm from which she was at that time evicted. Finding out that one of her children was ill, I applied to the magistrate at the hearing of the case only to impose a nominal fine. In consequence she was fined one penny, but sooner than pay this she went to gaol, though she had several head of cattle and, prior to her eviction, a very nice farm. The case of this woman fairly illustrates the combination which has existed to avoid the fulfilment of obligations. "The amount of fines paid for similar offences comes, in several instances, to nearly what I require to effect a settlement. Some of the tenants actually wrote to the late agent on this estate begging him to evict them in order that they might come in for a share of the money raised for the relief of distress, and this clearly shows beyond dispute that the well-meaning subscribers to the fund will be more or less responsible for any further evictions to which it may be necessary to resort. I may mention that the parish priest is one of the trustees for the money which is thus being used for the purpose of preventing settlements and keeping the place in a continual state of turmoil. "Judge Currane, at the January sessions held at Killarney this year, ruled in about fifty ejectment cases on this estate that tenants owing one and a half to nine years' rent should pay half a year's rent and costs within a week, a quarter of a year's rent by June 1, and a quarter of a year's rent by October 1; arrears to be cancelled. Some of these, owing to non-compliance with the Judge's ruling, may have to be evicted, and their eviction will be what is termed the unrooting of peasants' houses and the ejectment of overburdened tenants for not paying impossible rents. "I confess I am at a loss to understand how Mr. Parnell's Arrears Act would have improved matters or have averted what one of your contemporaries calls a "painful scandal."--I am, Sirs, yours, &c., "D. TODD-THORNTON, J.P., Land Agent. "Glenbehy, Killarney." NOTE G. HOME RULE AND PROTESTANTISM. (Vol. ii. p. 68.) I fear that all the "Nationalist" clergy in Ireland are not as careful as Father Keller to avoid giving occasion for this impression that Irish autonomy would be followed by a persecution of the Protestants. But a little more than three years ago, for example, the following circular was issued by the Bishop of Ossory, and affixed to the door of the churches in his diocese. Who can wonder that it should have been regarded by Protestants in that diocese as a direct stirring up of bitter religious animosities against them? Or that, emanating directly as it did from a bishop of the Church, it should be represented as emanating indirectly from the Head of the Church himself at Rome? "_Kilkenny, April 16th, 1885._ "REV. DEAR SIR,--May I ask you to read the following circular for the people at each of the Masses on Sunday, 19th April? "The course to be adopted for the future by the Priest of the Parish to whom notice of a Mixed Marriage is given by the Minister, or the Registrar, is as follows:--he makes the following entry on the book of Parochial announcements, and reads it three consecutive Sundays from the Altar:-- "'The Priests of the Parish have received the following notice of a marriage to be celebrated between a Catholic and a Protestant. [Here read Registrar's notice in full.] We have now to inform you that the law of the Catholic Church regarding such marriages is: that the Catholic party contracting marriage before a Registrar or other unauthorised person is, by the very fact of so doing, Excommunicated; and the witnesses to such marriage are also Excommunicated.' "I should be very much obliged if, as occasion may require, you would explain the effects of this Excommunication from the Altar. "You will please take notice that the Registrar or Minister is bound legally to send the notice of marriage referred to above, and also, that in reading it out _in the form, and with the accompanying remarks above_, you incur no legal penalty. "I feel sure that with your accustomed zeal you will do everything in your power to prevent abuses in regard to the Sacrament of Matrimony, which is great in Christ and the Church, and to induce the faithful to prepare for receiving it by Prayer, by works of Charity, and by approaching the Sacrament of Penance to purify their souls.--Yours faithfully in Christ, [Image: Cross] A. BROWNRIGG." "MY DEAR BRETHREN,--We have been very much pained to learn, within the past month, that marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics have increased very much in this city of Kilkenny. Many _evil-disposed_ persons, utterly unmindful of the prohibitions of the Church, and regardless of the dreadful consequences they bring on themselves, have not hesitated to enter into those _unholy matrimonial alliances_ called "Mixed Marriages," which the Catholic Church has always _hated and detested_. Those misguided Catholics, who do not deserve the name, have not blushed to go, in some instances, before the Protestant Minister, in other instances, before the Public Registrar, to ask them to assist at their marriage with a Protestant. By contracting marriage in this way, they run a great risk of bringing on themselves and on their children, should they have any, the _maledictions_ of Heaven instead of the blessings of religion. In order to put a stop to this growing abuse, and to prevent it from spreading like a contagion to other parts of the Diocese, we beg to remind the faithful of certain regulations which, for the future, shall have force in the Diocese of Ossory in reference to the Catholics, who so far forget themselves as to contract such marriages. "1. In the first place, any one who contracts a "Mixed Marriage" without a dispensation from the Holy See and before a Protestant Minister or a Registrar is, by the very fact, guilty of a most grievous mortal sin by violating a solemn law of the Church in a most grave matter. "2. The Catholic who assists as witness at such marriage also commits a most grievous sin by co-operating in an unlawful act. "3. Both the Catholic party contracting the marriage and the Catholic witnesses to it cannot be absolved by any priest in the Diocese of Ossory, unless by the Bishop or by those to whom he grants special faculties. "4. In order more effectually to deter people from entering into _those detestable marriages_, the penalty of _Excommunication_ is hereby attached to that sin both for the Catholic _contracting_ party as also for the Catholic _witnesses_ to such marriage. "5. The notice which the Protestant Rector or the Registrar is legally bound in such cases to send to the Parish Priest of the Catholic party, will be read from the Altar for three consecutive Sundays, and thus the _crime_ of the offending party brought out into open light before his or her fellow-parishioners. "6. For the rest, we hope the sense of decency and religion of the Catholic people and their Pastors shall be no more hurt by any Catholic entering into those marriages, so full of, misery and evil of every kind for themselves, their children, and society at large.--Yours faithfully in Christ, [Image: Cross] ABRAHAM, Bishop of Ossory. NOTE H. TULLY AND THE WOODFORD EVICTIONS. (Vol. ii. p. 149.) Since the first edition of this book was published certain "evictions" mentioned in it as impending on the Clanricarde estates have been carried out. I have no reason to suppose that there was more or less reason for carrying out these evictions than there usually is, not in Ireland only, but all over the civilised world, for a resort by the legal owners of property to legal means of recovering the possession of it from persons who fail to comply with the terms on which it was put into their keeping. Whether this failure results from dishonesty or from misfortune is a consideration not often allowed, I think, to affect the right of the legal owner of the property concerned to his legal remedy in any other country but Ireland, nor even in Ireland in the case of any property other than property in land. But as what I learned on the spot touching the general condition of the Clanricarde tenants, and touching the conduct and character of Lord Clanricarde's agent, Mr. Tener, led me to take a special interest in these evictions, I asked him to send me some account of them. In reply he gave me a number of interesting details. The only serious attempt at resisting the execution of the law was made by "Dr." Tully, one of the leading local "agitators," to the tendency of whose harangues judicial reference was made during the investigation into the case of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt. Tully had a holding of seventeen acres at a rent of £2, 10s., the Government valuation being £4. He earned a good livelihood as a boat-builder, and he had put up a slated house on his holding. But in November 1884 he chose to stop paying the very low rent at which he held his place, and he has paid no rent since that time. As is stated in a footnote on page 153, vol. ii. of this book, a decree was granted against Tully by Judge Henn for three years' rent due in May 1887, and his equity of redemption having expired July 9, 1888, this recourse was had to the law against him. As the leading spirit of the agitation, Tully had put a garrison into his house of twelve men and two women. He had dug a ditch around it, taken out the window-sashes, filled up the casements and the doorways with stones and trunks of trees. Portholes had been pierced under the roof, through which the defenders might thrust red-hot pikes, pitchforks, and other weapons, and empty pails of boiling water upon the assailants. A brief parley took place. Tully refused to make any offer of a settlement unless the agent would agree to reinstate all the evicted tenants, to which Mr. Tener replied that he would recognise no "combination," but was ready to deal with every tenant fairly and individually. Finally the Sheriff ordered his men to take the place. Ladders were planted, and while some of the constables, under the protection of a shield covered with zinc, a sort of Roman _testudo_, worked at removing the earthern ramparts, others nimbly climbed to the roof and began to break in from above. In their excitement the garrison helped this forward by breaking holes through the roof themselves to get at the attacking party, and in about twenty minutes the fortress was captured, and the inmates were prisoners. Two constables were burned by the red-hot pikes, the gun of another was broken to pieces by a huge stone, and a fourth was slightly wounded by a fork. One of the defenders got a sword-cut; and Tully was brought forth as one too severely wounded to walk. Upon investigation, however, the surgeon refused to certify that he was unable to undergo the ordinary imprisonment in such cases made and provided. The collapse of the resistance at this central point was followed by a general surrender. After the capture of Tully's house, Mr. Tener writes to me, "I found it being gutted by his family, who would have carried it away piecemeal. They had already taken away the flooring of one of the rooms." Thereupon Mr. Tener had the house pulled down, with the result of seeing a statement made in a leading Nationalist paper that he was "evicting the tenants and pulling down their houses." "Yesterday," Mr. Tener writes to me on the 9th of September, "I walked twenty-five miles, visiting thirty farms about Portumna. Except in two or three cases, the tenants have ample means, and part of the live stock alone on the farms, exclusive of the crops, would suffice to pay all the rents I had demanded. On the farms recently 'evicted,' I found treble the amount of the rent due in live stock alone." As to one case of these recent evictions, I found it stated in an Irish journal that a young man, who had been ill of consumption for two years, the son of a tenant, was removed from the house, the local physician refusing to certify that he was unfit for removal, and that he died a few days afterwards. The implication was obvious, and I asked Mr. Tener for the facts. He replied, "This young man, John Fahey, was in consumption, but did not appear to be in any danger. Dr. Carte, an Army surgeon, examined him, and said there was no immediate danger. The day was fine and he walked about wrapped in a comfortable coat, and talked with me and others. His father, a respectable man, made no attempt to defend his house; and at his request, after the crowd had gone away, my man in charge permitted the invalid and the family to reoccupy the house temporarily because of his illness. There was no inquest, and no need of any, after his death. His father, Patrick Fahey, had means to pay, but told me he 'could not,' which meant he 'dared not.' I went to him personally twice, and sent him many messages. But the terror of the League was upon the poor man. "An interesting case is that of Michael Fahey, of Dooras. In 1883 his rent was judicially reduced about 5 per cent., from £33 to £31, 5s. His house and all about it is substantial and comfortable. His father, about thirty years ago, fought for a whole night and bravely beat off a party of 'Terry-Alts,' the 'Moonlighters' of that day. For his courage the Government presented him with a gun, of which the son is very proud. Pity he did not inherit the pluck with the gun of his parent! "I had been privately told that this tenant would pay; but that he would first produce a doctor's certificate that his old mother could not be moved. He did give the Sheriff a carefully worded document to show this, but it was so vague that I objected to its being received by the Sheriff. Upon this (not before! mark the craft of even a well-disposed Irish tenant in those evil days), I was asked to go into the house. I went in and entered the parlour. There the tenant told me he would pay the year's rent and the costs, amounting to £50. He had risen from his seat to fetch the money, when, lo! Father Egan (the priest upon whose head the widow of the murdered Finlay called down the curse of God in the open street of Woodford) appeared in the doorway. He had come in on a pretence of seeing the old mother of the tenant, who had (for that occasion) taken to her bed. The bedroom lay beyond the parlour, and was entered from it. The tenant actually shook with fear as Father Egan passed through, and I thought all hope of a settlement gone, when suddenly the officer of the police came in, passed into the bedroom, and told Father Egan he must withdraw. This Father Egan refused to do, whereupon the officer said very quietly, 'I shall remove you forthwith if you do not go out quietly.' Upon this Father Egan hastily left. The tenant then went into the bedroom and soon reappeared with the £50 in bank-notes, which he paid me. All this was dramatic enough. But the comedy was next performed in front of the house, where all could see it, of handing to the Sheriff the alleged doctor's certificate, and of my saying aloud that 'in the circumstances' I had no objection to his receiving it! After this all the forces proceeded to take their luncheon on the green bank sloping down to the Shannon in front of the farm-house. There is a fine orchard on the place, and it recalled to me some of the farms I saw in Virginia. "I had gone into the house again, and was standing near the fire in the kitchen, where some of my escort were taking their luncheon. It is a large kitchen, and perhaps a dozen people were in it, when in came Father Egan again and called to the tenant Fahey, 'Put out those policemen, and do not suffer one of them to remain.' "The sergeant instantly said, 'We are here on duty, Father Egan, and if you dare to try to intimidate this tenant, I shall either put you out or arrest you.' "'Yes,' I interposed, looking at the sergeant, 'you are certainly here on duty, and in the name of the law, and it is sad to see a clergyman here in the interest of an illegal, criminal, and rebellious movement, and of the immoral Plan of Campaign.' "'Oh!' exclaimed Father Egan, 'the opinion of the agent of the Marquis of Clanricarde is valuable, truly!' "'I give you,' I said, 'not my opinion, but the opinion of Dr. Healy and Dr. O'Dwyer, bishops of your Church, and men worthy of all respect and reverence. And I am sorry to know that some ecclesiastics deserve no respect, but that at their doors lies the main responsibility for the misery and the crime which afflict our unhappy country. I feel sure a just God will punish them in due time.' "Father Egan made no reply, but paused a moment, and then walked out of the house. "At the next house, that of Dennis Fahey, we found a still better dwelling. Here we had another mock certificate, but we received the rent with the costs." NOTE H2. BOYCOTTING THE DEAD. (Vol. ii. p. 151.) The following official account sent to me (July 24) of an affair in Donegal, the result of the gospel of "Boycotting" taught in that region, needs and will bear no comment. Patrick Cavanagh came to reside at Clonmany, County Donegal, about two months ago, as caretaker on some evicted farms. He died on Wednesday evening, June 20th, having received the full rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The people had displayed no ill-will towards him during his brief residence at Clonmany, and on the evening of his death his body was washed and laid out by some women. On Thursday two townsmen dug his grave, where pointed out by Father Doherty, P.P. The first symptom of change of feeling was that on Thursday every carpenter applied to had some excuse for not making a coffin for the body of deceased. On Friday morning the grave was found to be filled with stones, and a deputation waited on Father Doherty to protest against Cavanagh's burial in the chapel graveyard. He told them to go home and mind their business. About 10.30 A.M. on Friday the chapel bell was rung--not tolled or rung as for service, but faster. The local sergeant of police went to the cemetery; when he arrived there the tolling ceased. He then went to Father Doherty, who told those present that their conduct was such as to render them unfit for residence anywhere but in a savage country. He told them to go to their homes, and advised them to allow the corpse to be buried in the grave he had marked out. After Father Doherty had left, the people condemned his interference, and said they would not allow any stranger to be buried in the graveyard. When Constable Brady put it to those present that their real objection did not lie in the fact that Cavanagh had been a stranger, he was not contradicted. The body was ultimately buried at Carndonagh on Saturday, several people remaining in the graveyard at Clonmany all through the night (Friday) till the body was taken to Carndonagh for burial. At Carndonagh Petty Sessions, on the 18th July 1888, Con. Doherty and Owen Doherty, with five others, were prosecuted for unlawful assembly on the occasion above referred to. The first two named, who were the ringleaders, were convicted, and sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment each with hard labour; the charges against the remainder were dismissed. NOTE I. POST-OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS. (Vol. i. p. 117; vol. ii. pp. 5, 12, 66, 95, 200, 248.) As the Post-Office Savings Banks represent the smaller depositors, and command special confidence among them even in the disturbed districts, I print here an official statement showing the balances due to depositors in the undermentioned offices, situated in certain of the most disturbed regions I visited, on the 31st December of the years 1880 and 1887 respectively:-- +-----------------+-----------------+---------------+ | OFFICE. | 1880. | 1887. | +-----------------+-----------------+---------------+ | | £ s. d. | £ s. d. | | Bunbeg, | 1,270 6 7 | 1,206 18 2 | | Falcarragh, | 62 15 10 | 494 10 8 | | Gorey, | 3,690 14 4 | 5,099 5 7 | | Inch, |[A] 8 11 0 | 209 7 5 | | Killorglin, | 282 15 9 | 1,299 2 6 | | Loughrea, | 5,500 19 9 | 6,311 4 11 | | Mitchelstown, | 1,387 13 2 | 2,846 9 3 | | Portumna, | 2,539 10 11 | 3,376 5 4 | | Sixmilebridge, | 382 17 10 | 934 13 4 | | Stradbally, | 1,812 14 8 | 2,178 18 2 | | Woodford, | 259 14 6 | 1,350 17 11 | | Youghal, | 3,031 0 7 | 7,038 7 2 | +-----------------+-----------------+---------------+ [A] This Office was not opened for Savings Bank business until the year 1881, the amount shown being balance due on the 31st December 1882. It appears from this table that the deposits in these Savings Banks increased in the aggregate from £20,329, 15s. 11d. in 1880 to £32,347, 9s. 7d. in 1887, or almost 60 per cent, in seven years. They fell off in only one case, at Bunbeg, and there only to a nominal amount. At Youghal they much more than doubled, increasing about 133 per cent. Yet in all these places the Plan of Campaign has been invoked "because the people were penniless and could not pay their debts!" NOTE K. THE COOLGREANY EVICTIONS. (Vol. ii. p. 216.) Captain Hamilton sends me the following graphic account of this affair at Coolgreany:-- In the _Freeman's Journal_ of the 16th December 1886, it is reported that a meeting of the Brooke tenantry, the Rev. P. O'Neill in the chair, was held at Coolgreany on the Sunday previous to the 15th December 1886, the date on which the "Plan of Campaign" was adopted on the estate, at which it was resolved that if I refused the terms offered they would join the "Plan." I had no conference at Freeman's house or anywhere else at any time with two parish priests. On the 15th December 1886, when seated in Freeman's house waiting to receive the rents, four priests, a reporter of the _Freeman's Journal_, some local reporters, and four of the tenants rushed into the room; and the priests in the rudest possible manner (the Rev. P. Farrelly, one of them, calling me "Francy Hyne's hangman," and other terms of abuse) informed me that unless I re-instated a former Roman Catholic tenant in a farm which he had previously held, and which was then let to a Protestant, and gave an abatement of 30 per cent., no rent would be paid _me_ that day. Dr. Dillon, C.C., was not present on this occasion, or, if so, I do not remember seeing him. On my asking if I had no alternative but to concede to their demand, the Rev. Mr. Dunphy, parish priest, replied, "None other; do not think, sir, we have come here to-day to do honour to you." The Rev. P. O'Neill spoke as he always does, in a more gentlemanly and conciliatory manner, and I therefore, as the confusion in the room was great, offered to discuss the matter with him, the Rev. O'Donel, C.C., and the tenants, if the other priests, who were strangers to me, and the reporters would leave the room. This the Rev. Mr. Dunphy declared they would not do, and I accordingly refused further to discuss the matter. After they left the house, one of the tenants, Mick Darcy, stepped forward and said, "Settle with us, Captain." I replied, "Certainly, if you come back with me into the house." The Rev. Mr. Dunphy took him by the collar of his coat and threw him against the wall of the house, then turning to me with his hand raised said, "You shall not do so; we, who claim the temporal as well as spiritual power over _you_ as well as these poor creatures, will settle this matter with you." The tenants were then taken down to the League rooms, where two M.P.s, Sir Thomas Esmonde and Mr. Mayne, were waiting to receive the rents, which, one by one, they were ordered in to pay into the war-chest of the "Plan of Campaign." I have I fear written too much of this commencement of the war on the estate which has since led to over seventy of the tenants and their families being ejected, and has brought ruin on nearly all who joined it. I have considerable experience as a land agent, but I know of no estate where the tenants were more respectable, better housed, or, as a body, in better circumstances than on the Brooke estate. They had a kind, indulgent landlord, and they knew it; and nothing but the belief that, led by their clergy, they were foremost in a battle fighting for their country and religion, would have induced them to put up with the great hardships and loss they have undoubtedly had to suffer. NOTE L. A DUCAL SUPPER IN IRELAND IN 1711. (Vol. ii. p. 283.) The following entry I take from the Expense-Book of the Duke of Ormond, under date of August 23, 1711:-- His Grace came to Kilkenny, half an hour after 10 at night. HIS GRACE'S TABLE. Pottage. Sautee Veal. 5 Pullets, Bacon and Collyflowers. Pottage Meagre. Pikes with White Sauce. A Turbot with Lobster Sauce. Umbles. A Hare Hasht. Buttered Chickens, G. Hasht Veal and New Laid Eggs. Removes. A Shoulder and Neck of Mutton. Haunch of Venison. _Second Course._ Lobsters. Tarts, an Oval Dish. Crabbs Buttered. 4 Pheasants, 4 Partridges, 4 Turkeys. Ragoo Mushrooms. Kidney Beans. Ragoo Oysters. Fritters. Two Sallets. NOTE M. LETTER FROM MR. O'LEARY. (Vol. ii. p. 291.) In the first edition of this book I credited Mr. O'Leary with making this pungent remark about figs and grapes, because I found it jotted down in my original memoranda as coming from him. In a private note he assures me that he does not think it was made by him, and though this does not agree with my own recollection, I defer, of course, to his impression. And this I do the more readily that it affords me an opportunity for printing the following very characteristic and interesting letter sent to me by him for publication should I think fit to use it. As the most important support given by the Irish in America to the Nationalists is solicited by their agents on the express ground that they are really labouring to establish an Irish Republic, this outspoken declaration of Mr. O'Leary, that he does not believe they "expect or desire" the establishment of an Irish Republic, will be of interest on my side of the water:-- "DUBLIN, _Sept._ 9, '88. "My Dear Sir,--I am giving more bother about what you make me say in your book than the thing is probably worth, especially seeing that what you say about me and my present attitude towards men and things here is almost entirely correct. "It is proverbially hard to prove a negative, and my main reason for believing I did not say the thing about figs and grapes is that I never could remember the whole of any proverb in conversation; but I am absolutely certain I never said that 'some of them (the National Leaguers) expect to found an Irish republic on robbery, and to administer it by falsehood. We don't.' Most certainly I do not expect to found anything on robbery, or administer anything by falsehood, but I do not in the least believe that the National League either expects or desires to found an Irish republic at all! Neither do I believe that the Leaguers will long retain the administration of such small measure of Home Rule, as I now (since the late utterances of Mr. Parnell and Mr. Gladstone) believe we are going to get. My fault with the present people is not that they are looking, or mean to look, for too much, but that they may be induced, by pressure from their English Radical allies, to be content with too little. It is only a large and liberal measure of Home Rule which will ever satisfy the Irish people, and I fear that, if the smaller fry of Radical M.P.'s are allowed to have a strong voice in a matter of which they know next to nothing, the settlement of the Irish question will be indefinitely postponed.--I remain, faithfully yours, "JOHN O'LEARY." NOTE N BOYCOTTING PRIVATE OPINION. (Vol. ii. p. 293.) This case of Mr. Taylor is worth preserving _in extenso_ as an illustration of that spirit in the Irish journalism of the day, against which Mr. Rolleston and his friends protest as fatal to independence, manliness, and truth. I simply cite the original attack made upon Mr. Taylor, the replies made by himself and his friends, and the comments made upon those replies by the journal which assailed him. They all tell their own story. (_UNITED IRELAND_, JUNE 16.) Mr. John F. Taylor owes everything he has or is to the Irish National Party; nor is he slow to confess it where the acknowledgment will serve his personal interests. His sneers are all anonymous, and, like Mr. Fagg, the grateful and deferential valet in _The Rivals_, "it hurts his conscience to be found out." There is no honesty or sincerity in the man. His covert gibes are the spiteful emanation of personal disappointment; his lofty morality is a cloak for unscrupulous self-seeking. He has always shown himself ready to say anything or do anything that may serve his own interests. In the general election of 1885 he made frantic efforts to get into Parliament as a member of the Irish Party. He ghosted every member of the party whose influence he thought might help him--notably the two men, Mr. Dillon and Mr. O'Brien, at whom he now sneers, as he fondly believes, in the safe seclusion of an anonymous letter of an English newspaper. During the period of probation his hand was incessant on Mr. Dillon's door-knocker. The most earnest supplications were not spared. All in vain. Either his character or his ability failed to satisfy the Irish leader, and his claim was summarily rejected. Since then his wounded vanity has found vent in spiteful calumny of almost every member of the Irish Party--whenever he found malice a luxury that could be safely indulged in. "His next step was a startling one. We have absolute reason to know, when the last Coercion Act was in full swing, this pure-souled and disinterested patriot begged for, received, and accepted a very petty Crown Prosecutorship under a Coercion Government. As was wittily said at the time, he sold his principles, not for a mess of pottage, but for the stick that stirred the mess. Strong pressure was brought to bear on him, and he was induced for his own sake, after many protests and with much reluctance, to publicly refuse the office he had already privately accepted. Mr. Taylor professes to model himself on Robert Emmet and Thomas Davis; it is hard to realise Thomas Davis or Robert Emmet as a Coercion Crown Prosecutor in the pay of Dublin Castle. Since then there has been no more persistent caviller at the Irish policy and the Irish Party in company where he believed such cavilling paid. When Home Rule was proposed by Mr. Gladstone, he had a thousand foolish sneers for the measure and its author. When the Bill was defeated, he elected Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Goschen, and Mr. T.W. Russell as the gods of his idolatry. Such a nature needs a patron, and Mr. Webb, Q.C., the Tory County Court Judge who doubled the sentence on Father M'Fadden, was the patron to be selected. It is shrewdly suspected that he supplied most of the misguiding information for Dr. Webb's coercion pamphlet, and it is probable that Dr. Webb gives him a lift with his weekly letter to the _Manchester Guardian._ (_UNITED IRELAND_, JUNE 23.) MR. JOHN F. TAYLOR. _To the Editor of "United Ireland."_ Sir,--You would not, I am sure, allow intentional misstatements to appear in your columns, and I ask you to allow me space to correct three erroneous observations made about myself in your current issue-- 1. The first statement is to the effect that I owe everything I have, or that I am, to the Irish National Party. I owe absolutely nothing to the Irish Party, except an attempt to boycott me on my circuit, which, fortunately for me, has failed. 2. The second is to the effect that I made "frantic efforts" (these are the words, I think) to enter Parliament, and besieged Mr. Dillon's house during the time when candidates were being chosen. I saw Mr. Dillon exactly twice, both occasions at Mr. Davitt's request. Mr. Davitt urged me to allow my name to go forward as a candidate, and it was at his wish and solicitation that I saw Mr. Dillon. 3. It is further said that I begged a Crown Prosecutorship. Fortunately, Mr. Walker and The M'Dermot are living men, and they know this to be absolutely untrue. I was offered such an appointment, and, contrary to my own judgment, I allowed myself to be guided by Mr. Davitt, who thought the matter would be misunderstood in the state of things then existing. I believe I am the only person that ever declined such an offer. As to general statements, these are of no importance, and I shall not trouble you about them.--Yours very truly, JOHN F. TAYLOR. _P.S._--The introduction of Dr. Webb's name was a gratuitous outrage, Dr. Webb and I never assisted each other in anything except in the defence of P.N. Fitzgerald. J.F.T. _To the Editor of "United Ireland."_ Dear Sir,--As my name has been introduced into the controversy between yourself and Mr. Taylor, I feel called upon to substantiate the two statements wherein my name occurs in Mr. Taylor's letter of last week. It was at my request that he called upon Mr. John Dillon, M.P. I think I accompanied him on the occasion, and unless my memory is very much at fault, Mr. Dillon was not unfriendly to Mr. Taylor's proposed candidature. This visit occurred some three months after Mr. Taylor had, on my advice, declined the Crown Prosecutorship for King's County, a post afterwards applied for by and granted to a near relative of one of the most prominent members of the Irish Party. With Mr. Taylor's general views on the present situation, or opinions upon parties or men, I have no concern. But, in so far as the circumstances related above are dealt with in your issue of last week, I think an unjust imputation has been made against him, and in the interests of truth and fair play I feel called upon to adduce the testimony of facts as they occurred.--Yours truly, MICHAEL DAVITT. Ballybrack, Co. Dublin, June 19, 1888. _To the Editor of "United Ireland."_ Sir,--As this is, I believe, the first time I have sought to intrude upon your columns, I hope you will allow me some slight space in the interests of fair-play and freedom of speech. Those interests seem to me to have been quite set at naught in the attack, or rather series of attacks, upon Mr. Taylor in your last issue. Mr. Taylor's views upon many matters are not mine. He is far more democratic in his opinions than I see any sufficient reason for being, and he is very much more of what is called a land reformer than I am; but on an acquaintance of some years I have ever found him an honourable and high-minded gentleman, and as good a Nationalist, from my point of view, as most of the members of the Irish Parliamentary Party whom I either know or know of. Of some of the charges made against Mr. Taylor, such as the seeking for Crown Prosecutorships and the like, I am in no position to speak, save from my knowledge of his character, but I understand Mr. Davitt knows all about these things, and I suppose he will tell what he knows. But of the main matter, and I think the chief cause of your ire, I am quite in a position to speak. I have read at least a score of Mr. Taylor's letters to the _Manchester Guardian_, and I have always found them very intelligently written, and invariably characterised by a spirit of fairness and moderation; indeed, the chief fault I found with them was that they took too favourable a view of the motives, if not the acts, of many of our public men, but notably of Messrs. Dillon and O'Brien. You may, of course, fairly say that I am not the best judge of either the acts or the motives of these gentlemen, and I freely grant you that I may not, for my way of looking upon the Irish question is quite other than theirs; but what I must be excused for holding is that both I and Mr. Taylor have quite as good a right to our opinions as either of these gentlemen, or as any other member of the Irish Parliamentary Party. But this is the very last right that people are inclined to grant to each other in Ireland just now. Personally I care very little for this, but for Ireland's sake I care much. Some twenty years ago or so I was sent into penal servitude with the almost entire approval, expressed or implied, of the Irish Press. Some short time after the same Press found out that I and my friends had not sinned so grievously in striving to free Ireland. But men and times and things may change again, and, though I am growing old, I hope still to live long enough to be forgiven for my imperfect appreciation of the blessings of Boycotting, and the Plan of Campaign, and many similar blessings. It matters little indeed how or when I die, so that Ireland lives, but her life can only be a living death if Irishmen are not free to say what they believe, and to act as they deem right.--Your obedient servant, JOHN O'LEARY. June 18, 1888. _To the Editor of "United Ireland."_ Dear Sir,--I observe that in your last issue, amongst other things, you state that Mr. Taylor accepted a Crown Prosecutorship in 1885. I happen to know the precise facts. Mr. Taylor was offered the Crown Prosecutorship of the King's County, and some of us strongly advised him to accept it. There were no political prosecutions impending at the time, and it seemed to me that a Nationalist who would do his work honestly in prosecuting offenders against the ordinary law might strike a blow against tyranny by refusing to accept a brief, if offered, against men accused of political offences or prosecuted under a Coercion Act. I know that a similar view was entertained by the late Very Rev. Dr. Kavanagh of Kildare, and many others. However, we failed to influence Mr. Taylor further than to make him say that he would do nothing in the matter until Mr. Davitt was consulted. I, for one, called on Mr. Davitt, and pressed my views upon him; but he was decided that no Nationalist could identify himself in the smallest way with Castle rule in Ireland. This settled the question, and Mr. Taylor declined the post, which was subsequently applied for by Mr. Luke Dillon, who now holds it.--Faithfully yours, JAMES A. POOLE. 29 Harcourt Street. EDITORIAL NOTE. _"United Ireland," June 23._ We devote a large portion of our space to-day to the apparently organised defence of Mr. J.F. Taylor and his friends, and we are quite content to rest upon their letters the justification for our comments. When a gentleman who avows himself a disappointed aspirant for Parliamentary honours, and who owns his regret that he did not become a petty Castle placeman, is discovered writing in an important English Liberal paper, venomous little innuendos at the expense of sorely attacked Irish leaders which excite the enthusiasm of the _Liarish Times_, it was high time to intimate to the _Manchester Guardian_ the source from which its Irish information is derived. The case against Mr. Taylor as a criticaster is clinched by the fact that his cause is espoused by Mr. John O'Leary. The Irish public are a little weary of Mr. O'Leary's querulous complaints as an _homme incompris_. So far as we are aware, the only ground he himself has for complaining of want of toleration is that he possibly considers the good-humoured toleration for years invariably extended to his opinions on men and things savours of neglect. His idea of toleration with respect to others seems to be toleration for everybody except the unhappy wretches who may happen to be for the moment doing any practicable service in the Irish cause. NOTE O. BOYCOTTING BY "CROWNER'S QUEST LAW." (Vol. ii. p. 312.) The following circumstantial account of this deplorable case of Ellen Gaffney preserved here, as I find it printed in the _Irish Times_ of February 27, 1888. "In the Court of Queen's Bench, on Saturday, the Lord Chief-Justice (Sir Michael Morris, Bart.), Mr. Justice O'Brien, Mr. Justice Murphy, and Mr. Justice Gibson presiding, judgment was delivered in the case of Ellen Gaffney. The original motion was to quash the verdict of a coroner's jury held at Philipstown on August 27th and September 1st last, on the body of a child named Mary Anne Gaffney. "The Lord Chief-Justice said it appeared that Mary Anne Gaffney, the child on whose body the inquest was held, was born on the 23d July, and that she died on the 25th August, 1887. A Dr. Clarke, who had been very much referred to in the course of the proceedings, called upon the local sergeant of the police, and directed his attention to the body, but the sergeant having inspected the body, came to the conclusion that there was no need for an inquest. The doctor considered differently, and the sergeant communicated with the Coroner on the 26th August, and on the next day that gentleman arrived in Philipstown. He had a conference there with Dr. Clarke and with a reverend gentleman named Father Bergin, and subsequently proceeded to hold an inquest upon the child in a public-house--a most appropriate place apparently for the transactions which afterwards occurred there. The investigation, if it might be so called, was proceeded with upon that 27th of August. Very strong affidavits had been made on the part of Mrs. Gaffney--who applied to have the inquisition quashed--her husband, and some of the constabulary authorities as to the line of conduct pursued upon that occasion. Ellen Gaffney and her husband were taken into custody on the day the inquest opened by the verbal direction of the Coroner, who refused to complete the depositions given by the former on the ground that she was not sworn. That did not take him out of the difficulty, for if she was not sworn she had a right to be sworn, and the Coroner had no right to prevent her. The inquest was resumed on the 1st September in the court-house at Philipstown--the proper place--and a curious letter was read from the Coroner, the effect of which was that he did not consider that there was any ground for detaining the man Gaffney in custody, but the woman was brought before a justice of the peace and committed for trial. She was in prison from August 27th until the month of December, when the lucky accident of a winter assize occurred, else she might be there still. At the adjourned inquest the Coroner proceeded to read over the depositions taken on the former day, and it was sworn by four witnesses, whom he (the Lord Chief-Justice) entirely credited, that the Coroner read these depositions as if they were originals, whereas an unprecedented transaction had occurred. The Coroner had given the original depositions out of his own custody, and given them to a reverend gentleman who was rather careless of them, as was shown by the evidence of a witness named Greene, who deposed that he saw a car on the road upon which sat two clergymen, and he found on the road the original depositions which, presumably, one of the clergymen had dropped. The depositions were handed to a magistrate and afterwards returned to the police at Philipstown, who had possession of them on the resumption of the inquest. If the case stood alone there it was difficult to understand how a Coroner could come into court and appear by counsel to resist the quashing of an inquisition in regard to which at the very door such gross personal misconduct was demonstrated. No doubt, he said, he did not read them as originals but as copies, and it was strange, that being so, that he did not inform the jury of what had become of them, and he complained now of not being told by the police of their recovery--not told of his own misconduct. On the 1st September, Ellen Gaffney applied by a solicitor--Mr. Disdall, and as a set-off the Coroner permitted a gentleman named O'Kearney Whyte to appear--for whom? Was it for the constituted authorities or for the next-of-kin? No, but for the Rev. Father Bergin, who was described as president of the local branch of the National League, and the Coroner (Mr. Gowing) alleged as the reason why he allowed him to appear and cross-examine the witnesses and address the jury and give him the right of reply like Crown counsel was, that Ellen Gaffney stated that she had been so much annoyed by Father Bergin that she attributed the loss of her child to him--that it was he who had murdered the child. It was asserted that Father Bergin sat on the bench with the Coroner and interfered during the conduct of the inquest, and having to give some explanation of that Mr. Gowing's version was certainly a most amusing one. He said it was the habit to invite to a seat on the bench people of a respectable position in life--which, of course, a clergyman should be in--and that he asked Father Bergin to sit beside him in that capacity. But see the dilemma the Coroner put himself in. According to his own statement he had previously allowed this reverend gentleman to interfere, and to be represented by a solicitor because he was incriminated, inculpated, or accused, and it certainly was not customary to invite any one so situated to occupy a seat on the bench. He (the Lord Chief Baron) did not believe that Father Bergin was incriminated in any way, but that was the Coroner's allegation, and such was his peculiar action thereafter. The Coroner further stated that no matter whether he read the originals or the copies of the first day's depositions, it was on the evidence of September 1st that the jury acted. If that was so he placed himself in a further dilemma, for there was no evidence before the jury at all on the second day upon which they could bring a verdict against Ellen Gaffney. In regard to the recording and announcing of the verdict it appeared that the jury were 19 in number, and after their deliberations the foreman declared that 13 were for finding a verdict one way and 6 for another; that Mr. Whyte dictated the verdict to the Coroner, and the Coroner asked the 13 men if that was what they agreed to. Mr. Whyte's statement was that the jury, through the foreman, stated what their verdict was; that he wrote it down, and that the Coroner asked him for what he had written, and used it himself. But in addition to that, when the jury came in the Coroner and Mr. Whyte divided them--placed them apart while the verdict was being written--and then said to the 13 men, "Is that what you agree to?" Such apparent misconduct it was hardly possible to conceive in anybody occupying a judicial position as did the Coroner, and especially a Coroner who had an inquisition quashed before. What he had mentioned was sufficient to call forth the emphatic decision of the court quashing the proceedings, which, however, were also impeached on the grounds of its insufficiency and irregularity, and of the character of the finding itself. It was not until the Coroner had been threatened with the consequences of his contempt that he made a return to the visit of _certiorari_, and it was then found that out of ten so-called depositions only one contained any signature--that of Dr. Clarke's, which was one of those lost by the clergyman, and not before the jury on the 1st September. He (the Lord Chief-Justice) had tried to read the documents, but in vain--they were of such a scrawling and scribbling character, but, as he had said, all were incomplete and utterly worthless except the one which was not properly before the jury. Then, what was the finding on this inquisition, which should have been substantially as perfect as an indictment? "That Mary Anne Gaffney came by her death, and that the mother of this child, Ellen Gaffney, is guilty of wilful neglect by not supplying the necessary food and care to sustain the life of this child." Upon what charge could the woman have been implicated on that vague finding? He (his Lordship) could understand its being contended that that amounted argumentatively to a verdict of manslaughter; but the Coroner issued his warrant and sent this woman to prison as being guilty of murder, and she remained in custody, as he had already remarked, until discharged by the learned judge who went the Winter Assizes in December. Upon all of these grounds they were clearly of opinion that this inquisition should be quashed, and Mr. Coroner Gowing having had the self-possession to come there to show cause against the conditional order, under such circumstances, must bear the costs of that argument. Mr. Fred. Moorhead, who, instructed by Mr. O'Kearney Whyte, appeared for the Coroner, asked whether the Court would require, as was usual when costs were awarded against a magistrate, an undertaking from the other side-- The Lord Chief-Justice.--That is not to bring an action against the Coroner, you mean? Mr. Moorhead.--Yes, my Lord. I think it is a usual undertaking when costs are awarded in such a case. I think you ought-- The Lord Chief-Justice.--Well, I don't know that we ought, but we most certainly will not. (Laughter.) Mr. David Sherlock, who (instructed by Mr. Archibald W. Disdall) appeared for Ellen Gaffney.--Rest assured, we certainly will bring an action. THE END. * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [1] I have the authority of Mr. Hennessey, "the best living Irish scholar, and a Kerryman to boot," for this spelling. I am quite right, he says, in stating that the people there pronounce the names of Glenbeigh and Rossbeigh as Glenbéhy and Rossbéhy in three syllables. "Bethe," pronounced "behy," is the genitive of "beith," the birch, of which there were formerly large woods in Ireland. Glenbehy and Rossbehy mean the "Glen," and the "Ross" or "wooded point" of the birch. [2] A letter received by me from a Protestant Irish gentleman, long an ardent Nationalist, seems to confirm this. He writes to me (June 15), "There is a noble river here, with a convenient line of quays for unloading merchandise. But every sack that is landed must be carried out of the ship on men's backs. The quay labourers won't allow a steam crane to be set up. If it is tried there is a riot and a tumult, and no Limerick tradesman can purchase anything from a vessel that uses it, on pain of being boycotted. The result is that the labourers are masters of the situation, and when they catch a vessel with a cargo which it is imperative to land quickly, they wait till the work is half done, and then strike for 8s. a day! If other labourers are imported, they are boycotted for 'grabbing work,' and any one who sells provisions to them is boycotted." [3] An interesting account of this gentleman, and of his connection with the earlier developments of the Irish agitation, given to me by Mr. Colomb of the R.I.C., will be found at p.38, and in the Appendix, Note F. [4] See Appendix, Note F. [5] The name of this blacksmith's son learned in the Law of the League is given in Lord Cowper's Report (2. 18,370) as Michael Healy. While these pages are in the printer's hands the London papers chronicle (May 25, 1888) the arrest of a person described to me as this magistrate's brother, Jeremiah Healy, on a charge of robbing and setting fire to the Protestant church at Killarney! [6] Mr. Colomb sends me, June 30, the following interesting note:--The letter of which I gave you a copy was produced in evidence at Kerry Summer Assizes, 1867. J. D. Sheehan, Esq., M.P., is the same man who was arrested on the 12th February 1867, and to whom the foregoing letter, ordering the rising in Killarney, is addressed. He was kept in custody for some time, and eventually released, it is believed, on the understanding that he was to keep out of Ireland. He came back in 1873 or 1874 and married the proprietress of a Hotel at Killarney. His connection with the Glenbehy evictions is referred to on page 10, and in Note F of the Appendix I give an interesting account, furnished me by Mr. Colomb, of his activity in connection with the case of the Misses Curtin at Firies. [7] In the time of Henry VIII. these cities waged actual war with each other, like Florence and Pisa, by sea and land. Limerick was then called "Little London." [8] It was on the 17th October 1886 that Mr. Dillon first promulgated the Plan of Campaign at all at Portumna. [9] Mr. Ponsonby's account of this affair will be found in the Appendix, Note G. The Post-Office Savings Bank deposits at Youghal, which were £3031, 0s. 7d. in 1880, rose to £7038, 7s. 2d. in 1887. [10] As to the ability of these tenants to pay their way, one fact which I have since ascertained sufficiently supports Mr. Tener's contention. The deposits in the Postal Savings Banks of the three purely agricultural towns of Portumna, Woodford, and Loughrea, which in 1880, throwing off the shillings and pence, were respectively, £2539, £259, and £5500, rose in 1887 to £3376, £1350, and £6311, an increase of nearly £3000. [11] Mr. Tener, to whom I sent proofs of these pages, writes to me (July 18): "I shall soon execute the decree of the County-Court Judge Henn against Father Coen for £5, 5s., being two and a half year's rent." [12] At a hearing of cases before Judge Henn some time after I left Portumna, the Judge was reported in the papers as "severely" commenting upon the carelessness with which the estate-books were kept, tenants who were proceeded against for arrears producing "receipts" in court. I wrote to Mr. Tener on this subject. Under date of June 5th he replied to me: "Judge Henn did not use the severe language reported. There was no reporter present but a local man, and I have reason to believe the report in the _Freeman's Journal_ came from the lawyer of the tenants, who is on the staff of that journal. But the tenants are drilled not to show the receipts they hold, and to take advantage of every little error which they might at once get corrected by calling at the estate office. In no case, however, did any wrong occur to any tenant." [13] The town and estate proper of Woodford belong to Sir Henry Burke, Bart. The nearest point to Woodford of Lord Clamicarde's property is distant one mile from the town. And on the so-called Woodford estate there are not "316 tenants," as stated in publications I have seen, but 260. [14] Martin Kenny, the "victim" of this eviction, is the tenant to whom the Rev. Mr. Crawford (_vide_ page 118) gave £50 for certain cattle, in order that he (Kenny) might pay his rent But, although he got the £50, he nevertheless suffered himself to be evicted; no doubt fearing the vengeance of the League should he pay. [15] The valuation for taxes of this holding is £7, 15s. for the land, and £5 for the presbytery house. The church is exempt. [16] Of "Dr." Tully Mr. Tener wrote to me (July 18): "Tully has the holding at £2, 10s. a year, being 50 per cent, under the valuation of the land for taxes, which is £3, 15s. As the total valuation with the house (built by him) is only £4, he pays no poor-rates. He was in arrears May 1, 1887, of three years for £7, 10s. Lord Clanricarde offered him, with others, 20 per cent, abatement, making for him 70 per cent, under the valuation--and he refused!" Since then (on Saturday Sept. 1), Tully has been evicted after a dramatic "resistance," of which, with instructive incidents attending it, Mr. Tener sends me an account, to be found in the Appendix, Note H. [17] Note H2. [18] Mr. Tener writes to me (July 18): "At Allendarragh, near the scene of Finlay's murder, Thomas Noonan, who lately was brave enough to accept the post of process-server vacated by that murder, was shot at on the 13th instant. It was on the highway. He heard a heavy stone fall from a wall on the road and turned to see what caused it. He distinctly saw two men behind the wall with guns, and saw them fire. One shot struck a stone in the road very near him--the other went wide. His idea is that one gun dislodged the stone on which it had been laid for an aim, and that its fall disturbed the aim and saved him. He fully identifies one of the men as Henry Bowles, a nephew of 'Dr.' Tully, who lives with Tully, and Bowles, after being arrested and examined at Woodford, has been remanded, bail being refused, to Galway Jail. Before this shooting Noonan had served a notice from me upon Tully, against whom I have Judge Henn's decree for three years' rent, and whose equity of redemption expired July 9th." [19] I have since learned that my jarvey was well informed. Sir Henry Burke actually paid Mr. Dillon £160 for the maintenance of his tenants while out of their farms. This, two other landlords, Lords Dunsandle and Westmeath, refused to do, but, like Sir Henry, they both paid all the costs, and accepted a "League" reduction of 5s. 6d. and 6s. in the pound (June 9, 1888). [20] Down to the date at which I write this note (June 9), Mr. Seigne has kindly, but without results, endeavoured to get for me some authentic return made by a small tenant-farmer of his incomings and outgoings. [21] Note I. [22] Note K. [23] While these pages are going through the press a Scottish friend sends me the following extract from a letter published in the _Scotsman_ of July 25:-- "In the same way I, in August last, when in Wicklow, ascertained as carefully as I could the facts as to the Bodyke evictions; and being desirous to learn now if that estate was still out of cultivation, as I had found it in August, I wrote the gentleman I have referred to above. His reply is as follows:-- "'I can answer your question as far as the Brooke estate is concerned. None of the tenants are back in their farms, nor are they likely to be. The landlord has the land partly stocked with cattle; but I may say the land is nearly waste; the gates, fences, and farmsteads partly destroyed. I was at the fair of Coolgreany about three weeks ago, and the country looked quite changed; the weeds predominating in the land that the tenantry had under cultivation when they were evicted from their farms. The landlord has done nothing to lay the land down with grass seed, consequently the land is waste. The village of Coolgreany is on the property, and there was a good monthly fair held there, but it is very much gone down since the disagreement between the landlord and tenant. The tenants, speaking generally, in allowing themselves to be evicted and not redeeming before six months, are giving up all their improvements to the landlord, no matter what they may be worth. I have got quite tired of the vexed question, and may say I have given up reading about evictions, and pity the tenant who is foolish enough to allow any party to advise him so badly as to allow himself to be evicted.' "Those who read this testimony of a candid witness, and remember the cordial footing on which Mr. Brooke stood with his tenantry in Bodyke before Mr. Billon appeared amongst them, may well ask what good his interference did to the now impoverished tenantry of Bodyke, or to the district now deserted or laid waste.--I am, etc., A RADICAL UNIONIST." [24] In curious confirmation of this opinion expressed to me by a man of the country in March, I find in the _Dublin Express_ of July 19th this official news from the Athy Vice-Guardians: "At the meeting of the Vice-Guardians of the Athy Union yesterday, a letter was read from Mr. G. Finlay, Auditor, in which he stated that the two sureties of Collector Kealy, of the Luggacurren district, had been evicted from their holdings by Lord Lansdowne, and were not now in possession of any lands there. They were allowed outdoor relief to the extent of £1 a week each on the ground of destitution. The Auditor continued: 'The Collector tells me that they both possess other lands, and have money in bank. The Collector is satisfied that they are as good, if not better, securities for the amount of his bond now than at the time they became sureties for him. The Clerk of the Union concurs in this opinion.' "It was ordered to bring the matter under the notice of the Board." [25] _Explanatory Note attached to First Edition._--After this chapter had actually gone to press, I received a letter from the friend who had put me into communication with the labourers referred to in it, begging me to strike out all direct indications of their whereabouts, on the ground that these might lead to grave annoyance and trouble for these poor men from the local tyrants. I do not know that I ought to regret the annoyance thus caused to my publisher and to me, as no words of mine could emphasise so clearly the nature and the scope of the odious, illegal, or anti-legal "coercion" established in certain parts of Ireland as the asterisks which mark my compliance with my friend's request. What can be said for the freedom of a country in which a man of character and position honestly believes it to be "dangerous" for poor men to say the things recorded in the text of this chapter about their own feelings, wishes, opinions, and interests? [26] It may be well to say here that whatever prominence Mr. O'Donovan Rossa has had among the Irish in America has been largely, if not chiefly, due to the curious persistency of Sir William Harcourt, when a Minister, in making him the ideal Irish-American leader. In and out of Parliament, Sir William Harcourt continually spoke of Mr. Rossa as of a kind of Irish Jupiter Tonans, wielding all the terrors of dynamite from beyond the Atlantic. This was a source of equal amusement to the Irish-American organisers in America and satisfaction to Mr. Rossa himself. I remember that when a question arose of excluding Mr. Rossa from an important Irish-American convention at Philadelphia, as not being the delegate of any recognised Irish-American body, Mr. Sullivan told me that he should recommend the admission of Mr. Rossa to the floor without a right to deliberative action, expressly because his presence, when reported, would be a cause of terror to Sir William Harcourt. [27] See Appendix, Note M. [28] Note N. [29] Note O. 
22387	----	This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler. A TOUR IN IRELAND. 1776-1779. BY ARTHUR YOUNG. CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED: _LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_. 1897. INTRODUCTION. Arthur Young was born in 1741, the son of a clergyman, at Bradfield, in Suffolk. He was apprenticed to a merchant at Lynn, but his activity of mind caused him to be busy over many questions of the day. He wrote when he was seventeen a pamphlet on American politics, for which a publisher paid him with ten pounds' worth of books. He started a periodical, which ran to six numbers. He wrote novels. When he was twenty-eight years old his father died, and, being free to take his own course in life, he would have entered the army if his mother had not opposed. He settled down, therefore, to farming, and applied to farming all his zealous energy for reform, and all the labours of his busy pen. In 1768, a year before his father's death, he had published "A Six Weeks' Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales," which found many readers. Between 1768 and 1771 Arthur Young produced also "The Farmer's Letters to the People of England, containing the Sentiments of a Practical Husbandman on the present State of Husbandry." In 1770 he published, in two thick quartos, "A Course of Experimental Agriculture, containing an exact Register of the Business transacted during Five Years on near 300 Acres of various Soils;" also in the same year appeared "Rural Economy; or, Essays on the Practical Part of Husbandry;" also in the same year "The Farmer's Guide in Hiring and Stocking Farms," in two volumes, with plans. Also in the same year appeared his "Farmer's Kalendar," of which the 215th edition was published in 1862. There had been a second edition of the "Six Weeks' Tour in the South of England," with enlargements, in 1769, and Arthur Young was encouraged to go on with increasing vigour to the publication of "The Farmer's Tour through the East of England: being a Register of a Journey through various Counties, to inquire into the State of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Population." This extended to four volumes, and appeared in the years 1770 and 1771. In 1771 also appeared, in four volumes, with plates, "A Six Months' Tour through the North of England, containing an Account of the Present State of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Population in several Counties of this Kingdom." Thus Arthur Young took all his countrymen into counsel while he was learning his art, as a farmer who brought to his calling a vigorous spirit of inquiry with an activity in the diffusion of his thoughts that is a part of God's gift to the men who have thoughts to diffuse; the instinct for utterance being almost invariably joined to the power of suggesting what may help the world. Whether he was essentially author turned farmer, or farmer turned author, Arthur Young has the first place in English literature as a farmer-author. Other practical men have written practical books of permanent value, which have places of honour in the literature of the farm; but Arthur Young's writings have won friends for themselves among readers of every class, and belong more broadly to the literature of the country. Between 1766 and 1775 he says that he made 3,000 pounds by his agricultural writings. The pen brought him more profit than the plough. He took a hundred acres in Hertfordshire, and said of them, "I know not what epithet to give this soil; sterility falls short of the idea; a hungry vitriolic gravel--I occupied for nine years the jaws of a wolf. A nabob's fortune would sink in the attempt to raise good arable crops in such a country. My experience and knowledge had increased from travelling and practice, but all was lost when exerted on such a spot." He tried at one time to balance his farm losses by reporting for the _Morning Post_, taking a seventeen-mile walk home to his farm every Saturday night. In 1780 Arthur Young published this "Tour in Ireland, with General Observations on the Present State of that Kingdom in 1776-78." The general observations, which give to all his books a wide general interest, are, in this volume, of especial value to us now. It is here reprinted as given by Pinkerton. In 1784 Arthur Young began to edit "Annals of Agriculture," which were continued through forty-five volumes. All writers in it were to sign their names, but when His Majesty King George III. contributed a description of Mr. Duckett's Farm at Petersham, he was allowed to sign himself "Ralph Robinson of Windsor." In 1792 Arthur Young published the first quarto volume, and in 1794 the two volumes of his "Travels during the years 1787-8-9 and 1790, undertaken more particularly with a view of ascertaining the Cultivation, Wealth, Resources and National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France." This led to the official issue in France in 1801, by order of the Directory, of a translation of Young's agricultural works, under the title of "Le Cultivateur Anglais." Arthur Young also corresponded with Washington, and received recognition from the Empress Catherine of Russia, who sent him a gold snuff-box, and ermine cloaks for his wife and daughter. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1793 his labours led to the formation of a Board of Agriculture, of which he was appointed secretary. When he was set at ease by this appointment, with a house and 400 pounds a year, Arthur Young had been about to experiment on the reclaiming of four thousand acres of Yorkshire moorland. The Agricultural Board was dissolved in 1816, four years before surveys of the agriculture of each county were made for the Agricultural Board, Arthur Young himself contributing surveys of Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Sussex. Arthur Young's sight became dim in 1808, and blindness gradually followed. He died in 1820 at his native village of Bradfield, in Suffolk, at the age of seventy-nine years. H. M. A TOUR IN IRELAND. June 19, 1776. Arrived at Holyhead, after an instructive journey through a part of England and Wales I had not seen before. Found the packet, the _Claremont_, Captain Taylor, would sail very soon. After a tedious passage of twenty-two hours, landed on the 20th in the morning, at Dunlary, four miles from Dublin, a city which much exceeded my expectation. The public buildings are magnificent, very many of the streets regularly laid out, and exceedingly well built. The front of the Parliament-house is grand, though not so light as a more open finishing of the roof would have made it. The apartments are spacious, elegant, and convenient, much beyond that heap of confusion at Westminster, so inferior to the magnificence to be looked for in the seat of empire. I was so fortunate as to arrive just in time to see Lord Harcourt, with the usual ceremonies, prorogue the Parliament. Trinity College is a beautiful building, and a numerous society; the library is a very fine room, and well filled. The new Exchange will be another edifice to do honour in Ireland; it is elegant, cost forty thousand pounds, but deserves a better situation. From everything I saw, I was struck with all those appearances of wealth which the capital of a thriving community may be supposed to exhibit. Happy if I find through the country in diffused prosperity the right source of this splendour! The common computation of inhabitants 200,000, but I should suppose exaggerated. Others guessed the number 140,000 or 150,000. June 21. Introduced by Colonel Burton to the Lord Lieutenant, who was pleased to enter into conversation with me on my intended journey, made many remarks on the agriculture of several Irish counties, and showed himself to be an excellent farmer, particularly in draining. Viewed the Duke of Leinster's house, which is a very large stone edifice, the front simple but elegant, the pediment light; there are several good rooms; but a circumstance unrivalled is the court, which is spacious and magnificent, the opening behind the house is also beautiful. In the evening to the Rotunda, a circular room, ninety feet diameter, an imitation of Ranelagh, provided with a band of music. The barracks are a vast building, raised in a plain style, of many divisions; the principal front is of an immense length. They contain every convenience for ten regiments. June 23. Lord Charlemont's house in Dublin is equally elegant and convenient, the apartments large, handsome, and well disposed, containing some good pictures, particularly one by Rembrandt, of Judas throwing the money on the floor, with a strong expression of guilt and remorse; the whole group fine. In the same room is a portrait of Caesar Borgia, by Titian. The library is a most elegant apartment of about forty by thirty, and of such a height as to form a pleasing proportion; the light is well managed, coming in from the cove of the ceiling, and has an exceeding good effect; at one end is a pretty ante-room, with a fine copy of the Venus de Medicis, and at the other two small rooms, one a cabinet of pictures and antiquities, the other medals. In the collection also of Robert Fitzgerald, Esq., in Merion Square, are several pieces which very well deserve a traveller's attention; it was the best I saw in Dublin. Before I quit that city I observe, on the houses in general, that what they call their two-roomed ones are good and convenient. Mr. Latouche's, in Stephen's Green, I was shown as a model of this sort, and I found it well contrived, and finished elegantly. Drove to Lord Charlemont's villa at Marino, near the city, where his lordship has formed a pleasing lawn, margined in the higher part by a well-planted thriving shrubbery, and on a rising ground a banqueting-room, which ranks very high among the most beautiful edifices I have anywhere seen; it has much elegance, lightness, and effect, and commands a fine prospect. The rising ground on which it stands slopes off to an agreeable accompaniment of wood, beyond which on one side is Dublin Harbour, which here has the appearance of a noble river crowded with ships moving to and from the capital. On the other side is a shore spotted with white buildings, and beyond it the hills of Wicklow, presenting an outline extremely various. The other part of the view (it would be more perfect if the city was planted out) is varied, in some places nothing but wood, in others breaks of prospect. The lawn, which is extensive, is new grass, and appears to be excellently laid down, the herbage a fine crop of white clover (_trifolium repens_), trefoil, rib-grass (_plantago lanceolata_), and other good plants. Returned to Dublin, and made inquiries into other points, the prices of provisions, etc. The expenses of a family in proportion to those of London are, as five to eight. Having the year following lived more than two months in Dublin, I am able to speak to a few points, which as a mere traveller I could not have done. The information I before received of the prices of living is correct. Fish and poultry are plentiful and very cheap. Good lodgings almost as dear as they are in London; though we were well accommodated (dirt excepted) for two guineas and a-half a week. All the lower ranks in this city have no idea of English cleanliness, either in apartments, persons, or cookery. There is a very good society in Dublin in a Parliament winter: a great round of dinners and parties; and balls and suppers every night in the week, some of which are very elegant; but you almost everywhere meet a company much too numerous for the size of the apartments. They have two assemblies on the plan of those of London, in Fishamble Street, and at the Rotunda; and two gentlemen's clubs, Anthry's and Daly's, very well regulated: I heard some anecdotes of deep play at the latter, though never to the excess common at London. An ill-judged and unsuccessful attempt was made to establish the Italian Opera, which existed but with scarcely any life for this one winter; of course they could rise no higher than a comic one. _La Buona Figliuola_, _La Frascatana_, and _Il Geloso in Cimento_, were repeatedly performed, or rather murdered, except the parts of Sestini. The house was generally empty, and miserably cold. So much knowledge of the state of a country is gained by hearing the debates of a Parliament, that I often frequented the gallery of the House of Commons. Since Mr. Flood has been silenced with the Vice-Treasurership of Ireland, Mr. Daly, Mr. Grattan, Sir William Osborn, and the prime serjeant Burgh, are reckoned high among the Irish orators. I heard many very eloquent speeches, but I cannot say they struck me like the exertion of the abilities of Irishmen in the English House of Commons, owing perhaps to the reflection both on the speaker and auditor, that the Attorney-General of England, with a dash of his pen, can reverse, alter, or entirely do away the matured result of all the eloquence, and all the abilities of this whole assembly. Before I conclude with Dublin I shall only remark, that walking in the streets there, from the narrowness and populousness of the principal thoroughfares, as well as from the dirt and wretchedness of the canaille, is a most uneasy and disgusting exercise. June 24. Left Dublin, and passed through the Phoenix Park, a very pleasing ground, at the bottom of which, to the left, the Liffey forms a variety of landscapes: this is the most beautiful environ of Dublin. Take the road to Luttrel's Town, through a various scenery on the banks of the river. That domain is a considerable one in extent, being above four hundred acres within the wall, Irish measure; in the front of the house is a fine lawn bounded by rich woods, through which are many ridings, four miles in extent. From the road towards the house they lead through a very fine glen, by the side of a stream falling over a rocky bed, through the dark woods, with great variety on the sides of steep slopes, at the bottom of which the Liffey is either heard or seen indistinctly. These woods are of great extent, and so near the capital, form a retirement exceedingly beautiful. Lord Irnham and Colonel Luttrel have brought in the assistance of agriculture to add to the beauties of the place; they have kept a part of the lands in cultivation in order to lay them down the better to grass; one hundred and fifty acres have been done, and above two hundred acres most effectually drained in the covered manner filled with stones. These works are well executed. The drains are also made under the roads in all wet places, with lateral short ones to take off the water instead of leaving it, as is common, to soak against the causeway, which is an excellent method. Great use has been made of limestone gravel in the improvements, the effect of which is so considerable, that in several spots where it was laid on ten years ago, the superiority of the grass is now similar to what one would expect from a fresh dunging. Leaving Luttrel's Town I went to St. Wolstan's, which Lord Harcourt had been so obliging as to desire I would make my quarters, from whence to view to the right or left. June 25. To Mr. Clement's, at Killadoon, who has lately built an excellent house, and planted much about it, with the satisfaction of finding that all his trees thrive well. I remarked the beech and larch seemed to get beyond the rest. He is also a good farmer. June 26. Breakfasted with Colonel Marlay, at Cellbridge, found he had practised husbandry with much success, and given great attention to it from the peace of 1763, which put a period to a gallant scene of service in Germany. Walked through his grounds, which I found in general very well cultivated; his fences excellent; his ditches five by six and seven by six; the banks well made, and planted with quicks; the borders dug away, covered with lime till perfectly slacked, them mixed with dung and carried into the fields, a practice which Mr. Marlay has found of very great benefit. Viewed Lucan, the seat of Agmondisham Vesey, Esq., on the banks of the Liffey. The house is rebuilding, but the wood on the river, with walks through it, is exceedingly beautiful. The character of the place is that of a sequestered shade. Distant views are everywhere shut out, and the objects all correspond perfectly with the impression they were designed to raise. It is a walk on the banks of the river, chiefly under a variety of fine wood, which rises on varied slopes, in some parts gentle, in others steep, spreading here and there into cool meadows, on the opposite shore, rich banks of wood or shrubby ground. The walk is perfectly sequestered, and has that melancholy gloom which should ever dwell in such a place. The river is of a character perfectly suited to the rest of the scenery, in some places breaking over rocks, in other silent, under the thick shade of spreading wood. Leaving Lucan, the next place is Leixlip, a fine one, on the river, with a fall, which in a wet season is considerable. Then St. Wolstan's, belonging to the Dean of Derry, a beautiful villa, which is also on the river; the grounds gay and open, though not without the advantage of much wood, disposed with judgment. A winding shrubbery quits the river, and is made to lead through some dressed ground that is pretty and cheerful. Mr. Conolly's, at Castle Town, to which all travellers resort, is the finest house in Ireland, and not exceeded by many in England. It is a large handsome edifice, situated in the middle of an extensive lawn, which is quite surrounded with fine plantations disposed to the best advantage. To the north these unite into very large woods, through which many winding walks lead, with the convenience of several ornamented seats, rooms, etc. On the other side of the house, upon the river, is a cottage, with a shrubbery, prettily laid out; the house commands an extensive view, bounded by the Wicklow mountains. It consists of several noble apartments. On the first floor is a beautiful gallery, eighty feet long, elegantly fitted up. June 27. Left Lord Harcourt's, and having received an invitation from the Duke of Leinster, passed through Mr. Conolly's grounds to his Grace's seat at Cartown. The park ranks among the finest in Ireland. It is a vast lawn, which waves over gentle hills, surrounded by plantations of great extent, and which break and divide in places so as to give much variety. A large but gentle vale winds through the whole, in the bottom of which a small stream has been enlarged into a fine river, which throws a cheerfulness through most of the scenes: over it a handsome stone bridge. There is a great variety on the banks of this vale; part of it consists of mild and gentle slopes, part steep banks of thick wood. In another place they are formed into a large shrubbery, very elegantly laid out, and dressed in the highest order, with a cottage, the scenery about which is uncommonly pleasing: and farther on this vale takes a stronger character, having a rocky bank on one side, and steep slopes scattered irregularly, with wood on the other. On one of the most rising grounds in the park is a tower, from the top of which the whole scenery is beheld; the park spreads on every side in fine sheets of lawn, kept in the highest order by eleven hundred sheep, scattered over with rich plantations, and bounded by a large margin of wood, through which is a riding. From hence took the road to Summerhill, the seat of the Right Hon. H. L. Rowley. The country is cheerful and rich; and if the Irish cabins continue like what I have hitherto seen, I shall not hesitate to pronounce their inhabitants as well off as most English cottagers. They are built of mud walls eighteen inches or two feet thick, and well thatched, which are far warmer than the thin clay walls in England. Here are few cottars without a cow, and some of them two. A bellyful invariably of potatoes, and generally turf for fuel from a bog. It is true they have not always chimneys to their cabins, the door serving for that and window too. If their eyes are not affected with the smoke, it may be an advantage in warmth. Every cottage swarms with poultry, and most of them have pigs. Went in the evening to Lord Mornington's at Dangan, who is making many improvements, which he showed me. His plantations are extensive, and he has formed a large water, having five or six islands much varied, and promontories of high land shoot so far into it as to form almost distant lakes; the effect pleasing. There are above a hundred acres under water, and his lordship has planned a considerable addition to it. Returned to Summerhill. June 29. Left it, taking the road to Slaine, the country very pleasant all the way; much of it on the banks of the Boyne, variegated with some woods, planted hedgerows, and gentle hills. The cabins continue much the same, the same plenty of poultry, pigs, and cows. The cattle in the road have their fore legs all tied together with straw to keep them from breaking into the fields; even sheep, and pigs, are all in the same bondage. Lord Conyngham's seat, Slaine Castle, on the Boyne, is one of the most beautiful places I have seen; the grounds are very bold and various, rising round the castle in noble hills or beautiful inequalities of surface, with an outline of flourishing plantations. Under the castle flows the Boyne, in a reach broken by islands, with a very fine shore of rock on one side, and wood on the other. Through the lower plantations are ridings, which look upon several beautiful scenes formed by the river, and take in the distant country, exhibiting the noblest views of waving Cultinald hills, with the castle finely situated in the midst of the planted domain, through which the Boyne winds its beautiful course. Under Mr. Lambert's house on the same river is a most romantic and beautiful spot; rocks on the side, rising in peculiar forms very boldly; the other steep wood, the river bending short between them like a land-locked basin. Lord Conyngham's keeping up Slaine Castle, and spending great sums, though he rarely resides there, is an instance of magnificence not often met with; while it is so common for absentees to drain the kingdom of every shilling they can, so contrary a conduct ought to be held in the estimation which it justly deserves. June 30. Rode out to view the country and some improvements in the neighbourhood: the principal of which are those of Lord Chief Baron Foster, which I saw from Glaston hill, in the road from Slaine to Dundalk. In conversation with Lord Longford I made many inquiries concerning the state of the lower classes, and found that in some respects they were in good circumstances, in others indifferent; they have, generally speaking, such plenty of potatoes as always to command a bellyful; they have flax enough for all their linen, most of them have a cow, and some two, and spin wool enough for their clothes; all a pig, and numbers of poultry, and in general the complete family of cows, calves, hogs, poultry, and children pig together in the cabin; fuel they have in the utmost plenty. Great numbers of families are also supported by the neighbouring lakes, which abound prodigiously with fish. A child with a packthread and a crooked pin will catch perch enough in an hour for the family to live on the whole day, and his lordship has seen five hundred children fishing at the same time, there being no tenaciousness in the proprietors of the lands about a right to the fish. Besides perch, there is pike upwards of five feet long, bream, tench, trout of ten pounds, and as red as salmon, and fine eels. All these are favourable circumstances, and are very conspicuous in the numerous and healthy families among them. Reverse the medal: they are ill clothed, and make a wretched appearance, and what is worse, are much oppressed by many who make them pay too dear for keeping a cow, horse, etc. They have a practice also of keeping accounts with the labourers, contriving by that means to let the poor wretches have very little cash for their year's work. This is a great oppression, farmers and gentlemen keeping accounts with the poor is a cruel abuse: so many days' work for a cabin; so many for a potato garden; so many for keeping a horse, and so many for a cow, are clear accounts which a poor man can understand well, but farther it ought never to go; and when he has worked out what he has of this sort, the rest of his work ought punctually to be paid him every Saturday night. Another circumstance mentioned was the excessive practice they have in general of pilfering. They steal everything they can lay their hands on, and I should remark, that this is an account which has been very generally given me: all sorts of iron hinges, chains, locks, keys, etc.; gates will be cut in pieces, and conveyed away in many places as fast as built; trees as big as a man's body, and that would require ten men to move, gone in a night. Lord Longford has had the new wheels of a car stolen as soon as made. Good stones out of a wall will be taken for a fire-hearth, etc., though a breach is made to get at them. In short, everything, and even such as are apparently of no use to them; nor is it easy to catch them, for they never carry their stolen goods home, but to some bog-hole. Turnips are stolen by car-loads, and two acres of wheat plucked off in a night. In short, their pilfering and stealing is a perfect nuisance. How far it is owing to the oppression of laws aimed solely at the religion of these people, how far to the conduct of the gentlemen and farmers, and how far to the mischievous disposition of the people themselves, it is impossible for a passing traveller to ascertain. I am apt to believe that a better system of law and management would have good effects. They are much worse treated than the poor in England, are talked to in more opprobrious terms, and otherwise very much oppressed. Left Packenham Hall. Two or three miles from Lord Longford's in the way to Mullingar the road leads up a mountain, and commands an exceeding fine view of Lock Derrevaragh, a noble water eight miles long, and from two miles to half a mile over; a vast reach of it, like a magnificent river, opens as you rise the hill. Afterwards I passed under the principal mountain, which rises abruptly from the lake into the boldest outline imaginable. The water there is very beautiful, filling up the steep vale formed by this and the opposite hills. Reached Mullingar. It was one of the fair days. I saw many cows and beasts, and more horses, with some wool. The cattle were of the same breed that I had generally seen in coming through the country. July 5. Left Mullingar, which is a dirty ugly town, and taking the road to Tullamore, stopped at Lord Belvidere's, with which place I was as much struck as with any I had ever seen. The house is perched on the crown of a very beautiful little hill, half surrounded with others, variegated and melting into one another. It is one of the most singular places that is anywhere to be seen, and spreading to the eye a beautiful lawn of undulating ground margined with wood. Single trees are scattered in some places, and clumps in others; the general effect so pleasing, that were there nothing further, the place would be beautiful, but the canvas is admirably filled. Lake Ennel, many miles in length, and two or three broad, flows beneath the windows. It is spotted with islets, a promontory of rock fringed with trees shoots into it, and the whole is bounded by distant hills. Greater and more magnificent scenes are often met with, but nowhere a more beautiful or a more singular one. From Mullingar to Tullespace I found rents in general at twenty shillings an acre, with much relet at thirty shillings, yet all the crops except bere were very bad, and full of weeds. About the latter-named place the farms are generally from one hundred to three hundred acres; and their course: 1. fallow; 2. bere; 3. oats; 4. oats; 5. oats. Great quantities of potatoes all the way, crops from forty to eighty barrels. The road before it comes to Tullamore leads through a part of the bog of Allen, which seems here extensive, and would make a noble tract of meadow. The way the road was made over it was simply to cut a drain on each side, and then lay on the gravel, which, as fast as it was laid and spread, bore the ears. Along the edges is fine white clover. In conversation upon the subject of a union with Great Britain, I was informed that nothing was so unpopular in Ireland as such an idea; and that the great objection to it was increasing the number of absentees. When it was in agitation, twenty peers and sixty commoners were talked of to sit in the British Parliament, which would be the resident of eighty of the best estates in Ireland. Going every year to England would, by degrees, make them residents; they would educate their children there, and in time become mere absentees: becoming so they would be unpopular, others would be elected, who, treading in the same steps, would yield the place still to others; and thus by degrees, a vast portion of the kingdom now resident would be made absentees, which would, they think, be so great a drain to Ireland, that a free trade would not repay it. I think the idea is erroneous, were it only for one circumstance, the kingdom would lose, according to this reasoning, an idle race of country gentlemen, and in exchange their ports would fill with ships and commerce, and all the consequences of commerce, an exchange that never yet proved disadvantageous to any country. Viewed Mount Juliet, Lord Carrick's seat, which is beautifully situated on a fine declivity on the banks of the Nore, commanding some extensive plantations that spread over the hills, which rise in a various manner on the other side of the river. A knoll of lawn rises among them with artificial ruins upon it, but the situation is not in unison with the idea of a ruin, very rarely placed to effect, unless in retired and melancholy spots. The river is a very fine one, and has a good accompaniment of well grown wood. From the cottage a more varied scene is viewed, cheering and pleasing; and from the tent in the farther plantation a yet gayer one, which looks down on several bends of the river. July 11. Left Kilsaine. Mr. Bushe accompanied me to Woodstock, the seat of Sir W. Fownes. From Thomastown hither is the finest ride I have yet had in Ireland. The road leaving Thomastown leads on the east side of the river, through some beautiful copse woods, which before they were cut must have had a most noble effect, with the river Nore winding at the bottom. The country then opens somewhat, and you pass most of the way for six or seven miles to Innisteague, on a declivity shelving down to the river, which takes a varied winding course, sometimes lively, breaking over a rocky bottom, at others still and deep under the gloom of some fine woods, which hang down the sides of steep hills. Narrow slips of meadow of a beautiful verdure in some places form the shore, and unite with cultivated fields that spread over the adjoining hills, reaching almost the mountain tops. These are large and bold, and give in general to the scenes features of great magnificence. Passed Sir John Hasler's on the opposite side of the river, finely situated, and Mr. Nicholson's farm on this side, who has very extensive copses which line the river. Coming in sight of Sir W. Fownes's, the scenery is striking; the road mounts the side of the hill, and commands the river at the bottom of the declivity, with groups of trees prettily scattered about, and the little borough of Innisteague in a most picturesque situation, the whole bounded by mountains. Cross the bridge, and going through the town, take a path that leads to a small building in the woods, called Mount Sandford. It is at the top of a rocky declivity almost perpendicular, but with brush wood growing from the rocks. At the bottom is the river, which comes from the right from behind a very bold hanging wood, that seems to unite with the hill on the opposite shore. At this pass the river fills the vale, but it widens by degrees, and presents various reaches, intermixed with little tufts of trees. The bridge we passed over is half hid. Innisteague is mixed with them, and its buildings backed by a larger wood, give variety to the scene. Opposite to the point of view there are some pretty enclosures, fringed with wood, and a line of cultivated mountain sides, with their bare tops limit the whole. Taking my leave of Mr. Bushe, I followed the road to Ross. Passed Woodstock, of which there is a very fine view from the top of one of the hills, the house in the centre of a sloping wood of five hundred English acres, and hanging in one noble shade to the river, which flows at the bottom of a winding glen. From the same hill in front it is seen in a winding course for many miles through a great extent of enclosures, bounded by mountains. As I advanced the views of the river Nore were very fine, till I came to Ross, where from the hill before you go down to the ferry is a noble scene of the Barrow, a vast river flowing through bold shores. In some places trees on the bank half obscure it, in others it opens in large reaches, the effect equally grand and beautiful. Ships sailing up to the town, which is built on the side of a hill to the water's edge, enliven the scene not a little. The water is very deep and the navigation secure, so that ships of seven hundred tons may come up to the town; but these noble harbours on the coast of Ireland are only melancholy capabilities of commerce: it is languid and trifling. There are only four or five brigs and sloops that belong to the place. Having now passed through a considerable extent of country, in which the Whiteboys were common, and committed many outrages, I shall here review the intelligence I received concerning them throughout the county of Kilkenny. I made many inquiries into the origin of those disturbances, and found that no such thing as a leveller or Whiteboy was heard of till 1760, which was long after the landing of Thurot, or the intending expedition of M. Conflans. That no foreign coin was ever seen among them, though reports to the contrary were circulated; and in all the evidence that was taken during ten or twelve years, in which time there appeared a variety of informers, none was ever taken, whose testimony could be relied on, that ever proved any foreign interposition. Those very few who attempted to favour it, were of the most infamous and perjured characters. All the rest, whose interest it was to make the discovery, if they had known it, and who concealed nothing else, pretended to no such knowledge. No foreign money appeared, no arms of foreign construction, no presumptive proof whatever of such a connection. They began in Tipperary, and were owing to some inclosures of commons, which they threw down, levelling the ditches, and were first known by the name of Levellers. After that, they began with the tithe-proctors (who are men that hire tithes of the rectors), and these proctors either screwed the cottars up to the utmost shilling, or relet the tithes to such as did it. It was a common practice with them to go in parties about the country, swearing many to be true to them, and forcing them to join by menaces, which they very often carried into execution. At last they set up to be general redressers of grievances, punished all obnoxious persons who advanced the value of lands, or hired farms over their heads; and, having taken the administration of justice into their hands, were not very exact in the distribution of it. Forced masters to release their apprentices, carried off the daughters of rich farmers, and ravished them into marriages, of which four instances happened in a fortnight. They levied sums of money on the middling and lower farmers in order to support their cause, by paying attorneys, etc., in defending prosecutions against them; and many of them subsisted for some years without work, supported by these contributions. Sometimes they committed several considerable robberies, breaking into houses, and taking the money, under pretence of redressing grievances. In the course of these outrages they burnt several houses, and destroyed the whole substance of men obnoxious to them. The barbarities they committed were shocking. One of their usual punishments (and by no means the most severe) was taking people out of their beds, carrying them naked in winter on horseback for some distance, and burying them up to their chin in a hole filled with briars, not forgetting to cut off their ears. In this manner the evil existed for eight or ten years, during which time the gentlemen of the country took some measures to quell them. Many of the magistrates were active in apprehending them; but the want of evidence prevented punishments, for many of those who even suffered by them had no spirit to prosecute. The gentlemen of the country had frequent expeditions to discover them in arms; but their intelligence was so uncommonly good by their influence over the common people, that not one party that ever went out in quest of them was successful. Government offered large rewards for informations, which brought a few every year to the gallows, without any radical cure for the evil. The reason why it was not more effective was the necessity of any person that gave evidence against them quitting their houses and country, or remaining exposed to their resentment. At last their violence arose to a height which brought on their suppression. The popish inhabitants of Ballyragget, six miles from Kilkenny, were the first of the lower people who dared openly to associate against them; they threatened destruction to the town, gave notice that they would attack it, were as good as their word, came two hundred strong, drew up before a house in which were fifteen armed men, and fired in at the windows; the fifteen men handled their arms so well, that in a few rounds they killed forty or fifty. They fled immediately, and ever after left Ballyragget in peace: indeed, they have never been resisted at all without showing a great want of both spirit and discipline. It should, however, be observed, that they had but very few arms, those in bad order, and no cartridges. Soon after this they attacked the house of Mr. Power in Tipperary, the history of which is well known. His murder spirited up the gentlemen to exert themselves in suppressing the evil, especially in raising subscriptions to give private rewards to whoever would give evidence or information concerning them. The private distribution had much more effect than larger sums which required a public declaration; and Government giving rewards to those who resisted them, without having previously promised it, had likewise some effect. Laws were passed for punishing all who assembled, and (what may have a great effect) for recompensing, at the expense of the county or barony, all persons who suffered by their outrages. In consequence of this general exertion, above twenty were capitally convicted, and most of them executed; and the gaols of this and the three neighbouring counties, Carlow, Tipperary, and Queen's County, have many in them whose trials are put off till next assizes, and against whom sufficient evidence for conviction, it is supposed, will appear. Since this all has been quiet, and no outrages have been committed: but before I quit the subject, it is proper to remark that what coincided very much to abate the evil was the fall in the price of lands which has taken place lately. This is considerable, and has much lessened the evil of hiring farms over the heads of one another; perhaps, also, the tithe-proctors have not been quite so severe in their extortions: but this observation is by no means general; for in many places tithes yet continue to be levied with all those circumstances which originally raised the evil. July 15. Leaving Courtown, took the Arklow road; passed a finely wooded park of Mr. Ram's, and a various country with some good corn in it. Flat lands by the coast let very high, and mountain at six or seven shillings an acre, and some at eight shillings or ten shillings. Passed to Wicklow, prettily situated on the sea, and from Newrybridge walked to see Mr. Tye's, which is a neat farm, well wooded, with a river running through the fields. Reached in the evening Mount Kennedy, the seat of General Cunninghame, who fortunately proved to me an instructor as assiduous as he is able. He is in the midst of a country almost his own, for he has 10,000 Irish acres here. His domain, and the grounds about it, are very beautiful; not a level can be seen; every spot is tossed about in a variety of hill and dale. In the middle of the lawn is one of the greatest natural curiosities in the kingdom: an immense arbutus tree, unfortunately blown down, but yet vegetating. One branch, which parts from the body near the ground, and afterwards into many large branches, is six feet two inches in circumference. The General buried part of the stem as it laid, and it is from several branches throwing out fine young shoots: it is a most venerable remnant. Killarney, the region of the arbutus, boasts of no such tree as this. July 16. Rode in the morning to Drum; a large extent of mountains and wood on the General's estate. It is a very noble scenery; a vast rocky glen; one side bare rocks to an immense height, hanging in a thousand whimsical yet frightful forms, with vast fragments tumbled from them, and lying in romantic confusion; the other a fine mountain side covered with shrubby wood. This wild pass leads to the bottom of an amphitheatre of mountain, which exhibits a very noble scenery. To the right is an immense sweep of mountain completely wooded; taken as a single object it is a most magnificent one, but its forms are picturesque in the highest degree; great projections of hill, with glens behind all wooded, have a noble effect. Every feature of the whole view is great, and unites to form a scene of natural magnificence. From hence a riding is cut through the hanging wood, which rises to a central spot, where the General has cleared away the rubbish from under the wood, and made a beautiful waving lawn with many oaks and hollies scattered about it: here he has built a cottage, a pretty, whimsical oval room, from the windows of which are three views, one of distant rich lands opening to the sea, one upon a great mountain, and a third upon a part of the lawn. It is well placed, and forms upon the whole a most agreeable retreat. July 17. Took my leave of General Cunninghame, and went through the glen of the downs in my way to Powerscourt. The glen is a pass between two vast ridges of mountains covered with wood, which have a very noble effect. The vale is no wider than to admit the road, a small gurgling river almost by its side, and narrow slips of rocky and shrubby ground which part them. In the front all escape seems denied by an immense conical mountain, which rises out of the glen and seems to fill it up. The scenery is of a most magnificent character. On the top of the ridge to the right Mr. La Touche has a banqueting-room. Passing from this sublime scene, the road leads through cheerful grounds all under corn, rising and falling to the eye, and then to a vale of charming verdure broken into inclosures, and bounded by two rocky mountains, distant darker mountains filling up the scene in front. This whole ride is interesting, for within a mile and a half of "Tinnyhinch" (the inn to which I was directed), you come to a delicious view on the right: a small vale opening to the sea, bounded by mountains, whose dark shade forms a perfect contrast to the extreme beauty and lively verdure of the lower scene, consisting of gently swelling lawns rising from each other, with groups of trees between, and the whole so prettily scattered with white farms, as to add every idea of cheerfulness. Kept on towards Powerscourt, which presently came in view from the edge of a declivity. You look full upon the house, which appears to be in the most beautiful situation in the world, on the side of a mountain, half-way between its bare top and an irriguous vale at its foot. In front, and spreading among woods on either side, is a lawn whose surface is beautifully varied in gentle declivities, hanging to a winding river. Lowering the hill the scenery is yet more agreeable. The near inclosures are margined with trees, through whose open branches are seen whole fields of the most lively verdure. The trees gather into groups, and the lawn swells into gentle inequalities, while the river winding beneath renders the whole truly pleasing. Breakfasted at the inn at Tinnyhinch, and then drove to the park to see the waterfall. The park itself is fine; you enter it between two vast masses of mountain, covered with wood, forming a vale scattered with trees, through which flows a river on a broken rocky channel. You follow this vale till it is lost in a most uncommon manner; the ridges of mountain, closing, form one great amphitheatre of wood, from the top of which, at the height of many hundred feet, bursts the water from a rock, and tumbling down the side of a very large one, forms a scene singularly beautiful. At the bottom is a spot of velvet turf, from which rises a clump of oaks, and through their stems, branches and leaves, the falling water is seen as a background, with an effect more picturesque than can be well imagined. These few trees, and this little lawn, give the finishing to the scene. The water falls behind some large fragments of rock, and turns to the left, down a stony channel, under the shade of a wood. Returning to Tinnyhinch, I went to Inniskerry, and gained by this detour in my return to go to the Dargle, a beautiful view which I should otherwise have lost. The road runs on the edge of a declivity, from whence there is a most pleasing prospect of the river's course through the vale and the wood of Powerscourt, which here appear in large masses of dark shade, the whole bounded by mountains. Turn to the left into the private road that leads to the Dargle, and presently it gives a specimen of what is to be expected by a romantic glen of wood, where the high lands almost lock into each other, and leave scarce a passage for the river at bottom, which rages as if with difficulty forcing its way. It is topped by a high mountain, and in front you catch a beautiful plat of inclosures bounded by the sea. Enter the Dargle, which is the name of a glen near a mile long, come presently to one of the finest ranges of wood I have anywhere seen. It is a narrow glen or vale formed by the sides of two opposite mountains; the whole thickly spread with oak wood. At the bottom (and the depth is immense), it is narrowed to the mere channel of the river, which rather tumbles from rock to rock than runs. The extent of wood that hangs to the eye in every direction is great, the depth of the precipice on which you stand immense, which with the roar of the water at bottom forms a scene truly interesting. In less than a quarter of a mile, the road passing through the wood leads to another point of view to the right. It is the crown of a vast projecting rock, from which you look down a precipice absolutely perpendicular, and many hundred feet deep, upon the torrent at the bottom, which finds its noisy way over large fragments of rock. The point of view is a great projection of the mountain on this side, answered by a concave of the opposite, so that you command the glen both to the right and left. It exhibits on both immense sheets of forest, which have a most magnificent appearance. Beyond the wood to the right, are some inclosures hanging on the side of a hill, crowned by a mountain. I knew not how to leave so interesting a spot; the impressions raised by it are strong. The solemnity of such an extent of wood unbroken by any intervening objects, and the whole hanging over declivities, is alone great; but to this the addition of a constant roar of falling water, either quite hid, or so far below as to be seen but obscurely, united to make those impressions stronger. No contradictory emotions are raised; no ill-judged temples appear to enliven a scene that is gloomy rather than gay. Falling or moving water is a lively object; but this being obscure the noise operates differently. Following the road a little further, there is another bold rocky projection from which also there is a double view to the right and left. In front so immense a sweep of hanging wood, that a nobler scene can hardly be imagined; the river as before, at the bottom of the precipice, which is so steep and the depth so great as to be quite fearful to look down. This horrid precipice, the pointed bleak mountains in view, with the roar of the water, all conspire to raise one great emotion of the sublime. You advance scarcely twenty yards before a pretty scene opens to the left--a distant landscape of inclosures, with a river winding between the hills to the sea. Passing to the right, fresh scenes of wood appear; half-way to the bottom, one different from the preceding is seen; you are almost inclosed in wood, and look to the right through some low oaks on the opposite bank of wood, with an edging of trees through which the sky is seen, which, added to an uncommon elegance in the outline of the hill, has a most pleasing effect. Winding down to a thatched bench on a rocky point, you look upon an uncommon scene. Immediately beneath is a vast chasm in the rock, which seems torn asunder to let the torrent through that comes tumbling over a rocky bed far sunk into a channel embosomed in wood. Above is a range of gloomy obscure woods, which half overshadow it, and rising to a vast height, exclude every object. To the left the water rolls away over broken rocks--a scene duly romantic. Followed the path: it led me to the water's edge, at the bottom of the glen, where is a new scene, in which not a single circumstance hurts the principal character. In a hollow formed of rock and wood (every object excluded but those and water) the torrent breaks forth from fragments of rock, and tumbles through the chasm, rocks bulging over it as if ready to fall into the channel and stop the impetuous water. The shade is so thick as to exclude the heavens; all is retired and gloomy, a brown horror breathing over the whole. It is a spot for melancholy to muse in. Return to the carriage, and quit the Dargle, which upon the whole is a very singular place, different from all I have seen in England, and I think preferable to most. Cross a murmuring stream, clear as crystal, and, rising a hill, look back on a pleasing landscape of inclosures, which, waving over hills, end in mountains of a very noble character. Reach Dublin. July 20. To Drogheda, a well-built town, active in trade, the Boyne bringing ships to it. It was market-day, and I found the quantity of corn, etc., and the number of people assembled, very great; few country markets in England more thronged. The Rev. Mr. Nesbit, to whom recommended, absent, which was a great loss to me, as I had several inquiries which remained unsatisfied. To the field of battle on the Boyne. The view of the scene from a rising ground which looks down upon it is exceedingly beautiful, being one of the completest landscapes I have seen. It is a vale, losing itself in front between bold declivities, above which are some thick woods and distant country. Through the vale the river winds and forms an island, the point of which is tufted with trees in the prettiest manner imaginable; on the other side a rich scenery of wood, among which is Dr. Norris's house. To the right, on a rising ground on the banks of the river, is the obelisk, backed by a very bold declivity. Pursued the road till near it, quitted my chaise, and walked to the foot of it. It is founded on a rock which rises boldly from the river. It is a noble pillar, and admirably placed. I seated myself on the opposite rock, and indulged the emotions which, with a melancholy not unpleasing, filled my bosom, while I reflected on the consequences that had sprung from the victory here obtained. Liberty was then triumphant. May the virtues of our posterity secure that prize which the bravery of their ancestors won! Peace to the memory of the Prince to whom, whatever might be his failings, we owed that day memorable in the annals of Europe! Returned part of the way, and took the road to Cullen, where the Lord Chief Baron Forster received me in the most obliging manner, and gave me a variety of information uncommonly valuable. He has made the greatest improvements I have anywhere met with. The whole country twenty-two years ago was a waste sheep-walk, covered chiefly with heath, with some dwarf furze and fern. The cabins and people as miserable as can be conceived; not a Protestant in the country, nor a road passable for a carriage. In a word, perfectly resembling other mountainous tracts, and the whole yielding a rent of not more than from three shillings to four shillings an acre. Mr. Forster could not bear so barren a property, and determined to attempt the improvement of an estate of five thousand acres till then deemed irreclaimable. He encouraged the tenants by every species of persuasion and expense, but they had so ill an opinion of the land that he was forced to begin with two or three thousand acres in his own hands; he did not, however, turn out the people, but kept them in to see the effects of his operations. To Dundalk. The view down on this town also very beautiful: swelling hills of a fine verdure, with many rich inclosures backed by a bold outline of mountain that is remarkable. Laid at the Clanbrassil Arms, and found it a very good inn. The place, like most of the Irish towns I have been in, full of new buildings, with every mark of increasing wealth and prosperity. A cambric manufacture was established here by Parliament, but failed; it was, however, the origin of that more to the north. July 22. Left Dundalk, took the road through Ravensdale to Mr. Fortescue, to whom I had a letter, but unfortunately he was in the South of Ireland. Here I saw many good stone and slate houses, and some bleach greens; and I was much pleased to see the inclosures creeping high up the sides of the mountains, stony as they are. Mr. Fortescue's situation is very romantic--on the side of a mountain, with fine wood hanging on every side, with the lawn beautifully scattered with trees spreading into them, and a pretty river winding through the vale, beautiful in itself, but trebly so on information that before he fixed there it was all a wild waste. Rents in Ravensdale ten shillings; mountain land two shillings and sixpence to five shillings. Also large tracts rented by villages, the cottars dividing it among themselves, and making the mountain common for their cattle. Breakfasted at Newry--the Globe, another good inn. This town appears exceedingly flourishing, and is very well built; yet forty years ago, I was told, there were nothing but mud cabins in it. This great rise has been much owing to the canal to Loch Neagh. I crossed it twice; it is indeed a noble work. I was amazed to see ships of one hundred and fifty tons and more lying in it, like barges in an English canal. Here is a considerable trade. Reached Armagh in the evening, and waited on the Primate. July 23. His Grace rode out with me to Armagh, and showed me some of the noble and spirited works by which he has perfectly changed the face of the neighbourhood. The buildings he has erected in seven years, one would suppose, without previous information, to be the work of an active life. A list of them will justify this observation. He has erected a very elegant palace, ninety feet by sixty, and forty high, in which an unadorned simplicity reigns. It is light and pleasing, without the addition of wings or lesser parts, which too frequently wanting a sufficient uniformity with the body of the edifice, are unconnected with it in effect, and divide the attention. Large and ample offices are conveniently placed behind a plantation at a small distance. Around the palace is a large lawn, which spreads on every side over the hills, and is skirted by young plantations, in one of which is a terrace, which commands a most beautiful view of cultivated hill and dale. The view from the palace is much improved by the barracks, the school, and a new church at a distance, all which are so placed as to be exceedingly ornamental to the whole country. The barracks were erected under his Grace's directions, and form a large and handsome edifice. The school is a building of considerable extent, and admirably adapted for the purpose: a more convenient or a better contrived one is nowhere to be seen. There are apartments for a master, a school-room fifty-six feet by twenty-eight, a large dining-room, and spacious, airy dormitories, with every other necessary, and a spacious playground walled in; the whole forming a handsome front: and attention being paid to the residence of the master (the salary is four hundred pounds a year), the school flourishes, and must prove one of the greatest advantages to the country of anything that could have been established. This edifice entirely at the Primate's expense. The church is erected of white stone, and having a tall spire makes a very agreeable object in a country where churches and spires do not abound--at least, such as are worth looking at. Three other churches the Primate has also built, and done considerable reparations to the cathedral. He has been the means also of erecting a public infirmary, which was built by subscription, contributing amply to it himself. A public library he has erected at his own expense, given a large collection of books, and endowed it. The room is excellently adapted, forty-five feet by twenty-five, and twenty high, with a gallery, and apartments for a librarian. He has further ornamented the city with a market-house and shambles, and been the direct means, by giving leases upon that condition, of almost new-building the whole place. He found it a nest of mud cabins, and he will leave it a well-built city of stone and slate. I heard it asserted in common conversation that his Grace, in these noble undertakings, had not expended less than thirty thousand pounds, besides what he had been the means of doing, though not directly at his own expense. In the evening reached Mr. Brownlow's at Lurgan, to whom I am indebted for some valuable information. This gentleman has made very great improvements in his domain. He has a lake at the bottom of a slight vale, and around are three walks, at a distance from each other; the centre one is the principal, and extends two miles. It is well conducted for leading to the most agreeable parts of the grounds, and for commanding views of Loch Neagh, and the distant country. There are several buildings, a temple, green-house, etc. The most beautiful scene is from a bench on a gently swelling hill, which rises almost on every side from the water. The wood, the water, and the green slopes, here unite to form a very pleasing landscape. Let me observe one thing much to his honour; he advances his tenants money for all the lime they choose, and takes payment in eight years with rent. Upon inquiring concerning the emigrations, I found that in 1772 and 1773 they were at the height; that some went from this neighbourhood with property, but not many. They were in general poor and unemployed. They find here that when provisions are very cheap, the poor spend much of their time in whisky-houses. All the drapers wish that oatmeal was never under one penny a pound. Though farms are exceedingly divided, yet few of the people raise oatmeal enough to feed themselves; all go to market for some. The weavers earn by coarse linens one shilling a day, by fine one shilling and fourpence, and it is the same with the spinners--the finer the yarn, the more they earn; but in common a woman earns about threepence. For coarse linens they do not reckon the flax hurt by standing for seed. Their own flax is much better than the imported. This country is in general beautiful, but particularly so about the straits that lead into Strangford Loch. From Mr. Savage's door the view has great variety. To the left are tracts of hilly grounds, between which the sea appears, and the vast chain of mountains in the Isle of Man distinctly seen. In front the hills rise in a beautiful outline, and a round hill projects like a promontory into the strait, and under it the town amidst groups of trees; the scene is cheerful of itself, but rendered doubly so by the ships and herring-boats sailing in and out. To the right the view is crowned by the mountains of Mourne, which, wherever seen, are of a character peculiarly bold, and even terrific. The shores of the loch behind Mr. Savage's are bold ground, abounding with numerous pleasing landscapes; the opposite coast, consisting of the woods and improvements of Castle Ward, is a fine scenery. Called at Lord Bangor's, at Castle Ward, to deliver a letter of recommendations but unfortunately he was on a sailing party to England; walked through the woods, etc. The house was built by the present lord. It is a very handsome edifice, with two principal fronts, but not of the same architecture, for the one is Gothic and the other Grecian. From the temple is a fine wooded scene: you look down on a glen of wood, with a winding hill quite covered with it, and which breaks the view of a large bay. Over it appears the peninsula of Strangford, which consists of enclosures and wood. To the right the bay is bounded by a fine grove, which projects into it. A ship at anchor added much. The house well situated above several rising woods; the whole scene a fine one. I remarked in Lord Bangor's domains a fine field of turnips, but unhoed. There were some cabbages also. Belfast is a very well built town of brick, they having no stone quarry in the neighbourhood. The streets are broad and straight, and the inhabitants, amounting to about fifteen thousand, make it appear lively and busy. The public buildings are not numerous nor very striking, but over the exchange Lord Donegal is building an assembly room, sixty feet long by thirty broad, and twenty-four high; a very elegant room. A card-room adjoining, thirty by twenty-two, and twenty-two high; a tea-room of the same size. His lordship is also building a new church, which is one of the lightest and most pleasing I have anywhere seen: it is seventy-four by fifty-four, and thirty high to the cornice, the aisles separated by a double row of columns; nothing can be lighter or more pleasing. The town belongs entirely to his lordship. Rent of it 2,000 pounds a year. His estate extends from Drumbridge, near Lisburn, to Larne, twenty miles in a right line, and is ten broad. His royalties are great, containing the whole of Loch Neagh, which is, I suppose, the greatest of any subject in Europe. His eel fishery at Tome, and Port New, on the river Ban, lets for 500 pounds a year; and all the fisheries are his to the leap at Coleraine. The estate is supposed to be 31,000 pounds a year, the greatest at present in Ireland. Inishowen, in Donegal, is his, and is 11,000 pounds of it. In Antrim, Lord Antrim's is the most extensive property, being four baronies, and one hundred and seventy-three thousand acres. The rent 8,000 pounds a year, but re-let for 64,000 pounds a year, by tenants that have perpetuities, perhaps the cruellest instance in the world of carelessness for the interests of posterity. The present lord's father granted those leases. I was informed that Mr. Isaac, near Belfast, had four acres, Irish measure, of strong clay land not broken up for many years, which being amply manured with lime rubbish and sea shells, and fallowed, was sown with wheat, and yielded 87 pounds 9s. at 9s. to 12s. per cwt. Also that Mr. Whitley, of Ballinderry, near Lisburn, a tenant of Lord Hertford's, has rarely any wheat that does not yield him 18 pounds an acre. The tillage of the neighbourhood for ten miles round is doubled in a few years. Shall export one thousand tons of corn this year from Belfast, most of it to the West Indies, particularly oats. August 1. To Arthur Buntin's, Esq., near Belfast; the soil a stiff clay; lets at old rents 10s., new one 18s., the town parks of that place 30s. to 70s., ten miles round it 10s. to 20s., average 13s. A great deal of flax sown, every countryman having a little, always on potato land, and one ploughing: they usually sow each family a bushel of seed. Those who have no land pay the farmers 20s. rent for the land a bushel of seed sows, and always on potato land. They plant many more potatoes than they eat, to supply the market at Belfast; manure for them with all their dung, and some of them mix dung, earth, and lime, and this is found to do better. There is much alabaster near the town, which is used for stucco plaster; sells from 1 pound 1s. to 25s. a ton. On my way to Antrim, viewed the bleach green of Mr. Thomas Sinclair; it is the completest I have seen here. I understood that the bleaching season lasted nine months, and that watering on the grass was quite left off. Mr. Sinclair himself was not at home, or I should probably have gained some intelligence that might have been useful. Crossed the mountains by the new road to Antrim, and found them to the summits to consist of exceeding good loam, and such as would improve into good meadow. It is all thrown to the little adjoining farms, with very little or any rent paid for it. They make no other use of it than turning their cows on. Pity they do not improve; a work more profitable than any they could undertake. All the way to Antrim lands let, at an average, at 8s. The linen manufacture spreads over the whole country, consequently the farms are very small, being nothing but patches for the convenience of weavers. From Antrim to Shanes Castle the road runs at the end of Loch Neagh, commanding a noble view of it; of such an extent that the eye can see no land over it. It appears like a perfect sea, and the shore is broken sand-banks, which look so much like it, that one can hardly believe the water to be fresh. Upon my arrival at the castle, I was most agreeably saluted with four men hoeing a field of turnips round it, as a preparation for grass. These were the first turnip-hoers I have seen in Ireland, and I was more pleased than if I had seen four emperors. The castle is beautifully situated on the lake, the windows commanding a very noble view of it; and this has the finer effect, as the woods are considerable, and form a fine accompaniment to this noble inland sea. Rode from Mr. Lesly's to view the Giant's Causeway. It is certainly a very great curiosity as an object for speculation upon the manner of its formation; whether it owes its origin to fire, and is a species of lava, or to crystallisation, or to whatever cause, is a point that has employed the attention of men much more able to decide upon it than I am; and has been so often treated, that nothing I could say could be new. When two bits of these basalts are rubbed together quick, they emit a considerable scent like burnt leather. The scenery of the Causeway, nor of the adjacent mountains, is very magnificent, though the cliffs are bold; but for a considerable distance there is a strong disposition in the rocks to run into pentagonal cylinders, and even at a bridge by Mr. Lesly's is a rock in which the same disposition is plainly visible. I believe the Causeway would have struck me more if I had not seen the prints of Staffa. Returned to Lesly Hill, and on August 5th departed for Coleraine. There the Right Hon. Mr. Jackson assisted me with the greatest politeness in procuring the intelligence I wished about the salmon fishery, which is the greatest in the kingdom, and viewed both fisheries, above and below the town, very pleasantly situated on the river Ban. The salmon spawn in all the rivers that run into the Ban about the beginning of August, and as soon as they have done, swim to the sea, where they stay till January, when they begin to return to the fresh water, and continue doing it till August, in which voyage they are taken. The nets are set in the middle of January, but by Act of Parliament no nets nor weirs can be kept down after the 12th of August. All the fisheries on the river Ban let at 6,000 pounds a year. From the sea to the rock above Coleraine, where the weirs are built, belongs to the London companies; the greatest part of the rest to Lord Donegal. The eel fisheries let at 1,000 pounds a year, and the salmon fisheries at Coleraine at 1,000 pounds. The eels make periodical voyages, as the salmon, but instead of spawning in the fresh water, they go to the sea to spawn, and the young fry return against the stream; to enable them to do which with greater ease at the leap straw ropes are hung in the water for them. When they return to sea they are taken. Many of them weigh nine or ten pounds. The young salmon are called _grawls_, and grow at a rate which I should suppose scarce any fish commonly known equals; for within the year some of them will come to sixteen and eighteen pounds, but in general ten or twelve pounds. Such as escape the first year's fishery are salmon; and at two years old will generally weigh twenty to twenty-five pounds. This year's fishery has proved the greatest that ever was known, and they had the largest haul, taking 1,452 salmon at one drag of one net. In the year 1758 they had 882, which was the next greatest haul. I had the pleasure of seeing 370 drawn in at once. They have this year taken 400 tons of fish; 200 sold fresh at a penny and three-halfpence a pound, and two hundred salted, at 18 pounds and 20 pounds per ton, which are sent to London, Spain, and Italy. The fishery employs eighty men, and the expenses in general are calculated to equal the rent. The linen manufacture is very general about Coleraine, coarse ten-hundred linen. It is carried to Dublin in cars, one hundred and ten miles, at 5s. per cwt. in summer, and 7s. 6d. in winter. From Limavady to Derry there is very little uncultivated land. Within four miles of the latter, rents are from 12s. to 20s.; mountains paid for but in the gross. Reached Derry at night, and waited two hours in the dark before the ferry-boat came over for me. August 7. In the morning went to the bishop's palace to leave my letters of recommendation; for I was informed of my misfortune in his being out of the kingdom. He was upon a voyage to Staffa, and had sent home some of the stones of which it consists. They appeared perfectly to resemble in shape, colour, and smell, those of the Giant's Causeway. August 8. Left Derry, and took the road by Raphoe to the Rev. Mr. Golding's at Clonleigh, who favoured me with much valuable information. The view of Derry at the distance of a mile or two is the most picturesque of any place I have seen. It seems to be built on an island of bold land rising from the river, which spreads into a fine basin at the foot of the town; the adjacent country hilly. The scene wants nothing but wood to make it a perfect landscape. August 11. Left Mount Charles, and passing through Donegal took the road to Ballyshannon; came presently to several beautiful landscapes, swelling hills cultivated, with the bay flowing up among them. They want nothing but more wood, and are beautiful without it. Afterwards likewise to the left they rise in various outlines, and die away insensibly into one another. When the road leads to a full view of the bay of Donegal, these smiling spots, above which the proud mountains rear their heads, are numerous, the hillocks of almost regular circular forms. They are very pleasing from form, verdure, and the water breaking in their vales. Before I got to Ballyshannon, remarked a bleach green, which indicates weaving in the neighbourhood. Viewed the salmon-leap at Ballyshannon, which is let for 400 pounds a year. The scenery of it is very beautiful. It is a fine fall, and the coast of the river very bold, consisting of perpendicular rocks with grass of a beautiful verdure to the very edge. It projects in little promontories, which grew longer as they approach the sea, and open to give a fine view of the ocean. Before the fall in the middle of the river, is a rocky island on which is a curing house, instead of the turret of a ruined castle for which it seems formed. The town prettily situated on the rising ground on each side of the river. To Sir James Caldwell's. Crossing the bridge, stopped for a view of the river, which is a very fine one, and was delighted to see the salmon jump, to me an unusual sight; the water was perfectly alive with them. Rising the hill, look back on the town; the situation beautiful, the river presents a noble view. Come to Belleek, a little village with one of the finest water-falls I remember anywhere to have seen; viewed it from the bridge. The river in a very broad sheet comes from behind some wood, and breaks over a bed of rocks, not perpendicular, but shelving in various directions, and foams away under the arches, after which it grows more silent and gives a beautiful bend under a rock crowned by a fine bank of wood. Reached Castle Caldwell at night, where Sir James Caldwell received me with a politeness and cordiality that will make me long remember it with pleasure. August 15. To Belleisle, the charming seat of the Earl of Ross. It is an island in Loch Earne, of two hundred Irish acres, every part of it hill, dale, and gentle declivities; it has a great deal of wood, much of which is old, and forms both deep shades and open, cheerful groves. The trees hang on the slopes, and consequently show themselves to the best advantage. All this is exceedingly pretty, but it is rendered trebly so by the situation. A reach of the lake passes before the house, which is situated near the banks among some fine woods, which give both beauty and shelter. This sheet of water, which is three miles over, is bounded in front by an island of thick wood, and by a bold circular hill which is his lordship's deer park; this hill is backed by a considerable mountain. To the right are four or five fine clumps of dark wood--so many islands which rise boldly from the lake; the water breaks in straits between them, and forms a scene extremely picturesque. On the other side the lake stretches behind wood in a strait which forms Belleisle. Lord Ross has made walks round the island, from which there is a considerable variety of prospect. A temple is built on a gentle hill, commanding the view of the wooded islands above-mentioned, but the most pleasing prospect of them is coming out from the grotto. They appear in an uncommon beauty; two seem to join, and the water which flows between takes the appearance of a fine bay, projecting deep into a dark wood: nothing can be more beautiful. The park hill rises above them, and the whole is backed with mountains. The home scene at your feet also is pretty; a lawn scattered with trees that forms the margin of the lake, closing gradually in a thick wood of tall trees, above the tops of which is a distant view of Cultiegh mountain, which is there seen in its proudest solemnity. They plough all with horses three or four in a plough, and all abreast. Here let it be remarked that they very commonly plough and harrow with their horses drawing by the tail: it is done every season. Nothing can put them beside this, and they insist that, take a horse tired in traces and put him to work by the tail, he will draw better: quite fresh again. Indignant reader, this is no jest of mine, but cruel, stubborn, barbarous truth. It is so all over Cavan. At Clonells, near Castlerea, lives O'Connor, the direct descendant of Roderick O'Connor, who was king of Connaught six or seven hundred years ago; there is a monument of him in Roscommon Church, with his sceptre, etc. I was told as a certainty that this family were here long before the coming of the Milesians. Their possessions, formerly so great, are reduced to three or four hundred pounds a year, the family having fared in the revolutions of so many ages much worse than the O'Niels and O'Briens. The common people pay him the greatest respect, and send him presents of cattle, etc., upon various occasions. They consider him as the prince of a people involved in one common ruin. Another great family in Connaught is Macdermot, who calls himself Prince of Coolavin. He lives at Coolavin, in Sligo, and though he has not above one hundred pounds a year, will not admit his children to sit down in his presence. This was certainly the case with his father, and some assured me even with the present chief. Lord Kingsborough, Mr. Ponsonby, Mr. O'Hara, Mr. Sandford, etc., came to see him, and his address was curious: "O'Hara, you are welcome! Sandford, I am glad to see your mother's son" (his mother was an O'Brien): "as to the rest of ye, come in as ye can." Mr. O'Hara, of Nymphsfield, is in possession of a considerable estate in Sligo, which is the remains of great possessions they had in that country. He is one of the few descendants of the Milesian race. To Lord Kingston's, to whom I had a letter, but unfortunately for me he was at Spa. Walked down to Longford Hill to view the lake. It is one of the most delicious scenes I ever beheld; a lake of five miles by four, which fills the bottom of a gentle valley almost of a circular form, bounded very boldly by the mountains. Those to the left rise in a noble slope; they lower rather in front, and let in a view of Strand mountain, near Sligo, above twenty miles off. To the right you look over a small part of a bog to a large extent of cultivated hill, with the blue mountains beyond. Were this little piece of bog planted, the view would be more complete; the hill on which you stand has a foliage of well-grown trees, which form the southern shore. You look down on six islands, all wooded, and on a fine promontory to the left, which shoots far into the lake. Nothing can be more pleasing than their uncommon variety. The first is small (Rock Island), tufted with trees, under the shade of which is an ancient building, once the residence of Macdermot. The next a mixture of lawn and wood. The third, which appears to join this, is of a darker shade, yet not so thick but you can see the bright lawn under the trees. House Island is one fine, thick wood, which admits not a gleam of light, a contrast to the silver bosom of the lake. Church Island is at a greater distance; this is also a clump, and rises boldly. Rock Island is of wood; it opens in the centre and shows a lawn with a building on it. It is impossible to imagine a more pleasing and cheerful scene. Passed the chapel to Smithfield Hill, which is a fine rising ground, quite surrounded with plantations. From hence the view is changed; here the promontory appears very bold, and over its neck you see another wooded island in a most picturesque situation. Nothing can be more picturesque than Rock Island, its ruin overhung with ivy. The other islands assume fresh and varied outlines, and form upon the whole one of the most luxuriant scenes I have met with. The views of the lake and environs are very fine as you go to Boyle; the woods unite into a large mass, and contrast the bright sheet of water with their dark shades. The lands about Kingston are very fine, a rich, dry, yellow, sandy loam, the finest soil that I have seen in Ireland; all grass, and covered with very fine bullocks, cows, and sheep. The farms rise to five hundred acres, and are generally in divisions, parted by stone walls, for oxen, cows, young cattle, and sheep separate. Some of the lands will carry an ox and a wether per acre; rents, 15s. to 20s. Dined at Boyle, and took the road to Ballymoat. Crossed an immense mountainy bog, where I stopped and made inquiries; found that it was ten miles long, and three and a half over, containing thirty-five square miles; that limestone quarries were around and in it, and limestone gravel in many places to be found, and used in the lands that join it. In addition to this I may add that there is a great road crossing it. Thirty-five miles are twenty-two thousand four hundred acres. What an immense field of improvement! Nothing would be easier than to drain it (vast tracts of land have such a fall), that not a drop of water could remain. These hilly bogs are extremely different from any I have seen in England. In the moors in the north the hills and mountains are all covered with heath, like the Irish bogs, but they are of various soils, gravel, shingle, moor, etc., and boggy only in spots, but the Irish bog hills are all pure bog to a great depth without the least variation of soil; and the bog being of a hilly form, is a proof that it is a growing vegetable mass, and not owing merely to stagnant water. Sir Laurence Dundass is the principal proprietor of this. Reached Ballymoat in the evening, the residence of the Hon. Mr. Fitzmaurice, where I expected great pleasure in viewing a manufactory, of which I heard much since I came to Ireland. He was so kind as to give me the following account of it in the most liberal manner:-- "Twenty years ago the late Lord Shelburne came to Ballymoat, a wild uncultivated region without industry or civility, and the people all Roman Catholics, without an atom of a manufacture, not even spinning. In order to change this state of things, his lordship contracted with people in the north to bring Protestant weavers and establish a manufactory, as the only means of making the change he wished. This was done, but falling into the hands of rascals he lost 5,000 pounds by the business, with only seventeen Protestant families and twenty-six or twenty-seven looms established for it. Upon his death Lady Shelburne wished to carry his scheme into execution, and to do it gave much encouragement to Mr. Wakefield, the great Irish factor in London, by granting advantageous leases under the contract of building and colonising by weavers from the north, and carrying on the manufactory. He found about twenty looms working upon their own account, and made a considerable progress in this for five years, raising several buildings, cottages for the weavers, and was going on as well as the variety of his business would admit, employing sixty looms. He then died, when a stand was made to all the works for a year, in which everything went much to ruin. Lady Shelburne then employed a new manager to carry on the manufacture upon his own account, giving him very profitable grants of lands to encourage him to do it with spirit. He continued for five years, employing sixty looms also, but his circumstances failing, a fresh stop was put to the work. "Then it was that Mr. Fitzmaurice, in the year 1774, determined to exert himself in pushing on a manufactory which promised to be of such essential service to the whole country. To do this with effect, he saw that it was necessary to take it entirely into his own hands. He could lend money to the manager to enable him to go on, but that would be at best hazardous, and could never do it in the complete manner in which he wished to establish it. In this period of consideration, Mr. Fitzmaurice was advised by his friends never to engage in so complex a business as a manufacture, in which he must of necessity become a merchant, also engage in all the hazard, irksomeness, etc., of commerce, so totally different from his birth, education, ideas, and pursuits; but tired with the inactivity of common life, he determined not only to turn manufacturer, but to carry on the business in the most spirited and vigorous manner that was possible. In the first place he took every means of making himself a complete master of the business; he went through various manufactures, inquired into the minutiae, and took every measure to know it to the bottom. This he did so repeatedly and with such attention in the whole progress, from spinning to bleaching and selling, that he became as thorough a master of it as an experienced manager; he has wove linen, and done every part of the business with his own hands. As he determined to have the works complete, he took Mr. Stansfield the engineer, so well known for his improved saw-mills, into his pay. He sent him over to Ballymoat in the winter of 1774, in order to erect the machinery of a bleach mill upon the very best construction; he went to all the great mills in the north of Ireland to inspect them, to remark their deficiencies, that they might be improved in the mills he intended to erect. This knowledge being gained, the work was begun, and as water was necessary, a great basin was formed by a dam across a valley, by which means thirty-four acres were floated, to serve as a reservoir for dry seasons, to secure plenty at all times." August 30. Rode to Rosshill, four miles off, a headland that projects into the Bay of Newport, from which there is a most beautiful view of the bay on both sides; I counted thirty islands very distinctly, all of them cultivated under corn and potatoes, or pastured by cattle. At a distance Clare rises in a very bold and picturesque style; on the left Crow Patrick, and to the right other mountains. It is a view that wants nothing but wood. September 5. To Drumoland, the seat of Sir Lucius O'Brien, in the county of Clare, a gentleman who had been repeatedly assiduous to procure me every sort of information. I should remark, as I have now left Galway, that that county, from entering it in the road to Tuam till leaving it to-day, has been, upon the whole, inferior to most of the parts I have travelled in Ireland in point of beauty: there are not mountains of a magnitude to make the view striking. It is perfectly free from woods, and even trees, except about gentlemen's houses, nor has it a variety in its face. I do not, however, speak without exception; I passed some tracts which are cheerful. Drumoland has a pleasing variety of grounds about the house; it stands on a hill gently rising from a lake of twenty-four acres, in the middle of a noble wood of oak, ash, poplar, etc.; three beautiful hills rise above, over which the plantations spread in a varied manner; and these hills command very fine views of the great rivers Fergus and Shannon at their junction, being each of them a league wide. There is a view of the Shannon from Limerick to Foynes Island, which is thirty miles, with all its bays, bends, islands, and fertile shores. It is from one to three miles broad, a most noble river, deserving regal navies for its ornament, or, what are better, fleets of merchantmen, the cheerful signs of far-extended commerce, instead of a few miserable fishing-boats, the only canvas that swelled upon the scene; but the want of commerce in her ports is the misfortune not the fault of Ireland--thanks for the deficiency to that illiberal spirit of trading jealousy, which has at times actuated and disgraced so many nations. The prospect has a noble outline in the bold mountains of Tipperary, Cork, Limerick, and Kerry. The whole view magnificent. At the foot of this hill is the castle of Bunratty, a very large edifice, the seat of the O'Briens, princes of Thomond; it stands on the bank of a river, which falls into the Shannon near it. About this castle and that of Rosmanagher the land is the best in the county of Clare; it is worth 1 pound 13s. an acre, and fats a bullock per acre in summer, besides winter feed. To Limerick, through a cheerful country, on the banks of the river, in a vale surrounded by distant mountains. That city is very finely situated, partly on an island formed by the Shannon. The new part, called Newtown Pery, from Mr. Pery the speaker, who owns a considerable part of the city, and represents it in Parliament, is well built. The houses are new ones, of brick, large, and in right lines. There is a communication with the rest of the town by a handsome bridge of three large arches erected at Mr. Pery's expense. Here are docks, quays, and a custom-house, which is a good building, faces the river, and on the opposite banks is a large quadrangular one, the house of industry. This part of Limerick is very cheerful and agreeable, and carries all the marks of a flourishing place. The exports of this port are beef, pork, butter, hides, and rape-seed. The imports are rum, sugar, timber, tobacco, wines, coals, bark, salt, etc. The customs and excise, about sixteen years ago, amounted to 16,000 pounds, at present 32,000 pounds, and rather more four or five years ago. Whole revenue 1751 16,000 pounds " " 1775 51,000 pounds _Revenue of the Port of Limerick. Year ending_ March 25, 1759 20,494 pounds " 1760 29,197 " 1761 20,727 " 1762 20,650 " 1763 20,525 " 1764 32,635 " 1765 31,099 _Com. Jour_., vol. xiv., p. 71. _Price of Provisions_. Wheat, 1s. 1d. a stone Wild ducks, 20d. to 2s. a couple. Barley and oats, 5.75d. to 6d. Teal, 10d. a couple. Scotch coals, 18s.; Whitehaven, Plover, 6d. a couple. 20s. A boat-load of turf, 20 tons, Widgeon, 10d. ditto. 45s. Salmon, three-halfpence. Hares, 1s. each, commonly sold all year. Trout, 2d., very fine, per lb. Woodcocks, 20d. to 2s. 2d. a brace. Eels, 2d. a pound. Oysters, 4d. to 1s. a 100. Rabbits, 8d. a couple. Lobsters, 1s. to 1s. 6d., if good. Land sells at twenty years' purchase. Rents were at the highest in 1765; fell since, but in four years have fallen 8s. to 10s. an acre about Limerick. They are at a stand at present, owing to the high price of provisions from pasture. The number of people in Limerick is computed at thirty-two thousand; it is exceedingly populous for the size, the chief street quite crowded; many sedan chairs in town, and some hackney chaises. Assemblies the year round, in a new assembly-house built for the purpose, and plays and concerts common. Upon the whole, Limerick must be a very gay place, but when the usual number of troops are in town much more so. To show the general expenses of living, I was told of a person's keeping a carriage, four horses, three men, three maids, a good table, a wife, three children, and a nurse, and all for 500 pounds a year: l. s. d. l. s. d. A footman 4 4 0 to 6 6 0 A professed 6 6 0 woman-cook A house-maid 3 0 0 A kitchen-maid 2 0 0 A butler 10 0 0 to 12 0 0 A barrel of beef or pork, 200lb. weight. Vessels of 400 tons can come up with spring tides, which rise fourteen feet. September 9. To Castle Oliver; various country, not so rich to appearance as the Caucasus, being fed bare; much hilly sheep walk, and for a considerable way a full third of it potatoes and corn: no sign of depopulation. Just before I got to the hills a field of ragwort (_senesio jacoboea_) buried the cows. The first hill of Castle Oliver interesting. After rising a mountain so high that no one could think of any house, you come in view of a vale, quite filled with fine woods, fields margined with trees, and hedge plantations climbing up the mountains. Having engaged myself to Mr. Oliver, to return from Killarney by his house, as he was confined to Limerick by the assizes, I shall omit saying anything of it at present. September 16. To Cove by water, from Mr. Trent's quay. The view of Lota is charming; a fine rising lawn from the water, with noble spreading woods reaching on each side; the house a very pleasing front, with lawn shooting into the woods. The river forms a creek between two hills, one Lota, the other opening to another hill of inclosures well wooded. As the boat leaves the shore nothing can be finer than the view behind us; the back woods of Lota, the house and lawn, and the high bold inclosures towards Cork, form the finest shore imaginable, leading to Cork, the city appearing in full view, Dunkettle wooded inclosures, a fine sweep of hill, joining Mr. Hoare's at Factory Hill, whose woods have a beautiful effect. Dunkettle House almost lost in a wood. As we advance, the woods of Lota and Dunkettle unite in one fine mass. The sheet of water, the rising lawns, the house in the most beautiful situation imaginable, with more woods above it than lawns below it, the west shore of Loch Mahon, a very fine rising hill cut into inclosures but without wood, land-locked on every side with high lands, scattered with inclosures, woods, seats, etc., with every cheerful circumstance of lively commerce, have altogether a great effect. Advancing to Passage the shores are various, and the scenery enlivened by fourscore sail of large ships; the little port of Passage at the water's edge, with the hills rising boldly above it. The channel narrows between the great island and the hills of Passage. The shores bold, and the ships scattered about them, with the inclosures hanging behind the masts and yards picturesque. Passing the straits a new basin of the harbour opens, surrounded with high lands. Monkstown Castle on the hill to the right, and the grounds of Ballybricken, a beautiful intermixed scene of wood and lawn. The high shore of the harbour's mouth opens gradually. The whole scene is land-locked. The first view of Haulbowline Island and Spike Island, high rocky lands, with the channel opening to Cove, where are a fleet of ships at anchor, and Rostellan, Lord Inchiquin's house, backed with hills, a scenery that wants nothing but the accompaniment of wood. The view of Ballybricken changes; it now appears to be unfortunately cut into right lines. Arrived at the ship at Cove; in the evening returned, leaving Mr. Jefferys and family on board for a voyage to Havre, in their way to Paris. Dunkettle is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Ireland. It is a hill of some hundred acres broken into a great variety of ground by gentle declivities, with everywhere an undulating outline and the whole varied by a considerable quantity of wood, which in some places is thick enough to take the appearance of close groves, in others spreads into scattered thickets and a variety of single groups. This hill, or rather cluster of hills, is surrounded on one side by a reach of Cork Harbour, over which it looks in the most advantageous manner; and on the other by an irriguous vale, through which flows the river Glanmire; the opposite shore of that river has every variety that can unite to form pleasing landscapes for the views from Dunkettle grounds; in some places narrow glens, the bottoms of which are quite filled with water, and the steep banks covered with thick woods that spread a deep shade; in others the vale opens to form the site of a pretty cheerful village, overhung by hill and wood: here the shore rises gradually into large inclosures, which spread over the hills, stretching beyond each other; and there the vale melts again into a milder variety of fields. A hill thus situated, and consisting in itself of so much variety of surface, must necessarily command many pleasing views. To enjoy these to the better advantage, Mr. Trent (than whom no one has a better taste, both to discover and describe the beauties of natural scenes) is making a walk around the whole, which is to bend to the inequalities of the ground, so as to take the principal points in view. The whole is so beautiful, that if I were to make the regular detour, the description might be too minute; but there are some points which gave me so much pleasure that I know not how to avoid recommending to others that travel this way to taste the same satisfaction. From the upper part of the orchard you look down a part of the river, where it opens into a regular basin, one corner stretching up to Cork, lost behind the hill of Lota, the lawn of which breaks on the swelling hills among the woods; the house obscured, and therefore seeming a part of your home scene; the losing the river behind the beautiful projection of Lota is more pleasing than can be expressed. The other reach, leading to the harbour's mouth, is half hidden by the trees, which margin the foot of the hill on which you stand; in front a noble range of cultivated hills, the inclosures broken by slight spots of wood, and prettily varied with houses, without being so crowded as to take off the rural effect. The scene is not only beautiful in those common circumstances which form a landscape, but is alive with the cheerfulness of ships and boats perpetually moving. Upon the whole, it is one of the most luxuriant prospects I have anywhere seen. Leaving the orchard, pass on the brow of a hill which forms the bank of the river of Glanmire, commanding the opposite woods of Lota in all their beauty. Rise to the top of the high hill which joins the deer park, and exhibits a scene equally extensive and beautiful; you look down on a vale which winds almost around at your feet, finishing to the left in Cork river, which here takes the appearance of a lake, bounded by wood and hills, and sunk in the bottom of a vale, in a style which painting cannot imitate; the opposite hills of Lota, wood, and lawn, seem formed as objects for this point of view: at your feet a hill rises out of the vale, with higher ones around it, the margins scattered wood; to the right, towards Riverstown, a vale; the whole backed by cultivated hills to Kallahan's field. Milder scenes follow: a bird's-eye view of a small vale sunk at your feet, through which the river flows; a bridge of several arches unites two parts of a beautiful village, the meadow grounds of which rise gently, a varied surface of wood and lawn, to the hills of Riverstown, the whole surrounded by delicious sweeps of cultivated hills. To the left a wooded glen rising from the vale to the horizon, the scenery sequestered, but pleasing; the oak wood which hangs on the deer-park hills, an addition. Down to the brow of the hill, where it hangs over the river, a picturesque interesting spot. The inclosures of the opposite bank hang beautifully to the eye, and the wooded glen winds up the hill. Returning to the house I was conducted to the hill, where the grounds slope off to the river of Cork, which opens to view in noble reaches of a magnitude that fills the eye and the imagination; a whole country of a character truly magnificent, and behind the winding vale which leads between a series of hills to Glanmire. Pictures at Dunkettle. A St. Michael, etc., the subject confused, by Michael Angelo. A St. Francis on wood, a large original of Guido. A St. Cecilia, original of Romanelli. An Assumption of the Virgin, by L. Carracci. A Quaker's meeting, of above fifty figures, by Egbert Hemskerk. A sea view and rock piece, by Vernet. A small flagellation, by Sebastian del Piombo. A Madonna and Child, small, by Rubens. The Crucifixion, many figures in miniature, excellent, though the master is unknown. An excellent copy of the famous Danae of Titian, at Monte Cavallo, near Naples, by Cioffi of Naples. Another of the Venus of Titian, at the Tribuna in Florence. Another of Venus blinding Cupid, by Titian, at the Palazzo Borghese in Rome. Another of great merit of the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael, at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, by Stirn, a German, lately at Rome. Another of a Holy Family, from Raphael, of which there are said to be three originals, one at the king's palace in Naples, one in the Palais Royal in Paris, and the third in the collection of Lord Exeter, lately purchased at Rome. A portrait of Sir Patrick Trent, by Sir P. Lely. An excellent portrait of a person unknown, by Dahl. September 17. To Castlemartyr, the seat of the Earl of Shannon, one of the most distinguished improvers in Ireland; in whom I found the most earnest desire to give me every species of information, with a knowledge and ability which enabled him to do it most effectually. Passed through Middleton, a well-built place, which belongs to the noble lord to whom it gives title. Castlemartyr is an old house, but much added to by the present earl; he has built, besides other rooms, a dining one thirty-two feet long by twenty-two broad, and a drawing one, the best rooms I have seen in Ireland, a double cube of twenty-five feet, being fifty long, twenty-five broad, and twenty-five high. The grounds about the house are very well laid out; much wood well grown, considerable lawns, a river made to wind through them in a beautiful manner, an old castle so perfectly covered with ivy as to be a picturesque object. A winding walk leads for a considerable distance along the banks of this river, and presents several pleasing landscapes. From Rostellan to Lota, the seat of Frederick Rogers, Esq. I had before seen it in the highest perfection from the water going from Dunkettle to Cove, and from the grounds of Dunkettle. Mrs. Rogers was so obliging as to show me the back grounds, which are admirably wooded, and of a fine varied surface. Got to Cork in the evening, and waited on the Dean, who received me with the most flattering attention. Cork is one of the most populous places I have ever been in; it was market-day, and I could scarce drive through the streets, they were so amazingly thronged: on the other days the number is very great. I should suppose it must resemble a Dutch town, for there are many canals in the streets, with quays before the houses. The best built part is Morrison's Island, which promises well; the old part of the town is very close and dirty. As to its commerce, the following particulars I owe to Robert Gordon, Esq., the surveyor-general: _Average of Nineteen Years' Export, ending March_ 24, 1773. Hides, at 1 pounds each 64,000 pounds Bay and woollen yarn 294,000 Butter, at 30s. per cwt. from 56s. to 180,000 72s. Beef, at 20s. a barrel 291,970 Camlets, serges, etc. 40,000 Candles 34,220 Soap 20,000 Tallow 20,000 Herrings, 18 to 35,000l. all their 21,000 own Glue 20 to 25,000 22,000 Pork 64,000 Wool to England 14,000 Small exports, Gottenburg herrings, 35,000 horns, hoofs, etc., feather-beds, palliasses, feathers, etc. 1,100,190 Average prices of the nineteen years on the custom books. All exports on those books are rated at the value of the reign of Charles II.; but the imports have always 10 per cent. on the sworn price added to them. Seventy to eighty sail of ships belong to Cork. Average of ships that entered that port in those nineteen years, eight hundred and seventy-two per annum. The number of people at Cork mustered by the clergy by hearth-money, and by the number of houses, payments to minister, average of the three, sixty-seven thousand souls, if taken before the 1st of September, after that twenty thousand increased. There are seven hundred coopers in the town. Barrels all of oak or beech, all from America: the latter for herrings, now from Gottenburg and Norway. The excise of Cork now no more than in Charles the Second's reign. Ridiculous! Cork old duties, in 1751, 62,000 pounds produced Now the same 140,000 Bullocks, 16,000 head, 32,000 barrels; 41,000 hogs, 20,000 barrels. Butter, 22,000 firkins of half a hundredweight each, both increase this year, the whole being 240,000 firkins of butter, 120,000 barrels of beef. Export of woollen yarn from Cork, 300,000 pounds a year in the Irish market. No wool smuggled, or at least very little. The wool comes to Cork, etc., and is delivered out to combers, who make it into balls. These balls are bought up by the French agents at a vast price, and exported; but even this does not amount to 40,000 pounds a year. Prices. Beef, 21s. per cwt., never so high by 2s. 6d.; pork, 30s., never higher than 18s. 6d., owing to the army demand. Slaughter dung, 8d. for a horse load. Country labourer, 6d.; about town, 10d. Milk, seven pints a penny. Coals, 3s. 8d. to 5s. a barrel, six of which make a ton. Eggs, four a penny. Cork labourers. Cellar ones, twenty thousand; have 1s. 1d. a day, and as much bread, beef, and beer as they can eat and drink, and seven pounds of offals a week for their families. Rent for their house, 40s. Masons' and carpenters' labourers, 10d. a day. Sailors now 3 pounds a month and provisions: before the American war, 28s. Porters and coal-heavers paid by the great. State of the poor people in general incomparably better off than they were twenty years ago. There are imported eighteen thousand barrels annually of Scotch herrings, at 18s. a barrel. The salt for the beef trade comes from Lisbon, St. Ube's, etc. The salt for the fish trade from Rochelle. For butter English and Irish. Particulars of the woollen fabrics of the county of Cork received from a manufacturer. The woollen trade, serges and camlets, ratteens, friezes, druggets, and narrow cloths, the last they make to 10s. and 12s. a yard; if they might export to 8s. they are very clear that they could get a great trade for the woollen manufactures of Cork. The wool comes from Galway and Roscommon, combed here by combers, who earn 8s. to 10s. a week, into balls of twenty-four ounces, which is spun into worsteds of twelve skeins to the ball, and exported to Yarmouth for Norwich; the export price, 30 pounds a pack to 33 pounds, never before so high; average of them, 26 pounds to 30 pounds. Some they work up at home into serges, stuffs, and camlets; the serges at 12d. a yard, thirty-four inches wide; the stuffs sixteen inches, at 18d., the camlets at 9.5d. to 13d.; the spinners at 9d. a ball, one in a week; or a ball and half 12d. a week, and attend the family besides; this is done most in Waterford and Kerry, particularly near Killarney; the weavers earn 1s. a day on an average. Full three-fourths of the wool is exported in yarn, and only one-fourth worth worked up. Half the wool of Ireland is combed in the county of Cork. A very great manufacture of ratteens at Carrick-on-Suir; the bay worsted is for serges, shalloons, etc. Woollen yarn for coarse cloths, which latter have been lost for some years, owing to the high price of wool. The bay export has declined since 1770, which declension is owing to the high price of wool. No wool smuggled, not even from Kerry; not a sloop's cargo in twenty years, the price too high; the declension has been considerable. For every eighty-six packs that are exported, a licence from the Lord Lieutenant, for which 20 pounds is paid. From the Act of the last sessions of Great Britain for exporting woollen goods for the troops in the pay of Ireland, Mr. Abraham Lane, of Cork, established a new manufacture of army clothing for that purpose, which is the first at Cork, and pays 40 pounds a week in labour only. Upon the whole there has been no increase of woollen manufacture within twenty years. Is clearly of opinion that many fabrics might be worked up here much cheaper than in France, of cloths that the French have beat the English out of; these are, particularly, broadcloths of one yard and half yard wide, from 3s. to 6s. 6d. a yard for the Levant trade. Friezes which are now supplied from Carcassone in Languedoc. Friezes, of twenty-four to twenty-seven inches, at 10d. to 13d. a yard. Flannels, twenty-seven to thirty-six, from 7d. to 14d. Serges of twenty-seven to thirty-six inches, at 7d. to 12d. a yard; these would work up the coarse wool. At Ballynasloe Fair, in July, 200,000 pounds a year bought in wool. There is a manufactory of knit-stocking by the common women about Cork, for eight or ten miles around; the yarn from 12d. to 18d. a pair, and the worsted from 16d. to 20d., and earn from 12d. to 18d. a week. Besides their own consumption, great quantities are sent to the north of Ireland. All the weavers in the country are confined to towns, have no land, but small gardens. Bandle, or narrow linen, for home consumption, is made in the western part of the county. Generally speaking, the circumstances of all the manufacturing poor are better than they were twenty years ago. The manufactures have not declined, though the exportation has, owing to the increased home consumptions. Bandon was once the seat of the stuff, camlet, and shag manufacture, but has in seven years declined above three-fourths. Have changed it for the manufacture of coarse green linens, for the London market, from 6d. to 9d. a yard, twenty-seven inches wide; but the number of manufactures in general much lessened. Rode to the mouth of Cork Harbour; the grounds about it are all fine, bold, and varied, but so bare of trees, that there is not a single view but what pains one in the want of wood. Rents of the tract south of the river Caragoline, from 5s. to 30s.; average, 10s. Not one man in five has a cow, but generally from one to four acres, upon which they have potatoes, and five or six sheep, which they milk, and spin their wool. Labour 5d. in winter, 6d. in summer; many of them for three months in the year live on potatoes and water, the rest of it they have a good deal of fish. But it is remarked, at Kinsale, that when sprats are most plentiful, diseases are most common. Rent for a mere cabin, 10s. Much paring and burning; paring twenty-eight men a day, sow wheat on it and then potatoes; get great crops. The soil a sharp, stony land; no limestone south of the above river. Manure for potatoes, with sea-weed, for 26s., which gives good crops, but lasts only one year. Sea-sand much used; no shells in it. Farms rise to two or three hundred acres, but are hired in partnership. Before I quit the environs of Cork, I must remark that the country on the harbour I think preferable, in many respects, for a residence, to anything I have seen in Ireland. First, it is the most southerly part of the kingdom. Second, there are very great beauties of prospect. Third, by much the most animated, busy scene of shipping in all Ireland, and consequently, fourth, a ready price for every product. Fifth, great plenty of excellent fish and wild fowl. Sixth, the neighbourhood of a great city for objects of convenience. September 25. Took the road to Nedeen, through the wildest region of mountains that I remember to have seen; it is a dreary but an interesting road. The various horrid, grotesque, and unusual forms in which the mountains rise and the rocks bulge; the immense height of some distant heads, which rear above all the nearer scenes, the torrents roaring in the vales, and breaking down the mountain sides, with here and there a wretched cabin, and a spot of culture yielding surprise to find human beings the inhabitants of such a scene of wildness, altogether keep the traveller's mind in an agitation and suspense. These rocks and mountains are many of them no otherwise improvable than by planting, for which, however, they are exceedingly well adapted. Sir John Colthurst was so obliging as to send half a dozen labourers with me, to help my chaise up a mountain side, of which he gave a formidable account: in truth it deserved it. The road leads directly against a mountain ridge, and those who made it were so incredibly stupid, that they kept the straight line up the hill, instead of turning aside to the right to wind around a projection of it. The path of the road is worn by torrents into a channel, which is blocked up in places by huge fragments, so that it would be a horrid road on a level; but on a hill so steep, that the best path would be difficult to ascend--it may be supposed terrible: the labourers, two passing strangers, and my servant, could with difficulty get the chaise up. It is much to be regretted that the direction of the road is not changed, as all the rest from Cork to Nedeen is good enough. For a few miles towards the latter place the country is flat on the river Kenmare, much of it good, and under grass or corn. Passed Mr. Orpine's at Ardtilly, and another of the same name at Killowen. Nedeen is a little town, very well situated, on the noble river Kenmare, where ships of one hundred and fifty tons may come up; there are but three or four good houses. Lord Shelburne, to whom the place belongs, has built one for his agent. There is a vale of good land, which is here from a mile and a half to a mile broad; and to the north and south, great ridges of mountains said to be full of mines. At Nedeen, Lord Shelburne had taken care to have me well informed by his people in that country, which belongs for the greatest part to himself, he has above one hundred and fifty thousand Irish acres in Kerry; the greatest part of the barony of Glanrought belongs to him, most of Dunkerron and Ivragh. The country is all a region of mountains, inclosed by a vale of flat land on the river; the mountains to the south come to the water's edge, with but few variations, the principal of which is Ardee, a farm of Lord Shelburne's to the north of the river, the flat land is one-half to three-quarters of a mile broad. The mountains to the south reach to Bear-haven, and those to the north to Dingle Bay; the soil is extremely various; to the south of the river all are sandstones, and the hills loam, stone, gravel, and bog. To the north there is a slip of limestone land, from Kilgarvon to Cabbina-cush, that is six miles east of Nedeen, and three to the west, but is not more than a quarter of a mile broad, the rest, including the mountains, all sandstone. As to its rents, it is very difficult to tell what they are; for land is let by the plough-land and gineve, twelve gineves to the plough-land; but the latter denomination is not of any particular quantity, for no two plough-lands are the same. The size of farms is various, from forty acres to one thousand; less quantities go with cabins, and some farms are taken by labourers in partnership. Soon entered the wildest and most romantic country I had anywhere seen; a region of steep rocks and mountains which continued for nine or ten miles, till I came in view of Mucruss. There is something magnificently wild in this stupendous scenery, formed to impress the mind with a certain species of terror. All this tract has a rude and savage air, but parts of it are strikingly interesting; the mountains are bare and rocky, and of a great magnitude; the vales are rocky glens, where a mountain stream tumbles along the roughest bed imaginable, and receives many torrents, pouring from clefts, half overhung with shrubby wood; some of these streams are seen, and the roar of others heard, but hid by vast masses of rock. Immense fragments, torn from the precipices by storms and torrents, are tumbled in the wildest confusion, and seem to hang rather than rest upon projecting precipices. Upon some of these fragments of rock, perfectly detached from the soil, except by the side on which they lie, are beds of black turf, with luxuriant crops of heath, etc., which appeared very curious to me, having nowhere seen the like; and I observed very high in the mountains--much higher than any cultivation is at present, on the right hand--flat and cleared spaces of good grass among the ridges of rock, which had probably been cultivated, and proved that these mountains were not incapable from climate of being applied to useful purposes. From one of these heights I looked forward to the Lake of Killarney at a considerable distance, and backward to the river Kenmare; came in view of a small part of the upper lake, spotted with several islands, and surrounded by the most tremendous mountains that can be imagined, of an aspect savage and dreadful. From this scene of wild magnificence, I broke at once upon all the glories of Killarney; from an elevated point of view I looked down on a considerable part of the lake, which gave me a specimen of what I might expect. The water you command (which, however, is only a part of the lake) appears a basin of two or three miles round; to the left it is inclosed by the mountains you have passed, particularly by the Turk, whose outline is uncommonly noble, and joins a range of others, that form the most magnificent shore in the world: on the other side is a rising scenery of cultivated hills, and Lord Kenmare's park and woods; the end of the lake at your feet is formed by the root of Mangerton, on whose side the road leads. From hence I looked down on a pretty range of inclosures on the lake, and the woods and lawns of Mucruss, forming a large promontory of thick wood, shooting far into the lake. The most active fancy can sketch nothing in addition. Islands of wood beyond seem to join it, and reaches of the lake, breaking partly between, give the most lively intermixture of water; six or seven isles and islets form an accompaniment: some are rocky, but with a slight vegetation, others contain groups of trees, and the whole thrown into forms, which would furnish new ideas to a painter. Farther is a chain of wooded islands, which also appear to join the mainland, with an offspring of lesser ones scattered around. Arrived at Mr. Herbert's at Mucruss, to whose friendly attention I owed my succeeding pleasure. There have been so many descriptions of Killarney written by gentlemen who have resided some time there, and seen it at every season, that for a passing traveller to attempt the like would be in vain; for this reason I shall give the mere journal of the remarks I made on the spot, in the order I viewed the lake. September 27. Walked into Mr. Herbert's beautiful grounds, to Oroch's Hill, in the lawn that he has cleared from that profusion of stones which lie under the wall; the scene which this point commands is truly delicious; the house is on the edge of the lawn, by a wood which covers the whole peninsula, fringes the slope at your feet, and forms a beautiful shore to the lake. Tomys and Glena are vast mountainous masses of incredible magnificence, the outline soft and easy in its swells, whereas those above the eagle's nest are of so broken and abrupt an outline, that nothing can be imagined more savage, an aspect horrid and sublime, that gives all the impressions to be wished to astonish rather than please the mind. The Turk exhibits noble features, and Mangerton's huge body rises above the whole. The cultivated tracts towards Killarney form a shore in contrast to the terrific scenes I have just mentioned; the distant boundary of the lake, a vast ridge of distant blue mountains towards Dingle. From hence entered the garden, and viewed Mucruss Abbey, one of the most interesting scenes I ever saw; it is the ruin of a considerable abbey, built in Henry VI.'s time, and so entire, that if it were more so, though the building would be more perfect, the ruin would be less pleasing; it is half obscured in the shade of some venerable ash trees; ivy has given the picturesque circumstance, which that plant alone can confer, while the broken walls and ruined turrets throw over it "The last mournful graces of decay;" heaps of skulls and bones scattered about, with nettles, briars, and weeds sprouting in tufts from the loose stones, all unite to raise those melancholy impressions, which are the merit of such scenes, and which can scarcely anywhere be felt more completely. The cloisters form a dismal area, in the centre of which grows the most prodigious yew-tree I ever beheld, in one great stem, two feet diameter, and fourteen feet high, from whence a vast head of branches spreads on every side, so as to perform a perfect canopy to the whole space. I looked for its fit inhabitant; it is a spot where "The moping owl doth to the moon complain." This ruin is in the true style in which all such buildings should appear; there is not an intruding circumstance, the hand of dress has not touched it, melancholy is the impression which such scenes should kindle, and it is here raised most powerfully. From the abbey we passed to the terrace, a natural one of grass, on the very shore of the lake; it is irregular and winding; a wall of rocks broken into fantastic forms by the waves: on the other side a wood, consisting of all sorts of plants, which the climate can protect, and through which a variety of walks are traced. The view from this terrace consists of many parts of various characters, but in their different styles complete; the lake opens a spreading sheet of water, spotted by rocks and islands, all but one or two wooded; the outlines of them are sharp and distinct; nothing can be more smiling than this scene, soft and mild, a perfect contrast of beauty to the sublimity of the mountains which form the shore: these rise in an outline, so varied, and at the same time so magnificent, that nothing greater can be imagined; Tomys and Glena exhibit an immensity in point of magnitude, but from a large hanging wood on the slope, and from the smoothness of the general surface, it has nothing savage, whereas the mountains above and near the eagle's nest are of the most broken outlines; the declivities are bulging rocks, of immense size, which seem to impend in horrid forms over the lake, and where an opening among them is caught, others of the same rude character rear their threatening heads. From different parts of the terrace these scenes are viewed in numberless varieties. Returned to breakfast, and pursued Mr. Herbert's new road, which he has traced through the peninsula to Dynis Island, three miles in length; and it is carried in so judicious a manner through a great variety of ground, rocky woods, lawns, etc., that nothing can be more pleasing; it passes through a remarkable scene of rocks, which are covered with woods. From thence to the marble quarry, which Mr. Herbert is working, and where he gains variety of marbles, green, red, white, and brown, prettily veined; the quarry is a shore of rocks, which surround a bay of the lake, and forms a scene consisting of but few parts, but those strongly marked; the rocks are bold, and broken into slight caverns; they are fringed with scattered trees, and from many parts of them wood shoots in that romantic manner so common at Killarney. Full in front Turk Mountain rises with the proudest outline, in that abrupt magnificence which fills up the whole space before one, and closes the scene. The road leads by a place where copper-mines were worked; many shafts appear; as much ore was raised as sold for twenty-five thousand pounds, but the works were laid aside, more from ignorance in the workmen than any defects in the mine. Came to the opening on the great lake, which appears to advantage here, the town of Killarney on the north-east shore. Look full on the mountain Glena, which rises in very bold manner, the hanging woods spread half way, and are of great extent, and uncommonly beautiful. Two very pleasing scenes succeed; that to the left is a small bay, hemmed in by a neck of land in front; the immediate shore rocks, which are in a picturesque style, and crowned entirely with arbutus, and other wood; a pretty retired scene, where a variety of objects give no fatigue to the eye. The other is an admirable mixture of the beautiful and sublime: a bare rock of an almost regular figure projects from a headland into the lake, which, with much wood and highland, forms one side of the scene; the other is wood from a rising ground only; the lake open between, in a sheet of no great extent, but in front is the hanging wood of Glena, which appears in full glory. Mr. Herbert has built a handsome Gothic bridge, to unite the peninsula to the island of Brickeen, through the arch of which the waters of the north and south lake flow. It is a span of twenty-seven feet, and seventeen high, and over it the road leads to that island. From thence to Brickeen nearly finished, and it is to be thrown across a bottom into Dynis. Returned by the northern path through a thick wood for some distance, and caught a very agreeable view of Ash Island, seen through an opening, inclosed on both sides with wood. Pursued the way from these grounds to Keelbeg, and viewed the bay of the Devil's Island, which is a beautiful one, inclosed by a shore, to the right of very noble rocks in ledges and other forms, crowned in a striking manner with wood; a little rocky islet rises in front; to the left the water opens, and Turk Mountain rises with that proud superiority which attends him in all these scenes. The view of the promontory of Dindog, near this place, closes this part of the lake, and is indeed singularly beautiful. It is a large rock, which shoots far into the water, of a height sufficient to be interesting, in full relief, fringed with a scanty vegetation; the shore on which you stand bending to the right, as if to meet that rock, presents a circular shade of dark wood: Turk still the background, in a character of great sublimity, and Mangerton's loftier summit, but less interesting outline, a part of the scenery. These views, with others of less moment, are connected by a succession of lawns breaking among the wood, pleasing the eye with lively verdure, and relieving it from the fatigue of the stupendous mountain scenes. September 28. Took boat on the lake, from the promontory of Dindog before mentioned. I had been under a million of apprehensions that I should see no more of Killarney; for it blew a furious storm all night, and in the morning the bosom of the lake heaved with agitation, exhibiting few marks but those of anger. After breakfast it cleared up, the clouds dispersed by degrees, the waves subsided, the sun shone out in all its splendour; every scene was gay, and no ideas but pleasure possessed the breast. With these emotions sallied forth, nor did they disappoint us. Rowed under the rocky shore of Dindog, which is romantic to a great degree. The base, by the beating of the waves, is worn into caverns, so that the heads of the rocks project considerably beyond the base, and hang over in a manner which makes every part of it interesting. Following the coast, open marble quarry bay, the shore great fragments of rock tumbled about in the wildest manner. The island of rocks against the copper-mine shore a remarkable group. The shore near Casemilan is of a different nature; it is wood in some places, in unbroken masses down to the water's edge, in others divided from it by smaller tracts of rock. Come to a beautiful land-locked bay, surrounded by a woody shore, which, opening in places, shows other woods more retired. Tomys is here viewed in a unity of form, which gives it an air of great magnificence. Turk was obscured by the sun shining immediately above him, and, casting a stream of burning light on the water, displayed an effect to describe which the pencil of a Claude alone would be equal. Turn out of the bay, and gain a full view of the Eagle's Nest, the mountains above it, and Glena; they form a perfect contrast; the first are rugged, but Glena mild. Here the shore is a continued wood. Pass the bridge, and cross to Dynis, an island Mr. Herbert has improved in the most agreeable manner, by cutting walks through it that command a variety of views. One of these paths on the banks of the channel to the upper lake is sketched with great taste; it is on one side walled with natural rocks, from clefts of which shoot a thousand fine arbutuses, that hang in a rich foliage of flowers and scarlet berries; a turf bench in a delicious spot; the scene close and sequestered, just enough to give every pleasing idea annexed to retirement. Passing the bridge, by a rapid stream, came presently to the Eagle's Nest: having viewed this rock from places where it appears only a part of an object much greater than itself, I had conceived an idea that it did not deserve the applause given it, but upon coming near I was much surprised; the approach is wonderfully fine, the river leads directly to its foot, and does not give the turn till immediately under, by which means the view is much more grand than it could otherwise be; it is nearly perpendicular, and rises in such full majesty, with so bold an outline, and such projecting masses in its centre, that the magnificence of the object is complete. The lower part is covered with wood, and scattered trees climb almost to the top, which (if trees can be amiss in Ireland) rather weaken the impression raised by this noble rock. This part is a hanging wood, or an object whose character is perfect beauty; but the upper scene, the broken outline, rugged sides, and bulging masses, all are sublime, and so powerful, that sublimity is the general impression of the whole, by overpowering the idea of beauty raised by the wood. This immense height of the mountains of Killarney may be estimated by this rock; from any distant place that commands it, it appears the lowest crag of a vast chain, and of no account; but on a close approach it is found to command a very different respect. Pass between the mountains called the Great Range, towards the upper lake. Here Turk, which has so long appeared with a figure perfectly interesting, is become, from a different position, an unmeaning lump. The rest of the mountains, as you pass, assume a varied appearance, and are of a prodigious magnitude. The scenery in this channel is great and wild in all its features; wood is very scarce; vast rocks seem tossed in confusion through the narrow vale, which is opened among the mountains for the river to pass. Its banks are rocks in a hundred forms; the mountain-sides are everywhere scattered with them. There is not a circumstance but is in unison with the wild grandeur of the scene. Coleman's Eye, a narrow pass, opens a different scenery. Came to a region in which the beautiful and the great are mixed without offence. The islands are most of them thickly wooded. Oak Isle in particular rises on a pretty base, and is a most beautiful object: Macgillicuddy Reeks, with their broken points; Baum, with his perfect cone; the Purple Mountain, with his broad and more regular head; and Turk, having assumed a new and more interesting aspect, unite with the opposite hills, part of which have some wood left on them, to form a scene uncommonly striking. Here you look back on a very peculiar spot; it is a parcel of rocks which cross the lake, and form a gap that opens to distant water, the whole backed by Turk, in a style of the highest grandeur. Come to Derry Currily, which is a great sweep of mountain, covered partly with wood, hanging in a very noble manner, but part cut down, much of it mangled, and the rest inhabited by coopers, boat-builders, carpenters, and turners, a sacrilegious tribe, who have turned the Dryads from their ancient habitations. The cascade here is a fine one; but passed quickly from hence to scenes unmixed with pain. Row to the cluster of the Seven Islands, a little archipelago; they rise very boldly from the water upon rocky bases, and are crowned in the most beautiful manner with wood, among which are a number of arbutuses; the channels among them opening to new scenes, and the great amphitheatre of rock and mountain that surround them unite to form a noble view. Into the river, at the very end of the lake, which winds towards Macgillicuddy Reeks in fanciful meanders. Returned by a course somewhat different, through the Seven Islands, and back to the Eagle's Nest, viewing the scenes already mentioned in new positions. At that noble rock fired three cannon for the echo, which indeed is prodigious; the report does not consist of direct reverberations from one rock to another with a pause between, but has an exact resemblance to a peal of thunder rattling behind the rock, as if travelling the whole scenery we had viewed, and lost in the immensity of Macgillicuddy Reeks. Returning through the bridge, turn to the left round Dynis Island, under the woods of Glena; open on the cultivated country beyond the town of Killarney, and come gradually in sight of Innisfallen and Ross Island. Pass near to the wood of Glena, which here takes the appearance of one immense sweep hanging in the most beautiful manner imaginable, on the side of a vast mountain to a point, shooting into the great lake. A more glorious scene is not to be imagined. It is one deep mass of wood, composed of the richest shades perfectly dipping in the water, without rock or strand appearing, not a break in the whole. The eye passing upon the sheet of liquid silver some distance, to meet so entire a sweep of every tint that can compose one vast mass of green, hanging to such an extent as to fill not only the eye but the imagination, unites in the whole to form the most noble scene that is anywhere to be beheld. Turn under the north shore of Mucruss; the lake here is one great expanse of water, bounded by the woods described, the islands of Innisfallen, Ross, etc., and the peninsula. The shore of Mucruss has a great variety; it is in some places rocky; huge masses tumbled from their base lie beneath, as in a chaos of ruin. Great caverns worn under them in a variety of strange forms; or else covered with woods of a variety of shades. Meet the point of Ardnagluggen (in English where the water dashes on the rocks) and come under Ornescope, a rocky headland of a most bold projection hanging many yards over its base, with an old weather-beaten yew growing from a little bracket of rock, from which the spot is called Ornescope, or yew broom. Mucruss gardens presently open among the woods, and relieve the eye, almost fatigued with the immense objects upon which it has so long gazed; these softer scenes of lawn gently swelling among the shrubs and trees finished the second day. September 29. Rode after breakfast to Mangerton Cascade and Drumarourk Hill, from which the view of Mucruss is uncommonly pleasing. Pass the other hill, the view of which I described the 27th, and went to Colonel Huffy's monument, from whence the scene is different from the rest; the foreground is a gentle hill, intersected by hedges, forming several small lawns. There are some scattered trees and houses, with Mucruss Abbey half obscured by wood, the whole cheerful and backed by Turk. The lake is of a triangular form, Ross Island and Innisfallen its limits; the woods of Mucruss and the islands take a new position. Returning, took a boat again towards Ross Isle, and as Mucruss retires from us, nothing can be more beautiful than the spots of lawn in the terrace opening in the wood; above it the green hills with clumps, and the whole finishing in the noble group of wood about the abbey, which here appears a deep shade, and so fine a finishing one, that not a tree should be touched. Rowed to the east point of Ross, which is well wooded; turn to the south coast. Doubling the point, the most beautiful shore of that island appears; it is the well-wooded environs of a bay, except a small opening to the castle; the woods are in deep shades, and rise on the regular slopes of a high range of rocky coast. The part in front of Filekilly point rises in the middle, and sinks towards each end. The woods of Tomys here appear uncommonly fine. Open Innisfallen, which is composed at this distance of the most various shades, within a broken outline, entirely different from the other islands, groups of different masses rising in irregular tufts, and joined by lower trees. No pencil could mix a happier assemblage. Land near a miserable room, where travellers dine. Of the isle of Innisfallen, it is paying no great compliment to say it is the most beautiful in the king's dominions, and perhaps in Europe. It contains twenty acres of land, and has every variety that the range of beauty, unmixed with the sublime, can give. The general feature is that of wood; the surface undulates into swelling hills, and sinks into little vales; the slopes are in every direction, the declivities die gently away, forming those slight inequalities which are the greatest beauty of dressed grounds. The little valleys let in views of the surrounding lake between the hills, while the swells break the regular outline of the water, and give to the whole an agreeable confusion. The wood has all the variety into which nature has thrown the surface; in some parts it is so thick as to appear impenetrable, and secludes all farther view; in others, it breaks into tufts of tall timber, under which cattle feed. Here they open, as if to offer to the spectator the view of the naked lawn; in others close, as if purposely to forbid a more prying examination. Trees of large size and commanding figure form in some places natural arches; the ivy mixing with the branches, and hanging across in festoons of foliage, while on one side the lake glitters among the trees, and on the other a thick gloom dwells in the recesses of the wood. The figure of the island renders one part a beautiful object to another; for the coast being broken and indented, forms bays surrounded either with rock or wood: slight promontories shoot into the lake, whose rocky edges are crowned with wood. These are the great features of Innisfallen; the slighter touches are full of beauties easily imagined by the reader. Every circumstance of the wood, the water, the rocks, and lawn, are characteristic, and have a beauty in the assemblage from mere disposition. I must, however, observe that this delicious retreat is not kept as one could wish. Scenes that are great and commanding, from magnitude or wildness, should never be dressed; the rugged, and even the horrible, may add to the effect upon the mind: but in such as Innisfallen, a degree of dress, that is, cleanliness, is even necessary to beauty. I have spoken of lawn, but I should observe that expression indicates what it ought to be rather than what it is. It is very rich grass, poached by oxen and cows, the only inhabitants of the island. No spectator of taste but will regret the open grounds not being drained with hollow cuts; the ruggedness of the surface levelled, and the grass kept close shaven by many sheep instead of beasts. The bushes and briars, where they have encroached on what ought to be lawn, cleared away; some parts of the isle more opened; in a word no ornaments given, for the scene wants them not, but obstructions cleared, ruggedness smoothed, and the whole cleaned. This is what ought to be done; as to what might be made of the island, if its noble proprietor (Lord Kenmare) had an inclination, it admits of being converted into a terrestrial paradise; lawning with the intermixture of other shrubs and wood, and a little dress, would make it an example of what ornamented grounds might be, but which not one in a thousand is. Take the island, however, as it is, with its few imperfections, and where are we to find such another? What a delicious retreat! an emperor could not bestow such a one as Innisfallen; with a cottage, a few cows, and a swarm of poultry, is it possible that happiness should refuse to be a guest here? Row to Ross Castle, in order to coast that island; there is nothing peculiarly striking in it; return the same way around Innisfallen. In this little voyage the shore of Ross is one of the most beautiful of the wooded ones in the lake; it seems to unite with Innisfallen, and projects into the water in thick woods one beyond another. In the middle of the channel a large rock, and from the other shore a little promontory of a few scattered trees; the whole scene pleasing. The shore of Innisfallen has much variety, but in general it is woody, and of the beautiful character which predominates in that island. One bay, at taking leave of it, is exceedingly pretty; it is a semicircular one, and in the centre there is a projecting knoll of wood within a bay; this is uncommon, and has an agreeable effect. The near approach to Tomys exhibits a sweep of wood, so great in extent, and so rich in foliage, that no person can see without admiring it. The mountainous part above is soon excluded by the approach; wood alone is seen, and that in such a noble range as to be greatly striking; it just hollows into a bay, and in the centre of it is a chasm in the wood; this is a bed of a considerable stream, which forms O'Sullivan's cascade, to which all strangers are conducted, as one of the principal beauties of Killarney. Landed to the right of it, and walked under the thick shade of the wood, over a rocky declivity, close to the torrent stream, which breaks impetuously from rock to rock, with a roar that kindles expectation. The picture in your fancy will not exceed the reality; a great stream bursts from the deep bosom of a wooded glen, hollowed into a retired recess of rocks and trees, itself a most pleasing and romantic spot, were there not a drop of water: the first fall is many feet perpendicularly over a rock; to the eye it immediately makes another, the basin into which it pours being concealed; from this basin it forces itself impetuously between two rocks. This second fall is also of a considerable height; but the lower one, the third, is the most considerable; it issues in the same manner from a basin hid from the point of view. These basins being large, there appears a space of several yards between each fall, which adds much to the picturesque scenery; the whole is within an arch of wood, that hangs over it; the quantity of water is so considerable, as to make an almost deafening noise, and uniting with the torrent below, where the fragments of rock are large and numerous, throw an air of grandeur over the whole. It is about seventy feet high. Coast from hence the woody shores of Tomys and Glena; they are upon the whole much the most beautiful ones I have anywhere seen; Glena woods having more oak, and some arbutuses, are the finer and deeper shades; Tomys has a great quantity of birch, whose foliage is not so luxuriant. The reader may figure to himself what these woods are, when he is informed that they fill an unbroken extent of six miles in length, and from half a mile to a mile and a half in breadth, all hanging on the sides of two vast mountains, and coming down with a full robe of rich luxuriance to the very water's edge. The acclivity of these hills is such, that every tree appears full to the eye. The variety of the ground is great; in some places great swells in the mountain-side, with corresponding hollows, present concave and convex masses; in others, considerable ridges of land and rock rise from the sweep, and offer to the astonished eye yet other varieties of shade. Smaller mountains rise regularly from the immense bosom of the larger, and hold forth their sylvan heads, backed by yet higher woods. To give all the varieties of this immense scenery of forest is impossible. Above the whole is a prodigious mass of mountain, of a gently swelling outline and soft appearance, varying as the sun or clouds change their position, but never becoming rugged or threatening to the eye. The variations are best seen by rowing near the shore, when every stroke of the oar gives a new outline, and fresh tints to please the eye: but for one great impression, row about two miles from the shore of Glena; at that distance the inequalities in the surface are no longer seen, but the eye is filled with so immense a range of wood, crowned with a mountain in perfect unison with itself, that objects, whose character is that of beauty, are here, from their magnitude, truly magnificent, and attended with a most forcible expression.--Returned to Mucruss. September 30. This morning I had dedicated to the ascent of Mangerton, but his head was so enshrouded in clouds, and the weather so bad, that I was forced to give up the scheme: Mr. Herbert has measured him with very accurate instruments, of which he has a great collection, and found his height eight hundred and thirty-five yards above the level of the sea. The Devil's Punch-bowl, from the description I had of it, must be the crater of an exhausted volcano: there are many signs of them about Killarney, particularly vast rocks on the sides of mountains, in streams, as if they had rolled from the top in one direction. Brown stone rocks are also sometimes found on lime-quarries, tossed thither perhaps in some vast eruption. In my way from Killarney to Castle Island, rode into Lord Kenmare's park, from whence there is another beautiful view of the lake, different from many of the preceding; there is a broad margin of cultivated country at your feet, to lead the eye gradually in the lake, which exhibits her islands to this point more distinctly than to any other, and the backgrounds of the mountains of Glena and Tomys give a bold relief. Upon the whole, Killarney, among the lakes that I have seen, can scarcely be said to have a rival. The extent of water in Loch Earne is much greater, the islands more numerous, and some scenes near Castle Caldwell of perhaps as great magnificence. The rocks at Keswick are more sublime, and other lakes may have circumstances in which they are superior; but when we consider the prodigious woods of Killarney, the immensity of the mountains, the uncommon beauty of the promontory of Mucruss and the Isle of Innisfallen, the character of the islands, the singular circumstance of the arbutus, and the uncommon echoes, it will appear, upon the whole, to be in reality superior to all comparison. Before I quit it I have one other observation to make, which is relative to the want of accommodations and extravagant expense of strangers residing at Killarney. I speak it not at all feelingly, thanks to Mr. Herbert's hospitality, but from the accounts given me: the inns are miserable, and the lodgings little better. I am surprised somebody with a good capital does not procure a large well-built inn, to be erected on the immediate shore of the lake, in an agreeable situation, at a distance from the town; there are very few places where such a one would answer better; there ought to be numerous and good apartments. A large rendezvous-room for billiards, cards, dancing, music, etc., to which the company might resort when they chose it; an ordinary for those that like dining in public; boats of all sorts, nets for fishing, and as great a variety of amusements as could be collected, especially within doors; for the climate being very rainy, travellers wait with great impatience in a dirty common inn, which they would not do if they were in the midst of such accommodations as they meet with at an English spa. But above all, the prices of everything, from a room and a dinner to a barge and a band of music, to be reasonable, and hung up in every part of the house. The resort of strangers to Killarney would then be much increased, and their stay would be greatly prolonged; they would not view it post-haste, and fly away the first moment to avoid dirt and imposition. A man with a good capital and some ingenuity would, I think, make a fortune by fixing here upon such principles. The state of the poor in the whole county of Kerry represented as exceedingly miserable, and owing to the conduct of men of property, who are apt to lay the blame on what they call land pirates, or men who offer the highest rent, and who, in order to pay this rent, must and do re-let all the cabin lands at an extravagant rise, which is assigning over all the cabins to be devoured by one farmer. The cottars on a farm cannot go from one to another, in order to find a good master, as in England; for all the country is in the same system, and no redress to be found. Such being the case, the farmers are enabled to charge the price of labour as low as they please, and rate the land as high as they like. This is an evil which oppresses them cruelly, and certainly has its origin in its landlords when they set their farms, setting all the cabins with them, instead of keeping them tenants to themselves. The oppression is, the farmer valuing the labour of the poor at fourpence or fivepence a day, and paying that in land rated much above its value. Owing to this the poor are depressed; they live upon potatoes and sour milk, and the poorest of them only salt and water to them, with now and then a herring. Their milk is bought; for very few keep cows, scarce any pigs, but a few poultry. Their circumstances are incomparably worse than they were twenty years ago; for they had all cows, but then they wore no linen: all now have a little flax. To these evils have been owing emigrations, which have been considerable. To the west of Tralee are the Mahagree Islands, famous for their corn products; they are rock and sand, stocked with rabbits; near them a sandy tract, twelve miles long, and one mile broad, to the north, with the mountains to the south, famous for the best wheat in Kerry; all under the plough. Arriving at Ardfert, Lord Crosby, whose politeness I have every reason to remember, was so obliging as to carry me by one of the finest strands I ever rode upon, to view the mouth of the Shannon at Ballengary, the site of an old fort. It is a vast rock, separated from the country by a chasm of prodigious depth, through which the waves drive. The rocks of the coast here are in the boldest style, and hollowed by the furious Atlantic waves into caverns in which they roar. It was a dead calm, yet the swell was so heavy, that the great waves rolled in and broke upon the rocks with such violence as to raise an immense foam, and give one an idea of what a storm would be; but fancy rarely falls short in her pictures. The view of the Shannon is exceedingly noble; it is eight miles over, the mouth formed by two headlands of very high and bold cliffs, and the reach of the river in view very extensive; it is an immense scenery: perhaps the noblest mouth of a river in Europe. Ardfert is very near the sea, so near it that single trees or rows are cut in pieces with the wind, yet about Lord Glendour's house there are extensive plantations exceedingly flourishing, many fine ash and beech; about a beautiful Cistercian abbey, and a silver fir of forty-eight years' growth, of an immense height and size. October 3. Left Ardfert, accompanying Lord Crosby to Listowel. Called in the way to view Lixnaw, the ancient seat of the Earls of Kerry, but deserted for ten years past, and now presents so melancholy a scene of desolation, that it shocked me to see it. Everything around lies in ruin, and the house itself is going fast off by thieving depredations of the neighbourhood. I was told a curious anecdote of this estate; which shows wonderfully the improvement of Ireland. The present Earl of Kerry's grandfather, Thomas, agreed to lease the whole estate for 1,500 pounds a year to a Mr. Collis for ever, but the bargain went off upon a dispute whether the money should be paid at Cork or Dublin. Those very lands are now let at 20,000 pounds a year. There is yet a good deal of wood, particularly a fine ash grove, planted by the present Earl of Shelburne's father. Proceeded to Woodford, Robert Fitzgerald's, Esq., passing Listowel Bridge; the vale leading to it is very fine, the river is broad, the lands high, and one side a very extensive hanging wood, opening on those of Woodford in a pleasing style. Woodford is an agreeable scene; close to the house is a fine winding river under a bank of thick wood, with the view of an old castle hanging over it. In 1765, Mr. Fitzgerald was travelling from Constantinople to Warsaw, and a waggon with his baggage heavily laden overset; the country people harnessed two buffaloes by the horns, in order to draw it over, which they did with ease. In some very instructive conversation I had with this gentleman on the subject of his travels, this circumstance particularly struck me. October 4. From Woodford to Tarbat, the seat of Edward Leslie, Esq., through a country rather dreary, till it came upon Tarbat, which is so much the contrary that it appeared to the highest advantage; the house is on the edge of a beautiful lawn, with a thick margin of full grown wood, hanging on a steep bank to the Shannon, so that the river is seen from the house over the tops of this wood, which being of a broken irregular outline has an effect very striking and uncommon; the river is two or three miles broad here, and the opposite coast forms a promontory which has from Tarbat exactly the appearance of a large island. To the east, the river swells into a triangular lake, with a reach opening at the distant corner of it to Limerick. The union of wood, water, and lawn forms upon the whole a very fine scene; the river is very magnificent. From the hill on the coast above the island, the lawn and wood appear also to great advantage. But the finest point of view is from the higher hill on the other side of the house, which looking down on all these scenes, they appear as a beautiful ornament to the Shannon, which spreads forth its proud course from two to nine miles wide, surrounded by highlands; a scenery truly magnificent. The state of the poor is something better than it was twenty years ago, particularly their clothing, cattle, and cabins. They live upon potatoes and milk; all have cows, and when they dry them, buy others. They also have butter, and most of them keep pigs, killing them for their own use. They have also herrings. They are in general in the cottar system, of paying for labour by assigning some land to each cabin. The country is greatly more populous than twenty years ago, and is now increasing; and if ever so many cabins were built by a gradual increase, tenants would be found for them. A cabin and five acres of land will let for 4 pounds a year. The industrious cottar, with two, three, or four acres, would be exceedingly glad to have his time to himself, and have such an annual addition of land as he was able to manage, paying a fair rent for it; none would decline it but the idle and worthless. Tithes are all annually valued by the proctors, and charged very high. There are on the Shannon about one hundred boats employed in bringing turf to Limerick from the coast of Kerry and Clare, and in fishing; the former carry from twenty to twenty-five tons, the latter from five to ten, and are navigated each by two men and a boy. October 5. Passed through a very unentertaining country (except for a few miles on the bank of the Shannon) to Altavilla, but Mr. Bateman being from home, I was disappointed in getting an account of the palatines settled in his neighbourhood. Kept the road to Adair, where Mrs. Quin, with a politeness equalled only by her understanding, procured me every intelligence I wished for. Palatines were settled here by the late Lord Southwell about seventy years ago. They preserve some of their German customs: sleep between two beds. They appoint a burgomaster, to whom they appeal in case of all disputes; and they yet preserve their language, but that is declining. They are very industrious, and in consequence are much happier and better fed, clothed, and lodged than the Irish peasants. We must not, however, conclude from hence that all is owing to this; their being independent farmers, and having leases, are circumstances which will create industry. Their crops are much better than those of their neighbours. There are three villages of them, about seventy families in all. For some time after they settled they fed upon sour-crout, but by degrees left it off, and took to potatoes; but now subsist upon them and butter and milk, but with a great deal of oat bread, and some of wheat, some meat and fowls, of which they raise many. They have all offices to their houses, that is, stables and cow-houses, and a lodge for their ploughs, etc. They keep their cows in the house in winter, feeding them upon hay and oat straw. They are remarkable for the goodness and cleanliness of their houses. The women are very industrious, reap the corn, plough the ground sometimes, and do whatever work may be going on; they also spin, and make their children do the same. Their wheat is much better than any in the country, insomuch that they get a better price than anybody else. Their industry goes so far, that jocular reports of its excess are spread. In a very pinching season, one of them yoked his wife against a horse, and went in that manner to work, and finished a journey at plough. The industry of the women is a perfect contrast to the Irish ladies in the cabins, who cannot be persuaded, on any consideration, even to make hay, it not being the custom of the country, yet they bind corn, and do other works more laborious. Mrs. Quin, who is ever attentive to introduce whatever can contribute to their welfare and happiness, offered many premiums to induce them to make hay, of hats, cloaks, stockings, etc. etc., but all would not do. Few places have so much wood about them as Adair; Mr. Quin has above one thousand acres in his hands, in which a large proportion is under wood. The deer park of four hundred acres is almost full of old oak and very fine thorns, of a great size; and about the house, the plantations are very extensive, of elm and other wood, but that thrives better than any other sort. I have nowhere seen finer than vast numbers here. There is a fine river runs under the house, and within view are no less than three ruins of Franciscan friaries, two of them remarkably beautiful, and one has most of the parts perfect, except the roof. In Mr. Quin's house there are some very good pictures, particularly an Annunciation by Domenichino, which is a beautiful piece. It was brought lately from Italy by Mr. Quin, junior. The colours are rich and mellow, and the hairs of the heads inimitably pleasing; the group of angels at the top, to the left of the piece, is very natural. It is a piece of great merit. The companion is a Magdalen; the expression of melancholy, or rather misery, remarkably strong. There is a gloom in the whole in full unison with the subject. There are, besides these, some others inferior, yet of merit, and two very good portraits of Lord Dartry (Mrs. Quin's brother), and of Mr. Quin, junior, by Pompeio Battoni. A piece in an uncommon style, done on oak, of Esther and Ahasuerus; the colours tawdry, but the grouping attitudes and effect pleasing. Castle Oliver is a place almost entirely of Mr. Oliver's creation; from a house, surrounded with cabins and rubbish, he has fixed it in a fine lawn, surrounded by good wood. The park he has very much improved on an excellent plan; by means of seven feet hurdles, he fences off part of it that wants to be cleaned or improved; these he cultivates, and leaves for grass, and then takes another spot, which is by much the best way of doing it. In the park is a glen, an English mile long, winding in a pleasing manner, with much wood hanging on the banks. Mr. Oliver has conducted a stream through this vale, and formed many little water-falls in an exceedingly good taste, chiefly overhung with wood, but in some places open with several little rills, trickling over stones down the slopes. A path winds through a large wood and along the brow of the glen; this path leads to a hermitage, a cave of rock, in a good taste, and to some benches, from which the views of the water and wood are in the sequestered style they ought to be. One of these little views, which catches several falls under the arch of the bridge, is one of the prettiest touches of the kind I have seen. The vale beneath the house, when viewed from the higher grounds, is pleasing; it is very well wooded, there being many inclosures, surrounded by pine trees, and a thick fine mass of wood rises from them up the mountain-side, makes a very good figure, and would be better, had not Mr. Oliver's father cut it into vistas for shooting. Upon the whole, the place is highly improved, and when the mountains are planted, in which Mr. Oliver is making a considerable progress, it will be magnificent. In the house are several fine pictures, particularly five pieces by Seb. Ricci, Venus and AEneas; Apollo and Pan; Venus and Achilles; and Pyrrhus and Andromache, by Lazzerini; and the Rape of the Lapithi by the Centaurs. The last is by much the finest, and is a very capital piece; the expression is strong, the figures are in bold relief, and the colouring good. Venus and Achilles is a pleasing picture; the continence of Scipio is well grouped, but Scipio, as in every picture I ever saw of him, has no expression. Indeed, chastity is in the countenance so passive a virtue as not to be at all suited to the genius of painting; the idea is rather that of insipidity, and accordingly Scipio's expression is generally insipid enough. Two fine pieces, by Lucca Jordano, Hercules and Anteus; Samson Killing the Lion: both dark and horrid, but they are highly finished and striking. Six heads of old men, by Nagori, excellent; and four young women, in the character of the seasons. October 9. Left Castle Oliver. Had I followed my inclination, my stay would have been much longer, for I found it equally the residence of entertainment and instruction. Passed through Kilfennan and Duntreleague, in my way to Tipperary. The road leads everywhere on the sides of the hills, so as to give a very distinct view of the lower grounds; the soil all the way is the same sort of sandy reddish loam I have already described, incomparable land for tillage: as I advanced it grew something lighter, and in many places free from gravel. Bullocks the stock all the way. Towards Tipperary I saw vast numbers of sheep, and many bullocks. All this line of country is part of the famous golden vale. To Thomas Town, where I was so unfortunate as not to find Mr. Matthew at home; the domain is one thousand five hundred English acres, so well planted that I could hardly believe myself in Ireland. There is a hill in the park from which the view of it, the country and the Galties, are striking. October 12. To Lord de Montalt's, at Dundrum, a place which his lordship has ornamented in the modern style of improvement: the house was situated in the midst of all the regular exertions of the last age. Parterres, parapets of earth, straight walks, knots and clipped hedges, all which he has thrown down, with an infinite number of hedges and ditches, filled up ponds, etc., and opened one very noble lawn around him, scattered negligently over with trees, and cleared the course of a choked-up river, so that it flows at present in a winding course through the grounds. October 13. Leaving Dundrum, passed through Cashel, where is a rock and ruin on it, called the Rock of Cashel, supposed to be of the remotest antiquity. Towards Clonmel, the whole way through the same rich vein of red sandy loam I have so often mentioned: I examined it in several fields, and found it to be of an extraordinary fertility, and as fine turnip land as ever I saw. It is much under sheep; but towards Clonmel there is a great deal of tillage. The first view of that town, backed by a high ridge of mountains, with a beautiful space near it of inclosures, fringed with a scattering of trees, was very pleasing. It is the best situated place in the county of Tipperary, on the Suir, which brings up boats of ten tons burthen. It appears to be a busy populous place, yet I was told that the manufacture of woollens is not considerable. It is noted for being the birthplace of the inimitable Sterne. To Sir William Osborne's, three miles the other side Clonmel. From a character so remarkable for intelligence and precision, I could not fail of meeting information of the most valuable kind. This gentleman has made a mountain improvement which demands particular attention, being upon a principle very different from common ones. Twelve years ago he met with a hearty-looking fellow of forty, followed by a wife and six children in rags, who begged. Sir William questioned him upon the scandal of a man in full health and vigour, supporting himself in such a manner: the man said he could get no work: "Come along with me, I will show you a spot of land upon which I will build a cabin for you, and if you like it you shall fix there." The fellow followed Sir William, who was as good as his word: he built him a cabin, gave him five acres of a heathy mountain, lent him four pounds to stock with, and gave him, when he had prepared his ground, as much lime as he would come for. The fellow flourished; he went on gradually; repaid the four pounds, and presently became a happy little cottar: he has at present twelve acres under cultivation, and a stock in trade worth at least 80 pounds; his name is John Conory. The success which attended this man in two or three years brought others who applied for land, and Sir William gave them as they applied. The mountain was under lease to a tenant, who valued it so little, that upon being reproached with not cultivating, or doing something with it, he assured Sir William that it was utterly impracticable to do anything with it, and offered it to him without any deduction of rent. Upon this mountain he fixed them; gave them terms as they came determinable with the lease of the farm, so that every one that came in succession had shorter and shorter tenures; yet are they so desirous of settling, that they come at present, though only two years remain for a term. In this manner Sir William has fixed twenty-two families, who are all upon the improving hand, the meanest growing richer; and find themselves so well off, that no consideration will induce them to work for others, not even in harvest: their industry has no bounds; nor is the day long enough for the revolution of their incessant labour. Some of them bring turf to Clonmel, and Sir William has seen Conory returning loaded with soap ashes. He found it difficult to persuade them to make a road to their village, but when they had once done it, he found none in getting cross roads to it, they found such benefit in the first. Sir William has continued to give whatever lime they come for: and they have desired one thousand barrels among them for the year 1766, which their landlord has accordingly contracted for with his lime-burner, at 11d. a barrel. Their houses have all been built at his expense, and done by contract at 6 pounds each, after which they raise what little offices they want for themselves. October 15. Left New Town, and keeping on the banks of the Suir, passed through Carrick to Curraghmore, the seat of the Earl of Tyrone. This line of country, in point of soil, inferior to what I have of late gone through: so that I consider the rich country to end at Clonmel. Emigrations from this part of Ireland principally to Newfoundland: for a season they have 18 or 20 pounds for their pay, and are maintained, but they do not bring home more than 7 to 11 pounds. Some of them stay and settle; three years ago there was an emigration of indented servants to North Carolina of three hundred, but they were stopped by contrary winds, etc. There had been something of this constantly, but not to that amount. The oppression which the poor people have most to complain of is the not having any tenures in their lands, by which means they are entirely subject to their employers. Manufactures here are only woollens. Carrick is one of the greatest manufacturing towns in Ireland. Principally for ratteens, but of late they have got into broadcloths, all for home consumption; the manufacture increases, and is very flourishing. There are between three and four hundred people employed by it in Carrick and its neighbourhood. Curraghmore is one of the finest places in Ireland, or indeed that I have anywhere seen. The house, which is large, is situated upon a rising ground, in a vale surrounded by very bold hills, which rise in a variety of forms and offer to the eye, in rising through the grounds, very noble and striking scenes. These hills are exceedingly varied, so that the detour of the place is very pleasing. In order to see it to advantage, I would advise a traveller to take the ride which Lord Tyrone carried me. Passed through the deer-park wood of old oaks, spread over the side of a bold hill, and of such an extent, that the scene is a truly forest one, without any other boundary in view than what the stems of trees offer from mere extent, retiring one behind another till they thicken so much to the eye, under the shade of their spreading tops, as to form a distant wall of wood. This is a sort of scene not common in Ireland; it is a great extent alone that will give it. From this hill enter an evergreen plantation, a scene which winds up the deer-park hill, and opens on to the brow of it, which commands a most noble view indeed. The lawns round the house appear at one's feet, at the bottom of a great declivity of wood, almost everywhere surrounded by plantations. The hills on the opposite side of the vale against the house consist of a large lawn in the centre of the two woods, that to the right of an immense extent, which waves over a mountain-side in the finest manner imaginable, and lead the eye to the scenery on the left, which is a beautiful vale of rich inclosures, of several miles extent, with the Suir making one great reach through it, and a bold bend just before it enters a gap in the hills towards Waterford, and winds behind them; to the right you look over a large plain, backed by the great Cummeragh Mountains. For a distinct extent of view, the parts of which are all of a commanding magnitude, and a variety equal to the number, very few prospects are finer than this. From hence the boundary plantation extends some miles to the west and north-west of the domain, forming a margin to the whole of different growths, having been planted, by degrees, from three to sixteen years. It is in general well grown, and the trees thriven exceedingly, particularly the oak, beech, larch, and firs. It is very well sketched, with much variety given to it. Pass by the garden across the river which murmurs over a rocky bed, and follow the riding up a steep hill, covered with wood from some breaks, in which the house appears perfectly buried in a deep wood, and come out, after a considerable extent of ride, into the higher lawn, which commands a view of the scenery about the house; and from the brow of the hill the water, which is made to imitate a river, has a good effect, and throws a great air of cheerfulness over the scene, for from hence the declivity below it is hid. But the view, which is the most pleasing from hence, the finest at Curraghmore, and indeed one of the most striking that is anywhere to be seen, is that of the hanging wood to the right of the house, rising in so noble a sweep as perfectly to fill the eye, and leave the fancy scarce anything to wish: at the bottom is a small semicircular lawn, around which flows the river, under the immediate shade of very noble oaks. The whole wood rises boldly from the bottom, tree above tree, to a vast height, of large oak. The masses of shade are but tints of one colour; it is not chequered with a variety. There is a majestic simplicity, a unity in the whole, which is attended with an uncommon impression, and such as none but the most magnificent scenes can raise. Descending from hence through the roads, the riding crosses the river, and passes through the meadow which has such an effect in the preceding scene, from which also the view is very fine, and leads home through a continued and an extensive range of fine oak, partly on a declivity, at the bottom of which the river murmurs its broken course. Besides this noble riding, there is a very agreeable walk runs immediately on the banks of the river, which is perfect in its style; it is a sequestered line of wood, so high on the declivities in some places, and so thick on the very edge in others, overspreading the river, that the character of the scene is gloom and melancholy, heightened by the noise of the water falling from stone to stone. There is a considerable variety in the banks of it, and in the figures and growth of the wood, but none that hurts the impression, which is well preserved throughout. October 17. Accompanied Lord Tyrone to Waterford; made some inquiries into the state of their trade, but found it difficult, from the method in which the custom-house books are kept, to get the details I wished; but in the year following, having the pleasure of a long visit at Ballycanvan, the seat of Cornelius Bolton, Esq., his son, the member for the city, procured me every information I could wish, and that in so liberal and polite a manner, that it would not be easy to express the obligations I am under to both. In general, I was informed that the trade of the place had increased considerably in ten years, both the exports and imports--the exports of the products of pasturage, full one-third in twelve years. That the staple trade of the place is the Newfoundland trade. This is very much increased; there is more of it here than anywhere. The number of people who go as passengers in the Newfoundland ships is amazing: from sixty to eighty ships, and from three thousand to five thousand annually. They come from most parts of Ireland, from Cork, Kerry, etc. Experienced men will get eighteen to twenty-five pounds for the season, from March to November. A man who never went will have five to seven pounds and his passage, and others rise to twenty pounds; the passage out they get, but pay home two pounds. An industrious man in a year will bring home twelve to sixteen pounds with him, and some more. A great point for them is to be able to carry out all their slops, for everything there is exceedingly dear, one or two hundred per cent. dearer than they can get them at home. They are not allowed to take out any woollen goods but for their own use. The ships go loaded with pork, beef, butter, and some salt; and bring home passengers, or get freights where they can; sometimes rum. The Waterford pork comes principally from the barony of Iverk, in Kilkenny, where they fatten great numbers of large hogs; for many weeks together they kill here three to four thousand a week, the price fifty shillings to four pounds each; goes chiefly to Newfoundland. One was killed in Mr. Penrose's cellar that weighed five hundredweight and a quarter, and measured from the nose to the end of the tail nine feet four inches. There is a foundry at Waterford for pots, kettles, weights, and all common utensils; and a manufactory by Messrs. King and Tegent of anvils to anchors, twenty hundredweight, etc., which employs forty hands. Smiths earn from 6s. to 24s. a week. Nailers from 10s. to 12s. And another less considerable. There are two sugar-houses, and many salt-houses. The salt is boiled over lime-kilns. There is a fishery upon the coast of Waterford, for a great variety of fish, herrings particularly, in the mouth of Waterford Harbour, and two years ago in such quantities there, that the tides left the ditches full of them. There are some premium boats both here and at Dungarvan, but the quantity of herrings barrelled is not considerable. The butter trade of Waterford has increased greatly for seven years past; it comes from Waterford principally, but much from Carlow; for it comes from twenty miles beyond Carlow, for sixpence per hundred. From the 1st of January, 1774, to the 1st of January, 1775, there were exported fifty-nine thousand eight hundred and fifty-six casks of butter, each, on an average, one hundredweight, at the mean price of 50s. Revenue of Waterford, 1751, 17,000 pounds; 1776, 52,000 pounds. The slaughter trade has increased, but not so much as the butter. Price of butter now at Waterford, 58s.; twenty years' average, 42s. Beef now to 25s.; average, twenty years, 10s. to 18s. Pork, now 30s.; average, twenty years, 16s. to 22s. Eighty sail of ships now belonging to the port, twenty years ago not thirty. They pay to the captains of ship of two hundred tons 5 pounds a month; the mate 3 pounds 10s. Ten men at 40s., five years ago only 27s. Building ships, 10 pounds a ton. Wear and tear of such a ship, 20 pounds a month. Ship provisions, 20s. a month. The new church in this city is a very beautiful one; the body of it is in the same style exactly as that of Belfast, already described: the total length one hundred and seventy feet, the breadth fifty-eight. The length of the body of the church ninety-two, the height forty; breadth between the pillars, twenty-six. The aisle (which I do not remember at Belfast) is fifty-eight by forty-five. A room on one side the steeple, space for the bishop's court, twenty-four by eighteen; on the other side, a room of the same size for the vestry; and twenty-eight feet square left for a steeple when their funds will permit. The whole is light and beautiful. It was built by subscription, and there is a fine organ bespoke at London. But the finest object in this city is the quay, which is unrivalled by any I have seen. It is an English mile long; the buildings on it are only common houses, but the river is near a mile over, flows up to the town in one noble reach, and the opposite shore a bold hill, which rises immediately from the water to a height that renders the whole magnificent. This is scattered with some wood, and divided into pastures of a beautiful verdure by hedges. I crossed the water, in order to walk up the rocks on the top of this hill. In one place, over against Bilberry quarry, you look immediately down on the river, which flows in noble reaches from Granny Castle on the right past Cromwell's rock, the shores on both sides quite steep, especially the rock of Bilberry. You look over the whole town, which here appears in a triangular form. Besides the city the Cummeragh mountains, Slein-a-man, etc., come in view. Kilmacow river falls into the Suir, after flowing through a large extent of well-planted country. This is the finest view about the city. From Waterford to Passage, and got my chaise and horses on board the _Countess of Tyrone_ packet, in full expectation of sailing immediately, as the wind was fair, but I soon found the difference of these private vessels and the Post-Office packets at Holyhead and Dublin. When the wind was fair the tide was foul; and when the tide was with them the wind would not do. In English, there was not a complement of passengers, and so I had the agreeableness of waiting with my horses in the hold, by way of rest, after a journey of above one thousand five hundred miles. October 18. After a beastly night passed on shipboard, and finding no signs of departure, walked to Ballycanvan, the seat of Cornelius Bolton, Esq.; rode with Mr. Bolton, jun., to Faithleghill, which commands one of the finest views I have seen in Ireland. There is a rock on the top of a hill which has a very bold view on every side down on a great extent of country, much of which is grass inclosures of a good verdure. This hill is the centre of a circle of about ten miles diameter, beyond which higher lands rise, which, after spreading to a great extent, have on every side a background of mountain: in a northerly direction Mount Leinster, between Wexford and Wicklow, twenty-six miles off, rises in several heads far above the clouds. A little to the right of this, Sliakeiltha (_i.e._ "the woody mountain"), at a less distance, is a fine object. To the left, Tory Hill, only five miles, in a regular form, varies the outline. To the east, there is the Long Mountain, eighteen miles distant, and several lesser Wexford hills. To the south-east, the Saltees. To the south, the ocean, and the Colines about the bay of Tramore. To the west, Monavollagh rises two thousand one hundred and sixty feet above the level of the sea, eighteen miles off, being part of the great range of the Cummeragh mountains: and to the north-west Slein-a-man, at the distance of twenty-four miles; so that the outline is everywhere bold and distinct, though distant. These circumstances would alone form a great view, but the water part of it, which fills up the canvas, is in a much superior style. The great river Suir takes a winding course from the city of Waterford, through a rich country, hanging on the sides of hills to its banks, and, dividing into a double channel, forms the lesser island, both of which courses you command distinctly. United, it makes a bold reach under the hill on which you stand, and there receives the noble tribute of the united waters of the Barrow and Nore in two great channels, which form the larger island. Enlarged by such an accession of water, it winds round the hill in a bending course, of the freest and most graceful outline, everywhere from one to three miles across, with bold shores that give a sharp outline to its course to the ocean. Twenty sail of ships at Passage gave animation to the scene. Upon the whole, the boldness of the mountain outline, the variety of the grounds, the vast extent of river, with the declivity to it from the point of view, altogether form so unrivalled a scenery, every object so commanding, that the general want of wood is almost forgotten. Two years after this account was written I again visited this enchanting hill, and walked to it, day after day, from Ballycanvan, and with increasing pleasure. Mr. Bolton, jun., has, since I was there before, inclosed forty acres on the top and steep slope to the water, and begun to plant them. This will be a prodigious addition; for the slope forming the bold shore for a considerable space, and having projections from which the wood will all be seen in the gentle hollows of the hill, the effect will be amazingly fine. Walks and a riding are tracing out, which will command fresh beauties at every step. The spots from which a variety of beautiful views are seen are numerous. All the way from Ballycanvan to Faithleg, the whole, to the amount of one thousand two hundred acres, is the property of Mr. Bolton. Farms about Ballycanvan, Waterford, etc., are generally small, from twenty and thirty to five hundred acres, generally about two hundred and fifty. All above two hundred acres are in general dairies; some of the dairy ones rise very high. The soil is a reddish stony or slaty gravel, dry, except low lands, which are clay or turf. Rents vary much--about the town very high, from 5 pounds 5s. to 9 pounds, but at the distance of a few miles towards Passage, etc., they are from 20s. to 40s., and some higher, but the country in general does not rise so high, usually 10s. to 20s. for dairying land. The poor people spin their own flax, but not more, and a few of them wool for themselves. Their food is potatoes and milk; but they have a considerable assistance from fish, particularly herrings; part of the year they have also barley, oaten, and rye bread. They are incomparably better off in every respect than twenty years ago. Their increase about Ballycanvan is very great, and tillage all over this neighbourhood is increased. The rent of a cabin 10s.; an acre with it 20s. The grass of a cow a few years ago 20s., now 25s. or 30s. An exceeding good practice here in making their fences is, they plant the quick on the side of the bank in the common manner, and then, instead of the dead hedge we use in England on the top of the bank, they plant a row of old thorns, two or three feet high, which readily grow, and form at once a most excellent fence. Their way also of taking in sand-banks from the river deserves notice. They stake down a row of furzes at low water, laying stones on them to the height of one or two feet; these retain the mud, which every tide brings in, so as to fill up all within the furze as high as their tops. I remarked, on the strand, that a few boatloads of stones laid carelessly had had this effect, for within them I measured twelve inches deep of rich blue mud left behind them, the same as they use in manuring, full of shells, and effervesced strongly with vinegar. Among the poor people the fishermen are in much the best circumstances. The fishery is considerable; Waterford and its harbour have fifty boats each, from eight to twelve tons, six men on an average to each, but to one of six tons five men go. A boat of eight tons costs 40 pounds; one of twelve, 60 pounds. To each boat there is a train of nets of six pair, which costs from 4 pounds 4s. to 6 pounds 6s.; tan them with bark. Their only net fishery is that of herrings, which is commonly carried on by shares. The division of the fish is, first, one-fourth for the boat; and then the men and nets divide the rest, the latter reckoned as three men. They reckon ten maze of herrings an indifferent night's work; when there is a good take, forty maze have been taken, twenty a good night; the price per maze from 1s. to 7s., average 5s. Their take in 1775, the greatest they have known, when they had more than they could dispose of, and the whole town and country stunk of them, they retailed them thirty-two for a penny; 1773 and 1774 good years. They barrelled many, but in general there is an import of Swedish. Besides the common articles I have registered, the following are: pigeons, 1s. a couple; a hare, 1s.; partridges, 9d.; turbots, fine ones, 4s. to 10s.; soles a pair, large, 1s. 6d to 1s.; lobsters, 3d. each; oysters, 6s. per hundred; rabbits, 1s. to 1s. 4d. a couple; cod, 1s. each, large; salmon, 1.25d. to 2d. A very extraordinary circumstance I was told--that within five or six years there has been much hay carried from Waterford to Norway, in the Norway ships that bring deals. As hay is dear here, it proves a most backward state of husbandry in that northerly region, since the neighbourhood of sea-ports to which this hay can alone go is generally the best improved in all countries. October 19, the wind being fair, took my leave of Mr. Bolton, and went back to the ship. Met with a fresh scene of provoking delays, so that it was the next morning, October 20, at eight o'clock, before we sailed, and then it was not wind, but a cargo of passengers that spread our sails. Twelve or fourteen hours are not an uncommon passage, but such was our luck that, after being in sight of the lights on the Smalls, we were by contrary winds blown opposite to Arklow sands. A violent gale arose, which presently blew a storm that lasted thirty-six hours, in which, under a reefed mainsail, the ship drifted up and down wearing in order to keep clear of the coasts. No wonder this appeared to me, a fresh-water sailor, as a storm, when the oldest men on board reckoned it a violent one. The wind blew in furious gusts; the waves ran very high; the cabin windows burst open, and the sea pouring in set everything afloat, and among the rest a poor lady, who had spread her bed on the floor. We had, however, the satisfaction to find, by trying the pumps every watch, that the ship made little water. I had more time to attend these circumstances than the rest of the passengers, being the only one in seven who escaped without being sick. It pleased God to preserve us, but we did not cast anchor in Milford Haven till Tuesday morning, the 22nd, at one o'clock. It is much to be wished that there were some means of being secure of packets sailing regularly, instead of waiting till there is such a number of passengers as satisfies the owner and captain. With the Post-Office packets there is this satisfaction, and a great one it is. The contrary conduct is so perfectly detestable that I should suppose the scheme of Waterford ones can never succeed. Two years after, having been assured this conveyance was put on a new footing, I ventured to try it again, but was mortified to find that the _Tyrone_, the only one that could take a chaise or horses (the _Countess_ being laid up), was repairing, but would sail in five days. I waited, and received assurance after assurance that she would be ready on such a day, and then on another. In a word, I waited twenty-four days before I sailed. Moderately speaking, I could by Dublin have reached Turin or Milan as soon as I did Milford in this conveyance. All this time the papers had constant advertisements of the _Tyrone_ sailing regularly, instead of letting the public know that she was under a repair. Her owner seems to be a fair and worthy man; he will therefore probably give up the scheme entirely, unless assisted by the corporation with at least four ships more, to sail regularly with or without passengers. At present it is a general disappointment. I was fortunate in Mr. Bolton's acquaintance, passing my time very agreeably at his hospitable mansion; but those who, in such a case, should find a Waterford inn their resource, would curse the _Tyrone_, and set off for Dublin. The expenses of this passage are higher than those from Dublin to Holyhead: I paid-- l. s. d. A four-wheel chaise 3 3 0 Three horses 3 3 0 Self 1 1 0 Two servants 1 1 0 Custom-house at Waterford, hay, oats, etc. 2 1 7 Ditto at Pembroke and Hubberston 3 0 0 Sailors, boats, and sundry small charges 1 15 5 15 5 0 * * * * * 1777. Upon a second journey to Ireland this year, I took the opportunity of going from Dublin to Mitchelstown, by a route through the central part of the kingdom, which I had not before sufficiently viewed. Left Dublin the 24th of September, and taking the road to Naas, I was again struck with the great population of the country, the cabins being so much poorer in the vicinity of the capital than in the more distant parts of the kingdom. To Kildare, crossing the Curragh, so famous for its turf. It is a sheep-walk of above four thousand English acres, forming a more beautiful lawn than the hand of art ever made. Nothing can exceed the extreme softness of the turf, which is of a verdure that charms the eye, and highly set off by the gentle inequality of surface. The soil is a fine dry loam on a stony bottom; it is fed by many large flocks, turned on it by the occupiers of the adjacent farms, who alone have the right, and pay very great rents on that account. It is the only considerable common in the kingdom. The sheep yield very little wool, not more than 3lb. per fleece, but of a very fine quality. From Furness to Shaen Castle, in the Queen's County, Dean Coote's; but as the husbandry, etc., of this neighbourhood is already registered, I have only to observe that Mr. Coote was so kind as to show me the improved grounds of Dawson's Court, the seat of Lord Carlow, which I had not seen before. The principal beauties of the place are the well-grown and extensive plantations, which form a shade not often met with in Ireland. There is in the backgrounds a lake well accompanied with wood, broken by several islands that are covered with underwood, and an ornamented walk passing on the banks which leads from the house. This lake is in the season perfectly alive with wild-fowl. Near it is a very beautiful spot, which commands a view of both woods and water; a situation either for a house or a temple. Mr. Dawson is adding to the plantations, an employment of all others the most meritorious in Ireland. Another work, scarcely less so, was the erecting a large handsome inn, wherein the same gentleman intends establishing a person who shall be able to supply travellers post with either chaises or horses. From Shaen Castle to Gloster, in the King's County, the seat of John Lloyd, Esq., member for that county, to whose attention I owe the following particulars, in which he took every means to have me well and accurately informed. But first let me observe that I was much pleased to remark, all the way from Naas quite to Rosscrea, that the country was amongst the finest I had seen in Ireland, and consequently that I was fortunate in having an opportunity of seeing it after the involuntary omission of last year. The cabins, though many of them are very bad, yet are better than in some other counties, and chimneys generally a part of them. The people, too, have no very miserable appearance; the breed of cattle and sheep good, and the hogs much the best I have anywhere seen in Ireland. Turf is everywhere at hand, and in plenty; yet are the bogs not so general as to affect the beauty of the country, which is very great in many tracts, with a scattering of wood, which makes it pleasing. Shaen Castle stands in the midst of a very fine tract. From Mountrath to Gloster, Mr. Lloyd's, I could have imagined myself in a very pleasing part of England. The country breaks into a variety of inequalities of hill and dale; it is all well inclosed with fine hedges; there is a plenty of wood, not so monopolised as in many parts of the kingdom by here and there a solitary seat, but spread over the whole face of the prospect: look which way you will, it is cultivated and cheerful. The Shannon adds not a little to the convenience and agreeableness of a residence so near it. Besides affording these sorts of wild-fowl, the quantity and size of its fish are amazing: pikes swarm in it, and rise in weight to fifty pounds. In the little flat spaces on its banks are small but deep lochs, which are covered in winter and in floods. When the river withdraws, it leaves plenty of fish in them, which are caught to put into stews. Mr. Holmes has a small one before his door at Johnstown, with a little stream which feeds it. A trowling-rod here gets you a bite in a moment, of a pike from twenty to forty pounds. I ate of one of twenty-seven pounds so taken. I had also the pleasure of seeing a fisherman bring three trout, weighing fourteen pounds, and sell them for sixpence-halfpenny a piece. A couple of boats lying at anchor, with lines extended from one to the other, and hooks in plenty from them, have been known to catch an incredible quantity of trout. Colonel Prittie, in one morning, caught four stone odd pounds, thirty-two trout. In general they rise from three to nine pounds. Perch swarm; they appeared in the Shannon for the first time about ten years ago, in such plenty that the poor lived on them. Bream of six pounds; eels very plentiful. There are many gillaroos in the river; one of twelve pounds weight was sent to Mr. Jenkinson. Upon the whole, these circumstances, with the pleasure of shooting and boating on the river, added to the glorious view it yields, and which is enough at any time to cheer the mind, render this neighbourhood one of the most enviable situations to live in that I have seen in Ireland. The face of the country gives every circumstance of beauty. From Killodeernan Hill, behind the new house building by Mr. Holmes, the whole is seen to great advantage. The spreading part of the Shannon, called Loch Derg, is commanded distinctly for many miles. It is in two grand divisions of great variety: that to the north is a reach of five miles leading to Portumna. The whole hither shore a scenery of hills, checkered by enclosures and little woods, and retiring from the eye into a rich distant prospect. The woods of Doras, belonging to Lord Clanricarde, form a part of the opposite shore, and the river itself presents an island of one hundred and twenty acres. Inclining to the left, a vale of rough ground, with an old castle in it, is backed by a bold hill, which intercepts the river there, and then the great reach of fifteen miles, the bay of Sheriff, spreads to the eye, with a magnificence not a little added to by the boundary, a sharp outline of the county of Clare mountains, between which and the Duharrow hills the Shannon finds its way. These hills lead the eye still more to the left, till the Keeper meets it, presenting a very beautiful outline that sinks into other ranges of hill, uniting with the Devil's Bit. The home scenery of the grounds, woods, hills, and lake of Johnstown, is beautiful. Dancing is very general among the poor people, almost universal in every cabin. Dancing-masters of their own rank travel through the country from cabin to cabin, with a piper or blind fiddler, and the pay is sixpence a quarter. It is an absolute system of education. Weddings are always celebrated with much dancing, and a Sunday rarely passes without a dance. There are very few among them who will not, after a hard day's work, gladly walk seven miles to have a dance. John is not so lively, but then a hard day's work with him is certainly a different affair from what it is with Paddy. Other branches of education are likewise much attended to, every child of the poorest family learning to read, write, and cast accounts. There is a very ancient custom here, for a number of country neighbours among the poor people to fix upon some young woman that ought, as they think, to be married. They also agree upon a young fellow as a proper husband for her. This determined, they send to the fair one's cabin to inform her that on the Sunday following "she is to be horsed," that is, carried on men's backs. She must then provide whisky and cider for a treat, as all will pay her a visit after mass for a hurling match. As soon as she is horsed, the hurling begins, in which the young fellow appointed for her husband has the eyes of all the company fixed on him. If he comes off conqueror, he is certainly married to the girl; but if another is victorious, he as certainly loses her, for she is the prize of the victor. These trials are not always finished in one Sunday; they take sometimes two or three, and the common expression when they are over is, that "such a girl was goaled." Sometimes one barony hurls against another, but a marriageable girl is always the prize. Hurling is a sort of cricket, but instead of throwing the ball in order to knock down a wicket, the aim is to pass it through a bent stick, the end stuck in the ground. In these matches they perform such feats of activity as ought to evidence the food they live on to be far from deficient in nourishment. In the hills above Derry are some very fine slate quarries, that employ sixty men. The quarrymen are paid 3s. a thousand for the slates, and the labourers 5d. a day. They are very fine, and sent by the Shannon to distant parts of the kingdom; the price at the quarry 6s. a thousand, and at the shore 6s. 8d. Four hundred thousand slates are raised to pay the rent only, from which some estimate may be made of the quantity. Mr. Head has a practice in his fences which deserves universal imitation; it is planting trees for gate-posts. Stone piers are expensive, and always tumbling down; trees are beautiful, and never want repairing. Within fifteen years this gentleman has improved Derry so much, that those who had only seen it before would find it almost a new creation. He has built a handsome stone house, on the slope of a hill rising from the Shannon, and backed by some fine woods, which unite with many old hedges well planted to form a woodland scene beautiful in the contrast to the bright expanse of the noble river below. The declivity on which these woods are finishes in a mountain, which rises above the whole. The Shannon gives a bend around the adjoining lands, so as to be seen from the house both to the west and north, the lawn falling gradually to a margin of wood on the shore, which varies the outline. The river is two miles broad, and on the opposite shore cultivated inclosures rise in some places almost to the mountain top, which is very bold. It is a very singular demesne; a stripe of very beautiful ground, reaching two miles along the banks of the river, which forms his fence on one side, with a wall on the other. There is so much wood as to render it very pleasing; adding to every day by planting all the fences made or repaired. From several little hills, which rise in different parts of it, extensive views of the river are commanded quite to Portumna; but these are much eclipsed by that from the top of the hill above the slate quarry. From thence you see the river for at least forty miles, from Portumna to twenty miles beyond Limerick. It has the appearance of a fine basin, two miles over, into which three great rivers lead, being the north and south course and the Bay of Sheriff. The reaches of it one beyond another to Portumna are fine. At the foot of the mountain Mr. Head's demesne extends in a shore of rich woodland. October 7. Took my leave of Mr. Head, after passing four days very agreeably. Through Killaloe, over the Shannon, a very long bridge of many arches; went out of the road to see a fall of that river at Castle Connel, where there is such an accompaniment of wood as to form a very pleasing scenery. The river takes a very rapid rocky course around a projecting rock, on which a gentleman has built a summer-house, and formed a terrace: it is a striking spot. To Limerick. Laid at Bennis's, the first inn we had slept in from Dublin. God preserve us this journey from another! It is not uncommon, especially in mountainous countries, to find objects that much deserve the attention of travellers entirely neglected by them. There are a few instances of this upon Lord Kingsborough's estate, in the neighbourhood of Mitchelstown. The first I shall mention is a cave at Skeheenrinky, on the road between Cahir and that place. The opening to it is a cleft of rock in a limestone hill, so narrow as to be difficult to get into it. I descended by a ladder of about twenty steps, and then found myself in a vault of a hundred feet long, and fifty or sixty high. A small hole on the left leads from this a winding course of I believe not less than half an Irish mile, exhibiting a variety that struck me much. In some places the cavity in the rock is so large that when well lighted up by candles (not flambeaux; Lord Kingsborough once showed it me with them, and we found their smoke troublesome) it takes the appearance of a vaulted cathedral, supported by massy columns. The walls, ceiling, floor, and pillars, are by turns composed of every fantastic form; and often of very beautiful incrustations of spar, some of which glitters so much that it seems powdered with diamonds; and in others the ceiling is formed of that sort which has so near a resemblance to a cauliflower. The spar formed into columns by the dropping of water has taken some very regular forms; but others are different, folded in plaits of light drapery, which hang from their support in a very pleasing manner. The angles of the walls seem fringed with icicles. One very long branch of the cave, which turns to the north, is in some places so narrow and low, that one crawls into it, when it suddenly breaks into large vaulted spaces, in a thousand forms. The spar in all this cave is very brilliant, and almost equal to Bristol stone. For several hundred yards in the larger branch there is a deep water at the bottom of the declivity to the right, which the common people call the river. A part of the way is over a sort of potter's clay, which moulds into any form, and is of a brown colour; a very different soil from any in the neighbouring country. I have seen the famous cave in the Peak, but think it very much inferior to this; and Lord Kingsborough, who has viewed the Grot d'Aucel in Burgundy, says that it is not to be compared with it. But the commanding region of the Galtees deserves more attention. Those who are fond of scenes in which Nature reigns in all her wild magnificence should visit this stupendous chain. It consists of many vast mountains, thrown together in an assemblage of the most interesting features, from the boldness and height of the declivities, freedom of outline, and variety of parts, filling a space of about six miles by three or four. Galtymore is the highest point, and rises like the lord and father of the surrounding progeny. From the top you look down upon a great extent of mountain, which shelves away from him to the south, east, and west; but to the north the ridge is almost a perpendicular declivity. On that side the famous golden vale of Limerick and Tipperary spreads a rich level to the eye, bounded by the mountains of Clare, King's and Queen's Counties, with the course of the Shannon, for many miles below Limerick. To the south you look over alternate ridges of mountains, which rise one beyond another, till in a clear day the eye meets the ocean near Dungarvan. The mountains of Waterford and Knockmealdown fill up the space to the south-east. The western is the most extensive view; for nothing stops the eye till Mangerton and Macgillicuddy Reeks point out the spot where Killarney's lake calls for a farther excursion. The prospect extends into eight counties--Cork, Kerry, Waterford, Limerick, Clare, Queen's, Tipperary, King's. A little to the west of this proud summit, below it in a very extraordinary hollow, is a circular lake of two acres, reported to be unfathomable. The descriptions which I have read of the craters of exhausted volcanoes leave very little doubt of this being one; and the conical regularity of the summit of Galtymore speaks the same language. East of this respectable hill, to use Sir William Hamilton's language, is a declivity of about one-quarter of a mile, and there Galtybeg rises in a yet more regular cone; and between the two hills is another lake, which from its position seems to have been once the crater which threw up Galtybeg, as the first mentioned was the origin of Galtymore. Beyond the former hill is a third lake, and east of that another hill; I was told of a fourth, with another corresponding mountain. It is only the mere summits of these mountains which rise above the lakes. Speaking of them below, they may be said to be on the tops of the hills. They are all of them at the bottom of an almost regularly circular hollow. On the side next the mountain-top are walls of perpendicular rocks, in regular strata, and some of them piled on each other, with an appearance of art rather than nature. In these rocks the eagles, which are seen in numbers on the Galtees, have their nests. Supposing the mountains to be of volcanic origin, and these lakes the craters, of which I have not a doubt, they are objects of the greatest curiosity, for there is an unusual regularity in every considerable summit having its corresponding crater. But without this circumstance, the scenery is interesting in a very great degree. The mountain summits, which are often wrapped in the clouds, at other times exhibit the freest outline; the immense scooped hollows which sink at your feet, declivities of so vast a depth as to give one terror to look down; with the unusual forms of the lower region of hills, particularly Bull Hill, and Round Hill, each a mile over, yet rising out of circular vales, with the regularity of semi-globes, unite upon the whole to exhibit a scenery to the eye in which the parts are of a magnitude so commanding, a character so interesting, and a variety so striking, that they well deserve to be examined by every curious traveller. Nor are these immense outlines the whole of what is to be seen in this great range of mountains. Every glen has its beauties: there is a considerable mountain river, or rather torrent, in every one of them; but the greatest are the Funcheon, between Sefang and Galtymore; the Limestone river, between Galtymore and Round Hill, and the Grouse river, between Coolegarranroe and Mr. O'Callaghan's mountain; these present to the eye, for a tract of about three miles, every variety that rock, water, and mountain can give, thrown into all the fantastic forms which art may attempt in ornamented grounds, but always fails in. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the water, when not discoloured by rain; its lucid transparency shows, at considerable depths, every pebble no bigger than a pin, every rocky basin alive with trout and eels, that play and dash among the rocks as if endowed with that native vigour which animates, in a superior degree, every inhabitant of the mountains, from the bounding red deer and the soaring eagle down even to the fishes of the brook. Every five minutes you have a water-fall in these glens, which in any other region would stop every traveller to admire it. Sometimes the vale takes a gentle declivity, and presents to the eye at one stroke twenty or thirty falls, which render the scenery all alive with motion; the rocks are tossed about in the wildest confusion, and the torrent bursts by turns from above, beneath, and under them; while the background is always filled up with the mountains which stretch around. In the western glen is the finest cascade in all the Galtees. There are two falls, with a basin in the rock between, but from some points of view they appear one: the rock over which the water tumbles is about sixty feet high. A good line in which to view these objects is either to take the Killarney and Mallow road to Mitchelstown and from thence by Lord Kingsborough's new one to Skeheenrinky, there to take one of the glens to Galtybeg and Galtymore, and return to Mitchelstown by the Wolf's Track, Temple Hill, and the Waterfall; or, if the Cork road is travelling, to make Dobbin's inn, at Ballyporeen, the head-quarters, and view them from thence. * * * * * Having heard much of the beauties of a part of the Queen's County I had not before seen, I took that line of country in my way on a journey to Dublin. From Mitchelstown to Cashel, the road leads as far as Galbally in the route already travelled from Cullen. Towards Cashel the country is various. The only objects deserving attention are the plantations of Thomastown, the seat of Francis Mathew, Esq.; they consist chiefly of hedgerow trees in double and treble rows, are well grown, and of such extent as to form an uncommon woodland scene in Ireland. Found the widow Holland's inn, at Cashel, clean and very civil. Take the road to Urlingford. The rich sheep pastures, part of the famous golden vale, reach between three and four miles from Cashel to the great bog by Botany Hill, noted for producing a greater variety of plants than common. That bog is separated by only small tracts of land from the string of bogs which extend through the Queen's County, from the great bog of Allen; it is here of considerable extent, and exceedingly improvable. Then enter a low marshy bad country, which grows worse after passing the sixty-sixth milestone, and successive bogs in it. Breakfast at Johnstown, a regular village on a slight eminence, built by Mr. Hayley. It is near the spa of Ballyspellin. Rows of trees are planted, but their heads all cut off, I suppose from their not thriving, being planted too old. Immediately on leaving these planted avenues, enter a row of eight or ten new cabins, at a distance from each other, which appear to be a new undertaking, the land about them all pared and burnt, and the ashes in heaps. Enter a fine planted country, with much corn and good thriving quick hedges for many miles. The road leads through a large wood, which joins Lord Ashbrook's plantations, whose house is situated in the midst of more wood than almost any one I have seen in Ireland. Pass Durrow; the country for two or three miles continues all inclosed with fine quick hedges, is beautiful, and has some resemblance to the best parts of Essex. Sir Robert Staple's improvements join this fine tract. They are completed in a most perfect manner, the hedges well grown, cut, and in such excellent order that I can scarcely believe myself to be in Ireland. His gates are all of iron. These sylvan scenes continue through other seats, beautifully situated amidst gentle declivities of the finest verdure, full-grown woods, excellent hedges, and a pretty river winding by the house. The whole environs of several would be admired in the best parts of England. Cross a great bog, within sight of Lord de Vesci's plantations. The road leads over it, being drained for that purpose by deep cuts on either side. I should apprehend this bog to be among the most improvable in the country. Slept at Ballyroan, at an inn kept by three animals who call themselves women; met with more impertinence than at any other in Ireland. It is an execrable hole. In three or four miles pass Sir John Parnel's, prettily situated in a neatly dressed lawn, with much wood about it, and a lake quite alive with wild fowl. Pass Monstereven, and cross directly a large bog, drained and partly improved; but all of it bearing grass, and seems in a state that might easily be reduced to rich meadow, with only a dressing of lime. Here I got again into the road I had travelled before. I must in general remark, that from near Urlingford to Dawson Court, near Monstereven, which is completely across the Queen's County, is a line of above thirty English miles, and is for that extent by much the most improved of any I have seen in Ireland. It is generally well planted, has many woods, and not consisting of patches of plantation just by gentlemen's houses, but spreading over the whole face of the country, so as to give it the richness of an English woodland scene. What a country would Ireland be had the inhabitants of the rest of it improved the whole like this! PART II. SECTION I.--Soil, Face of the Country, and Climate. To judge of Ireland by the conversation one sometimes hears in England, it would be supposed that one-half of it was covered with bogs, and the other with mountains filled with Irish ready to fly at the sight of a civilised being. There are people who will smile when they hear that, in proportion to the size of the two countries, Ireland is more cultivated than England, having much less waste land of all sorts. Of uncultivated mountains there are no such tracts as are found in our four northern counties, and the North Riding of Yorkshire, with the eastern line of Lancaster, nearly down to the Peak of Derby, which form an extent of above a hundred miles of waste. The most considerable of this sort in Ireland are in Kerry, Galway, and Mayo, and some in Sligo and Donegal. But all these together will not make the quantity we have in the four northern counties; the valleys in the Irish mountains are also more inhabited, I think, than those of England, except where there are mines, and consequently some sort of cultivation creeping up the sides. Natural fertility, acre for acre over the two kingdoms, is certainly in favour of Ireland; of this I believe there can scarcely be a doubt entertained, when it is considered that some of the more beautiful, and even best cultivated counties in England, owe almost everything to the capital, art, and industry of the inhabitants. The circumstance which strikes me as the greatest singularity of Ireland is the rockiness of the soil, which should seem at first sight against that degree of fertility; but the contrary is the fact. Stone is so general, that I have great reason to believe the whole island is one vast rock of different strata and kinds rising out of the sea. I have rarely heard of any great depths being sunk without meeting with it. In general it appears on the surface in every part of the kingdom; the flattest and most fertile parts, as Limerick, Tipperary, and Meath, have it at no great depth, almost as much as the more barren ones. May we not recognise in this the hand of bounteous Providence, which has given perhaps the most stony soil in Europe to the moistest climate in it? If as much rain fell upon the clays of England (a soil very rarely met with in Ireland, and never without much stone) as falls upon the rocks of her sister island, those lands could not be cultivated. But the rocks are here clothed with verdure; those of limestone, with only a thin covering of mould, have the softest and most beautiful turf imaginable. Of the great advantages resulting from the general plenty of limestone and limestone gravel, and the nature of the bogs, I shall have occasion to speak more particularly hereafter. The rockiness of the soil in Ireland is so universal that it predominates in every sort. One cannot use with propriety the terms clay, loam, sand, etc.; it must be a stony clay, a stony loam, a gravelly sand. Clay, especially the yellow, is much talked of in Ireland, but it is for want of proper discrimination. I have once or twice seen almost a pure clay upon the surface, but it is extremely rare. The true yellow clay is usually found in a thin stratum under the surface mould, and over a rock; harsh, tenacious, stony, strong loams, difficult to work, are not uncommon: but they are quite different from English clays. Friable, sandy loams, dry but fertile, are very common, and they form the best soils in the kingdom for tillage and sheep. Tipperary and Roscommon abound particularly in them. The most fertile of all are the bullock pastures of Limerick, and the banks of the Shannon in Clare, called the Corcasses. These are a mellow, putrid, friable loam. Sand which is so common in England, and yet more common through Spain, France, Germany, and Poland, quite from Gibraltar to Petersburg, is nowhere met with in Ireland, except for narrow slips of hillocks, upon the sea coast. Nor did I ever meet with or hear of a chalky soil. The bogs, of which foreigners have heard so much, are very extensive in Ireland; that of Allen extends eighty miles, and is computed to contain three hundred thousand acres. There are others also, very extensive, and smaller ones scattered over the whole kingdom; but these are not in general more than are wanted for fuel. When I come to speak of the improvement of waste lands, I shall describe them particularly. Besides the great fertility of the soil, there are other circumstances which come within my sphere to mention. Few countries can be better watered by large and beautiful rivers; and it is remarkable that by much the finest parts of the kingdom are on the banks of these rivers. Witness the Suir, Blackwater, the Liffey, the Boyne, the Nore, the Barrow, and part of the Shannon, they wash a scenery that can hardly be exceeded. From the rockiness of the country, however, there are few of them that have not obstructions, which are great impediments to inland navigation. The mountains of Ireland give to travelling that interesting variety which a flat country can never abound with. And, at the same time, they are not in such number as to confer the usual character of poverty which attends them. I was either upon or very near the most considerable in the kingdom. Mangerton, and the Reeks, in Kerry; the Galties in Cork; those of Mourne in Down; Crow Patrick, and Nephin in Mayo, these are the principal in Ireland, and they are of a character, in height and sublimity, which should render them the objects of every traveller's attention. Relative to the climate of Ireland, a short residence cannot enable a man to speak much from his own experience; the observations I have made myself confirm the idea of its being vastly wetter than England; from the 20th of June to the 20th of October I kept a register, and there were, in one hundred and twenty-two days, seventy-five of rain, and very many of them incessant and heavy. I have examined similar registers I kept in England, and can find no year that even approaches to such a moisture as this. But there is a register of an accurate diary published which compares London and Cork. The result is, that the quantity at the latter place was double to that at London. See Smith's "History of Cork." From the information I received, I have reason to believe that the rainy season sets in usually about the first of July and continues very wet till September or October, when there is usually a dry fine season of a month or six weeks. I resided in the county of Cork, etc., from October till March, and found the winter much more soft and mild than ever I experienced one in England. I was also a whole summer there (1778), and it is fair to mention that it was as fine a one as ever I knew in England, though by no means so hot. I think hardly so wet as very many I have known in England. The tops of the Galty mountains exhibited the only snow we saw; and as to frosts, they were so slight and rare that I believe myrtles, and yet tenderer plants, would have survived without any covering. But when I say that the winter was not remarkable for being wet, I do not mean that we had a dry atmosphere. The inches of rain which fell in the winter I speak of would not mark the moisture of the climate. As many inches will fall in a single tropical shower as in a whole year in England. See Mitchel's "Present State of Great Britain and North America." But if the clouds presently disperse, and a bright sun shines, the air may soon be dry. The worst circumstance of the climate of Ireland is the constant moisture without rain. Wet a piece of leather, and lay it in a room where there is neither sun nor fire, and it will not in summer even be dry in a month. I have known gentlemen in Ireland deny their climate being moister than England, but if they have eyes let them open them, and see the verdure that clothes their rocks, and compare it with ours in England--where rocky soils are of a russet brown however sweet the food for sheep. Does not their island lie more exposed to the great Atlantic; and does not the west wind blow three-fourths of a year? If there was another island yet more westward, would not the climate of Ireland be improved? Such persons speak equally against fact, reason, and philosophy. That the moisture of a climate does not depend on the quantity of rain that falls, but on the powers of aerial evaporation, Dr. Dobson has clearly proved. "Phil. Trans." vol. lxvii., part i., p. 244. Oppression. Before I conclude this article of the common labouring poor in Ireland, I must observe, that their happiness depends not merely upon the payment of their labour, their clothes, or their food; the subordination of the lower classes, degenerating into oppression, is not to be overlooked. The poor in all countries, and under all governments, are both paid and fed, yet there is an infinite difference between them in different ones. This inquiry will by no means turn out so favourable as the preceding articles. It must be very apparent to every traveller through that country, that the labouring poor are treated with harshness, and are in all respects so little considered that their want of importance seems a perfect contrast to their situation in England, of which country, comparatively speaking, they reign the sovereigns. The age has improved so much in humanity, that even the poor Irish have experienced its influence, and are every day treated better and better; but still the remnant of the old manners, the abominable distinction of religion, united with the oppressive conduct of the little country gentlemen, or rather vermin of the kingdom, who never were out of it, altogether bear still very heavy on the poor people, and subject them to situations more mortifying than we ever behold in England. The landlord of an Irish estate, inhabited by Roman Catholics, is a sort of despot who yields obedience, in whatever concerns the poor, to no law but that of his will. To discover what the liberty of the people is, we must live among them, and not look for it in the statutes of the realm: the language of written law may be that of liberty, but the situation of the poor may speak no language but that of slavery. There is too much of this contradiction in Ireland; a long series of oppressions, aided by many very ill-judged laws, have brought landlords into a habit of exerting a very lofty superiority, and their vassals into that of an almost unlimited submission: speaking a language that is despised, professing a religion that is abhorred and being disarmed, the poor find themselves in many cases slaves even in the bosom of written liberty. Landlords that have resided much abroad are usually humane in their ideas, but the habit of tyranny naturally contracts the mind, so that even in this polished age there are instances of a severe carriage towards the poor, which is quite unknown in England. A landlord in Ireland can scarcely invent an order which a servant, labourer, or cottar dares to refuse to execute. Nothing satisfies him but an unlimited submission. Disrespect, or anything tending towards sauciness, he may punish with his cane or his horsewhip with the most perfect security; a poor man would have his bones broke if he offered to lift his hands in his own defence. Knocking-down is spoken of in the country in a manner that makes an Englishman stare. Landlords of consequence have assured me that many of their cottars would think themselves honoured by having their wives and daughters sent for to the bed of their master; a mark of slavery that proves the oppression under which such people must live. Nay, I have heard anecdotes of the lives of people being made free with without any apprehension of the justice of a jury. But let it not be imagined that this is common; formerly it happened every day, but law gains ground. It must strike the most careless traveller to see whole strings of cars whipped into a ditch by a gentleman's footman to make way for his carriage; if they are overturned or broken in pieces, no matter, it is taken in patience; were they to complain they would perhaps be horsewhipped. The execution of the laws lies very much in the hands of justices of the peace, many of whom are drawn from the most illiberal class in the kingdom. If a poor man lodges a complaint against a gentleman, or any animal that chooses to call itself a gentleman, and the justice issues out a summons for his appearance, it is a fixed affront, and he will infallibly be called out. Where manners are in conspiracy against law, to whom are the oppressed people to have recourse? It is a fact, that a poor man having a contest with a gentleman, must--but I am talking nonsense, they know their situation too well to think of it; they can have no defence, but by means of protection from one gentleman against another, who probably protects his vassal as he would the sheep he intends to eat. The colours of this picture are not charged. To assert that all these cases are common would be an exaggeration, but to say that an unfeeling landlord will do all this with impunity, is to keep strictly to truth: and what is liberty but a farce and a jest, if its blessings are received as the favour of kindness and humanity, instead of being the inheritance of right? Consequences have flowed from these oppressions which ought long ago to have put a stop to them. In England we have heard much of White-boys, Steel-boys, Oak-boys, Peep-of-day-boys, etc. But these various insurgents are not to be confounded, for they are very different. The proper distinction in the discontents of the people is into Protestant and Catholic. All but the White-boys were among the manufacturing Protestants in the north: the White-boys Catholic labourers in the south. From the best intelligence I could gain, the riots of the manufacturers had no other foundation but such variations in the manufacture as all fabrics experience, and which they had themselves known and submitted to before. The case, however, was different with the White-boys, who being labouring Catholics met with all those oppressions I have described, and would probably have continued in full submission had not very severe treatment in respect of tithes, united with a great speculative rise of rent about the same time, blown up the flame of resistance; the atrocious acts they were guilty of made them the object of general indignation; acts were passed for their punishment, which seemed calculated for the meridian of Barbary. This arose to such a height that by one they were to be hanged under circumstances without the common formalities of a trial, which, though repealed the following session, marks the spirit of punishment; while others remain yet the law of the land, that would if executed tend more to raise than quell an insurrection. From all which it is manifest that the gentlemen of Ireland never thought of a radical cure from overlooking the real cause of the disease, which in fact lay in themselves, and not in the wretches they doomed to the gallows. Let them change their own conduct entirely, and the poor will not long riot. Treat them like men who ought to be as free as yourselves. Put an end to that system of religious persecution which for seventy years has divided the kingdom against itself; in these two circumstances lies the cure of insurrection; perform them completely, and you will have an affectionate poor, instead of oppressed and discontented vassals. A better treatment of the poor in Ireland is a very material point of the welfare of the whole British Empire. Events may happen which may convince us fatally of this truth; if not, oppression must have broken all the spirit and resentment of men. By what policy the Government of England can for so many years have permitted such an absurd system to be matured in Ireland is beyond the power of plain sense to discover. Emigrations. Before the American war broke out, the Irish and Scotch emigrations were a constant subject of conversation in England, and occasioned much discourse even in parliament. The common observation was, that if they were not stopped, those countries would be ruined, and they were generally attributed to a great rise of rents. Upon going over to Ireland I determined to omit no opportunities of discovering the cause and extent of this emigration, and my information, as may be seen in the minutes of the journey, was very regular. I have only a few general remarks to make on it here. The spirit of emigration in Ireland appeared to be confined to two circumstances, the Presbyterian religion, and the linen manufacture. I heard of very few emigrants except among manufacturers of that persuasion. The Catholics never went; they seem not only tied to the country, but almost to the parish in which their ancestors lived. As to the emigration in the north it was an error in England to suppose it a novelty which arose with the increase in rents. The contrary was the fact; it had subsisted perhaps forty years, insomuch that at the ports of Belfast, Derry, etc., the passenger trade, as they called it, had long been a regular branch of commerce, which employed several ships, and consisted in carrying people to America. The increasing population of the country made it an increasing trade, but when the linen trade was low, the passenger trade was always high. At the time of Lord Donegan letting his estate in the north, the linen business suffered a temporary decline, which sent great numbers to America, and gave rise to the error that it was occasioned by the increase of his rents. The fact, however, was otherwise, for great numbers of those who went from his lands actually sold those leases for considerable sums, the hardship of which was supposed to have driven them to America. Some emigration, therefore, always existed, and its increase depended on the fluctuations of linen; but as to the effect there was as much error in the conclusions drawn in England as before in the cause. It is the misfortune of all manufactures worked for a foreign market to be upon an insecure footing; periods of declension will come, and when in consequence of them great numbers of people are out of employment, the best circumstance is their enlisting in the army or navy, and it is the common result; but unfortunately the manufacture in Ireland (of which I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter) is not confined as it ought to be to towns, but spreads into all cabins of the country. Being half farmers, half manufacturers, they have too much property in cattle, etc., to enlist when idle; if they convert it into cash it will enable them to pay their passage to America, an alternative always chosen in preference to the military life. The consequence is, that they must live without work till their substance is quite consumed before they will enlist. Men who are in such a situation that from various causes they cannot work, and won't enlist, should emigrate; if they stay at home they must remain a burthen upon the community. Emigration should not, therefore, be condemned in states so ill-governed as to possess many people willing to work, but without employment. SECTION II.--Roads, Cars. For a country, so very far behind us as Ireland, to have got suddenly so much the start of us in the article of roads, is a spectacle that cannot fail to strike the English traveller exceedingly. But from this commendation the turnpikes in general must be excluded; they are as bad as the bye-roads are admirable. It is a common complaint that the tolls of the turnpikes are so many jobs, and the roads left in a state that disgrace the kingdom. The following is the system on which the cross-roads are made. Any person wishing to make or mend a road has it measured by two persons, who swear to the measurement before a justice of the peace. It is described as leading from one market-town to another (it matters not in what direction), that it will be a public good, and that it will require such a sum per perch of twenty-one feet, to make or repair the same. A certificate to this purpose (of which printed forms are sold), with the blanks filled up, is signed by the measurers, and also by two persons called overseers, one of whom is usually the person applying for the road, the other the labourer he intends to employ as an overseer of the work, which overseer swears also before the justice the truth of the valuation. The certificate thus prepared is given by any person to some one of the grand jury, at either of the assizes, but usually in the spring. When all the common business of trials is over, the jury meets on that of roads; the chairman reads the certificates, and they are all put to the vote, whether to be granted or not. If rejected, they are torn in pieces and no further notice taken; if granted, they are put on the file. This vote of approbation, without any further form, enables the person who applied for the presentment immediately to construct or repair the road in question, which he must do at his own expense; he must finish it by the following assizes, when he is to send a certificate of his having expended the money pursuant to the application; this certificate is signed by the foreman, who also signs an order on the treasurer of the county to pay him, which is done immediately. In like manner are bridges, houses of correction, gaols, etc. etc., built and repaired. If a bridge over a river which parts two counties, half is done by one and the other half by the other county. The expense of these works is raised by a tax on the lands, paid by the tenant; in some counties it is acreable, but in others it is on the plough land, and as no two plough lands are of the same size, is a very unequal tax. In the county of Meath it is acreable, and amounts to one shilling per acre, being the highest in Ireland; but in general it is from threepence to sixpence per acre, and amounts of late years through the whole kingdom to one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year. The juries will very rarely grant a presentment for a road which amounts to above fifty pounds, or for more than six or seven shillings a perch, so that if a person wants more to be made than such a sum will do, he divides it into two or three different measurements or presentments. By the Act of Parliament, all presentment-roads must be twenty-one feet wide at least from fence to fence, and fourteen feet of it formed with stone or gravel. As the power of the grand jury extends in this manner to the cutting new roads where none ever were before, as well as to the repairing and widening old ones, exclusive, however, of parks, gardens, etc., it was necessary to put a restriction against the wanton expense of it. Any presentment may be traversed that is opposed, by denying the allegations of the certificate; this is sure of delaying it until another assizes, and in the meantime persons are appointed to view the line of road demanded, and report on the necessity or hardship of the case. The payment of the money may also be traversed after the certificate of its being laid out; for if any person views and finds it a manifest imposition and job, he has that power to delay payment until the cause is cleared up and proved. But this traverse is not common. Any persons are eligible for asking presentments; but it is usually done only by resident gentlemen, agents, clergy, or respectable tenantry. It follows necessarily, that every person is desirous of making the roads leading to his own house, and that private interest alone is considered in it, which I have heard objected to the measure; but this I must own appears to me the great merit of it. Whenever individuals act for the public alone, the public is very badly served; but when the pursuit of their own interest is the way to benefit the public, then is the public good sure to be promoted; such is the case of presentment of roads: for a few years the good roads were all found leading from houses like rays from a centre, with a surrounding space, without any communication; but every year brought the remedy, until in a short time, those rays pointing from so many centres met, and then the communication was complete. The original Act passed but seventeen years ago, and the effect of it in all parts of the kingdom is so great, that I found it perfectly practicable to travel upon wheels by a map; I will go here; I will go there; I could trace a route upon paper as wild as fancy could dictate, and everywhere I found beautiful roads without break or hindrance, to enable me to realise my design. What a figure would a person make in England, who should attempt to move in that manner, where the roads, as Dr. Burn has well observed, are almost in as bad a state as in the time of Philip and Mary. In a few years there will not be a piece of bad road except turnpikes in all Ireland. The money raised for this first and most important of all national purposes, is expended among the people who pay it, employs themselves and their teams, encourages their agriculture, and facilitates so greatly the improvement of waste lands, that it ought always to be considered as the first step to any undertaking of that sort. At first, roads, in common with bridges, were paid out of the general treasure of the county, but by a subsequent act the road tax is now on baronies; each barony pays for its own roads. By another act juries were enabled to grant presentments of narrow mountain roads, at two shillings and sixpence a perch. By another, they were empowered to grant presentments of footpaths, by the side of roads, at one shilling a perch. By a very late act, they are also enabled to contract at three-halfpence per perch per annum from the first making of a road, for keeping it in repair, which before could not be done without a fresh presentment. Arthur King, Esq. of Moniva, whose agriculture is described in the preceding minutes, and who at that time represented the county of Galway, was the worthy citizen who first brought this excellent measure into parliament: Ireland, and every traveller that ever visits it ought, to the latest time, to revere the memory of such a distinguished benefactor to the public. Before that time the roads, like those of England, remained impassable, under the miserable police of the six days' labour. Similar good effects would here flow from adopting the measure, which would ease the kingdom of a great burthen in its public effects absolutely contemptible; and the tax here, as in Ireland, ought to be so laid, as to be borne by the tenant whose business it is at present to repair. Upon the imperfections of the Irish system I have only to remark, that juries should, in some cases, be more ready than they are to grant these presentments. In general, they are extremely liberal, but sometimes they take silly freaks of giving none, or very few. Experience having proved, from the general goodness of the roads, that abuses cannot be very great, they should go on with spirit to perfect the great work throughout the kingdom; and as a check upon those who lay out the money, it might perhaps be advisable to print county maps of the presentment roads, with corresponding lists and tables of the names of all persons who have obtained presentments, the sums they received, and for what roads. These should be given freely by the jurymen, to all their acquaintance, that every man might know, to whose carelessness or jobbing the public was indebted for bad roads, when they had paid for good ones. Such a practice would certainly deter many. At 11,042,642 acres in the kingdom, 140,000 pounds a year amounts to just threepence an acre for the whole territory: a very trifling tax for such an improvement, and which almost ranks in public ease and benefit with that of the post-office. SECTION III.--Manners and Customs. Quid leges sine moribus, Vana proficiunt! It is but an illiberal business for a traveller, who designs to publish remarks upon a country to sit down coolly in his closet and write a satire on the inhabitants. Severity of that sort must be enlivened with an uncommon share of wit and ridicule, to please. Where very gross absurdities are found, it is fair and manly to note them; but to enter into character and disposition is generally uncandid, since there are no people but might be better than they are found, and none but have virtues which deserve attention, at least as much as their failings; for these reasons this section would not have found a place in my observations, had not some persons, of much more flippancy than wisdom, given very gross misrepresentations of the Irish nation. It is with pleasure, therefore, that I take up the pen on the present occasion; as a much longer residence there enables me to exhibit a very different picture; in doing this, I shall be free to remark, wherein I think the conduct of certain classes may have given rise to general and consequently injurious condemnation. There are three races of people in Ireland, so distinct as to strike the least attentive traveller: these are the Spanish which are found in Kerry, and a part of Limerick and Cork, tall and thin, but well made, a long visage, dark eyes, and long black lank hair. The time is not remote when the Spaniards had a kind of settlement on the coast of Kerry, which seemed to be overlooked by government. There were many of them in Queen Elizabeth's reign, nor were they entirely driven out till the time of Cromwell. There is an island of Valentia on that coast, with various other names, certainly Spanish. The Scotch race is in the north, where are to be found the feature which are supposed to mark that people, their accent and many of their customs. In a district near Dublin, but more particularly in the baronies of Bargie and Forth in the county of Wexford, the Saxon tongue is spoken without any mixture of the Irish, and the people have a variety of customs mentioned in the minutes, which distinguish them from their neighbours. The rest of the kingdom is made up of mongrels. The Milesian race of Irish, which may be called native, are scattered over the kingdom, but chiefly found in Connaught and Munster; a few considerable families, whose genealogy is undoubted, remain, but none of them with considerable possessions except the O'Briens and Mr. O'Neil; the former have near twenty thousand pounds a year in the family, the latter half as much, the remnant of a property once his ancestors, which now forms six or seven of the greatest estates in the kingdom. O'Hara and M'Dermot are great names in Connaught, and O'Donnohue a considerable one in Kerry; but I heard of a family of O'Drischal's in Cork, who claim an origin prior in Ireland to any of the Milesian race. The only divisions which a traveller, who passed through the kingdom without making any residence could make, would be into people of considerable fortune and mob. The intermediate division of the scale, so numerous and respectable in England, would hardly attract the least notice in Ireland. A residence in the kingdom convinces one, however, that there is another class in general of small fortune--country gentlemen and renters of land. The manners, habits, and customs of people of considerable fortune are much the same everywhere, at least there is very little difference between England and Ireland, it is among the common people one must look for those traits by which we discriminate a national character. The circumstances which struck me most in the common Irish were, vivacity and a great and eloquent volubility of speech; one would think they could take snuff and talk without tiring till doomsday. They are infinitely more cheerful and lively than anything we commonly see in England, having nothing of that incivility of sullen silence with which so many Englishmen seem to wrap themselves up, as if retiring within their own importance. Lazy to an excess at work, but so spiritedly active at play, that at hurling, which is the cricket of savages, they shew the greatest feats of agility. Their love of society is as remarkable as their curiosity is insatiable; and their hospitality to all comers, be their own poverty ever so pinching, has too much merit to be forgotten. Pleased to enjoyment with a joke, or witty repartee, they will repeat it with such expression, that the laugh will be universal. Warm friends and revengeful enemies; they are inviolable in their secrecy, and inevitable in their resentment; with such a notion of honour, that neither threat nor reward would induce them to betray the secret or person of a man, though an oppressor, whose property they would plunder without ceremony. Hard drinkers and quarrelsome; great liars, but civil, submissive, and obedient. Dancing is so universal among them, that there are everywhere itinerant dancing-masters, to whom the cottars pay sixpence a quarter for teaching their families. Besides the Irish jig, which they can dance with a most luxuriant expression, minuets and country-dances are taught; and I even heard some talk of cotillions coming in. Some degree of education is also general, hedge schools, as they are called, (they might as well be termed ditch ones, for I have seen many a ditch full of scholars,) are everywhere to be met with where reading and writing are taught; schools are also common for men; I have seen a dozen great fellows at school, and was told they were educating with an intention of being priests. Many strokes in their character are evidently to be ascribed to the extreme oppression under which they live. If they are as great thieves and liars as they are reported, it is certainly owing to this cause. If from the lowest class we rise to the highest, all there is gaiety, pleasure, luxury, and extravagance; the town life at Dublin is formed on the model of that of London. Every night in the winter there is a ball or a party, where the polite circle meet, not to enjoy but to sweat each other; a great crowd crammed into twenty feet square gives a zest to the _agrements_ of small talk and whist. There are four or five houses large enough to receive a company commodiously, but the rest are so small as to make parties detestable. There is however an agreeable society in Dublin, in which a man of large fortune will not find his time heavy. The style of living may be guessed from the fortunes of the resident nobility and great commoners; there are about thirty that possess incomes from seven to twenty thousand pounds a year. The court has nothing remarkable or splendid in it, but varies very much, according to the private fortune or liberality of disposition in the lord lieutenant. In the country their life has some circumstances which are not commonly seen in England. Large tracts of land are kept in hand by everybody to supply the deficiencies of markets; this gives such a plenty, that, united with the lowness of taxes and prices, one would suppose it difficult for them to spend their incomes, if Dublin in the winter did not lend assistance. Let it be considered that the prices of meat are much lower than in England; poultry only a fourth of the price; wild fowl and fish in vastly greater plenty; rum and brandy not half the price; coffee, tea, and wines far cheaper; labour not above a third; servants' wages upon an average thirty per cent. cheaper. That taxes are inconsiderable, for there is no land-tax, no poor-rates, no window tax, no candle or soap tax, only half a wheel-tax, no servants' tax, and a variety of other articles heavily burdened in England, but not in Ireland. Considering all this, one would think they could not spend their incomes; they do contrive it, however. In this business they are assisted by two customs that have an admirable tendency to it, great numbers of horses and servants. In England such extensive demesnes would be parks around the seats for beauty as much as use, but it is not so in Ireland; the words deer-park and demesne are to be distinguished; there are great demesnes without any parks, but a want of taste, too common in Ireland, is having a deer-park at a distance from the house; the residence surrounded by walls, or hedges, or cabins; and the lawn inclosure scattered with animals of various sorts, perhaps three miles off. The small quantity of corn proportioned to the total acres, shows how little tillage is attended to even by those who are the best able to carry it on; and the column of turnips proves in the clearest manner what the progress of improvement is in that kingdom. The number of horses may almost be esteemed a satire upon common sense; were they well fed enough to be useful, they would not be so numerous, but I have found a good hack for a common ride scarce in a house where there were a hundred. Upon an average, the horses in gentlemen's stables throughout the kingdom are not fed half so well as they are in England by men of equal fortune; yet the number makes the expense of them very heavy. Another circumstance to be remarked in the country life is the miserableness of many of their houses; there are men of five thousand a year in Ireland, who live in habitations that a man of seven hundred a year in England would disdain; an air of neatness, order, dress, and _proprete_, is wanting to a surprising degree around the mansion; even new and excellent houses have often nothing of this about them. But the badness of the houses is remedying every hour throughout the whole kingdom, for the number of new ones just built, or building, is prodigiously great. I should suppose there were not ten dwellings in the kingdom thirty years ago that were fit for an English pig to live in. Gardens were equally bad, but now they are running into the contrary extreme, and wall in five, six, ten, and even twenty Irish acres for a garden, but generally double or treble what is necessary. The tables of people of fortune are very plentifully spread; many elegantly, differing in nothing from those of England. I think I remarked that venison wants the flavour it has with us, probably for the same reason, that the produce of rich parks is never equal to that of poor ones; the moisture of the climate, and the richness of the soil, give fat but not flavour. Another reason is the smallness of the parks, a man who has three or four thousand acres in his hands, has not perhaps above three or four hundred in his deer-park, and range is a great point for good venison. Nor do I think that garden vegetables have the flavour found in those of England, certainly owing to the climate; green peas I found everywhere perfectly insipid, and lettuce, etc., not good. Claret is the common wine of all tables, and so much inferior to what is drunk in England, that it does not appear to be the same wine; but their port is incomparable, so much better than the English, as to prove, if proof was wanting, the abominable adulterations it must undergo with us. Drinking and duelling are two charges which have long been alleged against the gentlemen of Ireland, but the change of manners which has taken place in that kingdom is not generally known in England. Drunkenness ought no longer to be a reproach, for at every table I was at in Ireland I saw a perfect freedom reign, every person drank just as little as they pleased, nor have I ever been asked to drink a single glass more than I had an inclination for; I may go farther and assert that hard drinking is very rare among people of fortune; yet it is certain that they sit much longer at table than in England. I was much surprised at first going over to find no summons to coffee, the company often sitting till eight, nine, or ten o'clock before they went to the ladies. If a gentleman likes tea or coffee, he retires without saying anything; a stranger of rank may propose it to the master of the house, who from custom contrary to that of England, will not stir till he receives such a hint, as they think it would imply a desire to save their wine. If the gentlemen were generally desirous of tea, I take it for granted they would have it, but their slighting is one inconvenience to such as desire it, not knowing when it is provided, conversation may carry them beyond the time, and then if they do trifle over the coffee it will certainly be cold. There is a want of attention in this, which the ladies should remedy, if they will not break the old custom and send to the gentlemen, which is what they ought to do, they certainly should have a salver fresh. I must, however, remark, that at the politest tables, which are those of people who have resided much out of Ireland, this point is conducted exactly as it is in England. Duelling was once carried to an excess, which was a real reproach and scandal to the kingdom; it of course proceeded from excessive drinking; as the cause has disappeared, the effect has nearly followed; not however, entirely, for it is yet far more common among people of fashion than in England. Of all practices, a man who felt for the honour of his country would wish soonest to banish this, for there is not one favourable conclusion to be drawn from it: as to courage, nobody can question that of a polite and enlightened nation, entitled to a share of the reputation of the age; but it implies uncivilised manners, an ignorance of those forms which govern polite societies, or else a brutal drunkenness; the latter is no longer the cause or the pretence. As to the former, they would place the national character so backward, would take from it so much of its pretence to civilisation, elegance and politeness of manners, that no true Irishman would be pleased with the imputation. Certain it is, that none are so captious as those who think themselves neglected or despised; and none are so ready to believe themselves either one or the other as persons unused to good company. Captious people, therefore, who are ready to take an affront, must inevitably have been accustomed to ill company, unless there should be something uncommonly crooked in their natural dispositions, which is not to be supposed. Let every man that fights his one, two, three, or half-a-dozen duels, receive it as a maxim, that every one he adds to the number is but an additional proof of his being ill-educated, and having vitiated his manners by the contagion of bad company; who is it that can reckon the most numerous rencontres? who but the bucks, bloods, landjobbers, and little drunken country gentlemen? Ought not people of fashion to blush at a practice which will very soon be the distinction only of the most contemptible of the people? the point of honour will and must remain for the decision of certain affronts, but it will rarely be had recourse to in polite, sensible, and well-bred company. The practice among real gentlemen in Ireland every day declining is a strong proof that a knowledge of the world corrects the old manners, and consequently its having ever been prevalent was owing to the causes to which I have attributed it. There is another point of manners somewhat connected with the present subject, which partly induced me to place a motto at the head of this section. It is the conduct of juries; the criminal law of Ireland is the same as that of England, but in the execution it is so different as scarcely to be known. I believe it is a fact, at least I have been assured so, that no man was ever hanged in Ireland for killing another in a duel: the security is such that nobody ever thought of removing out of the way of justice, yet there have been deaths of that sort, which had no more to do with honour than stabbing in the dark. I believe Ireland is the only country in Europe, I am sure it is the only part of the British dominions, where associations among men of fortune are necessary for apprehending ravishers. It is scarcely credible how many young women have even of late years been ravished, and carried off in order (as they generally have fortunes) to gain to appearance a voluntary marriage. These actions, it is true, are not committed by the class I am considering at present; but they are tried by them, and acquitted. I think there has been only one man executed for that crime, which is so common as to occasion the associations I mentioned; it is to this supine execution of the law that such enormities are owing. Another circumstance which has the effect of screening all sorts of offenders, is men of fortune protecting them, and making interest for their acquittal, which is attended with a variety of evil consequences. I heard it boasted in the county of Fermanagh, that there had not been a man hanged in it for two-and-twenty years; all I concluded from this was, that there had been many a jury who deserved it richly. Let me, however, conclude what I have to observe on the conduct of the principal people residing in Ireland, that there are great numbers among them who are as liberal in all their ideas as any people in Europe; that they have seen the errors which have given an ill character to the manners of their country, and done everything that example could effect to produce a change: that that happy change has been partly effected, and is effecting every hour, insomuch that a man may go into a vast variety of families which he will find actuated by no other principles than those of the most cultivated politeness, and the most liberal urbanity. But I must now come to another class of people, to whose conduct it is almost entirely owing that the character of the nation has not that lustre abroad, which I dare assert it will soon very generally merit: this is the class of little country gentlemen; tenants, who drink their claret by means of profit rents; jobbers in farms; bucks; your fellows with round hats, edged with gold, who hunt in the day, get drunk in the evening, and fight the next morning. I shall not dwell on a subject so perfectly disagreeable, but remark that these are the men among whom drinking, wrangling, quarrelling, fighting, ravishing, etc. etc. are found as in their native soil; once to a degree that made them a pest of society; they are growing better, but even now, one or two of them got by accident (where they have no business) into better company are sufficient very much to derange the pleasures that result from a liberal conversation. A new spirit; new fashions; new modes of politeness exhibited by the higher ranks are imitated by the lower, which will, it is to be hoped, put an end to this race of beings; and either drive their sons and cousins into the army or navy, or sink them into plain farmers like those we have in England, where it is common to see men with much greater property without pretending to be gentlemen. I repeat it from the intelligence I received, that even this class are very different from what they were twenty years ago, and improve so fast that the time will soon come when the national character will not be degraded by any set. That character is upon the whole respectable: it would be unfair to attribute to the nation at large the vices and follies of only one class of individuals. Those persons from whom it is candid to take a general estimate do credit to their country. That they are a people learned, lively, and ingenious, the admirable authors they have produced will be an eternal monument; witness their Swift, Sterne, Congreve, Boyle, Berkeley, Steele, Farquhar, Southerne, and Goldsmith. Their talent for eloquence is felt, and acknowledged in the parliaments of both the kingdoms. Our own service both by sea and land, as well as that (unfortunately for us) of the principal monarchies of Europe, speak their steady and determined courage. Every unprejudiced traveller who visits them will be as much pleased with their cheerfulness, as obliged by their hospitality; and will find them a brave, polite, and liberal people. 
39500	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive.) BEAUTIES AND ANTIQUITIES OF IRELAND KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & Co., Ltd. NEW AND RECENT PUBLICATIONS. THE PAMPHLET LIBRARY. EDITED BY ARTHUR WAUGH. Crown 8vo. POLITICAL PAMPHLETS. Selected and arranged by A. F. POLLARD. 6s. [_Ready._ LITERARY PAMPHLETS. Selected and arranged by ERNEST RHYS. [_Immediately._ _To be followed by_ RELIGIOUS PAMPHLETS. Selected and arranged by Rev. PERCY DEARMER, and DRAMATIC PAMPHLETS. Selected and arranged by THOMAS SECCOMBE. MEMOIRS OF HAWTHORNE. By his daughter, ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. IN THE LAND OF THE BORA; or Camp-Life and Sport in Dalmatia and the Herzegovina. By "Snaffle," author of "Gun, Rifle, and Hound." With 10 Full-page Illustrations by H. DIXON. Demy 8vo. 15s. THE CRIMEAN DIARY OF THE LATE GENERAL SIR CHARLES WINDHAM, K.C.B. Edited by Major HUGH PEARSE. With an Introduction by Sir WILLIAM H. RUSSELL, and a portrait of General WINDHAM. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d. PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD. [Illustration: CONG ABBEY. _Frontispiece._] BEAUTIES AND ANTIQUITIES OF IRELAND BEING A TOURIST'S GUIDE TO ITS MOST BEAUTIFUL SCENERY & AN ARCHÆOLOGIST'S MANUAL FOR ITS MOST INTERESTING RUINS BY T. O. RUSSELL AUTHOR OF "DICK MASSEY," "TRUE HEART'S TRIALS," ETC. LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD. B. HERDER 17 SOUTH BROADWAY ST LOUIS, MO. 1897 PREFACE To describe all the beauties and antiquities of Ireland, an encyclopedia, instead of a volume the size of this one would be required. As one of the objects of this book is to show that Irish history is as generally interesting as Irish scenery is generally beautiful, few places are noticed that are not historic; but in a volume of the size of this, all the historic places could not be mentioned. Many books have been published during the last three-quarters of a century that treat on Irish scenery and antiquities. Some of them are very voluminous and copiously illustrated. They were, for the most part, written by persons utterly unfitted for the task they undertook. Their remarks on Irish scenery may be of some value; they may have thought Killarney more beautiful than the Bog of Allen; but wherever they touch on matters connected with history and antiquities, they are so often incorrect and misleading that the books they have published may, for the most part, be said to be useless. It is not too much to say that many of these works would be actually increased in value if the printed matter were torn out of them and nothing left but the illustrations and covers. The people who wrote them were totally unfitted to treat of Irish history and antiquities. They knew little about the history of ancient Ireland, and nothing of the Irish language or its literature. They could hardly be justified to treat of Irish architectural remains, because they were ill-equipped to do so, and were unsympathetic with the race that raised them. If there is any country in Europe about the scenery and antiquities of which an interesting book could be written, it is Ireland. In no other country are scenery and antiquities so closely allied, for the finest remains of her ancient ruins are generally found where the scenery is most weird, most strange, or most beautiful. In no other country, perhaps, can so many places be identified with historic events, or historic personages, as in Ireland. It contains more relics of a long vanished past than any other European land. Great Britain seems a new country compared with Ireland. In spite of the wanton and disgraceful destruction of her ancient monuments that has been going on for centuries, more of such can be found in a single Irish county than in a dozen in Great Britain. Although Stonehenge is the finest druidic monument known to exist, the quantity of druidic remains is much greater in Ireland than in England. In the latter country we miss the _dun_, the _rath_, the _lis_, the round tower and the sepulchral mound, some of which are found in almost every square mile of Ireland. And coming down to later times, when men began to erect structures of stone, we find the remains of castles and keeps in such extraordinary numbers that we wonder for what purpose so many strongholds were erected. Counting _raths_, _duns_, _lises_, _cromlechs_, round towers, crumbling castles, and deserted fanes, Ireland may be called a land of ruins beyond any other country in Europe. To make these multitudinous monuments of a far-back past still more interesting, it will be found that mention is made of most of them even in the remnant of Gaelic literature that by the merest chance has been preserved. The place names of Ireland are as interesting and as extraordinary as her antiquities, and to some are even more fascinating than her beauties. The bewildering immensity of Irish place names is one of the most remarkable things connected with Ireland; but like her ancient monuments, they are every day disappearing--fading away with the language from which they were formed. Even still, there are, probably, as many ancient place names in a single Irish province as in the whole of Great Britain. If it is not absolutely true when speaking of Ireland to say that, "No dust of hers is lost in vulgar mould," it can at least be said that there is hardly a square mile of her surface where some hoary relic of the past or some beautiful object of nature can be met with that is not mentioned in history, enshrined in legend, or celebrated in song. T. O. R. CONTENTS PAGE KILLARNEY 1 Its fame world wide--Beauty of its name--Extract from Macaulay in its praise--Comparative smallness of Killarney--Admirable proportion of its scenic features-- Softness and beauty its chief attractions--Its weather often moist--Autumn the best time to see it--Its overpowering beauty on fine autumn days--The country round Killarney a wonderland of beauty--Its ruins; and their historic interest. TARA 12 Its antiquity its chief attraction--Beautiful view from its ruined ramparts--The most historic spot in these islands-- Proof of the general correctness of early Irish history--Dr Petrie's great work on the antiquities of Tara--His map of it--Its adaptation for a seat of government in ancient times--Its profanation by the erection of modern buildings on it--Tracks of its principal monuments--No trace of stone buildings found--Its praise sung by Gaelic poets--Was the most important place in Ireland--The roads that centred there--The Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny; prophecy concerning it; was brought from Tara to Scotland; now under the coronation chair at Westminster; Petrie's mistake about it; proofs that it was removed from Tara; the stone there now not the Lia Fail; is the Lia Fail a meteoric stone?-- Tara the great political centre of ancient Ireland--The Leinster Tribute--Slaughter of 3030 maidens--Indifference of the Irish heretofore about their history and literature-- Many valuable gold ornaments found in Tara--The "Tara Brooch"--King Laoghaire buried in Tara; his face to his foes, the Leinstermen--The old feud between Meath and Leinster not yet quite forgotten--Tara terribly uprooted-- Saint Patrick's goat--Last King that reigned in Tara--Its vast antiquity worthy of credence. LOCH REE 47 One of the least known of the great lakes of Ireland--Its great beauty--Decline of population in the country round it--Want of steam-boats on the Upper Shannon--Number of Islands--Beauty of the Leinster shore of the lake; is studded with gentlemen's seats--Goldsmith's house--Historic interest of Loch Ree--The treaty of Blein Potóg--Athlone; its beauty of situation; the most prosperous town on the Upper Shannon; its manufactures--Decline of the Irish language--Improvement in the condition of the Irish peasantry. "EMANIA THE GOLDEN" 58 Emania a Latinised form of Emain Macha--The second most historic spot on Irish soil--Its history--Its present desolation--Its great extent--Denationalisation of the peasantry in its vicinity; their almost total ignorance of its history--Emania and the "Children of Uisneach"; extreme beauty of that legend--The tomb of Deirdre--Many gold ornaments found near Emania--Long preservation of a place name--Queen Macha--The city of Armagh; its antiquity; founded by St Patrick; ruined and plundered by the Danes; was for some years the abode of a Danish King; its picturesqueness. QUEEN MAB'S PALACE 71 Rathcroghan, where Queen Mab lived and reigned, a very celebrated place--She was contemporary with Cleopatra, and was Queen of Connacht--Few legends about her in Ireland; an historic personage there--Proofs of the comparatively high civilization of Ireland in ancient times--Extraordinarily long preservation of the legend of Queen Mab or Medb, in England; her very long reign and great age; death in Iniscloran; her fondness for cold water baths; the Four Masters do not mention her--Description of the Fort of Rathcroghan; the wooden palace that once stood on it; unlike any of the historic forts of Ireland--Rathcroghan desolate since the time of Queen Mab; its vast ancient cemetery; Queen Mab buried there--Longevity of the ancient Irish--Strong proofs that the Connacht queen was the prototype of the Mab of Shakespeare, Drayton, Spenser, etc.; her sister's name still preserved in an Irish place name-- Beauty of the country round Rathcroghan; its fertility-- Many mentions of Rathcroghan in ancient Gaelic writings. THE HILL OF UISNEACH 84 One of the most historic of Irish hills; its peculiar shape--Magnificence and beauty of the view from it-- Knockcosgrey--Decay of rural population--Uisneach peculiarly adapted for a stronghold--Aill na Mireann, or rock of the divisions; now called the "Cat Stone"; its very peculiar shape; was supposed to mark the geographical centre of the island--Great Synod held in Uisneach in A.D. 1111--Moat of Ballylochloe; its extreme beauty; supposed origin of its name. CLONMACNOIS 97 Strangeness and uniqueness of its situation--Love of the strange and beautiful among ancient Irish Churchmen--The Shannon--Views from Clonmacnois--Small size of its remaining ruined fanes--Its round towers and crosses-- Wondrous beauty of its smaller round tower--Petrie's theory of the origin of round towers--Destruction of Clonmacnois-- Vandalism manifest--Occupation by the Danes--The nunnery-- Clonmacnois founded by St Kieran--De Lacy's ruined castle-- Beauty and diversity of scenery of the Shannon; historic interest of so many places on its banks. KNOCK AILLINN 111 Third most historic hill in Ireland--Beauty of the view from its summit--On it is the largest fort in Ireland-- Anciently the Residence of Kings of Leinster--The hill of Allen; Finn's residence according to all authentic documents; but no trace of earthworks on it--John O'Donovan's opinion about it--Probable confusion of the names Aillinn and Allen--Probability that Aillinn was Finn's dun--Immensity of the folk-lore about Finn; as widespread in Scotland as in Ireland; extraordinary way in which he impressed himself on his age; does not seem to have been a lovable personage--Dermot O'Duibhne--Real name of the Campbells of Argyle--Finn, the most powerful man in Ireland in his time--His name incorrectly spelt _Fionn_. "KILDARE'S HOLY FANE" 126 Not much scenic beauty about Kildare--The Curragh--Few ancient remains in Kildare--Its round Tower--Kildare once a large place; famous on account of St Brigit--Its "bright lamp"--Moore's noble lyric, "Erin, O Erin"--St Brigit's life in the Leabhar Breac; extracts from it--Her benevolence and charity; her love of the poor and the sick; she was buried in Kildare. GLENDALOCH 138 Its weird situation--A good central point from which to make excursions--"Sugar-loaf" mountain; its horrible modern name, and grand ancient one--Glendaloch the most celebrated place in Wicklow--St Kevin; his youth; his piety; he did not drown Kathleen; he only whipped her with nettles--Kevin the most popular of Leinster Saints--"St Kevin's bed"--Glendaloch an almost utter ruin--Ancient Irish monasteries; their great wealth--Antique gold ornaments--The evils of Danish raids--How well the Irish fought the Danes--Round towers--Their uses--Books destroyed by the Northmen--Halo of legend and romance that is round Glendaloch. "LORDLY AILEACH" 157 The second most historic spot in Ulster--Sublime view from it--Noble work done in its partial restoration--Its early history--Its destruction by a Munster King--A funny _rann_ from the Four Masters about it--Its great antiquity--The great Circuit of Ireland made from Aileach--Quotations from an ancient poem on the Circuit--A great poem totally ignored by the Irish cultured classes--Muircheartach MacNeill a great prince--His capture of the provincial Kings--His tragic and untimely death. "ROYAL AND SAINTLY CASHEL" 172 Peculiar situation--Ancient Irish churchmen's appreciation of the beautiful in nature--Superb beauty of the site of Cashel--A wonder that so few poets have been inspired by it--Sir Aubrey de Vere's Sonnet on Cashel--Marred by the erection of new monuments--Long the seat of Munster Kings-- Antiquity of Cashel as a centre of Christian cult--Wondrous beauty of Cormac's Chapel; the most remarkable of early Irish churches--The ancient Irish had no castles; they were introduced by the Norman French--The city of Cashel-- Cashel, Glendaloch and Clonmacnois the most interesting places of their kind in Ireland. LOCH ERNE 186 Loch Erne, Loch Ree and Loch Derg compared; the former the most peculiar of all Irish Lochs--Its innumerable islands, and the great beauty of its shores--Want of proper passenger steamers on it--Tourists must have good accommodation--Ireland's beauties can never be fully known until good hotels are provided--No other country of its size has so many lakes and rivers as Ireland--Historic attractions of Loch Erne--Devinish Island. MELLIFONT AND MONASTERBOICE 195 They are the most interesting ecclesiastical ruins in Louth--Great beauty of the site of Mellifont--Terrible and wanton destruction of its ruins--Its name not Irish--Was generally known as "the Drogheda Monastery"--Size of the building--Was founded in 1142--Renaissance of Irish ecclesiastical architecture; it began when Danish plundering ceased--Effects of the Anglo-French invasion--Dearvorgil, wife of O'Ruarc, buried in Mellifont--Antiquity of Monasterboice--Its glorious ancient crosses--Its round tower--Became a ruin many centuries before Mellifont--Beauty and historic interest of locality--Drogheda--The burgs of the Boyne, New Grange and Dowth. TRIM CASTLE 207 It is the largest of Irish Castles--The Anglo-French great Castle builders--Hugo de Lacy--Many Castles erected by him--He was the greatest of the invaders of Ireland--He wanted to be King of Ireland--Distracted state of the country in his time--Trim once an important place--Claims to be the birth-place of Wellington; an anecdote about him--The country round Trim most interesting and historic-- The Boyne the most historic of Irish rivers. CONG ABBEY 218 The most interesting ruin in Connacht--Roderick O'Connor; Moore's opinion of him--Cong founded by St Fechin--Was endowed by O'Connor--Description of the Abbey--Its sculptured stones--The Cross of Cong--Cong never plundered by the Danes--Peculiarities and beauty of the country round Cong--Loch Corrib--The Joyce country; a land of giants; anecdote about one of them. LOCH DERG 231 Its great size--Want of islands its principal drawback--Its hilly shores--Little traffic on it--Iniscealtra--St Cainin--Killaloe; its ruined fanes--The Palace of Kincora; no vestige of it remaining; totally destroyed by Turloch O'Connor in 1118--MacLiag's Lament for Brian and Kincora-- The rapids of Doonas; their great beauty. HOLYCROSS ABBEY 243 Its beautiful situation--One of the largest ruined churches in Ireland--When founded--Its ruins not much marred--Was inhabited until the suppression of monasteries--Beauty of one of its sepulchral monuments--Founded too late to be plundered by the Danes. DUNLUCE CASTLE 247 The most remarkable ruined Castle in Ireland--From its situation it is the finest ruin of the kind in Europe--The narrow causeway by which it is entered--Unusual thinness of its walls--Was evidently erected before cannons were perfected--An awful place in a storm--Giant's Causeway-- Dunseverick Castle--Meaning of the name _Dunluce_--Not known by whom or when it was founded--Was once owned by the MacQuillins--Sorley Boy--Terrible catastrophe that once happened at Dunluce--Must have been built before the fifteenth century. BOYLE ABBEY 254 Not much known to the general public--Its limpid river-- Rivers of muddy water an abomination--Irish rivers generally clear--Extraordinarily luxuriant growth of ivy on the ruins; their effect marred by the erection of a new building close to them--Vandalism in Ireland--Ancient name of Boyle--History of its monastery--Loch Key; the burning of its _cranniog_--Loch Arrow. THE LAKES OF WESTMEATH 263 Few in search of the beautiful know anything about them; are best known to fishermen--Not many places of historic interest in Westmeath--Loch Ouel--Turgesius, the Dane, drowned in it by Malachy the First--Legend about Malachy's daughter--Lover's poem about her--Quotation from the Book of Leinster about Turgesius--Loch Sheelin; beauty of its name--Beauty of Celtic place names--Beauty of the name Lorraine. KELLS IN MEATH 271 Its ancient name--Its great antiquity--Fertility of the country round it--The tower of Lloyd--Tailltean; its immense antiquity--The Irish Olympia--Proofs of the general authenticity of early Irish history--Sir Wm. Wilde's opinion of Irish chronology--Assemblies held in Tailltean in recent times--Early Christian Monuments--Kells often burned and plundered by the Danes--The Book of Kells and the Tara Brooch. CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY 281 Scandalous desecration of his _dun_; its situation and vast size; its existence another proof of the general truth of Irish history--Cuchulainn, the Irish Hercules--Origin of his name--Nothing told about his size or stature--Total ignorance about Cuchulainn in his birth-place; immensity of the literature in which he figures--Literary industry of early Irish monks--Cuchulainn loved by women; his abduction of Eimer; his _liaison_ with Fann; the tract about him in the Book of the Dun Cow--Fann's rhapsody--"Cuchulainn's Death" from the Book of Leinster; beauty of the view from his _dun_--Numerous antiquities of the County Louth--The Cooley and Mourne mountains--Neglect of the scenery of Louth and Down. THE WILD WEST COAST 299 Its magnificence; comparison between it and the coasts of Norway; its mild climate--Bantry Bay--The cliffs of Moher-- Half Ireland has been swallowed by the sea--Constant erosion by the waves--Killary Harbour--Clew Bay, the queen of Irish Sea lochs; comparison between it and other bays-- Croagh Patrick--Achill and its cliffs--Antiquities at Carrowmore--Loch Gill--Sligo--Slieve League--Loch Swilly-- Grandeur of the scenery from Cape Clear to Inishowen; its wonderful variety; its mild climate and wild flowers--Ten people visit the coasts of Norway for one that visits the west coast of Ireland--Want of passenger steamers on the west coast; its beauties can only be seen to advantage from the sea--Few safe harbours on the Donegall coast. DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 325 Dublin not sufficiently appreciated by some of its inhabitants--Its history--Its long Gaelic name--Danish domination in it--Many times taken and sacked by the Irish--Battle of Clontarf--Canute made no attempt to conquer Ireland--Dublin has not suffered from a siege for one thousand years--Its rapid growth in the eighteenth century--Greatly improved during the last twenty-five years--Its improvement undertaken under enormous difficulties--Its educational advantages--Its libraries-- Its museum of antiquities; disgraceful management of it-- Dublin supposed to be a dirty city--Its situation--Its public buildings--Its environs; their supreme beauty-- Glasnevin Botanic Gardens--Dublin Bay; poem on it--Variety of scenery round Dublin--The Dargle--Howth--Fingall--Dublin situated in a land of flowers--Abundance of wild flowers in Ireland--Phoenix Park--Three round towers close to Dublin; error in its census--What the author has said in its praise is true. BELFAST AND ITS ENVIRONS 357 Its rapid growth, and beauty of its environs--Its linen trade--Business capacity of its inhabitants--Its history and meaning of its name--The Giant's Ring--View from Davis mountain--Belfast Loch--Hollywood--Scenic attractions of the country round Belfast. CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 366 Its ancient name--Its history--Its situation--Is not growing as it should--Prophecy about it--Its fine public buildings--Its noble harbour--Cork should be where Queenstown is--Environs of Cork--Its antiquities--Its sufferings from the Northmen; their ravages; Lord Dunraven's theory about them; they met stranger opposition in Ireland than in any other Country; what the Irish suffered from them; the Northmen not builders-up of nations; gruesome revelation of their cruelty found at Donnybrook--The author's theory as to the cause of their invasions. GALWAY AND ITS ENVIRONS 388 Its history--Was once a place of large trade--Frightful decline of its population--Its splendid situation and noble bay--Its environs--The Isles of Arran; their gigantic cyclopean remains the most wonderful things of their kind in Europe. THE CLOUD SCENERY OF IRELAND 394 Ireland the land of cloud scenery; its situation far out in the "melancholy ocean"; its moist climate; its sunsets; their gorgeousness in fine weather; not often seen in perfection but in autumn. SOMETHING ABOUT IRISH PLACE NAMES 396 Ireland a peculiar country; its abundance of place names as compared with Great Britain--Its _ballys_, _kills_, _raths_, _duns_ and _lises_; their immensity--Dense rural population of Ireland in ancient times--Antiquity of Ireland. KILLARNEY Killarney is famed and known all over the civilized world; but there are places in Ireland where isolated scenes can be found as fair as any in Killarney. Much has been written about this "Eden of the West," but most of those who have attempted to describe it have omitted to mention its chief charm--namely, diversity of scenic attractions within a small compass. Almost everything that Nature could do has been done within a tract of country hardly ten miles square. Except some favoured spots in Switzerland, there is no spot of European soil more famed for beauty than Killarney. Its very name is beautiful, as any one can know who has heard Balfe's grand song, "Killarney." No sounds more harmonious or more fitted for a refrain could be uttered by the organs of speech. The name signifies in Gaelic the church of the sloe or wild plum-tree. The real name of the lake, or chain of lakes, which is one of the charms of Killarney, is Loch Lein, but the latter name is now almost obsolete. Before attempting to describe Killarney, it will be well to give the reader an extract from Macaulay's "History of England." The passage is a masterpiece of prose. It is a sketch of the scenic characteristics of that part of Ireland where the famous lakes are situated: "The south-western part of Kerry is now well known as the most beautiful tract in the British Isles. The mountains, the glens, the capes stretching far out into the Atlantic, the crags on which the eagles build, the rivulets branching down rocky passes, the lakes overhung by groves in which the wild deer find covert, attract, every summer, crowds of wanderers sated with business and the pleasures of great cities. The beauties of that country are often, indeed, hidden in the mist and rain that the west wind brings up from the boundless ocean. But, on rare days, when the sun shines out in his glory, the landscape has a freshness and warmth of colouring seldom found in our latitude. The myrtle loves the soil; the arbutus thrives better than in Calabria; the turf has a livelier hue than elsewhere; the hills glow with a richer purple; the varnish of the holly and the ivy is more glossy, and berries of a brighter red peep through foliage of a brighter green."[1] Macaulay, in spite of his Celtic name, was not a lover of Ireland and the Irish, and there is no reason to suppose that this most wonderful word-painting was evoked by any liking for the land it describes. He had seen Killarney, and it must have inspired him to write the greatest descriptive passage he ever penned. Those who expect to find in Killarney the grandeur of the Alps, the Rocky Mountains, or even of the Scottish Highlands, will be disappointed. It is too small to be sublime, for it could be ridden round in a day. The most wonderful of its many wonders is variety of scenery in a small compass. In this respect few parts of the known world can compare with it. Almost every possible phase of Nature, almost everything she could do with land and water, can be found in Killarney, and found on a little spot of earth hardly larger than the space covered by London. Mountains, lakes, rivers, rocks, woods, waterfalls, flowery islands, green meadows and glistening strands, almost exhaust Nature's materials for forming the beautiful. But all are found at Killarney. Man, who mars Nature so often, has helped her here, for the castles and abbeys he raised of yore still stand, and their ivy and flower-decked ruins, tenanted only by the bat and the bee, put the finishing touch on this earthly Eden, and make it one of the scenic wonders of the world. If Killarney had glaciers and eternally snow-clad peaks, it would have everything that Switzerland has. Another wonderful thing about Killarney is the admirable proportion its scenic features bear to one another. If the mountains were any higher they would be too high for the lakes, and if the lakes were any bigger they would be too big for the mountains. Even the rivers and waterfalls are almost in exact proportion to the other phases of Nature. The monstrous Mississippi or the thundering Niagara would spoil such a miniature paradise; but the limpid Laune and O'Sullivan's babbling cascade suit it exactly. Killarney is the most perfect effort of Nature to bring together without disproportion all her choicest charms. Small as Killarney is, it would take at least a week, or perhaps two weeks, to see it and know all its loveliness. It is only on foot and without hurry that its beauties can be seen in perfection. Its mountains may be ascended, and glorious views of sea and craggy heights obtained; but the charm of Killarney is not grandeur, but beauty. There are mountain views in Scotland finer than can be had from the summits of Mangerton or Carn Thual. It would be something like waste of time to climb those hills. Let the tourist rather wander in the hundreds of shady lanes or paths that skirt the lakes, or take a boat and navigate that most picturesque river, for its length, in the world, the Long Range, that connects the upper with the lower lake. Let him mark the wondrous luxuriance of grass, leaf, weed and flower. The arbutus grows so large that it becomes a tree. Ferns of such gigantic proportions may be found in shady nooks that they seem to belong to some far-back geological age. Softness, freshness, luxuriance and _beauté riante_ are the real glories of Killarney. In these it has no rival. There are two drawbacks to Killarney; there is the guide nuisance and the rain nuisance. The nuisance of guides is probably no greater than in many other places of tourist resort, and, by a strong effort of the will, can be got rid of. But the rain is a more serious matter and must be borne patiently. Some years come when not a dozen dry days occur throughout the entire summer, but generally there is less rainfall than on the west coasts of Scotland or England. There have been quite as many wet days in Liverpool during the three last summers as there usually are in Killarney. It does, however, too often happen that tourists are confined to the hotel for four or five days at a time owing to the rain. It must be borne in mind that this excessive moisture of atmosphere is what has given the south-west of Ireland, and England too, their exquisite charm of verdure and wild flowers. When a fine day comes after rain in summer or autumn all Nature seems to laugh. Flowers of all hues open their petals, birds in multitudes begin to sing, and wild bees and hosts of insects make the air musical with their hum. The American tourist need have no fear when insects are mentioned, for the mosquito is unknown in Killarney. Midges are the only insect plague, but they never enter houses, and are troublesome only before rain, early in the spring or late in the autumn. Most tourists go to Killarney early in the summer. June and July are favourite times for Americans to visit it. As it lies almost in the direct route between New York and Liverpool, they generally visit it before going to England or the Continent of Europe. But the time to see Killarney is in the autumn--it is then in all its glory. It should not be visited before the 15th of August; from then until the 1st of October it is the most beautiful place, perhaps, on the earth, provided always that the weather is not wet. There is only one thing that mars the weather in the south of Ireland--namely, rain. Cold, in the general sense of the word, is almost unknown. Every day that is not wet must be fine. There is, it must be confessed, rather more probability of having dry weather in Killarney in the spring or early summer than in the autumn, but, by visiting it in the spring, the tourist would gain nothing, and would lose the wild-flower feast of autumn. No American, or even native of England, no matter from what part of his country he comes, can form the faintest conception of what a Killarney mountain is in September, if the weather be fine. The wild-flower that is the glory of Ireland is the heath. It blossoms only in the autumn. Next in glory to the heath comes the furze. Both furze and heath are indigenous in the whole of the south-west of Europe, but, owing to the mildness and moistness of the climate of Ireland, they grow and blossom there with a luxuriance unknown in any other country. When a great mountain becomes a mighty bouquet of purple and gold, a sight is revealed which surpasses anything on earth in floral beauty. Almost every mountain round about the "Eden of the West" is clothed from base to summit in a vast drapery of heath. Some of the Killarney mountains are wooded for a few hundred feet up their sides, but most of them are entirely covered with heath interspersed with furze. When a fine autumn occurs, tens of thousands of acres of mountain and moorland gleam in the sunlight, an ocean of purple heath and golden furze. Not only do the heath and furze blossom in the autumn, but myriads of other wild-flowers appear only at that time of year, or blossom most luxuriantly then. Even white clover, which rarely blossoms in other countries except in the spring or early summer, open its flowers widest and sends out its most fragrant perfume in an Irish autumn. The air is heavy with fragrance of flowers, the mountains are musical with the hum of bees, and "Every wingèd thing that loves the sun Makes the bright noonday full of melody." Killarney in a fine autumn becomes not only entrancing, but overpowering in its loveliness. The whole country round Killarney is a wonderland. Macaulay's description of it is true to the letter. In all his works nothing can be found of a descriptive character equal to the passage quoted from him. He had a great subject, and he handled it as no other writer of the English language could. He has described one of the loveliest regions in the world in a few lines that will stand for ever as one of the greatest efforts of a great writer. His description is a brilliant gem of composition, just as the place it describes is a brilliant gem of nature. No one should visit Killarney without visiting Glengariff. It is only about twenty miles from Killarney, and can be reached by a sort of low-backed car peculiar to Ireland. This car is a very curious sort of conveyance. The occupants sit back to back, with their sides to the horses. In fine weather there is no pleasanter mode of travelling than on a low-backed car, but when it rains one is anything but comfortable. Glengariff is thought by some to surpass even Killarney in beauty. It is a deep glen surrounded by mountains of the most fantastic shapes, clothed with a wealth of foliage that would astonish any one who had not seen Killarney. The lake that is seen at Glengariff is sea-water, and opens into Bantry Bay. The tourist will find an excellent hotel there, and no matter how he may be satiated with the beauty of Killarney, he will see other and more striking beauties in Glengariff. Killarney is well supplied with hotels. There are four or five, and they are all good. Most of them are situated in sequestered places, where a view of some enchanting scene spreads before the door. The village of Killarney is about a mile from the lake; it is a place of no interest at all, but there is a very good hotel in it, and many tourists stop there, for it is just at the railway terminus. Hotel expenses at Killarney in the tourist season are not so high as at some of the fashionable Continental summer resorts. Guides are not much wanted, unless mountains are to be ascended. Then they are indispensable, for mists may suddenly come during the very finest day, and the tourist without a guide would run a chance of spending a night on a bleak mountain or being drowned in a lake or bog-hole. Ponies of a most docile character can be hired cheap. Pony-back travelling is a favourite mode of "doing" Killarney, especially with ladies and lazy men, but no one into whose soul the charm of Killarney really enters would think of travelling through such lovely scenes on horseback. On foot or in a boat is the way to see Killarney. [Illustration: ROSS CASTLE.] There are ruins of the most interesting kind in Killarney. Muckross Abbey is not so large as some of the ruined shrines of England, but it is a venerable and imposing building. It was built by one of the MacCarthys, chiefs of the district, in 1340. Ross Castle is another imposing ruin. It is situated on a green promontory that juts into the lake. There is some doubt as to the exact time when it was erected, but it could hardly have been before the fourteenth century. The most interesting ruin near Killarney, and by far the most ancient, is the monastery on the supremely beautiful island of Inisfallan. It was founded by Saint Finian in the sixth century. It was there the yet unpublished "Annals of Inisfallan" were compiled. Hardly any of the walls of the old monastery remain. The arbutus and the hawthorn are growing where once were cloisters, and are fast completing the ruin of what was one of the first of the ancient churches that were erected in Ireland. TARA The supreme attraction of Tara is its antiquity. It must not, however, be thought that a visit to this famous hill reveals no beauties. It is not situated among mountains; hardly a lake is visible from its summit: yet the view from it is so fine that if there was no historic interest attached to it, the tourist in search of the beautiful alone would have his eyes feasted with as fair a scene from one of its grassy ramparts as could be gazed on in any part of Ireland. Eastward the view is obstructed by the hill of Screen, but on every other side it is superb. Westward the eye ranges over the fairest and most fertile part of Ireland, the great plain of Meath and West Meath, anciently called _Magh Breagh_, or the fair plain. And fair indeed it is in summer time, one great green sea of grass and wild flowers, reaching to the Shannon, sixty miles away. But it is southward that the view from Tara is most striking. The Dublin and Wicklow mountains are more imposing when seen from Tara than from any other place. They rise in a vast, blue rampart, and seem so colossal as to appear thousands of feet higher than they are. Those old, barbaric Irish kings and chieftains must have been lovers of the beautiful, for they almost invariably fixed their strongholds not only in the fairest parts, but in places commanding the fairest prospects. There are hardly two other places in Ireland the surroundings of which are more beautiful than those of Tara and Uisneach, or from which fairer prospects are to be seen. They were, from far-back antiquity, the seats of those by whom the country was _supposed_ to be ruled, for it often happened that he who was styled chief king had but little control over his vassals. There is no other spot of European soil the records of which go so far back into the dim twilight of the past as do the records of Tara. Before the first Roman raised a rude hut on the banks of the Tiber, when the place where the Athenian Acropolis now stands was a bare rock, kings, whose names are given in Irish history, ruled in Tara. When one gazes on those grassy mounds, that are almost all that remain of what our ancient poets used to call "the fair, radiant, City of the Western World," he can hardly believe that such a place could ever have been the abode of royalty, the meeting-place of assemblies, and the permanent home of thousands. Other desolated strongholds of ancient royalty and dominion bear ample evidence of their former greatness. Ruined columns of Persepolis yet remain. The site of Tadmor is marked by still standing pillars of marble, and vast piles of decomposed bricks tell of the greatness of ancient Babylon; but green, grassy mounds and partially obliterated earth-works are almost all that remain of Tara. It is so ruined that it can hardly be ruined any more. Time may yet destroy even what remains of the bricks of Babylon, but time can hardly change what remains of the ruins of Tara. No other spot of Irish earth can compare with Tara in historic interest or in antiquity. Emania and Rathcroghan are little more than places of yesterday compared with it. It is over three thousand years ago since the first king reigned in Tara. Some may say that it is only bardic history that tells of what took place in Ireland in those very remote times, and that it is unworthy of credence. It is true that there is a great deal of fiction mixed with the early history of Ireland, as there is with the early history of all countries; but the ancient Irish chroniclers did not attempt much more than a mere sketch of the salient points of Irish history of very remote times, say from beyond the third century B.C. Some of the facts they mention have been verified in remarkable ways by what may be called collateral evidence. This evidence is found in place names, and in the names of persons and things. One of those proofs of the general correctness of what is related in Gaelic literature about far-back events of Irish history is so remarkable that it deserves special mention. One of the kings who ruled in Tara considerably over a thousand years B.C. was named Lugh, or in English, Lewy or Louis. He established the games that were held annually at Tailtean, near Kells, that were regularly celebrated down to the time of the Anglo-French invasion, in honour of his mother, whose name was Tailte. Those games were held in the first week in August, and from them the Irish name for the month of August is derived; it is _Lughnasa_. This is the only name known in Gaelic to the present hour for the month of August, except a periphrastic one meaning "the first month of autumn." This name for August is known in every part of Ireland and Scotland where the old tongue still lives, but it has been corrupted to _Lunasd_ in the latter country. The meaning of the word _Lughnasa_ is, the games or celebrations of this same Lugh or Lewy, who lived and reigned centuries before Rome was founded, and before a stone of the Athenian Acropolis was laid. It seems almost impossible to conceive that the Gaelic name for the month of August could have had any origin other than that given above on the authority of one of the most learned of ancient Irish ecclesiastics, Cormac MacCuillenan, Archbishop of Cashel, in the ninth century. The descriptions of Tara given in ancient Gaelic writings have been verified in the most remarkable manner by the researches of modern archæologists. Dr Petrie's great work, "The Antiquities of Tara Hill," would go far to remove the prejudices of the most bigoted despiser of Irish historic records. He was one of the most learned and scientific investigators of antiquities that ever lived, and was not only a good Gaelic scholar himself, but had the assistance of the greatest Gaelic scholar of the century, John O'Donovan. Those two gentlemen translated every mention of Tara that they could find in prose or verse in ancient Irish manuscripts; they compared every mention they could find of the monuments of Tara with what remains of them at present; and they found such a general agreement between ancient descriptions of those monuments and the existing remains of them as proved what is said in Gaelic manuscripts about the extent and splendour of Tara in Pagan times to be well worthy of credence. Every one who visits Tara, and who is in any way interested in archæology, should have Doctor Petrie's map of it, which will be found in his minute and elaborate work on the "Antiquities of Tara Hill." That map is reproduced here. The book is very scarce, as only a small edition of it was printed, but it can be found in the "Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy." Armed with Petrie's map a visit to Tara would be one of the most interesting and enjoyable excursions that could be made from Dublin. Kilmessan Station can be reached from the Broadstone terminus in an hour, and less than two miles of a walk through a beautiful country brings one to the summit of "the Hill of Supremacy," as it was called of old when he who ruled in Tara ruled Ireland. No matter how confirmed an archæologist he may be who stands for the first time on this celebrated hill, his first feeling will be of joy at the beauty of the prospect that is spread before him. To know how beautiful Ireland is, even in those places that are not on the track of tourists, and that are seldom mentioned in guide books, one should see the view from the hill of Tara. It would be hard to find any other hill in Ireland so well adapted for a place of assembly or for the dwelling of a ruler as Tara. Uisneach, in Westmeath, is, perhaps, the only hill in Ireland that possesses all the advantages of Tara. In ancient times, when war was the rule and peace the exception, it was imperative that a stronghold should be on a height. Athens had its acropolis and so had Corinth. Tara had the advantage of extent as well as of height, and could be made a permanent dwelling-place as well as an acropolis, for there are fully a hundred acres on what may be called the summit of the hill. It is unfortunate that some of the hill has been enclosed, planted with deal trees, and a church erected on the very track of some of the most ancient monuments. This plantation and church have terribly interfered with the picturesqueness and antique look of Tara. Planting deal trees and erecting a modern church amid the hoariest monuments, and on the most historic spot of European soil, was little less than sacrilege. If there had been a proper national spirit, or a due veneration for their past among the Irish, they never would have allowed a church or any modern building to be erected on the most historic spot on Irish soil; and even now they ought to have the church removed, the wall torn down, and the plantation uprooted. All Greece would rise up in indignation were any one to erect a church or chapel amid the ruins of the Athenian Acropolis. [Illustration: MONUMENTS ON TARA HILL. (_After Petrie's Map._)] The most interesting and best preserved of the antiquities of Tara is the track of the banquetting-house. It must have been an enormous building, for it was about 800 feet long and about 50 wide. It is wonderful how perfectly plain and well-defined the track of this once great structure appears after nearly fourteen hundred years, and in spite of the way this historic spot has been uprooted and levelled. But not a vestige of stone-work or of stones is to be seen near the ruins of the banquetting-house. It seems absolutely certain that there were no buildings of stone in Tara when it was at the height of its grandeur, and that seems to have been about the middle of the third century, during the reign of Cormac MacAirt. It must not be thought that buildings cannot be fine unless they are of stone; but buildings of stone were very rare in northern countries until comparatively recent times. Moore, in his "History of Ireland," says, speaking of wooden buildings and of Tara--"However scepticism may now question their architectural beauty, they could boast the admiration of many a century in evidence of their grandeur. That those edifices were of wood is by no means conclusive either against the elegance of their structure or the civilisation of those who erected them. It was in wood that the graceful forms of Grecian architecture first unfolded their beauties." So the absence of stone buildings in Tara in no way proves that it was not a place of grandeur as well as of beauty; and the tenth century Gaelic poet may have been justified in saying of it, "World of perishable beauty! Tara to-day, though a wilderness, Was once the meeting-place of heroes. Great was the host to which it was an inheritance, Though to-day green, grassy land." Every mention of Tara in the vast remnant of Gaelic manuscripts of the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries that still exists shows it to have been, beyond all comparison, the most important place in ancient Ireland. Oengus the Culdee, author of the longest poem in ancient Gaelic, the famous Félire, recently translated by Mr Whitley Stokes, speaks thus of this renowned but now ruined spot: "Tara's mighty burgh hath perished With its kingdom's splendour; With a multitude of champions of wisdom Abideth great Ardmagh." The poet contrasts the desolation into which the strongholds of the Pagans had fallen with the then flourishing condition of the centres of Christian teaching. Tara was the political as well as the social centre of ancient Ireland. It is in connection with it that the only mention made of roads having names is found in ancient Gaelic writings. Five great roads, as will be seen by the annexed map, led from Tara to the extremities of the Island. The Slighe Dala went southward; the Slighe Asail went north-west; the Slighe Midhluchra, went north-east; the Slighe Cualann went south-easterly; and the Slighe Mór went in a south-western direction. Traces of those roads may still be seen by the practised eye of the archæologist. One of the most interesting things connected with Tara is the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny. It was upon it the over-kings of Ireland had been inaugurated from far-back antiquity. It is said to have been brought by Fergus, brother of the then reigning chief King, to Scotland, in order that he might be crowned king on it over the part of Scotland he had conquered. It remained under the coronation chair of the Kings of Scotland down to the time of Edward the First, who seized it and brought it to Westminster, where it is now, and the sovereigns of England have been crowned on it ever since his time. Petrie maintains that the Lia Fail is still in Tara, and that the pillar stone that stands over the graves of the men who fell in '98 is it. He adduces very strong evidence from manuscripts of high authority and of great antiquity to prove what he says. There is, on the other hand, strong testimony to prove that it was brought to Scotland by Fergus. The question will probably never be finally settled. The principal virtue supposed to be possessed by the Lia Fail was that it would bring political power to the country in which it was, particularly if its people were of Celtic stock. It is very remarkable that soon after the stone supposed to be the Lia Fail was taken out of Ireland, her political power began to decline, her over-kings lost a great part of their former authority, and in the long run she lost her independence. Scotland's political power and national independence vanished not long after she had lost the Lia Fail, and in a few centuries after England had got it she became one of the foremost nations in the world. The English claim to be Saxons, but it is now generally admitted that the Celtic element preponderates in the island of Great Britain, so that the prophecy attached to the Lia Fail seems to be fulfilled. The Lia Fail is certainly the most extraordinary stone in Europe, if not in the world. The famous Rosetta stone, covered as it is with archaic writing, and verifying, as many suppose, the truth of Old Testament history, is hardly more interesting than the rude granite slab that lies under the coronation chair in Westminster, unmarked with a single letter. It is about 25 inches in length, about 15 in breadth, and 9 in depth. How such a rude, unshapely flag-stone could have such a history, and have been an object of veneration and interest for so many centuries, is what strikes with wonder those who see it. But if it is not the real Lia Fail, if it is a sham, and if the stone still standing in Tara is the genuine one, the wonder increases; for the fact of a spurious article having become invested with such fame and regarded with such veneration is the greatest wonder of all. Doctor Petrie says, in his "Antiquities of Tara Hill," that "it is in the highest degree improbable that to gratify the desire of a colony the Irish would have voluntarily parted with a monument so venerable for its antiquity and considered essential to the legitimate succession of their own kings." He quotes verses from a tenth century poet, Kenith O'Hartigan, who says that the Lia Fail is "This stone on which are my two heels"; and he quotes from an ancient tract called the _Dinseanchus_, another proof that when it was composed, and that time could not have been later than the tenth century, the Lia Fail was in Tara. It often happens, however, that Irish annalists and historians, so fond were they of looking backward to the past, make things appear as they had been, and not as they were when they wrote. The over-kings of Ireland were called Kings of Tara five hundred years after Tara had been abandoned, and when it was as waste and desolate as it is to-day. O'Dugan, in his topographical poem, written in the fourteenth century, tells of clans inhabiting the English Pale, when they had been banished westward by the invaders nearly two hundred years before he wrote. He prefaces his topographical poem by saying "O'Maolseachlinn, chief King of Tara and Erin," but the last O'Maolseachlinn that was nominally chief King of Ireland and Tara had died three hundred years before O'Dugan wrote! Why those old Gaelic poets were so fond of describing things as they had been, and not as they were when they wrote, is hard to understand. They may have got their information from documents that were centuries old when they copied them. It seems a certainty that the men whose writings Petrie quotes to prove that the Lia Fail was in Tara in the tenth century, did what O'Dugan did in his topographical poem--that is, speak of things as they had been hundreds of years before. He never mentions the English at all. This partially accounts for Irish writers of the tenth century speaking of the Lia Fail being then in Tara. They intended to describe where it used to be, but not where it was. When Petrie says that the Lia Fail is spoken of by all ancient Irish writers in such a manner as to leave no doubt that it remained in its original situation at the time when they wrote, he makes a great mistake. Here is a quotation from the "Book of Leinster," a manuscript of the highest authority, compiled in the early part of the twelfth century, and mostly from writings of a much earlier date:--"It was the Tuatha De Danaans who brought with them the great _Fal_, that is, the stone of knowledge that _was_ in Tara; from which [the name of] Magh Fail is on Ireland. He under whom it would roar was then [rightful] King of Ireland."[2] There is another very strong proof brought to light by the publication of "Silva Gadelica," by Mr Standish Hays O'Grady, that the Lia Fail was removed from Tara. In the tract called the "Colloquy," one of the speakers says: "This, then, and the Lia Fail, or stone of destiny, that _was_ there (in Tara) were the two wonders of Tara. When Ireland's monarch stepped on it, it would cry out under him," ... "And who was it that lifted that flag, or that carried it away out of Ireland?" asked one of the listeners. "It was a young hero of great spirit that ruled over" ... Here, unfortunately, the tract ends abruptly. The "Colloquy," or "Agallamh na Seanorach," is a tract of respectable antiquity. Its language seems to be that of the fifteenth or perhaps the fourteenth century, but the version that has come down to us may be, and probably is, but a transcript of a much more ancient tract, the language of which was modernised. If Doctor Petrie had known of the existence of those two proofs given of the Lia Fail having been removed from Tara, he never would have said that all ancient Irish writers spoke of it in such a way as to leave no doubt of its being there still. O'Reilly, author of Irish dictionary, says: "Lia Fail, the stone of destiny, on which the ancient Irish monarchs used to be crowned until the time of Mortogh Mac Earc, who sent it into Scotland that his brother Fergus, who had subdued that country, might be crowned on it. It is now in Westminster Abbey." O'Reilly was the most learned Irish scholar and historian of his day, and was a painstaking, conscientious man, who would hardly state any thing for which he did not have good authority. It must, however, be admitted that up to the present no positive statement seems to have been found in ancient Irish writings as to when and by whom the Lia Fail was brought from Tara to Scotland; neither does it seem to be known where O'Reilly got his information about it. When Petrie spoke of the improbability of the Irish allowing such a venerated monument as the Lia Fail to be taken out of Ireland, he should have remembered that at the time when it is said to have been taken, in the beginning of the sixth century, Christianity had become established in Ireland. Paganism or Druidism may have survived among a few, but it had got its death-blow. Pagan monuments of every kind had begun to be disregarded. The Lia Fail was essentially a Pagan monument, and consequently an abhorrence to Christians. The fathers, or at least the grandfathers, of the men who allowed Fergus to take it to Scotland, would probably have shed the last drop of their blood to keep it in Ireland. The disrepute into which everything connected with Paganism had fallen after the introduction of Christianity is plainly set forth in the "Book of Leinster" in the very page from which the Gaelic extract about the Lia Fail has been given:--"It happened that Christ was born not long after; it was that which broke the power of the idols."[3] The Lia Fail was an idol that had lost its power and prestige, so that the people would not be likely to have any objection to its being removed to Scotland or anywhere else. But there are still other even stronger objections for accepting Petrie's theory that the Lia Fail is still in Tara. The pillar stone that is there is not a _lia_, and never would have been called such by the ancient Irish. _Lia_ means a stone of any kind in its general sense; but the pillar stone in Tara would not be called a _lia_, but a _coirthe_. _Lia_ is always applied to a flag-stone, both in ancient and modern Gaelic. The stone under the coronation chair in Westminster is a real _lia_ or flag-stone; the one in Tara is a _coirthe_, or pillar stone, for, judging from its height above the ground, it cannot be much less than eight feet in length; it is very nearly round, and was evidently fashioned into its present shape by man. If the stone in Tara is the real Lia Fail, how did it come to lose its original name and be know even still by an Irish name that connects it with Fergus, the person by whom the real Lia Fail is popularly believed to have been brought to Scotland? This loss of an original name, and its substitution by a new one, could hardly have occurred in the case of such a famous monument as the Lia Fail. If the superstitious reverence with which it had been regarded before the introduction of Christianity had vanished, its original name would have remained. There are many place names in Ireland that have not changed during twenty centuries, and it is almost impossible to conceive how the name of the most venerated monument in all Ireland could have changed had the monument itself remained in the country. Another strong objection against the pillar stone in Tara being the real Lia Fail is its shape. The real Lia Fail was intended to be stood upon by the chief king at his inauguration; but the most flat-footed monarch that ever ruled Ireland would have considerable difficulty in standing steadily on the _coirthe_ in Tara, even if it were prostrate, for it is round and not flat. Standing steadily on it would be nearly as difficult a performance as "rolling off a log" would be an easy one. Taking everything into consideration, there seem to be very strong reasons to believe that the Lia Fail was taken from Tara to Scotland at the time it is popularly believed to have been taken--namely, about the year 503 of the Christian era; that it was taken in order to have Fergus Mac Earc inaugurated on it as king over that part of Scotland which he had brought under his domination; that it was taken from Scone to Westminster by Edward the First in the year 1296, and that it is now under the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey. It seems strange how a man of Doctor Petrie's archæological knowledge could have been led to believe that the pillar stone still in Tara, for whatever use it may have been originally intended, was the real Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny. It would be most instructive and interesting if a scientific examination was made of the stone under the coronation chair. If it was proved to be a meteoric stone, its fame and the reverence with which it was so long regarded could be easily understood. If an ancient tribe saw a stone falling from heaven among them, they would regard such a thing as a miracle, and think that the stone was sent to them for some special purpose. They would, if possible, take it with them wherever they went. If the Lia Fail was proved to be a meteoric stone, the esteem and honour in which it was so long held, and the power which it was believed to possess, would be easily accounted for. The history of Tara is, to a great extent, the history of ancient Ireland of pre-Christian times. It was more of a political centre than London or Paris is at present. The event that above all others left a permanent mark as well as a blot on Irish history may be said to have had its origin in Tara. The horrible Leinster Tribute and Tara are closely connected. In the first century of the Christian era, an over-king called Tuathal, from whom the common Irish surname O'Tool, or Tool, seems to have originated, reigned in Tara. He had two daughters, famed for their beauty. We are told in the "Book of Leinster" that they were "fairer than the clouds of heaven." Their names were Fihir and Darine. A king of Leinster named Eochy married Fihir, the elder of the two sisters. He got tired of her after a short time, went to Tara, told Tuathal that Fihir was dead, and that he wanted to marry her sister Darine. Tuathal consented, and Eochy took his new wife home to his _dun_, which was in the western part of the present county of Wicklow. Darine had been only a short time in her new home when she met her sister Fihir, who she had been told was dead. Darine was so overwhelmed by shame that she died, and Fihir was so shocked at the death of her sister that she died of grief. So Tuathal's two beautiful daughters were dead, and were buried in the same grave. When Tuathal heard of their deaths he summoned his vassals, the kings of Ulster and Connacht; his army and theirs invaded Leinster, defeated and killed its king, ravaged it, and imposed the celebrated Tribute on the unfortunate province--namely, fifteen thousand cows, fifteen thousand sheep, fifteen thousand pigs, fifteen thousand silver chains, fifteen thousand bronze or copper pots, and fifteen thousand linnen (?) cloaks, together with one great cauldron into which, _Hibernicè_, "twelve beeves and twelve pigs 'would go,' in the house of Tara itself." This was, indeed, a prodigious pot that could boil four-and-twenty quadrupeds of the sort, for Ireland was always famous for its large pigs and beeves. Such a cauldron having been used, shows that however poorly the inhabitants of other parts of Ireland may have fared in ancient times, the people of Tara lived well. When it is remembered that ancient Leinster was little more than half the size of the modern province, such a tribute appears enormous. Ancient Leinster, or, to speak more correctly, the Leinster of the time of Tuathal, went no further north than a line running from Dublin to Athlone. The counties of Meath, Westmeath, Longford, and Louth belonged to the province of Meath that had been carved out of parts of the four old provinces by Tuathal himself. The Tribute was to be paid every year, but it was not, for, as the Leinstermen's own great Chronicle says, "It never was paid without a fight"; and sometimes when they succeeded, as they very often did, in licking the combined armies of all the other provinces, it used not to be paid for many years. It was, however, paid on and off for over five hundred years, and to forty over-kings. It was remitted in the seventh century; but many attempts were subsequently made to re-impose it on the unfortunate Leinstermen, who paid more dearly for the treacherous act of one of their kings than any other province or nation mentioned in history. One of their poets has said in a yet untranslated poem in the "Book of Leinster": "It is beyond the testimony of the Creator, It is beyond the word of supplicating Christ, All the kings of the Irish That make attacks on Leinstermen!"[4] It is not to be wondered at that the Leinster Tribute totally denationalised the province on which it was levied, and made its harried inhabitants side with the Danes and with the Anglo-Normans against their own countrymen. But what is most astonishing about the Tribute is its enormousness. That part of Leinster which was the ancient province could hardly pay such a tax to-day. This matter seems to show that ancient Ireland, in spite of a state of almost continual intestine warfare, was far richer and more populous than is generally supposed. The most horrible act recorded in Irish history was committed at Tara--that is, the slaughter of 3030 women by the Leinstermen in the year 241. Here is what the Four Masters say of it under that year:--"The massacre of the girls at Cloonfearta at Tara, by Dunlang, King of Leinster. Thirty royal girls was the number, and a hundred maids with each of them. Twelve princes of the Leinstermen did Cormac put to death in revenge of that massacre, together with the exaction of the Borumha (Tribute) with an increase after Tuathal." The Cormac here spoken of was the celebrated Cormac Mac Airt, one of the best over-kings that ever ruled ancient Ireland. This horrible massacre of maidens in Tara is so often mentioned in ancient Irish history and annals, and the same number of victims so invariably given, that there cannot be any doubt whatever about its having occurred. But particulars about it seem wanting. There was probably some pagan festival to be celebrated in Tara, at which the children of the upper classes only attended. The ladies may have arrived from the different parts of the country before the men, and when the harried Leinstermen made a raid on Tara, they found it unguarded save by women, and killed them and burned Tara to the ground at the same time; or it may have been that the women tried to help the few men that happened to be there in protecting the place, and Dunlang made an indiscriminate massacre of every one he found in it. This horrible act was caused by the imposition of the Leinster Tribute. It is to be presumed that there were no Leinster girls among those who were slaughtered. Those interested in Irish history, or in ancient history in general, should read the tract called the _Borumha_, or Tribute, in the "Book of Leinster." Translations of it have been recently made in the _Revue Celtique_ and in _Silva Gadelica_. There is not in any ancient or mediæval literature anything to excel it in general interest. It is an historic gem that has been forgotten or overlooked for centuries. The indifference which the educated classes of the Irish people have heretofore shown about the ancient literature of their country was one of the most shocking, sickening symptoms of national degradation ever shown by any civilised people. They are latterly beginning to take more interest in it; but it is greatly to be feared that they have been induced to turn their attention to it more by the example shown them by foreigners than by any change of opinion originating among themselves. Much as O'Donovan, O'Curry, and Stokes have done to call the attention of the cultured classes of the Irish people to the study of Celtic literature, it is doubtful if they would have succeeded if the scholars of Continental Europe had not taken an interest in it. The _renaissance_ of Celtic studies which seems to have taken place owes a large part of its origin to the Germans and the French. Many valuable gold ornaments of antique and beautiful design and workmanship have been found in Tara and its immediate vicinity, but very few of them have found their way to the Kildare Street Museum in Dublin, one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, collection of ancient weapons, implements, and ornaments to be seen in Europe. Most of the gold ornaments found in Tara have been melted down. If one is to believe what the peasantry living in its vicinity say, the quantity of gold ornaments found there was very great. The famous Tara Brooch, preserved in the Dublin Museum, and considered the most beautiful piece of metallurgy, either ancient or modern, that is known to exist, was not found in Tara, but on the seashore about three miles from Drogheda, and nine or ten from this famous hill. It was found by an old woman, who is said to have sold it to a shopkeeper in Drogheda for ninepence. The Royal Irish Academy paid £500 for it. Many think that a regular, scientific exploration of Tara Hill ought to be made, such an exploration as Schlieman made of the site of Troy. If this were done under government surveillance, or by some responsible and skilled antiquarian, there is hardly a doubt but that many and precious ornaments in gold, and implements and weapons in bronze, would be found, especially the latter, for there seems every reason to believe that Tara was the seat of government long before iron was known, and long before the bronze age came to an end. It would, however, be a tremendous task to uproot several hundred acres merely on speculation. But the quantity of antique gold ornaments that has been found in Ireland was immense, more, it is thought by some, than has been found in all the rest of Europe. They are being found almost every year. Nearly £300 worth of golden fibulae was found in the County Waterford in 1894. They are now to be seen in the Dublin Museum. [Illustration: TARA BROOCH.] The many things that are told about Tara in old Gaelic books would fill a large volume. They are all interesting. They may be incredible, grotesque, or funny, but they are never common-place: it is this uniqueness that is the great charm of ancient Irish literature. What could be more unique than this account of the burial of Laoghaire, the chief king who was cotemporary with St Patrick, but of whom the Saint never succeeded in making even a half decent Christian. It is taken from the book of the Dun Cow. When Laoghaire was killed by "the elements," by lightning probably, "his body was taken from the south and was buried with his warrior weapons in the outward(?) south-eastern rampart of the Kingly Rath Laoghaire in Tara, and its face to the south against the Leinstermen [as if] fighting with them, for he had been an enemy of the Leinstermen when alive." The idea of facing his enemies with his dead body, for Laoghaire must have given orders as to how and where he should be buried, could only have entered into the brains of ancient Irish kings, for they were grotesque or original in almost everything. It is strange how long political memories last. The enmity between Leinster and Meath has not even yet quite died out. Meath, as the seat of the over-kings, represented Ireland, and was also the place from which the hateful Leinster Tribute originated. This is not yet forgotten, for whenever wrestling matches, or athletic sports of any kind, are held near Dublin by the people of adjoining counties, the counties of Dublin, Kildare, and Wicklow are always pitted against Meath. Dubhthach Mac U Lugair, one of the first converts St Patrick made in Ireland, tells us, in a poem of his in praise of his native province of Leinster, that its war cry was "The magnification of Leinster, the destruction of Meath." Dubhthach may have been a good Christian, but there are good grounds for thinking that he was a better Leinsterman; for he says in the same poem that-- "Except the host of Heaven round the Creator There never was a host like Leinstermen round Crimhthan." Crimhthan was a king of Leinster, who is said to have had a stronghold in Howth, where the Bailey Lighthouse now stands. Although few traces of cultivation are to be seen on the Hill of Tara, there can be no doubt that it has been very much defaced and uprooted. The great _rath_ of King Laoghaire, who was cotemporary with St Patrick, has almost entirely disappeared. Its earthen rampart must have been of a good height, when it served as a sepulchre for Laoghaire with his body in an erect position, with its face turned southward, against the Leinstermen. Laoghaire was never a Christian; or if he was such at one time, there seems strong reason to think that he relapsed into paganism towards the end of his career. At all events it is evident that he was not a favourite of St Patrick's or of the early Irish Christians, and it is quite likely that when Tara was abandoned, his _rath_ was uprooted, and his body, or what remained of it, consigned to some unmarked grave. But from whatever cause, this _rath_ has certainly been almost entirely obliterated. It must have been considerably over two acres in area, if one can judge by the small segment of it that can still be traced. The following story is told in the life of St Patrick in the Leabhar Breac. Mr. Whitley Stokes says in his translation of the lives of the Saints from the "Book of Lismore," that it so disgusted Thomas Carlyle that it caused him to give up the study of Irish history: "Then three of Ui Meith Mendait Tire (a tribe that were located in the vicinity of Tara) stole and ate one of the two goats that used to carry water for Patrick, and came to swear a lie. Whereupon the goat bleated from the stomachs of the three. 'By my good judge,' said Patrick, 'the goat himself hides not the place where he is.'" It is hardly to be wondered at that a story like this, that would make any right-minded man laugh, only disgusted a hypochondriacal crank like Carlyle. The last chief king who lived in Tara was Dermot MacCarroll, who died in the year 565. He was evidently only half a Christian, for it has been fully proved that Druidism lingered in Ireland for many years after the death of St Patrick. Dermot got into a dispute with the clergy because they sheltered a man who had done something that displeased him. The end of the dispute was that St. Ruadhan, one of the prominent ecclesiastics of the time, cursed Tara, and it was forever abandoned as the seat of royalty. It is almost certain that the real cause of the cursing of Tara by the clergy was that druidical or pagan rites continued to be practised in it after the bulk of the people had become Christians; for it had been for untold centuries the seat of paganism as well as of royalty. It has to be admitted, however, that great a benefit to the true faith as the abandonment of Tara as a political centre undoubtedly was, it was disastrous to the authority of the chief kings, for they appear to have lost much of their authority over the provincial rulers when they abandoned Tara and made their abodes in various places in Meath, Westmeath, and Donegal. The vast antiquity given to Tara cannot be reasonably considered as the mere invention of Irish bards or chroniclers. It is inconceivable that they would invent the names of forty or fifty kings, most of whom ruled there over a thousand years before the Christian era. The Irish annalists who wrote about the very remote historical events of Irish history lived and wrote long before Ireland came under English domination. They would have no object in inventing historic falsehoods. The Tuatha de Daanans and Firbolgs, who possessed the country before the Milesians, had vanished more than a thousand years before the most ancient annals we possess were written. What object could men who claimed to be Milesians have in inventing historic falsehoods about races who possessed the country before them? Besides, the general correctness of Irish annalists in recording purely historic events is now admitted by all those capable of forming an opinion. The men who wrote the oldest chronicles that we possess of events in the very far-back past of their country, evidently wrote what had been handed down to them, either in writing or by tradition. They would have had no object in becoming fabricators. So far, then, Tara with its glamour of greatness and antiquity, its uprootedness, its ruin, and its utter desolation. LOCH REE Of all the great lakes of Ireland there is none so little known to tourists or the public in general as Loch Ree. It is the fourth in size, Loch Neagh, Loch Erne, and Loch Corrib being the only Irish lakes of greater extent, but none of them exceeds Loch Ree in beauty. Loch Erne is a noble sheet of water, and is adorned with many beautiful islands, but owing to its peculiar shape, one cannot take in all its charms from any point on its shores; but there are dozens of places on the banks of Loch Ree from which all its great expanse of water, and most of the charming features of the country that surrounds it, can be taken in at a single glance. If the shores of Loch Ree were mountainous it would be one of the most beautiful lakes, not only in Ireland, but in the world. It is strange that it is not more generally known, and it lying almost in the geographical centre of Ireland, and surrounded by some of the richest land and most beautiful _paysage_ scenery to be found anywhere. People rush to Killarney, Connemara, Achill and many other places, and almost totally neglect this noble expanse of the king of Irish rivers, the Shannon. It is the unfortunate commercial state of Ireland that has caused the scenery of the Shannon to be so little known. If there were dozens of thriving and populous towns on its banks, as there would be if it flowed through any other country than Ireland, large and commodious steamers would be plying on its waters, and the beauties of Loch Ree and Loch Dearg would be as well known as those of Windermere or Killarney. Nothing can more plainly show how fast Ireland is retrograding from even the very mediocre trade she enjoyed half a century ago than the fact that the passenger steam-boats that used to ply almost daily in the summer season between Carrick-on-Shannon or Lanesboro' and Killaloe have long ceased to run, and are now rotting somewhere on the Lower Shannon. The decline in the population, and the consequent decline in trade, became so great that it was found that the money taken did not pay more than seventy per cent. of even the working expenses of those steamers, and they had to stop running. The writer travelled in one of them more than thirty years ago between Athlone and Killaloe. They were large side-wheel steamers that would carry over one hundred passengers, and on which excellent meals could be obtained at a moderate price. There is probably not in Europe a more generally interesting river than that from Athlone to Killaloe, but it is now practically closed, not only to tourists, but to the public in general, for a passenger steamer has not traversed the Upper Shannon for well-nigh thirty years. It is no wonder, then, that the glories of Loch Ree, with its almost countless islands, and the glories of Loch Dearg, with its mountain-girded shores, are now nearly as unknown to tourists and to the Irish public in general as are the reaches of the Congo or the Niger. It is simply heartrending to think that decline of population and general decay have made the mighty waters of the Shannon, that runs almost from one end of Ireland to the other, an almost lifeless stream, for the few little row-boats and sailing smacks one sees on it would not, all told, hold more people than the life-boats of a single Atlantic steamer. Bad as things are, they seem to be getting worse, for there is hardly a single town or city on the Shannon that is not declining in trade and population. At the rate things are going on, a turf boat will soon be the only sort of craft to be seen on the waters of Ireland's greatest river! It is, however, cheering to be able to state that there is good reason to believe that steps are being taken to re-establish a line of passenger steam-boats on the Upper Shannon. The tyranny and folly of man may mar towns and turn fields into wildernesses, but they cannot mar nature. If no steam-boats plough the waters of Loch Ree, and if men have given place to cattle and sheep on its banks, it is still as beautiful as ever. Its sinuous shores are still as fair to the eye as they were fifty years ago, when a teeming population lived on them, and when twenty thousand people might be seen at the annual regatta that used to be held every autumn on its waters. Nothing less than an earthquake could destroy the beauty of Loch Ree. It has every element of scenic beauty save mountains, but such are its general beauties that mountains are hardly missed. Loch Dearg is almost surrounded by mountains, but it is not nearly so fair to look upon as Loch Ree. The former lake is almost entirely islandless, but Loch Ree is studded with them. In traversing its entire length, from Lanesboro' to Athlone, a distance of twenty miles, islands are ever in view. Hare Island is the most beautiful island in the lake; seen from the waters or from the mainland it seems a mass of leaves. The trees grow on it so thickly that they dip their branches into the water almost all round it. Lord Castlemaine has a charming rustic cottage on Hare Island, and the pleasure grounds attached to it are laid out with very great taste and skill. It is one of the most beautiful sylvan island retreats in Europe. Hare Island contains nearly a hundred acres. Inchmore is still larger, but not so well wooded. Then there are Inchbofin, Inis Cloran, Inchturk, Saints' Island, Hag's Island, Carberry Island, and many others, the names of which would be tedious to mention. The islands of Loch Ree are of almost all sizes, from a hundred acres to a square perch. Except in the vast St Lawrence alone, with its famed thousand islands, there are few river expansions in the world that contain so many islands as Loch Ree. Its shores are fully as beautiful as its islands. It would be hard to conceive anything in the way of shore scenery more beautiful than the shores of Loch Ree for eight or ten miles on the Leinster side of the lake between the mouth of the river Inny and Athlone. The shores are so irregular and cut up into so many promontories and headlands that, to follow the water's edge from Athlone to where the Inny enters the Shannon, a distance of not more than ten miles as the crow flies, would involve a journey of over fifty. Every headland is tree-crowned, and every promontory rock-girded. Very little of the shores of this beautiful lake are swampy; they are generally as rocky as those of a Highland tarn, with deep, blue water ever fretting rock and stone into thousands of fantastic shapes. So rocky are most parts of the shores of Loch Ree, that those æsthetic persons living near it who wish to form rock-works in their pleasure grounds find abundance of water-worn stones on the shores of Loch Ree to make rock-work of any shape required. The shores of Loch Ree, particularly the Leinster shore, are more adorned with gentlemen's seats than the shores of perhaps any other lake in Ireland. From Athlone to nearly the head of the lake there is a succession of gentlemen's seats. Many of them are kept with great care and taste, and are in themselves well worth a visit. The house in which Goldsmith spent his early youth is about two miles from Loch Ree, and about two-and-a-half from the village of Glassan. The house is a ruin, but a well-preserved one. When it was built seems unknown, but from what can be gathered from the old men living in its vicinity, it seems to have been built about the year 1700. The walls are still intact. It was two storeys high, and must have contained seven or eight apartments. The name Auburn is still applied to the townland on which the house stands; but the name seems to have originated with Goldsmith himself, for the place does not appear to have been so called before his time. Lissoy is its Irish name, but Auburn does not seem to be an Irish name at all. The "Jolly Pigeons" public-house still exists. It is about a mile from Auburn. There never was a village called Auburn in the locality. The nearest place to Goldsmith's house that could be called a village is Glassan. Loch Ree is not void of considerable historic interest. There are many noble ruins on its shores; among them Randown Castle is the most remarkable. It was one of the earliest Norman-French keeps erected in Ireland. It is situated on a bold promontory jutting into the lake on the Connacht side, about ten or twelve miles north of Athlone. It is now generally called St John's Castle. At _Blein Potog_, or Pudding Bay, took place in the year 999 one of the most important events in Irish history--namely, the surrender of the sovereignty of Ireland to Brian Boramha by Malachy the Second. The Munster king came up the Shannon with a large army in a flotilla of boats, and Malachy met him there and surrendered to him. Many think that it was, in a political point of view, one of the most disastrous events of Irish history, for the usurpation of the chief sovereignty by Brian caused such weakness and confusion after his death, that each provincial ruler wanted to be chief king, and created such wars and political chaos that no chief king that succeeded possessed complete sway over the country, the so-called chief kings that succeeded being kings only in name. For a full account of the treaty of Blein Potog, the reader is referred to the "Wars of the Gaels and the Galls," translated by the late Rev. Dr Todd. The site of the treaty is some ten miles north of Athlone, on the Leinster shore of Loch Ree. Athlone is one of the most picturesque and interesting inland towns in Ireland. Its situation is simply superb,--in the almost exact geographical centre of Ireland, at the foot of one of the most beautiful of lakes, and on the banks of a noble river, deep and wide enough to carry ships on its waters. Athlone is one of the few towns--perhaps the only one--on the Shannon that is not decaying at present. For many years after the famine it decayed rapidly, but some thirty years ago a woollen factory was established; now there are two woollen factories and a saw-mill that give employment to some hundreds of hands, consequently Athlone has been saved from decay. But comparatively prosperous as it is, it is not one-fourth as prosperous as it ought to be considering its splendid situation and the fertility and beauty of the country that surrounds it. It has recently become a great railway centre; one can go by rail from Athlone to almost any part of Ireland. But all the railways and all the fertility of all the world cannot bring real prosperity to any country in which the population is declining. The decline of the population in Athlone itself and in the country surrounding it has, during the last fifty years, been something frightful, and can only be fully realised by those who remember what it was in former times. A market day in Athlone now is very different from a market day there half a century ago. The writer recollects having been at a market in Athlone when a small boy, about the year 1841 or '42, and saw more people there in one market than could be seen in twenty markets there now. The town was too small to contain much more than half of them; they flowed out into the fields surrounding it. The crowds in the streets were so dense that it would take hours to jostle one's way from one end of the town to the other, and, what will hardly be credited by those whose memories do not go back fifty years, there were certainly three persons speaking Irish for one who spoke English. One might attend markets in Athlone now every week in the year and not hear a word of any language but English. Irish has completely died out of the country surrounding Athlone, save in the south-western corner of the county Roscommon, where some old people still speak it. There is something inexpressibly sad in the fading away of any form of National speech, but, above all, in the fading away of a tongue so old and once so cultivated as Irish. It seems to forebode not only the death of all real National aspirations, but the death of heart and soul. It seems to show that Philistinism is rapidly driving away sentiment from the Irish people. But the life of the Irish peasant has been so long such a battle for mere existence that it is no wonder that he came to look with contempt on everything that did not administer to his mere animal wants. He is rapidly improving since he has had a barrier put between him and the generally cruel treatment he was wont to receive from his landlord. None but those who remember what his position was fifty years ago, and who see what it is now, can fully understand all the advance he has made. In spite of the awful decline of population in the rural districts of Ireland during the last fifty years, there is much to be seen in them to gladden the heart of the philanthropist. Small farmers' cottages, that would formerly be a disgrace to a Zulu or an Esquimaux, are now not only generally clean, but sometimes beautiful. Flowers in pots in the windows and evergreens creeping up the walls of a peasant's cottage would have caused him to be laughed at by his neighbours fifty years ago, but now they cause him to be respected instead of being laughed at. He will become again what he once was, one of the most soulful and un-Philistine of beings; it is probable he will become such when better laws and freer institutions shall have raised him from the slough of poverty and despondency in which he has been steeping for centuries. Tourists and the travelling public in general will find good accommodation at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Athlone, in which town boats can be hired by those going either up or down the Shannon. "EMANIA THE GOLDEN" Two miles west of the city of Armagh lies an earthen fort known as the "Navan Ring." This is all that remains of the renowned palace of the Pagan Kings of Ulster, the real name of which was Emain Macha, which has been Latinised Emania, and corrupted into Navan. After Tara, Emania is the most historic spot of Irish soil. No other place in all Ireland, Tara only excepted, is so often mentioned in the historic and romantic tales that have been preserved in such abundance in ancient Gaelic. Emania is the great centre of that wondrous cycle of legend, history, and song known as the Cuchullainn cycle of Celtic literature. Every tale and legend in it refer more or less to Emania. It is curious that while hardly any of the treasures of ancient Irish manuscript literature we possess were compiled in Ulster, there is hardly a page of them, no matter in what province they were originally composed, that does not mention this now almost obliterated stronghold of the Ulster kings. The "Book of Leinster" was compiled in Kildare or in Glendoloch, and for nearly a thousand years, or from the imposition of the Leinster Tribute early in the second century down to the time of Brian Boramha, Leinster and Ulster were inveterate enemies, yet the "Book of Leinster" teems with mention of Emania. Even in the great manuscript books compiled in Connacht and Munster, the name of Emania occurs next in frequency to that of Tara. So far as can be gathered from the most authentic sources, the palace of Emain Macha, or Emania, was erected by the over-king Cimboath, about five hundred years before the Incarnation. It continued to be the seat of the Ulster kings down to A.D. 331, when it was destroyed by the three Collas, chieftains of the race of the over-kings of Ireland from a hostile province, that made war on Ulster. The destruction of Emania is recorded by the Four Masters under the year 331, when Fergus, King of Ulster, was defeated and slain by the three Collas. Emania was burned, and the ancient dynasty that had so long ruled the province of Ulster was destroyed. Emania may be said to have been a desolation since then; for though we are told that one of the O'Neill's built a house within the ruins of the fort in 1387, no vestige of it now remains, and it is not probable that it was long in existence. None of the ancient palaces or great _duns_ of ancient Ireland shows such utter desolation, or bears evidence of having been so uprooted as does Emania. The great fosse by which it was once surrounded is entirely obliterated save on the west side, where it is nearly twenty feet in depth. Much as Tara has been obliterated, its monuments are more easily traced than are those of Emania. The county Meath seems to have been a grazing country almost from time immemorial. This saved Tara from being entirely uprooted; but the country round this ancient seat of the Ulster kings is essentially agricultural; it is mostly in the possession of small farmers owning from ten to twenty acres; consequently they have levelled most of the great circular embankments that formerly enclosed an area of nearly a dozen acres, and have filled up most of the deep fosse which, if we can judge by the small part of it that still remains, must have been, when Emania was in its glory, between twenty and thirty feet deep. So potatoes are growing and corn is waving over a large extent of the inside of the fortress, where vast wooden buildings once stood, and where mirth and revelry and clash of arms once resounded. Mons. Darbois de Jubainville, the eminent French archæologist and Celtic scholar, made an exhaustive examination of Emania some years ago. He found that the area within the original enclosure was four and a half hectares, or between eleven and twelve English acres in extent, and that the space enclosed was nearly circular. Like Tara, the buildings in Emania must have been almost entirely of wood. Some of them may, like many of the wooden houses in America, have been built on stone foundations, and there are some traces of stone-work still to be seen. There is a magnificent passage in the Féilere of Oengus the Culdee, written about A.D. 800, in which the greatness and glory of the Christian cities of Ireland are contrasted with the state of utter desolation into which the strongholds of the Pagan kings had fallen. Speaking of Emania he says-- "Emain's burgh hath vanished Save that its stones remain; The Rome of the western world Is multitudinous Glendaloch." There is no doubt that the ruins of Emania were in a much better state of preservation when Oengus wrote, nearly eleven hundred years ago, than they are in at present, and it is certain that many of its stones have been carried away to build walls and houses. But it is also quite certain that neither in Ireland, Great Britain, or in any northern country, were stone buildings general in ancient times, and we may be sure that when Emania was at the height of its splendour its best and largest buildings were of wood. The area of eleven or twelve acres that was once surrounded by a deep fosse and high embankment, and within which all the buildings of Emania were erected, is not quite circular, nor is its surface level. Considerable inequality of surface evidently existed in it before it was chosen for the site of palace or _dun_. The highest part within the enclosure is a good deal removed from its centre, and it was evidently on it that the citadel stood. There was a dun within a dun, as there generally was in all ancient Irish fortresses of any great extent. The citadel having been on the highest ground within the enclosure, commanded a view of the surrounding country for a considerable distance. Emania, when at its best, with its vast surrounding fosse and high earthen rampart, capped with a strong fence of wood, might, if properly provisioned and manned, defy almost any army that could be brought against it in ancient times when firearms were unknown. It is for the antiquarian rather than for the seeker of the picturesque that Emania will ever have the most attraction. There is nothing very striking from a scenic point of view in its environs. Its present shockingly uprooted condition, and the almost total lack of interest the peasantry living in its immediate vicinity take in it, have a depressing effect on anyone interested in Irish literature, history, or antiquities. During the writer's last visit to this historic spot he met a small farmer whose potatoes were planted over part of the obliterated fosse and rampart of this famous stronghold of Ulster. He had never heard of King Connor MacNessa, of Connall Carnach, of Cuchullainn, or of the Red Branch Knights. He knew no more about them than about the heroes of ancient China. He said that he "ever an' always hard that the Navan Ring was built by the Danes." This man had been born and bred in the locality, but he took no more interest in the historic spot that had given him birth than if he were a Hottentot instead of an Irishman. Anglicisation has indeed been carried to an extreme pitch in most parts of Ireland, and is rapidly turning the Irish peasant into the most generally uninteresting, prosy, and least _spirituel_ of mortals. As a rule, the more Anglicised he becomes the more intolerable he is. If the peasantry living round Emania had preserved their native language, while at the same time knowing English, if they were bilingual, like millions of their class in different European countries, many things connected with the history of this celebrated place would be known to them; but having lost the link that bound them to the past, they are like a new race in a new country. It is well known that the masses of the Greek peasantry, notwithstanding that a large percentage of them are illiterate, know more about the history and traditions of their country than any Irishman, save a specialist, knows about the history and traditions of Ireland. In very few European countries will such a knowledge of its past be found among the masses as in Greece, and principally because the Greeks have preserved their language. Although Tara is more ancient and more historic than Emania, the latter place is connected with the most pathetic, the most dramatic, and most generally beautiful tale in all the vast mass of ancient Gaelic literature--"The Fate of the Children of Uisneach." It was in Emania that their betrayer and murderer, Connor, King of Ulster, lived; it was there that they themselves were killed, and it was there that Deirdre died. The tale appeared almost a century ago in a book brought out by a Gaelic Society that then existed in Dublin. The Irish text was given, with a translation by Theopholus O'Flanagan. It was thought by some that he had no ancient copy of the tale, and that he might have embellished it, for he did not say from what manuscript he had taken it. The story, as given in the "Book of Leinster," while agreeing in the main with O'Flanagan's version, is not nearly of such literary value as his, and is not more than one quarter the length. But all doubts as to the existence of an ancient version of the story given by O'Flanagan have been removed, for an ancient copy of it, supposed to be of the fourteenth century, was found some years ago in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, and has been edited and translated by Mr. Whitley Stokes. It may be seen in Windische's _Irische Texte_. It agrees almost exactly with the version given by O'Flanagan. It would be hard to give a clearer proof of the utter neglect with which Celtic literature has heretofore been treated, than by a statement of the fact that there are not probably a hundred persons living, at least of the literary class, who have read this wondrously beautiful tale of the Children of Uisneach. For pathos, dramatic power, and pure poetry it would be hard to get anything in the way of romance superior to it. If such a literary gem existed in the literature of any European language but Irish, if such existed even in Arabic or Persian, it would be known to literary people almost all over the world. But how can people of other nations be blamed for their ignorance of Gaelic literature when the Irish themselves are more indifferent about it than the Germans or the French? A text and translation of the "Fate of the Children of Uisneach" is sorely wanted--not merely as a text for scholars, but for the people at large. When such appears it will make a visit to Emania infinitely more interesting; for, after reading such a pathetic tale, he would indeed be hard-hearted and unsympathetic that would not, if he could find where she was buried, shed a tear over the grave of Deirdre. The very fine poem by the late Doctor Robert Dwyer Joyce, published in Boston, America, in 1877, was the only attempt ever made to popularise the story of the Children of Uisneach and the fate of the unfortunate but true and noble Deirdre. The country in the vicinity of Emania, while containing no striking objects of scenic interest, is, at the same time, picturesque and beautiful. Southern Ulster, even where it is not mountainous, is usually most varied and interesting in its general features. It is essentially a land of hills and valleys; but the hills are never so high that they cannot be cultivated, and the best land is sometimes found on their very tops. The country round Emania is extremely broken, hill and valley are on every side. It is generally, like most parts of Ulster, well cultivated. There are many antiquarian curiosities in the neighbourhood of this ancient fortress. Some of the most perfect Druid circles in Ireland are in its vicinity. There is a very remarkable one about a mile from it which a thrifty farmer has turned into a haggard. It encloses about quarter of an acre of ground. The stones of which it is composed stand about four feet over the surface, and must average nearly a ton each in weight. But vandalism is strong in the vicinity, for it is only a short time since another splendid Druid circle, nearly as large as the one mentioned, was torn down, and its stones broken to mend roads withal. Thus are many of the relics of ancient Erin disappearing before the march of denationalisation. Those who live in the vicinity of Emania tell many stories about the finding of treasure-trove close to and in this ancient fortress. According to them, gold ornaments of great value were found by some persons many years ago who suddenly became rich, much to the surprise of their neighbours. Those ornaments were, of course, melted down, and like hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of similar articles found in almost every part of Ireland, never found their way to any museum, and are lost to the country for ever. There can hardly be any doubt that some very valuable articles in gold have been found near Emania. One of the most interesting instances of the long survival of a place name is to be found adjacent to this celebrated spot. Most Irish persons have heard of the Red Branch Knights. Moore has immortalised them in his exquisite lyric, "Let Erin Remember the Days of Old." Few believe that such an institution as the Red Branch Knights ever existed. It is generally looked on as a bardic fable; but there is a townland close to Emania which is still called Creeve Roe, in correct orthography, _Craobh Ruadh_, which means Red Branch. The preservation of this place name for nearly two thousand years cannot be regarded as an accident. It goes far to prove that the Red Branch Knights did exist, and that the townland took its name from them. This extraordinarily long survival of a place name, the historic fame and antiquity of the locality, lend a supreme interest to this ruined stronghold, which, centuries after its glories had vanished, Gaelic bards used still to call "Emania the Golden." Ardmagh is so near Emania, only two miles from it, that one place could hardly be described without saying something about the other. Its ancient name was Ardmacha, meaning the height of Macha. This Macha was queen, or at least ruler, of that part of the country in far-back pagan times. It was also from her that Emain Macha, or Emania, was named. Ardmagh was founded by St Patrick in the year 457. A man named Daire, chief of the district, is said, in the "Annals of the Four Masters," to have given Patrick the site on which the city is built. Patrick appointed twelve men to build the town, and ordered them to erect an archbishop's city there, and churches for the different religious orders. It seems strange that the saint should have chosen Ardmagh for the site of the chief religious establishment in Ireland. Emania had been ruined and desolated in the previous century, but it is evident that it was the fame of the ancient stronghold of Ulster that induced Patrick to choose its immediate vicinity as a site for his new Christian city, because Emania had been for so many centuries previous the political centre of the province, and, next to Tara, the chief political centre of Ireland. Of the old ecclesiastical buildings of Ardmagh, not a vestige remains. Some of its new ones are, however, magnificent. The new Catholic cathedral is the finest building of its kind in Ireland. It is hardly to be wondered at that none of the ancient buildings of Ardmagh should remain, for of all towns in Ireland, it was burned, plundered, and razed the oftenest. In the course of the two centuries and a half ending in 1080, it was plundered and wholly or partially burned _twelve times_ by the Danes. No other city in Ireland seems to have suffered so much from the Northmen. Turgesius, the Danish king, captured it and lived there for some years. The present city is one of the most picturesque towns of its size in Ireland, but it is not growing much. It once had a good linen trade, but since the introduction of cotton fabrics, its linen trade has entirely ceased. QUEEN MAB'S PALACE Rathcroghan, about two miles from Tulsk, in the county Roscommon, is one of the most celebrated places in Irish history, legend, and song. It was there that Queen Mab, spelt Medb in old Irish, and Meave at present, had her palace, and it was there she was buried. That she was a real historic personage, and not a myth or a fairy, there can be no doubt at all, and that she was a very extraordinary woman cannot be doubted either. She was Queen of Connacht, and was cotemporary with Cleopatra; but if the Egyptian queen is mentioned in history she is forgotten in legend, while Mab has lived in legend for more than eighteen centuries. It is remarkable that the myths and legends about her should have been more prevalent during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England than in Ireland. There are few legends about her in Ireland; she is simply an historic personage there, but in England she became a fairy. There is hardly a popular English writer of the two centuries referred to that has not said something about Queen Mab; and it is very probable that none of them knew that she was a reality in Irish history. Shakespeare, Spenser, Drayton, and other English writers contemporary with them, speak of her as a fairy, and even Shelley considers her a sprite; but she is rarely, if ever, mentioned as such by the Gaelic writers of any epoch. Why legends about Queen Mab, or, as we call her at present, Meave, should be so rare in Ireland is probably owing to the fact that she belongs to what is known as the Cuchulainn cycle of Irish history and legend. That cycle is almost forgotten by the people, and has been for many centuries. It has been eclipsed by the greater popularity of the Finn cycle, which is some centuries more recent. For the one legend existing in the most Gaelic-speaking parts of Ireland and Scotland about Cuchulainn or his cycle there are a score about Finn, Oisin, Caoilte, and others of their contemporaries. It may have been that the introduction of Christianity had much to do in stereotyping the legends of the Finn cycle in the memories of the masses, for Finn is said to have lived so long that he saw St Patrick, and held converse with him. One of the most remarkable literary productions in Irish, the "Dialogue of the Sages," consists of converse between the Saint and Finn, and others belonging to the same cycle. There could hardly be a stronger proof of the high civilisation that existed in Ireland in ancient times as compared with that which existed in England than the fact that the remembrance of Irish historic personages continued widely spread in England in spite of so many changes, not only in government, but in race and language. There is no traditional remembrance in Ireland of any English historic personage contemporary with Queen Meave, or of any such that lived for many centuries after her time. That a knowledge of her and Lir, the Lear of Shakespeare, should have existed among the ancient Britons is not to be wondered at, for they were kin to the Irish, and must have spoken the same, or nearly the same, language; but that this remembrance of Irish historic personages should have continued to exist in England under Roman, Saxon, Dane, and Frenchman, is very remarkable. If it was knowledge obtained through books it would be less to be wondered at; it was knowledge transmitted by legend, and like all legendary knowledge, it had a tendency to go astray. The legends that existed in England about Meave and Lir did go astray, for they made a little fairy of the one and a King of Britain of the other. But Meave was not a little fairy, but a very fine woman of flesh and blood; and Lir was not King of Britain, but an Irish pirate whose principal stronghold appears to have been the Isle of Man. It is called after him, for his full name was Mananan Mac Lir. It seems more than probable that both Dunleer and Liverpool are also called after him, for the latter place is written "Lyrpul" in the earliest known document in which the name occurs, and it is Lyrpul still in Welsh. It is probable that Lir had possessions in England as well as in Ireland and the Isle of Man. Medb or Meave, Queen of Connacht, was daughter to Eochy Fayloch, over-king of Ireland. She lived about half a century before the Christian era. Keating says, in his "History of Ireland," that she reigned ninety-eight years. This very long reign is doubted by some Irish historians, but it is generally admitted by them that her reign, as well as her life, was remarkably long. She had more husbands than even the woman of Samaria is credited with. It was evidently her extraordinary long life and reign that caused her to be ultimately believed to be something supernatural, and to be regarded as a fairy. She was, however, no fairy, but a bold, bad, and warlike woman. She, even more than Cuchulainn, is the central figure of the greatest prose epic in the Irish language, the _Tain Bo Chuailgne_, or Cattle Raid of Cooley. By lies and bribes she persuaded the other provincial rulers to join her in a totally unjustifiable war on Ulster, so that she was able to invade that province with a great army of fifty-four thousand men. She carried off a great prey from Ulster, but not without suffering some defeats and losing some of her bravest warriors. It is said that Mr Ernest Windisch is engaged in translating this great epic into German, but it seems not yet finished. Meave, like most of the prominent people of her day, met with a violent death. She had many enemies, especially in Ulster. One of them, a son to the king of that province, killed her by a cast from a sling as she was about taking a cold water bath in Iniscloran, an island in Loch Ree. She must have been considerably over a hundred years old when she was killed, but she appears, even at that great age, to have been the admiration of every one that saw her on account of the great beauty of her face and figure. Perhaps it was her cold water baths that were the chief means of preserving her youth and good looks, for we are told in the "Book of Leinster" that she was under _geis_, or bonds, not to let any morning pass by without taking a bath. It is no wonder that such a person should have in the long run passed into the realm of fairie, and have been thought something supernatural. It is, however, a wonder that the Four Masters do not mention the name of Meave, although they do mention the name of her father; but there are many similar strange omissions in their annals. Meave is, however, mentioned in the Annals of Clonmacnoise, in which many hard things are said of her. The fort, as it is generally called, of Rathcroghan, upon which Queen Meave's palace must have stood, is unlike any other place of its kind known to the writer. Strictly speaking, it is not a fort at all, and it is impossible to conceive how it ever could have been used for purposes of defence, or for any purpose other than to build some sort of habitation on. It is nothing but a raised circular elevation, an English acre in area, in a perfectly level field, without a vestige of the fosse or rampart that usually surrounds the ruined strongholds of Celtic chiefs and kings. Long ago as it is since Rathcroghan was the seat of kings or queens of Connacht, some traces of the surrounding ramparts would almost certainly be yet visible had they ever existed. Queen Meave seems to have depended more on her soldiers to defend her than on ramparts of stone or earth. She seems to have relied on "castles of bones" rather than on castles of stones; for her palace, so far as can be judged from existing remains, seems to have been without defending ramparts of any kind. There are many references in old Gaelic manuscripts to the splendour of Queen Meave's palace. It is said to have been built of pine and yew, and to have contained beds enough to accommodate a small army. It was probably an immense round wigwam that covered all or nearly all of the raised platform that still remains. That platform is about eight or nine feet above the level of the field on which it stands, and has two entrances into it, one exactly opposite the other. If the vast circular wooden building that stood on it was roofed, as it almost certainly was, the walls would have to be fifty feet or more in height to give it anything of an imposing appearance. It may have been that the entire raised platform was not covered by the wooden structure, but the descriptions of its great size given in old books would lead one to think that it was. Rathcroghan does not appear to have been a place of residence of any of the rulers of Connacht since the time of the celebrated Queen Meave. If it was, the writer has not been able to find trustworthy evidence of the fact. It may, however, have been used as a place for assemblies in comparatively recent times. _Relig na Riogh_, or the cemetery of kings, at Rathcroghan, was one of the great burial places of the Pagan Irish Kings. It is a circular enclosure, about half a mile from the platform on which Queen Meave's palace stood. It bears all the marks of extreme antiquity, and has suffered much from the ravages of time. It covers between two and three acres, and at first sight appears nothing more than a piece of ground of very broken surface, for the mounds that marked the graves of kings and chiefs have become nearly obliterated. But it was here that many of the kings and heroes of ancient Ireland were buried, and it is here that the bones of Queen Meave rest, that is, if we are to believe the most trustworthy records of Irish history. It is thought by some that she was buried under the vast cairn of stones that crowns the summit of Knocknarea, near Sligo, for it is called to this day _Moisgan Meabha_, literally Meave's butter-dish; but by extension it probably means Meave's heap or cairn. There is no historic evidence to prove that she was interred under the cairn on Knocknarea, however it came to be called by its present Irish name; and according to the late Sir Samuel Ferguson, her name, or a name closely resembling it, has been found written in Ogam characters on a stone in _Reilig na Riogh_. That there was such a person as Queen Meave there cannot be any doubt whatever. History and legend never yet existed about a fabulous personage, and Meave figures in both. Whatever impossible things may be related about her in legend, history says nothing about her that cannot be easily believed, her great age and length of reign excepted. It must, however, be remembered that the ancient Irish were a very long-lived people. This fact is so apparent in so many places in ancient Gaelic literature that it has to be believed. We have as strong proof as can be afforded by history that in comparatively modern times Henry Jenkins lived to be over a hundred and sixty, and Old Parr to be over a hundred and fifty years old, and why could not Queen Meave have lived to as great or even a greater age? She was an extraordinary woman, and her name sheds a halo of romance round the place where she lived, and where her remains rest in peace after her long and stormy career. It was also in _Reilig na Riogh_ that Dathi, the last pagan Irish Chief King, was buried. His mound is marked by a pillar stone, and O'Donovan, one of the most cautious and least impulsive investigators of Irish history and antiquities, saw no reason to doubt that the pillar stone marks his grave. It may be said that no proof has been given that the Connacht Queen Medb or Meave was the prototype of the Mab of Shakespeare, Drayton, Spenser, and other English poets. True, no absolute proof has been given, and probably never will; but there is that which may be called negative proof, which in such a case is very strong. The negative proof, if it can be called such, that the Connacht queen was the prototype of the Queen Mab of English poets and English legend, is found in the complete silence of history and of tradition as to how else the legend of Queen Mab originated, for it must have originated somewhere and from some one. We are, then, and in a great measure by the total lack of any other way to account for the origin of the legend of Queen Mab being queen of the fairies, forced to come to the conclusion that the Connacht queen is the only person known to history who furnishes the prototype for her. But there is something more. It has been stated that the old Irish form of the name was _Medb_. It is well known to Celtic savants that what is now called "aspiration," or the change in sound, and sometimes the entire suppression of certain consonants in pronunciation, did not take place nearly so often in old Irish as in the modern language; so that the name _Medb_ would in ancient times be pronounced _Mab_, or something very like it. It is curious that in Drayton's poem, "The Nymphadia," Queen Mab, though a fairy, is remarkable for those things for which her Irish prototype was also remarkable--namely, her chariots, her amours, and her beauty. A very strong proof that Queen Meave was an historic personage and not a myth is to be found in the name of the island in Loch Ree where she was killed. It is usually pronounced and written Iniscloran; but Inis Clothran is how it ought to be spelled, and how it is invariably spelled in the "Annals of the Four Masters" where the name frequently occurs, the island having been the seat of more than one church in early Christian times, and therefore often mentioned in annals. Meave had a sister named Clothru who lived in Iniscloran, and who was Queen of Connacht before Meave. Here is a translation from the "Book of Leinster," page 124: "It was there that Clothru used to explain the laws of Connacht in Inis Clothran in Loch Ree." The island was evidently called after Clothru (Clothran in the genitive), sister to Meave. This preservation of a place name connected with the name of an historic personage for two thousand years is most remarkable, and shows that Irish history is more truthful than is generally supposed. It is thought that Meave had Clothru killed, in order that she herself might become Queen of Connacht. The country around Rathcroghan abounds in antiquities of far-back ages. Sepulchral mounds, ruined raths, tortuous caves, and weather-worn cromlechs are to be found on almost every side. It is a spot where the antiquarian might revel for weeks and find something every day to interest him. It is a beautiful country also, not a plain, in the strict sense of the word, and yet not hills, but what an American would call "rolling," and a Frenchman "accidenté." It is the "Magh Aoi" of Queen Meave's time, and "Machaire Chonnacht," or plain of Connacht, of later days. It is part of the celebrated Plains of Boyle, and is considered to contain some of the best grass land in Ireland. No fairer spot could be found in Connacht for the dwelling of a potentate who dealt largely in cattle than the green eminence on which Queen Meave had her palace, and both history and legend say that her flocks and herds were well-nigh innumerable. She made her home in the centre of the fairest and richest part of the province she ruled; and long as that home has been desolate, it has not been forgotten in history or in song, for that noble melody which Moore has made immortal--"Avenging and Bright Fall the Swift Sword of Erin"--was first known as "Croghan na Veena," or "Croghan of the Heroes"; and the incident to which it refers--the murder of the children of Uisneach--occurred when Queen Meave was at the height of her splendour, when Rathcroghan was in its glory, and when it was really the dwelling-place of heroes. There are many mentions of Rathcroghan in ancient Gaelic writings, and all of them speak of it as one of the most important places in Ireland in Pagan times. Oengus, the Culdee, whose poem has been already referred to, says of it-- "Rathcroghan hath vanished With Ailill, offspring of victory; A fair sovranty above Kingdoms Is in Cluain's city." The Ailill mentioned was one of Queen Meave's many husbands, and "Cluain's City" means Clonmacnois. The nearest railway station to Rathcroghan is Castlerea, from which it is about eight miles distant. Its long distance from a railway and the want of good accommodation for tourists in its vicinity have helped to cause this celebrated place to be so neglected and forgotten. THE HILL OF UISNEACH Uisneach is one of the most historic hills in Ireland, yet there are probably not five per cent. of the people of Ireland that have ever heard of it, and not one per cent. of them that has ever seen it. Apart even from its historic interest, it is well worth seeing, for it is not only a beautiful hill, but it affords from its summit one of the most extensive and lovely views in Ireland. The hill of Uisneach is in the Barony of Rathconrath, County Westmeath, and only about four Irish miles from Streamstown Station on the Midland Great Western Railway, so that it is easily reached. There is, unfortunately, no hotel where tourists could be accommodated nearer to it than Moat, which is about eight Irish miles from it; and Mullingar is about the same distance. The village of Ballymore is five miles from the hill, but as there is no hotel there, Moat and Mullingar are the only towns within any moderate distance of it where tourists could get either lodgings or meals. It is not certain if even a car could be hired at Streamstown or near it, consequently those wishing to visit Uisneach should either have a private conveyance or make up their minds to "do it" on foot. Uisneach is one of the most peculiarly-shaped hills in Ireland. It is only six hundred feet in height--a fair elevation in a part of the country where there are no mountains--but no matter from what side it is approached, it cannot be seen until one is almost at its base. The country immediately around it is so broken and so cut up by many hills and hollows of almost all shapes, that Uisneach, the highest of all the hills near it, can hardly be noticed until one is just at it. A public road runs close to its base, so there is no difficulty in reaching it, and the ascent is by no means steep. It is not until one is on the top of Uisneach that he finds out how high it is, for the view from its summit is extensive and beautiful almost beyond power of description. The country on every side of it consists of some of the richest pasture lands, not only in Ireland, but in the world. No matter in what direction one looks, a vast, undulated expanse of green meets the eye. If the view from Uisneach is seen in autumn, when the too few and far between grain-fields are turning yellow, it is as fair a sight as human eye ever gazed on. The country for scores of miles on every side is so rich, so green, and so varied with hill, dale, wood, and water, that the Biblical phrase that is applied to parts of Palestine, "the garden of the Lord," might well be applied to the land round this hill. But it is safe to say that no Israelite ever gazed from Gilboa or Carmel on so fair a prospect. The vast extent of the view from this hill seems out of all proportion with its moderate height. On a clear day one can very nearly see from the Irish Channel to Galway Bay. The Wicklow hills seem close by. The mountains, not only of Cavan, but of Leitrim, are distinctly visible. On every side, save the south-west, the prospect is what some would be tempted to call boundless. On the south-west the view is obstructed by the hill of Knock Cosgrey, an eminence slightly higher than Uisneach, and one of the most beautiful hills in Ireland. It is about four miles south-west of Uisneach. Unlike Uisneach, however, it is, seen from a distance, both striking and bold. It has the misfortune to be called by so many different names, or rather, its name is pronounced in so many different ways, that strangers are often sadly puzzled what to call it. It is called Kunna Kostha and Kruck Kostha by the peasantry, and by the gentlefolk generally Knock Ash. But its proper name is _Cnoc Cosgraigh_, and is so written by the Four Masters, who are, undoubtedly, the highest authority we possess on place names. Seen from the road from Moat to Ballymahon, Knock Cosgrey is one of the most charming sights imaginable. It is nearly a mile from top to base, and forms a green pyramid of almost perfect symmetry. Its surface is entirely under grass; for this part of Ireland has been largely turned into pastures; and sometimes one may drive for six miles and not see a field of grain. "The bold peasantry" of whom Goldsmith speaks in his "Deserted Village" have become so few in these parts that miles may be travelled at mid-day through as fine a country as there is in the world without meeting a human being. Sheep and cattle, and not men and women, seem the prevailing living creatures. Knock Cosgrey is not only higher than Uisneach, but more near the true geographical centre of the island; but it possesses hardly any historic interest from the fact that its summit was too narrow to allow the ancient Irish either to build or assemble on it. Uisneach, with its over a hundred acres of nearly level land on its top, was therefore chosen, for a hundred thousand men could find space on it. It became, for that reason, one of the most historic, and in ancient times one of the most celebrated, hills in Ireland. There is probably not another hill in Ireland so well adapted both for a place for assemblies and a site for building as Uisneach. Its summit is extensive. There are springs of the purest water on it. Plenty of stones of almost every size abound, and the soil, even in the most elevated parts, is of great fertility. In the troublesome times of yore, Uisneach possessed advantages that were most important in its elevation, and the extensive view it commanded; for they made it impossible for an army to approach it from any side without being seen by the watchers on its top. From the many advantages that this beautiful and extraordinary hill possesses, it seems strange that it was not chosen by the ancient Irish for a place of central government. It would have been even better suited for such a purpose than Tara. It probably would have been the chief seat of ancient Irish sovereignty if it had not been that the mistake made in selecting Tara instead of it, occurred so far back in what may be called prehistoric times, and antiquity had given Tara such a prestige that it continued to be the most important place in Ireland until it was abandoned as a seat of government in the sixth century. But Uisneach was also used as a place of residence by the Irish over-kings. That they sometimes resided there can be proved from ancient Gaelic writings. It was supposed to be the geographical centre of Ireland, and before the formation of the province of Meath by the over-king, Tuathal, in the early part of the second century, the four provinces met at Uisneach Hill. It is curious what a close guess the ancients made to locate the exact centre of the island. They seem, however, to have placed it four or five miles too far to the north-east, for, according to the most recent surveys, the hill of Knock Cosgrey is in the exact geographical centre of Ireland. In far-back ancient times, before the province of Meath had been formed by taking parts of the four original provinces, the hill of Uisneach was in Connacht. This almost exact quaternal division of Ireland into provinces, and their meeting at a point that was supposed to be the exact centre of the island, is a very curious and interesting feature in ancient Irish polity. In other countries, provinces seem to have originated by mere accident, some being big, and some little; but in Ireland they seem to have been laid out by line and rule, for the four provinces that met at Uisneach must have been very nearly of equal area. The celebrated Cat Stone on the hill of Uisneach was known from remote antiquity as _Ail na Mireann_, or "the rock of the divisions," because the four provinces met at it. This rock was known by this name among the peasantry of the neighbourhood up to recent times, until Irish became a dead language in this part of the country. Ail na Mireann, or, as it is now called, the Cat Stone, is the greatest curiosity on Uisneach Hill. It is not on the top of the hill, but on its side. It is, perhaps, the most puzzling rock in Ireland, for it is hard to say whether it was placed in its present position by an iceberg in the glacial age, or whether it was placed there by human agency, and intended for a rude cromlech. Here is what the eminent scholar and antiquarian, John O'Donovan, says about it in his yet unpublished letters when he was on the Government Survey of Ireland in 1837:--"The huge rock on this hill of Uisneach, a part of which was split and formed into a cromlech, is now called the Cat Stone, from a supposed resemblance to a cat sitting and watching a mouse." If this stone is a cromlech, or Druid's altar, it is unlike anything of the kind found elsewhere in Ireland or other countries, for the four upright stones which usually support the flat one, are not to be seen here. The weight of this enormous mass of stone can hardly be less than twenty tons, and if it was put in its present position by human agency, it is by far the most extraordinary thing of its kind in Ireland. But a majority of those who see it think that it is merely a boulder of peculiar shape. If it is a boulder it is a very extraordinary one, and if it is a cromlech it is a more extraordinary one still. It was on Uisneach Hill, or in its immediate vicinity, that the ecclesiastical synod met in the year 1111. This great meeting is mentioned in almost all Irish annals. It was attended by fifty bishops, three hundred priests, and upwards of three thousand students, and by the nobles of the southern half of Ireland, with Muircheartach O'Briain, King of Munster, at their head. We are told that the synod was convened to regulate the manners and mode of living of both clergy and laity. It does not seem to have done much good on account of the then chaotic political state of the country, caused by almost constant wars between the aspirants for chief kingship. There are many interesting things besides the cromlech to be seen on the vast undulated summit of Uisneach. There is a hollow known as St Patrick's bed, and there are the remains of the walls of large stone buildings on the most elevated part of the hill. There is also one of the finest raths in Ireland, which must have been a place of great strength, for the embankments are still of immense height, and are overgrown with hawthorn bushes of great size. This rath, unlike the generality of such structures, is not round, but oblong. It encloses a space of nearly an acre in extent. Apart from antiquarianism, the hill of Uisneach is well worth seeing, for it is as strange in shape as it is beautiful in verdure. It is only a few miles from a railroad; it is easy to ascend, for a carriage might be driven to its summit. The longest summer day might be passed on it, and some new curiosity of antiquity or some fresh beauty of scenery be continually discovered. The surface of the hill is so broken, and is of such great extent, that to explore it thoroughly, and to enjoy all the varied prospects to be seen from it, even a long summer day would hardly be long enough. [Illustration: MOUNT OF BALLYLOCHLOE.] When treating of hills and of the country in the vicinity of Uisneach, it may be interesting to say something about the most beautiful and perfect _artificial_ hill in Ireland--namely, the Moat of Ballylochloe. It is about nine miles west of Uisneach, and three north-west of Moat. It was evidently erected for a sepulchral mound, but seems to have also been used as a place of defence. A ridge of sand-hills has been cut, and a most perfect and symmetrical _moat_ has been formed. It cannot be less than a hundred and fifty feet in height. When seen from the road approaching it from the east, it is almost Alpine in appearance, and looks like a small mountain. Neither history nor legend throws much light on the origin of this gigantic mound. We are told, however, that in the time of Queen Meave, about the year 50 B.C., there was a terrible battle in a place called Cloch Bruighne, now called Cloch Brian, some two miles from where the moat now stands, in which battle a wealthy farmer called Da Choga was killed, and his house burned. His wife, whose name was Lucha, died of grief, and was buried, it is said, near Loch Lucha, which seems to have been called after her. In Irish, the name of this place is _Baile Loch Lucha_. From the fact of the name of the wife of the farmer, or _bruighe_, being contained in the name of the stead, the late Mr W. M. Hennessy, an excellent authority on such matters, thought that the mound was erected over the remains of the woman Lucha. In former times, there was a small lake at the foot of the moat, hence the modern name Ballylochloe. This beautiful artificial hill is well worth seeing. It is only three miles from the railway station at Moat. CLONMACNOIS The ruins of Clonmacnois form by far the most interesting architectural remains on the Shannon. Their situation is unique--on a sandy knoll overlooking the winding river, as it flows in great reaches among marshy meadows of apparently illimitable extent. Thousands of acres of them on both banks of the Shannon are spread before one's gaze when standing at the base of any of the ruined shrines of this ancient seat of piety and learning. The ecclesiastics of ancient Ireland seem to have been gifted with an extraordinary amount of appreciation for the beautiful and unique in nature. The wilder and the more beautiful a place was, the more it seems to have attracted them. Cashel's solitary Rock, Glendaloch's gloomy vale, and this barren sandhill overlooking the most peculiar scenery in all the island, were the places in which they reared their most cherished fanes and most beautiful buildings. The situation of Clonmacnois cannot be said to be beautiful, but it is strange and weird to the last degree--more strange and weird, perhaps, than any other place in Ireland. The best and most agreeable way to reach Clonmacnois is from Athlone. It is twelve English miles from Athlone by road, and ten by river. By river is not only the cheapest way but the most interesting. Sails can be used on this part of the Shannon almost as well as on Loch Ree, for the banks are so low that every breeze that blows can be fully utilised; and the river is so crooked, that no matter from what quarter the wind comes it can sometimes fill the sail. The Shannon here is no tiny stream like the Liffey, but a wide river, never less than from 150 to 200 yards in breadth, and generally deep enough to float a small ocean steamer. The current is, however, not rapid. The first thing that strikes the stranger who sees Clonmacnois for the first time is the extraordinary view from it over the largest extent of callow meadows to be seen in any part of Ireland. It must not be thought that these meadows are mere bogs, for some of the finest hay is raised on them. The grass that grows on them must be of a fairly good quality, for they let at from £5 to £6 per Irish acre, the purchaser having to save the hay, and run all the risk attending the making it in land so liable to be flooded. Not infrequently, the taker of meadow on the vast flats that border the Shannon between Loch Ree and Loch Derg, will awaken some fine morning and find all his small cocks of hay afloat, sailing placidly southward, and more likely to find their way to Killaloe than to his haggard. The second thing that will strike the observant stranger in Clonmacnois is the small size of the churches. That it was one of the most important ecclesiastical establishments in ancient Ireland there cannot be any doubt, for it is more frequently mentioned in ancient Irish history and annals than any other place of its kind in the country. Yet the largest church in it, the ruins of which exist, would not, by any stretch of imagination, accommodate more than three or four hundred worshippers. There are the ruins of but three churches existing in Clonmacnois; the largest of them is called Cathedral, the two smaller ones can hardly be called churches. They must have been oratories, and would not combined contain over two hundred persons. When Clonmacnois was in its most prosperous condition--that was in the early part of the ninth century, or about the time when the Danish invasions were heaviest and most harassing--Ireland must have been a very populous country. There are so many proofs of this in ancient Gaelic annals and literature that it may be regarded as a fact. How, then, did it happen that the churches in Clonmacnois were so small? This is a question that cannot be answered fully. It may be that what now remains of its churches is of comparatively recent origin, and may not have been erected until the decadence of the population had commenced at the time of the Danish invasions, which decadence became more and more pronounced down to the latter part of the sixteenth century. Or it may have been that there were large wooden Churches in Clonmacnois in ancient times, not a vestige or trace of which would be found after fire had done its work on them. [Illustration: ROUND TOWER, CLONMACNOIS.] The two round towers are by far the most interesting and beautiful buildings in Clonmacnois. The larger one wants apparently twenty or thirty feet of the top; whether it was struck by lightning, or knocked off by cannon, no one seems to know. The smaller tower is as perfect as it was when its builder pronounced it finished a thousand years ago. No more beautiful piece of architecture in the way of a tower ever was erected. It seems to be absolute perfection. The most skilled modern artisan in stone could not find an imperfection in it. It is built entirely of cut stones. The roof or dome is made of lozenge-shaped stones, fitted so closely and finished so well that time and weather seem to have passed over it in vain, for it is, as far as can be seen from the ground at its base, as perfect as it ever was. Of all round towers in Ireland, it is the most beautiful and perfect. The larger tower seems to have been built of stones similar to those of the smaller one, but as it wants its top its beauty is almost entirely spoiled. What remains of it seems about as perfect in its architecture as human hands could make it. The smaller tower appears to afford positive proof of Petrie's theory as to the post-Christian origin of the Irish round towers, for it and the little church or oratory at its base, and out of which it rises, were evidently built at the same time, for the walls of both are actually in some places one. Like some few of the existing round towers (the one near Navan, for instance), the smaller one at Clonmacnois has no opening in the roof by which the sound of bells could be emitted, showing clearly that it could never have been erected solely for a belfry; for no matter how big a bell might be, its sound would not have been heard a hundred yards away, if rung under the windowless stone roof of this most perfect and beautiful of Irish round towers. That round towers were sometimes used as belfries seems very probable; but that their principal use, and the prime object for which they were erected, were to protect the clergy and the treasures of the churches from the marauding Northmen is the theory regarding them that is now most generally accepted. Clonmacnois is not so rich in ancient crosses as some other places like it. There are only two to be seen there at present. They are not nearly so well carved and ornamented as many that still remain in other Irish cemeteries. There is not, so far as can be seen by the passer-by, a single inscription in the Irish language visible, though some scores of such inscriptions exist in it, every one of which has been faithfully copied and translated by Doctor Petrie in his great work, "Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language." The inscribed stones are, very properly, stowed away in a vault under lock and key where they are safe from the mischief of so many who would delight in marring and effacing any thing they could not understand. There are plenty of inscriptions in English to be seen in Clonmacnois, for it is still used as a place of interment. This takes away a great deal of its antique charm and general interest. It seems a sort of profanation to erect a modern tomb with an English inscription on it at the very base of a hoary round tower that was a wonder of art and beauty when London was little else than a large village, and when England itself was hardly civilised, and as politically powerless as Saint Domingo or Corea. Clonmacnois has suffered as much from vandalism as any other place of its kind in Ireland. It was taken and spoiled by the Danes when at the height of its splendour in the ninth century. But it was not the Danes that committed the worst depredations in this wonderfully unique and ancient place. They were committed by men who used gunpowder, for it was evidently by it that most of the old buildings of Clonmacnois were destroyed. It is generally believed that it was by one of Cromwell's captains who was stationed with some troops at Athlone when the Royalist cause had been lost that most of the destruction at Clonmacnois was accomplished. The blowing up of the magnificent castle erected here by Hugo de Lacy in the twelfth century, is attributed to Cromwell's troopers, as is also the demolition of some thirty or forty feet of the larger of the two round towers, known as O'Ruarc's tower. There are the remains of only three churches extant in Clonmacnois; but we know from authentic annals and history that there were nearly a dozen churches in it at one time. What became of them, or where they stood, cannot now be known. Many of them were, probably, wooden churches, and, when once destroyed, left no trace. The ruins of the ancient nunnery are distant nearly quarter of a mile from the churchyard, on the grounds of a gentleman named Charlton. It is only about thirty years ago since an attempt was made to clear away the rubbish in which they were buried, and to try if any of the sculptured stones could be recovered. The excavations were made under the supervision of the Protestant Bishop of Limerick. Sculptured stone-work of the highest order of art was dug up from many feet under the surface where the destroyers had buried it. Visitors to Clonmacnois will not have any difficulty in seeing the ruins of the nunnery, for Mr Charlton willingly permits visitors to see them. It is not only curious, but hopeful and pleasant, to find people of the same religious belief altering so much for the better as time rolls by. Whilom Protestant men and a whilom Protestant Government did all they could in the seventeenth century to turn Clonmacnois into a heap of ruins, almost as void and as shapeless as those of Babylon; but Protestant men and a Protestant Government in the nineteenth century have done everything in their power to save it from further decay, and to dig up its sculptured stones from the dust in which ancient Protestant fanaticism and bigotry had buried them. Clonmacnois was founded by St Kieran, who died in the year 549. There are records of the erection of most of its ancient buildings to be found in Irish annals and history. According to the _Chronicon Scottorum_, a work of high authority, the Cathedral was built in the year 909. The Cathedral that existed when Turgesius the Dane obtained sway for some years over the greater part of Ireland, and when his wife used to issue her orders from that building, was probably of wood, for no trace of it appears extant. Doctor Petrie says that the larger round tower was erected in the tenth century, and the smaller one in the eleventh or early part of the twelfth. There is good authority to prove that the nunnery was erected and endowed by the too well-remembered Dearvorgil, wife of O'Ruairc, whose _liaison_ with Dermot Mac Murrough, King of Leinster, is popularly believed to have brought about the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. One of the great curiosities of Clonmacnois is the powder-blown-up castle built by Hugo de Lacy in the latter part of the twelfth century, the remains of which stand on a hill about two hundred yards from the cemetery. It is generally known as the Prior's house, but it was evidently built as a place of defence. It was one of the strongest castles ever erected in Ireland. Although comparatively small, building and enclosure not covering more than half an acre, it was a place of immense strength, and before the invention of gunpowder could have defied a host. It is encompassed by a fosse in some places forty feet in depth, that descends sheer from the walls. The walls are of immense thickness and strength, from six to eight feet thick in many places, and so firmly are the stones embedded in grouting that to detach one of them from the powder-riven walls, or from the vast masses of blown-up masonry that lie scattered around, a hammer and chisel would be required. Huge heaps of the ruined walls, some of them tons in weight, have been tumbled into the deep fosse that surrounds the castle, but they are still almost as solid as rocks. If ever the art of building solid walls was brought to perfection, it was by those who reared this now ruined pile. To know the strength of gunpowder and the solidity of ancient masonry, one should see this ruined castle of Clonmacnois. With all the beauties and diversity of scenery of the Shannon, on the banks of which stands all that remains of Clonmacnois, and with all the places of historic interest laved by its waters, it is a disgrace to Ireland at large that there is not a single passenger steam-boat on it above Limerick. It is nearly a hundred and fifty miles from Carrick-on-Shannon to Killaloe, and in all that vast distance of spreading lake and winding river there is not a passenger steam-boat to be seen! There may be said to be no obstacle to navigation in all that distance for boats drawing from five to six feet of water, and there are only four or five locks to pass through. No other river of equal length affords more variety of scenery than the Shannon. Sometimes the voyager passes by wooded banks, anon through apparently illimitable meadows, and then through great lakes like veritable inland seas,--island-studded or mountain-girded,--change of scene occurring in almost every mile. Let it be hoped that a line of passenger steamers will soon again be seen on the waters of this great and beautiful river,--this "ancient stream," as its Gaelic name is said to mean,--that has on its banks so many relics of the past-the grass-grown rath, the hoary round tower, the crumbling castle, and above all, the ruined fanes of Clonmacnois. KNOCK AILLINN After Tara and Uisneach, Knock Aillinn is the most historic hill in Ireland--that is, if it was really the seat of the celebrated Finn, the son of Cumhail. It is a different hill from the hill of Allen, which is about nine miles north of it, and must not be confounded with it, although, as it will be shown further on, the confusion of the two hills seems to have taken place very long ago indeed. Knock Aillinn is some five or six miles south of Newbridge, in the County Kildare. Apart from its historic interest, it is well worth visiting, for it is situated in a rich and beautiful part of the country, and the view from its summit is one of the fairest and most extensive to be seen in any of the eastern counties. Eastward the view is obstructed by the Wicklow mountains, but on every other side it is very extensive, for Knock Aillinn is 600 feet high. So fine is the view from this hill that O'Donovan, the celebrated Gaelic scholar, was inspired by it to write a poem in Irish in praise of it, when he was employed on the Government Survey in 1837. The poem may be seen in his unpublished letters in the Royal Irish Academy. One verse of it, translated into English, will show that it is a composition of more than ordinary merit:-- "Beautiful the view from the hill of Aillinn, Over lofty hills and fair plains, Over mountains wreathed in veils of cloud;-- The view will remain in my memory for ever." But beautiful and extensive as the prospect is from Knock Aillinn, and greatly as the lovers of the beautiful may enjoy it, the chief interest possessed by this hill is historic rather than scenic. On its summit is to be seen the most gigantic of all Irish raths. O'Donovan called it "prodigious." The whole top of the hill is surrounded by a mighty rampart of earth, four hundred yards in diameter, that encloses over twenty acres. After nearly two thousand years those earthen ramparts are still of great height; and when, according to the fashion of the times, they were topped with a strong palisade of timber, Knock Aillinn might be said to be an almost impregnable fortress. To render it still stronger, the hill on which it is placed is steep, and its ascent difficult. It was on this hill that some think the renowned in Celtic song and legend, Finn, the son of Cumhail, had his stronghold; but others, and it must be confessed that they are the most numerous, think that Finn's dun was on the hill of Allen, some eight or nine miles to the north. That the vast _dun_, or enclosure, on Knock Aillinn was an ancient residence of the Kings of Leinster is generally admitted; and that it was erected long previous to the Christian era is also the opinion of those best acquainted with early Irish history and literature. Proofs of this can be obtained from the most reliable and ancient Gaelic writings. There is hardly a vestige of antiquity to be seen on the summit of Knock Aillinn save the vast earthen rampart. When one stands within it, and recalls to mind what it must have been in days long gone by, when a large population dwelt in it, and when armed multitudes issued from it, he will be tempted to exclaim with Byron:-- "Shrine of the mighty! can it be That this is all remains of thee?" He will wonder that no vast masses of ancient masonry are to be seen. But stone buildings of the kind that have been in use in these islands for nearly a thousand years were unknown when the vast earth-works on Knock Aillinn were erected. Walls built of dry stone have been used in Ireland as fortresses from the most remote antiquity; but the art of building with mortar was entirely unknown until after the introduction of Christianity. The hill of Allen is the one on which, it is over and over again stated by the most ancient and trustworthy Gaelic documents extant, Finn, the son of Cumhail, had his palace. We are even told how, partly by force and threats, he obtained Allen from his grandfather, Tadg; that he went to live on it, and that it was his habitation as long as he lived. But here a great difficulty meets us--there is not a vestige of dun or fort on the hill of Allen. O'Donovan says in his unpublished letters, while on the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, that Knock Aillinn was, according to various ancient Irish authorities, one of the royal residences of the Kings of Leinster, and that it received the name of _Aillinn_ from the _ail_, or stone which was placed in the mound of the rath. On speaking of the hill of Allen, where the celebrated Finn Mac Cool or Cumhail is said to have had his seat, he says, "There are no traces of forts nor any other monuments excepting one small mound called _Suidhe Finn_, or Finn's chair, which occupies the highest point of the hill. On every side of this mound there are faint traces of field works, but so indistinct that I could not with any certainty decide whether they are traces of forts or of recent cultivation, for the hill was tilled on the very summit. I travelled all the hill, but could find upon it no monument from which it could be inferred that it was ever a royal seat like Tara, Emania, Maistean, or any of the other places of ancient celebrity whose localities have been identified; and still in all Fingallian or Ossianic poems this hill (the hill of Allen) is referred to as containing the palace of the renowned champion, Finn Mac Cool, who seems to have been a real historical character, who flourished here in the latter end of the third century." O'Donovan says also in the same unpublished letters that "The antiquary may draw his own conclusion from the non-existence of a dun on the hill of Allen at this day. It is possible that there were forts on it a thousand years ago, and that the progress of cultivation has effaced them; but it is strange that these alone should disappear, while those of Tara, Emania, Aileach, Naas, Maistean, and Raoirean remain in good preservation.... It is curious to remark that all the monuments mentioned in the _Dinnseanchus_ and the authentic annals still exist, while no trace is to be found of Finn Mac Cool's palace on the hill of Allowin (Allen).... If he had such a palace as this on Aillinn, near Kilcullen, on his hill of Allowin, it would not disappear, because the labour of levelling it would be so great that no agriculturist would undertake to level it." It would seem as if the two hills, Aillinn, or Knock Aillinn as it is now called, and Allen got confounded, and at an early date too. Allowing liberally for exaggeration and discounting tradition, one has to believe in the extent of Finn's house or palace, however rude and barbaric its arrangements may have been. He was the most powerful man in Ireland, more powerful even than the chief king. The fame of his household was spread abroad, not only over all Ireland, but all Scotland. This we know by the publication of the poems collected in the Highlands by the Dean of Lismore in the sixteenth century, and translated by the late Mr T. M'Lauchlan, and also from a host of other poems. They abound with allusions to Finn and his house and household, as does almost all the folk-lore of the Celtic-Scotch. One thing seems certain, that neither Finn nor his house or palace were myths; his house must have existed, and, like all places of its kind in the days when it existed, it must have been surrounded with an earthen rampart no less high than that to be seen on Knock Aillinn. But no vestige of house or rampart can be traced on the hill of Allen. A still greater difficulty meets one in the size of the summit of the hill. It is not much over half an Irish acre in extent, and where would there be room on such a limited space for the vast household of Finn? His residence was known from far-back times as "Almhuin riogha leathan mór Laighean," the kingly, great-broad Allen of Leinster; but no _dun_ or habitation situated on the narrow space on the top of the hill of Allen could be "great-broad;" but the existing remains on Knock Aillinn would suit the description almost exactly. We may be sure that if any man in Ireland in those days had a big house, it was Finn. The names Allen and Aillinn are so much alike, and both hills are so comparatively near each other, and both seem to have been abandoned as strongholds at such an early date, that confusion of one with the other could easily have taken place; besides, Finn's name does appear to be, in some measure at least, associated with Knock Aillinn. Here is a passage from the "Dinnseanchus" at page 162 of the "Book of Leinster." Treating of Knock Aillinn, these lines occur:-- "Faichthi ruamand ruamnad rinn Co failgib flatha for Fhind." Irish scholars may interpret these lines as they like, but it would seem that the last word is a proper name, and that it relates to Finn. But whether Finn lived in Knock Aillinn or in Allen, or whether he lived in both places off and on, is a matter of minor importance. The real wonder about him is the way he impressed himself not only on the age in which he lived but on every age since then. No other man in any age or country seems to have so fastened himself in the memories of the people of his own race and lineage. It may be safely said that neither Julius Caesar nor Charlemagne have impressed themselves on popular imagination so much as Finn and those associated with him have. Those who have not studied the Celtic folk-lore of Ireland and Scotland can form but an incomplete idea of the overwhelming immensity of the folk-lore about Finn and his cycle that exists even yet. But with the decay of Gaelic speech it is rapidly fading away. It is hardly too much to say that when Gaelic was the language of the fireside all through Ireland and a large part of Scotland, and that is only a few centuries ago, there was not a parish from Kerry to Caithness in which dozens of different stories about Finn and his contemporaries did not exist; and it is equally safe to say that not the tenth, probably not the twentieth, part of them was ever committed to writing. Finn, Ossian, and Caoilte were the _dramatis personæ_ of the most extensive, if not the choicest, popular, unwritten folk-lore that probably ever existed in any country. But one of the strangest things connected with the cycle of Finn and Ossian is that its folk-lore hardly appears at all in really ancient Gaelic literature. The Gaelic scribes of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries took but little notice of it; it was to the events of the Cuchulainn cycle that they gave almost their entire attention. In the "Book of Leinster," the greatest repertory of Gaelic literature that exists in one volume, there is only one story that can be called an Ossianic or Finnian one, while nearly half the book is taken up with tracts and stories relating to the cycle of Cuchulainn, which was nearly three centuries earlier than that of Ossian and Finn. But the Cuchulainn cycle, from whatever cause will probably be never known, seems to have entirely failed to take hold of the popular imagination. Folk-lore relating to the Cuchulainn cycle is rare. There are a few in which Cuchulainn is mentioned, and M'Pherson in his Ossian mixes the Ossianic and Cuchulainn cycles together, although they were three centuries apart. Of all the prominent names belonging to the Cuchulainn cycle, Queen Medb or Meave was one of the most prominent, but not a single story exists about her in the oral Gaelic folk-lore of Ireland or Scotland of which the writer has ever heard. She seems to have found her way into the folk-lore of England, but not into that of Ireland or the Gaelic-speaking parts of Scotland. She figures very prominently in Irish history and literature, but in folk-lore she does not figure at all. The reason of this may be that Finn, Ossian, and others of their "set" were supposed to have lived so long that they met St Patrick and were converted to Christianity by him; but there is no foundation for such a belief, for authentic Irish history says that Finn was killed in the year 283 at Ath Brea on the Boyne. It is not easy to see clearly why Finn so impressed his memory and his cycle on the minds of his countrymen, for he does not appear to have been an altogether amiable personage. There are very many discreditable things told of him in the multitudinous stories of which he is the central figure. In one of them, the "Pursuit of Dermot and Gráine," he plays the part of a revengeful, unforgiving, bad man; while his great enemy, Dermot O'Duibhne, is a bold, open-hearted hero, the very opposite of his unrelenting pursuer. With all the absurdities and impossibilities of the "Pursuit," the leading characters in it are sustained with a consistency that would do credit even to Shakespeare. Finn at the end of the story is just what he was at the beginning, unforgiving and bad; and Gráine, who is bad at the beginning is bad also at the end; while Dermot, a hero at the beginning of the story, is still a hero at its close. It may interest some to know that most Irish historians and scholars think that Dermot O'Duibhne was the person from whom the barony of Corcaguiney, in the County Kerry, is called. In correct orthography it would be _Corc Ui Dhuibhne_, and would be pronounced very nearly as the name of the barony is written at present. If it be true that Corcaguiney got its name from Dermot O'Duibhne, and there seems no reason to doubt that it did, another proof is given of the general correctness of at least the salient points in Irish history. It may also interest some to know that the Campbells of Argyll are popularly believed, even in their own country, to be descended from this same Dermot O'Duibhne. They have been known for centuries as the Clann Diarmid, or children of Dermot, as will be remembered by any one who has read Scott's "Legend of Montrose." The real name of the Argyll Campbells seems to be really O'Duibhne. It was so that they generally signed their names up to a comparatively recent date. Bishop Carsewell, who translated John Knox's Prayer Book into Gaelic in 1567, the first Gaelic book that was ever printed, dedicates it to the Duke of Argyll, whom he calls Gilleasbuig O'Duibhne.[5] Carsewell would hardly have dared to address his patron, and the most powerful nobleman in Scotland, by a false name or a sobriquet. The Campbells seem to have been called O'Duibhne down to the middle of the seventeenth century, for in the national manuscripts of Scotland there is a very fine Gaelic poem on the death of a Campbell, who is styled "O'Duibhne" in the Gaelic. Translations that have been recently made from Gaelic manuscripts of high authority have thrown considerable light on Finn, and the events of his epoch. We are told in the tract called the "Boramha," or "Tribute," to which reference has been already made, that when Bresal, a king of Leinster, in the third century, was given his choice to pay the tribute or fight the rest of Ireland, he asked help from Finn. A person called Molling was sent to ask Finn to help the men of Leinster. Molling told Finn that he should not come with a small army to fight the chief king, who had the national army with him. The number of men that Finn had, was, we are told in the "Boramha," fifteen hundred chiefs, each having thirty men under him, making the total number of men that Finn brought to help Leinster forty-five thousand, a very large army in those days. They joined the Leinster men, inflicted a crushing defeat on the forces of the chief king, so that the tribute was not paid for many years after. Nine thousand of the "men of Ireland," as the "Book of Leinster" almost invariably calls the national forces, were slain in the battle. The militia of which Finn was the Commander-in-Chief, and of which his father and grandfather had also been commanders, are the heroes of hundreds of Ossianic tales and poems. It would appear that they numbered twenty-one thousand men on a peace footing, but could raise their numbers to double that amount in time of need. They became so extortionate and arrogant in the long run, that the chief king, Cairbre, and it would seem all the provincial rulers except the King of Leinster, determined to crush them. So a great battle was fought at Garristown in the County Dublin in the year 290 or 296, and the militia of Finn was totally destroyed. It would seem that neither Knock Aillinn nor the hill of Allen has been since then inhabited. It may not be out of place to state here that students of Gaelic are often puzzled on seeing the name of Finn spelt _Fionn_. It seems certain that _Finn_ is the proper orthography. The name is invariably so spelt in all cases in the "Book of Leinster," one of the most correct of all the great Gaelic books; but the editor of "Silva Gadelica" makes it _Fionn_ in all cases except in the genitive. It is difficult to understand why, when copying from a manuscript of such high authority as the "Book of Leinster," he did not follow its orthography. In the northern half of Ireland the name is pronounced according to its correct orthography, but in the south of Ireland it is pronounced as if written _Fyun_. Those who visit Knock Aillinn and its mighty _dun_ should also visit the hill of Allen. If there is nothing to be seen on it, there is a great deal to be seen from it, for the view is very extensive. If any one wanted to know how vast the bog of Allen is, he should ascend the hill of Allen, from which he will see a very large part of it. If he is in any doubt as to the exact place in which Finn had his dwelling and _dun_, he will at least be in the locality that has given birth to the most colossal folk-lore that perhaps ever existed,--stories that in the far-back past, before the world was tormented by newspapers and bewildered by politicians, beguiled many a tedious hour and delighted many a sad heart. "KILDARE'S HOLY FANE" Those in search of the picturesque alone will not find very much to interest them in Kildare or its immediate vicinity. There may be said to be hardly any remarkable scenic beauties in its neighbourhood. There is the broad expanse of the Curragh not far from the town, one of the finest places for military manoeuvres in the British Isles. It is strange why it is called a curragh--more correctly, _currach_--for the word means a marsh, a place that _stirs_ when trodden on. There is only a very small part of the land to which the name is applied that is a marsh. It is almost all perfectly dry upland. However, it was called _Currach Life_ from very early times, that is the marsh or swamp of the Liffy. It would seem as if the word _Life_ meant originally the country through which the river Liffy flows, and that the river took its name from the country; for when King Tuathal wanted revenge on Leinstermen, for the death of his two daughters, who have been mentioned in the article on Tara, he says-- "Let them be revenged on Leinstermen, On the warriors _in_ the Life." It is thought that the name Liffy comes from the adjective _liomhtha_, meaning smooth, or polished, for part of the country through which the river flows is very smooth and beautiful. Hardly a vestige of the ancient buildings of Kildare remain save the round tower. It is over one hundred and thirty feet in height, and therefore one of the highest in Ireland. It seems as perfect as it was the day it was finished. It is sad to say that it is the most completely spoiled--bedevilled would probably be a better word--of all the Irish round towers; for some person or persons whose memories should be held in everlasting abhorrence by every archæologist, have put an incongruous, ridiculous, castellated top on it that makes it look as unsightly and as horrible as a statue of Julius Cæsar would look with a stove-pipe hat on its head. The people of Kildare and its vicinity should at once raise funds and have a proper, antique roof put on their tower, for it is an absolute disgrace to them as it is at present. The top of the tower may have been destroyed by lightning, or, like many other round towers, it may have been left unfinished, and may never have had a top or roof on it. But whatever may have happened to it, its present castellated roof is a disgraceful incongruity. The cathedral of Kildare is a modern and rather plain building of mediocre interest. It is supposed to be built in, or nearly in, the place where the old church stood that was founded by St Brigit in the sixth century. Kildare seems to owe its origin to St Brigit, for the name means the cell or church of the oak; and as Brigit was contemporary with St Patrick, hers must have been the first Christian establishment founded at Kildare. It is stated in the _Trias Thaumaturga_ of Colgan that when she returned to her own district, a cell was assigned to her in which she afterwards led a wonderful life; that she erected a monastery in Kildare, and that a very great city afterwards sprang up, which became the metropolis of the Lagenians, or Leinster folk. It requires a great stretch of imagination to conceive how Kildare could ever have been a "very great city," for it is now, and has for many years, been a small, a very small country town, hardly any more than a village. It seems strange that Kildare is not larger and more prosperous, for if not situated in a picturesque part of the island, the country round it is very fair and fertile, and beautiful as any flat country could be. There is, however, a passage in the "Calendar of Oengus," written in the latter end of the eighth or the beginning of the ninth century, that goes far to prove that what is said in the _Trias Thaumaturga_ about Kildare having been once a large place is true. Speaking of the fall of the strongholds of the Pagans, and the rise of Christian centres, Oengus says-- "Aillinn's proud burgh Hath perished with its warlike host: Great is victorious Brigit: Fair is her multitudinous city." The "multitudinous city" was, of course, Kildare. It is curious that Oengus should mention Aillinn, and not mention Allen, the supposed seat of Finn, for wherever he had his stronghold must have been, in his epoch, the most important place in Ireland, Tara alone excepted. Kildare is famous and historic solely on account of St Brigit. Of all Irish Saints, she is the most to be loved. Her charity, her love for humanity, was so absolutely divine, that reading her life as narrated in the _Leabhar Breac_, we are moved to our very heart's depths. The miracles she is said to have performed are so wondrous, and show such a love for mankind, especially for the poor, that when we read them we long to be children again in order that we might unhesitatingly believe such beautiful fables. It was in Kildare that that wondrous lamp was which is said to have "Lived through long ages of darkness and storm," without having been replenished by human hand; and it was this legend that inspired Moore to compose the noblest national lyric ever written, "Erin, O Erin." If he never wrote a line of poetry save what is contained in that song, the Irish people would be justified in raising a statue of gold to his memory. It is, beyond anything of the kind known to humanity, "Perfect music set to noble words"; yet, heart-sickening to think of, the masses of the Irish people hardly know it at all! When St Brigit is contrasted with St Patrick, she appears very different from him. The lives of Ireland's three great Saints are in the _Leabhar Breac_, an Irish manuscript compiled early in the fourteenth century; but the greater part of it is made up of transcripts from documents that were probably many hundred years old when they were copied into it. The three Saints whose lives appear in it are Patrick, Brigit, and Columba, or Colum Cill, as he is generally called in Ireland. These lives were translated some years ago by Mr Whitley Stokes, the greatest of living Gaelic scholars; but as only a few dozen copies were printed for private circulation, the book is practically as unknown to the general public as if it never had been printed at all. Extracts from it, therefore, cannot fail to be interesting to the readers of this book. Brigit shines out a star of the first magnitude, totally eclipsing the lesser two lights, Patrick and Columba. Nothing shall be said about Columba at present, but it has to be admitted that Patrick, as he is represented in the _Leabhar Breac_, makes a poor show when contrasted with glorious St Brigit. Patrick is represented as spending a large part of his time in cursing and killing, but St Brigit spends most of hers in blessing and relieving. If St Patrick converts a great many, he is represented as killing a great many; but St Brigit kills nobody. The narrative of her life in the _Leabhar Breac_ is probably as wonderful a piece of biography as ever was written. There is no effort at style in it, and no attempt at book-making. The narrative is simplicity in the true sense of the word. One of the wonderful things about it is the side light it throws both on the social and political conditions of ancient Ireland; but, curiously enough, no such light is thrown on the state of the country by the lives of St Patrick and St Columba, written in the same book and probably by the same author. St Brigit seems to have acted on some of the precepts found in the "Ancient Mariner" fourteen hundred years before the poem was written. She seems to have known that-- "He prayeth best Who loveth best All things both great and small," for we are told that her father, who at present would be called Duffy, "sundered a gammon of bacon into five pieces, and left it with Brigit to be boiled for his guests. A miserable, greedy hound came into the house to Brigit. Brigit, out of pity, gave him the fifth piece. When the hound had eaten that piece, Brigit gave another piece to him. Then Duffy came and said to Brigit, 'Hast thou boiled the bacon, and do all the portions remain?' 'Count them,' saith Brigit. Duffy counted them and none of them was wanting. The guests declared unto Duffy what Brigit had done. 'Abundant,' said Duffy, 'are the miracles of that maiden.' Now the guests ate not the food, for they were unworthy thereof, but it was dealt out to the poor and needy of the Lord." The following narrative shows St Brigit's love of animals in a still stronger light: "Once upon a time a bondsman of Brigit's family was cutting firewood. It came to pass that he killed a pet fox of the King of Leinster's. The bondsman was seized by the King. Brigit ordered a wild fox to come out of the wood. So he came, and was playing and sporting for the hosts and for the King at Brigit's order. But when the fox had finished his feats, he went safe back to the wood, with the hosts of Leinster after him, both foot and horse and hounds." This is simply beautiful. St Brigit, while she got the poor bondsman out of trouble, managed to do so without depriving the fox of his liberty. Here is another extract that makes one wish that the life of St Brigit in the _Leabhar Breac_, instead of containing only about twenty octavo pages, contained a thousand:-- "Then came Brigit and her mother with her to her father's house. Thereafter Duffy (her father) and his consort were minded to sell the holy Brigit into bondage, for Duffy liked not his cattle and his wealth to be dealt out to the poor, and that is what Brigit used to do. So Duffy fared in his chariot, and Brigit along with him. Said Duffy to Brigit, 'Not for honour or reverence to thee art thou carried in a chariot, but to take thee and sell thee, and to grind the quern for Dunlang Mac Enda, King of Leinster.' When they came to the King's fortress, Duffy went in to the King, and Brigit remained in her chariot at the fortress door. Duffy had left his sword in the chariot near Brigit. A leper came to Brigit to ask alms. She gave him Duffy's sword. Said Duffy to the King, 'Wilt thou buy a bondmaid, namely, my daughter?' says he. Said Dunlang, 'Why sellest thou thine own daughter?' Said Duffy, 'She stayeth not from selling my wealth and giving it to the poor.' Said the King, 'Let the maiden come into the fortress.' Duffy went for Brigit, and was enraged against her because she had given his sword to the poor man. When Brigit came into the King's presence, the King said to her, 'Since it is thy father's wealth that thou takest, much more if I buy thee, wilt thou take of _my_ wealth and _my_ cattle, and give them to the poor.' Said Brigit, 'The Son of the Virgin knoweth if I had thy might with all Leinster and with all thy wealth, I would give them to the Lord of the Elements.' Said the King to Duffy, 'Thou art not fit on either hand to bargain for this maiden, for her merit is higher before God than before men.' And he gave Duffy for her an ivory-hilted sword. So was St Brigit saved from bondage." The idea of giving a sword to a poor crippled leper because she had nothing else to give could hardly have entered into the head of any saint but an Irish one. The next extract from this marvellous biography is, perhaps, the most curious and interesting of all. In another interview that Brigit had with the King of Leinster, "a slave of the slaves of the King came to speak with Brigit, and said to her, 'If thou wouldst save me from the servitude wherein I am, I would become a Christian, and would serve thee thyself.' Brigit said, 'I will ask that of the King.' So Brigit went into the fortress and asked her two boons of the king, the forfeiture of the sword to Duffy, and his freedom for the slave. Said Brigit to the King, 'If thou desirest excellent children and a kingdom for thy sons, and heaven for thyself, give me the two boons I ask.' Said the King to Brigit, 'The kingdom of heaven, as I see it not, and as no one knows what thing it is, I seek it not; and a kingdom for my sons I seek not, for I shall not myself be extant, and let each one serve his time. But give me length of life in my kingdom, and victory always over the Hui Neill, for there is often war between us; and give me victory in the first battle, so that I may be trustful in the other fights.' And this was fulfilled in the battle of Lochar which was fought against the Hui Neill." By the "Hui Neill" the people of the entire north of Ireland, including Meath, were meant. They represented the national party because the chief kings, for some centuries previous, were of the race of Niall of the Nine Hostages. Mr Stokes says, speaking of the above extract in his preface to the translation, "The conversation between Brigit and Dunlang (King of Leinster) seems to preserve the authentic utterance of an Irish pagan warrior." One extract more to show in a still stronger light the angelic kindness and love for humanity, especially for suffering humanity, that glowed in the heart of this wonderful woman: "Once upon a time the King of Leinster came unto Brigit to listen to preaching and celebration on Easter Day. After the ending of the form of celebration the King fared forth on his way, and Brigit went to refection. Lomman, Brigit's leper, said he would eat nothing until the warrior weapons, _arm gaisgedh_, of the King of Leinster were given to him, spear, sword, and shield, that he might move to and fro under them. A messenger was sent after the King. From mid-day to evening was the King going astray, and attained not even a thousand paces, so that the weapons were given by him and bestowed on the leper." This instance of going to such trouble to please a poor crippled pauper, for Lomman was evidently such, and of working a miracle so that the King of Leinster should lose his way, and not go so far that he could not be overtaken, is one of the most extraordinary instances of trouble taken to please a pauper that is to be found in all the records of benevolence and charity. The "Annals of the Four Masters" say that St Brigit was buried in Downpatrick, in the same grave with St Patrick; but the learned editor and translator of their annals says that she and Bishop Conlaeth were buried, one on the right, and one on the left of the altar, in the church of Kildare, and he gives Colgan's great book, _Trias Thaumaturga_, as his authority, and no authority could be higher. GLENDALOCH There are not many places in Ireland more interesting than this strange and weird glen. It can hardly be called beautiful. It is gloomy and grand; and there is something depressing about it even in the finest day in autumn when the sombre mountains by which it is surrounded on all sides but one are mantled in their most gorgeous crimson drapery of full-blooming heather. It is just such a spot as an anchorite like St Kevin would choose as a place for contemplation and prayer. Glendaloch--it ought _not_ to be spelled _Glendalough_--is very nearly in the centre of the romantic county of Wicklow. It is a good central point from which to make excursions to the many beautiful and interesting places in its vicinity, such as Glen Molur, the Glen of Imail, the Meeting of the Waters, and the Mountain of Lugnacuilla, the highest in Leinster. The interior of the County Wicklow may be said to be a vast wilderness of mountains, bogs, and glens. But its mountains have, with one exception, the defect of being round-topped. They lack the boldness of the hills of Connemara and Donegal. The mountain that is the most bold and alpine in the county, and that forms an exception to the general contour of its hills, is the famous one called the "Sugar-loaf," near Bray. The Dublin grocer, or whoever he was that gave this beautiful hill such an abominable name, should have his memory held in everlasting contempt. Its real name is a grand one, Sleeve Coolan, _rectè_ Sliabh Cualann. But in spite of the generally rounded outlines of the Wicklow Mountains, there are some splendid alpine views to be seen among them; and none finer than from the Glen of Lugalaw, about seven or eight miles from Bray. [Illustration: GLENDALOCH.] But of all places in Wicklow, Glendaloch is the most famous. It ought to be so, for there is nothing like it in Ireland. There are many glens as wild and as gloomy as it, but they lack the historic interest and the legendary halo that make Glendaloch dear to the archæologist, the poet, and the dreamer. Its history goes back almost to the beginning of Christian times. For five hundred years it was one of the most important ecclesiastical and educational places in Ireland. Its name constantly occurs in Irish annals and history; and its history was for centuries as gloomy as itself, for the Danes plundered it and burned it so often that it seems strange that it was not abandoned many centuries sooner. It was so near their great stronghold, Dublin, that it was harried by them on and off for over two hundred years. St Kevin's name is indissolubly associated with Glendaloch, or the Seven Churches, as it is most frequently called, for it is supposed that there were seven churches in it at one time. St Kevin, according to the best authority who ever wrote on Irish history and archæology, the famous John O'Donovan, came of a distinguished family in the County Wicklow. His name, in correct orthography, _Coemhgen_, means "fair offspring." He seems to have been predestined to be a Saint, for many miraculous things are told of his infancy and early youth. When he was a baby a white cow is said to have come miraculously to supply him with milk. The story about his having murdered Kathleen, the girl with eyes of "unholy blue," by throwing her into that lake that the "Skylark never warbles o'er," is a mere fable. It seems a pity that the story upon which Moore founded his very beautiful lyric, "By that Lake, whose gloomy Shore," should have hardly any foundation in fact. That a certain girl fell in love with him and caused him a good deal of annoyance is quite true; but he did not kill her or throw her into the lake. He only administered a rather mild castigation, as shall be seen. O'Donovan says that the following extract, taken from the _Codex Killkenniensis_, which, there are good reasons to believe, has never yet been made public by translation, is the oldest and most trustworthy account of the transaction known to exist; and that the trouble between St Kevin and the girl did not take place in Glendaloch, but in another place in the County Wicklow. O'Donovan's translation of the story is the one now given:-- "While the most holy Caemhgen (Kevin) was as yet remaining in the house of his parents, the Lord performed many miracles through him.... The parents of Kevin observing so great a grace in him, committed him to the care of the holy seniors, Eoganus, Lochanus, and Enna, in order that he might in their cell be brought up for Christ; and St Kevin was sedulously reading with those saints. When he was grown up in the first flower of his youth, a young girl saw him out in a field along with the brethren, and fell passionately in love with him, for he was exceedingly handsome. And she began to make known her friendship for him in astute words. And she was always laying snares for him in every way she could, by looks, by language, and sometimes by messengers. But the holy youth rejected all these allurements. On a certain day she sought the opportunity of finding him alone, and on a day when the brethren were working in a wood, she passed by them, and seeing St Kevin working by himself in the wood, she approached him, and clasped him in her arms with fondest embrace. But the soldier of Christ arming himself with the sacred sign, and full of the Holy Ghost, made strong resistance against her, and rushed out of her arms in the wood; and finding nettles, took secretly a bunch of them, and struck her with them many times on the face, hands, and feet. And when she was blistered with the nettles, the pleasure of her love became extinct. And she being sorrowful of heart, asked on her bended knees pardon of St Kevin in the name of the Lord. And the Saint praying for her to Christ, she promised him that she would dedicate her virginity to the Lord. The brothers finding them discussing together, wondered very much; but the virgin related to them what had passed; and the brethren hearing such, were confirmed in their love for chastity. And that little girl afterwards became a prudent and holy virgin, and diligently observed the holy admonitions of St Kevin." The above translation has not, to the writer's knowledge, ever been previously published. John O'Donovan, the greatest authority on such matters that ever lived, says in his unpublished letters, while on the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, that the above extract "is the oldest and only authority for the story about St Kevin and the lady, and shows clearly that the scene of it is erroneously placed at Glendaloch by oral tradition and modern writers. It will also be sufficient evidence that this Saint did not murder the lady Kathleen, but inflicted a somewhat mild punishment by flogging her with a bunch of nettles!" So poor St Kevin's memory is cleared. It is a pity that Moore did not see the _Codex Killkenniensis_ before he wrote the beautiful lyric that casts such a cloud on Wicklow's greatest saint. That the name of St Kevin was highly esteemed not only in Wicklow in ancient times, but all through Leinster, there is ample proof in ancient Gaelic literature. A poet named Broccan, writing in the tenth century in praise of his native province of Leinster and the great people it produced, said: "I never heard in any province, Between earth and holy heaven, Of a nun like St Brigit Or a cleric like Kevin."[6] Glendaloch must have been founded in the latter part of the sixth century, for St Kevin died in 617, aged 120 years. There cannot be any doubt that it was he who founded Glendaloch. We are told that he sought the sombre valley for a retreat in which to contemplate and pray, and that before there were any buildings in it he lived for a long time in a hollow tree, and subsisted on wild fruit and water. The cave in the cliff overhanging the lake, known as St Kevin's Bed, the entrance to which is not only difficult but dangerous, seems also to have given him shelter for a long time before there were any habitations in the glen. It is said that if _nouvelles mariées_ succeed in getting into this dark and dismal cavern, they are sure to be blessed with large families. Why such a belief should be current is not easy to understand, because St Kevin, after whom the cavern is called, not only had no children, but was a decided woman-hater. If he did not drown Kathleen, he at least whipped her with nettles, a thing that no gallant man would think of doing to a girl who loved him. It will, however, be the general opinion of most of those who read this version of the story, that St Kevin "served her right." Glendaloch has been ruined and uprooted in a shocking manner. Of all its edifices there are only two that still stand--namely, the round tower and the building known as "Kevin's Kitchen." This latter is stone-roofed, and is considered to be one of the oldest buildings of the kind in Ireland. Archæologists are not agreed as to what particular use it was originally intended, but that it was an ecclesiastical edifice of some kind seems to be the opinion of everyone. There are, it is said, the remains of seven churches still to be seen in Glendaloch. It appears to have been a walled city, and Petrie, one of the most painstaking and learned archæologists that ever Ireland produced, claimed to have traced the tracks of the walls in many places. That it contained a large population in the eighth and ninth centuries seems to admit of little doubt. Oengus the Culdee, whose verse in which Glendaloch is mentioned has been given in the article on "Emania the Golden," calls it "multitudinous Glendaloch," and "the Rome of the western world." Allowing for the exaggeration of which ancient Gaelic poets may have been rather too fond, it must be admitted that what they say cannot be entirely ignored; and it is more than probable that immediately before the Danes and other northern nations began their raids on Ireland, Glendaloch may have been, and probably was, a large monastic city, as cities were in those days. The Irish monasteries of the eighth and ninth centuries were probably the wealthiest in the world, if not in lands, at least in gold and silver. Where or how they got, or where or how the ancient Irish got, such quantities of the precious metals is a mystery that may never be solved; but that Ireland had an enormous amount of gold and silver in ancient times there can be no doubt at all. This would be sufficiently proved by the quantity, not of coined money, for they had not any, but of ornaments of almost every kind that have been found in all parts of the country, more, it is said, than have been found in the rest of Europe. There is hardly a barony in Ireland, it might be said hardly a parish, in which stories are not told of people having become suddenly rich by finding, it is naturally supposed, treasure trove in the shape of gold ornaments, very few of which have been preserved, for they were generally melted down. Sir Wm. Wilde mentions, in one of his catalogues of articles in the Royal Irish Academy, a find of £3000 worth of gold ornaments in the County Clare some fifty years ago. It seems a well-ascertained fact that two labourers found over £20,000 worth of gold ornaments when working on a railway in Munster some forty odd years ago. The founder of one of the largest jewellery houses in Ireland told a friend of the writer's that his first "rise" in business was brought about by buying antique gold ornaments, at sometimes not half their value, from people who brought them to him from the country. When the marauding Northmen first raided Ireland, they seem not to have had the most remote idea of either conquering the country or making permanent settlements in it. They may not have despised Irish beef and mutton, but what they wanted above all was gold and silver. When Christianity was firmly established in Ireland, the monasteries became the great depositories of the wealth of the country, and the clergy may be said to have become its bankers. The monasteries, therefore, became, to a certain extent, what banks are now, and it was to the monasteries the Danes gave their first attention. It can hardly be proved from Irish history that the Danes ever tried to conquer Ireland but once, and that was at the battle of Clontarf. Even under Turgesius, when they succeeded in establishing themselves almost everywhere there was salt water or fresh water to float their ships, they played the part of raiders and not of conquerors, and never formed a permanent settlement out of sight of their galleys. In England and in France they acted quite differently. They conquered and kept all England and a considerable part of France. They went to England and France to establish themselves, but they went to Ireland to plunder. The question to be solved is, Why did the Danes act so differently in Ireland from the way they acted in England and in other countries? There seems to be no way to answer this question except by saying that there was so much more of the precious metals in Ireland, that to get them, and not to conquer the country or form permanent settlements in it, was their prime object. If history was absolutely silent about the doings of the Northmen in Ireland, we would, from a surer guide than history, know that plunder and not settlement was what they had in view. That guide is place names. There are more Scandinavian place names to be found in some parishes in the north-east of England than there are in all Ireland. There are hardly a dozen Scandinavian place names in Ireland, and they are _all_ on the sea coast but _one_. That one is Leixlip, and it is only a few miles from the sea, on a river which the galleys of the Northmen could easily ascend. The only time at which a serious attempt seems to have been made by the Northmen to become possessed of Ireland was shortly before the battle of Clontarf, and that attempt seems to have owed its origin to that horrible but beautiful woman, Gormfhlaith, sister to the king of Leinster, and whose last of many husbands was Brian Boramha. That attempt utterly failed, and no other was ever made. If the Northmen cannot be said to have seriously contemplated the conquest of Ireland prior to the time immediately before the battle of Clontarf, it does not seem to have been from lack of men in the country, for Irish annals and history speak of their vast numbers in such a way as hardly leaves a doubt as to the awfulness of the scourge they were to the country at large. So great were their numbers at one time during the ninth century that we are told that it seemed as if the sea vomited them forth, and that there was hardly a harbour on the Irish coasts in which there was not a Danish or a Norwegian fleet. It has to be admitted that the Irish fought them with the most astonishing persistency and valour. In spite of the way the country was split into petty kingdoms, with chief kings, who were generally such only in name, the reception the Northmen got in Ireland was very different from that which they got in England. The Saxons often got rid of them by paying them to go away, but the Irish got rid of them only by the sword. Those who want to know what Ireland suffered from the raids of the Northmen should read the "Wars of the Gael and the Gaill." The book is generally believed to have been written by M'Liag, who was living when the battle of Clontarf was fought, and who was chief poet, or secretary, to Brian Boramha. Although the Northmen were allies of Leinster for a long time, they plundered Glendaloch in the years 833, 886, and 982. It was so near Dublin and so near the sea that their alliance with Leinster did not prevent them from raiding it. It was one of the rich ecclesiastical establishments in Ireland, and one of those most exposed to the incursions of the Northmen. Its round tower was, therefore, in all probability, one of the first that was erected. It is now generally believed by those most competent to form an opinion that the round towers of Ireland were erected as places of security against the Northmen, and that they were sometimes used as belfries. Their Irish name, _cloigtheach_, means a bell house and nothing else; but it is quite clear that, although they sometimes served as belfries, the primary object of their erection was to secure a place of safety for the treasures of the church or monastery, close to which they were invariably erected. Of the hundred and eight round towers which are known to have been erected in Ireland, and of which remains exist, every one of them is known to have been erected close to where a church or monastery stood. More than half of them are in ruins; of some only a few feet of the walls remain; and of some others the foundations only remain. It may seem hard for some, in these days of far-reaching projectiles to imagine how those slender towers, so chaste and beautiful in their construction, could serve as places of defence or security against the Danes. They could not have served as such if the Danes had come as conquerors to form permanent settlements, but as they were only raiders the towers were generally perfect defences against them. A dozen men shut into a round tower, the door of which was generally from ten to fourteen feet from the ground, could laugh at an army of Danes who had neither battering rams nor artillery of any kind. There was only one way by which a round tower could be taken or destroyed by men like the plundering hosts of the Vikings, who did not, and could not, take ponderous implements like battering rams with them on their raids, and that was by undermining it--digging its foundations so that it would fall. But this would have been a very tedious business, for the foundations of many of the round towers are six and even ten feet below the surface. A few dozen resolute men in a round tower might defy an army of Danes, provided the besieged had enough of food and drink in their stronghold. It must, however, be admitted that the Northmen did sometimes succeed in taking and plundering round towers, but by what means we do not know. Those who maintain that the round towers are pre-Christian structures, and that there is nothing said in Irish annals about their erection, have very little warrant for such an assertion. If they read Lord Dunraven's work on ancient Irish architecture, they will find copies of more than one allusion to their erection from the most authentic Irish annals known to exist. Here is one taken from the _Chronicon Scottorum_, a work of the highest authority and authenticity, compiled about the year 1124. "The great _Cloigtheach_ (or belfry) of Clonmacnois was finished by Gillachrist Ua Maeleoin and by Turloch O'Connor." This entry refers to the year 1120. While speaking of the uses of round towers, the wealth of Irish monasteries, and of Ireland in general in ancient times, it may not be out of place to say that that very wealth proved a curse to the country, for if Ireland had not been so rich in precious metals, the Northmen would probably never have invaded and raided it; or if they did invade it, they would have done so with a view to subjugating it and forming permanent settlements in it, as they did in England and France,--things that might have been, and that probably would have been, of benefit to the country. If Ireland had been conquered by the Northmen they would certainly have destroyed the provincial kingdoms, and have brought the whole island under the sway of one ruler; and whether that ruler was Irish or Norse, it would have been of immense benefit to the country at large. Ancient Irish polity was very good theoretically, but practically it was a frightful failure. The Scandinavian invasions only added to the political confusion of Ireland. They were of benefit to England and France, for they brought an infusion of fresh blood into those countries. But to Ireland they brought destruction and ruin, with only a slight infusion of fresh blood. They made the political confusion of the country more confounded. They robbed it of an immense quantity of its wealth, but worse than that, they destroyed a large part of its literature. The monasteries were not only the repositories of wealth but of books. It was impossible that monasteries could be plundered and burnt without damage being done to the books they contained. There is positive proof in Irish annals that the Northmen were in the habit of _drowning_ the books they found in the religious houses. Books were in those days, as is well known, made of vellum, or prepared leather, a material hard to burn; they were consequently cast into the nearest lake or river, from which very few of them were probably ever recovered. If it had not been for Scandinavian burnings and plunderings, mediæval Gaelic literature would, even now, be so immense that it would command the respect of the world at large. Those who say that the bulk of mediæval Gaelic writings has come down to us--and there are those that have the unspeakable hardihood to say so--must be classed as very prejudiced, or very ignorant of Irish history. The last entry in the Four Masters relating to Glendaloch occurs under the year 1163. It appears to have been abandoned shortly after that date; but why it was abandoned as an ecclesiastical establishment when Danish raids and plunderings had ceased does not seem to be clearly known. Glendaloch has been thus lengthenedly treated on because it is the most interesting ecclesiastical ruin in the province of Leinster, Clonmacnois only excepted. Its strange and gloomy, yet romantic situation, its antiquity, its sad history of burnings and plunderings, the utter ruin that has overtaken most of its monuments, the halo of legend and romance that is around it, give it a charm even to the non-imaginative and the rude. For the archæologist, the poet, the romancer, or the dreamer, it has attractions and charms greater, perhaps, than they could find on any other spot of Irish soil. "LORDLY AILEACH" Next to Emania and Ardmagh, Aileach is the most historic spot in the province of Ulster. It lies four miles west of the city of Derry, on a round, heath-clad hill, some eight hundred feet above the level of the sea. It is one of the most ancient cyclopean fortresses in Ireland, or, perhaps, in the world. There is no scenic beauty in the immediate vicinity of Aileach, but there is a view from the hill-top on which it is situated that for wildness and sublimity can hardly be equalled anywhere in the British Isles,--a view which will amply repay any one who sees it on a clear day. On the north the hills of Inishowen obstruct the view, but west and south-west it is sublime. The eye ranges over a wilderness of fantastic-shaped mountains, some shooting up sharp as arrows, others round and ridgy, separated by sinuous sea-lochs and glittering tarns,--a land of awful ruggedness and desolation,--of rock-bound shores cleft into myriad bays and fiords by the thundering almost ever restless northern sea that beats against them. If no hoary ruin crowned the hill on which the "Lordly Aileach" of Gaelic poets stands, the view from its summit would be worth a journey of a hundred miles to see, for most of the wildness and grandeur of "Dark Donegall" are spread before the eye. On the north-east and north-west the waters of Loch Foyle and Loch Swilly spread themselves almost beneath the feet of the gazer from Aileach. It stands on a hill that commands a view of both Loch Foyle and Loch Swilly; and the site of this ancient fortress was evidently chosen on account of the view it commands of those two sea-lochs, for no fleet could enter them for any distance without being seen by the watchers on the walls of Aileach. The first thing that should be mentioned when speaking of Aileach is the noble work that has been lately accomplished regarding it. An article appeared about it some twenty years ago in the _Irish Times_ of Dublin, calling attention to its antiquity, the historic and legendary renown of that ancient place; and a Mr Barnard of Londonderry became interested in Aileach and determined to make an effort to have the demolished fortress restored as far as was possible. He made a pilgrimage among the farmers living in the locality, and got promises of help in the way of men to work for so many days at the restoration of the fortress. The farmers kept their word, gave him the help of the men they had promised, and in a comparatively short time the walls of the ruined fortress, under the surveillance of Mr Barnard, once again crowned the hill of Greenan, after having been in ruins for well-nigh eight hundred years. Mr Barnard, and the farmers that gave him assistance in the good work, deserve the thanks of every one who is a patriot, or has any reverence for the ancient monuments of his country, or any respect for the hallowed past. The early history of Aileach is "lost in the twylight of fable." It is a pre-historic building, almost as much so as a Pyramid of Egypt. It was used as a stronghold down to the beginning of the twelfth century; but when it was built, or by whom, cannot be said to be known from authentic history, for the many poems that exist about its origin in ancient Gaelic are legendary rather than historic. There may be, and there probably is, a great deal of truth in them, but they cannot be accepted as history. Aileach is a circular, dry-stone fortress with walls nine feet thick. It was levelled down to the ground when Mr Barnard undertook its restoration. The history of its destruction is so strange, so unique, and so Irish, that it must be given. Let the Four Masters tell it. They say, under the year 1101, that "A great army was led by O'Brian, King of Munster, with the men of Munster, Ossory, Meath and Connacht, across Assaroe into Innishowen.... He demolished Grianan Aileach in revenge of Kinncora, which had been razed and demolished by Muircheartach O'Lochlainn some time before. O'Brian commanded his army to carry with them from Aileach to Limerick a stone of the demolished building for every sack of provisions they had. In commemoration of which was said (by some unknown poet)-- "'I never heard of the billeting of grit stones, Though I heard of the billeting of companies, Until the stones of Aileach were billeted On the horses of the King of the West.'" This is the only attempt at anything like humour in all the dreary annals of the Four Masters. Such quiet sarcasm would be a credit to Mark Twain. But if the poet had said "King of the South" instead of "King of the West," although it might not have answered his Gaelic rhyme or assonance quite so well, it would have been more correct, for although Munster is west of Aileach, it is more south than west. It can never be known how high the walls of Aileach had been before they were pulled down by O'Brien, because we don't know how many cavalry he had, or how many stones he carried to Limerick. Never before was an army loaded with such impedimenta; but that the story of the stones of Aileach, or at least, stones similar to them, having been brought to Limerick or its immediate vicinity, there cannot be much doubt, for they were found there. The fortress of Aileach is nearly a hundred feet in diameter in the inside. It is not known if it was ever roofed, but it is probable that it was. There were two lines of earthen ramparts round it, but they have nearly disappeared. John O'Donovan thought that the entire hill of Grianan, on which the fortress stands, was once enclosed by a vast rampart of earth, and that cultivation has destroyed all but the faintest traces of it. It seems probable that Aileach was intended more for a stronghold than for a permanent dwelling-place. It may have been inhabited only when a siege or an invasion was expected. One of its names, or rather the first part of one of its names, "Grianan," would indicate that it was intended only as a summer residence, like the Dunsinane = _Dún soinine_, fine weather fortress, of Macbeth. Those who could live in winter on top of the wind-swept hill on which Aileach stands without getting coughs or colds would require constitutions of iron and lungs of brass. O'Donovan says that if any reliance can be placed on Irish chronology, the antiquity of Aileach must be very great, no less than upwards of a thousand years before the Christian era. He says, also, that the poet, part of whose poem on Aileach is given below, in making the Tuata de Danaan King, Eochy, generally known in Irish history and legend as the Dagda, contemporaneous with the Assyrian King, Darcylus, exactly agrees with the chronology of O'Flaherty and Usher, who say that he reigned 1053 years before the Christian era. There is a poem in the "Book of Lecan" on Aileach by the poet to whom O'Donovan alludes, that in language and _tournure_ bears the marks of extreme antiquity. Even O'Donovan, great a Celtic scholar as he was, had apparently extreme difficulty in translating it. It has never been published. The first dozen or so lines are given here:-- "Aileach Fridreann, arena of mighty kings. A _dun_ through which ran roads under heroes through five ramparts. Hill on which slept the Dagda. Red its flowers. Many its houses. Just its spoils. Few its stones. A lofty castle is Aileach. Fort of the great man. A sheltering _dun_ over the lime [white] schools. A delightful spot is Aileach. Green its bushes. The sod where the Dagda found the mound wherein rested Hugh." But it is in more recent times that the history and records of Aileach become supremely interesting. It was from there that Muircheartach Mac Neill, styled the Hector of the west of Europe by old annalists, started on his celebrated "Circuit of Ireland" in the year 942. He was heir apparent to the chief kingship of Ireland, and wanted to show the provincial rulers that he was fit to rule _them_. So he determined to start on his circuit in the depth of winter, when it appears the ancient Irish seldom went on forays, and either make or persuade the provincial rulers to acknowledge his right to the throne when the then reigning chief king, Donacha, died. The way he is said to have chosen men for the expedition is very curious and very Irish. He caused a tent to be erected, keeping the cause of its erection unknown, and made his men to go into it at night. A fierce dog attacked every one that entered; and opposite to where the dog was, an armed man also attacked those that entered; both man and dog simultaneously attacking the intruder. If he who entered the tent flinched neither from dog nor man, but showed fight to both, he was chosen; but whoever showed the least sign of cowardice was rejected. Out of his whole army we are told that Muircheartach could only get a thousand men, and with that small army, protected by strong leather cloaks, he started on his Circuit of Ireland to force, intimidate, or coax the provincial kings to acknowledge that he was their master, and that he was to be their next suzerain. Our principal source of information about the Circuit comes from a poem of undoubted authority and antiquity, written by one called Cormacan Eigeas, who accompanied Muircheartach on the expedition. It is one of the most remarkable poems of its age, not only in Gaelic, but in any language. It was translated more than forty years ago, and may be seen in the "Transactions" of the Royal Irish Academy; but it is not probable that even forty persons have ever read it, so little general interest has heretofore been taken in Gaelic literature or Irish history. For these reasons it cannot be uninteresting to give some extracts from it. It commences: "O Muircheartach, son of the valiant Niall, Thou hast taken the hostages of Inis Fail, Thou hast brought them all into Aileach, Into the stone-built palace of steeds! "Thou didst go forth from us with a thousand heroes Of the race of Eoghan of red weapons, To make the great Circuit of Ireland, O Muircheartach of the yellow hair! "The day thou didst set out from us eastwards Into the fair province of Connor,[7] Many were the tears down beauteous cheeks Among the fair-haired women of Aileach." Muircheartach carried off the King of Ulster; and, as the old chroniclers tell us, keeping his left hand to the sea, he fared to Dublin, then the greatest stronghold the Danes had, not only in Ireland but in the west of Europe. He did not have to fight the Danes of Dublin, although he had often fought them before, for their king, probably thinking that "discretion was the better part of valour," surrendered himself a prisoner. And here one of these inconsequential incidents is related, which no one but an ancient Irish poet would dream of mentioning. Muircheartach seems to have had no objection to make love to a Danish maiden, often as he had fought Danish men. Cormacan, the poet, tells us that they "Were a night at fair Ath-cliath [Dublin]; It was not a pleasure to the foreigners: There was a damsel in the strong fortress Whose soul the son of Niall was; She came forth until she was outside the walls, Although the night was constantly bad." Muircheartach then proceeded south-west from Dublin to Aillinn, and carried away the King of Leinster. He then made for Cashel, where the King of Munster lived. But Callachan, that was his name, showed fight, and Muircheartach's men threw off their leather cloaks and prepared to stand by him. However, seeing that things were beginning to look serious, the King of Munster yielded and was carried away prisoner with a golden fetter on him. The leader of the Circuit then turned northwards into Connacht, and carried away the king of that province. So he had the four provincial kings in his power, and also the Danish King of Dublin. But he did them neither hurt nor harm, for he seems to have been in a good humour all the time he was "on circuit"; and we are told by his poet laureate that on their halts the soldiers amused themselves in many ways, especially by music and dancing, and he says-- "Music we had on the plain and in our tents, Listening to its strains, we danced awhile; There, methinks, a heavy noise was made By the shaking of our hard cloaks." The next three verses are magnificent. They are full of dramatic power and naturalness. When the triumphant army, but triumphant without having shed a drop of blood, approach Aileach, a messenger is sent forward to announce its arrival:-- "From the green of Lochan-na-neach A page is despatched to Aileach To tell Duvdaire[8] of the black hair To send women to cut rushes. "'Rise up, O Duvdaire (_said the page_), There is a company coming to thy house; Attend every man of them As a monarch should be attended.' "'Tell me (_she said_) what company comes hither To the lordly Aileach Rigreann, Tell me, O fair page, That I may attend them?' "'The Kings of Erin in fetters (_he replies_), With Muircheartach, son of the warlike Niall.'" The kingly prisoners were all brought to Aileach, where they were feasted for five months; and the following list of their bill of fare will show that they lived well. Let the same poet tell it:-- "Ten score hogs--no small work, Ten score cows, two hundred oxen, Were slaughtered at festive Aileach For Muircheartach of the great fetters. "Three score vats of curds, Which banished the hungry look of the army, With a sufficiency of cheering mead, Were given by magnanimous Muircheartach." When the five kings were feasted--and it is to be hoped fattened--for five months, Muircheartach brought them to the chief king or emperor, Donacha, and gave them up to him. The following extraordinary dialogue, taken from the same poem, occurs between them. Muircheartach says: "'There are the noble kings for thee.' Said Muircheartach, the son of Niall; 'For thou, O Donacha, it is certain to me, Art the best man of the men of Erin.' "_Donacha._ "'Thou art a better man thyself, O King, With thee no one can vie; It is thou who didst take captive the noble kings, O Muircheartach, son of the great Niall.' "_Muircheartach._ "'Thou art better thyself, O Donacha the black haired, Than any man in our land; Whoever is in strong Tara It is he that is monarch of Erin.' "_Donacha._ "'Receive my blessing, nobly, O son of Niall Glundubh, bright, pure; May Tara be possessed by thee, O Prince of the bright Loch Foyle![9] "'May thy race possess Moy Breagh,[10] May they possess the white-sided Tara, May the hostages of the Gael be in thy house, O good son, O Muircheartach!'" It is sad to know that this extraordinary poem, with its uniqueness, its dramatic power, and its raciness of the soil and of the time, notwithstanding the fact that it was translated and published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy over forty years ago, is to-day hardly any more known than it was when it lay unheeded and unknown in the archaic Gaelic of the tenth century. It might, for all the notice that has been taken of it, as well not have been translated at all. No other people on earth would have treated such an archaic literary gem with such coldness and contempt. It would seem as if the Irish people were losing not only their soul but their brains. If such a poem were written in Finnish or in Ojibaway it could not have been more ignored than it has been by a people who call themselves intellectual. In this poem the same anachronism may be noticed that led Petrie so much astray about the Lia Fail having been in Tara in the tenth century. Muircheartach addresses Donacha as if he were living in Tara, although Tara had been abandoned four hundred years before, and was as waste and as desolate in the time of Donacha as it is to-day; the chief kings of his epoch and for centuries before it, lived usually in Westmeath or in Donegal. That Muircheartach Mac Neill, though a sort of Rory O'More of the tenth century, was a great man can hardly be doubted. He seems to have contemplated the entire overthrow of the pentarchy and the union of all the provinces under one sole king, namely, himself. He could hardly have been ignorant of what had occurred in England in the century previous--how Alfred had broken up the Saxon heptarchy and made himself practically sole king in England. If Muircheartach had succeeded in destroying the wretched system of provincial nationality, and had made the country a political unit, the subsequent history of Ireland would probably be very different from what it has been. But Muircheartach was killed by his old enemies the Danes, the year after he made his famous circuit. They also killed his father, Niall Glundubh, at the battle of Killmoshogue, near Dublin, in the year 917. Here is what the Four Masters say about him under the year 941[11]: "Muircheartach of the Leather Cloaks, Lord of Aileach, the Hector of the west of Europe in his time, was slain at Ardee (in Louth) by Blacaire, the son of Godfrey, Lord of the Foreigners, on the 26th of March. In lamentation of him it was said-- "'Vengeance and destruction Have descended on the race of Conn for ever; As Muircheartach does not live, alas! The country of the Gael will always be an orphan.'" "ROYAL AND SAINTLY CASHEL" The situation of three of the most historic and remarkable ecclesiastical establishments in Ireland, namely, Clonmacnois, Glendaloch, and Cashel, is very peculiar. The first is on a barren sandhill surrounded by the most strange and unique scenery in Ireland, consisting of almost illimitable meadows interspersed with bogs. The second is in one of the gloomiest and weirdest glens in the island; but Cashel is on a towering rock amid some of the richest land, not only in Ireland but in the world, and overlooking as goodly a country as human eye perhaps ever gazed on. Ancient Irish monks and churchmen must have been peculiarly gifted with an appreciation of the strange, unique, and beautiful in nature, or they would not have fixed their retreats in such peculiar places. If ancient Irish kings loved to place their strongholds on hills such as Tara, Aileach, Knock Aillinn, and Uisneach, ancient Irish ecclesiastics seemed not to have cared whether their churches were on hills or in hollows, provided they were somewhere that was strange, weird, or beautiful. The situation of Cashel is not only beautiful but superb. There is no other place of its kind in Ireland situated like it. Its situation is as peculiar as that of Glendaloch or Clonmacnois. It is, perhaps, the most imposing pile of ecclesiastical ruins in Europe. Mont St Michael in France can hardly compare with Cashel in commanding beauty of situation. One overlooks the chilly sea, but the other overlooks as warm, as fair, and as fertile a country as there is in the world. [Illustration: BUILDINGS ON THE ROCK OF CASHEL.] Cashel has inspired many poets; but, unfortunately, none of the great English masters of song has made it a theme; and it is strange that our own Moore, who has celebrated Glendaloch, the Vale of Avoca, and other famous places, never composed a lyric on Cashel. No other place in Ireland could have given him a grander theme to write poems of the kind in which he delighted, and in the composition of which he was such an acknowledged master. It is indeed strange that so few of those who may be called our minor poets have written about Cashel, and so seldom taken it as their theme. There exists, however, a short poem on Cashel of the class usually known as sonnets, and it is probable that neither Moore, nor any of the other great masters of song, could have written anything superior to it. It is by the late Sir Aubry de Vere. It first appeared in the _Dublin Penny Journal_ some sixty years ago; but it has so long been partially forgotten that it can hardly be out of place to reproduce it here: "Royal and saintly Cashel! I could gaze Upon the wreck of thy departed powers, Not in the dewy light of matin hours, Nor the meridian pomp of summer's blaze; But at the close of dim autumnal days When the sun's parting glance thro' slanting showers Sheds o'er thy rock-throned pediments and towers Such awful gleams as brighten on Decay's Prophetic cheek;--at such a time methinks There breathes from thy lone courts and voiceless aisles A melancholy moral, such as sinks On the worn traveller's heart amid the piles Of vast Persepolis on her mountain stand, Or Thebes half buried in the desert's sand." It is strange that Cashel has not inspired more poets; but it is stranger still that the once soulful people of Ireland would have allowed it to be defaced by any modern building erected on the rock on which stands its hallowed and ruined piles. Some gentleman named Scully has erected a brand new round tower almost in the very centre of the hoary monuments that are so sanctified by antiquity. The new tower is not shown on the annexed plate, because of the horrible picture it would make. It is strange that those living near Cashel did not prevent, if they could have done so, the marring of one of the most striking, beautiful and soul-inspiring ruins not only in Ireland but in Europe. It may be that Mr Scully thought that by erecting a new monument of antique type there would not be any incongruity manifested by it, and that by having his name written on it in the Irish language and in Irish characters he would atone for the error he committed. If he thought so, he made a great mistake, for _anything_ new, whether a round tower, a cross, or a brick-built grocery, would destroy all the antique charm of such noble ruins as those on the rock of Cashel. It may be willingly granted that it is a pity there are any ruins at all in the world, and that buildings cannot last new for ever. It should be remembered, however, that nothing can last always; and that when buildings become ruined by time, and, above all, when they have become historic like those on the rock of Cashel, and when they serve to show either the piety or the civilisation of those who have passed away, it becomes absolute barbarism to mar them and mock them by erecting _anything_ new in their immediate vicinity. A modern church on the Hill of Tara is bad enough, but a new building on the Rock of Cashel is little else than a profanation. Cashel was a seat of the kings of Munster from a time so far back in the dim past, that one almost shudders to think how long ago it is. Long before a Christian edifice crowned the Rock of Cashel, the barbaric dry stone fortress of some Munster pagan king certainly covered it; for very little work would have to be bestowed on it to render it an almost impregnable fortress in ancient times. Some have derived the word Cashel from _cios_, rent, and _ail_, a rock, making it to mean "rent rock"; for it is certain that when the kings of Munster lived in Cashel, it was the place where they received most of their tributes or rents; but the best modern Gaelic scholars, including Dr P. W. Joyce, author of that most useful and learned book, "Irish Names of Places," maintain that the word _Caiseal_ means simply a circular building of dry stones, for the name occurs in scores of places throughout Ireland; and such a building was no doubt on this rock in pre-Christian times. Cashel became a seat of Christian cult at a very early period, and there are good reasons to think that St Patrick founded a church there. The Rock of Cashel has for very many centuries been known as _Carraig Phadraig_, or Patrick's Rock. The first Christian Irishman whose writings have come down to us was Dubhthach, or, as the name would probably now be Anglicised, Duffy, Mac U Lugair. In his poem in praise of the prowess of Leinstermen, he says, that they "unyoked their horses on the ramparts of clerical Cashel." As this Duffy was a disciple of St Patrick's, and one of the first converts made by him in Ireland, we are forced to think that one of the first Christian churches ever erected in Ireland was the one erected in Cashel, as it appears to have been in existence when Duffy wrote his poem, which could hardly have been later than the middle of the sixth century. But no vestige of the church of St Patrick's time remains. It was probably a wooden building, and may have disappeared as far back as thirteen centuries ago. The oldest building on the Rock of Cashel is the round tower, not Mr Scully's incongruous edifice, but the original one, built probably in the ninth century. It is ninety feet high, and in a fairly good state of preservation. The cathedral is thought to have been built in 1169 by O'Brien, King of Munster, but there does not appear to be much of the building he erected to be seen now, for the ruined cathedral which exists cannot, from the style of its architecture, be older than the fourteenth century. We know from authentic history that one of the Fitzgeralds burned the cathedral in 1495, because he wanted to burn Archbishop Creagh, who, he thought, was in it; but it does not seem to be fully known whether the building was entirely or only partially destroyed by Fitzgerald. Divine service is said to have been celebrated in it so late as 1752, but it must have been in a semi-ruined condition even then. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF CORMAC'S CHAPEL.] But it is Cormac's Chapel that is the real architectural glory of the Rock of Cashel. It is by some wrongly attributed to the time of Cormac Mac Cullenann in the ninth century. It was built by Cormac Mac Carthy, a king of Minister, in the early part of the twelfth century. The principal proof that it was built at that time is found in the _Chronicon Scottorum_, in which it is stated that Cormac's Chapel at Cashel was consecrated in 1130. It is more than probable that the chapel was consecrated very soon after it was finished. It does not come within the scope of a work like this to enter into technical details on matters connected with architecture; but for chaste beauty, for elaborate carving, and solidity of structure, it may be said that Cormac's Chapel is one of the most wonderful ecclesiastical buildings of its age in Christendom. The practised eye of the trained architectural critic might notice some signs of decay about it, some effacement in the gorgeous carvings or designs with which almost every stone of the interior is more or less covered; but to the ordinary observer, the whole building, within and without, seems almost as perfect as it was the day its architect pronounced it finished. If Cormac's Chapel were only larger, it would be the noblest and most remarkable ecclesiastical building of its age in the British Isles, or probably in Europe. But, unfortunately, it is very small, the nave being only about thirty feet in length, and the choir only about eighteen. But what it lacks in size is made up in elaborate carving, chaste design, and solidity of structure. It looks as if it would last until the day of doom, and as if nothing but an earthquake could destroy it. Its very roof seems as strong and as perfect as its walls. It is of cut stone laid on with geometrical exactness, as sound and as solid as ever it was. However imposing the _coup d'oeil_ that "the rock-throned pediments and towers" of Cashel may present from without, it is an examination of this gem of antique architectural beauty that gives one the highest opinion of the artistic skill of those whose appreciation of the unique and beautiful led them to choose this towering rock as a fit place on which to raise edifices dedicated to the Deity. It is strange how it was that the ancient or rather the mediæval Irish, who knew how to erect such beautiful and enduring stone and mortar structures as the round towers, and such gems of architectural beauty as Cormac's Chapel is, and as Mellifont Abbey certainly was, should have housed their kings and chiefs in dwellings of wood, whose only defence was an earthen rampart surmounted by a palisade of stakes, or in a Cyclopean fortress of dry stones. It is absolutely certain that not a single castle built of stones and mortar existed in Ireland prior to the Anglo-French invasion. The Irish knew how to build round towers and churches, but seem never to have thought of building castles until their invaders taught them to build them. The thing looks very curious, but, on closer examination, it does not appear so strange, for it is now pretty well known that none of the Northern nations had castles before the eleventh century. The French seem to have been the first of the Northern nations that had castles. It is very doubtful if there was a castle in Great Britain before the Norman-French conquest. If there were castles in England or Scotland before the battle of Hastings, they were imitations of those on the Continent, and were probably designed and built by Continental architects and mechanics. Neither the Scandinavians nor Northern-Germans appear to have had castles until late in the middle ages, when they copied them from more Southern nations. But it was the Norman-French that brought the art of castle building to its greatest perfection. The ruins of Hoar Abbey, or St Mary's Abbey, as it is sometimes called, are situated close to the Rock, but not on it. It is believed to have been founded by the Benedictine order in the thirteenth century. Cashel is interesting in almost every way. There is a magnificent view from its ruin-crowned rock over some of the fairest and most fertile land in Ireland. Nor is a mountain view wanting, for the Galtees, the second highest range of mountains in Ireland, are visible, and a noble range they are, not rounded lumps like so many of the Wicklow Hills, but steep, sheer, cloud-piercing heights,--Alps in miniature. It is a pity that the town, or rather the city, of Cashel is not larger and more thriving. It may have been, like Glendaloch and Kildare, much larger in early Christian times than it is at present, but there does not seem to be any statement of the fact in any of the old Gaelic books, so far as is known to the writer. But whatever may have been the past history of the city of Cashel, no one in search of the picturesque, the unique, or the historic in Ireland should fail to see its Rock. It is said that when Scott visited Ireland he was more impressed by the Rock of Cashel than by anything else of its kind that he saw in the country. Of all the remains of Christian edifices in Ireland, Cashel, Glendaloch, and Clonmacnois are the most interesting. It is not only by the beauty or peculiarity of their situations that they impress us, for their histories go so far back into the past, when the combat of Christianity with Druidism was still going on, that we may regard them as the advance posts of a purer cult in the ground conquered from paganism. It would be hard to find in Europe three other places of a similar kind more antique, more interesting, or more worthy of being respected. What remains of their hallowed ruins should be guarded with jealous care, and saved from any further uprooting or profanation. LOCH ERNE Loch Erne and Loch Ree are not only the most beautiful, but the most historic of the great lakes of Ireland. Loch Neagh is larger than either of them, and Loch Dearg and Loch Corrib are probably nearly as large; but none of those three is as picturesque as either of the two first-mentioned lakes. The shores of Loch Dearg are bolder and more mountainous than those of either Loch Erne or Loch Ree, but Loch Dearg lacks the island-studded surface of the two latter, which is their great charm. Whether Loch Erne or Loch Ree is the more beautiful is not easy to decide. Both are as beautiful sheets of water as can be easily found, but both lack mountain scenery in the true sense of the phrase. There are some high lands on the lower part of Loch Erne, but they can hardly be called mountains. In number and variety of its islands, Loch Erne is only surpassed by that famous lake on the vast St Lawrence, known as the Thousand Isles. [Illustration: VIEW ON UPPER LOCH ERNE.] Loch Erne is certainly the most peculiar and also the longest lake in Ireland. From where it may be said to begin, near Belturbet in the County Cavan, to where it ceases to be a lake, and pours its waters into the sea through the river Erne, it is fully thirty-five miles long in a bird line. Its peculiarity consists in its extraordinary beginnings, and the number of its islands. Its beginnings are winding, mazy, and, on the map, almost untraceable water ways, that twist and turn in almost every direction through swamps and bogs, with no attraction save for the sportsman in pursuit of water fowl. As one approaches Enniskillen the glories of Loch Erne commence. There is nothing in the shape of mountains to be seen, but they are not missed; for such is the beauty of green round hills on both sides, and such the wondrous number and variety of the islands, that if there were mountains as lofty as the Alps in view, one could hardly spare time to look at them. The islands seem innumerable, and the shores are so indented with bays, and the lake itself so pierced by jutting headlands, that on sailing on Loch Erne it is often impossible to know an island from a peninsula, or a peninsula from an island. There is certainly no lake in Ireland or in Great Britain whose shores are so indented as are those of Loch Erne. The great charm of its shores and islands is their roundness and their greenness. They are not low or swampy, but high and swelling, forming scenes of quiet, and, it might be said, pastoral beauty, on which one could gaze for days and weeks without tiring. Variety of the most striking kind is one of the peculiarities of Loch Erne. It begins in tortuous, narrow, confused bog streams. It then assumes its fairest aspect, studded with innumerable islands, and sometimes so narrowed by far-entering promontories that it is in some places only a few hundred yards wide; but as it spreads northwards it gets wider and wider, until at last it is like a great inland sea, seven or eight miles wide. If finer views may be had of Loch Ree than of Loch Erne, in variety of scenery, number of islands, and startling contrasts, Loch Erne is without a rival among Irish lakes. If it and Loch Ree had the mountains of Killarney, Killarney might well tremble for the fame it enjoys of being the most beautiful of Irish lakes. Loch Erne is divided into upper and lower lakes. The clean and thriving town of Enniskillen is situated on the straight, or narrow river, that joins the two lakes; but it may be said that there are not two lakes, but only one, for Enniskillen is situated where the lake narrows into what might be called a river, but a river full of islands and bays, just as the upper lake is. Its multitude of islands is the charm of Loch Erne. The best authorities say that there are a hundred and nine islands in the lower lake, and ninety in the upper. It is a shame that a small steam-boat does not ply regularly, at least in summer time, from one end of this noble sheet of water to the other. If Loch Erne, with its marvellous variety and beauty of scenery, were in any other European country, there would be not one but half-a-dozen steam-boats on it. It is strange that the inhabitants of Enniskillen do not make an effort to establish a line of light draft-steamers on Loch Erne that would ply on both upper and lower lakes. A small steamer does sometimes, according to report, ply in the summer between Enniskillen and Beleek; but it does not appear that any steamer has ever navigated the waters of the upper lake, which is the more picturesque of the two. Nothing could more plainly show the backward condition of Ireland than the fact that there is no regular line of passenger steam-boats either on the Upper Shannon or on Loch Erne. Tourists, or those in search of picturesque localities, will never go to places where there is not proper accommodation for them. No matter how beautiful the scenery may be, it will not be visited by any large number of people unless they can have comforts in travelling and lodging. Switzerland attracts more rich people to visit it in summer-time than any other country in the world; but, with all its marvellous beauties of mountain, lake, and river, it would never attract the multitudes that go there every year if they did not find good travelling and good hotel accommodation. In Switzerland there are steam-boats on every lake and on every river where there are beautiful sights to be seen. There are lakes in it that are visited every year by crowds of tourists, who would find sights as beautiful on Loch Erne or on Loch Ree, and who would visit those lakes if they knew that they could find on their waters, or on their shores, the travelling comforts and the hotel comforts they find in Switzerland. It has to be frankly admitted that the reason why the beauties of Ireland are so comparatively little known is largely owing to the Irish themselves. Let them provide better accommodation for the travelling public, and Ireland will attract people who heretofore have never visited it. Loch Erne is, as has been already stated, thirty-five miles long, and is navigable, or could with very little expense be made navigable, for light draft steam-boats all that distance. If there is anything in the shape of an aquatic excursion that could be really delightful, it would be a sail on Loch Erne, especially on the narrow waters of the upper lake, where, on the windiest day, the most nervous or the most delicate would have nothing to fear from a rough sea, as they would on Loch Ree or on Loch Dearg, where the water is sometimes very far from smooth, even in summer. On Loch Erne, especially on the upper lake, change of scene takes place every minute. It is a continual surprise of green islands, flowery promontories, swelling hills, and tortuous passages, and is on a fine summer or autumn day something to enchant even the most indifferent to the beauties of nature. It is really deplorable that not alone the antiquities but the beauties of Ireland are not better known to people of other countries. They never can be known as they should be until better facilities for knowing them are to be had. Much has been done of late in providing better hotel accommodation, and much more will be done in the same line before long. Up to a few years ago it was impossible to find an hotel where any respectable person would like to stay in some of the most beautiful places and amid some of the grandest scenery of Donegal, Mayo, and Kerry; but there are now dozens of hotels in those localities where the most fastidious will find all the comforts they could reasonably expect. But the internal navigation of the country is fearfully neglected. The peculiar glory, or at least one of the principal attractions of Ireland in a scenic point of view, is its lakes and rivers. No other country perhaps in the world, of equal size, has such an abundance of lakes and rivers; but in no country, except it may be Finnland or Central Africa, are so few steam-boats to be seen on inland waters. It was right to move first in the direction of good hotel accommodation, but the next move ought to be to provide passenger steam-boats to ply on the great waters of such noble lakes as Loch Erne, Loch Corrib, Loch Ree, and Loch Dearg, and on all the waters of the Upper Shannon. It is to be hoped that the present sad want of accommodation on Irish lakes and rivers will be of short duration, for the people of Ireland seem to be awakening to the knowledge not only that they have a country, but that it is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. But Loch Erne has attractions besides its multitudinous islands, its jutting promontories, winding shores, and encircling hills. It has attractions for the antiquarian as well as for the lover of nature. One of the most ancient of Ireland's ancient round towers stands on Devinish Island, in the upper lake. It is one of the most perfect, if it is not one of the highest, round towers in the country. There would be no use in speculating on its age, for we are generally left completely in the dark as to the time of the erection of round towers. There are many allusions to them in Irish annals, but the time of the building of them is mentioned only in a few places. The first mention of Devinish by the Four Masters is in A.D. 721, telling of the death of one of its abbots. Devinish, spelled correctly, _Daimhinis_, means "ox island." A Christian church was erected on it at a very early date, probably during the lifetime of St Patrick, for we are told in ancient Annals that Molaise, who appears to have been the first abbot of the monastery that was there, died in 563. A Latin life of St Aeden says that Molaise "ruled many monks in an island in _Stagno Erne_, called Daimhinis by the Irish." It was plundered and burnt many times by the Danes, or some other Northmen, but almost devastated by them in 836, and at other times; it was burnt in 1157 and in 1360. It seems, not like Glendaloch, Monasterboice, and many other places that were abandoned at an early date, to have had a church or monastery on it until the beginning of the seventeenth century. The last mention of it by the Four Masters is under the year 1602. MELLIFONT AND MONASTERBOICE Of all the ancient remains in the County Louth connected with Christian antiquities, the ruins of Mellifont and Monasterboice are by far the most interesting and important. They are only two miles apart, and only about four from Drogheda. Starting from there both places can easily be seen in one day. There is not, even in the beautiful and picturesque county of Louth, a more beautiful location for a church or monastery than the glen in which all the remains of Mellifont is to be seen. It is not a mountain glen; there is no wildness or savageness about it; it is simply a depression in a rich lowland country, with luxuriant crops of grain and grass all round it, and a clear rushing river flowing through it,--supremely beautiful in summer-time and charming even in winter. In summer and autumn days when the hills around it are radiant with flowers of almost every hue, Mellifont even in its desolation is worth journeying a hundred miles to see. But in spite of the beauty of the glen in which the ruins are situated, and in spite of the beauty of what remains of the ruins themselves, no right-minded person, no matter what his creed or nationality may be, can look on Mellifont without being not only pained but shocked at the desolation that has been wrought upon it, and the traces of barbarism, hate, and vandalism that stare him in the face. Why such uprooting was done in Mellifont one can easily understand, but _how_ it was done is a puzzle. Here stood probably the largest and most beautiful of all Irish monasteries, but hardly a square foot of it remains overground, save the baptistry and chapter house. The walls have been levelled down to their very foundations. A building of such enormous size must have had high walls, but hardly a vestige of them remains. If they were blown up by gunpowder, the material of which they were made would remain, if it had not been carried away. Few traces of the walls are to be seen, consequently one must conclude that the greater part of the very stones of which they were built has been removed to some place of which no one now alive knows anything. A mill was built close by the river about eighty years ago, but it contains in its walls few, if any, of the stones of Mellifont. They had disappeared long before the erection of the mill. The spoilers of Mellifont were not satisfied by uprooting it, for they seem to have removed the greater part of the stones of which it was built. If Mellifont had not been so razed to the ground it would, even in its nakedness and desolation, be one of the most beautiful ecclesiastical ruins in Europe, and would attract a hundred visitors for the one it attracts now. Mellifont is one of the few Irish ruined abbeys that has a Latin instead of an Irish name. No one seems to have yet found out what its Irish name is, or if it ever had one. Our annalists almost invariably call it the "Drogheda Monastery." The Four Masters call it "Mellifont" only once. In the "Annals of Loch Cé" it is called the "Great Monastery," for there seems no doubt that it was the largest house of the kind in Ireland. The extent of the church itself can now be distinctly traced, thanks to the excavations that were made by the Board of Works some years ago. It was 180 feet in length, with proportional breadth; the entire area covered with buildings was fully an English acre, and there were evidently many outlying buildings connected with, or forming part of the monastery, hardly a trace of which now remains. The small chapel on a hill outside of the monastery is thought to have been founded by St Bernard at the time the monastery was built. There is also about the fourth of what was once a strong castle remaining. It was evidently built after the Anglo-French invasion, but by whom seems not to be definitely known. Mellifont was founded in 1142, and richly endowed by O'Carrol, Prince of Oriel. He was famed for his generosity and piety. The establishment was built for the Order of Cistercians. From the middle of the eleventh century to the middle of the twelfth was the time when most of the large abbeys and monasteries of Ireland were founded; and many of them, like that of Cong, were built in places that had long been occupied by smaller and plainer ecclesiastical structures like those remaining in Clonmacnois and Monasterboice. The _renaissance_ of Irish ecclesiastical architecture in the eleventh and twelfth centuries is, probably, attributable to two things--the cessation of Danish plundering and the conquest of England by the Norman-French. The Danish military power in Ireland got a blow at Clontarf from which it never recovered; after that battle there were comparatively few monasteries raided, and the Irish began to erect large and costly structures in place of the small and often severely plain churches of an earlier period. The Norman-French introduced into England what is called a Romanesque ecclesiastical architecture that was much superior to that of the Saxons; and it seems certain that the Irish copied, to a certain extent, the style of building adopted by the conquerors of the Saxons; but the invasion of Ireland by those same conquerors in the latter half of the twelfth century seems to have arrested the development, not only of architecture, but of almost everything that tended to benefit the country. Most of the great churches and abbeys of Ireland were erected before Strongbow set foot in it. It is strange and hard to be understood how it came to pass that, terrible as were the ravages of the Danes, they put no stop to the development of Art in Ireland. Monasteries would be raided and churches burned by them many times within a few years, but this seems not to have put a stop either to the establishment of monasteries or the building of churches. Lord Dunraven says, in his book on ancient Irish architecture, that "it is remarkable that the fearful struggle with the Norsemen, which lasted for over two hundred years, and ended in their final defeat in 1014 [at Clontarf] does not seem to have materially paralysed the energies of the Irish nation as regards their native arts." It is, however, certain that it was not until the military power of the Norseman was broken that ecclesiastical architecture became a real glory in Ireland. But the Anglo-French invasion seems to have put a stop, not only to the development of architecture, but of art of all kinds. It is a strange fact that the heathen Dane should have been less of a curse to Irish art than the Christian Englishman. The first mention of Mellifont by the Four Masters occurs under the year 1152, when a great synod of three thousand ecclesiastics was held there. It was in Mellifont that the woman whose crime is supposed to have been the cause of the English invasion of Ireland died in the year 1193. This was Dearvorgil, the faithless wife of O'Ruarc, whom Moore has called "falsest of women." It is, however, now thought by most of those who have studied Irish history closely that Dermott MacMorrough's relations with this lady had nothing whatever to do with his banishment. They point out the fact that it was about ten years after Dearvorgil had been restored to her people that MacMorrough was banished, and maintain that the true cause of his banishment was in order to re-impose the tribute on the province of Leinster, the Danes being no longer able to assist the Leinstermen as they were wont to do. The other provincial rulers wanted to have the King of Leinster put out of the way, for, as he was a warlike man, they knew he would fight to the bitter end for the protection of his province. If this version of the matter is true, it goes far to free Dermott MacMorrough from the odium that rests on his memory. Monasterboice is one of the oldest places connected with Christianity in Ireland. Its foundation may have been as old as the time of St Patrick, for Buite, from whom it takes its name, and by whom it probably was founded, died in the year 524. There seems good reason to believe that "Buite" is the original form of the now very plentiful name "Boyd," but how Monaster Buite got twisted into Monasterboice is a mystery. The situation of this ancient place is not nearly so picturesque as that of Mellifont. There is no rushing river and no deep glen. Still the situation is good, and the country around very fine, and, like most parts of Louth, well cultivated. The peculiar glories of Monasterboice are its crosses and its round tower. There are three crosses, two in good preservation, but one was so broken that it had to be patched or fastened into solid stone work. It is most likely that it was purposely destroyed, for barbarians have done their best to cut down the great cross that stands in the same enclosure--the finest of all ancient Irish crosses. It must have taken days for a strong man with a heavy sledge-hammer to make such a deep indentation in the hard stone of which the cross is made. It was its extreme hardness that saved it from destruction and defacement. But hard as the stone of those crosses may be, it cannot resist the action of the elements, for the sculptures with which they are covered are now so effaced by time and weather, that they seem little more than masses of unintelligible tracings; but when those noble crosses were fresh from their makers' hands they must have been magnificent specimens of early Irish art. The round tower of Monasterboice is one of the finest in Ireland. Its top has been broken off by lightning, but what remains of it is 110 feet in height. It must have been at least 130 feet high when perfect, which would make it one of the highest of the round towers of Ireland. The mason work is of the very best kind, although the stones are uncut, and were evidently found in the immediate neighbourhood of the tower. There is a peculiarity about this tower which is not to be seen in any other structure of the same kind--it is not quite perpendicular. The author of the great book on ancient Irish architecture, already referred to, says that "it leans to one side on the north-west, and has a very peculiar curve. Where the curve commences a distinct change of masonry is visible. When the tower was built to this height the foundation began to settle down, and when this was perceived the builders very skilfully carried up the building in a nearly vertical line, so as to counteract the tendency to lean and to preserve the centre of gravity." It seems a pity that the Board of Works does not repair this splendid structure, and put a new top of antique model on it; it would be, if perfect, the grandest of Irish round towers. Monasterboice became a ruin many centuries before Mellifont; the latter continued to be a Catholic religious establishment down to the time of Elizabeth, but Monasterboice seems to have been abandoned in the twelfth or thirteenth century. The last notice of it, or any one connected with it, by the Four Masters, is under the year 1122, when they record the death of Fergna, "a wise priest." What caused this famous establishment to be abandoned, or at least to cease to be mentioned in Irish annals at such an early period, seems enveloped in a good deal of mystery. It was plundered more than once by the Danes, and it may be that any wooden buildings it contained were burnt by them and never re-erected, for, like Clonmacnois, what remains of its two churches shows them to have been so small that they could not accommodate any large number of persons. Being so near Mellifont may also have led to its abandonment when the latter place became one of the greatest religious houses in Ireland. If Monasterboice was not so large as Mellifont, its abbots and professors seem to have been greater scholars and harder workers than those of the great monastery. Flann of Monasterboice was one of the most noted literary men of ancient, or rather of mediæval, Ireland, for he flourished in the eleventh century. He is considered one of the most truthful and correct of Irish annalists, and has left behind him important works that have been preserved to the present day. The country in the vicinity of Mellifont and Monasterboice is not only very fair to look on, but highly interesting in an archæological point of view. The town of Drogheda, the nearest place to the interesting ruins treated of in this article, is the only place in their vicinity where hotel accommodation can be found. It is full of historic interest and curious remains of the past. But to the antiquarian, to one who wants to see monuments as old as the Pyramids of Egypt, the _Brogha na Bóinne_, or burghs of the Boyne, should be a great attraction. They are the most colossal things of the kind known to exist in any part of Europe. One is known by the name of New Grange, and the other is called Dowth. Both places are on the Boyne, and only a few miles west of Drogheda. They are enormous, partially underground caverns, lined and roofed with great flag-stones. They are entirely pre-historic, and are supposed to have been used as places in which to deposit the ashes of the dead; but their real use can hardly be more than guessed at. It is generally thought by archæologists that they were erected by the Tuatha de Danaans, who occupied Ireland before the Milesians; but authentic history is silent about these gigantic structures. More than a dozen of such structures were discovered some years ago in the Sleeve na Caillighe Hills, near Oldcastle, in the County Meath. They are just like those in New Grange and Dowth, but not nearly so large. The flat stones that form the linings of those curious caverns or tumuli are covered with incised and generally semi-circular markings. They bear all the appearance of being writing of some kind, but no clue to its interpretation has yet been discovered. These markings were certainly not made for fun; neither could they have been made for ornament, for they are _not_ ornamental. There are thousands of them, counting what are in the tumuli on the banks of the Boyne and in the same kind of places in the hills near Oldcastle. It is a pity that no one competent for it has ever tried to decipher this curious writing, for writing of some kind it certainly is. When the cuniform inscriptions on the bricks of Assyria have been interpreted, it is strange that no one has tried to find out the meaning of the writing on the stones of these Irish tumuli. TRIM CASTLE Of all the buildings for defensive purposes that the Anglo-Normans, or, more correctly, the Anglo-French, ever raised in Ireland, the castle of Trim is the largest and most imposing. It has stood many a siege, and it seems that one wing of it has entirely disappeared; but what remains of it still is a gigantic structure. No other Anglo-French keep in Ireland had such an extensive _enceinte_. There cannot be much less than three acres of enclosed ground round it. The outworks have been, to a large extent, demolished, but enough of them remains to show that when the castle was in repair, when its outward defences were perfect, and before the invention of gunpowder, it could have defied the largest army that ever Irish king or chieftain led. The place chosen for the site of this castle is perfectly flat. It is not on a hill. Its builder seems to have known that its six feet thick walls would be impregnable to any army that could be brought against it, whether it was on a hill or in a hollow. Its situation is very fine on the banks of the Boyne, and in the centre of a country considered by many to be the richest land in Ireland. [Illustration: TRIM CASTLE.] Never did any people bring the art of castle-building to such perfection as did the Anglo-French; and, strange as it may appear, it was not in England they raised their finest castles, but in Wales and in Ireland. They must have known almost immediately after the battle of Hastings that no serious resistance would ever be made against them in England, but they were not so sure about Ireland and Wales; there do not seem, therefore, to have been any castles erected by them in England during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as fine as those they erected in those parts of their dominions like Ireland and Wales, that were not fully conquered. Conway and Caernarvon Castles in Wales, and Trim Castle in Ireland, are thought to be the finest they ever erected. With all the architectural skill the Greeks and Romans possessed, it is very doubtful if they understood the art of castle building as well as the Norman-French did. The latter built buildings that would last almost as long as the earth itself. That part of the walls of Trim Castle that yet remains is as sound as it was the day it was built; and if let alone and not overturned by an earthquake it will be as sound a thousand years hence as it is to-day. [Illustration: TRIM CASTLE.] Trim Castle was built towards the close of the twelfth century by Hugo de Lacy, the greatest castle builder ever the Anglo-French produced. He built the great castle at Clonmacnois, which has been already described. He built another fine one in Carlow, and was building the castle of Durrow, in the King's County, when a young Irishman, who had evidently come prepared to kill him, struck off his head with a blow of an axe as he was stooping down to examine the work. If Hugo de Lacy had not been killed, he would certainly have built many more castles, not only in the English Pale, but throughout Ireland. But Trim Castle was the finest structure of its kind that he ever raised. Lewis' Irish Topography says that the Castle of Trim was built in 1220. This is just such a mistake as one would expect to find in books like it, Hall's, and others of their kind, which were written by persons almost wholly unacquainted with the history of the country about which they wrote, and entirely unacquainted with its language and native literature. Trim Castle must have been built before 1186, for Hugo de Lacy was killed in that year. The same extraordinary publication says that Trim was burned by Connor O'Melaghlin in 1108, and that over two hundred people were burned in the monastery. It would be interesting to know where Lewis got his information about this matter. He did not get it from any authentic source, for the annals of the Four Masters, the annals of Clonmacnois, the annals of Inisfallan, the annals of Ulster, and the _Chronicon Scottorum_ are all silent about it. Hugo de Lacy was undoubtedly the greatest of the Anglo-French invaders of Ireland. Although he was killed, he was not killed for any other cause except that of his having been an invader; for in spite of his castle-building propensities, he was in no way prejudiced against the native Irish. This is proved by his having married a daughter of Roderick O'Connor, King of Connacht, and nominally, but only nominally, King of Ireland. For having done so, he was recalled from the nominal government of Ireland with which he had been entrusted by Henry the Second; but Henry, probably finding that he could not get anyone else so well fitted for the office, allowed him to retain it. But Hugo appears to have again given offence to Henry on account of his leniency to the Irish lords who were under him, and Prince John, who was afterwards King, was sent to Ireland by Henry because Hugo did not exact any tribute from the Irish. We are not told how he got out of this scrape, and he was killed the next year. He was buried in Bective Abbey, but his body was afterwards removed to Dublin. Hugo de Lacy seems to have been as friendly to the Irish as it was possible for one in his position to be, and it is almost certain that he cherished the hope of bringing the whole island under his rule and making himself King. It was evidently his ambition, of which Henry appears to have been fully aware, that caused the trouble between him and his master. That the Irish petty kings, and the Irish people of the time, would have accepted the rule of a stranger who had proved himself a strong man, is very probable, for the country was in the very deepest slough of political confusion and anarchy. Never, during the worst times of Danish plundering, had Ireland been in such a state of political chaos as she was in the twelfth century. The usurpation of the chief kingship by Brian Boramha was followed by a century and a half of revolution caused by those who aspired to be chief kings. O'Brians, O'Connors, O'Lochlainns, Mac Murroughs, all aspirants for the monarchy, made the island, as the Four Masters so graphically put it, "a shaking sod," and the Irish would have accepted the rule of anyone who would have saved them from themselves. It was the state of political chaos into which the country had fallen that accounts for the slight resistance that Strongbow met in Ireland. The Northmen were met by the sword, and fought for over two hundred years, until they were, if not entirely banished, at least reduced to political powerlessness; but a mere handful of invaders, whose military prowess was in no way superior to that of the Northmen, became, _de facto_, the rulers of the country in a few years after they had landed. It is more than probable that if Hugo de Lacy had lived, he would have risked a war with Henry, and have tried to make himself King of Ireland; and it is more than probable that the Irish would have willingly accepted his rule. If de Lacy's gigantic castle had never been built in Trim, it would still be an historic place. According to the most authentic annals, St Patrick founded a church there as early as 432, and Bishop Ere is the first name that is mentioned in connection with it after that of St Patrick. Trim continued to be an important place on account of its castle and its Church of St Mary's, until the time of Cromwell. It was strongly garrisoned by the Royalists; but after hearing of the taking of Drogheda, and the shocking massacre committed there, the garrison surrendered. Only one gable of the old Church of St Mary's remains. Judging by the great height of the part that remains, the Church must have been a very large one. The exact date of the building of the church or monastery to which the still-standing tower or steeple belonged, is not known with certainty, but it could not have formed part of the original one erected in the time of St Patrick. The most celebrated place in the immediate vicinity of Trim is Dangan Castle, where the Duke of Wellington is said by some to have been born. When Dangan passed out of the Duke's family, it was inhabited by a person who let it go partially to ruin. It was burned early in the present century, and is now an unsightly ruin. It is curious that there should be such doubt about the birth-place of one who made such a figure in the world as Wellington. Some say he was born in Dangan Castle; some say he was born in Dublin; but the people of Trim maintain that he was born in their town. The last time the writer was in Trim he was shown the house in which the Duke was said to have been born. He was told by a truthful and respectable resident of Trim that the Duke's mother had started from Dangan on her way to Dublin so that she might have the best medical aid during her expected accouchement, but having been taken ill when she got as far as Trim, she took lodgings in the town, and that it was there the Duke of Wellington was born. The exact truth about the matter will probably never be known. A curious story is told in Trim about the early boyhood of Wellington. It is said that he clomb the still standing tower or gable of the old church so high that he found it impossible to get down, and was in a position of great danger. All the ropes and ladders in the town were brought out, but it was found impossible to get him down. A rough tower like that at Trim might be clomb easily enough, but it might not be so easy to get down. The afterwards victor of Waterloo was told that he could not be saved, and that, if he had any will to make, to make it without delay. He is said to have taken the announcement very coolly, and to have willed his tops, balls, and other playthings to the boys that were his favourites, and not to have shed a tear or shown any fear whatever. After having been many hours in his dangerous and far from comfortable situation, he was at length, and with great difficulty, rescued. The country round Trim is most interesting and full of ruined fanes. The church of Trim was believed to contain an image or picture of the Virgin, at which we are told many and extraordinary miracles were performed. Trim was a sort of Irish Lourdes in the middle ages, to which the sick and suffering used to go in multitudes. There was also the Abbey of Newtown, the ruins of which still stand on the banks of the Boyne close by Trim. It was founded in the year 1206 by Simon Rochefort, Bishop of Meath, the first Englishman that is known to have had so high an ecclesiastical position in Ireland after the invasion. The ruins of Bective Abbey are only a few miles up the river from Trim, in a beautiful situation on the banks of the "clear, bright Boyne," as the old Gaelic poets loved to call it. Bective was founded for the Cistercian order by O'Melachlinn, King of Meath, about the middle of the twelfth century. It is a beautiful ruin, and in a beautiful locality. There is, perhaps, no part of Ireland more interesting to the antiquarian, the historian, or the lover of rich landscapes than the valley of the Boyne. That little stream is the most historic waterway in Ireland. Its name occurs oftener in Irish history and legend than that of any other river. On its banks are to be seen the pre-historic tumuli of New Grange and Dowth, the oldest monuments of pre-historic civilisation that have yet been discovered on Irish soil. The Boyne may be said to be the river of Tara, for it flows almost at the foot of that hill so celebrated in Irish history, legend, and song. CONG ABBEY It is doubtful if there is in Ireland--there certainly is not in the province of Connacht--a more interesting ruin than Cong Abbey. Its situation is beautiful, between two great lakes, with a background of some of the wildest and ruggedest mountains in Ireland. It would be hard to conceive of a place more suited for a life of religious meditation than this venerable pile, into which he who is called Ireland's last chief king retired to bewail his sins and lament for the power that his own pusillanimity and carelessness had allowed to pass away from him and his family for ever. If Roderick O'Connor was the last of Ireland's monarchs, he was also one of her worst. History hardly tells of a good act of his except the endowment of the Abbey of Cong; and the greater the light is that is thrown on the history of Ireland by the translation of her ancient annals, the weaker and more imbecile the character of Roderick appears, and the more just and merited that which Moore says of him in his history of Ireland:--"The only feeling the name [of Roderick] awakens is that of pity for the doomed country which at such a crisis of its fortunes, when honour, safety, independence, and national existence were all at stake, was cursed for the crowning of its evil destiny with a ruler and leader so entirely unworthy of his high calling." If the Anglo-French invasion of Ireland had occurred in the reign of his brave and warlike father, Turloch, one of the greatest of those who claimed the chief sovereignty of Ireland, the invaders would almost certainly have been all killed within a month after they landed, and the subsequent history of Ireland would probably be very different from what it has been. Irish annals tell us that the first religious establishment in Cong was founded by St Fechin in the year 624; but John O'Donovan says in a note in his translation of the Four Masters that Roderick O'Connor founded and endowed the Abbey of Cong. That a religious house of some kind was founded in it by St Fechin there can be no doubt at all, for up to a recent period it was known as Cunga Fechin, or Cong of Fechin. O'Donovan may have meant that Roderick O'Connor endowed and founded the abbey, the remains of which exist at present, for not a vestige of the original building founded by St Fechin remains. It was, like most of the very early churches and religious houses of ancient Ireland, built entirely of wood, and has consequently long ago disappeared. Cong was originally a bishopric. There were five bishoprics in the province of Connacht--namely, Tuam, Killala, Clonfert, Ardcharne, and Cong. The Synod that settled the question of the bishoprics of Connacht met at Rathbrassil, in what is now the Queen's County, in 1010. The abbey, the remains of which still exist, was founded in 1128 by the Augustinians, during the reign of Roderick O'Connor's heroic father, Turloch. Roderick subsequently endowed it, and ended his days in it. It is an interesting and suggestive fact that most of the great religious establishments of Ireland were not only founded but built in the material that now remains of them before the Anglo-French invasion, showing clearly that that event put a stop to almost everything that could be called progress. The invaders, although professing the same faith as the invaded, were much more anxious to build castles than churches. There was hardly a castle in Ireland before the time of Strongbow. This was not caused by ignorance of the art of building among the Irish, for some of the round towers and churches erected long before the time of Strongbow are as perfect specimens of architecture as were erected in any country at the same period. The native Irish king, or chief, was contented with a wooden house surrounded by an embankment, capped with a palisade of wood; but the Norman raised mighty edifices of stone to protect him from the wrath of those he had robbed. Cong Abbey is a large building nearly 150 feet in length. Few of the ancient churches of Ireland are any longer, and many of them are not nearly so long. It would be a mistake to say that the ruins at Cong are in a good state of preservation, for traces of violence and vandalism are apparent almost everywhere on them. The whole place has a terribly dilapidated look. It has been said that only for ivy and the Guinnesses the Abbey of Cong would have tumbled down long ago. It is true that ivy has prevented great masses of masonry from falling; and it is true that the late Sir Benjamin Guinness did a good deal of mending on the old walls. But it was before his time, when religious intolerance was worse than it is at present, that Cong Abbey was mutilated and defaced. It is sad to know that there is hardly an old religious edifice in Ireland that has not suffered from sectarian animosity. The ruins of Mellifont, near Drogheda, have been torn up from their foundations, so that hardly a trace of that once magnificent abbey now remains except the crypts and the vast walls and fosses by which it was surrounded. Ruthless vandals tried their best with sledges and hammers to overthrow the great cross of Monasterboice in Louth, but the stone of which it consists was too hard for them, for they only succeeded in mutilating what they could not destroy. In its present dilapidated condition it is hardly possible to form a correct idea of what Cong Abbey was in the days of its splendour. It is almost impossible, also, to form an exact idea of its general plan, for many comparatively modern additions have evidently been made to it. Its having been used as a burying place within recent times has, as the same thing has done at Clonmacnois, sadly interfered with its picturesqueness. But, as at Mellifont, "enough of its glory remains" to show that it must have been a building of exquisite beauty. Some of its floral capitals carved on limestone are as fine specimens of the carver's art as can be found anywhere in the world. Both Sir William Wilde and Doctor Petrie agree in this. There was probably no abbey in Ireland that contained more beautiful specimens of the carver's art than Cong. Vast numbers of its sculptured stones have been defaced by vandalism or carried away to build walls or out-houses. It is not easy to know what was the exact extent of the gardens or mensal grounds of the abbey, for the walls that enclosed them cannot be fully traced, and are not intact like the walls around the Abbey of Boyle in the County Roscommon. The Abbey of Cong seems to have been the great depository for the precious things of the province of Connacht. The Order of Augustinians, to whom it belonged, was very rich, and had vast possessions in the province, and it would seem that no abbey in it was as rich as that of Cong. In it were kept deeds, books, records, and many other precious things, all of which have disappeared save the marvellously beautiful cross now to be seen in the Dublin Museum, and which artists and connoisseurs have pronounced to be "the finest piece of metal work of its age to be found in Europe." It is known from the Gaelic inscription on the Cross of Cong that it was made in Roscommon, for the name of the maker is identified with that town. The fact of such a priceless relic and such a gem of art having been kept in the Abbey of Cong shows that it was considered to be the most important and most secure place in the province. The Cross of Cong was supposed to be formed from part of the real cross. The Irish inscription on it is perfectly legible, and can be easily understood by any one who knows the modern language. The name of the maker is on it, and also that of Turloch O'Connor, who claimed to be chief King of Ireland, and for whom it was made in the year 1123. The Abbey of Cong was never plundered by the Danes; if it was, no record of its having been plundered is to be found in the Annals of the Four Masters, or in the Annals of Loch Key. This fact of Cong not having suffered from the Danes would seem to show that it did not contain much wealth during the ninth and tenth centuries, when the maraudings of the Norsemen were at their worst. If the Abbey of Cong was worth plundering, it is hard to conceive how it could have been spared by them. It is probable that the church founded there by St Fechin was very small, and that the establishment became important only when the O'Connor family rose to prominence in the province, for it was richly endowed by Turloch and by Roderick O'Connor, both of whom claimed to be chief kings of Ireland. [Illustration: CROSS OF CONG.] None of our ancient seats of piety and learning will repay a visit better than Cong. In it and around it there is a great deal to interest the antiquarian, the tourist, and the lover of Nature. The neck of land that lies between Loch Corrib and Loch Mask is one of the most curious, varied, and beautiful spots in Ireland. It has rushing, limpid rivers above, and boiling, roaring ones below. The whole country in the vicinity of Cong seems to be honeycombed by subterranean waters. There is probably as much running water underground and overground in the narrow strip of country between Loch Corrib and Loch Mask as would turn all the grist mills in Ireland, but unfortunately there is hardly a wheel moved by it. There is much in the vicinity of Cong, outside of its glorious old abbey, to interest both the antiquarian and the tourist. It was close to it that the greatest battle history records as having been fought on Irish soil took place--namely, that of Moy Tuireadh, between the Firbolgs and the Tuatha de Danaans, a full account of which will be found in Sir William Wilde's charming book "Loch Corrib," which should be read by every one who desires to visit Cong or its vicinity. Cong is very nearly on the road to Connemara, which, with the exception of parts of Donegal, is the wildest, most savage, and most extraordinary part of Ireland. Those who want to see all the wildness of Connemara, its chaotic mountains, its innumerable lakes, far-entering bays, and illimitable bogs, should drive from Cong, or from Oughterard to Clifden, and go from there to Galway by rail. Whoever travels that route will see some of the most charming as well as some of the most terrific scenery in Ireland. He will see more lakes than can be found on an area of equal size in any part of the known world. If the visit is made when the heath is in full bloom, he will have such a world of flowers to feast his eyes on as can hardly be seen anywhere else, not even in Ireland. Loch Corrib, at the head of which Cong is situated, is one of the great lakes of Ireland. The traveller going to Cong sails up it from Galway. There is not very much of antiquarian interest on its shores or on its islands, save the ruins of _Caisleán na Ceirce_, or the Hen's Castle. They are on a promontory on the lake. It is not a very old building, being probably of the fourteenth century, and was built, it is supposed, by one of the O'Flaherties. There are the ruins of what antiquarians think are those of one of the oldest churches ever erected in Ireland, on the bleak island of Incha-goile. There are also the ruins of another church on the same island; but judging from the extremely archaic architecture of the one first mentioned, it must be many centuries older than the other. Both churches must have been very small. But although the lower part of Loch Corrib cannot boast of much scenic beauty, its upper part is magnificent. It thrusts its sinuous arms up into the wildest recesses of the Joyce Country, and among mountains of fantastic forms. The Joyce Country, _Duthaigh Sheoghach_ in Gaelic, has ever been remarkable for the gigantic size of its men. There have been scores of Joyces who were from six feet four to six feet six in height, and stout in proportion. There are still some of its men of immense size. It is said that not so very long ago a giant Joyce was going home from a fair or market, and that a faction of ten men who were not on perfectly friendly terms with him, followed him to beat or perhaps kill him. Joyce had no weapons or means of defence of any kind, so he unyoked the horse from the cart or dray on which he was riding, tore it to pieces, armed himself with one of its shafts as a "shillelagh," and awaited his enemies; but they seem not to have liked being hit with the shaft of a cart and retreated. Those who like can believe or not believe this story. It is given as the writer heard it from a very respectable gentleman who knew Joyce. LOCH DERG This is another of the great lakes of Ireland. It is over twenty miles long and between two and three miles in average breadth. It is really curious that a small island like Ireland should have so many immense lakes in it. There is, probably, no other country in the world of the same size--there is certainly no island of the same size--on which so much fresh water is to be found. It would seem as if nature intended Ireland for a continent, and not for an island, by giving it lakes so entirely disproportioned to its size. Loch Derg, anciently called Deirgdheirc, and at present pronounced Dharrig by the peasantry, would be the most beautiful of all the great lakes of Ireland if its islands were as numerous as those of Loch Erne, or even of Loch Ree. It has the defect that almost all lakes have whose shores are mountainous or hilly. Want of islands is the great drawback to the picturesqueness of most of the Scotch lakes and those of the north of England. A few islands do not add much to the beauty of a lake. There must be plenty of them to produce full effect. The few islands in Loch Lomond, because they are so few, hardly add to its beauty. The islands in Loch Derg are very few, and the most picturesque of them are so near the shore that they seem part of it to the voyager on the lake. There is one very large island, Illaunmore--the great island, as its name signifies--but it does not add very much to the scenic attractions. The charms of Loch Derg are its semi-mountainous shores. It would be incorrect to call the bold hills on either side of the lake mountains, for very few of them reach an altitude of more than a thousand feet; but they are most graceful in their outlines, and are, for the most part, covered with luxuriant grass up to their very summits. The lake is by no means straight; its shores are tortuous and full of indentations, so that there is a good deal of change of scene when sailing on it. But if the tourist or traveller who wishes to sail on Loch Derg is not what is usually called a "good sailor," he should consult the barometer before he goes on to this great lake, for sometimes, when the south-west wind sweeps up its twenty or twenty-five miles of water, a sea almost worthy of the Channel will sometimes rise in a very short time. Many a sea-sick passenger used to be seen in the good times long ago on Loch Derg, when large side-wheel passenger boats used to run regularly between Athlone and Killaloe. Those boats were large enough to carry over a hundred passengers without being in the least crowded, and the cabins were large enough to accommodate fifty people at dinner. A trip from Athlone to Killaloe on a fast boat would, on a fine summer day, be one of the most enjoyable things in the way of an excursion by water that can be imagined. It is over thirty years since the writer experienced the pleasure of it, and the remembrance of its enjoyableness haunts him still. The shores of Loch Derg are much wilder than the shores of Loch Erne or Loch Ree. Very few houses, and nothing that could be called a town, can be seen through the whole twenty-five miles of the lake. The hills that bound it both on the Munster and on the Connacht sides are almost altogether grass land, and very little cultivation is therefore to be seen. But the bold, winding shores and the green hills form a landscape of a very striking kind, and there are many who maintain that the scenery of Loch Derg is finer than that of Loch Ree. Both lakes are magnificent sheets of water, and environed with a fair and goodly country; and were they anywhere else but in Ireland, their waters would be the highway for dozens of steamers, while at present they are almost deserted, and may be said to be "As lone and silent As the great waters of some desert land." Loch Derg is full of interest for the antiquarian, especially its lower part. One of the most ancient and important ecclesiastical establishments of ancient Ireland, Iniscealtra, the island of the churches, is on its western shore, close to the land, separated from it only by about a quarter of a mile of water. Iniscealtra was one of the most important places of its kind in the south of Ireland. It was founded by St Cainin certainly not later than the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century, for he died in 653. John O'Donovan in his unpublished letters says that he is represented in ancient Irish literature as "A very holy man, a despiser of the world, and an inexorable chastiser of the flesh. He is said to have been author of commentaries on the Psalms. He was buried in Iniscealtra." There is a fine round tower in Iniscealtra which is traditionally supposed to have been built by St Senanus. It is eighty feet in height, and in fairly good preservation, but it wants the top. The ruins of St Cainin's Church show it to have been a small building. There are the ruins of two other churches on the island, one called St Mary's and the other St Michael's. The establishments on Iniscealtra are of very great antiquity. It is first mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters under the year 548, recording the death of St Colam in the island. The oldest church in it was dedicated to St Cainin, who was evidently the founder of the place, and the first who sought it as a retreat. He is said to have lived for a long time in a solitary cell, until the fame for holiness he acquired brought an immense number of disciples, for whom he erected a noble monastery in the island, which afterwards became famous. The ruins of St Cainin's Church prove that it must have been a very beautiful building. It was thought by Petrie and other antiquarians that it and the very beautiful one of Killaloe were erected during the short time in the tenth and eleventh centuries when Brian Boramha and Malachy the Second, by their victories over the Danes, gave the country some rest from the plunderings of those marauders. At the extreme lower end of Loch Derg is the small but ancient town of Killaloe. Its real name is Cill Dalua, it was called after an ecclesiastic of the name of Dalua, sometimes written Malua, who lived in the sixth century. He placed his disciple, Flannan, over the church. He was made Bishop of Killaloe in the seventh century. The church is known generally as St Flannan's. The Earl of Dunraven, speaking of the beauty of the ruins of this church and the buildings attached to it, says, "These ancient buildings are on a wooded hill which slopes in a gentle incline down to the brink of the Shannon. The cathedral and small stone-roofed church stand side by side, and the walls of the latter are thickly covered with ivy. Nothing can be more impressive than the aspect of this venerable and simple building, surrounded by majestic trees, and hidden in deep shadows of thick foliage. A solemn mystery seems to envelop its ancient walls, and the silence is only broken by the sound of the river that rolls its great volume of water along the base of the hill on which it stands." But the most historic and probably the most interesting thing about Killaloe is the site of King Brian's palace of Kincora, a place so famed in history and song. Perhaps it will be better to let such a famous man on Irish history and archæology as O'Donovan tell about Kincora. He says in his unpublished letters while on the Ordnance Survey: "On the summit of the hill opposite the bridge of Killaloe stood Brian Boramha's palace of Kincora, but not a trace of it is now visible. It must have extended from the verge of the hill over the Shannon, to where the present Roman Catholic chapel stands. I fear that it will be impracticable to show its site on the Ordnance map, as no field works are visible. Of the history of the palace of Kincora little or nothing is known, but from the few references to it we occasionally find, we may safely infer that it was first erected by Brian, _Imperator Scottorum_, and that it was not more than two centuries inhabited by his successors. Kincora was demolished in 1088 by Donnell MacLachlin, king of Aileach (Ulster), and we are told that he took 160 hostages consisting of Danes and Irish." Kincora must have been rebuilt after it was demolished by MacLachlin, for we are told in the Annals of the Four Masters that in 1107 Kincora and Cashel were burned by lightning, and sixty vats of metheglin and beer were destroyed; but it must have been again rebuilt, for the same annals say that in 1118 Turloch O'Connor (King of Connacht), at the head of a great army of Connachtmen, burned Kincora and hurled it, both stones and timber, into the Shannon. Kincora was, like all dwelling-places in those times, built almost entirely of wood; and it is hardly to be wondered at that after having been burned so often by man and by the elements, no vestige of it should remain. It has been completely wiped out. A description of Kincora would hardly be complete without giving MacLiag's Lament for it, translated by Clarence Mongan. MacLiag was chief poet and secretary to Brian Boramha. The poem is little known even in Ireland; to the English reader it will be absolutely new. The writer gives two prime reasons for reproducing it; one, because it is such a very fine poem; and the other, because it has heretofore never been correctly given. MACLIAG'S LAMENT FOR KINCORA. "Where, oh Kincora, is Brian the Great? And where is the beauty that once was thine? Oh where are the princes and nobles that sate At the feasts in thy halls and drank the red wine, Where, oh Kincora? "Where, oh Kincora, are thy valorous lords, Oh whither, thou Hospitable, are they gone? Oh where the Dalcassians of cleaving swords, And where are the heroes that Brian led on, Where, oh Kincora? "And where is Morough, descendant of kings, Defeater of hundreds, the daringly brave, Who set but light store on jewels and rings, Who swam down the torrent and laughed at the wave, Where, oh Kincora? "And where is Donagh, King Brian's brave son, And where is Conaing, the beautiful chief, And Cian and Corc? alas, they are gone! They have left me this night all alone in my grief, Alone, oh Kincora! "And where are the chiefs with whom Brian went forth, The ne'er vanquished sons of Evin the Brave, The great King of Eogh'nacht,[12] renowned for his worth, And Baskin's great host from the western wave, Where, oh Kincora? "And where is Duvlann of the swift-footed steeds, And where is Cian who was son of Molloy, And where is King Lonergan, the fame of whose deeds In the red battle-field, no time can destroy? Where, oh Kincora? "And where is the youth of majestic height, The faith-keeping prince of the Scotts?[13] even he, As wide as his fame was, as great as his might, Was tributary, oh Kincora, to thee, To thee, oh Kincora! "They are gone, those heroes of royal birth, Who plundered no churches and broke no trust 'Tis weary for me to be living on earth When they, oh Kincora, lie low in the dust. Low, oh Kincora! "Oh never again will princes appear To rival Dalcassians of cleaving swords! I can ne'er dream of meeting afar or near, In the east or the west, such heroes and lords, Never, Kincora! "Oh dear are the images mem'ry calls up Of Brian Boru,[14] how he never would miss To give me at banquet the first bright cup,-- Oh, why did he heap on me honour like this, Why, oh Kincora? "I am MacLiag, and my home's on the lake; And oft to that palace whose beauty has fled Came Brian to ask me,--I went for his sake;-- Oh my grief! that I live when Brian is dead! Dead, oh Kincora!" So far the demolished palace of Brian, and the writer, like Brian himself, "returns to Kincora no more." No lover of the beauties of nature should be on this part of the Shannon and not visit the great rapids of Doonass. They are only about ten miles below Killaloe. If seen when the river is full they are the grandest thing of their kind in the British Isles. The Shannon here looks like a continental river, containing ordinarily a volume of water greater than any river in France. The country round Doonass, though flat, is superlatively beautiful. The limpid, rushing river flows on among meadows and pastures of the brightest verdure, adorned with stately trees, and bright in summer-time with innumerable flowers. There is nothing terrible or awe-inspiring about Doonass. It is quiet and peaceful in the true sense of the word. Even the great rushing river, as it glides down the gentle slope of the rapids, makes no noise except a deep, musical murmur that would lull to sleep rather than startle. The rapids of Doonass form a scene so incomparably lovely, and so unlike anything to be seen in Great Britain, or to be seen in any other part of Ireland, that it is a wonder they are not better known. They can be reached best from Limerick, being not over three miles from that city. One of the most curious things about those grand and beautiful rapids, is the almost total ignorance which exists about them, not only in Great Britain, but in Ireland itself. If they were situated on a wild, hard-to-be-got-at part of the Shannon, the general ignorance that exists about them among seekers after the beautiful, would not excite so much wonder. A scene of such great beauty and uniqueness, so near a fine and interesting city like Limerick, to be so little known to those who go so far in search of the beautiful, shows how much the world at large, and even the Irish themselves, have to learn about Ireland. If the rapids of Doonass were in England, or even in the United States, there would be not only one, but perhaps three or four hotels on their banks,--hotels which would be full of guests every summer. Let us hope that the beauties of this charming place will be soon better known. HOLYCROSS ABBEY The situation of this abbey, like most places of its kind in Ireland, is very beautiful--on the banks of the gentle-flowing Suir, and surrounded by a fine fertile country. Holycross is thought to have been, with the exception of Mellifont, the largest of the ancient churches of Ireland. There is some doubt as to the exact time of its foundation--some authorities say the year 1182, and others 1208. The probability is that both dates may, in a certain sense, be correct. It may have been begun to be built in 1182, and may not have been finished before 1208. Although founded after the Anglo-French invasion, it was a purely Irish institution, for all authorities say that it was founded by Donagh Cairbreach O'Brian, King of Munster, and that it was founded on account of his having obtained what was believed to be a piece of the cross on which Christ suffered. It is called in Irish annals _Mainister na croiche naoimhe_, or Monastery of the Holy Cross. This relic is said, on good authority, to be at present in the keeping of the nuns of the Presentation Order at Black Rock, near Cork. O'Brian, the founder of the Church, endowed it with a great tract of land, so that it was for many centuries one of the most important places of its kind, not only in the province of Munster, but in Ireland. [Illustration: HOLYCROSS ABBEY.] Holycross is two miles from the neat and thriving town of Thurles, in the County Tipperary. Unlike so many ruined shrines of former days, and especially unlike Mellifont in the County Louth, most of the walls of Holycross still remain. The existing ruins show it to have been a large church. Its length is 130 feet; the nave is 58 by 49 feet. The entire ruins are very beautiful and impressive, and their situation on the banks of the Suir, amid as fine pastoral scenery as can be found in the fine county of Tipperary, make them well worth a visit. Holycross was founded for the Cistercian order, and remained in undamaged condition until the suppression of monasteries in the latter part of the seventeenth century. It appeals that it lost its distinctively Irish character soon after English domination became established in Ireland, for in 1267 it was subjected by the abbot of Clairveaux to the abbey of Furness in England. It is the opinion of many antiquarians and judges of ecclesiastical structures that many additions and alterations were made to and in the abbey, and some of them in comparatively recent times. Some judges of church architecture have been loud in their praise of the beauties of the ruins of Holycross, while others have expressed their disappointment. Here is the testimony of O'Donovan, one of the greatest of Irish antiquarians, on the subject: "The ruins of this abbey entirely disappointed my expectations. The architecture of the choir and side chapel is indeed truly beautiful, but they are not lofty, but the nave and side aisles are contemptible. I am certain, however, that this newer part of the abbey is not more than four centuries old." The sepulchral monument that was erected to the memory of Elizabeth, daughter of Gerald, Earl of Kildare, who died about the year 1400, is considered one of the most chaste, remarkable, and beautiful things of its kind in Ireland. If nothing remained of Holycross but this remarkable monument, it would be well worth a visit. There is not so much historical interest connected with Holycross as there is with smaller establishments of its kind throughout Ireland. It was founded too late to be plundered by the Danes, and in all the troublesome times between its foundation and the time when it was abandoned, it does not seem to have been plundered or burned, neither do the vandals seem to have damaged or defaced it much. It is a beautiful and impressive ruin that will for a long time to come attract the notice of lovers of the abandoned fanes that are to be found in almost every parish of Ireland--the land that is richer in ruins than perhaps any other country in the world, Egypt alone excepted. DUNLUCE CASTLE If Cashel is the most remarkable ecclesiastical ruin in Ireland owing to its situation, Dunluce Castle is, for the same reason, the most remarkable military one. Cashel has, however, the advantage of being remarkable from whatever side it is looked at; but Dunluce is remarkable only when seen from the sea, or from the strand from which the rock the ruins rest on rises. From the road that goes along the shore, Dunluce looks absolutely disappointing, because the road is as high, apparently somewhat higher, than the castle itself. But seen from a boat on the sea under it, or from the base of the cliffs on which the road to it runs, it forms the grandest and most imposing sight of a Viking's ruined stronghold that is to be seen anywhere in Europe. The rock on which the ruins stand rises sheer from the sea to the height of over a hundred feet. Before the castle was built on it, the rock was completely isolated, and must have been an island, standing about thirty feet from the mainland. Across the profound gulf that separated the rock from the land, a mighty bridge of solid masonry has been erected, over which all who enter the castle must pass. This bridge is only about twenty inches wide, and few, except masons, or those who are accustomed to ascend heights, would care to cross it, for there is not, or at least there was not in 1873, a rope, railing, or protection of any kind for those who wanted to visit the ruins of the castle. No one but such as have steady nerves and good heads should think of crossing this bridge, for a fall from it would mean certain death on the jagged rocks more than a hundred feet below. [Illustration: DUNLUCE CASTLE.] The first thing that strikes one after examining the ruins is the unusual thinness of the walls. They are no thicker than those of a modern stone-built house. The reason of this is easily understood; for when the castle was built, which must have been before cannons were so perfected that they could be used for battering down buildings, it was absolutely impregnable, as no battering-ram, or mediæval siege-engine, could by any possibility approach near enough to the walls to be used against them. There was, therefore, no necessity that the walls should be thick. The space on the top of the rock is entirely covered with the ruins of the castle. The walls rise up sheer from the most outward margins of the rock. On looking out from one of the narrow windows the sea is straight below one. When the castle was inhabited its inmates must have had an awful experience during the storms that so often sweep over the wild west and north coast of Ireland, when the giant waves of the stormiest ocean in the world beat against the rock on which the ruins stand. If such a place was secure against the assaults of men, it was not secure against the fury of the elements; and it would seem that some of the cliff did at one time give way, for there are some gaps in the walls that appear to have been caused by rock, upon which they were built, having given way. The Giant's Causeway and Dunseverick Castle are both in the immediate vicinity of Dunluce, only a few miles west of it; both are well worth seeing; but nothing on all that magnificent, iron-bound, cliff-guarded coast of Antrim can compare in interest with Dunluce. The isolated, almost sea-surrounded rock on which it stands, the great bridge that connects it with the mainland, the narrow and dangerous footpath overlooking horrible depths, and over which the castle can only be entered, make it one of the grandest and most suggestive ruins in the world. Dunluce is a revelation. It shows, perched on its storm-beaten, once impregnable rock, the awful savagery of the time when might was the only law recognised by humanity; and that only a few centuries ago life and property were no safer in Christendom than they are to-day in the Soudan. The name Dunluce is a combination of the two most generally used Irish words to express a military stronghold _dun_ and _lios_, and may be translated "strong fort"; and strong it must have been in olden times, when cannons were either unknown altogether, or principally remarkable for the noise they made, and the greater danger they were to those who used them than to those they were used against. The name of this place is spelled _Dúnlis_ or _Dúnlios_ in ancient annals. The earliest mention of it by the Four Masters, and in the "Annals of Loch Key," is under the year 1513. It does not appear to be mentioned in any of the other Irish annals, unless it is mentioned in the "Annals of Ulster"; but as they have been as yet translated only down to the year 1375, the question cannot be yet decided. It is remarkable that so little is known about the early history of such a remarkable place as Dunluce Castle. No trustworthy statement as to when and by whom it was built has, so far, come to light. It was in the possession of the Mac Quillins, spelled _Mac Uidhlin_ by the Four Masters, in 1513. It then, by conquest or in some other way, passed into the hands of Sorley Boy, one of the Scotch McDonnells, who kept it until 1584, when it was besieged and taken by Sir John Perrott, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. Fifty thousand cows, and all his land in Antrim County, of which he had an immense quantity, were taken from Sorley Boy. But he repaired to Dublin, made his submission to Queen Elizabeth, and was reinstated in his possessions in Antrim, but we are not told if he got back his cows. Dunluce seems to have become a ruin early in the seventeenth century, and is becoming more ruined every day, for it is not in the nature of things that the sea is not gradually undermining and weakening the rock on which the ruins stand, exposed as it is to the wrath of the stormiest ocean probably in the world. It is said that long before Dunluce was abandoned, the kitchen and its staff of cooks were swallowed up on a night of a fearful gale of wind. This could only have happened by part of the rock foundations of the castle having been washed away by the sea. The gap in one part of the walls would seem to indicate that some such catastrophe did occur. Dunluce must have been built before the invention of what is now known as artillery. It is not possible to tell by the style of its architecture in what century it was built, for there was practically no change in the architecture of Irish castles for nearly four centuries. The art of castle-building was just as well understood in the twelfth century as in the fourteenth. Those who pretend to be able to tell within a century of the time when a castle was built, by examining its masonry and architecture, draw greatly on their imaginations. If Dunluce was built after artillery had become so perfected that castles could be destroyed by it at half a mile, or even a quarter of a mile distant, those who built Dunluce were fools, for guns could be brought within fifty yards of it. If it was built to resist artillery, the walls would have been made three times as thick as they are. It was evidently built before artillery began to be used for battering down walls. It must, therefore, have been built before the year 1400, for even at that early date the principal use that was made of artillery was for battering down walls. Half a dozen shots from the very rude and imperfect artillery of the date mentioned would have made a heap of ruins of the thin walls of Dunluce Castle. BOYLE ABBEY There are very few of the once great abbeys of Ireland of which so little is generally known to the public as of Boyle Abbey. One reason of this may be the remoteness of its situation, and its invisibleness from the town of Boyle. It is not on the track of tourists, and is in a rather uninteresting part of the country in a scenic point of view. Besides, the Abbey is not in the town of Boyle, but over quarter of a mile from it, on a road not so much frequented as some others in the locality. It is a wonder that more is not known about this noble ruin. It may not be so interesting in its architecture as Holycross, or so striking in its situation as Cashel, but it is, nevertheless, one of the finest ecclesiastical ruins in Ireland. [Illustration: BOYLE ABBEY.] If the country round Boyle Abbey cannot be said to be very interesting or beautiful, the place where the ruins stand is charming. They rise from the banks of the Boyle river, the first large tributary of the Shannon. The river rushes under the very walls of the monastery with a rapid current, and at its highest flood it is generally as clear as crystal, for it rises in, or at least flows through, Loch Ui Gara, which is only a few miles from Boyle, and its waters are filtered in that lake before they reach Boyle. And here it may not be out of place to say that the generally clear waters of most of the rivers of Ireland add greatly to the beauty of its scenery. Scotch rivers are also generally clear, and the reason they are clear is the reason why the Irish rivers are clear, and that is, because they are filtered in the lakes through which they generally flow. A limpid river is one of the most beautiful things in nature, but a river of dirty water would not be beautiful if it flowed through the Garden of Eden. Almost all rivers that are not filtered by passing through lakes are sure to be dirty. For this reason the St Lawrence may be said to be the only one of the great American rivers the waters of which are clear. To know what an abomination a river of dirty water is, one should see the Missouri. The river that rushes past the ruins of Boyle Monastery is not only clear but limpid. Its pure, rushing waters are one of the principal attractions in the vicinity of the ruins. The ruins of Boyle Abbey are very fine. The monastery was a large one, one of the largest in Ireland, and was surrounded on almost every side with extensive gardens. The walls of many of those gardens still remain, and seem as sound as they were when first built. The ruins of the Monastery, and the ruins of its adjoining buildings, are covered with the most luxuriant growth of ivy to be seen on any ruins in Ireland. The thickness of its stems, and the size and deep green of its leaves, are remarkable. This extraordinary growth of ivy must eventually tumble down the walls. It may preserve them for a time, but will destroy them in the long run. But without its ivy and its limpid river, the ruined Monastery of Boyle, grand and interesting as it is, would lose a great deal of its attractions. The ruins of the great church of Boyle, like the ruins of Cashel, and like the historic hill of Tara, have been spoiled by the erection of modern buildings near them. Some parson has erected here a new, intensely vulgar gimcrack house that almost touches the hoary ruins, it is so close to them. It entirely spoils their effect, and would disgust any one with any veneration for the past. In no other country, perhaps, in the world has the want of respect for the antique been more manifest among the masses than in Ireland. In no other country have so many monuments of the past been more wantonly destroyed, more defaced, and less respected. If it had not been for the care exercised by the Board of Works, during the last thirty years, most of the ruins of Ireland would now be either entirely uprooted, or so marred, like the Rock of Cashel, or the Monastery of Boyle, by the erection of new buildings in their vicinity, that they would have little attraction for any one in whose soul there remained the slightest reverence for the past. There are, however, unmistakable signs that more patriotic and enlightened ideas about their country, and everything relating to it, are rapidly gaining ground among all classes of the Irish people, but especially among the more educated. Irish history, Irish antiquities, and even the Irish language get more of the attention of the upper and middle classes in Ireland now than they ever got before. It seems almost a certainty that the ancient monument-defacing epoch has passed, or is rapidly passing away from a country to which it has been a disgrace so long. It is not enough that the Board of Works should continue to do the good work it has been doing for the last quarter of a century in the preservation of our ruins, it should prevent such outrageous bad taste as the erection of new buildings in the very centre of time-honoured monuments like those on the Rock of Cashel and on the Boyle river. The ancient name of Boyle was _Ath dá laarg_, that is, the "ford of two forks." It is not easy to understand why such a curious name should have been given to it, for the river at Boyle, even in time of floods, is fordable, and has usually not over six or eight inches of water in it. It has, however, been proved that the rivers of Ireland, and probably of most other countries, had much more water in them in ancient times than at present. The other name for Boyle was _Búil_, whence Boyle. The word _Búil_ is entirely obsolete. It is supposed to mean handsome or beautiful. The Monastery, of which the ruins exist, was founded in 1161 by Maurice O'Duffy, a noted ecclesiastic of the period, but it is known that a smaller and more ancient monastery occupied the site on which the larger one was built at the date mentioned. Boyle Abbey was an offshoot of the great Abbey of Mellifont in the County Louth, that had been founded some twenty years before the Abbey of Boyle. Both abbeys belonged to the Cistercian order; and it would appear that so many monks flocked to Mellifont that accommodation could not be made for them all there, so the Abbey of Boyle was erected for them. The "Annals of Boyle," known also as the "Annals of Loch Cé, or Key," say that the Church of Boyle was consecrated in 1220; but that the church was built in 1161 there seems no reason to doubt. The Four Masters mention it under the year 1174. Their last mention of it is under the year 1602, and it must have been abandoned very soon after. It was granted to Sir John King in 1603, when it must have ceased to be a monastery. No one should visit Boyle and its grand ruins and not see the two very beautiful lakes that are near it, Loch Key and Loch Arrow. Loch Key is not over a mile from the town, and Loch Arrow not more than three. The very fine domain of Rockingham may be said to be almost surrounded by Loch Key. It was on an island in this lake that the McDermotts, chieftains of Moylurg, had a stronghold. The island has a castle on it at present, but, seen from the shore, both island and castle appear very small. The fortress the McDermotts had on the island must have been a sort of _crannióg_, or wooden castle, like so many that have been discovered both in Ireland and Scotland in the tracks of dried-up lakes. Those _cranniógs_ were sometimes built entirely on piles, and sometimes on islands, with extensions on piles if the water was not too deep. This last must have been the kind of fortress the McDermotts had on Loch Key, for it must have been much larger than the present island, and must have been large enough to give space to a multitude of people to assemble on it. We read in the annals of Loch Key of the following awful catastrophe that happened on it in 1184: "The Rock of Loch Key was burned by lightning--_i.e._, the very magnificent, kingly residence of the Muintir Maolruanaigh (the McDermotts) where neither goods nor people of all that were there found protection; where six or seven score of distinguished persons were destroyed, along with fifteen men of the race of kings and chieftains, with the wife of McDermott ... and every one of them who was not burned was drowned in that tumultuous consternation in the entrance of the place; so that there escaped not alive therefrom but Connor McDermott with a very small number of the multitude of his people." The same catastrophe is mentioned by the Four Masters, but under the year 1187. This account of the burning of the castle, or, as the annalist calls it, a residence, shows that it was a wooden structure, for it would hardly have been possible to burn a building of stone so quickly that the people in it would not have had time to escape, even if it were on an island. Loch Arrow is the least known of all the beautiful lakes of Ireland, and beautiful it is in very nearly the highest style of beauty. There are no mountains round Loch Arrow, and none to be seen from its waters; but its numberless attractions in the way of wooded islands, bold promontories, and swelling shores render it one of the lovely lakes of Ireland; and yet, few, except those living in its immediate vicinity, know anything about it, or have ever heard of it. The land near it seems to be, for the most part, in the hands of small farmers; and neater or more attractive peasant homesteads cannot be found in any part of Ireland than on the banks of Loch Arrow. It is not more than four miles from Boyle; and small as it is, not more than five miles long, and from two to two and a half miles broad, it is a gem of a lake that seems to be forgotten by the world. THE LAKES OF WESTMEATH The lakes of Westmeath, like Loch Arrow in Sligo, are almost unknown to those who go to Ireland in search of the picturesque. These lakes are, for the greater part, in the centre of the County. Loch Ree is not included in them. There may be said to be only four of them worthy of the attention of those who see something to be admired in a lake besides the excellence of the fish that is in it. Those in search of the beautiful very seldom go to see the lakes of Westmeath. The only people who generally visit them are fishermen, very few of whom would turn round their heads to gaze on the fairest prospect the lakes afforded, for seldom, indeed, do those usually styled sportsmen trouble themselves very much to see the beauties of nature, and they are, unfortunately, about the only class of people who come from afar to visit the lake district of Westmeath. The lakes best worth seeing in Westmeath are Loch Deravarragh, Loch Ouel, Loch Ennel, usually called Belvedere Lake, Loch Iron, and Loch Sheelin. The last mentioned lake lies on the borders of four counties--Longford, Cavan, Meath, and Westmeath. It cannot be claimed by the most devoted admirer of the Westmeath lakes that there is very much historic interest attached to any of them. It would be hardly possible to find a square mile of Irish soil wholly devoid of historic interest; but while it may truly be said that there is no country in Europe, not excepting even Greece, where so many places of historic interest are to be found as in Ireland, some parts of it are richer than others in memorials of the past. From whatever cause it happened is not very clear, but it is a fact that Westmeath is one of the least historic of Irish counties. The hill of Uisneach is its most historic spot. There are, at the same time, some other places of historic interest in it. Its most beautiful lake, Loch Ouel, anciently called Loch Uair, is the one in which Malachy the First drowned Turgesius the Dane. Turgesius seems to have had what Americans would call "a high old time" in Ireland for some years--robbing churches and monasteries, and living on the fat of the land; until the Irish, under Malachy, at length defeated him in battle, took him prisoner, and drowned him in one of the most beautiful lakes in Ireland. It seems queer that Malachy, instead of giving him a grave in such a beautiful sheet of water, did not fling him into a bog hole, and it is a pity that there should not be any really trustworthy authority for the legend according to which it was love for King Malachy's beautiful daughter that was the means of entrapping Turgesius. Keating gives a very interesting account of the capture of the Danish Viking in his History of Ireland; how Turgesius asked Malachy for his daughter: how Malachy said that the marriage, or rather the _liaison_ should not be made public for fear of giving offence to the Irish; and how fifteen beardless youths, dressed as girls, conducted Malachy's daughter to the Dane, overpowered his guard, took himself prisoner, and then drowned him. A great deal of romance has been written about this affair, but it remained for the inimitable Sam Lover to write the funniest thing in the way of a poem about it. He said that the tyranny of the Danes was so heavy on the Irish that the clergy ordered them a long time of prayer and fasting to seek Divine aid to rid themselves of their persecutors. But it would appear that the unfortunate Irish had been keeping a compulsory fast for a long time previous, for the Danes had left them nothing to eat. They could not understand being ordered to fast still more, and said to the clergy:-- "We can't fast faster than we're fastin' now." The account of the drowning of Turgesius is given with tantalising curtness in the "Book of Leinster": "This is the year, A.D. 843, that Turgesius was taken by Maelseachlainn (Malachy). He was then drowned in Loch Uair."[15] The "Book of Leinster" does not say that Turgesius was taken in battle, but those who do not believe Keating's story think he was. If he had been taken in battle and defeated, it must be admitted that it is strange that Irish annalists did not say so and give particulars of the battle. This omission makes it appear probable that there is some truth in the version of his capture as given by Keating, although it is altogether discredited by those best read in Irish History. Loch Ouel can be seen from the train on the Sligo division of the Great Western Railway. Passing as the glimpse of it is from the train, it is enough to reveal some of the beauties of this fairest of Westmeath lakes. But to see it properly one should wander by its pebbly shores, for not a yard of them is swampy, or ascend one of the hills of brilliant green that are on all sides of it. Loch Ouel has the great defect of being almost islandless. There are only one or two small ones in it. If it had proportionately as many islands in it as Loch Erne, it would be one of the fairest sheets of water of its size in Ireland. Belvedere Lake is a good deal larger than Loch Ouel, and its shores are better wooded, but part of them, in fact a very large part of them, is boggy. Its banks are adorned with gentlemen's seats, and in spite of the swampy shore on one side of it, it is a very beautiful lake. Loch Derravaragh is the most peculiarly-shaped of all the Westmeath lakes. It is shaped something like a tadpole, only that, unlike a tadpole, it is its head that is narrow, and its tail, or lower part, that is wide. It has bolder shores than any other lake in the county, some of the hills near it being almost mountains. It has hardly any islands, and its shores are wilder than any other of the Westmeath lakes. It wants the woods that do so much to adorn the swampy shores of Belvedere Lake; but comparatively bare as the shores of Loch Derravaragh are, it is a most picturesque lake, and some think it more beautiful than Loch Ouel. Both Loch Derravaragh and Loch Iron are formed by the river Inny, but it does not, as most rivers do, flow through the lakes it forms and feeds, for it flows out of them within a short distance of where it enters them, and the lakes extend in an opposite direction from where they receive their water. This is rather a strange fact in physical geography. The next most important of the Westmeath lakes is Loch Sheelin, but as three other counties--Longford, Meath, and Cavan--border it, it cannot be strictly called a Westmeath lake. However, as it is so close to the very picturesque sheets of water which are the chief scenic attractions of the county they adorn, it has been thought best to include it when describing them. Loch Sheelin has only a few islands, but its shores, although low, are very well wooded. Seen from the hills in the vicinity of Oldcastle in Meath, it is as fair a sight as can well be imagined, with its wood-crowned, indented shores. If there are fairer lakes in Ireland than Loch Sheelin, there are few that have a more beautiful name. It is euphony itself. Its name is the original one of Moore's sweet melody, "Come, rest in this Bosom." It has often been said, "What's in a name?" There is a great deal. A name so beautiful as Loch Sheelin would give a certain charm to a bog hole. It must be confessed that Celtic, of all European languages, seems to contain the most sonorous place names. Such names as Bassenthwaitewater, Ullswater, Conistonwater, Derwentwater, Thuner See, and Zuger See, sound very tame compared with Loch Lomond, Loch Erne, Loch Awe, Loch Ree, Loch Layn, and Loch Sheelin. There is, however, one continental place-name of wonderful beauty of sound, and that is Lorraine. Its German name is Lothringen, but the French, by eliding its consonants, or by what is generally called aspiration in Gaelic grammar, have turned the harsh German name into one of the most euphonious and beautiful in the world. Loch Iron and Loch Lene, pronounced Loch Layne, are small sheets of water, but are well worth a visit, even from those who are neither fishers of fish nor of men. The country all round the Westmeath lakes is as beautiful as it is possible for any country to be in which there are neither mountains nor waterfalls. It is never flat, and never uninteresting, covered almost everlastingly with verdure, for although most of the county is hilly, it is one of the most fertile in Ireland. Its still, clear lakes, undulating surface, and rich soil, make it, even in the absence of mountains (and, unfortunately, in the absence of good hotels in its small towns and villages), one of the most picturesque of the counties of Leinster. KELLS OF MEATH Kells, the ancient name of which was Ceannanus, and the one by which it is still known in Irish, is one of the most ancient towns in Ireland. According to Irish annalists it was founded by an over-king called Fiacha, 1203 years B.C. If its situation and environs are of no great beauty, it is yet a place of great historic interest. It can boast of the possession of one of the finest round towers in Ireland, a very ancient cross, and a still more ancient stone-roofed church. If there are no mountains or romantic scenery round Kells, it has the advantage of being situated in the midst of the most generally fertile of Irish counties. It is on the river Blackwater, a tributary of the historic Boyne. Nothing can exceed the fertility of the land round Kells; but that does it no good, for the land is almost all in grass, the rural population sparse, and consequently, of very little outside support to the town. But Kells is no worse off than the other towns of Meath. It is, as far as soil is concerned, the richest county in Ireland, but its towns are either in a state of absolute decay, or at a standstill. There is hardly any tilled land in the county; its herds are large, and its population consequently declining. Where cattle abound, people are generally scarce. For those who visit Kells merely to see the wondrous luxuriance of its grassy environs, the best thing they can do is to ascend the hill of Lloyd, which is close to the town, and go to the top of the tower that crowns the summit of the hill. It is over a hundred feet high, with a winding flight of stairs, and a turret on top, capable of containing a dozen people. The view from the tower is very fine, and will well repay those who see it. Almost the whole of Meath, Louth, Cavan, and parts of other counties can be seen. The tower was built more than a hundred years ago by the first Earl of Bective. It is sometimes called "Bective's Folly," because it serves for nothing except giving a fine view to those who ascend it. It is generally known as the tower of Lloyd. To the antiquarian, the neighbourhood of Kells is of supreme interest. Four miles south-east of it, on the banks of the Blackwater, lies the site of what is considered, next to Tara, the most ancient spot of Irish soil--namely, the place where the games of Tailltean were, for some thousands of years, celebrated. The place is now called Telltown, an evident Anglicisation of its Irish name; but it is still called Tailltean by any old persons in its vicinity who speak Irish. If any credence can be given to Irish annals and history, the antiquity of this place is astounding. The sceptic has to admit that the mere fact of the preservation down to the present day of the name by which it was known from remote antiquity is in itself an extraordinary fact. The games or sports of Tailltean were somewhat similar to the Olympic games of Greece, except that those of Tailltean were celebrated every year. The whole of Ireland used to assist at them, and they seem to have been celebrated every year down to 1168, when they were for the last time celebrated by the unfortunate and foolish Roderick O'Connor, the last of those who were, even in name, chief kings of Ireland. In spite of internal wars, Danish invasions and plunderings, a single year does not appear to have elapsed from the time they were first established down to the twelfth century in which they were not celebrated. It would also seem that no matter what wars or troubles were distracting the country, the games of Tailltean were never omitted. They took place at the beginning of August, as has been mentioned in the article on Tara, and from them the Irish name of the month of August--_Lughnasa_--is derived. The name Tailltean is the genitive case of Taillte, the woman in whose memory they were established by her son, Lugh, who lived and reigned in Tara, according to the chronology of the Four Masters, which differs only slightly from that of other annalists, 1824 years B.C.! It is no matter how we may smile or shake our heads when this astounding antiquity is mentioned, the preservation of those two names, _Lughnasa_ and _Tailltean_, down to the present day, drives away the smile and makes us look serious. Such collateral proofs of the existence of historic personages of such antiquity cannot be furnished by any other nation in the world, not even by Egypt or by Greece. We must not pooh-pooh the statement of Irish annalists as to the enormous antiquity they give to persons who figure in early Irish history. Here is what the late Sir William Wilde says in his book, "Loch Corrib": "With respect to Irish chronology, we believe it will be found to approach the truth as near as that of most other countries; and the more we investigate it and endeavour to synchronise it with that of other lands, the less reason we shall have to find fault with the accounts of our native annalists." There are not many monuments of the past to be seen at Tailltean save an earthen fort of about a hundred paces in diameter, and two small lakes that bear evidence of having been formed artificially. To show how long traditions live in countries that even partially preserve their ancient language, it need only be said that up to about a hundred years ago, the peasantry of the neighbourhood used to meet on the first of _Lughnasa_, or August, at Tailltean to have games and athletic sports of different kinds. The meeting was called a _pattern_, but it was not held on any patron saint's day. It was merely the traditional remembrance of the old games that had not been celebrated for seven hundred years previously, that caused the peasantry to meet at Tailltean. It is said that on account of the drinking and consequent fighting that used to take place, the clergy forbid the people to assemble. Irish history and annals, while they constantly mention the games of Tailltean, leave us a good deal in the dark about the nature of the sports that used to take place. But they do say that marriages, or, rather, alliances of a somewhat evanescent kind used to be contracted; and to this day, all through the part of the country in the neighbourhood of Tailltean, when a matrimonial alliance turns out badly, or when the parties separate, it is called "a Telltown marriage." No one who has ever written about Telltown, not even such profound archæologists as O'Donovan and Petrie, has ever had any doubt about its being the exact place where the games of Tailltean were held in ancient times. There cannot be said to be any very ancient monuments of Christian times to be seen in Kells save a very fine round tower, the top of which is gone; a very ancient cross in the market-place, two in the churchyard, and a stone-roofed church or oratory. The last is the oldest and most interesting ancient monument in Kells. It is a small building, only nineteen feet long, fifteen broad, and twenty-five high. It is one of the most ancient edifices built with cement that exists in Ireland. Its foundation is attributed to St Columba; and it is considered to be at least of his time, or the middle of the sixth century. It is apparently as sound and as solid as it was the day it was built. Everything that could with any certainty be believed to have been part of the great monastery that was in Kells has disappeared. Its stones were probably taken to build the present church that stands near to where the monastery was. The stones of the ancient building that has been described would also probably have been used for some purpose if they could have been easily removed, but it is so solid, and the stones are so firmly bound together by grouting, that the labour of tearing it down deterred the vandals from destroying it. Kells was so often burned and so often plundered by the Northmen that it is a wonder how anything in it remains. According to the annals it was burned twenty-one times, and plundered seven times, before the twelfth century! Every vestige of the great castle, that was built either by Hugo de Lacy or John de Courcy, has disappeared. This castle must have been nearly as large as that of Trim, for it was built for the protection of some of the most valuable country conquered by the invaders. It is said that the monastery was in a ruined condition at the close of the twelfth century, and that de Lacy renovated it and richly endowed it. That wondrous manuscript known as the Book of Kells, although it is not believed to have been written in that town, has been named from it, and consequently should be mentioned in connection with it. That the book found its way to Kells, and that it was there for many centuries, there cannot be any doubt. Neither can there be any doubt that it belonged to the Church of Kells, for there are curious charters in it, written in Irish of a very archaic kind, relating to the clergy of that town. It seems to have been in Kildare in the twelfth century, for it is evidently of it that Giraldus Cambrensis speaks when he says, "Of all the wonders of Kildare, I found nothing more wonderful than the marvellous book that was written in the time of St Brigit." It was in the church of Kells until 1620, when Archbishop Ussher saved it from being destroyed. It is a Latin version of the Gospels, with some Gaelic charters, relating to the Church of Kells, that were bound into it many centuries after it was written. It was taken by the Danes, it is believed, and the golden cover torn off it; it was found buried in the ground some time after. This is recorded to have happened in 1006. It is the most wonderful work of art of its kind known to exist in any country, and it is no wonder that in a credulous age it should have been believed to be the work of angels. Westwood, an Englishman, and author of the greatest work on illuminated manuscripts ever written, says of it: "It is unquestionably the most elaborately executed manuscripts of so early a date now in existence." Doctor Waagen, Conservator of the Royal Museum of Berlin, says of it: "The ornamental pages, borders, and initial letters exhibit such a rich variety of beautiful and peculiar designs, so admirable a taste in the arrangement of colours, and such an uncommon perfection of finish, that one feels absolutely struck with amazement." Where and when the Book of Kells was executed, and by whom, will probably never be known; but it must have been written as early as the sixth century. Tradition attributes it to Columba, or, as he is usually called, Columb Cille. The late Dr Todd, one of the most learned archæologists, and one of the best Gaelic scholars that ever Ireland produced, believed that it was as early as the time of Columba. The author of _Topographia Hiberniae_ says of it: "The more frequently I behold it, the more diligently I examine it, the more I am lost in admiration of it." No one who has not seen the Book of Kells can form an idea of its beauty. In the pages that have not been soiled the colours are as pure and as bright as if they were laid on only yesterday. The naked eye cannot follow all its delicate and minute tracings; to see it aright, it should be seen through a microscope. It is beyond any doubt the most wonderful book of its kind in the world. In it and in the Tara Brooch Ireland possesses two works of ancient art, two gems of artistic beauty which are unequalled of their kind and of their age. The art treasures of metallurgy exhumed in Pompeii, and all that have been found in Greece and Asia Minor by Schliemann, contain nothing equal in exquisite finish to the Tara Brooch; and in all the treasures of illuminated manuscripts in the libraries of the world, there is nothing of its kind equal to the Book of Kells. The Tara Brooch can be seen in the Museum, Kildare Street, Dublin, and the Book of Kells in Trinity College, in the same city. * * * * * All the ecclesiastical establishments that have been described owed their origin to native piety, benevolence, and enterprise. CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY No one, whether an Irishman or a stranger, can look on the vast mound and vast earthen ramparts that mark the home of him whom the most trustworthy of Irish annalists, Tighearnach, calls _fortissimus heros Scottorum_, without feelings of indignation and shame--indignation at the way one of the greatest and most interesting monuments of Irish antiquity has been profaned, and shame that so little reverence for their country's past should be found among the Irish people. If the Copts and Arabs of Egypt sell and uproot the antiquities of that country, they can, at least, say that they are not the descendants of the men who lived under the sway of the Pharaos; but those who have, in recent times, done most to obliterate and profane the most historic monuments of Ireland are the lineal descendants of the men who raised them. Nothing that ancient Irish monuments have suffered, and they have suffered a great deal, can exceed the wrong committed by him who built a horrible, modern, vulgar, gewgaw house on top of the _dun_ of Cuchulainn! To show how utterly obtuse, and how unsympathetic with his country's past the person was who built the vulgar structure on one of the most curious and interesting historic monuments in Ireland, he has actually engraved his name and the date of the erection of the house on its front wall! seeming to glory in the vandalism he committed. The legend on the wall says that the house was built in 1780 by a person named Patrick Byrne for his nephew. [Illustration: CUCHULAINN'S DESECRATED DUN.] About a mile from the Dundalk railway station, crowning the summit of a hill that rises amid green fields and rich pastures, stands all that remains of the _dun_ on which the wooden dwelling of Cuchulainn stood wellnigh two thousand years ago. Before it was partially levelled to build the gewgaw house that now stands on it, it must have been the finest monument of its kind in Ireland. It is quite different from the remains of Tara, Knock Aillinn, Emania, or Dinrigh. Those places were evidently intended to accommodate large numbers of people; but Cuchulainn's _dun_ was evidently that of one person or one family. It answered to the Norman keep that some lords of the soil built for their own private protection in later times. Cuchulainn's _dun_ was immense, and its remains are even still immense in spite of the way it has been ruined. It is yet over forty feet in perpendicular height, and, like most structures of its kind, is perfectly round. It has an area of over half an acre on its summit. The _enceinte_ outside the central _dun_ encloses fully two acres, and where it has not been levelled, is still colossal, being thirty feet high in some parts. The immense labour it must have taken to raise such a gigantic mound, and to dig such vast entrenchments on so high a hill, strikes one with astonishment. If it had not been ruined and partially levelled by the utterly denationalised and soulless person who built the vulgar structure on it, it would be the finest thing of its kind in Ireland, and would attract antiquarians from all parts of these islands and from the Continent. The existence of this fort is another collateral proof of the general truth of what has been called Irish bardic history. It says that Cuchulainn lived at Dundealgan, or Dundalk, and there his _dun_ is found. He can hardly be said to figure in what are generally known as Irish authentic annals. The "Annals of the Four Masters" do not mention him at all, although they do mention some of his contemporaries. Tighearnach, who lived in the eleventh century, is the only one of the Irish annalists who mentions him. His annals have not yet been translated or published; but the following passage occurs in them: "Death of Cuchulainn, the most renowned champion of Ireland, by Lughaidh, the son of Cairbre Niafer [chief king of Ireland]. He was seven years old when he began to be a champion, and seventeen when he fought in the Cattle Spoil of Cooley, and twenty-seven when he died." Tighearnach makes Cuchulainn and Virgil contemporary. He and Queen Meave are the two great central figures in the longest and greatest prose epic in the Irish language, the Tain Bo Cuailgne, or Cattle Spoil of Cooley, which Sir Samuel Ferguson has made familiar to the English reader in his poem, "The Foray of Meave." Cuchulainn is the Hercules of Irish romantic history; but in spite of all the fabulous tales of which he is the hero, there cannot be any doubt that he was an historic personage, that his dwelling-place was on the _dun_ that has been described, and that he lived shortly before the Christian era. The name Cuchulainn is a sobriquet; it means "the hound Culann." This Culann was chief smith to Connor, King of Ulster. He had a fierce dog that he used to let out every night to watch and guard his premises, which were in the vicinity of Emania, the palace of the Ulster kings. Cuchulainn, who was nephew to Connor, was going to some entertainment at his uncle's; but having been out later than usual, was attacked by Culann's fierce hound. He had no weapon with which to defend himself save his hurling ball; but he cast it with such force at the dog that he killed him on the spot. Culann complained to King Connor about the loss of his great watch dog, and Cuchulainn, who was then only a boy of eight or nine years old, said that he would act as watch dog for the smith and be Culann's hound, or dog. Whether he did so or not is left untold. It is very curious that in all the romantic tales in which Cuchulainn figures, and in spite of his incredible strength and prowess, there does not seem to be a passage in any tract that has been translated about him up to the present where anything is mentioned about his size or stature. We are left under the impression that he was no bigger than ordinary men; and it may have been that he was not. Size and strength do not always go together. Some of the feats that he is said to have performed are utterly incredible; such as flinging his spear haftwise, and killing nine men with the cast; and pulling the arm from its socket out of a giant whom he was unable to get the better of with weapons. It is very natural that such impossible feats would, in a credulous age, be attributed to any one who was possessed of more than ordinary prowess. Things quite as impossible are found in the classics relative to Hercules. The Irish had just as good a right to relate impossibilities about Cuchulainn as the Greeks had to do the same about Hercules. But Cuchulainn figures in Celtic legend and romance in a manner in which Hercules does not figure in the legends of Greece, for the Irish hero was more of a ladies' man than was the giant of the Greeks. If Cuchulainn did not fill such an important place in what may be called classic Gaelic literature, the total ignorance about him in the very place where he was born and where he lived would not be such a national disgrace as it is. The mere remnant of Gaelic literature in which he is the central figure is immense. No other race in Europe would have so totally lost sight of a personage that was the hero of so many tracts and stories, and who was, besides, an historic character, and not a myth. Even sixty years ago, during the Ordnance Survey of Louth, the parties employed on it found that no one in the neighbourhood of Castletown, the modern name of the place in which Cuchulainn's fort is situated, knew or heard anything about him. They were told by the peasantry that the fort was made by the Danes! Some said it was the work of Finn Mac Cool; but of the real owner of it, they knew nothing. It is evident that the Irish monks of early mediæval times were much more broad-minded and liberal than their countrymen of the same class of more recent years. It is to monks and inmates of monasteries that we owe nine-tenths of the Gaelic literature that has come down to us. They produced more books in proportion to their numbers than perhaps any class of men of their kind that lived in ancient times. They were sincere Christians, but, like patriots, they loved to record the deeds of their pagan ancestors. Just as soon as national decay set in they were succeeded by men of their own calling, who appear to have thought little worth recording except the works of saints, or at least of those who professed Christianity. If the monks of the early centuries of Christian Ireland were as narrow-minded as the Four Masters, we never, probably, would know anything about Cuchulainn, Queen Meave, Conall Carnach, or any of the heroes of pagan Ireland, round whom there is woven such a wondrous web of legend, romance, and song. Every patriotic Irishman should revere the memories of those liberal-minded monks who handed down to us the doings of their pagan forefathers. To show how much those men valued the literature, and loved to recount the exploits of their pagan ancestors, it will only be necessary to give the words of the dear old soul who copied the _Tain Bó Cuailgne_, the great epic of pagan times, into the "Book of Leinster": "A blessing on every one who will faithfully remember the _Tain_ as it is [written] here, and who will not put another shape on it." Cuchulainn, above all men who figure in ancient Irish literature, seems to have been "_grádh ban Eireann_," the darling of the women of Ireland. While yet in his teens, the nobles of Ulster came together to determine who should be a fitting wife for him. After a long search they found a lady named Eimir, accomplished in all the feminine education of the time; but her father, a wealthy chief or noble who lived near Lusk, in the present County of Dublin, did not like to give his daughter to a professional champion. Cuchulainn had seen her, and had succeeded in gaining her love. She was guarded for a year in her father's _dun_; and during all that time, Cuchulainn vainly strove to see her. At last he lost patience and became desperate, scaled the three fences that encircled her father's fort, had a terrible fight for her; killed three of her brothers; half killed half-a-dozen others who opposed him, and carried her and her maid northward in his chariot to his home in Dundalk. Like all violent love, Cuchulainn's love for Eimir seems soon to have cooled, for we find that a lady called Fann, the wife of Manannan MacLir, King of the Isle of Man, or some place east of Ireland, fell in love with him. She came to see her father, a man of rank and wealth, who lived somewhere on the east coast of Ireland. She eloped with Cuchulainn, and Eimir, finding that she and her erring husband were staying at Newry, in the present County of Down, followed him, attended by fifty maids armed with knives, in order to kill Fann. This lady, in spite of her errors, must have been an intellectual woman, for her speech when leaving Cuchulainn and going home with MacLir is very fine, and would be a credit to the literature of any language. The tract in which it occurs is in the Book of the Dun Cow, an Irish manuscript compiled in the eleventh century, and is entitled "The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn and only Jealousy of Eimir." It was admirably translated nearly forty years ago by Eugene O'Curry, and was published in the long since dead periodical, the _Atlantis_. None but a few Celtic savants have ever read it. To the general public it will be absolutely new. Fann, finding that she must leave Cuchulainn, says:-- "It is I who shall go on a journey; I give consent with great affliction; Though there is a man of equal fame, I would prefer to remain [here]. "I would rather be here To be subject to thee without grief, Than go, though it may wonder thee, To the sunny palace of Aed Abrat.[16] "Woe to the one who gives love to a person, If he does not take notice of it! It is better for one to be turned away, Unless he is loved as he is loved." It seems that by some occult means it was revealed to Manannan MacLir that his wife, Fann, was in trouble between the jealous women of Ulster and Cuchulainn. So he came from the east to seek his eloped spouse. When Fann found out that Manannan had found _her_ out, she utters the following very quaint, extraordinary, and touching rhapsody:-- "Behold ye the valiant son of Lir From the plains of Eoghan of Inver,-- Manannan, lord of the world's fair hills, There was a time when he was dear to me. "Even to-day if he were nobly constant,-- My mind loves not jealousy; Affection is a subtle thing; It makes its way without labour. "When Manannan the Great me espoused I was a spouse worthy of him; He could not win from me for his life A game in excess at chess. "When Manannan the Great me espoused I was a spouse of him worthy; A bracelet of doubly tested gold He gave me as the price of my blushes. "I had with me going over the sea Fifty maidens of varied beauty; I gave them unto fifty men Without reproach,--the fifty maidens. "As for me I would have cause [to be grieved] Because the minds of women are silly; The person whom I loved exceedingly Has placed me here at a disadvantage. "I bid thee adieu, O beautiful Cu; Hence we depart from thee with a good heart; Though we return not, be thy good will with us; Every condition is noble in comparison with that of going away." It would appear that Cuchulainn was as much distracted about Fann as she was about him; for when he found that she had gone home with Manannan MacLir, he became desperate, and the tale says, with extraordinary grotesqueness and apparent inconsequence, that "It was then Cuchulainn leaped the three high leaps and the three south leaps of Luachair; and he remained for a long time without drink, without food, among the mountains; and where he slept each night was on the road of Midhluachair." But what good did the jumping do him, or why did he jump? Connor, King of Ulster, and the nobles and Druids of the province, had a hard time with Cuchulainn after Fann left him, as he seems to have gone downright crazy. The tale says that Connor had to send poets and professional men to seek him out in his mountain retreat, and that when they found him he was going to kill them. At last the Druids managed to give him a drink of forgetfulness, so that he remembered no more about Fann. The death of Cuchulainn in the "Book of Leinster" is one of the finest things in ancient literature. It has not yet been fully translated, but a partial translation of it by Mr Whitley Stokes appeared in the _Revue Celtique_ in 1876. An epitome of it here can hardly be out of place: When Cuchulainn's foes came against him for the last time, signs and portents showed that he was near his end. One of his horses would not allow himself to be yoked to the war chariot, and shed tears of blood. But Cuchulainn goes to the battle, performs prodigies of valour; but at last he receives his death wound. Though dying, his foes are afraid to approach him. He asks to be allowed to go to a lake that was close by to get a drink. He is allowed to go, but he does not want a drink, he merely wants to die like a hero, standing up; for there is a pillar-stone close by, and he throws his breast-girdle round it, so that he might die standing up, and not lying down. His friend Conall determines to avenge his death. Here the literal translation is so fine that it must be given: "Now there was a comrades' covenant between Cuchulainn and Conall--namely, that whichever of them was first killed, should be avenged by the other. 'And if I be first killed,' said Cuchulainn, 'how soon wilt thou avenge me?' 'The day on which thou shalt be slain,' says Conall; 'I will avenge thee before that evening.' 'And if I be slain,' says Conall, 'how soon wilt thou avenge me?' 'Thy blood will not be cold on earth,' says Cuchulainn, 'when I shall avenge thee.'" Lugaid, the slayer of Cuchulainn, had lost his right hand in the fight. He goes south in his chariot to a river to rest and drink. His charioteer says, "One horseman is coming to us, and great are the speed and swiftness with which he comes. Thou wouldst deem that all the ravens of Erin were above him, and that flakes of snow were specking the plain before him." "Unbeloved is the horseman that comes there," says Lugaid. "It is Conall mounted on [his steed] the Dewy-Red. The birds thou sawest above him are sods from that horse's hoofs. The snowflakes thou sawest specking the plain before him are foam from that horse's lips and nostrils." Conall and Lugaid fight, of course; but as Lugaid has but one hand, Conall has one of his hands bound to his side with ropes, so that he should have no advantage over his foe. They fight for hours, until at last Lugaid falls by Conall, and Cuchulainn is avenged. The tale winds up thus: "And Conall and the Ulstermen returned to Emain Macha (Emania). That week they entered it not in triumph. But the soul of Cuchulainn appeared there to the fifty queens who had loved him; and they saw him floating in his spirit-chariot over Emain Macha, and they heard him chaunt a mystic song of the coming of Christ and the Day of Doom." There are few views in Ireland more beautiful than that from the summit of the mound on which Cuchulainn's mansion stood. It may not be so extensive as other views in the locality, but for beauty and variety it can hardly be exceeded. If admittance is obtained into the house that is built on the track of Cuchulainn's, the view will be still finer. It is said by some that that house is haunted. It is to be hoped that it is; and that Cuchulainn's ghost will drive away sleep from the eyes of every one of Patrick Byrne's descendants who stop in it. The ancient name of the country round Dundalk was Muirimhne; but it has not been called by that name for some centuries. It appears to have been the patrimony of Cuchulainn; for in the tale, in the "Book of the Dun Cow," from which extracts have been given, Fann calls him, "Great chief of the plain of Muirimhne." He, probably, or the clan of which he was the head, owned all that part of northern Louth where the land is level, and up to the foot of the Cooley hills. All the County Louth is fairly studded with ruins of one sort or another. It is one of the most interesting counties in Ireland in an antiquarian point of view. It contains the remains of nearly thirty castles in almost all stages of preservation. One of the finest of them is only a few hundred yards from the _dun_ of Cuchulainn. It is not in the least ruined, but its architecture shows it to be one of the oldest castles erected by the Anglo-Normans in Ireland. Its style is almost exactly that of the castle at Trim, which we know was built before the end of the twelfth century. Like Dunsochly Castle, near Finglas, in the County Dublin, the one near Cuchulainn's _dun_ must have been inhabited at a comparatively recent date, for modern windows have been opened on its front. The only light that was admitted into those old castles was what came through the narrow slits in the walls, about three feet long and six or eight inches wide. These served the double purpose of letting in light and discharging arrows through them. It does not seem to be known by whom the very fine Norman Keep at Castletown, County Louth, was built. There are many larger castles of the same kind in different parts of Ireland, but there are not many of its age in such a good state of preservation. There is a church in the immediate proximity of the castle, and the exact date of its erection seems also unknown. It is in a state of almost utter ruin. The County Louth can boast of having been the birth-place of St Brigit. She was born at Fachart, only a few miles from Castletown, but it was in Kildare she spent almost all her life, and it was there she died and was buried. There are few parts of Ireland more beautiful than the country round the ancient _dun_ of Cuchulainn, and few parts less generally visited by tourists. Carlingford Loch is only a few miles from Dundalk, and except Clew Bay, and one or two others, there is nothing finer on all the coasts of Ireland. But the grandest and most striking scenery in this part of the country are the Mourne mountains in the County Down. There are higher mountain ranges in Ireland, but there are not any more bold, or more truly Alpine. Seen from the central parts of the County Louth, they and the Cooley mountains seem to form a continuous range of "sky-pointing peaks," forming one of the finest, if not the very finest, mountain view in Ireland. The ancient name of the Mourne mountains was the Beanna Boirche. They were called the Mourne mountains from being in a territory anciently called Crioch Mughorna. It gave a title to Lord Cremorne, from whom, it is generally believed, the Cremorne Gardens in London derive their name. It has to be admitted that, in this instance, the Anglicised form of the name is the more euphonious. The County Louth, and all that part of the County Down bordering on it, have not had their due share of attention from those who go in search of the picturesque and beautiful. Although the direct route between the two largest cities in Ireland, northern Louth and southern Down are not at all known as well as they should be. There are, even in Kerry or Connemara, few places in which finer views of mountain, bay, and plain can be had, and all within less than two hours by rail from Dublin or Belfast. And as for antiquities, no county of its size in Ireland possesses so many as Louth. THE WILD WEST COAST By the west coast is meant the whole of that wondrous succession of far-penetrating fiords and bays, cliff-guarded shores, and sea-washed mountains from Bantry Bay to Malin Head, a distance of over four hundred miles. There may be wilder scenery on the coasts of Norway, Labrador, or Scotland, but for wildness, sublimity, and beauty combined, there is hardly in Europe, or in the world, another four hundred miles of coast equal to it. Its variety is one of its principal charms. There is the grandeur and wildness of Norwegian coast scenery, together with scenes of radiant beauty which cannot be found on the coasts of Norway or of Scotland. The more southern latitude of the Irish west coast, and its consequently milder climate, give it a great advantage over the coasts of Norway or of Scotland. Its grass is greener and more luxuriant, and its flowers bloom earlier in spring and later in autumn than those of more northern climes. The mild climate of the southern part of the Irish west coast is almost phenomenal. Winter, in its real sense, or as it generally is on the coasts of Norway, or even of Scotland, may be said to be unknown on the west coast of Munster. Snow is seldom seen, and frost still less frequently. Rain and wind are about all the climatic disagreeableness that those living on the south-west coasts of Ireland have to contend against. It is, however, a fact that the rainfall is not so heavy immediately on the coast as it is some ten or twenty miles inland. This is owing to the fact that the higher mountains are generally some distance from the sea; and it is well-known that mountains are great attractors of rain. Bantry Bay is the first great sea loch of the south-western coast. It is one of the finest natural harbours in Europe, but, unfortunately, ships are seldom seen in it except when they take shelter from the "wild west wind," which blows on these storm-beaten shores with a fury hardly known anywhere else in the world. The whole of the coast of Kerry, up to the mouth of the Shannon, is a succession of the wildest and grandest scenery, with here and there land of only slight elevation, with level meads and pastures of perennial green. Still further north, we come to the mouth of the Shannon, which forms another very fine harbour. About twenty miles north of the Shannon the famous cliffs of Moher appear. There are higher isolated cliffs than those on the west coast, but there is no long range of cliffs so high. They average between six and seven hundred feet in perpendicular height above the sea. To be seen in all their grandeur they should be seen from the sea, but to be seen in all their terribleness, they should be seen in a storm. Such is the force of the west wind on these coasts, sweeping over three thousand miles of unbroken, islandless sea, that the waves sometimes break over the cliffs of Moher in spite of their nearly seven hundred feet of perpendicular height. In no other part of the world is the force of the sea, when driven before a gale from the west, more terrific than on the west coast of Ireland. Old men who lived close to this iron-bound coast on the night of the great storm of January 6, 1839, known over the most of Ireland as the "Night of the Big Wind," say that none but those who were near these coasts on that awful night could have even a faint idea of what the Atlantic is when a storm from the south-west drives it against the rocky barriers that seem to have been placed where they are to prevent it from overwhelming the whole island. They say that when some gigantic wave of millions of tons of water was hurled against these cliffs, the noise made was so loud that it could be heard miles inland above the roar and din of the storm; and that the very earth would tremble at every assault of the waves on those tremendous barriers to their fury. Recent soundings taken off the west and south-west coast of Ireland have fully proved that a very large part of the island has been washed away by the fury of the west wind and the sea, and that at some far-back epoch it extended nearly three hundred miles further towards the south-west. The sea, for some two or three hundred miles west and south-west of Ireland, is shallow--hardly deeper than the Channel between Great Britain and Ireland--but at that distance there is a sudden increase of over two thousand feet in the depth of the sea. Scientists think that this submerged mountain was once the south-west coast of Ireland, and that the shallow sea between the present coast and the deep sea, about three hundred miles south-west, was once dry land, and, of course, part of Ireland. There do not seem to be any reasonable grounds to doubt this theory, for the fury of the sea is every year washing away both land and rock on these western coasts, and the way it has encroached, even in the memory of living persons, is very remarkable. Not a year passes during which hundreds of thousands of tons of rocks are not washed away from cliff and mountain by the ceaseless assaults of the stormy sea that beats with such force on the western coast of Ireland. Were it not for the cliffs and mountains that guard the whole of the west coast, the probability is that thousands of acres would be submerged every year, until there would be very little of the country left in the long run. It may be said that there must be a time coming when those barriers of cliff and mountain that now guard almost the entire west coast will be swept away, seeing that they are being constantly broken down and washed into the sea. Such a time must certainly come, unless some unforeseen event should alter the course of the Gulf Stream, or change the prevailing west and south-west winds to opposite points of the compass. The question is, How long will it be until there is real danger from the encroachment of the sea on the west coast of Ireland? This is a question which the most profound geologist living could not answer with even approximation to correctness. It is impossible to know what amount of erosion takes place every year, or what amount has taken place in any given number of years; but that not only the cliffs of Moher, but the still more gigantic ones of Slieve More in Achill, and Slieve League in Donegal, must finally succumb to the fury of the Atlantic's waves there can hardly be a doubt. Thousands of years may elapse before the cliff barriers on the western coast become so weakened that the island will be in danger from the assaults of the sea. From the cliffs of Moher to the Killaries, or Killary Bay, or Harbour, for it is known by all these names, there are many scenes of very great beauty; but to take even passing notice of all of them would be entirely beyond the scope of a work of the size of this. The coasts of Connemara, if not remarkable for very striking cliff scenery, are wild, sea-indented, strange, and interesting in a very high degree. But Killary Bay is one of the glories of the wild west coast. It has more the character of a Norwegian fiord than any other sea loch in Ireland. It divides the counties of Galway and Mayo. Some put it before the famed Clew Bay, and Inglis said, over half a century ago, that if the shores of the Killaries were as well wooded as Killarney, the latter might tremble for the supremacy it enjoys of being the fairest lake either of fresh or salt water in Ireland. The Killaries run some ten or fifteen miles inland, between some of the highest hills in the province of Connacht, with Maolrea, the king of Connacht mountains, on its northern side. This fiord, or narrow sea loch, is one of the most splendid harbours, not only in Ireland, but in the world, with not only complete shelter from winds from all points, but with depth of water enough to float the biggest ship that ever has been or ever will be built. But, unfortunately, there is little to attract commerce to these desolate shores, where there are no large towns, and only a sparse population. It has been said by some who have seen almost all the fiords of Norway, that there are few of them superior to the Killaries in everything that constitutes beauty, sublimity, and wildness. That this sea loch is, in a certain degree, dark and gloomy has to be admitted, because the mountains come so close to it that they seem in some places to rise almost perpendicularly out of the water. But Killary harbour is a glorious place on a clear, sunny mid-day, when its sombre mountains cast but little shade on its ever calm waters; for no matter how rough the sea may be outside, this mountain fiord is ever calm, as it is sheltered on all sides by towering heights. As an enchanting bay it is the only one on all the Irish coasts of which Clew Bay or Dublin Bay, were they living things and tormented with human passions, could possibly feel jealous. We now approach the queen, not alone of Irish bays, but of all bays in these islands, and, according to its most ardent admirers, of all bays in Europe. This is the glorious sheet of salt water, presided over by the most symmetrical and beautiful of Irish mountains, Croagh Patrick, and guarded from the stormy Atlantic by the rocky shores of Clare Island. This is Clew Bay, the radiant beauty, the "matchless wonder of a bay," that not one in a hundred of those in search of the beautiful know anything about. It is indeed strange that this gem of sea lochs is not better known, now that a railway brings one to its very shores. It is almost impossible to draw a comparison between Clew Bay and the many magnificent arms of the sea that penetrate the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland, for it is so unlike most of them: Dublin Bay, while less grand and not so beautiful as Clew Bay, is the one that is most like it. Howth has somewhat the same position with regard to Dublin Bay that Clare Island occupies with regard to Clew Bay, and Slieve Coolan--in the name of all that's decent let that abominable name "Sugarloaf" be dropped for ever--is the presiding mountain genius of Dublin Bay, just as Croagh Patrick is the presiding mountain genius of Clew Bay. Both bays are beautiful rather than sublime; they are bright and cheerful rather than dark and frowning. With all the wildness and grandeur of the many far-entering fiords of the coast of Scotland, with all the Alpine glories of their shores, there is not one of them that for beauty alone can be compared with Clew Bay. It is shrouded by no terror-striking precipices. No cataracts pour into it even in flood time. No mountains overhang it. It seems to have been made to cheer and to delight, and not to terrify or to startle. It seems to have said to the mountains round it--"Stand back; come not too near me lest your shadows should fall on me and hide, even for an instant, one gleam of my radiant loveliness." So the mountains round it do stand back, and this is the one cause of its winsomeness, brightness, and cheerfulness. When the tide is full on a sunny day, Clew Bay seems absolutely to laugh. No shadow of surrounding hills can fall upon it, for they are too far away. It is as bright and as radiant a bay as there is in the world, and the glory of the coasts of Connacht. Clew Bay has a great advantage over the greater part of the bays on the Irish coast on account of its size. Killary Bay is in no place more than a mile wide, but Clew Bay is fully seven miles wide at its narrowest part, and about sixteen miles long--that is from Clare Island to the quay at Westport. Those who desire to see this splendid bay aright should not attempt to look at it from the town of Westport, for it cannot be seen to advantage from there. Neither can it be seen to advantage except during high tide, when all its multitude of islands are clearly defined. Let them ascend the high lands east of the town of Westport for about a mile, and then look back on the scene beneath them. If the day is fine, if there is plenty of sunlight, they will have to be the least sensitive of mortals if they can gaze on such a scene unmoved. Scenes sublimer and grander, and views more extensive, can be found in other countries; but for pure beauty--a beauty that seems to laugh and rejoice at its own matchless charms--Clew Bay may challenge anything of its kind on earth. North of the bay rises that most symmetrical of Irish mountains, Croagh Patrick, or the Reek, as it is frequently called. It seems to have been made to order, it is so regular and at the same time so graceful and grand in its outlines. There are few mountains of its height that look so high as Croagh Patrick. It is somewhat less than three thousand feet high, but owing to its symmetry and its steepness it looks higher and more imposing than many mountains of double its altitude. Exactly at the mouth of the bay, stretching almost straight across it, and almost completely shutting it in from the Atlantic, rises the great mass of Clare Island, making the bay a safe harbour as well as adding in a most extraordinary degree to its beauty. Clare Island is almost a mountain; its highest point cannot be less than fifteen hundred feet above the sea level, and it rises sheer from the water. It is almost as beautiful an object as Croagh Patrick itself. The hills on the north side of the bay are rather tame, but the beauty of the famous Reek is such that almost any other mountain would appear tame in comparison with it. The number of islands in Clew Bay is said to be three hundred and sixty-five--one for every day in the year. There seem not to be any exact details as to the number of these islands, but it cannot be much less than the number stated. They seem so numerous as to be uncountable. The reason that those wishing to see this wondrous bay at its best are advised to see it when the tide is full is because all the islands do not appear at low water. This is certainly a defect, but no sea loch looks so well at low water as when the tide is full. The citizens of Dublin know what a difference the tide being in or out makes in the appearance of their own magnificent bay. But in Clew Bay the difference in its appearance caused by the tide being full or low is much greater than in the bay of Dublin, for the reason that has been already stated. However much the difference the state of the tide may make in Clew Bay, it is beyond all doubt the most beautiful bay, not only in Ireland, but in all those countries known as the British Isles. Those who go to this part of the west coast in search of the sublime and beautiful should not omit to ascend Croagh Patrick, and gaze from its top on one of the grandest and most extensive views to be seen in Ireland. The mountain, seen from Westport or its environs, appears wellnigh inaccessible, but it is not so steep on its south side, and can be ascended with no great amount of difficulty. The view from Croagh Patrick is one of the most sublime that can be imagined. The whole of that wild, storm-beaten, cliff-guarded coast of Connacht, from Slyne Head in Connemara to the most northern part of Mayo, lies before one; and Clew Bay, beautiful as it is from wherever it is seen, seems fairer than ever when seen from the summit of Croagh Patrick. Going north from Clew Bay the next most interesting and wild spot is the island of Achill, and the grandest things there are the cliffs of Minnaun and Slieve More. As we are going north, Minnaun Cliffs, which are on the southern side of Achill, must be spoken about first. They are seven hundred feet in height, and will, therefore, average higher than the cliffs of Moher in the County Clare, but they do not rise perpendicularly from the sea as those of Moher do. But their sea sides are so steep as to be quite inaccessible even to the wild goats which still haunt the cliffs of Achill. The cliffs of Minnaun are magnificent, but if they rose sheer from the sea they would form a much more grand and impressive sight. But the cliffs of Minnaun, gigantic as they are, are only insignificant things compared with the great sea wall on the northern shores of the island, formed by Slieve More and Croghan. The whole northern shore of Achill, from Achill head in the extreme west of the island to the narrow straight that separates it from the mainland on the east, a distance of some thirteen miles, may be said to be a terrific barrier of cliffs, rising to the height of over two thousand feet at the hills Croghan and Slieve More. It is generally allowed that the north shore of Achill has the most stupendous mural cliffs that are to be seen anywhere nearer than Norway, and that even Norway has not very much cliff scenery more magnificent. There is nothing in the shape of cliffs or sea walls in these islands that can compare with the cliffs of Achill in grandeur except Slieve League in Donegal, of which mention will soon be made. A geologist has said, speaking of the cliffs of Achill, that it appeared to him as if part of the mountain which forms the western extremity of the island, and terminates in the noted cape of Achill head, had suffered dis-severance from a sunken continent by some convulsion of Nature. These gigantic cliffs can only be seen to advantage from the sea, but in the almost entire absence of passenger steam-boats on these coasts, it is very difficult for those who visit them to get a proper means of seeing them as they ought to be seen. They rise from out of one of the stormiest oceans in the world, that even in summer-time is often rough and dangerous; and very few would care to risk their lives in the cockle-shell boats, or _currachs_, of fishermen to see the stupendous cliffs of Achill from where they look best. In far distant Norway there are plenty of large and commodious steamboats to take tourists all round its coasts; but if they want to see some of the grandest and most beautiful scenery of their own country to its best advantage, they must trust to a fisherman's cot. It would take at least a week of the longest summer days to see all the wonders and grandeur of these tremendous cliffs, or rather cliff mountains, of Achill. In the interior of the island there is not anything of great interest to be seen, but it has more cliff scenery of the stupendous sort to boast of than perhaps any other island of its size in the world. It is a "far cry" from Achill to Slieve League in Donegal--considerably over a hundred miles if the coast is followed; but between the giant sea walls of that island and Slieve League there is nothing of their kind that will in any way bear comparison with them. There is, however, much magnificent scenery on the northern coast of Connacht, and also a great many things of antiquarian interest. There is the extraordinary Druid remains of Carrowmore, only three miles from Sligo town, where there are almost, if not quite, half a hundred cromlechs to be seen on about half a dozen acres. They are of almost all sizes. Some of them are baby cromlechs, the top stones of which are not much more than a hundredweight. This place must have been a sort of Stonehenge at one time. In no other known spot of either these islands or France are so many cromlechs to be seen in so small a space, and very few seem to know anything about it. Sir Samuel Ferguson seems to have been the only person who has written anything about it. But here the same disrespect for monuments of antiquity that has been so long prevalent all over the country may be noticed. Many of the cromlechs have been torn down, and some of them have been actually made to serve as road walls and have been built over. Fully half of them have been either utterly torn down or in some way mutilated. Their generally small size has made them an easy prey for those who wanted stones to build walls or houses. These curious relics of far-back ages should not be allowed to be any further ruined. [Illustration: LOCH GILL.] The country in the vicinity of Sligo is one of the most interesting and beautiful in Ireland. Close to it is the famous Loch Gill, the queen of the fresh water lakes of Connacht. It is so near the coast that it is not improper to say something about it in treating of the scenery of the coast. It is connected with the sea by a river only a few miles in length that passes through the town of Sligo, consequently it is only three or four miles in a direct line from the sea. There is no other large fresh water lake in Ireland, except Loch Corrib, so near the sea as Loch Gill. It is fully ten miles in extreme length, and from three to four in breadth. Its shores cannot be said to be mountainous, but the hills around it are so bold, and their lower parts are so well wooded, that Loch Gill, in spite of its having comparatively few islands, is yet one of the most beautiful lakes in Ireland, and no one in search of the beautiful should omit to see it. There is no other town in Ireland that has more objects of scenic and archæological interest in its vicinity than Sligo. There is the immense cairn on top of Knocknarea, sixteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. There are four or five other immense cairns close to the town, and there is the extraordinary mountain of Ben Bulben, anciently Ben Gulban, that is shaped like a gigantic rick of turf. It is a couple of miles long, and some sixteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. Its summit is perfectly flat. It can be ascended in a carriage from the south side; but on the north side, facing the sea, it is not only perpendicular, but overhangs its base in some places. If not the highest or most beautiful mountain in Ireland, it is certainly the most extraordinary. We now approach the famous Slieve League, the grandest, the boldest, the steepest, if not the highest, of all the cliff barriers on the coasts of these islands, and one of the most remarkable in the known world. It can be seen from the shore near Sligo, rising almost perpendicularly from the sea. The cliff-mountains of Achill, colossal as they are, seem to shun the full fury of the western gales, for they face the north-west; but Slieve League looks almost due south-west, and thrusts itself out into the ocean as if to court the most tremendous shock of the Atlantic's billows. It forms the culminating point of a range of cliffs that are over six miles in extent, extending from Carrigan Head to Teelin Head, the lowest cliff of which is over seven hundred feet in height. Slieve League is two thousand feet high, and almost perpendicular. It is two hundred feet lower than the highest of the cliff-mountains of Achill, but it is bolder, nearer being perpendicular, grander, and more rugged than they. Those who have not been on the sea at the base of Slieve League cannot form a true idea of its awful grandeur. Its summit is almost as sharp as a knife blade; and he who could look from the jagged rocks that form its cone down on to the seething ocean under him without feeling giddy should have a steady head and strong nerves. Those who go from these islands to Norway in search of the sublime should first see this king Irish cliff-mountains, and know how grand and beautiful are the sights that may be seen at home. The whole of the coast of Donegal is magnificent. There is no other cliff on it as high or as grand as Slieve League, but there are hundreds of places along its nearly a hundred miles of iron-bound, storm-beaten coast that are well worth seeing. It has nothing like Clew Bay, but it has gigantic cliffs, narrow arms of the sea, some of which are nearly as wild and as grand as the famous Killary Bay that has already been described. There may be certain places in the more southern coasts that are finer and fairer than anything on the coasts of Donegal with the exception of Slieve League, but for general wildness and cliff scenery there is hardly any sea-coast county in Ireland can equal it. It has the longest sea loch in the island on its coast--namely, Loch Swilly. Following its windings from its mouth to where it begins must be over five and twenty miles. It is a beautiful lake also, and hardly known at all to tourists, and never can be known until better means are supplied for seeing it from a steamer on its waters. The "wild west coast" may be said to end at the mouth of Loch Swilly. From there eastward it is the northern coast. There is much of the grand, beautiful, and curious to be seen on the northern coast from Inishowen to Fair Head, including the celebrated Giant's Causeway, and "high Dunluce's castle walls." The latter have been already described. It would be hard to find anywhere in the world another sea coast of the same length as that from Cape Clear in the south to Inishowen in the north, where there is so much to be seen of the grand, the terrible, and the beautiful. If the mountains on the coasts of Norway are higher, if its fiords penetrate further inland, and if in some places the shining glacier may be seen from them, there is not such astonishing variety of scenery on the coasts of Norway as there is in the west coast of Ireland. The climate of Norway does not permit the growth of many species of wild flowers which add so much to the beauty of even the wildest and most sterile parts of Ireland. In Norway there are no mountains radiant with purple heather and golden furze,--mountains that may be unsightly and sombre for ten months out of the twelve, but are, in autumn, turned into living bouquets, thousands of feet in height, and with areas of tens of thousands of acres. Moisture and mildness of climate are the parents of flowers. If rain and mist hide for days and weeks the most beautiful scenery in Ireland, there is ample compensation afterwards in the bloom of wild flowers more luxuriant and more plentiful than can be found where there is more sunlight and less moisture. It is a curious and humiliating fact that, so far as can be learned from the sources at command, there are ten people who go from these islands to the coasts of Norway every year for the one that visits the west coast of Ireland. It may be that many people go to Norway just because it has become fashionable to go there, but all the fashion in the world would not send people five or six hundred miles across a stormy sea if there was not good accommodation for them to go to that distant country, and good means for seeing its beauties. Let there be the same means for seeing the beauties of the west coast of Ireland as there are for seeing the coast of Norway, and thousands will visit the former every year. Those who want to see the grandeur of the Norwegian coast go in large and well-equipped steamers, and live in them, eat and sleep in them for weeks together, while they are brought from fiord to fiord and from town to town. Let similar means be had for those who desire to see the west coast of Ireland, and it will not be long unknown. There is no way to see coast scenery properly except from the sea. One might be looking at Slieve League or the Cliffs of Moher all his life from the land, but he could never have a full idea of their grandeur unless he saw them from the sea at their base. Those who see the cliffs and cliff-mountains of Norway from the deck of a commodious steamer see them aright. Most of those who make the trip to Norway are loud in praise of its magnificent coast scenery; but if they had to go by land from fiord to fiord, as they would have to do on the west coast of Ireland did they want to see its beauties, would they be so enchanted? They certainly would not. When tourists go to see the Norwegian fiords, they need not trouble themselves about engaging beds, or worry themselves by fearing that the hotel in such a place will be full, for they have an hotel on board the steamer, are carried from place to place, and are given ample time to see the beauties of each place. If there were the best hotels in the world at every romantic spot on the west coast of Ireland it would never attract visitors, and never would be known as it should be, and as its wondrous grandeur and beauty entitle it to be, until large and commodious steamers were provided in which people could live, if they chose, while being brought from one place of attraction to another, or from one town to another. There are few coasts in the world better provided with harbours than the west coast of Ireland. It could hardly happen that a steamer like those that take tourists from Leith to the coasts of Norway could be caught by a gale on any part of the coast from Cape Clear to Malin Head, ten miles from a harbour in which she could not take shelter. The danger of shipwreck would be so small as to be infinitesimal. The trip from Cape Clear to Malin Head, or even to the Giant's Causeway, could be made in two weeks, and give sufficient time to stop a day or more at such remarkable places as Clew Bay or the Arran Islands, where things of more than ordinary interest are to be seen, such as the view of Clew Bay from the high lands east of it, and the cyclopean ruins in the islands Arran, the most colossal and extraordinary things of their kind in Europe. There ought to be enterprise enough in Ireland to put a steamer, like those that take tourists to Norway every summer, on the Irish west coast for three or four months every year. Without such means of seeing the beauties of the west coast, as only a large, commodious steamer could furnish, the beauties and the grandeur of the cliffs of Moher, Clew Bay, Slieve More, and Slieve League will never be known as they should be. There is only one part of the Irish west coast where harbours for large craft are scarce, and that is the Donegal coast. It is said that there is no safe harbour between Killybegs and Loch Swilly, a distance of nearly a hundred miles. This is unfortunate; but stormy as the north-west coast is, there are always many days in summer when steamers could go from harbour to harbour in a calm sea. DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS Some may think, especially natives of Ireland, that writing about Dublin and its environs is mere waste of time, ink, and paper, seeing that there is so much known about them already. It should, however, be remembered that this book is intended for people who are not Irish, as well as for the Irish themselves. But even the Irish, and above all, the natives of Dublin, want to be told something that may be new to some of them about a city which so many of them seem neither to love nor admire as they should. There is, unfortunately, a certain class of people in Dublin who, although many of them were born there, think that it is one of the most backward and unpleasant places in Europe. They do not admire the beauty of its environs, and will not acknowledge willingly that it has been improved so much as it has been during the last twenty-five years. It has been improved and beautified in spite of them. Those citizens of Dublin who take no pride in it should go abroad and see as many cities as the author of this book has seen, and they would come back with more just ideas about Dublin. If there is any other city in Europe as large as Dublin, with environs more beautiful, where life is more enjoyable, and where life and property are more secure, it would be interesting to know where that city is. Dublin is a great deal too good for a good many who live in it. The history of Dublin may be said to commence with the Danish invasions of Ireland. It is rarely mentioned in Irish annals before the time when the Danes took it, and first settled in it in the year 836, according to the Four Masters. It probably existed as a small city long before the Danes got possession of it, and there is reason to believe that it was a place of some maritime trade at a remote period. It is stated on legendary more than on historic authority, that when Conn of the Hundred Battles and Eoghan Mór divided the island between them in the third century, the Liffey was, for a certain part of its length, the boundary between their dominions; and that the fact of more ships landing on the north side of the river than on the south side gave offence to Eoghan, who owned the southern shore of the Liffey, and caused a war between the two potentates. It is, however, hardly probable that Dublin was a place of much importance before its occupation by the Scandinavians in the first half of the ninth century. [Illustration: SACKVILLE STREET (O'CONNELL STREET).] The Irish name of Dublin is, perhaps, the longest one by which any city in Europe is called. It is _Baile Atha Cliath Dubhlinne_, and means the town of the ford of hurdles of black pool. In ancient Irish documents it is generally shortened to _Ath Cliath_, and sometimes to _Dubhlinn_. We have no means of knowing what was the size or population of Dublin in Danish times; but long after it became the seat of English government in Ireland, it extended east no further than where the city hall now stands in Dame Street, no further west than James Street, and no further south than the lower part of Patrick Street; both Patrick's cathedral and the Comb having been outside the city walls. We have no account of the first siege of Dublin by the Danes in 836. The annals merely say that a fleet of sixty ships of Northmen came to the Liffey, and that that was the first occupation of the city by them. The Irish captured and plundered Dublin a great many times, but do not appear to have ever tried to banish the Danes permanently out of it. It is probable that the Irish found them useful as carriers of merchandise to them from foreign countries; for seeing how often the city was captured and plundered by the Irish, it is incredible that they could not have held it had they chosen to do so. The Four Masters record its capture and plunder by the Irish in A.D. 942, 945, 988, and 998. In 994 Malachy II. sacked Dublin and carried off two Danish trophies, the ring of Tomar and the sword of Karl; and in 988 he besieged it for twenty days and twenty nights, captured it, and carried off an immense booty; and issued the famous edict, "Every Irishman that is in slavery and oppression in the country of the foreigners (Danes) let him go to his own country in peace and delight." But the Irish were not always lucky in their attacks on the Danes of Dublin, for in 917 Niall Glundubh, King of Ireland, was killed by them, and his army defeated at Killmashogue, beyond Rathfarnham. He evidently intended to take Dublin from the south, because it was so well defended on the north by the Liffey. The battle usually known as the battle of Clontarf was not fought in the locality now called by that name, but between the Liffey and the Tolka. Where Amien Street is now was probably the very centre of the battle-field. Here it may not be out of place to make a remark on the curious fact that the Danes never made any serious attempt to conquer Ireland after the battle of Clontarf, although they were at the height of their power some six or eight years after by the terrible defeat they gave the Saxons at Ashington, in Essex, which gave Canute the crown of England. He thus became not only King of England, but was King of Denmark and Norway as well--the most powerful potentate in Christendom in his time. It is strange that historians have not taken any notice of this extraordinary fact. There was comparatively little fighting between the Irish and the Danes after the battle of Clontarf, although the foreign people held Dublin until the arrival of Strongbow, and made a very poor stand against him, for he captured the city with very little difficulty. Dublin has hardly suffered what could be called a siege since 988, when Malachy II. took it from the Danes. When Strongbow held it, the Irish under the wretched Roderick O'Connor marched a great army under its walls, and were going to take it; but before they began siege operations, and while they were amusing themselves by swimming in the Liffey, Strongbow sallied out on them and totally defeated them. That was the last serious attempt to besiege Dublin. Dublin does not appear to have grown much until after the wretched, and for Ireland terribly unfortunate, Jacobite wars were over. It grew and prospered rapidly almost all through the eighteenth century when a native parliament sat there; but from about 1820 until about 1870 there was not very much either of growth or improvement in it. Since then, in spite of what the census may show, it has grown considerably, and has been improved immensely. It is not easy to see what has caused such improvement in Dublin since 1870. The only way that the improvement in the state of the streets, the pulling down of old buildings and the erection of new ones, can be accounted for, is by the fact that the local government of the city is in the hands of a different class of men from those who ruled it so long and so badly up to about the time mentioned. When one considers all that has been done since then in the paving of streets, the laying down of new side walks, the tearing down of old buildings, the erection of cottages for the working classes where rotten and pestiferous houses had stood, the deepening of the river so that the largest ships can now enter it, the extension and perfecting of the tram-car system, and other improvements too numerous to mention, it strikes him as something astonishing; but when it is remembered that all these improvements have taken place in the face of declining trade, declining population, and declining wealth in the country at large, what has been accomplished becomes absolutely sublime. It shows clearly that there is a class of the Irish people who, with all their faults, possess hearts and souls "that sorrows have frowned on in vain, Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm"; and that they never give up and never despair. Never has any city been so much improved in so short a time, and in the face of such difficulties. The improvements are still being carried on. If they are carried on for another quarter of a century at the same rate at which they were carried on during the last quarter of a century, Dublin will be one of the cleanest, pleasantest, healthiest, and most beautiful cities in the world. In an educational point of view, there are very few cities either in these islands or on the Continent that offer more facilities for culture than Dublin. Its new National Library is, for its size, one of the finest and best organised and best managed in Europe. It is not a British Museum, nor is it a Bibliothèque Nationale; and the citizens of Dublin who have children who are fond of reading, and who wish to add to their store of knowledge, ought to feel very well satisfied that their National Library is _not_ like either the monstrous and little-good-to-the-masses institution in London, or the still more monstrous and still less good-to-the-masses institution in Paris. Those to whom time is of little value can afford to wait during a considerable part of the day to get a book from the great libraries of London and Paris; but for any one to whom time is really valuable, to visit the great libraries mentioned as a reader of their books, should, in most cases, be the last thing he should think of. There are three libraries in Dublin, of which two are free to any one known as a respectable person--these are the National Library and the Royal Irish Academy. To become a reader in Trinity College Library costs, to a person known to be respectable, only a couple of shillings a year. Seeing the facilities that are in Dublin for cultured people, or for those who wish to become cultured, it is strange that it does not stand higher as an educational centre. The three great libraries it contains--that is, the National Library, Trinity College Library and the Royal Irish Academy--contain almost every sort of book required for the most complete education in every art and science known to civilised men. But one of the grand advantages of these institutions, an advantage almost as great to the people at large as the treasures they contain, is the fact that they are not controlled by "red tapeism." The amount of trouble and downright humiliation one has to go through to become a reader in the British Museum of London, or in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, is enough to deter any but a person of nerve from seeking admittance to them as a reader. The British Museum is not so bad in the matter of "red tapeism" as it might perhaps be; but the Bibliothèque Nationale puts so many obstacles in the way of those who desire to become readers, that it is little else than a disgrace to Paris and to France. For ridiculous red tapeism it beats any institution of its kind on earth. There are probably not three libraries in the world more easy of access than the three Dublin ones that have been mentioned, and in which there is less red tapeism, or more courtesy shown to readers. The buildings that have been recently erected in Kildare Street, Dublin, the Library and the Museum, would be considered chaste and elegant in any city in the world; and it is questionable if any buildings of their kind can be found in any city to surpass them in architectural beauty. Even the Picture Gallery and the Natural History Gallery, close to them in Leinster Lawn, are very handsome buildings. If the front of Leinster House, facing Kildare Street, were brightened up and made to look like its rear, the whole group of buildings, including Leinster House itself, would form an architectural panorama hardly to be surpassed anywhere; and if Dublin contained nothing else worthy of being seen, it would make Dublin worth travelling hundreds of miles to see. But it is the Museum of Irish Antiquities that is, or that ought to be, the glory of this splendid group of buildings, and it is the only one of them with the management of which fault can be justly found. The way it has been managed ever since the articles it contains were removed from the Royal Irish Academy in Dawson Street is a disgrace to all Ireland, and a blot on the Irish people. There is not room to show the public much more than half the objects of antiquity. They are stowed away in drawers, and have been so for nearly ten long years. They might as well be in the earth from which they were recovered as be packed into drawers in a back room where none but officials can see them. If there was a decent and proper national spirit among the Irish people, such treatment of Ireland's wonderful and unique antiquities would not be tolerated for a single week. Her antiquities are among the chief glories of Ireland. In monuments of the past she stands ahead of almost all countries save Greece and Egypt. It is not alone in her ruined fanes, round towers, gigantic _raths_, sepulchral mounds, and Cyclopean fortresses that she can boast of antiquarian curiosities more numerous and more unique than those of almost any other country, but also in her multitudinous articles in gold, bronze, and iron. A good many of these--the greater part of them, perhaps--are in positions where they can be seen; but thousands of them are where no one but an official can see them. If the Irish antiquarian department were properly arranged, and if _all_ the objects it possesses that have been dug up from Irish soil were properly exhibited, Ireland could boast of an exhibition of national antiquities greater, more entirely her own, and more unique than that possessed by any other country in Europe. Some may think that this statement is not true. They may point to the enormous collection of antiquities in the museum in Naples. It is, however, hardly fair to class the treasures of that museum with the objects found in Ireland. It was the accidental calamity that befel Herculaneum and Pompeii that stocked the museum in Naples. If that calamity had not happened, it is all but certain that not a single object in the Neapolitan museum would now be extant. It was by no accidental calamity that the enormous number of Irish antique objects were brought to light. They were found from time to time all over the country. There are many private collections in the hands of private individuals in almost all the large towns in Ireland, and a very large percentage of the bronze objects in the British Museum were found in Ireland. No other country of its size has yielded so many objects of a far-back antiquity. It seems a pity that those who have so many private collections of antique objects in so many parts of Ireland do not send them all to the Royal Irish Academy; but if they are to lie there, stowed away in drawers in a back room, they might better remain in the hands of private collectors. If there was a real national press in Ireland, there would be such widespread indignation awakened at the way Irish antiquities have been treated since they were removed to the Museum in Kildare Street that those who manage it would be _forced_ to treat one of the finest collections of its kind in the world in a very different manner. Hardly a word has appeared in the Dublin press protesting against the way the department of Irish antiquities has been managed. With all the advantages Dublin possesses over most of the European capitals in great facilities for education, in cheap house rent as compared with many other cities, in uncommon beauty of environs, very few rich, retired people with families to educate, choose it for a residence. It is not to be wondered at that wealthy English and Scotch people should prefer to live in their own countries, but wealthy Irish people seem not to desire to live in Dublin unless it is their native place. Ireland, unfortunately, does not possess very many rich people, but she has at least some outside of Dublin; but very few of these, even if they have young, growing-up families, go to reside in the capital in order to educate them. Some seem to think that outside of Trinity College, Dublin has no advantages in an educational point of view worth speaking of. This is not now the case. It is true that some years ago Trinity College was the only institution in Dublin where high-class education could be obtained, but it is not so any longer, since the rise of other educational institutions. But it is in the excellence of its libraries, and the easy access that there is to them, that Dublin offers such great advantages to those who do not desire to enter Trinity College. There is, of course, a much larger collection of books in the British Museum, and in many of the Continental libraries, than there is in the libraries of Dublin; but between red tapeism, and the greater number of readers that frequent those places as compared with the Dublin libraries, it is safe to say that more reading could be done and more knowledge gained by a student in one week in a Dublin library than in two weeks in any of those enormous places where there are such crowds and consequently such loss of time. It is, however, hardly to be wondered at that Dublin has heretofore attracted so few rich people to it. It got a name for being dirty and ill-governed; and it has to be confessed that the name was, in a large measure, deserved. Dublin _was_ dirty and _was_ badly governed, but it is not now. A bad name lasts a long time, and is not easily got rid of; and the improvements made in Dublin are of such recent origin that it is only natural that outsiders should think it is still what it was thirty years ago. Let Dublin continue to be improved for the next twenty years as it has been during the twenty years that have elapsed, and it will be one of the most attractive of the European capitals. It is not yet what it should be; there are many things of many kinds in it which require improvement or alteration; but so much good has been done already that it is only reasonable to expect that still more will be done, and that the time cannot be far distant when the city "of the black pool," badly as its English translation may appear, will attract not only visitors from all parts of the world, but rich people who will take up permanent abode there, attracted by the educational advantages it will afford, by the beauty and cleanliness of the city itself, and by the superlative beauty of the country around it. The situation of Dublin can hardly be called romantic. It is built at the mouth of a river, and consequently not on high ground; but the site is good, for the ground rises on both sides of the Liffey, making the drainage easy. When the system of main drainage that is now being carried out is finished, it will be one of the best drained cities in the world. Dublin has not such a picturesque site as Edinburgh has, neither has any other city in Europe; but outside of Edinburgh there are no objects of scenic interest unless one goes forty or fifty miles away to see them. But if the site of Dublin cannot be called picturesque, it can boast of having some of the most beautiful, if not the largest, public buildings in the world. For chasteness, harmony, symmetry, and grace, the Bank of Ireland, if it has any equals at all in modern architecture, has very few. The Custom House is one of the finest buildings in Europe. The new public buildings, containing the National Library and the Museum, are gems of architectural beauty; so are some of the banks, and so is the Great Southern Railway Terminus, and so are many other public buildings. Dublin cannot boast of possessing any building as large as St Paul's or the Tuileries; but size and beauty are two different things. But it is in its environs that Dublin stands ahead of all the capitals in Europe, or, perhaps, of any other city of equal size in any country. Because the beauties around Dublin were not described in the first chapters of this work does not imply that they are much inferior to what may be seen in other parts of the country. There is nothing like the Lakes of Killarney in the environs of Dublin, and Dublin Bay is hardly equal to Clew Bay; but barring those two gems of scenic loveliness, it is questionable if there is, for beauty alone, leaving sublimity aside, anything in Ireland that surpasses the immediate environs of Dublin, without going further north than Howth, or further south than Bray. Every inch of the country round Dublin has some peculiar scenic charm of its own. The Botanic Gardens of Glasnevin are the most interesting and beautiful in Europe; not so much for the care that has been taken of them, or the quantity and variety of the plants that are in them, but principally on account of the charming locality in which they are situated. It is not meant to be implied that they are not well taken care of, or that their collection of plants is not both rare and large. What is meant is that had they the rarest and largest collection of plants to be seen in any gardens in the world, they would not have the same attraction were they situated in a less picturesque locality. If ever there was a place made to spend a hot summer day in, it is these gardens, with their murmuring river, their shaded, sunless walks, their gigantic trees and deep glens. The place where the flower gardens of Glasnevin are would still be beautiful if there wasn't a flower in it. Its bay is the great scenic attraction round Dublin. It cannot be seen to real advantage but from the south-west side of the hill of Howth. The bay has very few islands, but its background of mountains on one side and woodland on the other is so wonderfully fair, that were there myriads of islands to be seen, they could hardly add to the wondrous beauty of the view. What a Scotch mechanic said about the view of Dublin Bay from the high land on the south-west of Howth the first time he was there will give the reader a better idea of Dublin Bay than a whole chapter of descriptions, and loses nothing by being expressed in the strong doric of the north: "Ech, mon, I seed mony a bonny sicht in Scótland, but this beats a'." There are many who think the view from Killiney Hill finer than that from Howth. The view from the former takes in Sorrento Bay, which is in reality part of the Bay of Dublin that can hardly be seen from Howth, and also takes in many valleys in Wicklow and plains in the interior that are not visible from Howth. It is not easy to say which of the views is the finer; but either is worth travelling not only ten miles, but a hundred miles, afoot to see. In describing the beauties of Dublin Bay, it cannot be out of place to give the finest poetic address to it that was ever written. It will be new to most English and many Irish readers. The poem is by the late D. F. M'Carthy:-- "My native Bay, for many a year I've loved thee with a trembling fear, Lest thou, though dear and very dear, And beauteous as a vision, Shouldst have some rival far away, Some matchless wonder of a bay, Whose sparkling waters ever play 'Neath azure skies elysian. "'Tis love, methought, blind love that pours The rippling magic round these shores, For whatsoever love adores Becomes what love desireth; 'Tis ignorance of aught beside That throws enchantment o'er the tide, And makes my heart respond with pride To what mine eye admireth. "And thus unto our mutual loss, Whene'er I paced the sloping moss Of green Killiney, or across The intervening waters; Up Howth's brown side my feet would wend To see thy sinuous bosom bend, Or view thine outstretched arms extend To clasp thine islet daughters. "My doubt was thus a moral mist,-- Even on the hills when morning kissed The granite peaks to amethyst, I felt its fatal shadow; It darkened o'er the brightest rills, It lowered upon the sunniest hills, And hid the wingèd song that fills The moorland and the meadow. "But now that I have been to view All that Nature's self could do, And from Gaeta's arch of blue Borne many a fond memento; And gazed upon each glorious scene, Where beauty is and power has been, Along the golden shores between Misenum and Sorrento; "I can look proudly on thy face, Fair daughter of a hardier race, And feel thy winning well-known grace, Without my old misgiving; And as I kneel upon thy strand, And clasp thy once unhonoured hand, Proclaim earth holds no lovelier land Where life is worth the living." One great charm of the country around Dublin, like one of the great charms of Killarney, is its diversity. There are mountain, bay, woodland, and river. There is a variety of scenery in the immediate vicinity of Dublin such as cannot be found so near any other European capital, and such as not even Naples itself can boast of. Great indeed is the difference in the style of scenery between the cliffs of Howth and the green lanes of Clontarf, although both places are hardly more than four miles apart. To go a few miles further from the city, Bray is reached. It is only twenty-five minutes by train from Dublin. There one finds himself almost within a gunshot of some of the most picturesque and peculiar scenery in the world. The Dargle and Powerscourt Waterfall are in the same locality. They are gems of loveliness that surpass anything of their kind in these islands. Even Killarney has nothing like them. Their very smallness adds to their charms. The Dargle is exactly what its name, _Dair-gleann_, signifies, an oak-glen. It is a chasm some two or three hundred feet deep, every inch of the sides of which is covered in summer-time with some sort of tree, shrub, or flower. In its depths laughs or murmurs a limpid stream that can rarely be noticed, such is the thickness and luxuriance of the trees and shrubs that overhang it. Powerscourt Waterfall is close by the Dargle. The river that forms it leaps down a rock nearly three hundred feet in height, into a valley of brightest verdure, covered with a thick growth of primeval oak-trees. An enchanting spot--which it is gross folly to attempt to describe--in a land of towering hills and flower-crowned rocks. Its wildness, winsomeness, and loveliness must be seen in order to form anything like a just idea of it. And all within about twelve miles of Dublin! Then there is Howth on the north side, and only nine miles from Dublin, one of the most wonderful spots of earth for its size in Europe. It is a hill-promontory that juts out into nearly the middle of the bay, about three miles in width and nearly the same in length. It is over five hundred feet high, and in autumn is a pyramid of crimson and gold; for wherever there are not trees or cultivation, there are furze and heath. A place of wondrous beauty of its own, in no way like the Dargle or Powerscourt. From the summit of Howth there is one of the most enchanting and extensive views conceivable, reaching north to the Mourne Mountains and east to Wales. And all this about nine miles from Dublin! Yet with all these glories at her very feet, Dublin is still the Cinderella among the capitals of Europe. There is beauty of a "truly rural" kind within half-an-hour's walk from the Dublin General Post Office, or from the centre of the city. Thackeray said in his "Irish Sketch Book," half a century ago, that it was curious how some of the streets of Dublin so suddenly ended in potato fields; but the potato fields Thackeray saw there are all covered with houses now. It is true, however, that on the north side of Dublin one gets into the real country by walking only a quarter of an hour from the city limits; no sham country of cabbage gardens, but real fields of grass and grain growing from soil of the most exuberant fertility. Trees and hedgerows abound; so do some of the best and most thrifty farmers in Ireland, who generally pay enormous rents for their land. The country north of Dublin is almost perfectly flat, while on the south side the mountains commence within a few miles of the city limits. But flat as the country north of Dublin is, it is one of the finest and most fertile parts of Ireland, and was known in ancient times as Fingall, because some _Finn Galls_, or fair-haired foreigners from Scandinavia settled in it when they ceased to plunder churches and monasteries. Those who prefer a flat, well-wooded, and very fertile country to a land of mountains and valleys, like that on the south side of Dublin, should see the plains of Fingall. It has been said that the gentle and refined are ever fond of flowers. If this be so, the gentle and refined ought to be very plentiful in Dublin and its environs, for in no other part of this planet known to man are there as many wild flowers to be seen so near a great city as in the environs of Dublin. This statement is made in sober earnestness, and with absolute certainty as to its truth. It may be asked, if this is so, how is it to be accounted for? It is easy of explanation. To begin, Ireland is, _par excellence_, the land of wild flowers because of its moist, mild climate and generally rich soil. Sunlight, when it is the burning sunlight of southern climes, is death to flowers. Dublin enjoys a milder climate than any city in Great Britain, although not so mild as Cork or some other Irish southern cities. It is only a few miles from the mountains on the south of Dublin to Howth on the north. Between Howth and the mountains, if the whole of the mountains of Wicklow are counted and taking inequalities of surface into account, for government surveys always mean level surfaces, there are every autumn at least a hundred thousand acres of wild flowers within half a day's journey of Dublin. It may be said that these wild flowers are nearly all of one species--heath. That is true; but heath, or heather as it is more frequently called, is a wild flower, and one of the most beautiful that grows. The reason the Irish mountains produce so much more heath than those of Great Britain is because they are less rocky and more boggy, and are in a milder climate. The mountains of Wales, being so stony, have hardly any heath on them. Then there is the furze or gorse, as it is generally called in England. Heath and gorse bloom side by side over thousands of acres in Howth and on the Dublin and Wicklow mountains. Then there is the hawthorn. Where in these islands, or on the continent of Europe, are there as many hawthorns to be seen on an equal space of ground as in the Phoenix Park, Dublin? Let those who have seen them in their snowy glory of white blossoms in the early summer answer. But there are still other flowers that do certainly bloom in greater luxuriance, and are more plentiful round Dublin than round any other city in these islands--one of these is laburnum. Florists have said that nowhere else does it bloom with such luxuriance as around the Irish capital. Dublin is indeed seated in a flowery land, for it is well known that even the rich soil of Ireland produces more wild flowers than the rich soil of Great Britain. It is true that not only the flora but the fauna of Ireland are less numerous in species than those of Great Britain. There are a great many species of flowering plants that are common in the larger island but unknown in the smaller one except in gardens. It is not easy to account for this; but if there are fewer indigenous flowering plants in Ireland than in Great Britain, the former country produces those that are natural to it in much greater abundance than the latter. The reason of this is easily understood. It is because the climate of Ireland is milder and moister than that of Great Britain; and it is probable that the soil is of a different quality in Ireland. But one thing is certain, that not in England or in any European country are there such a quantity of wild flowers to be seen as in Ireland. It is not alone on Irish bogs and mountains that wild flowers are more abundant than in most other countries, for the most fertile soil in Ireland, the best fattening land, generally grows wild flowers in such abundance that pastures become parterres. Dublin and its vicinity are not quite so rich in antiquities as some other parts of Ireland. Very few traces of the old Danish city have been left. Its walls can be traced in some few places. But what sort of houses the people lived in can only be guessed at. They were probably, for the most part, built of wood; for it cannot be too often impressed on those who have a taste for antiquarian studies, that in ancient, and even what is generally known as mediæval times, almost the entire populations of northern countries lived in houses of wood or of mud, and sometimes in houses made of both materials. For centuries after the art of building with stone and mortar was well understood, stone houses were rarely used by the masses either in towns or country places. They had stone-built churches and round towers, and sometimes castles, but the people lived in wooden or in mud houses. Dublin has more round towers in its immediate vicinity than any other Irish city. There are three of them within a few miles' distance. That of Clondalkin is on the Great Southern Railway; that of Lusk is on the Great Northern; and that of Swords is only seven miles from Dublin by road, and only two miles from Malahide Station on the Great Northern. All these towers are in a good state of preservation; but the one at Swords will soon be a ruin if the ivy, with which it has been foolishly allowed to become completely covered, is not removed from it. Ivy holds up for a time a building that is in a state of decay, but in the long run it is sure to ruin it completely; for when the ivy becomes strong enough, it forces its way between the stones, gradually displaces them, and the building then tumbles down. If it is the Board of Works that has charge of the Swords round tower, they are greatly to blame for allowing the ivy to be gradually but surely bringing it to certain ruin. If it is under the control of a private person, public opinion should compel him to have the ivy removed from what was not long ago one of the most perfect and best preserved of Irish round towers. There is something connected with the census of Dublin published in Thom's directory from official documents which may be more interesting to some than any description of the Irish capital, however graphic. This something is an evident error that has, by some means, been made in enumeration of its inhabitants. According to the published census, there were in round numbers 13,000 more people in Dublin in 1851 than in 1891; and only 14,000 more in county and city included in 1891 than in 1851. There is a gross error here, for between the two epochs mentioned, the increase in what is generally known as the metropolitan district has been so great that it is visible to anyone who has been familiar with Dublin for forty years. It is known that since 1851 nearly 25,000 houses have been erected in city and county. That number of houses would represent at least 100,000 people, but it only represents 14,000 according to the census, or two-thirds of a person to each house! It may be said that a great many houses have been pulled down in the city since 1851. True, there have; but ten have been built since then for the one that has been pulled down. There are at least a dozen streets, large and small, in Dublin, the population of which is four times greater than it was in 1851; for there were no tenement houses in those streets then, whereas they are all tenement houses now, and consequently there are four or five families instead of one in each house. The great increase in the population of Dublin during the last forty or forty-five years is quite apparent in the more crowded state of the thoroughfares. It seems not only probable, but certain, from all the data that can be got at outside the census, that there are from fifty to one hundred thousand more people in what is known as the metropolitan district of Dublin than is shown by the published census. This will go far to account for the weekly death-rate of Dublin being generally higher than that of any other city in these islands; for if the weekly number of deaths is based on a population less than what it is, it will make the weekly death-rate per thousand higher than it should be. This is a very serious matter for Dublin, for nothing has a more detrimental effect on the welfare of a city than getting the name of being unhealthy. It is to be hoped that the reader will not set down either to national bigotry or private advantage what has been said in praise of Dublin and its environs. The writer may be national in the broad sense of the word, but he has no sentimental love for Dublin beyond any other Irish city. He is not influenced by the _genius loci_; he has no personal interest whatever in Dublin. What he has said in its praise, and in praise of its environs, would be said of Timbuctoo had he the same knowledge of the African city that he has of Dublin, and were Timbuctoo and its environs as worthy of laudation. Dublin is not his native city; but even if it were he would be perfectly justified in telling the truth about it. If what he has said about Dublin be untrue, it can easily be shown to be untrue. If that city has not been improved and beautified in a most remarkable manner during the last twenty-five years; if some of its public buildings are not remarkable specimens of architectural excellence; if its environs are not beautiful beyond those of any other European capital; if any of these statements be untrue, let them be proved to be so at the very earliest opportunity. BELFAST AND ITS ENVIRONS Belfast is not only the second city in Ireland in population and wealth, but the second in beauty of environs. Its growth has been, during the last three-quarters of a century, greater than that of any city in these islands. It is an immense jump in population from 37,000 in 1821 to 273,000 in 1891. In splendour of public buildings, cleanliness of streets, and general appearance, Belfast can be favourably compared with any city of equal size in any country. Its citizens are proud of it, and so they ought to be, for it was their own enterprise that made it what it is. The extraordinarily rapid growth of Belfast shows what manufactures can do for a city, for without them it would still be hardly more important than any of the provincial towns of Ulster. It has an excellent harbour, and besides its linen manufactures, it has become one of the most important ship-building places in the world. But it was its linen manufactures that gave Belfast the start. It is the largest linen mart in the world; but unfortunately for it, and every other place in which the manufacture of linen is carried on, the competition of cotton fabrics is rapidly making the manufacture of linen less profitable, and threatens to drive it out of use almost entirely in the long run. If cotton were unknown, Belfast would be now, in all probability, a place of a million of inhabitants, and Ireland would be one of the richest, if not the very richest, country of its size in the world. It is well known that for flax growing and for linen bleaching Ireland is ahead of all countries. Experts say that in no other country can flax be grown with a fibre so strong and yet so fine as in Ireland. It seems to be the country of all others that is best suited for the growth of flax out of which the finest linen fabrics can be made. It would almost seem as if Ireland was fated to be for ever suffering some sort of ill-luck, and that things which are blessings to humanity at large are often misfortunes to her. There cannot be any doubt but that the cotton plant has proved one of the greatest of blessings to mankind in general, but it has been a great misfortune to Ireland. Were it not for cotton, three-fourths of the land of Ireland would now be growing flax, and it would most likely contain a dozen linen manufacturing centres as large as Belfast. Whatever the future of the linen trade may be, it is hardly possible that Belfast can ever sink into insignificance, for its people have so much of the true commercial spirit in them that if linen became as useless as the chain armour of the middle ages, they would turn their energies to some other branch of manufacture and make it a success. Belfast hardly figures at all in ancient Irish history or annals. It is a comparatively new place. It is first mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters under the year 1476, where it is said, "A great army was led by O'Neill against the son of Hugh Boy O'Neill; and he attacked the castle of Bel-feiriste, which he took and demolished, and then returned to his house." The name Belfast is a corruption of _Bél-feiriste_, or as it would probably be written in modern Irish, Beulfearsaide, the mouth or pass of the spindle. This seems nonsense, but the following, from Joyce's "Irish Names of Places," will explain it: "The word _fearsad_ is applied to a sand-bank formed near the mouth of a river by the opposing currents of tide and stream, which at low water often formed a firm and comparatively safe passage across. The term is pretty common, especially in the west, where these _fearsets_ are of considerable importance; as in many places they serve the inhabitants instead of bridges. A sand-bank of this kind across the mouth of the Lagan gave name to Belfast, which is called in Irish authorities Bel-feirisde, the ford of the _farset_; and the same name in the uncontracted form, Belfarsad, occurs in Mayo." The Irish name for a spindle is _fearsaid_; it also means a sand-bank, as described above, probably because the shape of such sand-banks is generally something like that of a spindle. According to the orthography of the Four Masters, whose spelling of place names is generally correct, _feiriste_ is the genitive singular of _fearsaid_; while in the name "Belfarsad," mentioned by Joyce, _forsad_ seems to be the genitive plural. Belfast and its environs cannot be said to be very rich in monuments of antiquity. There are, however, two round towers not far from it; one at Antrim, some fifteen miles away, in excellent preservation; and one at Drumbo, in the County Down, about five miles from the city. The last is in a ruined condition--not much more than thirty feet of it remains. But Belfast can boast of the most extraordinary monument of antiquity of its kind in Ireland being in its immediate vicinity. This is the vast _rath_ known as the Giant's Ring. There is nothing in Ireland so fine as it. The _rath_ on the summit of Knock Aillinn, in the County Kildare, which has been already described in the article on that hill, is much larger, and encloses three times the space; but the earthen ramparts are not nearly so high as those of the Giant's Ring. The space enclosed by this gigantic rath is seven statute acres. When standing in the centre of this ancient fortress, nothing is seen but the sky above and the vast earthworks all around. The centre is as level and almost as smooth as a billiard table, and exactly in the centre stands a cromlech. Old men living in the locality say that the ramparts were for many years planted with potatoes. This must have reduced their height by many feet; but they are still nearly, if not quite, twenty feet high. Like most ancient raths, it has two entrances, one exactly opposite the other. It would give ample room to a population of some thousands, and was evidently an ancient city. But one of the most extraordinary things connected with the Giant's Ring is that annals, history, and legend are silent about it. So far, there seems to be no more known about those who built the Giant's Ring than about the builders of the temples of Central America. It is the same with many of the vast Cyclopean forts along the west coast, of which the Stague fort in Kerry and the forts in the islands of Arran in Galway are the most remarkable. There are, however, very few large earthen forts in any part of Ireland about which annals and history are alike silent. The Giant's Ring is by far the most remarkable structure of its kind in Ireland, and the most remarkable of all the ancient remains in the vicinity of Belfast. It has been much better preserved than most of the remains of its kind in Ireland, for the landlord on whose property it is has built a stone wall round it, so it is safe from spoliation. The environs of Belfast are finer and more interesting than those of any Irish city, Dublin alone excepted. It is really curious that so little notice has been taken of them. The view from Devis Mountain, the top of which is hardly more than four miles from the centre of the city, is one of the finest and most extensive that can be seen in any part of Ireland. The greater part of the north of Eastern Ulster can be seen from it. Ailsa Craig in the Firth of Clyde seems almost at one's feet when standing on the summit of Devis Mountain. To know the immensity of Loch Neagh, it should be seen from there. It appears like a vast inland sea, out of all proportion to the size of the island to which it is a curse rather than an adornment; for it is one of the most utterly uninteresting of Irish lakes. The view from Cave Hill is also very fine. This hill is only three or four miles from Belfast. [Illustration: BELFAST LOCH.] Belfast Loch, as it is called, if not as picturesque as Dublin Bay, is, nevertheless, a very fine bay, and has most beautiful and sumptuous residences on its shores, particularly on the southern side. It is on this side of the loch that Hollywood is situated. There are more fine, well-kept residences in Hollywood than there are in the neighbourhood of any other Irish city. The people of Belfast are proud of Hollywood, and they ought to be. There are few places in the immediate vicinity of any city of the size of Belfast in England or Scotland where so many fine, well-kept, and sumptuous residences can be seen as in Hollywood. The greater part of them are owned by Belfast merchants. Few go to Belfast in search of the picturesque. It has got such a commercial name that those who have never been there think that it has no attractions save for the business man. But if Belfast is visited in the summer time, if the views from its hills are seen, and if its beautiful suburb of Hollywood is seen, it will be found that there are scenic attractions of a very high order in the neighbourhood of the northern capital. CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS Cork, like Dublin, is a place of considerable antiquity. It does not figure in the annals or history of pagan Ireland, but Christian establishments were founded there very soon after the time of St Patrick. Its Irish name, and the one by which it is mentioned in all ancient Irish annals and history is _Corcach Mór Mumhan_, literally, the great swamp of Munster. A very inappropriate name seemingly, for, although the place where the city is built might have been a swamp, it never could have been a big one, as it is a narrow, and by no means a long, valley. It is, however, clear that the word _mór_--big--was not intended to relate to the size of the swamp, but to the greatness of either the town or ecclesiastical establishments that grew up in it. The earliest notice of Cork that appears in Irish annals is in the still unpublished "Annals of Inisfallen," where it is stated, under the year 617, that "In this year died Fionnbarre, first bishop of Cork, at Cloyne. He was buried in his own church at Cork." Under the year 795, the following curious entry occurs in the same annals:--"In this year the Danes first appeared cruising on the coast [of Ireland] spying out the country. Their first attacks were on the ships of the Irish, which they plundered." The same annals say that Cork, Lismore, and Kill Molaïse were plundered by the Danes in the year 832, and that in 839 they burned Cork; and that in 915 they plundered Cork, Lismore, and Aghabo. They also state that in 978 Cork was plundered twice, presumably by the Danes. The _Chronicon Scottorum_ says that Cork was also plundered by the Danes in 822. It was so often plundered by them that it is hardly to be wondered at that the annalists should not have been able to keep account of every time it was harried by the Northmen. But the Danes were not the only parties by whom the south of Ireland suffered, for we read in the Four Masters, that in the year 847 Flann, over-king of Ireland, for what reason does not appear, harried Munster from Killaloe to Cork. They say also that a great fleet of foreigners (Northmen) arrived in Munster in 1012 and burned Cork. They were, however, defeated by Cahall, son of Donnell. This fleet had evidently come to Cork for the purpose of making a diversion in the south of Ireland, so that the great Danish army, whose headquarters were in Dublin, and who contemplated the entire conquest of the country, should not have the men of Munster to oppose them. The Danish army that came to Cork in 1012 (the correct date seems to be 1013), were not able to give any assistance to their countrymen at the battle of Clontarf by making a diversion in Munster, for it would appear that they were wholly destroyed. There is no record in the Irish annals of the Danes making any attack on Cork after the battle of Clontarf. The situation of Cork, like that of Dublin and Belfast, is at the mouth of a river, and on low-lying land. While the country round the city is exceedingly fine, it has not, like the country in the neighbourhood of Dublin and Belfast, any places from which extensive views can be had. The country round Cork is by no means flat, but there is nothing near it that could be called a mountain, or even a high hill. It is, however, as beautiful as any country of its kind could be, with green, rounded eminences, but not as much wood on them as there should be to make them look to best advantage. The river between Cork and the Cove, or Queenstown, as it is now called, is one of the finest six or eight miles of river scenery to be found anywhere. The people of Cork are proud of it, as they may well be. Cork, unfortunately, is not growing as Dublin and Belfast are. There is a curious belief, partly a prophecy, that it will yet be the capital of Ireland. "Limerick was, Dublin is, but Cork will be the capital," is frequently heard in the south of Ireland. So far, there is not much sign that the southern city will overtake Dublin, nor is it quite clear that Limerick was ever the principal city of Ireland. It was, however, a very important place during the greater part of the eleventh century. Limerick seems to have been in the possession of the Danes for nearly a hundred years, until Brian Boramha took it from them about the year 970. It continued to grow as long as his descendants retained political power, which they did for nearly a century after his death. Giraldus Cambrensis calls Limerick "a magnificent city," but it must have begun to decline even before he saw it, about the year 1190, for the O'Briens, or descendants of Brian Boramha, had by that time lost a great deal of their political power. Cork has, for at least two centuries, been a more important place than Limerick. Some of the streets and public buildings in Cork are very fine, and will compare favourably with those of any city. But it is evident that the city was built too far up the river. Cork should be where Queenstown is. If it were, there would be a chance of its becoming at some future day the capital of Ireland. It is curious that almost all cities that are built on rivers, and that were founded in ancient times, are generally at the head of navigation. This habit of building cities as far up rivers as ships could go was followed in order to give greater security from attacks by sea. The farther up a river a city was, the more easily it could be defended from attacks by sea. In olden times, when the largest ships drew no more than eight or ten feet of water, Cork was as advantageously situated for trade where it is as if it were where Queenstown is. But such is not the case now. This defect of being too far up the river is the only thing in its situation that is not favourable. It has one of the finest harbours in Europe, and one of the finest in the world, but the harbour is too far from the city. If there is a single place on the whole of the west coast of Europe especially adapted for the site of a great city, it is the spot on which Queenstown is built. It was nothing but the constant warfare of ancient times that prevented Cork from being built there. There is that magnificent harbour that the mightiest ironclad leviathan that floats can enter at any state of the tide and be in it in five minutes from the time she leaves the main ocean. Then there is that splendid site for a great city on a gentle ascent, where street behind street and terrace behind terrace could deck the hill-side, and all look down on that glorious land-locked bay where a thousand ships could anchor. There cannot be any doubt that with the ever-growing trade and passenger traffic between Europe and America, both Cork and Queenstown must be benefitted. Even if an American packet station were established at Galway, it would hardly interfere seriously with Queenstown or Cork, for harbours like the Cove are too scarce on the coasts of Europe, and the trade between Europe and America is too great and increasing too fast to leave Loch Mahon[17] in the slightest danger of being deserted. As long as ships navigate the Atlantic they must enter it. Nothing but the establishment of aërial traffic between Europe and America can ever leave the Cove of Cork shipless. The country round Cork is very fine, and there are many splendid and well-kept gentlemen's seats in its suburbs. It would be hard to find any city more picturesque in its situation, although built very nearly at the mouth of a river. It is, more than any large place in Ireland, a city of hills and hollows. Some of its streets are very steep, rather too much so for pleasant walking. But this hillyness makes it all the more picturesque, and makes the drainage all the better. Cork is a beautiful city, and--surrounded by a beautiful country. If it has not the busy appearance of Belfast, or the metropolitan appearance of Dublin, it is, nevertheless, a fine city, and on account of its magnificent harbour, it has, in all probability, a great and prosperous future before it. The antiquities of Cork have almost entirely disappeared. It suffered so much from the Northmen and was so often plundered and burned by them that it is not to be wondered at that so few of its ancient monuments exist. It had a fine round tower, of which nothing is left but the foundation. It was, presumably, the Northmen who destroyed it. Every vestige of the old church founded by St Finnbar has disappeared long ago. The fact that Cork was so often plundered by the Danes and other Northmen shows that it must have been an important place, at least in the matter of churches and monasteries. The Danes knew that wherever the largest religious establishments were the most wealth was. This is proved by history and annals telling us that Armagh, Kildare, Cork, Glendaloch, Downpatrick, Clonmacnois, and other important religious centres, were most frequently plundered by them. Just in proportion to the importance of a place in an ecclesiastical point of view, the more frequently it was plundered by the Danes. When they began their attacks on Ireland, they seem to have known, as well as the Irish themselves, where the principal wealth of the country would be found. As Cork is the last large place that suffered greatly from the Danes that shall be mentioned in this work, it cannot be uninteresting or out of place to give an extract from the Earl of Dunraven's book on ancient Irish architecture about those terrible Vikings, and the causes that made them a terror to all the maritime nations of Europe for so many years, more especially as such an expensive work is not generally read, and not within reach of the masses: "Dense as is the obscurity in which the cause of the wanderings and ravages of the Scandinavian Vikings is enveloped, yet the result of the investigations hitherto made on the subject is, that they were, in a great measure, consequent on the conquests of Charlemagne in the north of Germany, and on the barrier which he thereby--as well as by the introduction of Christianity--set on their onward march. It can hardly be attributed to accident that, with the gradual strengthening of the Frankish dominions, the hordes of Northmen descended on the British Isles in ever-increasing numbers. The policy of Charlemagne in his invasion of Saxony, and the energy by which he succeeded in driving his enemies beyond the Elbe and the German Ocean, were manifestly intensified by religious zeal. The Saxons were still heathens; and the first attack made by the Frankish King was on the fortress of Eresbourg, where stood the temple of Irminsul, the great idol of the nation. We read that he laid waste their temples and broke their idols to pieces.... However it may appear from ancient authorities that for some centuries before then, the Scandinavians had occasionally infested the southern shores of Europe; yet in the added light that is cast by the Irish annals on the subject, we perceive that from this date their piratical incursions afford evidence not before met with of preconcerted plan and incessant energy; and these events in the reign of Charles may lead us to discover what was the strong impulse that thus tended, in some measure, to condense and concentrate their desultory warfare. Impelled by some strong, overmastering passion, these hordes of northern warriors held on from year to year their avenging march; and such was the fury of their arms that even now, after the lapse of a thousand years, their deeds are in appalling remembrance throughout Europe, not only in every city on the sea-shore, or on river, but even in the peasant traditions of the smallest village." It is curious, and for the Irish a source of very legitimate pride, that of all the countries attacked by the Northmen, they got the hardest blows and the most terrible, as well as the most frequent, defeats in Ireland. They seem to have made more frequent attacks on it than on any other country, and to have poured more men into it than into any other country. This appears not only from Irish annals and history, but from Icelandic literature, which was the common property of all the Scandinavian nations, and the only literature in which the doings of the Vikings are recorded by writers who were nearly contemporary with them. There appears to be more written about Ireland and its people in the Icelandic Sagas than about any other country or people the Vikings harried. The terrible defeat the Northmen suffered at Clontarf in 1014 is fully acknowledged in the Icelandic Sagas. It must, however, in truth be admitted that that battle, while it turned out to be a national one, originated in a family quarrel, and was brought about, as many battles had been brought about before, by a bad and beautiful woman. If Gormfhlaith and King Brian had not quarrelled, if Broder had not been desperately enamoured of her, and if she had not been of the royal blood of the terribly maltreated and so often ravaged province of Leinster, the battle of Clontarf never would have been fought. Brian was an elderly man when he became over-king, and was quite willing to allow the Danes to hold Dublin and other sea-ports as trading points, for after a time they became traders and carriers. He was willing to let them alone provided that they let him alone. This is proved by his having given one of his daughters in marriage to Sitric, the Danish King or Governor of Dublin. The Danes, knowing they had the entire strength of the province of Leinster at their back by Brian's quarrel with Gormfhlaith, who was sister to the King of Leinster, seem, probably for the first time, to have seriously contemplated the complete conquest of Ireland. That the Irish suffered some terrible defeats from the Northmen has to be admitted. In justice to those who compiled the various Irish annals, it must be said that they always freely acknowledge when the invaders had the best of it in a battle. It is, however, evident that, taking the almost continuous fighting between the invaders and the invaded for two hundred years, or from about the year 814 to the time of the battle of Clontarf in 1014, the net gains of the fighting was decidedly on the side of the Irish. Many of those well-versed in Irish history think that if Ireland had been really under the dominion of one sovereign, even as England was under the later Saxon Kings, the Northmen would certainly have conquered Ireland and held it as they held, for a time, England, Normandy, and other countries. Very few of those called Irish chief kings were such except in name. Their vassals used to lick them as frequently as they licked their vassals. The Northmen defeated in battle and killed more than one Irish chief king, but that does not seem to have brought them any nearer the conquest of the island, for the provincial kings used to fight them on their own account. The Northmen had too many heads to cut off, and none of the heads controlled the destinies of the country. The most terrible defeat that was probably ever inflicted on the Irish by the Northmen was at the battle of Dublin in 917. The over-king, Niall Glundubh, was killed in it, and from what the Irish annals say, it would seem that his whole army was cut to pieces; but the victory was of little use to the invaders, for the very next year they suffered a defeat from the Irish in Meath, in which their whole army was destroyed and almost all their leaders slain. We are told that only enough of the Danes were left alive to bear tidings of their defeat. How the Irish managed to get the better of the Danes and at the same time do so much fighting amongst themselves is one of those historic puzzles the solution of which seems hopeless. Many thoughtful persons among the Irish regret that Ireland had not been thoroughly conquered by the Northmen. They say that had it been conquered by them it would have been united under one supreme ruler, the provincial divisions would have been obliterated, a strong central government formed, and intestine wars brought to an end. Such a state of things might have come to pass; but it seems clear that the Northmen were not capable of building up a nation. They failed to do it whenever they tried. They had complete control in England for two generations when they were at the height of their power, but they failed to keep their grip on England, although having had the advantage of a large, and what might be called an indigenous, Scandinavian population north of the Humber. Hardly a trace of their nearly three hundred years' rule in some Irish cities remain, and in the entire island all the traces left of their language is to be found in less than a dozen place names. They became great in Normandy only when they ceased to be Northmen and mingled their blood with that of the people whom they had conquered, and became French. Whatever benefit other countries may have received from the Danes or Northmen, Ireland received none. To her they were nothing but a curse. If they had conquered her, they might, in the long run, have benefitted her. It would be not only difficult, but absolutely impossible, to point out a single way, except, perhaps, by an admixture of a little new blood, in which Ireland was benefitted by the visits of the Northmen. In spite of their very great skill in ship-building and navigation, they introduced not a single art into Ireland. Confused as the political state of the country was before they came to it, it was still more confused when they ceased to be plunderers and became merchants. They had nothing themselves that could be called literature, and were the greatest enemies that Irish literature had ever encountered, for the number of books they must have destroyed is beyond calculation. Not a monastery or church from one end of Ireland to the other escaped being plundered by them, and most of the monasteries were plundered _ten times_ during the two hundred years their plunderings lasted. Iona, though not in Ireland, was an Irish establishment; it was so often plundered by them, and its entire population so often killed, that it had to be entirely abandoned in the ninth century. It became a ruin, and remained such until the Northmen ceased their raids; its treasures, or what remained of them, were removed to Kells in Ireland. Nothing can show more plainly the knowledge the Northmen possessed of the country, and their determination to leave nothing in it unplundered, than their having plundered the anchorites' cells on the Skelligs rocks, off the coast of Kerry. It is said that there is but one spot at which a boat can land on these rocks, and then only on the very finest and calmest day; but the Northmen found out the landing-place, plundered the cells, and, of course, killed every one they found in them. It is very curious how it came to pass that a people so very brave as the Northmen undoubtedly were should be so lacking in almost every quality that goes to form a great, conquering people and builders up of nations. They never impressed themselves on any nation or province they conquered. A very large part of the north of England was not only conquered but settled by them, and three Danish kings reigned in England, yet it remained Saxon England until the battle of Hastings. In France they not only lost their language, but lost their identity in less than three generations, and became absolutely French. They did not even call themselves Northmen, or Normans; for on the Bayeux Tapestry we find the legend, _Hic Franci pugnant_, showing plainly that they regarded themselves as nothing but French. They conquered the greater part of the island of Sicily, but, as usual, have left hardly a trace of their occupation in it. It need hardly be repeated that in Ireland, in spite of their having held and ruled some of its chief cities for three hundred years, and in spite of their many alliances with Irish chiefs and nobles, all they have left that in any way shows that they ever set foot on Irish soil are less than a dozen place names. The Northmen might well be forgiven for their plunderings and burnings if it were not for the quantity of books they burned. But for them, ancient Celtic literature would be so immense that it would be regarded with respect even by those who would be most hostile to the nation that produced it. The successful resistance of the Irish against the Northmen is a very curious historic fact. Of all countries in Europe in the middle ages, it ought to have been, no matter what might be the valour of its inhabitants, the most easy of subjugation on account of its political divisions, and the consequent state of almost continual war that existed among the provinces. Yet in spite of all, in no part of Europe which the Northmen attacked, did they encounter such strong and such long-sustained resistance as in Ireland, in spite of the fact that for many years before the battle of Clontarf, the province of Leinster, whose soldiers from time immemorial had been considered the bravest in Ireland, was in alliance with the invaders. The successful resistance the Irish made against the Northmen is proved from sources that are neither Scandinavian nor Irish; for the Norman Chronicle says, "that the Franks, or French, were grateful to the Irish for the successful resistance they made against the Danes; and that in the year 848 the Northmen captured Bordeaux and other places which they burned and laid waste; but that the Scotts (Irish) breaking in on the Northmen drove them victoriously from their borders." It is absolutely sickening to read of all the plunderings, murderings, and burnings committed by the Northmen in Ireland. When we think of all the similar sort of work the Irish practised on one another, we wonder how it happened that there were any people left in the island; and we are almost driven to the conclusion that if it had not been for the extraordinary fecundity of the race, it would have become depopulated. It was not only the numbers of Irish that were killed by the Northmen, but also the numbers that were brought into captivity by them that tended to depopulate the country. Under the year 949 the Annals of the Four Masters state that Godfrey, a Danish king or general, plundered Kells and other places in Meath, and carried off three thousand persons into captivity, and robbed the country of an enormous quantity of gold, silver, and wealth of all kinds. That sort of work had been carried on for nearly two hundred years, and it is a wonder that the entire country was not utterly ruined. An interesting as well as gruesome illustration of what Ireland suffered from Danish raids was revealed some few years ago while workmen were levelling ground for the erection of a house at Donnybrook, near Dublin. They unearthed the skeletons of over six hundred people, of almost all ages; from those of full-grown men to those of babies, all buried in one grave, and only about eighteen inches under the surface. This vast grave was close to the banks of the little river Dodder. The Northmen had evidently gone up the river in their galleys, for at full tide it had enough of water to float them. By some chance the leader, or one of the leaders, of the Danes was killed in the foray, for his body was found a little distance from the grave of the victims. His sword was buried with him; it was of recognised Danish make, and had a splendid hilt inlaid with silver. Not a vestige of clothing or ornaments was found on the bodies of the slain, save a common bronze ring on the finger of one of them. Everything they had seems to have been taken. A village had evidently stood in the locality; it was raided by the Danes, the inhabitants all killed, and everything of value they possessed, even to their clothing, taken; for if they had been buried in their clothing, which must have been almost entirely of woollen material, which resists decay for a long time, some vestige of it would have been discovered. The remains of the victims of the massacre were carefully examined by the most eminent scientists and archæologists of Dublin, among them Dr Wm. Fraser, who wrote an article on the discovery that may be seen in the transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. Irish history and annals are silent about this terrible massacre, and it is hardly to be wondered at that they should not have mentioned it, for such things were of such frequent occurrence in Ireland during the time of the Northmen that it was impossible to keep track of them all. It is hard to agree with the Earl of Dunraven in what he says in the passage that has been quoted a few pages back, as to the cause of the invasions and plunderings of the Northmen. The victories of Charlemagne over the Saxons could scarcely have caused the vast outpourings of Northmen on southern and western Europe. The Saxons were Germans, pure and simple; but there seems to have been a very great difference between Northmen and Germans. They may both have belonged originally to the same race, and their languages may have been, and undoubtedly were, closely allied, but they seem to have had very little in common. One was an essentially seafaring people, and keeps up a love for the sea to the present day. The other was not a seafaring people, and hardly yet takes kindly to maritime life. The Norse and German races lived side by side in England for some centuries, but they lived apart, quite as much apart as the Celts and Scandinavians lived apart in Ireland. It would rather seem as if it was want, added to a bold and restless nature, that was the primary cause of Norsemen's raids on the south-western coasts of Europe. Their own country was barren, and cold, and unable to support a dense population. It sometimes happens that people multiply faster than they can be supported. Such a state of things occurred in Ireland in the early part of the present century. Not that Ireland could not have supported a much larger population than it ever contained, provided the social condition of the country was different; but under the conditions that existed, the people multiplied beyond their means of support. The same thing may have occurred in Scandinavia. The people may have been forced by hunger to seek a living by foul means or fair, somewhere else than in their own country. Cruel as they were, they were probably not more cruel than any other people of their time would have been under the same circumstances. It would seem that it was exhaustion of population in Scandinavia that put an end to Scandinavian raidings. Its people having become Christians may have had some effect in softening their manners; but it is certain that it was not hatred of Christianity that prompted them to plunder Christian nations. It was love of plunder, intensified, in all probability, by want and semi-starvation at home. It is, however, very curious that the people who were once the terror of southern Europe should have become what they are to-day, and what they have been for some centuries, as peaceable and as law-abiding nations as there are in the world. GALWAY AND ITS ENVIRONS Galway is one of the most modern of the Irish provincial capitals. It does not figure at all in ancient annals. The first mention of it in the annals of the Four Masters is under the year 1124, when it is stated that the men of Connacht erected a castle in Galway. The first mention of it in the annals of Loch Key is under the year 1191, when it is stated that the river Gaillimh, from which the town takes its name, was dried up. The cause of this phenomenon is not stated. Galway was at one time a place of considerable wealth and trade. It was, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the port to which most of the Spanish wine destined for Ireland used to come; and it is generally believed that a Spanish type of features can still be noticed on some of its inhabitants. But whatever mercantile prosperity Galway enjoyed some centuries ago, very little of it unfortunately remains; for of all Irish towns the decrease of its population has been the most terrible. In 1845 it contained very close on 35,000 inhabitants, in 1891 it had only 14,000! It is painful to walk in the outskirts of the town and pass through whole streets in which nothing remains save the ruins of cottages. Galway ought to be a prosperous place, for it is situated on a noble bay that forms a spacious harbour, sheltered from the fury of the Atlantic by the Isles of Arran. It is pleasant to be able to state that the condition of this once fine city is improving. [Illustration: OLD HOUSES IN GALWAY.] In spite of the signs of decay that are only too visible in Galway, it is a very quaint and interesting town. It contains many buildings that were erected centuries ago, in the days of its prosperity, that are evidences of its former wealth and trade. In what may be called mediæval remains, it is, perhaps, richer than any other town in Ireland, and will well repay a visit. It is one of the few large towns in Ireland in which a majority of the people are bilingual, using both the English and Irish languages. There is not much either of scenic or antiquarian interest in the immediate vicinity of Galway; but if those who wish to see the most ancient and gigantic cyclopean remains in Europe, or perhaps in the world, go to the Isles of Arran, to which a small steamer sails from Galway, they will be well repaid for a two hours' trip. The Arran Islands contain more antique monuments of the pre-historic past and of a more interesting kind than any other places of equal extent in these Islands. These monuments consist of vast drystone fortresses that were raised by some pre-historic race. There is what may be called historic tradition that they were built by a remnant of the Firbolgs in the century preceding the Christian era; but those most learned in things pertaining to Irish antiquities, do not think there is any reliable historic evidence as to where or by whom they were erected. The principal fortresses are, Dun Aengus, Dun Connor, Dun Onacht and Dun Eochla. They are all in the Great Island, or Arran Mór, except Dun Connor, which is in the Middle Island, or Inis Maan. Dun Connor is the largest. It is considerably over two hundred feet long, and over a hundred feet wide. Its treble walls are still twenty feet high in some places, and from sixteen to eighteen feet in thickness. These vast fortresses look as if they were the work of giants. Like almost every relic of the past, they seem to have been more marred by men than by time. They have evidently been injured by people looking for treasure; and a good deal of their stones have been removed to build cabins and outhouses. Miss Margaret Stokes, who has devoted almost all her life to the study of Irish antiquities, and who consequently knows more about them, perhaps, than any one in Ireland, says of these vast fortresses in Arran: "They are the remains of the earliest examples of architecture known to exist in Western Europe." There is something awfully grand and grim in the aspect of these ruined fortresses. To gaze on their colossal dimensions and barbaric rudeness seems to carry us back almost to the beginning of time, when the earth was inhabited by beings unlike ourselves. But however old the forts in Arran may be, it is evident that they were the strongholds of a seafaring people; for the whole products of the barren islands on which they stand would not be worth the labour of erecting such gigantic fortresses for their protection. These islands support a good many people now, thanks to the potato; but in ancient times, when it was unknown, it is hard to understand how the multitude of men it must have taken to build so many vast fortresses could have found sustenance on these barren isles; and we are, therefore, almost driven to the conclusion that the fortresses in the Isles of Arran were built by pirates or seafaring men of some kind. THE CLOUD SCENERY OF IRELAND It is only those who have lived a long time in continental countries that can fully appreciate the beauty of Irish cloud scenery. As a rule, insular countries are richer in cloud scenery than continents. Any one who has lived even in the western part of continental Europe knows that Great Britain, owing to its being an island, is much richer in cloud scenery than France; and the further east one goes, the drier the climate will be found to be, the fewer the clouds, and consequently the less attractive the sky. Ireland being situated so far out in the "melancholy ocean" is, beyond all European countries, a land of clouds, and it has to be admitted that she very often has too much of them. But if these clouds frequently pour down more rain than is necessary for the growth of crops, there is a certain amount of compensation given by skyey glories they create; and marvellous these glories sometimes are. It is not only at sunset or sunrise that Irish cloud scenery is fine; for often during even a wet summer, when the rain ceases for a time, and the sun appears, the sky becomes what it is hardly incorrect to call a wonderland of beauty, with its "temples of vapour and hills of storm." But the real glories of Irish cloud scenery are its sunsets. Ireland is, beyond any other country perhaps in the world, the land of gorgeous sunsets. Sometimes they are such wonders of golden glory that even the most stolid peasant gazes on them with emotion. As a rule, it is only in the latter part of summer and the first half of autumn that Irish sunsets can be seen in their greatest beauty. Sometimes, when the summer is very wet, fine sunsets are seldom seen; but in fine weather they are generally such as can be seen in no other country. For months during the fine summer and autumn of 1893, every sunset was a wonder of indescribable beauty, with almost half the heavens a blaze of golden clouds. SOMETHING ABOUT IRISH PLACE NAMES It has been said that almost everything connected with Irish history and topography is peculiar. The truth of this can hardly be doubted. If the ancient Irish were a non-Aryan race, the strange phases of their history and the abundance of Irish place names might not strike us as so curious. But it is well known that the Irish are Aryans, and that they are substantially the same people as the ancient Britons were; yet nothing in the history of England or of Great Britain will satisfactorily account for the fewness of place names in the latter country as compared with Ireland. British, but especially English, place names are, in a vast majority of cases, either of Saxon, Norse, or Celtic origin. Their fewness as compared with Irish place names is what strikes a native of Ireland with astonishment. There are probably as many place names in a single Irish province as there are in the whole of England. The townland nomenclature of Ireland is almost unknown in England. The names of all the townlands in Ireland can be seen in the Government Survey of 1871. They number, exclusive of the names of cities, towns, and villages, about 37,000. But it is only the place names that mean human habitations, places erected by men, and where men dwelt, that shall be mentioned here. Let five denominations of place names suffice to show their immensity--namely, _ballys_, _kills_, _raths_, _duns_ and _lises_. The first means towns or steads; the second, churches or cells; and the three last mean fortified habitations of some kind. Of _ballys_ there are 6700, of _kills_ 3420, of _lises_ 1420, of _raths_ 1300, and of _duns_ 760, making altogether 13,600 place names meaning habitations of some kind. But this is not the half of them! The place names in the subdivisions of townlands are not mentioned at all. There is a parish in Westmeath in which there are three place names beginning with _rath_, and three with _kill_, none of which is mentioned in the printed list of townlands. Multitudes of names in which some one of the five words mentioned is included have been translated or changed; just as Ballyboher has been made Booterstown, and Dunleary made Kingstown. Many place names in which _bally_, _kill_, _dun_, _rath_, and _liss_ occur are not included in the numbers given, for very often the adjective goes before the noun, as in such names as Shanbally, Shankill, Shanlis, Shandun, &c. Taking everything into consideration, it would seem fair to estimate that not more than half the place names formed from the five words that have been mentioned appear in the printed list of Irish townlands; then we have the astounding total of over _twenty-seven thousand_ place names in Ireland formed from five words that mean human habitations. The only explanation of the astonishing number of ancient place names found in Ireland, as compared with England, seems to be the dense rural population that must have existed in the former country in ancient times. That an enormous percentage of ancient place names have totally faded away owing to the disuse of the Gaelic language, the consolidation of farms, and the decline of population, there cannot be any doubt at all. The puzzle about Irish place names is, if their extraordinary numbers were caused by a more dense population in Ireland than in England--why was Ireland more densely peopled than England in ancient times? The soil of Ireland is hardly more fertile than the soil of England, and the climate of Ireland is not as good, for it is much wetter than that of the larger island. England is nearer to the Continent, and therefore was more easy of access to continental traders. The situation as well as the soil and climate of England were rather more favourable to the growth of a large population than were those of Ireland. It is now generally conceded that the ancient Britons and Irish were of the same race, and spoke a language that was substantially the same. But why should there seem to have been such a difference in the political and social condition of the Irish and the ancient Britons who were their contemporaries? Why are there so comparatively few ancient place names in Great Britain and such an overwhelming number of them in Ireland? Why should Ireland have a history that goes so far back into the dim twilight of the past, and England have no history beyond the time of Cæsar? These are most interesting and important questions, but how can they be answered? It is to be hoped that some future savant will succeed in solving them. THE END. PRINTED BY TURNBULL AND SPEARS, EDINBURGH FOOTNOTES: [1] "History of England," vol. iii., p. 107. [2] Is iat Tuata De Danaan tucsat leo in Fál mór; i. in lia fis _bai_ i Temraig; di atá Mag Fail for Erinn. In ti fo ngéised saide bari Erenn. "Book of Leinster," page 9. [3] Eemoing ni hed fota acht Crist do genemain; is sed ro bris cumachta nan idal. "Book of Leinster," p. 9. [4] Is dar timna in Duleman, is dar brethir Crist chaingnig Do cech rig do Gaedelaib do beir ammus for Laignib. "Book of Leinster," p. 43. [5] In Carsewell's Gaelic, _Giollaeasbuig van duibhne_. The _v_ stands for _u_; the spelling was intended to represent _Ua n Duibhne_. _Ua_ and _O_ mean the same thing, grandson. The _n_ before Duibhne would not now be used. [6] This poem is in the "Book of Leinster," and has not yet been translated. [7] The eastern part of Ulster. [8] Duvdaire was Muircheartach's wife. She was daughter of the King or Chief of Ossory. Rushes in those days served as carpets, as they did in England. [9] A poetic name for Muircheartach, for his patrimony was on the shores of Loch Foyle. [10] Moy Breagh, or the fine plain, was the country round Tara. To possess Moy Breagh was the same as to possess Tara, and that was to be chief King. But Tara was as deserted in the time of the Circuit as it is now. [11] This date is thought to be two years too early, and that 943 was the year in which Muircheartach was killed. [12] The Eoghanachts were the posterity of Eoghan Mór, King of Munster in the third century. Eoghanacht meant a people of Munster, descendants of Eoghan; and Connacht, the descendants of Conn,--usually known as Conn of the Hundred Battles, most of which were fought against Eoghan. [13] Prince of Scotts; this was evidently the great Steward, or _mór maor_ of Lennox, who aided the Irish at the battle of Clontarf, and was killed there. [14] This is an incorrect form of the word. It is _Boramha_ in the most correct ancient manuscripts, and is a word of three syllables--Borava. It means "of the tribute." [15] Is hi seo bliadain ra gabad Tuirgeis la Maelseachlainn. Ra baided ar sain hé il Loch Uair. "Book of Leinster," p. 307. [16] Aed Abrat was Fann's father. [17] The old name of what is now called Queenstown Harbour. 
43096	----	[Illustration: BAY OF DUBLIN FROM HOWTH CLIFFS] LEINSTER Described by Stephen Gwynn Pictured by Alexander Williams [Illustration] BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY 1911 Beautiful Ireland LEINSTER ULSTER MUNSTER CONNAUGHT _Uniform with this Series_ Beautiful England OXFORD THE ENGLISH LAKES CANTERBURY SHAKESPEARE-LAND THE THAMES WINDSOR CASTLE CAMBRIDGE NORWICH AND THE BROADS THE HEART OF WESSEX THE PEAK DISTRICT THE CORNISH RIVIERA DICKENS-LAND WINCHESTER THE ISLE OF WIGHT CHESTER AND THE DEE YORK LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Bay of Dublin from Howth Cliffs _Frontispiece_ Killiney Bay and Bray Head 8 Near Abbeyleix, Queen's County 14 The Port of Dublin 20 A Hawthorn Glade, Phoenix Park 24 The River Liffey at Palmerston 32 Portmarnock Golf Links 38 The Meeting of the Waters, Woodenbridge 42 St. Kevin's Bed and the Church of the Rock, Upper Lake, Glendalough 46 On the River Boyne at Trim 50 The Bridge of Slane, River Boyne 54 On the River Slaney at Ballintemple 58 [Illustration: LEINSTER] I Leinster is the richest of Irish provinces, the heart of Ireland, and for beauty it can challenge any of its sisters, save in one respect only: it lacks the beauty of wildness. What it has to show of most beautiful lies within twenty miles of the capital. There is no city north of the Alps which has so lovely surroundings as Dublin--or so varied in their loveliness. Sea and mountain, plain and river, all come into that range of exquisite choice. But everywhere in it the beautiful frame of nature has been modified and beautified by man. Since it is not possible, in the small space available, to describe exhaustively the features of this great province, which stretches from the sea to the Shannon and from the Mourne Mountains to Waterford Haven, a selection must be made and indicated at once. First, then, the county of Dublin itself, infringing a little on Kildare. Secondly, the Wicklow Mountains and their glens. Thirdly, that rich valley of the Boyne, which was the heart of the ancient kingdom of Meath. But, before details are dealt with, some general idea of the topography must be given. Suppose you are on deck when the mail boat from Holyhead has been two hours out, or a little more (I write here for strangers), you will see Dublin Bay open before you. To your right, making the northernmost horn of the curve, is the rocky, almost mountainous, peninsula of Howth, and ten miles north of it you see its shape repeated in the Island of Lambay. Except for that, to the north and to the west, coast and land are all one wide level, far as your eye can reach--unless by some chance the air be so rarefied that you discern, fifty miles northward, the purple range of Carlingford Hills (still in Leinster), and beyond them, delicate and aerial blue, the long profile of the Mourne Mountains, where Ulster begins. But to the south of the city (where it lies in the bight of the bay, spilling itself northward along the shore to Clontarf of famous memory, and southward to Kingstown and beyond) mountains rise, a dense huddle of rounded, shouldering heights, stretching away far as you can see. Near Dublin they almost touch the shore: one rocky spur comes down to Dalkey Island, which was the deep-water landing place before Kingstown harbour was built: it rises into the peaked fantastic summit of Killiney Hill. Beyond it the coast curves in a little, giving a bay and valley in which lies Bray, our Irish equivalent for Brighton. The Bray river marks the limits of County Dublin; and beyond Bray again is the high, serrated ridge of Bray Head, fronting the water in a cliff. Landward from it rises, peak by peak, that exquisite chain of heights which from Little Sugarloaf to Great Sugarloaf runs back to connect here once more the main body of mountains with the sea. Mr. Williams in his picture has shown Bray Head and the lesser Sugarloaf in a glow of light which turns their heather covering to a golden pink; and from his vantage on the slope of Killiney, he has been able to catch the shape of Wicklow Head beyond and between the nearest summits of this chain. South of that, you, from your steamer, can distinguish how the margin of land between mountain and coast line widens progressively. Wicklow Head shoots far out into the sea; and beyond it you can trace the long, low coast of Wexford projecting farther and farther from the hills. Wicklow, in truth, is a ridge of mountains, with small apanages of lowland on each side; Wexford, a level space east of the mountains which separate it from the vast central plain, nearly all of which is Leinster. This mountain range, trending south and a little west from Dublin, is the main feature of Leinster--well marked in history. All the rest of the province was the most fertile, the most accessible region in Ireland, and therefore the first to be subdued. The Normans made, indeed, their first landings in Wexford and Waterford, but they quickly consolidated their power in Dublin, which was itself a city of foreign origin--which, even when they came in the twelfth century, was Danish rather than Irish. Centuries after that, when southern Ireland had slipped completely from under foreign control, the "pale"--the district centring round Dublin and varying from reign to reign in its limits--always remained subject to English law. But the pale, however far it might stretch west and northward, stopped at the base of the Dublin hills. There the Irish clans of the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes held sway in strong fastnesses; and even in the nineteenth century, after the last great rising of 1798 had been put down in blood and fire, Michael Dwyer could still hold out on these hills so securely that Emmet, escaping from his ill-starred attempt in 1803, found sanctuary within two hours' march of those castle gates which he had failed to storm. [Illustration: KILLINEY BAY AND BRAY HEAD] Climb those hills as Emmet climbed them. If you care to follow the most tragic romance of Irish history, get your car driver to bring you where Bride Street joins Thomas Street, not far from the house where Lord Edward Fitzgerald was taken (a tablet marks it). There, in the wedge of mean yards enclosed by Bride Street and Marshalsea Lane, was the site of Emmet's armoury and arsenal, whence he issued out that July night--to how ghastly a failure! Then you can drive up Francis Street (the route he followed in escaping) and so to the Green at Haroldscross where he used to meet Miles Byrne, the Wexford rebel, Emmet's right-hand man, but later a colonel of Napoleon's army with the cross of honour upon his breast. Beyond the Green is a little range of houses on the right; somewhere there Emmet was taken by Sirr. Farther still towards the hills is Rathfarnham, where he lived during the long months of elaborate preparation; and here it was that his faithful servant, Anne Devlin, refused to betray his movements though they half-hanged her between the shafts of a cart Farther still, beyond Rathfarnham, a road takes you past the Priory, the abode of John Philpot Curran, that famous orator and patriot, whose daughter, Sarah, was the heroine of Emmet's romance and of Moore's lovely song, "She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps". In the grounds of the Priory and of the neighbouring Hermitage, "Emmet's Walk", "Emmet's Seat", are shown: that old story has left many marks. Curran's name has not been so cherished: instincts are quick in Ireland, though it is only within the last few years that we have learnt how mean a part the great orator played in that tragic history. Yet it is worth glancing at the Priory, for here came all that was famous in Ireland's most famous day: famous orators, famous duellists, patriots, and placemen--worse even than placemen, for Curran's closest friend was Leonard MacNally, who for a lifetime posed as the champion of men like Emmet, and for a lifetime sold their secrets to Government, while acting as their advocate in the courts where they were tried for dear life. All the great houses that stud the lower slope of these hills, with parks about them, and with much beautiful decoration inside, are work of that period in the eighteenth century when Ireland had her brief prosperous hour, when her capital was in truth a metropolis. To-day, as you rise above this belt of wooded land and make your way out on to the slopes of Three Rock or Kilmashogue or Tibradden--the nearest heights--you will look over a country not much changed in aspect probably, save that land which was then cornbearing is now nearly all in grass. The city itself spreads wider than it did in Grattan's day--there has been a great movement out along the shore of the bay. But the building has been mostly of houses for people with small means and narrow ambitions. The great houses of great men that clustered within a short radius of College Green are great houses no more. South of the river they have become public buildings: Lord Castlereagh's a Government office in Merrion Street, "Buck" Whalley's the old University College, and so on. But on the north side, Lord Moira's mansion, once a marvel of splendour, is to-day a mendicity institution; and few of the fine houses of that period have had even so lucky a fate. With their elaborate, plaster-moulded ceilings, their beautiful entrance fanlights, and all the other marks of that admirable period in domestic architecture, they house squalid poverty to-day, each room a tenement. The growth of Dublin is illusory. In Grattan's time it was one of the great capitals of Europe. To-day it is something between a hope and a despair. But this is history. I return to topography. From your height on the Dublin hills you can look over two-thirds of Leinster. Southward, the mountains hide Wicklow and Wexford, Carlow and Kilkenny. But over all that vast plain, stretching in champaign north and west, your eye can travel till it reaches far into Ulster on the north, and westward there is nothing to stop it between you and the Shannon. This is a country of many rivers. The Liffey flows out below your feet. Five-and-twenty miles northward the Boyne has its estuary. All the rest of the plain is drained southward--part into the Shannon, and so ultimately westward, but most into the great systems of the Nore and Barrow; and ill they drain it. For twenty miles inland is choice soil, but beyond that you reach the central bog of Allen, where long expanses of brown heather or of land only half-reclaimed make up a landscape of melancholy charm. Such a scene as Mr. Williams has drawn somewhere in the Queen's County is intensely typical of this midland country. Even where the furze blossom makes a flicker of gay colour, the whole effect is dismal, and its loneliness is constantly accentuated by what he has suggested, the flight of wild marsh-haunting birds: the trees are apt to be stunted and weather-twisted by winds off the "stormy Slieve Bloom", whose veiled purple shapes are shown against the western sky in his picture. Yet the folk of this outer pale are "kindly Irish of the Irish"--none kindlier; and I have often thought the character of Ireland could not be better expressed than in a chance phrase I heard in the talk of a girl from that low-lying region. "My father used always to tell me: 'Put plenty of potatoes in the pot, Maria. You couldn't tell who would be stepping in to us across the bog'." Leaving out of sight, because I must, the famous city of Kildare with its Cathedral (half-church, half-fortress); the broad lakes of West Meath, endeared by hope to patient anglers; the city of Kilkenny, where something of Ireland's prosperity remains unbroken, where the Butlers' Castle stands undestroyed, where are churches that were never ruined (almost a prodigy in Ireland); saying nothing of Lissoy, where Goldsmith lived in the village that his pen immortalized; briefly, dismissing about two-thirds of Leinster with a wave of the hand, let me come back to Dublin and its environment. II Of Dublin itself, what shall be said? A much-travelled Belgian priest told me recently that only in Naples had he seen such widespread marks of destitution, and in Naples they have little to suffer from cold. A young Irish nationalist, London-bred, describing the emotion with which he made his first visit to the country he had worked so hard for, said that his week in Dublin left one leading impression on his mind--the saddest people he had ever seen; nowhere had he heard so little laughter. He had lived near poverty all his life in London and yet had not seen so many pinched and drawn faces. All this is true, especially on the north bank of the Liffey. And yet an artist who came with me once to the city spent his days in rapture over the beauty of the public buildings. That also is true. The King's Inns, the Four Courts, and the Custom House on the north side of the river; in College Green, the front of Trinity College and the old Parliament House, (still--in 1911--the Bank of Ireland), are all splendid examples of the severe Georgian style of architecture, which found even happier expression in many noble and nobly ornamented dwelling houses. All this building was done in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Dublin had its day, when it was in reality the capital of Ireland. [Illustration: NEAR ABBEYLEIX, QUEEN'S CO] Traces of its earlier history are found in the Castle, Norman built, but standing where the Danish founders of the city set their stronghold by the ford above the tideway; and in Christ Church, first founded by the Danes when in the eleventh century they came over to Christianity. Skilful restoration of the cathedral has disclosed much of the early fabric--Norman work on Danish foundations. And yet that ancient Danish stronghold interests me no more than Cæsar's Londinium; nor does the medieval city hold any charm for my mind--lying as it did outside the real life of Ireland, merely a fortress of a foreign power. Strongbow's tomb is there to see in Christ Church, but to my thinking a far more significant monument is to be found in the other cathedral, St. Patrick's. Dublin as we know it, the capital and centre of an English-speaking Ireland, really dates from the eighteenth century; and its first outstanding and notable figure was Jonathan Swift, the immortal Dean. The Deanery, in which were spent the most remarkable years of his splendid and sinister existence, stands outside the main entrance; near that entrance, in the south aisle, surmounted by a small bust, is the marble slab which enshrines his famous epitaph. I translate it:-- "Jonathan Swift, for thirty years Dean of this Cathedral, lies here, where fierce indignation can no longer prey upon his heart. Go, traveller, and imitate, if you can, him who did a man's part as the strenuous upholder of liberty." The liberty which Swift upheld was the liberty of Ireland. He sought to free Ireland from that system of laws restricting all industrial development, whose consequences are with us to-day. He came to Dublin in 1715, a politician in disgrace, and was hooted in the streets. Seven years later he was king of the mobs, and no jury could be bullied to convict, no informer could be bought to denounce, when Government sought the author of those pamphlets which every living soul knew to be his. He began the work which Grattan and the volunteers completed--yet he was an Englishman and no lover of Ireland. Born in Ireland by chance, bred there of necessity, consigned to a preferment there against his hope and will, he was spurred on to work for Ireland by that _saeva indignatio_ which his epitaph speaks of, which he himself renders in this sentence of a letter:-- "Does not the corruption and folly of men in high places eat into your heart like a canker!" The greatest perhaps of British humorists, he died mad and miserable; and died as he expected to die. His other monument is Swift's Hospital, built for a madhouse out of the money willed by him in a bequest, which his savage pen thus characterized:-- "He left the little wealth he had To build a house for fools and mad, And showed by one satiric touch No nation wanted it so much". In the north transept an epitaph written by Swift marks the tomb of "Mrs. Hester Johnson, better known to the world by the name of 'Stella', under which she is celebrated in the writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of this Cathedral". The world has always wanted to know, and never will know for certain, whether she ought to have borne the name of him who celebrated her. But his bones were laid by hers, and still lie there, under a column in the nave; though the indecency of antiquarians dragged out their skulls when the cathedral was under restoration, made a show of them at parties, and preserved a memorial of this outrage in plaster casts, now deposited in the robing-room. You can see also, in the vestry, not a cast, but the authentic skull of William's General Schomberg, who fell in glory at the head of victorious troops crossing the Boyne. You can read also Swift's epitaph on the tomb which Schomberg's relatives and heirs declined to pay for, leaving the pious task to Swift and his chapter. The Latin sentence keeps the vibrant ring of Swift's indignation. If only his ghost could write the epitaph of those who ransacked tombs and groped among mouldering relics of the immortal and unforgotten dead, to find objects for a peepshow! Yet after all it is in keeping with the story. In the dark end of Swift's life, while he paced his guarded room between keepers, servants used to admit strangers for a fee, to see that white-haired body which had once housed so great and terrible a mind. St. Patrick's Cathedral, which Swift made famous, dates, like Christ Church, from Norman builders; but it was renovated fifty years ago at the cost of Sir Benjamin Guinness, head of the famous brewery. Christ Church, on the other hand, was rebuilt out of whisky--the restorer was Mr. Henry Roe. Broadly speaking, the century which began with the legislative Union was marked in Dublin by the growth of distilling and brewing and the decay of all other industries. Guinness's is to-day one of the sights of the city, and admission by order, easily procurable, will take the visitor over the biggest thing of its kind anywhere to be seen--and, let it be said, one of the best managed. Nowhere are workmen better treated, and no rich manufacturers have made more public-spirited use of their wealth. Dublin owes to Lord Ardilaun not only the opening but the beautification of St. Stephen's Green, once an enclosure but now a very attractive public park in the middle of the city's finest square. We may well thank Providence for this one great industry--but of how many it has had to take the place! Dublin in its metropolitan days was a true centre of craftsmanship and art. I have spoken of the architecture, which used so finely the dove-coloured limestone of Wicklow. Gandon, who designed both the Four Courts and the Custom House, was not Irish, but Ireland gave him his opportunity and in Dublin only can he be judged. No great painter adorned that period among us; but all the subsidiary arts flourished exceedingly. Horace Walpole used to send across his books to be bound; Sheraton, Chippendale's rival, was a Dublin artist-craftsman; glass-cutting, silversmiths' work, all these things furnished men with infinite skill of hand and grace of design. Within twenty years after the Union all these things had vanished like a dream. Except Guinness's stout, the nineteenth century has little to show that is local and characteristic and excellent. It can best afford to be judged by Foley's admirable statues of our Irish worthies. Burke and Goldsmith stand outside Trinity College, to which they belonged--though poor Goldsmith had even less cause than Swift to love the stepmother of his studies. Doubtless Goldsmith was not easily distinguished from the ruck of troublesome undergraduates, and that dignity with which the sculptor has invested his odd and appealing ugliness was not evident except to the eye of genius. Grattan holds the centre of College Green, a dominating figure near those walls which he filled with stately eloquence. O'Connell, the great tribune of a later day, stands lifted on an elaborate monument in the street, and facing the bridge, which now bear his name--at the other end of that broad promenade and thoroughfare (which part of Ireland still calls Sackville Street, not so much out of love for a forgotten Viceroy as out of dislike to the change) there will stand from 1911 onwards a newer memorial to a later leader--the monument which Augustus Saint Gaudens designed to commemorate Parnell. The famous American sculptor has set his bronze figure, of heroic size, on a low pedestal; but behind it rises an obelisk of brown Galway granite, inlaid with bronze and crowned with tripod and leaping flame. Thus Dublin possesses the only work by this artist (Dublin born, of a French father and an Irish mother) which the United Kingdom can show, save for the small medallion of Stevenson in Edinburgh. In America, where he lived and worked, his fame is established by many examples. Moore, a national hero hardly less popular in his day than even O'Connell or Parnell, has been much less happy in his statue. It faces the Bank of Ireland in Westmorland Street, and is, in truth, very absurd and ugly. But Moore's volatile charm of countenance, which a hundred contemporaries describe, did not lend itself to reproduction in bronze. More interesting by far is the tablet in Aungier Street, which marks the little shop where he was born and bred, and from which he issued forth on the most amazing career of social conquest recorded in the annals of society. The earliest and best of the _Irish Melodies_ were written in Dublin about 1810; but Moore's parents had before then moved to a little house near the Phoenix Park, where the son's influence procured his father a sinecure. [Illustration: THE PORT OF DUBLIN] The group of poets who succeeded Moore--writers of the Young Ireland Movement in 1848--find their commemoration in the bust of James Clarence Mangan, recently erected in Stephen's Green--almost as unobtrusive as was in life that strange and unhappy genius. To-day, as the world knows, we have poets neither few nor unremarkable--Mr. Yeats chief among them; and one of the intellectual landmarks of Dublin is the Abbey Theatre, standing obscurely enough, but not obscure in the world. Here have been produced the poetical dramas of Mr. Yeats himself, the still more notable prose dramas of Mr. Synge, together with much work of Lady Gregory, William Boyle, Padraic Colum, and many lesser names; and they have been produced by a company of Irish actors--first formed by Mr. W. G. Fay--who have displayed an amazing range of talent. Any visitor to Dublin who cares for a beauty and an interest wholly unlike that of the usual machine-made play ought to try and see a performance at the Abbey. For the artistic life of Ireland--past, present, and to come--Dublin is your only ground of study. Among the things which every lover of Ireland should have seen are two--the Book of Kells in the Trinity College Library, the Cross of Cong in the Kildare Street National Museum. The craftsmanship of art was never carried to a higher point than in the marvellous illumination of that manuscript, the equally marvellous inlaying of the famous reliquary. These are only the masterpieces, each in its own kind; they are the index of a civilization which existed before the Norman crossed to Wexford. How far back native Irish civilization stretches is matter for the archæologists; but in Kildare Street is a wonderful collection of the ornaments, weapons, and utensils, from gold fibulæ to flint arrowheads, which are the documents of that research. And at the other end of the history, belonging rather to the twentieth century than the nineteenth, is the choicest collection of modern painting which these islands can show--the Municipal Gallery in Harcourt Street, gathered together by the enterprising genius of Sir Hugh Lane. The house itself is a monument of the eighteenth century: it belonged to Lord Clonmell, judge, placeman, and duellist; and it is a fine example of the Georgian domestic architecture. The gallery is rich in pictures of the Barbizon school, and with them can be seen the work of a living Irish landscape painter who worked in his youth along with that group. If Mr. Nathaniel Hone had chosen to exhibit outside of Dublin, his name would to-day be widely known, and there are pictures of his there--pictures of the low-lying Leinster coast by Malahide and Rush--well able to hold their own beside the famous Frenchmen's masterpieces. There also can be seen an interesting gallery of portraits by a painter, bred and trained in Dublin, who, although still young, is reckoned among the greater names of British art--Mr. William Orpen. The portraits are not all examples of his best work, but they are strongly characterized studies of contemporary men and women widely known in Ireland and outside Ireland. Another artist is represented there too, but not at his best: for an adequate example of the work of Walter Osborne, whose untimely death robbed Ireland of more than she could afford to lose, it is necessary to visit the National Gallery of Ireland--on all accounts, indeed, well worth visiting. But this one picture of a tree-bordered meadow, with cattle grazing quietly in the sun-dappled shade, and beyond it the whitewashed front and blue slate roof of a long shed, renders a subject so characteristic of Ireland, so characteristic above all of Leinster, in its exquisite colour, its sense of large air, its leisurely charm, that no one can look at it without there stealing into his heart that beauty of Ireland, which is not scenic, which has no striking features, and yet which is the most intimate, the homeliest, and perhaps the loveliest of all. III Beauty of this kind stretches away from Dublin north and west over the broad fertile plain of Fingal, the territory of the "White Strangers", the fair-haired Norsemen. You can find such beauty, with scenic accessories, in the famous Phoenix Park--so called by corruption of the Gaelic name given to a well there, _Fionn Uisge_, the Bright Water. The wide expanse of the park has lovely glades, deer-haunted like the one which Mr. Williams has pictured; it has backgrounds of mountain, the Dublin hills looming up to the south; it has foregrounds of cricket matches, or, better still, of hurling. Hurley is the most picturesque game I have ever seen played, except polo; and polo, too, in the summer, you can watch in the Phoenix at its very best, though the splendid ground is less beautiful than it was before the great "February storm" of 1903 swept down the long line of elms which bordered it. Still, in "horseshow week", when the cup matches are on, all the world can go and see, "free, gracious, and for nothing", one of the finest spectacles that modern civilization can afford. [Illustration: A HAWTHORN GLADE, PHOENIX PARK] Skirting the park to the south, and trending westward, is the valley of the Liffey, and no one looking at the unsightly, sometimes unsavoury, stream which divides Dublin would guess at the beautiful water which the Liffey-bred salmon reaches in a couple of miles after he has left the sea. Mr. Williams has drawn a reach of it, still in the tidal limit, at Palmerston, halfway to Leixlip--that is Salmon Leap: the Norse name tells its story of the city's founding. The picture shows the steep wood leading up to green expanses of the park on the south side; and in the gap seaward, all the vague expanse of brick and stone. Within an easy ride from the park--how often Swift rode it!--is the village of Celbridge, where his "Vanessa", Esther Vanhomrigh, settled herself to be near the man she loved so fatally. The Liffey where it borders Vanessa's Marley Abbey, and lower down, where it skirts Castletown demesne, may challenge comparison for beauty with any of Ireland's rivers. By its bank famous men grew up--Charles, George, and William Napier, sons of the beautiful Lady Sarah Lennox; nephews, therefore, of Lady Louisa Connolly, whose husband then owned Castletown, and first cousins of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, whose home was near by, at Carton, the seat of his father the Duke of Leinster. The conqueror of Sind and the historian of the Peninsular War got their schooling in Celbridge. They formed in their school a class of boy scouts against the troublous days of the "Ninety-Eight" rising; and yet their sympathies were largely with their cousin, Lord Edward, most picturesque among its leaders. He was not the first rebel in the famous Geraldine family. Carton gates open from the little town of Maynooth, where, outside the famous ecclesiastical college, stands the ruin of that strong castle which was the seat of the Geraldine power when all Ireland could not rule the Earl of Kildare and therefore it was settled that the Earl of Kildare should rule all Ireland. And over against the castle is a yew of portentous size and age, which bears the name of Silken Thomas's tree. In 1534 the Earl of Kildare, Lord Deputy of Ireland, had been summoned to Henry VIII and detained in the Tower; his son Thomas remained in Ireland with power as Vice-Deputy. After a few months the rumour came that Kildare had been put to death--a rumour no way incredible. His son, in natural indignation, determined to owe Henry no more allegiance, and on St. Barnabas' Day rode into Dublin with one hundred and forty followers wearing silken fringes to their helmets. The council was fixed to be held in St. Mary's Abbey, and the Geraldine troop rode splashing through the ford of the Liffey to the north bank. In the council chamber sat the Chancellor, Archbishop Cromer, and Silken Thomas, with his armed followers tramping in at his heels, renounced his allegiance, and called on all who hated cruelty and tyranny to join him in war upon the English. His speech ending, he proffered his sword of state to the Archbishop, who refused to take it and reasoned pathetically with the young noble. But a hereditary bard of the Geraldines, O'Neylan, burst in with an Irish poem which recalled the glories of the Geraldines, and upbraided Silken Thomas with too long delay. The chant ended in a clamour of applause from the armed men, and Thomas Fitzgerald, flinging down the sword, marched at their head out of the presence, none daring to check him. Yet his attempt came to nothing. As always, the other great Anglo-Norman family, the Butlers, sided against the Geraldine, and from their stronghold in Kilkenny harassed him while he endeavoured fruitlessly to reduce Dublin Castle. Months went by, and Silken Thomas was little more than the head of a roving guerrilla force; but he roved at large. At last, in March, 1535, Skeffington, the Lord Deputy, moved out to the capture of Maynooth. His batteries made a practicable breach within five days, and then the commander, Christopher Paris, foster-brother to Silken Thomas, thought it was time to make terms for himself. The plan was ingenious. By concert with Skeffington the garrison of a hundred men were allowed to make a successful sortie and capture a small cannon. Paris filled them with praise, and with drink. At dawn of the next morning the walls were stormed by a surprise, and so the castle fell. Out of forty prisoners taken, twenty-four were hanged. Paris received his stated price from Skeffington, but with the money in his hand was marched straight to the gallows, and from that day the "pardon of Maynooth" became a byword. Silken Thomas surrendered in July, lay destitute in the Tower for sixteen months, and was then hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn with his five uncles, of whom two had always been strong supporters of the English power. One male scion of the Geraldines was left, Silken Thomas's half-brother Gerald, and the hunt was hot after him. His southern kinsmen, the Geraldines of Desmond, refused him shelter, but he got it from the O'Briens of Thomond, still independent rulers, and after long months escaped to Italy, where he lived till Edward VI restored him. And from that day to this, the line has lasted in Kildare, and the Duke of Leinster holds foremost place among Irish nobles. Yet Leinster House, the great building which the National Gallery adjoins, is now only the home of the Royal Dublin Society; and though the Geraldines still own Carton, they are landlords no longer, having sold all they owned, under the Act of 1903, passed by one himself in part a Geraldine--Mr. George Wyndham, son of Lord Edward's granddaughter. Not far from Maynooth, in the wide grounds of Clongowes Wood College, you can see a section of the actual "pale"--a broad ditch and dyke which fenced in the region under English shire law. A few miles more would bring you to the famous Curragh of Kildare. But to visit these things one must lose sight of the sea, and that is a pity, for nowhere in Ireland does the sea come more beautifully into landscape than in Leinster, and especially about Dublin itself. North of the city are broad stretches of green fields, which lead the eye out to that still wider level of blue--colour laid cleanly in mass against colour. Sometimes between the pasture land and the ocean lies a stretch of sand links, beloved of golfers, who have classic ground at Dollymount on the North Bull; at Portmarnock, with the exquisite view of Howth and Ireland's Eye drawn by Mr. Williams; and, most interesting of all, in the island links at Malahide. This strange jumble of sandhills by the mouth of the pleasant little estuary has a special interest as a bird sanctuary; the terns breed there in hundreds during June and July. But for the beauty of all beauties neighbouring Dublin, give me Howth, the mountainous peninsula, almost an island, all but a mountain, which makes the northern limit of Dublin Bay. In all that long low eastern shore it is the only piece of cliff scenery (for Bray Head can scarcely deserve the title) and it commands an amazing prospect. On the north of it lies the little old town, the quaint and beautiful harbour with its seawalls, and across a narrow sound off the harbour is the little, uninhabited, cliffy, fern-covered island of Ireland's Eye. "Eye" is Danish for island; Howth is "hoved" (head), and the people of Fingal keep near the Danish word, pronouncing almost Ho-at. The Irish name was Benn Edair, (Edair's Cliff), and many a time it comes into Irish story, mostly as the point from which heroes sailed or at which they landed. Howth was the general landing place for Dublin until Kingstown Harbour was constructed about a century ago and called after George IV. But of all the heroes and kings and commonalty who crossed the Channel, none deserves mention more than Mr. Robert Loraine, the actor. He flew from Anglesey, and had all but accomplished his exploit when something broke, and he directed his aeroplane to Howth, which was the point nearest. A level shore he might have reached, but the cliff rose too high for his sinking wings to surmount, so he plunged into the water a stone's throw from land, and swam ashore somewhere near the Old Bailey Lighthouse, which stands on a historic site, Dungriffen, that is the Fortress of Criffan. Now Criffan (or Crimhthann) was King of Ireland in the fourth century, at the beginning of the period when Irishmen made many forays on the seas--in one of which Saint Patrick was captured and brought a slave to Ireland. A good many people think all this history legendary, a pack of fables. And very probably, if you had told Crimhthann, when he ruled in his dun (or even the builders of the Bailey Lighthouse when they were at work on his old rampart), that a gentleman would come flying across from England and drop like a winged bird off this promontory, they also would have been a trifle slow of belief. Anyhow, Howth Head, with its memories of ancient robber kings, Irish and Danish, and of all the folk who landed there from Chester, or from Anglesey, down to this last and most surprising debarkation of all, is surely a place of associated landmarks in history, as well as probably the most beautiful spot in Ireland. Often on a clear day of sun and driving cloud I have been tempted to prefer the northward view, from the haven or above it; for even from the sea's level you can see far away past all that long, plain and low coast to the Carlingford Hills, purple and solid in their serrated ridge; and beyond, higher, fainter, and more delicate, Slieve Donard, and all the goodly company of Mourne Mountains show themselves against the sky. Nor is the foreground less lovely: the quaint old port, and, opposite it, the purple and brown ruggedness of Ireland's Eye, which is divided by another narrow stretch of blue water (lightly crested, perhaps, with foam) from the long smooth whiteness of what we call at Portmarnock the Velvet Strand. Surely earth has not many things to show more fair. Yet when you climb the hill (a tram will take the infirmer) and first see eastward over the wide blue, then, gradually ascending, get sight of Dublin Bay's southern shore with the Wicklow Mountains behind it, and finally of Dublin itself, lying between beauty and beauty--beauty of sea, beauty of plain, beauty of mountain, beauty of azure, of purple, of green--then, I think, the southward view will seem to you richer in variety and incident. For the mountains make a great mass of round huddling shoulders, their lower slopes tree-clad; but nothing in the world is more dainty than the line of peaked summits which, stringing out from the main mass, carries the eye delighted with their chiselled shapes from peak to peak downward to the sea. And away west, past this mountain mass, Ireland stretches broad and fertile, well timbered, well watered, a country of park and champaign, fertile to luxuriance. [Illustration: THE RIVER LIFFEY AT PALMERSTON] Beauty is all about you too; for the hill from midsummer on is purple with heath, and the purple is set off by gold of the autumn-flowering furze which grows in little round trim bushes. Lord Howth's demesne is one of the oldest and most charming places in Ireland, and it encloses within its precincts a cromlech under which, so they tell, lies Aideen, wife of Oscar, Ossian's son, chief hero of those legendary warriors, the Fianna. A beauty of more modern date is to be seen by those wise and fortunate folk who visit Ireland in May or June: the rocky glen overgrown with choice rhododendrons and azaleas, which the Howth family have gathered and cherished. Imagine a steep cliff, a hundred feet almost sheer, but piled with tumbled boulders, and through them, up to the very top, bush after bush of these gorgeous blossoms--crimson, scarlet, mauve, buff, yellow, and exquisite diaphanous white. I never saw rhododendrons anywhere to touch these. And while we talk of flowers, another sight you can see from Dublin in May, the like of which takes visitors to Holland--the great daffodil and tulip fields at Rush, some fifteen miles north along the coast. There, growing in among the pale sandhills and grey bent, you shall see these huge patches of trumpeting colour--acres of tulips, close ranged like soldiers on parade, all of one type, uniform in their perfection. And with that you can inspect an industry employing many workmen and workwomen throughout the year in a country where work is none too plenty. One more word about Howth. When you look from the hill towards Dublin, you look across one of the most famous of modern golf links, that long narrow spit of sand which is called the North Bull. But you also look across the scene of one of the notable battles of history. Between the North Bull and the Liffey mouth is Clontarf, where the fight raged on Good Friday in the year 1014, when Brian Boru inflicted on the Danes of Dublin and their allies from the Orkneys and from far-off Scandinavia--yes, and Irish allies too--a defeat which was felt all through the regions that the vikings haunted. It is true to say that that victory stemmed the advancing tide of barbarism. Brian won for Christianity rather than for Ireland, and he lost his life in the fight. Just near Clontarf parish church, in the grounds of a private house is a yew tree under which, they say, men laid down the slain king, nine hundred years ago. Whether that be historically true or no we cannot say; but, I am told, experts agree that no other yew tree in these islands has an appearance of antiquity at all comparable to this giant, which, still lusty, covers fully a rood of ground. Try and see it on your way from Howth: much can be got (in Ireland) by civil asking. IV I come now to deal with what lies south of Dublin--the Wicklow Hills with all their apanages. And here one is conscious of two divisions. First of all, the obvious cleavage between the sunny seaward-facing slopes, thickly inhabited, and the mountains themselves or those glens that lie behind the first ridges. Secondly, the division, not less notable, between what is Wicklow pure and simple and what really belongs to Dublin, just as Brighton and Richmond belong to London. This is not a mere question of distance. Dublin hardly makes itself felt beyond the immediate suburbs on the north and west: it stops with the tram lines. And towards the mountains, if you leave your tram at Rathfarnham, an hour's good walking will take you into a strangely wild ravine. Follow the military road--driven through these hills after 1798 had shown how strong they were, to be the first effectual instrument of subjugation--up towards Glencree, through Rockbrook, and so by a long steep ascent you will reach a wood where the road divides, on the shoulder of Tibradden, or the Kings' Burying Ground. To your right will be Killikee, with Lord Massey's beautiful demesne, and woods covering it almost to the top, but the bare summit crowned by a shattered ruin--the "Hell Fire Club", built by young bloods in the wild duelling and card-playing days of Dublin's gaiety. Turn your back on this and follow to the left into Glen Cullen (the Holly Glen), which, dividing Tibradden from Featherbed, sweeps round behind Two Rock and Three Rock, and so, if you keep steadily by the left, brings you back into the suburbs and villadom after a round of some sixteen miles. But you will have traversed a glen as bare and lonely, as devoid of any suggestion of a great city's nearness, as even Connemara could show. Very beautiful it is, too, up there, on a fine day; and bilberries grow to perfection among the deep heather on the slopes of Featherbed. When I was last in it, instead of keeping to the left, we cut across southward to the right by the first road out of the valley, and from that height saw what is not often seen--the coast of Wales clearly visible. Then, dropping swiftly, we reached a road which, leading from the city through Dundrum, traverses the Scalp--a fine gorge of tumbled stone with fine woods effectively planted; and so down a famous coaching road to the pretty village of Enniskerry on the Dargle River, and down along that river to Bray--and the train. So quick and so emphatic is the transition from one region to the other--from the region of lonely car drives to the snug neighbourhood of gas and steam. But let me define or describe the limits. If instead of going out by road you take either the train from Harcourt Street, which skirts the base of the hills, or the Westland Row line, which follows the sea all the way through Kingstown and Killiney till both lines meet in Bray, you will, of course, have suburbs about you, merging into villadom: and the suburbs continue on the sealine almost unbroken to Killiney. Then comes a gap, and at Bray you have a considerable town, from which villadom--a very pleasant and cultivated villadom--extends towards the hills. Beyond Bray, the line rounds the face of Bray Head in a series of little tunnels, with intervening glimpses of sea dashing below, in the best Riviera manner; and then you come to Greystones, another even more suburban settlement. I set Greystones--some fifteen miles south of Dublin--as the suburban limit: beyond that you have honest country--Wicklow proper. Only, let it be clearly understood that this is no disparagement. The most beautiful things in Wicklow are outside what I call Wicklow proper, and inside Dublin's "sphere of influence". These I now proceed to describe. First of all, there runs up from Bray the famous Dargle, a steep wooded glen with the river dividing two demesnes--Lord Monk's and Lord Powerscourt's. For miles you can drive or walk through a scene of constantly varying beauty, with glimpses of mountain behind the wooded slopes, until at last you come to the Powerscourt Waterfall with its plunge of a hundred feet out of an upper ravine. Climb round, get above the waterfall, and at last, on the slopes of Douse Mountain, you reach wild nature--and you forget Dublin. Till then the spirit of Dublin is with you--the spirit of a prosperous Dublin, inhabited by rich men who liked to adorn the countryside with some of the graces of the town, to set elaborate plantations of foreign shrubs against a backing of rock and heather. Very pretty it is, and nowhere done more prettily. [Illustration: PORTMARNOCK GOLF LINKS] Or again, if you go from Bray to Greystones by road, you may take the short road through Windgates and traverse the dip in the ridge between the Head and the Lesser Sugarloaf--a charming drive--with the Head and the sea on your left, the peaked shape of Sugarloaf on your right, bracken and heather clad, and over part of its height enclosed in a deerpark full of sturdy Japanese deer. You may do better still: you may take the long road and go inland, leaving Little Sugarloaf on your left, towering up purple and splendid above you, pineclad on this side to half its height; then, curving round, come into the defile by Kilmacanoge, which divides it from the Greater Sugarloaf. Here now is the parting of the regions. From Kilmacanoge a road runs up the Rocky Valley, sweeping round Great Sugarloaf, and it instantly brings you into wildness: in half an hour's going you will be round the mountain and out on the bleak levels of Calary Bog, with the soft gradual side of Douse tempting you to run up to the top--an easy victory. Yield to that temptation, and, unless your way is picked knowingly, you will be floundering in heather shoulder high, ashamed to turn back and almost too tired to go on. Still, to go on is worth it. Once on the top of Douse you are in the heart of real Wicklow--and you see, far below you, the road winding which leads out through Sallygap, west of Kippure Mountain to Kildare and the plains. But supposing that at Kilmacanoge you do what forty thousand other people will have done that year before you, and hold straight on between the Sugar-loaves, the road, curving gradually eastward and seaward, brings you into the Glen of the Downs, another noble defile, wooded to the very crest with scrubby timber, so close as to be almost impassable--lovely as the loveliest in its way. Yet somehow the little gazebo of an octagonal summerhouse set high up on the north side in Bellevue grounds stamps the scene. It is nature, but nature decked and laid out and caressed and petted by man. A little farther and the road brings you into Delgany, at the foot of the sloping Bellevue grounds, a village prettier even than Enniskerry. And in truth Bellevue was a splendid type of what I have in mind: place and grounds created in the eighteenth century by a cultivated Dublin merchant of Huguenot stock; a house where Grattan was a frequent guest; which till the other day showed in gathered perfection all the domestic art of that great period, with its Sheraton and Chippendale sideboards, its marvellous plaster cornices and ceilings, its inlaid marble mantelpieces, and, for a final glory, its bedstead painted by Angelica Kaufmann. The grounds were planned to match--in the same delicate graceful taste, a little mannered, but always admirable. It had a lovely nature to work upon, and that same taste has made the seaward fringe of these nearest Wicklow Hills into the very garden of Ireland. That is the beauty nearest to the capital. And if the feeling of trimness wearies you, all you have to do is leave the road and strike out where you will across the heather. To their great honour, the liberality of all landowners in this playground of Dublin leaves the casual passer-by free to wander almost as unrestrained as he might be in Achill or on Slieve League. For the country which lies beyond Dublin's immediate playground there is this to be said. Even the railway going to it is delightful. I know of no prettier line than the Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford, and if its trains are something sluggish, why, you have the more time to admire the view. Beyond Greystones you pass through a long marsh, full of wild fowl, and then come to Wicklow, a pleasant little town sheltered by its low head. There is an old Norman keep here, Black Castle, but much more remarkable is the work of modern builders. Wicklow Head is adorned with three lighthouses--one carrying a light. The first tower was built by a wise and thoughtful Government, and the lamp duly fixed with ceremony. But when it came to be lit, seamen reported that while from certain quarters it was admirably visible, the Head itself blocked it from half the horizon. Nothing daunted, Government ordered another tower to be built on a spot indicated in their offices, and built it was. This illumined the previously excluded section of sea, but was shut out from the area lighted by the first tower. Finally, as a counsel of despair, they sent down someone to look at the ground, and the third tower, which now carries the light, was duly erected. The other two remain as monuments of the persistence with which the English Government has sought to do things right in Ireland. From Wicklow you strike into a new type of country. Rathnew brings you close to the Devil's Glen, another Dargle, but one with less urbanity and more rusticity. At Rathdrum you strike the valley of the Avonmore, which is the centre of all this beauty that makes southern Wicklow famous. The line runs through a wooded ravine with the river below it, plunging and swirling, and beyond the river you catch a glimpse of Avondale House, now a school of forestry, but once known to every Irishman as the home of Charles Stuart Parnell. The water comes down here discoloured with mineral washings that remind one of the chemical investigations which made up the pleasure of Parnell's strange life. He dreamed of gold mines in Wicklow--it was only in politics that the stern practical bent of his mind made itself apparent and effectual. A little farther on the Avonbeg meets the Avonmore; farther yet, beyond Woodenbridge and its hotel, this main stream is joined by the Aughrim River, and controversy still rages as to which of the two confluences was honoured in Moore's melody: "There is not, in the wide world, a valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom the wild waters meet!" [Illustration: THE MEETING OF THE WATERS, WOODENBRIDGE] Moore himself very diplomatically said he was not sure; but at any rate the valley through which the train runs till it reaches Arklow at the river's outfall is Moore's "Sweet Vale of Avoca"; there is no mistake about that, and no question of its gentle loveliness. Arklow itself is an ancient town, whose name keeps, like Wicklow, a memory of Danish beacon fires--"low" or "lue" is the word for flame (still preserved in lowland Scotch). Its population keep the hardy seagoing tradition--Ireland has no better fishermen; but they are incommoded by an odd circumstance. At this point of the coast there is practically no rise and fall of tide, and many a useful harbour is useful only because it can be reached with the flood, which never comes to Arklow. Here first one meets a landmark of the great "ninety-eight" rising. The Wexford insurgents received at Arklow the decisive check which curbed their very wonderful successes. The rebellion spread no farther north, though, after the rout of Vinegar Hill, stray parties of fugitives maintained themselves for long enough in the mountains where the meeting waters have their rise. To reach this wider and more open region--far less beautiful, yet having for some eyes an even greater charm--you should follow up the valley of the Aughrim River. A train will take you to Aughrim town, then comes a road, passing at first between slopes of cultivated and well-planted land. But as you go on, the valley widens and spreads, the woods recede, and before you are the great brown flanks of Lugnaquilla, highest of all the Wicklow Mountains--higher indeed than many a hill in Donegal or Kerry whose bolder shape gives a far more imposing appearance. Here at last, far up on the moors, you strike the military road near its southernmost point; and planted on it, facing down the glen, is a queer, gaunt, half-ruined building, evidently a barrack. A barrack it was; but in more recent times it fell to Parnell, who rented these moors, and he used it as a shooting-lodge--furnished in the roughest way, with a few bedsteads and chairs. There is a kind of legend about the haughty, unbending chief, who treated all his followers with the scantest courtesy. Very different is the impression I have got from those who were privileged to walk the hills after birds with him and to camp in that bare but friendly shelter. To-day, indeed, its grimness is somewhat mitigated; but, as you may readily discover, the old barrack has not lost its associations with the nationalism of to-day. From Aughavanagh the military road will carry you north across the hill, till beyond it you reach the valley of the Avonbeg and Drumgoff Bridge. Here is the foot of Glen Malure--boldest and wildest of all these glens--which divides Lugnaquilla from Lugduff. This valley, commanding the pass westward into the plains at Dunlavin, was always the central stronghold of the O'Byrnes, the great Irish clan who held out stubbornly among the hills. Lord Grey de Wilton, Elizabeth's deputy, tried to drive them out in 1580, but his force was cut to pieces by the mountaineers, and a few years later they had a sure asylum to offer to Red Hugh O'Donnell, when he escaped from Dublin Castle and the captivity into which he had been foully kidnapped. But the spot in all this region which offers most attraction to travellers is Glendalough, site of the Seven Churches, a place of most venerable memories. Kevin, to whom it owes its fame, was born A.D. 498, sixty-six years after Patrick first preached in Ireland. His name, _Caomh-ghen_, means the _Gentle-born_, and he was son of the King of Leinster. The whole of this princely family became passionately religious, for two brothers and two sisters of Kevin were canonized, and their names are in the Calendar. Kevin was sent for nurture to a Cornish holy man, St. Petroc, who had come to spread the light in Wicklow, but the young Prince finished his studies under the guidance of his own uncle, Eoghan or Eugenius, who had a monastic school somewhere in the beautiful parish of Glenealy on the sunny south-eastern slope of these hills. He was a handsome lad, and his looks so distracted a beautiful girl that she tried to seduce him from his vocation. Modern tradition tells that she followed him into his cave in the cliff above the upper lake, and that he flung her out into the water. The Life of him relates a different version, according to which he threw her into a bed of nettles and whipped her with them over her face and arms till, as the pious author says, the fire without subdued the fire within, and his discipline determined her to follow his example and enter the monastic life. However that be, Kevin fled from the society of men--and women--to take up his abode in the lovely but peaceful spot for ever associated with his name: "a valley closed in by lofty and precipitous mountains beside a lake". "On the northern shore", says the Life, "his dwelling was in a hollow tree: but on the southern shore of the lake, he dwelt in a very narrow cave, to which there was no access except by a boat, for a perpendicular rock of immense height overhangs it from above." This is an overstatement: any active man can get into the Bed from above; but even from below (where Mr. Williams shows the boat lying in his picture) it needs some climbing. Within is only room for a man to sit or lie--not to stand. But Kevin's dwelling on the north shore was leafy and bird-haunted, and the wild creatures, it is said, used to come and light on his shoulder, and sing their sweetest songs to God's solitary. [Illustration: ST. KEVIN'S BED AND THE CHURCH OF THE ROCK, UPPER LAKE GLENDALOUGH] At last his fame went aboard, and folk flocked to his sanctuary and begged him to found a monastery. He submitted unwillingly, and let them build him (still on the slope of the same mountain, Lugduff) a beehive cell of stones, or "skellig": and near it they built an oratory, _Tempul-na-Skellig_, on a rock projecting into the lake--now wrecked, for, as Archbishop Healy writes in his _Ancient Schools and Scholars_, "fifty years of tourists in the mountain valley have caused more ruin to these venerable monuments than centuries of civil war". But there was no room on this cliffy shore, and Kevin was admonished in a vision to build in the open space by the outfall of the lower lake. "If it were God's will," said Kevin, "I would rather remain until my death here where I have laboured." "But," said the angel, "if you dwell where I bid you, many blessed souls will have their resurrection there and go with you to the heavenly kingdom." So Kevin consented to move; and he built the monastery on which all those churches and towers sprang up that can be seen or traced to-day. Yet in this city he did not depart from his austerities, but slept on the bare ground and lived on herbs and water. The foundation of the monastery may date from about 540. Kevin lived on, they say, till 620, and died surrounded by his disciples, a man of God and a peacemaker, among the best beloved of Ireland's saints. All that great congeries of ruins dating from pre-Norman times speaks of a very large community. They are typical. There is the round tower, _cloigtheach_, a belfry, place of retreat into which the pious monks used to retire, drawing up the ladder after them; there is the big church with high-pitched roof of stone, and its galaxy of lesser chapels, just as in Ciaran's city at Clonmacnoise. About these doubtless were numberless huts of wattle and clay, dwellings of the clergy and the students. For here was the real metropolitan see of Irish Leinster. Dublin was a Danish foundation, and for centuries the primacy was disputed between them, till the dispute was ended by calling the provincial see the Archbishopric of Dublin and Glendalough--joint dioceses with separate organization to this day. For archæological and historic interest no place in Wicklow can approach this "glen of the two lakes", _Gleann Dá Loch_. But for romance, I at least should put Glen Malure far before it; and, for beauty, would infinitely prefer the lovely cup of Lough Tay or Luggilaw, where it nestles under the western slopes of Douse. This, and Lough Dan as well, you can see by a slight detour on your way to Dublin; and if you have come by Bray, it is best to take the military road back to Dublin, which brings you through Sallygap by the headwaters of the Liffey, and past the other beautiful little lake of Lough Bray at the sources of the Glencree River. So, keeping high among the hills till you have passed Killakee and begin the descent into Rathfarnham, you will complete almost the whole of your journey amid the haunts of shepherd folk such as those among whom Synge lived, and from whom first he got his vivid vision of Irish peasant life--a vision coloured no doubt by long residence in far-off Aran, and told in words that keep an echo of the Gaelic tongue, yet always, as most of our visions must be, in its essence the vision of that particular countryside where he was born and bred. V The very antithesis of Wicklow, with its mountains, its small plunging rivers, and its breed of little light-footed sheep, is the plain country of Meath, watered by the deep stream of the Boyne, and grazed over by the finest and biggest cattle. No other place in Ireland is so rich in monuments of all the ages; nor is there anything in Ireland better worth seeing than the valley of the Boyne itself, from Navan to the sea. If I had time and a motor car, I should begin by driving to Trim, and stopping just short of it at Laracor, to see where Swift lived in the early days of his growing fame. At Trim you will find an amazing cluster of beautiful ruins, but notably "King John's Castle", as fine a specimen of the Norman keep as can be seen. It was founded in 1173 by Hugh de Lacy, so no Norman building can be much older in Ireland. Its history is full of romance--Richard II held Henry of Lancaster prisoner there for a while--and many deeds of note were done in the old place. But there is not space to deal with Trim, nor with the beautiful ruins of Bective Abbey, which you can arrange to see on the way to what no traveller should leave unseen--the Hill of Tara. Tara of to-day is only a field or two of rich grass, covered with the trace of ancient earthworks--most curious of them the Banqueting Hall of King Cormac, a long narrow parallelogram--250 yards in length by 15 wide--with the fourteen openings of its doors still traceable, as they are shown in two plans preserved in very ancient Irish manuscripts. But for the detail of these monuments you must consult the plan in Mr. Cooke's admirable "Murray"; for some general account of the history of Tara I may refer to my own _Fair Hills of Ireland_. Here I single out only one thread in that vast fabric of associations. [Illustration: ON THE RIVER BOYNE AT TRIM] Looking north-east from Tara you will see easily (any child can point it out) another somewhat higher rise of ground, seven or eight miles distant--the Hill of Slane. That is where, on Easter Eve in the year 433, Patrick lighted the Paschal fire which gave menace and warning to the High King and his druids, keeping their state on Tara. It was a bold challenge, for a great druidic festival was in preparation, and no man in Meath was permitted to light a flame till Tara itself should give the beacon signal; and the night of that challenge is a marking-point in the history of Ireland--even in the history of the world. For in that period of the fifth century, all Europe, as we know it to-day, was included within Rome's Empire, save for two exceptions--the outlying retreats of Scandinavia and of Ireland. Christianity was the religion of the Empire, the religion of civilization, and there is little doubt but that before Patrick's coming Christianity had got some footing in the south-eastern parts of Ireland, which were in closest commerce with Great Britain. Patrick, by birth a Briton (almost certainly of Wales), was a Roman born in the same sense as St. Paul; his father was an official of the Empire; and from his father's house he was carried into captivity by these outer barbarians of Ireland. In his captivity he found his mission, escaped, with the fixed design to prepare himself for it, and spent thirty years on that preparation before, in 432, he came back to make captivity captive. He touched at a port in south-eastern Ireland--probably Wicklow--but stood on with his vessel, coasting past Dublin Bay till he landed again for water and provisions at the little island of Skerries, which since then is called Inishpatrick. Still north he sailed, up to Strangford Lough, where, landing, he made his first convert, the chief Dichu, and founded his first church--Down Patrick--where many years later he returned to die. Here for a time he sojourned. Before he turned south there was an errand he had to do, to bring his message to the valley of the Braid, in Antrim, where he had been a captive, herding swine on the slopes of Slemish. But at last, in the spring of 433, he set his face to the very core and centre of his purpose--the evangelization of Ireland at the fountain head of pagan civilization and pagan power. For the success of Patrick's mission lay in this. He addressed himself to the chiefs, he bearded the pagan in his strong places: he won those who carried others with them. That was the method he had learnt in more than a generation of labour, spent seeking knowledge throughout Europe "in the college of the Lateran at Rome, at Cecina on the Tuscan Sea, at Auxerre in Gaul", jealously profiting by his right as a citizen of the Empire, before the Empire should crumble, and knowledge and religion perish with it, under the redoubled assaults of barbarism. No man will despise the Hill of Slane who realizes what lay behind the kindling of Patrick's watchfire. I quote a passage from a great Irish writer, who had the gift of seeing things in their relations--the late Sir William Butler. It is from his last volume _The Light of the West_: "The Easter Eve, 433, is falling dark and cold upon the realm of Ireland--dark and cold because to-morrow is sacred to the idols--and it has long been ruled in Druids' law that on the night preceding the great fast of Tamhair no fire is to burn on hearth or hill--no light is to gleam from palace or hovel until the flame of the sacred pile, kindled by the king on the green 'rath' at Tara, shall be seen burning over the plains of Meath. So the twilight comes down, the light lessens in the west, and the wide landscape is wrapt in deep and solemn gloom, as though it had been a land in which man's presence was unknown. While yet the sun was high in heaven, the missionary had quitted his boat in the estuary of the River Boyne, and had passed on foot along the river valley towards the interior of Meath. Evening found the little band encamped upon a grassy ridge on the north side of the Boyne, and overlooking the winding channel of that river. To the south, some miles away, the hill of Tara was in sight. The March evening fell chilly upon the pilgrims; but the hillside yielded store of furze-faggot and oak-branch, and soon a camp fire blazed upon the ridge, casting around a wide circle of light into the momentarily deepening sea of darkness. What memories of far-off nights on the Antrim hills come to the pilgrim over the mists of thirty years, as here he stands in the firelight, on Irish soil again! How much has passed since last the furze-faggot warmed his lonely shepherd's bivouac! How much has yet to be in all yon grim surrounding gloom ere his task shall be accomplished! Never in all the ages of the world has the might of savage man been more manifest on earth. Already the Vandal king is in Carthage; the Visigoths are seated at Toulouse; Attila has reached the Rhine, having ridden his charger over the ashes of the Eastern Empire. "And here, in the light of the solitary fire, stands an unarmed, defenceless man, who, even now, keeps this Easter Eve as a vigil of battle against the powers of Pagan darkness, throned over yonder in all the might of armed multitudes. "The darkness deepens over the scene; the March winds smite the faggot flame, and around the lonely bivouac the breezes come filled with the vast sadness of the night. Feeble to outward sense must seem the chances of the coming struggle. But the inner sense of the Great Missionary may this night be looking upon a different vision. Beyond the bleak ridge and circle of firelight--out beyond void of darkness, perchance those deep-sunk eyes are beholding glimpses of future glory to the Light he has come to spread; and it may be that his ear, catching in the echoes of the night wind the accents of ages yet to be, is hearing wondrous melodies of sound rolling through the starlight. "... Yes, there was light far away in the West--out in the great ocean--far down below the sunset's farthest verge--from westmost hilltop, the New World lay waiting for the light. It came--borne by the hands of Ireland's starving children. The old man tottered with the precious burthen from the fever-stricken ship; the young child carried the light in feeble hands to the shore; the strong man bore it to the Western prairies, and into the cañons of snowy sierras; the maiden brought it into the homestead to be a future dower to her husband and a legacy to her children; and lo! ere famine's night had passed from Ireland, the Church of Patrick arose o'er all that vast new world of America, from where the great St. Lawrence pours its crystal tide into the daybreak of the Atlantic, to where California flings wide her 'golden gate' to the sunsets of the Pacific. Nearly 1400 years have gone since, on the 17th of March, 493, Patrick passed from earth to Heaven. Empires have flourished and gone down, whole peoples have passed away, new faiths have arisen, new languages have sprung up, new worlds have been born to man; but those fourteen centuries have only fed the fire of that faith which he taught the men of Erin, and have spread into a wider horizon the light he kindled. And if there be in the great life beyond the grave a morning trumpet-note to sound the réveillé of the army of the dead, glorious indeed must be the muster answering from the tombs of fourteen centuries to the summons of the Apostle of the Gaels. "Nor scarce less glorious can be his triumph when the edge of sunrise, rolling around this living earth, reveals on all the ocean isles and distant continents, the myriad scattered children of the Apostle, whose voices answering that sunrise rollcall re-echo in endless accents along the vaults of heaven." [Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF SLANE, RIVER BOYNE] That is no untrue vision. Rome went down in blood and dust, and in the centuries that followed, if the lamp of learning was not wholly quenched, it was because Patrick had kindled, in this remote island beyond the bounds of Empire, "the Light of the West"; if Christianity did not perish in the weltering chaos, it was very largely due to the fruit of the seed which Patrick sowed. Miracles are mingled with the story of that Easter evangelization. Laoghaire, the king (pronounce him "Laery", which has been softened into "Leary"), set out to meet him, but stopped short of the Boyne, and the Christian came into the camp chanting a verse of Scripture: "Some in chariots, some in horses, but we in the name of the Lord our God". At his coming, Erc, the king's chief judge, rose up and did him homage; but a druid blasphemed, and Patrick wrought a miracle of destruction. And next day he was bidden to Tara, and ambushes were set for him on the road; but he changed his people into deer, and so they escaped and reached the king's dun, and other miracles were wrought in it. At all events, by whatever means, Patrick made converts among the king's own kindred, and Laoghaire, though he himself would not change, left him free to preach, and probably welcomed his help in writing down the laws and customs of Ireland. For wherever Patrick went he spread the arts of peace, and Ireland was not slow to profit by them. Take one instance only. On the hill of Slane a great monastery grew up, centre of learning as well as of arts, so famous that in the middle of the seventh century, Dagobert II, heir to the throne of France, came here to be educated, away from the weltering turmoil of Continental Europe. Of that monastery there is not even so much trace as can be seen of Tara's greatness, yet within four miles of it are monuments of surpassing interest that show the Ireland of a day before St. Patrick, and others that show the Ireland which he made. On the north bank, at New Grange and at Dowth, are the burying places of prehistoric kings: gigantic structures of huge monoliths, stone slabs, each of them man-high, so arranged that standing stones make a passage, roofed with other huge blocks, and this passage leads to a vaulted chamber, built in the same marvellous fashion. How on earth these stones were handled no man can guess, yet there they are--Cyclopean architecture with a vengeance. But these habitations of the dead are not exposed to daylight, for over the whole structure was heaped a mound of lesser stones, so huge that the whole thing covers an acre of ground, and now, grass-grown and tree-covered, stands out like a natural hill--into whose recesses you may burrow fearfully along this amazing corridor. Strange spiral ornamentation on the stones at New Grange is the joy and bewilderment of archæologists; and though we know the names of kings who were buried there, we can only guess vaguely at the builders of these structures, comparable to the tomb under which Agamemnon rests in Mycenæ. Nearer to Drogheda, not less interesting, and far more beautiful, are two monuments of Christian Ireland. One is the ancient monastic settlement of Monasterboice, where stand a round tower, two small ancient churches, and for its supreme interest, two huge stone crosses covered with the most elaborate sculpture, on Scriptural subjects, presenting churches, monks, and warriors as they were in Ireland of the ninth or tenth century. One of the two crosses is signed by its deviser, Muiredach, probably the Muiredach whose death is recorded at 924 A.D., and purely Celtic art has no more important monument. A few miles off is the other ruin, which shows what point monastic civilization had reached in Ireland before yet the Normans had crossed the sea. The Cistercian Abbey of Mellifont was the first of its order in Ireland, and it was built by Irish craftsmen trained at Clairvaux, in Normandy. Enough of the ruin is left to show how noble and how pure was the work of these early builders, who brought into Ireland the Norman civilization but not the Norman rule. Yet there is also the monument of her who gets the blame of bringing in the hostile, not the peaceful, invasion. Dervorgilla is buried there, O'Rourke's wife, whose abduction by Dermot MacMurrough led to MacMurrough's banishment from Ireland, and so to his calling in of foreign aid. De Lacy's castle at Trim is not the only evidence that the Normans, when they came, were quick to fasten upon this fertile valley. At Randalstown, near Navan, Colonel Everard's tobacco plantations are an object of interest to thousands to-day; but perhaps not many of them realize that this enterprising country gentleman is living to-day where his forefathers have lived since the first of them got a grant there in the twelfth century, among the other knights and squires who rode with De Lacy. Norman they were and Irish they soon became, yet here in the pale they kept far more distinct than the Geraldines of Desmond or the De Burgos of Connaught; and so they kept on the lucky side, the side whose supremacy was finally established when William of Orange fought his way across the fords at Oldbridge. [Illustration: ON THE RIVER SLANEY AT BALLINTEMPLE] Oldbridge is only about a mile upstream from Drogheda, and an obelisk marks the site of the famous Battle of the Boyne. The battle was decided before it was fairly begun, because a large force had been thrown across the bridge at Slane, and thus turned the Irish position, which lay along the south bank from opposite the Mattock River to where the hill rises steep below Oldbridge. Schomberg fell in the ford above the island, probably some two hundred yards below the present bridge--fell rallying his Huguenots like a hero. No record of brutality sullies that feat of arms; but at Drogheda, one of the most picturesquely situated towns in Ireland, and made more picturesque by the high viaduct which here spans the river, there are terrible memories connected with those old defences of which one part remains perfect--St. Laurence's Gate with its two-storied tower. Here it was that Cromwell perpetrated the first of those massacres which disgrace his name. Such of the captured as were not slain were sent for slaves to the West Indies, where to-day in certain islands a debased Irish can be heard from negroes, and Irish names are general among the negro population. Yet in that lovely valley it is hard to think of cruelties. Historic records crowd so thick in it that one has scarcely time to speak of beauty. And yet from the ridge of the hill above Monasterboice is a view which pleases me beyond almost anything I know in Ireland. Midway on that northern plain one has the Mourne Mountains beyond fertile levels to the north, the Dublin Hills beyond fertile levels to the south, and the blue sea close at hand abreast of all. Still, you may match that elsewhere in Ireland; you cannot match the river itself. From Navan a little leisurely steamer will take you to Drogheda, dodging from canal into river, from river back to canal, through scenery as fertile and as cultivated as the banks of the Thames, yet rendered far more beautiful by the charm of the river itself--a typical salmon stream, with its pools, its plunging flood, its long swirling reaches. I have written of it elsewhere and may perhaps be allowed to quote my own writing: "... Above Navan the Boyne is sedgy and weed-choked; but if you follow the towpath down from Navan, between canal and river, you will find yourself heaping scorn on the Thames. Here are wide spaces of smooth water, with steep wooded banks beyond them--banks ambered, when I saw them last, with all the tones of autumn. But (since Boyne is a famous salmon stream, and way must be made for the running fish) here are no high lock-gates damming back the water in long sluggish flats. Everywhere the run is brisk, and constantly broken by low weirs, under which long races swirl and bubble in a way to tantalize every angler, and delight even those who do not know the true charm of a salmon pool. When I came in sight of Dunmor Castle, a ruined Norman keep of the sixteenth century, perched high on a bare grassy cliff above one of these lashers, it seemed that here was surely the finest point of all; but after I had passed Stackallen bridge, and was travelling now down the left bank, I learnt my error. Under the woods of Stackallen House, canal and river merge into one broad stream, closely pent by precipitous banks, variously wooded. Below the lock, where the canal joins the main water, a pool begins, stretching some two hundred yards straight down, until it is closed by a cliff of ochre-tinted rock, bold and bare among the foliage. So swift is the rush from the lasher, so far does it swirl down into this reach, that the water has no look of dullness; it is a pool, not a stretch. I walked on quickly, eager to see what lay around the sharp bend, and suddenly towards me there swung round the cliff a barge, brightly painted. The line of its sides, the fan-shaped curve of the wave spreading outwards and backwards, as the craft drew towards me, had a beauty in that setting that only sight could realize. If any spot of the world is enchanted, it must be that water; and as you round the cliff it is more beautiful still. For there, under Beaupark House, is a cliff answering that on the Stackallen bank, and a precipitous lawn beside it; and the river, bending south here at right angles, then breaking out again, stately and splendid, on its old line due east, has movement and stillness all in one; it is a sliding, swirling mirror for banks which well deserve such a glass to echo their perfection." That valley is to my mind the most beautiful and the most typically beautiful thing in Leinster. For Leinster is the province of cultivated fertility; it is also the province of great and beautiful rivers. The Shannon, except from Killaloe and Limerick, is somewhat lacking in beauty; it has majesty, but not charm. In Leinster the rivers are more manageable in size--the Nore, the Barrow, the Boyne, the Liffey, and the Slaney. Each of them has its own character; and the lower tidal reaches of the Slaney, reed-fringed and swan-haunted, are not less lovely than the salmon pool in the upper waters near Carlow which Mr. Williams has drawn so lovingly. And those who imagine Ireland as a country of mere beggary might find something to learn as well as to see either amid the fertility of Meath or again in South Leinster, where a poorer soil has been tilled into high perfection. The valley of the Nore in particular is affluent in loveliness from its banks at Kilkenny, where Moore courted the pretty actress who made him the best of wives, down to the head of the tideway at Inistiogue, where under the shelter of Mr. Tighe's great woods you can stay at a neat little hotel in a charming village, and fish to heart's content in splendid pools and shallows, where trout and salmon are plenty, and if you cannot catch them, it must be either your fault or theirs. And if they are hard to capture--as I found them in weather which all but fishermen adored--that is just because it is a free water, because here as everywhere there is something of that easy live and let live spirit which endears Ireland to those that know her, and which everywhere makes the visitor welcome--perhaps with most natural kindliness in those parts which are least accustomed to look upon the stranger as a source of revenue. The most beautiful places in Leinster are far less known to Englishmen than the barren cliffs of Achill. Yet if you go to Inistiogue, or any similar place in Leinster, you will begin to realize why it is that in Leinster only of the provinces does the population increase in these days. There, under the new conditions of tenure, the farmer begins to invest freely, his money and his labour, upon soil that can repay exertion, and under a climate that has none of Ulster's harshness. In Wexford, where most of the Irish tobacco was grown till the growing of it was prohibited by an amazing Act of Parliament some seventy years ago, the plant took so kindly to the soil that it perpetuated itself without cultivation: and when (after infinite solicitation and manoeuvring) leave was given us to revive this industry, the distinctive variety was recovered from these casual plants, and has been cultivated among other species in Colonel Edwards's farm at Navan. Now a soil and a climate in which tobacco will reproduce itself in the wild state is a rare combination so far north, and Wexford men are trying to utilize its advantages. In Carlow and Kilkenny one sees prosperity too on every side, while Louth disputes the palm with Wexford. Only on the richest land of all, through Meath into Kildare, is there the lamentable spectacle of depopulation--a rich wilderness. Yet even there it is to be hoped that the spread of co-operation and the gradual work of land settlement may undo some of the mischief wrought by reckless clearances. Those who in visiting Ireland have too often found images and memories of beauty marred by the association of ragged poverty, overshadowed by a very cloud of despair, may find in Leinster at least a beauty where all the omens are hopeful and where, even beside the ruins only too evident, a strong new fabric of industry is being built up. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN _At the Villapress, Glasgow, Scotland_ 
43488	----	Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with underscores: _italics_. [Illustration: LOUGH BREENBANNIA] CONNAUGHT Described by Stephen Gwynn Pictured by Alexander Williams BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY 1912 Beautiful Ireland LEINSTER ULSTER MUNSTER CONNAUGHT _Uniform with this Series_ Beautiful England OXFORD THE ENGLISH LAKES CANTERBURY SHAKESPEARE-LAND THE THAMES WINDSOR CASTLE CAMBRIDGE NORWICH AND THE BROADS THE HEART OF WESSEX THE PEAK DISTRICT THE CORNISH RIVIERA DICKENS-LAND WINCHESTER THE ISLE OF WIGHT CHESTER AND THE DEE YORK LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Lough Breenbannia _Frontispiece_ Lowlands, Ballinlough, Roscommon 8 Mweelrea and the Killary, from Tully Strand, Renvyle 14 A Fisherman's Home under Diamond Mountain, Ballynakill Bay 20 On the Owenbrin River, Lough Mask 26 Castle Kirke and Upper Lough Corrib 32 In the Pass of Delphi, Killary Bay 36 Wrack-Gathering on the West Coast 42 Croagh Patrick, from Oldhead, Clew Bay 46 The Minaun Cliffs, Achill Island 50 Nephin, from Lough Conn 54 Lough Gill 58 [Illustration: CONNAUGHT] I Connaught--or Connacht, as it is more properly spelt and spoken--is geographically the best-marked among the provinces of Ireland; and, as usual, other discriminations follow. I would not say that it is of all provinces the most Irish; nobody has better rights to stand for Ireland than the "boys of Wexford", and at a Wexford fair or meeting you will see scores of big farmers the very picture of Mr. Punch's John Bull, only not so round about the abdomen. But Connaught, Connaughtmen, and Connaught ways certainly come nearest to an Englishman's traditional conception of Ireland and its inhabitants; the stage Irishman is based upon Connaught characteristics. In West Mayo people do say "shtruck" (or in moments of emotion "shhtrruck"); and you can see still in places the traditional costumes. Shawled heads and bare feet are (thank goodness) to be met with all along the Atlantic seaboard; but the red petticoat (home-dyed with madder, though alas! aniline dyes are fast replacing the costlier and more beautiful crimson) is characteristic of Galway and Mayo; and in remote recesses of Joyce country and Connemara old and lovely fashions of braiding the hair and training ringlets to stray over the forehead still hold their own. In Connemara and on Aran, the tall lad of thirteen may still, though rarely, be seen in the long-petticoated shirt (his only garment) of red or blue flannel; but this is only a relic of sheer poverty. The men's clothes, however, keep to antique and excellent fashions: throughout Galway, east of the Corrib, almost everyone wears the cut-away skirted coat of dark heavy frieze, and for the most part its wearers hold to the custom of clean-shaven face with a narrow strip of close-cropped whisker past the cheekbones. In Connemara the "bawneen" or sleeved waistcoat of whitish flannel is general and very becoming to its wearers, among whom are to be found the handsomest men in Ireland. Kerry women, who in certain parts really have the "black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes", may perhaps hold their own even with the girls of Connaught; but for fine-looking men I would back Galway against any county in the British Isles. There is much talk of a Spanish strain on this coast, and undoubtedly commerce was constant between Galway Bay and the Iberian peninsula: but the truth is that you have in western Ireland, as in western Spain, survivals of a race which the red-haired people pushed off the good lands towards the limit of the sea. On the Claddagh at Galway I have seen a man at work in his cottage mending a net, who might have posed for the model of a Basque peasant; and the olive-skinned fisher folk about the great mackerel-curing station at Cleggan (near Clifden) are simply variants of a type that repeats itself along the coasts of Spain. The people have changed very little in themselves since Lever wrote of them: where food has always been too scarce, as at the extremity of the Mullet peninsula curving about Blacksod Bay, famine and famine fever have weakened the stock terribly, and in such places you can see that looped and windowed raggedness and that squalor of hovels which go to make up the Englishman's conception of the sister island. But you can see also in markets in north Mayo many a handsome old man, springy and active even in his extreme age, who wears the blue tail coat, with its complement of brass buttons, which perhaps his father handed down to him--and a fine figure he makes in it, especially if he still keeps to the tight knee breeches and buckled shoes which were universal in his boyhood. Here and there, too, the ancient beaver hat with its long nap still lingers: such things must be almost indestructible. A few years ago the beautiful ruin of Ross Errilly Abbey near Headford was guarded by an old peasant in this headgear; corduroy breeches and gaiters completed the picture. But on the whole, Connaught--more's the pity--is trouser-wearing like the rest of Europe: yet for all that the Connaught-man remains distinctive. Smooth-tongued you will find them: supple you may think them: but the fire which kindles in Connaught is no flicker. Michael Davitt was born in a Mayo peasant's cabin, his earliest memory the eviction which drove him and his adrift on the world. He died in early middle age, yet before he died, what he himself called the Fall of Feudalism was accomplished: he himself, more than any other man, had destroyed the old order under which such eviction was the universal terror hanging over every peasant's head. Lord MacDonnell of Swinford was a poor man's son in Connaught, his parents hardly rich enough to equip him for the priesthood. He got an even cheaper education at the Queen's College in Galway, won his place in the Indian Civil Service, and there proved himself a governor as imperious and as capable and as beneficent as India had known since the Lawrences. It is a poor province, but it breeds notable men. I sat at dinner not long ago with three who had been at school together in the west, poor lads all of them. One had become bishop of his diocese; one was the best-known journalist in England and no mean force in politics; the third, perhaps, the greatest orator in America, something of a party to himself--but beyond all doubt a power. [Illustration: LOWLANDS, BALLINLOUGH, ROSCOMMON] It is perhaps well to remember such facts in visiting a country where poverty stares you in the face, where, at least in certain parts, it has become a disease. Courtesy in the poor is apt to seem obsequious; yet courtesy is of all things most native to Connaught, and it is finest shown where the folk have acquired some stable security. I fished one afternoon with an old man in a lake in the mountains behind Leenane, a poor man but evidently not needy; he and his wife pressed on us the best they had to give, and because our fishing had been unsuccessful, wanted to refuse all payment. What we paid was little enough for those hours of easy paddling in the sunshine amid noble hills, and for the pleasure of that old boatman's wise, shrewd, and witty company. That lake--Lough na Fooey--lies midway, beautiful itself but unutterably wild, between the two most beautiful centres in Connaught: between Killary Bay and the upper end of Lough Corrib. With Lough na Fooey for centre, a radius of twenty miles would take in all or almost all the scenic beauty of County Galway--and a good deal of what is finest in Mayo. North of that again is fine scenery about Westport: then comes the superb cliff-front of Achill: then after a long interval, you come again to Sligo with yet another noble grouping of mountain, lake, river, and sea. In the other two of Connaught's five counties--Roscommon and Leitrim--there is very little to tempt the tourist; though a great deal of interest for the student in Irish history, whether of to-day or the remotest past. Croghan, Cruachan, was the seat of Connaught's kingdom when Emain Macha at Armagh made a fortress for the Red Branch chivalry. It was from Cruachan that Maeve and her army set out to win the Brown Bull of Cooley to enrich the Connaught herds; and to-day no part of Ireland has greater store of fine cattle, fine sheep, and fine horses than Roscommon's fertile plains. Nor is there anywhere better to see that work of resettling on the good land (left for decades in mere prairie) those people whose fathers were huddled too thick on the bogs and moors where grass would not grow. Roscommon contributes more than its share--though five counties take a part--to what is still the great event of the year in Connaught, the fair of Ballinasloe, lasting through the first week in October. To that wonderful muster comes the pick of all the sheep and cattle, and above all, of the horses from western and central Ireland. The sheep fair, held in Lord Clancarty's demesne, covers a huge space of the park--Galway, Roscommon, and Tipperary each having its allotted quarter: but unless you rise early, all you will see is trampled ground, over which hangs the greasy smell of wool, and only some few scores of the twenty thousand animals that were gathered there, by pen and pen, in the grey dawn, bleating and huddling together. But any day and all day in the week, on the broad fair green outside the town you may see the best of Ireland's horses being galloped and trotted and shown off and examined--for the benefit of buyers from over all Europe. You may hear German, Italian, French, Spanish, all, or any of them spoken on that astonishing mart; and you may observe the likeness in diversity which stamps itself upon horsey men, whatever their nationality. Except on a fair day, Ballinasloe has no special interest or beauty, but five miles west of it lies the field of Aughrim, where was fought the greatest though not the most decisive battle of the Williamite wars. It is easy to trace the lie of the fight, along the range of hillocks by Aughrim where St. Ruth, James's general, took up position, facing the bog which divided him from Urrachree, to which Ginkel had moved out from Ballinasloe. Till quite lately a thorn-tree marked the spot where St. Ruth lay, struck down by a cannon shot as he headed what should have been the decisive charge. One can guess, too, at the position behind the ridges, where the Frenchman's jealousy kept Ireland's own leader, Sarsfield, out of action with the reserves, chafing for action, till St. Ruth's fall disorganized everything, and the call for Sarsfield came too late. In the north of Ireland they still perform a play representing this great encounter, and every Orangeman is more anxious to be Sarsfield than any hero on the Orange side. But no one goes to Aughrim in search of beauty (in truth no one goes there at all, which is a strange effect of indifference to history), and on the main Connaught line you do not reach fine scenery till at Oranmore an old castle rises by the inner shallow waters of Galway Bay, here strewn with numberless little reefs and islets.--Salute the best stretch of oyster-breeding water which these counties know: Galway Bay oysters, from Red Bank on the Clare side, to Ardfry where the Department of Agriculture controls a spawning ground a few miles from Galway itself, are not only the best in flavour but the freest from any suspicion of pollution of all oysters in the world, and in Galway at the proper season they should always be demanded by every visitor while it is still time: for the English market will almost certainly engross them, when it becomes really aware of their existence. Ten years ago as you travelled in summer round the coast of Galway or Mayo, the hotels were not splendid, their menu was rudimentary, but always there was a dish of lobsters big and little piled up in careless profusion; you ate one or two or three as the fancy took you. Now, you hardly buy a lobster along that coast; a company has contracted for the whole take, fishermen bring them in their curraghs to a depot where they are put into anchored crates, until the steamer comes up to collect and direct them into that vast maw which has its tentacles exploring the very shores of Iceland and Russia for daily supply. Still, when you get to Connemara or Mayo, you will not grudge these folk the access to a market which makes lobster fishing almost the most profitable of their industries. Along Galway Bay you look out over one of the most beautiful scenes in Ireland, and the most barren. Across, opposite you, is the mountainous shore of Clare, where, in the limestone district called Burren, Ireton (down there on some errand of mercy) reported that there was not water enough to drown a man, soil enough to bury him, nor wood enough to hang him. Off the mouth of the bay, making a natural breakwater for its superb natural harbour, lie the three islands of Aran which are, like Burren, built up of flat limestone slabs--in whose crevices there grows herbage, sweet and nourishing for cattle; but how human beings, let alone cows, travel those rocks without breaking a leg a week in the fissures passes all comprehension. Rocky though the soil, these waters are not barren, and Aran lives by its nets, and lives much better than it did in the old days before the Congested Districts Board set up the folk with strong boats and good gear, and established a steamer to bring them in touch with the market. Yet Synge's wonderful and terrible little drama, _Riders to the Sea_, tells the true story of their life, shows how encompassed it is at any moment by the deadliest peril; for the waves on that western coast have been seen to break where there was nearly a hundred feet in depth of water, so vast, so tremendous are the movements of storm where the Atlantic swings in its full force upon the first bulwark it meets--a bulwark planted in the deep, and dreadfully sudden therefore in its check to the whole power of ocean. [Illustration: MWEELREA AND THE KILLARY, FROM TULLY STRAND, RENVYLE] That is what gives a special character to all the scenery of western Ireland. It is not only sea you are looking at, it is ocean: ocean in its full depth within a few miles of the shore, and the blueness of deep water is a very different thing from the blue of the Irish Channel or the English, to say nothing of the yellowish waters of the North Sea. And the wash of waves there, even on a calm day, has in it a slow, heavy rhythm, a sense of power which rocks and soothes the senses. But to face that sea on that coast, not only rockbound but flanked with a line of reefs and islands, in hooker or pookaun or canvas-covered curragh, is an enterprise that might well dismay. Yet, oddly enough, these men whose daily life is one long risk of drowning, who endanger themselves times innumerable in the mere act of entering or leaving a curragh when a sea runs, are more frightened than women by the unknown adventure of sailing in a strong vessel clear away to sea, and when they first lose sight of land and see only water round them, they will lie down and give themselves over for lost. All the north shore of Galway Bay is long, low, and indented with a hundred creeks and bays. It is the paradise of fishermen, full of small lakes connected by little rivers up which the white trout run as nowhere else, and on a good day you may kill three or four dozen--but such fishings are of course not for the chance comer. The most famous and beautiful of these lake and river systems is that of Ballynahinch, once the home of the Martins--types of all that was kindest, oddest, wildest, and most feudal in the old feudal days. Miss Edgeworth came there on a journey in the early days of last century, while roads as yet were little more than a name, and the illness of a travelling companion detained her party as guests for a stay that ran into weeks: lucky chance, to which we owe a picture, such as she only could sketch, of that primitive family hospitality, its table loaded with delicacies of the wilds, salmon, venison, oysters, and the rest, presided over by a host used to administer patriarchal justice among the clansmen, sometimes by form of law, sometimes by the strong fist. The hostess was a lady of the old school; but strangest and most picturesque of all, was their one child, a daughter, the lovely "Princess of Connemara", creature of the mountains no less than any Flora MacIvor with her train of ragged gillies--yet instructed not only in the modern tongues but also in the ancient classics. She read the Greek poets, back there among her ragged mountain peaks: she spoke fluently a French which savoured oddly of the camp, for her teacher was a waif from Napoleon's armies, and this young chieftainess had the French Revolution in her heart.--God be with the old days, now passed clean out of sight, if not out of mind. When the Martin estate went down in the ruin that involved so many of the landed gentry sixty years ago, it at least perished nobly; for the Martin of that day beggared himself in the effort to feed the population that was starving by thousands in the great famine. Old folk remember still the _droch-aimsir_, the bad times, all over Ireland: yet in the nakedness of Connemara I have not heard any such awful tales as come down by word of mouth and written record relating to places far less out of reach of help. The Martins are gone from Ballynahinch and a newcomer has their home, and for the moment something of their lordship, though here the Congested Districts Board is at last seriously at work, striving to settle the people not only on holdings of their own, but on holdings which may support them. But the beauty of that region is unchanged: the mountain group which we call the Twelve Pins rises in peaks from out of moor and lake and river: the marble which it holds glistens in rain and sun: and whether you see it from the south by the shore of Galway Bay, from Camus water near Rosmuck, or beside the broader water of Kilkerrin, or from the west where Ballinakill Bay runs up in creeks and windings towards the pretty village of Letterfrack,--wherever you take your view point, no mountain group in all Ireland can quite compare with it for grace and for perfection of line. At Recess, near Ballynahinch, where is the railway hotel, one is too close under the heights, too shut in; to see the Connemara Mountains rightly, they should be seen from the shore of the sea. Clifden, where the railway has its terminus, is a little too far off; and upon the whole my choice would be for Letterfrack (_Leitir-bhreac_, the speckled meadow) on the shore of Ballinakill, where a delightful river has its outfall. Yet perhaps one who cared less for the running water and its chance of fish would like that country best of all from Renvyle, where an old country house is kept open as a hotel--facing the Atlantic, and commanding full view not of the Twelve Pins only but of the mountains which lie about Killary harbour and beyond. Killary is the deep narrow cleft which strikes far in past the base of Mweelrea, the highest mountain in all Connaught, and runs up to where the flank of the Devil's Mother divides the village of Leenane from the outflow of the Erriff river, plunging over the fall at Aasleigh. I recite a litany of names well known to every angler in the west--and to more than anglers, for the hotel at Leenane is a halting place on the coachroad which follows the coast from Clifden to Westport; and no sea lough in all Ireland is more beautiful than Killary on its own day. Leenane is on the boundary of the two counties, Galway and Mayo (which latter name is properly pronounced with the accent on the _o_). From the hamlet a steep road runs back climbing the skirts of the Devil's Mother--where eagles build--and then plunges down the pass which leads to Maam at the upper end of Lough Corrib, and so to the isthmus of Cong, under which water makes a subterranean pathway for the eels of Lough Mask into Corrib, whence they go by the weir at Galway (where eel traps take toll of them) to their spawning grounds in the deepest sea. This road is one of the boundaries about the region of the Twelve Pins, through which wild sanctuary no made track for wheels has been driven. You have the Pins (or "Bens" rather) on the south as you go from Leenane to Maam; on the west as you go from Maam to Maam Cross; on the north from Maam Cross to Recess, and on the east as you take the beautiful road from Recess by Lough Inagh, and so through the defile at Kylemore, where the great house stands with long terrace facing on to the exquisite lower lake, approached by a roadway along which are mile-long hedges of crimson fuchsia. Kylemore means the Big Wood, and the name is natural enough, for here only in Connemara is there any considerable growth of trees; the country is too bare and wild for them. At Carna, on the shore of Galway Bay, can be seen the lamentable remains of an experimental plantation, replaced now by a new and much more successful planting of the New Zealand flax, which with its yucca-like fronds grows very freely on the west, and gives some hope of a new industry. But beyond Maam, on the shores of Corrib, is wooding and to spare; none denser, more undisturbed. About Cong are the famous woodcock covers where Lord Ardilaun's guests have killed five hundred birds in a day. Almost every island on the lake (and there is said to be an island for every day in the year) is set thick with leafage, and there are those who claim that Corrib where it broadens out between Cong and Oughterard is a rival to Killarney. I do not seek to decide such a contention; but the place is far richer in antiquarian interest than Killarney, and infinitely less tourist-ridden. [Illustration: A FISHERMAN'S HOME UNDER DIAMOND MOUNTAIN, BALLYNAKILL BAY] It is no business of mine here to write about hotels; but still one wishes to show what is practicable for those who may care to explore this great line of western lakes. By far the easiest way to go is by the little steamer from Galway to Cong--a run of some thirty miles, done very leisurely. There is a comfortable inn at Cong: a larger one three or four miles off at Clonbur; at Ballinrobe, I suppose, quarters can be had, and certainly in Tourmakeady on the west shore of Mask. If, however, you have followed the line from Recess to Letterfrack, and so to Leenane, then there is an admirable possibility for varying the journey. Take the road from Leenane to Maam. Halfway down it, near Kilmilkin, another road turns off steeply to the left so that you still contrive to skirt the Devil's Mother; and after a mile or two through bog, it goes corkscrewing down a woeful hill, and you are in the basin of Lough na Fooey, high among the hills of Joyce Country. Beyond the lake the road climbs again to emerge from that basin, and you pelt away down the long slope of Maamtrasna, the valley at the head of upper Lough Mask. Savage memories dwell there; memories of killings between peasants in the land war of the 'eighties, memories of high diplomatic slaughter when the heir to the earldom of Ulster was done away with in Illaun an Iarla, a little island which your driver will show you. The Stauntons who carried out that killing kept a bad name from it through centuries of Irish tradition. Striking in, then, behind Kilbreedy Mountain, which sunders upper Lough Mask from the main water, you soon come out on the shore of the lake, and I wish you the luck to see two as pretty girls as met me just where the counties join at the little Owenbrin river. A few miles of tolerable road will bring you to the prosperous-looking little village of Tourmakeady, where is a hotel. Here is fishing to be had for pike and for big trout, and here much that is pleasant and profitable can be studied. At the Franciscan monastery, a civil-spoken stranger will always find a welcome, and, at least while Brother Leo is still living, one of the best of talkers to instruct him in the history of all that countryside. These monks have largely helped on the work of the Congested Districts Board in teaching improved methods of farming, and the like: they have been what monastic centres were often in old days. Close by is another factor in the modern development of Ireland, the Connaught college for study of the Irish language, here where it is living on the lips of young and old. In summer you shall find from eighty to a hundred students working there, with classes held largely in the open air: but all centring about a farmhouse converted to these unforeseen uses. Most of the students will be school teachers, desirous to advance themselves in a subject for which there is a swiftly growing demand; but you will almost to a certainty find a sprinkling there who have come, it may be, from France, from Hungary, from the Western States of America, from heaven knows where, to pursue this long-neglected but now eagerly followed branch of learning. And you may hear, and perhaps see, how with the study pleasant festivities interweave themselves of an evening, dances, jigs, reels, hornpipes, and the rest--or simply the _céilidhe_, a gathering for talk and story-telling round the fire. From Tourmakeady, I would have you proceed by boat, crossing the lake to Ballinrobe, and seeing on your way _Caisleán na Caillidhe_, Hag's Castle, a very early example of the fortifications which Irish chiefs began to build when they had learnt from the Normans how much stronger were stone walls than earthen ramparts. Yet here the stone wall is on the model of an earthen dun, built circular, and of no great height--an enclosure for defence rather than a dwelling place--doubly defended too, for it stands on an island near to the Ballinrobe shore. As you drive from Ballinrobe to Cong, you shall see on your left a huge cairn of stones crowning a low height. This is an outlying monument of that famous battle of Moytura, fought, it is said, between the legendary Tuatha de Danann, warrior demigods, against those older inhabitants of Ireland, Firbolgs, men of the leathern wallet. Who fought that fight, when they fought it, is obscure, but fought it was, and the cairns rise thick over the battlefield, a couple of miles behind Cong. All this lore was studied out and set down by the notable father of a still more celebrated son. Oscar Wilde must have spent no small part of his boyhood at Moytura House where his father, Sir William Wilde, passed what holidays a great surgeon could secure, and where he wrote his _Antiquities of Lough Corrib_. There is another legendary battlefield in Sligo called the northern Moytura, which tradition identifies with the site of a second and final battle in which the De Danann defeated the men of the wallet, and it is marked by the same profusion of cairns and stone circles--which, it must be allowed, can be constructed with less labour in the west of Ireland than elsewhere, because the whole surface of the ground is covered with the material for them. Yet assuredly some great event must be marked by monuments so laborious: though I find their associations a trifle too shadowy for interest. The great cairn on the road to Ballinrobe is said to be that of King Eochy, the Firbolg leader, who was slain on the last day of the fight. But near it stands a modern landmark of undisputable authenticity. Lough Mask House was in the early 'eighties the residence of Captain Boycott, against whom was first organized the "boycott" which proved to be the peasantry's most effective weapon in the revolution which has been in progress for the past thirty years. All this countryside is peaceable enough nowadays, but there was wild work there before compulsory rent fixing, followed by voluntary purchase, began to settle the land war. In Cong itself is a wealth of things to be seen: first of all, the demesne, planted by one of the Guinness family, who showed his fine understanding of trees in the disposal of that varied wooding: and leave can be had also to visit the gardens whose owner, Lady Ardilaun, is famous among Irish lovers of flowers. But apart from this, there is the strange river which past Cong flows crystal clear over a limestone bed, and about half a mile off issues from its underground journey out of Lough Mask in a strange cavern called the Pigeon Hole. Near by is costly and deplorable evidence of the queer tendency to fissure in this limestone formation: for sometime in the last century a canal was dug laboriously to connect Mask and Corrib, and so open traffic by boat and barge to Tourmakeady and Ballinrobe from the sea. But when the long digging and hewing was finished, they let the water in, and it promptly leaked away through a hundred clefts and crannies--making, no doubt, wonderful and mysterious noises. All through East Galway (for west of Corrib the stone is mostly granite) there are rivers that appear and disappear in this strange fashion, running now overground, now under; and where the stream sinks out of sight can often be heard queer rhythmic throbbings and beatings, in which the sound of a fairy mill is easily detected; and about these popular imagination quickly builds legends, telling how in old days corn would be laid there and in the morning its owner would come back to find it ready ground, till at last some covetous man failed to leave the unseen miller his due portion, and so no more corn was miraculously ground for deceitful mortals. These are the marvels of nature. But by the river of Cong, which divides Mayo from Galway, stands one of the most beautiful ruins in the west--all that is left of what was once St. Fechin's monastery. But St. Fechin belongs to the old days of the seventh century, long before any builder in these islands had the skill to construct that graceful cloister. The abbey which we know is pre-Norman, an Augustinian foundation, and it has a special interest, for to its repose came Rory O'Connor, last of the native kings to claim sovereignty over all Ireland. Already he had been sorely driven and harried by the Norman invaders, before he retired here in 1183 to spend yet fifteen years more of his life. It was doubtless he who made it into the gem of the western dioceses; and in all the changes and chances of the centuries there still was an abbot of Cong till a date hardly outside living memory. In Cong, too, was treasured--or rather was heedlessly kept--the most famous of all the jewels which descend from the ancient craftsmanship of Ireland. The cross of Cong, a reliquary, made to be borne in procession, enclosing a fragment of the true cross, stands two feet and a half in height and is covered with gold tracery of the most incredible complexity and fineness. What the artist could do with his fine pointed brush in the Book of Kells, this artificer could almost rival in his twisting of the delicate wire. The thing is priceless and was bought (in a transaction of doubtful morality) for the Royal Irish Academy through Wilde's agency. But in truth the National Museum in Kildare Street where it reposes is the proper place for it: though one cannot but feel sympathy for the zealous young priest who made his way from Cong to Dublin, boldly smashed the case and rushed into the street with the reliquary, prepared at all hazards to bring it back to the home which it had known for seven centuries. [Illustration: ON THE OWENBRIN RIVER, LOUGH MASK] A stone now set up in the street at Cong commemorates in a Gaelic inscription two Abbots of Cong, Nicol and Gillibard O'Duffy, and I hope that one of them may be the O'Duffy to whose order the cross was made--not in Cong, but in the other abbey of Roscommon, by the cunning craftsman whose name is inscribed on its arms: MAELISU MACBRADDAIN O-H-ECHAN. An inscription of even greater interest can be seen in a setting of the most fascinating beauty. Sail or row across from Cong (you can fish as you go, and I caught a trout seventeen pounds weight on my first venture in that water--why should not you be as lucky?) to Inchagoill Island, and you will see one of the oldest churches in Ireland, called _Teampul Phadraig_--Patrick's Church. Its walls are of stone, very roughly put together; its doorway of the oldest type--two sides sloping towards the top, which is covered by a huge lintel slab. All this can be matched elsewhere, but the special interest is a stone graven in the oldest Celtic characters with these letters: LIE LUGNEEDON MACC LMENVEH: that is, The slab of Lugneedon, son of Lemenueh. Now Lugneedon was Patrick's nephew and his pilot; and this inscription may be contemporary--or may have been erected less early than the sixth century, but yet so early that the tradition was still alive of him who had died there. For the island's full name is _Inis an Ghoill Chraoibthigh_, the island of the Devout Stranger, and certainly keeps a memory of someone who, coming from far away, identified himself with it either by his life or by his death. It is set in the most beautiful portion of the lake, midway from Cong to Oughterard, and you can see thence Benlevi steep over the isthmus of Cong, and Leckavrea with its grey, slaty cliff frowning over the upper end of Corrib between Oughterard and Maam. In this sheet of water, which (by a sudden winding between cliffy wooded sides where the lake narrows at Doon) is so shut off as to seem a lake by itself, stands not far from the western end, _Caislean na Circe_, Hen's Castle. And popular imagination, stimulated by the name, has invented the story of a miraculous hen which was guaranteed to lay enough eggs to keep the garrison alive; but they tired of eggs, killed the bird, and so came by disaster. The truth, however, I believe to be that this castle, which was built for Rory O'Connor by one of the great De Burgos who made their way to Connaught, fell later into the de Burgos' (or Burkes') possession; and the Hen who gave her name to it was Grace O'Malley, Granuaile; for she proved herself the better bird when her second husband, the Burke who then owned it, was in danger of being forced to submit, till the doughty warrioress relieved him. All these things you can see from Cong by easy pleasant excursions, to be combined if you so choose with fishing in waters where trout if caught are worth the catching; and when you have had your fill of Cong, the steamer will take you to Galway, down that long narrow lake with rick-shaped Benlevi steep above Cong and Leckavrea making a cliff on the southwest. To the east all is flat plain, the long level tract of limestone which stretches out to the Shannon, and which on this side of Tuam is for the most part stone and nothing else. Only one height rises on that hand--your left as you travel to Galway; it is the conical hill of Knockmagh, the greatest mount of fairies in all Ireland; crowned with a cairn, of course--Carn Ceasair--under which sleeps, they say, Ceasair, chieftainess of the first invasion that came to Ireland, just forty days before the Flood. There are lesser cairns on its sides, in which recent exploration has discovered funeral cists, flag covered, holding in them bones and even an urn of "bodkin-pencilled" clay. Anyone who cares to see what is not in the common run of tourist visitation should make his way from Cong to Tuam, by Headford, where is the splendid ruin of Ross Errilly, a famous monastery of the Franciscans, standing almost intact, though unroofed, and stripped of its ornamentation by the Cromwellian soldiers. The friars clung to this abode till 1753, though six several times expelled, returning under the protection of Lord Clanricarde; since in those days Clanricarde, head of the Burkes in Connaught, was a name of shelter for the native Irish, among whom his de Burgo stock had been so long and so fully naturalized. The famous rallying song of 1848, "The West Awake", tells how "Glory guards Clanricarde's grave", and in truth, with scarcely an exception, not a Clanricarde of them all but was loved by the people. And if the name that was once so kindly, bears a very different sound to-day, Connaught has its own way of accounting for the change. It is worth climbing Knockmagh to see across that spreading plain, crossed and chequered with the stone walls which endear Galway to all who like big jumping in the foxhunt: for the mountains of Connemara show westward but Croaghpatrick and Nephin away north. Under Knockmagh beside the road is the church of Donagh Patrick, marking the western point of St. Patrick's missionary journey here. But his favourite disciple Benen, or Benignus, had a monastery near Tuam at Kilbannon, where stands the stump of a round tower, and pushed his journeyings even to Aran where monuments bear his name. Tuam itself is well worth a visit for things old and things new--or shall I say the survival of the remote and the recent past. Its long street of thatched houses, its marketplace crowded with Irish-speaking men and women all in characteristic western dress, make it more typically Irish than any town in Connaught except only Galway--and Galway is a thing apart. The modern cathedral, too, is of interest for the sake of sculptured heads wrought by a local craftsman who was a kind of Cruickshank in stone--preserving in his craft a glorious tradition of the place. For the great sculptured arch which can be seen in the ancient cathedral, restored more than a quarter of a century ago for Protestant worship, is the finest example of native Irish decorative architecture, before Continental influences came in. It is the Romanesque half-circle, with six concentric orders of arches included in the great span. The red sandstone of which it is wrought lent itself freely to carving, and the unknown and unnamed workers bestowed a wealth of detail upon it, blending, after the Celtic fashion, shapes of man, bird, and beast, into the interlaced scroll of the design. The rest of the building must have been worthy of this glorious centre: but, in years of desolation, plunder was made of carved stones for common building work, and the tall cross which stands now, imperfectly put together, in the marketplace, was rescued by sections from various houses and buildings. Eight stones went to complete it and only five are there: it is a pity that their places are not filled in with uncarved slabs, for the proportion of the monument is destroyed. If you drive or motor from Tuam to Galway it is easy to visit another famous ruin, the Abbey Knockmoy erected for the Cistercians by Cathal O'Conor of the Red Hand, as a thankoffering for his victory over the first Norman party of invaders whom, with their leader, Almeric St. Laurence, he destroyed near the abbey's site. There is a trace of frescoes discernible on the chancel walls; and it is easy enough to see how the original and most beautiful twelfth-century building was, so to say, cut down and curtailed for a reduced community of monks who may have been there in some interval between persecution and persecution. [Illustration: CASTLE KIRKE AND UPPER LOUGH CORRIB] In the graveyard here you can see what is common in all Connaught up to the present day--tombstones carved with the insignia of the dead man's trade, the carpenter's plane and saw, the smith's hammer, and so forth. Apart from this the road is over flat land, little raised above the level of Lough Corrib, till you near Galway, when it rises over low hills of limestone rock, in springtime blue with gentian, at all times singular enough with their flooring of stone. At the last rise you reach a view point, looking west from which the city comes suddenly into sight with its bay beyond, and beyond the bay the hills of Burren. It tells something of what Galway was that the name of this spot is _Bois le h-eadan_, "Hand to Brow", for here it was supposed that you would stop and shade your eyes to consider the glory that lay before you. Little enough glory is there to-day; but the city keeps a picturesqueness at this distance, couching there at the outflow of the vast sheet of water which is comprised in Corrib and Mask; and that blue expanse of bay reaching up into the level land--brown rather than green, since bog and stone and scrub cover most of it--has a beauty all its own; and southward the eye follows with delight the open gap between the hills of Burren by the western sea, and that other line, Slieve Echtge, which divides the plain of Gort from the Shannon. Here was the boundary and pass between Connaught and Munster, the country of the O'Kellys, Hy Many; and no place in Ireland was so often fought over. As you go south from Athenry to Ennis, the whole landscape is studded with old castles and peel-towers, set for the most part in pairs, every one watching his neighbour, like players lined up at football. Galway town, once you have entered it, is depressing beyond words, but also more picturesque than any town in Ireland. A hundred years ago it was the greatest port of the country, in its own way a rival to Bristol and Liverpool. Those were the days of small towns, and Galway numbered forty thousand people. To-day the population is barely fourteen thousand--but it is not the drop in numbers that signifies most. Go about the streets and you will find tall, solid buildings of black stone built very high, for the town was walled and space was scarce in it. Some of these were dwelling-houses, and over their doorways are the great scutcheons carved in stone belonging to this or that one of the thirteen "tribes"--Blakes, Lynches, Bodkins, Brownes, Skerrets, Kirwans, Morrises, Ffrenches, Martins, and the rest--names which to-day sound Irish of the Irish, yet which in truth belonged to English settlers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries who established here a flourishing merchant community. In those early days the great trade was with Spain; for a glance at the map will show how short a run it is from the west of Ireland to that other western outpost of Europe--a run which can be made either way with the prevailing westerly wind. "Spanish Parade" keeps its memorial of that traffic, but more clearly is it preserved by a famous story. In the wall which surrounds the old Church of St. Nicholas is a stone engraven with skull and crossbones, and a recent inscription commemorating the austere virtue of James Lynch Fitzstephen, Mayor of Galway in 1493. The Mayor was a merchant in close commerce with Spain, and on one of his journeys he brought back with him a young Spaniard, son of his host and friend. But at home in Galway, quarrel broke out (it is said, over a lady) between Lynch's own son and his guest, and the Galway man stabbed the Spaniard. For his offence he was arraigned, and his father passed sentence of death; but a compassionate horror seized the townspeople, and none would execute the sentence. So, that justice might be done, the laws of hospitality asserted--and perhaps, too, lest there should be a break in the friendly relations with Spain--Lynch Fitzstephen hanged his son with his own hand. In the church, a fine building of the fourteenth century, are many monuments of the "tribes"--but of more interest are the mansions: chief of them the "Lynch House", standing in the main street and richly decorated with stone mouldings. Nearer the port are huge buildings of more recent date, grain-stores erected in the early eighteenth century when a tremendous export trade to England ran from this port. All of them, or all but all, mansions and stores alike, have fallen on evil days, and you shall see the decorated scutcheon over the entrance to some rookery of wretched tenements. [Illustration: IN THE PASS OF DELPHI, KILLARY BAY] The port is hardly less depressing. Admirable as a shelter in the days of small vessels, it is unfit for these days when even coasting traffic comes in ships of three thousand tons. It is true they have a dock hollowed out of rock and holding eighteen foot of water; but the Board of Works (a department of Dublin Castle) which executed the work at a cost of forty thousand pounds omitted to notice that there was only twelve foot of water at the entrance: and the accommodation is thought as useful as a second storey with no stair to it. Nearly all the shipping consists in fishing boats: many trawlers, but most numerous of all, the little hookers worked by the fishermen who live across the river in the very odd community called the Claddagh. These people till recently had a "king" of their own (just as happens on the small islands of the coast) and they lived their own life, and indeed still live it, almost wholly distinct from the regular townsfolk. Their thatched cottages scattered in a huddled group without streets or plan of any kind make a curious feature of the place; but it is a curiosity rather than a charm. In the main street of the town lives a jeweller who manufactures still the Claddagh ring which these folk and the Aran people use for marriage or betrothal: joined hands surmounted by a crowned heart make an emblem which needs no posy to expound it. You can get in Galway also another local object which is worth having, the woman's strong cloak of red or blue flannel with hood to shelter the head in the stormiest of weather. Perhaps one of the most interesting sights in the place--at least to the angler--is to be seen from the bridge which spans the main river below the broad weir which holds up water for the sluices and mill powers. Here is a long, swift shallow which in summer becomes crowded with salmon to a degree almost incredible; the fish lie under you there, some twenty feet from your eyes, their sides touching as the dark backs sway in the water, so that at the first glimpse one seems to look into a mass of weed. Anglers can be seen fishing there close together, and many hundreds of fish are killed yearly from the bank. It was here that one enthusiast achieved a fisherman's euthanasia, for he dropped dead suddenly in the very act of playing a fish. The papers gave long accounts of the sad event, recalling the dead man's achievements and qualities as sportsman and citizen; then added a final paragraph-- "Our readers will be glad to learn that the rod which Mr. ---- dropped was immediately taken up by our esteemed townsman Mr. ---- who found the fish still on, and after ten minutes' play, succeeded in landing it--a fine clean-run salmon of fifteen pounds." What more was needed for epitaph? The soul of "Mr. ----" had departed under the most satisfactory auspices. Whoever is at Galway and does not shrink from a three hours' sail should really make the voyage to Aran: a little steamer in these bustling times plies in and out twice or thrice weekly. In the sail down the bay you have the long low shore of Connemara on your right with the Twelve Pins rising in superbly grouped mass behind it: on your left, the steep shore of Burren, its rocks shining in the sun, and as you open out, the cliffs of Moher dark and frowning away south of you. Between you and America lie the islands--three of them, Inishmore, Inishmaan, and Inishere--stretching a vast breakwater against gales from the west and sou'west. Inishmore, the Big Island, lies nearest, and when you are landed at Kilronan, the adjacent fields and hill slopes are not much stonier than Connemara. But on Inishmaan you land direct on to a formation of vast, flat flagstones, stepped upwards tier by tier, and you walk as if on pavement, though a pavement filled with deep chinks and crevices in which grow quantities of maidenhair fern. You have easy walking, perhaps, for ten yards together, then a kind of a leap. Here, still, most of the people wear not boots but pampooties--moccasins of raw hide: and men and women alike have the free forward rising gait of those who walk as nature designed man to walk, springing off the ball of the toe. Nearly all are in homespun homewoven cloth, grey or dyed with indigo and madder: the women wear grey shawls, the men frequently a tam-o'-shanter, but oftener the black corded _caubeen_ which is the most picturesque of headgear. Inishmaan is the place to see Aran in its most characteristic aspect and community, hardly touched by the modern world--though many a man and woman there knows well the great cities of eastern America. I heard of a man who made his journey across every autumn: he had been gardener to a rich American, and the millionaire would let no other prune his grapes but this handy islander. So back and forward he went, year by year, on this errand, returning always to his own cabin, his shelter under the thatch which strong lashings held in place against the storm. But the extraordinary interest of these islands lies in the abundance of prehistoric forts and of very early Christian buildings. The greatest of the forts is Dun Conor on Inishmaan, with walls of dry masonry eighteen feet in thickness; but by far the most famous is Dun Angus on Inishmore which, built on the edge of a steep cliff, needed no protection that way, but turned landward a semicircular front of four vast ring fences of stone--the innermost eighteen feet in height. Between the second and third walls is a chevaux de frise formed by sharp, jagged stones set endwise, very difficult to pass over in times of peace. We have it under Dr. Healy's own hand that an archbishop broke his shins there. This fort might have seemed defence enough for the island, but it is studded over with duns--one of them, Dun Eochail, is only half an hour's walk from the pier, and being set high was once utilized for a lighthouse station. To reach it gives one some idea of the island economy, for half a dozen high-piled walls of loose stone have to be crossed or knocked down. There are no gates in these fields; to let in a cow you "knock" the wall, and then pile it again. But you will not easily knock the walls of Dun Eochaill. The outer ring is only some eight foot high and six wide, but the inner circle rises sixteen foot, and may be twelve in thickness. Who built these fortresses, no man can say; probably that early race whom the Milesians superseded. Yet the population of Aran is by no means the little dark type; many fair-haired women, many a red-headed man are among them, and not a few of almost giant stature. It is not surprising, since for many centuries the O'Briens of Clare were overlords of the islands, and the Clan Dalcais were Milesian, if any ever could claim that title. Generally speaking, too, Aran is more in touch with Clare than with Connemara; though it serves as an intermediate centre for the traffic in poteen--illicit whisky--distilled in creeks and bogs along Galway Bay. Aran brings its turf from Connemara and carries them limestone in exchange. Stand on Dun Eochaill, the most commanding point, and you may see the two shores, Clare and Connemara, so near, yet so different in their peoples, and you shall have one of the noblest views in Ireland: southward, away past Loophead and the Shannon mouth to the great mountain promontory of Brandon in Kerry; northward, past the Twelve Pins to Mweelrea and Croaghpatrick and Achill even. Or if, as happened when I saw it last, the view is obscured with driving mist, still you may have a glint of sun between showers to fling a rainbow across the wide water; and you may watch a squall of wind and rain pass flickering over the sound, raising a patch of whitening foam where its fierce edge strikes the surface. It is likely that the nearness of warrior tribes in Clare may account for the number and the strength of these stone fortresses; the island folk, Firbolgs or whoever they were, would not have so ensconced themselves without grim necessity for the labour. Yet all this is conjectural. What lies well within the bounds of historic knowledge is the Christian history of Aran--_Ara na naomh_, Aran of the Saints, not rashly so entitled. Enda, the first founder of the famous monastic settlement, was a king's son when St. Patrick came to Ireland. His father ruled the kingdom of Oriel, the southern tract of Ulster, reaching across Cavan and Monaghan. Enda's sister took the veil from the hands of Patrick, and she it was, according to legend, who turned her brother from his career as a prince and a warrior. He underwent long training in Louth and over the seas in Britain before he returned to Oriel; but there he found no peace. He wanted solitude, and he begged the islands of Aran from the King of Munster. And, if tradition be accurate, he made his way to them miraculously wafted on a great boat-shaped stone which lies till this day on the shore at Killeany, _Cill Eadna_, Enda's Church. [Illustration: WRACK-GATHERING ON THE WEST COAST] The fame of his settlement spread rapidly, for the missionary period was now being succeeded by an enthusiasm for the contemplative life; and all the great saints of the sixth century came to Aran and were his disciples. St. Brendan the Navigator came there, already prospecting his journey to the unknown land of the west; Columbkille, prince of Tirconnell, the apostle of Scotland, came thither, subduing his proud and fierce temper; and there, too, was nurtured Ciaran, the founder of Clonmacnoise, best loved of Irish saints. All these men were not only centres of piety, but lamps and torches of learning in a dark age: only scholars can estimate what it meant to civilization that this home of studious thought should be maintained outside the weltering chaos of Rome's disruption when sheer barbarism threatened to engulf the world. There are many ancient churches on Aran: seven or eight, says Archbishop Healy, in the single town-land of Killeany, and one called after Saint Benen is virtually intact and may date from the sixth century. But the most interesting of all, _Teglach Eadna_, St. Enda's oratory, is a mere ruin: though outside of it pious islanders can show you the _leac_, or flagstone, under which the saint lies buried. In such places tradition passes from father to son unbroken, with a fidelity that has often been verified; and there is much reputable evidence which I would less readily believe. At all events there is enough and to spare of interest in Aran for a week's visit or a month's; and if you spend that time there, it is odds but you shall run up against some scholar, German, Dane, or Frenchman, of European repute in Celtic scholarship, who has come here to study the ancient language and tradition where they are best preserved. Incidentally you may follow out the history of a great experiment in paternal legislation, the Congested Districts Board's successful attempt to develop a well-equipped fishing industry among these islanders, who had neither seaworthy boats nor nets of any considerable dimensions, nor when they caught it, any means of marketing their fish. All this is changed and much more with it: there are no more famines in Aran: and even in Aran an industrious and courageous man may gather a little prosperity about him without leaving the island of the saints and the way of life in which he was brought up. II That part of Mayo which adjoins Joyce country and Connemara is most easily reached by the coast road from Clifden by Leenane; and the drive from Leenane to Westport is famous. You pass through the defile of the Bundorragha river flowing into the north of Killary Bay--a mountain pass with Mweelrea gigantic on your left; and beyond that, farther along the same route, Croaghpatrick divides you from the sea, while inland is Nephin, the great cone that rises above Lough Conn. All this very wild district was the territory of the O'Malleys, just as Connemara was of the O'Flahertys, but the O'Malleys have left a greater name in history--and a stronger stock, for to-day they have overflowed into the country of the other clan and dominate Connemara and Joyce country alike. But they have departed from their old tradition which linked them to the sea: and the most famous of all these western sea-rovers was a woman, Grace O'Malley, Granuaile, whose name has become one of the titles by which the spirit of nationalist Ireland is known in song. "Poor old Granuaile" is another appellation of the Shan van Vocht. This ruler of men and warrioress was a contemporary of Elizabeth's, and no mean opponent of Gloriana's power in the west. She married, diplomatically, first an O'Flaherty by whom she spread her influence over the shores of Galway as well as of Mayo, and what was more to her purpose, got control of his galleys as well as hers, and with them raided so far, that she carried over Lord Howth's heir from the strong castle a bare ten miles from Dublin. O'Flaherty dying, she bestowed her hand on a man of Norman stock, one of the Burkes, the MacWilliam, and through him got her own adherents posted in a string of castles--which purpose accomplished, so they say, she declared the union at an end. All the castles along the Mayo shore are associated with her name; but the place of her resting is in the little old church with vaulted roof (and still a trace of colour in the stonework) on Clare Island--most important of the long line which fringes that dangerous coast, from Inishboffin northwards. Aran belongs to a different grouping, its amazing formation links it to Burren, and it was, in truth, always owned by the O'Briens, lords of Thomond, the heart of which was Clare. But this string of petty island communities lies nearer the coast, is less separate from it--and yet, after all, very distinct. Land on Inishturk or Inishark, and the headman of the island will receive you with majestic courtesy--and he is still in some cases called the "king". But if you go there to collect rates for the county, I cannot promise you so kind a hospitality: there is unending though intermittent war, the islanders affirming (not unreasonably) that it is no business of theirs to pay for maintaining roads and bridges on the mainland. [Illustration: CROAGH PATRICK, FROM OLDHEAD, CLEW BAY] Clare Island is somewhat unlike the rest, its people having always depended on agriculture rather than on fishing; and it is one of the best examples of the Congested Districts Board's beneficent work in purchasing the whole, reselling to the tenants, re-allotting farms, dividing off commonage, and providing materials and instruction for the islanders to put up decent dwellings for themselves. In earlier days rents were collected there at huge cost by the aid of posses of police; now instalments of purchase come in regularly and smoothly, and people who have begun to prosper a little by their holdings see no reason why they should not add to prosperity by taking their share of the sea's harvest. Herrings have come back to those waters, and it is no longer as it was when a spokesman of the people declared that "the shoals came and there was no one to catch them, and so the fish went away"--slighted, it would seem. But Clare Island belongs to the outer fringe of the isles which lie across the entrance to Clew Bay, whose waters are sprinkled with little points and fields of sod-covered rock in a labyrinth past counting. Some affirm that the view from Westport over this blue water so bespeckled with green is the finest thing in all Ireland--and Croaghpatrick rising over against the little town is certainly a mountain worthy of all its associations. Here takes place annually one of the most impressive ceremonies to be witnessed at home or abroad--the saying of mass at the summit to which St. Patrick, they say, pushed his western journey, and looking out over the Atlantic blessed all that he beheld. Ruder legend, with its touch of grotesque, tells that from this steep height he drove out into the deep all venomous things that had haunted unchristian Ireland, tumbling toads and snakes by his white wizardry into the ocean depths. Be that as it may, there are no snakes in Ireland, and St. Patrick's name is great there still--fitly celebrated when the archbishop of the West and of the isles climbs that long steep path, and there in the face of heaven celebrates the mysteries which link times old and times new, before a multitude which extends far away from him down the hill slope--for there are always laggards whose attendance at that strange mass finds them kneeling half a mile away. Westport town has, what is rare in western Ireland, the look of being cared for: trees planted in a Mall by the little river make a pleasant feature, due to the fact that Lord Sligo's demesne adjoins the town, and that the lords territorial have here always been resident and always capable and executive persons. Wooded slopes, planted with an eye to beauty as well as to shelter, tell the same story and enrich the landscape, which is best seen from a low hill above the parsonage. But Westport town and its neighbourhood have been so often and so well described by the sharp-pointed pen which "George A. Birmingham" handles that one need only recall those witty volumes. I cannot pretend to place the island where "J. J.", the resourceful and philosophic curate, went to discover Spanish gold; but nearly any of them all would do. A little farther along the coast on the way towards Achill is Newport, on a salmon river of some repute, which flows from the most enchanting lake to which my fishing ever took me. I reached Lough Beltra by a long ride from the other direction, and found it away in the hills with Nephin high over the eastern end, and Croaghpatrick filling the south-western outlook. The fishing was nothing to brag of, and I ate most of the few small sea trout that I caught in the kitchen at the keeper's cottage--but how good they were, grilled fresh out of the water, with mealy potatoes and butter, and an egg or two, and a dash of whisky in the tumbler of fresh milk. I should have liked to stay a week or a month in that neat, wholesome, comfortable cottage--where the only serious trouble was that pike had somehow got into this mountainy water, where no such brutes should be. Mallaranny farther along the coast is the place where most people go to see Clew Bay, for the railway has put a good hotel there; but the real attraction of this coast is the amazing island of Achill, to which the railway has now been carried; or rather, to the bridge across the narrow sound which divides Achill from the mainland, and under which such a tide sweeps as can be seen hardly anywhere else. [Illustration: THE MINAUN CLIFFS, ACHILL ISLAND] Achill is virtually all one mountain which has its highest points, Slievemore and Croghaun, on the outer seaward rim and they drop almost sheer into the sea. Slieve League itself in Donegal cannot vie with the wonder of those cliffs; and the little bays of Kim and Keel on the southward, with their curve of pure sand, have a kind of daintiness of beauty most bewitching in that grim landscape. From Dugort on the north shore there is boating to be had, which in fine weather may bring you into seal-haunted caves, under cliffs where the wild goats scramble in herds; and you may see readily enough strange creatures of the deep, sunfish, huge basking sharks, with every seabird that frequents these islands. Once it was my luck to effect a landing on a flat island rock some ten miles out, called the Bills of Achill, where I suppose not once in three years man sets his foot. It was the breeding season and the birds hardly moved to let us pass: puffins sat in the quaintest droves, three or four hundred together, staring at us with parrot eyes barely out of arm's reach. I looked over a ledge of rock and saw below me a guillemot on her eggs, so near that I could touch her--and as she fluttered off, realized why these birds have an egg so big at one end that it cannot roll except round in a circle--for they are laid by two and three on a bare shelf of rock where the bird has hardly room to cover them. Only the great black-backed gulls forsook the island and their nests, soaring high into the air in hundreds where we landed, and leaving their big, ugly eggs and their big, ungainly young ones sprawling all over the turf. They are great robbers of other people's nests, worse than hawks on a grouse moor: but they provide securely for their own young, building only here and in one or two other places equally inaccessible. But for all that it may offer of wildness, of grandeur, and of interest, Achill has no charm for me. Poverty is a show there: in the village of Keel can still be seen beehive-shaped wigwams rather than houses; and it always seems as if the elements there had been too strong for man and left him huddled and cowering on the earth. Famine, or at least continuous underfeeding through generations, has helped that work. Yet the Achill folk set out hardily year by year in companies, men in their troops, girls in theirs, to field labour in different parts of Great Britain. It is thus that the population of some thousands supports itself on that barren promontory--pitifully enough, heaven knows. No doubt the sea is at their doors rich in fish; but the sea that runs off Achill Head is a very different antagonist from what men wrestle with in the English Channel. Yet Achill has been just big enough to encourage its people with a barren hope of finding a living on the land. It is the real islanders who reap the harvest: and now a strange new source of prosperity has come to one of these communities. Just north of Achill Head, outside the long peninsula of Belmullet which encloses Blacksod Bay, lie the two islands of Inishkee, and on the south island some few years ago a Norwegian company established a whaling station of the new type. The Gulf Stream sweeps along here within a few miles of the coast, and whales, it seems, spend their lives strolling peaceably along its course, following always one direction. They stroll less peaceably nowadays, for from these islands steamers push out and harry them with new-fangled harpoons fired from a gun and headed with a bomb as well as the barb. The result is that whereas old-time whalers could only kill the "right" whale which is fat and leisurely, and stays long on the surface, your modern captain makes prey of everything, manoeuvring his steamer so as to get on to the whale's line, and fire the harpoon into him when he rises porpoise fashion for one swift tumble. In this way they kill--not without difficulty and danger--the lean, swift monsters, eighty or ninety feet in length, rorquals, and the rest, which can drag even the steamers about after them; and, having killed, they couple up the whale beside the steamer, as you may see a barge beside a tug-boat on the Thames, and run back to their station where the huge fish is dragged on shore, cut up, separated into its constituents of blubber, bone, and entrails--but every particle of it converted into some kind of use; what is not oil is desiccated and makes feeding cake, and what is not feeding cake makes manure. All this boiling down has two effects--one a prodigious stench which, some say, makes houses uninhabitable on the mainland six miles off; the second, a vast deal of employment for the islanders--of one island only. Work on the whaling station is jealously guarded for southern Inishkee; woe betide the man even of the northern island who should try to get a share of it. As for the folk of the mainland, Inishkee employs them (at a very modest wage) to attend to its potato patches and oat fields in the summer, while the privileged folk are at a special wage on the whaler's work. So far as I can learn, protection has never been more rigorously employed than by this energetic community. From the point of the Mullet to Erris Head, and across Broadhaven to Benwee Head and Portacloy, runs the wildest country and the most inaccessible in these islands. I have reached it only from the sea, and never anywhere in Ireland have I seen people so far removed from civilization as rowed out in their curraghs to meet us. Yet--so odd a place is Ireland--it is ten chances to one but in the loneliest of these creeks and mountains you would find folk who knew the great cities of America, and who if they landed in Boston or New York would find friends and kindred in plenty to greet them and help them to a living. Life is not so difficult here as it was formerly: for nowadays the trade in lobster fishing becomes very profitable on this unexploited coast, with its profusion of kelp-covered rocks and islands, and they have learnt in late years to take their toll of the salmon droves that pass this headland, making for Galway or the Shannon. What they have to sell, what they win at risk of life in the tremendous sea that runs among their rocks, they can sell now at a fair price. There is talk, too, of carrying a railway along the Mullet, in the hope of making Blacksod a haven for transatlantic commerce, and when that happens, the country will be gradually changed, as I have seen in my lifetime similar regions changed in Donegal; but till that day, whoever wants to see Ireland as Ireland has been any time for three or thirteen centuries (altered only by the introduction of three things, tea, paraffin oil, and American flour) can see it only in the northern parts of the Barony of Erris. It is no place to go for comfort; but "for to admire and for to see" it is well worth while. [Illustration: NEPHIN, FROM LOUGH CONN] The train will take you to Ballina, a considerable town, with a famous fishing on the River Moy, which can be had on easy terms--and nowadays even so far as Killala, on a bay which is for ever associated with a romantic episode in Irish history. Here Humbert landed in 1798--a month too late, for the great Wexford rising had been crushed out by July, and when he came in August all the forces in the country could be mobilized to meet his tiny army of republican French (Humbert was no Bonapartist) and their backing of half-armed and untrained Connaughtmen. Yet against all odds, the republican, with Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity in his heart as well as on his lips, pushed from Ballina to Castlebar, the capital town of Mayo, and there inflicted upon General Lake such a defeat as finally branded a name already deeply disgraced by the most brutal cruelties. It was a wonderful feat but wholly useless, for Humbert after forcing his way actually into Leinster was surrounded and forced to surrender without making terms for his Irish backers--upon whom Lake was free to avenge his own repulse in massacre. One of the strangest documents in history is the narrative of the Protestant Bishop of Killala, Dr. Stock, who was captured and most kindly treated during the raid. All the shores of Killala Bay are prosperous and planted; you reach the beginning of wild country at Ballycastle, where I have pleasant memories of a little inn kept by the postmistress. Beyond that, the road is unknown to me; but another way into the heart of Erris leads out from Ballina through Crossmolina on Lough Conn. So far as this all is level land; and about this wide lake, famous for fishing (though its repute has sadly fallen away), are plenty of places to stay in. Nephin rises from its west shore, a magnificent mountain; and the whole place is well worth seeing, and the best way to see it is to fish a day on the lake, trolling or casting as you will--with the chance, especially if you troll, of big pike or salmon. Beyond Crossmolina one runs into the wilds, with no stopping place for many miles till you reach Bangor Erris on the lower waters of the Owenmore River, which flows into Blacksod Bay. Here is a hotel, not so famous as it used to be in old days--but you will be all the better for that. The host of those days provided entertainment for the mind, but the bodies of his guests suffered some discomfort. "I left my boots outside my door last night and they were never touched," said one indignant protester. "And if you left a watch and a purse of gold with it, it's the same way they would be," the host answered triumphantly. I stayed a fortnight there once, with an Englishman who had never seen Ireland before; and everything happened to us that happens in Lever's novels and that we all declare happens no longer. Our own water was poached to extinction; but we made friends with the most skilful angler I have seen (Dan Keary is his name, at your service), who escorted us to fish on a little stream high in the mountain, where in a raging flood we caught more big sea trout than either of us would have cared to carry and came home triumphant--to be confronted a couple of days later with the indignant owner of that water who wanted to know what we had been doing there. The upshot was that we had had the best day's fishing of many years, and made close alliance with the gentleman whose preserves we had innocently invaded. And I have no doubt that Dan spoke the exact truth when he said that he had been fishing that water all his life as often as the fancy took him. Nowadays much of the land (if it can be called land) about these parts has been bought by the tenants, who lease out the shooting and fishing and pay their instalments of purchase with the proceeds--an admirable condition under which both shooting and fishing are likely to improve. But except for fishing and shooting I cannot recommend anyone to go to Bangor Erris, which is the most desolate spot that I have ever trodden. Distant views of Achill's high peaks made the one element of beauty in that depressing landscape--where, nevertheless, I would gladly go back, to try my luck once again on that wildly rushing stream that comes down, a torrent from Corrsliabh. III Sligo town in itself is well worth a pilgrimage, if only because, unlike other towns in western Ireland, it is making modest advances towards prosperity: and for the lover of beauty it makes the centre of a district rich in scenery, rich in historic associations, and in monuments of a time far before written history. [Illustration: LOUGH GILL] The town lies at the outfall of a short broad river which flows from Lough Gill, and the row up to that lake with Hazelwood demesne on your left, rich in varied wooding, may honestly challenge a comparison with whatever is finest at Killarney. The lake itself is girded about with mountains, not perhaps so picturesque as Carrantuohil and Mangerton, yet far more known in story. On the west is Knocknarea, crowned with the huge cairn of stones which is named after Maeve, the fierce Queen of Connaught, wife of Ailill, lover of Fergus MacRoy, she who headed the great hosting into Ulster for the Brown Bull of Cooley. Yet earlier by far than this deposit of legend must be placed the great stone remains at Carrowmore three miles out of the town and in Hazelwood demesne. At Carrowmore are stone circles, cromlechs, and subterranean chambers of stone--all far prehistoric: in Hazelwood are what can be seen nowhere else in these islands but at Stonehenge--huge trilithons, part in the ritual of some Druidic cult. All these, I confess, seem to me to belong to the dusty domain of archæologists; but Maeve figures in a story which before long may be as well known as the epic of the Nibelungs, so strong is the grip which Gaelic mythology begins to take upon the imagination of the world--an imagination guided by Irish-born poets, not the least of whom has his native place here in Sligo. William Butler Yeats was born and nurtured here, and these names and these hills and rivers coloured his earliest poetry. From Maeve's cairn--it is an easy climb--you can see north of you to all the mountains of West Donegal, from Barnesmore to Slieve League and Glen Head: south and west you can see the heights of Mayo, Nephin farthest inland, then Croaghpatrick--and stretching away far out to the western sea, the long cliffy shore of Erris, ending up with those peaked rocks, the Stags of Broadhaven. But more famous by far than Knocknarea is the greater mountain, flat-topped Benbulben, which lies north of the lake and the town. And for those who would know the beauties of this county, as I unhappily do not know them, the place of all places to visit is the road which, following the coast, turns round the shoulder of Benbulben, and so running inwards along the south shore of Donegal Bay, brings you ultimately to the pleasant watering-place of Bundoran. And, since I must write of what I know, let me limit myself to two of the historic associations of that drive. One of these memories is legendary. In the cycle of stories which deal with the deeds of Finn MacCool and the Fianna of Ireland, it is told how Finn, old and subtle and strong, went to Tara to be married to the High King's daughter; but she, the Lady Gránia, cast eyes of desire on one of the Fianna, Diarmuid of the curling dusky hair and the berry-red cheeks, who was reputed for the best lover of women in all the world: and, drugging the guest cup, Gránia fled with Diarmuid, till after many escapes and wanderings, the two made their peace with Finn and with the High King Cormac MacArt, and settled down to dwell on the round hill of Keshcorran in County Sligo. Long years they lived together, and Diarmuid was content, but Gránia, the king's daughter, thought her house slighted because the two greatest men in Ireland, Finn MacCool and Cormac MacArt, had never entered its door. "They are enemies to me," said Diarmuid. "Make a feast and win their friendship," said Gránia, and it was agreed; so Cormac with his counsellors and Finn with his Fianna came and hunted for many days about Keshcorran and feasted for many nights in Rath Grainne. But at last a day came when they were hunting, and omens had warned Diarmuid to stay back from the chase: but he set them aside, and followed the hunt to the top of Benbulben and there was Finn standing alone. "It is the wild boar of Benbulben they are hunting," said Finn, "and it is an enchanted beast, and its fate is to have life while you live, Diarmuid, and to die when you die." Then Diarmuid knew that the wizard Finn had planned this hunt for his death and he reproached him; but Finn turned away, and when the boar came against Diarmuid it found him alone, and armed only with light weapons. The fight raged down the mountain and up it again, Diarmuid bestriding the beast to avoid its tusks; but at last the boar threw him and ripped his bowels; but with a last stroke of his broken weapon Diarmuid slew the boar. Then as he lay mangled, Finn came up and taunted him with the wreck of his beauty and wished that all the women of Ireland were at hand to look at him. But Diarmuid called on Finn to use his magical powers and bring water in his hands to heal the wounds of his body; and he appealed to his comrades of the Fianna, Ossian and Oscar, who were with Finn, calling up memories of the times when he had saved Finn and the Fianna from destruction: and Oscar took part with Diarmuid, bidding Finn bring the water and heal the man. Twice Finn went to the well and made a cup of his hands and fetched the water, and twice he let it flow through his fingers, having thought upon Gránia. Then Oscar threatened him with battle and Finn fetched it the third time, but as he came up, the breath left Diarmuid's body, and his comrades keened for him there on the mountain and cursed Finn's treachery. And when they came back to Keshcorran, Gránia knew what had happened, and she went to her sons who were nearly grown men, and bade them seek vengeance for their father. Finn sought to muster the Fianna to crush out the revolt that threatened, but Ossian and Oscar rose up and laid all the blame on him, and bade him settle the quarrel by himself for it was of his own making. And Finn, since violence failed him, had recourse to craft, and went to Gránia's house and greeted her cunningly and with sweet words. The more she railed upon him, the more he flattered and wooed and plied her "with sweet words and loving discourse until he had brought her to his own will and he had the desire of his heart and soul of her", and carried her with him to his own place. But when the Fianna saw Finn and Gránia coming towards them, "they gave one shout of derision and mockery at her so that Gránia bowed her head in shame". And so ends in cynical bitterness the story of the love of Diarmuid and Gránia, and of the hunt on Benbulben. The other story whose ghosts you may waken on that beautiful drive belongs to a more recent cycle--the epic of the Spanish Armada. Skeletons of vast ships laden with men and arms and treasure lie crusted with shell and seaweed all down this north-western shore of Ireland from Inishowen to Blacksod: but the greatest wreckage of all was on the Streedagh Strand which stretches away to Bundoran. Three great vessels went ashore here, and the long beach was strewn with more than a thousand corpses, with shattered timbers, boats, huge masts, and all the flotsam and jetsam of that vast defeat. It is a tragic memory: most of the memories in Connaught have a tragic cast. This windy, western province has always had its double dose of the sorrows in a sorrowful land; and the Connaughtman's gaiety wears a touch of the recklessness which knows some kinship with despair. Yet to make holiday in, to hunt or shoot or fish in, no part of all Ireland is better, nor is there any where the country folk have more enchanting and endearing ways. Famine, the gaunt spectre which haunted them, has been banished from their ken; and the years that are to come may well bring to the west much that it lacked without taking away or abating one jot of its glamour and its charm. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN _At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland_ 
43623	----	PEEPS AT MANY LANDS AND CITIES EACH CONTAINING 12 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AUSTRALIA GREECE NEW ZEALAND BELGIUM HOLLAND NORWAY BERLIN HOLY LAND PARIS BURMA HUNGARY PORTUGAL CANADA ICELAND ROME CEYLON INDIA RUSSIA CHINA IRELAND SCOTLAND CORSICA ITALY SIAM DENMARK JAMAICA SOUTH AFRICA EDINBURGH JAPAN SOUTH SEAS EGYPT KASHMIR SPAIN ENGLAND KOREA SWEDEN FINLAND LONDON SWITZERLAND FRANCE MOROCCO TURKEY GERMANY NEW YORK WALES PEEPS AT NATURE WILD FLOWERS AND THEIR WONDERFUL WAYS BRITISH LAND MAMMALS BIRD LIFE OF THE SEASONS THE HEAVENS PEEPS AT HISTORY CANADA JAPAN INDIA SCOTLAND PEEPS AT GREAT RAILWAYS THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY THE NORTH-EASTERN AND GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAYS PUBLISHED BY ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. AGENTS AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK AUSTRALASIA OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD. ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE, 70 BOND STREET, TORONTO INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD. MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY 309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA [Illustration: THE EAGLE'S NEST, KILLARNEY.] [Illustration] PEEPS AT MANY LANDS IRELAND BY KATHARINE TYNAN AUTHOR OF "THE DEAR IRISH GIRL," "AN ISLE IN THE WATER," ETC. WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY FRANCIS S. WALKER, R.H.A. LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1911 _First printed November, 1909 Reprinted October, 1910, and September, 1911_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. ARRIVAL 1 II. DUBLIN 6 III. THE IRISH COUNTRY 20 IV. THE IRISH PEOPLE 27 V. SOUTH OF DUBLIN 38 VI. THE NORTH 44 VII. CORK AND THEREABOUTS 49 VIII. GALWAY 58 IX. DONEGAL OF THE STRANGER 65 X. IRISH TRAITS AND WAYS 76 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE EAGLE'S NEST, KILLARNEY _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE A VILLAGE IN ACHILL viii SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN 9 DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL 16 BLARNEY CASTLE 25 OFF TO AMERICA 32 A WICKLOW GLEN 41 THE RIVER LEE 48 RALEIGH'S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE 57 GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD 64 A DONEGAL HARVEST 73 A HOME IN DONEGAL 80 DIGGING POTATOES _on the cover_ _Sketch-Map of Ireland on p. vii_ [Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF IRELAND.] [Illustration: A VILLAGE IN ACHILL.] IRELAND CHAPTER I ARRIVAL It may safely be said that any boy or girl who takes a peep at Ireland will want another peep. Between London and Ireland, so far as atmosphere and the feeling of things is concerned, there is a world of distance. Of course, it is the difference between two races, for the Irish are mainly Celtic, and the Celtic way of thinking and speaking and feeling is as different as possible from the Saxon or the Teuton, and the Celt has influenced the Anglo-Irish till they are as far away from the English nearly as the Celts themselves. If you are at all alert, you will begin to find the difference as soon as you step off the London and North Western train at Holyhead and go on board the steamer for Kingstown. The Irish steward and stewardess will have a very different way from the formal English way. They will be expansive. They will use ten words to one of the English official. Their speech will be picturesque; and if you are gifted with a sense of humour--and if you are not, you had better try to beg, borrow or steal it before you go to Ireland--there will be much to delight you. I once heard an Irish steward on a long-sea boat at London Docks remonstrate with the passengers in this manner: "Gentlemen, gentlemen, will yez never get to bed? Yez know as well as I do that every light on the boat is out at twelve o'clock. It's now a quarter to wan, and out goes the lights in ten minutes." There is what the Englishman calls an Irish bull in this speech; but the Irish bull usually means that something is left to the imagination. I will leave you to discover for yourself the hiatus which would have made the steward's remark a sober English statement. These things make an Irish heart bound up as exultantly as the lark springs to the sky of a day of April--that is to say, of an Irish exile home-returning--for the dweller in Ireland grows used to such pearls of speech. Said a stewardess to whom I made a request that she would bring to my cabin a pet-dog who, under the charge of the cook, was making the night ring with his lamentations: "Do you want to have me murdered?" This only conveyed that it was against the regulations. But while she looked at me her eye softened. "I'll do it for _you_," she said, with a subtle suggestion that she wouldn't do it for anyone else; and then added insinuatingly, "if the cook was to mind the basket?" "To be sure," said I, being Irish. "Ask the cook if he will kindly mind the basket and let me have the dog." And so it was done, and the cook had his perquisite, while I had the dog. At first, unless you have a very large sense of humour--and many English people have, though the Irish who do not know anything about them deny it to them _en bloc_--you will be somewhat bewildered. Apropos of the same little dog, we asked a policeman at the North Wall, one wintry morning of arrival, if the muzzling order was in force in Dublin. "Well, it is and it isn't," he said. "Lasteways, there's a muzzlin' order on the south side, but there isn't on the north, through Mr. L---- on the North Union Board, that won't let them pass it. If I was you I'd do what I liked with the dog this side of the river, but when I crossed the bridge I'd hide him. You'll be in a cab, won't you?" After you've had a few peeps at Ireland, you won't want the jokes explained to you, perhaps, or the picturesqueness of speech demonstrated. Before you glide up to the North Wall Station you will have discovered some few things about Ireland besides the picturesqueness of the Irish tongue. You will have seen the lovely coast-line, all the townships glittering in a fairy-like atmosphere, with the mountains of Dublin and Wicklow standing up behind them. You will have passed Howth, that wonderful rock, which seems to take every shade of blue and purple, and silver and gold, and pheasant-brown and rose. You will have felt the Irish air in your face; and the Irish air is soft as a caress. You will have come up the river, its squalid and picturesque quays. You will have noticed that the poor people walking along the quay-side are far more ragged and unkempt generally than the same class in England. The women have a way of wearing shawls over their heads which does not belong naturally to the Western world, and sets one to thinking of the curious belief some people have entertained about the Irish being descended from the lost tribes. A small girl in a Dublin street will hold her little shawl across her mouth, revealing no more of the face than the eyes and nose, with an effect which is distinctly Eastern. The quay-side streets are squalid enough, and the people ragged beyond your experience, but there will be no effect of depression and despondency such as assails you in the East End of London. The people are much noisier. They greet each other with a shrillness that reminds you of the French. The streets are cheerful, no matter how poor they may be. I have always said that there is ten times the noise in an Irish street, apart from mere traffic, than in an English one. An Irish village is full of noise, chatter of women, crying of children, barking of dogs, lowing of cattle, bleating of sheep, crowing of cocks, cackling of hens, quacking of ducks, grunting of pigs. The people talk at the top of their voices, so that you might suppose them to be quarrelling. It is merely the dramatic sense. I have heard an Irish peasant make a bald statement--or, at least, it would have been bald in an English mouth--as though she pleaded, argued, remonstrated, scolded, deprecated. Accustomed to Irish ways, English villages have always appeared very dead to me. Unless it be on market morning, one might be in the Village of the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. I once visited Dunmow of the Flitch of a golden May-day. It was neither Flitch Day nor Market Day, and I aver that I walked through the town and saw no living creature, except a cat fast asleep, right in the midst of the sun-baked roadway. Such a thing could not have happened in Ireland. CHAPTER II DUBLIN Dublin is a city of magnificences and squalors. It has the widest street in Europe, they say, in Sackville Street, which, after the manner of the policeman and the muzzling order, half the population calls O'Connell Street. The public buildings are very magnificent. These are due, for the greater part, to the man who found Dublin brick and left it marble--that great city-builder, John Claudius Beresford, of the latter half of the eighteenth century, whose name is at once famous and infamous to the Irish ear, because when he had made a new Dublin he flogged rebels in Beresford's Riding-School in Marlborough Street with a thoroughness which left nothing to be desired except a little mercy. Beresford, who was one of the Waterford Beresfords, was First Commissioner of Revenue, as well as an Alderman of the City of Dublin. Before he went city-building, Dublin was a small place enough. For centuries it consisted chiefly of Dublin Castle, the two cathedrals--Patrick's and Christ's Church; Dublin is alone in Northern Europe in possessing two cathedrals--and the narrow streets that clustered about them. Somewhere about the middle of the eighteenth century St. Stephen's Green was built--the finest square in Europe, we say; I do not know if the claim be well founded. A little later Sackville Street began to take shape, communicating with the other bank of the river by ferry-boats. Essex Bridge was at that time the most easterly of the bridges, and the banks of the river were merely mud-flats, especially so where James Gandon's masterpiece, the Custom-House, was presently to rear its stately façade. The latter part of the eighteenth century was the great age of Dublin. Ireland still had its Lords and Commons, who had declared their legislative independence of England in 1782. Society was as brilliant as London, and far gayer. It was certainly a time in which to go city-building, for these splendours needed housing. Before Beresford began his plans, calling in the genius of James Gandon, with many lesser lights, to assist him, Sackville Street and Dublin generally were as insanitary as any town of the Middle Ages. Open sewers ran down the middle of the streets. There was no pretence at paving. The streets were ill-lit by smelly oil-lamps. The Dublin watchmen found plenty to do, as did their brethren in London, in protecting peaceful citizens from the pranks of the Dublin brethren of the London Mohocks in the tortuous and ill-lit streets. Dublin, the city of the English pale, remained and remains an English city--with a difference. The Anglo-Irish did the things their London brethren were doing--with a difference. If there were unholy revels at Medmenham Abbey on the Thames, they were imitated or excelled by their Irish prototypes, whose clubhouse you will still see standing up before you a ruin on top of the Dublin mountains. In many ways the society of Dublin models itself on London to this day. The Lords and Commons of Ireland were already living about the Rotunda in Sackville Street, Rutland Square, Gardiner's Row, Great Denmark Street, Marlborough Street, and North Great George's Street, when John Claudius Beresford began his work. He bridged the river with Carlisle--now O'Connell--Bridge. He constructed Westmoreland Street right down to the Houses of Parliament. [Illustration: SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN.] He built the Custom-House, now a rabbit-warren of Government offices, on a scale proportioned to the needs of the greatest trading city in Europe, oblivious of the fact that Irish trade was going or gone; or, perhaps--who knows?--building for the future. All that part of the city lying between the new bridge and the Custom-House was laid out in streets. Meanwhile the nobility and gentry who had town-houses were seized with the passion for beautifying them. The old Dublin houses were of an extraordinary stateliness and beauty. Money was poured out like water on their beautification. The floral decoration in stucco-work on walls and ceilings still makes a dirty glory in some of the old houses. Famous artists, like Cipriani and Angelica Kauffmann, painted the wall-panels and ceilings with pseudo-classical goddesses and nymphs. A certain Italian named Bossi executed that inlaying in coloured marbles which made so many of the old mantelpieces things of beauty. The old Dublin houses still retain their stately proportions, although some of them have been dismantled and others come down to be tenement-houses. But there is yet plenty to remind us that Dublin had once its Augustan Age. If you have the tastes of the antiquary, the old Dublin houses and buildings will afford you matter of great interest. In the first place, there is Dublin Castle, which was built by King John. Of the four original towers, only one now remains. The castle has been the town residence of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland since Sidney established himself there in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. For the rest, it is a congerie of Government offices of one sort or another. The castle was built over the Poddle River, which now creeps in darkness, degraded to a common sewer, under the dark and dismal houses, and empties itself in an unclean cascade through a grating in the Quay walls, whence it flows away with the Liffey to the sea. You can visit the Chapel Royal, if you will, and the viceregal apartments are sometimes open to inspection if the Viceroy is not in residence. I lived many years in Dublin without desiring to inspect what may be seen of Dublin Castle, though I have often stood in the castle yard under the Bermingham Tower, and, looking up at that great keep, have remembered how Hugh O'Donnell and his companions escaped by way of the Poddle one Christmas Eve in the spacious days of great Elizabeth, and how the young chieftain of Tyrconnel narrowly escaped the frozen death which befell his companions as they climbed those Dublin mountains over yonder to find refuge with the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes of the Wicklow Hills. Those were the Irish clans that used to make the English burghers of Dublin shake in their shoes. While they sold their silks or woollens, or sat at meals or exchange, or said their prayers in their churches, they never could be sure that the wild Irish cry would not come ringing at their gates. The O'Byrnes and O'Tooles would swoop down at intervals, and raid the cattle from the fat pastures of the pale, sweeping back again with their spoil to their impregnable fastnesses. Some years ago a Father O'Toole published a book on the Clan of O'Toole, which contained the genealogical tree of the O'Tooles, tracing their descent without a break from Noah. This is a matter of interest to me, as I myself am an O'Toole. The history of nations is, after all, the history of men--of men and of movements--and it is individual and outstanding men who make for us the milestones of history. Ireland has produced, in proportion to her population, a more than usual number of outstanding men; and, thinking of Dublin houses and monuments of one kind or another, we find it is of men we are thinking, after all. Thinking of Christ Church, that beautiful Gothic cathedral, I think of St. Patrick, because his staff was preserved there, and was an object of great reverence till it was burnt by a too-zealous reforming Bishop in the days of Elizabeth. St. Patrick was a very delightful saint. One loves the legends that gather about him. I like especially how he wrestled with the angel on Croagh-Patrick, and would not come down from the mountain till he had been granted his several prayers. There were three in particular. The first one was that Ireland should never depart from the Christian faith. "Very well, then," said the angel, "God grants you that." "Next," said Patrick, "I ask that on the Judgment Day I may sit on God's right hand and judge the Irish people." "That you can't have," said the angel. "Be quiet now, and go down from the mountain." "What!" said Patrick, "is it for this that I have fasted so many days on the mountain, wrested with evil ones, been exposed to the rain and tempest, prayed hard, fought temptations--only for this?" "Very well, you shall have this," replied the angel. "And now that you have your wish satisfied, go down from the mountain." "Not till my third prayer be granted." "What! a third prayer?" cried the angel. "You ask too much, O Patrick, and you shall not have it. You are too covetous." "Was it for this?" began Patrick again, with a recital of all he had done and suffered. "Very well, then," said the angel, tired out; "have your third prayer, but ask no more, for it will not be given to you." "I ask that all who recite my prayer" (_i.e._, the prayer known as St. Patrick's Breastplate) "shall not be lost at the Last Day." "Very well, then," said the angel, "you shall have that; but now go down." "I am content now," said Patrick; "I will go down." He was a fighting saint, despite his many gentlenesses. At Downpatrick, where he built his cathedral, he took a little fawn which his men would have killed, and carried it in his breast. I like the description of him by his friend St. Evan of Monasterevan, which tells us how he was sweet to his friends, but terrible to his enemies. I think of St. Patrick at Christ Church rather than of St. Lawrence O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, who, with Strongbow, that fierce Norman who seized Ireland for Henry II. of England, built Christ Church. St. Lawrence O'Toole's heart lies here in a reliquary. Here also Lambert Simnel was crowned; but who thinks of that ignoble impostor now? Christ Church presents an effect of lightness and brightness very different from St. Patrick's, in which it seems to me it is always afternoon, and winter afternoon. Patrick is in a particularly picturesque slum of the city, in the Earl of Meath's liberty, hard by the Coombe, which was once a pleasant dell, no doubt, but is now the raggedest of slums. To the Earl of Meath's liberty came the French silk-weavers expelled from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and established the industry of poplin-weaving there. The man with whom St. Patrick's Cathedral is associated is Jonathan Swift, and for his sake it is perpetually dark. It is haunted by the tragedy of his life and death. Here Esther Johnson is buried; and over yonder, in the Deanery House, Swift, a sick man, lay in bed and watched the torches in the great church when they were making ready her grave. The strange bitterness of the terrible inscription which commemorates that most unhappy great man seems to colour the atmosphere of St. Patrick's. "Where fierce indignation can no more lacerate his heart," he rests by the side of the woman who was faithful to him with a long patience, whose death left him to loneliness and madness. The whole place is haunted by him, as is the deanery close by and the old library of Dr. Marsh, which is said to have a ghost that flings the books about at night. What ghosts meet one in the Dublin streets! There is Wesley. He was visiting the Countess of Moira at Moira House, which now, docked of its upper story, is the Mendicity, or, as the Irish put it, the "Mendacity" Institution. It was a splendid mansion when Wesley was there. One room with a bay-window was lined with mother-o'-pearl. "Alas," said Wesley prophetically, "that all this must vanish like a dream!" The Moiras were not only religious: they were cultivated, refined, patriotic in the truest sense--altogether noble and generous. They received poor Pamela, Lady Edward Fitzgerald, with kindly open arms when that romantic hero, Lord Edward, lay dying of his wounds. You shall see, if you will, the old House of Lords, preserved in its old state by the Governors of the Bank of Ireland, who have made it their board-room. The House of Commons has become the Bank's counting-house, and there is no trace of its former state. What ghosts you might meet there at night!--Grattan, Flood, Curran, Hussey Burgh, Plunket, to say nothing of lesser worthies. Over against the Parliament Houses was Daly's Club-House, where forgathered the wits, the bucks, the duellists. There was Buck Whaley, who walked to Jerusalem for a wager, and for the same reason once sprang out of the window of his house on Stephen's Green into a carriage full of ladies. That house is now University College, and has its associations with Newman; and you might see there some of the most beautiful specimens of the eighteenth-century decoration still remaining--the Bossi mantelpieces, the stucco-work, the beautiful old doors of wine-red mahogany, and all the rest of it. Buck Whaley had a friend, Buck Jones, who is commemorated in Jones's Road. When I was a little girl--and how long ago that is I shall not tell you--Buck Jones's ghost still walked the road which is named after him. You see, Dublin still ranged itself alongside London; and we had our Buck Whaley and our Buck Jones if London and Bath had their Beau Brummel and their Beau Nash. [Illustration: DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL.] Cheek by jowl with the Houses of Parliament is the ancient college of Queen Elizabeth--the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. That, too, has memories and ghosts. The University has had illustrious sons. Swift, Goldsmith, Bishop Berkeley, Edmund Burke, were among them. Swift was "stopped of his degree for dulness," and had no love for his _alma mater_. She had other sons, such as Robert Emmet and Theobald Wolfe Tone and Thomas Davis, among her brightest jewels, though she would not have it so. She spreads a quiet place of grey quadrangles and green park and gardens midmost of the city, and she helps to give dignity to Dublin, already by her Viceregal Court marked as no provincial town. If I were to talk to you of the ancient history of Dublin, this book would become, not "A Peep at Ireland," but "A Peep at Dublin." You will see for yourself the ancient houses of the nobility, the Lords and Commons of Ireland. Some of them have come to strange uses. Aldborough House is a barracks; Powerscourt House was in my day a wholesale draper's; Marino, the splendid residence of the Earls of Charlemont at Clontarf, is in the hands of the Christian Brothers. Many of these old houses are turned into Government offices. "Alas, that all this must vanish like a dream!" said John Wesley. And how quickly he was justified! In the latter part of the eighteenth century Dublin prided itself on being the gayest capital in Europe. Perhaps Dublin had always too many pretensions. However, it was sufficiently gay and extraordinarily picturesque. The Rutland viceroyalty marked, perhaps, its highest water-mark of gaiety. It was said that the Rutlands were sent over "to drink the Irish into good-humour"--that is, to distract them from serious matters, such as legislative independence and the like. However that may be, they did set the capital to dancing. After all, it was always the Anglo-Irish who counted in the rebellious movements. One has to go as far back as Owen Roe O'Neill to find a Celtic leader. For the time, at all events, Dublin gave itself up to the fascinations of the gallant and gay young Duke and his wonderful Duchess. The Irish allowed that the Duchess was one of the handsomest women in Ireland. Elsewhere she was reputed among the loveliest in Europe. We hear of her dancing at a ball attired in light pink silk, with diamond stomacher and sleeve-knots, and wearing a large brown hat profusely adorned with jewels. Every night there were balls at the castle or the Rotunda. The Duchess was dancing Dublin into good-humour. There were all manner of other social festivities. Every Sunday the Duchess drove on the North Circular Road, with six cream-coloured ponies to her phaeton, all the rank and fashion of Dublin following in coaches-and-six, coaches-and-four, and less pretentious equipages. There was card-playing; there was hard drinking; there were all manner of distractions, disedifying and edifying. For then, as now, the representatives of the King and Queen took the charities under their wing; and dancing at the Rotunda supported the Rotunda Hospital, to say nothing of the tax on the waiting sedan-chairs, which put a few hundred pounds more into the hospital's coffers. "Alas, that all this must vanish like a dream!" To be sure, many of the most illustrious of the Anglo-Irish, more Irish than the Irish, refused to be either danced or drunk into good-humour. The brilliant viceroyalty lasted not quite four years, and the gay and handsome Duke left Ireland in the saddest way, carried high on men's shoulders. Afterwards there were other things than dancing. There was the Rebellion of 1798. There was the Legislative Union with Great Britain, which meant for Ireland the absence of her Lords and gentry, and the spending in London of revenues derived from Ireland. In the early years of the nineteenth century grass grew in the streets of Dublin. Famine and pestilence followed each other in monotonous succession. Emmet's Rebellion broke out in 1804. If you were interested in such things, you would penetrate the slummy parts of Dublin as far as Thomas Street to see where, in front of St. Catharine's Church, Emmet died, and the house where Lord Edward Fitzgerald was arrested. Dublin is full of memories, of associations, of ghosts: no city in Europe is richer in such. There is hardly a stone of her streets which is not storied. CHAPTER III THE IRISH COUNTRY Dublin possesses great natural advantages. The sea, the mountains, the green country, are at her gates. You take one of her many trams, and at the terminus you step into solitudes, into "dear secret greenness" of country; on to expanses of sea-sand, with the waves breaking in little crisped curls of foam at your feet. She is ringed about with mountains. She has a most beautiful coast-line. Turn which way you will on leaving her, you are safe to turn to beauty. Round about her are clustered various beauties. Beyond the Dublin mountains, the Wicklow Mountains, into which they gently pass, invite you. The mountains have the most beautiful colouring. It is an effect of the mists and clouds. I have seen a mountain red as a rose, and I have seen one black as a black pansy and as velvety. Sometimes they are veiled in silver, with the soft feet of the flying rain upon them; and sometimes, because the sun is shining somewhere, that same rain will be a garment of silver or of the rainbow. She is the greenest country ever was seen. England may think she wears the green; but as compared with Ireland her green is rust-coloured and dust-coloured. I have gone over from London in May and have found a green in Ireland that absolutely made me wink. "Sweet rose whose hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash gazer wipe the eye," says Herbert; but the green, which is the eye's comforter of all the colours, is, in an Irish May, of so intense a greenness as to have something of the same effect as Herbert's rose. I think of the fat pasture-lands at the gates of Dublin, as well I know them. In May they are drifts of greenness, with the cattle sunken to their knees, while the meadows white with daisies, gold with buttercups, presently to be brown and green with seeding-grasses, have an exceeding cleanness and brightness of aspect. Grass-green, milk-white, pure gold--these are fields of delight. There used to be luxuriant hedges, too, ten or twelve feet high. What hedges they were in May! with the hawthorn in full bloom--no one calls it may in Ireland--and, later, the woodbine--honeysuckle in Ireland is the white and purple clover--and with the woodbine the sheets of wild roses flung lavishly over every hedge. Since my young days an improving county surveyor has cut down the hedges, though not so ruthlessly as here in Hertfordshire, where they are noted hedgers and ditchers, and so strip the poor things to the earth almost, just as they are coming into leaf, leaving the roads pitiless indeed for the summer days. I think of the lavish Irish hedges and of the strip of grass white with daisies which ran either side of the footpath. There was always a clear stream singing along the ditch. It had come down from the mountains, and was amber-brown in colour, and clear as glass; it ran over pebbles that were pure gold and silver and precious stones, now and again getting dammed around a boulder, making a leap to escape, and coming around the boulder with a swirl and a few specks of foam floating upon it. Ireland of the Streams is one of the old names for Ireland, and it is justified; for not only are there lordly rivers like the Shannon and the Blackwater, to mention but two of them, but there are innumerable little streams everywhere, undefiled--at least, as I know them--by factories. You can always kneel down of a summer's day by one, fill your two hands full and drink your fill; and that mountain water is better than any wine. You may track it, if you will, up to the mountains, where you will find it welling out, perhaps, through the fronds of a hartstongue fern, the first tiny gush of it; and you will find it widening out and almost hidden by a million flowers and plants that like to stand with their feet in water. Or you will see it, cool and deep, with golden shadows sleeping in it, slipping round little boulders and clattering over stones, in a tremendous hurry to escape from these sweet places to the noisome city, where it will lose itself in the sewer water before it finds its way to the sea. There is no such order in an Irish as in an English landscape: none of the rich, ordered garden air which in England so delights Americans and colonials. The Irish landscape is always somewhat forlorn, wild and soft, with an impalpable melancholy upon it--this even in the fat pasture-lands of Dublin County. How much more so when the bogs spread their beautiful brown desolation over miles of country, or in the wild places where man asks for bread and Nature gives him a stone! At its most prosperous the country is always a little wild, a little mournful, a barefooted colleen with cloudy hair and shy eyes sometimes tearful, and no conventional beauty--only something that takes the heart by storm and holds it fast. Irish skies weep a deal. That accounts, of course, for the great vegetation, the intense greenness. If I did not know the Irish green I should be unable to realize the mantle of grass-green silk which so often the old ballad-makers gave their knights and ladies. Knowing the Irish grass, I see an intenser green than if I did not know it. Where there are not rocks and stones and mountains, where there is cultivation in Ireland, there is leafage and grass of great luxuriousness. Of a wet summer in Ireland you could scarcely walk through the grass; it might meet above a child's head. Contrariwise, the flora of Ireland, as I know it, is much less various and luxuriant than that of England. In a childhood and youth spent in the Irish country--it was round about Dublin--I recall only the simpler and commoner wild-flowers. On a chalk cliff at Dover, when May spread a carpet of flowers, I have seen a greater variety of wild-flowers than I knew in a lifetime in Ireland--most of them unknown to me by name. [Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE.] Nor do I think the birds are so many as in England, perhaps because so much of Ireland is stripped of its woods; perhaps because Ireland has been slower to protect the birds than England; perhaps, also, because of the scantier population, which leaves the birds to suffer hunger in the winter. There are no nightingales in Ireland, but I do not think we have missed them, having the thrush and the blackbird, which seem to me to sing with a richer sweetness in Ireland than in England; but that may be because the Irish-born person is prone to exaggerate the sweetness he has lost. But the most characteristic note of the Irish summer is the corn-crake's. Somehow the Irish corn-crake has a bigger note and is much more in evidence than his English brother. All the nights of the early summer in Ireland he saws away with his rasping note, till the hay is cut, when he disappears. I suppose one hears him as much in the day-time, but one does not notice him. He is the harsh Irish nightingale. Poor fellow! he is often immolated before the mowing-machine; and you shall see him flying with his long-legged wife and children--or rather scurrying--to the nearest hedgerow, where there is always a plentiful supply of grass to cover him till he can make up his mind to go elsewhere. It is a saying in Ireland that you never see a corn-crake after the meadows are cut. A learned doctor has assured me that they migrate to Egypt for the good of their voices. For the rest, in the Irish country there are villages of an incredible poverty. The Irish village mars a landscape, whereas so often an English one enhances its beauty. There are farmhouses and isolated cottages. The farmhouses are seldom even pretty. Irish house architecture is terribly ugly, as a rule, except for the few eighteenth-century houses which derive from the English. The Irish farmhouse is generally a two-story building, slated and whitewashed. It is too narrow for its height, although the height may be no great thing. A mean hall-door in the middle, with a mean window to either side, three mean windows above--that is the Irish farmer's idea of house-building. I remember an Irishman of genius objecting to Morland that his cottages were impossible; there was never the like out of Arcadia. As a matter of fact, the cottages were such as are the commonplaces of English villages. But no good Irishman will concede to England a beauty, natural or otherwise, which Ireland does not possess. The country shows many ruins--ruined houses, the houses of the Irish gentry; ruined mills; ruined churches and castles; and behind grey stone walls, unthought of, uncared for, old disused graveyards filled with prairie grass to the height of the crumbling walls. When the Irish go away they are always lonely for the mountains. No other mountains are so soft-bosomed and so mild. They have wisps of cloud lying along the side of them and the blue peak showing above. I have seen a rainbow, one end of the arch planted in the sea, the other somewhere behind the mountains, "over the hills and far away." Seeing that incomparable sight, I understood why the Irish peasant imagines fairy treasures hidden at the foot of the rainbow. I, too, have been in Arcadia. CHAPTER IV THE IRISH PEOPLE I must warn you, before proceeding to write about the Irish people, that I have tried to explain them, according to my capacity, a thousand times to my English friends and neighbours, and have been pulled up short as many times by the reflection that all I have been saying was contradicted by some other aspect of my country-people. For we are an eternally contradictory people, and none of us can prognosticate exactly what we shall feel, what do, under given circumstances; whereas the Englishman is simple. He has no mysteries. Once you know him, you can pretty well tell what he will say, what feel, and do under given circumstances. You have a formula for him: you have no formula for the Irish. The Englishman is simple, the Irish complex. The Anglo-Irish, who stand to most English people for the Irish, have had grafted on to them the complexity of the Irish without their pliability. It makes, perhaps, the most puzzling of all mixtures, and it may be the chief difficulty in a proper estimate of the Irish character. They will tell you in Ireland that you have to go some forty or fifty miles from Dublin before you get into Irish Ireland. There are a good many Irish in Anglo-Ireland, usually in the humbler walks of life, whence you shall find in Dublin servants, car-drivers, policemen, newspaper-boys, and so on, the raciness, the vivacity, the charm, which in Irish Ireland is a perpetual delight. Dublin drawing-rooms are not vivacious, nor are the manners gracious, although the Four Courts still produce a galaxy of wit, and Dublin citizens buttonhole each other with good stories all along the streets, roaring with laughter in a way that would be regarded as Bedlam in Fleet Street. Get into Irish Ireland and the manners have a graciousness which is like a blessing. I asked the way in Ballyshannon town once. The woman who directed me came out into the street and a little way with me, and when she left me called to me sweetly, "Come back soon to Donegal!" which left a sense of blessing with me all that day. There was a certain curly-haired "Wullie," who drove the long car from Donegal to Killybegs. I can see "Wullie" yet helping the women on and off the car with their myriad packages, can see the delightful grief with which he parted from us, his shining face of welcome when he met us again a fortnight later. To set against "Wullie" were the car-drivers, who certainly are unpleasant if the "whip-money" does not come up to their expectations. We say of such that they are "spoilt by the tourists," yet I remember some who were not spoilt by the tourists, although they were perpetually in touch with them--boatmen and pony-boys at Killarney; and a certain delightful guide, whose winning gaiety was not at all merely professional. Thinking over my country-people, I say, "They are so-and-so," and then I have a misgiving, and I say, "But, after all, they are not so-and-so." They are the most generous people in the world. They enjoy to the fullest the delight of giving; and what a good delight that is! I pity the ungiving people. You will receive more gifts in Ireland in a twelvemonth than in a lifetime out of it. The first instinct of Irish liking or loving is to give you something. The giving instinct runs through all classes. If you sit down in a cabin and see an old piece of lustre-ware or something else of the sort, do not admire it unless you mean to accept it; for it will be offered to you, not in the Spanish way which does not expect acceptance, but in the Irish way which does. I have many little bits of china given so, usually the one thing of any consideration or value the donor possessed. I once sought to buy an old china dish, much flawed and cracked by hot ovens, in a Dublin hotel, as much to save it from following its fellows to destruction as for any other reason. The owner would not sell the dish, but he offered it for my acceptance in such a way that I could not refuse. When I go back to my old home, the cottagers bring a few new-laid eggs or a griddle-cake for my acceptance. I have a friend in an Irish village whose income from an official source is £10 a year. She has a cottage, a few hens, and enough grass for a cow when she can get one. Her gifts come at Christmas, at Easter, on St. Patrick's Day, and on some special, private feasts of my own--eggs, sweets, flowers, a bit of lace, or a fine embroidered handkerchief, and, in times of illness, a pair of chickens. That is royal giving out of so little; and I assure you that it blesses the giver as well as the recipient. On the other hand, the farmers grow thriftier and thriftier. Sir Horace Plunkett and men like him, truly patriotic Irishmen, are showing them the way. Successive Land Acts lift them more and more into a position of security from one of precariousness. They have more money now to put in the savings-banks. Their prosperity does not mean a higher standard of living, although that is badly needed. It means more money in the banks--that is all. The Irish are very like the French. If the day should come when they should learn, like the French, to be thrifty and usurious, I hope I shall not be there to see it. Better--a thousand times better--that they should remain royal wastrels to the end. As yet we need not fear it. Still, if you ask a drink of water at a mountain cabin in the poorest parts of Ireland, you are given milk; and _do not offer to pay for it_, lest you sink to the lowest place in the estimation of these splendid givers. The hospitality is truly splendid. There is a saying in Ireland that they always put an extra bit in the pot for "the man coming over the hill." It is an unheard-of thing that you should call at an Irish house and not be asked if "you've a mouth on you." If your visit be within anything like measurable distance of meal-time you will be obliged to stay for the meal. In England, when people are poor, or comparatively so, or feel the need of retrenchment, they "do not entertain." It is almost the first form of retrenchment which suggests itself to the Englishman; whereas to curtail his hospitalities would be the last form of retrenchment to an Irishman, and you will be entertained generously and lavishly by people you know to be poor. The Englishman's different way of looking at the matter is no doubt partly due to the fact that he is a much more domestic person than the Irishman, and depends mainly on his family life for his happiness and pleasure. Now, the French do not give hospitality at all outside the large family circle, so that in that regard at least the Irish will have a long way to travel before they touch with the French. [Illustration: OFF TO AMERICA.] I have said that the Irish are not domestic. They are gregarious, but not domestic. The Irishman depends a deal on the neighbours; he has no such way of enclosing himself within a little fortified place of home against all the ills of the world as has the Englishman. Irish mothers, like Irish nurses, are often tenderly, exquisitely soft and warm; but the young ones will fly out of the nest for all that. Perhaps the art of making the home pleasant is not an Irish art. Perhaps it is the gregariousness, general and not particular--at least, general in the sense of embracing the parish and not the family. To the young Irish and a good many of their elders the home is dull. They go off to America, leaving the old people to loneliness, because there is no amusement. They do not make their own interests, as the slower, less vivacious nations do. The rainy Irish climate seems made for a people who would find their pleasures indoors. But the Irish will be out and about, telling good stories and hearing them. They are an artistic people, with great traditions; yet books or music or conversation will not keep them at home. If they cannot have the neighbours in, they will go out to the neighbours. They are very religious, and accept the invisible world with a thoroughness and simplicity of belief which they would say themselves is their most precious inheritance. The Celt is no materialist. He does not love success or riches; most of those whom he holds in esteem have been neither successful nor rich. Money is not the passport to his affections. He ought never to go away, and, alas! he goes away in thousands! Contact with the selfish, money-getting materialism has power to destroy the spiritual qualities of the Celt, once he is outside Ireland. When he comes back--a prosperous Irish-American--he is no longer the Celt we loved. And he does come back: that is one of his contradictions. The home he has left behind because of its dulness, the arid patch of mountain-land, the graves of his people, call him back again at the moment when one would have said every bond with them was loosened. He is full of sentiment, yet he makes mercenary marriages. The Irish match-making customs are well known. In the South and West of Ireland the prospective bride is bargained over with no more sentiment than if she were a heifer. She may be "turned down" for an iron pot or a feather-bed which her mother will not give up to supplement the dowry. Satin cheeks and speedwell eyes and a head of silk like the raven's plume will not count against a bullock extra with a yellow spinster of greater fortune, or is not supposed to count; for sometimes Cupid steps in, although the match-making customs are usually accepted as unquestioningly as a similar institution is by the French. And even in such unpromising soil flowers of love and tenderness will spring up. Under my hand I have a letter from an Irish peasant which I think affords a beautiful refutation of the idea that sentiment and match-making cannot go together. Here is a passage from it: "For the last few weeks I was anxiously engaged at match-making, as matters were going from bad to worse; having no housekeeper, household jobs and cares prevented me from attending to outside work. Well, at last my match is made. The marriage is to take place next Thursday. The 'young girl' is twenty-two years, and I thank God that I am perfectly satisfied with my life-companion-to-be. There were many other matches introduced to me--far more satisfactory from the financial point of view, some having £20, some £30, and one £40 more fortune than my intended wife has, with whom I am getting but £90, while I must 'by will' give £120 to my brother, leaving a deficit of £30; but, somehow, I could not satisfy my mind with the other 'good girls' if they had over £200--nay, at all. And the poet's words were true when he said something like 'pity is akin to love'; pity I felt first for my intended wife, with her simple, yet wise, unaffected ways, not used to world's ways and wiles, 'an unspoiled child of Nature,' never flirted, never went to dances, with the bloom of her maidenhood fresh and pure, and fair and bright. When but a last £5 was between myself and her people _re_ fortune, her very words to me were: 'Wisha, God help me! if I'm worth anything, I ought to be worth that £5.' That expression of hers stung me to the quick, so openly, frankly, and innocently uttered, and 'I'm getting other accounts, but would not marry anyone but you.' Well, the end was in that one night, sitting beside her in her father's house, the feeling of pity changed to a warmer feeling, thank God; for if it didn't, I would rather live and die single than marry against my will. ''Tisn't riches makes happiness.' I've read somewhere that when want comes in at the door, love flies out of the window; but I don't believe it--I don't believe it. And my brother is kind; he will be giving me time to pay the balance, £30, by degrees." The Irish are notoriously brave, yet they have a fear of public opinion unknown to an Englishman. Underneath their charmingly gay and open manner there is a self-consciousness, a self-mistrust. For all their keen sense of humour, they cannot bear laughter directed at themselves. They dread to be made absurd more than anything else in this world. They are responsive and sympathetic, yet too witty not to be somewhat malicious; and they are warm and generous, yet not always so reliably kind as a duller, slower people. They are irritable, so they are less tolerant of children and animals, although they make excellent nurses, as I have said. They have no tolerance at all for slowness and stupidity, very little for ugliness or want of charm. They adore beauty, though it doesn't count for much in their most intimate relations; and it is not, therefore, the paradise of plain women. I have not touched on a hundredth part of their contradictoriness, which makes the Irish so eternally unexpected and interesting. They can be, as they say themselves, "contrairy" when they choose--and they often choose. Yet, when all is said and done, they are the pleasantest people in the world. Nor is their pleasantness insincere. They are pleasant because they feel pleasant; and an Irish man or woman will pay you an amazing, fresh, audacious compliment which an Englishman might feel, but would rather die than say. Did I say that the Celt was gay and melancholy? He is exquisitely gay and most profoundly melancholy. He is in touch with the other world, and yet desperately afraid of it, or of the passage to it, being a creature of fine nerves and apprehension; whence he will joke about death to cover up his real repugnance, and yet hold the key to heaven as securely as though it were the other side of the wall, with a lonesome passage to be traversed. It is the lonesomeness of death which makes it terrible to the gregarious Irishman, although he knows that the other side of the wall the kinsmen and friends and neighbours await him, friendly and loving as of old. CHAPTER V SOUTH OF DUBLIN If you go down from Dublin by the wonderful coast-line or through the beautiful country inland which runs by the base of the mountains, you will come upon beautiful scenery, and find a population not at all characteristically Irish. The beauty of Wicklow, its wonderful woods, its deep glens, its placid waters, its glorious mountains, is only less than the beauty of Killarney, which is an earthly paradise. But in Wicklow, in Wexford, in Waterford, the people's blood is mixed. Sometimes it is Celt upon Celt, the Welsh Celt upon the Irish. There are charming people in Wicklow and Wexford and Waterford, but to those counties belongs also what I call the cynical Irishman--the Irishman without charm of manner, the "independent" Irishman, who will not take off his hat to rank or age or sex; yet he is Irish enough in the core of him. And Wicklow and Wexford, with Kildare and part of Meath, were the scenes of the Rebellion in 1798. Perhaps the memory of those days helps to make the Irishman of the south-east corner of Ireland what he is, and that is often something very unlike the gracious Irishman of the South and West. He has his resentments. I have heard an Irishman say: "A Wexford man will never look at a Tipperary man, because Tipperary didn't rise in the Rebellion." The Rebellion, which was hatched in the North by Ulster Presbyterians, broke out, after all, in Wexford, and on a religious, and a Catholic, cause of quarrel. There could have been nothing farther from the thoughts of the leaders of the united Irishmen than to make a religious war, but that was what the Rebellion of 1798 turned out to be--a religious war; a war between Catholic and Protestant, precipitated not by English intriguers, say those who know well, but by outrageous insults to the Catholic altars, led in many cases by priests on the rebel side, foredoomed to failure in spite of the desperate courage of the peasantry who for a time swept all before them. One always thinks of Wexford and the Rebellion simultaneously. It was a time of cynical contrasts. Think of the poor peasants, maddened by outrages to their altars, led by their priests, carrying on the Rebellion planned by Protestants of the North--by leaders deeply imbued with the French revolutionary spirit, which was certainly not Christian! Think of the Western peasants, when Humbert and his men landed at Killala, hailing those good comrades of the Revolution as fellow-Catholics, coming to meet them decked out in religious emblems! One of the strangest and most cynical of these contrasts was the fact that while the peasant army fought desperately at New Ross, where they all but carried the day, on the other side of the Barrow River men were ploughing peacefully in their fields, because it was Wexford that was up and not their county. I suppose it is the clan system which differentiates Irishmen by their counties and their towns. Dublin is heterogeneous, perhaps. It has, at all events, few distinguishing characteristics, whereas Cork and Waterford men are as widely apart almost as though they were of different nationalities; and both are agreed in despising Dublin, although Dublin has made history in the last hundred years--national history--more than either. [Illustration: A WICKLOW GLEN.] The men who were the first begetters of the Rebellion, and the men who saved Ireland for the English Crown, were alike men of Anglo-Irish blood. The Rebellion was put down by the Irish yeomanry, as English statesmen had to acknowledge, however little they liked the methods of their allies. The yeomanry did not make war with rose-water, any more than they precipitated the Rebellion by gentle methods. It is a bloody and brutal chapter of Irish history, and the memories of it accounted for the religious animosities which I remember in my youth, which are fading out as the memories of the Rebellion are fading. The year 1798 has ceased to be a landmark in Irish life. When I was a child, there yet lived people who could tell at first hand or second hand of the terrible happenings of those days. People used to say, fixing an age: "He was born the year of the Rebellion." Now all that has passed away. Even in those times it was becoming more customary to date events by the year of the Big Wind, 1839. Now, with the establishment of parish registers--which did not come in in Ireland till the sixties--and the spread of newspapers and cheap knowledge generally, such landmarks are no longer required; and the Big Wind of 1903 has wiped out the memory of its predecessor. In the mountains of Wicklow the insurgents of those days found their refuges and their fastnesses and their graves. I remember having seen somewhere near Roundwood, in the Wicklow Mountains, in the midst of a ploughed field a long strip of greenest grass covering the grave of many rebels. The plough had gone round it ever since then, but not a sod of it had been turned up; it had remained inviolate. A great deal of Irish history gathers round the Rebellion--_the_ Rebellion, the Irish yet call it, as though there had never been any other. The men who made it were literary men, in a more vital sense than the men of '48, who were also literary. Two books of that day stand out pre-eminently--Lord Edward Fitzgerald's "Life and Letters," edited by Thomas Moore, and the Journal of Theobald Wolfe Tone. Lord Edward had an exquisite style. His letters are the frank revelation of a beautiful and gallant and innocent mind and heart. Without deliberation, without knowledge, his family letters achieved the highest art. They are immortal, imperishable things. Then Tone's Journal is as remarkable a human document. Tone swaggers through these pages better than any hero of romance. Life, after all, is the greatest artist, and one does not say, "Here is a true Dumas hero! Here is a true Stevenson hero!" For Life is better than her children. Nearly all the United Irish leaders left memoirs or journals behind them. There was, perhaps, something of the self-consciousness of the French Revolution in this keeping a journal in the face of battle. Anyhow, we are grateful to Holt, to Teeling, to Cloney, for keeping alive for us those days and those men. In Lady Sarah Napier's letters you also get most vivid glimpses of the Rebellion--as, indeed, you do in the letters of the whole Leinster family. Mary Ledbetter, that gentle Quakeress, of Ballitore, has told her experiences of the Rebellion in Kildare; there is Bishop Stock's Narrative of the French landing at Killala and those days in which he entertained willy-nilly the French leaders and found them the most considerate of guests. In fact, there is a whole library of Rebellion literature. I ask pardon for treating Wicklow and Wexford as though they were the theatre of '98, and nothing more; but, indeed, in the story of Wexford the Rebellion stands up like White Mountain and Mount Leinster, and one finds little else to say. CHAPTER VI THE NORTH Between Dublin and Newry there is not much to see or to remember except that Cromwell sacked Drogheda with a thoroughness, and that at Dundalk Edward Bruce, the brother of Robert, was crowned King of Ireland. The Mourne Mountains and Carlingford Lough bring us back to characteristic Ireland. Beyond them one enters the manufacturing districts--that north-east corner of Ireland which no Celt looks upon as Ireland at all. In speech, in character, in looks, the people become Scotch and not Irish. One has crossed the border and Celtic Ireland is left behind. In the north-east corner of Ulster they are all busy money-making and money-getting. The North of Ireland has admirable qualities--thrift, energy, industry, ambition, capacity. In other parts of Ireland you find these qualities here and there; they are mainly, but not altogether, the qualities of the Anglo-Irish--that is, in so far as they are a business asset. The Celt has no real capacity for money-making, though at the wrong end of the virtue of thrift--that dreariest of the virtues--he may accumulate it. He will put an enormous deal of energy into something that does not pay him in hard cash. Honorary positions are greedily sought after by the Irish everywhere. They will run any number of societies for nothing, will do the business of Leagues, of the Poor Law, of the County Councils. The energy shown by the Celt in doing the public business would enrich him if applied to his own. He has a large capacity for public business, and an extraordinary readiness to do it, which is, I suppose, the reason why he does the public business of America, while non-Irish Americans sit by and grumble at his way of doing it. In Ireland and in America he does hard manual labour, but somehow the genius of finance is not his. His hard work is on the land in one form or another. Now and again he may build up quite a considerable fortune in petty shop-keeping--the big traders are nearly all Anglo-Irish--but when he does, his sons become professional men and the business ceases to be. One can hardly imagine in Celtic Ireland what occurs every day in English business life, where the son of a successful business man may be a public-school man, a University man, and have had all the advantages of wealth, and yet succeed his father in the business. And his son succeeds him, and so on. This, in Celtic Ireland, would, I fear, be taken as indicative of a pettifogging spirit. The Anglo-Irishman, on the contrary, succeeds to the business his father has made, even though he be a University man; and the Grafton Street shops are often run by men who are graduates and honourmen of the University, and yet do not disdain to be seen in their shops. There is nothing Irish about North-East Ulster except the country itself, which does not materially alter its character, because it is studded with factories. From the streets of Belfast you see the Cave Hill, as from easy-going Dublin you see the Dublin Mountains. Perhaps there is something of exuberance caught from the Celt in the paraphernalia and ceremonial of the Orange Society. Who can say how much of poetry it may not mean, that crowded hour of glorious life which comes about mid-July, when men who have worked side by side in amity all the rest of the year suddenly become bitter enemies, when the wearing of an Orange sash and the sight of an Orange lily stir a fever in the blood? Apart from such occasions, they are given in Belfast to minding their own business, and minding it very well. The Belfast man is very shrewd, but he has a great simplicity withal. He has none of the uppish notions of the Celt, and though he makes money he does not make it to display it. He is blunt and brusque in his speech and manner, and so not unlike his Lancashire brother. He lives simply. In public matters he has the priceless advantage, in Ireland, of knowing what he wants; and he usually gets it, unless his demands be too outrageous. He is a hard man of business, but in his human relationships he is kind and sincere. I have known exiles of Dublin who went to Belfast in tears, and for the first months or years of their residence were always sighing after Dublin. When, however, they came to know the man of the North--he takes a good deal of knowing--nothing would induce them to return to Dublin. Like his Scottish progenitors, he stands by the Bible. There is as much Bible-reading in the fine red-brick mansions of Belfast as there is in Scotland. He does not produce literature. The more artistic parts of Ireland look down on him as one to whom "boetry and bainting" are as unacceptable as they were to the Second George. But he encourages solid learning, and he endows seats of learning as generously as does the American millionaire, who in this respect offers an example to his English brother. The Belfast man has the Scottish love of education. He has many of the homespun Scottish virtues, and much less than the Scottish love of money. At the very gates of Belfast you find the Irish country. The Glens of Antrim are as Irish as Limerick or Clare. They are very beautiful, and not much exploited. There is also the Giant's Causeway to see. The legend of its construction is that Finn, the Irish giant, invited a Scotch giant over to fight him, and generously provided the Causeway for him to cross by; but he played a nasty trick on him, for he pretended to the Scottish giant when he came that he was his own little boy. "If you are the little son, what must your father be?" the Scottish giant is reported to have said before taking to his heels. I do not believe the story. I believe that the Scottish giant came and stayed. You see his children all over North-East Ulster. There are women-poets whom one associates with the North--Moira O'Neill of the Glens, and Alice Milligan, a daughter of Belfast. They are both "Kindly Irish of the Irish Neither Saxon nor Italian," nor Scottish. [Illustration: THE RIVER LEE.] Cork and Thereabouts CHAPTER VII CORK AND THEREABOUTS There is something of rich and racy association about the very name of Cork--something that suggests joviality, wit, a warm southern temperament. Corkmen only out of all Ireland hold together. The rest of Ireland may be fissiparous, disunited. Corkmen cleave closer than Scotsmen to one another, and to be a Corkman is to another Corkman a cloak that covers a multitude of sins. A Corkman in Dublin will have friends in all sorts of unlikely places. What matter though a man be in a humble rank of life--a cabman, a policeman, a postman, even a scavenger! So he be a Corkman, he has an appeal to the heart of his brother Corkman. It is a Freemasonry. There is nothing else like it in Ireland, nor anywhere else, so far as I know; for the Scotsman coming into England may draw other Scotsmen to follow him, but in the Scotch sticking together there is less real affection than there is in the case of the Corkman. To be able to exchange memories of the Mardyke, of the River Lee, of Shandon and Sunday's Well, is to make Corkmen brothers all the world over. Cork looks on itself as the real capital of Ireland, and has always its eye on a day when Dublin will be dispossessed. It has a most excellent situation on the River Lee, and is surrounded by all manner of natural beauties. There is plenty of business stirring, and there is a good deal of opulence in Cork, where, Corkmen being men of taste, they display it in their houses, their way of living and on the persons of their beautiful women, with the irresistible Cork brogue to crown all their other charms. Cork is nothing if not artistic. She has produced artists of all descriptions--poets, painters, great newspaper men (was not Delane of the _Times_ a Corkman?), musicians, sculptors, orators, preachers. The words roll off the Cork tongue sweet as honey. There is something extraordinarily rich, gay and alluring about Cork and Cork people. They were always audacious. They set up Perkin Warbeck as a Pretender to the English Crown, clad him in silks and velvets, and demanded his acknowledgment at the hands of the Lord Deputy. I do not know that as a city Cork took a great part in any of the many Irish rebellions. It would make a city of diplomatists because of its honeyed tongue. Queen Elizabeth, they say, was the first one to talk of Blarney, which is a Cork commodity. There was a certain McCarthy, Lord of Blarney, who would not come in and submit to the Queen's forces, though week by week he promised to come and kept the Queen's anger off by cozening words. "It is all Blarney," the Queen came to say of fair words that meant nothing; but that is a derivation I somewhat suspect. I do not know what Cork was doing in the Desmond Rebellion, of the results of which Spenser has left us so harrowing a description. She was perhaps enjoying herself after the fashion of that day. Spenser married a Cork-woman, and has enshrined her in the "Epithalamion," the most beautiful love-poem in the English language. Cork has its links with the Golden Age of England, for Raleigh was at Youghal, and Spenser at Kilcolman close by; and in Raleigh's house at Youghal they show you the oriel in which Spenser sat and read the "Faërie Queene" to his host, the Shepherd of the Ocean. Youghal and all that part of the country round about Cork is steeped in traditions and memories. St. Mary's Collegiate Church at Youghal might be in an English town, and there are malls and promenades in those parts, with high, crumbling houses, which suggest the English civilization of the Middle Ages and not the Irish civilization before the Norman Conquest. The Normans were great church-builders, but of their churches, as in the case of the old Abbey of St. Francis at Youghal, there remain now only ruins--a naked gable standing up amid a wilderness of graves, buried in coarse grasses, which, when I was there, had a greater decency towards the dead than had the living. For it is strange that the Irish, who love the dead, have little piety towards their graves. From Youghal Sir Walter Raleigh sailed away to Virginia on his last disastrous voyage. Spenser had gone back to London earlier than that, heart-broken by the loss of his little son, who was burnt to death in a fire at Kilcolman Castle. Raleigh and Spenser had received grants of the lands of the attainted Desmonds. Very little profit either had of them, and Raleigh's lands passed to the Earl of Cork, commonly called "the Great," whose flaring chapel destroys the quiet of St. Mary's dim aisles and chancel. Never was there so worldly a monument as this of Robert Boyle, his mother, his two wives, and his nine children, all in hideously painted and decorated Italian marble. The fierce eyes of the great Earl are something to remember with dismay. I recall the evidence the great Earl adduced to prove that Sir Walter did really hand him over his Irish estates on the eve of that journey to Virginia--for a small consideration of money and plenishing for the expedition. "If you do not take the lands, some Scot will have them," said, or is reported to have said, Sir Walter, which reminds us that Jamie had succeeded Elizabeth, and was already transplanting his Scots--Jamie, who was to keep so brilliant a bird as Sir Walter in so squalid a cage as a prison till he made up his mind to send him to the block. Youghal is haunted by Sir Walter and Spenser. My memories of the place in a windy autumn are brightened by sudden gleams, as of splendid attire and golden olive faces with the Elizabethan ruff and the Elizabethan pointed beard. The Blackwater, which runs through Youghal, dropping into the sea at that point, had at Rhincrew Point its House of Knights Templars. From Youghal they also sailed away in search of El Dorado, but a heavenly one. May they have found it! And also there is Templemichael, of the Earls of Desmond, the southern branch of the Fitzgeralds, which Cromwell battered down for "dire insolence." There is a story of a Desmond lord who was buried across the water at Ardmore, the holy place of St. Declan, where there is a pilgrimage and a patronage to this day. But holy as Ardmore was and is, Earl Gerald could not sleep there. He wanted to be back at Templemichael, where his young wife lay in her lonely grave. So that night after night there came a terrible cry, "Garault Arointha! Garault Arointha!"--that is to say: "Give Gerald a ferry!" So at last some of his faithful followers rowed over by night, took up the body of Earl Gerald, and carried it back to Templemichael and to the dead Countess's side. And after that Earl Gerald slept in peace. My memory of Youghal in that far-away windy autumn is compounded of three or four things. There was purple wistaria hanging in great masses over the walls of the college which was the foundation of one of the Desmonds. There was provision there for so many singing men--twenty, was it?--who were to sing in St. Mary's choir. The great Earl of Cork had a great maw, one that never suffered from indigestion. The revenues of St. Mary's College went the same way as Sir Walter's slice of the Desmond lands. Then, again, in a little shop-window of the town, there was a glorious show of fruit--great scarlet-skinned tomatoes, gorgeous plums and pears and apples, which reminded one that Raleigh had planted orchards at Affane, on the Blackwater. As a rule, fruit is sadly to seek in a small Irish town, although Cork produces some of the finest fruit I have ever seen. Then, again, there was a room in Raleigh's house, Myrtle Grove, unlit save for the flicker of firelight, the darkness all about us, and an old voice bidding us to notice the earthy smell, which was supposed to enter the room from a subterranean passage that led to St. Mary's. Again, I have another widely different memory. It is of a fine, tall, beautifully-complexioned girl standing behind the counter of a draper's shop, her shining red-golden head showing against a background of little plaid shawls and kerchiefs, while she lamented in her wailing southern brogue the fact that no one could hope to get married in Youghal, unless one had £300 to buy an old "widda-man"; and they were all the men that were going. I like to get back from Youghal and its ghosts, and Rosanna, who never thought of rebelling against the marriage customs of her forbears, to cheerful Cork of the living and not the dead, with her tramcars, her jingles--the curious covered car which takes the place of the outside car in other Irish towns--her citizens laughing and button-holing each other with a greater gaiety than the Dubliners; her excellent shops, her beautiful girls promenading Patrick Street, her club-houses, her churches, her Queen's College, and all the rest of it, down to her river with its busy steamers. Cork's citizens live outside her gates, at Monkstown, at Blackrock, at Glenbrook; and the busy steamers carry them to and fro by the loveliest of waterways. "Are the steamers punctual?" I asked a Cork friend. "Is it punctual?" repeated he. "They're the most punctual things in Ireland, for they always get in before their time." Father Mathew is one of Cork's memories; Father Prout is another; Dr. Maginn is another. But the list of Cork's worthies is a long one, and I shall not enter upon it here. [Illustration: RALEIGH'S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE.] Cork has the most enervating climate for one who comes to it from more northern latitudes. It is always soft and warm, and often wet. "Good heavens!" said John Mitchel, when he came back from twenty years or so of Australia, gliding in by Spike Island in that same silver mist of rain in which he had gone out, "isn't that shower over yet?" The flowers are wonderful in Cork, as well as the fruit. I have seen the suburban gardens of Corkmen a luxuriance of vivid, closely packed, overflowing blossom. Myrtles and fuchsias grow in the open air. There are hedges of fuchsias at Killarney. There are hydrangeas also; but the same is true of Dublin and its precincts. No one coming in from outside has energy to do anything in Cork. But the Corkman lacks nothing of energy, nothing of the joy of life. He is a keen business man, and there is plenty of industrial enterprise. He is interested in the affairs of the world at large and of Cork in particular. He has his enthusiasms. He is a tremendous politician, and does not mind being on the losing side so long as it is the right one. He is a sportsman and a bit of a gambler; he makes love and is a good friend. The place is full of wit and gaiety and humour. His standard of living when he has money, or ought to have it, is an unusually high one for Ireland. Some of those successful merchants live, I am told, like merchant princes. He is lavish and generous, and fond of display--altogether a rich, abundant, highly-coloured character. He lives in an atmosphere of incessant wit and humour. Hardly a man in Cork but has his nickname. "There goes Billy Boulevard," you hear, and you are told that the gentleman so designated desired to embellish Patrick Street with trees. But it was in Dublin that they called one who had made his money in pneumatic tyres, and was exalted above his humbler neighbours, "Lord Tyre and Side-on." CHAPTER VIII GALWAY Galway is so synonymous with racy Irish life that a peep at Ireland must be incomplete unless it includes a peep at Galway. It is full of the strangest monuments of the past. It was once a town of the Irishry, in the O'Flaherty country. But with the Norman Conquest there came in that group of Anglo-Norman families known as the Tribes, who in course of time went the way of all their compeers, becoming more Irish than the Irish. "Lord!" said Edmund Spenser, "how quickly doth that country alter men's natures!" The Tribes were, and are--for happily there are still the Tribes of Galway--thirteen, viz.: Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, D'Arcy, Font, French, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martin, Morris, and Skerrett. These Tribes became responsible in time for so much of the wild and picturesque life of the Irish gentry of the eighteenth century--the duelling, the drinking, the racing, the gambling, the general devil-may-care life--that Galway looms more largely, perhaps, than any town in the social history of Ireland. Galway drew up a code for duellists known as the Galway Code; and in the irresponsible life of the eighteenth century, such as you find in Miss Edgeworth's "Castle Rackrent" and in Lever's novels, the life which the Encumbered Estates Act put a period to, the names of the Tribes figure oftener than more Celtic names. For the picturesque wildness of Irish life was the wildness of the settlers rather than the wildness of the native Irish. However, in the great days of Galway's trade with Spain and other continental ports, traces of which are scattered all over the old ruined city, which is as much Spanish as it is Irish, the Tribes were just merchant princes, not anticipating the time when, _more Hibernico_, they should fling trade to the winds and become the maddest crew of dare-devils known in the social life of any country. And here I find, in the record of the duelling and drinking days, traces and indications of the English descent of the roysterers. For certainly there was a lack of humour in the actors, though none for the spectator; there was a solemnity--not always a drunken solemnity--in the way their pranks were performed that was not Celtic; for the Celt has a terrible sense of the ridiculous. Doubtless it was from his Anglo-Irish betters that the Celt derived the habit of "trailing his coat" through a fair when he was spoiling for a fight, though, to do him justice, he practised it only when he was drunk. The Anglo-Irish duellists inaugurated the custom. When on no pretext could they find a friend or neighbour to kill or be killed by, they went out and "trailed the coat," like the gentleman who rode on a tailless horse, with his face to the crupper, and, seeing an unwary stranger smile, immediately challenged him, and rode home in huge delight to look to his pistols. They were extremely solemn over their pranks. One wonders how often the Celtic servants had a smile behind their hand at such strange goings-on of their masters, which would not have been possible to the self-conscious Celt. Over one of the gates of Galway was the pious legend, "From the ferocious O'Flaherties, good Lord deliver us!" I have heard of other inscriptions referring to other Irish septs over the remaining gates of the town, but those I think are apocryphal. The fact remains that the Tribes, having seized the town of the Irish after their rapacious Norman manner, were obliged to wall it against the O'Flaherties, and doubtless often slept ill at night because of the wild Irish battering at their gates, as did their brothers of the English pale up in Dublin. Galway would at that time have been well worth sacking. A traveller of the early seventeenth century reports: "The merchants of Galway are rich and great adventurers at sea: their commonalitie is composed of the descendants of the ancient English families of the towne: and rairlie admit of any new English among them, and never of any of the Irish; they keep good hospitalitie and are kind to strangers, and in their manner of entertainment and in fashioninge and apparellynge themselves and their wives do most preserve the ancient manners and state of annie towne that ever I saw." They had their enactments against the Irish, including the MacWilliam Burkes, who had gone over to the Irish, bag and baggage: "That none of the towne buy cattle out of the country but only of true men. "That no man of the towne shall sell galley, bote or barque to an Irishman. "That no person shall give or sell to the Irish any munition as hand-povins, calivres, poulter, leade, nor salt-peter, nor yet large bowes, cross-bowes, cross-bowe strings, nor yearne to make the same, nor any kind of weapon on payn to forfayt the same and an hundred shyllinges. "If anie man being an Irishman to brag and boste upon the towne, to forfayt 12 pence. "That no man of this towne shall ostle or receive into their house at Christmasse or Easter nor no feast elles, anny of the Burkes MacWilliams, the Kellies, nor no septs elles, without the licence of the Maior and Council on payn to forfayt £5. That neither O' ne Mac shall strutt or swagger through the streets of Galway." You still find traces of the commerce of the Tribes with Spain, not only in the old Spanish buildings of the town, but in the black Spanish eyes and hair of the people. I remember to have been struck in Donegal by a dignity, a loftiness of bearing, as well as by a height and stateliness of the peasant people that made one murmur "Spanish" to one's own ear. One of the sights of Galway is the ruins of the house from the window of which James Lynch Fitz Stephen, a Chief Magistrate of Galway in 1493, hanged his only son for murder with his own hand, lest the townspeople should rescue him. The house is called The Cross Bones nowadays, and is situated most appropriately in Dead-Man's Lane. There remains but an old wall, with a couple of doorways having the pointed Spanish arches and some ornate window-spaces above. There is a tablet on the wall, bearing a skull and cross-bones, with the inscription: "Remember Deathe, Vaniti of vanitis, all is but vaniti." Some people believe that this Lynch is the "onlie begetter" of Lynch Law. This, however, I do not believe, and I think it more likely to have been derived from a Lynch of the mining-camps in Southern California, who was the first to promulgate and put in practice the wild justice of execution without judge or jury. Anyhow, I cannot see that the example of James Lynch FitzStephen was an admirable one, and I do not believe the legend that he died heart-broken as a result of his own stern sense of justice. The palmy days of the Tribes were over with the Reformation, for they did not cease to be Catholics, and so were in no great favour with the predominant partner. Galway also stood for the King against the Parliament, was besieged and taken by the Parliamentary soldiers under Ludlow, who stabled his horses, according to report, in St. Nicholas's Cathedral. After that Galway's great prosperity as a trading centre passed away, and the Tribes scattered among the ferocious O'Flaherties and others of their sort and became country gentlemen, with a noble contempt for trade. The situation of Galway, on its magnificent Bay, still cries out for commerce. The spectacle of Galway as a port of call for American steamers has dangled before the eyes of the Galwegians for a long time without being realized, although they made preparations for it long ago, by building a hotel that would house a _Mauretania_-load of travellers. Only the other day I listened to a Galway Tribesman conversing with someone who had lived in Galway, and who asked after the old places and persons. "What's become of So-and-so?" "He's just the same as ever; not a bit of change in him. He comes home every night strapped to the outside car to keep him from falling off." "And what's become of So-and-so?" "Oh, he's done very well for himself. His father says, 'Mac's all right; he's got the run of a kitchen in Yorkshire,' meaning that he married an English heiress." This conversation made me feel that to some extent Galway stands where it did. [Illustration: GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD. _PAGE 70._] The Claddagh fishing village by Galway is something not to be missed. It keeps itself to itself, with a reserve Celtic or Spanish or anything else you like, but not English. It used to be ruled by its own King, who was just a fisherman like his subjects, and was not exalted in his manner of living by his royal state. He was chosen for his governing powers and his mental and moral qualities, and his subjects were ruled by him with a despotism that was never anything but fatherly. They intermarried, too, among themselves--I do not know if this usage survives--and their ring of betrothal, handed on from one generation to another, has a design of two hands holding up a heart. At the Claddagh they still have the Blessing of the Sea, but they will not make a show of it, and even the Galway people are kept in ignorance of the time when the ceremony takes place. CHAPTER IX DONEGAL OF THE STRANGERS It once fell to my lot to make a hasty scamper through Donegal from end to end; that is to say, as far as possible, I made the circuit of the county, beginning with Ballyshannon, following the coast-line, with divergences, from Donegal to Gweedore, going round by Bloody Foreland, by Falcarragh and Dunfanaghy, and ending up by way of Letterkenny at Ballyshannon again. I took ten or twelve days to do it--perhaps a fortnight--staying each night at an inn. To Gweedore I devoted the best portion of a week. Now, in that scamper I had a very characteristic peep at Ireland. I missed, indeed, the wild gaiety of the South. Donegal people are somewhat sorrowful. But I found plenty of types and racy life nevertheless. It is a good many years ago now; and travelling in Donegal has been simplified since then by the light railways with which the names of Mr. Arthur Balfour and Mr. Gerald Balfour are gratefully associated. When I was there I drove through the country, only taking the train from Letterkenny to Ballyshannon on my return journey; and it was an excellent, though somewhat expensive, way of seeing the country. However, the hospitality was so wonderful that one only slept and breakfasted in one's hotel. For the rest, the kind priests were only too eager to give hospitality to myself and my companion. At Ballyshannon we stayed a night in one of those enormous old hotels with a maze of winding passages, which suggest to one in the dead waste and middle of the night that in case of a fire one never could get out. The next day we came upon the first of the priests, who carried us off to see everything that could be seen of Ballyshannon, including a visit to Abbey Assaroe, which we knew already in William Allingham's poetry. To the grief of these kind friends of ours, we insisted on going off the same afternoon to Donegal town, to which we were driven by "Wullie"--the first "Wullie"--a red-haired, taciturn youth, who suspected us of laughing at him and was closer than an oyster. Your English man or woman is the truly expansive person. When you want to get at anything from an Irishman you've got to sit down and wait for the charmed moment when his suspicion of you is put to sleep. Dr. Douglas Hyde got his Religious Songs and Love Songs of Connacht by sitting over the turf fire in a cabin, taking a "shaugh" of the pipe and offering a fill of it, passing round a flask of poteen, perhaps. It might be hours, and it might be days, and it might be weeks before you broke down the barrier of reserve, well worth the breaking-down if you have "worlds enough and time." You can't travel twenty miles in an English third-class carriage before you have the intimate confidence of your fellow-passengers. You are told which relative died of cancer, with harrowing details, which is in a madhouse, and which in gaol; for the plain English people are the most unreserved in the world, while the Irish are the most reticent. And if you win a flow of talk from the Irish peasants, be sure they are talking round what they have to tell by way of leading you away from it; for an Irishman uses language to conceal his thoughts. We hadn't "worlds enough and time" for "Wullie." His lips were tight-locked from Ballyshannon to Donegal. The next day we saw what was to be seen of the Castle, under the guidance of the parish priest, whom we met walking in the Diamond. We introduced ourselves to him. He was a delightful, humorous, stately, kindly old man, and he looked at us when he met us with an eye that asked: "Who are you and what is your business in Donegal?" It is a way the priests have in the remote parts of Ireland, where they are everything to their flocks. Being reassured, he gave his day to our entertainment, taking us to see some of his parishioners when he had shown us all the town contained of interest. Killybegs I remember as a beautiful bay, big enough to take in the whole English fleet. The next day we went on to Kilcar, where we found our third priest, who lived in a delightfully clean little cabin with a clay floor. His housekeeper was barefooted, but he had dainty table appointments. I remember that he had very good china, and he explained that his mother had given it to him. He was the son of rather wealthy people. We had a meal of fish, with a little fruit to follow; and while we ate it a messenger was out prospecting for the loan of an outside car for the priest. Sure enough, by the time we had finished the meal the car was at the door, and our host carried us off to see the Caves of Muckross, some six miles away. Incidentally, we saw Bunglass, that magnificent cliff-face where Slieve League drops into the sea. I remember a visit we paid to a cottage where a father sat at the loom weaving, the mother was carding wool, and a black-haired daughter was sprigging muslin by the little narrow square window. A scarlet geranium in the window seemed to be in her night-black hair, and her tears flowed when our little priest spoke to her. He told us that her lover had married a richer girl and gone to America. I can remember quite well walking up a mountain road where the friendly little lambs came and trotted a bit of the way with us, and the voice of the young priest as he told us of the innocence of the people--"not a sin in it from year's end to year's end," for they were too poor to drink--and how his ambition was to get away to the East End of London, where there was something to do for a born fighter. A night at the excellent hotel at Carrick and the next day we were at Glencolumkille, that wild and lonely glen between the mountains and the sea, with the majestic Glen Head standing out into the Atlantic. In the Glen are twelve crosses of stone, where pilgrims make the stations in honour of St. Columba or Columkille, the Dove of the Churches. Above Lough Gartan, on Eithne's Bed, he was born, and any who lie there shall not have the pangs of home-sickness; wherefore many emigrants stretch themselves upon that rocky couch before they cross "the Green Fields to America." The Glen is full of the noise and thunder of the waves, and Slieve League lies superbly up in the sky, reminding one of Browning-- "The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay." At Glencolumkille we met the fourth of our priests--a tall, thin, Spanish-looking youth, who came to meet us with a collie at his heels. Glencolumkille is very lonesome. There is only an Irish-speaking peasant population of the very poorest, and the nearest one with whom our priest could exchange a word on his own level was some seven Irish miles away. He gave us an impression of immense loneliness, although his joy at having someone to entertain irradiated his melancholy, handsome face with cheerfulness. He was rejoiced that by the greatest of good luck he had a bit of meat for dinner, for fish is the staple food of the Glen. He was very much interested in news from the great world, and produced with some pride a copy of the _Daily Telegraph_, several days old, to prove that he kept in touch with the world. He told us that he was the youngest of a large family, and his home was as far away as Dublin. Over nearly a score of years I have the most vivid impression of the lonely figure, the dog at his heels, as we left Glencolumkille behind us. He had made us free of his house and hospitality, and parted from us with the utmost unwillingness. Ardara, Glenties, Dungloe--I think of them, little villages lying amongst gorgeous mountains, and remember that in those gloomy and frowning fastnesses the Irish were safe against Cromwell's planters, since what man who could choose, not being Irish, would desire to live in such a place? A Donegal farm is something to remember. The one crop the ground grows freely is stones--stones in millions, boulders as great sometimes as a small house. There are glens that are nothing but stones from end to end, about as promising ground as the Giant's Causeway for a farmer. In such places you may see a little field, the size of a tablecloth, snatched from the aridity of Nature by the incredible industry of man. Everywhere in Donegal man asks Nature for bread and she gives him a stone, unless it be the harvest of the sea, which he snatches from her at the price of his life, it may be. I saw Donegal in April, softened as much as might be by the wild April showers and the bursts of April sunshine. The clouds and the mountains, the cliffs and the sea--Slieve League, Errigal, Muckish, Bunglass, Horn Head, the Glen Head, Tory Island--were all beautiful beyond telling, with a wild and stormy magnificence of beauty. I try to imagine their desolation in winter and fail to realize it. Ardara I remember by the beauty of Glengesh on an April day, with a hundred streams running down its sides; and at Ardara we halted on Sunday, and knelt in the gallery of the church, looking down at the peasants kneeling in rows on the stone floor before the altar. The doors were wide open, and birds wheeled in from the sunlight and out again with flashing wings; and the air was exquisite, fresh and wild and sweet. At Gweedore, as I have said, we tarried nearly a week, held there by the hospitality of the parish priest, who would have us see everything thoroughly. We stayed at an idyllic little inn, and were fed on the best and simplest fare: stirabout, made as only the Irish can make it; home-made bread; delicious butter, new-laid eggs; little delicate chickens, with green parsley sauce and boiled bacon, potatoes, and cabbage, cooked as only the Irish can cook them; for in certain simple dishes of their own the Irish cannot be beaten. [Illustration: A DONEGAL HARVEST.] There was a most picturesque waiting-maid, a shy little girl, as pretty as a picture, who wore a pink cotton frock, and had pink bare feet showing under it, who had the softest, most appealing of voices. At the inn our priest found us, sallying in with his great blackthorn in his hand to see who were the strange visitors to the Glen. He was a redoubtable priest--the Law of Gweedore, they called him--and he sheltered his people as the hen sheltereth her chickens. The Glen was exquisitely clean from end to end, though starveling poor. But the priest saw to it that they did not starve. For four or five days, perhaps, we abode in this little inn, where the Glen opens out to the sea. We visited the people in their cottages, under the guidance of our redoubtable _padre_, and saw all there was to be seen. His hospitality was unbounded, although at the time there was a wide and bitter division in politics between us. I shall not soon forget the manner of our going. We had come now almost to the end of our journey, and it was desirable that we should return to Dublin as quickly as possible. He wanted us to make the journey round by Bloody Foreland, and we wanted to do it as shortly as possible, striking inland to meet the mail-car for Letterkenny at, I think, Gortahork. But we knew better than to say "No" to the Law of Gweedore; so we thought to slip away early in the morning, and made our arrangements the last thing at night, after leaving his hospitable roof. But the Law of Gweedore knew all that happened in Gweedore. A full hour before we had appointed for being called we were called. His Reverence had arranged our conveyance, and _paid for it_--paid also, I think, for a luncheon-basket. Willy-nilly, we went round by Bloody Foreland and visited the evicted tenants, crouching under scraws and twigs, in shelters which suggested the caves of the earth-dwellers rather than anything fit for man. Gortahork I remember as a place where we had a good meal of tea and hot cakes and eggs, and other things thrown in, for a shilling. And I remember also the long, long drive to Letterkenny--some forty miles it was, I seem to remember, but shall not pledge myself to it lest I be confuted--and how we dashed along the sides of precipices, we on one side of the car, with our feet almost touching earth, the other side high in air, being weighted only with empty parcel-post hampers, of which Donegal needs no great supply; below us--far, far below--a valley filled in with mighty stones and rocks. The pace was so fast that we could hardly keep our seats, though well accustomed to that car which the unlettered English tripper is apt to call "a jolting car"; and the driver was quite unaware of our discomfort, assuring us with as much jocularity as a Donegal man permits himself that the horses never were known to stumble, and that, although an occasional English tourist did fall off, he or she always "fell soft." After all, when I look back to that scamper through Donegal sixteen years ago, I remember the mountains and the priests. Monuments of a beautiful hospitality, the priests for me mark the wild ways up and down Donegal. CHAPTER X IRISH TRAITS AND WAYS An English person in Ireland may find himself astray because he will have no clue to the minds of the people. I once heard two English ladies returning from an Irish trip say to each other across a railway-carriage, otherwise full of Irish people, that the Irish all told lies. This was a rash judgment and a harsh one; I do not know what the occasion of it was. Sometimes the Irish, through their naturally gracious manners, will say the thing that will please you best to hear rather than the absolute truth by rule of thumb. There is the well-known, well-founded complaint about Irish distances; a peasant will tell you that you are three miles from a place when you are really seven. Now, of course you may be misled by the difference between the Irish and English mile; and thereby hangs a tale. The Irish or Plantation measure was adopted by Cromwell's planted English, so that they might get a bigger slice of land than was intended for them. But if you are told you have three Irish miles to go and find that you have seven, almost certainly the thought uppermost in your misinformant's mind was: "The crathur! Sure, he'll think nothin' of it if he believes it's only three miles; and the spring 'ud be taken out of him altogether if he thought he'd seven weary miles before him yet. And, sure, by the time he's travelled the three miles he won't be far off the seven." The Irish mind, besides being very nimble, is subtle and complicated. It may have gone off on an excursion before answering you which you in your Anglo-Saxon plainness would never dream of; and your truth may not be the Irish truth at all, and yet both of them be the genuine article. A very small Irish boy of my acquaintance, being rudely accused of having told a lie, responded meekly: "I don't think it were really a lie; I think it were only an imagination." "Are there any priests in the town?" you ask an Irishman; and he replies, there being some half-dozen: "The streets are black with them." "You can't always depend on eggs, not if they comes in fresh from the nest," said an Irish servant to me, when some of the grocer's "new-laid" eggs had "popped" in the saucepan. The remark was purely consolatory and was not at all intended to convey that the hens laid stale eggs. The Irish "bull," so-called, very often is the result of the nimble-wittedness of the speaker. He has thought more than he has expressed, and the bull implies a hiatus. "I'd better be a coward for ten minutes than be dead all my life" is a famous example of an Irish bull; but it only means "all the days of my natural life"; so much was not expressed. My harsh critics of the London and North-Western express would doubtless have found the soft, flattering ways of the Irish false and hypocritical. One remembers the famous compliment, "No matter what age you are, ma'am, you don't look it," and the historical compliment of the Irish coal-porter to one of the beautiful Gunnings: "Sure, I could light my pipe by the fire of her eye." Sometimes a compliment or a wheedling good wish will take a sudden turn. "May the blessin' of God go afther you!" says an Irish beggar--"may the blessin' of God go afther you!" The desired alms not being forthcoming, the blessing flows naturally into--"and never overtake you." The beggars are great wits, of a sardonic kind usually. A rather short friend of mine walking with his tall sister, the two were importuned fruitlessly by a beggar-woman. Before they passed out of hearing she called gently to the lady: "Well, there you go! And goodness help the poor little crathur that hadn't the spirit to say no to you." This double insult to the supposed husband and wife was very neat. A matter-of-fact young sister of mine, having been begged from by a ragged woman with a string of ragged children at one end of the village, was importuned at the other end by a man, similarly accompanied, whom she took rightly to be the woman's mate. "We're poor orphans," whined the second string of children; "our poor mother's dead and buried." "I don't believe it," she said; "I met your mother at the other end of the village." "Take no notice of her, childer," said the man sorrowfully. "It wouldn't be right to touch a penny of her money. She's an unbeliever--that's what she is." An old beggar-man, to whom I explained apologetically that I was without my purse, looked at me benevolently. "Never mind!" he said; "you'd give it if you had it, wouldn't you? But there's one thing I want to tell you: your dog's gone home without you." I don't quite know how it was meant, but it conveyed to me a sense of well-meaning failure and inefficiency generally. The salutations in Ireland used to be delightful. I hope it may be long before they are out of date. "God save you kindly," was the salutation on the roadside. "God save all here!" you said, entering a house. And if any work was in progress, you said: "God bless the work!" If they were churning in the kitchen as you entered it, with the old up-and-down dasher or "dash," as I knew it, you took a few turns with the dash lest you should carry off the butter. Butter and milk are things often charmed away. When I was a young girl, there was at Lucan, in the county Dublin, a fairy doctor, who was called in if the cows weren't milking well, or the butter didn't come to the churn, or if the beasts were ailing. A more Christian thing was to bring the live-stock to the priest to be blessed, or to bring the priests to the field to bless them, which is done every year. Even the Orangeman of the North, if he has a cow ailing, thinks it not amiss to ask for the priest's blessing. All the same, the Irish Celts, in their superstitions, have a way of rounding on their good friends, the priests. Priests' marriages--that is, marriages arranged by the priests--are proverbially unlucky. And to buy the priest's cow in a fair is notoriously unlucky for the general dealing of the day, as well as that particular one. [Illustration: A HOME IN DONEGAL.] The freedom of the people with their superiors is often a stumbling-block to the stranger; while to the Irish man or woman the division between classes in England will seem strange and unnatural--inhuman almost. "That's an elegant new trousers you have on, Master John," I heard an apple-woman by the kerb say to a young gentleman. The intimacy is not at all presumptuous; very far from it. Indeed, Irish people coming to live in England often blunder into treating their inferiors with the easy intimacy of the life at home, only to find that it is neither desired nor expected. Irish servants of the old class were retainers and very much devoted to the families they lived with. The conditions were strange and difficult to those not accustomed to them. You would find a family of the gentry of the lowest Low Church on terms of tender affection with its Papistical servants and with the neighbouring peasants. They would have told you as abstract facts that Home Rule would mean the massacre of the Protestants, and that already their lands and properties were partitioned in the secret councils of whatever League happened to be uppermost at the moment. It would be an article of their creed that the priests were accountable for all the troubles of Ireland. They would have consented generally to the axiom that no Irish Papist told the truth. Yet they would always exempt their own servants, and perhaps their own tenants, and would fly at you as being anti-Irish if you suggested a flaw in the Irish character, or even an excellency in the English, which is almost as bad, if not quite. There are families of Irish gentlefolk come down in the world whose servants, having feasted with them, starve with them. One such servant I knew who managed the whole finances of the family, and laid out the few coins to the greatest advantage, allotting the supplies with a carefulness which must have been bitter to her Irish heart. If the family lived too well at the beginning of the week, it must go hungry at the end. In an Irish house the young ladies and gentlemen are very often found in the kitchen, not in pursuit of the housewifely virtues, but for social reasons. The kitchen-fire is the best "to have a heat by." The cook will rake out the ashes and make the fire bright for Master Rody or Miss Sheila to warm their feet by; and in the kitchen Irish children of the gentle class get filled to the lips with the peculiarly awful ghost-stories of the Celt, with old songs and charms and folklore of one sort or another; sometimes, too, with old legends and stories which make young rebels of the children of the garrison and perhaps old rebels as well. There is no nurse so warm and comfortable as a good Irish nurse, as the little children of the Irish nobility and gentry--invading or planted families, very often--found, drawing life from an Irish breast, and wrapped up in a comfortable Irish embrace from all ghosts and hobgoblins. I remember the young daughter of very Evangelical gentlepeople in Ireland who used to spend her Sunday afternoons, with the full knowledge of her parents, seated on the kitchen-table reading Papistical newspapers to the servants, whom she adored, and who adored her with at least an equal warmth. Her gold watch was the gift of one old servant; and on the eve of her marriage to a London curate she found pinned to her pincushion an envelope containing a five-pound note--"For my darling Miss Biddy, from Mary Anne." It has always seemed to me that the tie is closer and tenderer between the Irish Catholic servant and the Protestant gentry than when the employers are also of the old religion. It is certain that in the burning of Scullabogue Barn, and at the Bridge of Wexford, during the Rebellion, Catholic servants perished with their Protestant employers. The tender concern that may be shown for you by an Irish person of whom you ask the way will stir you to wonderment. "Is it permissible to walk on the sea-wall?" a friend of mine asked of an Irish policeman. "Sure it is; but I wouldn't do it if I was you. It 'ud be terrible cowld," was the reply. "I wouldn't walk it if I was you," you may be answered when you ask how far a place is; "you wouldn't be killin' yourself--now, would you?" When ladies first rode the bicycle in Ireland they excited different emotions, according to the character of the looker-on. "What would the blessed saints in heaven think of you?" the old women used to call out; but one old man had only compassion for the female cyclist. "God help yez," he said; "'tis killin' yourselves yez'll be with them little wheely things, bad luck to them!" You will find the soft, insinuating ways in a shop when you make a purchase or mean to make one. "It looks lovely on you," a shop-assistant will say, with an air of being dispassionate. "Can you send this home to-night?" you ask, having concluded your purchase. "Sure, why not?" If you are English-born and bred, you will be at a loss to say why not. A policeman in Dublin will direct you: "You take that turn over there, an' you go along till you meet a turn on your left, but you'll take no notice of that; you'll keep straight on, and there'll be another turn, but you'll take no notice of that. An' after that, you'll come to a third turn, an' you'll take notice of that, for that's the street you're after." I recognized a countryman of my own in London when I asked a policeman the way and demurred from his instructions, remarking that I had been told to approach by a different way. "Sure you can, if you like," he said, looking at me with his head on one side, "but I wouldn't if I was you; it 'ud be a terrible long way round." An Irishman will always agree with you if he can--or even if he can't. It is the Irish politeness. If you were to say to him, "Three years ago to-day I had as bad a cold as ever I had in my life," he will say, "To be sure you had; I remember it well. 'Twas a terrible dose of a cowld, all out." This makes the Irish a very agreeable people to live with if you have not offended them. There are one or two virtues, not of the shining sort, which are hardly virtues at all, but rather vices to the Irish. Thrift is one of these. Another is its cousin, punctuality. No Irishman holds punctuality in honour. Irish time is twenty-five minutes later than English time and takes a deal longer than that to come up with English time. Any time at all will do for an Irishman. "Punctuality is the thief of time" is one of his axioms. Above all things, he despises punctuality about meal-times, and this, I know, will wring an Englishman's withers. An Irish meal is served whenever it is ready; and if it is never ready at all, the Irishman will take a snack when he feels he really wants it. No Irishman is ill-tempered because his meals are late. He prides himself on his indifference to food as one of the things that set him apart from the unspiritual Saxon. You could hardly offend an Irishman more than by accusing him of having a hearty appetite. His meals are all movable feasts. Oddly enough, the Anglo-Irishman is quite as unpunctual as the Celt, if not more so. He assimilates the ways of the Celt, while the Celt remains untouched by his. The Anglo-Irishman is often as good a trencherman as his English brother, but he would never think of disturbing the machinery of Irish life so far as to expect his dinner at a given time. I have been asked to dine in Dublin and have arrived punctually, only to find the tradesmen's carts delivering the dinner; and, having grown accustomed to English ways, I have made a frantic effort to arrive at the appointed hour for a luncheon-party, only to find the hostess lying down with toothache, and the drawing-room fire still unlit. To be sure, you may arrive at a house at any hour of the day in Ireland and fall in for a meal. If you arrive at a time within at all measurable distance of meal-time, you shall not go forth unfed, although you be press-ganged to stay. I shall never forget the horror of my Irish friends when they heard that one was allowed to leave an English house with the dinner-bell in one's ears. "It must be an _awful_ country," they said; then, detecting something of guilt, perhaps, in my air, they ventured: "But that wouldn't happen in an _Irish_ house--not in _yours_." When I confessed that it had happened in mine they changed the subject. If they had allowed themselves to speak, they would have said too much. I know an Irishman settled in England--a North of Ireland, that is to say a Scotch-Irishman, and a man of business--who always has the motor round for a spin as soon as the dinner-bell rings. He cannot keep his English servants, and is grieved at their perversity, which would keep him chained to a hot dining-room on an ideal evening for a motor-run. His guests stay their hunger with sherry and biscuits while they await his return. 
4381	----	THE ARAN ISLANDS BY JOHN M. SYNGE Introduction The geography of the Aran Islands is very simple, yet it may need a word to itself. There are three islands: Aranmor, the north island, about nine miles long; Inishmaan, the middle island, about three miles and a half across, and nearly round in form; and the south island, Inishere--in Irish, east island,--like the middle island but slightly smaller. They lie about thirty miles from Galway, up the centre of the bay, but they are not far from the cliffs of County Clare, on the south, or the corner of Connemara on the north. Kilronan, the principal village on Aranmor, has been so much changed by the fishing industry, developed there by the Congested Districts Board, that it has now very little to distinguish it from any fishing village on the west coast of Ireland. The other islands are more primitive, but even on them many changes are being made, that it was not worth while to deal with in the text. In the pages that follow I have given a direct account of my life on the islands, and of what I met with among them, inventing nothing, and changing nothing that is essential. As far as possible, however, I have disguised the identity of the people I speak of, by making changes in their names, and in the letters I quote, and by altering some local and family relationships. I have had nothing to say about them that was not wholly in their favour, but I have made this disguise to keep them from ever feeling that a too direct use had been made of their kindness, and friendship, for which I am more grateful than it is easy to say. Part I I am in Aranmor, sitting over a turf fire, listening to a murmur of Gaelic that is rising from a little public-house under my room. The steamer which comes to Aran sails according to the tide, and it was six o'clock this morning when we left the quay of Galway in a dense shroud of mist. A low line of shore was visible at first on the right between the movement of the waves and fog, but when we came further it was lost sight of, and nothing could be seen but the mist curling in the rigging, and a small circle of foam. There were few passengers; a couple of men going out with young pigs tied loosely in sacking, three or four young girls who sat in the cabin with their heads completely twisted in their shawls, and a builder, on his way to repair the pier at Kilronan, who walked up and down and talked with me. In about three hours Aran came in sight. A dreary rock appeared at first sloping up from the sea into the fog; then, as we drew nearer, a coast-guard station and the village. A little later I was wandering out along the one good roadway of the island, looking over low walls on either side into small flat fields of naked rock. I have seen nothing so desolate. Grey floods of water were sweeping everywhere upon the limestone, making at limes a wild torrent of the road, which twined continually over low hills and cavities in the rock or passed between a few small fields of potatoes or grass hidden away in corners that had shelter. Whenever the cloud lifted I could see the edge of the sea below me on the right, and the naked ridge of the island above me on the other side. Occasionally I passed a lonely chapel or schoolhouse, or a line of stone pillars with crosses above them and inscriptions asking a prayer for the soul of the person they commemorated. I met few people; but here and there a band of tall girls passed me on their way to Kilronan, and called out to me with humorous wonder, speaking English with a slight foreign intonation that differed a good deal from the brogue of Galway. The rain and cold seemed to have no influence on their vitality and as they hurried past me with eager laughter and great talking in Gaelic, they left the wet masses of rock more desolate than before. A little after midday when I was coming back one old half-blind man spoke to me in Gaelic, but, in general, I was surprised at the abundance and fluency of the foreign tongue. In the afternoon the rain continued, so I sat here in the inn looking out through the mist at a few men who were unlading hookers that had come in with turf from Connemara, and at the long-legged pigs that were playing in the surf. As the fishermen came in and out of the public-house underneath my room, I could hear through the broken panes that a number of them still used the Gaelic, though it seems to be falling out of use among the younger people of this village. The old woman of the house had promised to get me a teacher of the language, and after a while I heard a shuffling on the stairs, and the old dark man I had spoken to in the morning groped his way into the room. I brought him over to the fire, and we talked for many hours. He told me that he had known Petrie and Sir William Wilde, and many living antiquarians, and had taught Irish to Dr. Finck and Dr. Pedersen, and given stories to Mr. Curtin of America. A little after middle age he had fallen over a cliff, and since then he had had little eyesight, and a trembling of his hands and head. As we talked he sat huddled together over the fire, shaking and blind, yet his face was indescribably pliant, lighting up with an ecstasy of humour when he told me anything that had a point of wit or malice, and growing sombre and desolate again when he spoke of religion or the fairies. He had great confidence in his own powers and talent, and in the superiority of his stories over all other stories in the world. When we were speaking of Mr. Curtin, he told me that this gentleman had brought out a volume of his Aran stories in America, and made five hundred pounds by the sale of them. 'And what do you think he did then?' he continued; 'he wrote a book of his own stories after making that lot of money with mine. And he brought them out, and the divil a half-penny did he get for them. Would you believe that?' Afterwards he told me how one of his children had been taken by the fairies. One day a neighbor was passing, and she said, when she saw it on the road, 'That's a fine child.' Its mother tried to say 'God bless it,' but something choked the words in her throat. A while later they found a wound on its neck, and for three nights the house was filled with noises. 'I never wear a shirt at night,' he said, 'but I got up out of my bed, all naked as I was, when I heard the noises in the house, and lighted a light, but there was nothing in it.' Then a dummy came and made signs of hammering nails in a coffin. The next day the seed potatoes were full of blood, and the child told his mother that he was going to America. That night it died, and 'Believe me,' said the old man, 'the fairies were in it.' When he went away, a little bare-footed girl was sent up with turf and the bellows to make a fire that would last for the evening. She was shy, yet eager to talk, and told me that she had good spoken Irish, and was learning to read it in the school, and that she had been twice to Galway, though there are many grown women in the place who have never set a foot upon the mainland. The rain has cleared off, and I have had my first real introduction to the island and its people. I went out through Killeany--the poorest village in Aranmor--to a long neck of sandhill that runs out into the sea towards the south-west. As I lay there on the grass the clouds lifted from the Connemara mountains and, for a moment, the green undulating foreground, backed in the distance by a mass of hills, reminded me of the country near Rome. Then the dun top-sail of a hooker swept above the edge of the sandhill and revealed the presence of the sea. As I moved on a boy and a man came down from the next village to talk to me, and I found that here, at least, English was imperfectly understood. When I asked them if there were any trees in the island they held a hurried consultation in Gaelic, and then the man asked if 'tree' meant the same thing as 'bush,' for if so there were a few in sheltered hollows to the east. They walked on with me to the sound which separates this island from Inishmaan--the middle island of the group--and showed me the roll from the Atlantic running up between two walls of cliff. They told me that several men had stayed on Inishmaan to learn Irish, and the boy pointed out a line of hovels where they had lodged running like a belt of straw round the middle of the island. The place looked hardly fit for habitation. There was no green to be seen, and no sign of the people except these beehive-like roofs, and the outline of a Dun that stood out above them against the edge of the sky. After a while my companions went away and two other boys came and walked at my heels, till I turned and made them talk to me. They spoke at first of their poverty, and then one of them said--'I dare say you do have to pay ten shillings a week in the hotel?' 'More,' I answered. 'Twelve?' 'More.' 'Fifteen?' 'More still.' Then he drew back and did not question me any further, either thinking that I had lied to check his curiosity, or too awed by my riches to continue. Repassing Killeany I was joined by a man who had spent twenty years in America, where he had lost his health and then returned, so long ago that he had forgotten English and could hardly make me understand him. He seemed hopeless, dirty and asthmatic, and after going with me for a few hundred yards he stopped and asked for coppers. I had none left, so I gave him a fill of tobacco, and he went back to his hovel. When he was gone, two little girls took their place behind me and I drew them in turn into conversation. They spoke with a delicate exotic intonation that was full of charm, and told me with a sort of chant how they guide 'ladies and gintlemins' in the summer to all that is worth seeing in their neighbourhood, and sell them pampooties and maidenhair ferns, which are common among the rocks. We were now in Kilronan, and as we parted they showed me holes in their own pampooties, or cowskin sandals, and asked me the price of new ones. I told them that my purse was empty, and then with a few quaint words of blessing they turned away from me and went down to the pier. All this walk back had been extraordinarily fine. The intense insular clearness one sees only in Ireland, and after rain, was throwing out every ripple in the sea and sky, and every crevice in the hills beyond the bay. This evening an old man came to see me, and said he had known a relative of mine who passed some time on this island forty-three years ago. 'I was standing under the pier-wall mending nets,' he said, 'when you came off the steamer, and I said to myself in that moment, if there is a man of the name of Synge left walking the world, it is that man yonder will be he.' He went on to complain in curiously simple yet dignified language of the changes that have taken place here since he left the island to go to sea before the end of his childhood. 'I have come back,' he said, 'to live in a bit of a house with my sister. The island is not the same at all to what it was. It is little good I can get from the people who are in it now, and anything I have to give them they don't care to have.' From what I hear this man seems to have shut himself up in a world of individual conceits and theories, and to live aloof at his trade of net-mending, regarded by the other islanders with respect and half-ironical sympathy. A little later when I went down to the kitchen I found two men from Inishmaan who had been benighted on the island. They seemed a simpler and perhaps a more interesting type than the people here, and talked with careful English about the history of the Duns, and the Book of Ballymote, and the Book of Kells, and other ancient MSS., with the names of which they seemed familiar. In spite of the charm of my teacher, the old blind man I met the day of my arrival, I have decided to move on to Inishmaan, where Gaelic is more generally used, and the life is perhaps the most primitive that is left in Europe. I spent all this last day with my blind guide, looking at the antiquities that abound in the west or north-west of the island. As we set out I noticed among the groups of girls who smiled at our fellowship--old Mourteen says we are like the cuckoo with its pipit--a beautiful oval face with the singularly spiritual expression that is so marked in one type of the West Ireland women. Later in the day, as the old man talked continually of the fairies and the women they have taken, it seemed that there was a possible link between the wild mythology that is accepted on the islands and the strange beauty of the women. At midday we rested near the ruins of a house, and two beautiful boys came up and sat near us. Old Mourteen asked them why the house was in ruins, and who had lived in it. 'A rich farmer built it a while since,' they said, 'but after two years he was driven away by the fairy host.' The boys came on with us some distance to the north to visit one of the ancient beehive dwellings that is still in perfect preservation. When we crawled in on our hands and knees, and stood up in the gloom of the interior, old Mourteen took a freak of earthly humour and began telling what he would have done if he could have come in there when he was a young man and a young girl along with him. Then he sat down in the middle of the floor and began to recite old Irish poetry, with an exquisite purity of intonation that brought tears to my eyes though I understood but little of the meaning. On our way home he gave me the Catholic theory of the fairies. When Lucifer saw himself in the glass he thought himself equal with God. Then the Lord threw him out of Heaven, and all the angels that belonged to him. While He was 'chucking them out,' an archangel asked Him to spare some of them, and those that were falling are in the air still, and have power to wreck ships, and to work evil in the world. From this he wandered off into tedious matters of theology, and repeated many long prayers and sermons in Irish that he had heard from the priests. A little further on we came to a slated house, and I asked him who was living in it. 'A kind of a schoolmistress,' he said; then his old face puckered with a gleam of pagan malice. 'Ah, master,' he said, 'wouldn't it be fine to be in there, and to be kissing her?' A couple of miles from this village we turned aside to look at an old ruined church of the Ceathair Aluinn (The Four Beautiful Persons), and a holy well near it that is famous for cures of blindness and epilepsy. As we sat near the well a very old man came up from a cottage near the road, and told me how it had become famous. 'A woman of Sligo had a son who was born blind, and one night she dreamed that she saw an island with a blessed well in it that could cure her son. She told her dream in the morning, and an old man said it was of Aran she was after dreaming. 'She brought her son down by the coast of Galway, and came out in a curagh, and landed below where you see a bit of a cove. 'She walked up then to the house of my father--God rest his soul--and she told them what she was looking for. 'My father said that there was a well like what she had dreamed of, and that he would send a boy along with her to show her the way. "There's no need, at all," said she; "haven't I seen it all in my dream?" 'Then she went out with the child and walked up to this well, and she kneeled down and began saying her prayers. Then she put her hand out for the water, and put it on his eyes, and the moment it touched him he called out: "O mother, look at the pretty flowers!"' After that Mourteen described the feats of poteen drinking and fighting that he did in his youth, and went on to talk of Diarmid, who was the strongest man after Samson, and of one of the beds of Diarmid and Grainne, which is on the east of the island. He says that Diarmid was killed by the druids, who put a burning shirt on him,--a fragment of mythology that may connect Diarmid with the legend of Hercules, if it is not due to the 'learning' in some hedge-school master's ballad. Then we talked about Inishmaan. 'You'll have an old man to talk with you over there,' he said, 'and tell you stories of the fairies, but he's walking about with two sticks under him this ten year. Did ever you hear what it is goes on four legs when it is young, and on two legs after that, and on three legs when it does be old?' I gave him the answer. 'Ah, master,' he said, 'you're a cute one, and the blessing of God be on you. Well, I'm on three legs this minute, but the old man beyond is back on four; I don't know if I'm better than the way he is; he's got his sight and I'm only an old dark man.' I am settled at last on Inishmaan in a small cottage with a continual drone of Gaelic coming from the kitchen that opens into my room. Early this morning the man of the house came over for me with a four-oared curagh--that is, a curagh with four rowers and four oars on either side, as each man uses two--and we set off a little before noon. It gave me a moment of exquisite satisfaction to find myself moving away from civilisation in this rude canvas canoe of a model that has served primitive races since men first went to sea. We had to stop for a moment at a hulk that is anchored in the bay, to make some arrangement for the fish-curing of the middle island, and my crew called out as soon as we were within earshot that they had a man with them who had been in France a month from this day. When we started again, a small sail was run up in the bow, and we set off across the sound with a leaping oscillation that had no resemblance to the heavy movement of a boat. The sail is only used as an aid, so the men continued to row after it had gone up, and as they occupied the four cross-seats I lay on the canvas at the stern and the frame of slender laths, which bent and quivered as the waves passed under them. When we set off it was a brilliant morning of April, and the green, glittering waves seemed to toss the canoe among themselves, yet as we drew nearer this island a sudden thunderstorm broke out behind the rocks we were approaching, and lent a momentary tumult to this still vein of the Atlantic. We landed at a small pier, from which a rude track leads up to the village between small fields and bare sheets of rock like those in Aranmor. The youngest son of my boatman, a boy of about seventeen, who is to be my teacher and guide, was waiting for me at the pier and guided me to his house, while the men settled the curagh and followed slowly with my baggage. My room is at one end of the cottage, with a boarded floor and ceiling, and two windows opposite each other. Then there is the kitchen with earth floor and open rafters, and two doors opposite each other opening into the open air, but no windows. Beyond it there are two small rooms of half the width of the kitchen with one window apiece. The kitchen itself, where I will spend most of my time, is full of beauty and distinction. The red dresses of the women who cluster round the fire on their stools give a glow of almost Eastern richness, and the walls have been toned by the turf-smoke to a soft brown that blends with the grey earth-colour of the floor. Many sorts of fishing-tackle, and the nets and oil-skins of the men, are hung upon the walls or among the open rafters; and right overhead, under the thatch, there is a whole cowskin from which they make pampooties. Every article on these islands has an almost personal character, which gives this simple life, where all art is unknown, something of the artistic beauty of medieval life. The curaghs and spinning-wheels, the tiny wooden barrels that are still much used in the place of earthenware, the home-made cradles, churns, and baskets, are all full of individuality, and being made from materials that are common here, yet to some extent peculiar to the island, they seem to exist as a natural link between the people and the world that is about them. The simplicity and unity of the dress increases in another way the local air of beauty. The women wear red petticoats and jackets of the island wool stained with madder, to which they usually add a plaid shawl twisted round their chests and tied at their back. When it rains they throw another petticoat over their heads with the waistband round their faces, or, if they are young, they use a heavy shawl like those worn in Galway. Occasionally other wraps are worn, and during the thunderstorm I arrived in I saw several girls with men's waistcoats buttoned round their bodies. Their skirts do not come much below the knee, and show their powerful legs in the heavy indigo stockings with which they are all provided. The men wear three colours: the natural wool, indigo, and a grey flannel that is woven of alternate threads of indigo and the natural wool. In Aranmor many of the younger men have adopted the usual fisherman's jersey, but I have only seen one on this island. As flannel is cheap--the women spin the yarn from the wool of their own sheep, and it is then woven by a weaver in Kilronan for fourpence a yard--the men seem to wear an indefinite number of waistcoats and woollen drawers one over the other. They are usually surprised at the lightness of my own dress, and one old man I spoke to for a minute on the pier, when I came ashore, asked me if I was not cold with 'my little clothes.' As I sat in the kitchen to dry the spray from my coat, several men who had seen me walking up came in to me to talk to me, usually murmuring on the threshold, 'The blessing of God on this place,' or some similar words. The courtesy of the old woman of the house is singularly attractive, and though I could not understand much of what she said--she has no English--I could see with how much grace she motioned each visitor to a chair, or stool, according to his age, and said a few words to him till he drifted into our English conversation. For the moment my own arrival is the chief subject of interest, and the men who come in are eager to talk to me. Some of them express themselves more correctly than the ordinary peasant, others use the Gaelic idioms continually and substitute 'he' or 'she' for 'it,' as the neuter pronoun is not found in modern Irish. A few of the men have a curiously full vocabulary, others know only the commonest words in English, and are driven to ingenious devices to express their meaning. Of all the subjects we can talk of war seems their favourite, and the conflict between America and Spain is causing a great deal of excitement. Nearly all the families have relations who have had to cross the Atlantic, and all eat of the flour and bacon that is brought from the United States, so they have a vague fear that 'if anything happened to America,' their own island would cease to be habitable. Foreign languages are another favourite topic, and as these men are bilingual they have a fair notion of what it means to speak and think in many different idioms. Most of the strangers they see on the islands are philological students, and the people have been led to conclude that linguistic studies, particularly Gaelic studies, are the chief occupation of the outside world. 'I have seen Frenchmen, and Danes, and Germans,' said one man, 'and there does be a power a Irish books along with them, and they reading them better than ourselves. Believe me there are few rich men now in the world who are not studying the Gaelic.' They sometimes ask me the French for simple phrases, and when they have listened to the intonation for a moment, most of them are able to reproduce it with admirable precision. When I was going out this morning to walk round the island with Michael, the boy who is teaching me Irish, I met an old man making his way down to the cottage. He was dressed in miserable black clothes which seemed to have come from the mainland, and was so bent with rheumatism that, at a little distance, he looked more like a spider than a human being. Michael told me it was Pat Dirane, the story-teller old Mourteen had spoken of on the other island. I wished to turn back, as he appeared to be on his way to visit me, but Michael would not hear of it. 'He will be sitting by the fire when we come in,' he said; 'let you not be afraid, there will be time enough to be talking to him by and by.' He was right. As I came down into the kitchen some hours later old Pat was still in the chimney-corner, blinking with the turf smoke. He spoke English with remarkable aptness and fluency, due, I believe, to the months he spent in the English provinces working at the harvest when he was a young man. After a few formal compliments he told me how he had been crippled by an attack of the 'old hin' (i.e. the influenza), and had been complaining ever since in addition to his rheumatism. While the old woman was cooking my dinner he asked me if I liked stories, and offered to tell one in English, though he added, it would be much better if I could follow the Gaelic. Then he began:-- There were two farmers in County Clare. One had a son, and the other, a fine rich man, had a daughter. The young man was wishing to marry the girl, and his father told him to try and get her if he thought well, though a power of gold would be wanting to get the like of her. 'I will try,' said the young man. He put all his gold into a bag. Then he went over to the other farm, and threw in the gold in front of him. 'Is that all gold?' said the father of the girl. 'All gold,' said O'Conor (the young man's name was O'Conor). 'It will not weigh down my daughter,' said the father. 'We'll see that,' said O'Conor. Then they put them in the scales, the daughter in one side and the gold in the other. The girl went down against the ground, so O'Conor took his bag and went out on the road. As he was going along he came to where there was a little man, and he standing with his back against the wall. 'Where are you going with the bag?' said the little man. 'Going home,' said O'Conor. 'Is it gold you might be wanting?' said the man. 'It is, surely,' said O'Conor. 'I'll give you what you are wanting,' said the man, 'and we can bargain in this way--you'll pay me back in a year the gold I give you, or you'll pay me with five pounds cut off your own flesh.' That bargain was made between them. The man gave a bag of gold to O'Conor, and he went back with it, and was married to the young woman. They were rich people, and he built her a grand castle on the cliffs of Clare, with a window that looked out straight over the wild ocean. One day when he went up with his wife to look out over the wild ocean, he saw a ship coming in on the rocks, and no sails on her at all. She was wrecked on the rocks, and it was tea that was in her, and fine silk. O'Conor and his wife went down to look at the wreck, and when the lady O'Conor saw the silk she said she wished a dress of it. They got the silk from the sailors, and when the Captain came up to get the money for it, O'Conor asked him to come again and take his dinner with them. They had a grand dinner, and they drank after it, and the Captain was tipsy. While they were still drinking, a letter came to O'Conor, and it was in the letter that a friend of his was dead, and that he would have to go away on a long journey. As he was getting ready the Captain came to him. 'Are you fond of your wife?' said the Captain. 'I am fond of her,' said O'Conor. 'Will you make me a bet of twenty guineas no man comes near her while you'll be away on the journey?' said the Captain. 'I will bet it,' said O'Conor; and he went away. There was an old hag who sold small things on the road near the castle, and the lady O'Conor allowed her to sleep up in her room in a big box. The Captain went down on the road to the old hag. 'For how much will you let me sleep one night in your box?' said the Captain. 'For no money at all would I do such a thing,' said the hag. 'For ten guineas?' said the Captain. 'Not for ten guineas,' said the hag. 'For twelve guineas?' said the Captain. 'Not for twelve guineas,' said the hag. 'For fifteen guineas?' said the Captain. 'For fifteen I will do it,' said the hag. Then she took him up and hid him in the box. When night came the lady O'Conor walked up into her room, and the Captain watched her through a hole that was in the box. He saw her take off her two rings and put them on a kind of a board that was over her head like a chimney-piece, and take off her clothes, except her shift, and go up into her bed. As soon as she was asleep the Captain came out of his box, and he had some means of making a light, for he lit the candle. He went over to the bed where she was sleeping without disturbing her at all, or doing any bad thing, and he took the two rings off the board, and blew out the light, and went down again into the box. He paused for a moment, and a deep sigh of relief rose from the men and women who had crowded in while the story was going on, till the kitchen was filled with people. As the Captain was coming out of his box the girls, who had appeared to know no English, stopped their spinning and held their breath with expectation. The old man went on-- When O'Conor came back the Captain met him, and told him that he had been a night in his wife's room, and gave him the two rings. O'Conor gave him the twenty guineas of the bet. Then he went up into the castle, and he took his wife up to look out of the window over the wild ocean. While she was looking he pushed her from behind, and she fell down over the cliff into the sea. An old woman was on the shore, and she saw her falling. She went down then to the surf and pulled her out all wet and in great disorder, and she took the wet clothes off her, and put on some old rags belonging to herself. When O'Conor had pushed his wife from the window he went away into the land. After a while the lady O'Conor went out searching for him, and when she had gone here and there a long time in the country, she heard that he was reaping in a field with sixty men. She came to the field and she wanted to go in, but the gate-man would not open the gate for her. Then the owner came by, and she told him her story. He brought her in, and her husband was there, reaping, but he never gave any sign of knowing her. She showed him to the owner, and he made the man come out and go with his wife. Then the lady O'Conor took him out on the road where there were horses, and they rode away. When they came to the place where O'Conor had met the little man, he was there on the road before them. 'Have you my gold on you?' said the man. 'I have not,' said O'Conor. 'Then you'll pay me the flesh off your body,' said the man. They went into a house, and a knife was brought, and a clean white cloth was put on the table, and O'Conor was put upon the cloth. Then the little man was going to strike the lancet into him, when says lady O'Conor-- 'Have you bargained for five pounds of flesh?' 'For five pounds of flesh,' said the man. 'Have you bargained for any drop of his blood?' said lady O'Conor. 'For no blood,' said the man. 'Cut out the flesh,' said lady O'Conor, 'but if you spill one drop of his blood I'll put that through you.' And she put a pistol to his head. The little man went away and they saw no more of him. When they got home to their castle they made a great supper, and they invited the Captain and the old hag, and the old woman that had pulled the lady O'Conor out of the sea. After they had eaten well the lady O'Conor began, and she said they would all tell their stories. Then she told how she had been saved from the sea, and how she had found her husband. Then the old woman told her story; the way she had found the lady O'Conor wet, and in great disorder, and had brought her in and put on her some old rags of her own. The lady O'Conor asked the Captain for his story; but he said they would get no story from him. Then she took her pistol out of her pocket, and she put it on the edge of the table, and she said that any one that would not tell his story would get a bullet into him. Then the Captain told the way he had got into the box, and come over to her bed without touching her at all, and had taken away the rings. Then the lady O'Conor took the pistol and shot the hag through the body, and they threw her over the cliff into the sea. That is my story. It gave me a strange feeling of wonder to hear this illiterate native of a wet rock in the Atlantic telling a story that is so full of European associations. The incident of the faithful wife takes us beyond Cymbeline to the sunshine on the Arno, and the gay company who went out from Florence to tell narratives of love. It takes us again to the low vineyards of Wurzburg on the Main, where the same tale was told in the middle ages, of the 'Two Merchants and the Faithful Wife of Ruprecht von Wurzburg.' The other portion, dealing with the pound of flesh, has a still wider distribution, reaching from Persia and Egypt to the Gesta Rornanorum, and the Pecorone of Ser Giovanni, a Florentine notary. The present union of the two tales has already been found among the Gaels, and there is a somewhat similar version in Campbell's Popular Tales of the Western Highlands. Michael walks so fast when I am out with him that I cannot pick my steps, and the sharp-edged fossils which abound in the limestone have cut my shoes to pieces. The family held a consultation on them last night, and in the end it was decided to make me a pair of pampooties, which I have been wearing to-day among the rocks. They consist simply of a piece of raw cowskin, with the hair outside, laced over the toe and round the heel with two ends of fishing-line that work round and are tied above the instep. In the evening, when they are taken off, they are placed in a basin of water, as the rough hide cuts the foot and stocking if it is allowed to harden. For the same reason the people often step into the surf during the day, so that their feet are continually moist. At first I threw my weight upon my heels, as one does naturally in a boot, and was a good deal bruised, but after a few hours I learned the natural walk of man, and could follow my guide in any portion of the island. In one district below the cliffs, towards the north, one goes for nearly a mile jumping from one rock to another without a single ordinary step; and here I realized that toes have a natural use, for I found myself jumping towards any tiny crevice in the rock before me, and clinging with an eager grip in which all the muscles of my feet ached from their exertion. The absence of the heavy boot of Europe has preserved to these people the agile walk of the wild animal, while the general simplicity of their lives has given them many other points of physical perfection. Their way of life has never been acted on by anything much more artificial than the nests and burrows of the creatures that live round them, and they seem, in a certain sense, to approach more nearly to the finer types of our aristocracies--who are bred artificially to a natural ideal--than to the labourer or citizen, as the wild horse resembles the thoroughbred rather than the hack or cart-horse. Tribes of the same natural development are, perhaps, frequent in half-civilized countries, but here a touch of the refinement of old societies is blended, with singular effect, among the qualities of the wild animal. While I am walking with Michael some one often comes to me to ask the time of day. Few of the people, however, are sufficiently used to modern time to understand in more than a vague way the convention of the hours, and when I tell them what o'clock it is by my watch they are not satisfied, and ask how long is left them before the twilight. The general knowledge of time on the island depends, curiously enough, on the direction of the wind. Nearly all the cottages are built, like this one, with two doors opposite each other, the more sheltered of which lies open all day to give light to the interior. If the wind is northerly the south door is opened, and the shadow of the door-post moving across the kitchen floor indicates the hour; as soon, however, as the wind changes to the south the other door is opened, and the people, who never think of putting up a primitive dial, are at a loss. This system of doorways has another curious result. It usually happens that all the doors on one side of the village pathway are lying open with women sitting about on the thresholds, while on the other side the doors are shut and there is no sign of life. The moment the wind changes everything is reversed, and sometimes when I come back to the village after an hour's walk there seems to have been a general flight from one side of the way to the other. In my own cottage the change of the doors alters the whole tone of the kitchen, turning it from a brilliantly-lighted room looking out on a yard and laneway to a sombre cell with a superb view of the sea. When the wind is from the north the old woman manages my meals with fair regularity; but on the other days she often makes my tea at three o'clock instead of six. If I refuse it she puts it down to simmer for three hours in the turf, and then brings it in at six o'clock full of anxiety to know if it is warm enough. The old man is suggesting that I should send him a clock when I go away. He'd like to have something from me in the house, he says, the way they wouldn't forget me, and wouldn't a clock be as handy as another thing, and they'd be thinking of me whenever they'd look on its face. The general ignorance of any precise hours in the day makes it impossible for the people to have regular meals. They seem to eat together in the evening, and sometimes in the morning, a little after dawn, before they scatter for their work, but during the day they simply drink a cup of tea and eat a piece of bread, or some potatoes, whenever they are hungry. For men who live in the open air they eat strangely little. Often when Michael has been out weeding potatoes for eight or nine hours without food, he comes in and eats a few slices of home-made bread, and then he is ready to go out with me and wander for hours about the island. They use no animal food except a little bacon and salt fish. The old woman says she would be very ill if she ate fresh meat. Some years ago, before tea, sugar, and flour had come into general use, salt fish was much more the staple article of diet than at present, and, I am told, skin diseases were very common, though they are now rare on the islands. No one who has not lived for weeks among these grey clouds and seas can realise the joy with which the eye rests on the red dresses of the women, especially when a number of them are to be found together, as happened early this morning. I heard that the young cattle were to be shipped for a fair on the mainland, which is to take place in a few days, and I went down on the pier, a little after dawn, to watch them. The bay was shrouded in the greys of coming rain, yet the thinness of the cloud threw a silvery light on the sea, and an unusual depth of blue to the mountains of Connemara. As I was going across the sandhills one dun-sailed hooker glided slowly out to begin her voyage, and another beat up to the pier. Troops of red cattle, driven mostly by the women, were coming up from several directions, forming, with the green of the long tract of grass that separates the sea from the rocks, a new unity of colour. The pier itself was crowded with bullocks and a great number of the people. I noticed one extraordinary girl in the throng who seemed to exert an authority on all who came near her. Her curiously-formed nostrils and narrow chin gave her a witch-like expression, yet the beauty of her hair and skin made her singularly attractive. When the empty hooker was made fast its deck was still many feet below the level of the pier, so the animals were slung down by a rope from the mast-head, with much struggling and confusion. Some of them made wild efforts to escape, nearly carrying their owners with them into the sea, but they were handled with wonderful dexterity, and there was no mishap. When the open hold was filled with young cattle, packed as tightly as they could stand, the owners with their wives or sisters, who go with them to prevent extravagance in Galway, jumped down on the deck, and the voyage was begun. Immediately afterwards a rickety old hooker beat up with turf from Connemara, and while she was unlading all the men sat along the edge of the pier and made remarks upon the rottenness of her timber till the owners grew wild with rage. The tide was now too low for more boats to come to the pier, so a move was made to a strip of sand towards the south-east, where the rest of the cattle were shipped through the surf. Here the hooker was anchored about eighty yards from the shore, and a curagh was rowed round to tow out the animals. Each bullock was caught in its turn and girded with a sling of rope by which it could be hoisted on board. Another rope was fastened to the horns and passed out to a man in the stem of the curagh. Then the animal was forced down through the surf and out of its depth before it had much time to struggle. Once fairly swimming, it was towed out to the hooker and dragged on board in a half-drowned condition. The freedom of the sand seemed to give a stronger spirit of revolt, and some of the animals were only caught after a dangerous struggle. The first attempt was not always successful, and I saw one three-year-old lift two men with his horns, and drag another fifty yards along the sand by his tail before he was subdued. While this work was going on a crowd of girls and women collected on the edge of the cliff and kept shouting down a confused babble of satire and praise. When I came back to the cottage I found that among the women who had gone to the mainland was a daughter of the old woman's, and that her baby of about nine months had been left in the care of its grandmother. As I came in she was busy getting ready my dinner, and old Pat Dirane, who usually comes at this hour, was rocking the cradle. It is made of clumsy wicker-work, with two pieces of rough wood fastened underneath to serve as rockers, and all the time I am in my room I can hear it bumping on the floor with extraordinary violence. When the baby is awake it sprawls on the floor, and the old woman sings it a variety of inarticulate lullabies that have much musical charm. Another daughter, who lives at home, has gone to the fair also, so the old woman has both the baby and myself to take care of as well as a crowd of chickens that live in a hole beside the fire, Often when I want tea, or when the old woman goes for water, I have to take my own turn at rocking the cradle. One of the largest Duns, or pagan forts, on the islands, is within a stone's throw of my cottage, and I often stroll up there after a dinner of eggs or salt pork, to smoke drowsily on the stones. The neighbours know my habit, and not infrequently some one wanders up to ask what news there is in the last paper I have received, or to make inquiries about the American war. If no one comes I prop my book open with stones touched by the Fir-bolgs, and sleep for hours in the delicious warmth of the sun. The last few days I have almost lived on the round walls, for, by some miscalculation, our turf has come to an end, and the fires are kept up with dried cow-dung--a common fuel on the island--the smoke from which filters through into my room and lies in blue layers above my table and bed. Fortunately the weather is fine, and I can spend my days in the sunshine. When I look round from the top of these walls I can see the sea on nearly every side, stretching away to distant ranges of mountains on the north and south. Underneath me to the east there is the one inhabited district of the island, where I can see red figures moving about the cottages, sending up an occasional fragment of conversation or of old island melodies. The baby is teething, and has been crying for several days. Since his mother went to the fair they have been feeding him with cow's milk, often slightly sour, and giving him, I think, more than he requires. This morning, however, he seemed so unwell they sent out to look for a foster-mother in the village, and before long a young woman, who lives a little way to the east, came in and restored him to his natural food. A few hours later, when I came into the kitchen to talk to old Pat, another woman performed the same kindly office, this time a person with a curiously whimsical expression. Pat told me a story of an unfaithful wife, which I will give further down, and then broke into a moral dispute with the visitor, which caused immense delight to some young men who had come down to listen to the story. Unfortunately it was carried on so rapidly in Gaelic that I lost most of the points. This old man talks usually in a mournful tone about his ill-health, and his death, which he feels to be approaching, yet he has occasional touches of humor that remind me of old Mourteen on the north island. To-day a grotesque twopenny doll was lying on the floor near the old woman. He picked it up and examined it as if comparing it with her. Then he held it up: 'Is it you is after bringing that thing into the world,' he said, 'woman of the house?' Here is the story:-- One day I was travelling on foot from Galway to Dublin, and the darkness came on me and I ten miles from the town I was wanting to pass the night in. Then a hard rain began to fall and I was tired walking, so when I saw a sort of a house with no roof on it up against the road, I got in the way the walls would give me shelter. As I was looking round I saw a light in some trees two perches off, and thinking any sort of a house would be better than where I was, I got over a wall and went up to the house to look in at the window. I saw a dead man laid on a table, and candles lighted, and a woman watching him. I was frightened when I saw him, but it was raining hard, and I said to myself, if he was dead he couldn't hurt me. Then I knocked on the door and the woman came and opened it. 'Good evening, ma'am,' says I. 'Good evening kindly, stranger,' says she, 'Come in out of the rain.' Then she took me in and told me her husband was after dying on her, and she was watching him that night. 'But it's thirsty you'll be, stranger,' says she, 'Come into the parlour.' Then she took me into the parlour--and it was a fine clean house--and she put a cup, with a saucer under it, on the table before me with fine sugar and bread. When I'd had a cup of tea I went back into the kitchen where the dead man was lying, and she gave me a fine new pipe off the table with a drop of spirits. 'Stranger,' says she, 'would you be afeard to be alone with himself?' 'Not a bit in the world, ma'am,' says I; 'he that's dead can do no hurt,' Then she said she wanted to go over and tell the neighbours the way her husband was after dying on her, and she went out and locked the door behind her. I smoked one pipe, and I leaned out and took another off the table. I was smoking it with my hand on the back of my chair--the way you are yourself this minute, God bless you--and I looking on the dead man, when he opened his eyes as wide as myself and looked at me. 'Don't be afraid, stranger,' said the dead man; 'I'm not dead at all in the world. Come here and help me up and I'll tell you all about it.' Well, I went up and took the sheet off of him, and I saw that he had a fine clean shirt on his body, and fine flannel drawers. He sat up then, and says he-- 'I've got a bad wife, stranger, and I let on to be dead the way I'd catch her goings on.' Then he got two fine sticks he had to keep down his wife, and he put them at each side of his body, and he laid himself out again as if he was dead. In half an hour his wife came back and a young man along with her. Well, she gave him his tea, and she told him he was tired, and he would do right to go and lie down in the bedroom. The young man went in and the woman sat down to watch by the dead man. A while after she got up and 'Stranger,' says she, 'I'm going in to get the candle out of the room; I'm thinking the young man will be asleep by this time.' She went into the bedroom, but the divil a bit of her came back. Then the dead man got up, and he took one stick, and he gave the other to myself. We went in and saw them lying together with her head on his arm. The dead man hit him a blow with the stick so that the blood out of him leapt up and hit the gallery. That is my story. In stories of this kind he always speaks in the first person, with minute details to show that he was actually present at the scenes that are described. At the beginning of this story he gave me a long account of what had made him be on his way to Dublin on that occasion, and told me about all the rich people he was going to see in the finest streets of the city. A week of sweeping fogs has passed over and given me a strange sense of exile and desolation. I walk round the island nearly every day, yet I can see nothing anywhere but a mass of wet rock, a strip of surf, and then a tumult of waves. The slaty limestone has grown black with the water that is dripping on it, and wherever I turn there is the same grey obsession twining and wreathing itself among the narrow fields, and the same wail from the wind that shrieks and whistles in the loose rubble of the walls. At first the people do not give much attention to the wilderness that is round them, but after a few days their voices sink in the kitchen, and their endless talk of pigs and cattle falls to the whisper of men who are telling stories in a haunted house. The rain continues; but this evening a number of young men were in the kitchen mending nets, and the bottle of poteen was drawn from its hiding-place. One cannot think of these people drinking wine on the summit of this crumbling precipice, but their grey poteen, which brings a shock of joy to the blood, seems predestined to keep sanity in men who live forgotten in these worlds of mist. I sat in the kitchen part of the evening to feel the gaiety that was rising, and when I came into my own room after dark, one of the sons came in every time the bottle made its round, to pour me out my share. It has cleared, and the sun is shining with a luminous warmth that makes the whole island glisten with the splendor of a gem, and fills the sea and sky with a radiance of blue light. I have come out to lie on the rocks where I have the black edge of the north island in front of me, Galway Bay, too blue almost to look at, on my right, the Atlantic on my left, a perpendicular cliff under my ankles, and over me innumerable gulls that chase each other in a white cirrus of wings. A nest of hooded crows is somewhere near me, and one of the old birds is trying to drive me away by letting itself fall like a stone every few moments, from about forty yards above me to within reach of my hand. Gannets are passing up and down above the sound, swooping at times after a mackerel, and further off I can see the whole fleet of hookers coming out from Kilronan for a night's fishing in the deep water to the west. As I lie here hour after hour, I seem to enter into the wild pastimes of the cliff, and to become a companion of the cormorants and crows. Many of the birds display themselves before me with the vanity of barbarians, performing in strange evolutions as long as I am in sight, and returning to their ledge of rock when I am gone. Some are wonderfully expert, and cut graceful figures for an inconceivable time without a flap of their wings, growing so absorbed in their own dexterity that they often collide with one another in their flight, an incident always followed by a wild outburst of abuse. Their language is easier than Gaelic, and I seem to understand the greater part of their cries, though I am not able to answer. There is one plaintive note which they take up in the middle of their usual babble with extraordinary effect, and pass on from one to another along the cliff with a sort of an inarticulate wail, as if they remembered for an instant the horror of the mist. On the low sheets of rock to the east I can see a number of red and grey figures hurrying about their work. The continual passing in this island between the misery of last night and the splendor of to-day, seems to create an affinity between the moods of these people and the moods of varying rapture and dismay that are frequent in artists, and in certain forms of alienation. Yet it is only in the intonation of a few sentences or some old fragment of melody that I catch the real spirit of the island, for in general the men sit together and talk with endless iteration of the tides and fish, and of the price of kelp in Connemara. After Mass this morning an old woman was buried. She lived in the cottage next mine, and more than once before noon I heard a faint echo of-the keen. I did not go to the wake for fear my presence might jar upon the mourners, but all last evening I could hear the strokes of a hammer in the yard, where, in the middle of a little crowd of idlers, the next of kin laboured slowly at the coffin. To-day, before the hour for the funeral, poteen was served to a number of men who stood about upon the road, and a portion was brought to me in my room. Then the coffin was carried out sewn loosely in sailcloth, and held near the ground by three cross-poles lashed upon the top. As we moved down to the low eastern portion of the island, nearly all the men, and all the oldest women, wearing petticoats over their heads, came out and joined in the procession. While the grave was being opened the women sat down among the flat tombstones, bordered with a pale fringe of early bracken, and began the wild keen, or crying for the dead. Each old woman, as she took her turn in the leading recitative, seemed possessed for the moment with a profound ecstasy of grief, swaying to and fro, and bending her forehead to the stone before her, while she called out to the dead with a perpetually recurring chant of sobs. All round the graveyard other wrinkled women, looking out from under the deep red petticoats that cloaked them, rocked themselves with the same rhythm, and intoned the inarticulate chant that is sustained by all as an accompaniment. The morning had been beautifully fine, but as they lowered the coffin into the grave, thunder rumbled overhead and hailstones hissed among the bracken. In Inishmaan one is forced to believe in a sympathy between man and nature, and at this moment when the thunder sounded a death-peal of extraordinary grandeur above the voices of the women, I could see the faces near me stiff and drawn with emotion. When the coffin was in the grave, and the thunder had rolled away across the hills of Clare, the keen broke out again more passionately than before. This grief of the keen is no personal complaint for the death of one woman over eighty years, but seems to contain the whole passionate rage that lurks somewhere in every native of the island. In this cry of pain the inner consciousness of the people seems to lay itself bare for an instant, and to reveal the mood of beings who feel their isolation in the face of a universe that wars on them with winds and seas. They are usually silent, but in the presence of death all outward show of indifference or patience is forgotten, and they shriek with pitiable despair before the horror of the fate to which they are all doomed. Before they covered the coffin an old man kneeled down by the grave and repeated a simple prayer for the dead. There was an irony in these words of atonement and Catholic belief spoken by voices that were still hoarse with the cries of pagan desperation. A little beyond the grave I saw a line of old women who had recited in the keen sitting in the shadow of a wall beside the roofless shell of the church. They were still sobbing and shaken with grief, yet they were beginning to talk again of the daily trifles that veil from them the terror of the world. When we had all come out of the graveyard, and two men had rebuilt the hole in the wall through which the coffin had been carried in, we walked back to the village, talking of anything, and joking of anything, as if merely coming from the boat-slip, or the pier. One man told me of the poteen drinking that takes place at some funerals. 'A while since,' he said, 'there were two men fell down in the graveyard while the drink was on them. The sea was rough that day, the way no one could go to bring the doctor, and one of the men never woke again, and found death that night.' The other day the men of this house made a new field. There was a slight bank of earth under the wall of the yard, and another in the corner of the cabbage garden. The old man and his eldest son dug out the clay, with the care of men working in a gold-mine, and Michael packed it in panniers--there are no wheeled vehicles on this island--for transport to a flat rock in a sheltered corner of their holding, where it was mixed with sand and seaweed and spread out in a layer upon the stone. Most of the potato-growing of the island is carried on in fields of this sort--for which the people pay a considerable rent--and if the season is at all dry, their hope of a fair crop is nearly always disappointed. It is now nine days since rain has fallen, and the people are filled with anxiety, although the sun has not yet been hot enough to do harm. The drought is also causing a scarcity of water. There are a few springs on this side of the island, but they come only from a little distance, and in hot weather are not to be relied on. The supply for this house is carried up in a water-barrel by one of the women. If it is drawn off at once it is not very nauseous, but if it has lain, as it often does, for some hours in the barrel, the smell, colour, and taste are unendurable. The water for washing is also coming short, and as I walk round the edges of the sea, I often come on a girl with her petticoats tucked up round her, standing in a pool left by the tide and washing her flannels among the sea-anemones and crabs. Their red bodices and white tapering legs make them as beautiful as tropical sea-birds, as they stand in a frame of seaweeds against the brink of the Atlantic. Michael, however, is a little uneasy when they are in sight, and I cannot pause to watch them. This habit of using the sea water for washing causes a good deal of rheumatism on the island, for the salt lies in the clothes and keeps them continually moist. The people have taken advantage of this dry moment to begin the burning of the kelp, and all the islands are lying in a volume of grey smoke. There will not be a very large quantity this year, as the people are discouraged by the uncertainty of the market, and do not care to undertake the task of manufacture without a certainty of profit. The work needed to form a ton of kelp is considerable. The seaweed is collected from the rocks after the storms of autumn and winter, dried on fine days, and then made up into a rick, where it is left till the beginning of June. It is then burnt in low kilns on the shore, an affair that takes from twelve to twenty-four hours of continuous hard work, though I understand the people here do not manage well and spoil a portion of what they produce by burning it more than is required. The kiln holds about two tons of molten kelp, and when full it is loosely covered with stones, and left to cool. In a few days the substance is as hard as the limestone, and has to be broken with crowbars before it can be placed in curaghs for transport to Kilronan, where it is tested to determine the amount of iodine contained, and paid for accordingly. In former years good kelp would bring seven pounds a ton, now four pounds are not always reached. In Aran even manufacture is of interest. The low flame-edged kiln, sending out dense clouds of creamy smoke, with a band of red and grey clothed workers moving in the haze, and usually some petticoated boys and women who come down with drink, forms a scene with as much variety and colour as any picture from the East. The men feel in a certain sense the distinction of their island, and show me their work with pride. One of them said to me yesterday, 'I'm thinking you never saw the like of this work before this day?' 'That is true,' I answered, 'I never did.' 'Bedad, then,' he said, 'isn't it a great wonder that you've seen France and Germany, and the Holy Father, and never seen a man making kelp till you come to Inishmaan.' All the horses from this island are put out on grass among the hills of Connemara from June to the end of September, as there is no grazing here during the summer. Their shipping and transport is even more difficult than that of the homed cattle. Most of them are wild Connemara ponies, and their great strength and timidity make them hard to handle on the narrow pier, while in the hooker itself it is not easy to get them safely on their feet in the small space that is available. They are dealt with in the same way as for the bullocks I have spoken of already, but the excitement becomes much more intense, and the storm of Gaelic that rises the moment a horse is shoved from the pier, till it is safely in its place, is indescribable. Twenty boys and men howl and scream with agitation, cursing and exhorting, without knowing, most of the time, what they are saying. Apart, however, from this primitive babble, the dexterity and power of the men are displayed to more advantage than in anything I have seen hitherto. I noticed particularly the owner of a hooker from the north island that was loaded this morning. He seemed able to hold up a horse by his single weight when it was swinging from the masthead, and preserved a humorous calm even in moments of the wildest excitement. Sometimes a large mare would come down sideways on the backs of the other horses, and kick there till the hold seemed to be filled with a mass of struggling centaurs, for the men themselves often leap down to try and save the foals from injury. The backs of the horses put in first are often a good deal cut by the shoes of the others that arrive on top of them, but otherwise they do not seem to be much the worse, and as they are not on their way to a fair, it is not of much consequence in what condition they come to land. There is only one bit and saddle in the island, which are used by the priest, who rides from the chapel to the pier when he has held the service on Sunday. The islanders themselves ride with a simple halter and a stick, yet sometimes travel, at least in the larger island, at a desperate gallop. As the horses usually have panniers, the rider sits sideways over the withers, and if the panniers are empty they go at full speed in this position without anything to hold to. More than once in Aranmor I met a party going out west with empty panniers from Kilronan. Long before they came in sight I could hear a clatter of hoofs, and then a whirl of horses would come round a corner at full gallop with their heads out, utterly indifferent to the slender halter that is their only check. They generally travel in single file with a few yards between them, and as there is no traffic there is little fear of an accident. Sometimes a woman and a man ride together, but in this case the man sits in the usual position, and the woman sits sideways behind him, and holds him round the waist. Old Pat Dirane continues to come up every day to talk to me, and at times I turn the conversation to his experiences of the fairies. He has seen a good many of them, he says, in different parts of the island, especially in the sandy districts north of the slip. They are about a yard high with caps like the 'peelers' pulled down over their faces. On one occasion he saw them playing ball in the evening just above the slip, and he says I must avoid that place in the morning or after nightfall for fear they might do me mischief. He has seen two women who were 'away' with them, one a young married woman, the other a girl. The woman was standing by a wall, at a spot he described to me with great care, looking out towards the north. Another night he heard a voice crying out in Irish, 'mhathair ta me marbh' ('O mother, I'm killed'), and in the morning there was blood on the wall of his house, and a child in a house not far off was dead. Yesterday he took me aside, and said he would tell me a secret he had never yet told to any person in the world. 'Take a sharp needle,' he said, 'and stick it in under the collar of your coat, and not one of them will be able to have power on you.' Iron is a common talisman with barbarians, but in this case the idea of exquisite sharpness was probably present also, and, perhaps, some feeling for the sanctity of the instrument of toil, a folk-belief that is common in Brittany. The fairies are more numerous in Mayo than in any other county, though they are fond of certain districts in Galway, where the following story is said to have taken place. 'A farmer was in great distress as his crops had failed, and his cow had died on him. One night he told his wife to make him a fine new sack for flour before the next morning; and when it was finished he started off with it before the dawn. 'At that time there was a gentleman who had been taken by the fairies, and made an officer among them, and it was often people would see him and him riding on a white horse at dawn and in the evening. 'The poor man went down to the place where they used to see the officer, and when he came by on his horse, he asked the loan of two hundred and a half of flour, for he was in great want. 'The officer called the fairies out of a hole in the rocks where they stored their wheat, and told them to give the poor man what he was asking. Then he told him to come back and pay him in a year, and rode away. 'When the poor man got home he wrote down the day on a piece of paper, and that day year he came back and paid the officer.' When he had ended his story the old man told me that the fairies have a tenth of all the produce of the country, and make stores of it in the rocks. It is a Holy Day, and I have come up to sit on the Dun while the people are at Mass. A strange tranquility has come over the island this morning, as happens sometimes on Sunday, filling the two circles of sea and sky with the quiet of a church. The one landscape that is here lends itself with singular power to this suggestion of grey luminous cloud. There is no wind, and no definite light. Aranmor seems to sleep upon a mirror, and the hills of Connemara look so near that I am troubled by the width of the bay that lies before them, touched this morning with individual expression one sees sometimes in a lake. On these rocks, where there is no growth of vegetable or animal life, all the seasons are the same, and this June day is so full of autumn that I listen unconsciously for the rustle of dead leaves. The first group of men are coming out of the chapel, followed by a crowd of women, who divide at the gate and troop off in different directions, while the men linger on the road to gossip. The silence is broken; I can hear far off, as if over water, a faint murmur of Gaelic. In the afternoon the sun came out and I was rowed over for a visit to Kilronan. As my men were bringing round the curagh to take me off a headland near the pier, they struck a sunken rock, and came ashore shipping a quantity of water, They plugged the hole with a piece of sacking torn from a bag of potatoes they were taking over for the priest, and we set off with nothing but a piece of torn canvas between us and the Atlantic. Every few hundred yards one of the rowers had to stop and bail, but the hole did not increase. When we were about half way across the sound we met a curagh coming towards us with its sails set. After some shouting in Gaelic, I learned that they had a packet of letters and tobacco for myself. We sidled up as near as was possible with the roll, and my goods were thrown to me wet with spray. After my weeks in Inishmaan, Kilronan seemed an imposing centre of activity. The half-civilized fishermen of the larger island are inclined to despise the simplicity of the life here, and some of them who were standing about when I landed asked me how at all I passed my time with no decent fishing to be looking at. I turned in for a moment to talk to the old couple in the hotel, and then moved on to pay some other visits in the village. Later in the evening I walked out along the northern road, where I met many of the natives of the outlying villages, who had come down to Kilronan for the Holy Day, and were now wandering home in scattered groups. The women and girls, when they had no men with them, usually tried to make fun with me. 'Is it tired you are, stranger?' said one girl. I was walking very slowly, to pass the time before my return to the east. 'Bedad, it is not, little girl,' I answered in Gaelic, 'It is lonely I am.' 'Here is my little sister, stranger, who will give you her arm.' And so it went. Quiet as these women are on ordinary occasions, when two or three of them are gathered together in their holiday petti-coats and shawls, they are as wild and capricious as the women who live in towns. About seven o'clock I got back to Kilronan, and beat up my crew from the public-houses near the bay. With their usual carelessness they had not seen to the leak in the curagh, nor to an oar that was losing the brace that holds it to the toll-pin, and we moved off across the sound at an absurd pace with a deepening pool at our feet. A superb evening light was lying over the island, which made me rejoice at our delay. Looking back there was a golden haze behind the sharp edges of the rock, and a long wake from the sun, which was making jewels of the bubbling left by the oars. The men had had their share of porter and were unusually voluble, pointing out things to me that I had already seen, and stopping now and then to make me notice the oily smell of mackerel that was rising from the waves. They told me that an evicting party is coming to the island tomorrow morning, and gave me a long account of what they make and spend in a year and of their trouble with the rent. 'The rent is hard enough for a poor man,' said one of them, 'but this time we didn't pay, and they're after serving processes on every one of us. A man will have to pay his rent now, and a power of money with it for the process, and I'm thinking the agent will have money enough out of them processes to pay for his servant-girl and his man all the year.' I asked afterwards who the island belonged to. 'Bedad,' they said, 'we've always heard it belonged to Miss--and she is dead.' When the sun passed like a lozenge of gold flame into the sea the cold became intense. Then the men began to talk among themselves, and losing the thread, I lay half in a dream looking at the pale oily sea about us, and the low cliffs of the island sloping up past the village with its wreath of smoke to the outline of Dun Conor. Old Pat was in the house when I arrived, and he told a long story after supper:-- There was once a widow living among the woods, and her only son living along with her. He went out every morning through the trees to get sticks, and one day as he was lying on the ground he saw a swarm of flies flying over what the cow leaves behind her. He took up his sickle and hit one blow at them, and hit that hard he left no single one of them living. That evening he said to his mother that it was time he was going out into the world to seek his fortune, for he was able to destroy a whole swarm of flies at one blow, and he asked her to make him three cakes the way he might take them with him in the morning. He started the next day a while after the dawn, with his three cakes in his wallet, and he ate one of them near ten o'clock. He got hungry again by midday and ate the second, and when night was coming on him he ate the third. After that he met a man on the road who asked him where he was going. 'I'm looking for some place where I can work for my living,' said the young man. 'Come with me,' said the other man, 'and sleep to-night in the barn, and I'll give you work to-morrow to see what you're able for.' The next morning the farmer brought him out and showed him his cows and told him to take them out to graze on the hills, and to keep good watch that no one should come near them to milk them. The young man drove out the cows into the fields, and when the heat of the day came on he lay down on his back and looked up into the sky. A while after he saw a black spot in the north-west, and it grew larger and nearer till he saw a great giant coming towards him. He got up on his feet and he caught the giant round the legs with his two arms, and he drove him down into the hard ground above his ankles, the way he was not able to free himself. Then the giant told him to do him no hurt, and gave him his magic rod, and told him to strike on the rock, and he would find his beautiful black horse, and his sword, and his fine suit. The young man struck the rock and it opened before him, and he found the beautiful black horse, and the giant's sword and the suit lying before him. He took out the sword alone, and he struck one blow with it and struck off the giant's head. Then he put back the sword into the rock, and went out again to his cattle, till it was time to drive them home to the farmer. When they came to milk the cows they found a power of milk in them, and the farmer asked the young man if he had seen nothing out on the hills, for the other cow-boys had been bringing home the cows with no drop of milk in them. And the young man said he had seen nothing. The next day he went out again with the cows. He lay down on his back in the heat of the day, and after a while he saw a black spot in the north-west, and it grew larger and nearer, till he saw it was a great giant coming to attack him. 'You killed my brother,' said the giant; 'come here, till I make a garter of your body.' The young man went to him and caught him by the legs and drove him down into the hard ground up to his ankles. Then he hit the rod against the rock, and took out the sword and struck off the giant's head. That evening the farmer found twice as much milk in the cows as the evening before, and he asked the young man if he had seen anything. The young man said that he had seen nothing. The third day the third giant came to him and said, 'You have killed my two brothers; come here, till I make a garter of your body.' And he did with this giant as he had done with the other two, and that evening there was so much milk in the cows it was dropping out of their udders on the pathway. The next day the farmer called him and told him he might leave the cows in the stalls that day, for there was a great curiosity to be seen, namely, a beautiful king's daughter that was to be eaten by a great fish, if there was no one in it that could save her. But the young man said such a sight was all one to him, and he went out with the cows on to the hills. When he came to the rocks he hit them with his rod and brought out the suit and put it on him, and brought out the sword and strapped it on his side, like an officer, and he got on the black horse and rode faster than the wind till he came to where the beautiful king's daughter was sitting on the shore in a golden chair, waiting for the great fish. When the great fish came in on the sea, bigger than a whale, with two wings on the back of it, the young man went down into the surf and struck at it with his sword and cut off one of its wings. All the sea turned red with the bleeding out of it, till it swam away and left the young man on the shore. Then he turned his horse and rode faster than the wind till he came to the rocks, and he took the suit off him and put it back in the rocks, with the giant's sword and the black horse, and drove the cows down to the farm. The man came out before him and said he had missed the greatest wonder ever was, and that a noble person was after coming down with a fine suit on him and cutting off one of the wings from the great fish. 'And there'll be the same necessity on her for two mornings more,' said the farmer, 'and you'd do right to come and look on it.' But the young man said he would not come. The next morning he went out with his cows, and he took the sword and the suit and the black horse out of the rock, and he rode faster than the wind till he came where the king's daughter was sitting on the shore. When the people saw him coming there was great wonder on them to know if it was the same man they had seen the day before. The king's daughter called out to him to come and kneel before her, and when he kneeled down she took her scissors and cut off a lock of hair from the back of his head and hid it in her clothes. Then the great worm came in from the sea, and he went down into the surf and cut the other wing off from it. All the sea turned red with the bleeding out of it, till it swam away and left them. That evening the farmer came out before him and told him of the great wonder he had missed, and asked him would he go the next day and look on it. The young man said he would not go. The third day he came again on the black horse to where the king's daughter was sitting on a golden chair waiting for the great worm. When it came in from the sea the young man went down before it, and every time it opened its mouth to eat him, he struck into its mouth, till his sword went out through its neck, and it rolled back and died. Then he rode off faster than the wind, and he put the suit and the sword and the black horse into the rock, and drove home the cows. The farmer was there before him and he told him that there was to be a great marriage feast held for three days, and on the third day the king's daughter would be married to the man that killed the great worm, if they were able to find him. A great feast was held, and men of great strength came and said it was themselves were after killing the great worm. But on the third day the young man put on the suit, and strapped the sword to his side like an officer, and got on the black horse and rode faster than the wind, till he came to the palace. The king's daughter saw him, and she brought him in and made him kneel down before her. Then she looked at the back of his head and saw the place where she had cut off the lock with her own hand. She led him in to the king, and they were married, and the young man was given all the estate. That is my story. Two recent attempts to carry out evictions on the island came to nothing, for each time a sudden storm rose, by, it is said, the power of a native witch, when the steamer was approaching, and made it impossible to land. This morning, however, broke beneath a clear sky of June, and when I came into the open air the sea and rocks were shining with wonderful brilliancy. Groups of men, dressed in their holiday clothes, were standing about, talking with anger and fear, yet showing a lurking satisfaction at the thought of the dramatic pageant that was to break the silence of the seas. About half-past nine the steamer came in sight, on the narrow line of sea-horizon that is seen in the centre of the bay, and immediately a last effort was made to hide the cows and sheep of the families that were most in debt. Till this year no one on the island would consent to act as bailiff, so that it was impossible to identify the cattle of the defaulters. Now however, a man of the name of Patrick has sold his honour, and the effort of concealment is practically futile. This falling away from the ancient loyalty of the island has caused intense indignation, and early yesterday morning, while I was dreaming on the Dun, this letter was nailed on the doorpost of the chapel:-- 'Patrick, the devil, a revolver is waiting for you. If you are missed with the first shot, there will be five more that will hit you. 'Any man that will talk with you, or work with you, or drink a pint of porter in your shop, will be done with the same way as yourself.' As the steamer drew near I moved down with the men to watch the arrival, though no one went further than about a mile from the shore. Two curaghs from Kilronan with a man who was to give help in identifying the cottages, the doctor, and the relieving officer, were drifting with the tide, unwilling to come to land without the support of the larger party. When the anchor had been thrown it gave me a strange throb of pain to see the boats being lowered, and the sunshine gleaming on the rifles and helmets of the constabulary who crowded into them. Once on shore the men were formed in close marching order, a word was given, and the heavy rhythm of their boots came up over the rocks. We were collected in two straggling bands on either side of the roadway, and a few moments later the body of magnificent armed men passed close to us, followed by a low rabble, who had been brought to act as drivers for the sheriff. After my weeks spent among primitive men this glimpse of the newer types of humanity was not reassuring. Yet these mechanical police, with the commonplace agents and sheriffs, and the rabble they had hired, represented aptly enough the civilisation for which the homes of the island were to be desecrated. A stop was made at one of the first cottages in the village, and the day's work began. Here, however, and at the next cottage, a compromise was made, as some relatives came up at the last moment and lent the money that was needed to gain a respite. In another case a girl was ill in the house, so the doctor interposed, and the people were allowed to remain after a merely formal eviction. About midday, however, a house was reached where there was no pretext for mercy, and no money could be procured. At a sign from the sheriff the work of carrying out the beds and utensils was begun in the middle of a crowd of natives who looked on in absolute silence, broken only by the wild imprecations of the woman of the house. She belonged to one of the most primitive families on the island, and she shook with uncontrollable fury as she saw the strange armed men who spoke a language she could not understand driving her from the hearth she had brooded on for thirty years. For these people the outrage to the hearth is the supreme catastrophe. They live here in a world of grey, where there are wild rains and mists every week in the year, and their warm chimney corners, filled with children and young girls, grow into the consciousness of each family in a way it is not easy to understand in more civilised places. The outrage to a tomb in China probably gives no greater shock to the Chinese than the outrage to a hearth in Inishmaan gives to the people. When the few trifles had been carried out, and the door blocked with stones, the old woman sat down by the threshold and covered her head with her shawl. Five or six other women who lived close by sat down in a circle round her, with mute sympathy. Then the crowd moved on with the police to another cottage where the same scene was to take place, and left the group of desolate women sitting by the hovel. There were still no clouds in the sky and the heat was intense. The police when not in motion lay sweating and gasping under the walls with their tunics unbuttoned. They were not attractive, and I kept comparing them with the islandmen, who walked up and down as cool and fresh-looking as the sea-gulls. When the last eviction had been carried out a division was made: half the party went off with the bailiff to search the inner plain of the island for the cattle that had been hidden in the morning, the other half remained on the village road to guard some pigs that had already been taken possession of. After a while two of these pigs escaped from the drivers and began a wild race up and down the narrow road. The people shrieked and howled to increase their terror, and at last some of them became so excited that the police thought it time to interfere. They drew up in double line opposite the mouth of a blind laneway where the animals had been shut up. A moment later the shrieking began again in the west and the two pigs came in sight, rushing down the middle of the road with the drivers behind them. They reached the line of the police. There was a slight scuffle, and then the pigs continued their mad rush to the east, leaving three policemen lying in the dust. The satisfaction of the people was immense. They shrieked and hugged each other with delight, and it is likely that they will hand down these animals for generations in the tradition of the island. Two hours later the other party returned, driving three lean cows before them, and a start was made for the slip. At the public-house the policemen were given a drink while the dense crowd that was following waited in the lane. The island bull happened to be in a field close by, and he became wildly excited at the sight of the cows and of the strangely-dressed men. Two young islanders sidled up to me in a moment or two as I was resting on a wall, and one of them whispered in my ear--'Do you think they could take fines of us if we let out the bull on them?' In face of the crowd of women and children, I could only say it was probable, and they slunk off. At the slip there was a good deal of bargaining, which ended in all the cattle being given back to their owners. It was plainly of no use to take them away, as they were worth nothing. When the last policeman had embarked, an old woman came forward from the crowd and, mounting on a rock near the slip, began a fierce rhapsody in Gaelic, pointing at the bailiff and waving her withered arms with extraordinary rage. 'This man is my own son,' she said; 'it is I that ought to know him. He is the first ruffian in the whole big world.' Then she gave an account of his life, coloured with a vindictive fury I cannot reproduce. As she went on the excitement became so intense I thought the man would be stoned before he could get back to his cottage. On these islands the women live only for their children, and it is hard to estimate the power of the impulse that made this old woman stand out and curse her son. In the fury of her speech I seem to look again into the strangely reticent temperament of the islanders, and to feel the passionate spirit that expresses itself, at odd moments only, with magnificent words and gestures. Old Pat has told me a story of the goose that lays the golden eggs, which he calls the Phoenix:-- A poor widow had three sons and a daughter. One day when her sons were out looking for sticks in the wood they saw a fine speckled bird flying in the trees. The next day they saw it again, and the eldest son told his brothers to go and get sticks by themselves, for he was going after the bird. He went after it, and brought it in with him when he came home in the evening. They put it in an old hencoop, and they gave it some of the meal they had for themselves;--I don't know if it ate the meal, but they divided what they had themselves; they could do no more. That night it laid a fine spotted egg in the basket. The next night it laid another. At that time its name was on the papers and many heard of the bird that laid the golden eggs, for the eggs were of gold, and there's no lie in it. When the boys went down to the shop the next day to buy a stone of meal, the shopman asked if he could buy the bird of them. Well, it was arranged in this way. The shopman would marry the boys' sister--a poor simple girl without a stitch of good clothes--and get the bird with her. Some time after that one of the boys sold an egg of the bird to a gentleman that was in the country. The gentleman asked him if he had the bird still. He said that the man who had married his sister was after getting it. 'Well,' said the gentleman, 'the man who eats the heart of that bird will find a purse of gold beneath him every morning, and the man who eats its liver will be king of Ireland.' The boy went out--he was a simple poor fellow--and told the shopman. Then the shopman brought in the bird and killed it, and he ate the heart himself and he gave the liver to his wife. When the boy saw that, there was great anger on him, and he went back and told the gentleman. 'Do what I'm telling you,' said the gentleman. 'Go down now and tell the shopman and his wife to come up here to play a game of cards with me, for it's lonesome I am this evening.' When the boy was gone he mixed a vomit and poured the lot of it into a few naggins of whiskey, and he put a strong cloth on the table under the cards. The man came up with his wife and they began to play. The shopman won the first game and the gentleman made them drink a sup of the whiskey. They played again and the shopman won the second game. Then the gentleman made him drink a sup more of the whiskey. As they were playing the third game the shopman and his wife got sick on the cloth, and the boy picked it up and carried it into the yard, for the gentleman had let him know what he was to do. Then he found the heart of the bird and he ate it, and the next morning when he turned in his bed there was a purse of gold under him. That is my story. When the steamer is expected I rarely fail to visit the boat-slip, as the men usually collect when she is in the offing, and lie arguing among their curaghs till she has made her visit to the south island, and is seen coming towards us. This morning I had a long talk with an old man who was rejoicing over the improvement he had seen here during the last ten or fifteen years. Till recently there was no communication with the mainland except by hookers, which were usually slow, and could only make the voyage in tolerably fine weather, so that if an islander went to a fair it was often three weeks before he could return. Now, however, the steamer comes here twice in the week, and the voyage is made in three or four hours. The pier on this island is also a novelty, and is much thought of, as it enables the hookers that still carry turf and cattle to discharge and take their cargoes directly from the shore. The water round it, however, is only deep enough for a hooker when the tide is nearly full, and will never float the steamer, so passengers must still come to land in curaghs. The boat-slip at the corner next the south island is extremely useful in calm weather, but it is exposed to a heavy roll from the south, and is so narrow that the curaghs run some danger of missing it in the tumult of the surf. In bad weather four men will often stand for nearly an hour at the top of the slip with a curagh in their hands, watching a point of rock towards the south where they can see the strength of the waves that are coming in. The instant a break is seen they swoop down to the surf, launch their curagh, and pull out to sea with incredible speed. Coming to land Is attended with the same difficulty, and, if their moment is badly chosen, they are likely to be washed sideways and swamped among the rocks. This continual danger, which can only be escaped by extraordinary personal dexterity, has had considerable influence on the local character, as the waves have made it impossible for clumsy, foolhardy, or timid men to live on these islands. When the steamer is within a mile of the slip, the curaghs are put out and range themselves--there are usually from four to a dozen--in two lines at some distance from the shore. The moment she comes in among them there is a short but desperate struggle for good places at her side. The men are lolling on their oars talking with the dreamy tone which comes with the rocking of the waves. The steamer lies to, and in an instant their faces become distorted with passion, while the oars bend and quiver with the strain. For one minute they seem utterly indifferent to their own safety and that of their friends and brothers. Then the sequence is decided, and they begin to talk again with the dreamy tone that is habitual to them, while they make fast and clamber up into the steamer. While the curaghs are out I am left with a few women and very old men who cannot row. One of these old men, whom I often talk with, has some fame as a bone-setter, and is said to have done remarkable cures, both here and on the mainland. Stories are told of how he has been taken off by the quality in their carriages through the hills of Connemara, to treat their sons and daughters, and come home with his pockets full of money. Another old man, the oldest on the island, is fond of telling me anecdotes--not folktales--of things that have happened here in his lifetime. He often tells me about a Connaught man who killed his father with the blow of a spade when he was in passion, and then fled to this island and threw himself on the mercy of some of the natives with whom he was said to be related. They hid him in a hole--which the old man has shown me--and kept him safe for weeks, though the police came and searched for him, and he could hear their boots grinding on the stones over his head. In spite of a reward which was offered, the island was incorruptible, and after much trouble the man was safely shipped to America. This impulse to protect the criminal is universal in the west. It seems partly due to the association between justice and the hated English jurisdiction, but more directly to the primitive feeling of these people, who are never criminals yet always capable of crime, that a man will not do wrong unless he is under the influence of a passion which is as irresponsible as a storm on the sea. If a man has killed his father, and is already sick and broken with remorse, they can see no reason why he should be dragged away and killed by the law. Such a man, they say, will be quiet all the rest of his life, and if you suggest that punishment is needed as an example, they ask, 'Would any one kill his father if he was able to help it?' Some time ago, before the introduction of police, all the people of the islands were as innocent as the people here remain to this day. I have heard that at that time the ruling proprietor and magistrate of the north island used to give any man who had done wrong a letter to a jailer in Galway, and send him off by himself to serve a term of imprisonment. As there was no steamer, the ill-doer was given a passage in some chance hooker to the nearest point on the mainland. Then he walked for many miles along a desolate shore till he reached the town. When his time had been put through he crawled back along the same route, feeble and emaciated, and had often to wait many weeks before he could regain the island. Such at least is the story. It seems absurd to apply the same laws to these people and to the criminal classes of a city. The most intelligent man on Inishmaan has often spoken to me of his contempt of the law, and of the increase of crime the police have brought to Aranmor. On this island, he says, if men have a little difference, or a little fight, their friends take care it does not go too far, and in a little time it is forgotten. In Kilronan there is a band of men paid to make out cases for themselves; the moment a blow is struck they come down and arrest the man who gave it. The other man he quarreled with has to give evidence against him; whole families come down to the court and swear against each other till they become bitter enemies. If there is a conviction the man who is convicted never forgives. He waits his time, and before the year is out there is a cross summons, which the other man in turn never forgives. The feud continues to grow, till a dispute about the colour of a man's hair may end in a murder, after a year's forcing by the law. The mere fact that it is impossible to get reliable evidence in the island--not because the people are dishonest, but because they think the claim of kinship more sacred than the claims of abstract truth--turns the whole system of sworn evidence into a demoralising farce, and it is easy to believe that law dealings on this false basis must lead to every sort of injustice. While I am discussing these questions with the old men the curaghs begin to come in with cargoes of salt, and flour, and porter. To-day a stir was made by the return of a native who had spent five years in New York. He came on shore with half a dozen people who had been shopping on the mainland, and walked up and down on the slip in his neat suit, looking strangely foreign to his birthplace, while his old mother of eighty-five ran about on the slippery seaweed, half crazy with delight, telling every one the news. When the curaghs were in their places the men crowded round him to bid him welcome. He shook hands with them readily enough, but with no smile of recognition. He is said to be dying. Yesterday--a Sunday--three young men rowed me over to Inisheer, the south island of the group. The stern of the curagh was occupied, so I was put in the bow with my head on a level with the gunnel. A considerable sea was running in the sound, and when we came out from the shelter of this island, the curagh rolled and vaulted in a way not easy to describe. At one moment, as we went down into the furrow, green waves curled and arched themselves above me; then in an instant I was flung up into the air and could look down on the heads of the rowers, as if we were sitting on a ladder, or out across a forest of white crests to the black cliff of Inishmaan. The men seemed excited and uneasy, and I thought for a moment that we were likely to be swamped. In a little while, however I realised the capacity of the curagh to raise its head among the waves, and the motion became strangely exhilarating. Even, I thought, if we were dropped into the blue chasm of the waves, this death, with the fresh sea saltness in one's teeth, would be better than most deaths one is likely to meet. When we reached the other island, it was raining heavily, so that we could not see anything of the antiquities or people. For the greater part of the afternoon we sat on the tops of empty barrels in the public-house, talking of the destiny of Gaelic. We were admitted as travellers, and the shutters of the shop were closed behind us, letting in only a glimmer of grey light, and the tumult of the storm. Towards evening it cleared a little and we came home in a calmer sea, but with a dead head-wind that gave the rowers all they could do to make the passage. On calm days I often go out fishing with Michael. When we reach the space above the slip where the curaghs are propped, bottom upwards, on the limestone, he lifts the prow of the one we are going to embark in, and I slip underneath and set the centre of the foremost seat upon my neck. Then he crawls under the stern and stands up with the last seat upon his shoulders. We start for the sea. The long prow bends before me so that I see nothing but a few yards of shingle at my feet. A quivering pain runs from the top of my spine to the sharp stones that seem to pass through my pampooties, and grate upon my ankles. We stagger and groan beneath the weight; but at last our feet reach the slip, and we run down with a half-trot like the pace of bare-footed children. A yard from the sea we stop and lower the curagh to the right. It must be brought down gently--a difficult task for our strained and aching muscles--and sometimes as the gunnel reaches the slip I lose my balance and roll in among the seats. Yesterday we went out in the curagh that had been damaged on the day of my visit to Kilronan, and as we were putting in the oars the freshly-tarred patch stuck to the slip which was heated with the sunshine. We carried up water in the bailer--the 'supeen,' a shallow wooden vessel like a soup-plate--and with infinite pains we got free and rode away. In a few minutes, however, I found the water spouting up at my feet. The patch had been misplaced, and this time we had no sacking. Michael borrowed my pocket scissors, and with admirable rapidity cut a square of flannel from the tail of his shirt and squeezed it into the hole, making it fast with a splint which he hacked from one of the oars. During our excitement the tide had carried us to the brink of the rocks, and I admired again the dexterity with which he got his oars into the water and turned us out as we were mounting on a wave that would have hurled us to destruction. With the injury to our curagh we did not go far from the shore. After a while I took a long spell at the oars, and gained a certain dexterity, though they are not easy to manage. The handles overlap by about six inches--in order to gain leverage, as the curagh is narrow--and at first it was almost impossible to avoid striking the upper oar against one's knuckles. The oars are rough and square, except at the ends, so one cannot do so with impunity. Again, a curagh with two light people in it floats on the water like a nut-shell, and the slightest inequality in the stroke throws the prow round at least a right angle from its course. In the first half-hour I found myself more than once moving towards the point I had come from, greatly to Michael's satisfaction. This morning we were out again near the pier on the north side of the island. As we paddled slowly with the tide, trolling for pollock, several curaghs, weighed to the gunnel with kelp, passed us on their way to Kilronan. An old woman, rolled in red petticoats, was sitting on a ledge of rock that runs into the sea at the point where the curaghs were passing from the south, hailing them in quavering Gaelic, and asking for a passage to Kilronan. The first one that came round without a cargo turned in from some distance and took her away. The morning had none of the supernatural beauty that comes over the island so often in rainy weather, so we basked in the vague enjoyment of the sunshine, looking down at the wild luxuriance of the vegetation beneath the sea, which contrasts strangely with the nakedness above it. Some dreams I have had in this cottage seem to give strength to the opinion that there is a psychic memory attached to certain neighbourhoods. Last night, after walking in a dream among buildings with strangely intense light on them, I heard a faint rhythm of music beginning far away on some stringed instrument. It came closer to me, gradually increasing in quickness and volume with an irresistibly definite progression. When it was quite near the sound began to move in my nerves and blood, and to urge me to dance with them. I knew that if I yielded I would be carried away to some moment of terrible agony, so I struggled to remain quiet, holding my knees together with my hands. The music increased continually, sounding like the strings of harps, tuned to a forgotten scale, and having a resonance as searching as the strings of the cello. Then the luring excitement became more powerful than my will, and my limbs moved in spite of me. In a moment I was swept away in a whirlwind of notes. My breath and my thoughts and every impulse of my body, became a form of the dance, till I could not distinguish between the instruments and the rhythm and my own person or consciousness. For a while it seemed an excitement that was filled with joy, then it grew into an ecstasy where all existence was lost in a vortex of movement. I could not think there had ever been a life beyond the whirling of the dance. Then with a shock the ecstasy turned to an agony and rage. I Struggled to free myself, but seemed only to increase the passion of the steps I moved to. When I shrieked I could only echo the notes of the rhythm. At last with a moment of uncontrollable frenzy I broke back to consciousness and awoke. I dragged myself trembling to the window of the cottage and looked out. The moon was glittering across the bay, and there was no sound anywhere on the island. I am leaving in two days, and old Pat Dirane has bidden me goodbye. He met me in the village this morning and took me into 'his little tint,' a miserable hovel where he spends the night. I sat for a long time on his threshold, while he leaned on a stool behind me, near his bed, and told me the last story I shall have from him--a rude anecdote not worth recording. Then he told me with careful emphasis how he had wandered when he was a young man, and lived in a fine college, teaching Irish to the young priests! They say on the island that he can tell as many lies as four men: perhaps the stories he has learned have strengthened his imagination. When I stood up in the doorway to give him God's blessing, he leaned over on the straw that forms his bed, and shed tears. Then he turned to me again, lifting up one trembling hand, with the mitten worn to a hole on the palm, from the rubbing of his crutch. 'I'll not see you again,' he said, with tears trickling on his face, 'and you're a kindly man. When you come back next year I won't be in it. I won't live beyond the winter. But listen now to what I'm telling you; let you put insurance on me in the city of Dublin, and it's five hundred pounds you'll get on my burial.' This evening, my last in the island, is also the evening of the 'Pattern'--a festival something like 'Pardons' of Brittany. I waited especially to see it, but a piper who was expected did not come, and there was no amusement. A few friends and relations came over from the other island and stood about the public-house in their best clothes, but without music dancing was impossible. I believe on some occasions when the piper is present there is a fine day of dancing and excitement, but the Galway piper is getting old, and is not easily induced to undertake the voyage. Last night, St. John's Eve, the fires were lighted and boys ran about with pieces of the burning turf, though I could not find out if the idea of lighting the house fires from the bonfires is still found on the island. I have come out of an hotel full of tourists and commercial travelers, to stroll along the edge of Galway bay, and look out in the direction of the islands. The sort of yearning I feel towards those lonely rocks is indescribably acute. This town, that is usually so full of wild human interest, seems in my present mood a tawdry medley of all that is crudest in modern life. The nullity of the rich and the squalor of the poor give me the same pang of wondering disgust; yet the islands are fading already and I can hardly realise that the smell of the seaweed and the drone of the Atlantic are still moving round them. One of my island friends has written to me:-- DEAR JOHN SYNGE,--I am for a long time expecting a letter from you and I think you are forgetting this island altogether. Mr.--died a long time ago on the big island and his boat was on anchor in the harbour and the wind blew her to Black Head and broke her up after his death. Tell me are you learning Irish since you went. We have a branch of the Gaelic League here now and the people is going on well with the Irish and reading. I will write the next letter in Irish to you. Tell me will you come to see us next year and if you will you'll write a letter before you. All your loving friends is well in health.--Mise do chara go huan. Another boy I sent some baits to has written to me also, beginning his letter in Irish and ending it in English:-- DEAR JOHN,--I got your letter four days ago, and there was pride and joy on me because it was written in Irish, and a fine, good, pleasant letter it was. The baits you sent are very good, but I lost two of them and half my line. A big fish came and caught the bait, and the line was bad and half of the line and the baits went away. My sister has come back from America, but I'm thinking it won't be long till she goes away again, for it is lonesome and poor she finds the island now.--I am your friend. ... Write soon and let you write in Irish, if you don't I won't look on it. Part II THE evening before I returned to the west I wrote to Michael--who had left the islands to earn his living on the mainland--to tell him that I would call at the house where he lodged the next morning, which was a Sunday. A young girl with fine western features, and little English, came out when I knocked at the door. She seemed to have heard all about me, and was so filled with the importance of her message that she could hardly speak it intelligibly. 'She got your letter,' she said, confusing the pronouns, as is often done in the west, 'she is gone to Mass, and she'll be in the square after that. Let your honour go now and sit in the square, and Michael will find you.' As I was returning up the main street I met Michael wandering down to meet me, as he had got tired of waiting. He seemed to have grown a powerful man since I had seen him, and was now dressed in the heavy brown flannels of the Connaught labourer. After a little talk we turned back together and went out on the sandhills above the town. Meeting him here a little beyond the threshold of my hotel I was singularly struck with the refinement of his nature, which has hardly been influenced by his new life, and the townsmen and sailors he has met with. 'I do often come outside the town on Sunday,' he said while we were talking, 'for what is there to do in a town in the middle of all the people when you are not at your work?' A little later another Irish-speaking labourer--a friend of Michael's--joined us, and we lay for hours talking and arguing on the grass. The day was unbearably sultry, and the sand and the sea near us were crowded with half-naked women, but neither of the young men seemed to be aware of their presence. Before we went back to the town a man came out to ring a young horse on the sand close to where we were lying, and then the interest of my companions was intense. Late in the evening I met Michael again, and we wandered round the bay, which was still filled with bathing women, until it was quite dark, I shall not see him again before my return from the islands, as he is busy to-morrow, and on Tuesday I go out with the steamer. I returned to the middle island this morning, in the steamer to Kilronan, and on here in a curagh that had gone over with salt fish. As I came up from the slip the doorways in the village filled with women and children, and several came down on the roadway to shake hands and bid me a thousand welcomes. Old Pat Dirane is dead, and several of my friends have gone to America; that is all the news they have to give me after an absence of many months. When I arrived at the cottage I was welcomed by the old people, and great excitement was made by some little presents I had bought them--a pair of folding scissors for the old woman, a strop for her husband, and some other trifles. Then the youngest son, Columb, who is still at home, went into the inner room and brought out the alarm clock I sent them last year when I went away. 'I am very fond of this clock,' he said, patting it on the back; 'it will ring for me any morning when I want to go out fishing. Bedad, there are no two clocks in the island that would be equal to it.' I had some photographs to show them that I took here last year, and while I was sitting on a little stool near the door of the kitchen, showing them to the family, a beautiful young woman I had spoken to a few times last year slipped in, and after a wonderfully simple and cordial speech of welcome, she sat down on the floor beside me to look on also. The complete absence of shyness or self-consciousness in most of these people gives them a peculiar charm, and when this young and beautiful woman leaned across my knees to look nearer at some photograph that pleased her, I felt more than ever the strange simplicity of the island life. Last year when I came here everything was new, and the people were a little strange with me, but now I am familiar with them and their way of life, so that their qualities strike me more forcibly than before. When my photographs of this island had been examined with immense delight, and every person in them had been identified--even those who only showed a hand or a leg--I brought out some I had taken in County Wicklow. Most of them were fragments, showing fairs in Rathdrum or Aughrim, men cutting turf on the hills, or other scenes of inland life, yet they gave the greatest delight to these people who are wearied of the sea. This year I see a darker side of life in the islands. The sun seldom shines, and day after day a cold south-western wind blows over the cliffs, bringing up showers of hail and dense masses of cloud. The sons who are at home stay out fishing whenever it is tolerably calm, from about three in the morning till after nightfall, yet they earn little, as fish are not plentiful. The old man fishes also with a long rod and ground-bait, but as a rule has even smaller success. When the weather breaks completely, fishing is abandoned, and they both go down and dig potatoes in the rain. The women sometimes help them, but their usual work is to look after the calves and do their spinning in the house. There is a vague depression over the family this year, because of the two sons who have gone away, Michael to the mainland, and another son, who was working in Kilronan last year, to the United States. A letter came yesterday from Michael to his mother. It was written in English, as he is the only one of the family who can read or write in Irish, and I heard it being slowly spelled out and translated as I sat in my room. A little later the old woman brought it in for me to read. He told her first about his work, and the wages he is getting. Then he said that one night he had been walking in the town, and had looked up among the streets, and thought to himself what a grand night it would be on the Sandy Head of this island--not, he added, that he was feeling lonely or sad. At the end he gave an account, with the dramatic emphasis of the folk-tale, of how he had met me on the Sunday morning, and, 'believe me,' he said, 'it was the fine talk we had for two hours or three.' He told them also of a knife I had given him that was so fine, no one on the island 'had ever seen the like of her.' Another day a letter came from the son who is in America, to say that he had had a slight accident to one of his arms, but was well again, and that he was leaving New York and going a few hundred miles up the country. All the evening afterwards the old woman sat on her stool at the corner of the fire with her shawl over her head, keening piteously to herself. America appeared far away, yet she seems to have felt that, after all, it was only the other edge of the Atlantic, and now when she hears them talking of railroads and inland cities where there is no sea, things she cannot understand, it comes home to her that her son is gone for ever. She often tells me how she used to sit on the wall behind the house last year and watch the hooker he worked in coming out of Kilronan and beating up the sound, and what company it used to be to her the time they'd all be out. The maternal feeling is so powerful on these islands that it gives a life of torment to the women. Their sons grow up to be banished as soon as they are of age, or to live here in continual danger on the sea; their daughters go away also, or are worn out in their youth with bearing children that grow up to harass them in their own turn a little later. There has been a storm for the last twenty-four hours, and I have been wandering on the cliffs till my hair is stiff with salt. Immense masses of spray were flying up from the base of the cliff, and were caught at times by the wind and whirled away to fall at some distance from the shore. When one of these happened to fall on me, I had to crouch down for an instant, wrapped and blinded by a white hail of foam. The waves were so enormous that when I saw one more than usually large coming towards me, I turned instinctively to hide myself, as one blinks when struck upon the eyes. After a few hours the mind grows bewildered with the endless change and struggle of the sea, and an utter despondency replaces the first moment of exhilaration. At the south-west corner of the island I came upon a number of people gathering the seaweed that is now thick on the rocks. It was raked from the surf by the men, and then carried up to the brow of the cliff by a party of young girls. In addition to their ordinary clothing these girls wore a raw sheepskin on their shoulders, to catch the oozing sea-water, and they looked strangely wild and seal-like with the salt caked upon their lips and wreaths of seaweed in their hair. For the rest of my walk I saw no living thing but one flock of curlews, and a few pipits hiding among the stones. About the sunset the clouds broke and the storm turned to a hurricane. Bars of purple cloud stretched across the sound where immense waves were rolling from the west, wreathed with snowy phantasies of spray. Then there was the bay full of green delirium, and the Twelve Pins touched with mauve and scarlet in the east. The suggestion from this world of inarticulate power was immense, and now at midnight, when the wind is abating, I am still trembling and flushed with exultation. I have been walking through the wet lanes in my pampooties in spite of the rain, and I have brought on a feverish cold. The wind is terrific. If anything serious should happen to me I might die here and be nailed in my box, and shoved down into a wet crevice in the graveyard before any one could know it on the mainland. Two days ago a curagh passed from the south island--they can go out when we are weather-bound because of a sheltered cove in their island--it was thought in search of the Doctor. It became too rough afterwards to make the return journey, and it was only this morning we saw them repassing towards the south-east in a terrible sea. A four-oared curagh with two men in her besides the rowers-- probably the Priest and the Doctor--went first, followed by the three-oared curagh from the south island, which ran more danger. Often when they go for the Doctor in weather like this, they bring the Priest also, as they do not know if it will be possible to go for him if he is needed later. As a rule there is little illness, and the women often manage their confinements among themselves without any trained assistance. In most cases all goes well, but at times a curagh is sent off in desperate haste for the Priest and the Doctor when it is too late. The baby that spent some days here last year is now established in the house; I suppose the old woman has adopted him to console herself for the loss of her own sons. He is now a well-grown child, though not yet able to say more than a few words of Gaelic. His favourite amusement is to stand behind the door with a stick, waiting for any wandering pig or hen that may chance to come in, and then to dash out and pursue them. There are two young kittens in the kitchen also, which he ill-treats, without meaning to do them harm. Whenever the old woman comes into my room with turf for the fire, he walks in solemnly behind her with a sod under each arm, deposits them on the back of the fire with great care, and then flies off round the corner with his long petticoats trailing behind him. He has not yet received any official name on the island, as he has not left the fireside, but in the house they usually speak of him as 'Michaeleen beug' (i.e. 'little small-Michael'). Now and then he is slapped, but for the most part the old woman keeps him in order with stories of 'the long-toothed hag,' that lives in the Dun and eats children who are not good. He spends half his day eating cold potatoes and drinking very strong tea, yet seems in perfect health. An Irish letter has come to me from Michael. I will translate it literally. DEAR NOBLE PERSON,--I write this letter with joy and pride that you found the way to the house of my father the day you were on the steamship. I am thinking there will not be loneliness on you, for there will be the fine beautiful Gaelic League and you will be learning powerfully. I am thinking there is no one in life walking with you now but your own self from morning till night, and great is the pity. What way are my mother and my three brothers and my sisters, and do not forget white Michael, and the poor little child and the old grey woman, and Rory. I am getting a forgetfulness on all my friends and kindred.--I am your friend ... It is curious how he accuses himself of forgetfulness after asking for all his family by name. I suppose the first home-sickness is wearing away and he looks on his independent wellbeing as a treason towards his kindred. One of his friends was in the kitchen when the letter was brought to me, and, by the old man's wish, he read it out loud as soon as I had finished it. When he came to the last sentence he hesitated for a moment, and then omitted it altogether. This young man had come up to bring me a copy of the 'Love Songs of Connaught,' which he possesses, and I persuaded him to read, or rather chant me some of them. When he had read a couple I found that the old woman knew many of them from her childhood, though her version was often not the same as what was in the book. She was rocking herself on a stool in the chimney corner beside a pot of indigo, in which she was dyeing wool, and several times when the young man finished a poem she took it up again and recited the verses with exquisite musical intonation, putting a wistfulness and passion into her voice that seemed to give it all the cadences that are sought in the profoundest poetry. The lamp had burned low, and another terrible gale was howling and shrieking over the island. It seemed like a dream that I should be sitting here among these men and women listening to this rude and beautiful poetry that is filled with the oldest passions of the world. The horses have been coming back for the last few days from their summer's grazing in Connemara. They are landed at the sandy beach where the cattle were shipped last year, and I went down early this morning to watch their arrival through the waves. The hooker was anchored at some distance from the shore, but I could see a horse standing at the gunnel surrounded by men shouting and flipping at it with bits of rope. In a moment it jumped over into the sea, and some men, who were waiting for it in a curagh, caught it by the halter and towed it to within twenty yards of the surf. Then the curagh turned back to the hooker, and the horse was left to make its own way to the land. As I was standing about a man came up to me and asked after the usual salutations:-- 'Is there any war in the world at this time, noble person?' I told him something of the excitement in the Transvaal, and then another horse came near the waves and I passed on and left him. Afterwards I walked round the edge of the sea to the pier, where a quantity of turf has recently been brought in. It is usually left for some time stacked on the sandhills, and then carried up to the cottages in panniers slung on donkeys or any horses that are on the island. They have been busy with it the last few weeks, and the track from the village to the pier has been filled with lines of red-petticoated boys driving their donkeys before them, or cantering down on their backs when the panniers are empty. In some ways these men and women seem strangely far away from me. They have the same emotions that I have, and the animals have, yet I cannot talk to them when there is much to say, more than to the dog that whines beside me in a mountain fog. There is hardly an hour I am with them that I do not feel the shock of some inconceivable idea, and then again the shock of some vague emotion that is familiar to them and to me. On some days I feel this island as a perfect home and resting place; on other days I feel that I am a waif among the people. I can feel more with them than they can feel with me, and while I wander among them, they like me sometimes, and laugh at me sometimes, yet never know what I am doing. In the evenings I sometimes meet with a girl who is not yet half through her teens, yet seems in some ways more consciously developed than any one else that I have met here. She has passed part of her life on the mainland, and the disillusion she found in Galway has coloured her imagination. As we sit on stools on either side of the fire I hear her voice going backwards and forwards in the same sentence from the gaiety of a child to the plaintive intonation of an old race that is worn with sorrow. At one moment she is a simple peasant, at another she seems to be looking out at the world with a sense of prehistoric disillusion and to sum up in the expression of her grey-blue eyes the whole external despondency of the clouds and sea. Our conversation is usually disjointed. One evening we talked of a town on the mainland. 'Ah, it's a queer place,' she said: 'I wouldn't choose to live in it. It's a queer place, and indeed I don't know the place that isn't.' Another evening we talked of the people who live on the island or come to visit it. 'Father is gone,' she said; 'he was a kind man but a queer man. Priests is queer people, and I don't know who isn't.' Then after a long pause she told me with seriousness, as if speaking of a thing that surprised herself, and should surprise me, that she was very fond of the boys. In our talk, which is sometimes full of the innocent realism of childhood, she is always pathetically eager to say the right thing and be engaging. One evening I found her trying to light a fire in the little side room of her cottage, where there is an ordinary fireplace. I went in to help her and showed her how to hold up a paper before the mouth of the chimney to make a draught, a method she had never seen. Then I told her of men who live alone in Paris and make their own fires that they may have no one to bother them. She was sitting in a heap on the floor staring into the turf, and as I finished she looked up with surprise. 'They're like me so,' she said; 'would anyone have thought that!' Below the sympathy we feel there is still a chasm between us. 'Musha,' she muttered as I was leaving her this evening, 'I think it's to hell you'll be going by and by.' Occasionally I meet her also in the kitchen where young men go to play cards after dark and a few girls slip in to share the amusement. At such times her eyes shine in the light of the candles, and her cheeks flush with the first tumult of youth, till she hardly seems the same girl who sits every evening droning to herself over the turf. A branch of the Gaelic League has been started here since my last visit, and every Sunday afternoon three little girls walk through the village ringing a shrill hand-bell, as a signal that the women's meeting is to be held,--here it would be useless to fix an hour, as the hours are not recognized. Soon afterwards bands of girls--of all ages from five to twenty-five--begin to troop down to the schoolhouse in their reddest Sunday petticoats. It is remarkable that these young women are willing to spend their one afternoon of freedom in laborious studies of orthography for no reason but a vague reverence for the Gaelic. It is true that they owe this reverence, or most of it, to the influence of some recent visitors, yet the fact that they feel such an influence so keenly is itself of interest. In the older generation that did not come under the influence of the recent language movement, I do not see any particular affection for Gaelic. Whenever they are able, they speak English to their children, to render them more capable of making their way in life. Even the young men sometimes say to me-- 'There's very hard English on you, and I wish to God I had the like of it.' The women are the great conservative force in this matter of the language. They learn a little English in school and from their parents, but they rarely have occasion to speak with any one who is not a native of the islands, so their knowledge of the foreign tongue remains rudimentary. In my cottage I have never heard a word of English from the women except when they were speaking to the pigs or to the dogs, or when the girl was reading a letter in English. Women, however, with a more assertive temperament, who have had, apparently, the same opportunities, often attain a considerable fluency, as is the case with one, a relative of the old woman of the house, who often visits here. In the boys' school, where I sometimes look in, the children surprise me by their knowledge of English, though they always speak in Irish among themselves. The school itself is a comfortless building in a terribly bleak position. In cold weather the children arrive in the morning with a sod of turf tied up with their books, a simple toll which keeps the fire well supplied, yet, I believe, a more modern method is soon to be introduced. I am in the north island again, looking out with a singular sensation to the cliffs across the sound. It is hard to believe that those hovels I can just see in the south are filled with people whose lives have the strange quality that is found in the oldest poetry and legend. Compared with them the falling off that has come with the increased prosperity of this island is full of discouragement. The charm which the people over there share with the birds and flowers has been replaced here by the anxiety of men who are eager for gain. The eyes and expression are different, though the faces are the same, and even the children here seem to have an indefinable modern quality that is absent from the men of Inishmaan. My voyage from the middle island was wild. The morning was so stormy, that in ordinary circumstances I would not have attempted the passage, but as I had arranged to travel with a curagh that was coming over for the Parish Priest--who is to hold stations on Inishmaan--I did not like to draw back. I went out in the morning and walked up the cliffs as usual. Several men I fell in with shook their heads when I told them I was going away, and said they doubted if a curagh could cross the sound with the sea that was in it. When I went back to the cottage I found the Curate had just come across from the south island, and had had a worse passage than any he had yet experienced. The tide was to turn at two o'clock, and after that it was thought the sea would be calmer, as the wind and the waves would be running from the same point. We sat about in the kitchen all the morning, with men coming in every few minutes to give their opinion whether the passage should be attempted, and at what points the sea was likely to be at its worst. At last it was decided we should go, and I started for the pier in a wild shower of rain with the wind howling in the walls. The schoolmaster and a priest who was to have gone with me came out as I was passing through the village and advised me not to make the passage; but my crew had gone on towards the sea, and I thought it better to go after them. The eldest son of the family was coming with me, and I considered that the old man, who knew the waves better than I did, would not send out his son if there was more than reasonable danger. I found my crew waiting for me under a high wall below the village, and we went on together. The island had never seemed so desolate. Looking out over the black limestone through the driving rain to the gulf of struggling waves, an indescribable feeling of dejection came over me. The old man gave me his view of the use of fear. 'A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drowned,' he said, 'for he will be going out on a day he shouldn't. But we do be afraid of the sea, and we do only be drownded now and again.' A little crowd of neighbours had collected lower down to see me off, and as we crossed the sandhills we had to shout to each other to be heard above the wind. The crew carried down the curagh and then stood under the lee of the pier tying on their hats with strings and drawing on their oilskins. They tested the braces of the oars, and the oarpins, and everything in the curagh with a care I had not seen them give to anything, then my bag was lifted in, and we were ready. Besides the four men of the crew a man was going with us who wanted a passage to this island. As he was scrambling into the bow, an old man stood forward from the crowd. 'Don't take that man with you,' he said. 'Last week they were taking him to Clare and the whole lot of them were near drownded. Another day he went to Inisheer and they broke three ribs of the curagh, and they coming back. There is not the like of him for ill-luck in the three islands.' 'The divil choke your old gob,' said the man, 'you will be talking.' We set off. It was a four-oared curagh, and I was given the last seat so as to leave the stern for the man who was steering with an oar, worked at right angles to the others by an extra thole-pin in the stern gunnel. When we had gone about a hundred yards they ran up a bit of a sail in the bow and the pace became extraordinarily rapid. The shower had passed over and the wind had fallen, but large, magnificently brilliant waves were rolling down on us at right angles to our course. Every instant the steersman whirled us round with a sudden stroke of his oar, the prow reared up and then fell into the next furrow with a crash, throwing up masses of spray. As it did so, the stern in its turn was thrown up, and both the steersman, who let go his oar and clung with both hands to the gunnel, and myself, were lifted high up above the sea. The wave passed, we regained our course and rowed violently for a few yards, then the same manoeuvre had to be repeated. As we worked out into the sound we began to meet another class of waves, that could be seen for some distance towering above the rest. When one of these came in sight, the first effort was to get beyond its reach. The steersman began crying out in Gaelic, 'Siubhal, siubhal' ('Run, run'), and sometimes, when the mass was gliding towards us with horrible speed, his voice rose to a shriek. Then the rowers themselves took up the cry, and the curagh seemed to leap and quiver with the frantic terror of a beast till the wave passed behind it or fell with a crash beside the stern. It was in this racing with the waves that our chief danger lay. If the wave could be avoided, it was better to do so, but if it overtook us while we were trying to escape, and caught us on the broadside, our destruction was certain. I could see the steersman quivering with the excitement of his task, for any error in his judgment would have swamped us. We had one narrow escape. A wave appeared high above the rest, and there was the usual moment of intense exertion. It was of no use, and in an instant the wave seemed to be hurling itself upon us. With a yell of rage the steersman struggled with his oar to bring our prow to meet it. He had almost succeeded, when there was a crash and rush of water round us. I felt as if I had been struck upon the back with knotted ropes. White foam gurgled round my knees and eyes. The curagh reared up, swaying and trembling for a moment, and then fell safely into the furrow. This was our worst moment, though more than once, when several waves came so closely together that we had no time to regain control of the canoe between them, we had some dangerous work. Our lives depended upon the skill and courage of the men, as the life of the rider or swimmer is often in his own hands, and the excitement was too great to allow time for fear. I enjoyed the passage. Down in this shallow trough of canvas that bent and trembled with the motion of the men, I had a far more intimate feeling of the glory and power of the waves than I have ever known in a steamer. Old Mourteen is keeping me company again, and I am now able to understand the greater part of his Irish. He took me out to-day to show me the remains of some cloghauns, or beehive dwellings, that are left near the central ridge of the island. After I had looked at them we lay down in the corner of a little field, filled with the autumn sunshine and the odour of withering flowers, while he told me a long folk-tale which took more than an hour to narrate. He is so blind that I can gaze at him without discourtesy, and after a while the expression of his face made me forget to listen, and I lay dreamily in the sunshine letting the antique formulas of the story blend with the suggestions from the prehistoric masonry I lay on. The glow of childish transport that came over him when he reached the nonsense ending--so common in these tales--recalled me to myself, and I listened attentively while he gabbled with delighted haste: 'They found the path and I found the puddle. They were drowned and I was found. If it's all one to me tonight, it wasn't all one to them the next night. Yet, if it wasn't itself, not a thing did they lose but an old back tooth '--or some such gibberish. As I led him home through the paths he described to me--it is thus we get along--lifting him at times over the low walls he is too shaky to climb, he brought the conversation to the topic they are never weary of--my views on marriage. He stopped as we reached the summit of the island, with the stretch of the Atlantic just visible behind him. 'Whisper, noble person,' he began, 'do you never be thinking on the young girls? The time I was a young man, the devil a one of them could I look on without wishing to marry her.' 'Ah, Mourteen,' I answered, 'it's a great wonder you'd be asking me. What at all do you think of me yourself?' 'Bedad, noble person, I'm thinking it's soon you'll be getting married. Listen to what I'm telling you: a man who is not married is no better than an old jackass. He goes into his sister's house, and into his brother's house; he eats a bit in this place and a bit in another place, but he has no home for himself like an old jackass straying on the rocks.' I have left Aran. The steamer had a more than usually heavy cargo, and it was after four o'clock when we sailed from Kilronan. Again I saw the three low rocks sink down into the sea with a moment of inconceivable distress. It was a clear evening, and as we came out into the bay the sun stood like an aureole behind the cliffs of Inishmaan. A little later a brilliant glow came over the sky, throwing out the blue of the sea and of the hills of Connemara. When it was quite dark, the cold became intense, and I wandered about the lonely vessel that seemed to be making her own way across the sea. I was the only passenger, and all the crew, except one boy who was steering, were huddled together in the warmth of the engine-room. Three hours passed, and no one stirred. The slowness of the vessel and the lamentation of the cold sea about her sides became almost unendurable. Then the lights of Galway came in sight, and the crew appeared as we beat up slowly to the quay. Once on shore I had some difficulty in finding any one to carry my baggage to the railway. When I found a man in the darkness and got my bag on his shoulders, he turned out to be drunk, and I had trouble to keep him from rolling from the wharf with all my possessions. He professed to be taking me by a short cut into the town, but when we were in the middle of a waste of broken buildings and skeletons of ships he threw my bag on the ground and sat down on it. 'It's real heavy she is, your honour,' he said; 'I'm thinking it's gold there will be in it.' 'Divil a hap'worth is there in it at all but books,' I answered him in Gaelic. 'Bedad, is mor an truaghe' ('It's a big pity'), he said; 'if it was gold was in it it's the thundering spree we'd have together this night in Galway.' In about half an hour I got my luggage once more on his back, and we made our way into the city. Later in the evening I went down towards the quay to look for Michael. As I turned into the narrow street where he lodges, some one seemed to be following me in the shadow, and when I stopped to find the number of his house I heard the 'Failte' (Welcome) of Inishmaan pronounced close to me. It was Michael. 'I saw you in the street,' he said, 'but I was ashamed to speak to you in the middle of the people, so I followed you the way I'd see if you'd remember me.' We turned back together and walked about the town till he had to go to his lodgings. He was still just the same, with all his old simplicity and shrewdness; but the work he has here does not agree with him, and he is not contented. It was the eve of the Parnell celebration in Dublin, and the town was full of excursionists waiting for a train which was to start at midnight. When Michael left me I spent some time in an hotel, and then wandered down to the railway. A wild crowd was on the platform, surging round the train in every stage of intoxication. It gave me a better instance than I had yet seen of the half-savage temperament of Connaught. The tension of human excitement seemed greater in this insignificant crowd than anything I have felt among enormous mobs in Rome or Paris. There were a few people from the islands on the platform, and I got in along with them to a third-class carriage. One of the women of the party had her niece with her, a young girl from Connaught who was put beside me; at the other end of the carriage there were some old men who were talking Irish, and a young man who had been a sailor. When the train started there were wild cheers and cries on the platform, and in the train itself the noise was intense; men and women shrieking and singing and beating their sticks on the partitions. At several stations there was a rush to the bar, so the excitement increased as we proceeded. At Ballinasloe there were some soldiers on the platform looking for places. The sailor in our compartment had a dispute with one of them, and in an instant the door was flung open and the compartment was filled with reeling uniforms and sticks. Peace was made after a moment of uproar and the soldiers got out, but as they did so a pack of their women followers thrust their bare heads and arms into the doorway, cursing and blaspheming with extraordinary rage. As the train moved away a moment later, these women set up a frantic lamentation. I looked out and caught a glimpse of the wildest heads and figures I have ever seen, shrieking and screaming and waving their naked arms in the light of the lanterns. As the night went on girls began crying out in the carriage next us, and I could hear the words of obscene songs when the train stopped at a station. In our own compartment the sailor would allow no one to sleep, and talked all night with sometimes a touch of wit or brutality and always with a beautiful fluency with wild temperament behind it. The old men in the corner, dressed in black coats that had something of the antiquity of heirlooms, talked all night among themselves in Gaelic. The young girl beside me lost her shyness after a while, and let me point out the features of the country that were beginning to appear through the dawn as we drew nearer Dublin. She was delighted with the shadows of the trees--trees are rare in Connaught--and with the canal, which was beginning to reflect the morning light. Every time I showed her some new shadow she cried out with naive excitement-- 'Oh, it's lovely, but I can't see it.' This presence at my side contrasted curiously with the brutality that shook the barrier behind us. The whole spirit of the west of Ireland, with its strange wildness and reserve, seemed moving in this single train to pay a last homage to the dead statesman of the east. Part III A LETTER HAS come from Michael while I am in Paris. It is in English. MY DEAR FRIEND,--I hope that you are in good health since I have heard from you before, its many a time I do think of you since and it was not forgetting you I was for the future. I was at home in the beginning of March for a fortnight and was very bad with the Influence, but I took good care of myself. I am getting good wages from the first of this year, and I am afraid I won't be able to stand with it, although it is not hard, I am working in a saw-mills and getting the money for the wood and keeping an account of it. I am getting a letter and some news from home two or three times a week, and they are all well in health, and your friends in the island as well as if I mentioned them. Did you see any of my friends in Dublin Mr.--or any of those gentlemen or gentlewomen. I think I soon try America but not until next year if I am alive. I hope we might meet again in good and pleasant health. It is now time to come to a conclusion, good-bye and not for ever, write soon--I am your friend in Galway. Write soon dear friend. Another letter in a more rhetorical mood. MY DEAR MR. S.,--I am for a long time trying to spare a little time for to write a few words to you. Hoping that you are still considering good and pleasant health since I got a letter from you before. I see now that your time is coming round to come to this place to learn your native language. There was a great Feis in this island two weeks ago, and there was a very large attendance from the South island, and not very many from the North. Two cousins of my own have been in this house for three weeks or beyond it, but now they are gone, and there is a place for you if you wish to come, and you can write before you and we'll try and manage you as well as we can. I am at home now for about two months, for the mill was burnt where I was at work. After that I was in Dublin, but I did not get my health in that city.--Mise le mor mheas ort a chara. Soon after I received this letter I wrote to Michael to say that I was going back to them. This time I chose a day when the steamer went direct to the middle island, and as we came up between the two lines of curaghs that were waiting outside the slip, I saw Michael, dressed once more in his island clothes, rowing in one of them. He made no sign of recognition, but as soon as they could get alongside he clambered on board and came straight up on the bridge to where I was. 'Bhfuil tu go maith?' ('Are you well?') he said. 'Where is your bag?' His curagh had got a bad place near the bow of the steamer, so I was slung down from a considerable height on top of some sacks of flour and my own bag, while the curagh swayed and battered itself against the side. When we were clear I asked Michael if he had got my letter. 'Ah no,' he said, 'not a sight of it, but maybe it will come next week.' Part of the slip had been washed away during the winter, so we had to land to the left of it, among the rocks, taking our turn with the other curaghs that were coming in. As soon as I was on shore the men crowded round me to bid me welcome, asking me as they shook hands if I had travelled far in the winter, and seen many wonders, ending, as usual, with the inquiry if there was much war at present in the world. It gave me a thrill of delight to hear their Gaelic blessings, and to see the steamer moving away, leaving me quite alone among them. The day was fine with a clear sky, and the sea was glittering beyond the limestone. Further off a light haze on the cliffs of the larger island, and on the Connaught hills, gave me the illusion that it was still summer. A little boy was sent off to tell the old woman that I was coming, and we followed slowly, talking and carrying the baggage. When I had exhausted my news they told me theirs. A power of strangers--four or five--a French priest among them, had been on the island in the summer; the potatoes were bad, but the rye had begun well, till a dry week came and then it had turned into oats. 'If you didn't know us so well,' said the man who was talking, 'you'd think it was a lie we were telling, but the sorrow a lie is in it. It grew straight and well till it was high as your knee, then it turned into oats. Did ever you see the like of that in County Wicklow?' In the cottage everything was as usual, but Michael's presence has brought back the old woman's humour and contentment. As I sat down on my stool and lit my pipe with the corner of a sod, I could have cried out with the feeling of festivity that this return procured me. This year Michael is busy in the daytime, but at present there is a harvest moon, and we spend most of the evening wandering about the island, looking out over the bay where the shadows of the clouds throw strange patterns of gold and black. As we were returning through the village this evening a tumult of revelry broke out from one of the smaller cottages, and Michael said it was the young boys and girls who have sport at this time of the year. I would have liked to join them, but feared to embarrass their amusement. When we passed on again the groups of scattered cottages on each side of the way reminded me of places I have sometimes passed when travelling at night in France or Bavaria, places that seemed so enshrined in the blue silence of night one could not believe they would reawaken. Afterwards we went up on the Dun, where Michael said he had never been before after nightfall, though he lives within a stone's-throw. The place gains unexpected grandeur in this light, standing out like a corona of prehistoric stone upon the summit of the island. We walked round the top of the wall for some time looking down on the faint yellow roofs, with the rocks glittering beyond them, and the silence of the bay. Though Michael is sensible of the beauty of the nature round him, he never speaks of it directly, and many of our evening walks are occupied with long Gaelic discourses about the movements of the stars and moon. These people make no distinction between the natural and the supernatural. This afternoon--it was Sunday, when there is usually some interesting talk among the islanders--it rained, so I went into the schoolmaster's kitchen, which is a good deal frequented by the more advanced among the people. I know so little of their ways of fishing and farming that I do not find it easy to keep up our talk without reaching matters where they cannot follow me, and since the novelty of my photographs has passed off I have some difficulty in giving them the entertainment they seem to expect from my company. To-day I showed them some simple gymnastic feats and conjurer's tricks, which gave them great amusement. 'Tell us now,' said an old woman when I had finished, 'didn't you learn those things from the witches that do be out in the country?' In one of the tricks I seemed to join a piece of string which was cut by the people, and the illusion was so complete that I saw one man going off with it into a corner and pulling at the apparent joining till he sank red furrows round his hands. Then he brought it back to me. 'Bedad,' he said, 'this is the greatest wonder ever I seen. The cord is a taste thinner where you joined it but as strong as ever it was.' A few of the younger men looked doubtful, but the older people, who have watched the rye turning into oats, seemed to accept the magic frankly, and did not show any surprise that 'a duine uasal' (a noble person) should be able to do like the witches. My intercourse with these people has made me realise that miracles must abound wherever the new conception of law is not understood. On these islands alone miracles enough happen every year to equip a divine emissary Rye is turned into oats, storms are raised to keep evictors from the shore, cows that are isolated on lonely rocks bring forth calves, and other things of the same kind are common. The wonder is a rare expected event, like the thunderstorm or the rainbow, except that it is a little rarer and a little more wonderful. Often, when I am walking and get into conversation with some of the people, and tell them that I have received a paper from Dublin, they ask me--'And is there any great wonder in the world at this time?' When I had finished my feats of dexterity, I was surprised to find that none of the islanders, even the youngest and most agile, could do what I did. As I pulled their limbs about in my effort to teach them, I felt that the ease and beauty of their movements has made me think them lighter than they really are. Seen in their curaghs between these cliffs and the Atlantic, they appear lithe and small, but if they were dressed as we are and seen in an ordinary room, many of them would seem heavily and powerfully made. One man, however, the champion dancer of the island, got up after a while and displayed the salmon leap--lying flat on his face and then springing up, horizontally, high in the air--and some other feats of extraordinary agility, but he is not young and we could not get him to dance. In the evening I had to repeat my tricks here in the kitchen, for the fame of them had spread over the island. No doubt these feats will be remembered here for generations. The people have so few images for description that they seize on anything that is remarkable in their visitors and use it afterwards in their talk. For the last few years when they are speaking of any one with fine rings they say: 'She had beautiful rings on her fingers like Lady--,' a visitor to the island. I have been down sitting on the pier till it was quite dark. I am only beginning to understand the nights of Inishmaan and the influence they have had in giving distinction to these men who do most of their work after nightfall. I could hear nothing but a few curlews and other wild-fowl whistling and shrieking in the seaweed, and the low rustling of the waves. It was one of the dark sultry nights peculiar to September, with no light anywhere except the phosphorescence of the sea, and an occasional rift in the clouds that showed the stars behind them. The sense of solitude was immense. I could not see or realise my own body, and I seemed to exist merely in my perception of the waves and of the crying birds, and of the smell of seaweed. When I tried to come home I lost myself among the sandhills, and the night seemed to grow unutterably cold and dejected, as I groped among slimy masses of seaweed and wet crumbling walls. After a while I heard a movement in the sand, and two grey shadows appeared beside me. They were two men who were going home from fishing. I spoke to them and knew their voices, and we went home together. In the autumn season the threshing of the rye is one of the many tasks that fall to the men and boys. The sheaves are collected on a bare rock, and then each is beaten separately on a couple of stones placed on end one against the other. The land is so poor that a field hardly produces more grain than is needed for seed the following year, so the rye-growing is carried on merely for the straw, which is used for thatching. The stooks are carried to and from the threshing fields, piled on donkeys that one meets everywhere at this season, with their black, unbridled heads just visible beneath a pinnacle of golden straw. While the threshing is going on sons and daughters keep turning up with one thing and another till there is a little crowd on the rocks, and any one who is passing stops for an hour or two to talk on his way to the sea, so that, like the kelp-burning in the summer-time, this work is full of sociability. When the threshing is over the straw is taken up to the cottages and piled up in an outhouse, or more often in a corner of the kitchen, where it brings a new liveliness of colour. A few days ago when I was visiting a cottage where there are the most beautiful children on the island, the eldest daughter, a girl of about fourteen, went and sat down on a heap of straw by the doorway. A ray of sunlight fell on her and on a portion of the rye, giving her figure and red dress with the straw under it a curious relief against the nets and oilskins, and forming a natural picture of exquisite harmony and colour. In our own cottage the thatching--it is done every year--has just been carried out. The rope-twisting was done partly in the lane, partly in the kitchen when the weather was uncertain. Two men usually sit together at this work, one of them hammering the straw with a heavy block of wood, the other forming the rope, the main body of which is twisted by a boy or girl with a bent stick specially formed for this employment. In wet weather, when the work must be done indoors, the person who is twisting recedes gradually out of the door, across the lane, and sometimes across a field or two beyond it. A great length is needed to form the close network which is spread over the thatch, as each piece measures about fifty yards. When this work is in progress in half the cottages of the village, the road has a curious look, and one has to pick one's steps through a maze of twisting ropes that pass from the dark doorways on either side into the fields. When four or five immense balls of rope have been completed, a thatching party is arranged, and before dawn some morning they come down to the house, and the work is taken in hand with such energy that it is usually ended within the day. Like all work that is done in common on the island, the thatching is regarded as a sort of festival. From the moment a roof is taken in hand there is a whirl of laughter and talk till it is ended, and, as the man whose house is being covered is a host instead of an employer, he lays himself out to please the men who work with him. The day our own house was thatched the large table was taken into the kitchen from my room, and high teas were given every few hours. Most of the people who came along the road turned down into the kitchen for a few minutes, and the talking was incessant. Once when I went into the window I heard Michael retailing my astronomical lectures from the apex of the gable, but usually their topics have to do with the affairs of the island. It is likely that much of the intelligence and charm of these people is due to the absence of any division of labour, and to the correspondingly wide development of each individual, whose varied knowledge and skill necessitates a considerable activity of mind. Each man can speak two languages. He is a skilled fisherman, and can manage a curagh with extraordinary nerve and dexterity He can farm simply, burn kelp, cut out pampooties, mend nets, build and thatch a house, and make a cradle or a coffin. His work changes with the seasons in a way that keeps him free from the dullness that comes to people who have always the same occupation. The danger of his life on the sea gives him the alertness of the primitive hunter, and the long nights he spends fishing in his curagh bring him some of the emotions that are thought peculiar to men who have lived with the arts. As Michael is busy in the daytime, I have got a boy to come up and read Irish to me every afternoon. He is about fifteen, and is singularly intelligent, with a real sympathy for the language and the stories we read. One evening when he had been reading to me for two hours, I asked him if he was tired. 'Tired?' he said, 'sure you wouldn't ever be tired reading!' A few years ago this predisposition for intellectual things would have made him sit with old people and learn their stories, but now boys like him turn to books and to papers in Irish that are sent them from Dublin. In most of the stories we read, where the English and Irish are printed side by side, I see him looking across to the English in passages that are a little obscure, though he is indignant if I say that he knows English better than Irish. Probably he knows the local Irish better than English, and printed English better than printed Irish, as the latter has frequent dialectic forms he does not know. A few days ago when he was reading a folk-tale from Douglas Hyde's Beside the Fire, something caught his eye in the translation. 'There's a mistake in the English,' he said, after a moment's hesitation, 'he's put "gold chair" instead of "golden chair."' I pointed out that we speak of gold watches and gold pins. 'And why wouldn't we?' he said; 'but "golden chair" would be much nicer.' It is curious to see how his rudimentary culture has given him the beginning of a critical spirit that occupies itself with the form of language as well as with ideas. One day I alluded to my trick of joining string. 'You can't join a string, don't be saying it,' he said; 'I don't know what way you're after fooling us, but you didn't join that string, not a bit of you.' Another day when he was with me the fire burned low and I held up a newspaper before it to make a draught. It did not answer very well, and though the boy said nothing I saw he thought me a fool. The next day he ran up in great excitement. 'I'm after trying the paper over the fire,' he said, 'and it burned grand. Didn't I think, when I seen you doing it there was no good in it at all, but I put a paper over the master's (the school-master's) fire and it flamed up. Then I pulled back the corner of the paper and I ran my head in, and believe me, there was a big cold wind blowing up the chimney that would sweep the head from you.' We nearly quarrelled because he wanted me to take his photograph in his Sunday clothes from Galway, instead of his native homespuns that become him far better, though he does not like them as they seem to connect him with the primitive life of the island. With his keen temperament, he may go far if he can ever step out into the world. He is constantly thinking. One day he asked me if there was great wonder on their names out in the country. I said there was no wonder on them at all. 'Well,' he said, 'there is great wonder on your name in the island, and I was thinking maybe there would be great wonder on our names out in the country.' In a sense he is right. Though the names here are ordinary enough, they are used in a way that differs altogether from the modern system of surnames. When a child begins to wander about the island, the neighbours speak of it by its Christian name, followed by the Christian name of its father. If this is not enough to identify it, the father's epithet--whether it is a nickname or the name of his own father--is added. Sometimes when the father's name does not lend itself, the mother's Christian name is adopted as epithet for the children. An old woman near this cottage is called 'Peggeen,' and her sons are 'Patch Pheggeen,' 'Seaghan Pheggeen,' etc. Occasionally the surname is employed in its Irish form, but I have not heard them using the 'Mac' prefix when speaking Irish among themselves; perhaps the idea of a surname which it gives is too modern for them, perhaps they do use it at times that I have not noticed. Sometimes a man is named from the colour of his hair. There is thus a Seaghan Ruadh (Red John), and his children are 'Mourteen Seaghan Ruadh,' etc. Another man is known as 'an iasgaire' ('the fisher'), and his children are 'Maire an iasgaire' ('Mary daughter of the fisher'), and so on. The schoolmaster tells me that when he reads out the roll in the morning the children repeat the local name all together in a whisper after each official name, and then the child answers. If he calls, for instance, 'Patrick O'Flaharty,' the children murmur, 'Patch Seaghan Dearg' or some such name, and the boy answers. People who come to the island are treated in much the same way. A French Gaelic student was in the islands recently, and he is always spoken of as 'An Saggart Ruadh' ('the red priest') or as 'An Saggart Francach' ('the French priest'), but never by his name. If an islander's name alone is enough to distinguish him it is used by itself, and I know one man who is spoken of as Eamonn. There may be other Edmunds on the island, but if so they have probably good nicknames or epithets of their own. In other countries where the names are in a somewhat similar condition, as in modern Greece, the man's calling is usually one of the most common means of distinguishing him, but in this place, where all have the same calling, this means is not available. Late this evening I saw a three-oared curagh with two old women in her besides the rowers, landing at the slip through a heavy roll. They were coming from Inishere, and they rowed up quickly enough till they were within a few yards of the surf-line, where they spun round and waited with the prow towards the sea, while wave after wave passed underneath them and broke on the remains of the slip. Five minutes passed; ten minutes; and still they waited with the oars just paddling in the water, and their heads turned over their shoulders. I was beginning to think that they would have to give up and row round to the lee side of the island, when the curagh seemed suddenly to turn into a living thing. The prow was again towards the slip, leaping and hurling itself through the spray. Before it touched, the man in the bow wheeled round, two white legs came out over the prow like the flash of a sword, and before the next wave arrived he had dragged the curagh out of danger. This sudden and united action in men without discipline shows well the education that the waves have given them. When the curagh was in safety the two old women were carried up through the surf and slippery seaweed on the backs of their sons. In this broken weather a curagh cannot go out without danger, yet accidents are rare and seem to be nearly always caused by drink, Since I was here last year four men have been drowned on their way home from the large island. First a curagh belonging to the south island which put off with two men in her heavy with drink, came to shore here the next evening dry and uninjured, with the sail half set, and no one in her. More recently a curagh from this island with three men, who were the worse for drink, was upset on its way home. The steamer was not far off, and saved two of the men, but could not reach the third. Now a man has been washed ashore in Donegal with one pampooty on him, and a striped shirt with a purse in one of the pockets, and a box for tobacco. For three days the people have been trying to fix his identity. Some think it is the man from this island, others think that the man from the south answers the description more exactly. To-night as we were returning from the slip we met the mother of the man who was drowned from this island, still weeping and looking out over the sea. She stopped the people who had come over from the south island to ask them with a terrified whisper what is thought over there. Later in the evening, when I was sitting in one of the cottages, the sister of the dead man came in through the rain with her infant, and there was a long talk about the rumours that had come in. She pieced together all she could remember about his clothes, and what his purse was like, and where he had got it, and the same for his tobacco box, and his stockings. In the end there seemed little doubt that it was her brother. 'Ah!' she said, 'It's Mike sure enough, and please God they'll give him a decent burial.' Then she began to keen slowly to herself. She had loose yellow hair plastered round her head with the rain, and as she sat by the door sucking her infant, she seemed like a type of the women's life upon the islands. For a while the people sat silent, and one could hear nothing but the lips of the infant, the rain hissing in the yard, and the breathing of four pigs that lay sleeping in one corner. Then one of the men began to talk about the new boats that have been sent to the south island, and the conversation went back to its usual round of topics. The loss of one man seems a slight catastrophe to all except the immediate relatives. Often when an accident happens a father is lost with his two eldest sons, or in some other way all the active men of a household die together. A few years ago three men of a family that used to make the wooden vessels--like tiny barrels--that are still used among the people, went to the big island together. They were drowned on their way home, and the art of making these little barrels died with them, at least on Inishmaan, though it still lingers in the north and south islands. Another catastrophe that took place last winter gave a curious zest to the observance of holy days. It seems that it is not the custom for the men to go out fishing on the evening of a holy day, but one night last December some men, who wished to begin fishing early the next morning, rowed out to sleep in their hookers. Towards morning a terrible storm rose, and several hookers with their crews on board were blown from their moorings and wrecked. The sea was so high that no attempt at rescue could be made, and the men were drowned. 'Ah!' said the man who told me the story, 'I'm thinking it will be a long time before men will go out again on a holy day. That storm was the only storm that reached into the harbour the whole winter, and I'm thinking there was something in it.' Today when I went down to the slip I found a pig-jobber from Kilronan with about twenty pigs that were to be shipped for the English market. When the steamer was getting near, the whole drove was moved down on the slip and the curaghs were carried out close to the sea. Then each beast was caught in its turn and thrown on its side, while its legs were hitched together in a single knot, with a tag of rope remaining, by which it could be carried. Probably the pain inflicted was not great, yet the animals shut their eyes and shrieked with almost human intonations, till the suggestion of the noise became so intense that the men and women who were merely looking on grew wild with excitement, and the pigs waiting their turn foamed at the mouth and tore each other with their teeth. After a while there was a pause. The whole slip was covered with a mass of sobbing animals, with here and there a terrified woman crouching among the bodies, and patting some special favourite to keep it quiet while the curaghs were being launched. Then the screaming began again while the pigs were carried out and laid in their places, with a waistcoat tied round their feet to keep them from damaging the canvas. They seemed to know where they were going, and looked up at me over the gunnel with an ignoble desperation that made me shudder to think that I had eaten of this whimpering flesh. When the last curagh went out I was left on the slip with a band of women and children, and one old boar who sat looking out over the sea. The women were over-excited, and when I tried to talk to them they crowded round me and began jeering and shrieking at me because I am not married. A dozen screamed at a time, and so rapidly that I could not understand all that they were saying, yet I was able to make out that they were taking advantage of the absence of their husbands to give me the full volume of their contempt. Some little boys who were listening threw themselves down, writhing with laughter among the seaweed, and the young girls grew red with embarrassment and stared down into the surf. For a moment I was in confusion. I tried to speak to them, but I could not make myself heard, so I sat down on the slip and drew out my wallet of photographs. In an instant I had the whole band clambering round me, in their ordinary mood. When the curaghs came back--one of them towing a large kitchen table that stood itself up on the waves and then turned somersaults in an extraordinary manner--word went round that the ceannuighe (pedlar) was arriving. He opened his wares on the slip as soon as he landed, and sold a quantity of cheap knives and jewellery to the girls and the younger women. He spoke no Irish, and the bargaining gave immense amusement to the crowd that collected round him. I was surprised to notice that several women who professed to know no English could make themselves understood without difficulty when it pleased them. 'The rings is too dear at you, sir,' said one girl using the Gaelic construction; 'let you put less money on them and all the girls will be buying.' After the jewellery' he displayed some cheap religious pictures--abominable oleographs--but I did not see many buyers. I am told that most of the pedlars who come here are Germans or Poles, but I did not have occasion to speak with this man by himself. I have come over for a few days to the south island, and, as usual, my voyage was not favourable. The morning was fine, and seemed to promise one of the peculiarly hushed, pellucid days that occur sometimes before rain in early winter. From the first gleam of dawn the sky was covered with white cloud, and the tranquillity was so complete that every sound seemed to float away by itself across the silence of the bay. Lines of blue smoke were going up in spirals over the village, and further off heavy fragments of rain-cloud were lying on the horizon. We started early in the day, and, although the sea looked calm from a distance, we met a considerable roll coming from the south-west when we got out from the shore. Near the middle of the sound the man who was rowing in the bow broke his oar-pin, and the proper management of the canoe became a matter of some difficulty. We had only a three-oared curagh, and if the sea had gone much higher we should have run a good deal of danger. Our progress was so slow that clouds came up with a rise in the wind before we reached the shore, and rain began to fall in large single drops. The black curagh working slowly through this world of grey, and the soft hissing of the rain gave me one of the moods in which we realise with immense distress the short moment we have left us to experience all the wonder and beauty of the world. The approach to the south island is made at a fine sandy beach on the north-west. This interval in the rocks is of great service to the people, but the tract of wet sand with a few hideous fishermen's houses, lately built on it, looks singularly desolate in broken weather. The tide was going out when we landed, so we merely stranded the curagh and went up to the little hotel. The cess-collector was at work in one of the rooms, and there were a number of men and boys waiting about, who stared at us while we stood at the door and talked to the proprietor. When we had had our drink I went down to the sea with my men, who were in a hurry to be off. Some time was spent in replacing the oar-pin, and then they set out, though the wind was still increasing. A good many fishermen came down to see the start, and long after the curagh was out of sight I stood and talked with them in Irish, as I was anxious to compare their language and temperament with what I knew of the other island. The language seems to be identical, though some of these men speak rather more distinctly than any Irish speakers I have yet heard. In physical type, dress, and general character, however, there seems to be a considerable difference. The people on this island are more advanced than their neighbours, and the families here are gradually forming into different ranks, made up of the well-to-do, the struggling, and the quite poor and thriftless. These distinctions are present in the middle island also, but over there they have had no effect on the people, among whom there is still absolute equality. A little later the steamer came in sight and lay to in the offing. While the curaghs were being put out I noticed in the crowd several men of the ragged, humorous type that was once thought to represent the real peasant of Ireland. Rain was now falling heavily, and as we looked out through the fog there was something nearly appalling in the shrieks of laughter kept up by one of these individuals, a man of extraordinary ugliness and wit. At last he moved off toward the houses, wiping his eyes with the tail of his coat and moaning to himself 'Ta me marbh,' ('I'm killed'), till some one stopped him and he began again pouring out a medley of rude puns and jokes that meant more than they said. There is quaint humour, and sometimes wild humour, on the middle island, but never this half-sensual ecstasy of laughter. Perhaps a man must have a sense of intimate misery, not known there, before he can set himself to jeer and mock at the world. These strange men with receding foreheads, high cheekbones, and ungovernable eyes seem to represent some old type found on these few acres at the extreme border of Europe, where it is only in wild jests and laughter that they can express their loneliness and desolation. The mode of reciting ballads in this island is singularly harsh. I fell in with a curious man to-day beyond the east village, and we wandered out on the rocks towards the sea. A wintry shower came on while we were together, and we crouched down in the bracken, under a loose wall. When we had gone through the usual topics he asked me if I was fond of songs, and began singing to show what he could do. The music was much like what I have heard before on the islands--a monotonous chant with pauses on the high and low notes to mark the rhythm; but the harsh nasal tone in which he sang was almost intolerable. His performance reminded me in general effect of a chant I once heard from a party of Orientals I was travelling with in a third-class carriage from Paris to Dieppe, but the islander ran his voice over a much wider range. His pronunciation was lost in the rasping of his throat, and, though he shrieked into my ear to make sure that I understood him above the howling of the wind, I could only make out that it was an endless ballad telling the fortune of a young man who went to sea, and had many adventures. The English nautical terms were employed continually in describing his life on the ship, but the man seemed to feel that they were not in their place, and stopped short when one of them occurred to give me a poke with his finger and explain gib, topsail, and bowsprit, which were for me the most intelligible features of the poem. Again, when the scene changed to Dublin, 'glass of whiskey,' 'public-house,' and such things were in English. When the shower was over he showed me a curious cave hidden among the cliffs, a short distance from the sea. On our way back he asked me the three questions I am met with on every side--whether I am a rich man, whether I am married, and whether I have ever seen a poorer place than these islands. When he heard that I was not married he urged me to come back in the summer so that he might take me over in a curagh to the Spa in County Glare, where there is 'spree mor agus go leor ladies' ('a big spree and plenty of ladies'). Something about the man repelled me while I was with him, and though I was cordial and liberal he seemed to feel that I abhorred him. We arranged to meet again in the evening, but when I dragged myself with an inexplicable loathing to the place of meeting, there was no trace of him. It is characteristic that this man, who is probably a drunkard and shebeener and certainly in penury, refused the chance of a shilling because he felt that I did not like him. He had a curiously mixed expression of hardness and melancholy. Probably his character has given him a bad reputation on the island, and he lives here with the restlessness of a man who has no sympathy with his companions. I have come over again to Inishmaan, and this time I had fine weather for my passage. The air was full of luminous sunshine from the early morning, and it was almost a summer's day when I set sail at noon with Michael and two other men who had come over for me in a curagh. The wind was in our favour, so the sail was put up and Michael sat in the stem to steer with an oar while I rowed with the others. We had had a good dinner and drink and were wrought up by this sudden revival of summer to a dreamy voluptuous gaiety, that made us shout with exultation to hear our voices passing out across the blue twinkling of the sea. Even after the people of the south island, these men of Inishmaan seemed to be moved by strange archaic sympathies with the world. Their mood accorded itself with wonderful fineness to the suggestions of the day, and their ancient Gaelic seemed so full of divine simplicity that I would have liked to turn the prow to the west and row with them for ever. I told them I was going back to Paris in a few days to sell my books and my bed, and that then I was coming back to grow as strong and simple as they were among the islands of the west. When our excitement sobered down, Michael told me that one of the priests had left his gun at our cottage and given me leave to use it till he returned to the island. There was another gun and a ferret in the house also, and he said that as soon as we got home he was going to take me out fowling on rabbits. A little later in the day we set off, and I nearly laughed to see Michael's eagerness that I should turn out a good shot. We put the ferret down in a crevice between two bare sheets of rock, and waited. In a few minutes we heard rushing paws underneath us, then a rabbit shot up straight into the air from the crevice at our feet and set off for a wall that was a few feet away. I threw up the gun and fired. 'Buail tu e,' screamed Michael at my elbow as he ran up the rock. I had killed it. We shot seven or eight more in the next hour, and Michael was immensely pleased. If I had done badly I think I should have had to leave the islands. The people would have despised me. A 'duine uasal' who cannot shoot seems to these descendants of hunters a fallen type who is worse than an apostate. The women of this island are before conventionality, and share some of the liberal features that are thought peculiar to the women of Paris and New York. Many of them are too contented and too sturdy to have more than a decorative interest, but there are others full of curious individuality. This year I have got to know a wonderfully humorous girl, who has been spinning in the kitchen for the last few days with the old woman's spinning-wheel. The morning she began I heard her exquisite intonation almost before I awoke, brooding and cooing over every syllable she uttered. I have heard something similar in the voices of German and Polish women, but I do not think men--at least European men--who are always further than women from the simple, animal emotions, or any speakers who use languages with weak gutturals, like French or English, can produce this inarticulate chant in their ordinary talk. She plays continual tricks with her Gaelic in the way girls are fond of, piling up diminutives and repeating adjectives with a humorous scorn of syntax. While she is here the talk never stops in the kitchen. To-day she has been asking me many questions about Germany, for it seems one of her sisters married a German husband in America some years ago, who kept her in great comfort, with a fine 'capull glas' ('grey horse') to ride on, and this girl has decided to escape in the same way from the drudgery of the island. This was my last evening on my stool in the chimney corner, and I had a long talk with some neighbours who came in to bid me prosperity, and lay about on the floor with their heads on low stools and their feet stretched out to the embers of the turf. The old woman was at the other side of the fire, and the girl I have spoken of was standing at her spinning-wheel, talking and joking with every one. She says when I go away now I am to marry a rich wife with plenty of money, and if she dies on me I am to come back here and marry herself for my second wife. I have never heard talk so simple and so attractive as the talk of these people. This evening they began disputing about their wives, and it appeared that the greatest merit they see in a woman is that she should be fruitful and bring them many children. As no money can be earned by children on the island this one attitude shows the immense difference between these people and the people of Paris. The direct sexual instincts are not weak on the island, but they are so subordinated to the instincts of the family that they rarely lead to irregularity. The life here is still at an almost patriarchal stage, and the people are nearly as far from the romantic moods of love as they are from the impulsive life of the savage. The wind was so high this morning that there was some doubt whether the steamer would arrive, and I spent half the day wandering about with Michael watching the horizon. At last, when we had given her up, she came in sight far away to the north, where she had gone to have the wind with her where the sea was at its highest. I got my baggage from the cottage and set off for the slip with Michael and the old man, turning into a cottage here and there to say good-bye. In spite of the wind outside, the sea at the slip was as calm as a pool. The men who were standing about while the steamer was at the south island wondered for the last time whether I would be married when I came back to see them. Then we pulled out and took our place in the line. As the tide was running hard the steamer stopped a certain distance from the shore, and gave us a long race for good places at her side. In the struggle we did not come off well, so I had to clamber across two curaghs, twisting and fumbling with the roll, in order to get on board. It seemed strange to see the curaghs full of well-known faces turning back to the slip without me, but the roll in the sound soon took off my attention. Some men were on board whom I had seen on the south island, and a good many Kilronan people on their way home from Galway, who told me that in one part of their passage in the morning they had come in for heavy seas. As is usual on Saturday, the steamer had a large cargo of flour and porter to discharge at Kilronan, and, as it was nearly four o'clock before the tide could float her at the pier, I felt some doubt about our passage to Galway. The wind increased as the afternoon went on, and when I came down in the twilight I found that the cargo was not yet all unladen, and that the captain feared to face the gale that was rising. It was some time before he came to a final decision, and we walked backwards and forwards from the village with heavy clouds flying overhead and the wind howling in the walls. At last he telegraphed to Galway to know if he was wanted the next day, and we went into a public-house to wait for the reply. The kitchen was filled with men sitting closely on long forms ranged in lines at each side of the fire. A wild-looking but beautiful girl was kneeling on the hearth talking loudly to the men, and a few natives of Inishmaan were hanging about the door, miserably drunk. At the end of the kitchen the bar was arranged, with a sort of alcove beside it, where some older men were playing cards. Overhead there were the open rafters, filled with turf and tobacco smoke. This is the haunt so much dreaded by the women of the other islands, where the men linger with their money till they go out at last with reeling steps and are lost in the sound. Without this background of empty curaghs, and bodies floating naked with the tide, there would be something almost absurd about the dissipation of this simple place where men sit, evening after evening, drinking bad whisky and porter, and talking with endless repetition of fishing, and kelp, and of the sorrows of purgatory. When we had finished our whiskey word came that the boat might remain. With some difficulty I got my bags out of the steamer and carried them up through the crowd of women and donkeys that were still struggling on the quay in an inconceivable medley of flour-bags and cases of petroleum. When I reached the inn the old woman was in great good humour, and I spent some time talking by the kitchen fire. Then I groped my way back to the harbour, where, I was told, the old net-mender, who came to see me on my first visit to the islands, was spending the night as watchman. It was quite dark on the pier, and a terrible gale was blowing. There was no one in the little office where I expected to find him, so I groped my way further on towards a figure I saw moving with a lantern. It was the old man, and he remembered me at once when I hailed him and told him who I was. He spent some time arranging one of his lanterns, and then he took me back to his office--a mere shed of planks and corrugated iron, put up for the contractor of some work which is in progress on the pier. When we reached the light I saw that his head was rolled up in an extraordinary collection of mufflers to keep him from the cold, and that his face was much older than when I saw him before, though still full of intelligence. He began to tell how he had gone to see a relative of mine in Dublin when he first left the island as a cabin-boy, between forty and fifty years ago. He told his story with the usual detail:-- We saw a man walking about on the quay in Dublin, and looking at us without saying a word. Then he came down to the yacht. 'Are you the men from Aran?' said he. 'We are,' said we. 'You're to come with me so,' said he. 'Why?' said we. Then he told us it was Mr. Synge had sent him and we went with him. Mr. Synge brought us into his kitchen and gave the men a glass of whisky all round, and a half-glass to me because I was a boy--though at that time and to this day I can drink as much as two men and not be the worse of it. We were some time in the kitchen, then one of the men said we should be going. I said it would not be right to go without saying a word to Mr. Synge. Then the servant-girl went up and brought him down, and he gave us another glass of whisky, and he gave me a book in Irish because I was going to sea, and I was able to read in the Irish. I owe it to Mr. Synge and that book that when I came back here, after not hearing a word of Irish for thirty years, I had as good Irish, or maybe better Irish, than any person on the island. I could see all through his talk that the sense of superiority which his scholarship in this little-known language gave him above the ordinary seaman, had influenced his whole personality and been the central interest of his life. On one voyage he had a fellow-sailor who often boasted that he had been at school and learned Greek, and this incident took place:-- One night we had a quarrel, and I asked him could he read a Greek book with all his talk of it. 'I can so,' said he. 'We'll see that,' said I. Then I got the Irish book out of my chest, and I gave it into his hand. 'Read that to me,' said I, 'if you know Greek.' He took it, and he looked at it this way, and that way, and not a bit of him could make it out. 'Bedad, I've forgotten my Greek,' said he. 'You're telling a lie,' said I. 'I'm not,' said he; 'it's the divil a bit I can read it.' Then I took the book back into my hand, and said to him--'It's the sorra a word of Greek you ever knew in your life, for there's not a word of Greek in that book, and not a bit of you knew.' He told me another story of the only time he had heard Irish spoken during his voyages:-- One night I was in New York, walking in the streets with some other men, and we came upon two women quarrelling in Irish at the door of a public-house. 'What's that jargon?' said one of the men. 'It's no jargon,' said I. 'What is it?' said he. 'It's Irish,' said I. Then I went up to them, and you know, sir, there is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting. The moment I spoke to them they stopped scratching and swearing and stood there as quiet as two lambs. Then they asked me in Irish if I wouldn't come in and have a drink, and I said I couldn't leave my mates. 'Bring them too,' said they. Then we all had a drop together. While we were talking another man had slipped in and sat down in the corner with his pipe, and the rain had become so heavy we could hardly hear our voices over the noise on the iron roof. The old man went on telling of his experiences at sea and the places he had been to. 'If I had my life to live over again,' he said, 'there's no other way I'd spend it. I went in and out everywhere and saw everything. I was never afraid to take my glass, though I was never drunk in my life, and I was a great player of cards though I never played for money.' 'There's no diversion at all in cards if you don't play for money' said the man in the corner. 'There was no use in my playing for money' said the old man, 'for I'd always lose, and what's the use in playing if you always lose?' Then our conversation branched off to the Irish language and the books written in it. He began to criticise Archbishop MacHale's version of Moore's Irish Melodies with great severity and acuteness, citing whole poems both in the English and Irish, and then giving versions that he had made himself. 'A translation is no translation,' he said, 'unless it will give you the music of a poem along with the words of it. In my translation you won't find a foot or a syllable that's not in the English, yet I've put down all his words mean, and nothing but it. Archbishop MacHale's work is a most miserable production.' From the verses he cited his judgment seemed perfectly justified, and even if he was wrong, it is interesting to note that this poor sailor and night-watchman was ready to rise up and criticise an eminent dignitary and scholar on rather delicate points of versification and the finer distinctions between old words of Gaelic. In spite of his singular intelligence and minute observation his reasoning was medieval. I asked him what he thought about the future of the language on these islands. 'It can never die out,' said he, 'because there's no family in the place can live without a bit of a field for potatoes, and they have only the Irish words for all that they do in the fields. They sail their new boats--their hookers--in English, but they sail a curagh oftener in Irish, and in the fields they have the Irish alone. It can never die out, and when the people begin to see it fallen very low, it will rise up again like the phoenix from its own ashes.' 'And the Gaelic League?' I asked him. 'The Gaelic League! Didn't they come down here with their organisers and their secretaries, and their meetings and their speechifyings, and start a branch of it, and teach a power of Irish for five weeks and a half!' [a] 'What do we want here with their teaching Irish?' said the man in the corner; 'haven't we Irish enough?' 'You have not,' said the old man; 'there's not a soul in Aran can count up to nine hundred and ninety-nine without using an English word but myself.' It was getting late, and the rain had lessened for a moment, so I groped my way back to the inn through the intense darkness of a late autumn night. [a] This was written, it should be remembered, some years ago. Part IV No two journeys to these islands are alike. This morning I sailed with the steamer a little after five o'clock in a cold night air, with the stars shining on the bay. A number of Claddagh fishermen had been out all night fishing not far from the harbour, and without thinking, or perhaps caring to think, of the steamer, they had put out their nets in the channel where she was to pass. Just before we started the mate sounded the steam whistle repeatedly to give them warning, saying as he did so-- 'If you were out now in the bay, gentlemen, you'd hear some fine prayers being said.' When we had gone a little way we began to see the light from the turf fires carried by the fishermen flickering on the water, and to hear a faint noise of angry voices. Then the outline of a large fishing-boat came in sight through the darkness, with the forms of three men who stood on the course. The captain feared to turn aside, as there are sandbanks near the channel, so the engines were stopped and we glided over the nets without doing them harm. As we passed close to the boat the crew could be seen plainly on the deck, one of them holding the bucket of red turf, and their abuse could be distinctly heard. It changed continually, from profuse Gaelic maledictions to the simpler curses they know in English. As they spoke they could be seen writhing and twisting themselves with passion against the light which was beginning to turn on the ripple of the sea. Soon afterwards another set of voices began in front of us, breaking out in strange contrast with the dwindling stars and the silence of the dawn. Further on we passed many boats that let us go by without a word, as their nets were not in the channel. Then day came on rapidly with cold showers that turned golden in the first rays from the sun, filling the troughs of the sea with curious transparencies and light. This year I have brought my fiddle with me so that I may have something new to keep up the interest of the people. I have played for them several tunes, but as far as I can judge they do not feel modern music, though they listen eagerly from curiosity. Irish airs like 'Eileen Aroon' please them better, but it is only when I play some jig like the 'Black Rogue'--which is known on the island--that they seem to respond to the full meaning of the notes. Last night I played for a large crowd, which had come together for another purpose from all parts of the island. About six o'clock I was going into the schoolmaster's house, and I heard a fierce wrangle going on between a man and a woman near the cottages to the west, that lie below the road. While I was listening to them several women came down to listen also from behind the wall, and told me that the people who were fighting were near relations who lived side by side and often quarrelled about trifles, though they were as good friends as ever the next day. The voices sounded so enraged that I thought mischief would come of it, but the women laughed at the idea. Then a lull came, and I said that they seemed to have finished at last. 'Finished!' said one of the women; 'sure they haven't rightly begun. It's only playing they are yet.' It was just after sunset and the evening was bitterly cold, so I went into the house and left them. An hour later the old man came down from my cottage to say that some of the lads and the 'fear lionta' ('the man of the nets'--a young man from Aranmor who is teaching net-mending to the boys) were up at the house, and had sent him down to tell me they would like to dance, if I would come up and play for them. I went out at once, and as soon as I came into the air I heard the dispute going on still to the west more violently than ever. The news of it had gone about the island, and little bands of girls and boys were running along the lanes towards the scene of the quarrel as eagerly as if they were going to a racecourse. I stopped for a few minutes at the door of our cottage to listen to the volume of abuse that was rising across the stillness of the island. Then I went into the kitchen and began tuning the fiddle, as the boys were impatient for my music. At first I tried to play standing, but on the upward stroke my bow came in contact with the salt-fish and oil-skins that hung from the rafters, so I settled myself at last on a table in the corner, where I was out of the way, and got one of the people to hold up my music before me, as I had no stand. I played a French melody first, to get myself used to the people and the qualities of the room, which has little resonance between the earth floor and the thatch overhead. Then I struck up the 'Black Rogue,' and in a moment a tall man bounded out from his stool under the chimney and began flying round the kitchen with peculiarly sure and graceful bravado. The lightness of the pampooties seems to make the dancing on this island lighter and swifter than anything I have seen on the mainland, and the simplicity of the men enables them to throw a naive extravagance into their steps that is impossible in places where the people are self-conscious. The speed, however, was so violent that I had some difficulty in keeping up, as my fingers were not in practice, and I could not take off more than a small part of my attention to watch what was going on. When I finished I heard a commotion at the door, and the whole body of people who had gone down to watch the quarrel filed into the kitchen and arranged themselves around the walls, the women and girls, as is usual, forming themselves in one compact mass crouching on their heels near the door. I struck up another dance--'Paddy get up'--and the 'fear lionta' and the first dancer went through it together, with additional rapidity and grace, as they were excited by the presence of the people who had come in. Then word went round that an old man, known as Little Roger, was outside, and they told me he was once the best dancer on the island. For a long time he refused to come in, for he said he was too old to dance, but at last he was persuaded, and the people brought him in and gave him a stool opposite me. It was some time longer before he would take his turn, and when he did so, though he was met with great clapping of hands, he only danced for a few moments. He did not know the dances in my book, he said, and did not care to dance to music he was not familiar with. When the people pressed him again he looked across to me. 'John,' he said, in shaking English, 'have you got "Larry Grogan," for it is an agreeable air?' I had not, so some of the young men danced again to the 'Black Rogue,' and then the party broke up. The altercation was still going on at the cottage below us, and the people were anxious to see what was coming of it. About ten o'clock a young man came in and told us that the fight was over. 'They have been at it for four hours,' he said, 'and now they're tired.' Indeed it is time they were, for you'd rather be listening to a man killing a pig than to the noise they were letting out of them.' After the dancing and excitement we were too stirred up to be sleepy, so we sat for a long time round the embers of the turf, talking and smoking by the light of the candle. From ordinary music we came to talk of the music of the fairies, and they told me this story, when I had told them some stories of my own:-- A man who lives in the other end of the village got his gun one day and went out to look for rabbits in a thicket near the small Dun. He saw a rabbit sitting up under a tree, and he lifted his gun to take aim at it, but just as he had it covered he heard a kind of music over his head, and he looked up into the sky. When he looked back for the rabbit, not a bit of it was to be seen. He went on after that, and he heard the music again. Then he looked over a wall, and he saw a rabbit sitting up by the wall with a sort of flute in its mouth, and it playing on it with its two fingers! 'What sort of rabbit was that?' said the old woman when they had finished. 'How could that be a right rabbit? I remember old Pat Dirane used to be telling us he was once out on the cliffs, and he saw a big rabbit sitting down in a hole under a flagstone. He called a man who was with him, and they put a hook on the end of a stick and ran it down into the hole. Then a voice called up to them-- '"Ah, Phaddrick, don't hurt me with the hook!" 'Pat was a great rogue,' said the old man. 'Maybe you remember the bits of horns he had like handles on the end of his sticks? Well, one day there was a priest over and he said to Pat--"Is it the devil's horns you have on your sticks, Pat?" "I don't rightly know" said Pat, "but if it is, it's the devil's milk you've been drinking, since you've been able to drink, and the devil's flesh you've been eating and the devil's butter you've been putting on your bread, for I've seen the like of them horns on every old cow through the country."' The weather has been rough, but early this afternoon the sea was calm enough for a hooker to come in with turf from Connemara, though while she was at the pier the roll was so great that the men had to keep a watch on the waves and loosen the cable whenever a large one was coming in, so that she might ease up with the water. There were only two men on board, and when she was empty they had some trouble in dragging in the cables, hoisting the sails, and getting out of the harbour before they could be blown on the rocks. A heavy shower came on soon afterwards, and I lay down under a stack of turf with some people who were standing about, to wait for another hooker that was coming in with horses. They began talking and laughing about the dispute last night and the noise made at it. 'The worst fights do be made here over nothing,' said an old man next me. 'Did Mourteen or any of them on the big island ever tell you of the fight they had there threescore years ago when they were killing each other with knives out on the strand?' 'They never told me,' I said. 'Well,' said he, 'they were going down to cut weed, and a man was sharpening his knife on a stone before he went. A young boy came into the kitchen, and he said to the man--"What are you sharpening that knife for?"' '"To kill your father with," said the man, and they the best of friends all the time. The young boy went back to his house and told his father there was a man sharpening a knife to kill him. '"Bedad," said the father, "if he has a knife I'll have one, too." 'He sharpened his knife after that, and they went down to the strand. Then the two men began making fun about their knives, and from that they began raising their voices, and it wasn't long before there were ten men fighting with their knives, and they never stopped till there were five of them dead. 'They buried them the day after, and when they were coming home, what did they see but the boy who began the work playing about with the son of the other man, and their two fathers down in their graves.' When he stopped, a gust of wind came and blew up a bundle of dry seaweed that was near us, right over our heads. Another old man began to talk. 'That was a great wind,' he said. 'I remember one time there was a man in the south island who had a lot of wool up in shelter against the corner of a wall. He was after washing it, and drying it, and turning it, and he had it all nice and clean the way they could card it. Then a wind came down and the wool began blowing all over the wall. The man was throwing out his arms on it and trying to stop it, and another man saw him. '"The devil mend your head!" says he, "the like of that wind is too strong for you." '"If the devil himself is in it," said the other man, "I'll hold on to it while I can." 'Then whether it was because of the word or not I don't know, but the whole of the wool went up over his head and blew all over the island, yet, when his wife came to spin afterwards she had all they expected, as if that lot was not lost on them at all.' 'There was more than that in it,' said another man, 'for the night before a woman had a great sight out to the west in this island, and saw all the people that were dead a while back in this island and the south island, and they all talking with each other. There was a man over from the other island that night, and he heard the woman talking of what she had seen. The next day he went back to the south island, and I think he was alone in the curagh. As soon as he came near the other island he saw a man fishing from the cliffs, and this man called out to him-- '"Make haste now and go up and tell your mother to hide the poteen"--his mother used to sell poteen--"for I'm after seeing the biggest party of peelers and yeomanry passing by on the rocks was ever seen on the island." It was at that time the wool was taken with the other man above, under the hill, and no peelers in the island at all.' A little after that the old men went away, and I was left with some young men between twenty and thirty, who talked to me of different things. One of them asked me if ever I was drunk, and another told me I would be right to marry a girl out of this island, for they were nice women in it, fine fat girls, who would be strong, and have plenty of children, and not be wasting my money on me. When the horses were coming ashore a curagh that was far out after lobster-pots came hurrying in, and a man out of her ran up the sandhills to meet a little girl who was coming down with a bundle of Sunday clothes. He changed them on the sand and then went out to the hooker, and went off to Connemara to bring back his horses. A young married woman I used often to talk with is dying of a fever--typhus I am told--and her husband and brothers have gone off in a curagh to get the doctor and the priest from the north island, though the sea is rough. I watched them from the Dun for a long time after they had started. Wind and rain were driving through the sound, and I could see no boats or people anywhere except this one black curagh splashing and struggling through the waves. When the wind fell a little I could hear people hammering below me to the east. The body of a young man who was drowned a few weeks ago came ashore this morning, and his friends have been busy all day making a coffin in the yard of the house where he lived. After a while the curagh went out of sight into the mist, and I came down to the cottage shuddering with cold and misery. The old woman was keening by the fire. 'I have been to the house where the young man is,' she said, 'but I couldn't go to the door with the air was coming out of it. They say his head isn't on him at all, and indeed it isn't any wonder and he three weeks in the sea. Isn't it great danger and sorrow is over every one on this island?' I asked her if the curagh would soon be coming back with the priest. 'It will not be coming soon or at all to-night,' she said. 'The wind has gone up now, and there will come no curagh to this island for maybe two days or three. And wasn't it a cruel thing to see the haste was on them, and they in danger all the time to be drowned themselves?' Then I asked her how the woman was doing. 'She's nearly lost,' said the old woman; 'she won't be alive at all tomorrow morning. They have no boards to make her a coffin, and they'll want to borrow the boards that a man below has had this two years to bury his mother, and she alive still. I heard them saying there are two more women with the fever, and a child that's not three. The Lord have mercy on us all!' I went out again to look over the sea, but night had fallen and the hurricane was howling over the Dun. I walked down the lane and heard the keening in the house where the young man was. Further on I could see a stir about the door of the cottage that had been last struck by typhus. Then I turned back again in the teeth of the rain, and sat over the fire with the old man and woman talking of the sorrows of the people till it was late in the night. This evening the old man told me a story he had heard long ago on the mainland:-- There was a young woman, he said, and she had a child. In a little time the woman died and they buried her the day after. That night another woman--a woman of the family--was sitting by the fire with the child on her lap, giving milk to it out of a cup. Then the woman they were after burying opened the door, and came into the house. She went over to the fire, and she took a stool and sat down before the other woman. Then she put out her hand and took the child on her lap, and gave it her breast. After that she put the child in the cradle and went over to the dresser and took milk and potatoes off it, and ate them. Then she went out. The other woman was frightened, and she told the man of the house when he came back, and two young men. They said they would be there the next night, and if she came back they would catch hold of her. She came the next night and gave the child her breast, and when she got up to go to the dresser, the man of the house caught hold of her, but he fell down on the floor. Then the two young men caught hold of her and they held her. She told them she was away with the fairies, and they could not keep her that night, though she was eating no food with the fairies, the way she might be able to come back to her child. Then she told them they would all be leaving that part of the country on the Oidhche Shamhna, and that there would be four or five hundred of them riding on horses, and herself would be on a grey horse, riding behind a young man. And she told them to go down to a bridge they would be crossing that night, and to wait at the head of it, and when she would be coming up she would slow the horse and they would be able to throw something on her and on the young man, and they would fall over on the ground and be saved. She went away then, and on the Oidhche Shamhna the men went down and got her back. She had four children after that, and in the end she died. It was not herself they buried at all the first time, but some old thing the fairies put in her place. 'There are people who say they don't believe in these things,' said the old woman, 'but there are strange things, let them say what they will. There was a woman went to bed at the lower village a while ago, and her child along with her. For a time they did not sleep, and then something came to the window, and they heard a voice and this is what it said-- '"It is time to sleep from this out." 'In the morning the child was dead, and indeed it is many get their death that way on the island.' The young man has been buried, and his funeral was one of the strangest scenes I have met with. People could be seen going down to his house from early in the day, yet when I went there with the old man about the middle of the afternoon, the coffin was still lying in front of the door, with the men and women of the family standing round beating it, and keening over it, in a great crowd of people. A little later every one knelt down and a last prayer was said. Then the cousins of the dead man got ready two oars and some pieces of rope--the men of his own family seemed too broken with grief to know what they were doing--the coffin was tied up, and the procession began. The old woman walked close behind the coffin, and I happened to take a place just after them, among the first of the men. The rough lane to the graveyard slopes away towards the east, and the crowd of women going down before me in their red dresses, cloaked with red pethcoats, with the waistband that is held round the head just seen from behind, had a strange effect, to which the white coffin and the unity of colour gave a nearly cloistral quietness. This time the graveyard was filled with withered grass and bracken instead of the early ferns that were to be seen everywhere at the other funeral I have spoken of, and the grief of the people was of a different kind, as they had come to bury a young man who had died in his first manhood, instead of an old woman of eighty. For this reason the keen lost a part of its formal nature, and was recited as the expression of intense personal grief by the young men and women of the man's own family. When the coffin had been laid down, near the grave that was to be opened, two long switches were cut out from the brambles among the rocks, and the length and breadth of the coffin were marked on them. Then the men began their work, clearing off stones and thin layers of earth, and breaking up an old coffin that was in the place into which the new one had to be lowered. When a number of blackened boards and pieces of bone had been thrown up with the clay, a skull was lifted out, and placed upon a gravestone. Immediately the old woman, the mother of the dead man, took it up in her hands, and carried it away by herself. Then she sat down and put it in her lap--it was the skull of her own mother--and began keening and shrieking over it with the wildest lamentation. As the pile of mouldering clay got higher beside the grave a heavy smell began to rise from it, and the men hurried with their work, measuring the hole repeatedly with the two rods of bramble. When it was nearly deep enough the old woman got up and came back to the coffin, and began to beat on it, holding the skull in her left hand. This last moment of grief was the most terrible of all. The young women were nearly lying among the stones, worn out with their passion of grief, yet raising themselves every few moments to beat with magnificent gestures on the boards of the coffin. The young men were worn out also, and their voices cracked continually in the wail of the keen. When everything was ready the sheet was unpinned from the coffin, and it was lowered into its place. Then an old man took a wooden vessel with holy water in it, and a wisp of bracken, and the people crowded round him while he splashed the water over them. They seemed eager to get as much of it as possible, more than one old woman crying out with a humorous voice-- 'Tabhair dham braon eile, a Mhourteen.' ('Give me another drop, Martin.') When the grave was half filled in, I wandered round towards the north watching two seals that were chasing each other near the surf. I reached the Sandy Head as the light began to fail, and found some of the men I knew best fishing there with a sort of dragnet. It is a tedious process, and I sat for a long time on the sand watching the net being put out, and then drawn in again by eight men working together with a slow rhythmical movement. As they talked to me and gave me a little poteen and a little bread when they thought I was hungry, I could not help feeling that I was talking with men who were under a judgment of death. I knew that every one of them would be drowned in the sea in a few years and battered naked on the rocks, or would die in his own cottage and be buried with another fearful scene in the graveyard I had come from. When I got up this morning I found that the people had gone to Mass and latched the kitchen door from the outside, so that I could not open it to give myself light. I sat for nearly an hour beside the fire with a curious feeling that I should be quite alone in this little cottage. I am so used to sitting here with the people that I have never felt the room before as a place where any man might live and work by himself. After a while as I waited, with just light enough from the chimney to let me see the rafters and the greyness of the walls, I became indescribably mournful, for I felt that this little corner on the face of the world, and the people who live in it, have a peace and dignity from which we are shut for ever. While I was dreaming, the old woman came in in a great hurry and made tea for me and the young priest, who followed her a little later drenched with rain and spray. The curate who has charge of the middle and south islands has a wearisome and dangerous task. He comes to this island or Inishere on Saturday night--whenever the sea is calm enough--and has Mass the first thing on Sunday morning. Then he goes down fasting and is rowed across to the other island and has Mass again, so that it is about midday when he gets a hurried breakfast before he sets off again for Aranmore, meeting often on both passages a rough and perilous sea. A couple of Sundays ago I was lying outside the cottage in the sunshine smoking my pipe, when the curate, a man of the greatest kindliness and humour, came up, wet and worn out, to have his first meal. He looked at me for a moment and then shook his head. 'Tell me,' he said, 'did you read your Bible this morning?' I answered that I had not done so. 'Well, begod, Mr. Synge,' he went on, 'if you ever go to Heaven, you'll have a great laugh at us.' Although these people are kindly towards each other and to their children, they have no feeling for the sufferings of animals, and little sympathy for pain when the person who feels it is not in danger. I have sometimes seen a girl writhing and howling with toothache while her mother sat at the other side of the fireplace pointing at her and laughing at her as if amused by the sight. A few days ago, when we had been talking of the death of President McKinley, I explained the American way of killing murderers, and a man asked me how long the man who killed the President would be dying. 'While you'd be snapping your fingers,' I said. 'Well,' said the man, 'they might as well hang him so, and not be bothering themselves with all them wires. A man who would kill a King or a President knows he has to die for it, and it's only giving him the thing he bargained for if he dies easy. It would be right he should be three weeks dying, and there'd be fewer of those things done in the world.' If two dogs fight at the slip when we are waiting for the steamer, the men are delighted and do all they can to keep up the fury of the battle. They tie down donkeys' heads to their hoofs to keep them from straying, in a way that must cause horrible pain, and sometimes when I go into a cottage I find all the women of the place down on their knees plucking the feathers from live ducks and geese. When the people are in pain themselves they make no attempt to hide or control their feelings. An old man who was ill in the winter took me out the other day to show me how far down the road they could hear him yelling 'the time he had a pain in his head.' There was a great storm this morning, and I went up on the cliff to sit in the shanty they have made there for the men who watch for wrack. Soon afterwards a boy, who was out minding sheep, came up from the west, and we had a long talk. He began by giving me the first connected account I have had of the accident that happened some time ago, when the young man was drowned on his way to the south island. 'Some men from the south island,' he said, 'came over and bought some horses on this island, and they put them in a hooker to take across. They wanted a curagh to go with them to tow the horses on to the strand, and a young man said he would go, and they could give him a rope and tow him behind the hooker. When they were out in the sound a wind came down on them, and the man in the curagh couldn't turn her to meet the waves, because the hooker was pulling her and she began filling up with water. 'When the men in the hooker saw it they began crying out one thing and another thing without knowing what to do. One man called out to the man who was holding the rope: "Let go the rope now, or you'll swamp her." 'And the man with the rope threw it out on the water, and the curagh half-filled already, and I think only one oar in her. A wave came into her then, and she went down before them, and the young man began swimming about; then they let fall the sails in the hooker the way they could pick him up. And when they had them down they were too far off, and they pulled the sails up again the way they could tack back to him. He was there in the water swimming round, and swimming round, and before they got up with him again he sank the third time, and they didn't see any more of him.' I asked if anyone had seen him on the island since he was dead. 'They have not,' he said, 'but there were queer things in it. Before he went out on the sea that day his dog came up and sat beside him on the rocks, and began crying. When the horses were coming down to the slip an old woman saw her son, that was drowned a while ago, riding on one of them, She didn't say what she was after seeing, and this man caught the horse, he caught his own horse first, and then he caught this one, and after that he went out and was drowned. Two days after I dreamed they found him on the Ceann gaine (the Sandy Head) and carried him up to the house on the plain, and took his pampooties off him and hung them up on a nail to dry. It was there they found him afterwards as you'll have heard them say.' 'Are you always afraid when you hear a dog crying?' I said. 'We don't like it,' he answered; 'you will often see them on the top of the rocks looking up into the heavens, and they crying. We don't like it at all, and we don't like a cock or hen to break anything in the house, for we know then some one will be going away. A while before the man who used to live in that cottage below died in the winter, the cock belonging to his wife began to fight with another cock. The two of them flew up on the dresser and knocked the glass of the lamp off it, and it fell on the floor and was broken. The woman caught her cock after that and killed it, but she could not kill the other cock, for it was belonging to the man who lived in the next house. Then himself got a sickness and died after that.' I asked him if he ever heard the fairy music on the island. 'I heard some of the boys talking in the school a while ago,' he said, 'and they were saying that their brothers and another man went out fishing a morning, two weeks ago, before the cock crew. When they were down near the Sandy Head they heard music near them, and it was the fairies were in it. I've heard of other things too. One time three men were out at night in a curagh, and they saw a big ship coming down on them. They were frightened at it, and they tried to get away, but it came on nearer them, till one of the men turned round and made the sign of the cross, and then they didn't see it any more.' Then he went on in answer to another question: 'We do often see the people who do be away with them. There was a young man died a year ago, and he used to come to the window of the house where his brothers slept, and be talking to them in the night. He was married a while before that, and he used to be saying in the night he was sorry he had not promised the land to his son, and that it was to him it should go. Another time he was saying something about a mare, about her hoofs, or the shoes they should put on her. A little while ago Patch Ruadh saw him going down the road with brogaarda (leather boots) on him and a new suit. Then two men saw him in another place. 'Do you see that straight wall of cliff?' he went on a few minutes later, pointing to a place below us. 'It is there the fairies do be playing ball in the night, and you can see the marks of their heels when you come in the morning, and three stones they have to mark the line, and another big stone they hop the ball on. It's often the boys have put away the three stones, and they will always be back again in the morning, and a while since the man who owns the land took the big stone itself and rolled it down and threw it over the cliff, yet in the morning it was back in its place before him.' I am in the south island again, and I have come upon some old men with a wonderful variety of stories and songs, the last, fairly often, both in English and Irish, I went round to the house of one of them to-day, with a native scholar who can write Irish, and we took down a certain number, and heard others. Here is one of the tales the old man told us at first before he had warmed to his subject. I did not take it down, but it ran in this way:-- There was a man of the name of Charley Lambert, and every horse he would ride in a race he would come in the first. The people in the country were angry with him at last, and this law was made, that he should ride no more at races, and if he rode, any one who saw him would have the right to shoot him. After that there was a gentleman from that part of the country over in England, and he was talking one day with the people there, and he said that the horses of Ireland were the best horses. The English said it was the English horses were the best, and at last they said there should be a race, and the English horses would come over and race against the horses of Ireland, and the gentleman put all his money on that race. Well, when he came back to Ireland he went to Charley Lambert, and asked him to ride on his horse. Charley said he would not ride, and told the gentleman the danger he'd be in. Then the gentleman told him the way he had put all his property on the horse, and at last Charley asked where the races were to be, and the hour and the day. The gentleman told him. 'Let you put a horse with a bridle and saddle on it every seven miles along the road from here to the racecourse on that day,' said Lambert, 'and I'll be in it.' When the gentleman was gone, Charley stripped off his clothes and got into his bed. Then he sent for the doctor, and when he heard him coming he began throwing about his arms the way the doctor would think his pulse was up with the fever. The doctor felt his pulse and told him to stay quiet till the next day, when he would see him again. The next day it was the same thing, and so on till the day of the races. That morning Charley had his pulse beating so hard the doctor thought bad of him. 'I'm going to the races now, Charley,' said he, 'but I'll come in and see you again when I'll be coming back in the evening, and let you be very careful and quiet till you see me.' As soon as he had gone Charley leapt up out of bed and got on his horse, and rode seven miles to where the first horse was waiting for him. Then he rode that horse seven miles, and another horse seven miles more, till he came to the racecourse. He rode on the gentleman's horse and he won the race. There were great crowds looking on, and when they saw him coming in they said it was Charley Lambert, or the devil was in it, for there was no one else could bring in a horse the way he did, for the leg was after being knocked off of the horse and he came in all the same. When the race was over, he got up on the horse was waiting for him, and away with him for seven miles. Then he rode the other horse seven miles, and his own horse seven miles, and when he got home he threw off his clothes and lay down on his bed. After a while the doctor came back and said it was a great race they were after having. The next day the people were saying it was Charley Lambert was the man who rode the horse. An inquiry was held, and the doctor swore that Charley was ill in his bed, and he had seen him before the race and after it, so the gentleman saved his fortune. After that he told me another story of the same sort about a fairy rider, who met a gentleman that was after losing all his fortune but a shilling, and begged the shilling of him. The gentleman gave him the shilling, and the fairy rider--a little red man--rode a horse for him in a race, waving a red handkerchief to him as a signal when he was to double the stakes, and made him a rich man. Then he gave us an extraordinary English doggerel rhyme which I took down, though it seems singularly incoherent when written out at length. These rhymes are repeated by the old men as a sort of chant, and when a line comes that is more than usually irregular they seem to take a real delight in forcing it into the mould of the recitative. All the time he was chanting the old man kept up a kind of snakelike movement in his body, which seemed to fit the chant and make it part of him. THE WHITE HORSE My horse he is white, Though at first he was bay, And he took great delight In travelling by night And by day. His travels were great If I could but half of them tell, He was rode in the garden by Adam, The day that he fell. On Babylon plains He ran with speed for the plate, He was hunted next day By Hannibal the great. After that he was hunted In the chase of a fox, When Nebuchadnezzar ate grass, In the shape of an ox. We are told in the next verses of his going into the ark with Noah, of Moses riding him through the Red Sea; then He was with king Pharaoh in Egypt When fortune did smile, And he rode him stately along The gay banks of the Nile. He was with king Saul and all His troubles went through, He was with king David the day That Goliath he slew. For a few verses he is with Juda and Maccabeus the great, with Cyrus, and back again to Babylon. Next we find him as the horse that came into Troy. When ( ) came to Troy with joy, My horse he was found, He crossed over the walls and entered The city I'm told. I come on him again, in Spain, And he in full bloom, By Hannibal the great he was rode, And he crossing the Alps into Rome. The horse being tall And the Alps very high, His rider did fall And Hannibal the great lost an eye. Afterwards he carries young Sipho (Scipio), and then he is ridden by Brian when driving the Danes from Ireland, and by St. Ruth when he fell at the battle of Aughrim, and by Sarsfield at the siege of Limerick. He was with king James who sailed To the Irish shore, But at last he got lame, When the Boyne's bloody battle was o'er. He was rode by the greatest of men At famed Waterloo, Brave Daniel O'Connell he sat On his back it is true. * * * * * * * Brave Dan's on his back, He's ready once more for the field. He never will stop till the Tories, He'll make them to yield. Grotesque as this long rhyme appears, it has, as I said, a sort of existence when it is crooned by the old man at his fireside, and it has great fame in the island. The old man himself is hoping that I will print it, for it would not be fair, he says, that it should die out of the world, and he is the only man here who knows it, and none of them have ever heard it on the mainland. He has a couple more examples of the same kind of doggerel, but I have not taken them down. Both in English and in Irish the songs are full of words the people do not understand themselves, and when they come to say the words slowly their memory is usually uncertain. All the morning I have been digging maidenhair ferns with a boy I met on the rocks, who was in great sorrow because his father died suddenly a week ago of a pain in his heart. 'We wouldn't have chosen to lose our father for all the gold there is in the world,' he said, 'and it's great loneliness and sorrow there is in the house now.' Then he told me that a brother of his who is a stoker in the Navy had come home a little while before his father died, and that he had spent all his money in having a fine funeral, with plenty of drink at it, and tobacco. 'My brother has been a long way in the world,' he said, 'and seen great wonders. He does be telling us of the people that do come out to them from Italy, and Spain, and Portugal, and that it is a sort of Irish they do be talking--not English at all--though it is only a word here and there you'd understand.' When we had dug out enough of roots from the deep crannies in the rocks where they are only to be found, I gave my companion a few pence, and sent him back to his cottage. The old man who tells me the Irish poems is curiously pleased with the translations I have made from some of them. He would never be tired, he says, listening while I would be reading them, and they are much finer things than his old bits of rhyme. Here is one of them, as near the Irish as I am able to make it:-- RUCARD MOR. I put the sorrow of destruction on the bad luck, For it would be a pity ever to deny it, It is to me it is stuck, By loneliness my pain, my complaining. It is the fairy-host Put me a-wandering And took from me my goods of the world. At Mannistir na Ruaidthe It is on me the shameless deed was done: Finn Bheara and his fairy-host Took my little horse on me from under the bag. If they left me the skin It would bring me tobacco for three months, But they did not leave anything with me But the old minister in its place. Am not I to be pitied? My bond and my note are on her, And the price of her not yet paid, My loneliness, my pain, my complaining. The devil a hill or a glen, or highest fort Ever was built in Ireland, Is not searched on me for my mare; And I am still at my complaining. I got up in the morning, I put a red spark in my pipe. I went to the Cnoc-Maithe To get satisfaction from them. I spoke to them, If it was in them to do a right thing, To get me my little mare, Or I would be changing my wits. 'Do you hear, Rucard Mor? It is not here is your mare, She is in Cnoc Bally Brishlawn With the fairy-men these three months.' I ran on in my walking, I followed the road straightly, I was in Glenasmoil Before the moon was ended. I spoke to the fairy-man, If it was in him to do a right thing, To get me my little mare, Or I would be changing my wits. 'Do you hear Rucard Mor? It is not here is your mare, She is in Cnoc Bally Brishlawn With the horseman of the music these three months.' I ran off on my walking, I followed the road straightly, I was in Cnoc Bally Brishlawn With the black fall of the night. That is a place was a crowd As it was seen by me, All the weavers of the globe, It is there you would have news of them. I spoke to the horseman, If it was in him to do the right thing, To get me my little mare, Or I would be changing my wits. 'Do you hear, Rucard Mor? It is not here is your mare, She is in Cnoc Cruachan, In the back end of the palace.' I ran off on my walking, I followed the road straightly, I made no rest or stop Till I was in face of the palace. That is the place was a crowd As it appeared to me, The men and women of the country, And they all making merry. Arthur Scoil (?) stood up And began himself giving the lead, It is joyful, light and active, I would have danced the course with them. They drew up on their feet And they began to laugh,-- 'Look at Rucard Mor, And he looking for his little mare.' I spoke to the man, And he ugly and humpy, Unless he would get me my mare I would break a third of his bones. 'Do you hear, Rucard Mor? It is not here is your mare, She is in Alvin of Leinster, On a halter with my mother.' I ran off on my walking, And I came to Alvin of Leinster. I met the old woman-- On my word she was not pleasing. I spoke to the old woman, And she broke out in English: 'Get agone, you rascal, I don't like your notions.' 'Do you hear, you old woman? Keep away from me with your English, But speak to me with the tongue I hear from every person.' 'It is from me you will get word of her, Only you come too late-- I made a hunting cap For Conal Cath of her yesterday.' I ran off on my walking, Through roads that were cold and dirty. I fell in with the fairy-man, And he lying down in the Ruadthe. 'I pity a man without a cow, I pity a man without a sheep, But in the case of a man without a horse It is hard for him to be long in the world.' This morning, when I had been lying for a long time on a rock near the sea watching some hooded crows that were dropping shellfish on the rocks to break them, I saw one bird that had a large white object which it was dropping continually without any result. I got some stones and tried to drive it off when the thing had fallen, but several times the bird was too quick for me and made off with it before I could get down to him. At last, however, I dropped a stone almost on top of him and he flew away. I clambered down hastily, and found to my amazement a worn golf-ball! No doubt it had been brought out in some way or other from the links in County Glare, which are not far off, and the bird had been trying half the morning to break it. Further on I had a long talk with a young man who is inquisitive about modern life, and I explained to him an elaborate trick or corner on the Stock Exchange that I heard of lately. When I got him to understand it fully, he shouted with delight and amusement. 'Well,' he said when he was quiet again, 'isn't it a great wonder to think that those rich men are as big rogues as ourselves.' The old story-teller has given me a long rhyme about a man who fought with an eagle. It is rather irregular and has some obscure passages, but I have translated it with the scholar. PHELIM AND THE EAGLE On my getting up in the morning And I bothered, on a Sunday, I put my brogues on me, And I going to Tierny In the Glen of the Dead People. It is there the big eagle fell in with me, He like a black stack of turf sitting up stately. I called him a lout and a fool, The son of a female and a fool, Of the race of the Clan Cleopas, the biggest rogues in the land. That and my seven curses And never a good day to be on you, Who stole my little cock from me that could crow the sweetest. 'Keep your wits right in you And don't curse me too greatly, By my strength and my oath I never took rent of you, I didn't grudge what you would have to spare In the house of the burnt pigeons, It is always useful you were to men of business. 'But get off home And ask Nora What name was on the young woman that scalded his head. The feathers there were on his ribs Are burnt on the hearth, And they eat him and they taking and it wasn't much were thankful.' 'You are a liar, you stealer, They did not eat him, and they're taking Nor a taste of the sort without being thankful, You took him yesterday As Nora told me, And the harvest quarter will not be spent till I take a tax of you.' 'Before I lost the Fianna It was a fine boy I was, It was not about thieving was my knowledge, But always putting spells, Playing games and matches with the strength of Gol MacMorna, And you are making me a rogue At the end of my life.' 'There is a part of my father's books with me, Keeping in the bottom of a box, And when I read them the tears fall down from me. But I found out in history That you are a son of the Dearg Mor, If it is fighting you want and you won't be thankful.' The Eagle dressed his bravery With his share of arms and his clothes, He had the sword that was the sharpest Could be got anywhere. I and my scythe with me, And nothing on but my shirt, We went at each other early in the day. We were as two giants Ploughing in a valley in a glen of the mountains. We did not know for the while which was the better man. You could hear the shakes that were on our arms under each other, From that till the sunset, Till it was forced on him to give up. I wrote a 'challenge boxail' to him On the morning of the next day, To come till we would fight without doubt at the dawn of the day. The second fist I drew on him I struck him on the hone of his jaw, He fell, and it is no lie there was a cloud in his head. The Eagle stood up, He took the end of my hand:-- 'You are the finest man I ever saw in my life, Go off home, my blessing will be on you for ever, You have saved the fame of Eire for yourself till the Day of the Judgment.' Ah! neighbors, did you hear The goodness and power of Felim? The biggest wild beast you could get, The second fist he drew on it He struck it on the jaw, It fell, and it did not rise Till the end of two days. Well as I seem to know these people of the islands, there is hardly a day that I do not come upon some new primitive feature of their life. Yesterday I went into a cottage where the woman was at work and very carelessly dressed. She waited for a while till I got into conversation with her husband, and then she slipped into the corner and put on a clean petticoat and a bright shawl round her neck. Then she came back and took her place at the fire. This evening I was in another cottage till very late talking to the people. When the little boy--the only child of the house--got sleepy, the old grandmother took him on her lap and began singing to him. As soon as he was drowsy she worked his clothes off him by degrees, scratching him softly with her nails as she did so all over his body. Then she washed his feet with a little water out of a pot and put him into his bed. When I was going home the wind was driving the sand into my face so that I could hardly find my way. I had to hold my hat over my mouth and nose, and my hand over my eyes while I groped along, with my feet feeling for rocks and holes in the sand. I have been sitting all the morning with an old man who was making sugawn ropes for his house, and telling me stories while he worked. He was a pilot when he was young, and we had great talk at first about Germans, and Italians, and Russians, and the ways of seaport towns. Then he came round to talk of the middle island, and he told me this story which shows the curious jealousy that is between the islands:-- Long ago we used all to be pagans, and the saints used to be coming to teach us about God and the creation of the world. The people on the middle island were the last to keep a hold on the fire-worshipping, or whatever it was they had in those days, but in the long run a saint got in among them and they began listening to him, though they would often say in the evening they believed, and then say the morning after that they did not believe. In the end the saint gained them over and they began building a church, and the saint had tools that were in use with them for working with the stones. When the church was halfway up the people held a kind of meeting one night among themselves, when the saint was asleep in his bed, to see if they did really believe and no mistake in it. The leading man got up, and this is what he said: that they should go down and throw their tools over the cliff, for if there was such a man as God, and if the saint was as well known to Him as he said, then he would be as well able to bring up the tools out of the sea as they were to throw them in. They went then and threw their tools over the cliff. When the saint came down to the church in the morning the workmen were all sitting on the stones and no work doing. 'For what cause are you idle?' asked the saint. 'We have no tools,' said the men, and then they told him the story of what they had done. He kneeled down and prayed God that the tools might come up out of the sea, and after that he prayed that no other people might ever be as great fools as the people on the middle island, and that God might preserve theft dark minds of folly to them fill the end of the world. And that is why no man out of that island can tell you a whole story without stammering, or bring any work to end without a fault in it. I asked him if he had known old Pat Dirane on the middle island, and heard the fine stories he used to tell. 'No one knew him better than I did,' he said; 'for I do often be in that island making curaghs for the people. One day old Pat came down to me when I was after tarring a new curagh, and he asked me to put a little tar on the knees of his breeches the way the rain wouldn't come through on him. 'I took the brush in my hand, and I had him tarred down to his feet before he knew what I was at. "Turn round the other side now," I said, "and you'll be able to sit where you like." Then he felt the tar coming in hot against his skin and he began cursing my soul, and I was sorry for the trick I'd played on him.' This old man was the same type as the genial, whimsical old men one meets all through Ireland, and had none of the local characteristics that are so marked on lnishmaan. When we were tired talking I showed some of my tricks and a little crowd collected. When they were gone another old man who had come up began telling us about the fairies. One night when he was coming home from the lighthouse he heard a man riding on the road behind him, and he stopped to wait for him, but nothing came. Then he heard as if there was a man trying to catch a horse on the rocks, and in a little time he went on. The noise behind him got bigger as he went along as if twenty horses, and then as if a hundred or a thousand, were galloping after him. When he came to the stile where he had to leave the road and got out over it, something hit against him and threw him down on the rock, and a gun he had in his hand fell into the field beyond him. 'I asked the priest we had at that time what was in it,' he said, 'and the priest told me it was the fallen angels; and I don't know but it was.' 'Another time,' he went on, 'I was coming down where there is a bit of a cliff and a little hole under it, and I heard a flute playing in the hole or beside it, and that was before the dawn began. Whatever anyone says there are strange things. There was one night thirty years ago a man came down to get my wife to go up to his wife, for she was in childbed. 'He was something to do with the lighthouse or the coastguard, one of them Protestants who don't believe in any of these things and do be making fun of us. Well, he asked me to go down and get a quart of spirits while my wife would be getting herself ready, and he said he would go down along with me if I was afraid. 'I said I was not afraid, and I went by myself. 'When I was coming back there was something on the path, and wasn't I a foolish fellow, I might have gone to one side or the other over the sand, but I went on straight till I was near it--till I was too near it--then I remembered that I had heard them saying none of those creatures can stand before you and you saying the De Profundis, so I began saying it, and the thing ran off over the sand and I got home. 'Some of the people used to say it was only an old jackass that was on the path before me, but I never heard tell of an old jackass would run away from a man and he saying the De Profundis.' I told him the story of the fairy ship which had disappeared when the man made the sign of the cross, as I had heard it on the middle island. 'There do be strange things on the sea,' he said. 'One night I was down there where you can see that green point, and I saw a ship coming in and I wondered what it would be doing coming so close to the rocks. It came straight on towards the place I was in, and then I got frightened and I ran up to the houses, and when the captain saw me running he changed his course and went away. 'Sometimes I used to go out as a pilot at that time--I went a few times only. Well, one Sunday a man came down and said there was a big ship coming into the sound. I ran down with two men and we went out in a curagh; we went round the point where they said the ship was, and there was no ship in it. As it was a Sunday we had nothing to do, and it was a fine, calm day, so we rowed out a long way looking for the ship, till I was further than I ever was before or after. When I wanted to turn back we saw a great flock of birds on the water and they all black, without a white bird through them. They had no fear of us at all, and the men with me wanted to go up to them, so we went further. When we were quite close they got up, so many that they blackened the sky, and they lit down again a hundred or maybe a hundred and twenty yards off. We went after them again, and one of the men wanted to kill one with a thole-pin, and the other man wanted to kill one with his rowing stick. I was afraid they would upset the curagh, but they would go after the birds. 'When we were quite close one man threw the pin and the other man hit at them with his rowing stick, and the two of them fell over in the curagh, and she turned on her side and only it was quite calm the lot of us were drowned. 'I think those black gulls and the ship were the same sort, and after that I never went out again as a pilot. It is often curaghs go out to ships and find there is no ship. 'A while ago a curagh went out to a ship from the big island, and there was no ship; and all the men in the curagh were drowned. A fine song was made about them after that, though I never heard it myself. 'Another day a curagh was out fishing from this island, and the men saw a hooker not far from them, and they rowed up to it to get a light for their pipes--at that time there were no matches--and when they up to the big boat it was gone out of its place, and they were in great fear.' Then he told me a story he had got from the mainland about a man who was driving one night through the country, and met a woman who came up to him and asked him to take her into his cart. He thought something was not right about her, and he went on. When he had gone a little way he looked back, and it was a pig was on the road and not a woman at all. He thought he was a done man, but he went on. When he was going through a wood further on, two men came out to him, one from each side of the road, and they took hold of the bridle of the horse and led it on between them. They were old stale men with frieze clothes on them, and the old fashions. When they came out of the wood he found people as if there was a fair on the road, with the people buying and selling and they not living people at all. The old men took him through the crowd, and then they left him. When he got home and told the old people of the two old men and the ways and fashions they had about them, the old people told him it was his two grandfathers had taken care of him, for they had had a great love for him and he a lad growing up. This evening we had a dance in the inn parlour, where a fire had been lighted and the tables had been pushed into the corners. There was no master of the ceremonies, and when I had played two or three jigs and other tunes on my fiddle, there was a pause, as I did not know how much of my music the people wanted, or who else could be got to sing or play. For a moment a deadlock seemed to be coming, but a young girl I knew fairly well saw my difficulty, and took the management of our festivities into her hands. At first she asked a coastguard's daughter to play a reel on the mouth organ, which she did at once with admirable spirit and rhythm. Then the little girl asked me to play again, telling me what I should choose, and went on in the same way managing the evening till she thought it was time to go home. Then she stood up, thanked me in Irish, and walked out of the door, without looking at anybody, but followed almost at once by the whole party. When they had gone I sat for a while on a barrel in the public-house talking to some young men who were reading a paper in Irish. Then I had a long evening with the scholar and two story-tellers--both old men who had been pilots--taking down stories and poems. We were at work for nearly six hours, and the more matter we got the more the old men seemed to remember. 'I was to go out fishing tonight,' said the younger as he came in, 'but I promised you to come, and you're a civil man, so I wouldn't take five pounds to break my word to you. And now'--taking up his glass of whisky--'here's to your good health, and may you live till they make you a coffin out of a gooseberry bush, or till you die in childbed.' They drank my health and our work began. 'Have you heard tell of the poet MacSweeny?' said the same man, sitting down near me. 'I have,' I said, 'in the town of Galway.' 'Well,' he said, 'I'll tell you his piece "The Big Wedding," for it's a fine piece and there aren't many that know it. There was a poor servant girl out in the country, and she got married to a poor servant boy. MacSweeny knew the two of them, and he was away at that time and it was a month before he came back. When he came back he went to see Peggy O'Hara--that was the name of the girl--and he asked her if they had had a great wedding. Peggy said it was only middling, but they hadn't forgotten him all the same, and she had a bottle of whisky for him in the cupboard. He sat down by the fire and began drinking the whisky. When he had a couple of glasses taken and was warm by the fire, he began making a song, and this was the song he made about the wedding of Peggy O'Hara.' He had the poem both in English and Irish, but as it has been found elsewhere and attributed to another folk-poet, I need not give it. We had another round of porter and whisky, and then the old man who had MacSweeny's wedding gave us a bit of a drinking song, which the scholar took down and I translated with him afterwards:-- 'This is what the old woman says at the Beulleaca when she sees a man without knowledge-- 'Were you ever at the house of the Still, did you ever get a drink from it? Neither wine nor beer is as sweet as it is, but it is well I was not burnt when I fell down after a drink of it by the fire of Mr. Sloper. 'I praise Owen O'Hernon over all the doctors of Ireland, it is he put drugs on the water, and it lying on the barley. 'If you gave but a drop of it to an old woman who does be walking the world with a stick, she would think for a week that it was a fine bed was made for her.' After that I had to get out my fiddle and play some tunes for them while they finished their whisky. A new stock of porter was brought in this morning to the little public-house underneath my room, and I could hear in the intervals of our talk that a number of men had come in to treat some neighbors from the middle island, and were singing many songs, some of them in English or of the kind I have given, but most of them in Irish. A little later when the party broke up downstairs my old men got nervous about the fairies--they live some distance away--and set off across the sandhills. The next day I left with the steamer. 
44046	----	[Illustration: THE OLD CLOCK TOWER, YOUGHAL] MUNSTER Described by Stephen Gwynn Pictured by Alexander Williams [Illustration] BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY 1912 Beautiful Ireland LEINSTER ULSTER MUNSTER CONNAUGHT _Uniform with this Series_ Beautiful England OXFORD THE ENGLISH LAKES CANTERBURY SHAKESPEARE-LAND THE THAMES WINDSOR CASTLE CAMBRIDGE NORWICH AND THE BROADS THE HEART OF WESSEX THE PEAK DISTRICT THE CORNISH RIVIERA DICKENS-LAND WINCHESTER THE ISLE OF WIGHT CHESTER AND THE DEE YORK LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page The Old Clock Tower, Youghal _Frontispiece_ The Blackwater at Dromana 8 Blarney Castle 16 Ferrybank, Waterford 20 Shandon Steeple from the River Lee 26 Entrance to Cork Harbour 32 Kenmare Bay from Templenoe 38 Macgillicuddy's Reeks 42 The Gap of Dunloe, Killarney 46 Muckross Lake, Killarney 50 Brickeen Bridge, Lower Lake, Killarney 54 Holy Island, Lough Derg 58 [Illustration: MUNSTER] I The best way to get to Munster nowadays is undoubtedly by the new route from Fishguard to Rosslare, in which the Great Western Railway has reopened what was for ancient times the natural and easy way from England to Ireland. The Normans, as everyone knows, came across here, an advance party landing on the coast of Wexford; but the main force under Strongbow sailed straight up the river to Waterford. Many another invader before the Normans took the same route: and there is little doubt but that the peaceful invasion of Christianity had begun in this region, or that south-eastern Ireland was already baptized, before Patrick set out on his mission. Earlier again, the Milesians (according to modern theory) came from Britain, a race of warriors trained to fight on foot in the Roman fashion with sword and javelin, and drove before them the chariot-fighting people who then held the wide plain watered by the three great rivers which meet in Waterford harbour. For a good sailor, undoubtedly the long passage to Cork, ending with a sail up the beautiful haven and the "pleasant waters of the river Lee", is to be preferred beyond all other routes. But the mass of mankind, and more specially of womankind, like the short sea and quick rail, and their choice is Fishguard to Rosslare. You enter the southern province of Ireland by a viaduct which leads from the flat lands of Wexford, through which you will have travelled for nearly an hour, on to the steep left bank of the river Suir facing Waterford city. The great bridge crosses the united Barrow and Nore; half a mile lower down is the junction with the Suir, and from the train you have a glorious view of the wide pool made at the confluence--a noble entrance into this province of lovely waters. The run along the river is beautiful, too. Citizens of Waterford have built them prosperous villas and mansions facing you along the south bank, and a mile below the city on an island there is seen a castle of the Fitz-Geralds--rebuilt recently, but comprising in it the walls of an ancient place of strength which has never ceased to be a dwelling of this strong Norman-Irish clan. It was the household, too, from which issued a notable man in latter times, Edward Fitz-Gerald, the translator of _Omar Khayyam_. His portrait, by Laurence, hangs there, picturing him as a chubby, good-humoured boy. The city itself may show to you only a line of lights, very picturesque along its great length of quay: but by daylight you can distinguish the low round castle which still keeps the name of Strongbow's tower. Fragments of the old walls remain, and there are buildings of much antiquarian interest--the restored cathedral, the ruined Franciscan abbey. But, on the whole, you are not likely to stop in Waterford, with Kerry and West Cork before you. Yet let me tell a little of the things which the ordinary tourist visiting Munster passes by in his haste. The route from Rosslare to Killarney strikes across from the valley of the Suir into the valley of the Blackwater, rounding the Comeragh mountains: and I do not suppose it can be disputed that the Blackwater is the most beautiful of Irish rivers. I have seen it at Mallow, at Fermoy, at Lismore, and at Cappoquin, and everywhere it is the same yet different; a chain of long wide pools, but always with a swift flow to keep the water living and sparkling, and they are strung together with great sweeping rapids, deep enough for salmon to lie in, the anglers' joy: while on each shore are hill slopes receding, richly wooded, from the stream and the meadows beside the stream. The palm of beauty belongs of right to Lismore, where the Duke of Devonshire has his great castle overhanging a famous pool: and below it from the bridge one looks down the stream and the valley to a far-off blue vista between the hills. Yonder, where the river meets the sea at Youghal is one of the quaintest and most charming towns of Ireland. I saw it first by the light of a long procession of tall torches which lit up delightfully the old houses with their scrolled fronts of timber, and the pretty faces of girls and women looking out of the first-floor windows: but it was no little surprise to me in that march to find myself under an archway, over which rose a tall slated tower, fully equipped with loopholes, and from whose top (if I had only known it) arrangements had been made to bombard me and my friends that night. In daylight I saw, though with a hasty glance, the very beautiful fifteenth-century church still intact (for a miracle) and still used for worship: the still greater attraction of Sir Walter Raleigh's old house I never visited, but I hope you may. It has a mulberry tree said to be of his planting, and a chimney piece against which he almost certainly reclined his shoulders while in act to toast his travelled calves. [Illustration: THE BLACKWATER, AT DROMANA] Travelling by this line of rail you will have on your right the Comeragh and the Knockmealdown mountains which divide the valley of the Blackwater from the valley of the Suir. But it may possibly be your pleasure, as it will certainly be your profit, to explore also the Suir valley, which divides the Comeraghs from the outlying mass of Slievenamon, and, farther west, curves northward from the base of the tall Galtee ranges. I came last into Munster by motor car, driving from Kilkenny to Clonmel over the southern shoulder of Slievenamon (Sliabh na m-Ban, the Witches' Mountains), and a finer journey could not be taken. We struck out through rich pasture and tillage, keeping this shadowy dome which rose from the plain as our objective, till the pass began to define itself. But it was when we had crossed or were crossing the pass that the real beauty began. Slievenamon was on our right, well wooded; facing us, as we ran south, were the Comeraghs, and a low foot ridge thrown out from them, between which and us ran the Suir. The valley is wider than that of the Blackwater, with less of what may be called fancy wooding; but it can fairly hold its own; and the quay at Clonmel by the shining, swirling river is as pretty as heart could desire. From Clonmel to Lismore a road carries you over the top of Knockmealdown (that is, Maeldune's Hill), and those of my companions who took that drive crowed over me for the rest of the journey; describing in glowing phrases all the glories I had missed, the wonderful panorama from the top, then the gradual descent down a long wild wooded glen into the tranquil and cultivated beauty of Lismore. Yet if I had a motor car at Clonmel and only one day's excursion to make, it is not south I would go. I would go north into the heart of Tipperary, through the Golden Vale which lies overshadowed and half-circled by the Galtee range, until I came to the thing best worth seeing in all Ireland, Cashel of the Kings. Nothing is, I repeat, better worth seeing, nothing less often seen by the tourist; for it lies off the track. The Rock of Cashel is a lone steep hillock, sharply scarped, and rising out of the plain which stretches from Slievenamon to Slieve Phelim, and comprises in fact the rich land drained by the Suir. Such a spot was inevitably seized on for a stronghold, and from its earliest days Milesian rule centred here. To Cashel it was that St. Patrick came to convert the king of Munster, for Cashel was to the southern half of Ireland what Tara was to the northern. It was the heart of Munster, whence principalities radiated out. Thomond, North Munster, ran west from it into Clare, across the Shannon; _Ormond_, _Oir Mumhan_, East Munster, lay away from it towards Kilkenny and Eastern Tipperary; Desmond, _Deas Mumhan_, the great kingdom of South Munster, comprising Cork and Kerry, came to its walls, for theoretically the High Kingship of southern Ireland alternated between Thomond and Desmond. And away south-east, through the gap between Slievenamon and the Comeragh Mountains, you can see into Waterford, which in Irish was called the Deisi, falling into Desmond as a separate lordship. This rock is crowned with buildings that speak of war and peace, but of peace rather than war. There stands intact Cormac's Chapel, finest example of Irish building in the pre-Norman style; round-arched, solid, barrel-roofed, decorated with string-courses of dogtooth moulding. Beside it is the great cathedral built by the O'Brien lord of Thomond, cathedral and fortress in one; unroofed now, dismantled, and ruinous, yet hardly beyond reach of repair, since the choir was used as a cathedral till the latter part of the eighteenth century. Then an archbishop got an Act of Parliament authorizing him to unroof it and providing a regiment of soldiers to execute the work. Archbishop Price's reason for such an enterprise may not seem wholly conclusive; he liked--good easy man--to drive in comfortable state to his cathedral door, and no coach and horses could conveniently ascend the winding path up the Rock. Beside the cathedral is the tall Round Tower, and on the north side of the Rock, many remains of choir schools and other monastic buildings. On the level plain and in the town are other monasteries ruined yet not wholly shorn of their splendour; and within a few miles, Holycross Abbey and Athassel speak of the wealth and culture which were destroyed in this rich land of the Golden Vale. But the Rock itself, standing up there, crowned with such a group of buildings as no other of Ireland's high places can parallel, is the true object of pilgrimage; and the view from it over the Golden Vale, to the noble Galtee peaks and pinnacles due south of you, and the long waving line of Comeragh Mountains which runs continuously east from them along the valley of the Suir, is a prospect worth long journeying. Nor is that all. Slievenamon rises dome-shaped from the eastern plain, a gap between it and the outlying spurs of Comeragh showing where the Suir, headed off its southward course by Galteemore, finds a way eastward to the sea: and to the north beyond the plain is the far-off range of Slievebloom, dividing Leinster from the Shannon; and nearer towards Athlone and the Shannon are the low hills with the Devil's Bit nipped out of the top of them. II If I had to see Munster by motor car, my disposition would be to start from Waterford, follow the valley of the Suir up to Clonmel, then strike north to Cashel and see it. All the monuments can be seen in a few hours, and no ruin or building that I ever visited has so intelligent a custodian. From Cashel I would go to Holycross, that exquisite remnant of monastic splendour, rich in historic memories, and thence push out across Tipperary to the north-west, steering for the gap between Keeper Mountain and the Silver Mines. This would bring me out of the Golden Vale, which is in truth the valley of the Suir, and into the basin of a still greater and more famous river, at its most famous point. For from this gap the route would descend to the Shannon, at the narrow gorge below Lough Derg where all its vast volume of water is contracted to the ford and pass at Killaloe. Here, if you will, is beauty: long peaceful levels above the weir where lake passes imperceptibly into broad river; below it huge swirling rapids, interspersed with wide, smooth, yet swift running salmon pools, all down the twelve miles of river to the head of the tideway at Limerick. And here, too, are historic memories more glorious than can be matched elsewhere in Ireland. It was here at the outflow of the lake, where is an unsuspected ford, that Sarsfield crossed (led by the rapparee, Galloping Hogan), on the raid when he stole out of Limerick along the Clare shore and so to this ford, on his way to lie in wait on the slopes of Keeper for William's expected battering train. On your road from Cashel you will have passed near Ballyneety, where he and his troopers surprised the sleeping convoy and blew the heavy guns into scattered shreds--a splendid foray, splendidly preluding Limerick's heroic and successful resistance to the great Dutchman. But here at Killaloe, and specially at this ford above it, where great earthworks mark the ancient fort of _Beul Boroimhe_, are memories more honoured than hang about even Sarsfield's name. Here it was that in the tenth century Brian Boru, Brian of the Tribute, built up with his Dalcassians of Clare the power that learnt how to resist the Danes, whose plundering forays threatened to blot out civilization altogether from northern Europe. The first defeat of moment inflicted on them was at Sollohed in the Golden Vale, near Limerick Junction, where the forces of Thomond were led by Brian's brother, King Mahon. But it was Brian who as a mere youth refused to join Mahon in submission (by any pact, however veiled) to the invaders: it was Brian who had fought them in desperate guerrilla warfare through the hills of Clare, and along the banks of the Shannon, till he was brought down to fifteen men, and Mahon asked him in the council chamber, "Where hast thou left thy followers?" And Brian answered, as the Irish poem tells: "I have left them with the foreigners After being cut down, O Mahon! In hardship they followed me on every field, Not like as thy people." It was Brian who in that council caused appeal to be made to the Clan Dalcais whether they would have peace or war, and "War", they answered, "and this was the voice of hundreds as the voice of one man". The work that was begun at Kincora was finished sixty years later outside Dublin when the Danish menace was finally broken and dispelled on the shore by Clontarf: and in that fight the old lord of Kincora, Brian of the Tribute, High King by then of all Ireland, fell gloriously in the hour of a victory almost too dearly won. You can see in Killaloe the little old church, built somewhere in the eighth or ninth century, with its high-pitched roof of stone slabs, under which Brian worshipped more than ten centuries ago. Beside it is the cathedral built by his descendants, and adorned with noble archways in the rich Romanesque style of native Irish architecture. It is probable--certain, indeed, to my thinking--that Brian's rath and strong place of abode was where the market-place of Killaloe still is, on the top of the high ground to which the streets climb from the river and the churches. The fort at the ford is called in Irish _Beul Boroimhe_, that is the "Mouth of the Tribute": and one can easily see how it came by its name, for here was the strategic position which commanded all the traffic from the long navigable reaches of the upper Shannon and its lakes to the tideway at Limerick. Here portage must be made, here toll could be taken; and not only on the river traffic but on all the cattle that came down from Clare into Tipperary by this the one really practicable ford. [Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE] From Killaloe to Limerick the road is pleasant, along the ever-widening valley which is blocked by Keeper to the north, but trends opening and widening towards West Clare and the sea. Yet to understand the beauty and the charm of that characteristic piece of Irish landscape, you should be taken down the stream in the characteristic boat of those waters, the long pole-driven cot. Shooting the rapids in these craft is a wonderful sensation, and even on a chill day in February the tumult of lashing water sends warmth into the blood. So you can follow the stream till at last below Athlunkard bridge you reach the long Lax Weir, which keeps the memory of Scandinavian settlers in its name (_lax_ is Norse for salmon, to-day as then), and the memory of early Norman settlement in the odd little tower built in the middle of the weir to command the passage, as long ago as the days of King John. In Limerick itself King John's Castle with its great rounded towers frowns over the Bridge of the Broken Treaty, where Sarsfield and his men covenanted with William for protection to the property and the religious freedom of Irish Catholics, and then took ship for France--first of the Wild Geese, founders of the Irish Brigade--leaving no guardians but honour and justice to enforce the sanction of the treaty, guardians that were of no avail. Much has been written of the siege of Derry and in praise of its heroic defenders: but too little is known of Limerick's resistance, when the French officer, whom James II had left in charge, declared that the walls could be battered down with roasted apples, and Sarsfield answered that defended they should and must be. You can see the mark of William's cannon balls on the old wall near the convent hospital east of the town: single marks on the dark limestone here and there, but at the angle of the wall, where the Black Battery stood, and where a breach was made, there is clear trace still of the desperate assault--from which William's best troops, after they had effected a lodgment, were finally driven back pell-mell. From Limerick the West Clare Railway (whose vagaries have been made more famous than I ever knew them to deserve) will carry you through Ennis, passing near Bunratty Castle, Quin Abbey, and many another place of fame, to the coast where Lahinch offers one of the most popular golf links in Ireland. It is a wild wind-swept coast, a wild surf beats on the strand that divides Lahinch from Liscannor, and north of it are the great cliffs of Moher. Lisdoonvarna is near by, a spa much frequented by Irishmen, more specially by the Irish clergy. But the favourite place of all who visit this part of Munster is Kilkee, a little watering-place set above steep cliffs on which the Atlantic swings in with all its weight. There is no other place known to me in western Ireland where you can find decent seaside quarters in a spot that meets the full force and splendour of the sea. And from the Clare coast near by--even out of the window of a railway carriage--I saw one of the greatest prospects that eye could look on. To the south, some thirty or forty miles distant, the Dingle peninsula stretched outward, with the huge mass of Brandon rising out of the blue: but away north-west I could see very clear the three island heights of Aran, and east of them the whole group of Connemara mountains, beyond which again, away up into Mayo, the shapes of Mweelrea and Croagh Patrick were dim yet recognizable in outline. The day was of astonishing clearness, yet, as so often happens in western Ireland, its clearness had nothing hard: the Atlantic blue was deep and sombre, the mountain shapes, exquisite in line, were vested in colour that had a magic and a mystery all their own. Sunlight across that brine-laden air, across those pungent expanses of bog, is never crudely definite in its revelation; there is a hint of romance and glamour in the pearly shimmer of its brightness. Clare has noble traditions: and no one should visit it without a pilgrimage to the castle of Carrigaholt on the Shannon estuary near Kilrush; for this was the ancestral home of that branch of the O'Briens who made the ancient name illustrious on every stricken field in Europe. They got their title, the Viscounts Clare, from Charles II, but after the Williamite wars they were attainted; and from Sarsfield's death onward it was always a Lord Clare who commanded the Irish Brigade--that wonderful fighting force whose chief recruiting ground was here in south-western Ireland. Two Lords Clare got their death at the head of their men, one at Massaglia in 1693 when Prince Eugene was beaten: the second at Ramillies, where in the general disaster the Irish Brigade not only saved its own colours, but carried two British standards back to Bruges. The third and last earl, who had refused restitution to all the estates and titles if only he would forswear his religion, led the immortal charge at Fontenoy, when Ireland's banished men snatched in a desperate feat of arms fierce requital for the penal laws that had left them a choice between exile and slavery. Among all the writers who ever handled that period of history, whatever their prepossessions, none ever wrote the name of "Clare's brigade", save with honour and admiration; and no nationalist poet has told their praise so eloquently as the Unionist, Miss Emily Lawless, in two sister poems. One of the two depicts the eve of Fontenoy in the exiles' camp, and the wild stirring in men's hearts. "The wind is wild to-night, and it seems to blow from Clare"--blows with a memory in it and a vision of all that has been left, blows with a promise of things long hoped for, since "Clare's brigade may claim its own" wherever the fight rages. "Send us, ye western breezes, our full, our rightful share, For faith and home and country and the ruined hearths of Clare." [Illustration: FERRYBANK, WATERFORD] And the second tells how, on the morrow of the battle, strange craft with strange bodiless sailors were seen on the Western coast, making swift way like homing birds to Corcabascinn, this westernmost barony of Clare. "Men of Corcabascinn, men of Clare's brigade, Hearken, stony hills of Clare, hear the charge we made, See us come together, singing from the fight, Back to Corcabascinn in the morning light." Yet in truth it may be that only the native born will find any special charm in this stormy Corcabascinn or its wild winds and waters; for of prettiness and favour it has none, owning grandeur rather than beauty. The counties of Munster which appeal to every human being who has eyes in his head to see with are Cork and Kerry--but Kerry above all. III The unhappy inconveniences of sea travel prevent most folk from visiting County Cork under the best conditions. Access should be by boat: and surely the entrance into that wonderful Cove where the great liners halt to take off mails is noblest of all gateways into Ireland. All the encircling ring of hills is rich with vegetation, but above all on the east by Queenstown is the choicest and most varied wooding. Anything will grow there and nearly everything has been made to grow. The little town itself is picturesque, climbing the steep slope and dominated by Pugin's great cathedral, which stands on the disembarkation quay, making a centre for the last impressions and emotions of those--alas! how many thousands yearly--who leave Ireland. It is not now as I saw it in the early 'eighties, when hopeless, broken, half-famished peasants were pouring out in a ghastly torrent, mere wreckage on the flood: emigration was then eighty thousand a year, to-day it is less than half that number. Those who go to-day, go reasonably equipped, go for the most part to friends in cities, of which they have heard so much, where they have so many kindred and acquaintances, that the journey seems hardly into exile--hardly to a strange land. Yet, even to-day, every train that brings the emigrants leaves behind it, through the West and South and Midlands, its wake of bitter weeping; at station after station it has gone out amid tearing away of locked hands, last embraces severed, faces of old men twitching, faces of women convulsed with sobs, and sped on its journey to the accompaniment of that dreadful heartrending "keene", the Irish wail, which is heard nowadays more often at the ship's side, or on the railway platform, than at the grave. "Och, the poor soft Irish," I heard a woman say this year, leaving some platform in Cork; on her way, evidently, to a home in the States, where she had lived, no doubt for many years, with the hard-faced, swaggering Yankee, who accompanied her, and who looked with ill-concealed contempt on the tears and emotions of the "poor soft Irish"; but she at least still kept the homely tongue and kind heart. From Queenstown up to Cork is one of the loveliest waterways in the world, little towns on either bank under the steep wooded shores, and here and there some old castle. Cork itself may have no very great architectural beauties, but the whole lie of the city, spread between its hills, divided by the various streams of that delightful river, makes a beauty of its own: you see it best from the high ground over against the famous steeple where hang "the bells of Shandon that sound so grand on the pleasant waters of the river Lee". "Pleasant" is the word for Cork, the county, and its soft-voiced, quick-speaking people, with the odd little turn upwards at the end of their sentence. It was called "the Athens of Ireland", though I would say rather, the Naples: in any case, Cork has always sent out far more than its share of brains. In the days of "Father Prout", who wrote the "Bells of Shandon" and other immortal ditties, Cork had a regular coterie of wits--among the best known being a Dowden, father or grandfather of the illustrious man of letters who is to-day one of the chief lights in Trinity College. The late Provost, Dr. Salmon, a still greater luminary, came also from the southern county--as did half a dozen more of the Fellows whose names are familiar enough to all in Ireland; though some, perhaps, enriched legend and chronicle rather than history, and survive as remembered oddities--after all, not the least loveable of survivals. The south coast of Cork, from Youghal to the Kenmare River, is the pick of Ireland for yachtsmen. Endless is the succession, from Cork itself with all its lesser creeks and havens, Carrigalo, Carrigaline, and Ringabella, on past Kinsale harbour, Courtmacsherry and Clonakilty bays, Roscarbery, Glandore, and west to Baltimore and Roaring Water, off which lies Cape Clear. Then past Mizen Head, on the west shore, are greater bays, harbours not for yachts, but for navies--Dunmanus, Bantry, and the Kenmare River, whose northern shore belongs to Kerry, but which has a frontier certainly in paradise. I write of what I have seen, in the Kenmare River: all these southern harbourages are to me only names on the map, save for the quaint little bay of Roscarbery and the long winding creek of Baltimore--both of which I know only as winter shows them, and shows them from the land. Yet of the people of Roscarbery I form at least some picture from the sketches drawn by the two ladies who relate the varied _Experiences of an Irish R.M._--though West Cork needs to be supplemented by knowledge of Connemara, to realize the scenes that they have in mind. And from Baltimore, or rather from a mile outside it, I carry away a picture of a congregation dividing after mass into two rival political assemblies, and the one that I addressed consisted largely of women wearing the great black cloak, with black hood giving an odd framework to the wearer's face, which is one of the few and cherished relics of traditional costume. I was told on good authority (when I lamented myself) that if I had the women I had the votes, for West Cork was in all matters under female governance. But of that I cannot testify. Baltimore is one of the great fishing stations of Ireland, and to it the population of Cape Clear comes for most necessaries of life. Along that coast many craft are familiar, but an odd name hangs about one set: the fishermen from near Dungarvan are always known as "the Turks". In 1631 Algerine pirates made a descent on the town of Baltimore, sacked it and carried a hundred of its folk into slavery: and it was a fisherman from Dungarvan who (under threat of death) piloted the corsairs. All this shore had fine natural advantages for smuggling which in old days were not neglected: and still, I am told, certain places could be named where cigars and wines of excellent quality can be had at surprisingly moderate price. Kinsale is a greater haven, fit in old days to be the rival of Cork; and the town there speaks of prosperous merchant folk, with its quaint weather-slated houses, each having the little bow-window which eighteenth-century mariners would seem to have specially affected, and its very old-world bowling green. [Illustration: SHANDON STEEPLE, FROM THE RIVER LEE] Here was the theatre on which Ireland saw a great game played out--the last and losing throw in the war of O'Neill and O'Donnell against the forces of Elizabeth. At the long last, the promised help from the Continent had come; a Spanish fleet under Don Juan d'Aquila entered the harbour, seized and held the town, which was beleaguered by the English (and Irish allies) under Mountjoy and Carew. O'Neill and O'Donnell, marching down from the north, drew an outer line about the besiegers, and on December 21st battle was joined. Tyrone would have waited, wisely, till the siege could be raised by cutting the English communications, and the force attacked on the march. But Red Hugh was always bad at waiting, and forced the attack. The combination failed, the Spaniards gave no help, and Mountjoy drove back the Ulstermen. D'Aquila surrendered on good terms, and O'Donnell in hot fury went to Spain to complain of his incompetence and to press for a new expedition. But Elizabeth had her agents in Spain also, and one of them did her such service as was freely rendered in those days. O'Donnell drank a poisoned cup at Simancas, and died of it, and the State Papers contain the poisoner's account of his own exploit and demand for fitting payment. It was only after this that Carew was able to write of _Pacata Hibernia_, an Ireland, where, in truth, he and his had made a wilderness and called it peace. They themselves tell how from the Rock of Cashel to Dingle Bay the voice of man or the lowing of cattle could not be heard. Loveliest of all regions in Ireland, this country of Desmond has suffered worst of all. Elizabeth's soldiers attempted here, and nearly carried out, a complete extermination of the native race by the sword and by starvation. And when after centuries the folk had multiplied again and were, by universal testimony, gay even in their rags, the famine of 1847 fell upon them, and in the blackest horrors of that time Skibbereen and West Cork attained an awful notoriety. Nowhere else did such heaps of famished and plague-stricken dead defy all efforts even to bury them. The shadow of those days has not yet entirely passed: but the stranger will see little of it, following the famous route which leads up the Lee valley to Macroom (where the rail ends), and so past Inchigeela and Ballingarry, past Gouganebarra by Keimaneigh, through the mountains to Bantry and Glengariff. And here confession must be made. I have never seen these famous beauties. I have followed the Lee only to Inchigeela where it breaks into a score of channels between little islands covered with scrub oak and birch and hazel, a piece of river scenery whose like I never saw. And I have driven along the road from Macroom to Killarney, along the Sullane River to Ballyvourney, which tens of thousands know as "the metropolis of Irish-speaking Ireland". For, as it chances, Cork alone, of the more prosperous counties, has kept the Irish speech, and kept it in a form the least modified by modern simplifications. Irish is still to-day the language of well-to-do and well-educated men and women. My host at Ballyvourney had received his education in Paris, more than that, had been through all the Franco-Prussian war, and had seen more of the world than is given to most men; but for many years he has been back, a kind of king among his own people, and a real repository of the ancient scholarship and traditions of the Gael. At Ballingeary, a few miles from him, was founded the first of those "summer schools" where men and women, boys and girls, of all sorts and conditions, and from many corners of the world, unite for common study of the noble language which careless generations had nearly suffered to die out. That settlement is now one of the objects of interest on the coach road, and travellers, if not tourists, may well find it the most interesting of all. Bantry is one of the great naval stations, one of the great recruiting grounds for the navy. I saw it, as it should be seen, from the sea. It, too, is associated with the memory of one of those failures which stud the course of Irish history like sinister beacons: for here Hoche with a fleet aimed to land in 1796, and here half of his fleet actually arrived, with no one to oppose them. Hoche was then at the pinnacle of his power and fame, an idealist of the early Republican movement, consumed with that real passion for spreading freedom which Napoleon was destined to replace by a very different conception. But Hoche and half of the ships were tempest-driven far out of their course, and it was Grouchy, the slow mover, the man of hesitations, who reached the goal, and, having reached it, failed to act. History hinges on odd chances. Humbert's achievements, two years later, with a mere handful of men, when England had an army in Ireland, put it beyond dispute that Grouchy, even with what he had, could have set on foot a movement that would have driven English power out of Ireland at least for a time: and Wellington himself has told how great a part in breaking down the power of France, from those conflicts in the Peninsula on to the climax of Waterloo, was borne by the unemancipated Catholic Irish peasants, who formed the very bone and sinew of the British line. It may well be that all was for the best in the best possible of worlds: that it was best that Ireland, instead of freeing herself with the help of Republican France, should help greatly to deliver Europe from the menace of Imperial France--and hand it over to the tender mercies of the Holy Alliance. Yet it needs the faith of Voltaire's philosopher to believe that anything could have been worse for Ireland than the historic evolution which she was actually fated to undergo. Beyond Bantry is Glengarriff, of which Thackeray wrote that "such a bay, were it lying upon English shores, would be a world's wonder". I have only seen it off the deck of a steamer, away in a smother of cloud; but everyone confirms Thackeray. Castletown Beare, farther west on the north shore of Bantry Bay, I have seen, and the Castle of Dunboy, where was the seat of the O'Sullivan Beare, lord of this region, from which after the rout at Kinsale he and his people fled in a body, marching north amid dreadful privations till they crossed the Shannon and ultimately reached some protection in Ulster. But O'Sullivan's fighting men were left in the Castle under their captain MacGeoghegan, who prolonged resistance to the point of desperation against Carew's artillery. Mortally wounded at last, he succumbed in an attempt to reach the magazine to blow all, assailants and defenders, sky high. It would have been better for the garrison had he succeeded, since Carew hanged every man of them. There is the ruin to-day, breached and battered, standing in a grove of ilex on a very beautiful promontory. That Castle of Dunboy gave its name to Froude's famous romance _The Two Chiefs of Dunboy_--a romance founded on historic fact--perhaps not more coloured in the telling than in the same author's volumes on the history of Ireland. For here in this peninsula between Bantry Bay and the Kenmare River, which was the special hold of the O'Sullivans, clan loyalty and the clan name did not die out. Here as elsewhere, English settlers were brought in as lords of the land, with enormous power over the native Irish, whose loyalty still held to the representative of their old chiefs. The O'Sullivans were chiefs now principally in the extensive smuggling operations--and let it be remembered that under the laws made by England to crush out Irish trade, contraband was almost the one outlet for Irish commerce. If Irishmen wanted to export the wool of their sheep, the hides of their cattle, the meat that they salted, all this traffic was by law forbidden. Such laws make smuggling necessary and beneficent, and the O'Sullivans on the south of the Kenmare River, like the O'Connells on its northern shore, brought in their cargoes of wine, tobacco, silks, and laces, and sent back ships laden with wool. With those cargoes went out too that other contraband, the supply of officers and men for the Irish brigade. The English landlord-settler was the representative of English law, and between him and the O'Sullivans conflict was certain. In 1754, Murtagh Oge O'Sullivan shot the Puxley of that day. Law was moved to great efforts, and two months later the O'Sullivan was surrounded in his house at the village of Eyeries, and, after a desperate resistance, driven out of it by fire: he tried to cut his way out but was shot down in escaping. That was a great day for the law, and they towed O'Sullivan's body by a rope at the stern of a king's ship to Cork, where they cut his head off and spiked it over the city gate. [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO CORK HARBOUR] Irish memory keeps vividly the detail of such events, and you can find men in that district to tell you the whole as if it had happened yesterday. I heard it all, though at secondhand, on a sail from the Kenmare River to Bantry, one night when the sea was all fire, and the mackerel shoals dashing this way and that, made flashes like a Catherine wheel, and porpoises or dolphins following them left long trails of light on the surface with sudden sparkles wherever the great fish came up to roll. Out to sea was the recurring flash of the Bull Light, for which ships steer on their way from America; and though there was no moon I could still distinguish this huge island rock, and its neighbour the Cow. The Calf, where the light used to be, is lower, and lies close in by Dursey Island--in that year much talked of, for a party of police who had crossed to collect rents from the few islanders, were effectively marooned, as the boat they had chartered left them, and every other craft was suddenly spirited away. I think, perhaps, that night was lovelier on the Kenmare River--under a sky ablaze with stars--than even the days of sun had been; but nothing else in Ireland is so perfect, to my fancy, as this long, narrow sea lough between the two mountainous peninsulas, and having inland of it the full vista of those higher mountains which encircle Killarney's lakes. On the Kenmare shore of the southern peninsula is Lord Lansdowne's famous seat, Derreen, set among rivers and lakes, and backed with mountains. Derreen means the little oak grove, and as Mr. Cooke well observes in his _Murray_, the native wooding here escaped "the general destruction" of the forest trees to feed the iron furnaces of Sir William Petty, ancestor of the Lansdowne family. Most of the woods of Ireland--and Munster was covered with timber in Elizabeth's reign--were ruthlessly squandered in this way, during the first century of English occupation, by grantees or purchasers of confiscated land, whose one idea was a savage exploitation of what could immediately be cashed. However, let it be said that Petty's successors, coming into great part of the Desmond inheritance, and adopting the Desmond name, Fitzmaurice, took high place among that Irish nobility of the latter type. They were not absentees but landowners with some sense of what was owing to their estates, and with a sentiment to the country from which they drew their revenues, which is best evidenced by their close friendship with Maria Edgeworth and Thomas Moore. Yet it was always at Bowood, in Wiltshire, that Miss Edgeworth and Moore knew the great Whig statesman and his belongings: neither the poet nor the novelist ever penetrated to Derreen. Had they done so, they might have learnt more than ever either of them came to realize about the greatest Irishman of their day--the greatest power that has ever come out of purely Celtic Ireland in modern times: for Iveragh, the peninsula over against Derreen, was the birthplace and the home of Daniel O'Connell; it gave the climate and the environment which determined him to what he was. I am not going to write much--because no writing can do it justice--of Iveragh, which is bounded on the south by the Kenmare River, on the north by Dingle Bay, on the west by the Atlantic Ocean (with the Skelligs lying off in it), and on the east by Magillicuddy's Reeks and the lakes of Killarney; which is set therefore in beauty and majesty and splendour and has interest and charm at every turn of every road. But I am going to write a little of Daniel O'Connell and his people, for it is stupid to go to Kerry, and know nothing of the greatest Kerryman that ever lived, only--first, a little practical geography. IV The train will take you to Kenmare, where the railway company has a really comfortable hotel, in whose garden you will see the characteristic subtropical vegetation which can be produced in this climate--palms, yuccas, New Zealand flax with its sword-shaped fronds, bamboos, and the rest, "all standing naked in the open air" like the heathen goddesses in the Groves of Blarney. From Kenmare the beautifully engineered road, which was a joy to man and beast till heavy motor coaches began to destroy it, runs along the north shore of the sea lough and a few miles out crosses the Kerry Blackwater by the most picturesque bridge over the loveliest stream that anyone could ever hope to throw a fly in. A little farther along is Parknasilla, the big hotel which has been built at a point where the coast breaks up into a number of wooded islets, with bridges connecting them, and meandering walks--well, nothing could be prettier. Then you go along through Sneem, getting into opener, wilder country. As you approach West Cove, Staigue Fort is on your right, a great circular structure of dry masonry, more developed than the similar buildings in Aran, for it has chambers in the thickness of the wall and stairs leading to platforms for defence. From this monument of prehistoric times, whose date can be measured by thousands of years, look across to your left, where another stone building is in progress--a large hospital designed to benefit the poor folk of this district: the bounty of a lady belonging to one of the families who profited by confiscation and for too long drew absentee rents. What may be the success of the scheme cannot be foretold: but the beauty of her desire to make restitution is not the least among the beauties of the Kenmare River. At West Cove I have been lucky enough to stay with the man who knows the west of Ireland in its present life and its past history better perhaps than any living soul. In the great plot where cars draw up outside his door, great plants of Arum lilies shoot up and flourish, blooming luxuriantly in spring. They say that in Valentia an improving gardener thought them too profuse in the Knight of Kerry's garden, and pitched the roots out over the cliffs; but some caught on ledges, fastened there, and sent up white lilies in niches of the crags--so kind is that soft air. Two or three miles beyond West Cove is the village of Caherdaniel and under it comes in Darrynane Bay, on whose shore is a little hotel, simple enough, but friendly; lying among Irish fisher folk who gather of a summer evening to dance on the crisp turf that covers the sand. Beside it is a small wood, and in the wood is Darrynane, a place of pilgrimage, for here O'Connell lived and here his descendants remain. The case of the O'Connells was typical. Driven by Cromwell out of the fertile lands of Limerick they took root among the mountains of Kerry and of Clare. The builder of Darrynane--that is of the original habitation--was a Daniel or Donal who married a daughter of the O'Donoghues--another great Kerry clan. This lady--Máire Dubh--was a fruitful mother of children--she bore twenty-two of them and brought twelve to full age; but she was also notable as a poetess in the Irish tongue. Her second son, Maurice, inherited Darrynane, and was known all over the country as Hunting Cap O'Connell, for a tax was put on beaver hats, and from that day he wore nothing but the velvet cap in which he was used to hunt hare and fox on the mountains of Iveragh. Daniel O'Connell, his nephew, was a great votary of that sport, and I have talked with a man who had hunted in his company. And still in autumn you may see the harriers out on these hills and a namesake and descendant of his hallooing them on. [Illustration: KENMARE BAY, FROM TEMPLENOE] Old Hunting Cap as head of the family played a great part in his nephew's youth, providing, it would seem, for the later stages of his education. The early one was cheap enough, for he was fostered on the mountains in the cabin of his father's herd (that tie of fosterage bound Catholic Ireland together, gentle and simple, with a strange intimacy), and he got his first lessons in one of the hedge schools which flourished in defiance of penal laws. It was no less typical of Catholic Ireland that he should go abroad to finish his training, or that he should have a kinsman high placed in the service of France. His father's younger brother, Count O'Connell, was the last colonel of the Irish Brigade: and when he was consulted concerning a place to send his nephews, in 1790, found himself much perplexed to answer, so troubled was the state of all the Continent. Daniel and his brother Maurice were sent first to the Jesuits at St. Omer; they were trained to detest the revolution which was driving their uncle out of the service of France: and soon the flood of turmoil drove them from Douay whither they had moved. At Calais, they learnt the news of Louis XVI's execution: on the boat were two passengers who spoke of it as willing eyewitnesses. These men were Irish Protestants, the brothers Sheares, afterwards executed for conspiracy. It is very notable that although Protestant Ireland, especially in Ulster, was much affected by the revolutionary and republican doctrines, these found very little echo in the Catholic part of the nation--and none at all among survivors of the old Catholic gentry, such as the O'Connells. Yet when the young O'Connell settled down to read for the bar in London, harsh measures of repression and the violent Toryism of that day soon drove him into revolt. He had a genuine hatred of oppression, of unfair play: later in life this devoutest of Roman Catholics was the most powerful advocate of equality for the Jews. However, this is no place to talk of the great orator's career or his triumphs. To his own folk in Kerry he was always "the Counsellor", the wonderful advocate whose genius was like a flaming sword drawn for the terrified prisoner. No other Irish leader has ever been so near akin to the common folk; it was not for nothing he suckled the breast of a Kerry peasant, and learnt to speak his first words in the Irish tongue. Yet, oddly enough and pathetically enough, so little of a "nationalist" in our modern sense was he, that he welcomed and encouraged the growing disuse of Irish speech; all diversity of tongues seemed hateful to him, in his eighteenth-century cosmopolitanism. But no man was ever more in love with Ireland, or more devoted to one spot of earth than he to his Darrynane. He wrote to Walter Savage Landor of himself that he "was born within the sound of the everlasting wave", and that his "dreamy boyhood fed its fancies upon the ancient and long-faded glories of that land which preserved Christianity when the rest of now civilized Europe was shrouded in the darkness of godless ignorance". "Perhaps," he went on, "if I could show you the calm and exquisite beauty of these capacious bays and mountain promontories, softened in the pale moonlight which shines this lovely evening, till all which during the day was grand and terrific has become serene in the silent tranquillity of the clear night--perhaps you would readily admit that the man who has so often been called a ferocious demagogue is in truth a gentle lover of nature, an enthusiast of all her beauties 'fond of each gentle and each dreary scene', and catching from the loveliness as well as from the dreariness of the ocean and the Alpine scenes with which it is surrounded, a greater ardour to procure the good of man in his overwhelming admiration of the mighty works of God." That was how O'Connell thought of Kerry; and as you drive on from Caherdaniel along the high pass of Coomakista, which brings you out across a shoulder of mountain from the view across Kenmare River to a wider outlook full west on the Atlantic--why, you will have some inkling of the sublimity which he felt. Below you is the little harbour to and from which the O'Connells worked their smuggling craft; and you can discern a narrow cleft in the rocks making a short cut for row boats on a calm day. Once, they say, a sloop of the smugglers lay in the harbour and was suddenly aware of a revenue brig rounding the headland from the south. The wind blew into the harbour. It was impossible to escape, and the sloop lay motionless and to all appearance idle. But just as the pursuer tacked and ran straight into the harbour mouth a sail was hoisted on the sloop, she began to move, and in a minute her sides were scraping through the tiny passage, while men with sweeps out fended her off this and that sunken rock; and in another minute she was out and away, cracking on full sail with a good half-hour's lead before the revenue boat could beat out of the narrow sound to chase her. [Illustration: MACGILLICUDDY'S REEKS] From Coomakista the road descends steeply to Waterville, a famous place for anglers, where a new town has grown up about the outlet to Lough Currane, for here is now the chief station of the transatlantic cables. The first of these cables was laid from Valentia Island some ten miles farther north opposite the town of Cahirciveen, which will be your destination if you purpose to return by rail along the shore of Dingle Bay. But I commend to all, motorist, cyclist, or foot traveller (if such a one be left in these degenerate days), another way of exploring Iveragh. Also, if the sea is not your enemy, it is worth while to stay in Waterville--where the sea as well as the lake offer great chance to fishers--and try an expedition to the Skellig Rocks. Fine weather is needed, for there is difficulty in landing on these astonishing places where the gannets are the chief habitants: strong flyers, they nest nowhere between this point and the Bass Rock in Scotland, yet you may see them by dozens anywhere along the west coast even in the breeding season. On the Skelligs are old stone stairs of tremendous height, the work of old-time anchorite monks who established themselves here in stone beehive-shaped cells--still intact, for you to wonder at the discomforts of piety. And in the crevices of these rocks rare birds breed--the stormy petrel, the Manx shearwater, along with legions of puffin, guillemot, razorbill, shag, and the rest. But do not go there even with a light easterly wind, for it blows direct on to the rocky landing place; and if it blows at all from the south-west the swell may be too big even on the sheltered side. Nature is on a big scale, a rough playfellow, out here in the Atlantic. Even landward from Lough Currane, it is a wild nature that you must encounter on the old mountain road to Killarney, which you should travel for choice. This way follows up the valley of the Eany River (but you may take the main road skirting Lough Currane and turn in west to this same valley at Owroe bridge) to the pass of _Bealach Oisin_ (Ossian's Track) between Coolee and Knocknagapple. At the crest one must be close on a thousand feet up, and the view back over Ballinskelligs bay with the Atlantic beyond, to which the eye is led by a long winding thread of river between steep mountain sides, is a splendid prospect. Once over the neck, sea, river, and tilled land all disappear: nothing is seen but heath and rock and mountain. On the right is the high ridge which makes the backbone of Iveragh: in front of you the Reeks fill the eastern sky. Not a house can be seen--and there are very few places in Ireland (so thickly scattered are people over the poorest land) from which human habitation cannot be discerned. A few miles down brings you into the valley of the Caragh river which flows out from Loughs Reagh and Cloon and after a course of some ten miles enters the long and deep Caragh Lake, whence another short run brings it to the sea. This is the valley which lies west of the Reeks, and, for my own part, I count this aspect of them finer than anything you will see at Killarney. There is a big, new hotel at the outfall of Caragh Lake on the railway, much frequented now: but all my time among these hills and waters has been given to a little oldfashioned anglers' inn, the Glencar hotel, on the reach of river between Bealalaw bridge and Lickeen rapids. Here you may fish for salmon at a nominal charge in one of the best waters in Ireland: on the evening when I got there this summer, they were jumping everywhere in the beautiful Long Range pool where the little Caragh joins the main stream; red, ugly fish, it must be owned, for this was in September and they had lain there since June without a fresh to move them--but still there were salmon and plenty of them. Or you can fish free of charge at Lough Acoose at the headwaters of Caraghbeg, in under the flank of Carrantuohil, with better prospect of a full basket than anywhere else known to me. The trout are not big anywhere in Kerry, but in Acoose they run to a good herring size, and the man who fished it the day when I was at Glencar got something over two dozen--a usual bag. My companion and I had gone farther afield, to the headwaters of Caragh itself, right up into the great ring of mountains through which the pass of Bealachbeama lets you out to the Kenmare side. Little need be said about our fishing, which was interrupted by the fact that our boat, leaking like a sieve, finally foundered while we were trying to get her ashore--a new boat too, wanting nothing but a couple of good coats of paint. Yet the chance which drove us off Cloon, while the boat was being got ashore and emptied, sent us up across a mile of bog to fish the upper lake from the shore; and what a lake! lying right in under the steep side of a mountain almost precipitous, where the eagles built till a year or two back, and for three parts of its circumference ringed about like the crater of a volcano. It was a day of dry wind, northerly to north-easterly, and of hard lights: one lacked the magical enchantment of westerly air over the whole: yet for sheer grandeur I do not know that all my wanderings after fish in Ireland have ever taken me to so fine a scene. [Illustration: THE GAP OF DUNLOE, KILLARNEY] That little hotel, primitive in its equipment but most friendly, has its attractions to offer all the year round, for the salmon fishing begins in earnest in February, and through the winter months there is rough shooting (grouse, cock, and snipe), to be had over the great expanses of heather and those broad belts of native wooding which grow about the river in its lower course. From the hotel down to the lake your path lies between this scrub of oak and holly and birch and a water, swift yet deep, where pool succeeds pool, each divided from the next only by strong rapids. You have no monopoly there: the river is fished from both banks and can be covered right across, though it needs a good man to do it; but it is practically a free fishing and the best free river fishing that I know in Ireland--absolutely an ideal spot for the holiday-maker who does not insist on being near the sea. You can walk from it all the finest mountains in Kerry since it lies in the very centre: and away west of you is Glenbeigh, another valley where decent quarters can be had amid landscape of the same type. Of the same type--but I cannot believe that anywhere in Kerry or out of it you will match the journey which convoyed me from Glencar to my next stage at the Caragh Lake hotel. It was inland scenery no doubt, but the breath and the feeling of the sea is over all this neck of sea-washed Iveragh, and that river valley seemed no more than an avenue through the hills leading to the gateway of ocean. We walked along the river bank, often shoulder high in fern, often stopping to pull the blackberry clusters, and we studied the pools set in, here among trees, there with open sward on both sides and moor stretching away behind. Below the rapids we took boat, and for a mile or more rowed through level bogland, with groups of Scotch fir, purple stemmed in the afternoon light, rising from the river bank. Between their trunks, or in the open gaps, we could see the peaked mass of Carrantuohil, rising in the south-east, the light on its high ridges, but the valleys and chasms on its sides deep in shadow. As we neared the lake the flat land broadened, and from across it came the aromatic, pungent smell of bog myrtle, distinct as the scent from a beanfield, but strong and tonic as brine. Then for an hour and half we paddled down the lake between mountain and mountain, winding round promontory after promontory into sight of reach after reach of the lake. Finally as we entered the wide northern stretch--for our course was due north--all the shore was seen divided into demesnes, big and little, each with its own wooding. The hotel lies farthest of all towards the river's outflow in the north-west, and whoever chose that site deserves credit, for across the wide shining water rise the whole ring of mountains--Carrantuohil away to the south-east, and all the other heights that close in the valley behind Cloon Lake and Bealachbeama spreading fan-wise across the horizon as you look out from the pleasant terrace where palm and hydrangea grow. It is not so finished, not so exquisite, as Killarney; but I should rather choose it for a holiday. I sat on the terrace for an hour that Sunday and watched the sunlight fade off Carrantuohil: all was green and olive when we sat down, for it was a coldish evening and the air northerly; but cloud lay on the peaks, or rather caught the peaks intermittently as it drifted in wreaths across, so that at no time was the whole mountain visible. But gradually as the sun sank these wreaths became touched with a rosy glow, and below them what had been olive-green took on deep tints of coppery purple, rich and glowing, the purple gaining as the rose deepened on the cloud wreath; and higher and higher the shaft of light struck, reaching now only the very topmost pinnacles, till finally it faded out, and all lay before as in a sombre stillness waiting for the fall of night. Nothing that I carry away from Killarney haunts me with the same fullness of beauty, but perhaps only because Killarney is no one's discovery; it has no secret lover. You might as well seek to praise Sarah Bernhardt's genius or Tennyson's charm of style. Yet I suppose each one will discern for himself some passing perfection, some special facet of that loveliness--as I indeed remember the wonderful, shadowed, lucid green of water reflecting darkly the bank of tall reeds which grow westward of the landing stage to which we rowed in after fishing: and remember, too, the singular sight of a man's naked body, as he stood poised before plunging in to bathe, some hundred yards from us; for the low sun caught his figure, outlined against the long line of dark foliage behind him, and made it at once the glowing centre of a beautiful landscape. This was on the lower lake, largest by far of the three which form a crescent, compassing from south to north (as the water runs) the eastern flank of the Reeks. My last visit found me at the Victoria Hotel where the lake is broad and open to the Purple Mountain, a noble landscape: but to reach what is my idea of Killarney proper, you must row across to the narrows between the lovely isle of Inisfallen and the east shore, so reaching Ross Bay and a more confined water, studded over with island rocks. Here the shores are of that peculiar limestone which the lapping of water frets into numberless quaint crannies and fissures till the verge of the water looks as though it were a frame intricately carved by some patient craftsman; and in all these chinks and crevices ferns and other wild and beautiful herbage grow with exquisite profusion. That is what makes to my mind the essence of Killarney's charm, this wealth of intricate detail making a foreground to mountain and lake scenery as bold and wild as any highlands can show. Add to this the presence of unfamiliar foliage, here native, exotic everywhere else--notably the arbutus with its dark, glossy leaf and ruddy stem, handsomest of all shrubs; dark yew also, and juniper, mingled in with native growth of oak and birch, yet through all, skilful plantation has set in this and that graceful foreign tree, this and that bright berry. It is no wonder that such a place should have become one of the world's great tourist centres, especially when to these beauties are added the distinction and interest of fine ruins--Ross Castle where the O'Donoghues were lords till Cromwell's forces drove them out; Inisfallen where St. Finian's pious monks had their abbey through untroubled centuries. And, being as it is, Killarney is equipped for the tourist as is no other place in Ireland: all the excursions have been thought and planned, and your hotelkeeper will have arrangements fully made; nor is the plague of beggars at all the annoyance that it used to be--a blessed reform. The boatmen have learnt their trade of cicerone to perfection, and will not only tell you the standard yarns and jests and legends of the place if you desire them, but will have the tact to discriminate serious-minded folk--such as anglers--who may probably not want this form of entertainment. [Illustration: MUCKROSS LAKE, KILLARNEY] Yet, for all that, it is a place for tourists, and, as such, commands only my reluctant tribute. But the drive from Killarney to Kenmare which, skirting Muckross and the upper lake, carries you gradually circling round the whole crescent till you rise into the Black Valley where the Gap of Dunloe breaks in--well, that drive, I must say, fairly broke down my coldness: I grew no less enthusiastic than the famous Scottish expert on salmon fishing who was of the party and declared the whole thing equal to the Trossachs--from which I gather that Scotland at least has not anything to show more fair. Moreover, fishing on the lakes is free and good; there is a chance of salmon, and trout are both plenty and sizeable. That is to say, on a good day they should average close on half a pound, and this means that a pound fish is no great rarity--as he certainly would be in Glencar. Also in Killarney town you have the best fly tier in Ireland; many a friend of mine in Donegal who never saw Kerry could swear to Mr. Courtney's work in this delicate craft, almost an art in itself. But that is all I have to say about "Heaven's reflex, Killarney". V My last visit to Kerry was on a commission of enquiry into fisheries which took us driving round in motors to places off the usual track; and a railway strike came in, to complete our survey of West Munster. We had come up from Waterville, along the backbone of the peninsula, crossing Bealach Oisin, so that the coast road by Dingle Bay is known to me now only by far-off memory of a forty-miles drive in a long car--which the railway has for many years superseded. But I revived my memory of a bit of it, coming up in the morning from Caragh Lake to Killorglin, where we held our court, at the outfall of the Lowne which drains the lakes of Killarney. Opposite us across the bay was that other mountainous region of Corcaguiney, the Dingle Peninsula, which differs from Iveragh in this, that from the high point of the Reeks Iveragh slopes westward by a gradual declension of peaks and ridges; whereas Corcaguiney rises continuously westward and seaward till it reaches its climax in Brandon Hill rising majestically from the very limit of the land. So rises Mweelrea at the mouth of Killery, and I imagine that on a clear day from Brandon's top you would see Mweelrea, and from Mweelrea again might distinguish the peak of Errigal far north in Donegal. At all events I knew an old gentleman who told me that he had seen the whole length of Ireland in one field of vision, and he took either Mweelrea or Croagh Patrick as his midland centre and Errigal or Brandon (or the Reeks) as his two extremes. This Dingle Peninsula is explored by very few, unexplored by me, alas! I could see from the road the dark outline of Cahirconree, a wonderful stone fort, built two thousand feet up on the side of the Sliabh Mish mountains: and away out to the west the Blasket Islands were in sight, hardly more accessible than the Skelligs, but inhabited by a race of Irish-speaking fisher folk, among whom a Norse student of the Celtic languages settled himself the other day and was overjoyed to find a stone inscription in Runic characters, containing the mind of some Scandinavian forebear of his own, set down in the Norse that was spoken a thousand years ago and had waited ten centuries for him to decipher it. Under Brandon, on the extreme west of the peninsula, lies Smerwick Bay, where in Elizabeth's reign a small detachment of Spaniards landed and established themselves; their earthworks at Fort del Oro (so called because Frobisher was wrecked there with a cargo of pyrites which he took to be gold) can be traced easily. Kingsley in _Westward Ho!_ has dealt, not overfaithfully, with the story of that enterprise which ended in the wholesale butchery of combatants who surrendered at discretion--suggesting, very unworthily, that the brutal deed was excused by its deterrent effect. We have never heard that it stopped the landing at Kinsale not many years later. There is ground to hope that Raleigh has been wrongfully charged with the actual perpetration of that black deed. But in truth the blackest chapter in all Irish history is precisely that which deals with the Desmond wars under Elizabeth, which ended in the complete devastation of this lovely province. Not far from Tralee they show you the spot where the last Earl of Desmond was captured and the rough mound a little way from it that marks his grave: and still when the moaning of wind and wave is heard over that countryside, they call it the Desmond's keene. [Illustration: BRICKEEN BRIDGE, LOWER LAKE, KILLARNEY] To escape from all this record of civilized barbarity, the mind gladly turns back to far older and by far less barbarous days. Brandon keeps the name of the most picturesque figure in the long roll of Irish saints--St. Brendan, the Navigator, who was born a little west of Tralee, at Barra, close to the promontory of Fenit, in or about the year 484. He was baptized by a bishop named Erc, whose name still lingers in Termon Eirc, a townland three miles north of Ardfert: and a well near Ardfert which keeps St. Brendan's name is still a place of pilgrimage and votive offering, more specially on the saint's own day. Under Erc's guidance the lad was brought up, though he got some of his schooling at Killeady, the convent where St. Ita had established her religious house near Newcastle West in county Limerick. Later, Erc sent him to travel that he might "see the lives of some of the holy fathers in Erin"; and he went north to Connacht where the school of St. Jarlath at Tuam was already famous (as Archbishop Healy, who sits in St. Jarlath's chair to-day, tells with natural pride in his book on the _Ancient Schools and Scholars of Ireland_, which I am pillaging, not for the first time). He went farther north still in Connacht, and is said to have established a settlement of Kerrymen in the plains near Castlebar; but he returned to Kerry to get his priestly orders from the hands of his tutor Erc, now nearing death. "It was probably at this time," says Archbishop Healy, "that St. Brendan built his oratory on the summit of Brandon hill", and there was fired with the project of setting sail across the Atlantic in search of a Promised Land--_Tir-nan-Og_, the Country of the Young. For there on Brandon top, a man can see--even without the vision of faith--"over half the south of Ireland, mountain and valley, lake and stream, plain and town, stretching far away to the east and south. But the eye ever turns seaward to the grand panorama presented by the ultimate ocean." Brendan from his watch tower "Saw it in all its varying moods--but above all, at even, when the setting sun went to his caverns below the sea, and the line of light along the glowing west seemed a road to the Fortunate Islands where the sorrows of earth never enter, and peace and beauty for ever dwell. It was a dim tradition of man's lost paradise, floating down the stream of time, for with curious unanimity the poets and sages both of Greece and Rome spoke of these Islands of the Blessed as located somewhere in the Western Ocean. The same idea from the earliest times has taken strong hold of the Celtic imagination, and reveals itself in many strange tales, which were extremely popular, especially with the peasantry on the western coast. To this day the existence of Hi Brasail, an enchanted land of joy and beauty, is very confidently believed by our western fishermen. It is seen from Aran once every seven years, as Brendan saw it in olden times, like a fairy city on the far horizon's verge." According to the records, Brendan was not first on this quest. Barinthus, a neighbouring monk, had fared seaward in search of a truant brother and had found him in the island called "Delicious", from which they sailed yet farther west and found other wonders. But at all events, however moved, Brendan bade his monks to fast with him forty days, then choosing fourteen of them, he built a great curragh, with ribs and frame of willow, hide-covered, and so with forty days of provisions they set out upon the trackless sea, steering for the "summer solstice". Seven years that voyage lasted: they reached island after island in the Atlantic main, "following God's guidance, fed by his Providence, and protected by his power". At length, it is said, they reached the continent of America and found the place where they landed "to be indeed a delicious country abounding in everything to gratify the palate and please the eye"; and they were about to push across the swift, silvery current that had borne them to the verge of this land, when an angel rose before their path and bid them turn homeward, instead of resting to enjoy. And so back to Ireland came Brendan the Navigator, the travelled Ulysses among Irish saints. What lies behind all this, who knows exactly? but certainly those dwellers on the outermost verge of Europe always had vague yet glorious rumours of a land beyond the sea--a land in truth whose flotsam and jetsam, strange nuts and weeds, the ocean current casts from time to time on their shores. And heaven knows, that this Western people, since Columbus brought promise into fulfilment and imagining into sure knowledge, have found in the west there a haven, a refuge from the miseries into which they were born. America has been a strange and often a sinister realization of the Fortunate Islands--yet conceive of Ireland's history for the past century without America to lean on, to look to for help. Its streets have not been paved with gold, no easily-won sustenance has been there: yet to the fisher folk and farmers it has offered the fulfilment of desire, the enlargement of aspiration; and the course that St. Brendan first charted, though it is more frequented now than could be wished, though it leads often enough to unhappy wreckage, has yet been to Ireland a blessed road. [Illustration: HOLY ISLAND, LOUGH DERG] No man who visits this Atlantic seaboard of Ireland but must feel something of what Archbishop Healy's eloquence hints at--the sense of an open gateway beyond the sun-track through which imagination is beckoned towards its own goal. There is a soothing and restful influence from those vast spaces of the west. And even landward it follows you. We crossed the neck of the Dingle Peninsula to the pretty and prosperous town of Tralee, and all eastern Kerry merging into Limerick stretched away to right of us, a wide rolling expanse of land well divided into fields for tillage. Our course lay still on north-east to Listowel, crossing the tract of land which divides Tralee Bay from the Shannon's broad estuary; all about us, the country was spacious, yet well inhabited, set thick with trim little farmhouses: there was much traffic on the roads, of horse and man--and of asses: I saw there what is not common, two donkeys driven abreast in a little cart, stepping very smart down a long hill. There was plenty of room for the people, yet the people were there--on the land, living by the land, with the large air of the Atlantic blowing in across them. Next day, since the trains were not running, we had to proceed by motor to Limerick, and we simply ran north to the Shannon shore at Tarbert and followed the river to Limerick for a matter of forty miles, stretch by stretch, a broad sea lane for vessels, but alas! no vessels there: hardly a sail on the waters; though battleships can lie at Foynes, thirty miles in from Loop Head. There is much to pause over on that route: Glin, where the hereditary Knights of Glin, an offshoot of the Desmond Geraldines, have maintained themselves, for a matter of seven centuries, even through the "pacifications" of Elizabeth's reign: Askeaton, many miles farther on, a chief seat of the main Desmond line, and in Ireland--so rich in ruins, so poor in buildings that have escaped destruction--there are few finer ruins than the Desmond Castle here, and the Franciscan Abbey. Still nearer Limerick, at Carrigagunnel, you see the landmark of another power, for this castle was built by the O'Briens of Thomond and it stood over against Bunratty on the Clare bank, another great fortress.--Yet a mere catalogue is without interest, and here is no space to trace the interlocking fortunes and conflicts of Norman noble, Irish chief, and Cromwellian soldier. Let me concentrate on one spot, one group of memories. Above the little town of Foynes is a small house on a hill, now beautifully surrounded by plantations of shrubs and flowers; it was the home of a lady known to the Irish people at home and abroad, for her work in improving the lot of steerage passengers on emigrant ships, and also for her writings in prose and verse; yet known better as the true child of a notable father, William Smith O'Brien, Protestant, landlord, aristocrat, rebel, and felon by the law. She was one who felt and loved the beauty of Ireland--not only what one may call the scenic beauty of such places as Killarney, but the essential spacious beauty of those fertile valleys, those wide skies. "Men come and go by this great river," she wrote, "and the revelation of its beauty is not made to them fully, often not at all; but let one live by it and it is the most beautiful place in the whole world.... But to-night it was no hidden beauty. I went down by the river in the evening. It was full, the tide just past the turn, and sweeping down the great mass of water at an extraordinary pace, and yet, though the whole river was swinging along at many miles an hour, the surface was a marvellous mirror. The glowing masses of furze on the island, a quarter-mile away, were so near and distinct in the wave, one could almost stretch out a hand to gather them. Every cloud and every shade of light and colour in the sky was again in the river, but far more intense. At my feet and twenty yards down and across the channel was a dense black cloud reflected, its crenellated edge cut sharp against the reflection of silver, blue, grey, and intense white light stretching far away westward. I stood, as the old books used to say, 'entranced', and still the river swept down, and still the furze and the wonderful green and the dark cloud-bar were, as it were, under my hand, and the glorious 'gates of the Shannon', as the Elizabethans called this Foynes, were opened to heaven's light beyond my touch." From the road just beyond Foynes towards Limerick, you shall see a round hill topped by a ruin and the tokens of a graveyard. There in the high windy burial-place of her choice she lies, this lover of Ireland and of the Shannon, Charlotte Grace O'Brien. And for the last word in this little book, I, her near kinsman, whose main ties are with other provinces, shall set down another passage of her writings, which is curiously revealing of Munster. For behind Knockpatrick you may see a few miles farther off another low hill which is topped by a well-marked mound, and on the mound a great mass of shattered masonry stands, "like a black clenched fist thrust against the western heavens". That is Shanid, the original stronghold of the southern Geraldines: "Shanid aboo", was their war-cry. To this place Charlotte O'Brien, who loved flowers hardly less even than other live things, came to look for a reported rare plant--"The Virgin Mary's Thistle", "so-called because the leaves are all blotched and marbled with white stains, and legend made it a sacred plant bearing for ever stains of the Blessed Virgin's milk". "Sure enough," she wrote, "I found a mass of it growing together only on the southern exposure under the great wall. Now this plant is said to exist only as an introduced species in the British Isles. To account for it, therefore, on this utterly lonely and desolate hilltop, we must look back through the centuries and see the sacred plant in the monastery garden at Askeaton--the first Geraldine home in Desmond. We must think how the seed may--in fact, must--have been carried up to this watch tower, perhaps by some long-haired daughter of the Geraldines, sent for safety to the mountain fortress. We must imagine how its frail growth (only annual) took hold on the sheltered side; we must see generation after generation of men swept away, the monastery torn down and desecrated, the name of Desmond almost forgotten, the great Geraldine race broken and destroyed: we must see the almost impregnable castle blown to pieces and left as a trampling ground for summer-heated cattle; more wonderful than all, we must realize that time has so gone, that no record is left us of that great downfall and destruction--nothing--nothing but a few pieces of nine-foot-thick wall, a few earth mounds, and the sacred plant. Irishmen! What national history lies in one seed of that plant!" True enough! And true it is that to feel the real beauty of Ireland, her mountains and valleys, her fields and waters, you must see them in the light of the past as well as the present, informed by knowledge and by love. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN _At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland_ Transcriber's Notes Minor punctuation errors were silently corrected. Illustrations were moved to paragraph breaks. Page 24: Changed Roscarberry to Roscarbery. 
46429	----	Romantic Ireland Volume I. Travel Lovers' Library _Each in two volumes, profusely illustrated_ Florence $3.00 By GRANT ALLEN Romance and Teutonic Switzerland 3.00 By W. D. MCCRACKAN The Same.--Unillustrated 1.50 Old World Memories 3.00 By EDWARD LOWE TEMPLE Paris 3.00 By GRANT ALLEN Feudal and Modern Japan 3.00 By ARTHUR MAY KNAPP The Same.--Unillustrated 1.50 The Unchanging East 3.00 By ROBERT BARR Venice 3.00 By GRANT ALLEN Gardens of the Caribbees 3.00 By IDA M. H. STARR Belgium: Its Cities 3.00 By GRANT ALLEN Rome _net_ 2.40 By WALTER TAYLOR FIELD Romantic Ireland _net_ 2.40 By M. F. & B. MCM. MANSFIELD [Illustration] L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) New England Building Boston, Mass. [Illustration: THE ROCK OF CASHEL. (_See page 271_).] ROMANTIC IRELAND By M. F. and B. McM. Mansfield IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. _Illustrated by BLANCHE McMANUS MANSFIELD_ [Illustration: colophon] Boston L. C. Page & Company _MDCCCCV_ _Copyright, 1904_ BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) _All rights reserved_ Published October, 1904 _COLONIAL PRESS_ _Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U. S. A._ Contents VOLUME I. CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTORY 1 II. A TRAVEL CHAPTER 16 III. THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE 37 IV. ROMANCE AND SENTIMENT 82 V. RELIGIOUS ART AND ARCHITECTURE 109 VI. THE SCOTCH-IRISH BLEND 136 VII. IRISH INDUSTRIES 155 VIII. DUBLIN AND ABOUT THERE 176 IX. KILKENNY TO CORK HARBOUR 242 [Illustration] List of Illustrations VOLUME I. PAGE THE ROCK OF CASHEL (_See page 271_) _Frontispiece_ MUCKROSS ABBEY 11 THE CHIMNEY-TOPS, GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 17 MAP OF IRELAND (_facing_) 22 THE CLIFFS OF MOHER 25 MCCARTHY MORE'S CASTLE 29 ST. DOULOUGH 41 PEAT-CHOPPERS 47 A WEST OF IRELAND FARM 55 BOG LAND, KERRY 59 A JIG DANCER 69 THE GENUINE IRISH PEASANT 83 BOG LAND, KERRY 87 AN IRISH LASS 99 A BROOCH FROM THE HILL OF TARA 107 THE HILL OF TARA 113 ROUND TOWER, ARDMORE 117 DOWNPATRICK 129 THE BELL OF ST. PATRICK 133 DUNLUCE CASTLE 149 LIMERICK PIGS 157 TORC CASCADE 161 A COTTAGE SPINNER 165 A COTTAGE LOOM 169 EMBROIDERING 173 NEW GRANGE 177 DUBLIN CASTLE 199 ENNISKERRY 207 GLENDALOUGH 217 ST. KEVIN'S KITCHEN 221 THE VALE OF AVOCA 225 THE MEETING OF THE WATERS 229 REGINALD'S TOWER, WATERFORD 235 SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S COTTAGE, YOUGHAL 239 KILKENNY CASTLE 245 ST. CANICE'S STEPS AND THE ROUND TOWER, KILKENNY 253 RHINCREW CASTLE 257 CAPPOQUIN 261 LISMORE CASTLE 265 THE CROSS OF CASHEL 273 Romantic Ireland CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY In times past books of travel were frequently written for the perusal of "a few intimate friends." Such was the purpose of a little pamphlet entitled "A Trip to Ireland," which a few years ago fell into the hands of the writer. Its author and place of publication are unknown, but it bore the date of 1836. The writer of this book has not the excuse of this unknown author and admirer of Ireland's sylvan, historical, and romantic beauties for compiling the present work, nor is he possessed of the belief that he is called upon to attempt the task of merely imparting knowledge to the untravelled. But, since his attention was thus first directed to Ireland,--with the result that he has made a more or less intimate acquaintance with the allurements and charms of this delectable, if impoverished, land,--he has come to believe that there are a large number of interested people who would be glad to have an attractive presentation of some of the sights, scenes, and incidents which come to those who are fortunate enough to be able to sojourn there for a time. In other words, this book is a record of, and some impressions of, a few of those ever-present charms of the green isle which have so permeated its history, its romance, and its literature. As a record of a pilgrimage, this book will doubtless appear less satisfactory than as a presentation of facts relative to both the storied past and present-day affairs of the country, though it deals not so much with political issues and economic aspects as it does with the more pleasing and more tangible features of historic sites and scenes. It is not expected that this book will escape criticism; probably it will not. It is impossible to attempt to compress a history of Ireland, a monograph on its ancient civilization, a treatise on manners and customs, or even an account of its architectural remains, at all consistent with the deserts of the subject, within the confines of a work such as this. All that is claimed is that it is a résumé of the facts and the romance which, garnered from various sources, have impressed themselves upon the minds of the collaborators of this book in their journeyings through Erin's Isle. It is hoped, however, that these chapters, or, perhaps, more assuredly, the pictures with which they are adorned, will awaken a curiosity on the part of some to know more of Britain's sister-isle. Unfortunately, to many travellers--and to most American travellers--Ireland is a mere name, with a handle at either end, Queenstown in the south, and Londonderry or Moville in the north, where ships stop, in the dead of night, to land or embark the mails. Usually, travellers from the Western world are in too much of a hurry to partake of the delights of London or the "dainty prettiness" of the Thames valley, the sanctity of the cathedral precincts of Canterbury or Salisbury, or even the more alluring attractions which lie "across Channel," to think for a moment of disembarking at Cork harbour, with the mails, on board a rather uncomfortable "tender," and, usually, amid much discomfort of weather. Once the opportunity is missed, they are unlikely to retrace their steps in that direction, since one's enthusiasm or desire pales before charms and attractions then present. It ought to be a part of every traveller's experience for him to pay a visit to Ireland--the "Emerald Isle," or "Romantic Ireland"--and judge of its attractions, the places and the people, as seen on their native soil. With a warm heart she will welcome him; with lip-liveliness and sparkling language she will entertain him; with impulsive zeal she will conduct him over her diversified domain, and bring under his eye scenes where-- "Grace and Terror smiling stand Like sisters hand in hand." Though less fastidious than England, and without the canny cautiousness of Scotland, yet, of the Three Graces of the United Kingdom, fair Erin, for natural gifts and spontaneous beauties, stands preëminent. "To the Bretons, the Basques, and the Irish," says an observant French writer, "races not dissimilar in their hidden habits of thought and in the vague sadness of their eyes, the Atlantic Ocean is a boundary for the mind.... It is their climate background, resting-place, and grave ... the green hills into which Europe breaks to meet the southwest wind." All this, and more, is the Atlantic to the whole of northwest Europe,--Ireland in particular,--and its influences are not only great, but far-reaching. The Irish, they say, have never been great seafarers. This, it is feared, is true to no small extent. They are not even great fishermen, as they well might be in their sea-girt isle. The Irishman himself will tell you that it is because the thrifty and hardworking west-coast Scotch have usurped their market. This may be so to a certain degree; but, to a still greater degree, their lack of capital to properly equip the industry is the reason why the harvest of the sea is garnered under their very sight. It is not given to all who would travel and muse _en route_ to be able to express their thoughts with that beauty of language which graces the lines of Stevenson or of Sterne. One may not even have the temerity to attempt to imitate their style. He may, however,--and with propriety, thinks the writer,--consider, if he will, that theirs was the view-point of the acute observer and lover of the beautiful, and, as near as may be, imbibe somewhat of the emotions and sentiments with which these masters beheld the spots covered by their wanderings. Their words have come down to us as a variety of topographical description which can only be recognized as a new and precious thing, compared to the descriptions before and since. With such an end in view were the various wanderings which are set forth in these pages undertaken. Not consecutively, nor even methodically, was the route laid out, but in the end it covered practically the entire island at varying seasons and under equally varying conditions of comfort or discomfort, though no hardships or disagreeable experiences were encountered, and it is confidently asserted that nothing of the kind would be met with by any who might make the journeys under similar conditions. "June the nineteenth, arrived at Holyhead after an instructive journey through a part of England. Found the packet, the _Claremont_, Captain Taylor, would sail very soon. "After a tedious passage of two and twenty hours, landed on the twentieth, in the morning, at Dunleary (now Kingstown), four miles from Dublin, a city which much exceeded my expectation." Thus wrote Arthur Young in his simple and quaint phraseology in 1776. Arthur Young was a great traveller, one might say an inveterate traveller. He observed and wrote mostly of matters agricultural, but his side-lights thrown upon the screen--if not exactly illuminating it to a marked degree--were of far more interest and value to the general reader or travel-lover than the dicta of pedants or the conjectures of antiquarians. Arthur Young was an agriculturist, an economist, or whatever you like to think him; but he evidently could not repress the temptation to put the results of his observations into print, as the many scores of entries to his credit in the history of book-making and authorship will show. He sought to chronicle his "Tour in Ireland" for posterity, and conceived the thought of publishing the work "by subscription." This he did in the year 1780--and a most unlovely specimen of book-making it was. It was foredoomed to failure, and it apparently met it forthwith; for the author states in his preface that he was only able to complete the work at great expense to himself. No further criticism shall be made. It remains now but to praise. The book is a veritable mine of fact--with precious little fancy--of the farming, fishing, weaving, and allied interests of the Ireland of that day, with not a little detail concerning the history, romance, and plain matter-of-fact social and economic conditions of life. To-day, conditions for all but the well-to-do classes have changed but little, and here is a splendid framework to suggest a line of thought as far different from that conveyed by the "impressions" of one travelling for mere pleasure, as it is from the cut-and-dried bits of scrappy information which fill the guide-books to-day. Until the indefatigable German comes to the rescue, it may be ventured that we shall have no comprehensive, concise, and correct guide-book to Ireland, and will have to take our pickings where we find them. This book attempts merely the task of compiling fact and fancy, drawn from many sources, in connection with current comment--based upon actual observations. There is much contributory and allied matter to be found in the wealth of illustration "done by the artist on the spot," which, like the letter-press, professes truthfulness and attractiveness in its presentation. Such economic questions as are dealt with herein are those only which would be observed by all, no matter how rapid their passage; and references to political questions have only been made when they bear some relation to historical events of a past long gone by. The controversial side of the religious question is omitted, though, considering the many noble monuments, ancient shrines, ruined abbeys, and existing church edifices throughout the land, references to it, and many of its acts and functions, were here and there necessary. So, too, mention has been made of many of the romantic and eery legends of the country, many of which are, in the light of recent history, considered somewhat apocryphal as to their genuineness. But, reader, what would you? You surely would not go to Ravenna and not see Juliet's tomb, even though you know that Juliet had no real identity. Neither would you go to that gay little city of mid-France, Nevers, without visiting the tomb of "all the Montmorencies," nor to Warwickshire without going to Stratford. Hence you must, if you would know aught of Ireland, see Muckross Abbey, Blarney Castle, and the Giant's Causeway. The harps, the shamrocks, the blackthorns, and the peat-bogs, all of which are genuine enough, will then fit themselves accommodatingly into the ensemble, and you will have a picture so impressed upon the memory that the recollection of it will rival most things of this earth with which one has had but a passing intimacy. This work, then, may in some small measure [Illustration: MUCKROSS ABBEY.] give a more favourable impression of the country than has commonly been produced even by Ireland's pseudo-humourous novelists--that it is simply a land where mud huts, misery, discord, and violence predominate--by recognizing it as a land blessed by Heaven, in the first instance, at any rate, with nearly every natural gift. If there be no end to the making of books, there should at least be a suitable and preconceived ending to all so made; and herein lies the difficulty for most writers. The popular fictionist seems under the impression that the public want close upon a couple of hundred thousand words, filling a plump, ungraceful volume, for their few modest pennies; the compiler of books of pedantic information pads his product into a stately quarto, and the guide-book maker descends to small type and badly designed pages and crowds as much as he can into a small pocketable volume. From these species of printed things ramify many varieties, and the author of this work has many times been placed in a quandary as to what mammoth proportions it might not assume were he to allow his predilections to run riot through its pages. It is easy to say with Sterne, "Let us write a duodecimo," but with what measure may an enthusiastic or just admiration be limited as to the overflowing volume of appreciation? Mere cubic capacity as to size of the volume, or the superficial area of its pages, will not serve. The arts of the publisher and his printer can nullify any preconceived plans of this nature. A judicious selection of the material to be used would be much more likely to bring about the desired result, though again we are confronted by the moving question as to how elaborate or extensive a work is necessary in order to cover the ground as minutely or as broadly as might be desired. The result will not be found to approach the completeness of an historical record, nor yet the flimsiness of a mere sentimental journey along well-worn roads. It fills, rather, the gap which lies between, in view of the greater interest which is daily being shown in all things relating to Ireland--its literature, its history, its architecture, and its arts. Hence to a considerable public, which, it may be presumed, will ultimately show an interest therein, it is offered as an appreciation of the Ireland of the past and the present, based upon something more than a personally conducted tour to Killarney, or a jaunting-car ride about Queenstown, while awaiting the departure of the Atlantic mail-boat. CHAPTER II. A TRAVEL CHAPTER The true peripatetic philosopher is the only genuine traveller, and the vagabond and the pilgrim are but varieties of the species. The "personally conducted," alone or in droves, have no realization of the unquestionable authority by which nature "sets up her boundaries and fences; and so circumscribes the discontent of man," to borrow the words of Sterne. The individual who merely wants to "get there" in the shortest possible time, and by the most direct road, knows not the joys of travel, nor ever will. The moods of the traveller are likewise a varied thing; circumstances never alter cases more than when met with unexpectedly by him who travels for business or pleasure. With Ireland the above singularly applies. [Illustration: THE CHIMNEY-TOPS, GIANT'S CAUSEWAY] Similar conditions must exist in order for one to see it in just the same phase. The Liffey, which flows through Dublin's streets, may be dirty, picturesque, or beautiful according to whether you view it on one part or another. Blarney Castle does not look as if it were made to kiss, and so some are disappointed therein. Cork harbour is one of the most charming landlocked waters one may see; but, if he views it from Queenstown heights and is pestered meanwhile by a shabby, loafing beggar for an "American nickel or dime," the onlooker will doubtless form a mental reservation which will linger as long as the lovely memory itself. Killarney may, or may not, come up to his preconceived ideas, and Slievemore, that majestic peak which towers sugar-loaf fashion quite two thousand feet from the water's edge, may seem grim and bare where he would have found it forest-grown. The Giant's Causeway, but for the recollection of its various legends, might suggest something quite different. And so the whole scheme, viewed in a pessimistic manner, leaves no such impression as otherwise would have been the case. For him, then, who would like his way smoothed,--his travel-routes laid down and simplified,--the present chapter, it is hoped, will be found acceptable. The approach to Ireland from England is, at best, not so very comfortable or attractive. The Holyhead mail-boats are so timed as to accomplish remarkable regularity of passage in all weathers, but, at times, with no little discomfort to passengers. The crossing from Holyhead to Kingstown is the Pas de Calais over again; with an exaggeration of length and, if possible, of boisterousness. It lasts two and three-quarters hours, and, in any but the most temperate mood of wind and wave, would be a good test of one's fitness for a seafaring life. The passage from Stranraer to Larne is better, being less than two hours and not all of that in the open sea; while from Milford Haven to Waterford, in the south, is some six or eight hours' journey; and that of Holyhead to Greenore, or Liverpool to Belfast, is worse in every particular. On the whole, Holyhead--Kingstown is the route which may best be followed, under normal conditions and circumstances, in reaching Ireland from England. Anglesea Island, on which is Holyhead, is the "Lands End" of North Wales and the natural gateway for reaching Ireland, hence it is a foregone conclusion that the route should be popular. Holyhead, itself, offers little suggestion of the dense forests of druidical times. It is popularly supposed to have been devastated by the Romans, who slaughtered those pitiless hierarchs, the druids, and put an end to human sacrifice--cutting down with sharp axes the sacred shady groves which once dotted the island. As the South Stack is left behind,--that beacon-light by which passes all of that vast sea-borne traffic to and from Liverpool _via_ St. George's Channel,--the mail-packet begins to find herself; and, in the course of time, wind, and tide, the greensward of Dalkey and the heights of Howth--guarding Dublin Bay on the north and south--come into view. It has seldom, if ever, been claimed that the shores of Ireland actually denote hospitality; in fact, it is doubtful if this be true of any land north of tropic climes. Dublin has not an ideal situation for a touring centre, in fact, it is not central at all; but it is the best that offers, and is the gateway through which by far the majority of travellers make their entrance. Four great topographical divisions lie north, south, and west of this gateway, and arrange themselves naturally enough along the boundary-lines of the ancient political divisions of Leinster, Munster, Ulster, and Connaught, which have descended in historical lore and association from the Irish kings. Each of these topographical divisions forms a centre of itself, and each is equally accessible from Dublin. In popular sentiment, the south, perhaps, stands at the head, with Connemara and the western highlands next, and lastly the colder north. The entire island is but three hundred miles in length by one hundred and eighty miles in width. Naturally such a circumscribed area offers but little difficulty for modern means of transport, and, did one but have the time and inclination, it would be hard to find a more entrancing journey on foot than to walk around the island along its wonderfully picturesque coast roads. This procedure will doubtless not be practicable to every one; but he who is able to do so is strongly recommended to so accomplish a portion of the round, if only that small portion which lies between Bantry and Killarney or Clifden, in Connemara and Sligo. If he would not tramp, he can find "car" accommodation in summer; or he may make the journey with much pleasure by means of his bicycle, or, more progressively, by motor-car. In any event, he will then see and realize to the full some of the things that the average person sees only in pictures, and reads of only in books. It is a question as to how far the casual traveller likes to be left to his own resources to discover new or latent beauties of landscape or environment; but, while the spirit of adventure need not necessarily be great in one's soul, it is unquestionably with somewhat of the feeling that the old explorers must have had that one comes suddenly upon a vista miles and miles in extent, with perhaps not a sign of human habitation or of human life in any form to be noted in any direction. There may be other populous countries of Europe where this is equally possible, as well as Ireland, but assuredly not more so. There is in the two localities before mentioned, and in the Donegal Highlands, an isolation as primitive and unworldly as the mind of man, used to the civilization of cities, can possibly conceive; and, yet, all is within a couple of hours' ride by rail of centres of population which, if not entitled to be classed as great cities, are resplendent with electric-lights and under the spell of motor-cars and electric lines. The railway routes, generally speaking, also readily lend themselves to this arrangement of the topographical divisions into the south, the north, and the west. Thus one may go to Cork either _via_ Mallow, the junction for Killarney, or _via_ the easterly coast through the "Garden of Wicklow," Wexford, Waterford, and Youghal. Until Cork is reached, the tourist journeys rapidly or slowly, as the places _en route_ may or may not have an appealing interest for him; [Illustration: THE CLIFFS OF MOHER.] but, once Cork, or Mallow, is reached, he is put to it to decide his future movements with something of the precision of a time-table, depending on whether he has much or little of the well-recognized commodity of time at his disposal. To know and appreciate the full charm of that jagged corner of southwest Ireland which lies between Cork harbour--whence so many sunny-spirited Hibernians have migrated to America during the last fifty years--and Tralee, in County Kerry, one should journey around the coast by steamer. One week, not less, should without question be devoted to Killarney and about there, if one would enjoy it to the full, though the week can perhaps be made to include the tour between Dublin and Limerick, as well as the coach trip from Bantry Bay to Killarney _via_ Glengarriff. Another week--it can hardly be accomplished in less time--should be passed between Limerick and Sligo, including Galway, Connemara, Achill,--that lone peak rising from the sea,--and such of the western highlands, in general, as it may be possible to cover in this time. A final week, all too short, may be given to the Donegal Highlands, the Giant's Causeway, and around the coast to Belfast, whence one completes the round by returning to Dublin, or crossing to England by way of Greenore to Holyhead, Belfast to Liverpool, or Larne to Stranraer. * * * * * Such, in brief, is the general outline of the methods which will enable the traveller to make the round with the most economical expenditure of time and money. In the height of the season, July and August,--one should not, however, go anywhere in "the height of the season,"--there are charming variations of travel by lake or river, or coasting trips by steamer around the greater part of the island, which lend not only variety, but offer to some a more pleasant method than even travel by land. The longest, and by far the best appointed, of these communications by inland waterways is a stretch of something over a hundred miles of the noble river Shannon,--"Our own romantic stream, green Erin's lovely river,"--which, in conjunction with a series of beautiful lakes, extends from Killaloe, in the south [Illustration: McCARTHY MORE'S CASTLE.] (near Limerick), to Dromod, in the north (near Sligo). During the summer the journey is made in comfortable and well-appointed steamers, and throughout is intensely interesting and full of variety. About Killaloe the views are very fine. The mountains of Clare and of Tipperary shadow the town on either side, and away to the north for three and twenty miles stretches Lough Derg, crowded with islands and lined, one might almost say, on both shores by ruined castles. From Portumna, at the head of Lough Derg, and Banagher are the rich meadow-lands of Galway, along which the river winds tranquilly, passing hundreds of beautiful islets, its banks green with rich, low-lying pasture-lands. A few miles from Shannon Bridge is Clonmacnoise, over which hang many memories of learning, of wars, and of worship. Above Athlone the waters of Lough Ree are entered, with its rocky shores full of indentations and its myriads of sparkling islands--one of the loveliest prospects to be seen in Ireland, rivalling even Killarney itself. The actual expense of travel in Ireland is little. How could it be? The distances are not great, and the cross-channel absurdly short, as sea-voyages go. One may, of course, spend "anything he likes," as the man in the streets puts it, and get no more for it than another who disburses half as much. The trip has, by some, been accounted an expensive one; but assuredly such is not the case. Hence it is to be hoped that this practical chapter, as the writer is pleased to think it deserves to be called, may make possible to some that which was heretofore thought to be impossible or, at least, impracticable. What the real travel-lover wants, however, is, or ought to be, to partake of the life of the people, to see and know truthfully how they live, what they eat, what are their pleasures and their vocations, and how and why they so conduct themselves. One does not tour France to eat _tables d'hôte_ served after a conventional _menu du jour_, which is much the same the world over, or to America or England, or to Germany or Russia to do the same thing. What he really wants, or what he would really like, did he but know how to get it, or were he possessed of sufficient unconventionality, would be to eat snails in Burgundy, bouillabaisse in Marseilles, saddle of mutton in England, baked beans and pumpkin pie in New England, and the best of beef and hog products in Ireland. This last may sound a bit strange, but it is a fact that the larger number of bullocks brought to English ports for slaughter come from Ireland, and not from the Argentine or America, as the English fiscal reformers would have us believe. The old though unidentified adage, "When in Rome do as the Romans do," should be more largely applied by all whose province and wish it is to roam, as, for instance, "When abroad do as the natives do." Thus, when in Ireland, keep away from the establishments which cater for the "tripper" _pur sang_; follow the unworn track, which, perhaps, will lead you now and then into a quandary, but which will mean no great hardship or inconvenience, and, on the whole, will give one a far more interesting and satisfying view-point than any other, and a knowledge of the land and the people which is positively profound, as compared with the usual variety. For the rest, it is urged that the traveller, either for education or pleasure, be forewarned and forearmed as to the possibility of time slipping away unawares, and his not being able to accomplish all of what he may have set forth to do. This will most likely be the case; but he should curtail his tour abruptly and not by piecemeal, omitting, if necessary, the northerly portion entire, and returning to Dublin from Galway or Sligo. By no means, however, should he cut out the western highlands, or even Achill, for here lies that which is, as yet, the part of Ireland least known to the great mass of tourists. It is taken for granted that he will feel that he must, happen what may, "do" the Killarney district; and, after all, if it is the most sentimental and daintily composed of all the land, it is not the less appealing to him who is strong of girth and rugged in his instincts. It is, moreover, the region wherein are to be found the most complete "creature comforts," as civilization knows them, albeit the charges for them may in many cases rise to heights which are unknown outside of really fashionable tourist points. Still, in this respect, there has been a great improvement of late, and, unless one insisted upon surrounding himself with those more or less unnecessary adjuncts of a metropolitan life,--which he ought to have left behind him with his other cares,--he will find that, for simple and comfortable accommodation, he will need to pay no more than in that Mecca of the cheap tourist, Brittany. The hotel accommodations of Ireland have often been reviled; but, if not luxurious, they are at least as comfortable as in many other more popular regions, Brittany, North Spain, or Tuscany, for instance; and, while large and populous modern towns are not frequent, accommodations of an acceptable character are to be found in most places where the traveller has a right to expect them. The many and varied elements which make Ireland attractive unconsciously weave a spell which, mayhap, will allure many another to seek for himself the charm of Ireland, in preference to all other neglected tourist points. It certainly stands first and foremost as a new touring-ground for those who would not perforce wander too far afield, or at too remote a point from a metropolitan daily paper. Not that the mountain fastnesses or the isolated headlands and unfrequented lakes and loughs are always within quick communication with more populous centres of civilization. Far from it; one may journey many a weary hour from some remote hamlet in order to strike again the railway which is to take him to some newer and possibly more appealing centre of interest; and, when he reaches that same railway, or one of its newly made tentacles, which are for ever reaching out toward new lands to conquer, he may be forced to pass an equally lonely, though perhaps awe-inspiring, vigil at the base of some bald, bare mountain-peak, awaiting the main line connection which was due at this point a couple of hours before. All of which, were one imbued with anything but the spirit with which he ought to be imbued, might gall and chafe, with some sense of reason, but which, for the true vagabond, even though he may not choose to travel by foot and on the road, ought to be the very essence of enjoyment. CHAPTER III. THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE One hundred or more years ago, when Arthur Young first wrote his journal of a tour in Ireland, those who had Ireland's welfare most at heart deplored the fact that "her greatness was still practically unexplored, and the early history of her brighter days excited no interest even among her own people." Doctor Johnson felt this himself when he wrote, "I have long wished that Irish literature were cultivated, as Ireland is known by tradition to be a seat of piety and learning, ... and surely it would be very acceptable to be further informed regarding a people at once so ancient and illustrious." It has been said, too,--the words are taken from the mouth of a poor parish priest,--that "the Celt is melting like the snow: he lingers in little patches in the corner of the field, and hands are stretched on every side. It is human to stretch hands to fleeting things, but as well might we try to retain the snow." From this it would appear that Ireland and its institutions, as they have existed in the past, and as they exist to no small extent to-day, are not yet the familiar ground that many might suppose. Just what the reason for this indifference to its charms may be, it is impossible for any one to state; but, at all events, it is traditional to a large extent, and is a long time being lived down. During the period of the varied fortunes of the ancient kings of Ireland's four great divisions--from perhaps the fifth century until the coming of Henry II. of England--there was little connection between Ireland and the outside world, excepting always the Church which attached Ireland to Christendom. It was, perhaps, small wonder that the Plantagenet Henry, who was in favour at Rome, was desirous of uniting the four kingdoms of Ireland as a Roman Catholic whole. He had already sent three bishops to Rome, and its most famous of all "Irish bulls," if the levity be pardoned, came forth naturally from Nicholas Breakspeare, the English Pope. The Church in Ireland, or, rather, religion in Ireland, is a subject that one approaches with dread. So much so, that it had best be avoided altogether so far as its controversial elements are concerned. The real significant ecclesiastical aspect of Ireland of the past--or of the present, for that matter--can be discussed with less trepidation. Of the devotion of the people to their Church there can be no question, though it smacks not a little of the devotion of the ivy to the tree. It has been said before now that "the houses of the people are indecently poor and small, and the houses of the Church are indecently rich and large. Out of the dirt and decay they rise always proud and sometimes ugly and substantial, as though to inform the world that at least one thing is not dying and despondent, but keeps its loins girded and its lamps trimmed." All of which is,--or was,--perhaps, true enough in the abstract; but, _tempus fugit_, and Ireland, if not actually grown, as yet, more prosperous, or, in many parts, any less primitive, is without question becoming, throughout, more enlightened; and the traveller, walking or driving across the wastes of the west, will not cavil at the fact that the first thing to break the monotony of the horizon is a church spire or tower, or that it towers over a little group of cottages huddled about it. Sometimes, indeed, these church buildings are poor and rough; but these are becoming fewer and fewer, and are now gradually, even in the poorest districts, being replaced by more pretentious structures. The last few years have seen in Ireland a great activity in the building of these chapels, though they are not always of the artistic value of many of the older examples. The economists and political agitators have, of late, drawn attention to the "positive sinfulness" of the increase of chapels and religious buildings side by side with the increase of poverty. This may have existed up to the last half-century, but, as surely as the seasons change, a new era for Ireland is close upon it, [Illustration: ST. DOULOUGH.] and the increase of what is called the "religious vocation" is not the bugaboo that it once was. One should pay a hearty tribute to the patriotic efforts of the Gaelic League to inspire throughout Ireland a wholesome and invigorating sense of nationality, and to guide its energies into industrial and intellectual channels. This movement, from within and without, is doing noble work, and, if it is uninterrupted in its progress by religious or political jealousies, Ireland may yet come to her own again. More than seven centuries have rolled onward since the English have become intimately connected with Ireland, and yet how little is really known of the land and its people, in spite of all that the political economists, the ecclesiasts, and the antiquarians have written concerning it. Professor Van Raumer, a German, in his "Letters from Three Kingdoms" (which it is only proper to say has been criticized before now as a mass of bold trivialities and solemn inaccuracies), says that he never knew what poverty meant until he travelled in Ireland. Its existence, to a very large extent, is undeniable; and, in times of stress and strife, it has even become virulent; but ragged dress, frugal fare, and mean houses do not always indicate actual distress. The trouble seems to be with those who commit themselves to written observations that they never appear as apologists, but condemn, from the start, anything and everything which falls below a certain preconceived standard which they may have unknowingly set. In spite of the fact that the population in certain parts of Ireland was proclaimed as being, at the beginning of the Victorian era, at its lowest ebb,--in many parts of Ulster conditions have since changed but little,--there was often no apparent haggardness or lack of nourishment to be observed; the children notably, like the children of the slums in great cities, were rosy, chubby, and high-spirited--a very good indication of the general health of a community. This is one of the anomalies of travel and observation which cannot be explained. A statement was made in the public prints, at the beginning of the year 1903, that Ireland had lost, in the twelvemonth previous, a population equal to that of Limerick, the fourth largest Irish municipality, and greater than that of at least one Irish county (Carlow). This awful drain by the outflow of the virile young of both sexes should be controlled by the well-wishers of Ireland's prosperity. What the future is to bring forth for Ireland is doubtless quite problematical; but there is no gainsaying that the hour is ripe for any action which it may seem advisable to take. It is difficult to believe that even the fieriest of the patrons of Ireland can fail to perceive England's present willingness to make what perhaps she thinks is a sacrifice, but which in any event is intended as an atonement for the past, and an eager desire for the prosperity of the country at her doors. There are many respects in which Ireland is eminently fitted by nature for prosperity. There is hardly to be found anywhere in the world such natural facilities for the development of a great mercantile marine as exist on the eastern coast from Londonderry and Antrim to Waterford and Cork, and Belfast to-day contains one of the world's greatest and most able ship-builders. There is, it is said, no part of the country which stands at a greater distance from a waterway to the sea than four and twenty miles. The country has immense stores of iron, still unutilized, mainly because of the scarcity of native coal; but some day, in this epoch of cheap and rapid transportation, they will yield a rich harvest. There was once a considerable industry carried on in the copper-mines of counties Waterford, Wicklow, and Cork, but of late it has greatly declined. So it is with the sulphur-mines of Wicklow, which at one time yielded nearly a hundred thousand tons per annum. The bogs, which cover one-seventh part of the surface of the whole island, have never yet been turned to such economic uses as most certainly await them--the production of a really well-cured compressed peat fuel. There are vast deposits of lignite, already proved to be of great depth, but which can be worked on a large scale only at a greater expenditure of capital than has yet been applied. In point of fact, Ireland is potentially a rich country, but her mineral deposits have been practically neglected. It will be a happy day for England when she finds, as she yet may, [Illustration: PEAT-CHOPPERS.] a prosperous and contented Ireland at her doors. A prosperous Ireland means, ultimately, a healing of whatever sore remains open; and may, perhaps, mean the removal of the last bar against the real federation of the English nation. The recent visit of Britain's king and queen may be taken as a good omen, and its effects may turn out to have been far-reaching. At its least, it stimulates good-will on either side, and does its own quota of work in the inspiration of a hopeful spirit in a natively buoyant people, who have long chafed at neglect. At its best, it may hope to make one of the loveliest countries in the world a place of popular resort, with the inevitable result that its advantages will become more widely known and better exploited than they have hitherto been. It has long been the opinion of many Irishmen, and of many British well-wishers of Ireland, that the permanent establishment of a royal court would be of much service to the country. It is claimed that this idea is not dictated by any spirit of "flunkeyism," but rests on a sound business basis, which, after all, if a sordid view, is an essentially practical one. Such a court would promote trade, and trade would feed industries that are now starving; and, while it would carry these material blessings in its train, it would have its proper sentimental value also, and would do its share, and no small share, either, in the final reconciliation of two countries which have long, to their common disadvantage, been divided. Any one who reads has heard considerable of "the unfinished chapter" of the nineteenth century of Ireland; how Ireland "oft doomed to death, is fated not to die;" and of "the Exodus." Yet, after all, these affairs of apparent moment have really very little import to-day. Ireland is by no means dead, nor ever will be, as things point now. The history of Ireland during the past hundred years has indeed been vivid. So has the history of most other lands. It is merely a sign of the times. The year 1849 found Ireland in as wretched a condition politically, and socially, as she ever had been. 1846 and 1847 had been famine years, when people lay perishing and the land lay untilled. No crops were raised and no rents were paid. The corn laws had come into effect in England, and the tax on foreign corn, which gave to Ireland a real advantage with respect to grain, was withdrawn. The economists advised cattle-raising as a substitute, and pointed to the fact that, as an English statesman had said, "Ireland was clearly intended to grow meat for the great hives of English industry." How the transformation from a grain-raising to a cattle-growing country was to be made, instantaneously, he did not say. The project did not receive immediate favour, as might be presumed, and was the real cause of the impetus given to migration to the United States, "the home of the free." The streams of fugitives swelled to dimensions that startled Christendom; but the English press burst into a pæan of joy and triumph--for now at last the Irish question would be settled! Now at last England would be at ease. Now at last this turbulent, disaffected, untamable race would be cleared out. "In a short time," said the London _Times_, "a Catholic Celt will be as rare in Ireland as a red Indian on the shores of Manhattan." The press, indeed, in England, was most uncharitable, and, assuredly, in more instances than one, quite ignorant of that about which they were writing. Religion was, of course, their chief point of attack. It is always a safe card to play, if one wants notoriety merely, not only for as impersonal a thing as a public journal, but for an individual as well. The Irishmen who remained, the emigrants' kindred, their own flesh and blood, their pastors and prelates, could not witness unmoved this spectacle, unexampled in history; the flight _en masse_ of a population--as it then seemed, and the figures are truly astonishing--from their own beautiful land, not as adventurers, but as heart-crushed victims of expulsion. Some voices, accordingly, were raised to deplore this calamity; to appeal to England; to warn her that evil would come of it in the future. But England did not see this; at least, did not see it _then_. There were philosopher-statesmen ready at hand to argue that the flying thousands were "_surplus population_." This was the cold-blooded official way of expressing it; but the English press, however, went farther. They called the sorrowing cavalcade, wending its way to the emigrant ship, a race of assassins, creatures of superstition, lazy, ignorant, and brutified. The London _Saturday Review_ made the following reply to a very natural expression of sympathy and grief wrung from an Irish prelate witnessing the departure of his people: "The Lion of St. Jarlath's surveys with an envious eye the Irish exodus, and sighs over the departing demons of assassination and murder. So complete is the rush of departing marauders, whose lives were profitably occupied in shooting Protestants from behind a hedge, that silence reigns over the vast solitude of Ireland." Volumes might be filled with the same sort of comment, and yet other volumes with an impartial review of events as they really were; but even then the story would not be told, and hence the impossibility of entering into the controversial aspect of the question here. Tears may trickle down the cheeks, and hearts may palpitate with emotion, when the sons and daughters of the soil view for the last time the streams which sparkle in the glens, the lakes which bosom themselves in the mountains, and the bowers of fairyland with which every Irish wood is endowed; but, yet, one may depend upon it that as bright or a brighter future awaits the emigrant who goes out into the world than remains for him who stays at home. It seems paradoxical to see in emigration at once the hope and the curse of Ireland; but, after all, perhaps it is not wholly a detriment. The area of Ireland is comparatively small, its productiveness limited, and its population still relatively great, in spite of the fact that some five millions have emigrated to America alone since 1840. Manifestly it has been for years, and must be for some years yet, mainly emigration to which Ireland must look for improvement of the social conditions of those who are left behind--provided, of course, that home conditions are sufficiently encouraging to the tillers of the fields, the cattle-growers, the men and women in the great flax and linen factories, the ship-building establishments, and the fisheries. These industries alone, with the increasing [Illustration: A WEST OF IRELAND FARM.] trade outside their own country for the native products, ought in a measure to win increased prosperity. In addition, too, it is fondly hoped by many, and predicted by a few, that a great tide of tourist travel will turn toward Ireland, and that, in time, it will become as busy catering to the wants of pleasure-loving tourists as are Switzerland and Norway. Perhaps this is not altogether to be desired, from many points of view, but it appears inevitable. The political aspect of affairs in Ireland is ever and ever improved by the periodic and frequent visits of royalty. These ought to do much good, for the idea should be fostered that the people of Ireland have the same king as Britain across the Channel. Some there be, in both islands, who would have this forgotten, and many happy ideas for the encouragement of Irish affairs have been strangled by hands both from within and without the green isle. Forgetfulness _may_ account for this, but more probably it does not, and many entirely ignore the fact that Great Britain's king has also the words "and Ireland" attached to his title. At the end of a recent visit of King Edward, the London papers, almost without exception, referred to his return as a "home-coming," as if he had returned from an alien shore. The fact was passed unnoticed, apparently, but there was a sting in it which the Irish themselves, one may be sure, did not overlook. The Irish land and tenant problem is one which cannot be ignored, and has given great concern to those responsible for Ireland's welfare. It is impossible, and it would not be meet, to attempt to deal, even superficially, with the question here; but it cannot be overlooked by one who knows anything of Ireland and the present-day aspect and conditions of life there; nor can it by even the "butterfly" tourist, who does the round of Killarney's fair lakes in a personally conducted party. Even he, if he is at all observant, will see evidences of certain conditions of life with which he has not become acquainted elsewhere. The question for the landlords--leaving the rights and wrongs out of it--was, and is, how rentals can be collected. It certainly cannot always be expected to be [Illustration: BOG LAND, KERRY.] paid out of the land. The eight or nine acres of reclaimed bog-land, which often constitute the tenants' holding, can produce nothing in the nature of rent after the occupants have secured any sort of subsistence. But that is only half the case. There is, or is supposed to be, another very large class of holdings in the poorest districts, which cannot even produce a bare subsistence for an average family. It is possible that the demerits of bog-land are greatly exaggerated. When reclaimed it is, it is said, in a sense, easy to till and productive. But, on the other hand, it rapidly impoverishes itself and deteriorates by periodical flooding,--the curse of all the west,--and its productivity is but comparative. On the De Freyne estate at Castlerea there are hundreds of acres of rich grassland with scarcely a house upon them, "cleared" years ago by the landlord when prices were high and there was a chance of profitable sales,--which sales, however, apparently did _not_ materialize. On the other hand, there are hundreds of acres of bog-land, with the little cabins crowding close upon one another as far as the eye can see, which certainly indicates that there is a demand for this class of holding. Rents are not high, as rents go elsewhere; but they cannot be paid out of the land, and the sons and the daughters, in order to live, must leave it. In cottage after cottage one may hear the same story. An old man and his wife with one daughter left at home; two sons in England; two daughters in America,--all sending over a pound now and then to keep the roof over their parents' heads. And these people cleared the land themselves. "It was all red bog, sorr, like yon," they tell you. A peasant in the townland of Cloomaul gives these figures. He is sixty-seven years old, and until 1860 the rent of his holding was £5 a year. In 1860 it was raised to £11 5_s._ 0_d._; twenty-eight years later the Land Commission reduced it to £6 5_s._ 0_d._ Meanwhile great became the stimulus to emigration, and once again the old story of "me sons beyond the sea" is given out. In some sections there is scarce a young man or a young woman to be seen. The evictions, that throughout Ireland raise the countryside as nothing else does, only bring together, with a few rare exceptions, a band of women, children, and old men. The hay harvest in England calls many of the able-bodied away temporarily, and the colonies and the United States call those who would go farther afield. The moral aspect of the whole problem is thus put in a nutshell by the economists and Ireland's well-wishers: "Irish landlordism to-day represents little more than an enormous tax upon the industry of the people. It does nothing in return for the money it receives. It is, to a very large extent, non-resident. Much of it is in a bankrupt condition." And no wonder, when one remembers the vast proportion that is "spent out of the country." Mr. T. W. Russell, M.P., contributed a recent paper to the _New Liberal Review_ on "Disturbed Ireland." In it he takes a very gloomy view of the present situation. He says that a grave crisis is rapidly approaching, which will shake things to their foundations in Ireland; and points out that since 1868 the whole of the Irish governing class has been disestablished and disendowed. Before that year, Ireland was governed by its Protestant landlord garrison. First by one measure of reform and then by another, every cartridge has been withdrawn from the bandoliers of the garrison, which is now as powerless as it was once all-powerful. England is dealing with an absolutely crimeless country. White gloves are the order of the day, blank court calendars are reported all over the country, yet boycotting is wide-spread, and intimidation is rampant. A conspiracy to boycott is punishable, but boycotting is not in itself an offence. Hence the great part of the country has passed under the dominion of the United Irish League. What the future will actually bring forth for "poor, distressed Ireland" it is impossible to predict, but it may be presumed that other lands will go on enriching themselves by the accumulation, as citizens, of the flower of Ireland's flock, and that this is in fact but a natural enough thinning-out process, which has obtained among other nations before now. What the further and yet dimmer future will be, no one can tell; but the above seems a plausible opinion which has much to justify it, both in precedent of the past and with due regard to the racial characteristics of the people. Others hold out more hope. The Right Hon. George Wyndham, M. P., chief secretary for Ireland, stands sponsor (1903) for the fact that it is the wish of the people at large that "the evening star of the Empire, shedding a sad light in the west, shall rise toward the zenith and shine out from amid the brightest constellations in the imperial empyrean." With Mr. Wyndham's appointment to the secretaryship, it is thought by many Ireland's great revival is at hand. Already opposing partisans have begun to realize that the genius of the Celt disposes the Irish to take kindly to coöperative efforts for their welfare; and more stimulating than all else will be found to be the great Celtic revival among all classes. Forty years ago the great Protestant revival in Ulster had for its object, or at least its main object, a passionate and more or less selfish personal aspiration. To-day the movement is even greater, while it leaves religion aside, and is essentially national. Study has taken the place of idleness; grammars have replaced playing cards. On St. Patrick's Day the Irish celebrate the restoration of their ancient language to its ancient dignity. The public-houses are shut up instead of being crowded. A new hope, a new motive, a new incentive,--all these are visible in Ireland. They find practicable expression in the enthusiasm with which the Irish language is being studied everywhere. This latter may be a pure fad, but it is in no way an unhealthy one. How far the chief secretary's attitude actually goes in behalf of Ireland, his own words will best tell. In the House of Commons he asked: "Was it necessary to dread any dire political consequences from the spread of the Celtic renaissance? He thought the object, the brightening of the intellect of the Irish child, was a good one; and he did not think the political consequences would be very harmful. If, as a result of such instruction, Irish lads in fifty years gave up the practice of singing, on certain anniversaries, inspiring ditties which enjoin the propriety of kicking the Crown or the Pope into this or that river, and preferred to sing the Irish song: "'Oh! where, Kincora, is Brian the great, Where is the beauty that once was thine, Where are the princes and nobles that sate To feast in thine halls and drink the red wine?' he could not see that the change would be politically deleterious. They could not make a Scotsman into a better engineer by confiscating his heirloom; and their language was an heirloom of the Irish. Its usefulness was not immediately obvious; but that was true of most household gods, and yet a tutelary reverence for household gods had often nerved heart and hand for utilitarian contests. There was no heresy to the Union in permitting to Ireland that which they promoted in Scotland and in Wales; on the contrary, it was an article of the Unionist creed that within the ambit of the Empire there should be room for the coöperation of races, maintaining each its memory of its own past as a point of departure for converging assaults on the problems of the future." There can be no doubt but that the chief secretary for Ireland has been baptized with the spirit of the Irish revival. He believes in Ireland. He loves the Irish people. To him the witty and mercurial Celt is much more sympathetic than the more stolid Englishman. Ireland, like the fair damozel in Spenser's poem, has a singular fascination for the Sir Calidores and Sir Artegalds who stray within range of the magic of her charms. As to what were the real beginnings of Ireland, and whence came the original Celt, we must for a time longer, it seems, remain in doubt. The more the pity, for the character of a people is in large measure due to inheritance. Here, for centuries long gone past, there was isolation in manners, customs, and forms of government. But then, Ireland being insular, the chances were that many people of a different race might have mixed their blood with that of the early settlers. Still, there never was a country which delighted more in legends and of which the past was more legendary. And, above all, the Irishman always respects these antiquated stories, whether authenticated by later scholarship or not. [Illustration: A JIG DANCER] Therein lies the charm of association which surrounds the very shores and rocks and rills of Ireland. Here are a few brief lines from McCarthy which express it far more succinctly and with more feeling than it would perhaps be possible for any other living historian to write, be he Irishman or not: "Every stream, well, and cavern, every indentation of the seashore, every valley and mountain peak, has its own stories and memories of beings who did not belong to this earth. A distinguished Englishman once said that whereas in the inland counties of England he had found many a peasant who neither knew the name of the river within sight of his cottage, nor troubled himself about its early history, he never met with an Irish peasant who was not ready to give him a whole string of legends and stories about the stream which flowed under his eyes every day." An American writer, Horatio Krans, has recently attempted to dissect the motives of the Irish novelist of the first half of the nineteenth century. He has put his finger upon one notably weak spot in the earlier novels,--the delineation of female character. He claims particularly (though the Irish novelist is not alone in this sinning) that the heroines, with a few exceptions,--Lady Geraldine in Miss Edgeworth's "Ennui" and Baby Blake in "Charles O'Malley,"--are hopelessly conventional in speech, in sentiment, and in manner; all of which is undeniably true. The Irish novelists of the time divided their product into two distinct classes, "the novels of the gentry" and "the novels of the peasantry," and there is, as a fact, much in favour of the heroine of the peasantry class. The names of the novelists of that time most generally known, and most readily recalled, are unquestionably, first of all, Goldsmith, then perhaps Miss Edgeworth, Charles Lever, Maxwell, and Samuel Lover. Among themselves they have apportioned the various types which we of a later generation have come to recognize as of the soil. The most notable, and one common to all, is that strange product of Irish life (to which, it may be observed, Oliver Goldsmith called attention), the "squireen," who was without an idea beyond a dog, a gun, and a horse. It is a commonplace to remark here that many of the gentry of that time lived in barbaric and slovenly splendour, led devil-may-care lives, hunted during the day, and drank, played cards, and quarrelled at night. But new forces are certainly bestirring themselves in the Ireland of to-day, and a new standard of life, a wider knowledge, and a finer culture is broadcast. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the realm of Ireland's imaginative literature, in prose as well as verse. Of the actual life of the times, the present-day Irish novelist draws not with so firm a hand as his predecessor, but he makes a more pleasing picture. The duel, as an institution, is extinct to-day, but much the same mode of life as that of a former day is depicted in the stories of Miss Sommerville and Miss Martin Ross. In these modern novels are found the horse-dealing, hunt-loving gentry; but the peasants appear only as retainers and as necessary adjuncts to the occupations of their betters. The Ireland of these writers, then, is a land of happy-go-lucky and thriftless enjoyment and cheerful impecuniosity, with an occasional glimpse of tragedy. Miss Katherine Tynan, too, deals with the same class and succeeds in depicting Irish landscape, in its quick-changing colours, its gloom and sunshine strangely mingled, mountain and bog, dew and rain, in a manner which suggests that her books are a genuine distillation of Ireland itself. The soul of a country is to be sought in the literature of the people, and the literature of Ireland is yet, to the vast majority, an unopened book; and, paradoxically, it is in the pages of fiction that one seeks a record of many facts which are otherwise unwritten. Besides the "gentry" and the "peasantry," the two distinctive classes into which writers divide the Irish, there is another class in Ireland, and an important class, which has been practically neglected by Irish writers of fiction,--the shopkeeper. Here Ireland is at once the most aristocratic as well as the most democratic country in the world. In the learned professions you will find the sons of butchers and publicans jostling the offspring of peers and gentlemen of lineage in the race for preferment, and, like enough, beating them at their own game. In England the expected sometimes happens; in Ireland even the fairy-tales _may_ come true; and there will be found a delicate refinement in life which, those competent to explain suggest, has been imported by the daughters of the house from the convents of Ireland, of France, and of Belgium. Few countries so small have given the same opportunities to the novelist as has Ireland. Village life is dull enough from within, no doubt; from without, unlike English village life, it is, in Ireland, quite dramatic. It has been said that the people are unconsciously dramatic and that even their grief is picturesque. The possibilities of the race are great. An Irish villager may become a Dublin shopkeeper, a London barrister, or, in America, a politician of the first rank. He would never once so much as get a glimmering of this in his native village; but news of the outside world filters through and attracts the ingenious and soulful Irishman to the betterment of himself, and, truly enough, in many cases no doubt, to the poverty of Ireland; for it has come to be admitted that the desertion of Ireland by those who have since become classed among the world's great is one of the plausibly acceptable explanations of Ireland's poverty. Every French soldier was said to carry the field-marshal's baton in his knapsack. Every Irish peasant who crosses the Atlantic has his marshal's baton in his knotted handkerchief on the end of his blackthorn. It is a young race in modern development; its energies are fresh and unexhaustible, and therein lies a field for the novelist which is not yet worked out. One other type should be mentioned here, if only to proclaim their unselfish devotion to their vocation,--that of the parish priest, the poor cleric who, with a parish of a few score of souls in some barren bog, finds his life-work full in ministering to their souls, and often, as well, to their bodies. The pseudo-Irish priests of melodrama, and too frequently of novels, are huge travesties on the devoted and valiant fathers who are hidden away in innumerable corners of Ireland, surrounded only by a dwindling score of communicants. The Ireland with which the present-day traveller has most to do is the Ireland which came more or less under English influences in the time of Henry II. The legendary and romantic period of the Phoenician settlers, the Spanish colonists, and the warfares of petty kings and chieftains has left little but a vague impress upon Irish national life and sentiment, if we except a certain imaginative and romantic temperament, which seems to be the true birthright alike of the Irish poet, peasant, and politician. The crafty, ambitious Henry obtained from Adrian II., the first and only English Pope, in 1159, a bull authorizing him "to enter Ireland and execute therein whatever should pertain to the honour of God and the welfare of that land." English power in Ireland rooted, grew, and flourished, and propagated no end of internal troubles, which are to this day, if we are to believe all that we see and hear, the cause of much of Ireland's unrest. During four centuries Ireland was visited by but three English sovereigns, Henry II., John, and Richard II., and during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries English influences gradually declined, reaching their lowest ebb at the time of Henry VII. The Reformation, under Henry VIII., took place in 1536, and was in all respects the most remarkable era of Ireland's history, and from that time on--until the events which rose out of the tenantry laws, and home rule, and their attendant and satellite conditions--her troubles have been solely a warfare more or less dependent upon religious influences and conditions. Commencing with the seventeenth century, the population sprang forward with leaps and bounds. Its estimated growth for the succeeding two hundred years is as follows: 1652 850,000 1672 1,100,000 1712 2,099,094 1787 3,001,200 1792 4,088,226 1805 5,395,456 According to the old historians, there were anciently many divisions of Ireland, made at various times by the several petty kings and chiefs who had possession of them. There is an element of uncertainty about all the information concerning these ancient political divisions; some, indeed, may have been purely apocryphal, hence writers have mostly contented themselves with defining and delimiting the more modern divisions of Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Connaught. These four great divisions were subdivided into thirty-two counties, 256 baronies, and 2,293 parishes. The province of Ulster took in the northern part of the island, and extended from sea to sea. What has always rendered this province superior, in prosperity, to the rest of the island is its great industry of linen manufacture. The province of Leinster, in which is situated Dublin, Wicklow, etc., has the sea only on the east. The writers of a century or more ago were prone to remark that here the inhabitants approached the nearest to English manners and customs, and with some truth this is so. The province of Connaught, with the sea on its western boundary, containing the counties of Mayo, Galway, and Sligo, through the city of Galway early arrived at a commercial prominence which later eras have not sustained. Munster crosses the southern part of the island, extending itself northward on both the east and west coasts. Its principal and most famous city is Cork, and the whole county abounds in that wild romantic scenery which has fondly inspired so many poets and painters. To these four provinces some ancient writers added a fifth, called Meath, formed by a small part taken from each of the other provinces, but independent of all of them. Of the ancient commerce of Ireland Tacitus wrote: "Its channels and harbours are better known to merchants than those of Britain," which eulogy, of course, referred to the first century. The Phoenicians are reputed to have worked the mines which existed in the neighbourhood of the lakes of Killarney, and to have acquired the art of "extracting the celebrated Tyrian purple from the juice of shell-fish." Cæsar's invasion of what are known as the British Isles was supposed to have been instigated by the export from Ireland of the "margaritas" taken from these Killarney mines. That the commerce referred to by Tacitus was that carried on by the Phoenicians, is deduced from the fact that the Romans knew nothing of the country at that time. CHAPTER IV. ROMANCE AND SENTIMENT The ingredients which most writers on Ireland, the historians, the antiquarians, the political agitators, the publicists, the poets, and, last but not least, the fictionists--from the days of Samuel Lover to George Moore and Bernard Shaw--have used as a basis for their written word have been many and varied. Some have pictured it as a land of desolation and poverty, rich in nothing, while others have descanted elaborately upon its treasures and wealth of historical, architectural, and ecclesiological remains; the beauty of the literature of its native legends; its poetry and music; and erstwhile its native tongue, which may have a latent charm to those versed therein, but which will never become a popular speech, as an Irish member must have hoped [Illustration: _The Genuine Irish Peasant_] when he recently attempted to make a speech therein in the British House of Commons. No one but an encyclopedist could hope to embrace, within the confines of a single work, a tithe of the accessible material which should contribute to the making of an exhaustive work on the subject, and the monumental work is as yet unwritten, and, for aught the present writer knows, unplanned. Perhaps the more interesting detail of any picture which attempts to limn the outline of an Irish landscape, is that which unmistakably indicates the unique character of the inhabitant himself. There may live an Irishman without humour, without sentiment, without "wrongs;" men and women who marry early, without love, and settle down to a hopeless life of dreary toil, too discouraged to even resent the misery of their lot; but, if so, it is in the pages of the novelist. Those who have in them anything of the real native spirit of youth and courage emigrate, a procedure which, however, deprives the country of much of its soundest raw material. George Moore ascribes this condition to the Irish clergy, who cripple their parishioners with taxes to build unnecessary churches, and who crush out of them all the joy of life by an enforced asceticism. But all that is decidedly another story and quite apart, and is really not so obvious as is at first apparent. The real, genuine Irish peasant is not found, to-day at least, in the pages of the novelist, nor in the verses of the poet, nor in the songs of the opera-house. Tom Moore pictured him with some of the truthfulness of the time, and there is a realization of certain well-recognized local sentiment and colour in "Kathleen Mavourneen." In the main, however, the joyous Irish peasant, as full of wit as of knavery; the poetic Irish peasant, living in an atmosphere of quaint legend and of charming superstition; the political Irish peasant, member of the Land League, and noble patriot, or treacherous ruffian, according to the attitude which we take toward the Irish question; the romantic Irish peasant, warbling cadences to the faithful girl of his heart, does not exist,--at least he does not in sufficient numbers to project himself into view at every turn, as he does in [Illustration: BOG LAND, KERRY.] the comic-opera chorus and the pages of the humourous (_sic_) Irish tales of to-day. Romance and legend have associated the shamrock, the shillalah, and the dudeen with nearly every mood of Irish fact and fancy; but the casual traveller and seeker after new sensations will see little of any one of these three more or less visionary attributes of the landscape in general. To be sure, if he insists on being brought at once under the spell of the environment which he has pictured to himself as being the one universal accessory of every patch of the "ould sod," or of every gathering of its inhabitants, he will, if he goes to the right places to look for them, discover the whereabouts of most things of this world's civilization, of all eras, from the stone hatchet of the ancient Celt, to the motor-bicycle of the Dublin barrister out on a holiday; and from the rancorous peat-bog with its cave-like habitation and straw-bedded floor, to the damask and fine linen of the last joint-stock enterprise of the hotel-keeper, in such advanced centres of progress as Dublin, or more particularly Belfast. If he takes his standard of judgment from the view-point of food for man, he will find it, in some remote and more poverty-stricken localities, to be something very akin to what he has always believed to be mere fodder for beasts; and again, in the aforesaid luxurious caravansaries, to be the same as that which grace the average _tables d'hôte_ of the great establishments the world over, be they situated in Paris, Vienna, London, or San Francisco. The "Green Isle" is always green, and the native is always picturesque. Sometimes, far away from the centres of population, he is dirty, but not offensively so, at least, not more so than the Italian or Spaniard under similar circumstances. What memories are conjured forth, even to the untravelled, by the mere mention of such places as Killarney, Cork harbour, or Blarney Castle in the south, or Moville, Londonderry, or the Bloody Foreland in the north; and, to specialize for a moment, who among students of history does not give a deservedly high place, among the things of the world beautiful, to the arts of the early builders of Christian edifices in Ireland? In all manner of building, theirs was an art-expression as far above that of the pagan Britons in the neighbouring isle as is possible to imagine. Ireland, indeed, in the sixth and seventh centuries, was the chief centre of Christian activity, of Christian missionary work, and of Christian art in the islands. So strong an influence was this that it is recorded that Irish missionaries went not only afield into England, but even to Italy. The antiquarian and geologist have proved beyond a doubt--what is easy, however, for even the layman to believe--that the Ireland of to-day was originally merely one of the outlying parts of the mainland, and the expression of the customs and arts of the inhabitants of the two at that time did not then differ greatly one from the other. This was maintained, the scholars tell us, through the neolithic and the bronze ages, at which period Ireland came to part company with the mother island. The transition came when the Romans occupied Britain. Roman towns sprang up which had no counterparts in Ireland, and usage and custom developed an entirely new condition of life. Thus Ireland retained a crudity of strength and expression which early evinced itself in its Christian art, and which was added to but slowly. As to what may have been the early religion of the Irish, we are still in the dark. That there were druidical priests seems probable. Legend says that St. Patrick had been a slave in Ireland, having been brought from Scotland, and that even in his days of slavery he formed an affection for the country and its population. The date of St. Patrick's coming to Ireland, as a bearer of the gospel, is said to have been in the year 430-432, when he returned from Rome after having escaped his bondage. The difficulty is to understand how, at once, Ireland became Christian and, according to the old traditions the "home of Christianity," and, on that account, called "the Isle of Saints." St. Patrick's birthplace is much in dispute, and Armorica, Gaul, Scotland, Wales, England, and Ireland contend for the honour. Much wordy warfare has left the question still undecided, but it is of little moment, since the main facts in the life of this holy man are known, and his devotion to Ireland recognized by all. To come to a latter-day aspect of Ireland, in its relation to world affairs, let us pray that there are signs that the night of hatred and the twilight of suspicion are brightening into a new dawn in partnership between Great Britain and Ireland--into a day of mutual understanding, respect, and, in the end, affection. To realize all that this means, one must understand something of the peculiarities of the Celtic race and their finer traits, even making allowance for their less amiable qualities. To do this, without too great an expenditure of time, one could hardly do better than to digest Justin McCarthy's recently published book (1903) entitled "Ireland and Her Story." He will then be, if ever, in a fit mood for appreciation of the lovable and inspiring qualities to be observed in the land itself, no less than in the inhabitants themselves. Mr. George Moore, in his play, "The Bending of the Bough," has attempted to draw a comparison between the temperament and characteristics of two distinct classes, one resident in a town in the Celtic north of Ireland, and the other in the Saxon south of Scotland. The work is a satire, no doubt, but it shows how widely dissimilar are the majority of the representatives of the two races, and should do much to throw additional light on the subject of the alliance of the two nations. When all is said and done, one comes naturally to the opinion that it was the Irish race, of tradition, at least, that gave the major portion of the romance and fairy-lore to European literature in general--excepting, of course, the sages of the Northland. As Mr. Yeats says, though with a pardonable bias, "Daily life has fallen, for the most part, among prosaic and ignoble things, but in our dreams (we) remember the enchanted valleys." The modern novelists have given us more than our due share of localized Irish. Mr. George Moore, among all their number, spares us the false, perverted language which some are wont to admire, fondly believing it to be of the earth earthy. For not attempting or perpetrating Irish dialect upon us we should all be grateful to Mr. Moore. In Moore's books you meet with no such monstrosities as "praste" for priest, "quane" for queen, "belave" for believe, or, worst of all, "yez" for you. Another overworked word in the vocabularies of most writers of Irish fiction or narrative is sure (usually spelt "shure"). Thackeray is supposed to have understood its use better than any other, and as an example one may cite Miss Fotheringay, when she said, "Sure, I made a beefsteak pie." The "divil" comes frequently to the fore in Irish conversation, or at least there are those who would have us so believe, but its use is more often a perversion than not. It is well recognized that no one laughs so heartily at the attempt to revive the old Irish language as the modern Celt himself. An anecdote has recently gone the rounds that in literary Dublin, which has for its gods Yeats and George Moore, some one has recently made a printed announcement in Erse, but attached thereto, as a sort of sub-section, is a further admonition in the supposedly much hated Anglo-Saxon. An intrepid individual once tried his small store of Gaelic on a native, who replied that he did not speak French, though from his appearance, his age, particularly, he was naturally (_sic_) thought to be one of those who still spoke the venerable tongue of his race. An Irish automobilist, who had lost his way at a cross-roads because of an enigmatic sign-board, spent much time in roundly cursing the language of his fathers as being entirely worthless and incomprehensible. Many have taken a grim inquisitorial pleasure in showing to a likely Irishman something written in Erse characters and demanding a translation, which, of course, they could not get. Occasionally one sees in the Irish daily papers a picturesque Greek-looking inscription, but few know what it means save the perpetrator, who probably copied it from some old phrase-book. "Ceade mille Failthe" we all know, but there our knowledge ends. All this proclaims loudly the fact that the common people--the middle class, if you like, or what is known elsewhere as the middle class--care and know very little of the motive which inspires the profound scholars of Ireland's ancient tongue to seek to perpetuate its use. Since, however, Celtic art is the fad of the day, it is but natural that the Celtic tongue should claim some share of attention; but to expect it to make any serious inroads in the national life, or, indeed, in the lives of the "transplanted Irish" of America and elsewhere, is sheer folly. It were easier to have hoped for the success of Volapuk, which, itself, a dozen or more years ago, died of its own sheer weight of consonants. Now that Ireland is supposedly prospering at the hands of a solicitous foster-mother, the "Board of Agriculture," the demand for Irish products and the interest in Irish art and history are undoubtedly increasing. So, too, the interest in Irish literature, in the abstract; but the Irish tongue itself has a poor chance for popularity. It is well to recall that the mass of the Irish people speak the English tongue alone, a tenth part, perhaps, being able to speak both Gaelic and English, with but a very few who know Gaelic alone. In the south and west the latter is much more spoken than in the north and east, where it is fast disappearing. The Irish Gaelic, or Erse, resembles both the Scottish and the Welsh Gaelic. Some common words frequently met with in travelling about Ireland are: Agh, field. Ard, eminence. Ath, ford. Aun, river. Bally, town. Ban or Bane, white or fair. Beg, little. Ben, mountain. Bun, base or bottom. Car or Cahir, city. Carrick, Carrig, Carrow, a rock. Cork, Corcagh, marsh. Clar, plain. Croagh, Croghan, peak. Clogh, Clough, stone. Curragh, moor. Clon, meadow. Col, Cul, corner. Deargh, red. Derry, oak grove. Dhu, Dua, black. Don or Dun, fastness. Donagh, church. Drom, hill-range. Inch, Inis, island. Ken, head. Kil, church or burying-ground. Knock, hillock. Lick, flat stone. Lough, lake. Magh, plain. Main, collection of hillocks. Mor, great. Muck, sow. Rath, mound or fort. Ross, headland, also a wood. Shan, old. Sliebh, range of mountains. Teach, house. Temple, church. Tom, Toom, tumulus. Tra, strand. Tober, Tubber, well or spring. Tullagh, Tully, knell. In the little country towns, where the blue cloaks gather thick upon the platforms of the [Illustration: AN IRISH LASS.] stations, the musical Irish tongue begins to sound. "To swear in, to pray in, and to make love in," Irish has no rival among languages dead or living. There are twenty ways and more of saying "darling," and at least as many ways of sending a man to the devil. When the Saxon coldly orders an enemy to "go to the devil," the Celt fiercely breathes the wish, "May the devil sit upon your breast-bone, barking for your soul!" and the "Go and hang yourself!" of the Englishman becomes "The cry of the morning be upon you!"--embodying in this brief sentence a detailed wish that the enemy may die a sudden and unprepared death in his bed, and that his relatives, entering in the morning, may find him dead, and shriek over his remains. It is a picturesque and forcible tongue, most assuredly, though one needs a glossary and a thesaurus to correctly estimate the values of these pet phrases. The various blended emotions and sentiments current everywhere in Ireland are the product of tradition in which legend and superstitious belief play an important part. They may not actually enter into every hour of one's life, but they are ever-present and the supply is bountiful. George Moore has said that every race has its own peculiar genius. "The Germans have music; the French and Italians have painting and sculpture; the English have, or had, poetry; and the Irish had _and still have_ their special genius for the religious vocation." There is no more popular legend or superstition in Ireland, unless it be that of the Blarney Stone, than that referring to St. Patrick's having driven the snakes from the country. According to the report of tradition, nothing venomous is ever brought forth, nourished, or lives in Ireland. Naturalists do not, however, agree with this. The Venerable Bede evidently believed it, and that the freedom of Ireland from venom was due to the efficacious prayers of St. Patrick. Another authority (Keating) remarks it, and finds it due to a prophecy of Moses that wherever his posterity should inhabit, the country would not be infested with poisonous creatures. The superstition is already hoary with age, but is a perennial topic of conversation and source of argument with the natives in all parts. The literary associations of Ireland are so numerous and of so fresh a character as to suggest the compilation of a great, if not an exhaustive, work on the subject. At any rate, they are too voluminous to record here, even though the geniuses of Swift, of Lover, of Goldsmith, and of Moore stand out as if to compel attention, as they certainly do, in the same convincing manner that Swift's "Gulliver" influenced a certain Irish bishop, who accepted the tale as the truth, "although not a little amazed at some of the things stated." Writers on early Irish literature have often overlooked or ignored the fact that, besides the chroniclers of fame and note who indited learned historical works or majestic verse, there are, too, existing poems by various ladies of early Ireland, generally daughters of kings. Another Meave, called the Half-red, has some of the characteristics of Queen Meave herself: "The strength and power of Meave was great over the men of Erinn," says the introduction to her poem over the grave of her first husband, whom she deserted for a better man; for it was she that would not permit any king in Tara without his having herself as wife. "My noble king, he spoke not falsehood; His success was certain in every danger As black as a raven was his brow, As sharp was his spear as a razor, As white was his skin as the lime. Together we used to go on refections; As high was his shield as a champion, As long his arm as an oar; The house prop against the kings of Erinn sons of chiefs, He maintained his shield in every cause. Countless wolves fed he with his spear, At the heels of our man in every battle." Ireland's daughters must have been a glorious and mighty race; indeed, they are so to-day, and one does not need to go back to Moore for endorsement, though he contrasts with marked effect the native elegance of Erin's daughters with the affected fashionable city belle: "Lesbia wears a robe of gold, But all so close the nymph has laced it, Not a charm of beauty's mould Presumes to stay where nature placed it. Oh! my Nora's gown for me. That floats as wild as mountain breezes, Leaving every beauty free To sink or swell as Heaven pleases. Yes, my Nora Creina dear, My simple, graceful Nora Creina, Nature's dress Is loveliness-- The dress you wear, my Nora Creina." This was doubtless true enough in Moore's time, and is so to-day, in spite of the fact that they no longer stand picturesquely around and display their charms in just the manner expressed by the poet. One hears frequent references to the laureate Spenser's life in Ireland, of his verses in praise of its charms, and of his undoubted love for it, which certainly was as great, if different, as that of Ireland's recognized "national poet." Irish sentiment has never allowed recognition to Spenser's accomplishments, however. The Irish themselves, who are always ready to turn the dull side of the gem toward the light, are not in complete accord on the question of Spenser's love for Erin, as one will infer from the following, taken from "A Brief Account of Ireland and Its Sorrows:" "Among those who lived here was Spenser, a gentle poet but a rapacious freebooter. His poesy was sweet and full of charms, quaint, simple, and eloquent. His politics were brutal, venal, and cowardly. He wooed the muses very blandly, living in a stolen home, and philosophically counselled the extirpation of the Irish owners of the land, for the greater security of himself and fellow adventurers." The above is but a note in the gamut, but it is a true one, and it does not ring false, and, while the moral aspect of Spenser's right to his livelihood in Ireland is left out of the question here, one can but feel that if the Irishman were less emotional and more forgiving much would come to him that he now lacks. [Illustration: _A Brooch from the Hill of Tara_] CHAPTER V. RELIGIOUS ART AND ARCHITECTURE It has been claimed that Ireland has no distinctive art or architecture, and that the venerable ruins of monasteries and churches, the stone crosses, the curiously interwoven traceries of stone carving, the illuminated manuscripts, and even the famous round towers themselves were all transplanted from a former home; and that the jewelry, bangles, brooches, and rings, which we fondly believe are Celtic, are nothing more than Byzantine or Eastern motives, which found their way to Ireland in some unexplained manner. Whether this be acceptable to the average reader or not, whether he remarks the similarity between certain of the Celtic (?) motives and similar decorative effects in wood and stone known to belong to the Northmen, or whether he prefers to think them an indigenous growth and development of Ireland itself, matters little, in a broad way. Nowhere but in Ireland are there so splendidly executed and preserved traceries of the peculiar sort which is shown in the crosses at Kells and Monasterboice, and, in manuscript, in the "Book of Kells." Nowhere are there more numerous or more gracefully proportioned round towers than in the Emerald Isle, and nowhere are there more consistently and thoroughly expressed Norman and Gothic forms than in the many ecclesiastical remains which exist to-day, though many of these establishments have not the magnitude or splendour of others elsewhere. The palaces of the Irish kings would have, perhaps, the chief interest for us to-day, did they but exist in more tangible form than reputed sites and mere heaps of stones. From the chronicles we know that they were splendid residential establishments, but not much more. The chief of the palaces whose splendours are celebrated in Irish history were the Palace of Emania, in Ulster, founded or built by Macha, queen of Cinbaeth the First, about the year B.C. 700; Tara, in Meath; Cruachan, in Conact, built by Queen Meave, the beautiful, albeit Amazonian, Queen of the West, about the year B.C. 100; and Ailech, in Donegal, built on the site of an ancient sun-temple, or Tuatha de Danaan, fort-palace. Kincora had not at this period an existence, nor had it for some centuries subsequently. It is said to have never been more than the local residence, though a palatial one, of Brian Boru. Emania, next to Tara the most celebrated of all the royal palaces of ancient Erin, stood on the spot now marked by a large rath called the Navan Fort, two miles to the west of Armagh. It was the residence of the Ulster kings for a period of 855 years. The mound or Grianan of Ailech, upon which, even for hundreds of years after the destruction of the palace, the O'Donnells were elected, installed, or "inaugurated," is still an object of wonder and curiosity. It stands on the crown of a low hill by the shores of Lough Swilly, about five miles from Londonderry. Royal Tara has been crowned with an imperishable fame in song and story. The entire crest and slopes of Tara Hill were covered with buildings at one time; for not only did a royal palace, the residence of the Ard-Ri (or High King) of Erin, stand there, but, moreover, the legislative chambers, the military buildings, the law courts, and royal universities surrounded it. Of all these nought now remains but the moated mounds or raths that mark where stood the halls within which bard and warrior, ruler and lawgiver, once assembled in glorious pageant. The round towers of Ireland form a subject of curious and speculative interest to him who views them for the first time, as, indeed, they do to most folk, learned or otherwise. The actual invention and construction of these round towers are clothed in much darkness. It had previously been supposed that these extraordinary erections were the work of the Danes, but this position seems to be entirely untenable on many grounds, the chief being that no similar structures exist, or probably ever have existed, in the native country of the Danes, and are, indeed, notably absent from many parts of Ireland where the Danes [Illustration: THE HILL OF TARA.] are known to have been, and yet are found in other localities which were never occupied by the Danes. The great question with regard to these lone towers is whether or no they are, or were, Christian structures. No such monuments are found elsewhere in the known world, except in India or Persia, where, manifestly, their inception was not due to Christian influences. In a way, a very considerable way, they resemble the minarets and turret towerlets of a Cairene or Damascene mosque, where often, in the smaller mosques, at least, the sky-piercing pointed towerlet is the chief and most imposing part of the structure. They may have been signal-towers; they may even have been refuges, though they could not shelter any very great numbers, save in the buildings which often flocked around their bases. In this case they performed much the same functions as the watch-tower or turreted donjon-keep of a castle. At any rate, they were of profound moral and significantly Christian motive, rather than pagan, as he who reads may know. The power of the Church in Ireland grew as it did elsewhere, in France in particular, largely from the foundation of those great secular religious bodies, the abbeys and monasteries. From the time when St. Patrick--carried in slavery from Scotland to Ireland, and subsequently escaping--returned to Ireland in 430-432 to convert the island to Christianity, to the present day, is a long period for any particular institution to have survived and still continue its functions in the same abode. For this reason it is unreasonable to suppose that there is much more than tradition, however well supported, to connect the personality of St. Patrick and his immediate successors with any edifices, however humble or fragmentary, which exist to-day. If they do exist, as popular report would seem to indicate, they most likely are rebuilt structures upon the reputed ancient sites, with the bare possibility that somewhere, down in the cavernous depths of their underpinning, exist the stones of wall and pavement which may have known these early pioneers of Christianity. The art and influences of Christianity, both in Ireland and Scotland, are, from the sixth century, at least, [Illustration: ROUND TOWER, ARDMORE.] similar as to the development. This was but natural, considering that its great impetus in Scotland only came in the sixth century with the advent of St. Columba, an Irish monk, who was exiled from his own country in 563, and who, coming to Iona at that time, founded a monastery there, and thence passed over to the mainland of Scotland. In France, about 646, Arbogast, an Irish monk, founded an oratory, and Gertrude, the daughter of the illustrious Pepin, sent to Ireland for "further persons qualified to instruct the _religieuse_ of the Abbey of Neville, not only in theology and pious studies, but in psalm-singing as well" ("_Pour instruire la communate dans le chant des Pseaumes et la meditation des choses saintes._"). Charlemagne, too, placed the universities of Paris and Ticinum under the guidance of two Irishmen, Albin and Clements, who had previously presented themselves, saying that they had learning for sale. The "Monasticum Hibernicum" enumerates many score of abbeys, priories, and other religious establishments in Ireland. One is inclined, in this progressive age, to marvel when he contemplates the universality, among all nations, of that religious zeal which drew its thousands from the elegance and comforts of all classes of society to the sequestered solitude of monastic life. Its history is well known and it is generally recognized that, as the enthusiasm of the Crusades subsided, many influences, which otherwise made for the aggrandizement of the religious orders, became, if not negative, at least impotent. There were, perhaps, some solitaries in the third century, but it was not till after the conversion of Constantine, A. D. 324, that the practice of seeking seclusion from the world became general. Monasticism came to Rome, where St. Patrick received his inspiration, from Egypt, and made its way into Gaul, the monks of St. Martin's time reproducing the hermit system which St. Anthony had practised in Egypt. Gallic monasticism, during the fifth and sixth centuries, was thoroughly Egyptian in both theory and practice. St. Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism, was born about A. D. 480, and began his religious life as a solitary; but when, early in the sixth century, he "wrote his rule," "it is noteworthy," says a French authority, "that he did not attempt to restore the lapsed practices of primitive asceticism, or insist upon any very different scheme of regular discipline." His rule was dominated by common sense, and individualism was merged in entire submission to the judgment of the superior of the house. Ireland was in the very forefront of the movement, though St. Patrick's monkish possessions here did not take shape until well into the fifth century; but it was about fifty years, more or less,--authorities differ,--after St. Benedict's death that Augustine arrived in England (A. D. 597). He and his monks introduced the "Rule" into England. Celtic monasticism did not greatly differ from Western monasticism, which under many names, and with many variations in detail, ever since St. Benedict's time down to our own day, has been Benedictine at bottom. Congal, Carthag, and Columba continued in St. Patrick's footsteps, in the sixth century, and carried monastic life to still greater splendour and perfection by their rules and foundations. Then followed throughout Ireland, in a long and splendid succession, many Augustinian, Benedictine, and Cistercian foundations. Besides their glorious ecclesiastical monuments, these bodies were possessed of great wealth in lands, and even in gold. In fact, public generosity, and the opulence of the communities which sheltered them, gave them an almost supreme power, and from obscurity they rose to be all-powerful factors in the life of the times. The prostrating fury of the Reformation moved more slowly here than in England. Ireland had no Wyclif to raise his voice against Rome, and the people in general were, and wished to be, passive subjects of the sovereign pontiff. The Augustinians exceeded in numbers those of any other order in Ireland, but the Arrosians, the Premonstratensians, the Benedictines, the Cistercians (a branch of the Benedictines), the Dominicans (founded by St. Dominic, a Spaniard born about 1070), and the Franciscans (founded by St. Francis of Assisi), and various other orders, were also well established. In addition, the military orders were likewise represented by the Knights Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John, and the Knights Templars, so called from the fact of their original home having been near the Holy Temple. The heads of the monastic houses were the abbot, who governed the abbey, and whose possessions were often so great, in Ireland, as to entitle him to a seat in the parliament amongst the peers; the abbess, who presided over her nuns in much the same manner as the abbot governed his monks; and the prior, who was often the head of a great monastic foundation, and many of whom also had seats in Ireland's parliament. The military order of Knights Hospitallers also were builders, erecting castles on their manors, such establishments being known as commanderies, while the knight who superintended was styled preceptor, or commendator. Whenever the Knights Templars followed this example of the Knights Hospitallers, their castles were called preceptories. The almoner had the oversight of the alms which were daily distributed; the chamberlain the chief care of the dormitory; the cellarer procured the provisions for the establishment; the infirmarius took care of the sick; the sacrist was in charge of the vestments and utensils, and the precentor, or chantor, directed the choir service. Throughout Ireland, too, were erected many hospitals, friaries, and chantries, for the most part presided over and controlled by members of the higher orders. The friaries had seldom any endowments, being inhabited only by mendicants. Chantries were endowments for the maintenance of one or more priests, who were to daily say mass for the souls of the founder and his family. There were formerly many such in Ireland, usually connected with the larger churches. Hermitages were obviously devoted to the residence of solitaries who secluded themselves from the world and followed an ascetic life of confinement in small cells. This brief résumé is given solely from the fact that it is a commentary on many references which are made elsewhere in this volume, and not in any sense as an assumption that these facts are not otherwise readily accessible to the general reader. It shows, moreover, that monkery was cultivated in Ireland as zealously, and to as great an extent, as in any other nation in Europe, and in addition had, for centuries, supplied many brethren to other establishments throughout the known world, notably to seminaries at Rome, and in Spain, Portugal, and the Low Countries. At the time of the Revolution the number of "regulars" in Ireland was above two thousand, and these all in addition to the regular ecclesiastical establishment and its clergy. The mere attempt to define and describe the cathedrals of Ireland as they exist to-day, or as they existed at the disestablishment, in a work such as this, would be fated to disaster from the very first lines. No brief explanation, even, as to why their numbers were so great, their size so attenuated, or their architectural qualifications so minor, would be satisfactory, and for that reason they must, as a class, be dismissed with a word. The minor county cathedrals of Ireland are almost unknown to all but the historian and archæologist. The larger and more important examples--as in Dublin, Kilkenny, and Cork--are possessed of considerably more than a local repute, though none are architecturally pretentious or great, as compared with the cathedral churches of England or the Continent. The cathedrals of Ireland are in many instances commonplace little countryside churches, insignificant and inaccessible, and many of them, in fact, of no great age or beauty; but they claim, rightly enough, along with many more ambitious edifices elsewhere, the proud distinction of once having been cathedral churches. The largest and most splendid is St. Patrick's at Dublin. Kilkenny, which next approaches it, falls considerably short of it in size; while St. Patrick itself takes a very low rank indeed as compared with England's noble minsters. The cruciform plan, with two westerly towers and a huge central spire,--the typical English type,--never fully developed in Ireland. It is stated, indeed, that no such example exists in any church edifice in Ireland, though of cruciform churches with a central tower alone there are examples at Armagh, Dublin (Christchurch), Cashel, Kildare, Kilkenny, and Killaloe. Of cruciform churches with a tower elsewhere than in the centre, specimens are found at Ardfert, Limerick, Clonfert, and Dublin (St. Patrick's). Waterford had formerly a curious and attractive old cathedral with a square fortified tower placed midway along its southern wall; but what amounted to nothing more than a sheer act of vandalism caused it to be pulled down and a thoroughly hideous, unchurchly, unbeautiful structure--which might be a brew-house but for its steeple--erected in its place. Down Cathedral looks like the typical large parish church of England's shores, and Derry from the southwest resembles nothing so much as a fortification, not unlike the cathedral of St. Samson at Dol, in Brittany. The restored cathedral of Kildare looks too painfully new to be really beautiful. It must have been much more satisfying as a ruin, judging from contemporaneous prints. The ancient cathedral on the rock at Cashel was unroofed and dismantled in 1748, and its functions taken up by a structure described as "stately Georgian" in style, but which is very ugly. Cloyne Cathedral, though restored and refurbished, has some resemblance left of its former outlines. It is without a spire, and is a long, low, unmajestic building, curiously placed in juxtaposition with a neighbouring round tower, which serves the province of a steeple, at least as a landmark. Killaloe Cathedral is impressively picturesque, perhaps more so by reason of its situation than anything else, though its ample and hardy central tower gives a dignity that otherwise would be lacking. Lismore Cathedral hardly dignifies the title, and has a weak, attenuated little spire which has no element of beauty in its make-up. Otherwise this cathedral is charming, though unpretentious. The cathedral at Ross is curious; a long, low structure, mostly nave, surmounted at its [Illustration: DOWNPATRICK.] westerly termination with a spire which of itself is not attractive, but which mingles with the landscape, from every view-point, in an exceedingly gratifying manner. Clonfert Cathedral is a wonderful old church, one of the most curious and most beautiful in Ireland; its western doorway has a crudity almost barbaric, but it is very beautiful nevertheless. Killala Cathedral is a severe, unelegant structure, but it has a westerly spire of considerable proportions. Kilmacduagh Cathedral is a roofless ruin, kept company by a solitary round tower of a considerable height and remarkable preservation. The diocese was of a very limited extent--but eighteen miles in length by twelve in breadth. Tuam is an ancient, and once a metropolitan, see. The present cathedral is a modern lack-lustre structure, built since 1861. Of all Ireland's cathedrals, Downpatrick alone has a truly imposing and commanding situation, albeit its dimensions are not grand, nor is it a very ornate or even a splendid structure. Its graveyard professes to be the burial-place of St. Patrick; the simple boulder is there, at any rate, which marks the spot confidently claimed as being that where the bones of the saint rest. In a general way, certain of the characteristics of some of the more notable of Ireland's cathedrals are thus given. Where great architectural charm or ruined picturesqueness of more than unusual remark are found, they are mentioned elsewhere, but the above fragmentary descriptions should serve to impress upon the mind the comparative simplicity of the ecclesiastical architecture of Ireland. In the large towns are various modern Roman Catholic cathedrals, but their consideration is quite apart from the architectural remains which are here considered. Ulster, the most prosperous division of modern Ireland, has been entirely despoiled of its ancient cathedrals. In the other three divisions or provinces the remains are about equally divided. The history of church-bells in Ireland is of great moment, in that they are supposed to have been in use as early as the days of St. [Illustration: _The Bell of St. Patrick_] [Illustration] Patrick. St. Dagans, too, had a great genius, it is said, "in making useful articles of iron, brass, and precious metals for the use of the church." The celebrated Gildas is said to have sent St. Brigid a small bell which he had cast, while St. Adamnan mentions the use of bells "for the more speedily calling people to church." St. Nennin's bell, and those of certain other venerated persons, were frequently tendered to be sworn upon. Iron bells were introduced into the churches constructed in Iceland by Irish monks, and these same missionaries are reputed to have brought their bells from Ireland, for the monasteries which they built in France and Italy, in the seventh and eighth centuries. CHAPTER VI. THE SCOTCH-IRISH BLEND Those who have studied deeply the subject of the ethnology of the Scotch and Irish races will know, and have often used as an illustration, the likeness, which is discernible to all, between the inhabitants of the Hebrides, off the coast of Scotland, and those who people the islands off Mayo and Galway, and indeed those who live on the western shores of the Irish mainland itself. In the Scottish islands Gaelic is still spoken, of a variety easily understood by Irish-speaking people. Observing the striking similarity in language, physique, and mode of life, one is led to investigate the history, social and otherwise, of these islands, and learn something of their past records. With advantages for travel existing in this twentieth century, one is prone to underrate the intercourse that took place between the peoples living widely apart in ancient times. As far as the Hebrides are concerned, their intercourse with Ireland was much greater centuries ago than it is now. In the early ages of Christianity, and for many centuries afterward, the Irish had a great disposition for roaming all over Western Europe, either as teachers, missionaries, or soldiers. Before the Christian era, one can trace many connecting links between the Scottish Isles and Ireland. It is recorded that one of the very first Irish kings, Lugh Lamhfada, spent his early years in the island of Mull, and, closer to Christian times, Irish warriors crossed the sea to Alba for their military training. The renowned Ulster hero, Cuchullain, with several companions, visited the island of Skye for the same purpose, and a range of hills called the Cuchullins in that island still retains his name. A little to the east of Ballycastle, toward Fair Head, is a long, projecting rock, which forms a little sheltered spot still known as Port Usnach. In the first century of our era there was here perpetrated a great massacre of the royal family and Milesian nobility of Ireland, known in history as the Attacotti rebellion. The son of a Scottish princess came in after years to revenge the treachery, and was joined by a great number of local sympathizers. A great battle was fought, in which the stranger was entirely successful, with the result that he became king, and was known as Tuathal Teachtmar. He reigned wisely and well for many years after, and the country became ever and ever more prosperous. The incident is mentioned here as showing a connecting link between Ireland and Scotland at a very remote time. Passing through the centuries, the intercourse between Ireland and the Scottish Isles became very close indeed. About the year A. D. 500, a great colony left what is now County Antrim and sailed in their curraghs across the narrow sea that separates it from the Mull of Cantire, whence they colonized Islay, Jura, and Iona, and other Scottish islands, where their direct descendants still live. To understand this migration, one must recall that about the year 500 A. D. a great movement of this sort occurred in the north of Ireland to the opposite coast of Alba, now called Scotland. Three brothers, who were paramount chiefs of a territory known as Dalriada, called Loarn, Angus, and Fergus, removed with their people to Cantire. These brothers were great-grandsons of Colla Uaish, a King of Tara, who wedded a Scottish princess. Colla Uaish was one of the three Collas who invaded Emania two centuries before the northern Irish province was ruled from Emania by the Clan Rury for over six hundred years. On leaving Antrim, Loarn, the eldest brother, occupied the territory in the west of Scotland, still known as Lorne, and from which the eldest son of the Duke of Argyle takes his title as Marquis of Lorne. The next brother, Angus, occupied the islands of Islay, Jura, and Iona. Fergus, the youngest brother, who had the largest following, occupied Cantire, Cowal, and Argyle. Fergus survived his two brothers, and, after their death, consolidated the three territories into a kingdom, which he called Dalriada, after his native territory in Ireland. This kingdom was the foundation of the Scottish kingdom, and extended from the estuary of the Clyde in the south to Lough Broom in Sutherland in the north, and was separated from the Pictish kingdom on the east by a chain of mountains; it also included the Hebrides and other islands of the west coast. Fergus's residence in Scotland was Dunstaffnage, on the west coast, near to the Sound of Mull, which continued to be the residence of the Scottish kings for many centuries afterward. King Edward VII. traces his pedigree back through the Scottish Stuarts to this King Fergus. At a late period of his life, Fergus wished to revisit his native country, but was unfortunately wrecked on the voyage and drowned. His body was landed at Carrickfergus, from which incident that ancient town derived its name. For half a century this domain in Scotland was held by the new settlers, under three different kings, but the king of the Picts gave them a severe defeat in the year 560. It was at this time that Columba formed the idea of going to Scotland and attempting the conversion of the Picts to Christianity. He had spent the first forty years of his life in Ireland, founding churches and monasteries, and, as an itinerant missionary, preaching all over Ireland. He started from Derry, where stood his favourite monastery, and proceeded, accompanied by twelve of his followers, along the beautiful shores of Lough Foyle to Innishowen Head, where the little bay is still shown from which his curragh sailed to the Scottish Isles. It was about the year 563 when he left Ireland, and, as he was born in 521, he was then forty-two years of age. Monasticism had already taken a firm hold in Ireland, and the more zealous of the Irish monks were founding monasteries in the islands around the Irish coast, as well as on islands in the larger lakes. Islands were the favourite spots where these institutions flourished. What was for their safety and security at first,--that is, their isolated position,--ultimately, during the Danish period, led to their destruction. Columba stopped at several islands on his way. He called at Oransay with the idea of remaining, but, as he could see the summits of the mountains of Ireland from it, he proceeded to Iona, where he got a grant of land and founded his famous monastery. For two years he never left the island, getting the little community into order, building his monastery, and tilling his ground. By his holy life, example, and conversation, he impressed most favourably all who came in contact with him. His little colony was like an oasis in the desert of that wild country. During this period he was studying the Pictish tongue, of the same family as the Gaelic, as the most likely means to succeed in his mission. He formed the bold resolution of going direct to King Brude, and preaching first to him, well knowing that if he succeeded with the king the nobles and people would follow. The stronghold of the king of the Picts was situated near Inverness. Columba was wise, for he took with him two of his disciples, who were Irish Picts by birth, namely, Comghal, who was born at Muckamore, and afterward founded the great monastery of Bangor, and Canice, who afterward gave his name to the church and the town of Kilkenny. King Brude was at first unwilling to receive Columba, as one learns from the history of his life, written by his successor, Adamnau, Abbot of Iona. This life, as is well known, was translated by Bishop Reeves, and, thanks to Adamnau and Bishop Reeves, there is no saint in the early Irish calendar of whom so much is known. He was entirely successful in his mission to the Pictish king, who became a convert to the Christian faith. The leading nobles followed, and, for years after, his labours amongst the Pictish nation never flagged until the whole nation embraced Christianity. The result which he anticipated followed, and the mellowing influence of the gospel caused a marked improvement in the relations between the Picts and the Scots, and led to their ultimate union into one Scottish kingdom. The monastery of Iona became celebrated over Western Europe, and for centuries afterward shone as a bright beacon of Christianity in this far-off isle of the sea. In the burial-ground known as the Relig Oran there are buried forty-eight Scottish kings, four Irish kings, eight Norwegian kings, and Egfrid, a King of Northumbria; few spots on earth contain more remains of illustrious dead than does Iona. It was the parent of many monasteries, not alone in Scotland and the isles, but in Ireland and the north of England. The monastery of Kells, in Meath, also acknowledged Iona as the head of the Columban monasteries. During all the time it remained a Columban monastery, the abbots were Irishmen, that is, for a period of almost seven hundred years. The Danish invasion of Ireland, which began toward the end of the eighth century, had an important effect on the Scottish Isles as well as on Ireland. For more than two centuries the northerners dominated everything in both countries. In the twelfth century, however, a great leader arose in Argyle, called Somerled, who drove the Northmen out of the west of Scotland as well as from the isles. He was the ancestor of the Macdonnells, Lords of the Isles, and it was he who laid the foundations of their power. This great leader was ultimately assassinated, and was succeeded by his son Randal, who had two sons, Donal and Rorie. The first was founder of the Macdonnells of Islay, and the latter of the MacRories. Islay was the territory and residence of the Macdonnells, Lords of the Isles, and Bute that of MacRory. O'Donnell, of Tyconnell, employed these two sons of Randal to cross over and assist him against the O'Neills. They arrived in their galleys in Derry in the year 1211, with over a thousand followers. Three hundred and fifty years later, Red Hugh O'Donnell employed a large number of these Scotchmen, who arrived from the isles in seventy galleys, to assist him against the English. O'Cleary, in his life of Red Hugh O'Donnell, describes these Highland mercenaries as follows: "These were recognized among the Irish soldiers by the difference of their arms and clothing, their habits and language, for their exterior dress was mottled cloaks to the calf of the leg, with ties and fastenings. Their girdles were over the loins outside the cloaks. Many of them had swords with hafts of horn, large and fit for war, from their shoulders. It was necessary for the soldier to put his two hands together at the very haft of his sword when he would strike a blow with it. Others of them had bows of carved wood, strong for use, with well-seasoned strings of hemp, and arrows, sharp-pointed, whizzing in flight." From this point onward it is more easy to follow the development of the special characteristics caused by the intermingling of the Scotch and Irish races. Donal was succeeded in Islay by his son Angus. He brought the Norwegian King Hako to assist the islanders against Alexander, the third King of Scotland, when they fought the battle of Largs. Angus had a son, Angus Oge, who succeeded him. He married a daughter of O'Cahan, an Irish chieftain of the family of O'Neill, who owned all the territory of the present County Derry. Angus had greatly befriended Robert Bruce in the time of his adversity; he brought him to Rathlin Island, off the Giant's Causeway, and kept him there when pursued by his enemies. When Bruce became king, he rewarded Angus Oge by granting him the isles of Mull, Jura, Coll, and Tiree; he previously owned Islay and Cantire. Angus was succeeded by his son John, who married for his second wife Margaret Stuart, daughter of King Robert the second, the first Stuart king of Scotland. John had by her several sons and one daughter, who married Montgomery of Eglinton. John was the first of the island kings to make an alliance with England,--a policy continued by his successors, and which ultimately led to the downfall of his principality. It is easy to trace the progress by which the Macdonnells became connected with Antrim, and formed an Irish family, whose head is the Earl of Antrim. John Mor Macdonnell, son of Eion of Islay, and grandson through his mother of King Robert the Second, came to Antrim to seek the hand of Margery Bysett, the heiress to all the lands included in the Glens of Antrim. The Bysetts were an outlawed Scotch family who, about the year 1242, were exiled from Scotland on a charge of supposed murder. With their means they acquired their Irish territory. This lady's father had married a daughter of the O'Neill, and, being the only child, the property fell to her. After the marriage between John Macdonnell and Margery Bysett in 1399, a greater number of the islanders settled in the Glens, which continued to be a favourite resort and hiding-place when any trouble arose in Scotland. The intercourse between Antrim and the Isles, particularly Islay and Cantire, from this time became very close. There was constant going to and from the Isles, and occasional forays were made as far as Castlereagh, whence large preys of cattle would be driven back to the Glens, and thence to Rathlin, to be taken afterward to Islay at their convenience. In the year 1551 a feud existed between the O'Neills of Castlereagh and the Macdonnells, "and the latter made an incursion into Clannaboy, from which a great prey of cattle and other valuables were lifted and removed to Rathlin." The Macdonnells were able to strike a blow at England more easily through the north of Ireland than any other quarter, and the government in Dublin made up its mind to put them down. In 1551 four ships were fitted out, and a large number of soldiers placed on board to proceed to Rathlin, and, if possible, to carry off the plunder which was supposed to be stored there. The ships, on their arrival, proceeded to land an armed force of three hundred gunners and archers. The Macdonnells awaited them on the shore, prepared to give them a warm reception. By a sudden upheaval of the sea, the boats were driven high on the rocks, and, before they could recover themselves, the Macdonnells attacked and slew every man, except the two captains of the expedition. These were retained as hostages, [Illustration: DUNLUCE CASTLE.] and afterward exchanged for the younger brother of the chief, the afterward celebrated Sorley Boy, who was then a prisoner in Dublin Castle. The intimacies and relations between the Scotch and the Irish were growing more and more involved, and a new race--a blend of the most admirable qualities of both--was being propagated. The Macdonnells at this time owned Dunluce Castle, which had been taken from the MacQuillans, also Kenbane Castle and Dunanynie Castle, built on a cliff near the sea at Ballycastle. Ballycastle, previously called Port Brittas, was the place principally used for landing or embarking for Cantire. It was also from here that Fergus was supposed to have embarked when he and his brothers founded the Scottish kingdom. A little to the east of Ballycastle is Port Usnach, whence Naysi and Derdrie sailed to Alba. There were frequent intermarriages between the Macdonnells and the leading families in the north of Ireland. John Mor, as already stated, married Margery Bysett. Donald Ballach married a daughter of the O'Donnells of Donegal. John of Islay married a daughter of the O'Neills. Shane Cathanach married a daughter of Savage of the Ards. James Macdonnell married Agnes, daughter of the Earl of Argyle, and their daughter married Hugh, Prince of Tyconnell, and became the mother of the celebrated Red Hugh O'Donnell. After the death of James Macdonnell, his widow, the Lady Agnes, became the second wife of Turlough Luineach O'Neill, and thus mother and daughter married the two most powerful chiefs in Ulster. James Macdonnell died in the dungeons of Shane O'Neill, and was succeeded by his younger brother, Sorley Boy, the greatest of all the Macdonnells of Antrim. During the latter half of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Sorley Boy was able to hold his own against all the queen's generals, as well as against the MacQuillans, O'Cahans, and O'Neills. He died in 1589 in his castle of Dunanynie, and was buried at Bun-na-Margie Abbey. His wife was Mary O'Neill, daughter of Conn, first Earl of Tyrone, who died in 1582. He left five sons, and was succeeded by his third son, who died suddenly in Dunluce Castle on Easter Monday, 1601. His younger brother, Randal, next succeeded, who, in the reign of James the First, was, in 1618, created Viscount Dunluce, and two years later, in 1620, Earl of Antrim. James gave him a grant of all the lands lying between the Bann of Coleraine and the Corran of Larne, a territory equal to the ancient kingdom of Dalriada. The second earl succeeded in 1644, and was created a marquis by Charles the First. He was afterward deprived of his vast property by the Cromwellians. In the reign of Charles the Second, after many difficulties had been surmounted, he had the greater part of it reconveyed to him. He died in 1682, and was succeeded by his younger brother, Alexander, who was in time succeeded by his son Randal, who died in 1721. The Macdonnells succeeded in holding a large portion of their Irish property, whilst they lost Islay and Cantire. From these brief facts one readily evolves the process by which grew up the ancient and intimate connection between the Scotch and the Irish. One realizes full well, too, that the peoples of the north of Ireland and of the Scottish Isles were of the same race and language, and to a great extent are so to-day. In manners, customs, and arts, as well, there is a blending greatly to be remarked. In Dunvegan Castle in Scotland one is shown a drinking-cup made in the north of Ireland four hundred years ago. Naguire, of Fermanagh, in the fifteenth century, married a lady from Skye, Catherine Magrannal, and this cup was made at her expense and forwarded as a present to her relatives there. The high crosses of Ireland are reproduced in Scotland and the Isles, and the island monasteries of Ireland and Scotland were similar in both architecture and discipline, and ruins in the Flannan Islands and North Rona have their counterparts in Innismurray, Arran, and the Skelligs. CHAPTER VII. IRISH INDUSTRIES It is usually supposed that there is very little romance about industry or business of any sort. In general, this is doubtless true, but there is an element which enters into certain kinds of industry, which if not exactly romantic, is assuredly not prosaic. The cottage industries, as they have come to be popularly known, of Ireland, have this element of romanticism, or assuredly picturesqueness, which is not usually associated with the matter-of-fact throbbing loom and busy shuttle. This particular phase of industry has of late become somewhat of a fad, so far as people taking an interest in its product goes, though there is a very real, tangible, and practical side to it for the workers, who, perforce, might otherwise be in idleness. The public-spirited men and women who have encouraged this special industry, or industries rather, for it comprehends lace-making, embroideries, and homespun woollens, are to be thanked and congratulated by reason of the success which has resulted from their efforts. Everybody has a vague idea that there are certain products which come out of Ireland in large quantities. When called to specialize or enumerate them, they stop short at fine linen and bacon. Beyond this--what? There is but one way to find out, if one is not to visit Ireland itself, and that is from the government publications, Chamber of Commerce reports, and the like. These are dry reading, however, for some people impossible reading, and there is very little romance about them. When one actually visits Ireland, and sees the Limerick pig in all his gaucheries, and his product in sausages, hams, and bacons, there is perhaps more romance connected with it, for there is a certain picturesqueness which invariably surrounds him. It may be a red-skirted, blue-coated colleen, or it may be a green-trousered, pot-hatted gossoon, who is [Illustration: _Limerick Pigs_] [Illustration] driving him to market, or it may be that the environment of his home is so squalid as to be picturesque, and suggests primitive conditions and romantic times that have long gone past in other parts of the world. To consider seriously just why the industries of Ireland are at the low ebb that they are, one has to realize that Ireland has ever been backward and unprogressive in developing her resources, though mostly this is because of oppression, as they call it in Ireland, and oppression, as a matter of fact, it is, or has been. Primarily there is a scarcity of coal in Ireland. There are no workings that are profitable, and of a good quality, that are opened up at the present time; at any rate, not of a quality to be compared with that obtainable elsewhere and in countries which have prospered more fully than has Ireland. One thing Ireland has, and has wofully neglected, is its supply of water-power such as has made many similar regions on the Continent of Europe thrifty and prosperous. It might be used to generate electricity; it assuredly could do so, as there are several swift flowing waters that would fill the requirements admirably,--the Falls of Ballyshannon, for instance. Perhaps some day, when some ingenious individual succeeds in getting motive-power out of the rise and fall of the tides, Ireland will become the most prosperous of any country in the world. In the seventeenth century, smelted iron--Ireland being very rich in iron ore--was exported to London in large quantities. This trade does not exist to-day. As early as the sixth century Irish woollens were exported to Nantes, and in the fourteenth century there was a large demand for Irish serges in Italy. The woollen industry was given a great impetus in 1667 by the Duke of Ormonde, who induced five hundred Walloon families to settle at Clonmell, at Killarney, and at Carrick-on-Suir; but in 1698 the English manufacturers persuaded the Irish Parliament to prohibit the exportation of woollens. From Dean Swift we learn that by this act twelve thousand families were thrown out of employment in and near Dublin, and thirty thousand more elsewhere. It is of late years only that the cottage [Illustration: TORC CASCADE.] handicrafts, knitting, spinning, weaving of homespuns, and lace-making, have been given the great impetus which has now made them established industries, like the cottage cutlers of Barmen and Essen, in Germany, who fashion knife-blades from the crude product which they obtain from the large steel works near by. Formerly paper-making was very extensively conducted in the county of Dublin; but this is no longer the case. Who does not know the famous Irish linen? Strange to say, the best quality was known as _Royal_ Irish linen. This assuredly was an effort on the part of some astute Irishman to capture outside trade, but his astuteness apparently did not extend to other things. The dictionaries received a new word in Balbriggan, which was the name of the cotton hosiery first made a hundred and fifty or more years ago at Balbriggan. Irish whiskey distilleries and the breweries of porter and stout have come to be recognized as premier establishments in their line, and, whatever the opponents of the liquor trade may say, these industries have done Ireland much good. Far more good, be it acknowledged, than that other brewer, Cromwell, ever did for it. The shipbuilding industry of Belfast ranks among the first establishments, if it is not the very first, in the world, and the allied industries, which produce ropes, cables, chains, and rigging, are likewise foremost in their class. These are mainly centred around Belfast, but an echo is heard at Londonderry, on the north coast. Porcelain of a rare and unique quality is manufactured at Belleek. So frail and delicate and so translucent is this ware that it stands quite in a class by itself. The paramount industry of Ireland is the spinning and weaving of linen and flax, mostly centred around Belfast. The great linen ware-houses of Belfast, with branches throughout the English-speaking world, and even on the Continent, are almost household names, and no product of a similar nature elsewhere produced at all enters into competition with the real Irish product. Besides the great establishments at Belfast, there are others, nearly as great, at Ballymena, Londonderry, Coleraine, and Lisburn. [Illustration: _A Cottage Spinner_] [Illustration] This great industry grew up at the summary closing of the woollen mills, prospered, and, if at first it did not take the place entirely of the woollen industry, it did so finally. In the mid-nineteenth century it has already reached huge proportions, and, while to-day the public undoubtedly buys a great deal that is _not_ linen in the expectation that it _is_ linen, and a great deal of linen that is _not_ Irish linen in the hope or the belief that it _is_ Irish linen, there is no question but that the trade has already advanced beyond the point where it was when it stood alone and supreme in the world. The trade has reached its present magnitude from the very small beginnings of a Huguenot refugee named Crommelin, who settled originally at Lisburn. The superiority of Irish linen is due primarily to the bleaching, which, of itself, depends upon the water and atmosphere, which at Belfast and the other places mentioned is apparently not equalled elsewhere in the world. To get the same results, it is said that a certain German manufacturer buys Irish yarn,--that is, linen spun in Ireland,--weaves it into cloth in Bohemia, sends it back to Belfast to be bleached, finally brings it back to his establishment in Germany, and sells it as--what? The most varied and most successful cottage industries are at Limerick, Carrickmacross, Cork, Youghal, Kinsale, Crosshaven, Ardora, and Clones. Their specialty is lace of a delicate and elegant variety. The cottage woollens are mostly made in Donegal and Connemara, while the art of embroidery is followed most extensively at Belfast, Dublin, Dalkey, Garryhill, Sligo, Strabane, and Ballintra. There is one phase of trade that the Irish have neglected to develop of late,--the fisheries. More or less philosophically, as they think, they lay this to the Scotch, who are much more successful at the industry than themselves. This is not the fault of the Scotch; it is the folly of the Irish. At any rate, there is an inexhaustible supply of mackerel, herring, cod, hake, sole, turbot, lobsters, and even oysters to be found on the south and southwest coast of Ireland. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries this [Illustration: A COTTAGE LOOM.] was a trade which was worked, and successfully worked, as records show, by Spaniards, Dutch and French fishermen, who came from their own fishing-grounds to angle in these more plethoric Irish waters. It was only in the nineteenth century that the Irish took up the industry in at all a commensurate manner, and by the famine years of the late forties they had 19,833 vessels, manned by 130,000 men and boys, in the trade. Then it steadily declined through succeeding years until 1894. In 1900 there were only 6,500 registered boats, employing 25,360 men, and the harvest which they gathered from the sea had but the value of £300,000. Truly this is a sad tale, and not a creditable one. The chief fishing stations are at Kinsale, Baltimore, Valentia, and Bearhaven. There are salmon to be had in almost every river estuary, and the taking of them has not been neglected, as has deep-water fishing. The chief industry of most countries is perhaps agriculture. Even in Ireland crops are raised,--crops of a sort must be raised,--but they are grown to nothing like the extent that they ought to be. Probably Ireland's record is not as bad as England's in this respect; but landlordism, whatever that vague term may really mean, is certainly responsible for the minute proportions of this industry. In 1831 1,270,000 were engaged in agriculture, approximately 65-1/2 per cent. of the population; in 1891, 49-1/2 per cent., showing plainly that agriculture in Ireland is rapidly on the down grade. The most fertile counties are Tipperary and Limerick; Kerry is generally poor; but "Mounster," as Spenser called it, was "of the sweetest soyle of Ireland." Cattle-raising in Ireland is truly preëminent, as bald, unromantic statistics show. In Ireland there are 138 horses per thousand of the population. In England, but 36 only. There are 996 cattle in Ireland as against 152 in England; 951 sheep as against 511; and 278 pigs as against 69. The small farmer in Ireland is, it is true, uneducated to a surprising degree. He knows nothing of rotation of crops, and cultivates seldom more than two varieties. Artificial enrichment of the soil is a profound mystery to him, and he apparently would rather work [Illustration: EMBROIDERING.] a piece of reclaimed peat-bog than the most fertile valley that ever grew the products of the field. Truth to tell, the genuine Irish peasant hates the cultivation of the soil; he dislikes to dig in the earth, as he does to fish in the sea; but he rejoices in cattle-raising, and, above all, cattle-trading. He likes to drive them to market; he makes a regular holiday of it, and so do the rest of his family, as one who has ever met such a composite caravan on the road well knows. It is said that twenty thousand Irish go to England every autumn for the harvest. It seems a pity that these twenty thousand workers could not have the opportunity of working at home. The author does not pretend to explain this; he recounts it simply as current rumour, which doubtless could be authenticated. CHAPTER VIII. DUBLIN AND ABOUT THERE The environment of Dublin, so far as its immediate surroundings are concerned, is exceedingly attractive to the jaded inhabitant of brick and mortar cities. Phoenix Park, belonging anciently to the Knights Templars, is more beautiful, as a city park, than those possessed by any other city of the size of Dublin in the British Isles, and is, moreover, of great extent. It is densely wooded, has lovely glades, and is plentifully stocked with herds of deer, who seem unconsciously to group themselves picturesquely at all times. It is in no sense grand, nor, indeed, are the views of the lovely country lying immediately to the southward; but the distant views of the Wicklow peaks are full of quiet, restful beauty, which must help to make life in a great [Illustration: NEW GRANGE.] centre of population, such as Dublin, livable at all seasons of the year. The Viceregal Lodge is in Phoenix Park, and near it is the spot where Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were walking together on the night of May 6, 1882, when they were assassinated by the "Invincibles." The "Fifteen Acres," where now horses are exercised, was a very favourite duelling-ground in olden times. A local description of this "bloody ground" states: "There is not a single one of its acres that has not been stained with blood over and over again, in those gray mornings of the eighteenth century, when Dublin beaux, half-sobered after a night's debauch, used to confront one another in the dew-drenched grass, and startle the huddled herds of deer with the deadly crack of pistols at twelve paces." Beyond Phoenix Park is Lucan, four miles up the Liffey, near the river's celebrated salmon-leap. Clondalkin, six miles from Dublin, possesses one of the finest and most perfect round towers in Ireland, eighty feet in height, and forty-five in circumference at the base. The Falls of the Liffey, at Poula-Phooka, twenty miles from town, flow under a graceful viaduct. Here the foam-whitened river casts itself down a succession of rocky leaps, and through a richly wooded gorge, into the smoother plain below. This is a scenic gem, such as amateur photographers love, and its picturings are found in the album of almost every Irish traveller. Its name enshrines one of the best known of the many Celtic fairy myths,--that of the Phooka. Certainly, the wild, lofty defile of splintered rock, through which the fall leaps down, must have been exactly the sort of place to allure the goblin horse that had such an unpleasant fancy for breaking people's necks. The legend of the Phooka is one familiar in many forms to all lovers of folk-lore. It is claimed to be of Celtic origin, but with equal assurance it is said to be Norse, and again Indian. The apparition is a weird ghost-like horse-shape, not unlike the steed which Ichabod Crane saw mounted by a headless horseman. Kingstown, seven miles from Dublin, has no great interest for the lover of artistic or historic shrines, though the view of its harbour, with its cross-channel shipping, its fishing-boats, and its long, jutting piers, composes itself gaily enough, on a bright summer's day, into a pleasing picture. Originally named Dunleary, the town received its present title in 1821, after the departure of George IV. An obelisk, surmounted by a crown, and placed upon four stone balls, stands near the harbour entrance, and commemorates--what? The king's coming? Not at all. He landed at Howth, and no one, apparently, thought that incident worthy of a memorial. The Kingstown obelisk commemorates his _departure_ from his Irish dominions. This seems significant, but it will not do to condemn Irish hospitality on this score. Perhaps it is an attempt at humour. If so, it is not wholly unsuccessful. Just north of Dublin are two spots famed alike of history and legend,--at least most of the local story-tellers' tales sound like legends,--Clontarf and Howth. As the Hill of Howth is one of the first of Ireland's landmarks which come to the vision of the majority of visitors from England, it may perhaps be permissible to include the following lines here. They were written many years ago by a local poet whose, name is lost in obscurity, but whose verse is sufficiently apropos to-day to need no qualifying comment: "Well might an artist travel from afar, To view the structure of a low-backed car; A downy mattress on the car is laid, The father sits beside his tender maid. Some back to back, some side to side are placed, The children in the centre interlaced. By dozens thus, full many a Sunday morn, With dangling legs the jovial crowd is borne; Clontarf they seek, or Howth's aspiring brow, Or Leixlip smiling on the stream below." "The Hill" is a bold peninsula at the mouth of Dublin Bay, above whose waters, and those of the Irish Sea, the rugged promontory rises to the height of 563 feet. The whole mount abounds in precipitous rocky formations, blended most artistically with fields of heather and of greensward in a manner apparently possible only in Ireland. From the cliffs over-looking the sea, the outlook embraces the counties of Dublin, Meath, and Louth; the Mourne Mountains and County Down, Ireland's Eye and Lambay Island; while to the south loom the Wicklow Hills, Bray Head, Sugar Loaf Mountain, Dalkey Island, Kingstown Harbour, and Dublin, showing a variety of form which contrasts strangely with the placid sea, sky, and hills. Howth itself is a village of one long, rambling street,--or was; of late it has grown more pretentious, and has thereby lost some of its pristine charm. Off Howth Harbour is "Ireland's Eye," which in ancient works is printed _Irlandsey_. Thus its evolution is easily followed. The island has some fragmentary remains of the old church of St. Nessan, showing portions of a still more ancient round tower. The ancient castle of Howth is the family seat of the St. Lawrences, the Earls of Howth, who have held it since the time of their ancestor, Sir Armoric Tristram de Valence, who arrived here in the twelfth century. It is said that the family name was Tristram, and that even Sir Armoric never bore the present family title, but that a descendant or relative assumed it on the occasion of a battle won by him on St. Lawrence's Day. The castle was in a great measure rebuilt by the twentieth Lord of Howth in the sixteenth century. It consists of an embattled range, flanked by towers. The interior of the castle is rich in historical associations, founded as it was by one of the most chivalrous of the Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland. One sad blow was struck at the founder's dignity by the graceless Grace O'Malley, or Granuaile, or Grana Uile, a western chieftainess, who, returning from a visit to Queen Elizabeth at London, landed at Howth and essayed to tax the hospitality of the lordly owner, who refused to give her any refreshment. Determined to have her revenge, however, and to teach hospitality to the descendant of the Saxon, she kidnapped the heir and kept him a close prisoner until a pledge was obtained from his father that on no pretence whatever were the gates of Howth Castle to be closed at the hour of dinner. A painting of the incident exists, or did exist, in the oak-panelled dining-hall of the castle. In the hall also is the two-handed sword which won that St. Lawrence's Day battle. It measures, even in its mutilated state, five feet, seven inches, the hilt alone being twenty-two inches long. St. Mary's Abbey, Howth, is a great ruined, roofless structure, which, in spite of its decrepitude, tells a story of great and appealing interest to the student of architecture. Its foundation by Luke, Archbishop of Dublin, dates from 1234, and it is one of those picturesque ruins which, while by no means so grand, will rank in the memory with Melrose and Muckross. As a well-preserved ruin, it still exists and shows unmistakable evidences of having been inspired by some Burgundian or Lombard architect-builder. Lying between Howth and Dublin is Clontarf, famous as the scene of Brian Boru's victory over the Danes. Moore has perpetuated its glories in verse, thus: "Remember the glories of Brian the brave, Though the days of the hero are o'er; Though lost to Mononia, and cold in the grave, He returns to Kinkora no more. That star of the field, which so often hath poured Its beam on the battle, is set; But enough of its glory remains on each sword To light us to victory yet." Many have doubted whether the victory was really in favour of the Irish. It is generally, however, conceded to have been in their favour. Scotsmen will be interested to see the name of Lennox mentioned among the soldiers of the patriot king. An Irish manuscript, translated for the _Dublin Penny Journal_, after summing up the number of natives slain on the side of Brian, says: "The great stewards of Leamhue (Lennox) and Mar, with other brave Albanian Scots, the descendants of Corc, King of Munster, died in the same cause." After the battle, great respect was shown to the body of the deceased king by his devoted followers, who looked upon him in the light almost of a saint. Wills, the historian, gives the following account of the progress of his corpse: "The body of Brian, according to his will, was conveyed to Armagh. First, the clergy of Swords in solemn procession brought it to their abbey, from thence the next morning the clergy of Damliag (Duleck) conducted it to the church of St. Kiaran. Here the clergy of Lowth (Lughmach) attended the corpse to their own monastery. The Archbishop of Armagh, with its suffragans and clergy, received the body at Lowth, whence it was conveyed to their cathedral. For twelve days and nights it was watched by the clergy, during which time there was a continual scene of prayers and devotion." Few traces remain of this dreadful encounter, and one perforce takes a good deal on faith, as one does much of history where architectural remains are practically non-existent. An ancient preceptory of the Knights Templars, a dependency of that at Kilmainham, formerly occupied the site of Clontarf Castle, the seat of the Vernons. Dublin is the metropolitan county of Ireland, also its chief city. The city is thought to have derived its name from the "black channel" of the river Liffey, and to have communicated the name by some expansionist process to the surrounding county, which comprised the six baronies of Coolock, Balrothery, Nethercross, Castleknock, Newcastle, and Uppercross, as well as half that of Rathdown. Dublin County, unlike most other parts of Ireland, has no silver or mirror lake. In this respect it has manifestly been cheated by nature. Neither are there any of those deforming peat-bogs with which many of Ireland's fairest lakes are surrounded. There is a great distinction between legendary and monumental remains; and, since Ireland is so full of both sorts, it behooves one to stop and think for a moment, when viewing some shrine to which his fancy has led him, whether it ever had a former, a real existence, or not. This opens a vast field to research, controversy, and _soi-disant_ opinion. Near Dublin, on the hill called Tallaght, there are mounds--existing since time immemorial--referred to by the old historians on pre-Christian Ireland as "the mortality tombs of the people of Partholan," who first colonized Ireland. The mounds are there, and we, perforce, have to imagine the rest, but there is good ground for believing that these grass-grown mounds, the burial-places of thousands of people, are as real and tangible memorials of the pre-Christian era in the British Isles as are anywhere to be found. The history of Dublin, like that of most capitals, has been momentous. From the second century onward, it has encountered many battles, sieges, and rebellions, and has been the centre of political activity in Ireland. For the average traveller Dublin is simply a great centre of modern life and movement; for the student of history, architecture, archæology, and such subjects it is much more. The bird of passage, then, will only be visibly affected by that which lies on the surface, or at least nearest thereto. He will see that Dublin possesses all the component luxuries of a great city; is progressive to the extent of having cut up its roadways with tram-lines, and disfigured its streets with telegraph and electric-light poles; and, in short, has all those attributes which make even the lover of life in a large city sooner or later wish to put it all behind him. The greatest novelties for the visitor are the two splendidly organized bodies of constabulary,--the Dublin policemen and the Royal Irish Constabulary. The Dublin Metropolitan Police is a fine semi-military force distinct from the Royal Irish Constabulary, only acting within the metropolitan district, and is reminiscent of foreign _gendarmerie_, with its dark blue and silver uniform and smart appearance. The minimum height is five feet, eleven inches, so that Dublin streets seem to be policed by a race of amiable giants. In America the same type of constable is well known. It is also well known that the "force" in America is organized on somewhat different lines from that of its brothers in Dublin. The Royal Irish Constabulary, who are to be seen in the neighbourhood of Phoenix Park (and all over the country besides), are, physically, a magnificent body of men, with as good, if not a considerably better training than "Tommy Atkins" himself. It is a curious present-day fact that Dublin, as the capital of a Catholic country, not only possesses no Catholic cathedral, but has two Protestant churches known as cathedrals. Anti-Catholic writers have long found fault with, and traced certain of Ireland's interior troubles to, the number and power of the Catholic places of worship. That Dublin has two Protestant cathedrals has apparently escaped their notice. It is also true that not all the Protestant churches in Ireland are overflowing with congregations, but most of the Catholic places of worship are. This may mean much or little. Just what it does mean is doubtful, but it is a well-known fact, and because of this it is recorded here. Christchurch Cathedral was founded by Sigtryg Silkbeard, a Danish king who had become Christianized, and Donatus, a Danish bishop, in 1038. It was dedicated to the Holy Trinity, with the Danish name of Christchurch; later it was converted into a priory, which in turn was absorbed into an Anglo-Norman cathedral, erected by Strongbow and others on the former Danish foundation. The fabric is of much interest, although, owing to various mishaps, such as the slipping away of the peat-bog on which it was injudiciously built, the walls have many times fallen and been renewed. In Christchurch Cathedral Lambert Simnel was crowned in 1486, and mass was celebrated here during the sojourn of James II. Strongbow's tomb is the most noted relic of the church. It has an inscription by Sir Henry Sidney, the father of Philip Sidney, referring to "This Ancyent Monument of Richard Strangbowe, called Comes Strangulensis, Lord of Chepsto and Ogny, etc." The crypt is of interest from being mainly built up from the rude early church of the Danish founder. St. Patrick's Cathedral, the cathedral without the walls of ancient Dublin, is larger and more imposing than Christchurch. It is cruciform in plan, and altogether a beautiful and stately structure, partaking largely after the style of the Anglo-Norman structures of England, but not those of Normandy. Founded by Comyn, the Anglo-Norman Archbishop of Dublin, in 1190, the ancient Celtic church of St. Patrick de Insula, which stood without the city walls, and was specially held in reverence from its association with the baptism of the saint, formed the nucleus of the new establishment, which was self-contained and fortified. Its exposed position, however, led it to be abandoned to the marauding natives, and the buildings fell into decay. The present cathedral is of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. Cromwell desecrated it, as he did many others, by using it for a justice court. Great churches have ever been despoiled by fanatics in all lands. James II. went one step farther (being James II. this seems inexplicable to-day), and converted it into a stable. The restoration of this shockingly desecrated shrine (at the expense of more than £140,000) is to the credit of the family of Guinness, whose name and product is a household word throughout the world. Cromwell was a brewer, too, and supposed to have been a righteous, if stern man, but his virtues were not as great as those of his latter-day compeer. Since the visitor to Ireland is supposed to wander about with a volume of Swift's "Life and Letters" in his hand, and to recall at appropriate times the laurelled arbour-retreat near Celbridge, where, two hundred years ago, the luckless Vanessa waited long, and often in vain, it will be well for him to contemplate the two monuments in St. Patrick's Cathedral, the one to Swift (who was Dean of St. Patrick's), and the other to Miss Johnson, his Stella. Another curious religious shrine is the church of St. Fichan, founded in 1095 by the pious Dane whose name it bears, though the present structure dates only so far back as 1676. The square tower, however, is decidedly venerable, and the vaults possess the peculiar property of preserving the bodies entrusted to them in a perfect state, resembling in this respect the Egyptian mummy-pits. Dryness, one great essential to the preserving of animal matter, is complete here. But at one time, owing, it is said, to the nightly visits of a rascally sexton, for the purpose of stealing away the lead coffins from the dead, the damp night air entered and bade fair to play havoc with the mummies. There is a story told of his releasing from its coffin the body of a lady, who, however, looked him fiercely in the face with a pair of vengeful eyes, and so terrified him that he left his lantern and ran home half-dead with fright. The lady is said to have taken advantage of the light, and to have walked quietly to her own home, where for years afterward she lived a happy life! To many, Dublin will recall, first of all among its notables of the past, or at least only second to Dean Swift, the name of Edmund Burke. He was born in the Irish metropolis in 1729, when that city was at its flood-tide of prosperity,--when it was a centre of commerce, art, and oratory. His parents were of the plain people, and he himself, as he told his Grace of Bedford, "was opposed at every toll-gate, obliged to show a passport, and prove his title to the honour of being useful to Ireland." Through this involved procedure, wherein his reputation as an agitator loomed quite as large as his powers of oratory, for sixty-seven long years he laboured at the business of state-craft; but, after all, he is best known to us for his labours in letters. Some one has said that "Rulers govern, but it is literature that enlightens," and, concerning Burke, who shall not say that his writings and his speeches, which latter have come to be accepted as but another form of literary expression, were not even more productive of good than were his political agitations. To Americans Burke should be doubly endeared. He favoured American independence, though he was against the revolution in France. Richard Steele, though schooled at the Charterhouse in London, where he first met that other master of delicately phrased English, Addison, was born in Dublin in 1672 (d. 1729). Steele has been reviled as a "fashionable tippler, an awful spendthrift, and a creature of broken promises;" but it has remained for an American, Donald G. Mitchell, to glorify him as "An Irish dragoon, not a grand man or one of great influence, but so kindly by nature, and so gracious in speech and writing, that the world has not yet done pardoning and pitying." It is in the latter aspect that Dublin is wont to think of Sir Richard Steele,--as the "Irish dragoon" of as many virtues as faults. It would be impossible to mention, even, the many celebrities whose names are identified with Dublin. Statecraft and letters alone number them in hundreds, and that great institution of learning, Trinity College, stands high among its kind. The site of Trinity College was previously occupied by an important monastery, suppressed by Henry VIII. The university was founded by Queen Elizabeth, and endowed with the monastic property and many very valuable private bequests. The college is Alma Mater to a long line of famous men,--Ussher, Congreve, Swift, Goldsmith, Burke, to mention but a very few. In the centre of the imposing front is the main gateway, flanked by the statues of Edmund Burke and Oliver Goldsmith. In days gone by, Donogh O'Brien, when driven from his titular sovereignty by his nephew Tarlagh, journeyed to Rome, taking with him his illustrious father's crown and harp as gifts to the Pope. By some means or other, the harp--the once famous harp which had sounded through Tara's halls--found its way back to Ireland, and is now, with the "Book of Kells," the chief treasure of the library of Trinity College. The architectural splendour of Dublin is not very great, although certain of the chief buildings, other than the churches, are in many ways remarkable. Dublin Castle is a group of buildings covering ten acres of ground and dating from 1205, when a castle was erected for the defence of the city. Since the time of Queen Elizabeth it has been the official residence of the viceroy. The buildings are grouped around two courts, with a chief gateway on Cork Hill. The presence-chamber, ballroom (Hall of St. Patrick), portrait-chamber, and private drawing-room are handsome and historic apartments. The lower court contains the Bermingham Tower (formerly the state prison and now used as a depository for state records), the chapel royal, and the armory. The Bank of Ireland, formerly the Irish Parliament House, has a finely designed Ionic façade, with various adorning statues and escutcheons. The National Gallery of Ireland ranks among the world's great collections of pictures, and is exceedingly rich in portraiture. Some one has said that there are but three truly great--in just what way the reader may judge for himself--business streets in the world. The [Illustration: DUBLIN CASTLE.] first is the Rue de la Paix in Paris; the second, Princes Street in Edinburgh; and the Third, Sackville Street in Dublin. All will at once notice and admire its great width, its splendid dimensions, and its singularly attractive disposition of public and commercial buildings. The chief is the general post-office, with a fine portico and pediment bearing figures of Hibernia, Mercury, and Fidelity. The little parish of Laracor, north of Dublin, came to Swift shortly after his return to Ireland as chaplain to Lord Berkeley. "Here he had a glebe and a horse, and became domesticated," so far as it was possible for the man to be domesticated anywhere. Swift's fluctuations between Ireland and London have been the subject of much comment and criticism. He had by no means settled down to the "jog-trot duties" of a small Irish vicar. Swift, the churchman, the litterateur, and the politician were much one and the same thing; and, in spite of his indiscretions, he did good service, though, to be sure, his sincerity was doubted. A story is told, of the occasion when he was urged for Bishop of Hereford, that the Archbishop of York stated to his queen "that inquiries should first be made as to whether the man is really a Christian." He did not achieve the office, but was reconciled with the less influential deanery of St. Patrick's at Dublin. Swift was born in Dublin at a house in Hoey's Court, now (?) disappeared, in 1667. He died in 1745, and is buried, not among the literary giants at Westminster, but in St. Patrick's at Dublin, the venue of his deanship. Swift as a satirist was unassailable in his time, and his literary reputation in general is without doubt--by reason of its versatility--greater than many a more prolific writer. The first announcement of this master, at once comic and caustic, was the "Tale of a Tub" and "The Battle of the Books," when followed in rapid review various political and social tracts, the inimitable "Gulliver" (1727) and the "Polite Conversation." "Cadenus and Vanessa" appeared without the author's consent soon after the death of its heroine, Miss Hester Vanhomrigh, in 1723; but the "Diary to Stella," the lady whom he afterward married, did not appear until long after the author's death. Swift's literary reputation--"at the head of the English prose-writers"--has been best summed up by his friend Pope in six short lines: "...Whatever title please thine ear, Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff or Gulliver! Whether you choose Cervantes' serious air, Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair, Or praise the court, or magnify mankind, Or thy grieved country's copper chains unbind." As the river Liffey, which flows through Dublin, joins the Irish Sea, it expands into a noble bay, which is guarded on the one side by the Hill of Howth, and on the other by Killiney Hill, near Kingstown. Dublin has long been famous for the manufacture of poplin, dear to the hearts of the ladies. For many years the manufacture had declined, but a recent stimulus appears to have been given it. It was about the year 1780 that the trade first assumed a degree of importance in Dublin, though it had been introduced by the French Huguenots in the reign of William III. From that period till the Union in 1800, it had been gradually increasing in extent; but suddenly declined after the transference of the Irish Parliament to London; and Irishmen are fain to link the two events together as cause and effect. As the author has had occasion to say before, Ireland is not the saddened, sodden, blighted land that the calamity howlers and pessimists in general would have us believe. Certainly, in that beauteous country which lies immediately to the southward of Dublin, from Kingstown to Queenstown, there is no great evidence of sorrowing poverty; though, to be sure, there are in many parts no indications of great prosperity. There is a sort of happy mean in the lives of the Irish people; and, since the inhabitants of this particular region are domiciled in so lovely a spot, apparently they concern themselves little with regard to material wealth. From Dublin, south, is a veritable fairy-land of splendid hills and groves, the famous garden of the county of Wicklow. Bray is admittedly the best situated watering-place in the kingdom. But, more than all else, its chief importance lies in its position as the gateway to all the beauties of County Wicklow, whose residents go farther, and call it the Garden of Ireland. One may truthfully say of Wicklow, as of the other mountainous counties of Ireland, "the more one sees of it, the more one wants to see." Its roads for the cyclist or the automobilist are, like the Irish character, a blend of the seducing and the bold, corrugated and rough in places, but withal fascinating and appealing, if only for their variety. Powerscourt, the Dargle, the Glen of the Downs, and the Devil's Glen are the chief points of interest upon which one first comes from Dublin. The Dargle is a wooded glen of extreme beauty, three miles from Bray, from which a little mountain stream runs at the bottom of the gorge, quite hidden at times in a depth of wooded bank which must approximate three hundred feet. Powerscourt is beautiful enough, but it is more or less of the suburban order of attractiveness, lying as it does so near to Dublin. The waterfall at Powerscourt is the finest in Ireland. It pours down in a long, diagonal slope over a rocky precipice three hundred feet high. When George IV. came to Powerscourt, the whole fall had been dammed up on the cliff above, with the object of letting it loose when the royal party approached, so that a fine effect might be ensured. All this trouble and expense, however, was thrown away, as the "_First Gentleman in Europe_" lunched so liberally at Powerscourt House that he found himself unequal to the exertion of seeing anything of the demesne. The Dargle is rather of the conventional order of rivulet. It is not much of a stream at its fullest, but charmingly set in the woods, with mountain-tops rising over the trees, and some dainty waterfalls rather difficult to find. The four miles of road eastward to Bray are quite worth covering to see what the Dargle develops into near the coast; and, also, for the sake of the trim, rose-clad cottages, which here suggest none of that state of poverty we associate so recklessly with Ireland. One may see on the roadside notice-boards the intimation "These lands are poisoned," and dogs, could they read, would be informed of danger to their persons. In Ireland they advertise in the papers that they are poisoning their lands "from this date," and no dog has any remedy against the proprietors if he suffers in consequence [Illustration: ENNISKERRY.] of his illiteracy, or perhaps his meanness in not subscribing to that particular paper. The metropolis of the Dargle valley is Enniskerry, which sounds interesting, and proves upon acquaintance to be so, though there is nothing of great moment connected with its past or present. A few miles farther inland is Naas, the latter-day importance of which is based almost wholly upon its proximity to the race-track of the plain of Curragh and Punchestown. Naas is a delightfully quaint old town, its broad High Street being lined with little whitewashed houses, many of them tumbling down after long centuries of service. It has been narrated dolefully how Naas had once been the residence of the Kings of Leinster, but had now fallen from its high estate. From Naas to the Punchestown race-course is down a long and winding road through typical Irish scenery. The land along the roadside is dotted with little Irish cabins, with thatched roofs and whitewashed walls, and in the low doorways are gathered old grannies and swarms of little barelegged children. On race-days it is pretty to see these little dwellings, each with its piece of bunting tied to the chimney-stack. One may see also such sights as a chubby bareheaded boy with his arm affectionately around the neck of a fine fat pig; boy and animal equally interested in passers-by. It does not strike one as a genuine emotion, however; but, rather, as if it were got up for the occasion and for the delectation of the throngs who attend this most famous of all Irish race-meets. It is quite on a par with the flags and festoons which decorate Naas itself on these occasions, and the legends in old Celtic and English, which the cottagers _en route_ display. "The top of the morning to ye," "Come back to Erin," "A hundred thousand blessings on ye," and "A real Irish greeting" are, after all, too forced to pass current with visitors from across channel as genuine spontaneous emotion. On the occasion of the spring race-meeting at Punchestown, the little town of Naas is very animated. Inside the station-yard all the morning there is a mass of cabs and cars, which are taken by storm every time a train arrives from Dublin, and then with their load of passengers bump, smash, or blarney their way out. Music resounds everywhere. Even the local police have a band. This of course greatly facilitates the departure of the cars, for the horses of scores of them run away every time the band strikes up. The three miles of narrow country lanes between Naas and Punchestown are a flying procession of cars from eight o'clock till midday, most of them moving at a cheerful stretching gallop, while children and race-card-sellers run gaily in and out, and English or transatlantic visitors hold on for dear life, wondering when and where all this recklessness will end. The Wicklow mountains stand out in bold relief toward the east, and the clearness of the atmosphere ensures a magnificent view of a course which is situated in one of the finest bits of natural hunting country in the kingdom. The enclosures of Punchestown are very "select," although a good deal of the riffraff is wont to assemble outside. The Irish police are extremely tolerant, and a thriving business is done in games of hazard, which have lately been ruthlessly extinguished at Epsom and Newmarket, in England. The roulette-table, the man with three cards, and his comrade with the thimble and the pea are among the recognized adjuncts of Punchestown. The country folk on the whole appear to enjoy the "sport," and if, as is usually the case, the odds happen to be against them, they grin and bear it with naïve good humour. The bookmakers are a noisy, but, on the whole, an honest and withal humourous crowd, some offering to lay a starting price at "Newmarket, Stewmarket, or any old market,--starting price anywhere and everywhere," while a rival will go so far as to declare: "We pay you whether you win or not." On a recent occasion, when King Edward visited the Punchestown races in state, it was even a more brilliant event than usual. Here a great concourse of people awaited the arrival of the king and queen, and the grand stand was closely packed with a representative assembly of Irish aristocracy. The racing provided some very excellent sport. There were very full fields; and, when the horses got away, there was a splendid splash of colour, as the jockeys in all the tints of the rainbow streamed along the emerald course. The return from Punchestown on this occasion, as the writer has reason to remember, was far and away a wilder nightmare than any "Derby-day drive back to town" which could possibly be recalled. Imagine a solid, motionless block of cars nearly a mile long, with drivers, passengers, and police storming, threatening, and entreating, till at last a passage is slowly forced to the little wayside station at Naas. Here the railway officials had long ago given up the traffic problem in despair, and every train apparently got back to Dublin, or did not get back, by the unaided wit of the engine-driver. Yet one arrived at last, and a request to the officials for a full return of the killed and wounded was met with derision. From the newspaper accounts the next morning we learned that: "At a quarter to six, nearly half an hour late, the king and queen arrived in Dublin, and were met by all that was left of the population. They drove rapidly to the Viceregal Lodge, along roads crowded with cheering humanity, and looked very much pleased with their reception." For ourselves, after this informal procedure, we had retired to our hotel to remove somewhat the stains of pleasure-making,--which are often as ineradicable as those of battle,--and, after the inevitable "meat tea" of the smaller hostelries throughout the British Isles, followed Mr. Pepys's practice, "_and so to bed_." Near Curragh is Monasterevan, with its ruined refuge-sanctuary, and Lea Castle. A prominent woody eminence is Spire Hill, beyond which are the picturesque ruins of Strongbow's Castle on the isolated rock of Dunamase. Beyond is Maryborough and the plantations of Ballyfin, which clothe the feet of the Slievebloom mountains, and frame the flat bogland district. At Aghaboe, _i. e._, Ox-field House, stands the ancient abbey founded by St. Canice in the sixth century. Near the river Suir is a plain-fronted, square-towered edifice, known as Loughmore Castle, and a near-by ridge with a curious notched appearance has for its name Sliav Ailduin,--the Devil's Bit Mountain. Here is Thurles, the scene of William Smith O'Brien's capture. Here, also, Doctor Cullen summoned a Romish council in the mid-nineteenth century. Within three miles of Thurles is Holy Cross, where "_the wearied O'Brien laid down at the feet of Death's angel his cares and his crown_." "There sculpture her miracles lavished around, Until stone spoke a worship diviner than sound; There from matins to midnight the censers were swaying, And from matins to midnight the people were praying; As a thousand Cistercians incessantly raised Hosannas round shrines that with jewelry blazed. While the palmer from Syria--the pilgrim from Spain-- Brought their offerings alike to the far-honoured fane; And in time, when the wearied O'Brien laid down At the feet of Death's angel his cares and his crown, Beside the high altar, a canopied tomb Shed above his remains its magnificent gloom; And in Holy Cross Abbey high masses were said, Through the lapse of long ages, for Donald the Red. O'er the porphyry shrine of the founder, all-riven, No lamps glimmer now but the cressets of heaven!" --_Simmons._ Across the plain of Curragh is Kildare, _i. e._, Wood of Oaks, where St. Bridget founded a nunnery, in which the vestal sisterhood guarded the ever-burning fire, so beautifully and picturesquely alluded to by Moore: "Like the bright lamp that shone in Kildare's holy fane, And burnt through long ages of darkness and storm, Is the heart that deep sorrows have frowned on in vain, Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm." This convent of St. Bridget's was founded in the fifth century, and its perpetual fire was kept burning until the Reformation. The house where it originally burned is still in evidence, and the cathedral castle and round tower (130 feet in height) form a triumvirate of venerable attractions for all. To the northward is the Hill of Allen, once crowned, it is said, with three royal residences belonging to the Kings of Leinster. Wicklow Gap, Glendalough, and the Seven Churches next command attention, as one journeys toward Wicklow town. Glendalough is thirty miles from Dublin, locally known--and perhaps more widely--as "The Valley of the Seven Churches." It is the _locale_ of the legend of St. Kevin and Kathleen. The antiquarians have evolved an elaborate thread of legend and tradition concerning [Illustration: GLENDALOUGH.] the founder of an ancient seat of learning here, but most of them ultimately lost themselves in the intricacies of the web which they wove. Moore, with all his popular and sentimental methods, gave the story--though in this case he has tuned his lute with sadness--much more pleasantly and lucidly, when he told of St. Kevin, who, like St. Anthony, was tempted by the lovely Kathleen, herself so enamoured of him that she was willing even to "lie like a dog at his feet." These must have been trying times for St. Kevin, for, to continue Moore's words, we learn that: "'Twas from Kathleen's eyes he flew, Eyes of most unholy blue! She had loved him well and long, Wished him hers, nor thought it wrong. Wheresoe'er the saint would fly, Still he heard her light foot nigh; East or west, where'er he turn'd, Still her eyes before him burned." Thirteen hundred years ago, when England was still in a state of modified barbarism, Glendalough was of great importance. It was then that the famous churches, whose ruins still stand to-day, were built. Nearly a thousand years ago, Glendalough had her mansions; her treasure-houses, where the chieftains kept their stores of gold and silver, precious stones, and armour; her famous colleges, to which came students of high lineage from all Western Europe. It became known the world over as a place of sacred associations, great learning, and immense wealth. In the Dark Ages, there could be but one end to a city possessing the last advantage, especially as it was small and easy to besiege. After endless trouble from both Danes and English, the latter nation finally sacked and burned the place in 1398. Glendalough never really lifted up her head again, and is to-day but a hamlet of a few score of cottages. "Dracolatria"--the serpent worship of the Irish pagans--is supposed to have flourished here for ages before the founding of the Seven Churches by St. Kevin; and various legends and traditions, written and oral, are still current with reference to the practice. Glendalough will endear itself to all who have not hearts of stone. St. Kevin's ruins [Illustration: ST. KEVIN'S KITCHEN.] are up and down the glen, and his hermit bed still stands in the dug out of the cliffs. That old, old cemetery of Reefert Church, with the thorn-bushes around it, is reckoned among the unique things in Ireland for its tomb of King O'Toole. The present cemetery, all about and within the ruins of the "cathedral," is also characteristically Irish and charming. There is a monument here which bears the inscription: "We append a record, as far as obtainable, of clergymen buried in this church," but has not a single name on it. Is this Irish humour, or is it an indication of Irish poverty? The "oldest inhabitant" could not tell the writer. Hosts of other dead are commemorated in stone, and, moss-covered, the headstones loll here at all angles, as do they elsewhere in Ireland. Just below is St. Kevin's "kitchen," with a tower like that of the broken, but still striking, round tower not far beyond. Formerly, it was one of the hermit's churches (it was never a kitchen, in fact, and no one seems to be able to explain the nomenclature); but it has now been turned into a little museum of decidedly commonplace attractions. In the church, the "lady-church" of this group of churches, is the reputed burial-place of St. Kevin. As might be expected, no memorial exists of the holy man but the walls of this tiny church, if even they have genuinely survived his epoch,--the sixth and seventh centuries. No indications point to the exact resting-place of his bones, and the most that is known is that he died at Glendalough in 618 A. D. at the advanced age of 102. "And that is a doubtful fact," says the local cicerone. Wicklow itself is a picturesque crescent-shaped coast town. Its name is borne by the Gap at Glendalough, the county, and that famous headland which juts out into St. George's Channel, as only a few promontories do outside the school geographies. The ancient Irish called it Gill-Mantain; but, when it fell before the onrush of the Danes, its name was changed to Wykinlo. The chief architectural remains are those of a Franciscan friary of the reign of Henry III., and an Anglo-Norman castle completed in the fourteenth century. Between Wicklow and [Illustration: THE VALE OF AVOCA.] Arklow lies the celebrated Vale of Avoca. It has been made immortal by the poet Moore; but, though its fame is well deserved, and it is a spot beloved by all who have ever seen it, it is in reality no more beautiful than other similar spots elsewhere. The Vale of Avoca shares with Killarney, Blarney Castle, and the Giant's Causeway a popularity which is not equalled by any other of the beauties of Ireland. Here "in this most pleasant vale," where the Avonbeg joins the Avonmore, is the "Meeting of the Waters." Moore lavished his choicest phraseology upon its charms; and tourists--since there have been tourists--have devotedly stood by, book in hand, and attempted to fit in the poet's words with each tree and stone and rivulet. For the most part they have not been successful; and the words the poet sung-- "There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet. Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart, Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart. * * * * * "Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest In thy bosom of shade with the friends I love best, Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease And our hearts, like the waters, be mingled in peace "-- might quite as readily have applied to any other spot as fair. It will never do to disparage Moore's poetry, and least of all in a chronicle of Irish experiences; but, once and again, an idol does really shatter itself, or at least totters unsteadily on its base; and when one has made the round of all Ireland's fairest beauties, and heard Moore's melodies dinned into his ears by importunate touts and mendicants without number, the sentiment is apt to grow thin, and sooner or later the soul rebels. At this point, then, the author's patience gave out, and so he records his mood, however unseemly it may otherwise appear. It is indeed a pretty valley, strangely pretty, if you like; and one can hardly remain unmoved and unemotional before its expanse of green, its oaks and beeches, its rocks and rills, its ivies, and more than all else its sunsets. But when one has said with Prince Puckler Muskau--that much-quoted royal German so [Illustration: THE MEETING OF THE WATERS.] useful to makers of guide-books--that it is all "exquisitely beautiful," one has said the first and the last word on the subject. It should be visited and seen in all its beauties; but the experience will not awaken in the hearts of many the emotions which we may presume Moore felt. Near by is Avondale, the former home of Charles Stewart Parnell. Where the Avonbeg unites with the Avonmore is formed "The Meeting of the Waters." Many painters have limned its beauties; and, like Killarney, Loch Katrine, and Richmond Vale, on the Thames, replicas of its charms used years ago to find their way in the "table books of art" and "Treasuries," with which our parents and grandparents used to decorate a small table set before the front window of the parlour. The part played by the Norman invasion of Ireland has been neglected and overlooked by many in favour of that more portentous invasion of England. In Ireland the Normans first landed in a little creek on Bannon Bay on the Wexford coast. The advance-guard was composed of thirty knights, sixty men in armour, and three hundred foot-soldiery, under Robert Fitzstephen. This brought on the siege of Wexford, of which the annals, as well as the many remains of ruined castles and churches founded by the invaders, tell. All this ancient history pales, in the minds of the native bar-parlour frequenters one meets in these parts, before the more vivid, or at least more readily recollected "_little affair_" of Vinegar Hill and "the Men of '98," the site of which, with Enniscorthy, lies just to the northward. A half-century ago historians wrote of this as a "matter yet fresh in the memory of living men," and the great rebellion--so great at least to Ireland--has been dealt with by writers of all shades of opinion _ad infinitum_. Even the music-hall songs have perpetuated the belligerent aspect of the inhabitants of Enniscorthy, to say nothing of Killaloe. Nevertheless, the incident of the Norman invasion of Ireland, and the parts played therein by Fitzgerald, Diarmid, the traitorous M'Murrogh, Roderick, Strongbow the Dane, and Prendergast,--named in Irish history as "the faithful Norman,"--presents an inextricable tangle of creeds and races which requires a singularly astute historian to place in line. It is now seven hundred years since the name of Prendergast was linked with honour and chivalry in Ireland; but something of his earnestness and spirit still lives amongst those who bear his name, if we may judge from the tenor of a modern work by one Prendergast, entitled "The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland." Aubrey de Vere, in his "Lyrical Chronicle of Ireland," has emblazoned Prendergast's valour in verse: THE FAITHFUL NORMAN "Praise to the valiant and faithful foe! Give us noble foes, not the friend who lies! We dread the drugged cup, not the open blow: We dread the old hate in the new disguise. "To Ossory's king they had pledged their word. He stood in their camp, and their pledge they broke; Then Maurice the Norman upraised his sword; The cross on its hilt he kiss'd, and spoke: "'So long as this sword or this arm hath might, I swear by the cross which is lord of all, By the faith and honour of noble and knight, Who touches you, prince, by this hand shall fall!' "So side by side through the throng they pass'd; And Eire gave praise to the just and true. Brave foe! the past truth heals at last: There is room in the great heart of Eire for you!" Round the coast from Wexford to Waterford one passes the famous Tuskar lighthouse, which, with the Saltee light-vessel, thirty miles to the southward, and Carnsore Point, which lies between, forms the turning-point--or the corner which must be rounded--of the vast sea-borne traffic bound up the St. George's Channel from the Atlantic. The chief historical monument of Waterford, with the exception of the reconstructed castle and Ballinakil House, the last halting-place of the fleeing Stuart king, is a squat circular building known as "Reginald's Tower." It sits close to the quayside, and is by far the most notable landmark, viewed from either sea or land, which the city possesses. Its erection is credited to Reginald, the Dane, some nine hundred and odd years ago. Kingsley, in "Hereward the Wake," weaves much of romance around its sturdy walls. In 1171, when Strongbow and Raymond le Gros took Waterford, it was inhabited by [Illustration: _Reginald's Tower: Waterford_] [Illustration] Danes, who, with the exception of the prince of the Danes and a few others, were put to death. It was here that Earl Strongbow was married to Eva, daughter of the King of Leinster; and here, too, that Henry II. first landed in Ireland to take possession of the country which had been granted to him by the bull of Pope Adrian. Near Waterford is Dungarvan, once a fishing-town of considerable importance. Its fishermen were bold, and went far out to sea, for it was a Dungarvan man who was captured and made to act as pilot by the corsairs of Algiers, who sacked the town of Baltimore, close to Cape Clear, in 1631, when all the inhabitants were killed or carried off into slavery. A curious page of the Irish history, and one which reads more like romantic legend than fact. This man's name was Hackett, and the story tells that his service to the Algerians was repaid, by his outraged countrymen, with the halter. Between Cork--with its poetic associations of the Shandon Bells, the river Lee, and of Blarney Castle--and the glens and vales of Wicklow, there is no spot to equal in picturesqueness and romantic environment the celebrated valley of the Blackwater, which, forming a broad estuary, mingles with the waters of the Atlantic at Youghal Harbour. The great beauties of the Blackwater only unfold themselves as one ascends the stream some twenty miles above Youghal, but the whole lower river has a placid charm which is quite inexplicable. For what is Youghal famous, say the untravelled? In matters Irish, for many things, but the most lively interest is awakened by the recollection of Myrtle Grove, the one-time residence of Sir Walter Raleigh, Governor of the Virginia Colony in the New World, who, though he had never been there, is popularly supposed to have introduced its tobacco into Great Britain. As a matter of fact, he did not, but some one of his understudies did; and it was at Myrtle Grove that his servant sought to save him from incineration by deluging him with water while he was smoking his favourite pipe. There is doubtless somewhat of legend about this; and the incident has been worn threadbare in its use by an enterprising firm of tobacco manufacturers; but, since Myrtle [Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S COTTAGE, YOUGHAL.] Grove really exists, and Raleigh really lived there, there is some excuse for it. It was here, too that the potato, since become a too staple article of diet, was first introduced to Irish soil. Truly Raleigh is entitled to a reputation as a true benefactor of the race exceeding that due to his reputed chivalry to Queen Elizabeth. Without potatoes and tobacco, what might not have happened to the British race long before now? CHAPTER IX. KILKENNY TO CORK HARBOUR If Lismore is the most celebrated and stately of Irish castles, Kilkenny, at least, comes more nearly to the popular conception of the feudal stronghold of the romancers and poets, and, withal, it is historic and is second in preeminence, only, to any other in the land. Kilkenny itself is an ancient city, and it is something of a city as the minor centres of population go. "Does it not contain," says the proud inhabitant, "nearly fifteen thousand souls?" It does, indeed, but it is more justly famous for its archæological remains than for its manufactures of woollens, which formerly was great. Probably the most novel impression the stranger will get of Kilkenny will be that which he gains at the annual agricultural show or fair, when the effect produced by the cheering of the crowds will sound unlike anything ever heard elsewhere. It is a fact that this cheering is peculiar to Kilkenny. These are no hurrahs of the ordinary British kind, but every time the feelings of the people find a vent, a long, shrill wail resounds over the fields, rising and falling, at its loudest, like the shriek of a steamer's siren, and, when more subdued, like the moaning of a winter wind. Perhaps this is the modern descendant of the banshee's wail. The history of the modern political and social events which took place at Kilkenny, in times past, make curious and interesting reading. Many "parliaments" were held here, and, in 1367, one of them ordained that death should be the punishment of any Englishman who married an Irishwoman. This was manifestly bigoted, uncharitable, and unkind, and no wonder that here, and elsewhere in Ireland, English domination has so often been reviled. Its most famous and important political function took place in 1642, when was held the Rebel, or Roman Catholic, Parliament, which gave to Kilkenny the name of "The City of Confederation," though the same act culminated in its siege by Cromwell, and its ultimate downfall into the hands of "the Protector." The outcome of all this to-day has been the indissoluble endearment of Kilkenny to all Irishmen of "the faith." The history of Kilkenny's famous castle is more acceptable to those who love Ireland in a familiar way. It is famous, some one has already said, as being "one of the few places where Cromwell treated an Irish gentleman politely." The chronology of this stronghold of the middle ages--still the seat of the Marquis of Ormonde, the founder of whose ancestors, Theobald FitzWalter, was one of the retinue of Henry II.--is as follows: It was built in 1195 on the site of a former edifice, erected by Strongbow in 1172. Donald O'Brien destroyed it in the following year, but again it took form as the ancestral home of a race of men whose members have all figured more or less prominently in Irish annals since the coming of the Normans. It is one of the most ancient habitable buildings in the land, and also one of the most picturesque. Its massive gray towers and ivy-grown walls stand high upon a natural rampart [Illustration: KILKENNY CASTLE.] and overlook the slow-drifting river. The old stone bridge that spans this river here mayhap was often crossed by Congreve and Swift on their way to school in the city. Above, the castle rises boldly against the wistful blue of Irish skies, while at night it looks like a true palace of enchantment when the moon rises beyond its turrets and towers, and throws indistinct, distorted, and mysterious shadows on the river's surface. One feels a sense of complete repose,--but a repose that is interrupted by the occasional shriek of a locomotive, the drowsy bell of some convent, or the sharp notes of a military bugle. A later Theobald became the sixth Butler of Ireland, and was made the Earl of Carrick. His son was created Earl of Ormonde, and married Eleanor de Bohun, the granddaughter of Edward I. The second earl, James, became known as "the Noble Earl," from being the great grandson of Edward I., and became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, and he it was, the second earl of the house of Ormonde,--the direct ancestor of the present marquis,--who, in 1391, acquired the castle from another branch, which had sprung from Theobald FitzWalter. The Ormondes were a true race of noblemen, as history tells, although their story is too elaborate to chronicle completely here. The fourth earl, it is said,--by tradition, of course, and in this case quite unsupported,--was favoured by the sun's having remained stationary in its course long enough for him to have achieved a victory over a hereditary enemy. The fifth earl became Lord High Treasurer of England, but was unfortunately beheaded, so his career did not end exactly gloriously. The sixth earl was smitten by the fervour of the Crusades and died in Jerusalem, and one of the daughters of the seventh earl married Sir William Boleyn and became the mother of the unfortunate Queen Anne, and grandmother of Elizabeth. One of the most famous men of the line was James, the twelfth earl, who, for services to Charles I., was created a marquis and raised to a dukedom by Charles II. Bishop Burnett states that "He was of graceful appearance, a lively wit, and a cheerful temper; a man of great expense, but decent even in his vices, for he always kept up the forms of religion; too faithful not to give always good advice, but, when bad ones were followed, too complaisant to be any great complainer." For thirty years he was Chief Governor and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, when he incurred the hatred of a bold rascal, Thomas Blood, the son of a black-smith, and a staunch supporter of Cromwell. After the Restoration even, Blood plotted against royalty, one of his schemes being to surprise Dublin Castle and to seize the lord lieutenant. This plot was discovered, and Blood managed to escape, though his accomplices were hanged. Blood swore that he who ordered their execution should share their fate. A price was set upon the scoundrel's head, but he came to London, and set about his vengeance on the Duke of Ormonde. The Earl of Ossory, the duke's son, joined the invading forces of William of Orange, fought for him at the Battle of the Boyne, and entertained him sumptuously at Kilkenny Castle. Later, he became a favourite of Queen Anne, and succeeded Marlborough as commander-in-chief of the land forces of Great Britain. Suspected of plotting for the Stuarts, he was attainted, his estates confiscated, his honours extinguished, and a price set upon his head by the Parliament of George I. The titles being extinguished, the earl's brother was allowed to purchase Kilkenny Castle; but neither he nor his heirs and successors assumed the titles until 1791, when the Irish Parliament decided that the Irish Act of Attainder affected estates only, and not Irish titles, though the English attainder included the loss of both. The Earldom of Ormonde, a purely Irish title, was therefore restored to John Butler, who became seventeenth in the line. The rank due to earls' daughters was allowed to his sisters, of whom Lady Eleanor became famous as one of the eccentric recluses known as the Ladies of Llangollen. The eighteenth earl was created a marquis in 1816. A writer in a recent review recounts a visit to Kilkenny Castle which presents a wealth of detail that makes interesting reading for the inquisitive. Among other things, she says,--assuredly it was a person of the feminine persuasion who wrote: "In the evening there was a great reception at the castle of the county gentry, about four hundred ladies and gentlemen being included. If the castle was picturesque in the day, it was doubly so at night. The town itself was illuminated by countless fairy lamps, which marked the lines of the streets with points of light, and outlined the old stone bridges which cross the little river Nore, and--as it should--the full moon rose in a sapphire sky behind the castle, whose shadow fell softly upon the placid mirror of the water below, and the pale moonlight gleamed upon the white houses and walls of the lower town. Every hotel and inn--and there are many from some unexplained reason--was crowded with guests invited to the castle, while in the doorways one caught glimpses of officers in uniform and levee dress, and women in white gowns with jewels that flashed in the lamplight, waiting for their carriages and coaches to convey them to the castle entrance. Many of their vehicles were of strange archaic shape, and might have done service in Kilkenny when William the Silent was the guest of another Lord Ormonde in the days of long ago. The streets were crowded with Kilkenny folk in quaint old-world garments,--men in broad-brimmed, low-crowned hats, gray breeches, and stockings, and others with leaden buckles; women with shawls over their heads; here and there a monk in brown habit with rope girdle, and groups of soldiers. "Meanwhile, at the castle a brilliant scene was taking place in the long picture-gallery, with its priceless paintings by old masters, where the guests were being received. In the adjoining dining-room, glowing in the candlelight, gleamed the wonderful and historic gold plate of Kilkenny Castle, estimated to be worth a million and a quarter sterling. "It was much after midnight before the guests left the castle, and far into the early hours the city of Kilkenny was noisy with the merriment of its citizens, who were loath to end a day that will be long remembered in their history." The above account is quoted here because it seems, to the writer, to present in a few words the conventionalities of the occasion in a frame of picturesqueness and environment which similar functions "in town" lack in almost every way. [Illustration: ST. CANICE'S STEPS AND THE ROUND TOWER, KILKENNY.] Certainly, convention is robbed of half its banality and insincerity under such conditions, and, though most of us know it only in costume novels, sword-and-cloak dramas, and comic-opera settings, it is pleasurable to know that such things do really exist to-day. In our day, Kilkenny Castle has been repaired, preserved, and restored, as was its due, but with that paternal care and affection which would not allow a child to be ill or inappropriately dressed. The adaptations and modernizations have not discounted its grand towers, battlements, and bastions, and though, chiefly, it is a modern building which contains the greater part of the domestic establishment of the present Marquis of Ormonde, the three massive central towers stand to-day practically unaltered as to their walls. In every way the castle suggests Spenser's epithet, "Faire Kilkenny." Its picture-gallery reputedly contains the best private collection in Ireland,--portraits by Holbein, Lely, Van Dyck, Kneller, and Sir Joshua, of men who have illustrated those tragedies of history which, with time, have assumed the rich colouring of romance. Their curious watchful eyes have scanned royal guests; indeed, more than one of that now silent company have intermarried with the scions of royalty. In Kilkenny itself--though, for that matter, the castle abuts upon the Market Place--is the Cathedral of St. Canice, founded about 1180, which is the gem of Kilkenny's architectural remains. It is a cruciform church in plain, simple Gothic style, small but stately, and has in its collection of monuments the most varied and rich in Ireland. It also possesses the "Chair of St. Kieran." Both the east and the west windows are notable, and there is a well-preserved round tower over one hundred feet high at the corner of the south transept. St. John's (thirteenth century), with some beautiful windows; St. Mary's, older even than the cathedral; the Black Abbey; the Franciscan Friary; and the modern Roman Catholic Cathedral complete the galaxy of ecclesiastical monuments of Kilkenny. The Blackwater River is called by the guide-books one of the largest in Ireland. The description is, however, misleading. It is neither a very great river, a very long one, nor a very [Illustration: RHINCREW CASTLE.] important one in the world of commerce; but it is, truly, a romantic and picturesque one. Its panorama presents the following views, which are highly important and interesting: Just above the bridge on Youghal quay (Youghal derives its name from yew-wood) rises a cliff which is surmounted by a ruined Knights Templars' preceptory, known as Rhincrew Castle and founded by Raymond le Gros in 1183. Ardsallat follows; and the square castle keep of Temple Michael, one of the ancient fortresses of the Geraldines, is near Ballintra. On the island of Molana are the ruins of the Abbey of Molanfidas, a most ancient institution, founded by St. Fachman in 501. Raymond le Gros is claimed to have been buried here, but no definite trace of the exact location appears to be known. Northward and westerly, to its source near Killarney, the Blackwater--most picturesquely and significantly named--is a unique succession of attractions such as is lacked by most streams of its size. Strancally Castle is now but a moss-grown rock; but it possesses a traditional tale of horror, which gives the waters at this point the name of "The Murdering Hole." The Knockmeledown Mountains, a bare, bleak range, stand out to the northward in strong contrast to the fertile river-bottom. Dromona Castle, in part a modern structure, which abuts upon a more ancient structure, is the remains of an old castle of the Fitzgeralds. This ancient building was the birthplace of the Countess Catherine Desmond, who died only, at the age of 140 years, by reason of having fallen from a cherry-tree. It is not recorded as to how or why this sprightly old lady came to be in, or up, a cherry-tree on that fatal occasion, but Sir Walter Raleigh is blamed for the whole affair, in that he first domesticated the cherry-tree in Ireland, having brought the first member of that family from Grand Canary and replanted it near by. At the bend of the river, where it turns sharply to the westward, the steamboat journey of the tourist comes abruptly to an end at the most lovely and interesting of all the kaleidoscopic views which it exhibits,--the little town of Cappoquin. Cappoquin is a quaint townlet of perhaps a thousand souls and a [Illustration: CAPPOQUIN.] single inn, and high above it rises the long ridge of Mount Melleray, capped, in its turn, by a Trappist convent, which carries on an industrial enterprise of the first rank. The Abbey of Mount Melleray lies at the foot of the Knockmeledowns, and is an institution traditionally celebrated as being the domicile of the most severe and rigorous monkish discipline; unequalled elsewhere in any land. The monks are, by their rules, vegetarians, and they observe the rule punctiliously. They drink no stimulants, not even tea,--which is probably a good thing,--and five or six hours' sleep suffices for their resting moments. The rest is work, incessant and laborious, and, greatest hardship of all,--at least it will seem so to many of us,--is that they preserve a "discreet and wholesome silence" at all times, this rule being only relaxed in their necessary intercourse with visitors and the outside world. Of course, this procedure does not differ greatly from the general practice in the monasteries of the Trappists elsewhere, except that it is more punctiliously observed here. The abbey was originally a foundation of the Cistercian monks, who were driven from France by the Revolution of 1830; but to-day it is peopled by natives of Ireland. In all this region, no castle, country-seat, abbey, or church is more famous or splendid than Lismore Castle, another foundation of the Earl of Montaigne, afterward King John of England (1185). It is to-day the Irish home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. Lismore Castle is one of the most beautiful seats in all Ireland. It has even been mentioned, among the people here, as a prospective royal residence, though, like enough, this is not to be taken as anything more than irresponsible gossip, based on a wish that is father to the thought. It has been in the possession of the Cavendish family since 1748, and the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire spend some time every year in residence here in the midst of their Irish tenantry. Royalty has frequently visited Lismore Castle. It was an ancient fortress, and dates back to the days of King John. It has been the scene of many a hard-fought fight, especially in the wars of the Commonwealth, when Lord Castlehaven captured it from the Roundheads in 1645. The [Illustration: LISMORE CASTLE.] present Duke of Devonshire and his predecessor have modernized the castle and equipped it with interior luxuries without interfering in any way with its noble and hoary exterior. Lismore is in the very heart of the Blackwater country, amid some of the most lovely scenery in the south of Ireland. Through Lismore Glen, where the woods are thick on either side and the road is canopied over with the spreading green foliage, one enters the Gap, a famous pass in the Knockmeledown Mountains, where the hills rise on one side to frowning heights, crowned in the gold of the gorse, which gives an additional glory to the land, and, on the other side, fall sheer down in an almost precipitous steep, across which there is a vast and enchanting view over the rolling plains of Tipperary. As one passes through the Gap, either on a car or coach, or on foot, the sun streams down with dazzling brightness, and the little villages and townships, the tapering spires, the tall watch-towers of antiquity, the whitewashed cottages, and gray stone houses, standing solitary on green fields, the ranges of purple hills, and the clumps of woods are all suffused with the yellow mellowing glow of a glorious summer sun. To all who visit the Blackwater, Lismore should be doubly dear; first, because of its being a fine example of the fortified domestic Gothic architecture of its time, and, secondly, because its present occupant is generous enough to open its interior to view. A MS. of very ancient date was recently discovered by some workmen repairing the older portion of the castle. It is a most precious work on vellum, recounting contemporary history in a manner which classes it as one of the famous chronicles of English history, worthy, perhaps, to rank with Froissart, Doomsday, and St. Albans. It is known as the "Book of Lismore," and is now considered one of the chief treasures of the castle. One leaves Lismore with a certain feeling of sadness, if he is observant and studies the straws and the winds. Not many years ago the long mountain road, which runs from Lismore to the Knockmeledown Mountains, had four or five little hamlets dotted along it; to-day scarcely one house remains, and hardly a sign of life, except a few sheep snatching at the precarious grazing. Of the 42,000 acres belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, only half are under cultivation, and this is a very large proportion compared to the rest of the surrounding estates. Lismore, the town, has itself shrunk considerably during the past few years. The aching desolation of it all gets on one's nerves after a time, and, during a sojourn in this beautiful region, admiration of the scenery is mingled with wonder as to whether nothing can or ever will be done to brighten the mournful economic aspect of the agrarian situation. Irish names have often a knack of being frankly pugnacious, so that even a peaceful lord chief justice has had to bear the inciting-to-murder sobriquet of Killowen. But the mountains, which form the background to Lismore and Clogheen, the Knockmeledowns, are capable of an entirely pacific interpretation. Commonly one says, "We are knocked down all in a heap" by this or that which takes us by surprise, and these mountains surprise all by their beauty. There is no lovelier sight in Ireland, and, if an air of melancholy prevails, it is because the scene is "somehow sad by excess of serenity," to quote a recent phrase of Mr. Henry James, concerning a similar aspect elsewhere. Between Lismore and Cork, _via_ Mallow, is Mitchelstown, which presents an unusual series of attractions of the purely sentimental order. Mitchelstown's Castle, Skereenarint (a "place for dancing in the wood"), and the Caves of Coolagarranroe are the chief points of interest. It is also the seat of an ancient bishopric, founded by St. Carthage in the seventh century. Health-giving and time-honoured Mallow, famed of Tacitus (Hist., lib. i., c. 67) as the _locus amoens salubrium aquarium frequens_, is hardly of great moment for the traveller of to-day, except as the gateway from the north to Killarney. Just north of Mallow, in the County Cork, is the rushing river Awbeg, the "Mulla bright and fair," "Mulla mine," of Spenser. The poet himself lived at Kilcoman Castle, some six miles off. Near by is Buttevant, the Boutez-en-Avant, derived from the war-cry of David de Barry. Significantly and strongly French, it reminds one of the "Push forward" manoeuvre of Barry's men against the followers of MacCarthy. The old name of this place was Kilnamullach, _i. e._, Church of the Curse. The abbey in ruins reminds one that it was-- "Once the seat Of monkish ease and dark religious pomp: There many an antique monument is found Illegible and faithless to its charge." "That, deep insculped, once held in measured phrase The mighty deeds of those who sleep below, Of hero, sage or saint, whose pious hands--" Cashel, known as "Cashel of the Kings," was the residence of the ancient Kings of Ulster. The famous rock of Cashel is an eminence which rises abruptly above the surrounding plain, and holds upon its summit a grand assemblage of windowless and roofless ruins. These include various ecclesiastical buildings and monuments of a great age,--a cathedral, Cormac's Chapel, an episcopal palace, and various other edifices. Cormac's Chapel and its round tower, commemorating the virtues of Cormac MacCullinan, "at once King and Archbishop of Cashel," are justly reckoned as among the best preserved and most curious erections in the country. In that they were supposed to have been erected in Cormac's time (he was born in 831), they certainly must be considered as in a remarkable state of preservation, and, in every way, chronicles in stone of the first importance. Cormac has ascribed to his credit, too, the celebrated "Psalter of Cashel" and "Cormac's Glossary," though there appears to be some doubt as to whether he was the author or patron who inspired the production of these works. The "pointed" cathedral is of later date, and was, in part, destroyed by fire in 1495. To-day it is a ruin, but a magnificent one, and its outlines and proportions mark it as an important landmark for miles around the great plain which surrounds "the rock." The round tower's exact history is obscure; but, like most of its fellows, it is of undoubted Christian significance. Twenty feet from the ground, it is connected with the cathedral itself, while its completed height rises ninety feet or more. Curiously enough, it is constructed from quite a different stone from that [Illustration: _The Cross of Cashel_] used in the other buildings on the rock, and the supposition is that it stood for centuries, silent and solitary, before the cathedral itself took form, and perhaps before even Cormac's Chapel. The Cross of Cashel is another celebrated feature of artistic and historical worth. The "rock" was originally surrounded by a wall, which, though now gone nearly to ruin, gives indications of great strength. In 1647 it was stormed by Lord Inchquin, who took it and put to death the clergy who had taken refuge thereon. END OF VOLUME I. Index Achill, 27, 34. Adamnan, St., 135. Addison, 196. Adrian II., 39, 77, 237. Aghaboe, 214. Ailech, Palace of, 111. Albin, 119. Angus of Dalriada, 139. Angus Oge, 146. Anne, Queen, 249. Antrim, 45, 138, 139, 147, 148, 152, 153. Arbogast, 119. Ardfert, 127. Ardora, 168. Ardsallat, 259. Arklow, 227. Armagh, 111, 127, 186, 187. Arran, 154. Athlone, 31. Attacotti Rebellion, The, 138. Avoca (see Vale of Avoca). Avonbeg, The, 227, 231. Avondale, 231. Avonmore, The, 227, 231. Awbeg, The, 270. Balbriggan, 163. Ballach, Donald, 151. Ballinakil House, Waterford, 234. Ballintra, 168, 259. Ballycastle, 137, 151. Ballyfin, 214. Ballymena, 164. Ballyshannon, Falls of, 160. Balrothery, 187. Baltimore, 171, 237. Banagher, 31. Bann of Coleraine, The, 153. Bannon Bay, 231. Bantry Bay, 23, 27. Barry, David de, 270-271. Battle of the Boyne, 249. Bearhaven, 171. Belfast, 20, 28, 45, 89, 164, 168. Belleek, 164. Berkeley, Lord, 201. Blackwater, The, 238, 256-268. Blarney Castle, 10, 19, 90, 102, 227, 237. Blarney Stone, The (see Blarney Castle). Blood, Thomas, 249. Bloody Forehead, The, 90. Boleyn, Anne, 248. Boru, Brian (see Brian Born). Bray, 183, 204, 205, 206. Breakspeare, Nicholas (see Adrian II.). Brian Bora, 67, 111, 185-187. Bridget, St., 215-216. Brigid, St., 135. Bun-na-Margie Abbey, 152. Burke, Edmund, 195-196, 197. Burke, Thomas, 179. Burnett, Bishop, 248. Buttevant, 270. Bysett, Margery, 147, 151. Canice, St., 142. Cape Clear, 237. Cappoquin, 260. Carlow, 45. Carrickfergus, 140. Carrickmacross, 168. Carrick-on-Suir, 160. Cashel, 27-275. Cathedral, 127, 128, 271-275 Cormac's Chapel, 271, 275. Cross, 275. Psalter, 272. Rock, 271-275. Castlehaven, Lord, 264. Castleknock, 187. Castlerea, 61. Castlereagh, 147, 148. Cathanach, Shane, 152. Cavendish, Lord Frederick, 179. Caves of Coolagarranroe, 270. Celbridge, 193. Charles I., 248. Charles II., 248. Cinbaeth the First, 110. Clannaboy, 148. Clare Mountains, 31. Clements, 119. Clifden, 23. Clogheen, 269. Clondalkin, 179. Clones, 168. Clonfert, 127, 131. Clonmacnoise, 31. Clonmell, 160. Clontarf, 181, 182, 185-187. Castle, 187. Cloomaul, 62. Cloyne, 128. Coleraine, 153, 164. Colla Uaish, 139. Columba, St., 119, 121, 140-144. Comyn, Archbishop of Dublin, 192. Conact, 111. Congal, 121. Congreve, 197, 247. Conighal, 142. Conn of Tyrone, 152. Connaught, 22, 79-80. Connemara, 22, 23, 27, 168. Coolock, 187. Corc, King of Munster, 186. Cork, 4, 19, 24, 27, 45, 46, 80, 90, 168, 237, 270. Cathedral, 126. Cormac, 271-275. Corran of Larne, The, 153. Crommelin, 167. Cromwell, 153, 164, 193, 233, 243-244 Crosshaven, 168. Cruachan, Palace of, 111. Cuchullain, 137. Cullen, Dr., 214. Curragh, 209, 214, 215. Dagans, St., 135. Dalkey, 21, 168, 183. Dalriada, 139, 153. Damliag, 186. Dargle, The, 205, 206, 209. De Freyne, 61. Derdrie, 151. Derry (see Londonderry). Derry, County, 146. Devil's Bit Mountain, 214. Devil's Glen, 205. Devonshire, Dukes of, 264-267, 269. Diarmid, 232. Donatus, Bishop, 191. Donegal, 24, 28, 111, 151, 168. Down, 127, 183. Downpatrick Cathedral, 131. Dromod, 31. Dromona Castle, 260. Dublin, 7, 19, 21, 22, 27, 28, 34, 79, 86, 95, 148, 160, 163, 168, 176-205, 210, 213, 216. Bank of Ireland, 198. Bermingham Tower, 198. Castle, The, 151, 198, 249. Christchurch Cathedral, 127, 191-192. Comyn, Archbishop, 192. Cork Hill, 198. "Fifteen Acres," 179. Hoey's Court, 202. Liffey, The (see Liffey). Luke, Archbishop, 185. National Gallery, 198. Phoenix Park, 176, 179, 190. Police Force, 189-190. Sackville St., 198. St. Fichan, Church of, 194. St. Patrick de Insula, Church of, 192. St. Patrick's Cathedral, 126, 127, 192-194, 202. Trinity College, 197. Viceregal Lodge, 179. Duleck, 186. Dunamase, 214. Dunanynie Castle, 151, 152. Dungarvan, 237. Dunleary (see Kingstown). Dunluce Castle, 151, 152. Edgeworth, Miss, 72. Edward I., 247. Edward VII., 212-213. Elizabeth, Queen, 184, 197, 198, 241, 248. Emania (and Palace of), 110, 111, 139. Enniscorthy, 232. Enniskerry, 209. Fachman, St., 259. Fair Head, 137. "Faithful Norman, The," 233-234. Fergus of Dalriada, 139. Fermanagh, 154. Fitzgeralds, The, 260. Fitzstephen, Robert, 232. FitzWalter, Theobald, 244, 248. Galway, 27, 31, 34, 79, 136. Garryhill, 168. George I., 250. George IV., 181, 205-206. Geraldines, The, 259. Giant's Causeway, 10, 19, 28, 146, 227. Gildas, 135. Gill-Mantain (see Wicklow). Glen of the Downs, 205. Glendalough, 216-224. Glengarriff, 27. Glens of Antrim, The (see Antrim). Goldsmith, 72, 130, 197. Granuaile _or_ Grana Uile (see O'Malley, Grace). Greenore, 20, 28. Guinness Family, 193. Hackett, 237. Henry II., 38, 77, 237, 244. Henry III., 224. Henry VII., 78. Henry VIII., 78, 197. Hill of Allen, 216. Holy Cross, 215. Howth, 181, 183-185. Castle of, 183-185. Earls of, 183. Hill of, 21, 181-183, 203. St. Mary's Abbey, 185. Inchquin, Lord, 275. Innishowen Head, 141. Innismurray, 154. Ireland's Eye, 83. James II., 191, 193. James, Henry, 270. John, King, 77, 264. Johnson, Dr., 37. Johnson, Esther ("Stella"), 194, 202. Keating, 102. Kells, 110. Book of Kells, The, 110, 197. Monastery of Kells, The, 143. Kenbane Castle, 151. Kerry, County, 27, 172. Kevin, St., 216-224. Kilcoman Castle, 270. Kildare, 215-216. Cathedral, 127. Kilkenny, 142, 242-244, 251-252, 256. Castle, 242, 244-256. Cathedrals of St. Canice, 126, 127, 142, 256. The Churches of, 256. Killala Cathedral, 131. Killaloe, 28, 31, 232. Cathedral, 127, 128. Killarney, 15, 19, 23, 24, 27, 31, 34, 58, 80, 90, 160, 227, 231, 259, 270. Killiny Hill, 203. Killowen, 269. Kilmacduagh Cathedral, 131. Kilmainham, 87. Kilnamullach, 271. Kincora, Palace of, 67, 111, 185. Kingstown, 7, 20, 180-181, 183, 203, 204. Kinsale, 168, 171. Knockmeledown Mountains, 260, 263, 267, 268, 269-270. Krans, Horatio, 71-72. Lambay Island, 183. Laracor, 201. Larne, 20, 28, 153. Lea Castle, 214. Lee, The, 237. Leinster, 22, 79, 209, 216, 237. Leixlip, 182. Lever, Charles, 72. Liffey, The, 19, 179, 187, 203. Falls of, 180. Limerick, 27, 31, 45, 156, 168, 172. Cathedral, 127. Lisburn, 164, 167. Lismore, 267, 269, 270. Book of Lismore, 268. Castle, 242, 264-268. Cathedral, 128. Gap, 267. Glen, 267. Loarn of Dalriada, 139. Londonderry, 3, 45, 90, 111, 141, 145, 164. Cathedral, 127. Lough Derg, 31. Lough Foyle, 141. Lough Ree, 31. Lough Swilly, 111. Loughmore Castle, 214. Louth, County, 183. Lover, Samuel, 72, 82, 103. Lowth, 187. Lucan, 179. Lugh Lamhfada, 137. Lughmach, 187. Luke, Archbishop of Dublin, 185. MacCarthy, 271. MacCullinan, Cormac, 271-275. Macdonnell, Alexander, 153. Macdonnell, James, 152. Macdonnell, John More, 147, 151. Macdonnell, Randal, 153. Macdonnells, The, 148, 151, 152, 153. Macha, Queen, 110. MacQuillans, The, 151, 152. Mallow, 24, 27, 270. Marlborough, 249. Maryborough, 214. Maxwell, 72. Mayo, 79, 136. McCarthy, Justin, 71, 93. Meath, 80, 111, 143, 183. Meave, Queen, 103, 111. Meave, The "Half-Red," 103. "Meeting of the Waters," The, 227, 231. Mitchell, Donald G., 196. Mitchelstown, 270. M'Murrogh, 232. Molana, Island of, 259. Molanfidas, Abbey of, 259. Monasterboice, 110. Monasterevan, 214. Mononia, 185. Moore, George, 82, 85, 93, 94-95, 102. Moore, Thomas, 86, 103, 104-105, 185-186, 216, 219, 227-231. Mount Melleray, 263. Abbey of, 263-264. Mourne Mountains, 183. Moville, 3, 90. Muckamore, 142. Muckross Abbey, 10, 185. Munster, 22, 79-80, 172, 186. "Murdering Hole, The," 260. Muskau, Prince Puckler, 228. Myrtle Grove, Youghal, 238-241. Naas, 209-213. Naguire of Fermanagh, 154. Navan Fort, 111. Naysi, 151. Nennin, St., 135. Nethercross, 187. Newcastle, 187. Nore, The, 251. O'Brien, Donald, 244. O'Brien, Donogh, 197. O'Brien, William Smith, 214-215. O'Cahans, The, 146, 152. O'Cleary, 145. O'Donnell of Tyconnell, 144-145. O'Donnell, Red Hugh, 145, 152. O'Donnells, The, 111, 151. O'Malley, Grace, 184. O'Neill, Mary, 152. O'Neill, Shane, 152. O'Neill, Turlough Luineach, 152. O'Neills, The, 144, 146, 147, 148, 152. Ormonde, Duke of, 160. Ormonde Family, 244-251, 255. O'Toole, King, 223. Ox-field House, 214. Parnell, Charles Stuart, 231. Patrick, St., 92, 102, 116, 120, 121, 132. Port Brittas, 151. Port Usnach, 137, 151. Portumna, 31. Poula-Phooka, 180. Powerscourt, 205-206. Prendergast, Maurice, 232-234. Punchestown, 209-213. Queenstown, 3, 15, 19, 204. Raleigh, Sir Walter, 238-241, 260. Rathdown, 187. Rathlin Island, 146, 147. Raymond le Gros, 234, 259. Reefert Church, 223. Reeves, Bishop, 142. Reginald's Tower, Waterford, 234. Rhincrew Castle, 259. Richard II., 77. Roderick, 232. Ross Cathedral, 128. Ross, Miss Martin, 73. Rruy, The Clan, 139. Russell, T. W., 63. Saltee Light-Vessel, 234. Savage of the Ards, 152. Seven Churches (see Glendalough). Shandon Bells, 237. Shannon Bridge, 31. Shannon, The, 28-31. Shaw, Bernard, 82. Sidney, Sir Henry, 192. Sidney, Sir Philip, 192. Sigtryg Silkbeard, 191. Simnel, Lambert, 191. Skelligs, The, 154. Skereenarint Castle, 270. Sliav Ailduin, 214. Slievebloom Mountains, 214. Slievemore, 19. Sligo, 23, 27, 31, 34, 79, 168. Sommerville, Miss, 73. Sorley Boy, 151-152. Spenser, 68, 105-106, 172, 255, 270. Spire Hill, 214. St. Canice Abbey, Aghaboe, 214. St. Fichan, Dublin, Church of, 194. St. Kiaran, Church of, 187. St. Lawrences, The, 183-184. St. Mary's Abbey, Howth (see Howth). St. Nessan, Church of, Ireland's Eye, 183. St. Patrick de Insula, Dublin, Church of, 192. Steele, Sir Richard, 196. Sterne, 6, 14, 16. Stevenson, R. L., 6. Strabane, 168. Strancally Castle, 259. Strongbow, Richard, 191-192, 232, 234, 237, 244. Strongbow's Castle, 214. Sugar Loaf Mountain, 183. Suir, The, 214. Swift, Dean, 103, 160, 193-194, 195, 197, 201-203, 247. Tallaght, 188. Tara, Hill of (Palace), 104, 111-112, 139, 197. Temple, Michael, 259. Thurles, 214-215. Tipperary, 31, 172, 267. Tralee, 27. Trinity College (see Dublin). Tristam (see Valence). Tuam Cathedral, 131. Tuathal Teachtmar, 138. Tuskar Lighthouse, 234. Tyconnell, 144. Tyconnell, Hugh, Prince of, 152. Tynan, Miss Katherine, 74. Tyrone, Conn, Earl of, 152. Ulster, 22, 44, 65, 79, 110, 111, 132, 152. Uppercross, 187. Ussher, 197. Vale of Avoca, 227-231. Valence, Sir Armoric Tristam de, 183. Valentia, 171. Van Raumer, Prof., 43-44. "Vanessa" (see Vanhomrigh, Hester). Vanhomrigh, Hester, 193, 202. Venerable Bede, The, 102. Vere, Aubrey de, 233. Vernons, The, 187. Vinegar Hill, 232. Waterford, 20, 24, 45, 46, 234-237. Cathedral, 127. Wexford, 24, 231-234. Wicklow, 24, 46, 79, 176, 183, 204-205, 211, 216, 224, 237. William III., 203, 249. Wills, the historian, 186. Wood of Oaks (see Kildare). Wykinlo (see Wicklow). Wyndham, George, 65-68. Yeats, Mr., 94, 95. Youghal, 24, 168, 238, 259. Young, Arthur, 7-8, 37. 
46654	----	courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) [Illustration] ON AN IRISH JAUNTING CAR Through Donegal and Connemara BY SAMUEL G BAYNE [Illustration: "THE REAL THING"] On An Irish Jaunting-Car Through Donegal and Connemara BY S. G. BAYNE _ILLUSTRATED_ [Illustration] NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1902, by HARPER & BROTHERS. _All rights reserved._ Published November, 1902. PREFACE In the compiling of this little book, I am deeply indebted for historical data, etc., to John Cooke, M.A., the Messrs. Black, Lord Macaulay, the _Four Masters_, and many others, from whose writings I have made extracts; and for photographs to Messrs. W. Lawrence, T. Glass, and Commissioner Walker. I sincerely hope I may be forgiven for the shortcomings and errors which can doubtless be found in this brief sketch of a few weeks' tour through the north, west, and south of Ireland. S. G. BAYNE. NEW YORK CITY. CONTENTS PAGE NEW YORK TO LONDONDERRY 1 LONDONDERRY TO PORT SALON 9 PORT SALON TO DUNFANAGHY 14 DUNFANAGHY TO FALLCARRAGH 23 FALLCARRAGH TO GWEEDORE 36 GWEEDORE TO GLENTIES 40 GLENTIES TO CARRICK 46 CARRICK TO DONEGAL 49 DONEGAL TO BALLYSHANNON 53 BALLYSHANNON TO SLIGO 57 SLIGO TO BALLINROBE 65 BALLINROBE TO LEENANE 67 LEENANE TO RECESS 70 ACHILL ISLAND 78 RECESS TO GALWAY 92 ARAN ISLANDS 106 LIMERICK 117 CORK AND QUEENSTOWN 128 ILLUSTRATIONS "THE REAL THING" _Frontispiece_ RATHMULLEN ABBEY, COUNTY DONEGAL _Facing p._ 10 CARNISK BRIDGE AND SALMON-LEAP (IN LOW WATER), NEAR RAMELTON, COUNTY DONEGAL " 12 OUR FIRST CAR " 14 IN THE GREAT ARCH, "SEVEN ARCHES," PORT SALON, COUNTY DONEGAL " 16 DUNREE FORT, LOUGH SWILLY, COUNTY DONEGAL " 18 TEMPLE ARCH, HORN HEAD, COUNTY DONEGAL " 24 "MCSWINE'S GUN," HORN HEAD, COUNTY DONEGAL " 26 GLEN VEIGH, COUNTY DONEGAL " 34 A TURF BOG " 38 NATIVES OF COUNTY DONEGAL " 44 A TURF CREEL, CARRICK, COUNTY DONEGAL " 50 DONEGAL CASTLE " 54 SALMON-LEAP, BALLYSHANNON, COUNTY DONEGAL " 60 GOING TO THE BOG FOR TURF, BUNDORAN, COUNTY DONEGAL " 62 LORD ARDILAUN'S CASTLE, CONG, COUNTY MAYO " 66 CONG ABBEY, COUNTY MAYO " 68 WATER-FALL IN THE MARQUIS OF SLIGO'S DEMESNE, WESTPORT, COUNTY MAYO " 72 KYLEMORE CASTLE AND PRIVATE CHAPEL, COUNTY GALWAY " 74 DEVIL'S MOTHER MOUNTAIN, AASLEAGH FALLS, AND SALMON-LEAP ON ERRIFF RIVER, COUNTY GALWAY " 76 THE FISHERY, ACHILL ISLAND, SLIEVEMORE IN THE DISTANCE " 78 CATHEDRAL CLIFFS AT MENAWN, ACHILL ISLAND " 81 ACHILL HEAD, COUNTY MAYO " 88 BOYS FISHING, NEAR RECESS, COUNTY GALWAY " 94 A CONNEMARA TINKER " 102 THE LANDING OF THE COW, ARAN ISLANDS " 106 ON OUR WAY TO DUN AENGUS, ARAN ISLANDS " 108 "WE TAKE TO THE WATER IN A CURRAGH." ARAN ISLANDS " 112 CURRAGHS, ARAN ISLANDS " 114 THE CLOISTERS, ADARE ABBEY, COUNTY LIMERICK " 126 SHE SAT AND DROVE ON A LOW-BACK CAR " 134 THE KETTLE IS BOILING FOR OUR TEA " 136 ON AN IRISH JAUNTING-CAR THROUGH DONEGAL AND CONNEMARA NEW YORK TO LONDONDERRY At New York, on the 26th of June, we boarded the SS. _Columbia_, the new twin-screw steamer of the Anchor Line. Every berth was taken, and as the passengers were a bright set, "on pleasure bent," there was an entire absence of formality and exclusiveness. They sang, danced, and amused themselves in many original ways, while the _Columbia_ reeled off the knots with a clock-like regularity very agreeable to the experienced travellers on board. As our destination was Londonderry, we took a northerly course, which brought us into floating ice-fields and among schools of porpoises and whales; in fact, it was an uneventful day on which some passenger could not boast of having seen "a spouter, just a few minutes ago!" We celebrated the morning of the Fourth of July in a very pretentious way with a procession of the nations in costume and burlesques on the conditions of the day. The writer was cast to represent the Beef Trust, and at two hundred and twenty-five pounds the selection met with popular approval; but he found a passenger of thirty-five pounds more in the foreground, and thereupon retired to the side-lines. Attorney Grant, of New York, made a striking "Rob Roy," with his colossal Corinthian pillars in their natural condition. A long list of games and a variety of races for prizes gave us a lively afternoon, and the evening wound up with a "grand" concert, at which Professor Green, of Yale, made an excellent comic oration. W. A. Ross, of New York, was my companion on the trip; A. B. Hepburn, ex-Comptroller of the Currency, intended going with us, but was prevented at the last moment by a pressure of business, which we very much regretted. The steamer soon sighted Tory Island, rapidly passed Malin Head, and then turned in to Lough Foyle. When a few miles inside the mouth of the latter, we stopped at Moville and the passengers for Ireland were sent up to Londonderry on a tender. We were so far north and the date was so near the longest day that we could easily read a paper at midnight, and as we did not get through the custom-house until 4 A.M., we did not go to bed, but went to a hotel and had breakfast instead. The custom-house examination at Derry, conducted under the _personal_ direction of a collector, is perhaps the most exasperating ordeal of its kind to be found in any port in existence. The writer has passed through almost all the important custom-houses in the world, and has never seen such a display of inherent meanness as was shown by this "collector." He seized with glee and charged duty upon a single package of cigarettes belonging to a passenger, and he "nabbed" another man with a quarter-pound of tobacco, thereby putting an extra shilling into his King's pocket. He was an Irish imitation Englishman, and his h's dropped on the dock like a shower of peas when he directed his understrappers in a husky squeak how best to trap the passengers. The owner of the quarter-pound of tobacco poured out the vials of his wrath on the "collector" afterwards at the hotel: "I would give a five-pound note to get him in some quiet place and pull his parrot nose," was the way he wound up his invective. Neither were the ladies allowed to escape, their clothing being shaken out in quest of tobacco and spirits, since those are about the only articles on which duty is charged. The very last cigar was extracted by long and bony fingers from its cosey resting-place in the vest-pocket of a passenger who shall be nameless--hence these tears! All other ports in Europe vie with one another in liberal treatment of the tourist; they want his gold. The writer landed both at Southampton and Dover last summer, and at the latter place, although there were over five hundred trunks and satchels on the steamer, not one was opened, nor was a single passenger asked a question. Smuggling means the sale at a profit of goods brought into port for that purpose; nothing from America can be sold at a profit, unless it be steel rails, and they are much too long to carry in a trunk. We are now in "Derry," as it is called in Ireland, and every man in it is "town proud"; and well he may be, as Derry has a historical record second to but few cities in any country, and its siege is perhaps the most celebrated in history. At this writing it has a population of thirty-three thousand and is otherwise prosperous. Saint Columba started it in 546 A.D. by building his abbey. Then came the deadly Dane invader, swooping down on this and other Foyle settlements and glutting his savage appetite for plunder. Out of the ruins left by the Danes arose in 1164 the "Great Abbey of Abbot O'Brolchain," who was at that time made the first bishop of Derry. The English struggled and fought for centuries to gain a foothold in this part of Ireland, but to no purpose until Sir Henry Docrora landed, about 1600 A.D., on the banks of the Foyle with a force of four thousand men and two hundred horse. He restored Fort Culmore and took Derry, destroyed all the churches, the stones of which he used for building fortifications, and left standing only the tower of the cathedral, which remained until after the siege. In 1608 Sir Cahir O'Doherty, of Inishowen, who at first had favored the settlement, rebelled, took Culmore fort, and burned Derry. His death, and the "flight of the earls" Tyrone and Tyrconnell to France, left Derry and other vast possessions to English confiscation, over two hundred thousand acres alone falling to the citizens of London. The walls were built in 1609, and still remain in good condition, being used as a promenade; the original guns bristle from loop-holes at intervals, and "Roaring Meg" will always have a place in history for the loud crack she made when fired on the enemy. She sits at the base of Walker's monument now, silent, but still ugly. This monument is erected on a column ninety feet high, starting from a bastion on the wall, and has a statue of Walker on its summit. One of the earliest feats in sight-seeing which the writer ever accomplished was to climb to its top, up a narrow flight of spiral stairs. (There would not be room enough for him in it now.) James I. granted a new charter of incorporation to Derry in 1613, and changed the name from Derrycolumcille to Londonderry. James II. laid siege to the town in person in 1689, but failed to capture it. It was defended for one hundred and five days by its citizens under George Walker, but two thousand of them lost their lives from wounds and starvation. On the 28th of July, the ships _Mountjoy_ and _Phoenix_, by gallantly rushing in concert against the iron boom laid across the Foyle, broke it, and relieved the starving people with plenty of provisions; and so the siege was ended. There are seven gates in the walls of Derry--viz., Bishop's Gate, Shipquay Gate, Butchers' Gate, New Gate, Ferryquay Gate, Castle Gate, and the Northern Gate, a recent addition. Those favorites of fortune who live near New York know that George Washington had some two hundred and fifty "headquarters" and places where he "once stopped," in and about that city, and that he sat in over two thousand armchairs in them--or, at least, that number has been sold with the genial auctioneer's guarantee of their authenticity. It is estimated that it would require a train of twenty freight cars to carry the chairs, desks, haircloth sofas, saddle-bags, guns, and pistols that have been sold as relics from his headquarters at Madame Jumel's alone, Harlem absorbing seventy-five per cent. of this output. But for all that, King James runs George a close second. The writer is only one man, yet he has slept in three Honduras mahogany four-posters in which James preceded him, has eaten with many knives that swept the royal mouth, and to-day owns a bone-handled razor that is said to have scraped the face of royalty; and yet, after all, he is only comparatively happy! LONDONDERRY TO PORT SALON We leave Derry with regret, and take the train for Fahan. This brings us to the shore of Lough Swilly, where we embark on a ferry-boat and cross the lough to Rathmullen. While crossing I saw Buncrana, a short distance down the lough. This is a pretty village containing the castle of the O'Dochertys, now in ruins, and near it the castle erected by Sir John Vaughan at a later period. Half a century ago the latter became dilapidated, but it was restored and has ever since been rented "for the season," as an investment by the owner. One of my pleasantest recollections is the week's-end visit I made many years ago to its then tenant. It had fine, terraced gardens, its outer walls were skirted by a trout and salmon river, and there was a vast court-yard behind it with cell-stalls for the cavalry horses, and even a gallows on which to hang captured invaders--and many of them were hanged on this same gallows. It was not a pleasant outlook from one's bedchamber window, but then the victims had been a long time dead, and no trouble came from their ghosts. We soon arrived at Rathmullen, a historic spot where many things happened in the days of yore. It occupies a sheltered position at the foot of a range of hills that intervene between Lough Swilly and Mulroy Bay, of which the highest point is Crochanaffrin, one thousand one hundred and thirty-seven feet. It is worth while to make an excursion either up this hill or Croaghan, one thousand and ten feet, which is nearer; for the extraordinary view over the inlets and indentations of this singular coast will put the traveller more in mind of Norwegian fiords than British scenery. Close to it are the ivy-clad ruins of a priory of Carmelite friars, consisting of two distinct buildings erected at an interval of nearly two centuries. The eastern portion, of which the tower and chancel remain, was constructed by the McSweenys in the fifteenth century. It exhibits considerable traces of pointed Gothic architecture. Over the eastern window there still remains a figure of St. Patrick. The architecture of the remainder of the building is of the Elizabethan age, a great part of it having been rebuilt by Bishop Knox, of the diocese of Raphoe, in 1618, on obtaining possession of the manor of Rathmullen from Turlogh Oge McSweeny. The _Annals of the Four Masters_ (to which we will refer later), states that in 1595 it was plundered by George Bingham, son of the Governor of Connaught. McSweeny's castle is supposed to have stood west of the priory, but it was destroyed in 1516. It was from here that the young Hugh O'Donnell was carried off in 1587, and kept a prisoner in Dublin until he made his romantic escape in 1591. In 1607, the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell took their "flight" from Rathmullen in a small vessel. "The entire number on board was ninety-nine, having little sea-store, and being otherwise miserably accommodated." After a hazardous voyage of three weeks, they landed at the mouth of the Seine. [Illustration: RATHMULLEN ABBEY, COUNTY DONEGAL] There is a monument in the churchyard to the memory of the Hon. William H. Packenham, captain of the British man-of-war _Saldanha_, wrecked on Swilly Rock in 1811. Every soul on board was lost; the only living thing that reached the land was the captain's gray parrot, which the wind carried in safety to the rocky shore. Here, too, Wolfe Tone was taken prisoner on board the French frigate _Hoche_, in 1798. Tone was a talented young Irishman, and pleaded the Irish cause so eloquently in Paris that a fleet of forty-three ships, with fifteen thousand men, was sent to Ireland in 1796, Hoche commanding. A tremendous storm scattered the fleet on the Irish coast, and the ships returned to France in broken order. Nothing daunted, Tone again persuaded the French to give him a trial with a new fleet. They gave it, but this expedition was even more unfortunate than the first one, and the end of Tone's tragic career dated from his arrest on the shores of Lough Swilly. A few miles above, Lough Swilly divides into two forks, one running up to Letterkenny and the other to Ramelton, a little town located at the point where the river Lennon meets the tidal salt water. This interesting place is celebrated for the fine views it affords and for its salmon and trout fishing. I was exceedingly anxious to visit it, but time would not permit the shortest deviation from our rigid itinerary, as we had purchased a state-room on the _Etruria_, sailing from Queenstown on July 28th. [Illustration: CARNISK BRIDGE AND SALMON-LEAP (IN LOW WATER), NEAR RAMELTON, COUNTY DONEGAL] It was at Rathmullen that we hired our first jaunting-car; and it might here be said that of all the vehicles ever invented the modern Irish jaunting-car holds first place for the use of the traveller; it is unique and there is nothing that can take its place for an easy and comfortable lounging ride, when balanced by two passengers and a driver. It is now improved with a circular back and rubber tires, while the very latest has a driver's seat behind, like a hansom cab. We can speak truthfully of the jaunting-car, after having tested its qualities for three hundred and fifty miles on this trip; but would add that care is requisite in arranging for and selecting a car, as many of them are old and worn out. PORT SALON TO DUNFANAGHY Leaving Rathmullen, John, our driver, took us a short cut over the Glenalla Mountains to Port Salon, through Mr. Hart's demesne of fine timber. As we drove along, our interest was excited by the masses of furze to be seen on all sides. This shrub grows about five feet high and is thickly covered with sharp, dark-green prickles and innumerable flowers of the brightest yellow known to botanists. Its popular name is "whin," and it is extensively used as food for their horses by the farmers, who pound the prickles into pulp in a stone trough, and when so prepared the horses eat them with great relish. "Whins" grow all over the north of Ireland in wild profusion, and the startling blaze of their bright yellow bloom may be seen for miles; to those not accustomed to their beauty they are a most interesting novelty. After driving about twelve miles through this kind of country, we arrived at Colonel Barton's handsome hotel on the bluffs of Lough Swilly, at the point where it opens into the Atlantic. I can hardly describe the beauty of this spot--its hard, yellow strand, its savage mountains covered with blooming heather, its sapphire sea in strong contrast to the deep, rich green pines. The Atlantic was booming into the numerous caves that line both sides of the lough, and so seductive was the influence of this sound that at our first view we lay down, tired and happy, in the deep heather, and fell asleep for an hour, undisturbed by fly, mosquito, or gnat. A British iron-clad was anchored a little above, which gave a note of distinction to the charming scene; we were told it was the celebrated _Camperdown_, that did the ramming in the Mediterranean disaster. [Illustration: OUR FIRST CAR] We stayed overnight, and made an excursion next morning to the "Seven Arches." This is a short and interesting trip, about a mile and a half north of the hotel. Here is a series of fine caverns scooped out of the limestone rock by the action of the waves, which can be easily reached by land, but the approach by water is grander and more imposing. From the strand where the boat deposits the visitor, a cave with a narrow entrance runs one hundred and thirty feet inland, and beyond this are the "Seven Arches," one of which, forming a grand entrance from the sea, one hundred yards long, divides into two. Beyond the left-hand cave is another, one hundred and twenty feet long. The right-hand cave is again divided into four beautiful caverns, through any one of which a passage may be made to the bowlder strand, whence another arch leads towards the north. We left Colonel Barton's and drove along the coast for a few miles to Doaghbeg, where we stopped to admire a magnificent sea-arch called "Brown George," the most remarkable natural feature, perhaps, on the whole coast of Lough Swilly. Doaghbeg is a very primitive, native village and is the capital of the district called Fanet (sometimes Fanad). This was the birthplace of the Honorable P. C. Boyle, who has made his mark in Pennsylvania. Further driving brought us to Fanet Head, one of the most northerly points in Ireland, on which is erected a large light-house, one hundred and twenty-seven feet above high-water. This has a group of occulting lights showing white to seaward and red towards land. After inspecting the light-house, we took our last look at Lough Swilly, that lake of shadows with its marvellous scenic splendor, almost unrivalled also as a safe and deep harbor. I have seen the British fleet manoeuvered in its confines, and it could easily anchor every man-of-war in commission to-day, giving them all enough cable to swing clear of one another on the tide. [Illustration: IN THE GREAT ARCH, "SEVEN ARCHES," PORT SALON, COUNTY DONEGAL] We coasted the Atlantic for a few miles, and then turned into the hills that surround Mulroy Bay, which soon came into sight. When we reached the shore a council of war was held, and it was decided to save some twenty miles of driving up round the head of the bay, by crossing, if possible, at the lower end; so a broad, heavy, but unseaworthy boat was chartered, and we took Bob, the horse, out of the car and rolled the latter into the stern of our marine transport. It was no easy task to get Bob to face the water; however, after beating about the bush for half an hour, he suddenly grew tractable, and we pushed him into the boat by main strength. The passage was ludicrous in the extreme; at every high wave Bob would lash out his heels and prance. The captain of the boat (who, by the way, was an Irishwoman) would berate John for owning a horse "whose timper was so bad that he might plounge us all into etarnity without a minit's notice!" John kept whispering in a loud voice into his horse's ear promises of oats, turnips, and a bran-mash by way of dessert, if he would only behave himself. The tide was running strong, and when we were swept past our landing we each became captain in turn without appointment, and a variety of language was indulged in that would have made the Tower of Babel seem like a Quaker meeting. The farce was suddenly ended by Bob's breaking loose from his owner and jumping ashore like a chamois. We then ran the boat aground, took out the car, and, after capturing Bob with the promised oats, were soon on our way again. In a short time after again starting, we ascended a hill and could clearly see the spot where Lord Leitrim was assassinated in April, 1878. It lay up the bay in a clump of woods, close to the water. Lord Leitrim had been very harsh with his tenants and had evicted large numbers of them from their farms; they therefore determined to "remove" him, and a select band of them lay in ambush along the road and succeeded in killing his lordship, his driver, and his secretary while they were driving to Derry. There were many trials in court, but those arrested could never be convicted. As a boy I have been more than once startled by the appearance of a pair of cars with eight men on them, each having a couple of double-barreled shotguns. Lord Leitrim was one of them; the others were his guards, going to Milford to collect the rents. His temper was so violent that the government removed him from the office of magistrate. His son, the late Earl, was a very different kind of man; he did everything within his power to advance his tenants' interests. After his death, a few years ago, the tenantry erected a fine monument to his memory in Carrigart Square. We later read the inscription upon it, which was, "He loved his people." [Illustration: DUNREE FORT, LOUGH SWILLY, COUNTY DONEGAL] After a pleasant drive we reached Carrigart and had a good lunch there; we tried the Carrigart "perfectos" afterwards, and their memory clings to us still! We then started for the Rosapenna Hotel, which was not far distant--less than two miles. This hotel was built of wood, after the Scandinavian fashion, by the trustees of the late Earl of Leitrim, and opened in 1893. It was designed in Stockholm, whence the timber was shipped to Mulroy. It stands at the base of Ganiamore Mountain, on the narrow neck of the Rossgull peninsula, between Mulroy Bay and Sheephaven. Fine golf links have been laid out with eighteen holes, the circuit being three miles and a half. For visitors there is excellent fishing in the adjacent waters, by permission of the Countess of Leitrim, and good bathing on the strands of Sheephaven, which afford a smooth promenade of six miles. From the top of Ganiamore a good view is obtained of the coast from Horn Head round to Inishowen peninsula, and from its hills a fine sweep inland to Errigal Mountain. At Downing's Bay there is one of the finest views in Donegal, looking up and down Sheephaven, the woods of Ards and the tower of Doe Castle backed up in the distance by the ponderous mass of Muckish. Within a short distance of the hotel are three caves which can be entered, one from the brow of the hill and the others at low water. Near it also is Mulroy House, the residence of the Countess of Leitrim. From Rosapenna we drove to Doe Castle, built on the shores of Sheephaven. This was a stronghold of the McSweenys, which has been, to a certain extent, modernized and rendered habitable by a late owner, who in doing so pulled down some of the walls. It consists of a lofty keep with massive walls, which enclose passages and stone stairs. It is surrounded by a "bawn," or castle-yard, defended by a high wall, with round towers at intervals. The rock on which it stands is not very high, but from its almost insulated position it was difficult to approach. It was garrisoned by Captain Vaughan for Queen Elizabeth, but was betrayed to the followers of Sir Cahir O'Doherty. It was besieged in 1608, and Davis says: "Being the strongest in Tyrconnell, it endured one hundred blows of the demi-cannon before it surrendered." A little to the north, but separated by a prolongation of the marsh at the head of Sheephaven, is Ards House, owned by Alexander J. R. Stewart. This demesne is fenced with a cut-stone wall which we skirted for many miles. It is a great show place, with its extensive mansion, fine gardens, and beautiful woods, fronting on the bay where the Lackagh River runs into it. We drew rein on the Lackagh bridge to see Mr. Stewart's men draw a net with eight hundred pounds of salmon in it; there were about eighty in the haul. William Wray, the old master of Ards in the eighteenth century, had a strange history. He lived here in luxurious state and "dispensed hospitality with true regal splendor." His ambition, indeed, appeared to be to see daily as much eaten as possible; and to facilitate the arrival of guests, he engineered a road over Salt Mountain. Extravagance, however, at last told its tale, and the old man, broken down, went over to France, where he died, "poor, unfriended, and forgotten." After crossing the bridge, we took up the road to Creeslough, where Balfour is building a narrow-gauge railroad for the purpose of giving employment to the poor; and by driving till quite late we reached Dunfanaghy. "A great day's work," as John put it while cracking his whip during the last half mile. DUNFANAGHY TO FALLCARRAGH We put up at the Stewart Arms, and next morning when we looked over the town we came to the conclusion that Paris had nothing to fear from Dunfanaghy. It hasn't even a Moulin Rouge to boast of, but it's a first-class place to sleep in when you're worn out on the road, as we were. We engaged a large boat with four men to row us out into the Atlantic to see the famous Horn Head from the sea. The sight has really no equal anywhere. The writer, having seen it many times since boyhood, is more impressed with it on each occasion, and this last time it seemed more entrancing than ever. Horn Head is a range of beetling mountains projecting into the Atlantic, and covers in extent some ten miles. The crags and horns are six hundred and twenty-six feet high, and are of all the colors of the rainbow, from deepest black to red, yellow, gray, purple, and green. The formation is vast galleries or amphitheatres, broken by the nature of the rock into rectangular shelves, on which perch myriads of birds, which are as the sands of the sea for multitude. Some of these birds migrate from Norway, lay one egg, and when the young are able they return home, only to come back again each succeeding summer. There are many varieties of them, in part consisting of guillemots, sheldrakes, cormorants, the shag, the gannet, the stormy petrel, the speckled diver, and the sea-parrot. One variety will fly with greater ease under a boat when pursuing fish than it can in the air, and in the clear water they may be seen at great depths, using their wings in this way. They have seen but few men, and do not rise when approached. Their cawing and cries are fearful and awe-inspiring, owing to the vast numbers of birds that are always in the air or on the rocks, the whole panorama as seen from the boat is something the beholder will remember as long as he lives. We also saw many seals close to the boat; these live on salmon. Mr. Stewart used to pay a crown each for their scalps, but since retiring he has withdrawn the bonus and they are now increasing in numbers. The sea is very lumpy at the head, owing to the squalls that blow down over the cliffs; we encountered half a dozen, and any one of them would have put a sailboat out of commission in a few minutes. They keep a great ground-swell in constant motion, and the boat rose and fell on these waves like a cork in a whirlpool. When rowing home we passed a salmon net at a jutting point, with one end of its rope fastened to the rocks. We asked why had such a place been selected when there were so many others easier to get at, and the man replied: "Salmon are queer fish; they have a path round the headlands when going to the spawning-grounds, and never leave it. If that net were moved out fifty yards it would never catch a salmon." Two men were perched on a small ledge close to the water, watching the net against seals, as the latter will tear the fish out of the nets with the ferocity of a tiger. These men had six hundred feet of sheer rock above them, and we asked how they ever got down or up again. "Oh, they're used to it; they've been at it since they were boys, and they can scale the rocks like monkeys." [Illustration: TEMPLE ARCH, HORN HEAD, COUNTY DONEGAL] We again slept at the Stewart Arms, and we felt so much impressed by what we had seen from the sea that we determined to go on the head itself and view the surroundings; so next morning we started on the car and were soon driving over the long stone bridge with its many arches. On the way over the bridge we passed Horn Head House, the residence of C. F. Stewart, a property that has been in the possession of the present family since a Stewart raised men to fight for King James against the O'Neills, in the Irish wars. The road winds up between vast sand-hills, the sand being of a remarkable orange color, fading into pink in the distance, while large tufts of rich, deep green bent-grass are dotted over its surface, making such an unusually striking contrast that we stopped the car for full five minutes to admire it. These hills are alive with rabbits; they scampered off in all directions at our approach and quickly disappeared into their holes. One mile to the west in a direct line is "McSwine's Gun," concerning which marvellous fables are told. The coast here is very precipitous and perforated with caverns, one of which, running in for some distance, is connected with the surface above by a narrow orifice, which is very difficult to find without a guide, or very specific directions and the close observance of landmarks. Through this, in rough weather, the sea dashes, throwing up a column of water accompanied by a loud explosion or boom, which is said to have been heard as far as Derry. [Illustration: "McSWINE'S GUN," HORN HEAD, COUNTY DONEGAL] To the south of the rocks lies the fine stretch of Tramore Strand. A little to the northeast of this spot is a circular castle. Continuing by the shore, Pollaguill Bay is reached, joined by cable with Tory Island. As seen from the land, the coast is rocky, broken, and indented, and in about two miles rises into the precipitous mass of Horn Head, over six hundred feet high. This headland somewhat resembles in shape a double horn, bordered on one side by the inlet of Sheephaven, though on the other the coast trends away to the south. The cliffs present a magnificent spectacle of precipitous descents, shelving masses of rock and yawning caverns lashed by the furious waves of the Atlantic. The view from the summit of the head is one of boundless ocean, broken only on the northwest by the islands of Inishbeg, Inishdooey, Inishbofin, and Tory, and on the northeast by the different headlands of this rugged coast--_i. e._, Melmore, Rinmore, Fanet, Dunaff, and Malin heads, while on the east is seen in the distance the little island of Inishtrahull. As we drove down from the head, a drizzling rain began to fall and we were glad to reach the shelter of the hotel and fortify the inner man by a substantial dinner. At this stage in our tour we were quite undecided as to our route. We did not like to give up a visit to Glen Veigh, Gartan lakes and the "Poisoned Glen," as these are considered the finest things of their kind in Ireland, but finally decided that a détour which would cost us two days of driving would be impossible, owing to pressure of time; so after sleeping another night in Dunfanaghy, we pressed on to Fallcarragh. Inasmuch, however, as I often visited and fished in these glens and lakes, I may be pardoned for attempting to give the reader a short description of their principal features. Lough Veigh lies to the east of the Derryveigh Mountains, occupying the opening to Glen Veigh. It is a long, narrow sheet of water; on the north side, and running into it, a rocky, almost perpendicular, wall rises to over twelve hundred feet, covered with Alpine vegetation. Over the top of this wall several large streams fall and break into cascades as they find their way to the lake below. Back of this and framing the whole, rises the majestic Dooish, the highest ridge in the Derryveigh range, standing two thousand one hundred and forty-seven feet above the tide. In old times I have counted a dozen eagles that built their nests on the topmost crags overhanging the water, their majestic, circling flights giving life and interest to the scene. The south side is a steep hill on which grow in riotous profusion the wild rose, bracken, creeping plants, ferns, lichen, moss, the primrose, the bluebell, the yellow gorse, and hazel; while in trees, it abounds in the gray birch, mountain-ash, larch, yew, juniper, white hawthorn, and laburnums with their glorious rain of gold--a mass of teeming harmonies and contrasts. But by far the finest display is its panoply of purple heather, which in some places reaches a height of ten feet; nowhere else can such heather be found. This is the beauty spot of Ireland; the lower part of the lake equals the best bit of Killarney, while the upper reaches of the glen surpass it in grandeur; it is indeed the wildest mountain-pass in Ireland. It may be described as, one might say, a salad of scenic loveliness, made up of countless varieties of color, form, and garniture; for I could pick out parts of it that resemble spots I have seen at the base of the Himalaya Mountains in India, and others where I have noticed a similarity to some places I visited near the Hot Springs of Hakone, in Japan. A comparison with the Trosachs of Scotland will result in no reflection on Glen Veigh; in fact, there is a close resemblance between them, and I cannot do better than quote Sir Walter Scott's celebrated description in _The Lady of the Lake_. Sir Walter, the greatest word painter of them all, the wizard of the pen, the man who could pick the magic word and almost paint a scene with it: "The western waves of ebbing day Rolled o'er the glen their level way; Each purple peak, each flinty spire, Was bathed in floods of living fire. But not a setting beam could glow Within the dark ravines below, Where twined the path in shadow hid, Round many a rocky pyramid, Shooting abruptly from the dell Its thunder-splintered pinnacle; Round many an insulated mass, The native bulwarks of the pass. The rocky summits, split and rent, Formed turret, dome, or battlement Or seemed fantastically set With cupola or minaret, Wild crests as pagod ever deck'd, Or mosque of Eastern architect. Nor were these earth-born castles bare, Nor lacked they many a banner fair; For, from their shivered brows displayed, Far o'er the unfathomable glade, All twinkling with the dew-drop sheen, The brier-rose fell in streamers green; And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes, Waved in the west wind's summer sighs. "Boon nature scatter'd free and wild, Each plant or flower, the mountain's child. Here eglantine embalm'd the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale and violet flower, Found in each clift a narrow bower; Foxglove and nightshade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Group'd their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain. With boughs that quaked at every breath, Gray birch and aspen wept beneath; Aloft, the ash and withe of oak Cast anchor in the rifted rock; And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung His shattered trunk, and frequent flung, Where seem'd the cliffs to meet on high, His boughs athwart the narrow'd sky. Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, Where glist'ning streamers waved and danced, The wanderer's eye could barely view The summer heaven's delicious blue; So wondrous wild, the whole might seem The scenery of a fairy dream." The "Poisoned Glen" lies to the southwest, and is a startling contrast to Glen Veigh. It has no vegetation of any kind, and is a weird, savage cañon ending in a _cul-de-sac_. It looks uncanny and forbidding, and seems as though it might be possessed, giving the visitor a creepy feeling as he drives through its gloomy defiles. No animal or bird is ever seen within its confines, as its barren sides will not support life in any form. Gartan Lough is seen a few miles to the south. It is celebrated for its fine views and its fishing, and as the birthplace of St. Columba, who was born just where a ruined chapel now stands and which was originally erected, it is said, to mark the spot. St. Patrick made a pilgrimage to this place in 450 A.D.. Twenty-three thousand acres, covering Lough and Glen Veigh and the Gartan lakes, were originally owned by the Marshall brothers, one of whom, John, was brother-in-law to the writer. Owing to the agricultural depression of the times, the Marshalls could not collect their rents, and rather than evict their tenants they sold the estate to Mr. J. G. Adair. Mr. Adair had visited the place and become so enthusiastic about it that he not only bought it but built a splendid castle near the lake and constructed an imposing avenue, eight miles long, of which he was very proud. Soon afterwards he stood for a seat in Parliament, as a tenant-right candidate. Notwithstanding his politics, he had troubles with the tenantry, his manager and one of the shepherds being killed in one of the numerous affrays that occurred on the property. Conditions went from bad to worse, till at length Mr. Adair decided to clear his estate of tenantry by evicting them. Upon this, such strenuous resistance and threats were made that the matter attracted public attention and became a source of anxiety to the British government; so troops were sent down with tents and military equipments, and after a time a general eviction took place. The tenants had no means of support, and national sympathy went out to them. Finally, the government of Victoria offered to take all of them out to Australia, free of charge, and as most of them accepted the offer, this closed the unfortunate incident. Personally, Mr. Adair was a gracious and upright man, but he contended, as a matter of principle, that he owned the land and could do as he liked with it. This was precisely the same ground that Mr. Morgan took when being examined in New York recently on the witness-stand, with regard to his connection with American trusts. Since Mr. Adair's death, his wife has resided at the castle a part of each year, and has recently entertained some eminent personages there, as the following item from the Londonderry _Sentinel_ of September 13th will show: "Lord Kitchener and the distinguished party forming the guests of Mrs. Adair at Glenveigh Castle have enjoyed an excellent week's sport. Several fine stags have been killed in the deer-forest. There was a very successful rabbit-shoot at Gartan on Wednesday. On Thursday, Lord Brassey's famous yacht _Sunbeam_, which has been at Londonderry since Monday, left for Lough Swilly, and yesterday the house-party embarked for a cruise round Horn Head. The house-party consisted of the following: Lord Kitchener, Lord and Lady Brassey, the Duchess of St. Albans and Lady Alice Beauclerk, Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, the official historian of the voyage of the _Ophir_; Lady de l'Isle, Captain Arthur Campbell, Captain Butler, and the Duke and Duchess of Connaught. The departing guests were conveyed to the _Sunbeam_ and to the railway station in Mrs. Adair's powerful motor car." [Illustration: GLEN VEIGH, COUNTY DONEGAL] FALLCARRAGH TO GWEEDORE We are now on the road to Fallcarragh, seven miles distant, and we pass his Majesty's mail, northbound from Letterkenny, a crimson car loaded with mail-bags and luggage, and a driver wearing a bright-yellow sou'wester. Everything was drenched and the horse in a steaming lather--truly a novel sight for a denizen of Broadway. Fallcarragh is the place from which you take a boat to visit Tory Island, some eight miles out in the Atlantic. It has been called "the Sentinel of the Atlantic," and it is well named, being the first land one sees when nearing Ireland. Its name means "the island of towers," and it looked from the deck of the _Columbia_ as though it had been built up by some titanic race of old. It did not seem to us that it could be of much value, but it was considered important enough to fight for in the early days "when giants were in the land." The _Book of Ballymote_ states that it was possessed by the Fomorians, a race of pirates and giants who inhabited Ireland twelve centuries before the Christian era. Their chief was "Balor of the Mighty Blows," and two of the rocks on the east coast of the island are called "Balor's Castle" and "Balor's Prison." One of their number, named Conaing, erected a tower on the island, as recorded in the _Book of Lecan_: "The Tower of the Island, the Island of the Tower, The citadel of Conaing, the son of Foebar." It contains a portion of a round tower, built of undressed boulders of red granite. It was never more than about forty feet in height, is seventeen feet two inches in diameter, and the walls at the base are four feet three inches thick; the doorway is five and a half feet high and is eight feet from the ground. There are also ruins of two churches (a monastery having been founded here by St. Columba), and a peculiar tau-cross. On the northwest end of the island is a fine light-house, illumined by gas, and it has also a fog-siren and a group-flashing light; it stands a hundred and thirty feet above high-water. Near it is the new signal station of Lloyd's, which is in telegraphic communication with Dunfanaghy. There are a chapel, school-house, and post-office also on the island. The rock scenery of the northeast coast is very fine and characteristic; the southwest coast is low and flat, and fringed with treacherous rocks. It was here that the gunboat _Wasp_ was wrecked on the 22d of September, 1884, and all its crew except six drowned. Fishing is the chief industry, and the islanders are good fishermen, pursuing their avocation now chiefly in Norway yawls instead of "curraghs." The Congested Districts Board have aided the inhabitants by supplying these vessels, the cost to be repaid by small instalments, also in building a curing station and teaching the people how to cure fish. Quantities of lobsters and crabs are caught, and a Sligo steamer calls once a week for fish. There is a lack of fuel, which has to be supplied from the main-land. The inhabitants have paid no rents since the loss of the _Wasp_, which was sent to enforce payment or evict the tenants. St. Columba, the patron saint of the place, is reported to have landed here in a curragh. From Fallcarragh you get a fine view of Muckish, with its twenty-two hundred feet of altitude. While not the highest mountain in the Donegal highlands, Muckish is longer and of greater bulk than any of its rivals, and is also more imposing. Its name in Irish means "a pig's back," which it very much resembles. Here is Ballyconnell House, seat of Wybrants Olphert, Esq., where the "Plan of Campaign" was originated, so well known in connection with the landlord and tenant troubles in Ireland. [Illustration: A TURF BOG] We now took the shore-road through a district known as Cloughaneely, where English is rarely spoken and we had to make our way by signs, spending a few minutes en route at a national school and hearing them teach the children both Irish and English. Continuing, we passed close to Bloody Foreland, a head one thousand and fifty feet high, so called because of its ruddy color. Arriving at Bunbeg, we stopped to feed the horse and take some lunch ourselves, and then "made play" for the Gweedore Hotel. Our road took us past the spot where Inspector Martin was clubbed to death when executing a warrant for the arrest of the Rev. James McFadden, P.P., in February, 1889, in connection with the Gweedore evictions. GWEEDORE TO GLENTIES The Gweedore is a famous inn, built over fifty years ago by Lord George Hill on the river Clady; it has held its supremacy as a centre for salmon-fishing and grouse-shooting for half a century. The guests supplied the table so bountifully with fish in the early days that the writer has recollections, as a boy, of thinking that scales were growing on his back after having been at the hotel for a week. Many celebrities have fished and shot there--Thackeray, Dickens, Lord Palmerston, Carlyle, and a host of others have had their feet under its mahogany and have looked out of its windows at Errigal, popularly known as the "peerless cone," the base of which is not over a mile distant. This mountain rises to a height of two thousand four hundred and sixty-six feet, scarred and naked to its peak. Slieve Snaght, two thousand two hundred and forty feet, is another fine peak near it. The name of Lord George Hill, the late proprietor of the estate, is so thoroughly identified with that of Gweedore that it will not be amiss to retail a few facts concerning him. He first settled in this part of the country in 1838, purchasing twenty-three thousand acres in the parish of Tullaghobegly, which he found in a state of distress and want so great that it became the subject of a parliamentary inquiry. Although there appeared to have been a considerable amount of exaggeration in the statements made, enough remained to show that famine, pestilence and ignorance were lamentably prevalent. The prospects of the landlord were far from encouraging, on account of the stony nature of the ground, the severity of the climate, and the difficulty of collecting his rent; but, more than all, the extraordinary though miserable system of rundale, which was universal throughout the district. By this arrangement a parcel of land was divided and subdivided into an incredible number of small holdings, in which the tenant very likely held his proportion or share in thirty or forty different places, which had no fences or walls whatever to mark them. The utter confusion and the hopelessness of each tenant's being able to know his own land, much less to plant or look after it, may well be imagined. And not only to land was this system applied, but also to portable property. With much perseverance and many struggles, Lord George Hill gradually changed the face of things. He overcame and altered the rundale system, improved the land, built schools, a church, and a large store at Bunbeg, made roads, established a post-office, and, what is perhaps of more importance to the traveler, a hotel. He took a direct and personal interest in the good management of the hotel and in the comfort of the guests who patronized it, frequently stopping at the house himself, dining and spending the evening with them. Since his death, in 1879, the hotel has kept up its traditional reputation for comfort and general good management. Carlyle visited Lord Hill at Gweedore in 1849, and this is the way in which he described his host afterwards: "A handsome, grave-smiling man of fifty or more; thick, grizzled hair; elegant nose; low, cooing voice; military composure and absence of loquacity; a man you love at first sight." This was indeed high praise from a man of Carlyle's cantankerous temper. Lord Hill was so popular with his tenantry that when his horse broke down they would take the animal out of the shafts, fasten ropes to the car, and pull it home triumphantly with the owner seated in state, no matter how many miles they had to cover. He was a most courteous and obliging man. I well remember how, in the early sixties, he walked a considerable distance and took particular pains to show me the best fishing spots on the river. They tell a joke at the hotel, on an English dude who asked Pat, the gillie, "Aw, my good man, do you mind telling me what--aw--sort of fish you catch here?" "Well, to tell ye the truth," was Pat's quick reply, "ye niver can tell till yez pulls 'em out!" There was a big fishing crowd there, and when I announced at dinner that it was more than forty years since I had sat at that table and fished in the river, they all doffed their caps to me--metaphorically--and gave me more salmon and other good things than I could eat or drink. We hadn't time to fish, and so we pushed on next day through the Rosses district, with all its innumerable fresh-water lakes and salt-water inlets. So intermingled were they that it was hard to decide which was which, and we finally got to know that where wrack grew on the shore the water was salt and connected somewhere with the sea. We stopped at Dunlow for lunch and then descended into the Gweebarra River valley and crossed the large, new steel bridge of that name, erected by the Congested Districts Board to give the people employment on that and the roads connecting with it at both ends. The way lies through an untamably wild country, but with such constant and shifting panorama of mountain scenery that the attention is never fatigued. You see in review the Dunlewy Mountains, Slieve Snaght, Errigal, Dooish, and the Derryveigh chains; in fact, if the weather is fine--and it all depends on that--there is scarcely such another mountain view in the kingdom. The head of Gweebarra Bay, where the river joins it, is a queer-looking place; we skirted its shores for miles and enjoyed its peculiarities. When the tide is out the water is of a seal-brown color, due to the peat; when it is in, the color is bright green. Where the tides meet is a mixture of both colors, and frequently some of the shallows, side by side, will be of either brown or green, making a checkered appearance. While all this is going on, water-falls from the hillsides pour their brown waters into the bay and very often into pools of green. This phenomenon, in connection with the pleasing picture formed by the numerous small islands which dot the surrounding waters, makes it well worth while to wait and witness the tide in its changing stages. [Illustration: NATIVES OF COUNTY DONEGAL] We finished our twenty-five mile drive in an hour or so, and put up for the night at O'Donnell's, Glenties. GLENTIES TO CARRICK In some Irish hotels they set apart a room for the drummers to write and eat in, at lower prices than the public tariff, and this is as sacred ground as a Hindoo temple; for an ordinary personage to desecrate it by his presence is simply an unpardonable crime and is resented by the drummers accordingly. The doors are not always marked, and so it happened that I innocently wandered into this "reserved" room in the O'Donnell Hotel at Glenties and began to write a letter. I had hardly got as far as "Dear Sir," when the intrusion was noticed and promptly reported to the proprietor, who came in and apologetically asked me, "What line are ye in, sur?" to which I promptly responded, "Selling Power's Irish whiskey." He reported my vocation to "the committee," all were satisfied and I was allowed to finish my letter. Afterwards Mr. O'Donnell came to me and said with a wink: "It's all right, Mr. Bayne; your bluff went through with the boys, but 'tis my private opinion that ye're buyin' more whiskey than ye're sellin'." Next morning when the sun rose we were off for Carrick, a scenery and ruin centre, the forts, etc., dating back to the sixth century. This was a favorite resort of Sir Frederick Leighton, the artist, who frequently spent his summers there. We took a noon rest at Ardara and then pushed on to complete our twenty-eight miles. Before reaching Carrick we traversed the Glengesh Pass, a deep and beautiful ravine, "with verdure clad," the hills on both sides rising one thousand six hundred and fifty feet above sea level, their slopes ornamented with many water-falls, all joining to make up a brawling stream which rushed headlong down the valley. Altogether the place was a most charming one. The pass was four miles long, and poor Bob could not make it with the load, so we got off and climbed the road on foot, while he fed and followed us with the empty car up the steep incline. We nursed him into Carrick, but he had to have a rest, and after getting it his owner drove him home. And so we parted with John, our worthy Jehu, and his good nag, Bob, both of whom had helped us well along on our pilgrimage. As we were approaching Glengesh, we met a young Donegal girl on the road. She was dressed in black serge, and, although her feet were bare, her figure was erect and her carriage very graceful. She swung along the road with charming abandon, and might have shone at a "drawing-room" in Dublin Castle, the embodiment, the quintessence of unconscious grace. CARRICK TO DONEGAL We put up at the Glencolumbkille Hotel in Carrick. Here we hired a new car, with a stout, white horse to draw it, which took us to the base of Bunglass Head and waited for our return. It is a hard climb of over three miles to reach the summit, over rocks, bog, and heather, but we were well rewarded for our trouble. Bunglass fills the rôle of a grand-stand, as it were, from which you get a good view of Slieve League Mountain, whose base rises abruptly out of the sea, which breaks against it with great violence. We had heard that the golden eagle builds its nests on this headland, but we did not succeed in finding any of the birds, and concluded that they had flown over to see King Edward's coronation. A view of singular magnificence here bursts upon you--a view that of its kind is probably unequalled, in the British Isles. The lofty mountain of Slieve League gives on the land side no promise of the magnificence that it presents from the sea, being in fact, a mural precipice of one thousand nine hundred and seventy-two feet in height, descending to the water's edge in one superb escarpment, " ... around Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves, Bursting and eddying irresistibly, Rage and resound forever." And not only in its height is it so sublime, but in the glorious colors which are grouped in masses on its face. Stains of metals--green, amber, gold, yellow, white, red--and every variety of shade are observable, particularly when seen under a bright sun, contrasting in a wonderful manner with the dark-blue waters beneath. In cloudy or stormy weather this peculiarity is to a certain degree lost, though other effects take its place and render it even more magnificent. This range of sea-cliff extends with little variation all the way to Marlin, though at nothing like the same altitude. Having feasted our eyes on the beauties of the precipices, we then ascended, skirting the cliffs the whole way. Near the summit the escarpment cuts off the land slope so suddenly as to leave only a sharp edge with a fearful precipice of above fifteen hundred feet on the side towards the sea, and a steep slope on the landward side. This ledge is termed the "One Man's Path," and is looked on by the inhabitants of the neighborhood in the same light as the Striding Edge of Helvellyn, or the Bwlch-y-Maen of Snowdon. There is a narrow track or ledge on the land slope a little below this edge, facetiously called "The _Old_ Man's Path" by the guides. At the very summit are the remains of the ancient oratory of St. Hugh McBreacon. The view is wonderfully fine; southward is the whole coast of Sligo and Mayo, from Benbulbin to the Stags of Broadhaven; while farther in the distance are faintly seen Nephin, near Ballina, and Croagh Patrick Mountain at Westport. Northward is a perfect sea of Donegal mountains, reaching as far as Slieve Snaght and Errigal, with all the intervening ranges near Ardara, Glenties, and Dunloe. [Illustration: A TURF CREEL, CARRICK, COUNTY DONEGAL] Coming down was almost as bad as going up had been, but we finally reached our car and were driven home for a late dinner. On the way we were shown the place where Prince Charlie the Pretender embarked when he fled from the English forces. DONEGAL TO BALLYSHANNON Next morning, in a blinding rain, we got up behind a stout, black horse, driven by Charley, a conversational soloist of unrivaled garrulity, who under these conditions told us entirely too much about Fin McCool's and Red Hugh's feats and what they did to their neighbors. We passed through Killybegs, but our destination was Donegal (town), and after we reached it we discharged Charley, took dinner, and aired ourselves round the city, taking what base-ball players call a "stretch." The principal objects of interest here are the ruined abbey and the castle of the O'Donnells. The monastery was founded for Franciscan friars in 1474 by Hugh Roe O'Donnell and his wife, Fingalla, daughter of Conor O'Brien of Thomond, and in it they were both buried. His son, Hugh Oge, finally took the habit of St. Francis, and was buried here in 1537. Red Hugh O'Donnell having taken up arms against the English, his brother-in-law, Niall Garbh, sided with them and took possession of the monastery. It was besieged by O'Donnell, and during the siege some barrels of gunpowder which had been stored took fire and the explosion destroyed the building. Red Hugh, after the fiasco of the Spanish landing at Kinsale, to which he went, sailed to Spain for further assistance and died there at the early age of twenty-eight, being buried in Valladolid. Niall Garbh, having lost the confidence of the English, was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and died after eighteen years of captivity. The O'Donnells, or Cinel Conall, were descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, who became king of Ireland in 379 A.D.. Of his sons, Eoghan, or Owen, was ancestor of the O'Neills, and Conall Gulban of the O'Donnells. The country of the former was called Tir Eoghan (Tyrone), or Owen's territory, and extended over the eastern part of Donegal and the counties of Tyrone and Londonderry. The peninsula of Inishowen also received its name from him. Tyrconnell, the territory of Conall, extended over County Donegal. Between these races, bound together as they were by common descent and frequent intermarriages, wars were of constant occurrence through many generations. [Illustration: DONEGAL CASTLE] The Cathach of the O'Donnells is a _cumhdach_, or box, made, as its inscription says, by Cathbhar O'Donnell towards the end of the eleventh century. It contains a portion of the Psalms in Latin, said to have been written by St. Columba and which led to the battle of Drumcliff and his subsequent exile to Iona. It was carried by a priest three times in front of the troops of the O'Donnells before a contest, hence its name, "The Battler." The silver case enclosing the box was made by Colonel O'Donnell in 1723. It was presented by the late Sir Richard O'Donnell to the Royal Irish Academy, where it now is. Either in the monastery or in some building near it were compiled, between 1632 and 1636, the famous _Annals of Donegal_, better known under the title of the _Annals of the Four Masters_--Michael and Cucogry O'Clery, Fearfeasa O'Mulconry, and Cucogry O'Duigenan. The object of this compilation was to detail the history of Ireland up to the time in which they lived, including all local events, such as the foundation and destruction of churches and castles, the deaths of remarkable persons, the inaugurations of kings, the battles of chiefs, the contests of clans, etc. A book consisting of eleven hundred quarto pages, beginning with the year 2242 B.C., and ending with the year 1616 A.D., thus covering the immense space of nearly four thousand years of a nation's history, must be dry and meagre of details in some, if not in all, parts of it. And although the learned compilers had at their disposal or within their reach an immense mass of historic details, still the circumstances under which they wrote were so unfavorable that they appear to have exercised a sound discretion and one consistent with the economy of time and of their resources when they left the details of the very early history of Ireland in the safekeeping of such ancient original records as had from remote ages preserved them, and collected as much as they could make room for of the events of more modern times, particularly those eventful days in which they themselves lived. This interesting record, which was originally written in native Irish, has in later times been translated by Mr. Eugene O'Curry, who has given to the world of general literature a very able translation of this monumental work. BALLYSHANNON TO SLIGO With a fresh horse we started for Ballyshannon, some fifteen miles ahead of us. The surrounding country was interesting and appeared to be prosperous, containing many fine seats, the great feature of which was their magnificent timber. Ballyshannon seems a busy town, with two thousand five hundred inhabitants. Its castle, of which scarcely any traces remain, belongs to the O'Donnells and was the scene of a disastrous defeat of the English under Sir Convers Clifford in 1597. The castle was besieged with vigor for three days and an attempt made to sap the walls, but the garrison having made a desperate sally, the English retreated in haste, and, pursued by Hugh Roe O'Donnell, they lost a great portion of their force in an unsuccessful attempt to cross the Erne. The two portions of the town, the lower one of which is called the Port, are connected by a bridge of twelve arches about four hundred yards above the celebrated falls, where an enormous body of water is precipitated over a cliff some thirty feet high and ten feet above high-water, with a noise that is perfectly deafening. This is the scene of the "salmon-leap." The salmon that come down the river in the autumn return again in the spring months, and this can only be accomplished by ascending the falls. Traps with funnel-shaped entrances are placed in different parts of the falls, in which the salmon are caught, and taken out for market as required. Between the traps are intervals through which the fish can reach the top of the falls by leaping, and as at low water the spring is about sixteen feet, the scene is singularly interesting. Below the falls is the island of Inis-Saimer, on which are buildings connected with the fishery. The fishery is very valuable, and is owned by Messrs. Moore & Alexander. On the bridge is a tablet to William Allingham (1824-1889), a native of Ballyshannon. I give Allingham's own description of his home; it can hardly be surpassed in the English language for simple, graceful, and yet direct diction. I also quote a few lines from a poem he wrote before he sailed for America; they are not Miltonian in their style, but Milton could not have touched the spot as he did. "The little old town where I was born has a voice of its own, low, solemn, persistent, humming through the air day and night, summer and winter. Whenever I think of that town I seem to hear the voice. The river which makes it rolls over rocky ledges into the tide. Before spreads a great ocean in sunshine or storm; behind stretches a many-islanded lake. On the south runs a wavy line of blue mountains; and on the north, over green, rocky hills, rise peaks of a more distant range. The trees hide in glens, or cluster near the river; gray rocks and boulders lie scattered about the windy pastures. The sky arches wide over all, giving room to multitudes of stars by night and long processions of clouds blown from the sea, but also, in the childish memory where these pictures live, to deeps of celestial blue in the endless days of summer. An odd, out-of-the-way little town ours, on the extreme western verge of Europe, our next neighbors, sunset way, being citizens of the great new republic which, indeed, to our imagination seemed little, if at all, farther off than England in the opposite direction." "Adieu to Ballyshannon! where I was bred and born; Go where I may, I'll think of you, as sure as night and morn; The kindly spot, the friendly town, where every one is known, And not a face in all the place but partly seems my own. There's not a house or window, there's not a field or hill, But, east or west, in foreign lands, I'll recollect them still. I leave my warm heart with you, tho' my back I'm forced to turn, So adieu to Ballyshannon and the winding banks of Erne! "Farewell, Coolmore--Bundoran! and your summer crowds that run From inland homes to see with joy th' Atlantic setting sun; To breathe the buoyant salted air, and sport among the waves; To gather shells on sandy beach and tempt the gloomy caves; To watch the flowing, ebbing tide, the boats, the crabs, the fish; Young men and maids to meet and smile, and form a tender wish; The sick and old in search of health, for all things have their turn-- And I must quit my native shore and the winding banks of Erne!" Near here are the ruins of Kilbarron Castle, an ancient fortress of the O'Clerys, a family renowned in their day for their skill in science, poetry, and history, of whom was Father Michael O'Clery, the leader of the illustrious quartet of the "Four Masters." It stands on a precipitous rock at the very edge of the coast. [Illustration: SALMON-LEAP, BALLYSHANNON, COUNTY DONEGAL] In the vicinity of Ballyshannon can be seen Ballymacward Castle, which was built during the famine of 1739. This was the home of the "Colleen Bawn," famous in song and story, who was one of the Ffolliott girls, and eloped with Willy Reilly. Now we are on the road to Bundoran, and we had hardly cleared the skirts of Ballyshannon before it began to rain so hard that even had old Noah been with us he could not have bragged much about the Flood. It came in at our collars and went out at our boots. Our new driver could not be induced to say a single word except yes or no; he was neither a historian, a botanist, nor a geologist, and he took no interest whatever in ruins; but we forgave him for all these shortcomings, for he drove his horse steadily onward through the torrent with an unswerving perseverance that covered a multitude of sins. When we arrived at Bundoran's fashionable watering-place hotel, The Irish Highlands, the guests received us with shouts of laughter, in which we good-humoredly joined. No more weary pilgrims ever drew rein at inn in such a sorry plight. Our clothes were dried during the night, and with a new steed we started for Sligo. It was clear weather and we had a pleasant ride along the coast-line. The feature of the day was skirting the base of Benbulbin for about seven miles. This is a most peculiar mountain, almost eighteen hundred feet high. Its base starts in with patches of yellow and sage-green verdure, then turns to streams of broken rocks. From these, regular pillars of stone start like the pipes of an organ, which can be seen for fifty miles, these again being covered by a flat crown of green growth. The whole looks like a vast temple in India. A large water-fall, consisting of three separate cascades, cuts its side and adds greatly to its beauty and attractiveness. We passed through the village of Drumcliff, situated on the bank of the river of the same name which here enters Drumcliff Bay from Glencar Lake. A monastery was founded here by St. Columba, the site for which was given in 575, and it was made into a bishop's see, afterwards united to Elphin. This village was anciently called "Drumcliff of the Crosses," and of the remains of these the "Great Cross" is a fine example. It is thirteen feet high and three feet eight inches across the arms, which are connected by the usual circular segments. It is of hard sandstone and consists of three sections, the base, shaft, and top. It is highly sculptured, showing human figures, animals, and fine, interlaced scrollwork. There is also the stump of a round tower, about forty feet high, of rude masonry of the earliest group. The door is square-headed, six feet from the ground, and the walls are three feet thick. [Illustration: GOING TO THE BOG FOR TURF, BUNDORAN, COUNTY DONEGAL] Near Drumcliff was fought a great battle in 561, arising out of a quarrel over the possession of a copy of a Latin Psalter made by St. Columba from one borrowed of St. Finnian, of Moville. St. Finnian claimed the copy, and the case was brought before Dermot, King of Meath, who decided, Brehon fashion, that as "to every cow belongs its calf, so to every book belongs its copy," a judgment from which St. Columba appealed to his tribe. The party of St. Columba was victorious, three thousand of the men of Meath being slain. St. Columba was advised by St. Molaise to go to Scotland and convert the pagans as penance for the blood he had shed, which he did, and founded a missionary establishment in Iona. Lord Palmerston took a great interest in this part of the country, laying out plantations in 1842 and building a harbor, which we saw from the car. It cost him over £20,000. While riding along we noticed a tower on a distant hill, and said to the driver, "Is that a _round_ tower?" "Yis, sur." "Are you sure it's round?" "Yis, sur, I am; it's square it is." SLIGO TO BALLINROBE We finally reached Sligo; and Sligo is quite a place, both historically and commercially. It has a population of 10,274, and is an important seaport town in close neighborhood to scenery such as falls to the lot of very few business towns. It is remarkably well situated in the centre of a richly wooded plain, encircled on all sides, save that of the sea, by high mountains, the ascent of which commences within three to four miles of the town, while on one side of it is Lough Gill, almost equal in beauty to any lake in Ireland, and on the other a wide and sheltered bay. Connection between the two is maintained by the broad river Garrogue, which issues from Lough Gill and empties itself, after a course of nearly three miles, into Sligo Bay. It is crossed by two bridges, joining the parish of St. John with that of Calry on the north bank. Steamers ply regularly between this town and Glasgow and Liverpool. Sligo attained some importance as early as 1245 as the residence of Maurice Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, who there founded a castle and monastery. The castle played an important part in the struggles of the English against the Irish chiefs in the thirteenth century and subsequently, in which the rival O'Conors and O'Donnells were mainly concerned. Sligo suffered in the massacres of 1641, when it was taken by Sir Frederick Hamilton and the abbey burned. The Parliamentary troops, under Sir Charles Coote, took it in 1645 after a battle in which the Irish were defeated and the warlike Archbishop of Tuam, Malachy O'Kelly, was killed. In the great abbey, which is now a fine ruin, is the grave of Patrick Beolan, who did not "give in," as they say in Ireland, till he had reached the age of one hundred and forty-four. While at Sligo we met the brother of Lieutenant Henn (owner of the _Galatea_, and who tried to lift the cup with her some years ago). This man is a local judge and a very pleasant and entertaining gentleman, reminding us greatly of his late brother, whose estate he inherited. [Illustration: LORD ARDILAUN'S CASTLE, CONG, COUNTY MAYO] BALLINROBE TO LEENANE Our next points were Claremorris and Ballinrobe. They were not interesting, so we took a car to Cong, a very ancient place lying on the neck of land which separates Lough Corrib from Lough Mask. St. Fechin, of Fore, founded a church here in 624, and it is at this place that Lord Ardilaun has his castle, a large building on the shores of Lough Corrib, surrounded by an immense park, with fine timber, Italian sunken gardens, and a pheasantry. In the gardens, in luxuriant profusion, countless varieties of rare plants, gigantic palms, delicate ferns, are as much at home as in their native tropics, carefully nurtured in a climate tempered to their necessities, soft and balmy from the influence of the Gulf Stream. Lord Ardilaun has many other attractions besides these at Ashford Castle--_i. e._, steam-yachts, watch-towers, conservatories, stables, a salmon-river, game-preserves, and large herds of red and fallow deer, not to mention the Augustinian monastery built by the king-monk Roderic O'Conor in the twelfth century. He was the last Irish king, and lived the concluding fifteen years of his life within these walls as a monk, in the strictest seclusion; he died in 1198, aged eighty-two. The Cross of Cong, which was made for Tuam, was brought here, it is thought, by Roderic O'Conor. It measures two and a half feet high, one foot six and three-quarter inches across arms, and one and three-quarter inches thick. It is made of oak plated with copper, and covered with the most beautiful gold tracery of Celtic pattern. In the centre of the arms is a large crystal; thirteen of the original eighteen jewels remain, set along the edges of shaft and arms, while eleven of those which were set down the centre of arms and shaft and round the crystal are lost. It was found by the Rev. P. Prendergast early in the present century in a chest in the village, and after his death it was purchased by Professor MacCullagh for one hundred guineas, and presented to the Royal Irish Academy. [Illustration: CONG ABBEY, COUNTY MAYO] Loughs Mask and Corrib are connected by an underground river, as the porous nature of the rock will not permit the water to flow on the surface. We went down thirty feet into the "pigeon-hole," which is near the castle, to see the flow of water through the ground. The arrangements for seeing this place might truly be called hospitality in a high form, as everything is shown and nothing expected in return for the courtesy. The solicitude of the old gate-keeper for our welfare was particularly marked, for when we returned to the gate after a very peaceful inspection, he doffed his hat and exclaimed, "Glory be to God, yer honors have returned safe and in good health, too, I see!" During the Irish famine an attempt was made to dig a canal connecting the lakes, so as to give the people something to do, and an enormous amount of money was sunk in the project. The rocky bed absorbed the water, however, as fast as it flowed in, and the enterprise proved an utter failure. Every visitor asks what it is when he sees it. It is called "The Great Blunder." LEENANE TO RECESS Next morning, with new car, horse, and driver, we put off for Leenane, twenty-seven miles away. We drove along the banks of Lough Mask, with its groups of small, wooded islands, and left it to take the road along Lough Nafooey, a very picturesque drive. After some hours of driving, we put up at McKeown's Hotel in Leenane. "Mac" is a Pooh-Bah, a tall, strapping young Irishman, a "six-foot-twoer," with an intermittent laugh that takes most of the sting out of his hotel bills, and he holds the complimentary title of "The Major." He runs an up-to-date hotel, is postmaster, owns a store, has all the mail-posting contracts, rents salmon and trout rivers and lakes, ships salmon to London, and owns ten thousand acres of shooting-land stocked with grouse, hares, snipe, duck, and cock, which he lets to visitors, as well as seal shooting on the bay. He also owns a sheep mountain, from which he serves mutton to his guests in all the ways that mankind has ever known since sheep were first slaughtered for food. We had on succeeding days, as part of the menu, roast mutton (hot and cold), stewed lamb, boiled leg, roast saddle, minced lamb, mutton cutlets, broiled kidneys, lamb chops, Irish stew, suet-pudding, sweetbreads, French chops, sheep's-head, and mutton broth. We fancied we could detect wool growing on the palms of our hands when we left the hotel, and could have forgiven "Mac" if we could only have found it starting on the tops of our heads instead. At another hotel in a fishing centre we had an aquarium style of living, which in time became monotonous: they served up in the course of time for our delectation, salmon boiled and salmon broiled, cold salmon, salmon steak, salmon croquettes, salmon cutlets, and stewed salmon, intersticed with white trout, black trout, yellow trout, brown trout, sea trout, speckled trout, and gillaroo. But at Recess they combined such things with chops, duck, green pease, lobster, and Irish sole right out of the nearby sea. All hail, Recess! And long life to Polly, the peach-cheeked waitress who served us so nimbly! Next morning we crossed Killary Bay in a boat, and while doing so we noticed that the captain held his leg in a very constrained position. We asked him if it was stiff, or if he was troubled with rheumatism. "No; to tell your honor the truth, there's a hole in the boat, an' I'm jist kapin' me heel in it to save her from sinkin'." After landing we drove to Delphi to see its lake and woods; then on to Lough Dhu, a long sheet of water from the banks of which the mountains rise to a height of twenty-five hundred feet. Delphi is one of the loveliest spots in Connemara, but we can hardly go as far as the enthusiastic Englishman who wrote: "It may be safely said that if Connemara contained no other beauty, Delphi alone would be worth the journey from London, for the sake of the mountain scenery." Delphi House formerly belonged to the Marquis of Sligo, and at one time he lived there. We returned by driving round the head of the bay, with a horse that would have retarded a funeral procession. Within a mile of the hotel there is a double echo, which we tested by loud whistling on our fingers. After crossing the bay, the echo came back to us with great strength, striking our side of the mountain again and thus making a second echo. [Illustration: WATER-FALL IN THE MARQUIS OF SLIGO'S DEMESNE, WESTPORT, COUNTY MAYO] On the morning before we left, I lay in bed half asleep, and, as the bedrooms in the west of Ireland rarely have any locks on their doors, our confidential "boots" stole quietly into the room and, looking at me, soliloquized in a tender tone, suggestive of a tip if I should hear him: "Sure, his honor is slapin' loike a baby, an' 'twould be nothin' short of a crime to wake him up this wet mornin'; I haven't the heart to do it." And he walked out of the room with his eye on the future. The following day we "took in" the Killaries, as they are called. This is a long arm of the sea, surrounded by high, bold mountains, clothed with very green verdure to their tops. It is a wonderful fiord, which has scarcely any parallel in the British Isles and much resembles the coast scenery in Norway. Capacious and fit for the largest ships, it runs inland to the very heart of the mountains for a distance of some nine miles. The mountain scenery on the north of the fiord is incomparably the finest, the enormous walls of Mweelrea, the "Giant of the West," and Bengorm rising abruptly to the height of two thousand six hundred and eighty-eight feet and two thousand three hundred and three feet, while the excessive stillness of the land-locked water, in which the shadows of the hills are clearly reflected, makes it difficult for one to believe that it is the actual ocean which he beholds. That night, after a drive of twelve miles, we reached Casson's Hotel in Letterfrack, where we asked for a fire in the dining-room, as it was cold when we arrived. The maid brought a burning scuttle of peat, the smoke from which did not subside during the entire dinner, but it looked comfortable, to see each other through it, reminding us of cheerful fires and warm nooks at home; the comparison could go no farther, however. We asked the maid for a wine-list, in order that we might try to overcome the effect of the smoke, and she responded, with great _naïveté_, that she had no wine-list, but would bring us a sample from every bin in the cellar. In a few minutes, sure enough, she bounced into the room with her arms full of bottles, saying: "Take yer ch'ice, gintlemen; there's nothin' foiner in all Connemara!" We took her at her word; she had not deceived us--the bottle we selected was a good claret. [Illustration: KYLEMORE CASTLE AND PRIVATE CHAPEL, COUNTY GALWAY] Next morning the landlady furnished us with the best animal we had on the trip. She was a stout, bay mare, and when her spirits had rallied after leaving a young colt of hers behind, she reeled off the miles like a machine. Our object in visiting this part of the country was to see Mitchell Henry's famous castle, Kylemore, and the Twelve Pins, about which we had been hearing all our lives without ever having had an opportunity to visit them until now. Mr. Henry was a linen merchant, with houses in Belfast and Manchester; he made a fortune, purchased fourteen thousand acres of land in Connemara to give himself a political foothold, and in consequence became M. P. for Galway, which position he retained for six years. About forty years ago he began the construction of Kylemore, selecting as a site a valley between very high mountains, with a lake and river in front of the spot where his castle would stand. He collected rare trees and planted the mountain-sides with them, as well as the valley round his buildings. In addition to the castle, he erected fine stables, a private chapel, sheltered gardens, and conservatories, and preserved the salmon and trout in the lake and river. The moist heat from the Gulf Stream was his main ally, and nowhere else in the world can more bursting vigor and splendid growth be seen than are exhibited by his trees, shrubs, and flowers; to see them is a veritable treat to those who are interested in such things. In the gardens flourish groups of tropical plants, palms, and rare ferns the year round; they need no protection in this mild climate. His roads have double fuchsia hedges twelve feet high, which, anywhere else than in Connemara, would be worth a fortune. They were in full bloom when we saw them. Mr. Henry is now a very old man and lives in London; and the sad part of it all is that he cannot enjoy the glories of his famous property, and it is for sale. _Sic transit gloria mundi!_ After visiting the castle, church, gardens, and conservatories, we drove through the extensive, finely wooded demesne, passing vast banks of rhododendrons and hydrangeas in rare bloom, till we reached the county road and caught our first glimpse of the Twelve Pins, or Bens, as they are sometimes called. They were a disappointment; we had heard too much about them. The Twelve Pins is a group of high mountains having but little verdure; the highest, Benbaun, is two thousand four hundred feet above sea-level. The remarkable feature about them is that they are practically one long mountain with twelve peaks rising from it at regular intervals. Excepting this startling effect, they do not compare with Muckish, Dooish, or Errigal, the "peerless cone" of Donegal. [Illustration: DEVIL'S MOTHER MOUNTAIN, AASLEAGH FALLS, AND SALMON-LEAP ON ERRIFF RIVER, COUNTY GALWAY] The bay mare carried us in gallant style past the long, romantic-looking Lough Inagh down to Recess, where we put up at the best hotel we had found since we started. ACHILL ISLAND I am writing this from memory and without notes, so I may be pardoned for having forgotten to introduce in its proper place our trip to Achill Island, one of the most interesting of our experiences. I shall start by saying that we crossed over to the island at its nearest point to the main-land, and, taking our seats on a "long" public car which stood in readiness, we were pulled by two immense horses the thirteen miles to the village of Dugort at a steady pace that never "slacked up" for the entire distance. It rained, but the car was plentifully supplied with tarpaulins, which were strapped round us in artistic style, and so we arrived at the Slievemore Hotel dry but benumbed. "Mine host" of the Slievemore, one Captain Sheridan, is perhaps the best-known Boniface in the west of Ireland. The iridescent splendor of his imagination, his contempt for detail, and his facility in escaping when cornered, place him on a plinth so high that, compared with him, Baron Munchausen would seem to be a practical monument of truth and accuracy; indeed, the Baron is his only rival in all the years that have gone to make up history. He greeted us with: "I saw you coming; knew by your looks you were the real thing, and wired for a ten-pound salmon." [Illustration: THE FISHERY, ACHILL ISLAND, SLIEVEMORE IN THE DISTANCE (Host Sheridan with the rifle)] We were stiff and cold after the wet drive, and asked for a nip of Irish whiskey. "Bad luck to it, anyhow, I haven't a drop in the house, but my team is hauling a cask of 'Power's Best' from the main-land. But I have 'Scotch,' boys, as is 'Scotch'; not a headache in a hogshead of it!" So we had the substitute, and, upon our asking its age, he started in rather modestly at "five," and when we gave him a drink quickly raised it to "ten year old." Before the evening was over, he told us, in a confidential whisper, that the prime-minister had been his guest some time before and had pronounced it "twenty," so he did not know how old it really was--we must be the judges. He had a collection of stuffed birds and horns, and upon being asked what he would take for a pair of ram's horns, he exclaimed: "'Tis simply priceless they are! 'Twould cost you a thousand pounds to fit out an expedition to get them, and besides you would have to get permission from the Grand Llama of Thibet, for 'tis only in his dominions that these rare animals are found; but still, I have too many horns, and I'll let you have the pair for forty guineas, packed up and ready for the steamer." He admitted that he was a first cousin of Phil Sheridan's. "They try to make out that Phil wasn't an Irishman, that he was born half-way over, but I tell you the true facts are that he was born before he started," was the way he conclusively settled General Sheridan's nationality. Guests "move on" at the approach of rain in Irish hotels, so our genial host would pass from room to room if it threatened rain, calling out to an imaginary guest, "'Twill be a lovely day to-morrow." Pressed to divulge his sentiments on the landlord-and-tenant question, and not knowing how we stood, he said: "I'm for 'give and take'; the tenant to give what he thinks fair, and the landlord to take it or leave it." He had a supreme contempt for rival attractions, and said that the Dunfanaghy puffins were corn-fed and the seals were chained to the bottom to attract visitors. He had a comic-opera, smuggler, weather predictor, and long-distance-sea-serpent man who turned up every morning and mingled with the guests. He dressed the part to perfection, _à la_ Dick Deadeye, and would tell how many whales and seals he had seen in the bay at daybreak. As for the weather, with him it was always assured; if it rained while he was talking, he would belittle it by saying, "Sure, 'tis but a little bit of a shower; 'twon't last ten minutes"; then he would pilot a schooner over the bar and disappear. But, after all, our host Sheridan was a kindly, good-natured fellow and very accommodating; he had told his tales so often that he really believed them, and was not so much to blame as one would think at first sight. His wife was a most capable manager, and largely made up for his shortcomings in the fulfilment of promises. _Cead Mille Failthe_ (a hundred thousand welcomes) was emblazoned on a large crescent over the door. The place was well supplied with pets--cats, dogs, and a tame crow making up the family. The house has four pairs of stairs leading from the hall vestibule; there is a high mountain close to its rear and another right in front of it, with the Atlantic to the west; so that it must be described as a picturesque establishment in every detail. The weather became foggy, and we were about to leave without trying to see anything, when the sun suddenly broke through the clouds and we changed the programme by remaining. Achill Island is fifteen miles long by twelve miles wide; it is bounded by Blacksod Bay on the north and by Clew Bay on the south. There is a small grocery store on the west side of the island which is said to be the nearest saloon to America, and proud is the owner of this distinction. The people lead a very peculiar life. The latitude is high, and consequently in the dead of winter the day is very short, and they cannot fish in the stormy waters surrounding the island. They save enough money in summer to carry them through the winter months, and amuse themselves during the long nights by dancing. Every community has its fiddler, and it is his business to provide a house with a large room in which the dances can be held. Each family furnishes the supper in turn, and all "pay the fiddler." One would suppose that whiskey would play the leading part in such entertainments; and up to the latter part of the last century it did, but it is now entirely absent. Long experience taught the participants that if peaceful family parties were to be indulged in, the "mountain dew" must be an absentee; so they took to Guinness's stout, and the piles of "empties," everywhere to be seen, show clearly that the Guinness shares are a valuable investment. This dancing is carried on in most of the northwestern counties, where the winter days are short. The "balls" end at about 3 A.M., and the dancers sleep till eleven the next morning. The island contains the cathedral cliffs of Menawn, one thousand feet in height, hollowed by the long action of the waves through countless centuries, and having a striking resemblance to stupendous Gothic aisles. We started early in the morning for Achill Head, via Keem Bay, traveling as usual on a car, driven by a boy. We drove through a unique fishing village, consisting of very small houses laid out in regular streets, the thatched roofs being secured against the winter storms by ropes on which were hung large stones about the size of watermelons. These rows of stones swayed in the wind and produced a curious effect while in motion. The car stopped at the foot-hills, where the road changed into a path, and waited under a shed for our return in the evening. On alighting we were delighted to hear the sweet, familiar song of a pair of larks that soared up under the clear, blue sky so far above our heads that they seemed mere specks which we could see but indistinctly. It was many years since we had seen and heard the Irish lark in its native element, and we listened to the notes with keen, reminiscent pleasure. Here we hired two gillies to help us in climbing Achill Head, which is quite a high mountain. We climbed up a steep track for about three miles, and were congratulating ourselves upon our progress, when, on rounding the hip of the hill, we discovered that we should have to descend again to sea-level at Keem Bay, in order to commence the real ordeal. It was easy work going down, and we soon reached the bay. This is a beautiful spot, an indenture in the headland, with a firm, yellow strand at the head, and perpendicular, rocky bluffs on its sides. Three large boats were salmon-fishing, and from the many places where we rested on our long climb up the mountain we saw them tacking back and forth all day. [Illustration: CATHEDRAL CLIFFS AT MENAWN, ACHILL ISLAND (1000 feet high)] Near the shore we visited the house and store of Captain Boycott, both in ruins. This is the gentleman who gave us a new word for our vocabulary. Notwithstanding his fate, he had many warm friends among the peasantry. We started climbing again by following the bed of a brawling stream, and adhered to it until it turned into a rivulet. Most Irish mountains are formed by a series of benches, and our plan was to climb briskly till we reached a bench and there make a recovery for the next assault. As we rose in the air we felt our clothing becoming burdensome, and we gave one article after another to the gillies, so that by the time we reached the top our wardrobes were quite elementary. It seemed to us that all the benches in Ireland were collected on that mountain; each one was to have been the last, but still there was another and yet another. We finally reached the summit and, bathed in perspiration, lay down on the heather, wrapping ourselves in rain-coats, and, telling the gillies to wake us in an hour, fell asleep. It would not have been much of a climb for a mountaineer, but for us, of full habit and totally untrained, it was exercise to the extreme limit of endurance. When we awoke we crawled on all-fours to the edge of the head and looked over, and we shall never forget the sight that greeted our eyes! Achill Head and Croaghaun Mountain, adjoining it, have the reputation of being the highest marine cliffs in existence. They are poised above the Atlantic at an angle of sixty degrees, and the particular point on which we lay far overhung the ocean. Here lightning-splintered pinnacles shoot from the mass; savage, titanic rocks lie on the face of the two mountains in wild confusion, scarred and rent from top to bottom, and the blue waters surge and break at their base in restless confusion, throwing up the spray to great heights. Then for a moment all is calm, only to begin over again. It was as if the grandest Alpine scenery had the Atlantic breaking on its lower levels, and yet it retained the charm of the finest verdure. Between the crevices grew blooming heather, luxuriant ferns, wild flowers, and arbutus in great profusion, while flocks of wild gulls circled gracefully through the air in quest of food, the whole being enveloped in the warm, moist air of the Gulf Stream, rising from the face of the ocean and suffusing the cliff upon which we rested, giving it practically the temperature of a hot-house. It was always a struggle between the mist and the sun; each alternately gained the mastery, and it was this weird kaleidoscope that held us spellbound and presented wonderland in a new guise. The Croaghaun Mountain, two thousand two hundred and nineteen feet in height, lay right beside us, joined to Achill Head by a rocky bridge. Its grand and peculiar feature is that at the very highest point it would seem as if the rest of the mountain had been suddenly cut away, leaving a vast and tremendous precipice descending to the water nearly one thousand nine hundred and fifty feet. Deep fissures and rocky furrows have been worn by the torrents which pour down after heavy rains, and the bottom, where it shelves slightly, is strewn with bowlders and masses of shattered rock, forming natural bulwarks against the advancing tide. From where we stood, the view seaward was, of course, boundless, the nearest land being America. It is doubtful if such another panorama is unfolded from any other height in the British Isles. Far out is the Black Rock, on which is a light-house two hundred and sixty-eight feet high, and to the northward are North and South Inishkea and Duvillaun. The Mullet peninsula, Erris, and the ever-varying outlines of Blacksod Bay lie spread out like a map, and beyond Slievemore is a network of island and inlet, above which the splendid range of the Ballycroy Hills forms a background. In the distance is Nephin; far to the south rises the rugged head of Croagh Patrick and the mountains round Clew Bay; farther off are the summits of the Twelve Pins; Achill Beg lies immediately below; beyond it, Clare Island, and farther south Inishturk, Inishbofin, and Inishshark bound the horizon. Off the Mullet are numerous islands, of which the principal are Inishkeeragh and Inishglora, where, according to some, the dead are subject to such extraordinary and preserving influences that their nails and hair grow as in life, "so that their descendants to the tenth generation can come and with pious care pare the one and clip the other." The eagle still haunts these cliffs, and the wild goat feeds almost secure in his last haunts on these islands. [Illustration: ACHILL HEAD, COUNTY MAYO] It was growing late, and, as we had five miles of walking before us, we retraced our steps down the mountain to Keem Bay. The trials of that descent have not been written in sand--they will never be forgotten. In our exhausted condition we reeled and staggered from hummock to hummock, floundered through the soggy bog like a pair of stranded seals, sat down in the heather for a few gasps of breath when we could go on no longer. We guyed each other, guyed the Emerald Isle and its people; we sneered at the story of George's hatchet, and concluded that, after all, King Edward's job was not what it was cracked up to be--anything to divert our minds from the dreadful present. If we could have put Achill Island and all its scenery out of commission forever, we would gladly have done it. But time and the hour run through the roughest day, and so we got to the bottom. At the beach we saw a cowherd coming towards us with numerous cans, and, supposing these to be full, we pounced upon him for a drink of milk. Luck was against us again--his cans were empty, and he told us he had to walk a mile or more to where his cows were grazing before he could fill them. We braced ourselves for the final walk round the mountain, and as it was a fair road we had little difficulty in reaching the shed where we had left the car in the early morning. The driver was watching for us, and we gladly swung ourselves up on the seats; and no pair of Irish kings ever enjoyed riding in royal state more than we did. We stopped a few minutes at a lake by the wayside to see some of the hotel guests catching a basket of fine trout, which were afterwards served for a late supper. We awoke next morning stiff and sore, but a breezy chat with our genial host soon put us on good terms with ourselves and everything about us. We left Achill Island in the afternoon, deeply regretting that we had not more time to devote to its wonders. RECESS TO GALWAY Now back to Recess, which we left so abruptly. In the evening we went for a circular drive to Ballynahinch, with its river, lakes, and islands--up the river on one side, crossing it on a bridge, and down again by the base of the Twelve Pins, which you can't get away from in this country. We saw Ballynahinch Castle, close to the road on the edge of the lake. It belongs to the celebrated Martins, whose fortunes have been graphically described by Charles Lever in his popular novel, _The Martins of Cro Martin_. They owned two hundred thousand acres of land, and Colonel Martin is said to have endeavored to put the Prince Regent of that day out of conceit with the famous Long Walk at Windsor by saying that the avenue which led to his hall door was thirty miles long. The pleasantry was true, for he owned the forty miles of road from Galway to his own door. Thackeray was a great admirer of Irish scenery and wrote profusely about it. These "Pins" were his particular hobby, and he never tired of them. In one book he writes: "I won't attempt to pile up big words in place of those wild mountains over which the clouds as they passed, or the sunshine as it went and came, cast every variety of tint, light, and shadow. All one can do is to lay down the pen and ruminate, and cry 'Beautiful!' once more." Bravo, William! but you ought to have peered over Achill, or have gone in a boat to see the birds at Horn Head; then we should have heard from you on a really great theme. As we were returning to the hotel, a white automobile approached us at high speed, and we could not but admire the dexterous way in which our driver got out of difficulty; for the horse had become panic-stricken and was about to plunge down the embankment along which we were driving. He jumped from his seat, whipped off his coat, and wrapped it round the horse's head. The animal was so much surprised at the novelty of the proceeding and the sudden loss of his sight that he forgot all about the "white ghost" till it had safely passed us. The chauffeur shouted back, "Great work; that's a new patent!" At Recess we had the pleasure of meeting Mr. W. J. D. Walker, Inspector and Organizer of Industries for the Congested Districts Board. We had a long and interesting reminiscent chat with him regarding other days in Ireland; he is an enthusiast on the subject of helping the poor there to help themselves. The Board has employed experts to teach these people the best way to fish, build boats, breed cattle, till and improve the soil, make lace, weave cloth, manufacture baskets, and do many things of which they have at present but little, if any, knowledge; in fact, they are helped in every possible way by the British government. Galway was near by, and an agreement was made to join Mr. Walker on one of his tours of inspection to the Aran Islands. So to Galway we went, where we received our first mail since leaving America. After having ascertained that the Seaboard Bank's doors were still open, glanced at the price of "U. S. Fours," and noted the growing strength of the "Hackensack Meadows," we set out to see the town. [Illustration: BOYS FISHING, NEAR RECESS, COUNTY GALWAY] Galway is situated on gently rising ground, on the north side and near the head of the bay. The greater portion of the town is built upon a tongue of land bounded on the east by Lough Athalia, an arm of the sea, and on the west by the river which forms the outlet of Lough Corrib. The other and smaller part is on the opposite bank of the river and in the district known as Iar-Connaught, the connection being maintained by one wooden and two stone bridges. The West Bridge is a very ancient structure of the date of 1342, and formerly possessed two tower gateways at the west and centre: these, however, have long since disappeared. The Upper Bridge, leading from the court-house, was erected in 1818. Under various names a town has been established here from the very earliest times, and Ptolemy mentions a city called Magnata, or Nagnata, which is generally considered to be identical with Galway. This last name is derived, according to some, from a legend to the effect that a woman named Galva was drowned in the river hard by; by others, from the Gallaeci of Spain, with whom the town carried on an extensive trade; and by others, again, from the Gaels, or foreign merchants, by whom it was occupied. Nothing is definitely known of Galway until 1124, when, according to the "Four Masters," a fort was erected there by the Connaught men. This was thrice demolished by the Munster men, and as often rebuilt. In 1226, Richard de Burgo was granted the country of Connaught, and, having crushed the O'Connors, established his power in the West. He took Galway in 1232, enlarged the castle, and made it his residence. From this time Galway became a flourishing English colony. Among the new settlers was a number of families whose descendants are known to this day under the general appellation of "the Tribes of Galway," an expression first invented by Cromwell's forces as a term of reproach against the natives of the town for their singular friendship and attachment to one another during the time of their unparalleled troubles and persecutions, but which the latter afterwards adopted as an honorable mark of distinction between themselves and their cruel oppressors. There were thirteen of these so-called tribes, the descendants of some of which, as Blake, Lynch, Bodkin, Browne, Joyce, Kirwan, Morris, Skerrett, D'Arcy, Ffrench, Martin, may still be found among its citizens, who in those days carefully guarded themselves from any intercourse with the native Irish. In one of the by-laws, of date of 1518, it is enacted "that no man of this towne shall oste or receive into their housses at Christemas, Easter, nor no feaste elles, any of the Burkes, MacWilliams, the Kellies, nor no cepte elles, withoute license of the mayor and councill, on payn to forfeit 5l., that neither O' nor Mac shalle strutte ne swaggere thro' the streetes of Gallway." The following singular inscription was formerly to be seen over the west gate: "From the fury of the O'Flaherties Good Lord deliver us." Owing to its excellent situation, Galway enjoyed for centuries the monopoly of the trade with Spain, whence it received large quantities of wine, salt, etc., which caused so much personal intercourse that the town became impressed to a certain degree with Spanish features, both in the architecture of the streets and in the dress and manners of the population; though it has been, nevertheless, the habit of former writers to ascribe too much to the supposed Spanish origin of the town, overlooking the fact that it was inhabited by an essentially Anglo-Norman colony. The first charter of incorporation was granted by Richard II., and confirmed in successive reigns down to that of Charles II. That of Richard III. excluded McWilliam Burke and his heirs from all rule and power in Galway; and the charter of Elizabeth made the mayor Admiral of Galway and the bay, including the Aran Islands. Galway reached its highest point of opulence at the commencement of the Irish rebellion of 1641, during which period it was remarkable for its loyalty to the king. It was surrendered to Ludlow in 1652, having suffered a siege and such barbarous treatment at the hands of the Parliamentary army that at the Restoration the town was almost wholly decayed. From a map made in 1651 by the Marquis of Clanricarde to ascertain the extent and value of the town, it appears that Galway was then entirely surrounded by walls, defended by fourteen towers, and entered by as many gates. On July 19, 1691, a week after the battle of Aughrim, Ginkell with fourteen thousand men laid siege to it. Two days later the town surrendered, the garrison being permitted to evacuate it with a safe-conduct to Limerick and a pardon to the inhabitants. Since the middle of the last century, the fortifications have gone fast to decay, and now nothing remains but a fragment near the quay and a massive archway leading to Spanish Place. There is also a square bastion of great thickness in Francis Street, and a portion of wall with a round-headed, blocked arch. Within the last century the town has so much increased as to cover more than double the space formerly occupied within the walls. Some of the houses are built Spanish fashion, with a small court in the centre and an arched gateway leading into the street. The most striking specimen of domestic architecture is Lynch's Mansion, a large, square building at the corner of Shop and Abbeygate streets, having square-headed doorways and windows, with richly decorated mouldings and drip-stones. There is also a portion of the cornice or projecting balustrade at the top of the house, the horizontal supporting pillars being terminated with grotesque heads. On the street face are richly ornamented medallions bearing the arms of the Lynches, with their crest, a lynx. This castle has more gargoyles and coats-of-arms carved upon it than ever Mr. Carnegie can hope to cut on the battlements of Skiebo. I was going to say, the Lynches had carvings "to burn," but, considering the incombustible nature of these ornamentations, the phrase would perhaps be inappropriate. The family of Lynch, one of the most celebrated in Galway annals, is said to have originally come from Linz, in Austria, of which town one of them was governor during a siege. As a reward for his services, he received permission to take a lynx as a crest. The family came to Ireland in the thirteenth century, and flourished there till the middle of the seventeenth. In 1484 Pierce Lynch was made first mayor under the new charter of Richard III., while his son Stephen was appointed first warden by Innocent VIII., and, during a period of a hundred and sixty-nine years, eighty-four members of this family were mayors; altogether the Lynches were great people in Galway. In Market Street, at the back of St. Nicholas's Church, is the "Lynch Stone," bearing the following inscription: "This memorial of the stern and unbending justice of the chief magistrate of this city, James Lynch Fitzstephen, elected mayor A.D. 1493, who condemned and executed his own guilty son, Walter, on this spot, has been restored to its ancient site." Below this is a stone with a skull and cross-bones, and this inscription: "1524 Remember Deathe Vaniti of Vaniti and al is but Vaniti." James Lynch Fitzstephen had been one of the most successful of the citizens in promoting commerce with Spain, which he had himself personally visited, having been received with every mark of hospitality. To make some return for all this kindness, he proposed and obtained permission from his Spanish host to take his only son back with him to Ireland. The mayor had also an only son, unfortunately addicted to evil company, but who, he hoped, was likely to reform, from the circumstance of his being attached to a Galway lady of good family. And so it might have proved had he not jealously fancied that the lady looked too graciously upon the Spaniard. Roused to madness, he watched the latter out of the house, stabbed him, and then, stung with remorse, gave himself up to justice, to his father's unutterable dismay. Notwithstanding the entreaties of the town folk, with whom the youth was a favorite, the stern parent passed sentence of death, and actually hanged him from the window with his own hand. The Joyces, however, ran the Lynches a close race in Connemara, a part of which is called "Joyce's country." In Abbeygate Street is the Joyces' mansion, now in ruins. On a house in the adjoining street are the arms of Galway. The complete ruins of Stubber's Castle are in High Street, the entrance to it being through a shop, the only feature of which worth noticing is a carved chimney-piece bearing the arms of Blake and Brown (1619). In Market Street are the remains of the Burkes' mansion. [Illustration: A CONNEMARA TINKER] The Bay of Galway consists of a long arm of the sea, protected at the entrance by the lofty cliffs of the islands of Aran, which in clear weather are visible at a distance of twenty-nine miles, and on the north and south by the coasts of Galway and Clare, respectively. A legend in the annals of Ireland states that it was once a fresh-water lake known as Lough Lurgan, one of the three principal lakes in Ireland, and was converted into a bay by the Atlantic breaking over and uniting with the water therein. A large number of the population is employed in the salmon and herring fishery, and the Claddagh is their home. This is an extraordinary assemblage of low, thatched cottages, built with total disregard to system, and numbered indiscriminately. Hardiman wrote of them as follows: "The colony from time immemorial has been ruled by one of their own body, periodically elected, who is dignified with the title of mayor, regulates the community according to their own peculiar laws and customs, and settles all their fishery disputes. His decisions are so decisive and so much respected that the parties are seldom known to carry their differences before a legal tribunal or to trouble the civil magistrates." The title and office are now quite obsolete. At one time they never allowed strangers to reside within their precincts, and always intermarried among themselves, but now strangers settle among them. They are a very moral and religious people; they would not go to sea or away from home on any Sunday or holiday. The dress of the women of the Claddagh was formerly very peculiar, and imparted a singular foreign aspect to the Galway streets and quays. It consisted of a blue mantle, red body-gown and petticoat, a handkerchief bound round the head, and legs and feet _au naturel_; but that dress is rarely seen now. The Claddagh ring--two hands holding a heart--becomes an heirloom in a family, and is handed down from mother to daughter. One of the sights of the town is to see the salmon waiting to go up the Galway River to spawn. We rose one morning quite early to see this, when the fish would not be disturbed, and we watched them from the bridge for an hour. It was worth the effort; we saw them packed in schools, quivering and jostling one another in their eagerness to get up to the spawning-grounds. At our hotel we found an interesting character who served in the capacity of waiter. When questioned on the subject of his past life, he said that he had come from Hamburg when twenty years old. He spoke German broken into English with a strong Connemara brogue; and if Weber and Fields could only have heard him describe the items on a _carte de jour_, he would not be left long in Galway, but would find his opportunity in their dramatic temple on Broadway. ARAN ISLANDS The Aran Isles lie out in the Atlantic, some twenty-nine miles from shore, being visited by a small steamer twice a week. We took passage on the _Duras_ with Mr. Walker one morning soon after our arrival. All kinds of people and a great variety of cargo were on board. We stood out to sea steadily, and in a few hours reached what is known as the South Island. Here we dropped anchor about five hundred yards from shore and commenced unloading our cargo into the sea, to be taken care of by a great crowd of curraghs which swarmed about the ship. (In explanation it may be stated that the curragh is a great institution: it is a lightly framed, skeleton boat covered with raw cowhide or canvas and thoroughly tarred, in which the skilled native can go anywhere in all weathers. It is universally used on the coast from Donegal to Connemara.) Boards were tossed into the sea, which were quickly gathered together by the curragh-men, bound with ropes, and towed ashore. We had a drove of pigs on board, and their feet were tied together with ropes, the four in a bunch, and the animals piled up in the curraghs till the boats would hold no more; then they were taken near the shore, liberated, and allowed to swim to land themselves. Their squealing and grunting was like an untrained Wagnerian band. There was a cow on board, and she was pushed from the gangway by main strength, plunging headlong into the waves; there was a short pause, when she reappeared, swam ashore, shook herself, and unconcernedly began eating grass, none the worse for her bath. Mr. Walker took a snap-shot of her, reaching land. (We are also indebted to this fine photographer for the many excellent views he took for us in this locality and on the mainland.) Then there were all sorts of other things piled into the curraghs, and, lastly, we too managed to get into one and were rowed ashore. [Illustration: THE LANDING OF THE COW, ARAN ISLANDS] Mr. Walker then took us to a lace-making school which his Board had established on the island, and we saw the young girls making fine laces in a neat building that had at one time been a church. The instructress had been on the island for more than a year, and Mr. Walker at once gave her a much-needed vacation. Standing on the shore, I asked a man, "Are there many lobsters here?" "Sure, the shores is red wid 'em, yer honor, in the height of the saison!" was his ready reply. We again got into a curragh, boarded the steamer, and were under way in a trice for Aranmore, the largest island of the group, where we landed an hour later at a fine pier built by the Congested Districts Board. The village is called Kilronan, and the inhabitants live by fishing. They are a simple and peculiar people, descended from the Firbolgs, retaining some parts of the dress and many of the customs of that race. Their footwear consists of a coarse stocking, over which they wear a tight-fitting slipper of raw cowhide with the hair on it, called a "pampootie." This is a special shoe for use on the smooth and slippery rocks of these islands. They also wear a snug, homespun flannel jacket and short "pants," the whole making an exceedingly picturesque and effective outfit for their work. They have no pockets for handkerchiefs, cigars, eye-glasses, gloves, or even small change, but they seem to get on very well without them. [Illustration: ON OUR WAY TO DUN AENGUS, ARAN ISLANDS "The only car on the island"] There is a cable to the island and we had wired to Mrs. O'Brien's cottage for a dinner, there being no hotel. This was ready on our arrival, and, having finished it, we took the only car on the island and drove out to Dun (or Fort) Aengus, described by Dr. Petrie as "the most magnificent barbaric monument now extant in Europe." Its gigantic proportions, isolated position, and the wild scenery by which it is surrounded render the trouble of the journey to see it well worth while. It is built on the very edge of sheer cliffs, two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet in height, forming the south and east sides. In form it is of horseshoe shape, although some antiquarians incline to the belief that it was originally oval, and that it acquired its present form from the falling of the precipices. It consists of three enclosures and the remains of a fourth. The wall which surrounds the innermost is eighteen feet high and twelve feet nine inches thick; it is in three sections, the inner one seven feet high, and, like the others, has the centre wall lower than the faces. This enclosure measures one hundred and fifty feet from north to south, and one hundred and forty feet from east to west. The doorway is four feet eight inches high and three feet five inches wide, very slightly inclining, and the lintel is five feet ten inches long. In the northwest side is a passage leading into the body of the wall. The second rampart, which is not concentric, encloses a space about four hundred feet by three hundred. Outside the second wall is the usual accompaniment of a very large "entanglement," thirty feet wide, formed of sharp stones placed on end and sunk in the ground to hinder the approach of the enemy for an assault on the fort and make them an easy target for the bowmen to shoot at. So effective was this entanglement that we experienced considerable difficulty in getting through it, and when we did accomplish that feat we felt fully qualified to appreciate the intrepidity of an attacking party who would brave such an obstruction to their progress when storming the fort. Inside these stones, to the west, is a small enclosure, the wall of which is seven feet nine inches high and six feet thick. Outside of it all is a rampart, now nearly destroyed, enclosing a space of eleven acres. These walls terminate at both ends on the south cliffs. About the first century of the Christian era, three brothers, Aengus, Conchobar, and Mil, came from Scotland to Aran, and their names are still preserved in connection with buildings on the island, the ancient fort just described being called Dun Aengus; the great fort of the middle island, superior in strength and preservation to the former, bearing the name of Dun Connor, or Conchovar, and the name of Mil being associated with the low strand of Port Murvey, formerly known as Muirveagh Mil, or the Sea-plain of Mil. The surface of the ground surrounding Dun Aengus is most remarkable. It is a level sheet of blue limestone extending for many miles in every direction. This cracked, when cooling, into rectangular forms, and in these cracks grow large ferns, the only vegetation to be seen. The mass of stone retains the sun's heat during the night, and consequently these ferns are most luxuriant. It would perhaps prove monotonous to describe in detail all the churches, forts, beehive cells, and monastic ruins, in many cases constructed in cyclopean masonry, with which these islands are literally covered; for it must be remembered that Ireland in the early ages was the university of Europe, the chief resort of the _literati_, where scholars came to learn and to teach one another all that was then known, and their numbers were so great that many buildings were required for their accommodation. The wonder of it all is why these isolated islands should have been selected as the seat of learning, when so many other more convenient sites could have been chosen. The men who decided the matter seem to have thought that islands so far removed from the mainland would offer seclusion and better protection from the various wars that had drenched Ireland in blood for so many centuries. I shall, therefore, content myself with what is above stated regarding Dun Aengus, the largest and most important structure on the islands. Passing over the tradition of Lough Lurgan, the earliest reference to the pre-Christian history of the Aran Islands is to be found in the accounts of the battle of Muireadh, in which the Firbolgs, having been defeated by the Danann, were driven for refuge into Aran and other islands on the Irish coast, as well as into the western islands of Scotland. Christianity was introduced in the fifth century by St. Enda, Eaney, or Endeus, who obtained a grant of the islands from Aengus, the Christian king of Munster, and founded ten religious establishments. Aranmore speedily obtained a world-wide renown for learning, piety, and asceticism, and "many hundreds of holy men from other parts of Ireland and foreign countries constantly resorted to it to study the sacred scriptures and to learn and practise the rigid austerities of a hermit's life"; in consequence of which the island was distinguished by the name of "Ara-Naoimh," or Ara of the Saints. [Illustration: "WE TAKE TO THE WATER IN A CURRAGH." ARAN ISLANDS] A century ago a curious custom prevailed in these islands. When a body was being carried to the grave, a convenient spot was selected at which to rest the pall-bearers; here the funeral procession came to a halt, generally about one hundred yards from the road. This spot was afterwards used as a site for a monument, erected by husband, wife, or family, as the case might be, which for the most part took the place of a monument in the graveyard. When the relatives possessed means these memorials became quite imposing, bearing carved statuary and having a short history of the dead inscribed on them, winding up with a formula invoking a blessing on the souls of the departed. We left the car to inspect a long row of these stones fronting on the main road from Kilronan to Dun Aengus. The quaint things said in praise of the dead were quite interesting. Many of the natives on Thursday and Friday in Holy Week still make a pilgrimage round Aranmore, a distance of twenty miles, performing religious exercises at each church in the circuit. The O'Briens were lords of Aran from an early period, but were driven out by the O'Flaherties of Iar Connaught, who in turn were driven out by the English in 1587. In 1651, the Marquis of Clanricarde fortified the Castle of Arkyn, the stronghold of the O'Briens, which held out against the Parliamentary army for more than a year after the surrender of Galway; but on the occupation of the island, the soldiers of Cromwell demolished the great church of St. Enda to furnish materials for the repair of a strong fort. On the surrender of Galway in 1691 Aran was garrisoned, and remained so for many years. Aran gives the title of Earl to the Gore family. [Illustration: CURRAGHS, ARAN ISLANDS] At his home we met Father Farragher, a genial gentleman and the parish priest of Kilronan, and he gave us a great deal of interesting information concerning the history of and life on these islands, which are historic to a degree rarely met with, and with which he was thoroughly familiar. We returned late in the evening by steamer to Galway. When going to bed at the hotel, I summoned our comic "boots," and directed him to call No. 41 at six o'clock. The "boots" wrote the call on his slate, and then sat down with a puzzled expression on his face. Noticing this, I inspected the slate and found that the inscription read: "Call 46 at 1." He excused his blunder by saying: "Shure, you Yankees do be givin' us sich quare orders these days, we're prepared for almost annythin'." When leaving on the train the next morning and after we were seated in a crowded carriage, this same man put his head in through the open window and shouted: "You owe us another shillin'; the misthress forgot to charge the brace of 'nightcaps' ye had before bedtime." LIMERICK The important part of our trip being finished, Mr. Ross left for London to witness the second attempt at the coronation of King Edward, while I went down to see Limerick and visit its annual horse-fair. Arrived at Limerick, I found the town full of the horsiest men I had ever seen anywhere. They had the knack of horsy dressing down, to a fine point. Horseshoe pins were "the thing," stuck in light-colored scarfs wound round their necks; their shanks were tightly rolled in leather, and above the knee they wore Santos-Dumont balloons in colors that would have made a rainbow look like a band of crape. Most of them had the conventional blade of grass in their mouths, a fashion started by Lord Palmerston fifty years ago and immortalized by John Leech in a celebrated _Punch_ cartoon of the period. When looking at a horse, they tilted their hats far back into the nape of their necks, planted their feet wide apart, stuffed their hands into their pockets, and carried themselves with the general air of one who soliloquizes, "Well, I'm just looking for the photograph of a man who can get away with me on a hoss trade." Several streets in the horsy quarter of the town were given up to showing the horses, and there were examples of every breed, size, color, and weight you can think of, including hunters, carriage-horses, racers, saddle-horses, utility nags, circus-horses, and ponies. The rushing, rearing, plunging, galloping, trotting, and loping of the horses and the shouting of the rough-riders made a kaleidoscopic scene of dust, noise, and confusion which would have caused any one suffering from nervous prostration to choose some other place for a quiet afternoon. But I was there to see it through, and I went into the spirit of the occasion for "all I was worth," trying my best to lend a helping hand in many of the trades. I was on the successful side twice, and had a glass of Limerick ale at a neighboring bar with the elated buyers. The dealing, "swapping," and buying were carried on in true artistic style, while the rough-riding when showing the animals can only be seen in Ireland. It takes a buyer, a seller, and about three "cappers" on each side to close a trade; they almost pull the clothes off the back of the owner, and slap him violently on various parts of his body when "splitting differences." A buyer always bids about five pounds more than he will really give, stipulating that he shall have the five pounds returned to him after the purchase; this swells the apparent value of the nag and pleases the owner. He tells his neighbors that he sold his horse for the larger amount; but they know that he didn't get it, so there is no harm done. A dealer suddenly slapped me on the back and said, "Why don't yer buy a foine pair for yersilf and take em to the States wid ye?" "Oh, the horse is not 'in it' any longer in America; the automobile is king." "Ach! the divil burn the oightymoobiles annyhow; no dacent man will roide in wan av 'em if he can get a sate behind a harse," was his prompt reply. Young well-matched carriage pairs brought one hundred and fifty guineas readily, during the afternoon. "Why don't you ship some of these teams to America? You could get three thousand dollars for them in New York," was a question I put to another dealer. "I know it, sir, but the risk and expense are too big; 'twould break me up in the long run." And I suppose he was right. After saying so much about the horse-fair, perhaps it might be as well to say something about Limerick itself. Limerick has had quite a past, and there has been "a hot time in the old town" about as often as in any other city that can be pointed out. It is situated in a broad plain, watered by the Shannon, and backed up in the distance by the hills of Clare and Killaloe. The river, which soon becomes an estuary, rolls in a magnificent and broad stream through the heart of the town, and sends off a considerable branch called the Abbey River. This branch, rejoining the Shannon farther north, encloses what is known as the King's Island, on the southern portion of which is built the English Town, united to the mainland by three bridges, and containing the most ancient buildings. In contradistinction is the Irish Town, which lies to the south of it and more in the direction of the railway station. These two districts comprised the fortified old town. Up to Edward II.'s time only the English Town had been defended by walls and towers, but these were subsequently extended so as to include Irish Town, which was entered by St. John's Gate. The eastern portion of the walls, in parts forty feet high, is still fairly preserved. Newtown Pery, the district between this and the river, was then bare, but having come into the possession of the Pery family (Earls of Limerick), it was specially built upon, and is now equal to any city in Ireland for the breadth and cleanliness of its streets. Of these the principal is George's Street, a handsome thoroughfare of nearly a mile in length, giving off others on each side at right angles, with a statue of O'Connell, by Hogan, erected in 1857, at the south end of it in Richmond Place. There is also, to the north, a monument to the memory of Lord Monteagle. The name "Limerick" is derived from the Irish _Luimneach_, the name of a portion of the Shannon, by the corruption of _n_ to _r_. Like most of the Irish seaports, it was founded in the ninth century by the Danes, who were subdued by Brian Boru when he assumed the sovereignty over Munster, and Limerick thus became the royal city of the Munster kings. After passing through the usual stages of intestine native war, its next important epoch was marked by the erection of a strong fortress by King John, who committed the care of it to the charge of William de Burgh. Bruce took it in 1316, and remained there for some months. From that time, with a few intervals of check, it steadily gained in importance until the reign of Elizabeth, when it was made the centre of civil and military administration. In 1641 it held out for some time against the Irish, but was taken by them. It was defended in 1651 by Hugh O'Neill against Ireton, during a six months' siege. Here, next year, Ireton died of the plague. But the great episode in the history of Limerick took place during the wars of William and James, when the events occurred which fastened on it the name of the "City of the Violated Treaty." After the fall of Athlone and Galway, Tyrconnell, the Lord Lieutenant, still held Limerick as the last stronghold that King James possessed, the city having been previously unsuccessfully assaulted by the English under William at the head of about twenty-six thousand men in 1690. Lauzun, the French general, said "it could be taken with roasted apples," and leaving it to its fate, went to Galway and embarked for France. William's army was wanting in artillery, and he awaited the arrival of a heavy siege-train from Dublin. The convoy was arrested by Sarsfieid, who started at night with six hundred horsemen on the Clare side and crossed the Shannon at Killaloe. The next night he fell on them and took possession of the train. He filled the cannon with powder, buried their mouths in the earth, and, firing the whole, utterly destroyed them. More cannon arrived from Waterford, and William pressed forward the siege. On the 27th of August, a breach having been effected, a terrific assault was made, lasting four hours, in which the women of Limerick were conspicuous in the defence; the besiegers were repulsed, losing about two thousand men. In consequence of the swampy nature of the ground and the advanced season, William raised the siege. A fit of apoplexy carried off Tyrconnell, when the government, both civil and military, fell into the hands of D'Usson and Sarsfield. Ginkell, the commander of the English army, endeavored to take the town by an attack on the fort which overlooked and protected the Thomond Bridge. This attack is described in graphic and spirited language by Lord Macaulay, and I cannot do better than give the account of it in his own words: "In a short time the fort was stormed. The soldiers who had garrisoned it fled in confusion to the city. The Town Major, a French officer, who commanded at the Thomond Gate, afraid that the pursuers would enter with the fugitives, ordered that part of the bridge which was nearest to the city to be drawn up. Many of the Irish went headlong into the stream and perished there. Others cried for quarter, and held up their handkerchiefs in token of submission. But the conquerors were mad with rage; their cruelty could not be immediately restrained, and no prisoners were made till the heads of corpses rose above the parapet. The garrison of the fort had consisted of about eight hundred men; of these only one hundred and twenty escaped into Limerick." The result of this capture was the fall of James's power in Ireland and the signing of the famous treaty on the stone near the bridge on October 3, 1691, the ninth article of which provided that the Roman Catholics should enjoy the same privileges of their religion as they enjoyed in the reign of Charles II., and that William and Mary would endeavor to insure them immunity from disturbance on account of their religion. This article, however, was never carried into effect, although through no fault of William's. Large numbers of the Irish soldiers took service under France, and formed the "Irish Brigade," famous in after years in continental wars. Sarsfield was killed at the battle of Landen (1693), and it has been estimated that in the next half century four hundred and fifty thousand Irishmen died in the French service. For seventy years after the siege, the city was maintained as a fortress, and its ramparts and gates kept in repair and guarded. In 1760 it was abandoned as such, its defences dismantled, and the city, thus freed, rapidly extended its boundaries. It has since, however, been a station for large detachments of troops, and is at the present day one of the most bustling and pleasant garrison towns. The Shannon is crossed by three important bridges, of which the Thomond Bridge, rebuilt in 1839, claims priority from its ancient associations. It connects English Town with the County Clare, the entrance from which, through Thomond Gate, was protected by the fort mentioned above and King John's Castle. It is one of the finest Norman fortresses in the kingdom, and has a river front of about two hundred feet, flanked by two massive drum towers fifty feet in diameter; the walls are of great strength, being ten feet thick. The northern tower is the most ancient, and from the bridge traces of the cannonading it received in its various sieges can be clearly seen. It still retains its ancient gateway, but the modern entrance is from Nicholas Street. Its venerable appearance is marred by the addition of the modern roofs and buildings of the barracks into which the interior was converted in 1751. The constableship of the Castle was only abolished in 1842. The "Treaty Stone," on which the famous treaty was signed in 1691, is at the western end of the bridge; it was set upon its present pedestal in 1865. [Illustration: THE CLOISTERS, ADARE ABBEY, COUNTY LIMERICK] Limerick is famed for the fineness of its laces, and at one time its gloves were the most costly in the market. Last, but not least, it is still famous for the beauty of its women--a reputation not undeserved, as may be seen even on a casual stroll through the streets. CORK AND QUEENSTOWN After the Limerick fair was over I left for Cork, and arrived there just in time to see the race for the International Cup, presented by Lord O'Brien and won by the Leander crew, of London. There were a hundred thousand people on the banks of the river Lee to see the race, and, strange to say, Cork went wild over an English victory. Next day I visited the Cork Exhibition. It had, like all minor exhibitions of the kind, pyramids of manufactured articles, including the making of various commodities by machinery on the spot. But there were a good concert band and a fine restaurant. I also dropped into the Supreme Court and heard the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland stop the court proceedings to read aloud a telegram from Emperor William, as well as his reply, in regard to the result of the boat-race. Imperial and Milesian "taffy" flowed freely in both. Truly, Ireland is the land of sport! Later on I attended the Cork steeplechase. There were five events on the card; the jumps were difficult, and one horse was killed, while two or three others met with accidents. I suppose as we are now on the last lap, it would hardly be fair to Cork and Queenstown to pass them over without noticing them historically, so, if the reader will pardon me, I will take up a little more of his time to sketch briefly the salient features of these two very interesting and ancient towns. Cork is a mixture of some fine streets, broad quays, and many ill-paved lanes, the whole being set off by a charming frame of scenery that compensates for many a defect. It is a county and a city with a population of 97,281, and is well situated on the Lee, as Spenser thus describes: "The spreading Lee that, like an island fayre, Encloseth Corke with his divided floode"-- as it emerges from a wooded and romantic valley upon a considerable extent of flat, alluvial ground, in its course, over which it divides. The island thus formed commences about one mile above the town, is enclosed by the north and south channels of the river, and contains a large portion of the city. "In 1689," says Macaulay, "the city extended over about one-tenth part of the space which it now covers, and was intersected by muddy streams which had long been concealed by arches and buildings. A desolate marsh, in which the sportsman who pursued the water-fowl sank deep in water and mire at every step, covered the area now occupied by stately buildings, the palaces of great commercial societies." Cork has over four miles of quays, and large sums of money have been spent in harbor improvements; vessels drawing twenty feet of water can discharge at all stages of the tide. The earliest notice of the town dates from the time of St. Fin Barre, who flourished about the seventh century. He founded an ecclesiastical establishment on the south side of the chief channel of the Lee, and it ultimately attained to a high reputation among the schools of Ireland. Then the Danes, after repeatedly plundering it, took a fancy to settling down here themselves, and carried on a somewhat flourishing commerce until the Anglo-Norman invasion. At that time the ruling power was in the hands of Dermot McCarthy, Lord of Desmond, who promptly made submission to Henry II. on his arrival in 1172, and did him homage. For a long period the English held the place against the Irish, living in a state of almost perpetual siege. They were compelled, Holinshed says, "to watch their gates hourlie, to keepe them shut at service time, at meales, from sun to sun, nor suffer anie stranger to enter the citie with his weapon, but the same to leave at a lodge appointed." Camden also describes it as "a little trading town of great resort, but so beset by rebellious neighbors as to require as constant a watch as if continually besieged." Cork took an active part in the disturbed history of the Middle Ages. It declared for Perkin Warbeck, and the mayor, John Walters, was hanged for abetting his pretensions. It was made the headquarters of the English forces during the Desmond rebellion. In 1649 it surrendered to Cromwell, who is said to have ordered the bells to be melted for military purposes, saying that, "since gunpowder was invented by a priest, he thought the best use for bells would be to promote them into cannons." A noticeable event in its history was the siege by William III.'s army under Marlborough and the Duke of Wurtemburg, when the garrison surrendered after holding out five days; the Duke of Grafton was killed on this occasion. Numerous monastic establishments were founded in early times, nearly all traces of which, as well as of its walls and castles, have been swept away. In the southwestern district of the city is the old cathedral, small and very unlike what a cathedral should be. St. Fin Barre, the founder of the cathedral, was born in the neighborhood of Bandon, and died at Cloyne in 630. His first religious establishment was in an island in Lough Gouganebarra, but about the beginning of the seventh century he founded another on the south bank of the Lee, which became the nucleus of the city of Cork. He was buried here in his own church, and his bones were subsequently enshrined in a silver case; but these relics were carried away by Dermot O'Brien when he plundered the city in 1089. There is little of general interest in the subsequent history of the see. In 1690, at the siege of Cork, a detachment of English troops took possession of the cathedral and attacked the south fort from the tower; the cathedral was so much damaged that it was taken down in 1734 and another erected. With the exception of the tower, which was believed to have formed part of the old church, it was a modern Doric building, with a stumpy spire of white limestone. The mode in which the funds were raised for its erection was the levying of a tax on all the coal imported for five years. This building stood until 1864, when it was taken down in order to erect the present structure upon its site. A cannon-ball fired during the siege of 1690 was found in the tower, forty feet from the ground, and is now on a bracket within the cathedral. In laying the foundations, three distinct burial-places were found, one above the other, and the human remains found exhibited remarkable racial peculiarities. St. Anne Shandon Church is at the foot of Church Street, off Shandon Street, at the north side of the city; it was built in 1722, and is remarkable for its extraordinary tower, one hundred and twenty feet high, surmounted by a graduated turret of three stories, faced on two sides with red stone, and on the others with limestone. "Party-colored, like the people, Red and white stands Shandon steeple." It contains a peal of bells, immortalized by "Father Prout" in the famous lyric: "... The Bells of Shandon That sound so grand on The pleasant waters Of the River Lee." They bear the inscription: "We were all cast at Gloucester, in England.--Abel Rudhall, 1750." "Father Prout" is buried in the church-yard of Shandon. Shandon derives its name from _Seandun_ (old fort); the name was given to the church of St. Mary, from its near neighborhood to Shandon Castle, an old seat of the Barrys. On the way down to Queenstown we passed Passage West, a pretty village embosomed in woods, and a considerable place of call, both for travelers and others bound up and down the river. "Father Prout" has sung its praises: "The town of Passage is both large and spacious, And situated upon the say; 'Tis nate and dacent, and quite adjacent To come from Cork on a summer's day. "There you may slip in and take a dippin' Forenent the shippin' that at anchor ride; Or in a wherry cross o'er the ferry To Carrigaloe, on the other side." [Illustration: SHE SAT AND DROVE ON A LOW-HACK CAR] Near here is Monkstown, where Anastasia Gould, wife of John Archdeckan, while her husband was absent in a foreign land, determined to afford him a pleasant surprise by presenting him with a castle on his return. She engaged workmen and made an agreement with them that they should purchase food and clothing solely from herself. When the castle was completed, on balancing her accounts of receipt and expenditure, she found that the latter exceeded the former by fourpence. Probably this is the first example on record of truck practice on a large scale. She died in 1689, and was buried in the ground of the adjoining ruined church of Teampull-Oen-Bryn, in which is a monument to her memory. Queenstown extends for a considerable distance along the northern coast of the harbor, and from its fine situation and the mildness of its climate ranks high among the southern watering-places. Queen Victoria landed here on August 3, 1849, of which she has written as follows: "To give the people the satisfaction of calling the place 'Queenstown,' in honor of its being the first spot on which I set foot upon Irish ground, I stepped on shore amidst the roar of cannon and the enthusiastic shouts of the people." We visited many banks at various towns during our trip, and were courteously received by the managers. The Irish banks are managed on the branch system, Belfast and Dublin being the headquarters for the parent corporations. Belfast for the most part takes care of the northern part of the island, and Dublin the southern. These institutions are very prosperous and are conservatively managed by intelligent men. Banks are established in all towns of any importance, and where the population is large they usually number half a dozen. At Queenstown we went on board the Cunard steamer _Etruria_, on Sunday morning, bound for New York. The company's popular agent, Mr. E. Dean, obtained the captain's cabin for me on the upper deck, and in many other ways "killed me with kindness." On looking back I find that my highest expectations of the trip were all fulfilled, and I have nothing but pleasant memories in connection with it. There were, of course, some bad moments, and for that matter, bad days; but they are all forgotten in the recollection of the kindly Irish people and the interesting land in which they live. I cannot recall a single cross word or hard look given me by any one during the entire trip, excepting in the Derry Customs, and that doesn't count. We traveled over three hundred and fifty miles on jaunting-cars, making use of twenty-three of them. We traversed the counties of Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, Mayo, and Clare, and used some ten different boats and steamers in completing our journey. [Illustration: THE KETTLE IS BOILING FOR OUR TEA] To the readers of this very imperfect sketch I would say that should they ever think of following in our footsteps, they should fully consider the drawbacks and inconveniences incident to the journey before deciding to start. They will meet with wet days, some cheerless, damp hotels, and sometimes poor cooking; they will probably not be able to get on as quickly or conveniently as I did, for I was born in Ireland and know the ways of the country and its people. But if they have in them the innate desire to see some of the finest natural scenery in the world, and by all odds the greatest display of verdure in all its varying shades and colors, then perhaps they may risk the many disappointing conditions that must be overcome if they would see Ireland at its best. "Immortal little island! no other land or clime Has placed more deathless heroes in the Pantheon of Time." THE END TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact. 
44066	----	By M. M. SHOEMAKER ISLANDS OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS With 80 Illustrations. Second Edition. Large 8vo. Gilt top $2.25 QUAINT CORNERS OF ANCIENT EMPIRES With 47 Illustrations. Large 8vo. Gilt top $2.25 THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY FROM PETERSBURG TO PEKING With 30 Illustrations and a Map. Large 8vo net, $2.00 THE HEART OF THE ORIENT With 52 Illustrations. Large 8vo net, $2.50 WINGED WHEELS IN FRANCE With about 60 Illustrations. Large 8vo net, $2.50 WANDERINGS IN IRELAND With 72 Illustrations. Large 8vo net, PALACES AND PRISONS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS With about 60 Illustrations. Large 8vo net, $5.00 Large Paper Edition. 4o net, $12.00 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS New York London [Illustration: "The Harp of Erin" From the original painting by T. Buchanan Read in possession of the author] WANDERINGS IN IRELAND BY MICHAEL MYERS SHOEMAKER Author of "Islands of the Southern Seas," "Winged Wheels in France," etc. Illustrated [Illustration] G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1908 COPYRIGHT, 1908 BY MICHAEL MYERS SHOEMAKER The Knickerbocker Press, New York TO MY AUNT ANNA L. SHOEMAKER THESE NOTES ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED PREFACE Are you minded for a jaunt through the island of Erin where tears and smiles are near related and sobs and laughter go hand in hand? We will walk, and will take it in donkey-cart and jaunting-car--by train and in motor-cars--and if you suit yourself you will suit me. Leaving Dublin we will circle northward, with a visit to Tanderagee Castle and the tomb of St. Patrick--God bless him,--then on past the Causeway and down to Derry, and so into the County of Mayo, where in the midst of a fair you will encounter the wildest "Konfusion" and will be introduced to the gentleman who pays the rent. In the silence and solitudes of the island of Achill you will see tears and hear sobs as you listen to the keening for the dead. Near the island of Clare, Queen Grace O'Malley will almost order you away, as she did her husband, and your motor with all its wings out will roll through the grand scenery of the western coast--now down by the ocean and then far up amidst the sombre mountains--Kylemore Castle and quaint Galway, Leap Castle--ghost-haunted--and moated Ffranckfort, Holy Cross and the Rock of Cashel--will pass in stately array and be succeeded by a glimpse of army life at Buttevant, and a dinner at Doneraile Court, where you will hear of the only woman Free Mason. Killarney will follow with its music and legends, and Cork and Fermoy, and so on and into the County of Wexford, where you will rush through the lanes and byways and will scare many old ladies--driving as many donkeys--almost into Kingdom Come. You will be welcomed at Bannow House and entertained in that quaintest of all earthly dwellings, "Tintern Abbey," which was a ruin when the family moved into it more than three centuries ago. You will visit the buried city of Bannow and pass on to where Moore watched the "Meeting of the Waters." You will visit in stately mansions, and go with a wild rush to the races at the Curragh. At Jigginstown House you will be reminded of the cowardice of a king, and as you bid farewell to Ireland you will lay a wreath on the grave of Daniel O'Connell,--all this and much more if you are so minded. M. M. S. UNION CLUB, NEW YORK, January 1, 1908. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Welcome to Ireland. Quaint People of Dublin. Packing the Motors. Departure. Tara Hill. Its History and Legends. Ruins at Trim. Tombs of the Druids. Battle-field of the Boyne 1 CHAPTER II Through Newry to Tanderagee Castle. Life in the Castle. Excursions to Armagh. Its History. The English in Armagh 15 CHAPTER III Through Newcastle to Downpatrick. Grave of St. Patrick. His Life and Work. The Old Grave Digger. Belfast and Ballygalley Bay. O'Halloran, the Outlaw 25 CHAPTER IV Ballycastle to the Causeway. Prosperity of Northern Ireland. Bundoran. Gay Life in County Mayo. Mantua House. Troubles in Roscommon. Wit of the People. Irish Girls. Emigration to America. Episode of the Horse. People of the Hills. Chats by the Wayside. Mallaranny 34 CHAPTER V The Island of Achill. Picturesque Scenery. Poverty of the People. "Keening" for the Dead. "The Gintleman who pays the Rint." Superstitious Legends 53 CHAPTER VI Monastery of Burrishoole. Queen Grace O'Malley and her Castle of Carrig-a-Hooly. Her Appearance at Elizabeth's Court. Dismissal of her Husband. Wild Scenery of the West Coast. The Ancient Tongue. Recess. Kylemore Castle. Crazy Biddy 77 CHAPTER VII The Ancient City of Galway. Quaint People. Curious Houses. Vile Hotel. Parsonstown. Wingfield House. Leap Castle, and its Ghosts. Ffranckfort Castle. Clonmacnoise. Holy Cross Abbey 94 CHAPTER VIII The Rock of Cashel. Its Cathedral, Palace, and Round Tower--Its History and Legends. Kilmalloch, its Ruins and History. The Desmonds. Horse Fair at Buttevant 119 CHAPTER IX Buttevant Barracks. Army Life. Mess-room Talk. Condition of the Barracks. Balleybeg Abbey. Old Church. Native Wedding. Kilcoman Castle, Spenser's Home. Doneraile Court. Mrs. Aldworth, the only Woman Freemason. Irish Wit. Regimental Plate. Departure from the Barracks 132 CHAPTER X Route to Killarney. Country Estates. Singular Customs. Picturesque Squalor. Peace of the Lakes. Innisfallen. The Legend of "Abbot Augustine." His Grave. "Dennis," the "Buttons," and his Family Affairs. Motors in the Gap of Dunloe 161 CHAPTER XI Kenmare and Herbert Demesnes. Old Woman at the Gates. Route to Glengariff. Bantry Bay. Boggeragh Mountains. Duishane Castle. The Carrig-a-pooka and its Legend. Macroom Castle and William Penn. Cork. Imperial Hotel. "Ticklesome" Car Boy. The Races and my Brown Hat. Route to Fermoy. Breakdown. Clonmel and its "Royal Irish." Ride to Waterford 170 CHAPTER XII Ancient Waterford. History. Reginald's Tower. Franciscan Friary. Dunbrody Abbey. New Ross. Bannow House. Its "Grey Lady." Legend of the Wood Pigeon. Ancient Garden. Buried City of Bannow. Dancing on the Tombs. Donkeys and Old Women. Tintern Abbey and its Occupants. Quaint Rooms and Quainter Stories. Its History and Legends. The Dead man on the Dinner Table. The Secret of the Walls. The Illuminated Parchment. The Sealed Library. Ruined Chapel. King Charles's Clothes. Is History False or True? 181 CHAPTER XIII Return to Ireland. Illness. Conditions on the Great Liners. The Quay at Cork "of a Saturday Evening." En route once more. The Old Lady and the Donkey. Barracks at Fermoy. Killshening House, Abandoned Seat of the Roche Family. Fethard. Quaint Customs. The Man in the Coffin. "Curraghmore House" and its Great Kennels. Its Legends, Ghosts, and History. Lady Waterford. Oliver Cromwell at the Castle. The Marquis in the Dungeon 209 CHAPTER XIV Departure from Fethard. A Dead Horse and a Lawsuit. Approach to Dublin. Estate of Kilruddery. The Swan as a Fighter. Glendalough, its Ruins and History. Tom Moore and his Tree in Ovoca. Advantages of Motor Travel. Superstition of the Magpie. A Boy, a Cart, and a Black Sheep. The Goose and the Motor 225 CHAPTER XV The Lunatic. Insanity and its Causes in Ireland. The Usual Old Lady and Donkey. Sunshine and Shadow. Clonmines and its Seven Churches. The Crosses around the Holy Tree. Baginbun and the Landing of the English. The Bull of Pope Adrian. Letter of Pope Alexander. Protest of the Irish Princes. Legends. Death of Henry II. 243 CHAPTER XVI Wild Times in Ireland. Landlord and Tenant. Evictions. Boycott at Bannow House. The Parson and the Legacy. The Priest and the Whipping. Burial in Cement. Departure from Bannow House. Kilkenny and her Cats. The Mountains of Wicklow. Powerscourt and a Week-End. Run to Dublin and an Encounter by the Way. The Irish Constabulary. Motor Runs in the Mountains. Lord H----. 260 CHAPTER XVII Dublin. Derby Day and the Rush to the Curragh. An Irish Crowd. The Kildare Street Club and Club Life. Jigginstown House and its History. The Cowardice of a King. The Old Woman on the Tram Car. Parnell. The Grave of Daniel O'Connell 276 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE THE HARP OF ERIN _Frontispiece_ From the original painting by T. Buchanan Read, in the possession of the author STATUE OF ST. PATRICK ON THE HILL OF TARA 4 CASTLE OF KING JOHN AT TRIM 8 MONUMENT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD OF THE BOYNE 12 TANDERAGEE CASTLE, IRISH SEAT OF THE DUKE OF MANCHESTER 16 CHAPEL, TANDERAGEE CASTLE 20 DRAWING-ROOM, TANDERAGEE CASTLE 24 TERRACE, TANDERAGEE CASTLE 28 TOMB OF ST. PATRICK AT DOWNPATRICK 32 A CABIN IN THE NORTH 36 A WOMAN OF THE NORTH 40 MANTUA HOUSE, ROSCOMMON 44 BALLINA, A TYPICAL IRISH TOWN 48 A GLIMPSE OF ACHILL 52 SLIEVEMORE MOUNTAIN, AND DUGORT, ACHILL 56 FISHERFOLK OF ACHILL 60 A LONELY ROAD IN CONNEMARA 64 KYLEMORE CASTLE, CONNEMARA 68 CRAZY BIDDY 72 THE LYNCH HOUSE, GALWAY 76 ABBEY OF ST. DOMINICK, LORRHA, ANCIENT BURIAL-PLACE OF THE CARROLLS 80 LEAP CASTLE, COURT SIDE 84 LEAP CASTLE, PARK SIDE 88 MOAT OF FFRANCKFORT CASTLE 92 FFRANCKFORT CASTLE 96 CLONMACNOISE 100 ABBEY OF THE HOLY CROSS 104 ROCK OF CASHEL 108 CORMAC'S CHAPEL, CASHEL 112 CROSS OF CASHEL, AND THRONE OF THE KINGS OF MUNSTER 116 ANCIENT GATEWAY, KILMALLOCH 120 DOMINICAN ABBEY, KILMALLOCH 124 BUTTEVANT BARRACKS 128 DINNER, BUTTEVANT BARRACKS 132 BUTTEVANT, COUNTY CORK 136 KILCOMAN CASTLE, SPENSER'S HOME 140 DONERAILE COURT, COUNTY CORK 144 ROOM IN DONERAILE COURT WHERE MRS. ALDWORTH HID 148 THE HON. MRS. ALDWORTH, THE ONLY WOMAN FREEMASON 152 THE LAKE, DONERAILE PARK 156 MALLOW CASTLE, COUNTY CORK 160 IRISH COTTAGE, COUNTY KERRY 164 CHAPEL OF ST. FINIAN THE LEPER, INNISFALLEN 168 TREE OVER THE ABBOT'S GRAVE, INNISFALLEN 172 UPPER LAKE, KILLARNEY 176 "DINNIS," HOTEL VICTORIA 180 THE ROUTE TO GLENGARIFF 184 CARRIG-A-POOKA CASTLE 188 MACROOM CASTLE 192 REGINALD'S TOWER, WATERFORD 196 FRANCISCAN FRIARY, WATERFORD 200 DUNBRODY ABBEY, COUNTY WEXFORD 204 BANNOW HOUSE, COUNTY WEXFORD 208 TERRACE, BANNOW HOUSE, COUNTY WEXFORD 212 CORNER OF THE ROSE GARDEN, BANNOW HOUSE, COUNTY WEXFORD 216 BANNOW CHURCH, COUNTY WEXFORD 220 TOMBS IN BANNOW CHURCH 224 TINTERN ABBEY, COUNTY WEXFORD 228 KILKENNY CASTLE 232 DESERTED KILLSHENING HOUSE, FERMOY 236 CURRAGHMORE HOUSE, MARQUIS OF WATERFORD 240 HALLWAY, CURRAGHMORE HOUSE 244 DINING-ROOM, CURRAGHMORE HOUSE 248 KILRUDDERY HOUSE, EARL OF MEATH 252 GLENDALOUGH 256 TOM MOORE'S TREE, VALE OF OVOCA 260 ONE OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES, CLONMINES 264 FUNERAL CROSSES BY THE WAYSIDE, COUNTY WEXFORD 268 POWERSCOURT HOUSE 272 GREAT SALON, POWERSCOURT HOUSE 276 RUINS OF JIGGINSTOWN HOUSE, EARL OF STRAFFORD 280 PARNELL'S GRAVE, GLASNEVIN CEMETERY, DUBLIN 284 DANIEL O'CONNELL'S MONUMENT, GLASNEVIN CEMETERY, DUBLIN 288 WANDERINGS IN IRELAND CHAPTER I Welcome to Ireland--Quaint People of Dublin--Packing the Motor and Departure--Tara Hill; its History and Legends--Ruins at Trim--Tombs of the Druids--Battle-field of the Boyne. "Glory be to God, but yer honour is welcome to Ireland." An old traveller understands that it is the unexpected which makes the joy of his days. I had come to Europe with the intention of spending some conventional weeks in London, followed by an auto tour with the family through the fair land of France. Fate brings me, upon my first day in town, to Prince's Restaurant, when out of the chaos of faces before me rises one whose owner, a son of Erin whom I had last seen under the cherry blossoms of Japan, advances upon me. Then the conventional promptly drops off and away, and it is but a short while before a motor tour is arranged in the Emerald Isle, a month to be passed amidst its beauties and miseries, its mirth and its sadness, for all go in one grand company in the land of St. Patrick. With Boyse of Bannow I shall follow the fancy of the moment, which to my thinking is the only true mode of travel. "Du Cros" has agreed to furnish a perfectly new Panhard for and upon the same terms which I received in France last year, viz., thirty pounds sterling per week, and everything found except the board and lodging of the chauffeur. These very necessary details arranged we are impatient to be off and leave London on a hot day in June. The smells, dirt, and dust of her wooden streets, driven in clouds over all the grand old city, follow us far out into the green meadows of England until we ask whether the hawthorn blossoms have ever held any fragrance, and have we not been mistaken as to roses. But London is not all of England, and we are finally well beyond her influence and wondering why we remained within her limits with the beautiful country so near at hand. The meadows of England giving way to the mountains of Wales, one catches a glimpse of the stately towers of Conway Castle, and then sails outward and westward upon a level sea, which, on its farther side, holds the haven of desire, Dublin, on the broad waters of the Liffey. Ireland welcomes us, weeping softly the while, though smiling ever and anon as the sunlight rifts downward from the west. The gang-plank is slippery and the pavements mucky, but our welcome is a warm one, at least one fat, comfortable looking old woman with a shawl over her head, a gown whose colour I cannot attempt to give, and shoes which have evidently been discarded by her "auld man," greets me with a "Glory be to God, but yer honour is welcome to Ireland!" and then catching sight of my Jap servant, she gives utterance to a very audible aside, "Be the powers of the divil, phat's that he has wid him!" crossing herself vehemently the while, firmly convinced, I doubt not, that she has seen a limb of Satan, which I think he strongly resembles. The Shelburn Hotel receives us within its walls, unchanged in the thirty years which have elapsed since I last crossed the threshold, a comfortable inn, pleasantly situated upon College Green, where a band of Irish musicians are discoursing American ballads of the early sixties. One runs into the tide of American tourists here in Dublin, and to-night this hotel is crowded with them. The clatter of tongues proving too much for me, I dine and start to bed as soon as possible--a good book and an easy resting-place are attractive after the long ride from London. In the hallway I encounter the porter trying to induce an old gentleman to go to bed. Said gentleman is drunk as a gentleman should be, and sound asleep in his chair, holding fast to a glass of whiskey and soda, from which no efforts of the porter can part him. "What's the number of your room, sir?" The sleeping eyes half open as the happy man murmurs, "Wasn't you tryin' to stale my whiskey just now?" "Well, I thought, sir, ye would be more comfortable in yer room." "Let slapin' dogs lie, me boy. But 'twas in a good cause ye did it, and so I'll go," and he staggers off to the lift, sleeps on my shoulders until I get out, and probably on the bench for the rest of the night, as that small lift boy could never move that bulk, redolent of whiskey and good humour. So far I have heard nothing from Boyse, who was to have rejoined me here, and, when ten o'clock comes round, give him up for the night, and putting out the light am shortly in the land of dreams, only to be awakened by a clatter on the door followed by the entrance of the missing man. He has put up at the Club, having reached here ahead of me. Our car he reports ready for us at nine to-morrow morning, and I shortly drive him out as it has gotten late. One must be of a sour disposition if one does not laugh in Ireland, and be assured her people will always laugh with one, though at times there sounds a catch of a sob running through it all. Seat yourself on any spot in the island, and something funny is apt, nay almost sure, to occur before you depart; all of which is apparently arranged for your especial benefit. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Statue of St. Patrick on Tara Hill] It is raining this morning and it is Sunday, which in the dominions of his Majesty does not mean a day of diversion unless you happen to be a guest in some country house. I am in a secluded seat on the portico of the hotel, when directly before me, on the only spot of pavement visible, appears a girl of fourteen dressed in everything which could never by the widest stretch of the imagination have been intended for her when purchased. She summons "Katie darlin'" not to be such a "truble" to her, but to appear and "spake to the gintleman," whereupon from around the corner of a stone post comes "Katie darlin'," a mite of a child some two feet tall with a pair of black eyes sparkling all over her dirty little face. She is robed in what looks like a blue plush opera-cloak on wrong side in front and festooned over what were once shoes; her shock of never combed hair is topped by an old woman's bonnet. "Katie darlin'" is evidently out for her Sunday. She is glad to see every one, and especially "Your honour" after the reception of a "ha'penny." Bless her dirty little face, what will be her portion in this life, I wonder! Yet, after all, being Irish, she is safer than if born of another race, for the women of her land do not go down to death and destruction as easily as those of other countries, be it said to their credit. God grant it may be so with "Katie darlin'," who goes smilingly away to meet whatever fate the future holds for her, and which disturbs her not at all as yet. The morning of our start from Dublin opens windy and with drifting clouds but is a fair day for hereabouts, and after all these grey skys are very soothing to one's eyes. Our motor rolls up at ten A.M. and proves to be a handsome new Panhard of fifteen horse-power. Packing and stowing take a half-hour the first day, as economy of space is to be desired, and the proper arrangement of luggage is a question to be considered. However, all is done and I roll off to the "Kildare Street Club," where Boyse awaits me. His traps necessitate a new arrangement of all the luggage, which I am not allowed to superintend at all, but am carried off to a room well to the rear where a whiskey and soda is vainly pressed upon me. I should much prefer to stay outside and boss the job of loading up, but that would be undignified. So we stay cooped up until all is arranged, and then sally forth and roll away with the utmost grandeur of demeanour. I object several times during the day to the arrangement of those traps, impressing upon Boyse the truth of the old saying, "if you want a thing done, go,--if not, send--" and pointing out to him that therein lies the reason for the increasing glory and prosperity of our country and the evident decadence of the British Empire. He does not take me as serious,--perhaps I am not,--but daily life must have its spice and we spend many hours like Pat and "Dinnis" on the quay at Cork of a Saturday evening, "fighting each other for conciliation and hating each other for the love of God." Speeding away through Dublin's busy streets and out into Phoenix Park, existence becomes life once more. The rushing winds drive the last taint of the city and its world of men and women off and away. Beyond the confines of the park we enter at once into the green country; tall hawthorn hedges toss their branches above us as we speed onward, the car moving like a bird. These are not French roads but they are far from bad. Mile after mile glides by us, and a sharp rain forces the top over our heads, but not for long,--it is soon down again, and we give ourselves up for an hour to the enjoyment of mere motion. And then history claims our attention. Dublin is of course rich in its memories but leave it for the present and speeding westward some thirty miles pause at the foot of Tara Hill, the most renowned spot in Ireland. There are few in our Western land who do not remember the sweet old song of Moore's: "The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled." And there are many to whom its melodies will recall those better days when voices long since sunken into silence sang them off into dreamland with those words. Green grow the grasses to-day over this site of Ireland's most ancient capital. Gone are its garland-hung walls, silent its harps for ever. Leaving the present behind, one passes into the remotest recess of the island's past as one mounts the hill. To-day wavering misty shadows close in around me as I move upward, even as though the spirits of the ancient kings and minstrels were yet about, and the winds moan as though driven across the strings of many harps, and there seems melody all around me. Tara is not a great hill, but a fair green mound from which the ancient kings were wont to spy out all the fair land around them. It was the most sacred spot in the kingdom and none could wear the crown who bore blemish of any sort. Cormac Mac Art, the great King, was, upon the loss of his eye, forced to retire to the hill of Skreen near-by. For twenty-five hundred years, Tara was the palace and burial-place of the kings of Ireland, who every third year met here in great convention. To-day as I stand on its summit nothing of that period, save some long mounds, breaks the green carpet of grass thrown like the covering of our holy communion over this holy of holies. Tara was mentioned by Ptolemy and he called it "illustrious." Its name by some is supposed to be taken from that of the wife of a King, Heremon, the first monarch of Ireland. "Thea" was her name and the place was called Temora (the house of Thea), but others call it "the house of music" (Thead, a musical chord, and mur, a house). [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Castle of King John Trim] The main hall stood nine hundred feet square and "twenty-seven cubits in height." It held its thousand guests daily and on great days the monarch sat on his throne in its centre, his flowing yellow hair bearing the golden crown, his stately form clothed in a brilliant scarlet robe laden with rich ornaments of gold. Golden shoes ornamented with red buckles and bearing stars and animals in gold, were upon his feet; the King of Leinster sat, facing him, the King of Ulster sat on his right, the King of Munster on his left, while the King of Connaught sat behind him. On long rows of seats before him were the druids, bards, philosophers, antiquaries, genealogists, musicians, and the chiefs of all the towns of the kingdom. The assembly was opened by the chief bard, followed by the druidical rites, after which the fire of Saman, or the moon, was lighted. Not until then was the business of the convention taken up. In one part of the palace, the youths were instructed in poetry and music and initiated into the hidden harmony of the universe. Evidently in those days a city must have surrounded the base of this hill, but of the houses of the people little seems to be known and nothing is left. In these long mounds the traveller to-day may trace the outlines of the hall composed of earth and wood from whence one hundred and forty-two kings ruled the land, the great King Cormac dating back to A.D. 227, and he it is who is supposed to have built this hall. Some claim that the celebrated "Stone of Destiny" now in the coronation chair in London was taken from here to Scotland. Of this there is no proof, but so runs the legend. There is only the music of the wind-swept grasses on Tara Hill to-night, yet surely the moon rising so grandly yonder still holds her feast and is summoning her worshippers from the mists of the valley rising in fantastic forms all around us,--but the only thing bearing semblance of human form which she illumines is a crazy statue of St. Patrick here on the spot where he met and, by the power of the Lord, vanquished the magicians of the king. There could be no fitter heir to inherit and so we leave him in sole possession and go down to our car, which rolls us silently away through the green lanes and on towards Trim's ruined arches and towers. Now the tall "yellow steeple" of the Abbey of St. Mary's, founded by St. Patrick, and close into the town the great Castle of King John loom up in the moonlight. Vast in extent, the castle appears doubly so in this shadowy light, as we glide by it, a huge empty shell covered with clambering ivy. Rolling on through the town we pass to Navan, dear to hunters. All this is a fair green country where the grass is good for the cattle, where the poultry thrive, and the Boyne is full of fish, hence one notes on all sides the ruins of many monasteries, for those old monks were always to be found where their stomachs could be well taken care of; and yet with all that they were the power in the land, as the priest is still the power in southern Ireland. Leaving Navan we turn northeastward towards Drogheda. The road winds all the way by the banks of the Boyne and while that name recalls to mind most prominently the famous battle of the kings, James and William, still the region was celebrated long ages before either was thought of. The whole valley was a vast necropolis for the ancient kings and druids, and on both sides one sees the remains of a remote antiquity, especially at New Grange where one finds a tumulus covering some two acres. At first glance it resembles an Indian mound in America, but it is far more satisfactory to explore as one finds in its interior a tomb of extraordinary size and rich in carving, which is supposed to date as far back as the earliest bronze age, but who was buried here is a question which has never been settled. We enter by a passage on its southern side about fifty feet long,--a stone corridor formed by upright slabs about seven feet high and roofed by stones of great size. Our glimmering candles show the centre tomb to be a lofty domed chamber, circular in form, its roof composed of horizontally placed stones projecting one beyond the other and capped by a single slab some twenty feet above the observer. There are three recesses branching off from the rotunda, probably the tombs of the lesser mortals, while the body of the monarch evidently occupied the centre space. There is another sepulchre of equal size at Dowth, and doubtless every hill or mound in sight holds others. If the Boyne as it winds and murmurs past them could speak, it could doubtless tell us tales of kings and druids, of royal coronations and priestly ceremonies, of life and death in the long dead past. How was it all, I wonder? Was it picturesque and beautiful or did the barbaric side crowd all that down and out, leaving nothing save a shuddering feeling of horror as one gazed on the rites of the druids? These tombs were rifled by the Danes a thousand years ago, and therefore, aside from the carvings on their walls, have yielded but little of interest to the antiquary. There is nothing of animal or human life represented, merely coils, lozenges, and spirals, with now and then a fern leaf, but nothing which tells their story as do the Egyptian inscriptions. This valley of the Boyne is beautifully wooded and the roads are fine. Our route lies past the obelisk marking the famous battlefield where the sun of James II. set for ever. The valley is lovely and reminds one greatly of that of the Thames near Richmond. It has taken most of the day to make the chauffeur understand that we are not out to kill time and distance. At the rate he would like to travel we should reach Iceland in time for tea even with the ocean to cross, but, as I have forced him to retrace the route several times, he seems at last to understand our determination not to rush. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Monument on the Battle-field of the Boyne] The whole day's ride has been charming. We did not stop at Drogheda, but passed on to Newry, a twelve-mile ride over a very fine road, and rested at the Victoria Hotel, having covered one hundred and three miles since eleven this morning, with long stoppages several times. The auto has done splendidly and will do better as it gets down to work. This is the Protestant end of Ireland, prosperous and contented apparently, but not picturesque. That goes with the state of affairs to be found in the southern half. Newry is a clean town with neat shops and houses, and a good hotel, still there are Irish characteristics which those of us who remember the Irish maid of long ago in America will recognise at once. Many things are broken, "jist came that way"; a complete toilet set is unnecessary where there are windows; and I notice that the salutations sound always wrong end first,--when people meet they say "Good-night," a form never used elsewhere except when parting. Apparently the hotel is the social club of the town, where the men of a certain class gather in the evenings, and drawing their chairs in a circle before the bar, spend an hour or so in chaff with the barmaid, drinking porter the while. To-night the talk is of a more serious nature and turns on trade. It is claimed that what kills all chance of Ireland being a profitable country are the railway rates, that, for instance, it costs more to get corn from Galway to Dublin than from America to any point on the island. I asked an Irishman whether Gladstone had benefited Ireland, and he replied, "he was the cause of all our trouble, he cost Great Britain two thousand millions sterling and countless lives, and yet they put up statues to him." The traveller of to-day sees no sign of the upper classes in Newry, though there are estates all around it, and in turning the pages of its history he will discover that it is a place of great antiquity, though its streets to-day show no signs thereof. Prosperous and commonplace would best describe it. However, it is just the prosperous and commonplace which the traveller most welcomes as night comes down upon him, for there, and not amongst the romantic and picturesque, in Ireland at least, does he find comfortable quarters and good food. So it is to-night and so to bed and dreams. CHAPTER II Through Newry to Tanderagee Castle--Life in the Castle--Excursions to Armagh--Its History--The English in Armagh. Our route lies from Newry north-west through Pointz-pass, beyond which as we approach Tanderagee, the castle, a stately stone structure, is seen towering high on a forest-crowned hill with a flag denoting its owner's presence floating from the main tower. While the castle is a modern structure of some seventy-five years of age,--originally built by the Count de Salis,--it stands on the site of the very ancient stronghold of Redmond O'Hanlon, the most noted outlaw of Ireland. As we roll through the quaint town clustering around the hill, where every soul appears to have gone to sleep or gone dead long since, the sound of the motor brings a few pale faces to the doors of the houses, but it is very quiet withal. Looking upward from this street the growth of trees is so dense that no sign of the castle is visible. We pass through almost a tunnel cut through the rocks and trees, and emerging in a spacious courtyard, draw up at the main portal where the _maître d'hôtel_ meets and conducts us within, our hosts being off somewhere in their motor but will return shortly. This gives us time for a quiet inspection. We find ourselves in a long, wide, and lofty corridor having a row of windows on its right, while on the left one has entrance first to the main hall and chapel, stately apartments very richly decorated, and then in order follow several drawing-rooms, a library, and a spacious dining-hall, and from the walls of each and all, the painted faces of those who walked these chambers long ago look down upon us with questioning gaze as though they still retained some interest in this world of the living, and yonder dame would, I know, like to hear the latest news from London; but take my advice, my lady, and let it pass, it is productive of just the same unrest and discontent now as when you trod the boards of that great theatre of life,--Dead Sea fruit, the whole of it. Wondering what part she played in life, my eyes wander to an open window and straightway all thoughts of Madam vanish as I gaze downward through the glades of one of those beautiful parks which abound in these dominions. A stately terrace of stone shrouded in ivy runs below these windows and from it the land drops away into a gentle valley filled with great trees and blossoming banks of rhododendrons with here and there a stretch of grassland and a gleam of water, a vista which must have been a perpetual delight to the Duke who collected these books in this library, for a lover of books is generally a lover of nature. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Tanderagee Castle] Passing onward you will enter the courtyard and at the end of the long arcades on one side find the billiard and smoking rooms. On the upper floors, aside from the state and family apartments, one finds long rows of bachelor apartments, twenty or thirty of them I should say, and in the middle of the row a cozy octagon chamber where much high revel has held forth, and which looks very lonely just now. There are small closets in the walls which certainly did not hold holy water. But times are changed at Tanderagee, and while there is to-day high revel within its walls, it comes from the fresh young voices of children and would in no way appeal to the ghosts which haunt the octagon chamber. After luncheon we visit the little ones in their rooms high up in the sunlight, and very happy, fine children they appear to be. Round-eyed little Lady Mary did the honours and presented her brother, who at the time was making vain attempts to stand on his head in a corner, while the new baby dreamed his days away in a crib by the fire. I am told that the present Duke dying without an heir the estate would pass to a Catholic owner, much to the distaste of the tenants here, who are mostly Protestants, and that when little Lord Mandeville was born the rejoicings were immense,--every man as he heard it having a pull at the church bell. Now there are two sons and hence little chance of the dreaded misfortune,--though it often happened during the Boer war that many estates in the empire fell to those so distant that no hope had been entertained for an instant of their so passing. Let us trust it will not occur here, for these are fine children. Passing downward, we spend some hours in wandering over the park, pausing at last by the grave of the late Duke in the little churchyard. I did not notice the graves of any other members of the family. I believe former dukes are interred at Kimbolton, the family seat in England. The church holds some very beautiful windows erected by the present Duchess to the memory of her mother, Helena Zimmerman. As we return to the castle the voices of the children have roused all the echoes of the courtyard into wild replies and now the sunlight streams downward as though in thorough approval. Tea-time, that most pleasant hour of the day, finds me in the chapel listening to the soft tones of the organ. My hand quite haphazard picks up a volume lying near me whose title at once chains my attention and in view of the base manner in which the author afterward sold his talents to her enemies and slandered his Queen it may be well to quote what he says of that Queen in this preface: "TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. [An Epigram of George Buchanan.] "MADAM: "Who now happily holdest the sceptre of the Caledonian coast conveyed from hand to hand through a long line of innumerable ancestors, whose fortune is exceeded by thy merits, thy years by thy virtues, thy sex by thy spirit, and thy noble birth by the nobility of thy manners, "Receive (but with candour and good nature) these poems upon which I have bestowed a Latine Dress, etc. etc. I durst not cast away this ill-born product of mine lest I should reject what thou hast been pleased to approve. What my poems could not hope for from the wit and genius of the composer perhaps they will obtain from thy good-will and approbation."[1] Deep in thoughts of that most interesting period of Scotch history I do not even hear the dressing bell until its clangour becomes too insistent to be disregarded, and I mount to my room to dress for that most important function of the day--dinner. A bright fire makes the chamber warm and cozy so that it is difficult to resist the temptation to further reverie. Evidently Tanderagee has been greatly improved of late years. In the building have been placed several modern bathrooms, a Turkish plunge, and an electric light plant and steam heat, so that the damp, penetrating cold and musty, mouldy smell usually so ever-present in these houses, where fortunes are so constantly spent in decorations and so little done for actual comfort, are absent. From my window I can see on the lake of the park an ancient swan named Billy, alone in all his glory and from choice and bad temper, not necessity. He has killed off all his kind and all other kinds, is in fact a degenerate bird, and when evening comes on he betakes himself with the rest of the "boys" to the village street, and loafs around all night, no dog in the place daring to molest him. I saw him outside of a public house there with a desire for strong drink expressed in his eyes. He is a rake of the worst character but you dare not tell him so. He leaves the park every night before the gates are closed and returns next morning. There are fine drives in all directions hereabouts, and the roads being good we have many a rush in the motor-cars,--one to an old ruin where the devil is supposed to leave the impress of his foot upon a plank in the floor each night. I doubt if to-day even the devil could reach the plank through the accumulation of dirt thereon. [Illustration: Photo by Wm. Lawrence Chapel, Tanderagee Castle] As we wait in the quadrangle one morning for our motors, to my astonishment I am accosted in salutation by a name used only at home, and by those I have known for years. "How de do, Mr. Mike?" Around me rise the walls of the castle, but aside from the expressionless faces of the house servants standing near I can see no one until in a dark corner of the court a yet blacker spot suddenly shows a white gleam of teeth, and out into the light comes the speaker. "How de do, sir?--I'se de cook on de boss's car, and I knowed you all your life. Don't you remember nigger John and Miss Nancy Ballentine?" Convulsed with laughter, I can scarcely answer. This explains the hot bread and waffles on the breakfast table, which surprised me for the moment, but which I had entirely forgotten. Bowing and scraping came black "Tom" into the sunshine and it seemed to do his heart good to talk of the old times, of Black John our own cook, and Miss Nancy Ballentine, who "tended de ladies' waitin' room in the C. H. & D. station" when she was not assisting at the marrying or burying of most of us, at the latter wearing a dress composed of the crêpe from many a doorbell. That it did not match in degrees of blackness mattered not at all to the good dame. She arranged it in stripes and she could tell you which particular funeral each of those stripes came from. She has been dead many years, and to have her recalled here was strange indeed, but--the cars come with a rush, and we are off with a rush, speeding through the beautiful park whose trees certainly equal any I have seen except of course those of California. I find that my fifteen horse-power Clements keeps up very fairly with the Duke's motor of sixty horse-power. Of course on the wide straight roads of France this could not be, but on these narrow and crooked lanes of Ireland we are never very far apart, and have had many good runs together. Our motoring carries us often to the town of Armagh where one comes across traces of the hatred of that Catholic Queen, Mary I., for the Irish. She burned this see and three other churches. The cruelties of that Queen to the people of Kings and Queens counties equals anything told in Irish history, but is rarely mentioned by the historians of the day. In fact, all the territory forming now those counties was stolen from its ancient owners and the name changed as above, resulting in a warfare which lasted into the reign of Elizabeth until the people finally disappeared into the mountains. No torture or cruelty was spared. In _Forgotten facts in Irish History_ we read that "it seems very apparent to the student of Irish history that these people received their persecutions not because they were _Catholics_, but because they were _Irish_. The most terrible persecutions took place under the Catholic sovereigns of England and not until those monarchs became so-called heretics was the Church of Rome turned against them, so that at the present time it is the effort of all to show that the persecution if it exists is because of the religion." The history of the archbishopric of Dublin is an object-lesson on the exclusion of the Irish from the Church ever since the Conquest. From 1171 down to the Reformation, in 1549, there were twenty-three archbishops of Dublin. Of these not one was Irish. For the archbishopric of Dublin "No Irish need apply!" The Statute of Kilkenny enacted that no religious house shall receive an Irishman, under penalty of being attainted and having its temporalities seized. One historian of our times asks: "But would any Irishman have the hardihood to say that if King Edward VII. were to become a Roman Catholic (which heaven forbid), and to go hand in hand with the Papacy in the prosecution of their Imperial and world-wide projects, that the Pope would oppose the King in any tyrannies he might be disposed to inflict upon Ireland which did not run counter to the interests of the Roman Catholic Church? Would the Pope risk the friendship of the ruler of a great Empire for the sake of what Italians regard as 'a mere eruption on the chin of the world'?[2] "The centuries of oppressive treatment which Ireland received while the whole kingdom was under the 'shelter of the wings of Rome' amply explains the animosity which rankles in the Irish heart towards England and everything English. The whole story of that almost forgotten period is a series of murders, cursings, tyrannies, betrayals, rapacity, hypocrisy, and poverty, which scarcely finds a parallel in the range of history." Armagh has suffered terribly throughout the years since St. Patrick founded the cathedral, but though abounding in memories, there is little existing of the past in the town to-day. The site of its cathedral is very fine, but the building has suffered a complete restoration. Our days at Tanderagee have passed pleasantly but they are over at last and bidding our hosts adieu we roll off towards Newry. [Illustration: Photo by Wm. Lawrence Drawing-room, Tanderagee Castle] FOOTNOTES: [1] The Preface of George Buchanan's Poetical Paraphrase upon the five books of Psalms. Translated literally into English by Pat Stobin, A. M. Copied by me from the MS. copy of Stobin at Tanderagee, owned by the Duke of Manchester. The whole book is in MS. M. M. SHOEMAKER. [2] The late Professor Stokes ventured to say that an English Peer is a more welcome visitor at the Vatican than an Irish Roman Catholic Bishop. CHAPTER III Through Newcastle to Downpatrick--Grave of St. Patrick--His Life and Work--The Old Grave-Digger--Belfast and Ballygalley Bay--O'Halloran the Outlaw. It is nearly six o'clock when we start from Newry towards Newcastle. Our road lies down the river, and so on by the sea the entire distance. The highway is excellent all the way, some thirty-two miles, and the car speeds onward like a bird. The scenery is lovely, the glimpses of mountain and meadow, sea and sky enchanting. About 7.20 brings us to the hotel at Slieve Donard, a very large costly establishment built by the railway company. It is evidently a watering-place of some importance, and next month (July) will see it crowded. The place is pleasantly situated by the sea and presided over by the Mourne Mountains. There are golf-links and the walks and drives are fine, but otherwise there is nothing of interest, and we shall move northward to Dundrum. The morning is clear and crisp as we leave Newcastle, getting lost at once in the many byways, but that is rather a pleasure than an annoyance. All the roadbeds are fine hereabouts and we roll merrily along over hill and down dale until Downpatrick comes into view, and we pass up her streets to her ancient cathedral, and there pay our devotions at the grave of St. Patrick. The church stands well above its ancient city and is visible from all the country round about. Several places claim the birthplace of St. Patrick, but that benign Scotchman was born near Dunbarton. He himself says that his father was a deacon and his grandfather a _priest_. He was a nephew of St. Martin of Tours, the sister of that holy man having been the mother of the Irish patron. His name was Succat, but it is by his Latin name of Patricius that he is known best to the millions who revere his memory. Ireland during its first millennium was called Scotland, and its people "Scots," and by these St. Patrick was taken prisoner when he was but sixteen years of age and carried to Antrim, where he was held for six years and forced to care for the swine of Michu, a chieftain. We are told that this occurred in the mountain of Llemish near Ballymena. During this period his thoughts were ever turned towards Christianity and after having effected his escape he is next heard of at Auxerre with its Bishop, Germanus, by whom he was admitted to holy orders. His thoughts always turned towards Ireland and here he landed when he was sixty years of age near the present church of Saul on Strangford Lough in 432 A.D. This was but four miles from Downpatrick, and there the Lord promptly blessed his work by enabling him to convert the chieftain of the district, Dichu, to Christianity, receiving as a gift the barn of that same chieftain, which formed the first Christian church of this island. The present church of Saul stands on the spot and that name is but a corruption of the ancient one of "Patrick's Sabball," or barn. From here the faith spread until it covered all the land, and here in 492 he died. Both Armagh and Dundalethglass--Downpatrick--claimed a right to provide him with a tomb, and to settle the dispute two untamed oxen were yoked to his bier, and they stopped on this hill of Downpatrick. As to what sort of a wild ride they gave his saintship before, out of wind, they rested on this hill, history is silent, but, being Irish, there is no doubt but that he thoroughly enjoyed it. I have always regretted that during an ocean voyage which I once made with the late Bishop Donnelly, I did not make inquiry concerning this funeral progress, for I have no doubt but that his reverence--he was not a Bishop then--knew all about it. I have never met any one who more thoroughly appreciated the sunshine and sorrow, the laughter and tears of the land he loved so well, and I greatly regret that that voyage was so short and that the good Bishop so soon thereafter entered into his rest. But to return. As far as the actual grave of St. Patrick is concerned, there is, of course, no certainty; that he was buried somewhere on this hill appears beyond doubt, and probably near the spot the church was built on, but that his body remained long in the grave after he was elevated to the sainthood is clearly doubtful. Probably every church in Ireland has at one time contained a relic of his. As for this original church here, it is spoken of way back in the sixth century and again in the eleventh. The first claimed to have been erected by the saint himself. The relics of Columba were brought from Iona here and it is related that it was that saint who enshrined those of St. Patrick just three-score years after his death. In his tomb were found his goblet, his Angel's Gospel, and the Bell of the Testament. Into St. Patrick's tomb went also the bones of St. Brigid. The Danes came here, and Strongbow and King John passed by. The present church is supposed to be only the choir of the great edifice--the second church--built by De Courcey and destroyed by Edward, Lord Cromwell in 1605; but it is so completely restored that it is of little interest, though very comfortable withal. [Illustration: Photo by Wm. Lawrence Terrace at Tanderagee Castle] Just outside there stands a venerable gravedigger amongst the tombs, who might almost have been here fifteen hundred years ago, and certainly he would resent any insinuation that he was not well informed upon all which may or may not have occurred since the death of the saint. He is leaning upon his rake near the church door, and returns our salutation in an antique manner, nothing about him as it were, belonging to this latter day or date. "Yes, the cathedral can be visited, but perhaps 'twould be as well to visit the tomb, I will show you that,--who better?" It is off amongst a tangle of tombstones and high grasses, a great flat irregular boulder engraved with a Celtic cross and the saint's name--evidently the sinful dead have crowded as closely as possible around the saintly ashes in order perhaps to pass into the heavenly gates unobserved with such great company to chain the attention of St. Peter. But some of these around started on their last journey hundreds of years after St. Patrick,--still, as we are told that "in His sight a thousand years are but as yesterday," perhaps they all arrived together, and I doubt not that for his beloved Irish the holy Patrick would delay his entry as long as possible and even come back again from that farther shore at the calling of some late comers. When I ask this gravedigger whether this be indeed the grave of the holy man, he looks wise, plucks a bit of grass from a near-by grave, and seizes his opportunity for an oration. It is useless to stop him with questions, he will answer as and when it pleases him; and so, sitting upon the tomb with the sunlight falling in a glowing benediction upon us living and upon the old cathedral and its silent company, he speaks on and on. "There's many, your honour, phwat has heads but don't use thim. Is this _the_ grave you ask. Well I have puzzled out the question for many years. I _don't_ believe it is, as I suggested this spot to the antiquary society myself. In owlden days the spot prayed upon as his tomb was under yonder middle window of the church, but whin a bishop came along who wanted more silf-glory than one driveway would give him, he made that one there, and in so doing moved the owld tombstone,--not that I am claiming that even that was the first one laid upon the blessed corpse, for an owld woman of eighty who lived here until she was ten and then moved away, came back to bid farewell to her native town on going to America, and upon being shown the tomb undher the window asked since whin had the dead taken to moving their graves, for whin she left here it was below there in the valley. But we know it was around here some place, and this new spot is as good as any other." "Did St. Pathrick build that church?--no, sure, yer honour, he was not the kind of a man who wint around glorifying himself. If he had had as much money as that cost 't would be the poor who would have got it. Still, the church yonder is fifteen hundred years old, though it has been so built over that it is hard to believe it." The old man would have talked on for ever, but, like most of his age, it would have been but vain repetition, and so we move off and away, feeling sure that the spirit of the benign old saint returns now and then in floods of warm sunlight to his ancient cathedral of Downpatrick. Like most grave-diggers, the man up there knew more of the past than of the present, and when he told us that we would find a fine ferry from Strangford across the outlet of the lough of that name he spoke without advisement. We found a proposition to place some planks from one boat to another and so to ferry us and our great machine over one of the deepest, swiftest currents passing outward to the sea. It is useless to say that I vetoed this proposition, so we rolled backward almost to Downpatrick, and then turned north-west towards Belfast, which we reached for luncheon. When I pass a city like Belfast without notice, it is not that there is not much of interest there, but that it has been so often described, and I would confine these notes to those more unfamiliar spots with which Ireland abounds, places of which the general run of travellers knows nothing. Yet Belfast, like its great neighbour Glasgow, possesses much of interest of which the guide-books make no note. Leaving the busy city of the north, our route lies towards the sea and by the sea for some hours, the roads all very good. We pass Carrickfergus and Larne and on the shores of Ballygalley Bay, coming to a sudden stoppage, discover on investigation that our stupid chauffeur has allowed the gasoline to run out. What to do is a problem, as we are some miles from any town and the road is a lonely one. To assist in a solution of the question Boyse goes to sleep in the motor and I go out on a lonely rock at sea where O'Halloran, that most renowned outlaw in Irish history, built his tower,--all in ruins now. For ten years he kept all this district in subjection and was killed in 1681. There is but little left of his stronghold here--an angle of a tower, an outline of a wall or two,--all on a tiny island around which murmur the waters of the Irish Sea, while far out, seemingly afloat, in the hazy distance rise the shadowy shores of Scotland. That is Cantyre and Arran over yonder. There are no sails in sight and the sea is asleep. The high-road winds away close down by the shore on either hand, while high behind it the fantastic cliffs tower some three hundred feet and more, wild and desolate. To have passed this way in the days of O'Halloran, without paying heavy tribute, if he allowed you to go at all, would have been well-nigh impossible, and our further progress, unless that petrol comes, is as effectively prohibited. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard The Tomb of St. Patrick] But there is peace about just now, the drifting clouds above, the lapping waters and silent hills all around, Boyse still sleeping, and the auto seemingly dead, while Yama occupies a pinnacle of an adjacent rock, a bronze Buddha on its travels, as it were. But far down the coast road a white speck shortly evolves into a jaunting-car laden with petrol cans--we had sent word back by a passing cyclist--whose contents are promptly transferred into our tank, and then with all paid for we glide away to the north, with one last glimpse at the ruined tower in its bay of Ballygalley. I should make the chauffeur pay for his stupidity about that petrol, but I don't suppose I shall do so. The ride to Ballycastle is joyous, the road very fine and smooth, running now by the glistening sea and then far up a thousand feet amidst the silence of the hill and moors, over which flocks of sheep are browsing upon grass rich and thick. Several towns are holding fairs, and we have met two "Irish gentlemen" returning home who would not care to-day whether the Emerald Isle got her freedom or not. One led a huge stallion which pranced and snorted at our passing, but while unable to stand straight, his keeper held on to his charge, and I doubt not got him home safely, occupying most all the roadway in his progress. It will be a very sorry day indeed when an Irishman, no matter what his condition, cannot hold on to a horse. Ballycastle is reached at eight o'clock and we find quarters in a very comfortable inn--the Marine Hotel,--after a run of over one hundred miles. CHAPTER IV Ballycastle to the Causeway--Prosperity of Northern Ireland--Bundoran--Gay Life in County Mayo--Mantua House--Troubles in Roscommon--Wit of the People--Irish Girls--Emigration to America--Episode of the Horse--People of the Hills--Chats by the Wayside--Mallaranny. It is nineteen miles from Ballycastle to the Causeway. Immediately upon leaving the former place, in fact quite within the town's precincts, we struck one of those steep short hills which seem greatly to try the temper of motors. While they will later mount much more difficult and longer slopes, with apparently no difficulty, such a hill so soon after breakfast always disagrees with them, and so it was just here. In fact, it looked as though we must get out and walk, but with an additional spurt and snort it was over the summit, and we tobogganed down the other slope at a speed which made us hold on tightly. All this ride to the Causeway is up and down the wildest hills, close beside yet high above the neighbouring ocean, and at times the route lies down such steep inclines that I confess I take them in great trepidation, commanding Robert to go slowly. This he consents to do at the very summit, but halfway down with what a whiz and a roar do we finish the descent, rushing far up the next incline! There is a safer, far safer, route just inland, but the vote was against that. Yet at times when the wind is roaring past us, as we rush downward and we realise that a break in any part of our car might hurl us over the wall and hundreds of feet downward, we almost wish we had selected the safer route. The road is so close to the cliff's wall that the prospect along the coast is at all times grandly impressive while from far beneath arise the vague, delusive voices of the ocean. Pausing for a space we cross the wall and creep out on to a projecting headland and drink in the superb panorama. Far below us and far out to sea spreads the great floor of the Giant's Causeway, while on either hand away into the hazy distance of this lovely day in June stretch the fantastic cliffs and headlands of this romantic coast, showing by their jagged outlines the effects of their ceaseless battle with the sea. On the headland where we stand green grasses spangled with buttercups roll inland into broad meadow lands and towards distant purple mountains. This world may hold more lovely spots than Erin's Isle, but if so, I have never seen them. As there are very few signboards in Ireland a motor tour is a constant study of the map and one must come provided with such. Before leaving London I purchased a set of Stanford's, seven in all, covering this island, and very finely gotten up.[3] It is a pleasure to study them and a child could scarcely go wrong, though we have enjoyed the pleasure of getting lost several times. So far my luck of two years back in France, as to weather, has followed us. Aside from one shower the first day we have had fine weather all the time, not all sunshine but no rains, and the cool grey skies with rifts of sunlight breaking through them, illuminating like a searchlight spots of the land or sea, are beautiful. The auto has settled down to serious work by now and rushes singing along, working better and better as the hours fly by. Leaving the Causeway our route lies inland through Bushmills, Coleraine, and Limavady. All this end of Ireland appears prosperous. The highroads and villages are well kept. The land is strongly Protestant, its men and women fine, serious specimens of humanity, and there are no heaps of manure and filth near the tidy houses, while the old mothers go smilingly along through life. Even the hens in this island have a degree of understanding denied their French sisters. Scarce one has attempted to cross our pathway and none have gotten killed. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard The Interior of a Cabin of the North] Lunching at Londonderry we made a rapid run to Bundoran on the Atlantic coast. The ride was pleasant with good roads nearly all the way, part way over the highlands and part by the shores of Lough Erne. Bundoran is a desolate, bleak sort of watering-place, lonely and dispiriting, but with a comfortable hotel of the Great Northern Railway Company. We depart next morning with every feeling of satisfaction. It is a dreary place and the life led therein is dreary also. The power of the ocean is so great here that it has carved the whole coast with caverns and gulches until the observer wonders whether it will not eventually carry off Bundoran, town, hotel, and all. So we roll off into the sunshine and from the moment we enter County Sligo the fun begins. A spirited sprint with half a dozen young steers leads us through a group of jaunting-cars from which our passing causes men and women to descend in anything but a dignified manner. One portly dame in a white cap slips and sits down upon mother earth with much emphasis. Her remarks, though few, were to the point. Another gathers her skirts well around her waist, and regardless of a foot or more of panties takes a flying leap over a mud wall, and "Glory be to God's" resound on all sides. A flock of geese in attempting escape through the bars of a gate get wedged therein, and keep the gate going by the motion of their wings, and as it swings to and fro rend the air with their squawking. On the whole the excitement would satisfy the most exacting and there is more to come. This being the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul has been seized upon for fairs, and in all the villages great preparations have been made for their celebration. Towards each town droves of animals, mostly cattle but also many pigs, the latter scrubbed to cleanliness, make stately progress, the pigs in carts bedded with straw--not a mortal in any of the fairs is as clean as the pigs. We were approaching one of these fairs, and moving as slowly as could be if we were to move at all. Cattle and pigs were all around us and generally paid no attention to our car, but one sportive young heifer decided otherwise, and with a snort and a whisk of tail she was off in the opposite direction. Evidently a leader of fashion in her circle, she created a fashion there and then for there was scarce a pig or cow which did not follow suit, urged on by many dogs. The noise and confusion was appalling, and the manner in which old men and women, comfortable Irish "widdies," young men and maidens, took to trees and stumps gave added animation to the landscape. By this time we had come to a halt. I did not want to laugh, and the suppression of that emotion caused the tears to course down my face. Just then a man advanced towards us, his face aflame, his raised right arm grasping a bowlder, while as he came onward he shouted furiously, "I'll larn yez, I'll larn yez." There was nothing to do save sit silently, and this we did. The nearer he came, the lower got his arm, until he had passed us as though we were not there. Then the arm went up again and all the fury returned while the air rang with his "I'll larn yez," but towards whom directed it was impossible to determine as he walked steadily away from us all the time. I cannot say that I altogether blame him as it must have been somewhat difficult for the owners to separate their new purchases from that concourse of rushing animals. What a good time they had to be sure! The man was our first instance of hostility in Ireland. In fact the people were generally very friendly towards us, assisting whenever assistance was required, which fortunately was not often. Certainly we met with none of the jealous hatred which often greets a prosperous looking man in France, and causes him to think of the guillotine, or the lowering glances and sometimes violence of the Swiss. Still the Swiss have some justice on their side. The passing machine covers the meadow grass with dust and the cattle will not eat it, which to the people spells ruin. However, auto cars cannot be kept out of Switzerland, and her government should take the matter in hand and, by oiling the highways, obviate the difficulty. No oil will, however, ever be needed in Ireland. While we had but one rain during the entire tour of the first summer, the night dews did away with all dust. As for the highways and lesser avenues and byways, I expected to find much that was rough and almost impassable, but on the whole they are all very good indeed. Except in Galway I remember none that were bad, and I circled the entire island and crossed and recrossed it many times. From Sligo we take a run through the county of Roscommon, which seems to suffer most from these evil days, and to carry on its face a look of sadness and neglect. Things are not at rest here and the press daily holds its records of "outrages" in Roscommon, but let us leave that until to-morrow. Certainly there are no traces of it as our car rolls up the broad avenue of Mantua House, the estate of Mr. Bowen, where as the rain comes down a warm welcome and bright fire cause us to forget that there is storm and darkness outside and perhaps sorrow and trouble all around. Mantua House is a spacious, square building, in a large park. It has some three centuries to its credit but yet it is a cheery, pleasant abiding-place and smiles at the passer-by like a saintly old lady. It is said that the fairies abided once under its doorstep and when some few years ago a vestibule was added an old woman appeared and kneeling down cursed the workmen for disturbing them. But the little spirits do not seem to have minded it much and the inhabitants of the "House in the Bog" live on in peace. My night's slumber under its roof was undisturbed and dreamless. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard A Woman of the North] There is much of interest in the house in the shape of portraits, and those of seven generations, whose owners had passed their lives here, looked down upon us while at dinner. I fear I appear morose and a bad guest for I cannot keep my eyes and thoughts from these old portraits, wondering what the lives of their owners were and how I shall feel if ever my painted face looks down from some shadowy canvas on a company at dinner a century or two hence. If such portrait should exist it will probably be marked "Portrait of a gentleman" as one so often reads in a catalogue when name and owner are long, long forgotten as of no importance. How poor a thing is earthly immortality and yet how we all long for it, how we dread to be amongst those "_forgotten_." But they are not "forgotten" in Mantua House, as I was told the names and dates of all of them. Later, in the glow of the turf fire, those around us in the spacious hall almost quicken into life and gaze into its glowing depths as we are doing and as they have each in turn done in the old mansion, until the bell of time sounded for them and they passed away into shadowland. I think that for glowing warmth and depth of colour a turf fire surpasses all others. The brown earth burns deeply but glows to its very heart, and as it burns throws off a pungent smoke which recalls to your memory the "Princess of Thule," and finally getting into your brain drives you off to bed and the mantle of sleep falls upon the "House in the Bog." It is a misty morning in which we bid our hosts good-bye but not to be too hard upon us the sun shines now and then as we roll off between the dripping hedgerows whose boughs, reaching at us as though endeavouring to stay our progress, scrape the top of our hood as the car glides onward. As I have stated, the county of Roscommon suffers more than any other section of Ireland in these days of "cattle driving." Here it is first impressed upon the traveller that there is trouble abroad. Numbers of men with lowering glances loaf around doing nothing save smoke their stumpy pipes and all the rich land hereabouts stands neglected and deserted. As to this driving of the cattle which is the cause of most of the trouble, the landowners generally rent their fields for grazing, but the people are determined that they shall _sell_ them their lands and at prices dictated _not_ by the _owners_, but by the _purchaser_. This being refused, they will not allow the grazing, and drive a man's cattle back to him, leaving the land of no profit to its owner, and hoping thereby to force him to their methods. There would appear to be small justice in all this. There is much trouble of this description all over the island but it is only in Roscommon that the fact has impressed itself upon us and we hear of it constantly. One man told me that he had been out with seven packs of hounds which had been poisoned and related the story of a landlord who spent not less than forty thousand pounds a year on his estate keeping it and his tenantry in the best of conditions. He was waited upon by a committee from the League, who informed him that if he allowed certain men, all his friends, to hunt with his hounds, he and his pack would be boycotted. He replied that he lived in the country because he considered it his duty to do so, that he spent all his money here for the same reason, giving employment to hundreds, keeping all in plenty, but that if such a threat was carried out, he would sell everything and leave. It was carried out, and he closed his estate, sold his horses and hounds in England, and left this island, the loss to his section being enormous, and all for the sake, as in most of our "strikes," of a few ringleaders who fatten on the poor men they hoodwink, while their families starve. At present a man may go into many sections of Ireland and demand land, placing his own price thereon and the owner has got to accept it. What an opportunity for dishonesty lies there! It is so common for all Europe, and I have noticed several very bitter "communications" in the Irish press lately--to point to the so-called lawlessness of America, _i.e._, the United States, that it is something to note the present state of affairs in parts of Ireland. For instance, here in Roscommon, no man has been convicted of murder for years, yet there have been many terrible crimes of that sort committed; one where a son and daughter murdered their old father on his doorstep that they might get the little place. They were tried and _acquitted_. Again every one has heard of the case of Mr. and Mrs. Blake which occurred but lately in Galway. Refusing to sell their lands they were both fired upon and wounded while returning from mass and almost under the walls of the church. The people standing round simply roared with laughter. No one was apprehended for that crime though every one in the country could tell who were the assailants. It is scarcely just for an outsider to pass upon the affairs of a foreign country, but when, as I have stated, one's own land is constantly held up to the most violent criticism, while at the same time the daily press of our critics teems with reports of like and worse in their own country, one cannot be blamed for so doing. [Illustration: Mantua House Roscommon] I was told later that there is much trouble around Cashel, but personally I saw no signs of it save in Roscommon. Elsewhere it is very easy to disbelieve the reports, for surely in no part of the world are the prospects more entrancing to the traveller--on the surface at least--than in this island with its lovely lakes, its beautiful mountains and seas, its picturesque people, and above all its luxuriant vegetation. Every old tower is shrouded in ivy, and the grass is soft as velvet, showing the richness of the soil, and is beautiful beyond description. With all their sorrow and tears these people appear full of sunshine and laughter, and if you smile at them you are always greeted pleasantly, while you find them at all times full of jests and quaint humour which keep you in a constant state of laughter. The other day I gave a man a sixpence as a tip. Being possessed of true politeness, he would not directly reflect upon my generosity, or the lack thereof, but gravely regarding the coin a moment, and scratching his head the while in a meditative fashion, he exclaimed, "Bad luck to the Boer war which blew the two shillings away and left the sixpence." It is almost impossible to change the habits and customs inborn in these peasants, no matter how many years may be passed in foreign lands. It is a well-known fact that girls that have lived in cleanly, pleasant homes in America, with all which that means, on returning here, as they often do, and marrying some Irish lad, soon sink to the level from which they had raised themselves by emigrating. Their savings all gone to buy the hut from their husband's brothers and sisters and poor as when they left Ireland, they are soon seen standing barefooted in the manure and filth, pitching it into a wretched cart, drawn by a most wretched looking donkey, all their good clothes and dainty habits a thing of the past and I doubt if greatly regretted. Occasionally, however, the reverse holds true. A lady not long since came over bringing her Irish maid with her, and on reaching Queenstown told the girl that she could, if she desired, go home for a visit and rejoin her mistress later in Dublin. The girl went, but before the mistress reached Dublin the telegraph wires were laden with messages from the maid, so fearful was she that the mistress would leave her, and when she rejoined her remarked with a gasp, "but ma'am, I did not know it was like that; why the pig slept in the room wid us." But there are not many who mind the pig and a girl returned and married here will cuff her children, dirty with dirt which would have sickened her while in her American home, out of the way of the "gentleman who pays the rent." As for the emigration of these or any other peoples to our country, if they who come are honest and willing to work, they will find no difficulty in obtaining plenty of employment, provided they go where it is and do not expect it to be ready to their hand on landing. Most who get into trouble and, returning home, tell woful tales about impositions, etc., are those who insist upon remaining in the congested districts of the East. The whole South and great West, from St. Louis to the Pacific, and from Canada to Mexico, is open to them, a vast empire, where all may live if they will work and where there is room for all who come. The systems of irrigation in action and proposed by our government, in the west, are reclaiming a vast empire yet to be peopled, while in the South labour brings high figures and is difficult to obtain, especially in our great cotton mills in South Carolina and Georgia and in the lumber mills of Florida. But thousands who come to us have no intention of working and insist upon remaining around and in our crowded cities and districts where the devil soon finds plenty of employment for their idle hands, and his arch agents--ward politicians--lend him most efficient assistance. I know that only last winter one of the owners of a great lumber mill in Florida, at his own expense, brought from the immigrant bureau in New York a large number of men who no sooner got to Florida than they ran off and became tramps, having from the start no intention of working. That there is much truth in _The Jungle_ and other books of like sort is beyond doubt, but there is no necessity for any man, woman, or child's remaining in such places unless he so desires. Most of them having lived in abject poverty and wretchedness at home, continue, by nature, to do so abroad, and will never change, and such as these by their very habits contribute largely to the state of affairs described in that book. The hope lies in the future, not for them, but for their children, who certainly _will_ change. Such change is difficult if not impossible after man's estate is reached, not only with the poor but also with the well-to-do and rich. To all proposed emigrants to the United States I would say again, if you are honest men and will come willing to work, you are welcome and there is plenty for you to do and space for all. If you expect or insist upon loafing around the cities, declining work, and expecting to be supported, you will be disappointed, you will end in the workhouse--stay away, we don't want you. The roads through Roscommon from Mantua House are bad. We encountered but few good stretches for some miles from that house; then they became better. On one of these we were making rapid progress down grade, when suddenly some hundred or so yards ahead two men came out from a gateway leading a huge black mare. She was evidently restive and we slowed up but as we came to a stop a hundred feet off she reared, broke loose, and fell over backwards, then rolling over plunged forward towards a gate and succeeded in fastening the metal pointed horns upon her collar so securely under the bar of the gate that she was held immovable upon her knees. Notwithstanding her great power she could not stir an inch. When the gate was thrown open, she sprang forward in the wildest fright and her owner stood by and cursed us to the extent of his ability. He certainly heard us coming and should not have brought her out, but it's all one-sided with horsemen,--they expect to do exactly as suits them and if anything happens, the other party, no matter what they are on or in, are always to blame. In every case we come, as we did there, to a dead stop at once, and I must say that all of our accidents have arisen because the men have much less sense than the horses, which I notice in nearly every case rarely evince fright until their owners jump at them and drag at their bridles. I have never listened to a more perfect line of curses than were poured forth in that case; they seemed to linger in the air long after we had placed hills and dales between ourselves and the old man, which we did as soon as possible. [Illustration: A View in Ballina, A typical Irish town] As we stopped for luncheon later on I questioned a car driver as to a large building near by. "Is that a court-house over there?" "Yis, sir, but we haven't much use for it. Only open it wanst a fortnight, and shortly we won't open it at all, at all. Thim lawyers've 'ad their own way long enough, it's time the car drivers had a show." (Wherein lawyers interfered with car drivers was not stated.) "Are you mostly Catholics around here?" "Yis, sir." "Is not that a Methodist chapel yonder?" "Yis, but not much good at all, and would shut up altogether only some old man with more money than sinse left it twenty pounds a year." Passing onward into the highlands, we stopped for water at a little stone house, from which the children swarmed out like flies,--seven,--belonging to one man, and his wife ventures the statement that if we come back in seven years there will be seven more. She speaks feelingly; evidently there is no race suicide here. This far western Ireland is much like the highlands of Scotland, but far wilder. Auto cars are rarely seen here. While the land is still orderly and apparently prosperous, I think I note the change towards the shiftlessness so prevalent in the south. There are many roofless and abandoned cottages and the heaps of manure are becoming more frequent. We shall shortly reach Newport near Clew Bay and pass on to Mallaranny and Achill Island, the wildest part of Ireland. Well up into the hills, we pause for some slight repairs, and the usual group of men and boys, a girl and a dog, appear as from nowhere and squat on the adjacent bank. They say they can speak the ancient tongue and that all the old customs and usages are still in vogue hereabouts. I ask for a wake, but that puzzles them. "It might be difficult to arrange, sir." However, I shall probably attend one before I leave the land, hoping that it may not prove my own. I ask if these boys live near here. "They all do, sir." "Well, it's a beautiful spot." His eyes and mine wander off over the solitary moorland and up to the more solitary mountains. "It is indade, sir." "I have a streak of Irish blood in my own veins," I venture to add. "Have ye, now, sir, and were ye born in Ireland?" "No, we left here more than two centuries ago." "Time you war havin' a wake indade, sir." That turns the laugh on me, and I throw a shilling at the crowd for drinks, which results in a wild scramble down into a muddy ditch and a wilder waving of legs in the air as each and all go head first into the mud. Quiet restored, my former conversationalist, somewhat the worse for mud, remarks. "And indade, sir, ye seem to have a good time, 'tis wishin' I am that all the people here had the likes," and with an echo to the wish and a wave of the hand we glide off and away into the valley. This ride has indeed been beautiful, but just as we enter the village of Mallaranny (County Mayo) and are speeding down a steep incline, a little yellow-headed urchin toddles directly across our track; a catastrophe seems unavoidable; women shriek and howl, and men stand paralysed, but one old crone grabs the boy just as Robert brings our car to a halt, with not six inches to spare. The baby, not at all frightened, howls with rage because his progress has been cut short. The old crone proceeds to spank the child until I tell her that if any one deserves punishment it is herself for her neglect. A few more miles brings us to the hotel and in a very sleepy state, as the air all day has been chilly; but we are not so sleepy that we cannot see at once that this is not such a chamber of discomfort, such a cold storage as that place at Bundoran. In point of situation and objects of interest there can also be no comparison. As a centre to explore this beautiful section and study these people Mallaranny could not be improved upon. The house stands high and overlooks land and sea for miles, and in whichever direction the eye roams the prospect is attractive, while Bundoran Hotel stands on a bleak moor over which the howling winds from all the North Atlantic sweep with terrible force. The town is dreary and of no interest, and the mountains too far away, while the climate is raw and unpleasant, whereas Mallaranny, much to the south, is swept by balmy winds and well sheltered on the north. Both places have salt water in the house, but here the bathrooms are large and the tubs are small swimming-tanks. There is a man at the head of that house and a woman at the head of this, and there lies the difference so far as the houses are concerned. Of course I do not mean to state that it is warm here. In fact the air is cold all over the land, and while there have been no rains so far, we wear fur coats and use fur robes all the time, and would be most uncomfortable without them. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard A Glimpse of Achill] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 3: There are also Mecridy's Maps for Cyclists and Tourists, published at the office of the _Irish Cyclist_, Dame Court, Dublin, at one shilling each. A very excellent lot of maps. Just what one wants and no more, and not so expensive as Stanford's.] CHAPTER V The Island of Achill--Picturesque Scenery--Poverty of the People--"Keening" for the Dead--"The Gintleman Who Pays the Rint"--Superstitious Legends. The island of Achill lies off the west coast of Ireland. Exposed to the full fury of the North Atlantic winds it is one of the bleakest spots on the globe. The manners and customs of its people change but slightly with the passing years. Leaving the hotel on a misty morning, we roll off towards the sea. The way is narrow for a car and we pass uncomfortably near sleeping brown bogs whose quiet waters would promptly cover us up and suck us down past all resurrection were our wheels to slip over the brink. Reaching a hill up which a man is driving cattle, our chauffeur sounds the horn and pushes gently forward, causing the animals to give way, whereupon their owner holds up his hand in indignant protest with a "Would ye dhrive the _cattle_!" To his thinking we should plod slowly up that miles-long hill behind his herd rather than cause them to move to one side,--to "dhrive the _cattle_!" being in his eyes little short of sacrilege. Yet his sort does not hesitate to drive other men's cattle off of still other men's land, and consider it their right so to do. The long muddy road runs on the cliffs over the sea and finally turns down towards the coast, apparently losing itself in the waste. This is not the highway and we so discover in season to prevent an accident. Just then a small boy comes racing after us shouting that we should have turned off higher up. A few half-pennies and our thanks make him smilingly offer to return and show us the route, and a lift in the car completes his happiness,--the first time he has ever ridden in an automobile, I doubt not. The traveller does not notice anything unusual until, having crossed the Peninsula of Curraun, he enters upon one of the strangest spots on earth. In the foreground, deep in a valley is a mysterious pool, black as night: all around rise the gloomy mountains, while over the peak to the west the sun is sending long shafts of purple and gold into the distant hollows, where brown turf fields stretch away, and low-walled, whitewashed, and thatched cottages spot the landscape, and the scarlet skirts worn by all the women throw splashes of vivid colour here and there. The whole is gloomy and sombre to a degree. The winds blow coldly and we draw our furs closely about us as the car speeds onward over roads not made for such usage. This indeed is ancient Ireland and one hears the Celtic tongue on all sides. Holiday is held here as in Sligo, and the encounters with cattle and ponies are frequent. Here is a pony drawing a load of heavy timber which he insists upon running off with on our approach. Of course, we halt until we can creep by him. Yonder is a man to whom the fair has proven a not unmixed blessing. He lies upon his face on a bank, blind drunk, and will not take home with him the drinks consumed at the fair. His wife and father stand by trying to hold an old horse, but the bridle breaks and off he goes ahead of us, losing finally both blanket and saddle, and vanishing up a mountain. Another old gentleman, held on his horse by a dutiful son, curses us to the King's taste but in Celtic which we do not understand. Only the women are sober after the day's bout, and many is the beautiful face set off by the scarlet dress, which greets us smilingly or hides its sorrow from our glances. Now the road grows wilder and wilder,--there is absolutely no sound save the moan of the distant ocean. As we near the remotest part of the island, where the mountains raise their heads in solemn grandeur, there are no signs of human habitation except one lonely cottage. Its door is open, but there is no evidence of life. Suddenly the air shivers with the weirdest, loneliest cry I have ever listened to,--a sustained, penetrating wail rising and falling on the sad air and then shuddering away into silence, silence, silence rendered all the sadder by the fast approaching shadows of night. It is the famous "keening" or mourning cry for the dead. There are professional keeners and when one is informed of a death she starts for the house of sorrow and commences this melancholy cry as she goes. All the way over hill and dale, by these dark pools and through the bog pathways she goes, her cry bringing the women and children to the doors of all the huts. As she approaches the dead the cry dies away and ceases as she enters the cottage. Walking round the bier she commences anew and passing outward and away fills all the silence of the deepening night with her melancholy plaint. To hear it any place in Ireland is sad enough, to hear it amidst the desolation of Achill is almost terrifying and never to be forgotten. To-night it sounds like the voices of lost souls from the depths of the dark Atlantic. I have heard a cry like that from the Arab women of a desert town, but nowhere else on earth, and I doubt if any other people possess one of such concentrated, desolate sorrow as this,--a sound which almost makes the heart stand still. Why should these people mourn the advent of peace? Surely it is better for them to sleep than to wake; better to die than to live. Through the open doorway of this hut as we pass we catch but a glimpse of an old woman bowed in sorrow and a sheeted, silent form on the bed in the corner. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Slievemore and Dugort, Achill] Our car glides slowly and silently by and we move onward, more and more into the island of Achill, into the heart of ancient Ireland, until, rounding the shoulder of a desolate mountain, we come suddenly upon the sea. This is no bay or inlet, no capes guard us here, there is no lighthouse in sight to indicate that man ever sends his ships out there. That is the heart of the ocean, the deep sea. The waves, black as midnight and hurled forward with the force of the Gulf Stream, and all the currents of the North Atlantic, come thundering in with such power that one instinctively draws backward, while the coast is all cut and jagged, torn up and thrown pell-mell by the ceaseless onslaught. You realise that just out there are vast depths, awful forces, and that once within their grasp nothing save an interposition of God could save you; even this land scarcely seems a safe abiding-place. The sky above is black as the waters beneath it and the winds sough upward from the underworld as though laden with the misery of these people of Achill. Are there not scenes and times when the great truth of the existence of the Deity is impressed upon one? By the deep sea, amidst the solitude of the mountains and the silence of the desert, from the song of a bird far overhead, and always from the eyes of a little child does not the assurance come to man, past all doubting, that verily there is--a God? Has the atheist ever existed who has not experienced this many times throughout his wretched life? The face of Ireland in the far western section seems constantly covered with tears. The sadness and poverty of the people passes all comprehension. Surely the love of their home land must be very great to keep them here at all. Lady Dudley has established a most excellent charity hereabouts in the shape of contribution boxes for the establishment of district nurses in these the poorest sections of Ireland. The girls have a sadly hard time of it as often they find nothing to rest on in these hovels save a box or head of a barrel. We are stopping in front of one now that would be considered unfit for cattle at home, a low stone hut thatched in rotting straw patched up with turf. There is no window, and the door has no glass. The interior, plainly visible, is horrible in its sodden wretchedness. Before the doorstep is a bog of manure and all kinds of filth in which the pigs and ducks are at work. As our eyes wander away and up to the hills, white with stone, we wonder why in God's name with feet to walk upon every soul does not leave this island, which is not intended for man to live upon; yet here they are and plenty of them, and many seem cheery and happy. The woman of this wretched hovel before us is pitching manure into a cart, and as she stands, barefooted, in the filth above her ankles, sings and talks to me in the liveliest fashion. Just beyond is a bog whose waters, black as night, and spangled with water lilies, reflect as in a mirror a flock of geese and a woman in a brilliant scarlet petticoat. Beyond rise the mountains sombre and gloomy and over all lowers a sky dark with storms. Then the rain falls, but only for an instant, when the sunlight descending in long shafts of intense light turns even this scene of desolation into one of beauty. If these people were moved into a richer and more fertile section would they remain there, or would one shortly find these filthy hovels occupied again by their original owners? If so, their love of home passes comprehension. One cannot but feel that many of the countless millions yearly sent to foreign missions were better spent here, where, by improving the body, the salvation of the soul would be more easily attempted, for it is impossible to believe that with such horrible, sordid conditions, there can be any deep belief in the goodness of God. When in Teheran, Persia, I could not but observe the extensive missionary buildings, and when I asked what people the work was amongst, the reply came "Nestorian Christians." So, all the contributions from the churches are expended upon those who are already Christians. For (as is certainly not known at home) a Persian to be converted does not mean loss of caste as in India but _death_, and hence conversion to Christianity amongst them is impossible. Persia is the most fanatical of all nations, where one may not even look into a mosque, much less enter, yet millions continue to pour into that land yearly. Comment should be unnecessary, but I cannot help feeling that comment is needed when looking out over a scene like this before us to-day. There are plenty of plague spots in our own new land which need close attention; for instance, in the mountains of Virginia where the people are so ignorant that they not only cannot read, but do not know what reading is. It is a disgrace to our land that the ministers from these mountains are forced to go begging through the churches for money to carry on their work, but,--it is not half so picturesque and interesting to help such as to send millions to the land of the Sultan of Ispahan and perchance be able to rescue some Lalla Rookh or encounter the veiled prophet of Khorassan. I find I am very apt--so to speak--to tumble off the island of Achill into almost any part of the world, so let us return once more. The population of Achill is steadily decreasing, and now counts but forty-six hundred. These people have been described as a lot of thieves and murderers with, I should judge, very little justice in the charge. They had no such appearance to my eye. The soil on the island is so thin and poor that her men cannot raise enough upon it to pay their rent and are forced to seek every year work in more favoured sections. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Fisherfolk of Achill] It is claimed these islanders consist of four great families, whose members can be easily distinguished from each other, the French Lavelles, the English Scholefields, the creole Caulfields, the Danish Morans. But there are also pure Irish to be found in the O'Malleys, Gaughans, and Monahans. The houses are but heaps of rude stones (which have been moulded by the tide), round of gable, and roofed by fern, heather, and shingles fastened by straw bands. Often there are no chimneys. We stop at the town of Dugort under the shadow of the sombre mountain, "Slievemore," which rises immediately behind it. The town is an attempt on the part of one church to upset the authority of another amongst these people, and judging by the absolute desolation of the place I should say that the move has not been successful. There are some good houses and a church, but the people do not appear to be about. In the dreary hotel, we spent some time in an inspection of the most marvellous collection of paintings it has ever been our misfortune to examine. There were several of them and they occupied most of the hallway. We were unable to discover what one of them was intended to portray. We asked the barmaid and she seemed equally in doubt. B. suggested the mountain of Slievemore--I thought, a leg of mutton. The artist is the hotel proprietor. We left a request that he would "Please not do it again" which seemed greatly to relieve the young woman in charge. At the door stands a jaunting-car waiting to take the luggage of a man, who has been fishing hereabouts, to the station. We offer him a lift in our motor and I tell the barmaid to give a glass of whiskey to his car driver. It appears, when it comes, to be a fair sized drink, but the old chap cocks his eye first on it and then at me, remarking, as he touches his cap, "And did ye say, sir, it was _twelve_ years old--indade thin it's _small_ for its _age_." As we roll off he promises to pick us up when our car breaks down as he knows it _will_. If that is to occur it is well to start, as we are miles from Mallaranny and well know that aside from this dreary hotel no hospitality would or could be offered us in this desolate region, and that the feeling here is not, especially after the "day off," of the best, as is proven by the curses hurled at us once more by the old gentleman whom we encountered on our way out. Later we meet the load of timbers and find that the drunken man has been deposited face down on the top, while his poor wife and old father trudge along behind. How different all here from the Ireland decked out for the tourist! How sad and stern and strange! As I turn to look back upon it the daylight departs and the shadows grow blacker and deeper, only the waters of the lake catching for an instant a fleeting glow which soon dies out into ashes; and with the coming of night silence and solitude, profound and unbroken, rest upon the island of Achill. Yet there we saw some wonderfully beautiful women, women whose type has made Ireland famous, great blue-grey eyes and jet black hair,--or the fairest of blondes with pale yellow hair and blue eyes, like the rain-washed heaven of their native land. Again, as we rolled by some white-walled, rose embowered cottage, an ancient dame in high frilled cap would smile us a welcome, or, as once to-day, I saw such a splendid young fellow, whose eyes beamed down into those of his baby boy held in his arms. There was happiness there. He must have married "his Nora" and the boy must have had its mother's eyes. Happiness, yes truly, such as comes not often to the portals of a palace. The man smiles in my face as the car rolls by. In fact, nowhere in all the years of my wanderings have I met such quick response to a smile or greeting as in these wilds of Ireland--save when drink, the curse of the land, had destroyed the man; but always with the women one has seemed welcome. As for the pigs, they are so clean and so pink that one imagines that they wear silk socks and pumps. Do they walk?--bless you, no,--not on holidays at least, but ride in state, and here at last you meet and understand "the gintleman phat pays the rint." I firmly believe they have all been shaved. B. says not, not till after death. But those were very lovely and complacent pigs. I was only astonished that they were not riding in motor cars. After the desolation of Achill it is pleasant to return to the hotel at Mallaranny. Owned by the Great Western Railway Company, it is most comfortable; a cozy fire before which a tabby cat is purring greets us as we enter the reading-room and we drop rugs and books with a sigh of contentment. Dinner over, the evening is passed deep in the history, romance, and poetry of the spot just visited. Probably in no part of Ireland does superstition persist so strongly as in Achill. Many of the legends are gruesome and cluster about death and the grave. Many are beautiful, like that of the swans, and there is one about the seals, which they believe are the people who were drowned in the great flood. Not until this world is destroyed by fire will they be permitted to enter heaven, but once in every hundred years they resume their human shape upon earth, and it was during one of these periods that an incident happened which is still talked about in the island of Achill. "John of the Glen had fallen asleep. Now the place he had chosen to repose in was for all the world like a basket; there was the high rock above him, and a ledge or rock all round, so that where he lay might be called a sandy cradle. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard A Lonely Road in Connemara] There he slumbered as snug as an egg in a thrush's nest, and he might have slept about _two_ hours, when he hears singing--a note of music, he used to say, would bring the life back to him if he had been dead a month--so he woke up; and to be sure, of all outlandish tunes, and, to quote his words again, 'put the one the old cow died of to the back of it,' he never heard the like before; the words were queerer than the music--for John was a fine scholar, and had a quarter's Latin, to say nothing of six months' dancing; so that he could flog the world at single or double handed reel, and split many a door with the strength of his hompipe. 'Meuhla machree,' he says, 'who's in it at all?' he says. 'Sure it isn't among haythins I am,' he says, 'smuggled out of my native country,' he says, 'like a poor keg of Inishowen,' he says, 'by the murdering English?' and 'blessed father,' he says again, 'to my own knowledge it's neyther Latin or Hebrew they're at, nor any other livin' language, barring it's Turky'; for what gave him that thought was the grand sound of the words. So, 'cute enough, he dragged himself up to the edge of the ledge of the rock that overlooked the wide ocean, and what should he see but about twenty as fine well-grown men and women as ever you looked on, dancing! not a hearty jig or a reel, but a solemn sort of dance on the sands, while they sung their unnatural song, all as solemn as they danced; and they had such queer things on their heads as never were seen before, and the ladies' hair was twisted and twined round and round their heads. "Well, John crossed himself to be sure like a good Christian, and swore if he ever saw Newport again to pay greater attention to his duty, and to take an 'obligation' on himself which he knew he ought to have done before; and still the people seemed so quiet and so like Christians, that he grew the less fearful the longer he looked; and at last his attention was drawn off the strangers by a great heap of skins that were piled together on the strand close beside him, so that by reaching his arm over the ledge, he could draw them, or one of them, over. Now John did a little in skins himself, and he thought he had never seen them so beautifully dressed before; they were seal skins, shining all of them like satin, though some were black, and more of them grey; but at the very top of the pile right under his hand was the most curious of them all--snowy and silver white. Now John thought there could be no harm in looking at the skin, for he had always a mighty great taste for natural curiosities, and it was as easy to put it back as to bring it over; so he just, quiet and easy, reaches in the skin, and soothering it down with his hand, he thought no down of the young wild swan was ever half so smooth, and then he began to think what it was worth, and while he was thinking and judging, quite innocent like, what it would fetch in Newport, or maybe Galway, there was a skirl of a screech among the dancers and singers; and before poor John had time to return the skin, all of them came hurrying towards where he lay; so believing they were sea-pirates, or some new-fashioned revenue-officers, he crept into the sand, dragging the silver-coloured skin with him, thinking it wouldn't be honest to its _rale_ owner to leave it in their way. Well, for ever so long, nothing could equal the ullabaloo and 'shindy' kicked up all about where he lay--such talking and screaming and bellowing; and at last he hears another awful roar, and then all was as still as a bridegroom's tongue at the end of the first month, except a sort of snuffling and snorting in the sand. When that had been over some time he thought he would begin to look about him again and he drew himself cautiously up on his elbows, and after securing the skin in his bosom (for he thought some of them might be skulking about still, and he wished to find the owner), he moved on and on, until at last he rested his chin upon the very top of the ledge and casting his eye along the line of coast, not a sight or a sign of any living thing did he see but a great fat seal walloping as fast as ever it could into the ocean: well, he shook himself, and stood up; and he had not done so long, when just round the corner of the rock, he heard the low wailing voice of a young girl, soft and low, and full of sorrow, like the bleat of a kid for its mother, or a dove for its mate, or a maiden crying after her lover yet ashamed to raise her voice. 'Oh, murder!' thought John O'Glin, 'this will never do; I'm a gone man! that voice--an' it not saying a word, only murmuring like a south breeze in a pink shell--will be the death of me; it has more real, true music in it than all the bagpipes between this and Londonderry. Oh, I'm kilt entirely through the ear,' he says, 'which is the high-road to my heart. Oh, there's a moan! that's natural music! The "Shan Van Do," the "Dark Valley," and the "Blackbird" itself are fools to that!' To spring over was the work of a single minute; and, sure enough, sitting there, leaning the sweetest little head that ever carried two eyes in it upon its dawshy hand, was as lovely a young lady as ever John looked on. She had a loose sort of dress, drawn in at her throat with a gold string, and he saw at once that she was one of the outlandish people who had disappeared all so quick. "'Avourneen das! my lady,' says John, making his best bow, 'and what ails you, darling stranger?' Well, she made no answer, only looked askew at him, and John O'Glin thought she didn't sigh so bitterly as she had done at first; and he came a little nearer, and 'Cushla-ma-chree, beauty of the waters,' he says, 'I'm sorry for your trouble.' "So she turns round her little face to him, and her eyes were as dark as the best black turf, and as round as a periwinkle. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Kylemore Castle] "'Creature,' she says, 'do you speak Hebrew?' 'I'd speak anything,' he answers, 'to speak with you.' 'Then,' she says again, '_have you seen my skin_?' 'Yes, darling,' he says in reply, looking at her with every eye in his head. 'Where, where is it?' she cries, jumping up and clasping her two little hands together, and dropping on her knees before John. "'Where is it?' he repeats, raising her gently up; 'why, on yourself, to be sure, as white and as clear as the foam on a wave in June.' "'Oh, it's the other skin I want,' she cries, bursting into tears. 'Shall I skin myself and give it you, to please you, my lady?' he replies; 'sure I will, and welcome, if it will do you any good, sooner than have you bawling and roaring this way,' he says, 'like an angel,' he says. "'What a funny creature you are!' she answers, laughing a lilt of a laugh up in his face; 'but you're not a seal,' she says, 'and so your skin would do me no good.' "'Whew!' thought John O'Glin; 'whew! now all the blossom is out on the May-bush; now my eyes are opened'; for he knew the sense of what he had seen, and how the whole was a memory of the old world. "'I'll tell you what it is,' said the poor fellow, for it never took him any time at all to fall in love; 'I'll tell you what it is, don't bother any more about your bit of a skin, but take me instead of it--that is,' he said, and he changed colour at the bare thought of it, 'that is, unless you're married in your own country.' And as all their discourse went on in Hebrew and Latin, which John said he had not a perfect knowledge of, he found it hard to make her understand at first, though she was quick enough too; and she said she was not married, but might have been, only she had no mind to the seal, who was her father's prime minister, but that she had always made up her mind to marry none but a prince. 'And are you a king's son?' she says. 'I am,' says John, as bould as murder, and putting a great stretch on himself. 'More than that, I'm a king's great-grandson--in these twisting times there's no knowing who may turn up a king; but I've the blood in my veins of twenty kings--and what's better than that, Irish kings.' "'And have you a palace to take me to?' she says, 'and a golden girdle to give me?' "Now this, John thought, was mighty mean of her; but he looked in her eyes and forgot it. 'Our love,' he says, 'pulse of my beating heart, will build its own palace; and this girdle,' and he falls on his knees by her side, and throws his arm round her waist, 'is better than a girdle of gold!' Well, to be sure, there was no boy in Mayo had better right to know how to make love than John O'Glin, for no one ever had more practice; and the upshot of it was that (never, you may be sure, letting on to her about the sealskin) he clapt her behind him on Molche, and carried her home; and that same night, after he had hid the skin in the thatch, he went to the priest--and he told him a good part of the truth; and when he showed his reverence how she had fine gold rings and chains, and as much cut coral as would make a reef, the priest did not look to hear any more, but tied them at once. Time passed on gaily with John O'Glin: he did not get a car for Molche, because no car could go over the Mayo mountains in those days; but he got two or three stout little nags, and his wife helped him wonderful at the fishing--there wasn't a fin could come within half a mile of her that she wouldn't catch--ay, and bring to shore too; only (and this was the only cross or trouble John ever had with her, and it brought him a shame-face many a time) she'd never wait to dress anything for herself, _only eat it raw_; and this certainly gave him a great deal of uneasiness. She'd eat six herrings, live enough to go down her throat of themselves, without hardly drawing her breath, and spoil the market of cod or salmon by biting off the tails. When John would speak to her about it, why she'd cry and want to go back to her father, and go poking about after the skin, which she'd never mention at any other time; so John thought it would be best to let her have her own way, for when she had, it's nursing the children, and singing, and fishing she'd be all day long; they had three little children, and John had full and plenty for them all, for she never objected to his selling her rings, or chain, or corals; and he took bit after bit of land, and prospered greatly, and was a sober, steady man, well-to-do; and if he could have broke her of that ugly trick she had of eating raw fish, he'd never say no to her yes; and she taught the young ones Hebrew, and never asked them to touch a morsel of fish until it was put over the turf; and there were no prettier children in all the barony than the 'seal-woman's'; with such lovely hair and round blinking eyes, that set the head swimming in no time; and they had sweet voices, and kind hearts that would share the last bit they had in the world with any one, gentle or simple, that knew what it was to be hungry; and, the Lord he knows, it isn't in Mayo their hearts would stiffen for want of practice. "Still John was often uneasy about his wife. More than once, when she went with him to the shore, he'd see one or two seals walloping nearer than he liked; and once, when he took up his gun to fire at a great bottle-nosed one that was asleep on the sandbank, she made him swear never to do so: 'For who knows,' she says, 'but it's one of my relations you'd be murdering?' And sometimes she'd sit melancholy-like, watching the waves, and tears would roll down her little cheeks; but John would soon kiss them away. [Illustration: "Biddy" The Lunatic of Kylemore] "Poor fellow! much as he loved her, he knew she was a sly little devil; for when he'd be lamenting bitterly how cute the fish were grown, or anything that way, she'd come up and sit down by him, and lay her soft round cheek close to his, and take his hand between hers, and say, 'Ah, John darlin', if you'd only find my skin for me that I lost when I found you, see the beautiful fish I'd bring you from the bottom of the sea, and the fine things. Oh! John, it's you then could drive a carriage through Newport, if there were but roads to drive it on.' "But he'd stand out that he knew nothing of the skin; and it's a wonder he was heart-proof against her soft, deludering, soothering ways; you'd have thought she'd been a right woman all her life, to hear her working away at the 'Ah, do,' and 'Ah, don't'; and then, if she didn't exactly get what she wanted, she'd pout a bit; and if that didn't do, she'd bring him the youngest baby; and if he was hardened entirely, she'd sit down in a corner and cry; that never failed, except when she'd talk of the skin--and out and out, she never got any good of him about it--at all! But there's no end of female wit; they'll sit putting that and that together, and looking as soft and as fair-faced all the while as if they had no more care than a blind piper's dog, that has nothing to do but to catch the halfpence. 'I may as well give up watching her' said John to himself; 'for even if she did find it, and that's not likely, she might leave me (though that's not easy), but she'd never leave the children'; and so he gave her a parting kiss, and set off to the fair of Castlebar. He was away four days, longer certainly than there was any call to have been, and his mind reproached him on his way home for leaving her so long; for he was very tender about her, seeing that though she was only a seal's daughter, that seal was a king, and he made up his mind he'd never quit her so long again. And when he came to the door, it did not fly open, as it used, and show him his pretty wife, his little children, and a sparkling turf fire--he had to knock at his own door. "'Push it in, daddy,' cried out the eldest boy; "'mammy shut it after her, and we're weak with the hunger.' So John did as his child told him, and his heart fainted, and he staggered into the room, and then up the ladder to the thatch--_It was gone!_--and John sat down, and his three children climbed about him, and they all wept bitterly. "'Oh, daddy, why weren't you back the second day, as you said you'd be?' said one. 'And mammy bade us kiss you and love you, and that she'd come back if she'd be let; but she found something in the thatch that took her away.' "'She'll never come back, darlings, till we're all in our graves,' said poor John--'she'll never come back under ninety years; and where will we all be then? She was ten years my delight and ten years my joy, and ever since ye came into the world she was the best of mothers to ye all! but she's gone--she's gone for ever! Oh, how could you leave me, and I so fond of ye? Maybe I would have burnt the skin, only for the knowledge that if I did, I would shorten her days on earth, and her soul would have to begin over again as a babby seal, and I couldn't do what would be all as one as murder.' "So poor John lamented, and betook himself and the three children to the shore, and would wail and cry, but he never saw her after; and the children, so pretty in their infancy, grew up little withered atomies, that you'd tell anywhere to be seal's children--little, cute, yellow, shrivelled, dawshy creatures--only very sharp indeed at the learning, and crabbed in the languages, beating priest, minister, and schoolmaster--particularly at the Hebrew. More than once, though John never saw her, he heard his wife singing the songs they often sung together, right under the water; and he'd sing in answer, and then there'd be a sighing and sobbing. Oh! it was very hard upon John, for he never married again, though he knew he'd never live till her time was up to come again upon the earth even for twelve hours; but he was a fine moral man all the latter part of his life--as that showed." As I close my book and put out my candle for the night the moonlight streaming in at the window draws me to the casement. The bay is like a sheet of quivering silver with the mountains of Achill and the island of Clare towering darkly above it. On the highway winding off white in the clear light no sign of life is visible and but for the softly sobbing winds, the silence of the night is intense. The tide is flowing to the sea and the waters are deserted save for one slowly drifting boat. One is scarcely conscious at first of any sound other than that of the winds but, as the boat draws nearer on the air floats upward one of those sad crooning melodies of these people--at first a low monotone which rises and rises, wailing all around and far above until the very mountains seem to throw back the sorrow of it. Then it falters away into silence. [Illustration: From a steel engraving The Lynch House, Galway] CHAPTER VI Monastery of Burrishoole--Queen Grace O'Malley and Her Castle of Carrig-a-Hooly--Her Appearance at the Court of Elizabeth--Dismissal of Her Husband--Wild Scenery of the West Coast--The Ancient Tongue--Recess--Kylemore Castle--Crazy Biddy. Leaving Mallaranny we retrace our route towards Newport and pass near Burrishoole, the ruined monastery of the Dominicans, and then the castle of Carrig-a-Hooly, from whence that Amazon Queen of this section and of the island of Clare, Grace O'Malley, dismissed her lord and husband of a year's standing. Carrig-a-Hooly is to-day a square pile of very solid construction, standing upon a rock, and at one time protected by a massive surrounding wall. The few windows or loopholes are far apart and very narrow. From which one Queen Grace dismissed her approaching lord is not related but that the dismissal was short, sharp, and to the point, effective, there seems no doubt, as she continued to hold sway over all the County of Mayo and the adjoining islands, to say nothing of as much of the neighbouring counties as she could cowe into submission. The monastery of Burrishoole is said to have been her burial-place, and there her skull was for a long time preserved as a precious relic, but it is also stated that, together with those of many others buried there, her bones were stolen and being carted to Scotland were ground up for manure, enriching the land as those of Cæsar were used to stop the chinks and keep the wind away. It was well for the thieves here that they worked and escaped in the night, for such desecration would have resulted in their quick dispatch had the superstitious peasantry caught them. Many of the latter believe that the skull of the Queen was miraculously restored to its niche in the abbey, but if so it has mouldered into dust long since. The skulls still to be seen here are regarded with deep veneration and are often borrowed by the peasantry to boil milk in, which being served to the sick one is a sure antidote for all ills. Queen Grace of Mayo strongly reminds one of another Queen in a far-off country,--Tamara, whose ruined "Castle of Roses" still keeps watch over the Caucasus. This castle of Queen Grace, like so many old towers, is supposed to cover buried treasures, guarded at night by a mounted horseman. There is, however, another scene in her life which, whilst not productive of such results as the one at Carrig-a-Hooly, must have been picturesque and startling in the extreme. Imagine the court of the great Elizabeth, with the daughter of Henry VIII. on the throne in all the heyday of her fuss and feathers, robed gorgeously and wearing a great farthingale--beneath the hem of her short skirt one notes the jewelled buckles on her high-heeled shoes,--from her pallid face flash a pair of reddish eyes and above her pallid brow her red hair is piled high and adorned with many of the pearls and jewels which have come into her possession from the robbery of her Scottish prisoner by the rebel lords. Huge butterfly wings of gauze rise from the shoulders but give nothing ethereal to the appearance of the sovereign,--Elizabeth was of the earth earthy. Around her are grouped all the splendid of that golden age,--the grave prime minister, Cecil Burleigh, the gallant Leicester, the boy Essex, the splendid Sir Philip Sidney, together with all the foreign diplomats and beautiful women of the court. In the space before her stands an equally imperious figure,--the sovereign of this island of Clare. What could have been her dress in those days three hundred years agone? How did they robe the dames of high estate in Ireland then, I wonder, and must continue to wonder, for there is no account left us, but I am sure she was a beauty with fair skin, brown eyes and a glory of red gold hair. The Queen of England has just offered to make her a countess, and we can imagine the half amazed and wholly amused expression of her majestic countenance when the offer is coolly refused with the remark that "I consider myself just as great a Queen as your Majesty." Then the Irishwoman went home and did things, short, sharp, and to the point, effective: secured possession of all the fortified castles of the island and all the treasures and men at arms, and there occurred that dismissal already recorded. It had been agreed on her marriage that either party could terminate the matrimonial arrangement at a year's end by a simple announcement to the other. On the day in question the countess observed from one of the loopholes of Carrig-a-Hooly the approach of her liege lord, and thereupon, to surely forestall such action on his part, hailed him and announced that "all was off" between them, making no mention of a return of any of the castles, men, or treasures be they his or not. She should have been Queen of Scotland. She would promptly have settled the cases of each and every rebel lord from Moray down, and John Knox would have heard a truth or two which would have made his ears tingle,--neither could her Majesty of England have meddled so easily in the affairs of the northern kingdom. As our car rolls onward round the bay towards Louisburgh, her island of Clare blocks the entrance to the westward. Rearing sharply its cliffs against a glittering sky, it strongly reminds one of the island of Capri and occupies about the same relative position here as that island does in the bay of Naples. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard The Abbey of St. Dominick Lorrha] But the blue of these northern waters is to my thinking vastly different from that in the South. There is a sensuous cast to all the colouring around Naples, whilst here both heaven and sea are of a bright fair rain-washed blue. The air is full of health and life, the waters sparkle, and the strong winds force one to jam a cap down over the eyes and go for a brisk walk or sail, returning ravenous for one's dinner; whilst in the south "With dreamful eyes my spirit lies, Under the walls of Paradise." And one's body is very apt to contract a fever during the trance. Personally in Naples, with all its charm and interest, I always feel that death stalks wide, the mortal part of me is forever in evidence. Here, a new lease of life and health comes with every intake of the glorious air. The winds blow strongly to-day while over the mountains dense black clouds gloom, through whose shadows one brilliant shaft of sunlight strikes a white sail far out at sea. On the rocks the kelp gatherers are abroad with their long rakes, gathering a slimy harvest. What a living thing that kelp seems to be. How quiet its slumbers in the dark pool of the rocks while the waters are afar out, but watch it when the tide turns. At the first ripple it startles into life and reaches out its long snake-like feelers towards the coming sea. Leaving the ocean for a time and turning inland, we pass some bad roads, but finally mount upward until in the heart of the mountains and the wildest section of Connemara their surface becomes smoother and the wings come out on our hubs and the car skims birdlike onward. Fortunately the day has become divine and sunlight and shadow chase each other in fascinating lights and shadows over the mountains. Up in the higher valleys where the white cottages are few and far between, the vast black turf fields stretch to where the brown mountains rise to the blue skies. Here and there the scarlet skirt of a peasant woman at work in a distant field glows against the brown earth, while donkey carts, each with a solitary old dame perched on a pile of turf, pass us now and then, the little beast which draws them paying us no attention, save by a pointing of the ears. This is not a holy day, so there are no fairs and fewer cattle on the highroads, hence fewer races, though now and then we do have a spirited brush, and several old women shake their fists at us as we pass by. Coasting down the hills which surround the lovely lake of Doo Lough, we come finally down by the shores of the harbour of Killary or Killary Bay, where the fleets of the nation may and do enter far inland in safety. Lunching at Leenane in a comfortable and clean inn made an already pleasant day seem all the more enjoyable. The road, from Leenane on, lay westward by the waters of the Sound, and then south and up until a superb panorama of sea and land was spread out before us. Those who go yearly to some genteel watering place know little of the outer sea, never comprehend the majesty of the ocean as it rolls in on Ireland's western coast, a vast wash of wild waters, glorious and majestic, roaring around jagged cliffs, which appear actually at war with it, while the winds murmuring over bogs and lowlands one instant are in the next roaring outward to greet the ocean. All around here there is no sound of human life, and a strange sad sort of sunlight falls over the mountains and shimmers downward into the sea. The desolation of this coast is intense to-day but how far more terribly desolate it must have appeared to the poor sailors on those hulking ships of the Armada, hurled to their destruction hereabouts. I doubt not but that the last thoughts of the poor wretches as they sank in these thundering surges were of the vine-clad sunny hills of far Andalusia with the tinkling of guitars and the music of the Danza they were never again to hear. As we leave the sea and turn again inward, the scenery becomes wild in the extreme. Sombre mountains surround lonely valleys with here and there a lonely lake reflecting the sky. The roads on the whole are good, save for many ridges formed by the backbone of the old stone bridges. If the car does not slow down one is thrown out of one's seat, and some of these ridges would destroy if passed at full speed. The higher we mount the more joyous the motion until we seem to be skimming like a swallow. One nasty angle almost causes our undoing, but it is passed in safety by the quick action of our chauffeur, who certainly understands well how to handle a motor, though I think he was thoroughly frightened that time; we came very near shooting down into the lake. Orders are strict that no risk of destroying animals is to be run unless the safety of the car necessitates it, but to-day we did kill a poor pussy who jumped from a wall directly in our path, and not a yard away. It was done in a flash, and kitty's joyous days were over. Poor thing! as with us life was the best she had, and it is gone. The incident quite clouded the day for some time. At another time a fine dog, a collie, sprang at us and was thrown down and the motor passed over him. I looked back, quite expecting to see his mangled body lying on the highway, but instead of that saw him take a stone wall in a fashion creditable to the best hunter in Ireland, and none the worse for his experience. But that does not often occur. [4] [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Leap Castle from the Court] It does not strike the traveller as singular that--while English is spoken by all--he hears so much of the ancient tongue in remote sections; there is the natural home for it: but I confess I was much astonished during a recent visit to Canada to find that, after one hundred and fifty years, from Montreal east, French is the language of the people. While in the larger cities English is of course spoken, it is not the prevailing tongue, and in all the small towns and rural districts French is the tongue, and thousands of the people cannot speak English at all. In one of the greater cities if a man would obtain a position in the police or fire departments he must be able to read, write, and speak French, but a Frenchman is _not_ obliged to read, write, and speak English. All the estimates for public improvements are in French alone, though the bidders are all English or Americans, generally the latter. Of course, they must be translated into English by the bidders, and what an opportunity is here presented for breaking a contract by a claim of incorrect translation. In fact, it would seem to an outsider that Canada is much more loyal to France than to England, even after a century and a half of Saxon rule. Giving due allowance to the treaty with France and to the power of the Church of Rome, such a state of affairs at this date is singular to say the least. As for the attempt in Ireland to revive the ancient Celtic amongst these people, personally I do not think it will be successful, nor do I understand the move; while it is well to keep it alive for students and savants, what possible good can it serve the desperately poor and ignorant of the land, how can they use it? At least so it appears to a looker-on. (I have not been able to extract a good reason for the move from any of its many advocates with whom I have conversed on this tour.) Surely English is destined to be the language of men, not only in Ireland but all over the world, and to my thinking this is the greatest work accomplished by that nation. After all, is it not a case of the survival of the fittest, and can any one deny that that tongue is already the most widely spoken and more rapidly spreading than any or all others? Go where you will you will find that next to the language of each country it is the one in use, and I believe that in generations to come it will wipe out all the trouble caused by the inhabitants of Babylon in their desire to get above high-water mark. For professors and students it would be well to maintain these ancient tongues as long as possible, but surely the poor of Ireland could be benefited to a greater degree by other means than an attempt to restore to daily use the ancient, almost forgotten, and fast dying tongue of their forefathers. As for the travellers in this land to-day it is confusing and irritating to be confronted by a sign-post of absolutely no value, intelligible only to those who know the Celtic tongue. The peasants cannot read them and do not require them, hence, to all concerned, they mean as much here as the verst posts do to a stranger in Russia. As for the milestones, they tell a story hereabouts concerning what happened between two towns separated some eighteen miles from each other. The figures on the stones having become almost obliterated by time and weather an order was given to a workman in one of the towns to recut the lot. He took them up one by one and placed them in the proper order in his stoneyard, but when completed it is evident that, before the work of replacing them began, he must have celebrated the event in the usual manner. Certainly the fact remains that he began at the wrong end of the pile, placing the one marked "17" where the first stone should have been, and so on with the lot, the result being that sundry gentlemen the worse for wear coming from one town discovered that their utmost endeavours to reach home only took them farther afield--where they finally brought up is not related. As for the man from the other town, when at the end of the first mile "17" stared at him from the stone he became convinced that the devil was after him and shook his first at a solitary magpie which had just flown over his head. I must confess that I doubt these tales. However but for our maps we should have been completely astray in western Ireland for all the use the sign-posts were to us. There is a charming little town at Recess, but unless you are a sportsman, not much of interest. Letters from home necessitate B.'s return, and we must call at Kylemore Castle before we start. Distanced from Recess some thirteen miles, a journey thither and back would with horses necessitate a whole day's time, but with a motor it's only just around the block so to speak. The morning is sunny and fair, and we drink in the rushing sea-breeze as we roll away over gentle hills and valleys between the higher mountains, and though the hills are treeless the whole panorama is attractive. Our driver reports his petrol low, with none to be had at Recess, hence we must fill the tank at Kylemore sufficiently to get us to Galway if it can be done. Kylemore Castle stands in a sheltered valley close by the sea though not in view of it. It faces a lovely lake and is really built on the side of the mountain which rises directly behind it to the height of two thousand feet. Across the lake the view is blocked by a similar range. While the shrubbery is fine and the grass very luxuriant and green around the mansion, all the hills and mountains are absolutely treeless. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Leap Castle] The place, but lately purchased by the Duke of M., was built by Mr. Henry at an expense, on the estate, of a million sterling. Reverses forced its sale, and it was bought by its present owner. There is nothing ancient, the house having but some fifty years to its credit, but it is capable of being, and, in the present owner's hands, will be made a charming dwelling-place, and certainly, swept by the winds of the North Atlantic, it must be at all seasons very healthy. Filled with a large company or with a few congenial people it should be an enjoyable spot. Its gardens are very extensive and one passes through endless conservatories full of flowers and fruits. As we round a corner close to the stable, we encounter the quaint figure of a woman with straggling grey locks, tumbling down over a pallid face. In a dress of rags and barefooted, she is dancing a crazy jig all by herself. There are weird gleams in her eyes as they rove over the sombre mountains, seeking kindred spirits, I fancy, as she croons in a monotone the notes of some quaint melody which still drifts across her brain. She shows as she catches sight of our party that she is no respecter of persons as she grabs the Duke by the coat and won't let go, imploring him to "lock up the castle and I'll be round a Monday." When he implores her to put off her coming for a day or so she declines and sticks to "Monday." I cannot but doubt in some degree her insanity, at least it has not destroyed her womanly vanity, for when I tell her I want to take her picture, she at once attempts to smooth her hair and dress, and striking what she thinks will be a becoming pose, tells me to "go ahead," and after the snap remarks, "You had better take another for fear that is a failure." Yesterday, having gone to the kitchen of the castle for her "bit of meat," she found a new cook, who, not knowing about her, ordered her out, whereupon she seized a knife from the table and there ensued a handicap, go as you please, all over the place, with the cook in the lead and Biddy a close second. After that she got her meat in peace. As we return from an inspection of the grounds she is being conducted off the terrace by the butler. But Biddy has a mind of her own and no one save this butler could get her away, if it suited her to remain, which it generally does. We are told she is deeply in love with him and that there is a photo extant with Biddy on her knees, clasping his legs and imploring him to marry her. Now the butler is a most stately personage; he has the cast of countenance of the great Louis of France, the same beak-like nose and downward sweep of the face lines running from it, the same haughty pose of the head, in fact, deck him in a high wig, court suit, and ruffles, and great red heels and you have Louis le Grand; take them away and you have the butler, the object of Biddy's devotion, to whom it makes no difference whether he be king or butler. But Biddy in her rags is after all the most picturesque thing about Kylemore; her eyes are bright if she is crazy--but where in all the world will you find brighter eyes than amongst the beggars of Ireland, and they seem equally pleased whether one gives or not (Biddy did not beg, neither did she hesitate to take what we gave her). Like all beggars, many of them are rogues, but, ah, risk that, for you may by your half crown relieve for the time real heart-breaking misery, and such poverty as you cannot conceive of. Go to Achill if you would be convinced of that. Yesterday while watching a train pass at Recess a boy approached and just looked at me, but with a look of such hungry suffering that a shilling was promptly forthcoming. Then I questioned him, and found that he had been ill and could at best make but a sixpence a day, that his brother drove the car for the hotel, getting as wages only the uncertain tips of the visitors, which, never many, in this remote spot are indeed few and far between in this bad season. His father had worked in the neighbouring marble quarries, but pestered and beset by a law-suit over his little hovel had, as the boy expressed it, "gone dotty," and could work no more. The mother did what she could and a sister was a cripple. So that all they had to live upon was what he and his brother could earn. Just as he finished a ducal train rolled by. His Grace was transporting his family and effects from one great castle to another. Surely the contrasts in life are heartrending, yet I doubt not that this Duke will and does do all he can to relieve the sufferings of the poor on his estates--sufferings intensified and made all the more horrible by the unprincipled leaders of the leagues in this land, and masters of strikes in ours and others. But to return to Kylemore, the interior of the castle at present is in a state of transition, so that it is impossible to describe it. Built against the side of the mountain, some of its staircases are literally laid on the solid rock. Many of the rooms are spacious and stately and in the hands of the present owners will doubtless be made very handsome. The glimpses of mountains and lake from its windows are entrancing. On the whole I think one might come to love Kylemore very dearly. It has cost vast sums of money as it stands and much more will be expended before the end, if indeed the end ever is reached in these great places where the expenditure of money is concerned. This one will require a fortune to maintain. Of the two Irish seats of the Duke of Manchester I should much prefer Kylemore to Tanderagee. While the latter is beautiful in its park and great trees, the former is a place of endless possibilities. Shooting and fishing are abundant and of the best, whilst to the lovers of the picturesque the mountains are an eternal joy, and close by is the jobling and sobbing of the sea. Its quaint people are an endless source of amusement and study. To enjoy it one must dwell there, and I depart with regret at our short sojourn or rather call. [Illustration: Moat at Ffranckfort Castle] Our petrol has run out and there is none in this locality. However, the chauffeur manages to buy some from the man at the station and with a sputter and roar we are off and away through the mountain glens, turning for a last glimpse of Kylemore, and her little church, both gleaming white amongst the forests by the lake, and guarded by the brooding mountains. FOOTNOTES: [4] Our route to-day from Mallaranny lay via Newport and Westport to Louisburgh, then south over the mountains past Doo Lough, round Killary Harbour to Leenane, west past Lough Fee to Tully Chapel, south to Letterfrack, west and south to Clifden, south to Ballinaboy Bridge, southeast to Toombeola Bridge, north to Ballynahinch Station, and east to Recess. CHAPTER VII The Ancient City of Galway--Quaint People, Curious Houses, Vile Hotel--Parsonstown--Wingfield House--Leap Castle and its Ghosts--Ffranckfort Castle--Clonmacnoise--Holy Cross Abbey. As we enter Galway from Recess, the roads become anything but agreeable; there are many crossings and bridge backs which throw us from our seats, and without extreme care on the part of the chauffeur would destroy the car. Fortunately the weather is moist and there is little dust, which in Galway is most disagreeable, the soil being limestone. If you would see an ancient Irish city, purely Irish and undefiled by the progress of this latter day, come to Galway, where she sits close down by the sea. It is evidently to this section what Paris is to all France. There may have been in other times those of the upper classes here, but they do not appear on her streets to-day. Narrow and winding, they are lined with ancient houses many of which bear pretentious coats of arms and much carving, but all are now the dwelling-places of the people. The streets are jammed as this is Saturday evening and we move cautiously along. At one point, owing to instructions from Boyse to turn to the right and from me to go to the left, the motor car almost runs over the pavement, scaring a buxom dame half to death. "'Twas the mercy of God the dur was open behint us, or ye'd 'ave smashed mesel' and the childer entirely." But at the same time she laughs and gives us a "God bless ye." While we are learning the route from her, a perfect Irish gentleman, properly drunk, reels up and leaning over the front of the car gazes at us in a most affectionate fashion. Barefooted, rosy-cheeked urchins are running in all directions, numerous women stand around doing up their hair, and there is more of the ancient tongue to be heard than at any other point except in Achill. As a child I learned a lot of it, meaninglessly, from the old servants at home, and recalling many phrases here have at times launched them forth, generally with dire results. To-day as we wend our way slowly through these crowded streets, it greets our ears on all sides. The quaint figures which one encountered in America thirty years ago must have come from here. Boarding ship in yonder harbour they landed on our shores absolutely unchanged and unique. One never sees them nowadays. Even in Ireland they are to be met with only in the remote districts; they are here in the good city of Galway but you will look for them in vain farther east. The story of the first appearance of my dear old nurse upon the streets of our city has become a household tale with us. Just in from the "owld country," she decked herself in her best for her Sunday's outing. A gown of the most vivid emerald green whose skirt spread over a voluminous hoop was composed of four huge flounces bound in bright red; a huge bonnet of green and blue circled around her anything but classic countenance--certainly her nose could never have been called "Roman"; she carried an orange and green sunshade. Her appearance created a sensation which almost ended in a riot. She was too much for the American youth as he was for her, and she fled homeward pursued by a howling mob of the gamins. I must pay tribute to the women who have come to us from this island,--respected and self-respecting, they have proven most excellent servants, with never a shadow of immorality amongst any of them, thoroughly honest and upright, and during months of absence, and sometimes years, left in entire charge of the households of which they kept as perfect watch and ward as though they were indeed their own, and, in fact, they soon learned to look upon the dwellings of their employer as home, with no desire to change unless to marry and set up their own firesides, and even then they never have forgotten and often return to the places where they lived so long through days of sorrow and days of mirth, not only servants but friends in the best acceptation of that word. [Illustration: Ffranckfort Castle] While Galway is a town of but some fourteen thousand people, the crowds on its streets to-night would convey the impression of a much greater population. They simply swarm all over the place. The city dates far enough back to have been mentioned by Ptolemy, and probably took its name from the Gaels or foreign merchants who once lived here. Galway appears on the pages of history in 1124 A.D. and from that date onward it was fought for by every tribe of the island. Just hereabouts there were thirteen tribes who strictly guarded themselves against all intercourse with the native Irish. Indeed there was a law that "none bearing an O or Mac in his name shall struttle one swaggere through the streets of Galway." But those days are past and there must certainly be many who bear such prefixes to their names who are strutting these streets in this year of grace 1907. This was one of the most important seaports trading with Spain, and there may be seen, even at this date, Spanish traits and features intermingled with the Celtic, and many of its ancient houses hold the touch of the South in their lines. Galway was loyal to King Charles and suffered horribly from the forces of Cromwell in consequence. While there are quaint structures still to be found in the streets they require looking for and one must be prepared to endure much squalor and dirt and endless smells which will not recall the perfume bazaars of the Orient, though it has always struck me that the perfumes of the Orient were thickly strewed that they might drown out much more horrible smells than were ever to be found in Ireland. The most interesting and famous of all the old houses is that of the Lynch family whose façade holds some curious carvings, notably that of a monkey carrying off a child, one of the children of the family having been saved from death by fire by a pet monkey. From the window of this house in 1493, its owner, James Lynch, hanged his own son for murder. Legend and truth are probably greatly mixed in the story told to-day. The murder was that of a young Spaniard of whom the son was jealous, and whom he stabbed to death. His mother besought her kinsfolk to save him and them the disgrace of a public death by hanging, the father being determined that the law should be obeyed. They met and roused the populace which collected in a multitude outside the old house, to-day so full of its noisy poor. The father, finding it would be impossible to conduct his son to the place of execution, led him to one of the great windows high up in the mansion and from thence launched him into eternity at the rope's end. The people, awed into silence by his stern justice, dispersed in quiet to their homes. To-day the street is called Dead Man's Lane, and it is claimed that the tablet with skull and cross-bones and its motto, "Remember deathe--vanite of vanite and all is but vanite," was placed there to commemorate the dark occurrence, but if so it was not until more than a century had rolled by. It is said that this stern, sorrowing father never appeared in public after his execution of his son. The family of Lynch appeared here from Austria in 1274 and until 1654 was of great prominence; then it vanished entirely. The old house rises in state still from its squalid surroundings and the gloom upon its face seems to come as much from its present degradation as from its sad history. With all its dirt and squalor Galway is possessed of greater interest than any other Irish city, though with the hurried march of time in these latter days, the antiquary must search more and more each year if he would discover aught. One of the most singular and interesting parts is to be found in the district just outside the walls and on the river. It is called Claddagh, and consists of a colony of fishermen numbering with their families some five or six thousand. Their marketplace adjoins one of the city's ancient gates. They are a well ordered and governed people, having a king or mayor elected from time to time whose word is law and from whose decision they never appeal; neither will they acknowledge any other authority. They are religious and will not sail away nor fish on Sunday or feast day. At one period they were sufficient unto themselves and always married in their own set. That is changed now and neither does one often see the old and picturesque costume of their women,--a red gown and blue mantle. However, even to-day their part of Galway is cleaner and more wholesome than its other sections. Its people are very superstitious and will not fish nor permit others to do so unless the day and hour be lucky. Some have tried to break through this but were forced to give up the attempt, as their lives were in danger. An Irishman in the city stated that times were very bad, they "had had very good crops and hence could not raise the cry of famine and so bring in the cash from England and America. When they can do that every one is well off and happy." But, as I have stated, squalor, dirt, and evil smells so abound that one is fairly driven off and away from this quaintest of the Irish towns. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Clonmacnoise] You may spend a time in her old church of St. Nicholas, but if you enter the adjoining graveyard the terrible neglect will drive you forth in horror, a horror in no way quieted by a sojourn at the awful railway hotel, a place so vilely dirty that nothing save acute hunger forces us to remain an instant within its doors. I ask the waiter for a toothpick. "Well, really, sor, we have none, but here's one of me own, which I'll lend yez." In the search for it he pulls from the same pocket a dirty handkerchief and a stump of a clay pipe. My laughter brings a twinkle to his eyes and procures us a much better luncheon than we had reason, from the appearance of the dirty table, to expect. There is no excuse for this hotel. It is a disgrace to the railroad which owns and runs it. These railway hotels are generally cleanly and well kept. Certainly such is the case in England and Scotland and in the west and north of Ireland. But in Galway the broken-down, dilapidated, and filthy state of affairs is disgusting in the extreme. One hesitates to eat anything which comes from the kitchen, and we confine ourselves to boiled ham and cheese. From Galway our route lies eastward to Parsonstown and had we followed the map would have been simple enough, but the advice of sundry home-going men, all somewhat the worse for liquor, sent us astray several times, but in a motor that is of little moment. Parsonstown, or Birr, lies directly east of Galway and en route we pass by Lorrha, where I stop a moment to inspect its ancient abbey. It is of interest to some Americans as having been the burial-place for centuries of a well-known family, the Carrolls. There are no monuments or tablets, as dead have been buried upon dead within the ruined walls for years on years, even unto to-day, as a fresh mound with a half-withered wreath of flowers upon it testifies. Birr Castle was the original seat of the Carrolls, but they appear to have owned numerous others in this locality, such as Leap and Ffranckfort. The life of the dwellers must have been very crude and rude, but they were all very tenacious of their right of sepulchre with their forefathers. Each old will directs, after kindly returning the "soul to the God who gave it," that their bodies be buried "in the chapel adjoining the Abbey of St. Dominick in Lorrha," and so it was done; but, as I have stated, years have gone and other dead have claimed the same graves in this holy spot, until the place, now a tangle of ivy and wild brier, is buried deeply and heaped high with the silent sleepers whose rest is rarely disturbed by a passer from the great outer world of the living. In the surrounding graveyard the dead sleep closely together and the spot is better cared for than is usually the case. Apparently they are not so soon forgotten, at least, one is not horrified by the appalling desolation and abandonment usually to be found in such places in rural Ireland. Of course the people are very poor, but at least they could lock the doors of the vaults and cut the grass over the graves of their dead. It may be that they consider that nothing is necessary or can be done once they pass beneath the sod of "holy ground," that, having been consecrated by the church, any touch of man's hand would be a desecration thereof. Be that as it may the effects upon one from another land is horrible. Such is not the case here in Lorrha, I am pleased to state. A quick run of nine miles brings us to the quaint old city of Birr, just as the night closes in. Birr is an eminently respectable town. Its streets are wide and its houses have a delightful seclusion which reminds one of the main square in Frederick City, Maryland. There are arched doorways shaded by climbing vines and bearing great brass knockers. There are family cats every here and there, and ancient dames peer at you from behind lace curtains. In its main square at the base of the column to the Duke of Cumberland and his victory of Culloden, one of the present citizens of Birr is declaiming. He does not declaim long; truth compels me to state that he is tight, and that even now two servants of the law are escorting him into the calaboose. Pity 'tis, 'tis true. But this is Saturday night and a man must have his little enjoyments. We descend at the door of an hotel whose name sets us whistling, "Mr. Dooley's Hotel." I think it fairly good--Boyse does not agree with me but withal we are very comfortable in it. Birr is the very centre of Ireland, and probably takes airs to herself in consequence. We arrive here very weary to-night. There are days when motoring is not all joy--this has been one. The lime dust and cold winds around Galway have cut our faces into segments, and I find a bath, an open fire, and easy chair too attractive to resist, but Boyse has gone off in a jaunting-car eight miles to see some friends and arrange for a visit to-morrow to an ancient castle where a real ghost still holds forth. We shall see what we shall see, but it would take more than a ghost to keep me awake to-night, much less to make me drive sixteen miles to call, but it seems nothing to Boyse who does not return until late--too late to talk--and so good-night. Morning dawns in mist and rain, which continue off and on all day long. Birr is as silent as only an Irish or English town knows how to be on a Sunday,--every shop is closed, the houses show scarce any sign of life, while Cumberland upon his column seems to offer an apology for being in gala array on the first day of the week. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Abbey of the Holy Cross] Boyse's friends near here have bidden us to luncheon after an inspection of that ancient seat of the O'Carrolls, Leap Castle (pronounced "Lep"). So rain and mist defying, we roll off at ten A.M. leaving Yama and our kit behind us. The roads are slippery and the car skids a little, but the chauffeur is alive to the danger, which is minimised to the fullest extent by chains on the wheels. Some ten miles out we turn into a spacious park and are welcomed at the door of the mansion of "Wingfield" by the daughters of the house, three lovely Irish women, and I know of no land which can produce more beautiful women than Ireland; striking forms, faces, and figures are the rule not the exception in this land of the harp. There is a type of reddish golden hair, fair clear complexion, and sky-blue eyes which is especially beautiful to my thinking; it belongs to the upper classes, at least I have never noted it in a daughter of the people,--there the dark blue-grey eyes and black hair, or pale straw-coloured hair combined with palest of blue eyes, prevail. I have a painting by our poet-painter, T. Buchanan Read, which shows the type I speak of, yet where did he ever see it? Certainly not amongst those emigrants who came to America in his time. The painting, called _The Harp of Erin_,[5] represents a white-clad woman chained to a rock in the sea, whose waves dash up around her. Reddish golden hair floats over her shoulders, which are draped in a green scarf. Blue eyes of the colour of the deepest heaven gaze mournfully upon you and her arms are raised to play upon a harp. The artist was in his happiest mood when he painted this picture and for it he refused a large price, expecting at the period of the Fenian excitement, in the sixties, to have it lithographed and so realise vast sums, but fate in some form, how I know not, intervened, and his idea was never carried out, or the Fenian bubble burst before it could be accomplished. But to return to Wingfield. We gather in two of the ladies and speed off over the slippery highway to Leap Castle. Now Leap, I would have you know, is THE ghost castle of Ireland, owning more spooks to the room than all the others together. En route thither we pass under the shadow of "Knockshigowna" or hill of the fairies, and it would seem on this shadowy morning that the ruin on its summit shows signs of a strange agitation; perhaps the shades are aware of our approach to their favourite castle in the valley and trust that we may tarry until night falls and their dominion maintains,--for until then, they must stay where they are, high up on yonder hill, which is the centre of all the fairy romance and legend of the island. The forest is dense here and we roll under the bending boughs, heavy with the night's dew, and glittering in the sunlight. At the end of a long green tunnel the tower of Leap Castle blocks the way. Leap stands overlooking a fair valley, a great square tower to which have been added wings on either side. It was one of the most ancient seats of the O'Carrolls, who seem to have left a most excellent memory hereabouts as expert sheep-stealers. All of these ancient castles were composed of simply one great strong tower. Everything else is of much later date. We have seen a dozen such in the past few days. Leap is no exception. Fortunately its owner, Mr. D.; is at home and welcomes us to what has been in his family since the days of the Restoration, a period when many of the Irish castles passed into the hands of Englishmen. We enter the lower floor of the great tower, which in the days of the O'Carrolls was evidently the great hall, where many of those weird, barbarous feasts one associates with such places must have occurred. To-day its appearance is peaceful enough. Pictures anything but terrible surround us and no ghosts can stand this clear light of day. From its windows you enjoy a superb panorama, and from its terrace one of its ancient owners leapt his horse when pursued by some enemy--hence the name. He was a rider superior to any even Ireland can show at the present time for the drop is quite thirty feet. The wings of the castle flank the tower on either hand, but aside from containing cheery rooms with much fine old furniture, are not of interest, at least when compared to the hall, around which a gallery circles in the second story, to which stairs in the thickness of the walls conduct one. In one of the angles there is an oubliette to anywhere below,--in another a stair mounts to a chapel in the top, dismantled and disused now save by the ghost of a priest which walks here with his head under his arm, and it is reported that one of the chatelaines of the castle fled here from following footsteps which she could not understand, and flinging the great door to behind her used her fair arm as a staple, only to have it broken in two by a force no mortal could withstand. She fainted, but before losing consciousness saw passing by her the shadow of the headless monk. If you sleep in one of those chambers below there you will awaken to find your hand drawn over the bedside and blood slowly dripping from your fingers,--there are stains on the old oaken flooring even now. Which ghost does that is not stated. No direct heir ever inherits "Leap," and when misfortune is following fast on the footsteps of the family, a ghostly sheep appears and with a claw of great length (that kind of sheep have "claws") scratches on the panels of the great oaken portals. Every properly self-respecting house in Ireland has a ghost, but Leap has more than its share, and no peasant of the island would venture to pass a night alone in the dungeon under its great tower. There was nothing ghostly about the very good Irish whiskey which we had there,--so toasting all ghosts malign or beneficent and bidding our host a thankful adieu, we depart under the dripping skies and return to peaceful-looking Wingfield, only to learn that it too has its ghost, but a friendly one, being a great white goose which walks around the walls of the home park and so wards off all evil from the occupants. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Rock of Cashel] A cheerful luncheon with agreeable people will banish any amount of spooks. It is so in this case. Wingfield could never be called a lonely place. Each of its fair chatelaines has a pet dog of her own and there are half a dozen stray dogs belonging to no one and every one. _They_ are not allowed in any room unless they find the door open and in Ireland doors are rarely closed. If the dining-room door _is_ open at meal-time and they about, it's first come first served, with odds on the dogs,--ditto at teatime,--in fact, any old time or meal, and there are dogs enough to fill all vacancies and be present upon all occasions. It is a merry meal we have, but the best of things must end and so we rise to depart. As I step forward to open the door for the ladies I find the knob gone and the act impossible; but we troop around by another way and settle ourselves before a bright fire in the drawing-room. We are told by our hostess that the parson came to call the other day. The doorbell was broken but the door open. Upon entering the drawing-room and closing the door the knob came off in his hand. In the meantime numbers of dogs had collected in the hall. Remembering that the family were probably all out, he went to the bell to summon help, when _that_ handle came off also; going to the window to get out, he could not keep it up until he had called into service a small table; thus he managed to tumble out on to the lawn amidst ten or a dozen barking dogs not at that moment on duty inside. He has not called since. However to my thinking Irish dogs are good-natured. Warm-hearted hospitality reigns in that house and may good luck and happiness for ever abide therewith. After luncheon we start again with our fair guides on a visit to another famous house, Ffranckfort Castle, some eleven miles away, a veritable moated grange owned by Major Rolleston. Our way lies through the forest. There are few hills hereabouts and no sign-posts to any of the roads, so that one might well lose the route, and but for our fair companions we certainly should have done so several times since we lost sight of the hill of the fairies and entered these labyrinths of the forest. Turning at last through an ancient gateway, we see through the vistas of the trees and on a level stretch of ground a great enclosure some hundreds of yards each way surrounded by a high stone wall, through whose pointed gateway there are glimpses of a castellated mansion. As we draw nearer a moat full of water discloses itself around the outer wall, and rumbling over a drawbridge which has long since forgotten its function, we enter the enclosure. As the car draws towards the house, which stands in the centre of the place, a saturnine face, with a long, hooked nose, gazes at us through the dusty diamond-shaped panes of a window. Here is a mansion of the olden times, and one so secluded that few from the outer world ever find it. The house, built at several different periods, stands in the centre of the enclosure. I should judge that the main portion was of the date of Elizabeth but the left still holds a large round tower of a much older period and the main doorway of heavy old oak, very thick, and studded with nails folded back in several panels. A very curious bit of work. It would seem to-day that the gentleman behind the window either doubts our being otherwise than spirituelle, or doubts our characters, and so declines to admit us, but he does come finally, and we enter an old-time place which knows nothing of the changes of these latter days and cares less for them. In a large square hall we are greeted by our host, a typical Irish gentleman. He presents us to the ladies of the family, and we are welcomed as one is always welcomed in Ireland. The owner, Major Rolleston, will not believe that I am an American as he cannot "hear the voice." I know just what he means and finally convince him that America like England has many accents. They are charmed when they find that I really desire to see the old house, and we are soon at work, at least the Major and I are,--leaving the rest to discuss "tea." The Major acts as my guide over the place and out into a lovely flower-garden; he is greatly interested also in the cultivation of vegetables, and remarks with regret "you don't care for farming." Confessing my shortcomings in that respect his interest in me dies out, and he shortly conducts me back towards the old house, over another drawbridge, which, like its fellow in front, has long since forgotten its ancient usage. One might spend hours over such a place and not exhaust its interest. I understand that it is the only perfectly _moated_ mansion remaining in Ireland. There are fish in the moat, and on one side a man can swim in six feet of water for some hundreds of feet. The portions of the building which we inspected consisted of a large square hall, dining-and drawing-rooms which stretch across its front, and a large library in the rear. The hallway, like most in the land, is decorated with the antlers of many deer, and in the drawing-room quaint prints and engravings and portraits of long dead dames and squires adorn the wall, while through the diamond-shaped panes of the casement the leaf-flecked sunshine starts many a face into life as it flits across them. One feels that one should be dressed in the costume of the Golden days. [Illustration: From a steel engraving Cormac's Chapel, Rock of Cashel] Ffranckfort is not a splendid place, but it is homelike and beautiful. Is it peace or stagnation which broods over a spot like this? Do these people live or merely vegetate? To a man who has passed his years where the pulses of life beat the strongest it seems at first like stagnation, as though these woods must suffocate as they crowd so closely around the outer enclosure, ever advancing towards the house,--indeed one great tree in its haste or intentness to get here has fallen, and now projects over moat and wall and far into the enclosure, where its branches peer about them. Yet when one has been here a space there is a "peace, be still" over it all, a sense of brooding, that is very calming to one's spirit. Everything belongs to the long ago except our auto, which I order out of sight, round the corner, with a command to stay there until it is wanted and not intrude this twentieth century upon the sixteenth. But we cannot remain for ever, and the car, shortly summoned, glides forth and rolls us off and away, through the great gateway and over the bridge of the moat and so off into the aisles of the forest whose trees closing in around it hide the old hall from view as though by the dropping of a curtain, and again I ask, is it peace and contentment, or stagnation, to abide in Ffranckfort Castle? I think it was Bayard Taylor who, in his early life, desired the seclusion of an island in some far off southern sea, there to dwell in close communion with nature, there to look from nature up to nature's God,--but as his years advanced and his sands of life ran towards a finish, that desire changed to one which would place him where the pulses of life beat the strongest, and his last words were, "Oh, for more of this stuff called Life!" The shadows of night and the falling rain make it dark as we reach once more our quarters in Birr where a bright fire in our sitting-room is, to say the least, attractive, and where the discussion pro and con as to the merits of "Mr. Dooley's Hotel" are revived. "Beastly" comes from behind Boyse's book where he sits reading deep down in an arm-chair; but here is a cosey little room, easy chairs and a bright fire, a dinner-table attractively spread and an attractive dark-eyed lassie waiting to serve us. May I never encounter worse than that on my pilgrimage through life. To-morrow we go to Clonmacnoise and to-night, as I sit reading about it, my thoughts become a strange jumble of crosses and round towers, haunted castles, and ancient Manor-houses towards which I am carried in a wild rush through the aisles of the forest surrounded and pursued by dogs, geese, fairies, and ghosts until the top of the hill of the fairies is reached and I am being tried for high treason because of my doubts to-day of the powers of each and all of them. The headless monk is my judge while the sheep with the long claw prosecutes the suit against me. My fingers are dripping blood, it seems, and I am about to be delivered to the dogs of Wingfield when I distinctly hear it stated that I am snoring and had better go to bed. Perhaps such is the case; so good night. As Clonmacnoise stands on the banks of the Shannon and is but some thirty miles north of Birr, and the day yet young, we are off for a run thither. The morning is moist and the roads slippery, but we make good progress, most of the way through narrow lanes, and sometimes through pastures, to the astonishment of the cattle settled for their noonday's sleep. Clonmacnoise was once the Oxford of Ireland, where the sons of the nobles were sent for education, its name "Cluan-mac-noise" meaning "the secluded recess of the sons of nobles."[6] It was in addition, one of the favourite burial places of the Irish kings. Even to-day, to be interred here is considered a blessing, as those so honoured pass straight to heaven. The Abbey dates from the days of St. Kieran, 548 A.D.,--he died of the plague and was buried here,--and at one time was one of the richest, compressing within its bounds almost the half of Ireland. It flourished all through the wars with the Danes, and seems to have been finally plundered by the English, who carried off the wonderful bells and every other movable object. From that time onward the roofless churches and buildings fell more and more a prey to advancing time, until the whole became as we see it to-day, a small ruined church, a fragment of a castle, a round tower, and a stately cross, crowded upon by the graves of those who have eagerly sought this direct route to the realms of the blessed, but, for us, this world is as yet too full of interest, and we do not envy these dead even though they have here found the portals of heaven. At Clonmacnoise is one of the many holy wells dating from pagan days, and which the traveller finds all over Ireland. These wells would appear to have formed a prominent feature in the paganism of the ancient nations. There are traces of them all over Africa, Asia and Europe. It's a slippery, sliding run back to Birr, which the motor several times attempts to take backwards, but it ends safely and we reach "Mr. Dooley's Hotel" for luncheon. It is a misty morning as we depart from Birr, but mist at this season in Ireland falls like a benediction upon man and upon all the world of green around him--and where else in this world will you find such green as in Ireland? To-day the woods and meadows stretch away before us and over all bends a grey sky with patches of vivid blue and white cutting through it every here and there. We had arranged to visit with our hosts of yesterday another of the "most ancient" and still inhabited castles of this section, but fearing a change to rain in the weather we give that up and roll off to the south-west, until finally we reach a fair green valley through whose grasses and beneath whose bending trees lazily rolls the river Suir, a river just wide enough to suit one's fancy, full of fish and water lilies, and by whose banks, amidst a thick grove of stately trees, the ancient Abbey of the Holy Cross rears its grey walls and delicate traceries. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard The Cross of Cashel and Throne of the Kings of Munster Rock of Cashel] Holy Cross is one of the finest ruins in all Ireland, and was evidently an abbey of great wealth and importance. Truly those monks of old knew where to build and when they brought the relic of the Cross bestowed by Pope Pascal II. in 1110 to this spot and erected its shrine, they made no mistake. It is not difficult to restore in the mind's eye the ancient structure to what it once was, or to repeople it with the forms and faces of ancient days. Yonder door in the outer wall must often have given egress to the fat white-robed abbot and his jolly crowd of monks, come out to inspect the baskets of fish and other good things brought by the people who crowded around them. There were also hampers of fruit and vegetables, and other things which looked strangely like casks of wine. Back of all rose the stately abbey, while the river flowed onward waving its lilies and grasses, and the soft air was full of the sound of sacred bells and murmuring waters. To-day we face a stately ruin and there is no sound of bells or sight of abbot, only the river still murmurs amongst its lilies, but Holy Cross is as beautiful in her ruin as she could ever have been in the days of her splendour. A comely dame admits us through the abbot's portal, and for hours we wander as the fancy dictates, pausing now in the choir with its ancient tombs, climbing high on the great tower with its prospect of God's eternal resurrection all around, or resting where the high altar is draped in trailing ivy and splendid with golden lichen. The mists have disappeared, the sunlight is warm and strong and one can almost see the fish in the river, while the air is laden with the fragrance of lilies, and there is a hush over all as though this ancient dame were sitting for her portrait. How completely the rush and trouble of the world drops away in a spot like this! How the soul is lulled into slumber, and the "Peace, be still" of God comes down upon one! FOOTNOTES: [5] See Frontispiece. [6] Another authority interprets the name (Cluain-maccu-Nois) "the meadow of the sons of Nos." CHAPTER VIII The Rock of Cashel--Its Cathedral, Palace, and Round Tower--Its History and Legends--Kilmalloch: its Ruins and History--The Desmonds--Horse Fair at Buttevant. The usual dram-shop exists near this one-time shrine of the cross and outside of it we found a man somewhat half seas over who had insisted upon showing us the abbey, but we were equally insistent that we would not submit to such a desecration, and so the good woman in charge of it, with much pleasure on her part,--"the likes of him, to be sure, to be troublin' the gintlemen!"--had locked him out. He was on hand when we came away, determined to get at least a sixpence for a drink, but to all of his wiles we proved insensible. Just before we entered the car he moved off a pace, and regarding me from top to toe remarked, "Well, I must say, sor, that's the handsomest fitting coat I ever saw." As said coat was a wretched production of a Chinese tailor of Yokohama the flattery was too fulsome and fell flat, upon obdurate ears, but he bestowed his benediction upon us for all that as the car rolled off. This section would seem to be the very heart of Ireland. There are traces of ecclesiastical ruins everywhere, and one's interest is intensified each moment until it reaches its climax some nine miles from Holy Cross, when the land drops gently into a vast valley from the centre of which, rising some three hundred feet, and crowned with ruins, towers the Rock of Cashel. At its base clusters the town and in the spreading meadows round about there are many stately ruins. As we approach, the town gives scant evidence of life, until one wonders whether any one exists there. We certainly do not see a half-dozen living things, men or animals, before we desert the car and climb the rock. It is a glorious day as we pass upward to the hill and the old town and ruins take on a kindly look under the streaming sunshine--for sunshine "streams" in Ireland; the sky is never cloudless and the sun breaking through sends its light always in long streaming shafts, as though it were a great searchlight directed by some giant power; and so it is to-day, and just now it is turned full upon the Rock until all the ruins seem quivering with life. But it passes, and as we enter and the iron gate clangs behind us the whole place is full of the sadness of decay. This was the Stirling of Ireland for here is cathedral, castle, and round tower. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Ancient Gateway, Kilmalloch] The stories of war and bloodshed have passed away and Cashel has fallen more and more into ruin and decay with the flight of years. An old guide, whose name does not seem to be given, made it the labour of his life and love to restore as best he could what was remaining. Here he lived on the charity of the poor, which never failed him, doing his best, and it was much, to gather together the crumbling stones and replace them in their old positions. Finally he died and was buried here and his work, almost undone by neglect and time, was finally taken up by one of equal taste and greater power, Archdeacon Cotton, who devoted time, energy, and private means to preserve this most interesting spot in Ireland from destruction. His work here started in Ireland the same movement towards the preservation of these ancient places with which Sir Walter Scott was so identified in Scotland. To both, the lover of antiquities owes an eternal debt of gratitude. Of Cashel it is related that Archbishop Brice in 1744, not being able to drive his carriage to the top of the rock, procured an act of Parliament to remove the cathedral down into the town, whereupon the roof was actually taken off for the value of the lead and the venerable pile abandoned to ruin. As we pass the iron gateway which now guards the ruins and the dead who sleep around and in them (for the whole is now a great necropolis) the eye is first attracted by a rude cross rising from an equally rude base; on one side is carved the crucifixion, and on the other a figure of St. Patrick. Here it is said the kings of Munster were crowned and here also tribute was paid by those of lesser state, and it is claimed that a hollow on one side was caused by the throwing down of the tribute gold through many years. Passing onward one enters the quaint Cormac's Chapel, one of the most interesting remains in Ireland. Its original stone roof is still in place and possesses two very singular square towers on either side, one of which carries its pyramidal roof, but the other is open to the sky. The chapel is not large, being but fifty-three feet long and having only a nave and choir. It is Norman in its character; the very rich decorations of its arches and niches are all of that style. The cathedral is, of course, a ruin, but stately and beautiful. Its interior is crowded with flat tombstones and even to-day interments take place here, and be assured to have the right of burial in Cashel Church is a hallmark of nobility which no money can purchase; only blood ties with those long since laid to rest will gain you a right to sleep there, and the same holds with Muckross. There is not much left of the castle. Outward amongst the many graves which cover the rock, the eye is at once attracted by the stately round tower, rising a hundred feet above the rock. To my thinking there is nothing more majestic than these simple towers with their conical caps, and one weaves around them all manner of romances and stories, which probably are very far from the truth. There seems little doubt that they are simply the campaniles of this northern land and it appears certain that they did not make their appearance until after the advent of Christianity. They were probably used also for watch towers and are to be found all down the coast at points where the Danes were apt to land. In those days the Danes were the marauders of Europe, and Ireland did not escape their attention. The ancient annals of the island call these towers, of which seventy are still standing, "Cloicoheach" or house of a bell. There are two in the land which have most impressed me, this one high on the Rock of Cashel and the one at Glendalough, deep down in a valley. Of that one I shall speak later on. Cashel as a place of importance dates from the early kings of Munster and from the days of St. Patrick--the fifth century--when St. Declan founded a church here. Its name probably came from a stone fort or "Caiseal." It was also called the City of the Kings. Here in 1172 Henry the Second received the homage of Donald O'Brien, King of Thomond, and the princes of Offaly and Decies, and England became the ruler of the land. Here he read aloud that famous papal bull. Edward Bruce passed by Cashel and paused to hold a parliament. The Butlers and Fitzgeralds warred all over the place and the great Earl of Kildare in 1495 burned down the cathedral, and when called by the King of England to accounting, declared that he would not have thought of committing such a sacrilege but that he was told that the archbishop was surely in the church; whereupon the King exclaimed, "If all Ireland cannot govern this man, he is the fittest to govern all Ireland," and thereupon appointed him viceroy the following year. The rock and town were given up to plunder and slaughter by Lord Inchiquin in 1647 when twenty monks and many of the people were slain, but Cashel shines forth most brilliantly as the seat for centuries of an archbishop, and as the stranger stands on the rock to-day it is not difficult to picture the scenes and pageants of that period. Restore in your minds the church and palace to their former grandeur, rebuild and repeople the many monasteries which dot the green valley around the rock, fill the shady lanes with the gorgeous processionals of the Church of Rome advancing to some great ceremonial in the cathedral already crowded with a multitude bowed in prayer, place the gorgeously robed archbishop on his throne before the altar ablaze with gold and lighted candles, while the sunlight streaming through the painted windows casts the greater glory of God over all, and the organ sends its deep solemn tones forth under the stately arches. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Dominican Abbey, Kilmalloch] Then you have Cashel at its best; but passing outward your eye would have been at once attracted by the stately round tower, as stately to-day as it was then, which would tell you at once that, as some believed, long before the cross came to Cashel the pagans held their barbarous rites and ceremonies on this rock. Again, we are told that Cashel was first founded in the reign of Coro, son of Loo-ee, and that its name was Sheedrum, also called Drum-feeva; from the woods about. Through the forests and up to the rock at that time came two swineherds, with their pigs, Kellarn, herdsman to the King of Ely, and Doordry, herdsman for the King of Ormond, and there appeared to them here a figure as brilliant as the sun, and whose voice, more melodious than any music of this world, was consecrating the hill and prophesying the coming of St. Patrick. The news soon reached Coro, who came hither without delay and built a palace here called Lis-no-Lachree, or the fort of heroes, and being King of Munster his royal tribute was received on this rock, then called Currick-Patrick,--wherefore it was called Cashel, _i.e._, Cios-ail, or the rock of tribute. All that is but a legend and story of the long ago, yet this great round tower bears enduring testimony that Cashel was occupied long before the English invasion. Indeed the chapel of Cormac is undoubtedly of before that period but the cathedral dates from 1169, and the castle from 1260. The whole was originally surrounded by a wall, of which no trace remains to us. But after all it is the prospect from the outer walls which will longest hold your attention, the beautiful panorama of the golden vale of Tipperary spread out before you, while beyond range the stately Galty Mountains and the Slievenaman and Clonmel hills, the old town clustering around the base of the rock, its twisting narrow streets bordered by quaint houses while the green meadows around are dotted with ruined abbeys and many a tower of far more ancient date. If Ireland _is_ unhappy, she does not show it here to the passing stranger to-day. All is peace down amongst those meadows and beside those still waters. Yonder is the Abbey of Horl, the equal of Holy Cross, but to inspect all the abbeys one passes would take a lifetime. As we return to the car, I notice that there is trouble of some sort. An old Irishman stands near-by and a little girl is trying vainly to draw him away. As we arrive Yama remarks that the old man is insulting, and in as low a tone as I can command I bid him pay no attention as the man is drunk. That may be, but not so drunk as to deaden his hearing for he promptly replies, "Yes, sor, I am drunk, but I am drunk on my own whiskey, and I am not travellin' around wid a monkey man." It was well-nigh impossible to keep grave faces, but for the Jap's sake we succeeded, and the car started, not, however, without another shot from the old man: "Well, good-bye to yez, and I forgive ye if ye did say I am drunk." I am glad to state that that was the only experience of the kind which we encountered. What may have occurred before we reached the car I cannot say,--I certainly did not question the Jap on the subject, judging it better to drop the whole matter, but I have little doubt but that he did or said something to enrage the old man. The only one concerned for whom I felt any pity was the little granddaughter, who vainly endeavoured to lead him away. Poor child, her eyes were full of tears and I felt very sorry for her. In this world of ours it seems always her sex which must suffer. Our route from Cashel to Buttevant lies through rich meadow-lands where the grass is greener and the buttercups of a deeper golden than anywhere else in the world I think, unless it be in the "blue grass" regions of our own Kentucky. This was certainly the land of promise to all who lived here or could force their way in; almost every turn in the road brings us upon some ruined tower or castle, whilst fragments of ecclesiastical buildings dot the landscape far and near. Indeed, as we roll leisurely along on this bright summer's morning, the prospect is at all times enchanting to the lover of history and antiquity, and the interest increases steadily until Kilmalloch, the Balbec of Ireland, is reached, though at all times the traveller's regret will be intense that the ruin of all is so complete. In fact, the town is but a mass of ruins where the miserable hovels of the poor prop up what is left of the ancient mansions of a vanished nobility. As we pass through what was once its greatest street we note the remains of stately houses every here and there, but they have evidently been partly pulled down and their materials used to build the wretched structures which now shelter these people. Only the property of the church has been spared and in this case, though the ruin is great, it is the result of the sieges during Elizabeth's and Cromwell's time; the people have let the buildings alone, only that great disbeliever in church or state, time, is for ever at work completing their destruction. One comes here upon the trails of the most powerful family which Ireland has ever possessed, the Desmonds, whose properties, covering four counties, extended over one hundred miles and contained over five hundred and seventy thousand acres. An ancient family, even at that period, they were made earls in 1329. Their power appears to have been at all times dreaded by the crown and we find one of them of the Kildare branch a prisoner in the Tower in Henry VII.'s time. He it was who burned the cathedral at Cashel, hence we may save our sympathies for a better man, especially as his assurance so affected the King that he was appointed governor of Ireland, as we related in the account of Cashel. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Buttevant Barracks] His son, for rebellion, did not fare so well with Henry VIII., as, with five of his uncles, he perished on the scaffold and his family was only saved from extinction by having his youngest brother smuggled over to France to return to home and restored estates when Edward VI. sat on the throne. Do not, however, for a moment imagine that that family "lived happily for ever after." Certainly not with such blood flowing in their veins and with Elizabeth Tudor wearing the crown, during whose reign the sixteenth Earl of Desmond did all he could to prevent his name from sinking into oblivion. He became conspicuous as an "ingenious rebel" and the Queen speaks of him in one of her letters as "a nobleman not brought up where law and justice had been frequent," by which I presume her Majesty meant that he had forgotten that the words "law" and "justice" meant the royal "will" and "desire" only. We have had some such forgetfulness in our own land of late years. Desmond was of such power that he could raise a company of five hundred men of his own name alone, all of whom and his own life also he lost in three years' time. There is little doubt that he was driven to rebellion by wrong and oppression, as he and his estates were objects of envy to every other chieftain of Ireland. His greatest enemy, the Earl of Ormond, was finally empowered by the crown to crush him and in the end succeeded. Desmond, "trusting no home or castle," was driven to woods and bogs and finally captured in a ruined hovel where his head was struck off and sent to the Queen "pickled in a pipkin." His executioner, a soldier named "Daniel Kelly," received a pension of twenty pounds from the crown but for some later act was hanged at Tyburn. With James, the son of this Desmond, the power of the family terminated. He became a Protestant and the only one of his name. It is useless to state that the followers of his ancient house would not tolerate such a lapse and upon his only visit to Kilmalloch he was spat upon on his return from church. That drove him to London, where he died. As I have stated, there is almost nothing to remind the traveller through Kilmalloch to-day of its ancient splendour, though he may still trace its walls which once completely surrounded the town. Just outside stands the ruins of the Dominican friary, a stately empty shell. Leaving it, we roll away southward and upon entering the town of Buttevant are rudely shaken from the contemplation of ancient days to the activity of this twentieth century. Buttevant is indulging in a horse fair where David Harums congregate from all the land roundabout. As our car rolls through the streets, we are regarded as legitimate prey and have horses of all ages, sizes, and colours,--"Sound? Glory be to God, as sound as yer honour," shoved in front of us. (That we pass on without pausing stamps us at once as unworthy of further notice.) One man with absolutely no right has seized upon an adjoining field and after breaking a hole in the wall as a ticket window proceeds to collect a shilling from all who enter, of which there are many. If any refuse to pay he seizes a convenient rock and threatens them. It is useless to state that most of the community imagine that all that is worth seeing in the place is in that field, and as every one crowds in there they are not far wrong. Still, I learn later, the canny ticket collector takes care to vanish at the proper moment. They spend some time looking for him, especially as the owner of the field threatens to have the law on the whole lot for trespass. Leaving the noise and confusion behind us, we enter the great square of the barracks, and the motor vanishes for a season. CHAPTER IX Buttevant Barracks--Army Life--Mess-room Talk--Condition of the Barracks--Balleybeg Abbey--Old Church--Native Wedding--Kilcoman Castle, Spenser's Home--Doneraile Court--Mrs. Aldworth, the only Woman Free Mason--Irish Wit--Regimental Plate--Departure from the Barracks. In the barracks at Buttevant are at present quartered a battalion of the Dublin Fusiliers, a regiment which dates back to the days of Charles II., and which has spent most of its years in India. Now this battalion is back home and I doubt not that both officers and men find the cool grey skys and green fields a welcome contrast to the blazing heavens and burnt brown stretches of the Far East. Yet I imagine that there will be certain moments of longing for the land where they have made their home for so many years,--a land which never entirely releases her hold upon those who have dwelt there. "If a year of life you give her; If her temples, shrines you enter; The door is closed, you may not look behind." But that state has not arrived with these men yet and they are very contented to be "at home." [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Dinner at Buttevant Barracks] These barracks at Buttevant are spacious and, as barracks go, very comfortable. Situated in a good hunting country, one hears horse and hound talk intermingled with the many bugle calls and the stirring sounds of the fife. The campus or compound, a great green square surrounded by the quarters, is constantly a gay spot, often with lawn-tennis and cricket going on in its centre, and there are always the officers' wives and children, giving the scene just that touch and charm which can only come from women's presence. Orderlies are leading or riding around the drive the hunters recently purchased at the neighbouring horse fair, and constant are the comments upon each nag as it passes,--mingled with much badinage at the expense of the purchasers. The regimental band of fifty men discourses sweet music. Tea is on in the mess-room--soldiers in khaki and soldiers in scarlet coats are everywhere. Snatches of songs come from the different quarters and life does not seem hard to these soldiers, at least not now, and yet--the call to arms and the chance of a skirmish is always welcome at first, until they realise that "War is Hell" and once entered upon cannot be so easily stopped. There is no thought of war here now and life goes merrily onward. At seven-thirty the dressing bugle sounds and we are off to reassemble in the officers' mess at eight for that most important function, dinner. I confess I feel slovenly in my black clothes amongst the scarlet and gold of the officers. The mess dress of the army is very effective, a scarlet jacket fitting closely and showing a generous shirt front, dark blue trousers with scarlet stripes, strapped over patent leather boots bearing spurs,--a dress becoming to any man. Once he knows you, a British officer is always very cordial and agreeable; there are few exceptions to that rule. I am certainly given a cordial welcome amongst them on my first evening. Dinner announced, we file down to the mess-room where if you imagine things are crude or camp-like you are mistaken. The spacious apartment is adorned with the "colours" old and new of the whole regiment (as this is the headquarters of all its battalions and all such things are here stored), most of them torn with the strife of battle. The table, of Bombay oak (which travels with the regiment wherever it goes), is of great width and as long as the room will permit. For dinner it is decked with magnificent plate in the form of candelabra, cups and fantastic salt-cellars, etc. There are flowers and snowy linen of course, and the room is brilliant with scarlet coats and the mellow light of wax candles. The dinner goes merrily on, while outside the regimental band discourses its best. Towards the end we are brought to our feet with "Gentleman, the King," and so, to the national anthem, drink the health of his Majesty. (I must compliment this band. It is excellent, and I believe is considered the best in south Ireland.) After dinner, we adjourn to the smoking-room upstairs, and "bridge" comes in for proper attention. Not caring for the game, Major Beddoes and I are seated before the fire. The room is a large one and, I am thankful to say, does not possess electric lights; a shaded lamp throws a warm glow downward upon the card tables while the flashes of the firelight bring the scarlet coats and gold braid of the players, and the tattered battle flags beyond them into bold relief now and then. The air is full of tobacco smoke, but aside from our subdued voices and an occasional remark thrown at me by the players because I neither smoke nor play, the room is very quiet. Outside, the barracks and the town seem to have gone to sleep save for an occasional bugle call or sentry challenge. There had been some commotion below earlier in the evening because of a young setter pup, which Capt. D. had shut up in his room, having eaten one of the Captain's new walking boots, and Major Beddoes had some words with his man, whom he had discovered wearing one of his, the Major's, best dress shirts. "Sure, Major, 'twasn't soiled enough to give to old Mag beyant there to wash, and I jest thought I would give it a wear or so mesell, knowin' ye wouldn't care." But those incidents of barracks life have passed on, when I ask the Major what he thinks are the real feelings of the English for Americans,--do you like us?--he is enough like a Yankee to throw the query back at me with the parties reversed; but I came first upon the field and insist upon that advantage. After some moments of quiet pulling at his beloved pipe, he answers, "I think individually, yes,--as a nation, _no_, and you have probably discovered that for yourself, and the feeling on our part may be based on jealousy. You are also aware that the same holds in your own land toward our people. As a general thing we like your women, but not your men, and our opinion of the latter is probably influenced by those of your citizens who have turned their backs upon their own land and settled amongst us. Of these I do not include those who have come amongst us for business reasons,--they always expect to go 'home,' and are at all periods of their sojourn here Americans,--but those others who, drawing their entire support from their own country, settle here and become more anti-American than any Englishman ever was. We despise them, and no matter how hard they may work for it, they will never be looked upon otherwise than as strangers,--their children, reared over here, possibly, but never themselves, for whether we like you or not, we do think that one born in America should be proud of that fact and not a cad. Do you agree with me?" [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Buttevant] "Assuredly, and personally whatever pride in the past I possess is centred in those of my ancestors who helped to make and preserve our great nation,--beyond them, while it is interesting to trace backward into the countries of the old world, it is simply a pastime." "You certainly send us funny lots of people during the touring months." "Yes,--but have you ever tried to talk to them?" "Just recall that lot at Mallow the other day. Could any party on the surface be more unattractive?" "You are quite correct, but if you had spoken to that most aggressive looking man and his more aggressive looking wife and daughter, you would have discovered well educated and intelligent people, such as form the real backbone of a nation. They have consumed six summers travelling in Norway alone, and thoroughly appreciate that beautiful country. They believe that the world is a better book than any ever enclosed between covers, and they intend to read it, and when the years bring old age upon them, all that world will still be an open volume, its changes and improvements fully appreciated and understood. Can you not excuse much that is unpleasant in people like these? And do they not compare favourably with the masses of English of a certain class found all over Europe." As for the sentiments of one nation for another, it is summed up in the words of a recent author, "Moreover, the fine old dislike which Bretons bestow upon everything outside Brittany was hers both by inheritance and careful cultivation." There you have it in a nutshell,--not only as regards the English but all other nations. England certainly holds that feeling towards all the continent and I believe towards America; Boston has it for all the rest of our land. New York has of late years become more liberal, more cosmopolitan, yet I heard but lately a man make the remark in her best club that he had "a perfect horror of the middle West." How does that sound from an educated man in this twentieth century, and of cities which have long since passed their centennial? To be sure, far from being a criterion for the citizens of New York, he was one who had kept his nose down on the books of some counting-house and had never left the confines of the city. As for California, I have known the dislike of everything outside of that State, especially Eastern, to separate husband and wife and destroy a family; where the wife's hatred of "outsiders" extended from her husband's parents to and including every friend he had in the East,--an impersonal sort of hatred because she was stranger to most of them, yet none the less violent, with the result as stated. Again, did not such a feeling have something to do with our Civil War? Does not England even to-day believe that the cultivation was largely in the South, and yet how unjust such an opinion! I am half Southern, my mother's family having been slave-owners for generations, and I think I can speak without prejudice, and I say again "how unjust such an opinion." The cultivation in the South was sprinkled over a sparsely settled country and centred in a few thousands of planters and their families. In the North, it covered all of a densely populated section, and from ocean to ocean it would have been impossible to find a class like the mountaineers of Virginia, so ignorant that many of them not only could not read but did not know what "reading" meant. Furthermore where were, and still are, all the greater universities and seats of learning? In the North. Where did our great poets and essayists come from? The North again. I do not desire to decry the South,--far from it,--but the old idea was an absurdity; the South in her palmiest ante-bellum days sent the majority of her sons north to be educated, but---- Bridge in the meantime is over for to-night and the group before the fire increased thereby. So the talk drifts on and on. I am not given to slang and do not like it, but I happened to use a bit just here, "he monkeyed with a buzz saw." Attracted by the silence which followed I looked up to find every face gazing upon me in puzzled amazement, until finally Major ---- felt that some explanation must be forthcoming. "Monkeyed with a buzz saw? Now let me see, let me see. What exactly _is_ a 'buzz saw,' and what happened to the monkey?" My laughter forced them all to join in and for the next hour these defenders of the British flag took a lesson in American slang, until upon the soft air outside sounded the notes of the "last post" (or "taps" as we call it), the saddest bit of melody in the world of music, and so "good night," "good night." One by one the lights went out and sleep settled upon the living while the moon, turning her attention elsewhere, went off to light the fairies dancing on the river and the witches down in old Ballybeg Abbey. The following day being Sunday the soldiers of the King go to service in full dress; the grim barracks are brilliant with hundreds of scarlet coats and to the music of _Stars and Stripes Forever_ our one time foes move off to pray for peace while prepared for war. I notice that _Hiawatha_ is the favourite tune for marching men, and am told that it is not only because it is a most excellent march but because the fife plays an important part in its rendering and the fife is the only instrument which can be heard above the din of battle. [Illustration: Kilcoman Castle Spenser's Home Where he wrote _The Faerie Queene_] There is a drummer in this band whose movements are simply amazing, and I find myself trying to imitate them with pole and cane to the peril of life and property. How he does swing those great sticks around his head and bring them down upon that huge bass-drum! A drummer surely whose pomposity surpasses anything of its kind within my memory. As the inspiring music grows fainter and fainter and the scarlet coats pass away down the streets of the old town I turn for an inspection of the barracks. On the top of the entrance arch are the offices, on the right the guard-house, and beyond it a large gymnasium. On either side of the green and running at right angles to the entrance are the officers' quarters, while a large barracks for the men forms the fourth side of the square. Back of this is another square surrounded by large barracks, while the married men have a separate building beyond these and the Colonel lives in a retired pleasant house off in one corner. Of that house and the dwellers therein I have some very pleasant memories. To a looker-on in this twentieth century the disregard of sanitary measures in such a barracks as this is surprising and I doubt not the same holds in all others of the Empire and perhaps in all those of other countries, including my own. Of that I am unable to speak, but the outrage is an outrage all the same. One can understand the lack of such things in far western camps or in war times, but that a great stone place like this with a hundred years to its credit should have no proper baths or toilet-rooms for its officers is "an outrage" most certainly, and one which the nation should insist upon being promptly corrected. There are a few bathrooms with good tubs and hot and cold water for the men but the officers have nothing save the inconvenient, nasty little tin tubs, and it is practically impossible for a big man to keep himself in proper condition by their use. These quarters are, as I have stated, massive stone buildings. Each officer has a sitting-room with two small rooms adjoining and so placed that either of the latter could be transformed at small cost into an excellent bathroom with hot and cold water laid on. As it is now, these gentlemen must use a little tin thing with an inch or two of cold water. It's a common saying amongst the officers of the army that nothing is done for _them_. What the government does is all for the rank and file. That the soldiers should receive everything needful is in all ways proper, but are not the men who lead them, the brains of this strength of the nation, entitled to like consideration? They offer their lives upon the slightest cause, and gladly too, yet their government is so far forgetful, not to call it by a harsher term, that it neglects their well-being in this manner. They are willing to put up with _nothing_ when it is necessary, and surely are entitled to a _bare something_, and this is nothing more, when it can so easily be done and at such small expense. Cleanliness is certainly more essential to health than many brilliant coats and much silver plate. There is often scorn expressed for our bathrooms with their modern appliances, but I noticed at P---- that one of the scoffers, who might have had his little "tub" (so constantly extolled) in his bedroom, waited and almost missed his dinner that he might use the only bathroom in that vast establishment. I do not desire to accuse the officers of uncleanliness--very far from it--but they should be better provided for in this respect. I am also astounded to note the treatment of the common soldiers--"Tommy Atkins"--by the public. In time of war he is worshipped, but in time of peace is scarce considered to be a man, merely a servant to be pushed and shoved about and treated most discourteously, to say the least. I saw this done in a theatre the other night, to a soldier who addressed a simple, civil question to the man next him. The reply he got and the treatment he received would, in America at least, have resulted in a row, and justly too. However, that occurred in Ireland where the "red coats" are not liked. I understand that the pay per year of the officers in the British army is about as follows: A Colonel, £400 Sterling Lt. Colonel, 300 Major, 240 Captain, 200 Lieutenant, 100 These figures do not seem very large when a man offers his life to his country, but they are in excess of many nations on the Continent, where the officers are forced into beastly poverty by the call for outside gorgeousness. At a late grand review the eye of a beholder was attracted by an officer quite resplendent in a beautiful white uniform, superb high black boots with glittering spurs, a silver breastplate, and glittering helmet, and mounted on a splendid black charger, his appearance was gorgeousness intensified. After the review the observer, passing the tent of this same officer, saw the entire gorgeousness as to uniform hung up to dry and on the wretched camp bed sat the man _with no socks on_,--"too poor to buy them," all the pay and far more gone in the useless display,--and yet not altogether useless, for without the uniforms these great standing armies would melt away like mist before the sun and many a throne totter to its fall. However, if the splendour must be maintained, and it is certainly beautiful to look at, then those forced to wear it and bear its expense should be better paid, remembering at the same time that the wearers are ready at any moment to stand up to be shot to death in defence of the home where you sit comfortably reading your paper--therefore "PAY, PAY, PAY!" The officers of these Fusiliers are devoted to their cook. I suggested the other day that his coffee might be improved,--it was wretched, in fact, not coffee at all, while no fault could be found with the rest of the menu. They replied that they knew it, but he had been so devoted in battle, had cooked under a galling Gatling fire, had rushed so many times over death spots to bring them hot sausages which he was forced to carry in his hands, that they could not scold him. I drank his coffee with great pleasure after that. The heroes in this world do not always wear the most brilliant uniforms and has it not been proven that it is the commissary which in the end decides the conflict? [Illustration: Doneraile Court, County Cork] There is nothing going on in the barracks this morning which interests me, save perhaps a court-martial, at which I am told that my absence will be very precious. So I stroll off in the soft sunlight through the great gateway, where a sentry holds constant ward and watch, just for appearance sake, I imagine, as it cannot be to keep the boys in or strangers out, for just at yonder corner is a breach in the wall unguarded where any one may come and go at pleasure, and I doubt not many of the boys do go and for pleasure, though there can be little amusement in the sad town which clusters between the barracks and castle. Of young men it seems to hold none, and there are not many children, so that when these few old people pass onward and enter for eternity yonder churchyard, old Buttevant will wither away altogether. Many kindly faces come to the doors to watch me, knowing that I am an American, and their eyes have a questioning look as though to ask for some dear one in the land beyond the sea. The place is indeed very old and every now and then as I pass through the streets I come across some vestige of its past greatness and a mile beyond its limits reach the ruins of Ballybeg Abbey, in a smiling meadow down by the river Awbeg. Something of a stately structure in its palmy days, there is little of that left now, but on the whole it is all rather sociable. The river is of that sort, and having loitered downward under its trees and through its grasses murmurs confidential bits of gossip about the castle yonder upon its banks. Yellow buttercups push their heads upward through the turf which climbs to the old grey walls of the abbey, and in the abbot's doorway the white face of a ruminating cow is silhouetted against the inner darkness. "They also serve who only stand and wait," must have been written of Ballybeg and its kind, for it has left no trace upon the pages of history. Yet withal, as I have stated, it's a sociable old place and I spend some time in its company, seated on the parapet of a neighbouring stone bridge where 'tis said the fairies dance when the moon is full. I expected much from the name--Ballybeg--why I can scarcely tell but I cannot say that I am disappointed, though such stately structures as Fountaine and Tintern in Wales would scarce consider Ballybeg to be exactly "in their set." Wandering up the banks of the Awbeg, I pass beyond the castle. We had tea there last season and a medieval castle which can descend to having afternoon tea served within its walls is not worthy of description. It is owned by an irascible old lady who occupies one part and rents out the other and who generally keeps such a strict eye upon her tenants that it results in driving them out. When we visited it the tenants were an officer and his wife, and just that shortly happened, so that on my second visit to Buttevant, the castle stares at me with vacant eyes of windows, and I pass onward up the river to the centre of the town, where the ruins of its Franciscan abbey raise their arches and columns and guard the dead of long ago, and those who come in this later day to sleep beneath its shadows. If you enter its crypt, you will stand amazed at the vast quantity of human bones piled pell-mell there. Some say that they are but the natural accumulation of departing humanity and others that they all came from the neighbouring battlefield of Knockninoss,--others believe that when in the flesh they all lived yonder in old Ballybeg. Be that as it may, they are here now, quietly awaiting that day of days, which shall summon them forth once more, and as I stand in the darkness with my foot on a skull, which might have enclosed the brains of an Irish king, downward through a broken casement comes the sound of a voice and the words "I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live," and I roll the skull gently back into denser shadows, wondering, _wondering_, and then, as we all must do, ceasing to wonder, and just continuing to--trust. Passing upward into the sunshine and forward amidst the long grasses which cover the humbler dead, I find that one more has but now joined this silent company, and those who brought her here are slowly leaving the churchyard. Poor people, all of them,--there does not appear to be any others in this town of Buttevant,--but death seems to hold no terrors for any one of these and many sit round on the tombstones and do not hesitate to discuss the qualities, good and bad, of those asleep beneath them and to admire the inscriptions. Here is one quaint enough surely: "Here lies Pat Steele--that's very true; Who was he? What was he? What's that to _you_?" Yonder is a cross of wood under discussion at the present moment. It states that "here lies Kate O'Shea and also her sister Mrs. Mary Buckley," and that as "their father died last year, this is the end of the O'Shea family." That thereby hangs a tale is very evident, and yonder fat old lady on whose head a bit of a black bonnet is poised and round whose shoulders a comfortable shawl is wrapped could and would tell me if there were not so many listeners about, who knowing her love of gossip keep sharp watch and ward, so that of those who are gone I learn nothing, but of what is shortly to happen I hear more. [Illustration: The Room in Doneraile Court where Mrs. Aldworth Hid] A wedding is to take place in the modern church just here and we sit round on the tombstones, awaiting the coming of the bride. There are hints as to this bride which rouse my curiosity, and I decide to await her coming, which shortly happens. She is a comely looking young woman, modestly dressed in a green gown, and a blue hat with red roses thereon. Her blue eyes do not possess a very happy look as they rest on the fat middle-aged bridegroom, and the old lady on the tombstone next to me heaves a sigh which tells unutterable things. Still, all seems going smoothly and we follow into the church. The ceremony begins, and progresses as usual to that point where the bride is asked if she takes this man to be her wedded husband, when upon the amazed and horrified ears of all falls the reply in sharp tones, "Indade, I won't," followed by a swish of a blue skirt and a flash of red roses down the aisle and out the door and the bride is gone. I leave a description of the hubbub which followed to your imagination. Getting finally outside, I find myself once more near the old lady of ample proportions, and just in time to hear her remark "and him wid nine illegant fat pigs and sivin suits of clothes _aich one better than the other_." This entirely destroys my dignity and self-control and I double up with laughter upon a neighbouring tombstone, whereupon the old lady, after one look of grand amaze, gives me "the full of her back" and with her "nose trun in the air" passes majestically away. I learn later that of that bride they never again heard. Like the bubble on the river she was gone and for ever. The neighbourhood of Buttevant is full of interest to those who will turn aside from the usual tour of Ireland. To-day we are off through the green lanes for a visit to Kilcoman Castle, the home for some years of the poet Spenser, and where he wrote his _Faerie Queene_. We shall later visit the scenes of that poem. In 1586 Spenser received some fifteen hundred acres of land from the crown, and on them stood this ancient stronghold of the Desmonds, which he made his home for years. Those were troublous times and he saw much of their misery, and their sadness tinges his great poem. He received but small acknowledgment for his work from Elizabeth, and even that was objected to by Burleigh,--"What--so much for a song!" This castle was sacked whilst he occupied it and he fled to London, where he died in poverty. The ruins rise from the midst of a green meadow some seven miles from Buttevant, and consist of a lonely tower, to the top of which we mounted by its ancient staircase within the walls. The tower chamber still has its roof intact, but at its best the castle must have formed a poor abiding-place even three centuries ago. The prospect from the top is rather dreary, and we leave the spot without regret. Doneraile Court, in whose vast park were laid the scenes of the _Faerie Queene_, is very different. It is now the property of Lord Castletown. One more fully appreciates the comfort of a motor-car when forced suddenly as we were last night to take a jaunting-car for a ride of nine miles to Doneraile. That distance would be nothing at all in the former vehicle, but is every inch of nine miles in the latter. It's no easy matter to hold one's seat in these cars. If you happen to have a trotting horse it's not so difficult, but if the beast is inclined to canter, as ours was, the wheels of the car will almost leave the ground with every canter, and chances are that you will desert the car altogether. I came near doing so several times last night, and reached the court in a breathless state, which the horse, with a wicked leer in his eye, seemed to enjoy to the full. Tom, the driver, secure on his perch in front, rode most of the way with his back to the horse, which appeared to know whither we were bound, Tom the while discoursing to me upon the charms of hunting in Ireland and showing me several of the favourite jumping places. I did not enthuse; though I have ridden all my life and hunted some, still a jump composed of a stone wall, a hedge, and a deep drop on the far side did not commend itself to me, especially as a man had "broken his neck there but lately." One can scarcely understand such clumsiness on his part as the drop was quite sufficient for horse and rider to turn a complete summersault, and still come out right side up. However, I shall not try the trick, but that I would hesitate for an instant, for such a reason, to join in the national sport stamps me as unsportsmanlike--as one who will not buy a horse, and that settles my position, in Ireland. We approached Doneraile Court through the village of that name, which clusters close under its park walls. Doneraile is quite _the_ place in this section, and we find it a stately mansion presiding over one of the most beautifully wooded parks in Great Britain. These houses in Ireland, mostly all dating from the Restoration, are commodious and ofttimes stately structures, and have a beauty all their own and very different from anything in England, hence one cannot compare them. This estate somewhat antedates that period as it was purchased from Spenser's son by William St. Ledger, President of Munster in Charles I.'s reign, and the town gives the title to the family. Doneraile presents a lofty and attractive front to the park and the attraction abides as one enters the spacious halls filled with the trophies of the chase and with quaint arms gathered from all over the world. In the distance a stately staircase mounts to the upper floors and on the left is a suite of handsome withdrawing-rooms and a library, while the dining-room holds on its walls many interesting family portraits, one of which quite diverts my attention from the conversation during dinner. It is that of Mrs. Aldworth, and shows a very strong, determined countenance. The finger on that book indicates that you will believe what she tells you or she will know the reason. [Illustration: The Hon. Mrs. Aldworth The only woman Freemason] I have another picture of the lady from a painting in Doneraile,--never photographed before,--but it is not so distinct as the one I give, and is merely that of a beautiful woman, a woman of the world before her character has been developed. Certainly none would dare claim--in her presence at least--that the character of the lady in the portrait I do give has not been developed, nor would it be well to cast any aspersions upon that character. You may think you know a thing or two, but if wise you will not dare the owner of that face yonder. Madam, I doubt not but that you were the very best Mason the sun ever shone upon, so let me alone, will you? She was born in 1695, and her history is told us by Lord Castletown in the room where its great event occurred. It is the first on your right in front as you enter the mansion, and the interest of the house centres there, for therein was being held in 1725 the Free-masons' lodge when the Hon. Mary St. Ledger, afterwards Mrs. Aldworth, hid herself, some say in the great clock, and upon being discovered was by those present condemned to death, when one man so plead for her that her life was spared and she was made a full-fledged Mason, the only one in the world's history. What could follow an incident so romantic save a wedding, and it did follow shortly. It is said that she was condemned for ever to wear clocks on her stockings, hence that name for that bit of embroidery. It is also stated that Aldworth at first voted for her death and she married him to pay him out again. Whichever tale is correct it is stated that in later years he more than regretted that he had not voted for her death, but he was probably a degenerate man, for the face in yonder portrait was worth fighting for. In the room where it all occurred are her masonic emblems, a "square" about three inches long, the stone above an amethyst, the rising sun above, gold, and the rays diamonds (or old paste), a greyish stone, and yellow amethyst in alternate rays. A little thing to last when she who wore it and created all this disturbance has been dust and ashes since 1775. The room is a double or alcoved apartment with bookcases ranged around its walls, and still holds, I believe, the same furniture as upon the eventful night. The talk drifted onward about her and many other curious persons and things, and the smoke from the cigars grew denser and denser until I dreamed that I saw all sorts of vanished faces in the space around me, and I fear that I was dreaming actually when aroused by Major Beddoes and told that "the ladies are retiring" and so we lighted their candles for them, and chatting a moment at the foot of the staircase, watched them disappear above. Burne-Jones must have gotten the idea for his famous picture from such a scene. There is no place where a group of stately, beautifully gowned women show to better advantage than upon a staircase. I was strongly reminded of his painting on this occasion. After all the custom of good night to the ladies with the lighting of candles and its pleasant chat is a pretty one though you may object to their early disappearance and would greatly prefer an hour's more talk with them than with your own sex. However, it is late to-night, and bidding our host adieu we move off through the glades of the park where Spenser wandered and dreamt so long ago, pausing a moment by the lake where the swans still drift as on a surface of molten silver. The midsummer air is balmy and delightful and a full moon lights up the woods until one almost fancies the Faerie Queene is out in their glades with all her court, or adrift on the lake with the swans. My stay in the barracks is drawing to a close, and perhaps it is well. Major Beddoes threatens me with arrest, fearing a riot if I am allowed to wander around attending weddings and other functions to which I have not been bidden. During my sojourn I have employed a boy named Tom who owns a sprightly horse and a jaunting-car not more than a century old, the latter harnessed to the former by means of strings. We have had many a rare drive between the hawthorn hedges, leaving the motor neglected in a shed: its day will come. I have been desirous since leaving Achill to hear again that mournful cry for the dead,--"keening,"--and had arranged with Tom to bring two old women into the barracks after dark, to whom I was to give half a crown each and a bottle of--let us say "cologne"; but they did not materialise and when I questioned Tom he replied, "Sure, sor, I had 'em beyant Major Beddoe's rooms, but he druv 'em away." "Certainly I did," chimed in the Major; "do you want me court-martialled?" I would not object if it were in a good cause. I think there is also a bit of personal malice in his acts, as I laughed at him the other day. He has lately married a charming wife, and is at present quartered in Mallow, from whence he runs the nine miles in a motor-car of his new father-in-law. When he made his first appearance the other day on the barracks compound, with all the officers and their families assembled to greet him, said motor-car looked as though it had been through the wars, and was as pug-nosed as many of the aborigines of the land, caused by sudden contacts with stone gates and the sides of houses, to say nothing of unexpected excursions through old ladies' gardens and into gullies not intended for motors. I laughed, I could not help it, hence the malice aforesaid, with threats of arrest. [Illustration: The Lake at Doneraile Park] One day we are returning from a jaunt to nowhere in particular, having been out just looking for things to happen,--which they generally did,--when, as we draw near the barracks, we pass a dilapidated old trap with some men inspecting it. One hails our boy with the query, "I say, Tom, is that your family chariot?" Quick as thought comes the reply: "Yes, and I am in want of a mule; are _you_ widout occupation?" After that we find it advisable to order the car into the barracks enclosure when dismissing it--at which time I get a wink from Tom--we shortly find ourselves ensconced before a bright fire in the smoking-room. The quarters are very comfortable. This room is a large double apartment with easy chairs and lounges, red rugs and carpets, two fire-places for winter use, and books and cards galore. Downstairs there is a billiard-room. The quarters of the officers are cleanly and comfortable, the dwellers therein a healthy, happy looking lot, though they all agree with what I have said about the bathrooms. The regiment has collected its plate throughout all the years since its foundation, nearly two centuries and a half, and it forms a superb collection, which I examined with great interest. When in 1661 Charles II. married Catherine of Braganza, Bombay was ceded to England by Portugal as part of the dower of that princess. This regiment of the Fusiliers was formed at that time and has been in existence ever since. As the years have gone by this plate, now amounting in value to some thousands of pounds, has been collected, and the designs and taste of two and a half centuries are interestingly displayed in the various articles, especially in the smaller pieces, such as salt-cellars, snuff-boxes, etc. There are, of course, the greater pieces, stately candelabra, drinking-cups, and epergnes. One piece especially attracted my attention, a train of silver cars, each holding its crystal decanter for port, sherry, brandy, etc., which after the cloth was removed was rolled around the ancient table. This plate and table go with the regiment at all times. It even went to South Africa. Captain D. got it all out for my inspection one day and assured me that it was often in use even in war times. Therein lies the difference between the English and Americans. They live and we spend our lives getting ready to live, and rarely reach the goal. A soldier especially realises that his life is but from day to day, and therefore uses each day, with all he owns, to the full. An American regiment would store such plate and it would be absolutely useless, rarely if ever seeing the light of day,--but throughout its two centuries and a half of existence this plate has had constant usage and shows it. Ah, well, what, I wonder, will be our manners and customs when our nation, like this, has a thousand years to its credit? What will America be, what will England be then? Let us trust both better and greater and grander than they are now. While I handle these dainty bits of silver that have outlasted the lives of so many great men, Captain D. pours bits of gossip about army life and the late war into my ears, and I notice that he does not hear very well on one side, and ask why. "Oh, nothing much; a Boer bullet hit me one day and clipped out a bit of my skull under my left eye, coming out behind my ear, and destroying my sight and hearing on that side,--it was not much." No! I suppose all soldiers would say it was merely in the line of their profession, yet life is the best thing given to us, and those who hold it at a nation's disposal should have the best that nation can bestow at all times. I have no doubt but that each nation intends to give all--they are careless, not ungrateful. After these days of rest in Buttevant barracks, it is pleasant to see again our green car glide round the corner and draw up at the door--not that we have not used it while here. My sojourn with these soldiers of the King has proven a delightful experience which I shall never forget. As we are loaded up and the car is snorting to be off they crowd around us and we make all sorts of appointments for future meetings, few of which in the usual course of life will ever be carried out, but there is pleasure in the making. With a last handshake, I give the word and the car glides noiselessly forward, turns out through the great archway, and Buttevant Barracks are a thing of the past for us,--really so, as this regiment moves in September to Fermoy. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Mallow Castle] CHAPTER X Route to Killarney--Country Estates--Singular Customs--Picturesque Squalor--Peace of the Lakes--Innisfallen--The Legend of "Abbot Augustine"--His Grave--"Dinnis" the "Buttons" and his Family Affairs--Motors in the Gap of Dunloe. The route to Killarney lies through Mallow, where it is amusing, at the little hotel, to watch the airs and graces assumed by some dozen Irish-Americans who have returned to their native land for a visit after having made a dollar or so in America. My Jap boy last night ventured the remark that they "treat their own people very nastily," which is quite true. One is constantly impressed with the changed circumstances of those returning to the old world. On the inward-bound voyage last month I stood near two of the ancient faith who were watching the steerage below us. "Vell," said one, "that's the vay I vent over." "Me, too," replied his companion, and then complacently caressing heavy gold watch chains stretched across capacious stomachs, they strutted back to the smoking-room and proceeded to abuse the steward for not anticipating their wants. Such is life and progress, I suppose. But our car has left Mallow far behind and is gliding onward by the side of the Blackwater, whose course we follow for many miles. This is a beautiful section of the land. There are many fine estates on the hillsides and many ruined and ivy-clad towers by the waters. We have spent pleasant hours at several of the former and rambled over many of the latter. In one of the houses where we were for the "week end," I was amused by rather a singular custom. After dinner, the men having settled to bridge in the smoking-room I found myself, as I do not play cards, in the hall with the ladies, of whom there were several of the household and one visitor. We were enjoying some music and dancing when at nine o'clock in came our host and handing a lighted candle to each dame literally shooed them all off to bed, much to the indignation of the visiting lady and my own astonishment. Paying no attention to me, he returned to his game, and I sat on in the dark hall so convulsed with laughter that I was glad that the one candle left shrouded my mirth by casting many shadows. There were but two things for me to do, go and watch the game, or go to bed, and I did the latter though it was but nine o'clock. It is the custom at all these country homes for the ladies to retire long before the men, but I never before or since have seen them so peremptorily driven off. I think on the route to the Lakes that the villages and straggling huts must be kept in the state of squalor in which we found them to the more thoroughly impress the newly arrived tourists; certainly as we near Killarney they are worse than any we have seen before,--rows on rows of squalid, dirty houses through whose open doors pigs or geese wandered, and beyond which gleamed a bit of a fire; white-capped or tozzle-headed women leaned chattering over the low half doorway used to keep both children, pigs, and geese from too freely passing off and away between the high mud-banks with their towering hedges of hawthorn. Droves of geese slip from beneath our flying wheels and scoff at us as we pass; chickens fly, screeching, to the safety of neighbouring dung-heaps, and some ducks get a gait on them that is most astonishing. It would be impossible for them to maintain their balance unless they kept up that furious pace. As night closes in the clouds lower and finally rain comes down heavily but fortunately not until we have reached our journey's end, and the lights from the quaint Hotel Victoria stream out a welcome. They really act glad to see us and from the proprietor down to "Dinnis" the buttons each and all appear personally interested in our arrival. How different from the magnificent insolence of an American hotel clerk. But we are too tired for further comparisons and are soon off to bed. To pass from the pomp and splendour of the army and the kaleidoscopic, unrestful, rushing life of the world to the peaceful shores of Killarney is a grateful change. It is so beautiful here to-day and the world seems so far away that one has no desire to do aught save sit under the waving boughs of the trees and watch the glittering waters of the lake. Off across its mirror-like surface the mountains rise abruptly and over them masses of white clouds hang broodingly, peacefully. Lazily I wander over the grass, and entering one of the many boats drifting in the water allow the boy to row me away upon the glassy surface. Boyse is still in bed and so I have the boat to myself and also all the lake, for there is no sound or sign of life anywhere as we drift outward. The boy moves the oars lazily, scarcely touching the water with their tips, and we seem to drift halfway between the white clouds overhead and those far beneath us. Lily pads bearing their white and gold chalices wave gently to and fro and a stately white swan with her brood of little ones keeps us company for a space. I have not told the boy where to go and he has not demanded to know, indeed he scarce seems conscious of my presence, but keeps his dreamy eyes fixed upon his beloved mountains brooding yonder under fleecy clouds. Ahead of us a fairy island floats waving green boughs in greeting and as our boat grounds on its gravelly beach, the boy rolls over and goes to sleep. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Irish Cottage, County Kerry] This is evidently the haven where we would be, this holy Isle of Innisfallen, but it is some time before I am willing to break the brooding silence by any movement. The long drooping boughs of the trees trail gently to and fro across the boat and parting now and then give glimpses of the chapel of St. Finian the leper, but it is so in ruins, and it and its saint belongs so to the very long ago, that to-day it is like a thought in a dream. As I wander off through the underwood shaded by giant ash the spirits of the dead monks seem all around me. The path leads to the grave of the abbot, so long dead that a huge tree growing from his ashes has encircled his tombstone with its very roots. He lived--but let this poem tell his story. "Augustine, Abbot of Innisfallen, stood In the abbey gardens at eventide, And prayed in the hush and solitude That his spirit might be more sanctified. He blessed the hills, and fields, and river, He blessed the shamrock sod; While he asked the great and glorious giver For a closer walk with God. In that twilight hour came tumbling down The song of a bird, so sweet and clear That away from the abbey of Innisfallen and town, The abbot followed, that he might hear; Followed until, in a dim old wood, Where the sweetness of song filled all the place It paused and made glad the solitude, With its joyous notes of strength and grace, And the heart of the holy abbot plead That the world might hear it and understand, And he turned to the cloister near at hand. Strange were the voices of prayer and praise, And the faces were all unknown; Gone were the monks of the older days, Augustine, the abbot, stood alone. 'Where is Sacristan Michael, my son?' In a faltering voice, the abbot asked; 'Is Malachi's _pater noster_ done, Has his strength been overtasked?' The monks drew near to the aged man, And told their beads with trembling hands, As they heard that the stranger worn and wan Was Augustine head of their house and lands. 'Two hundred years have gone,' they cried, 'Since rent was his temple's veil Two hundred years since the good man died And the Saxon rules over Innisfail; No harp now of his countrie's weal Sings loud in the house of O'Conner, Gone is Tara's hall to the great O'Neill; There is nothing left but honour.' 'Absolve me,' Augustine softly said, 'For mine hour is close at hand, To rejoin the brethren who have fled To the refuge found in a better land. I soon shall hear the singing That is clearer and sweeter still Than the echo of heaven ringing In the woods beyond the hill. I shall soon be where a thousand years Are as a day to the pure and true To whom life was long with its cares and pains Though its numbered years were few.' They tell that legend far and wide From Clonmines to Loch Neagh, From Holy Cross to Dundalk Tide From Antrim to Galway." It is said that Innisfallen may not be put to profane uses, that early in the last century its owner commanded that it be cultivated, but when the work was begun the air at once became filled with millions of white birds, whose beating wings drove the men forth and away, leaving the isle sacred and unprofaned, and the abbot and his brethren to their dreamless slumbers, and so the years glide by. As I pause to-day by the abbot's grave, its great tree rises above with arms extended, as though in final benediction, the grasses are spangled with millions of daisies, and the warm air is again, as in his day, full of the song of birds, and unless I desire a sleep of centuries it may be as well to return to the world of to-day. The boy in the boat awakes with a yawn, and smilingly moves the boat off and away farther and farther until the Holy Isle seems to detach itself from the shimmering waters and to float cloudlike slowly heavenward. How little the casual tourist ever sees of any land, especially of Ireland,--a day or two at Killarney, an hour at Blarney, some time waiting to hear Shandon bells, then a rush to Dublin and the Causeway, and they leave the island with a shrug of the shoulders and a belief that there is little to see. But wander into the byways, linger in the lost corners and talk to these people, and every moment will be of some sort of interest,--the tears and sadness will pull your very heartstrings one moment and laughter and fun will bubble all around you in a mad frolic an hour later. You may hear the wild songs of the mountains, or the wilder wailing for the dead, and the clouds will drift far overhead, as though in mourning for their sorrows, then the sunlight will follow after, sparkling, as though in laughter. Some of the inns will be neat and comfortable, whilst others will turn out like that horror of a hotel in Galway. We are welcomed on our return to that at Killarney by "Dinnis." Now "Dinnis" is the "buttons" of the house and stands up to the magnificent altitude of four feet. He looks about fifteen and when I ask him if he goes to school I am about bowled over by his reply,--"I'm a married man, sor." Great heavens! I am told later that the fair bride is near twice Dinnis's height and that his wooing was of such an ardent nature that it nearly created a scandal. Ah, well--we don't live but once and Dinnis believes that if his life is to be as short as his stature, at least it shall be a merry one. I am told also that there are great expectations in his family and as our car glides away I lean out and implore him--if it's a boy--to name it "Mike." Dinnis's indignation at my intrusion upon his private life is vast but somewhat drowned out by a half-crown and the roars of laughter from the car boys around. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Chapel of St. Finian the Leper, Innisfallen] The poor car boys in Ireland, especially at Killarney, are so many that there is not work for all and they have to take certain days for each, that all may have a share. The drivers of jaunting-cars turn gloomy eyes at our auto as we roll by, well knowing that the advent of such means loss to them. I was strongly tempted to essay the Gap of Dunloe in the motor. The result would probably have been a fight, as one of Cook's waggons was attacked not long since while trying the same thing. According to my recollection of that road, its passage would not be at all difficult for a good car, but once the legend of its impassability save by ponies is done away with the occupation of many hereabouts would be over for all time. CHAPTER XI Kenmare and Muckross Demesnes--Old Woman at the Gates--Route to Glengariff--Bantry Bay--Boggeragh Mountains--Duishane Castle--The Carrig-a-pooka and its Legend--Macroom Castle and William Penn--Cork--Imperial Hotel--Ticklesome Car Boy--The Races and my Brown Hat--Route to Fermoy--Breakdown--Clonmel and its "Royal Irish"--Ride to Waterford. I have never taken a more beautiful drive than that from Killarney to Glengariff, and it is especially delightful in a car, as one is spared a slow and tedious ascent of the mountains. We leave Killarney on a perfect morning; the motor seems to have rested with our stay there, and throbs with a healthy sound. The route takes us through the domains of Kenmare and Muckross. The latter has been sold by its ancient owners, the Herberts, and now belongs to a prosperous brewer of Dublin. As we enter the domains we are stopped at the gateway by a buxom dame, who demands a shilling a head. I try to bargain with her, offering half price for the Jap, and suggesting that we may meet with a catastrophe which will prevent our getting our money's worth. "It makes no difference phat sort of quare heathen you have wid yez, or if yez all died ten feet inside the gate, yez will pay a shilling a head before yez come a foot farther," and planting herself directly before the car, she looked it squarely in the eye--wherever that may be--and would have kept her word. So I perforce hand over four shillings, only to be detected in trying to pass off an American quarter. As we roll inward an anathema is hurled after us: "Ho, ho, ha, ha, bad sess to the likes of yez." How beautiful it is here--how delicious the day! The sun shines hot and the air is laden with the odour of the balsam. The superb roadway winds in and out for miles, now by the lake and here in the deep green of the forest, with enchanting views of the mountains. Bird-like the car skims over ancient stone bridges, or close to the water, and we pause a moment to do homage at the shrine of Muckross, and finally cross the old weir bridge, declining the bog-oak work for sale by the old man who tried to sell us such thirty years ago,--same man and same work, I think. From here on the road mounts higher and higher, twisting and turning until I am not sure in which direction we are really going, and am reminded of a remark of a dear aunt of mine, while riding on a narrow-gauge railroad near Denver, "Really, I very many times saw the back of my own bonnet." Here, to-day, while far different from the rugged grandeur of our western mountains, the vistas are equally charming. There, it is not so much, to my thinking, in the splendour of the hills as in the prospect over the limitless plains. Vast and grandly mysterious, they roll up to the very point where the mountains rise abruptly from their western limits, and as one gazes outward they resemble the ocean itself suddenly calmed into eternal sleep by the mandate of God, "Peace, be _still_," and those western plains are indeed _still_. This prospect in the old world shows the traveller the entire panorama of Ireland's most beautiful mountains, and far below him nestle the chain of Killarney's enchanted lakes, where the fairies dance nightly and the daisies bloom for ever. But why attempt description? All the world knows Killarney, and to-day I seem to hear her wild echoes as they bear away the love song of Dermot Asthore. The road from here descends in sweeping curves seaward and our car scarcely seems to touch the ground, as with all power off and the wings out it sails downward, until we come to rest at Glengariff, just as the setting sun tinges her rocks and waters with rose colour. The Atlantic is at rest far out and sends only whispers inward on the ripples to-night. The surface of the bay is dotted with many white swans floating majestically shoreward. I believe they are native here. At least we are told that these have their nests on the farther rocks and rear their young in freedom; even in winter the weather is mild enough to allow of their being out of doors. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Tree over the Abbot's Grave, Innisfallen] Are these the children of Lir still under enchantment in the shape of swans? One hears of them at Ballycastle, and on the island of Achill, but this is the only place where they have appeared and yonder old gentleman swan has an eye which would indicate knowledge of much that he has no intention of telling us about. One does not see the outer ocean at all at Glengariff. The whole prospect is that of an enclosed lake, where one might drift for ever without danger from the tempests which howl around this coast at times. Not until we reach Bantry Bay does the outer ocean show itself. After all, what is there in a name? That of Bantry Bay had always attracted me, and I had expected to find such a spot as Glengariff, but it is far from that in all ways, being tame and unattractive, though evidently a much better harbour for shipping. Here our route leaves the coast and turning inland passes beneath the shadow of the Boggeragh Mountains, where there are so many ancient towers and castles that to visit or relate the tales of each would be to rewrite the folklore of Ireland. One of them, however, cannot be passed in silence, or the spirits which inhabit it might execute dire vengeance for the slight. The gloomy castle of the MacCarthys of Duishane, Carrig-a-pooka, rears its dark towers on a steep rock close to our route, and it is the reputed abode of that spirit of evil, the Pooka, which in all malice and mischief has no equal in the fairy lore of Ireland. He has many forms which he may assume at will,--sometimes a bull, sometimes an eagle, but more often a horse spouting fire, as he tears through the darkness. He does not show his demon qualities until he has secured a rider, but on gloomy nights is met with in the shape of a docile nag, browsing on the highway and almost inviting you to mount and ride,--but do so and at once he changes into the wildest and most terrible charger man ever mounted and fairly flies over castle, lake, and river, into deep valleys and over the highest mountains and even far out over the ocean. What becomes of the rider is not told for he does not return, though 'tis said that one Jerry Deasy did get the best of a Pooka and by the means of spur and whip reduced even this "divil" into a quiet trot. Downward from the mountains our road winds once more through the fair green country in the valley of the Sullane. We pause a moment before Macroom Castle, the ancient fortress of the O'Flynns, not because of its beauty, which from its mantle of ivy is great, but because it was the birthplace of the father of William Penn, who gave peace to all with whom he came in contact in life and undoubtedly has found peace in Heaven. The old castle has seen more of war and its horrors than should fall to the lot of any one spot. It has been destroyed by fire several times, and at one execution nine outlaws were hanged within its court for murder. It is not a place which the superstitious seek, after dark or when winds wake and the chains clank. From Macroom onward the route lies through a smiling valley until finally the silver toned bells of Shandon welcome us to the city of Cork. The Imperial Hotel in Cork is crowded with people and dirt. I think the latter will prevail, as it is of the mouldy order. The floors seem sinking, and en route to the dining-room one walks as upon the deck of a rolling ship with danger of sharp collision against passing waiters. True Irish gentlemen, who look not upon the wine when it is red but drink straight old Irish whiskey in unlimited quantities, are encountered with the result that between the floors and themselves one has difficulty in navigating and takes to port several times en route to dinner. This is the week of a cattle and horse show--the viceroy is here and incidentally most of the rest of Ireland, not that the viceroy's presence has anything to do with their coming, they give you to distinctly understand _that_, but that wherever a horse is to be shown, there come the sons of Erin. I think there is something in the profession or tastes of a man which stamps his face and figure. One could never mistake any man here for other than horsey,--all clean, yet the air is fragrant with the smell of the stalls and aroma of much good whiskey. Where they stow away all the latter is a puzzle to me, for their bodies most certainly cannot carry such amounts of ballast as I have seen poured into them all day long. Not to be horsey completely ostracises a man, but as that gives one an opportunity to escape the drinks and so watch the crowd, it is not to me objectionable. While Cork is "a place of advanced ideas" and probably less favourable to the powers that be than any other section of Ireland, still she does not approve of change in the city or its manners or customs. This hotel has not had a thing done to it in more than a quarter of a century. I believe it makes money all the time, hence improvements are not necessary, certainly they are not made, as witness those floors. One is still beset by the importunate boys with their "cars" at its doors and all over the town, but the driver of a jaunting-car is a jolly beggar full of laughter and fun and thereby puts many an extra shilling into his pocket. Rags and tatters many of them, that is as to themselves, but this does not extend to their horses,--he is indeed a poor Irishman and not of pure blood who neglects his horse, and with him it is love me, love my nag. He will meet your smile with one brighter, and kindness to him _does_ "butter the parsnips" of the traveller. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Upper Lake, Killarney] Leaving the hotel the other day Boyse summoned a car, but the driver thereof was in such a state of tatters that the lady of the party refused to ride in that car. To the driver of the one chosen she remarked, "That man must be very poor; you should club together and buy him new clothes." "Poor,--not at all, me lady; he's rich, but so ticklesome that not a tailor in town can take his measure." As we are en route to the fair grounds I discover that Boyse does not approve of my costume, but it is some time before I find out wherein I fall short. It turns out to lie in my hat, a _brown_ Derby. At home black hats vanish with warm weather and brown take their place, but here I learn that a brown Derby belongs to the "fast lot which one does not know,"--_hence_ Boyse's disgust, but that does not affect me in the least and I insist upon wearing my brown hat. I really think it almost spoiled his pleasure in the horse show, if anything could do that. The day turns out pleasant and the crowd is large. The viceroy does not come, which certainly detracts not at all from the pleasure of the people, as the real viceroy, the horse, is here in full state. Several of the officers are down from Buttevant and we pass a merry afternoon clouded only by Boyse's feeling about my hat--he sits afar off and does not appear to know me when acquaintances pass or if an introduction occurs is careful to state that I am an American--what a multitude of sins that covers;--I trust the statement is altogether unnecessary and that I could never be taken for anything else. We are held a day at Cork for repairs to the car, but, those finished, roll rapidly away in the direction of Fermoy. These roads are very good and the motor glides smoothly and rapidly onward, first by the banks of the Lee and then northeastward towards Fermoy. The day is misty and damp, forcing the hood over our heads, though I would almost rather get wet than have it up. However, one must consider fur robes, etc., so up it goes. Shortly thereafter I note a clicking sound underneath and an unsatisfactory movement of the motor, which causes the chauffeur to slow down and stop. A lengthy examination mends matters for a time, but the trouble occurs again and then Robert announces that we must return to Cork as the water won't circulate. We are twelve miles out with no place en route for help. We are also about the same distance from Fermoy but in that direction and but three miles away there is a town where cars may be had and help obtained, so onward we move, and wisely, as matters turn out, for we come to a final halt on the confines of the village. Loading the luggage and ourselves upon two cars we drive to Fermoy leaving orders to have the motor towed in by a mule, ignoble as that may sound. As it turns out even the motor rebels at such disgrace and refuses to move even by the use of two mules. Robert manages, however, to get it over the eight miles to Fermoy by its own power, in some four hours, allowing much oil to run into the water tubes,--not the best thing for the motor but all that could be done. I can see that he is decidedly disgruntled with the car. This is the third time it has been in the shop in two weeks, which certainly should not have been the case with a new car such as I was assured this was. When I state this to the chauffeur, he laughs and replies, "_New!_ Yes, as to the body, but the motor is some years old, in fact is the original Panhard motor used by Mr. Harvey du Gros; it has been lengthened and repaired and a new body put upon it."[7] Fortunately we have each time been where help was at hand save on this occasion. But as it turns out Robert can repair it in this hotel yard as they have a pit to work in. He had thought that the trouble arose from oil and waste getting into and clogging the water pipes, but it proves to have been a broken pin in the wheel of the pump,--"broken through age," he states. If this accident had occurred in the wilds of Mayo or Sligo far from any assistance our plight would have been a serious one, and I cannot but feel that to send the car out as new, knowing the motor, the only important part, to be old was scarcely fair,--in fact, far from it. Robert is an excellent chauffeur and thoroughly understands and is able to repair a machine. In this last case, however, we had to buy a new wheel. The town is a small garrison town and we are delayed there only one night. Still I must acknowledge, as has been so often the case, that its little hotel was far more comfortable than those in most of the large towns and cities of Ireland. Its rooms are cleanly and the food good. The roads from Fermoy to Clonmel, the depot of the "Royal Irish," B.'s old regiment, are hilly but good, and the auto takes on life once more, though I notice that Robert seems concerned as to the result. However the machinery warms to its work after an hour and we speed onward, breathing more freely as the pulsations settle down into a rhythmical beat, finally rolling into the barracks at Clonmel in good season. There we spend a pleasant hour, lunching with the officers of the mess and having no time for the town itself, which is not of interest. The roads are fine all of the afternoon, most of them well rolled. Our route is eastward through the valley of the Blackwater, evidently a stream of importance in ancient days, as its course is guarded by towers and castles, now all in ruins and given over to clambering ivy. At Waterford the stream is broad and deep and ocean steamships lie moored at her quays. [Illustration: "Dinnis" Hotel Victoria] FOOTNOTES: [7] A statement denied _in toto_ at the garage in Dublin. CHAPTER XII Ancient Waterford--History--Reginald's Tower--Franciscan Friary--Dunbrody Abbey--New Ross--Bannow House--Its "Grey Lady"--Legend of the Wood Pigeon--Ancient Garden--Buried City of Bannow--Dancing on the Tombs--Donkeys and Old Women--Tintern Abbey and its Occupants--Quaint Rooms and Quainter Stories--Its History and Legends--The Dead Man on the Dinner Table--The Secret of the Walls--The Illuminated Parchment--The Sealed Library--Ruined Chapel--Clothes of the Martyr King--Is History False or True? The afternoon sun shines brilliantly as we cross the river Suir and enter Waterford, one of the most ancient towns of the kingdom, yet one which well survives the passing centuries, holding still the bustle and clangour of life in its streets and on its quays, which stretch for a mile and more along the banks of the river and where you will find a good steamship which in eight hours will land you in New Milford,--but we are not to leave Ireland yet, nor have I any desire to do so. To relate the history of Waterford would be to cover much of that of Ireland, which is not necessary here. Suffice it to say that this southeast end of the island appears to have been the first to attract outside barbarians and we find records of the Danes here back in 853. Reginald reigned here in the eleventh century, and I find myself blinking up at his round tower which still keeps watch and ward over this river. There are others in the town if one cares to look for them, but like this of Reginald all have fallen from their high estate. This is but a police station now. Of King John's palace nothing remains. In fact relics of the past are not many in Waterford. We pause a moment at the Franciscan Friary, which Sir Hugh Purcell built in 1220. It is in ruins, of course, and is quite in the heart of the city, unnoticed save by some wandering spirit. Grass grows thickly under its arches and there are many flat tombstones bearing historic names and those of families well-known to-day. Not far away stands the cathedral, too entirely renovated, in fact rebuilt, to be of interest, save for some curious monuments. One especially, that of a man named Rice, represents his body as they found it a year after death,--a toad sits on his breast, and we turn away with anything but pleasant thoughts. It seems he commanded that his tomb be opened after a year and his monument made, holding a copy in stone of his body exactly as they should find it,--hence this repulsive statue. There are but few who would care to attain earthly immortality in that manner. Every road in Wexford will lead one to or near some relic of the past. Seven miles out from Waterford we find Dunbrody Abbey, standing serene and stately in the midst of a great meadow and near to an arm of the sea. Dunbrody is called the most beautiful ruin in the county and it has been a ruin for nearly four hundred years, having been suppressed by Henry the Eighth. Its abbots and monks have long since gone the way of all flesh and one must now cultivate the good graces of a little old woman in a neighbouring house if one would enter the sacred precincts, for though ancient, if one door in its outer walls be locked, even an enterprising man of the twentieth century may not enter its courts. We tried it and the great central tower seemed to smile down upon us in derision. All the while the little old lady stood afar off, holding the key, which we did not get until we had paid for it. The world does not come to Dunbrody very often. The tourist world knows nothing of it--in fact, all this most interesting section of Ireland is as yet unexplored by the tide of travel rushing northward from Queenstown. Certainly to-day nothing comes near us and we spend a delightful hour in the warm sunshine high up on the great tower, and then awakening Robert, who in turn starts the motor to life, we roll off through the shady lanes once more. The day's work is over and these simple people are resting from their labours. We have just passed one comfortable old dame seated on a chair under the bending boughs of the hawthorn. She wore a great frilled white cap and knitted industriously, while in her lap a white kitten lay asleep. She greeted us with a pleasant smile as we rolled into and out of her life and away toward Bannow House, the home of the Boyse family. I had visited Bannow last year; when leaving the train at New Ross I had expected to find its entrance gateway not more than a mile or two away, and fell back aghast when the boy who met me with the dog-cart quietly remarked that it was a drive of eighteen miles. I must confess that that is farther than I care to live from the railway, and Boyse has acknowledged that that distance home has several times deterred his departure from London--not but what that might have been a mere excuse for London is just London and means much. However, a new railroad is now opened only three miles from Bannow, and to-day our car annihilates the eighteen miles in short order. Crossing the river at New Ross the road leads towards the sea. There is a fine highway all the distance, winding but well made, and the car appreciates that fact, and makes fair time until we turn into the gates of the home park and roll onward through its avenues of rhododendrons to the entrance. Then the car vanishes around to its quarters for a few days. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard The Route to Glengariff] I know of no more attractive, peaceful spot than Bannow House. It is a large square stone mansion with some centuries to its credit and stands in the meadow-lands close to the sea in the southeast corner of the county of Wexford and in a park of some eight hundred acres. One hears the murmur of the ocean but the house is secluded by avenues of trees which cut off the view of the sea and also shelter the place from the fury of the winds. Coming into the possession of the Boyse family with the restoration of Charles II., it has grown until to-day, with its spreading wings, it is an extensive establishment, a typical Irish home. You find many such about the land, all charming places to live in. Springing into existence as the use and need for castles passed away, they are built of stone and in the case of Bannow House the stone portico has its monolith columns,--what they call here "famine work." In the dreary winter of 1847 the people worked out their debt to the landlord, for food, etc., in this manner. The fine avenue of trees through which we approached the house is also the result of "famine work." Entering the house, one finds a large square hall ornamented with spears and shields from Africa and objects from all over the world, gathered throughout the years up to date by its former masters and its present owner. To one's right is a spacious dining-room, to the left a ball-room, while behind the hall is another square hall holding a stair which ascends on two sides into a gallery above. At the left of this, one enters on the main floor a spacious drawing-room, where I have spent many a pleasant evening. Bannow is full of the portraits of those who have lived and died here. They face me at the table, peer at me on the staircase from unexpected nooks and corners, and beam down upon me in the mellow lamplight of the drawing-room, each one with a tale of its own, I fancy, and one can trace the passing centuries by the different styles of dress. Yonder damsel with that long neck should have lived in the days of beheading at the block as she would have been a splendid subject; that quaint old gentleman in the corner knew a thing or two and could tell a good story, I doubt not. Yonder lady with the towering wig was a beauty in her day, but, deserted by her husband, who fled to America, she was taken under the patronage of Queen Charlotte. I spend many a moment talking to these old pictures and I think they answer always. The bedrooms at Bannow range themselves around the gallery,--mine is off at the end of a long passageway and is haunted, so the story runs, by a "grey lady." Wheels are heard driving furiously now and then up the avenue at midnight and pausing at a walled-up door, then the grey lady flits around the gallery and into this room, where some time since in a hidden niche in the wall an ancient rosary was discovered. The dame of the shadows does not appear to be a malign spirit, certainly she has not disturbed me as I have slept very soundly in her old chamber. To-night as I lean out the window, the moon is at the full, flooding the terrace below, and its stone stairs, guarded by vases and stone pine cones yonder, gleam whitely as they mount under the shadows of an old yew tree. The fragrance of sweet grasses fills the air and the night is full of silence save for the brooding calls of some doves in the forest, and I wait and watch for the grey lady but she does not come. Do you know the legend of the wood pigeon? If not, then the next time you hear one, listen and it will almost tell it without further words from me. Once a man went to steal a cow in the days when cattle-lifting was the proper thing and, when deep in the forest, declared that the wood pigeons, or doves, as we call them, insisted that he should "take two--coos--Paddy," "take two--coos--Paddy," and so he did, and still these birds of the forest will say to you if you listen, "take two--coos--Paddy," and for ever after you will hear the same as you listen to their voices. Just now there is one on the yew tree by the terrace steps strongly insisting upon a double depredation on my part of the adjoining pasture, and his plaint grows louder and more insistent as I close the window, leaving him to exercise his corrupting influence upon those who may pass in the night. Wandering the next morning up the stone steps and nearly in the forest I find an ancient garden of great extent enclosed by a lofty wall. I have already seen such at Doneraile Court and I know that they are charming spots,--something we can never have in America as we have no time for them, our places change hands so constantly. I enter this one at Bannow House through a trellis of white roses embowering a door in the wall and am confronted by a tree fuchsia towering above me and casting its crimson and purple blossoms down on my cap. The enclosure is five acres in size, surrounded by a wall of brick some thirty feet high. Golden and crimson and white roses nod at me from the walls or peer over the top at the deep, cool woods without. Formal beds bordered in privet line the straight walks. Glories of white lilies, purple lilies, scarlet poppies, and nasturtiums throw splotches of colour all around. In the centre stands an old stone sun-dial and passing through an archway, gnarled, squat apple trees and gooseberry bushes are found lining the paths, while to the walls cling plum and pear trees. Flaming hollyhocks light up shadowy corners, and from a distant tool-house an old cat is sedately leading a lot of kittens anything but stately and a great care to their mother. From under a currant bush wanders an old duck, a sad looking dame, acquainted with grief, I doubt not. She recalls to mind when as a child sitting at the feet of my mother I watched the approach of a similar old duck who gravely waddled up and laid close to the hand which had been good to her a fragment of a shell, striking a note of tragedy thereby. We had often fed her on her nest by the brook and now she brought this as a token that some vandal had destroyed her home, and so we found it. As I am thinking of her in this garden far enough off from that brook a stray cat wanders out from a hot-house and sits down to regard me, bottle flies buzz in the sunlight, and I wonder whether there is an outside world of rushing unrest. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Carrig-a-pooka Castle] This morning the pony cart is in requisition and, with one of the ladies, I am off for a visit to the buried city of Bannow. It is sometimes pleasant to banish the auto and jaunt slowly along. The pony understands that to-day we have all the time there is and so takes it leisurely with every now and then a grab at the hawthorn blossoms which bend temptingly toward him in the narrow lanes. He seems to know the way and finally wanders close down by the sea to where at the end of a long grassy lane we are halted by a high-barred gate through which some cattle gaze wonderingly outward. Wending our way through the tall grasses we mount to where Bannow church holds its ruined watch over the dead within and around it and over the city buried in the sands and under the sea. Aside from the sanctuary there is no evidence that man ever lived here, yet back in the days of James I. Bannow was a prosperous town paying the crown rents on two hundred and more houses, but a great storm arose in that same reign and so filled up the entrance to its harbour as to destroy it, and from that period onward the sentence of death was carried out against the ancient city. Higher and higher rose the sands until they covered all except this ruined church and the dead which lie around it, but,--here comes in a strange law or custom,--though there was absolutely nothing to represent, the place for generations returned two members to Parliament, and for the loss of this privilege the Earl of Ely received fifteen thousand pounds sterling. Certainly those two members were not annoyed by the wishes or opinions of their constituents deep in their graves here. As I move through the long grasses to enter the ruins I pause a moment to pay tribute at the tomb of one Walter French, a man who passed one hundred and forty years upon the earth and "died in the prime of life." His last illness was the result of his walking some miles carrying a piece of iron weighing over one hundred weight, and which "somewhat strained the muscles around his heart, and he sickened and died, much to the astonishment of all who knew him." He has been dead but a short time and there are many now here who remember him well. Peace to his ashes, and here on this breezy down beneath the shadow of this ancient church and with yonder murmuring sea close by it should be peaceful enough even for the dead. The church is one of the oldest in Ireland and long antedates the English invasion. It is not extensive, but it is quaint and interesting and possesses some curious monuments and one pretentious stone sarcophagus. Who slept there, I wonder?--there is no trace of him now. Bishop or layman, he has vanished, leaving no sign or name; and when he does come again will he pass by here? How strange Bannow church will appear to him then--and where will he search for the mortal part of him? It is certainly not here in this tomb which he vainly imagined would hold his body inviolate throughout all time and to the portals of eternity. This is a Sunday afternoon of midsummer, a warm balmy day when the waters have gone to sleep and the bees hum drowsily. Over the hills and through the lanes come groups of peasantry, in their Sunday best. The usual number of dogs appear and chase imaginary rabbits through the long grasses, and on yonder flat tombstone a lad and lassie are gaily dancing a jig, and I doubt if the mortal or spiritual part of the sleeper beneath them is at all disturbed by the apparent desecration of his resting-place. Save on Sunday the living rarely come here but to leave one of their number who has passed the far horizon of life, or sometimes to dance by day as we see them, or in the moonlight, on the great flat tombstones of the Boyse family in the chancel, listening while they rest to the constant advice of the wood doves to "take two coos, Paddy." We are favoured with the same admonition, but though those fine red cows are tempting we pass onward, to the increasing indignation of the inhabitants of yonder trees. As we turn for a last look at Bannow church on its green hill, the roofless gables are sharply silhouetted against the glow of evening, and the lad and lassie are still gaily dancing their jig, and two others on a neighbouring slab are "sittin' familiar." So leaving them we wander back, to find the pony, after having her fill of daisies and grasses, has lain down in the shafts and gone to sleep. When we reach home there is still much of the evening left, and, deserting the pony--for which it casts reproachful glances upon us--we enter the motor and roll away again. It is not however an hour for hurry or speed and our car glides slowly along while we enjoy the delicious air. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Macroom Castle] As we pass by the door of an humble cabin, the turf fire within illuminates the interior, throwing the bright scarlet dress of a girl into bold relief against a dark wall, and lighting up the bent figure of an old man smoking on a bench by the fireplace. In one corner is a bed while in another a huge pig lies asleep. The dark eyes of the girl meet mine for an instant with a pathetic hopeless expression but the old man pays no sort of attention, and we roll away, only to come suddenly just around a corner on a donkey drawing a cart, upon which is perched a buxom old lady. The beast objects most decidedly to our appearance, and after an instant of inaction, during which he stares in afright with his ears pointed forward, he begins to back, and the old woman to screech, more in indignation than fear, it strikes me, but be that as it may, both keep in action until brought to a standstill under the bending boughs of a gigantic fuchsia, whose purple blossoms are cast downward, and all over the vast white frilled cap of the old lady. Except in plastering the dame against that beautiful tree, no harm was done, and I throw her a kiss as we roll away, while faintly on the air is borne to my ears the anathema, "Ye spalpeen, yez." There is more, but our wings are out by now and it is lost in the distance. However I would not hesitate to apply to that old lady were I in trouble and I know I would not apply in vain, though she might read me a lecture the while and even bestow a clout with her big soft hand which would be more in the nature of a caress than a censure. How time and people have changed in America during the past forty years! Then our land was sprinkled with settlements by these Irish, where one could find all the quaint manners and customs of their homeland; wakes were as strictly carried out there as here, weddings were just the same, and around each humble home clustered a bit of atmosphere of the old world. Who does not remember the "tin man," generally named John, who made his rounds with a tin-shop of no mean proportions crowding his red waggon? Then there were the tinkers, but I must state that they were of a better order than those of Wexford to-day. We have just passed a dirty cart and forlorn pony, driven by a man more dirty and wretched-looking, if that be possible. I am told he is the head of the tinkers of Wexford, and that a more disreputable lot of tramps does not exist on this earth. As for morality, they have never heard of such a word, and certainly do not know its meaning. In their slovenly villages, they live in the most promiscuous manner and when the men start on their summer's tramp each takes along some woman who pleases him, regardless of what the degree of consanguinity may be. One must see them on their native heath to comprehend fully the force and meaning of the expression, "I don't care a tinker's dam"--but our motor has stopped before a great iron gate beyond which stretch the glades of a magnificent park. On entering I notice a sign on one of the great trees, "Wards in Chancery," and wonder "what have we here." I doubt not that many of my readers have visited the great estates of Europe, but unless they have seen Tintern Abbey in Wexford--the quaintest of all abodes in this quaint Ireland--they have still an experience before them. The history of Tintern dates back to 1200, when the Earl of Pembroke--he who married the Lady Isabel de Clare, Strongbow's daughter--founded this abbey to the Virgin after being delivered from the sea on the coast near-by. It was named after and peopled by monks from Tintern in Wales, which was founded by the De Clares, and while the cathedral could not have been so extensive as the one there, the entire monastery was quite as large as the older establishment. It must have been a glorious place and is so even now in its ruins, and is one of the most interesting spots in the island. It lifts its towers amidst groves of stately trees in a valley but a short distance from the sea and is embowered in clambering ivy. Its great tower, still preserved as a ruin, is not habitable save in its lower story, which is used as a kitchen. The chancel of the abbey has been turned into a dwelling-place and one of the most curious I have ever inspected. It is late on a brilliant afternoon when our car, rolling down the broad avenue of the park, comes suddenly upon the ancient structure in its secluded valley. At first all appears to be in ruins until we note that some of the arches have been walled up and hold modern windows. There are bits of ruin everywhere,--moss-grown stairs with shattered heads on the rail lead to shadowy terraces over which ancient yew trees extend sheltering arms; ruined arches and ivied towers dot the meadow, and vine-draped pillars standing far apart show the once great extent of the abbey. Rolling on we round the corner of the main structure and draw up in the great courtyard, which evidently, in the days of the abbey's grandeur, was the cloister. To our pulling an ancient bell makes loud reply off in the tower above us, but for some moments no sign of life is evidenced. Finally the door is opened by a servant who reminds one of Obaldistone in Scott's _Bride of Lammermoor_. His manner is as grand as though this were the portals of Windsor Castle. Yes, Mrs. C---- is at home, and will be glad to see us. We are ushered into one of those quaintly interesting rooms to be found only in the old world, a room impressed by each passing owner with some of his or her own personality, individuality, without which no room has any charm. Yonder is a portrait by Sir Peter Lely of a lady evidently lovesick. Here is a bit of some framed fancy work whose faded colours plainly show that it was done by a hand long since still for ever. Ivy peers into the window and taps on the glass and there is a taint of the buried years in the air,--the very sunlight seems to belong to late October. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Reginald's Tower, Waterford] Bestowed by Elizabeth upon the ancestor of its present owner, Tintern has suffered the fate of most great Irish houses and now lives in the memory of the past. I am shown a parchment holding the family tree, dating backward to 1299, with all its numberless coats of arms done in colour, but evil times came down upon the race in the last century. Open house was kept for all who passed. Beggars sat by the scores in its great courtyard sure of their dole. In its entrance hall stood a bowl of small silver coins for general usage, and it was dipped into by all. Its sideboards groaned with a feast on all days,--waste and plenty, plenty and waste,--until finally upon the death of one owner a question arose as to the succession and so in came the law and the Court of Chancery. That suit cost the estate one hundred thousand pounds sterling, and was finally settled by a workman who discovered the necessary missing documents in a hidden receptacle in the wall, but too late to save trouble, and so to-day and each day Tintern is going more and more into ruin, and the voracious ivy climbs ever higher and higher, pointing like the handwriting on the wall to the ending of it all. In the midst of all these reflections our hostess enters, a typical Irish lady, all hospitality and warm welcome, as cordial to me whom she has never seen before, as to her old friends who have brought me thither. Her hearty laugh drives off the shadows and she is much pleased that we are interested in her old home: old,--yes verily--just think of it, her people have lived right here for three hundred years, and but for the secretion of those documents by some stupid ancestor the domain would be a rich one even yet. But that does not keep laughter out of Tintern. Many's the dance which has been given here, and once, with that love of humour which laughs at everything sad or mournful, the cards of invitation bore the phrase, "Supper in the charnel house and dancing in the vaults." Rest assured the feast was lively, leaving nothing for any ghosts which might happen along that night, and I doubt their braving the laughter of that merry throng; and yet with it all there must have been sadness for all which had been so uselessly lost. There are many legends for the cause of the troubles which have come upon the abbey and its owners. For holding property belonging to the Church they are for ever under its curse of fire and water; then the neighbouring peasantry have a legend that trouble arose because of the murder by Sir Anthony of all the friars he found in the house when he came to take possession, but they rather incline to the belief that he rested under a curse of the fairies because he destroyed an ancient rath, or hill, which they frequented. He was engaged to the lovely heiress of Redmond. Having gone to England, his lady promised to burn a light in her tower of Hook to guide him on his return, and so she did, but the fairies beguiled her to slumber with their music, and put out the light. So her lover was drowned. The disconsolate maiden converted her father's tower into a lighthouse, and so it remains to this day. It is also stated that the first Colclough was but secretary to the lord who obtained the grant and was sent by him to England to have it ratified. He so pleased the Virgin Queen that when he returned he found that the deeds conferred the estates upon himself. I noticed in the drawing-room a framed address or diploma of some sort and asked what it was. It contained the portrait of a handsome man in the prime of life and the emblazonments were many and rich. During the life of the late owner he was master of the hounds, and it was decided to present him with this illuminated address together with a present of one hundred pounds. The event was made the occasion of a great feast, and these old walls rang so loudly with the merriment that the rooks in the ruined tower were startled, and fled shrieking into the forests. The presentation was made with much ceremony, the illuminated parchment greatly admired, also the casket which held the purse with its hundred pounds, but which of course was not opened until the guests had all gone or been carried home. No gentleman would leave such a feast able to walk,--and the flunkies outside knew their duty and did it. Now it seems the recipient of all this owed ninety-eight pounds to the man who had made the presentation speech, and when all had gone and the family had gathered round to examine the purse they found upon opening it two pounds in money and a receipted bill for those ninety-eight pounds. Ah well, 'twas all in a lifetime and life went merrily in those days at Tintern. But it was a shabby trick, for the neighbours each and all owed very much more in hospitality to Tintern than the amount of that bill. While I am inspecting the framed address the bell of the castle clangs, the butler throws open the doors, and we pass to the dining-room for tea, the most pleasant meal of the day over here. When the grandfather of our hostess died, he was laid out, as befitted the head of the house, on this dining table around which we are gathered. I know that the thought of it returns to several of us as we sit here. There is a vast thickness in the walls of the room and a space not accounted for by any room, in which it is thought some monk or nun was immured when the abbey was a house of God--be that as it may, no investigation has ever been made, and it will probably never be known what, if any, grisly horror is immured there, so near to our gay laughter. We spend some time discussing tea and the usual assortment of cake. I never could digest the English fruit cake and I feel quite sure the slab pressed upon me here would kill a man if it struck him upon a vital spot. Most of it goes into my pocket, and when we depart I drop it deep down in a bed of blooming plants near the door, an action observed by Boyse, who, until I threaten his life in a gloomy whisper, insists upon examining with the hostess that particular spot, professing a great knowledge of botany, of which his ignorance is colossal. Whilst I am guarding my buried cake, our attention is called to what once was the north transept of the abbey and afterwards for centuries the library of those who have lived here. It is still a library and full of books, but for some ungiven reason has been walled up for many, many years,--the books, I am told, mouldering in great heaps on the floor. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Franciscan Friary Waterford] My desire to explore is intense but, it is useless to say, unexpressed in this instance. From this court started the funeral procession of the gentleman who had been laid out on the dining table. The cortège was so immense that it circled away for three miles, though it is not half a mile to the family vault. Every man was provided with hat band and gloves at the expense of the widow. At the feast which followed that great table in the dining hall was decked in the centre with a huge bow of crêpe, black of course. The roast fowls had crêpe bows tied around their necks and as the old butler served the whiskey he did so with tears streaming down his face. As he carried the bottle, also decked with a crêpe bow, he gave utterance to the mournful words, as the whiskey sobbed gurgling forth, "Ah, sor, 'tis this bottle will miss him indade, indade." But those around were determined that, for the day at least, they would drown its sorrow, and when they went home "there wasn't wan of them knew whether he was going backwards or forwards, and most of them wint sideways." The chapel on the hill yonder must even then have been roofless and in decay. To-day it is in a choke of brambles and wild roses. Bidding the car to follow, we cross the park and mount to where it stands, an absolute ruin. We "give Boyse a leg" to a broken casement and he clambers in and down amongst the brambles up to his neck, and making his way towards the high altar reads aloud of Sir Anthony Colclough, who died in 1584, he to whom Queen Elizabeth made the grant. There are many other tablets embowered in creeping, drooping vines, and almost obliterated by the moss of centuries, while a great tree fuchsia hangs in wildest profusion, shaking its crimson blossoms downward upon the ruined altar. Wandering around, pushing our way through brambles, and stumbling over forgotten graves, we come upon the family vault, underneath and as large as the chapel. The door being open, we wandered in and paused amazed at the spectacle of dead humanity. Outside the sunlight flickered downward through waving branches, casting long lines of light into the place of the dead, lighting up a sight such as may be seen only in southern Ireland. The entire space was crowded with coffins in all stages of appalling decay and ruin and dating all the way along from the reign of Elizabeth. At our feet lay the ruin of a large coffin, its handles still clinging to its sides. The skeleton within had vanished absolutely except the beautiful teeth, evidently a woman's, which gleamed white in the sunlight. The lid, cast to one side, left all open to the light of day and passing of moonlight or storms. Beyond were two still perfect coffins of later date, and yet farther in where the shadows were thicker rose the ruins of coffin on coffin, all tumbling pell-mell into one wild chaos. Pausing in silent dismay for an instant only, we went forth into the sunshine, leaving the dead to their rest. Only in Ireland may one come upon like scenes, where the doors are not closed even after death. I had often read of such spots, but scarcely believed the tales until to-day when we stumbled quite by accident upon that open door and entered, and certainly I shall never forget the sight. We closed the portal as best we could. One can only hope that the return of dust to dust may be not delayed, and that all that therein is may vanish utterly. As we roll away the sunlight streams brilliantly aslant, lighting up the ruined chapel and the old abbey, while the great trees stand all about them like Druids deep in thought. * * * * * A rapid rush through the mists of Ireland will so drive the cold air into one's system that after dinner it is difficult to keep awake and one is apt to doze off while sitting upright in the drawing-room and to dream dreams and see visions, especially after our afternoon's experience. Here to-night in the drawing-room my book has fallen upon my knees and I have almost passed to the land of nod when some one suggests that we inspect "King Charles's clothes," and being but half awake I wonder when he arrived and whether he will permit such familiarity, and then the questions "which Charles," and if "the first" of that name, will he bring his head, cause me to come to my full senses just as Boyse is drawing a long wooden case from beneath a sofa. When it is opened all the room is filled with a faint perfume, some fragrance so long forgotten that one cannot give it a name, and yet which calls to mind the frou-frou of silks and the tapping of high-heeled shoes on parquette floors, over which wax lights are shedding a soft radiance while the air resounds to stately music. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Dunbrody Abbey, County Wexford] Let us transport ourselves mentally backwards to the dark days of 1649. Penshurst, the ancient seat of the Sidneys, a gift from Edward VI., when the tragedy of Charles Stuart was over and the axe had fallen at Whitehall, his sister the Queen of Bohemia, bowed with sorrow for the past and undoubtedly with fear for the future, divided as precious relics amongst those who had been faithful, the belongings of the late King. These before me she gave to Mr. Spencer, the ancestor of our hostess here in Bannow House. Mr. Spencer was then acting for Algernon Sidney, who was a prisoner in the Tower. The relics came into the possession of the present owner through her father, the Rev. Thos. Harvey of Cowden Rectory, Kent, and as they are drawn forth one by one from their hiding place, I glance involuntarily over my shoulder and out into the misty night, almost expecting to see the shadowy face of the King questioning our right to these things of his, while the faces on the walls about have awakened to life and express a strong desire to come down and join us in the inspection. Here, in a shagreen case, is a huge silver camp watch which has long since ceased to mark the passage of time and the vanity of princes. Yonder is a silk dove-coloured coat and a waistcoat brocaded in rose colour, black, and silver. Here is a pair of breeches in brown figured silk and another of red and white cut velvet. There are some quaint gold embroidered slippers with great bows and high heels and as I stand them on the floor they seem to have been used but yesterday and are expecting to be used again, and I glance once more into the outer shadows. At the bottom of the chest are two long rolls of illuminated vellum illustrating the marriage of the Queen of Bohemia, called the "Queen of Hearts" by the people who loved her well. As I look at the painted procession, my hand rests on a lace ruffle of King Charles, which he may have worn on that occasion. It was all so very long ago that I think we have in our unconscious thoughts almost arrived at the conclusion that these and many of the famous personages of history are but the fanciful figures of fiction after all, and it is only when we look upon this frayed doublet which seems but just cast aside by its wearer, or pick up yonder glove which still holds the curve of his palm and shape of his fingers, that the belief is forced upon us that, like ourselves, he once lived and breathed, enjoyed and suffered, was really of flesh and blood. Yet what was this Charles, warm-hearted and generous, or proud, dictatorial, and utterly unreasonable, holding the divine right of kings so far above the rights of his people that they were forced to lay low his head? Which view is the correct one?--for with him, as with all others of history, there seems a doubt. In fact doubts are being cast upon the pages of history from all sides to-day. Writers make Lucretia and Cæsar Borgia far different from the scribes of a century ago, and possessed of no desire to assist people to a better world. She, for instance, is now held to have been a model wife and loving mother. Also we read that Richard of England was not deformed, either in person or character, but because of the very doubtful legitimacy of the sons of Edward IV. was the real heir to the crown, and so summoned by Parliament,--that he did not murder or have murdered Henry VI., the Duke of Clarence, or the Princes, and that the latter lived at his court many years--in fact that he was no such character as we have been raised to believe; and, more marvellous to relate, that the real villain of that period was Henry VII. of blessed memory,--that he and he alone imported historians from Italy who at the royal bidding wrote history as it has been read for so many centuries, that he was the murderer of both King and Princes and of the Duke of Clarence. Surely we shall shortly have the Jew of Venice made a generous character, possessing deep love for all Christians, whilst the eighth Henry will repose in a glorious effulgency as a model husband as Froude would have us believe. But they are all of the so very long ago that they appear to us like figures in a painted window, brilliant or sombre, as the sunshine or shadows of history illumine or cast them into shade, and it is only when we see such a thing as this glove of Charles or a half-worn shoe of the Scottish Queen that they walk out upon us and take their places as real men and women. And so one feels near the presence of that unfortunate Stuart King, as these belongings of his lie spread out before us. What a small man he was! These things might be worn by a boy of fifteen,--a delicate boy of slight frame. They are of great value as such things go, which reminds one that the world holds much of great value of its dead kings and queens. It is estimated that the relics of Mary Stuart collected together at the tercentenary in Peterborough in 1887 amounted in value to sixty thousand pounds sterling, three hundred thousand dollars of our money, and yet she was often forced to write imploring letters to her "brother of France" for her revenues from her fair duchy of Touraine, in order that she might keep out the cold in her English prisons, and whilst she was the guest of her "good sister Elizabeth." Did her grandson wear these silks and velvets during those sad days at St. James's Palace? He would almost require the attendance of a body servant to carry that watch and surely no man who appeared in such ruffles and high-heeled fancy shoes to-day could induce an army to fight for him, be he the anointed of God or not,--but then, that clothes do not make the man was certainly proven in his case, when "a man was a man for a' that," the Puritans to the contrary notwithstanding. I doubt if he thought much of his fuss and feathers or paid as much attention to them as said Puritans did to their sober browns, or some rulers of the Europe of to-day do to their gaudy plumage. If Charles was vain, it was with a vanity we can pardon, and far different from that which floods the world with a string of portraits in different uniforms and poses--but it is late and even the shades of royalty cannot keep us awake longer; still as we take our candles and move upwards through the shadowy hallway I seem to hear the stealthy fall of following footsteps and turn suddenly, wondering--wondering. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Bannow House] CHAPTER XIII Return to Ireland--Illness--Conditions on the Great Liners--The Quay at Cork "of a Saturday Evening"--En Route Once more--The Old Lady and the Donkey--Barracks at Fermoy--Killshening House, Abandoned Seat of the Roche Family--Fethard--Quaint Customs--The Man in the Coffin--"Curraghmore House"--Its great Kennels--Its Legends and Ghosts and History--Lady Waterford--Oliver Cromwell at the Castle--The Marquis in the Dungeon. A year has rolled away since I wrote my last line about this Emerald Isle,--a year of sickness and suffering, brought about, most seem to think, by the bubbling springs and cool wells of this same island; at least B., who drank whiskey and soda, passed scathless, while typhoid for the second time seized upon my system and worked its will for months and months. But that is over and gone, and for another year at least I am immune. Still I think that during this visit I shall hold to soda and some whiskey, at least I am so advised by a last telegram as my ship moves out to sea. If the Board of Trade knew of the state of affairs on the great liners they would scarcely permit it. Think of one hundred and sometimes one hundred and fifty stewards crowded into a confined space below the saloon with _one_ bathroom only. They are only allowed on deck way back amongst the emigrants, and from there they come to the main saloon to wait on the first-class passengers, running the risk of carrying all sorts of contagious diseases; no air, no ventilation to speak of. The deck stewards are somewhat better off, being only six in a room, but no better ventilated than the pen referred to. If things are so on an English ship, what must they not be upon an Italian! It blew great guns, and rained in torrents as we landed at Queenstown. The _Campania_ came in just behind the _Baltic_ and between the two nearly two thousand passengers were landed. The accommodations both in tenders and at the custom house are in every way inadequate, and the confusion was appalling. However, all was passed and done at last, and ten P. M. finds me at the Imperial in Cork, which is in this rainy weather even more mouldy than last year, but where B. and a whiskey and soda make matters assume a more cheerful tone. However as the house is crowded to suffocation an excursion into the outer darkness has its attractions. On our way out we remark to the barmaid that it is rather stupid here to-night, and she suggests that this being Saturday evening if we will go down to the quay we may find some diversion. Knowing that she would be correct in her surmise as to other towns on that night and at such places we conclude to try it in Cork and sally forth, only to fall into the clutches of a car boy, who absolutely refuses either to be left behind or to allow us to walk. Hence we are shortly mounted on that characteristic Irish vehicle, a jaunting-car, and en route for wherever its owner may see fit to take us. Our suggestion of "the quay" evidently meets with his approbation, and with a twinkle in his eye and a blow for his horse, we set forth. The pace is one which causes us to clutch the swinging car for safety. That the streets are crowded matters not at all to our jehu, and many is the anathema hurled at our heads from the scattering populace--until finally the crowd becomes so dense that our pace is reduced perforce to a walk, and at last we stop altogether. Just before us is a half-grown boy celebrating the approach of the day of rest to the best of his ability, and an odder figure I have never seen. His tattered trousers are rolled up above a pair of brogans which would fit the Cardiff giant, the tails of what once was a black coat of great size trail on the ground behind him, while his dirty mug of a face has the stump of a pipe fixed somewhere in the middle--I can see no mouth--and is crowned by what was once a silk hat, now by numerous blows and whacks more resembling an opera hat semi-collapsed. In his hand he twirls a shillalah, and as he croons a ditty he wheels ever and anon to attack any one who treads on the tails of his coat. Before we have fully appreciated all of his good points our attention is attracted by increased shouts and the rush of the crowd down the quay, where evidently Pat and Dinnis are at it hard and fast. How the hats fly! You can hear the whacks of the shillalahs even from here. The dancing, jeering, hooting, and howling crowd takes first one side and then the other, "fightin aich uther fur konciliation and hatin aich uther fur the love o' God." Just about this time we think best to retire, as good hats are too attractive in free fights. It has turned stormy again and the wind blows in great gusts up the river from the sea. Shortly after we start homeward a fishwife carrying her loaded basket comes out from a doorway and up a few steps onto the pavement, when the wind taking her broadside blows her over backwards, her legs sticking up in the air like two great lighthouses. Of course the contents of her basket are attacked by every gamin in sight, but the old woman gets all the fish but one and she has a firm hold on one end of that, while a sturdy boy holds tight on to the tail. Then begins a tug of war, resulting in an upset for the boy with half the fish clutched in his fist. Quick as lightning she seizes him and thoroughly washes his face with the other half. The last glimpse I have of them as we roll away she has turned him over her knees and there is no indication of "konciliation" on her face. [Illustration: The Terrace, Bannow House County Wexford] Verily--there is "something doing on the quay at Cork of a Saturday evening." Nine o'clock next morning brings our motor to the hotel door. It is soon packed and, the word given, is rolling away through the streets of the city, which one moment laugh with sunshine and the next weep with downpouring rain,--but bless you, no one minds the rain in Ireland, certainly not in Cork. The music of the Bells of Shandon follows us far out into the green lanes and winding highways and the motor hums and sings in response as we roll under the grand old trees with their curtains of quivering ivy. Almost at once, things begin to happen, and, as usual, an ancient dame is the cause of war. At the end of a long lane, over which the ivy draped trees form a perfect archway, a donkey cart driven by an old lady approaches us, and as usual we produce consternation. With each leg pointed towards one of the points of the compass and with great ears slanting towards us, the little beast is prepared against all attacks, and to run in any direction, but he reckons without his mistress. She does not propose that there shall be any run at all, and quickly slides to the ground from her perch in the cart--and in her progress shows us that aside from her waist and woollen skirt she is not encumbered with clothing. The situation requires prompt action, and seizing her skirt in both hands she rushes at the donkey and claps it over his head. His surprise is intense and deprives him of action. What he thinks I know not, but as we roll by we distinctly hear a suppressed "he-haw." The distance to Fermoy is quickly covered, and we pass in triumph the spot where last year we broke down and were forced to take to jaunting-cars. The Fusiliers who then were at Buttevant are in Fermoy now, and we dine in the Mess. The barracks are much alike in the two places, but while this has no "green" for cricket and croquet, Fermoy is quite a contrast to the wretched town of Buttevant. Still all that sinks into nothingness when it is stated that _that_ is "a better hunting country." As of old, the officers endeavour to induce me to spend a winter in that sport. Twenty years ago I might have done so, but it's too late now, though I have no doubt that if I lived here I should try it regardless of the flight of years. I have no doubt but that I could if necessary buy hunters from each and all of them,--and I have also no doubt but that they would loan me all they have or may have if I would accept, which I would not do. This is Sunday morning, and his Majesty's soldiers are going to church. The Church of Rome claims the larger number and there are some hundreds of scarlet coats marching past the hotel now to the ever favourite and inspiring tune of _Hiawatha_. How the fifes do seize upon and rip out those notes and what joy there is in every whack given by that great bass drummer! My admiration of last year is intensified. The officer in charge is a man I know very well and I try my best to attract his attention, but without success; discipline must be maintained, and not a glance comes in my direction from under his towering "bear skin," though I know that he sees me. He owes me a grudge because, his mother being an American, I tell him his coat should be blue. The streets have ceased to glitter with crimson and gold, and the air has lost the tones of martial music as we roll away,--only the murmur of the river and the solemn music of the organ from an ivy-clad church yonder breaks the stillness of this sunny Sunday morning. Not far from Fermoy stands a mansion which is of interest to many in America, Killshening House, one of the seats of Lord Fermoy. That title will in time pass to an American boy, or man as he will be then, though I doubt his ever assuming it--certainly he will never occupy this house. The present owner lives in a place belonging to his wife, and as we enter the gates of Killshening, we see at once that it is and has been long deserted. These abandoned houses greet the traveller all over Ireland. This one has not been lived in for some generations by the family. It does not pay to keep up the house, and renting the land out as pasturage brings more income than in any other way. Still it is sad to find a stately mansion in such a reduced state. The rusty gates have long ceased to perform their function and stand deeply imbedded in the grass-grown drive which stretches inward toward the house. The trees have grown wild at will and stretch their branches almost across the drive. The grass is rank but still thick and velvety and some sheep stare at our intrusion and then scuttle away to a safe distance where they stop huddled together and stare again. Hawthorn hedges white with bloom enclose the place almost like the palace of the sleeping beauty and one wonders whether man has entered yonder silent house for the last hundred years. It certainly has not that appearance. Its windows have a sightless, unoccupied look and its doors swing open to the summer breezes. Except for the sheep there is no sign of life anywhere and we enter and roam at will through the deserted rooms. In its exterior it is of the usual type of such houses in Ireland, a stately rectangular structure, probably of some two centuries of age. Its portals are never closed, and passing inward, one enters a large square hallway, whose fine ceiling is supported by four stately columns. Surrounding this are numerous living-rooms, reception-and dining-rooms, and in several the ceilings show much beauty even through the mould and dirt of years of neglect. [Illustration: Corner of the Rose Garden, Bannow House County Wexford] Of those who made this place a home all have long since passed beneath the "low green tent whose curtains never outward swing" and those who own it now have other houses more to their taste, so this stands tenantless, the silence both without and within broken only by the sound of our footfalls as we explore the empty, echoing spaces. The park around is fine, but as we pass away we note that nearly all the great timber has been cut down. It's a sad place, and even our motor seems anxious to leave it. Our car this year is a 16-20 Clement and on its top speed runs as noiselessly as an electric. It is not an especially good hill climber, though that may be but a temporary fault, as sometimes it sails up an incline with ease, while at others balks at much lesser grades. On the whole I like the car very much, and though two years old and having had hard usage, with but small expense it could be made as good as new. It is certainly to be preferred to the Panhard of last year and is more agreeable to ride in than the sixty horse-power Mercedes of the Duke of M. In those high power cars, unless at full speed, which is impossible on most Irish roads, one is disagreeably conscious of the power beneath one, and rather dreads a breaking away with its ensuing destruction. Certainly but few of these Irish roads are suited to a speed of sixty miles per hour. This car comes from Wayte Bros., of Dublin, and costs twenty pounds per month less than that of last season. Our onward route lies over the hills to Fethard through Clonmel and across the river Moyle. As we enter, we encounter a funeral, and I notice that they are carrying the corpse round and round what is certainly the town pump. Later I learn that a cross once stood there, also that through the gate by which Cromwell entered the town the dead are never carried. Boyse has a sister living here, and we pass the night in her home. Fethard is one of those quaint Irish places which the world, unless it hunts the fox, never comes near,--but the Irish world does hunt the fox and hence everybody that is anybody comes to Fethard. As I wandered out into the meadows behind the mews, I came upon a pile of coffins under a shed,--new and awaiting occupants. Evidently they are bought by the wholesale here and of assorted sizes against emergencies. Near-by stood the village hearse, and backed up against a hayrick the remains of the worn-out one which had ceased from its labors. My remark that the "coffins were cheap and thin" brought out the rejoinder, "Ah, they're good enough, give the worms a chance." So wears the world away. The reply came from an old man smoking a stump of a pipe, and calmly reposing the while in a pine box, the future use of which could not be a matter of doubt. Leaving him to his repose I enter the motor and with my host and hostess and B. roll off through Clonmel to the superb estate of the Marquis of W., "Curraghmore House," the location of which at once strikes the beholder as very superb. Lofty hills, rich dales, and almost impenetrable woods surround him in all directions. The home park alone holds some twenty-seven hundred acres, entirely enclosed by a high stone wall. As we approach the gates we see on a distant hill a lofty tower erected in memory of one of the heirs, who as a boy broke his neck while attempting to jump his horse over the gate just before us, and which is to-day opened to our sounding horn by a smiling old lady, who curtsies deeply as we pass her. Three gates are encountered before we enter the court of Curraghmore House, where we hear that "His Lordship is down at the kennels," and so roll away again through the aisles of such trees as only these ancestral places can show, save in California or a primeval forest where the vandal, man, has not had his way. How beautiful it is! The wide white avenues roll and twist away over the deep rich grass. Yonder valley is a mass of blossoming rhododendrons,--tree fuchsias bloom on the other hand,--and across the river the green hills mount away, dotted with sheep, to a fair blue sky. We cross an ancient bridge of stone with the water gurgling deliciously beneath as it flows off down a lane brilliant with the lilac of the rhododendrons. The kennels are probably the most extensive in Ireland and resemble a large carnivora house in some zoölogical garden,--even to the iron cages for summer use. Here, amidst more than a hundred hounds, we find our host. Of an ancient Irish family, tall, very fair, with close cropped yellow hair and blue eyes, and clad in a long white linen coat, his appearance is very English, which remark would not please him at all I am told. He is making a register of his hounds for the dog show at Peterborough next month. Each hound is presented, passed upon, and has her name duly entered on the list. I am told that the dog does not make a good hunter in Ireland, and hence all of the one hundred and twelve animals here are bitches. [Perhaps that is always the case, if so you will discover that I am not a sportsman.] If you were to stumble and fall while near them they would promptly tear you to pieces, though they are friendly enough and almost every one, as she passes through the cage, pokes her nose into our hands. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Bannow Church County Wexford] These dogs actually seem to know what is being said about them. When they passed muster they jumped away like a boy through with his examinations,--but there were two or three which did not pass, and the look of reproach cast upon their keeper as he told of their failings was almost human. The registering done with, they are let out in two lots on the hillside, and crowd around us, still friendly apparently, but as we turn to leave--the hounds having been caged again--I drop my stick, and when I stoop to pick it up the whole pack spring at the bars in a wild attempt to get at me. I do not regret the protecting iron. These kennels are beautifully kept, and the oatmeal cakes on the shelves of the feed house would taste very good, I fancy. In fact I am bidden to try one. We motor back through the domain to the grounds back of the house and walk across them to enter the mansion. They are beautifully laid off, but I think the huge bronze fountain in the centre is a mistake,--a simple stone basin with a majestic geyser of water would be more in keeping with the age of the place and the simple and severe outlines of the house. Like most of the great fountains there is too much bronze and too little water. Curraghmore House was built about 1700, around the remains of a very ancient castle. From this side the building somewhat resembles Chatsworth, but on the other one sees the great square tower which dates from the twelfth century. It has been, of course, much changed and is now outwardly made to conform to the rest of the mansion,--but upon entering you at once notice the great thickness of the walls which prove its age. They are adorned with trophies of the chase of much interest. Mounting a staircase of gradual ascent one enters another square hall around which are the living-rooms, some very rich in ornamentation, especially in the painted ceilings. Many portraits gaze questioningly at me from the walls, some so dark with age that only the eyes are visible, eyes in a pallid face and all else lost in the shadow,--faces whose owners have come and gone like the shadows of a dream, and whose very names are now forgotten;--living, I fancy, their lives out in these old halls, with as little thought for the inevitable forgetfulness of time, as we have to-day, and we have none at all, but pass the time in a happy fashion over tea in the Library. Some of us wander off to the billiard hall up in the great tower, and descending stop a moment in a room which it is claimed is visited by such a ghostly caller as Scott tells of in his "Tapestried chamber,"--one which will wake you and jibe at you. Here is a portrait of a lady, with a band on her wrist. She and a brother lived long ago and were both atheists. The brother became converted to a belief in God but not this sister, and he promised that when he died if there was a God and a hereafter, he would return, which he did, and seizing his sister by the wrist left a mark which necessitated the wearing of this band. There it is in that portrait over the mantel in the ghost's room. There are other phantoms which haunt this mansion of Curraghmore, but let this suffice. I should like to have slept in that room, and after we departed I was told that we had all been asked to "stay the night," but the ladies of the party objected as Lady W. was absent. Many years ago en route from Calcutta to Ceylon we had on board a poor sick man en route to colder climes in the hope of prolonging his life--a vain one as it proved. He was brought out daily and laid on the deck and naturally became an object of interest and sympathy to all of the passengers. One elderly lady was especially kind to him and I held many long conversations with her. She told me that he had been in the employ of the government in the Indian Islands, and, stricken with fever, had been ordered home, leaving a wife and a newly born child behind him. As I left the ship at Colombo I saw her standing by his side fanning him. Poor man--he was buried at sea near Aden and to-day I find _her_ portrait looking down upon me from these walls. She was Lady Waterford, the grandmother of our host, a woman who believed in seeing the world and, as I know, doing good as she passed along. I believe she was considered rather eccentric--interesting people generally are so,--and it is stated that she discarded all the family jewels in favour of one made of foxes' teeth. Although eighteen years had elapsed since that sea trip hers was not a face to be forgotten, and I knew it at once. I believe she has long since passed away. There is a story told of the castle in Cromwell's day which, while it proves that there is a woman at the bottom of most incidents in this world, shows that here her wits were the salvation of the house. Knowing that her father would die rather than surrender to the king-killer, she seduced the lord of the manor into one of his own dungeons and promptly locked him up. Into Cromwell's hands she then delivered the keys of the castle, assuring him that though forced to be absent on this auspicious occasion her father was nevertheless well disposed to the cause of Parliament and willing to give such proof as the Protector might demand. In consequence Curraghmore remained unimpaired in the possession of its owner, securely locked up the while in his own dungeon. Taking it all in all it is a most interesting place, yet when all is said, to my thinking, the greatest beauty lies in the superb trees of the park, and its wonderful stretches of grassland. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Tombs in Bannow Church County Wexford] CHAPTER XIV Departure from Fethard--The Dead Horse and a Lawsuit--Approach to Dublin--Estate of Kilruddery--The Swan as a Fighter--Glendalough, its Ruins and History--Tom Moore and his Tree in Avoca--Advantages of Motor Travel--Superstition of the Magpie--A Boy, a Cart, and a Black Sheep--The Goose and the Motor. The next day opens nasty and wet. Leaving our benediction and thanks with Mr. and Mrs. P. we roll off through the drops of rain over the muddy roadways. It is not especially pleasant and conversation lags, but it must be a bad day indeed to suppress all chances for excitement in Ireland, as we shortly discover. Turning a bend of the road we see, coming towards us, a jaunting-car, hauled by a bay horse and driven by an old man. The nag gives evidence of fright and our motor is stopped instantly at some three hundred feet from her. The old man succeeds in turning her around and at our suggestion unwinds himself from his lap-robe and gets down to hold her. All the time our car is at a standstill and making no sound. Whether the old chap got tangled in the reins or stumbles, I know not, but the nag plunges, knocking him down, then plunges again and falls against a stone wall, breaking a shaft. B. gets out of our car and suggests that I go back to the town just behind and bring a policeman as there will surely be claims for damages. I cannot see how, as we have not been in motion for the past fifteen minutes and certainly have an equal right upon the highroads. However, I roll away, and en route I notice a travelling circus with a nigger in charge who grins at me. The policeman secured and brought back in the car, we find to our amazement that the horse is dead, and the nigger and owner are already haggling over the sale of its carcass. The latter wants a sovereign and the former offers half a crown. What killed the beast is unknown to us to this day; it certainly did not break its neck as it kicked and plunged a lot after it was down. However, it is dead, and there is trouble in consequence. Of course we are "entirely to blame" though the accident did not occur until we had been stationary for some fifteen minutes, and until the old man had had ample time to argue with the horse and then to turn her around and move away from us before he got down, at which time she was perfectly quiet. It's my opinion that he became tangled in the reins and fell against her. Fact remains that she neither scared nor plunged until he got down from the car and made for her head, and as I have stated before, I have often noticed that horses are more frightened by their owner's sudden grabs at the bridle than by the motor car. I had once a saddle horse which could never be induced to pass a piece of paper be it ever so small without violent shying, and I could at any instant, by pressing my knee suddenly into the saddle, cause him to look round for such objects and shy violently in advance. So it is with most car horses,--let alone they would stand quietly; grabbed at by the driver they plunge and shy. As far as our car is concerned it always comes at once to a dead halt if there is the smallest evidence of trouble. We did so, as I have stated, in this case, yet I have no doubt damage or blackmail will have to be paid. If this were not done and B. ever wanted to hunt over this country he would come to dire disaster, as our names and addresses were taken down by the policeman, and will never be forgotten but stored away to be remembered either in blessing or malediction according as we pay or not. This being a rented car the owners assume all such risks, and on reaching Dublin we learn that a claim for twenty-five pounds has already been presented, the value of the beast having increased by leaps and bounds, and I doubt not before the year is out will have passed that of the winner of the Derby. I should like to have been at the trial if it came to that, if only to count the witnesses that would have sprung up by the dozens, undoubtedly proving in the end that the old man was driving two horses to that jaunting-car and that our appearance killed them both. The day after that occurrence the driver of a cow deliberately placed her in our pathway in hopes that we would kill her, but he reckoned without our brakes, which stopped the car not a foot from the cow. Her owner laughed in a stupid, leering fashion as we rolled away. After the death of the poor old horse, which no one could have regretted more than we did, nothing occurred during the ride to Dublin. As we approach the city, the highways are of greater width and in better condition, though most of the Irish roads are good. There are motor-cars flying in all directions now and ours catching the disease skims along like a bird, and quite as noiselessly, until the pavements and narrower streets of the city force a reduction of speed, and even then the rate is more rapid than I like. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Tintern Abbey] Dublin is in the throes of an exposition, and there is "no room in the inn." Not to be forced to sleep in a manger we direct our course to Bray Head, and in her very comfortable hotel of that name are at rest for a few days. While there are no real mountains in this section of Ireland the hills and headlands are very bold and beautifully outlined. The roads are fine and there are many points of interest hereabouts. To-day we have been rambling over Kilruddery, the fine estate of the Earl of Meath. The house, while modern, has not that appearance, and at first I thought it must date at least from the days of the good Queen Bess during whose reign the property passed into the hands of this family. It is of that period in its architecture, but the great glory lies all around it. These grounds are justly famous. I have never seen more beautiful, stately hedges even at Versailles, and one rather feels that one should be dressed in the fashion of the Grand Monarque to pace these grassy lanes. At one point the hedges, thirty feet high, spread off like the spokes of a wheel, and the legend runs that in ancient days the abbot had his cell in that centre from where the brethren living down the aisles could be easily watched, and being human, even if saintly, I doubt not that they needed watching now and then. In front of the mansion two oblong lakes nestle in the velvety grass like great mirrors and on their waters numerous swans are floating. One old general mounts the bank and with arched neck and spreading wings advances to attack us, but we do not risk the battle. Those male birds can strike hard, and while it might be possible to seize and stretch their necks, the Lord of the Manor does not like that to be done. So we take refuge in the flower garden, a perfect glory of bloom and colour. Later on, as we are at tea in the "long drawing-room before my lady's picture," the old swan raises his head just outside in watchful ward lest we dare to come out. I think Dickens must have visited Kilruddery about the time he wrote _Bleak House_, though he placed the scene of his great work in Lincolnshire. Here are the long drawing-rooms with my lady's picture over the mantle before which Sir Leicester sat in such grandeur; yonder is the window through which the moonlight streamed upon my lady seated at the open casement, and just here between my lord and my lady Mr. Tulkinghorn must have paced as he "told my story to so many people." Just outside runs the Ghost Walk where upon that fatal night the step grew louder and louder, and above one can doubtless find Mr. Tulkinghorn's chamber opening out upon the leads, and where he met and cowed my lady. This may not be the place which the great writer had in mind, but it might well have been. I confess to an intense envy when I visit these superb estates, not so much as to the houses, unless they are very ancient, but certainly as to the parks. It is perhaps well that our country cannot know such,--it certainly never will unless the law of primogeniture is established, which God forbid. And yet here the younger members of a family seem to think it but right and just that everything should pass to but one of them, that they, who may love and appreciate their lifelong home as perhaps the heir never will, should be turned out, often with nothing, while, as often, he proceeds to pile debt on debt until the old home goes by the board and passes to strangers or the great trees are cut down to pay gambling debts. All this may be gall and wormwood to some of them but if so they are loyal to the rules of their order and murmur not at all. It is necessary for B. to return to Bannow for a day as he is a magistrate there and has some business in consequence. So we are off in the forenoon and shall run the hundred miles by teatime with several stops thrown in. We enter amongst the hills on starting and are amongst them all day save for sudden dips into some valley or down to the sea. As we speed up the mountains the prospects behind are enchanting. The valleys are deep and very green while on the other side of one amphitheatre the vast mansion of "Powers Court House," where we shall spend the week-end, stands half way up the hillside in a most beautiful location. From here it appears to be a stone structure of several stories, with long wings on either hand, and even at this distance one can see that the garden and park are very extensive. Our route southward to Bannow lies through the mountains of Wicklow, which here resemble Arthur's Seat and other hills around Edinburgh. Fortunately the day is fine and the roads dry without dust, but one never suffers from the dust of one's own car and we do not meet any others, hence the ride is exhilarating and beautiful, especially as we approach Glendalough, where the scenery is almost Alpine. That ancient place lies in a deep valley with mountains towering all around it. Its ruined churches are presided over by one of the tallest and most perfect round towers in Ireland. Wherever one sees those strange structures they are objects of interest and this one, rising in stately watch and ward over the dead who sleep all around it, is unusually so. It stands in an enclosure so choked with graves that one must walk over the dead to reach it. Two, lately buried I should say, seem to have used the old tower as their especial monument, so closely are their heads placed against its ancient base. A little wooden cross between the graves protests that those who sleep beneath are of the faith of the Nazarene and not of that of the long-dead heathens who, some claim, erected this and all other similar towers in this land, a false idea of course. Glendalough is very ancient, and dates its foundation back in 618 A.D. St. Kevin of the royal house of Leinster died here at a great age, having lived for years in a hollow tree near the lake and in a cave, to which there was no access save by a boat. His memory has been honored for centuries, and in the peculiar manner of much drinking and many free fights here on the spot where he died, a custom stopped by the parish priest who emptied the whiskey into the stream and burned the shillalahs, after which he forced these people who had been enemies for centuries to embrace over Kevin's grave. He lived to the age of one hundred and twenty years, founding here what became a crowded city, with schools, colleges, sanctuaries for the saintly, and asylums for the poor and sick. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Kilkenny Castle] Glendalough began to decline more than six centuries ago, and to-day holds nothing save a few ruined churches, the stately round tower, and many graves deep down in its vale, guarded by the brooding mountains. Its silence is rarely broken except when one more is added to the quiet company which lies around, or when some wanderer from the outer world remembers that Glendalough has been and pauses a moment to offer devotions at her crumbling shrines. How completely one's thoughts shift from the ancient heathen history of this island to gentler times and songs, waving trees, sunlight, and the music of waters as the car rolls through the Vale of Ovoca, where gentle Tom Moore's spirit still seems to be singing of its bubbling streams. Stop at the old stone bridge and lean a while upon its parapets and you will be just over the tree, now a gaunt dead skeleton with all its glory gone, where he wrote the poems so dear to all of us. Beneath you murmurs one of the streams, and, just beyond, it rushes joyously to its meeting with the other, and the old tree stands on a point at the meeting place. The waters plash and sing and dance away and away, the years have rolled by, and the poet is gone, but his verses live on for ever, and pilgrims from all over the world come to this spot which he found beautiful. To-day as we roll up there are a party of women all from my own land, I should judge, and each takes her seat for a moment under the great skeleton where Moore sat and wrote his songs for mankind. The east and west sides of Ireland are very different. On the latter lies all the grandeur and ruggedness, as though nature had been carved and hewn by the tremendous blows of the North Atlantic's winds and waves, and all the music is wild and weird; while on the eastern side all is like a beautiful park, pastoral and full of sunshine and flowers. Moore's melodies sound all around one and if a lad or lassie sings in passing it will be of Robin Adair or Aileen Aroon. The former lived just back there in Hollybrook House and the latter dwells all over the mountains and down in every vale. The entire ride from Bray to Bannow is over fine roads and affords constant panoramas of sunlight, seas, and stretches of woodlands and grass-lands, with here and there a stately mansion keeping ward over a beautiful park and with many gushing, bubbling rivers and brooks. The air is laden with the perfume of the sweet grasses, and the way is bordered by blossoming hawthorns and wild roses. Quaint villages and ancient cities nestle by the sea, whose waters murmur peacefully, forgetful that storms have ever been. With the rapid flight of the motor, new life rushes through one's veins, and surely some years must drop away. It is an error to imagine that an automobile tour means merely a rapid flight through the country. It may be made just that, and no doubt often is, but on the other hand it will be found that those who love to travel, love antiquities, are students of history, will see far more by the use of a car than would have been possible with stage-coach or by rail. By the former, progress was slow, and so tedious often that many points of great interest were given up because of the bodily weariness necessary in reaching them. With rail I know, from personal experience, that I allowed years to pass without visiting points which I greatly longed to see, because it necessitated change of trains and weary waiting in dirty stations. With a motor one is possessed almost of Aladdin's lamp. Make your wish, turn a crank, glide over the earth almost as rapidly as the owner of the lamp did through the air, and behold you have your heart's desire, and so you have many desires of the heart and spy out the land as you never would have done in days gone by,--days which seem so long gone by, though but a few years have passed since those old modes of transit were the only ones known. You may go as slowly as you desire in a motor, you cannot in a train. You are able also to glide rapidly over long, tedious roads of no interest, where with horses hours of wearisome journey would be necessary. So, my dear critic, don't condemn a book of notes written from a motor until you have tried that method of locomotion and found it wanting, which, to my thinking, will never occur. This journey to Bannow, but better still my inspection of the island of Achill is a case in point. Not satisfied with my first visit, I determined to return. I was then in Wexford, quite on the other side of the island, but that was, with a motor, no barrier. I simply crossed the island in a day's run, spent another day in Achill, and returned to Wexford. Had the time been twenty years or ten years ago, the trouble of a second visit would have destroyed all chances of making it. It is very dreamy and poetic to sigh over the old dead days, but it's all bosh. The modern appliances of the twentieth century enable the traveller to see more and at his leisure in one summer than he would ever have dreamed of seeing in those "dear old dead days." The time will come when these machines will be made for the people and general utility. I venture to quote here an article from _Harper's Weekly_ as to the future of this great invention. [Illustration: Deserted Killshening House Fermoy] "When a man takes hold of the knob of his office door he knows that, year in and year out, the knob will perform its proper function. When the housewife sits down to her sewing-machine she knows that hardly once in a thousand times will it fail to do its work, and do it well. Unreliable is an indictment to which our cars must too often plead guilty. In America we have done a lot of foolish things in motor-car building, but we are approaching saner methods and more correct lines. The car of the future, either for business or pleasure, has not yet been laid down. He would be a bold, perhaps a rash, prophet who would undertake any detailed description of this car. Nevertheless, reasoning _a priori_, there are some features we may prognosticate. In the first place, it will be built of better steel than we have been accustomed to use. In the next place, the cars will become standardized, and when standardized they will be built by machinery in enormous quantities at an exceedingly low cost. The wheels will be large, built of wood and of the artillery type. Hard rubber or some enduring substance will take the place of the present high-priced unsatisfactory pneumatic tires. The car will be light, simple, strong, and easily kept in repair. Mr. Edison once said the automobile will never be wholly practical until it is fool-proof and the ordinary repairs can be made on the highway by a darky with a monkey-wrench. The present highly unsatisfactory system of change-speed gears will be supplanted by a variable speed device. There are not wanting good judges who believe that the problem will be solved by a system of hydraulic transmission. The fuel of the future will be kerosene or grain alcohol. Thirty-five per cent, of the population of America are farmers. The farmer will be the chief automobile owner and user. The maximum speed of his car may be only twenty miles per hour, but that is twice as fast as his present mode of travel. The car will be an invaluable adjunct to his work on the farm. The adjustment of a belt, the turn of a crank, and the automobile engine furnishes power to thresh his grain, cut his wood, chop his feed, and pump his water. After being in constant use all the day, the car is ready to take the entire family to the social gathering in the village at night, or to church services on Sunday morning. The farmer will use the automobile as will the butcher, the baker, and the storekeeper--when he can in no other way get the same amount of work done at so low a cost; and when the business man can deliver his goods more quickly and more economically than he can by using the horse he will do so. "There will always be motor-cars de luxe for the rich, but they will be merely the fringe of the garment of a great industry. The countless millions of tons of freight now slowly and painfully drawn over country roads and through city streets by poor dumb brutes will go spinning along, the motors of the heavily laden trucks humming a tune of rich content, and all the thousand tongues of commerce will sing the praises of the motor-car. "Let me suggest a few practical things that the tireless horse of the future will accomplish: "1. It will solve the problem of the over congestion of traffic in our city streets. "2. It will free the horse from his burdens. A few years ago, in the city of New Orleans, an old darky came in from the country and for the first time saw the electric street cars, which had taken the place of the mule-drawn car. The old darky threw up his hands, and looking up to heaven said, 'Bless de Lord, de white man freed de nigger, now he done freed the mule.' "3. The automobile will furnish relief to the tenement house districts. "4. It will stimulate the good roads movement throughout the United States. "5. It will save time and space and become invaluable to many classes of citizens. "6. It will tend to break down class distinction, because one touch of automobilism makes the whole world kin." The motor has come to stay-rest assured of that. It has an equal right upon the highway under the law of the land, with all other vehicles or animals, so spare yourselves your curses and your ill temper, which only injure yourselves.--A stoppage for luncheon allowed me time to bring in all that, but we are miles onward by now. In addition to song and story, superstition, perhaps of a harmless sort, certainly reigns in Ireland, at least in the southern parts. Even B. never sees a magpie that he does not cast his eyes and hands aloft in supplication, to exorcise the evil results of the encounter. I have always understood that the legends of that famous bird ran "one for luck, two for joy, three for a wedding, and four for a boy." But B. insists that the appearance of one means misfortune; however "maggies" are eminently domestic and travel in pairs. Marriage is not a failure with them. While B. is stoutly maintaining his belief in the ill luck sure to follow the appearance of a bird just now flirting his tail at us from a tree near-by, the car comes to a sudden halt and Robert's face plainly indicates something wrong. With an "I told you so" B. gets out to inspect. Knowing nothing and caring less about machinery I stay where I am; the seat is comfortable and paid for, whether in motion or not; if they want to get down on their backs in that mud they can do so, I won't. While the work is in progress I question B. on the matter of superstition and am told that no real Irishman would, in case of death in his house, go after the coffin _alone_,--that "must never be done." Many even in these days will place a lighted candle in the hands of the dying to light them to Heaven, and at a wake there is always a plate of snuff on the corpse. Not long since, a stranger desiring to attend one of these weird affairs was conducted to the house of a man who--it was stated--had just died. The deceased was laid out in the little cabin with candles at his head and feet, and the usual number of mourners around him. Now every one smokes at a wake, and the visitor, lighted cigar in his mouth, stood solemnly regarding the placid dead, when some motion caused his cigar ash to fall upon the placid face, whereupon the dead sneezed and the wake broke up in "Konfusion." So at least runs the tale. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Curraghmore House Marquis of Waterford] An incident of the later afternoon is also attributed to "a beast of a bird" which flew over our heads shortly before its occurrence. It certainly was a most amazing escape from a serious smash-up, and only the steering ability of the chauffeur saved us and the car. About to take a side road running at right angles to the one we were on, and hidden by a tall hedge, we came suddenly upon a boy asleep in a cart drawn by an old white horse, also apparently asleep. They were not twenty feet off; to pass was impossible, and our man shot his car forward, turned it almost on its axis and under the nose of the old horse so closely that I thought the shaft would strike me and dodged down into the car; then another sharp turn down into a ditch, fortunately grassy and not dangerously deep, and up on to the road, and away as though nothing had happened and all so quickly done that the horse and boy stood stock still in dumb amazement. It was a very close shave, and proved that these cars can be turned completely around in a much smaller space than one would believe possible. We are not courting such experiences, especially as news of the dreadful deaths of the Trevor brothers in Cincinnati has just been published. Our man is a superb driver and thoroughly understands his machine; also he does not lose his head for an instant, or on this occasion it would have meant destruction all round. Shortly afterwards a black sheep--"horror of horrors," I heard B. exclaim--crossed our pathway at tremendous speed, and having great faith in the strength of its skull and in its butting powers tried conclusions with a closed iron gateway,--the result being intense astonishment and dire destruction to itself, the gate holding fast. Earlier in the day we ran over for the first time a goose, apparently without injury thereto, as the last I saw it was chasing us down the road with outstretched neck squawking loudly. Our orders are strict as to avoiding all living things if by so doing we do not endanger our own safety and several times we have done so by sudden swerves to save an old hen or chicken. Taking it all together to-day's ride has not been without excitement, and we almost decline to get out when the car stops at Bannow House; but I think the driver has had his fill of work for one day, so it is ended, fortunately with no injury to any one. CHAPTER XV The Lunatic--Insanity and its Causes in Ireland--The Usual Old Lady and Donkey--Sunshine and Shadow--Clonmines and its Seven Churches--The Crosses around the Holy Tree--Baginbun and the Landing of the English--The Bull of Pope Adrian--Letter of Pope Alexander--Protest of the Irish Princes--Legends--Death of Henry II. "To some men God hath given laughter, and tears to some men he hath given." To-day it is tears and sadness for one poor woman. B. is a magistrate here and last night at dinner a warrant for his signature was brought to the house. It was for the commitment of a poor woman to an asylum for the insane and this morning we roll away to the village to conclude the matter. The "Court" awaits our arrival, but I have no mind for such scenes; indeed I do not think it right that mere lookers-on should be permitted, any more than curiosity seekers should be allowed to stare at men in prison. So I stay out in the car while B., followed by the "Court," which has been sunning itself outside, passes within. However, I am not to escape in all ways, as, turning my eyes towards a window to the left, I see the poor woman staring out at me, the sadness and misery of her expression passing description,--life is so absolutely over for her, with nothing save the horror of increasing insanity to look forward to throughout all the years which may remain of existence. Her mother died in an asylum and her fate is certain. The curse of intermarriage has pronounced her doom as it does for so many in Ireland. It is also claimed that much of the insanity so prevalent here is caused by excessive use of tea, and _such_ tea. Placed on the stove and allowed to simmer and stew all day, it acquires a strength that would destroy in time the strongest of nerves. This poor woman goes to the asylum by her own wish, and is glad to go, knowing the hopelessness of it all for her. Ah, the pity of it, and one is so absolutely powerless to do aught to help! The law is soon complied with and leaving her sad face still at the window we roll away. The day is especially brilliant and the air like wine, laden with the fragrance of the hawthorn and wild grasses; while the hedgerows bordering the lanes are a mass of blossoms, and the world is beautiful,--all the more beautiful by contrast with that glimpse of sadness we have just left. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Hallway, Curraghmore House] Our car goes rushing and singing along until we round a bend of the road and are immediately involved in wild confusion. An old lady--as usual--seated on the smallest of carts, drawn by a most diminutive donkey,--Ireland is full of old ladies in carts, in fact one rarely sees any others in them,--is vainly trying to stop the wild circles it is describing, cart and all, in fright at our appearance. It whirls her around at least a half-dozen times before a passing postman seizing the bridle leads it by us, while the ancient dame, the flowers on her much awry bonnet trembling with her indignation, hurls curses at us. "Blarst yer sowls" comes back at us as she is borne away. Truly sunshine and shadow, laughter and sadness chase each other closely in this Isle of Erin. Don't for a moment imagine, though you may seem to be in the densest solitude of the country, that there is nobody about; any instant a sudden turn may find you in the midst of shrieking women, flying chicks, quacking ducks, and scoffing geese, where clatter and confusion and curses reign supreme, but again those curses imply nothing generally here, they are only a form of salutation, and rarely mean what is said. We pass down long stretches of road with the sparkling sea spread out before us until we draw up near the ruins of the seven churches of Clonmines, close down by the placid waters of the river. Of the churches there is little left, save a few ruined towers. In the centre of one where the sunshine falls warmest and many flowers grow, the late priest of the parish has found his resting-place. After all there seems to have been close connection between the far east and this Emerald Isle. At these seven churches of Clonmines, there was once held a Moorish slave market, and one cannot but think that that keening for the dead must have come from the chant which one may still hear amongst the followers of the prophet. Clonmines, which is named from the silver mines near-by, was "a very ancient corporation but quite ruinated" even in 1684 when we find it so described in an old manuscript of Wexford. In the time of the Danes it possessed a mint for silver coining and was surrounded by a fosse. On the shores of its river or tide inlet, called the Pill, the descendants of the first English conquerors still lived in the days of Elizabeth, in fact we find yet living in one of these ancient towers, the descendant of the man, Sir Roger de Sutton, who built it _seven centuries ago_--a love of home which passes understanding, for that abode to-day could not be considered as agreeable under any circumstances. This little river was considered of such importance in the days of Henry VI. that an act of Parliament was passed for the building of towers upon its banks "that none shall break the fortifications or strength of the waters of Bannow." Even in Henry IV.'s time one John Neville was appointed keeper of this water, and the feudal tenure by which the Hore family held their manor of Pole was for the keeping of a passage over the Pill when the Sessions were held at Wexford. But King and noble reckoned without the storms of winter, which year after year drove the sands of the sea inward, filling the harbour and finally destroying all the towns on its banks. One of them, Old Bannow, we have already visited, and we leave this of Clonmines, to-day a ruin past all redemption, inhabited by that one family whose members have watched the years go by just here for seven centuries. As we glide off through the winding lanes, the birds are talking to themselves in the hedgerows, and could tell us much about it all I doubt not, while far away on the soft air sounds the throbbing and the sobbing of the sea. Close by the roadside we come upon an evidence of one of the quaint customs still to be met with in this section. There is a certain tree--why so selected does not appear--which is regarded as holy, and every funeral which passes leaves a small cross at its base, so that to-day the pile of rude wooden emblems of our faith reaches half way up its trunk. There are no shrines around the place or any other evidence that it is regarded as sacred or used as a point for devotion, simply that mass of plain wooden crosses mounting high around its trunk, and numbering many thousands, each one representing the passing of some poor soul out of this earthly sunshine and into the shadow of the grave. Our day is not over yet. This section of Ireland so abounds in points of interest that fearing we may pass any of them the speed of the car is reduced to that of a donkey-cart, in fact, several of the latter pass us with great show of speed and scornful glances cast by ancient dames at our crawling monster, while the donkey kicks dust in our faces--whether from contempt of us or a desire to get home to supper he takes no time to state, but the fact remains. Our way leads down by the sea, and leaving the car to puff itself to sleep, we pass through the downs on the cliffs and out on to the point of Baginbun. If you are not versed in Irish history, you will wonder why you are brought here--it is pretty, yes, certainly, but you have seen other places far more so. There is a little cove just under you where the waters murmur and whisper, but what of that? Well, that is Baginbun and just there, though time and tide have long since obliterated the marks of their ships' prows, landed the English for the first time in Ireland. Fitzstephens and his band of adventurers in May, 1169, landed there and doubtless climbed this hill where we stand knee deep in the grass to day. What that meant to Ireland is told in the history of all the ensuing years down to this latter day. How many readers are aware of the Bull of Pope Adrian IV. handing Ireland body and soul over to Henry II. of England,--let us quote a bit of it just here. "Adrian, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our well beloved son in Christ, the illustrious King of the English, health and apostolical benediction. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Dining-room, Curraghmore House Seat of the Marquis of Waterford] "Your highness is contemplating the laudable and profitable work of gaining a glorious fame on earth, and augmenting the recompense of bliss that awaits you in heaven, by turning your thoughts, in the proper spirit of a Catholic Prince, to the object of widening the boundaries of the Church, explaining the true Christian faith to those ignorant and uncivilised tribes, and exterminating the nurseries of vices from the Lord's inheritance. In which matter, observing as we do the maturity of deliberation and the soundness of judgment exhibited in your mode of proceeding, we cannot but hope that proportionate success will, with the Divine permission, attend your exertions. "Certainly there is no doubt but that Ireland and all the Islands upon which Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, hath shined, and which have received instruction in the Christian faith, do belong of right to St. Peter and the Holy Roman Church, as your grace also admits. For which reason we are the more disposed to introduce into them a faithful plantation and to engraft among them a stock acceptable in the sight of God, in proportion as we are convinced from conscientious motives that such efforts are made incumbent on us by the urgent claims of duty. "You have signified to us, son, well-beloved in Christ, your desire to enter the island of Ireland in order to bring that people into subjection to laws, and to exterminate the nurseries of vices from the country; and that you are willing to pay to St. Peter an annual tribute of one penny for every house there, and to preserve the ecclesiastical rights of that land uninjured and inviolate. We, therefore, meeting your pious and laudable desire with the favour which it deserves, and graciously according to your petition, express our will and pleasure that, in order to widen the bounds of the Church, to check the spread of vice, to reform the state of morals and promote the inculcation of virtuous dispositions, you shall enter that island and execute therein what shall be for the honour of God and the welfare of the country. And let the people of that land receive you in honourable style and respect you as their Lord. Provided always that ecclesiastical rights be uninjured and inviolate, and the annual payment of one penny for every house be secured for St. Peter and the Holy Roman Church. "If then, you shall be minded to carry into execution the plan which you have devised in your mind, use your endeavour diligently to improve that nation by the inculcation of good morals; and exert yourself, both personally and by means of such agents as you employ (whose faith, life, and conversation you shall have found suitable for such an undertaking), that the Church may be adorned there, that the religious influence of the Christian faith may be planted and grow there; and that all that pertains to the honour of God and the salvation of souls may, by you, be ordered in such a way as that you may be counted worthy to obtain from God a higher degree of recompense in eternity, and at the same time succeed in gaining upon earth a name of glory throughout all generations." In such words this island, which had been faithful to the Church of Rome for centuries, was handed over by its head to bloodshed and murder. That the progress of the King was watched and approved of is amply set forth in the letter of Pope Alexander III.: "Alexander, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our well beloved son in Christ, Henry, the illustrious King of the English, greeting and apostolical benediction. "It is not without very lively sensations of satisfaction that we have learned, from the loud voice of public report, as well as from the authentic statements of particular individuals, of the expedition which you have made in the true spirit of a pious King and magnificent prince against that nation of the Irish (who, in utter disregard of the fear of God, are wandering with unbridled licentiousness into every downward course of crime, and who have cast away the restraints of the Christian religion and of morality, and are destroying one another with mutual slaughter), and of the magnificent and astonishing triumph which you have gained over a realm into which, as we are given to understand, the Princes of Rome, the triumphant conquerors of the world, never, in the days of their glory, pushed their arms, a success to be attributed to the ordering of the Lord, by whose guidance, as we undoubtedly do believe, your serene highness was led to direct the power of your arms against that uncivilised and lawless people." There exists to-day the complaint of the Irish Princes to Pope John XXII. in answer to a letter from him to the Irish prelates empowering them to launch the thunders of the Church against all, whether lay or ecclesiastical, who were guilty of disaffection to the ruling powers. This from their holy head in favour of the English was felt very keenly all over the land and called forth the document referred to above. "In the name of Donald O'Neill, King of Ulster, and rightful hereditary successor to the throne of all Ireland, as well as Princes and Nobles of the same realm with the Irish people in general present their humble salutations approaching with kisses of devout homage to his sacred feet." They lay before him, "with loud and imploring cry," the treatment they have received, and also an account of their descent from Milesius, the _Spaniard_, through a line of one hundred and thirty-six kings unto the time of St. Patrick, A.D. 435. From that saint's day until 1170 sixty-one kings had ruled who acknowledged no superior, in things temporal, and by whom the Irish Church was endowed. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Kilruddery House Earl of Meath] "'At length,' say the Princes, 'your predecessor, Pope Adrian, an Englishman--although not so completely in his origin as in his feelings and connections,--in the year of our Lord 1155, upon the representation, false and full of iniquity, which was made to him by Henry, King of England--the monarch under whom, and perhaps at whose instigation, St. Thomas, of Canterbury, in the same year, suffered death, as you are aware, in defence of Justice and of the Church,--made over the dominion of this realm of ours in a certain set form of words to that Prince, whom, for the crime here mentioned, he ought rather to have been deprived of his own kingdom; presenting him _de facto_ with what he had no right to bestow, while the question touching the justice of the proceeding was utterly disregarded, Anglican prejudices, lamentable to say, blinding the vision of that eminent Pontiff. And thus despoiling us of our royal honour, without any offence of ours, he handed us over to be lacerated by teeth more cruel than those of any wild beasts. For, ever since the time when the English, upon occasion of the grant aforesaid, and under the mask of a sort of outward sanctity and religion, made their unprincipled aggression upon the territories of our realm, they have been endeavouring, with all their might, and with every art which perfidy could employ, completely to exterminate, and utterly to eradicate our people from the country ... and have compelled us to repair, in the hope of saving our lives, to mountainous, woody and swampy and barren spots, and to the caves of the rocks also, and in these, like beasts, to take up our dwelling for a length of time.' "The Princes enclosed a copy of Pope Adrian's Bull, along with their Complaint, to Pope John, which Bull the latter Pope forwarded to King Edward.... "The part which the _Church of Rome_ has taken, not only in the bringing of _Ireland_ under _English rule_ in the first instance, but in the _maintenance_ of that rule, has _never been understood by the Irish people in general_. "Dr. Lanigan, whose history of Ireland is expensive and scarce, says of Pope Adrian that 'love of his country, his wish to gratify Henry, and some other not very becoming reasons, prevailed over every other consideration, and the condescending Pope, with great cheerfulness and alacrity, took upon himself to make over to Henry all Ireland, and got a letter, or Bull, drawn up to that effect and directed to him, in which, among other queer things, he wishes him success in his undertaking, and expresses the hope that it will conduce, not only to his glory in this world, but likewise to his eternal happiness in the next.'[8] "Adrian's old master was one Marianus, an Irishman, for whom he had great regard, yet, says Dr. Lanigan, 'he was concerned in hatching a plot against that good man's country, and in laying the foundation of the destruction of the independence of Ireland.'[9] "This is strong language from an Irish Roman Catholic clergyman, who enjoys the fullest confidence of his country, with regard to a former Pope, and it must be remembered that the statement was not made in a platform speech, when momentary excitement might impel a speaker into the use of words which he would afterwards regret, but that it was calmly and deliberately penned in the quietness of the study, and, probably, read and re-read, and finally corrected, before it was committed to print. "The Rev. M.J. Brennan, O. S. F., who is not at all so unprejudiced as Dr. Lanigan, states that 'Adrian, anxious for the aggrandisement of his country,' or, as Cardinal Pole expresses it, 'induced by the love of his country, lost no time in complying with the agent's request.'[10] The agent referred to was John of Salisbury, who had been sent by King Henry in 1155 to ask for the Pope's sanction for the invasion of Ireland, and who states that the invasion was delayed until 1171 by the restraining influence of the King's mother, the Empress Matilda. With this statement Dr. Lanigan agrees.[11] "It is a mistake to suppose that the Conquest of Ireland is due to the appeal made in 1168 by Dermot MacMurrogh for King Henry's aid. That event merely afforded to the King and the Pope a convenient excuse for carrying out a long-determined plan. "Attempts have been made on various grounds to justify Pope Adrian's action. Edmund Campion, the famous English Jesuit, alleges that the Spanish ancestors of the Irish were subject '376 years ere Christ was born' to one Gurguntius, from whom King Henry was descended, and that, consequently, the Pope only helped to restore to Henry his rightful authority.[12] But this notion is too far-fetched to deserve consideration. "A more plausible excuse is that about a century previous to the Conquest the Irish handed over to the Pope of that time--Urban II.--the sovereignty of this country. This theory was advocated by the Rev. Geoffrey Keatinge, D.D. "But a still more popular excuse is, that all the Christian Islands of the Ocean were conferred on the Popes by the first Christian Emperor, Constantine. "Dr. Lanigan brushes aside all these fanciful ideas with one sweep. 'This nonsense' he says, 'of the Pope's being the head owner of all Christian Islands had been partially announced to the world in a Bull of Urban II., dated 1091, in which, on disposing of the Island of Corsica, he said that the Emperor Constantine had given the Islands to St. Peter and his vicars. But Constantine could not give what did not belong to him, and accordingly, as Keatinge argues, could not have transferred the sovereignty of Ireland to any Pope.'[13] "As to Keatinge's own idea, namely, that the Irish had transferred their crown to the Pope, Dr. Lanigan writes: 'Neither in any of the Irish annals, nor in the ecclesiastical documents of those times, whether Roman or Irish, is there a trace to be found of a transfer of Ireland to Urban II., or to any Pope, by either the Irish Kings or Irish nobility, although the sly Italian, Polydore Virgil, who has been followed by two Englishmen, Campion and Sanders (both Jesuits), and also by some Irish writers, has told some big lies on this subject. These stories were patched up in spite of Chronology, or of any authority whatsoever, and Keatinge swallowed them as he did many others.'"[14] There is much more to be read on the subject and those who are interested in the question cannot do better than examine that very excellent little work of John Roche Ardill, _Forgotten Facts of Irish History_,[15] from which the foregoing pages are a quotation. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Glendalough] A very recent writer (Thomas Addis Emmet) states that "It would be inconsistent with the truth were we to attribute the piteous condition of Ireland to any other cause than that the great majority of the Irish people belong to the Catholic faith. Had the Irish been willing to cast aside, for temporal benefit, the faith which they have unflinchingly maintained for over twelve centuries, their country would have received every aid to advance prosperity, which would, with their greater advantages of soil and climate, have been far greater than that attained by Scotland."[16] What has Mr. Emmet to say of the treatment of the Irish people by the English _Romanists_ from Henry II. down to and including the reign of Mary the First? He will scarcely find that the students of Irish history will agree with his statement. There is another tale, legend or fact, in which, of course, a woman and her abduction from her husband, O'Roirke, Prince of Breffin, by Dermot MacMurrogh, King of Leinster, with her own consent many think, was the cause of the interposition of the English, and she is called the Irish Helen. Dermot fled to England and laid his case before the King, craving protection and swearing allegiance. Henry was too busily engaged in France to attend, but he did issue an edict offering his protection to all who might aid his trusted _subject_, Dermot, King of Leinster. This aroused Richard, Earl of Chepstow, called "Strongbow," who for his assistance was to receive the hand of Dermot's daughter in marriage, and a settlement of all of that Irish King's property upon them and their children (a contract which was fulfilled), but Strongbow being tardy was anticipated by Robert Fitzstephens, who agreed to assist Dermot, and was to receive in payment the town of Wexford and adjoining lands, and he it was whose boats landed on this little beach, where the water murmurs so quietly to-night. Dermot in his castle yonder at Ferns awaited the coming of these invaders, and promptly sent his natural son Donald with five hundred horse to join them, and so the game was played, and his throne restored to him. Then came Strongbow, then Henry II. with his armies, and the English were here to stay. Whatever the facts of the case are, it is certain that just here landed the first of the English, and from here spread their rule,--whether for good or ill is the great question of to-day in this island. There are no relics of the event, though there appear to be some earthworks which are thought of Celtic origin. The leagues are not many which separate this cliff from Cardiganshire in Wales, and a friendly intercourse was kept up until Pope and King came together in solemn conclave. One of that King's first acts was the bestowal of Dublin upon the "good citizens of my town of Bristol." The capital of a kingdom bestowed upon the _traders_ of Bristol! The original of this gift is in the Record Office of Dublin castle. Would it have been any satisfaction to those of the land which he had so oppressed to have known of the ending of this "Great King"? Dying at Chinon in a rage so terrible that even death could not smooth out the traces from his face, Henry II.'s body was plundered like the Conqueror's, and, like his, left stark naked. Shrouded at last in some cast-off garments, it was placed in its coffin, a rust-broken sceptre stuck in its hand, an old and meaningless ring of no value on its finger, while the crown on its brow was composed of a piece of gold fringe torn from a discarded robe of some court dame, who doubtless had curtsied to the ground many times before the living monarch. In such state, Henry II. was buried in the stately abbey of Fontevrault and promptly forgotten, though the wrongs he did Ireland lived on and on. FOOTNOTES: [8] King's _Eccles. Hist. of Ireland_, vol. iv., p. 159. [9] _Ib._, p. 158. [10] _Eccles. Hist. of Ireland_, vol. i., p. 305. [11] It is interesting to notice that the Bull was issued in the year 1155, that is sixteen years before the invasion took place. This was one of the earliest transactions in the popedom of Adrian and the kingship of Henry, as it was only in December of the previous year, 1154, they were elevated to their respective thrones. In 1155 the proposal to seize Ireland was considered at the Parliament of Winchester. (King's _Eccles. Hist. of Ireland_, p. 492.) [12] _History of Ireland_, p. 71. [13] _Eccles. Hist. of Ireland_, vol. iv., p. 160. [14] _Ib._, p. 161. [15] Hodges, Figgis & Co., 1905. [16] _Ireland under English Rule, or a Plea for the Plaintiff_, by Thomas Addis Emmet, M.D., LL.D. CHAPTER XVI Wild Times in Ireland--Landlord and Tenant--Evictions--Boycott at Bannow House--The Parson and the Legacy--The Priest and the Whipping--Burial in Cement--Departure from Bannow House--Kilkenny and her Cats--The Mountains of Wicklow--Powers Court and a Week End--Run to Dublin and an Encounter by the Way--The Irish Constabulary--Motor Runs in the Mountains--Lord H. Ireland has seen strange wild times, and no section of it more than this remote County Wexford. As I have stated, this estate of Bannow is eighteen miles from a railroad station now, but in another month a new line three miles away opens for traffic, and though a good thing for the property of all in the county, it will sound the knell of probably all the quaint and curious customs still in vogue here. If that railway company is wise it will build a seaside hotel in this neighbourhood. The climate is for most of the year delightful and is rarely subject to the howling tempests which so constantly sweep the west coast for half the year. Wexford abounds in beautiful scenery and almost every valley holds a charming home while quaint towns crowd the river banks and ruined towers crown the hills on either side. [Illustration: Tom Moore's Tree Vale of Ovoca] The maintenance of many of these Irish estates becomes each year more and more difficult unless the whole is strictly entailed. This is especially the case with places of small income, say two or three thousand pounds sterling. In the days when rents were good and five per cent. obtained it was well enough, but to-day when three per cent. is all that can be hoped for and yet the old charges for dowers and legacies must be paid, the owner is perforce a poor man. At present the landlord seems to have no rights. His tenants may and do absolutely refuse to pay him rent and he is reduced to poverty. There is a case I know of where the tenants are amply able to pay him, but they simply _won't_. His only resource is eviction, which is slow, expensive, and brings down wrath upon his head. So he is forced to give up his home and retire to a cottage, while his tenants laugh at him. In the case of the peasants, eviction is not only expensive but useless. No man will rent the hut of those turned out, no matter how many years drift by, and some landlords are reinstating their evicted tenants. Better them than empty farms. With the new Land Act the tenants dictate that they will buy or nothing. Of course there have arisen the usual number of scoundrels who get behind these peasants, buy out their rights, and in the end get the land for a song. There are several instances where such men who at one time broke stones on the highway are now landowners of considerable extent. I heard of one the other day who was just adding a billiard-room to his "mansion." There is much said over here about the corruption of our city governments, especially those of Chicago and New York, but I also hear that that of the city of Dublin is to say the very least nothing to boast of, and that graft has even penetrated London itself. Home rule for the peasants of Ireland, so it is stated here, would be about as sensible as a rule of the blacks in America. When the leaders in Parliament found they could make no more money by the disturbances, they called them off, and one of the members of that august body was kicked all the way down this peaceful avenue before me here and out yonder gate for abuse of the late Queen. During the boycott, Bannow House was in a state of siege and its owner forced to start a store on the lawn for his own workmen, who could not purchase anywhere. These provisions were brought from London under guard. After his death--in 1881--his grave, guarded by policemen for twenty-four hours--until the concrete in which his coffin had been buried had set,--was surrounded all the time by a howling mob who would have promptly "had him out" otherwise. He hated the parson and so left the church's legacy of two thousand pounds to the "next incumbent," or rather the interest thereof, but the parson was equal to the occasion, and, resigning, got himself re-elected, and so became the "next incumbent" and secured the interest. There was another instance here where the holy man, this time a priest, did not fare so well. He had attacked a member of his parish from the pulpit, and thereby aroused the ire of the wife. She was about six feet tall, and following the priest into the vestry-room flogged him soundly. It was a foolish thing to do, as it roused the whole country round about and she and her household almost starved from the boycott which promptly followed. On her death it was necessary to bury her also in cement, to prevent desecration, every man at the funeral carrying a gun. Fortunately those days are gone by, let us hope for all time, but with a people so ignorant and superstitious anything may happen and if that cattle driving does not cease old times will come again. It is quiet enough here this morning; the peace of the country is intense, yet to me it is never a solitude, never lonely, and it is delicious to awake in the early light and feel the cool, damp air blow in upon one through the open window, while even at this hour of dawn yonder old reprobate of a wood pigeon is earnestly entreating Paddy to follow the way of the transgressor,--"_two_ coos, Paddy," "two coos." One can almost hear the stealthy rustle of the departing beasts and the soft footfall of Paddy. Far beyond the trees where the pigeons hide, the fair blue of heaven has been rain-washed during the night, and white clouds drift lazily off towards the sea murmuring in the distance. To-day brings my stay at Bannow House to a close, I trust not for all time. After luncheon, bidding our hostess farewell, we roll away through the avenue of rhododendrons, over the meadows, through the forest, where the insistent birds try for the last time to corrupt my honesty, and so out on the highway and off to the north. Our route takes us past the site of Scullaboyne House, a spot sadly famous. In the dark days of the rebellion of 1798, New Ross and this vicinity of Bannow suffered horribly. Indeed the battle at the former town was the most sanguinary of that period, and an event which followed it here too horrible to be passed over without notice even at this late date. Scullaboyne House, but lately deserted by its owner, Capt. King, and seized by the rebels, was in use as a prison. In the house itself were confined some thirty-seven men and women and in the adjoining barn were over one hundred men, women, and children, chiefly, but not exclusively, Protestants. After their defeat at New Ross the rebels sent word to destroy these prisoners. Those in the house were called one by one to the door and shot down, but a worse fate awaited those in the barn, where firebrands thrown into and upon its roof soon turned the whole into a red hot furnace. Children were tossed out of the windows to save them, but only to be impaled upon the pikes of the outlaws. Some authorities claim that two hundred and thirty persons met their deaths in Scullaboyne. Certainly the French Revolution can show nothing more horrible. [Illustration: One of the Seven Churches of Clonmines County Wexford] There is little left here now to recall the event save a few blackened fragments, which the rich grass and creeping vines are daily covering more and more each passing year. It is claimed by the insurgent party that they had nothing to do with the slaughter--that it was the act of outlaws, such as are always to be found dogging the footsteps of contending forces. However that may be, the result was absolute ruin to the cause of the rebels. Be it recorded to the credit of the intelligent priests of the day that they at all times did what they could to prevent like occurrences and save human life and that amongst the sixty-six persons executed in Wexford, after that period, for murder and rebellion, only one was a priest. But let us hasten away from all this. The roadways are superb all over this section of Ireland, and indeed I have so far encountered none which could be called bad the (worst were better than we have around most of our cities), and we are at the extreme south, having circled the island. To-day we meet but few motors. Others are not so fortunate, as we discover by a disturbed roadbed and some fragments of cars lying around. The other day, Lord Blank and a friend of his, driving their cars here on roads running at right angles and shaded by tall hedges,--the noise of each motor drowned in that of the other,--came together, "sociable like," at the junction. Result, two cars gone to smash, but bless you that's "all in a lifetime" in this blessed isle. Bicyclists also appear to meet with trouble now and then, as we have just passed an inn bearing the sign "Broken down cyclists rest free." The road from Bannow via New Ross to Kilkenny passes through Inistiogey, Thomastown, and Bennett's Bridge, and is fine all the way and through lovely scenery, most of the time by the banks of the Barrow. We reach Kilkenny about three P. M., two hours and five minutes out, about fifty miles, which is good time on Irish routes, because of their narrowness and the frequent stoppages rendered necessary through stubborn donkeys and young cattle. The approach to Kilkenny is marked, as is most appropriate, by an increase in the number of cats, sorry looking specimens, most of them. I must congratulate the town upon her very clean and comfortable Club Hotel. Kilkenny Castle is not of interest save its stately appearance from the bridge. It has been modernised into a comfortable dwelling-place, prosaic in the extreme. I find in Ireland that the interesting abodes are of two classes only, the very ancient castle or the square manor-house; the latter, while appearing modern, have some centuries to their credit and are characteristic of the country. I certainly have never seen them elsewhere. Castles such as Kilkenny and Lismore (the Duke of Devonshire's), while holding somewhere in their vastness remnants of the ancient strongholds, have, as I have stated, been brought up to date and out of all interest. The same holds with the cathedral here. Even the round tower looks new. Rolling onward we pass again through the Vale of Ovoca, but have no time now for more than a glance as the day wanes and rain threatens. Entering amongst the mountains of Wicklow, our car balks once or twice at the grades, but finally makes up its mind to go ahead and so puffs and pulls and stews with less noise than most motors would be guilty of, until finally, with a last effort, the highest point is reached, and the vale beyond is open to our view, with the demesne of Powerscourt nestling on its farther side. There are few more enchanting prospects in the British Isles. It would seem from here to be a great bowl, so completely enclosed in the mountains as to be accessible only by wings. The billowy foliage is broken at one point by a waterfall some three hundred feet high, which plunges down into the celebrated glen, "the Dargle." Half-way up the mountain stands the huge mansion of Powerscourt House, as though it were the royal box in this vast opera-house of nature. Dublin has many beautiful points in her neighbourhood, more in fact I think than any other city of Europe, but none so beautiful as this before us. The temptation to linger is strong, but it is late, and there are miles yet to go. The route drops rapidly downward and then upward until barred by the gates of the home park, which we are allowed to enter once it is certain that we are "going to the house" and are not tourists. When we reach there every one is abroad in motors, and it is too late for tea, but not too late for a whiskey and soda, which, being assured that we are expected,--hosts have been known to forget their invitations,--is accepted and thoroughly enjoyed. Powerscourt, the seat of Viscount Powerscourt came into possession of the family during the reign of Elizabeth, and is one of the largest estates in Ireland, having some twenty-six thousand acres within its bounds. Probably its scenery is more varied and beautiful than that of any other estate in the kingdom. [Illustration: Funeral Crosses by the Wayside County Wexford] One enters a hallway of large dimensions, whose walls and ceilings are laden with trophies of the chase from all over the world. Skins of every description cover walls and floors, while chandeliers formed of antlers hang by the dozens from the ceilings. Doffing our coats and rugs on its great table and trying to appear like white men after our hundred-mile run through rain and mud, we pass into the morning room and so out on to the terrace beyond, which on this side of the house stretches along the entire front, while below terrace after terrace drops downward to a stone balustrade overlooking the lake, beyond which the land rises tier after tier until the higher mountains outline against the sky. The rain has ceased and the setting sun is casting long shafts of light into the quivering forests whose leaves are thicker than ever they were in Vallombrosa. But it is chilly and we hunt out the smoking-room where a bright fire works its will with the winds driven through us all day and we are found half asleep when host and hostess return. These Irish places are not so gorgeous as many in England but an Irish welcome is something one does not meet with either in England or any other land, and to-day holds no exception to that rule. They are glad to see us and the usual stiffness of an entry in a strange house and amongst strange people is altogether lacking. The time passes so quickly that the dressing gong sounds all too soon. As I mount the stair portraits of the former owners look down upon me, from those long dead to that of the present owner, presented by his tenants upon his coming of age, which by the way must have occurred very lately, as he is the youngest looking man to be the father of two children that I have ever seen. There is another portrait in yonder corner of a man who looks as though _he_ would like a whiskey and soda on this damp evening, but he must long since have passed to the land where such things are not. At the head of this main stairway, one enters a vast hall supported by columns. George the Fourth strutted through here in all his gorgeousness in 1821. As far as Royalty is concerned, that monarch and his successor certainly marked its lowest stage--the latter the worse of the two, as he was common. The rebound since then has been so tremendous that one feels as though gazing from the top of a mountain downward upon the marshes by the sea. One of the late owners of Powerscourt evidently felt great interest in the house as he placed tablets in many of the rooms indicating what they were and had been. I am told to go where I like and examine the whole, but of course I do not penetrate behind closed doors where evidently there is much of interest. But I do get lost actually as far as the body is concerned and mentally in a picture of a lady in the dark corner of a distant gallery, and have to be hunted out when the gong sounds for dinner. In the dining-room my eye is attracted by a portrait on the opposite wall. It proves to be one of Lady Jane Grey when a child of eight or nine years of age, but has a very Dutch appearance and the original could never have developed into the graceful greyhound-like creature so familiar to all in the later portraits. The living-rooms in these European country houses are so homelike and comfortable that similar rooms in our Newport houses must strike a foreigner as very stiff and new, and generally they are just that, for with few exceptions they are but temporary abiding-places for a few weeks in summer. The drawing-room in Powerscourt is a wide, sunny apartment; in the daytime its windows, giving on to the terrace, hold a marvellous panorama framed for one's benefit, but to-night the curtains are dropped and a bright fire blazes on the hearth around which runs a rail topped with a broad leather cushion, which forms a most comfortable perch promptly appropriated by the men, while the ladies are on low seats. The walls are covered by pictures of great value and there is much else of interest around one, yet it is all so homelike and comfortable that one scarcely remembers any of the details but simply a charming picture of the whole; and so the time passes until the ladies having vanished we are again in the smoking-room, where Boyse starts in to talk and would have kept it up until grey dawn, but I for one am sleepy and detect the same symptoms in our host, so we suppress Boyse and go to bed. He may talk to the fire if he likes, but not to us. The next day being Sunday I wanted to go to church, but it is intimated that my presence is not desired. So Boyse and I roll off to Dublin for letters and en route back break down and nearly miss luncheon in consequence. On our return we encountered one of the rare cases of hatred, pure and simple, for those of the upper ranks which I have noted in Ireland. The avenues between Bray and the city were crowded with Sunday excursionists, and at one point, a van having stopped, the occupants covered all the roadway and two men stood facing us exactly in the centre of our only course. Moving at a snail's pace, we trumpeted constantly and finally stopped directly in front of these men. I have never noted more malignant snarls on human countenances than these bore as they grudgingly gave way. "Do ye think ye own the whole shop?" The fact that we appeared unconscious of their existence only enraged them the more, and had they dared strike they would have done so, but one is always sure of the presence of some of those splendid specimens of men, the Irish constabulary, than whom the world holds of their kind none better. All over six feet in stature, they are not merely policemen, ignorant or not as the case may be, but men of education and who must keep up that education by further study for higher examinations, which unpassed will cost them their positions. There are three here to-day, hence those lowering brows and clenched hands disappear. However, we have encountered but little of that state of feeling in Ireland, the instances have been few and far between,--a contrast indeed to France, where a well-dressed man is often impressed with the belief that those around him would like to erect a guillotine for his express enjoyment and would do so upon the smallest provocation. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Powerscourt House Seat of Viscount Powerscourt] All the afternoon is spent out of doors. Other guests have arrived, one with three motors and another with one. Lord P. has several and ours has been polished up to look its best, but we finally leave it behind, and stowed away in the others the whole cavalcades spend the afternoon in wild flights over the hills and mountains. In the rushes through the valleys we are well together, but in climbing the ascents which around here are very steep the cars of greater power vanish in the distance and we do not see them again and only know of their passage by the general state of wild confusion reigning amongst dogs, geese, and chickens, which knowing there must be more of us have not as yet returned to the centre of the highways; except the geese--it takes more than a motor to keep those doughty birds off the road. Those are wonderful fowls. They measure the width of an approaching car to a nicety, and retreat just beyond that. So near in fact that we have been struck by their indignant wings several times. To-day I am in an enclosed car belonging to Mr. G. Whilst very comfortable, especially for ladies in a city, I do not think that they are pleasant to ride in. The constant rumble and roar becomes very unpleasant, something one never experiences in an open car; also one loses entirely that sensation of flying so delicious in an open car. This one makes my head ache, and it is not a matter of regret when, the ride over, I am out on the lake with Lord H., attempting to tug a duck house out of the mud. I am quite convinced that I did most of the work, but I believe he denies that fact. I cannot but regret as I look at this young man, certainly not more than twenty-five years of age, that we have not something like a school for the study of diplomacy. We might even have such scholarships, now that we have decided to become a world power in which diplomats are so necessary. I asked what was the future of this man in question and was told, "Oh, he will be an ambassador some day, that is what he is working for," and working for that means the attainment of perfection in all things necessary for an educated man,--perfection in everything, not a mere smattering in a few things. This man speaks all the modern languages of Europe with equal facility. If music is necessary for his career he has it at his fingers' ends. He is wealthy, but his money will be used to further his progress, not to kill it. Nothing will interfere with that. I cannot but contrast him with one I know of whose prospects appeared equally bright, though his education was not at all the equal of this man's. However, he might have done much with his life, but marrying a rich wife he promptly resigned and "sat down to good dinners," amounting now to absolutely nothing, his career ended. Abandoning the rescue of the duck house together with graver questions, we adjourn to the gardens and consume half an hour, and also a lot of the biggest strawberries I have ever eaten. Time flies. Tea on the terrace, to which more motors have brought other guests, dinner, and the night are over and gone, and we have rolled away, waving thanks to our host and hostess for the pleasant "week end" at Powerscourt House. CHAPTER XVII Dublin--Derby Day and the Rush to the Curragh--An Irish Crowd--The Kildare Street Club and Club Life--Jigginstown House and its History--The Cowardice of a King--The Old Woman on the Tram Car--Parnell--The Grave of Daniel O'Connell. Given the capital of Ireland, a bright day in the midsummer of an exposition year, with the King almost here, and above all the Derby at hand, and if you are looking for peace and quiet you should go elsewhere. All Dublin is in an uproar this morning and there is not a jaunting-car which will look at you for less than double the tariff. Stately equipages move slowly along, motors of all descriptions pass like the wind. The beggars are out in full force and if you have a heart in your bosom you will reach the race-track with not a shilling left you. Our motor dashes around the corner and up to the door as though it were new instead of some years of age. The spirit of the races seems to have gotten into its old bones and it shrieks and snorts and rushes off with us at an appalling pace notwithstanding the crowded streets and stone pavements. Out on to the broad highway to the south in company with the whole town we roll onward past the ruins of Jigginstown House. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Great Salon, Powerscourt House] Of the thousands who come this way to-day, few give thought to the house or its history. They have little time for the past as just a few miles beyond is the famous Curragh of Kildare, a stretch of the most marvellous grass-lands in the world, where the turf is of greatest richness and elasticity. Not for this, and yet because of this, the people flock four times a year in tens of thousands to worship there at the altar of the noble horse. The Curragh holds Ireland's greatest race-course, and has held it for two thousand years. The winner of the last English Derby is to be on hand and to race to-day and nearly all Ireland is en route to be present. So there is no time for dead Earls and ruined houses on such a day, and we are swept on and away, for once forgetting our caution and bidding the chauffeur beat every other motor on the road if he can, and to our amazement this old "Clement" comes near to doing it, and there are some very smart cars going down to-day. How the wind does sing around us--if a cap is lost we do not stop to get it--it would not be possible or safe to do so with this onrushing crowd behind us. Dogs and chickens get out of the way in wildest terror, and it seems to me that we take several turns on two wheels only. It is dangerous work and we know that a break means destruction most complete, but we cannot help it. Curragh air had gotten into our heads and go we must. After all is said, I think the desire for a race is in every man of us, inborn and irresistible. Such is the case to-day and our record is good, though every now and then a sullen rumble and roar and many blasts of a horn warn us that some car of great power is coming to which we must give place, and though going at full speed we seem to stand still as it rushes by us, and here comes in one of the greatest dangers of the road. The clouds of dust in the wake of such a car are appalling and impenetrable to sight, yet through this our own car rushes on, trusting to Providence to keep the way clear. It is a relief to me at least when it mounts in safety to the downy stretches of the Curragh where there is no dust, and I find on calling the roll that none of our party is missing. What a beautiful sight! The downs of deep grass stretch away on all sides crossed and recrossed by the wide highways. Off to the left lies the great military camp, while in front stretches the race-course, towards which what seems the whole of Dublin is moving and in every imaginable manner, from the foot passenger and funny little donkey to the tally-ho coaches and the gorgeous motor-cars, while over and around it all rings the Irish laughter, as it has rung around this race-course of Curragh for two thousand years,--its very name "_Cuir reach_" implying "race-course." It must mean that to-day at all events, but I should think that if any sort of a race could disappoint an Irishman that to-day, the Irish Derby, would do so. It was a foregone conclusion that the winner of that race in England would be first here,--but to my thinking it proves no race at all, that horse and another of the same owner simply running round the course with no show for any other, and with apparently no speed exerted on their own parts. However, it is the changing panorama of the people and not the race which interests me, and that is not in any degree a disappointment. The return to Dublin and on to Bray was the same wild flight as when going down and a feeling of relief came to me at least when we got safely back to our hotel, or rather to the exposition grounds where we dined. What time we reach the hotel and bed I have no memory. Boyse never got there at all. The following day being rainy, I am not disposed to go to the races, and also learn that our car is in need of attention. However, another must be forthcoming if desired, and one does come, in which Boyse and a friend of his, "Copper," are most comfortably packed, and evidently bound for the Curragh, being Irish. Now, though that is my car, my absence is evidently very precious to its occupants; still Boyse _does_ ask kindly whether I "would like to go." What a pressing invitation that!--much like a blast from the North Atlantic. For an instant I am tempted to say yes, just to watch their discomfort, but I much prefer not to go and so state, when--whiz--they vanish like smoke around the corner, evidently with no intention of allowing any reconsideration on my part. Laughing, I summon a jaunting-car and go to buy my ticket homeward. The usual tariff for short distances is a sixpence and I hand it over on descending at the ticket office. The driver evidently has exposition extortions in his head for, regarding me sourly for an instant, he remarks, "Ye could 'ave saved five ov thim if ye'd come in the tram." However, his anger is short lived, and when I laugh he laughs. God bless you, Pat,--may you succeed in "doing" the next man you carry. Many of our evenings have been passed at the Kildare Street Club, of which Boyse is a member. While they do not give a stranger a week's card as we do, a member seems to be at liberty to take him there as often as that member desires, and so the result is the same, if not better. Certainly at this, the best club in the Irish capital, I was made to feel as much at home as in my own in America. I shall always remember it and the men I met there with pleasure. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Ruins of Jigginstown House] There are clubs in London, notably the Army and Navy, where one is treated in the same manner. That club has been growing more and more liberal of late years. At one period a short while ago, a stranger could go only to one room and one dining-room. Now in company with a member the whole club is open to him. There are other London clubs where he may not even pass the portals, but this is the twentieth century, an age of reform, and all that will change in time. What homelike and yet what heartless things clubs are! A man may make his home in one for years, may have his own particular corner and be the very life and soul of the house; many would declare that the place could not get on without his jests and merry laugh, and that they would miss him for ever. How many would do so? Coming in some day they would note the flag at half mast and his name on a black bordered card near the door. Most who passed would not be able to recall his features whilst remembering that they had drank with him often, and the majority would forget him promptly. For those who did remember, it would be sad to think that "PERIN has gone; and we who loved him best Can't think of him as 'entered into rest.' But he has gone; has left the morning street, The clubs no longer echo to his feet; Nor shall we see him lift his yellow wine To pledge the random host--the purple vine. At doors of other men his horses wait, His whining dogs scent false their master's fate; His chafing yacht at harbour mooring lies; 'Owner ashore' her idle pennant flies. Perin has gone-- Forsook the jovial ways Of Winter nights--his well-loved plays, The dreams and schemes and deeds of busy brain, And pensive habitations built in Spain. Gone, with his ruddy hopes! And we who knew him best Can't think of him as 'entered into rest.' So when the talk dies out or lights burn dim We often ponder what is keeping him-- What destiny that all-subduing will, That golden wit, that love of life, fulfil? For we who silent smoke, who loved him best, Can't fancy Perin 'entered into rest.'" The touring is almost over, and I fancy for ever, in Ireland. Our last day's journey was one of the most pleasant and interesting of the lot. Having gone to Bray Head to escape the heat of the city, we rolled off at nine a.m. and passing through town in a rush fled southwards towards the military camp at Curragh. The day was brilliant and the motor fairly flew over the highway which to-day we have all to ourselves. Passing again the unfinished palace of the Earl of Stratford we paused to inspect it and to learn its history. "Jigginstown" was built by Sir Thomas Wentworth, created Earl of Stratford by Charles I., who made him Deputy of Ireland and regarded him at the time as his chief minister and counsellor. In his early years he was certainly a character of doubtful virtue, as before this appointment he was as strongly counter to the King as he was for him after he had received it. The King was subject to a violent outcry for using a Papist to murder his subjects. Wentworth laboured under the severe hatred of the English, Scotch, and Irish. He secured from the Irish Parliament large sums which he used to engage an army against Scotland. His rule here lasted eight years, and while active and prudent he was most unpopular. When his fall occurred the Irish Parliament used every expedient to aggravate the charge against him. Envy and jealousy both here and in England were the prime causes of his ruin. Knowing the power and deadly hatred of his enemies he implored the King to excuse him from attending Parliament, but Charles promised that not a hair of his head should be injured; but his enemies arose in such might, that no voice was raised in his defence and he was accused of high treason. The whole affair was a gigantic conspiracy of the leaders of the Parliament against one man, of whom they could prove no wrong save that he served the King, and who they were well aware possessed knowledge of their own treason. "Unprotected by power, without counsel, discountenanced by authority, what hope had he? yet such was the capacity, genius, and presence of mind displayed by this magnanimous statesman that while argument, reason, and law held any place he obtained the victory and he perished by the open violence of his enemies." (There is a strong resemblance between this trial and that of the Queen of Scots in Fotheringay the preceding century.) His government of Ireland was promotive of the King's interests and of the people commended to his charge. He introduced industries and the arts of peace and augmented the shipping of the kingdom a hundred fold. The customs were tripled upon the same rates, the exports doubled in value that of the imports, and he introduced the manufacture of linen;--that stands his monument to-day, but,--he was a friend of the King and so must die. That is one side of the picture. His enemies claim that whether guilty of the crime named at the trial or not, he deserved death for his treatment of the Irish. They state that his project was to subvert the titles to every estate in Connaught, also that he had sent Lord Ely to prison to force him (Ely) to settle his estates according to the wishes of his daughter-in-law, whom Strafford had seduced. The House, on his condemnation, nobly excluded his children from the legal consequences of his sentence. It is stated that the King was deeply grieved but he certainly did consent to the deed, though by appointing a commission of four noblemen to give the royal assent in his name, he flattered himself that neither his will consented to the deed nor his hand engaged in it. The exclamation of the doomed man, "Put not your trust in princes," told how he felt, and so he died in his forty-ninth year, one of the most eminent personages that has appeared in English history. [Illustration: Parnell's Grave Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin] His great unfinished palace rears its walls now close by the highway and of all the thousands who rush by here to Curragh Camp or races, how many give it a thought or know who built it? I was told that it was a monastery whose bricks were passed from hand to hand all the way from Dublin; others stated that it was an unfinished cotton factory, and it looks like such. It is of red brick, two stories in height, and of great length. Its arches and brickwork are of the finest, but the whole stands a melancholy monument to the downfall of human greatness, to the cowardice of a King. From whom did Charles I. inherit such a streak? Certainly not from his Danish mother, or from his royal grandmother. The worst enemies of the Stuart Queen never could accuse her of the desertion of her friends. She was faithful unto death and should deserve the crown of life for that reason if for none other. But Lord Darnley was never faithful to anything throughout his entire life, and from that source surely came this taint in the Stuart kings of England--the degeneracy of James I., and the cowardice of his son Charles. Leaving melancholy Jigginstown behind, we moved on to the Curragh, but this time to the camp, which, by the way, is one of the largest in the empire. En route, we chased through a drove of cattle, one of which, after racing with us for some distance, decided finally to take our right-of-way, and our guard sliding under her hind leg, lifted it high off the ground, causing her to plunge wildly and the air to be filled with distant oaths and curses from her owner. She was not hurt at all, and as the car slid forward and away, clouds of dust hid our number and defeated all chances of a claim for damages. Luncheon with the officers in the mess-tent being over, we started again citywards, as my days in the land were growing few indeed, to my regret, and there were some shrines which must be visited or my journey would be incomplete. En route to the tomb of a great statesman we paused to pay our homage at that of a great divine, Dean Swift, who sleeps in the Cathedral of St. Patrick under a simple tablet. There, upon an important occasion, when the cathedral was crowded, he delivered himself of those famous words, "The Lord loves them that give to the poor, and if you believe in the security, dump down the dust,"--the shortest sermon ever delivered in St. Patrick's, and the most effective, for "the dust" came in clouds. St. Patrick's blessing must be passing from Ireland at last, as the papers describe the capture of a brown snake three feet long in a garden at Ranelagh. As we approach the stately cathedral I ask our boy: "Is that a Catholic church, Dennis?" "No, sor." "A Protestant?" "No, sor." "What then?" "A Church of England, sor." While these people will generally enter whole-souled into jest or gibe they will not, it is said, do so with the English, and some of the encounters with the latter people are amusing in the extreme. The other day on the top of a tram car, some Englishwomen were enlarging upon the not at all times cleanly inhabitants surrounding them. One remarked that they were all horrid and she should go to Wales where she would not meet any of "these dirty Irish." An old woman across the tram could no longer restrain herself, but rising in her wrath, confronted the Englishwoman with flashing eyes, and "I would not go to Wales ma'am wur I yez, for yez will find plinty of Irish there; but take my advice and go to Hell, ye'll find no Irish there." A man, killed near Dublin not long since, had been shot through the forehead, death resulting instantly. The usual crowd gathered, amongst them an old woman, who for a moment intently regarded the poor fellow, dead as Pharoah, then, raising her hands and eyes, she ejaculated "Wusn't it a blessin' of God he wusn't shot in the eye!" What difference that could have made to him she disdained to explain. The last resting place of Daniel O'Connell is in Prospect Cemetery, some four miles from Dublin. There Parnell also sleeps under the shadow of a simple iron cross. The passing years have called a halt on both of those men. How little we are conscious of the flight of time until suddenly we find our thoughts, which before have all been towards the future, have unconsciously to us turned towards the past, and we are looking backward and not forward. Then we realize with a sinking heart that for us youth is over and done with, that for us there is no future save beyond the far horizon. The memorial to O'Connell, appropriate in every respect, rears itself in the stately form of an ancient round tower. Simple and dignified, one cannot imagine a more appropriate monument to the man who sleeps beneath it. The tower is of grey stone smoothly polished and rises from a circle under which is the vault of O'Connell. Around this runs a broad, stone walk which in its turn is encircled by a rampart, holding many vaults whose doors open upon the walk, and being all unlocked you may enter where you will once you pass the outer gate of the circle, generally locked. To-day, however, the workmen are redecorating the O'Connell vault and we are allowed to enter. [Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard Daniel O'Connell's Monument Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin] Passing down a broad flight of steps and through an iron grill we find confronting us, across the circular stone pathway, another grill closing the centre vault, over whose door is the name "O'Connell." The great Irishman sleeps alone in the centre of this vault in an altar-like tomb, through the stone quarterfoils of which you may see and touch his oaken coffin. The inscription is on a brass frieze around the top. In an adjoining catacomb are the coffins of several members of his family. I think such mausoleums are always more impressive when the stone walls and ceilings are unadorned, but such is not the taste here and the ceilings and walls were being painted in gorgeous colours. It is a useless expense, as with the arches and walls covered with moisture, the work will be undone very shortly. The plain stone would be infinitely more impressive and dignified, surely, like the tower above, more in keeping with the character of the illustrious dead. As we leave the cemetery I turned for a last look at the shrine of Ireland. I have seen, I think, the final resting places of all the illustrious dead of the earth, and I know of none which has more profoundly impressed me than this stately tomb of Daniel O'Connell, with whose name let us close these sketches of the land he loved so well--Ireland. INDEX A Achill, island of, 50, 53, 57, 60, 62, 64, 95, 156, 173 Adrian IV., Pope, 248, 252, 253, 255 Aldworth, Mrs., 153 Alexander III., Pope, 251 Antrim, 26 Ardill, John Roche, 256 Armagh, 22, 27 Arran, 32 Augustine, Abbot, 165 Auxerre, 26 Awbeg, 146 B Baginbun, 248 Ballentine, Nancy, 21 Ballinaboy Bridge, 85 Ballybeg Abbey, 140, 146 Ballycastle, 33, 34, 173 Ballygalley Bay, 32 Ballymena, 26 Ballynahinch, 85 Bannow, 184, 189, 231, 234, 246, 247, 260, 264 Bannow church, 191, 192 Bannow House, 184, 186, 188, 242, 262, 264 Bantry Bay, 173 Beddoes, Major, 135, 154, 156 Belfast, 31 Bennett's Bridge, 266 Biddy, 90, 91 Birr, 101, 104, 115 Birr Castle, 102, 103 Blackwater, 162, 180 Blake, Mr. and Mrs., 44 Blarney, 167 Boggeragh Mountains, 173 Bohemia, Queen of, 205 Bombay, 157 Bowen, Mr., 40 Boyne, the, 12 Boyse family, the, 185, 191 Braganza, Catherine of, 157 Bray, 234, 299 Bray Head, 282 Brenan, Rev. M. J., 254 Bretons, 138 Brice, Archbishop, 121 Brigid, St., 28 Brittany, 138 Bruce, Edward, 123 Buchanan, George, 19 Bundoran, 37, 52 Burne-Jones, 155 Burrishoole, 77, 78 Bushmills, 36 Butlers, 124 Buttevant, 127, 130, 132, 134, 148, 150, 160, 214 Buttevant Castle, 147 C "Caiseal," 123 Campion, Edmund, 255, 256 Cantyre, 32 Carrickfergus, 31 Carrig-a-Hooly, 77, 78, 80 Carrig-a-pooka, 174 Carrolls, the, 101, 102 Cashel, 44, 127, 129 Cashel, Rock of, 120, 121, 123-125 "Castle of Roses," 78 Castlebar, 73 Castletown, Lord, 151 Caucasus, 78 Caulfields, the, 61 Celtic tongue, the, 86, 87 Charles I., King, 97, 205, 206 Charles II., King, 132, 157, 185 Charlotte, Queen, 186 Chinon Castle, 259 "Cios-ail," 125 Claddagh, 99 Clare, island of, 75, 79, 80 Clare, Lady Isabel de, 195 Clarence, Duke of, 206, 207 Clares, the de, 195 Clew Bay, 50 Clifden, 85 "Cloicoheach," 123 Clonmacnoise, 114-116 Clonmel, 126, 218, 219 Clonmines, 167, 246, 247 "Cluain-maccu-Nois," 115 "Cluan-mac-noise," 115 Colclough, Sir Anthony, 198, 202 Coleraine, 36 Columba, St., 28 Connemara, 82 Constantine, Emperor, 255, 256 "Copper," 279 Cork, 175, 176, 178, 210, 211, 213 Cormac, King, 10 Cormac's Chapel, 122, 125, 282, 283, 288 Coro, 125 Cotton, Archdeacon, 121 Cromwell, Edward, Lord, 28 Cromwell, Oliver, 97, 218, 224 Culloden, battle of, 103 Cumberland, Duke of, 103 Curragh, the, 277-279, 282, 285 Curragh Camp, 288 Curraghmore House, 219, 221, 223, 224 Curraun, Peninsula of, 54 Currick-Patrick, 125 D D----, Captain, 158, 159 Dame Court, Dublin, 36 Danes, the, 12, 28, 123, 181 Dargle, the, 268 Dark Valley, 68 Darnley, Lord, 285 Deasy, Jerry, 174 Decies, 123 Declan, St., 123 De Courcey, 28 Derby, 227 Desmond, Earl of, 129, 130 Desmonds, the, 128, 150 Dichu, 27 Dickens, Charles, 230 "Dinnis," 163, 168 Doneraile Court, 150, 152, 153, 187 Donnelly, Bishop, 27 Dooley's Hotel, Birr, 103 Doo Lough, 82, 85 Doordry, 125 Downpatrick, 26, 27, 31 Dowth, 12 Drogheda, 13 Drum-feeva, 125 Dublin, 6, 14, 23, 227, 228, 279, 282 Dublin Fusiliers, 132, 158 Dudley, Lady, 58 Dugort, 61 Dunbrody Abbey, 183 Dundalethglass, 27 Dundrum, 25 Dunloe, Gap of, 169 E Edison, Mr., 237 Edward IV., King, 206 Edward VI., King, 204 Edward VII., King, 23 Elizabeth, Queen, 22, 79, 202, 246 Ely, Earl of, 190 Ely, King of, 125 Emmet, Thomas Addis, 257 Erne, Lough, 37 F Fee Lough, 85 Fermoy, 160, 178, 179, 214, 215 Fermoy, Lord, 215 Ferns Castle, 258 Fethard, 218 Ffranckfort Castle, 102, 110, 112, 113 Fitzgeralds, 124 Fitzstephens, Robert, 248, 258 Fontevrault, 259 _Forgotten Facts of Irish History_, 256 Franciscan Friary, 182 French, Walter, 190 G Galty Mountains, 126 Galway, 14, 40, 44, 66, 88, 94, 95, 97, 99-101, 168 Gaughans, 61 Germanus, Bishop, 26 Giant's Causeway, 34, 35, 167 Gladstone, 14 Glasgow, 31 Glendalough, 123, 231-233 Glengariff, 170, 172 Grace, Queen, 77, 78 Gurguntius, 255 H H----, Lord, 274 "Harp of Erin," 105 Henry II., King, 123, 248, 251-255, 257, 259 Henry VI., King, 206, 246 Henry VII., King, 206 Henry VIII., King, 79, 129, 183 Henry, Mr., 89 Herberts, the, 170 Heremon, King, 9 Holy Cross Abbey, 117, 120 Hook, tower, 198 Hore family, 246 Horl, Abbey of, 126 "House in the Bog," 41, 42 I Imperial Hotel, Cork, 175 Inchiquin, Lord, 124 Inistioge, 266 Innisfallen, 165-167 _Irish Cyclist_, 36 J James II., King, 11, 12 Jigginstown House, 277, 282, 285 John XXII., Pope, 251, 253 John, King, 10, 28, 182 "John of the Glen," 64, 67-71 John of Salisbury, 254 K Keatinge, Rev. Geoffrey, 255, 256 "Keening," 56 Kellarn, 125 Kelly, Daniel, 130 Kenmare, domain, 170 Kevin, St., 232 Kieran, St., 115 Kilcoman Castle, 150 Kildare, Earl of, 124 Kildare Street Club, 6, 280 Kilkenny, 23, 266, 267 Killarney, 161, 163, 167-170 Killary Bay, 82 Killary Harbour, 85 Killshening House, 215 Kilmalloch, 127-130 Kilruddery House, 228-230 Kimbolton Castle, 18 King, Captain, 264 Knockninoss, 147 "Knockshigowna," 106 Kylemore Castle, 88-93 L Lanigan, Dr., 253-256 Larne, 32 Lavelles, the, 61 Leap Castle, 102, 104, 106, 108 Lee, the, 178 Leenane, 82, 83, 85 Lely, Sir Peter, 196 Letterfrack, 85 Limavady, 36 Lis-no-Lachree, 125 Llemish Mountain, 26 Londonderry, 37 Loo-ee, 125 Lorrha, 101-103 Louis le Grand, 90 Louisburgh, 80, 85 Lynch, family of, 98 Lynch, James, 98 M Mac Art, Cormac, 8 MacCarthys, the, 174 MacMurrogh, Dermot, 255, 257, 258 Macroom Castle, 174, 175 Mallaranny, 50-52, 62, 64, 77, 84 Mallow, 161, 162 Manchester, Duke of, 92, 217 Mantua House, 40, 41, 48 Marianus, 254 Marine Hotel, Ballycastle, 33 Martin, St., of Tours, 26 Mary Queen of Scots, 19 Matilda, Empress, 255 Mayo, 72, 78, 179 Mayo Mountains, 71 Meath, Earl of, 228 Mecridy's Maps, 36 Michael, Sacristan, 166 Michu, 26 Milesius, 252 Monahans, 61 Moore, Tom, 233, 234 Mourne Mountains, 25 Moyle, the, 218 Muckross, 170, 171 Munster, kings of, 122 N Navan, 10, 11 Neagh, Loch, 167 Nestorian Christians, 59 Neville, John, 246 Newcastle, 25 New Grange, 11 New Port, 50, 66, 84 New Ross, 184 Newry, 13-15, 25 O O'Brien, Donald, 123 O'Carrolls, 107 O'Connell, Daniel, 288, 289 O'Conner, 166 Offaly, 123 O'Flynns, the, 174 O'Hallon, Redmond, 15 O'Halloran, 32 O'Malleys, 61 O'Neill, Donald, King of Ulster, 252 O'Rourke, Prince, 257 Ormond, 125 Ormond, Earl of, 129 Ovoca, Vale of, 233, 267 P P----, Mrs., 225 Parnell, 288 Parsonstown, 101 Patrick, St., 10, 24, 26, 28, 122, 125, 252 "Patrick's Sabball," 27 Penshurst, 204 Peterborough, 207 Phoenix Park, 7 Pointz-pass, 15 Pole, Cardinal, 254 Pope, the, 23 Portugal, 158 Powerscourt, 267, 270, 271 Powerscourt House, 231, 275 Powerscourt, Viscount, 267, 273 Prospect Cemetery, 288 Ptolemy, 8 Purcell, Sir Hugh, 182 Q "Queen of Hearts," 205 R Read, T. Buchanan, 105 Recess, 85, 88, 91 Redmond, 198 Reginald, 181, 182 Richard, Earl of Chepstow, 258 Richard, King, 206 Rolleston, Major, 110, 111 Roscommon, 40, 42, 48 "Royal Irish," the, 188 S St. Dominick, Abbey of, Lorrha, 102 St. James's Palace, 208 St. Ledger, Hon. Mary, 153 St. Ledger, William, 152 St. Mary's, Abbey of, Trim, 10 St. Nicholas, Church of, Claddagh, 100 St. Patrick's Cathedral, 286 Salis, Count de, 15 Saul, Church of, Strangford Lough, 26 Scullaboyne House, 264, 265 Shandon bells, 167, 175, 213 Shannon, the, 115 "Shan Van Do," the, 68 Shelburn Hotel, Dublin, 3 Sidneys, the, 204 Skreen, Hill of, 8 Slieve Donard, 25 Slievemore, 61 Slievenaman Hills, 126 Sligo, county of, 37, 40, 55, 179 Spenser, 150, 152 Stanford's, 36 "Stone of Destiny," 10 Strafford, Earl of, 282 Strangford, 26, 31 Strongbow, 28, 195, 258 Stuart, Mary, 207 Succat, 26 Suir River, 116, 181 Sutton, Sir Roger de, 246 Swift, Dean, 286 T Tamara, Queen, 78 Tanderagee, 15, 17, 19, 24, 92 Tara Hill, 7-10 Taylor, Bayard, 113 Teheran, 59 Temora, 9 Thea, 9 Thomas, St., 252 Thomastown, 266 Thomond, King of, 123 Tintern Abbey, 194, 196, 197, 200 Tipperary Vale, 126 Toombeola Bridge, 85 Trim, 10 Tully Chapel, 85 Tyburn, 130 U Urban II., Pope, 255, 256 V Victoria Hotel, Killarney, 163 Virgil, Polydore, 256 W W----, Marquis of, 219 Waterford, 180-183 Waterford, Lady, 223 Wayte Bros., 218 Wentworth, Sir Thomas, 282 Westport, 85 Wexford, 182, 185, 194, 246, 260, 265 Whitehall, 204 Wicklow, 231, 267 William III., King, 11 "Wingfield," 104-106, 108 _A Selection from the Catalogue of_ G. 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46439	----	Romantic Ireland Volume II. Travel Lovers' Library _Each in two volumes, profusely illustrated_ Florence $3.00 By GRANT ALLEN Romance and Teutonic Switzerland 3.00 By W. D. MCCRACKAN The Same.--Unillustrated 1.50 Old World Memories 3.00 By EDWARD LOWE TEMPLE Paris 3.00 By GRANT ALLEN Feudal and Modern Japan 3.00 By ARTHUR MAY KNAPP The Same.--Unillustrated 1.50 The Unchanging East 3.00 By ROBERT BARR Venice 3.00 By GRANT ALLEN Gardens of the Caribbees 3.00 By IDA M. H. STARR Belgium: Its Cities 3.00 By GRANT ALLEN Rome _net_ 2.40 By WALTER TAYLOR FIELD Romantic Ireland _net_ 2.40 By M. F. & B. MCM. MANSFIELD [Illustration] L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) New England Building Boston, Mass. [Illustration: CROSS AND TOWER OF MONASTERBOICE. (_See page 259_).] ROMANTIC IRELAND By M. F. and B. McM. Mansfield IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II. _Illustrated by BLANCHE McMANUS MANSFIELD_ [Illustration: colophon] Boston L. C. Page & Company _MDCCCCV_ _Copyright, 1904_ BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) _All rights reserved_ Published October, 1904 _COLONIAL PRESS Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U.S.A._ Contents VOLUME II. CHAPTER PAGE I. QUEENSTOWN, CORK, AND BLARNEY 1 II. GLENGARRIFF AND BANTRY BAY 39 III. KILLARNEY AND ABOUT THERE 62 IV. AROUND THE COAST OF LIMERICK 84 V. THE SHANNON AND ITS LAKES 104 VI. GALWAY AND ITS BAY 129 VII. ACHILL TO SLIGO 161 VIII. THE DONEGAL HIGHLANDS 194 IX. LONDONDERRY AND THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 207 X. ANTRIM AND DOWN 231 XI. THE BOYNE VALLEY 248 XII. BELFAST AND ARMAGH 290 [Illustration] List of Illustrations VOLUME II. PAGE CROSS AND TOWER OF MONASTERBOICE (_See page 259_) _Frontispiece_ QUEENSTOWN HARBOUR 3 SHANDON CHURCH TOWER 9 CORK 13 AN OLD-STYLE IRISH CAR 19 A MODERN IRISH CAR 23 BLARNEY CASTLE 31 GOUGANE BARRA 35 BANTRY BAY 41 GLENGARRIFF BAY 51 HUNGRY HILL 55 KILLARNEY AND ABOUT THERE 63 ST. FINIAN'S ORATORY, INNISFALLEN 65 ON THE ROAD FROM CORK TO KERRY 69 CLOISTERS OF MUCKROSS ABBEY 73 THE EAGLE'S NEST 77 ROSS CASTLE 81 THE GAP OF DUNLOE 85 THE BLACK VALLEY 89 VALENTIA 93 THE SKELLIGS ROCKS 97 LIMERICK CASTLE 101 THE SHANNON AND ITS LAKES 105 KINCORA 107 AN IRISH PIPER 111 THE STONE OF THE DIVISIONS, WESTMEATH 117 ATHLONE CASTLE 121 CLADDAGH 135 JUDGE LYNCH'S HOUSE, GALWAY 141 THE CHURCH OF THE CANONS, ARAN 155 ACHILL ISLAND 163 CATHEDRAL CAVES, ACHILL 171 IN CONNEMARA 175 KYLEMORE CASTLE 179 KILLARY HARBOUR 183 A DETAIL OF SLIGO ABBEY 191 DONEGAL CASTLE 197 LAKE OF SHADOWS, DONEGAL 203 DERRY 209 THE HONEYCOMB, GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 217 CARRICK-A-REDE 227 GRAVE OF ST. PATRICK, DOWNPATRICK 241 THE STONE OF DESTINY, TARA 255 TRIM 261 THE ROUND TOWER, KELLS 267 THE CROSS OF KELLS 271 CROSSES OF CLONMACNOIS, DONEGAL, SLANE, AND MOONE ABBEY 275 HOLY WELL, KELLS 279 Romantic Ireland CHAPTER I. QUEENSTOWN, CORK, AND BLARNEY Queenstown has been called a mere appendage to its harbour, and, truly, it is a case of the tail wagging the dog, though the residents of Cork will tell you it is Cork Harbour, anyway, and Queenstown is nothing but a town that was made by the American War of Independence, and by the emigration rush that, during the past sixty years, has deprived Ireland of more than half her population. Be this as it may, the harbour dwarfs everything else about the town. Above the enormous expanse of sheltered water, the little town piles itself up on the overhanging cliffs, pink houses, yellow houses, white houses, like a veritable piece of Italy. It is always warm here, or almost always. In the winter time, the temperature is seldom severe, and, in the summer, it is one of the finest yachting centres in the United Kingdom. The "Beach" of Queenstown is truly Irish, since it is not a beach at all, but a fenced street full of shops, occupying the place where a narrow strand once ran. Time was when Galway was a rival to Queenstown for the honour of being the link which was, by the emigrant chain, to bind the Old World to the New; but now the honour is Queenstown's alone. If tears,--the bitterest ever shed on earth, the hopeless tears of lonely aged parents parting from their cherished offspring; of man's love leaving woman's love thousands of miles behind across the seas; of friend clasping the hand of friend perhaps for the last time; of brothers and sisters parting from brothers and sisters, and all from the land that the Irishman loves as he loves his own life,--if such tears as these could quench the myriad of fairy lights that sparkle on the great harbour at dusk, [Illustration: QUEENSTOWN HARBOUR.] Queenstown would doubtless be the darkest city in all the world. Queenstown is drenched in tears; the air still quivers inaudibly with the wailings that have filled it through day after day of half a century or more of bitter partings. Thousands have left Ireland every year from these quays, "the torn artery through which the country's best blood drains away year by year." To see an emigrant-ship cast loose from the quay and steam out of the harbour is a sight, once witnessed, that will never be forgotten; that will haunt one's very dreams in years to come. Until 1849 Cove was the name of the city, but during a visit of Queen Victoria here at that time, her first visit to Irish soil, the name was changed, in her honour, to that which it now bears. Cork Harbour, to most travellers, is little more than a memory; but, in reality, it is one of those beautiful landlocked waterways which, for sheer beauty and grandeur, is, in company with Bantry Bay and Dingle Bay, which are less known, only comparable to the fiords of Norway. They have not the majesty or expansiveness of many of the latter; but they have most of their attributes more subtly expressed. Indeed, Cork Harbour and the river Lee, whose waters are in part enfolded by "the third city of Ireland," Cork (Corcaig, "a marshy place"), are unapproachable in all the world for a certain subtle charm which is perhaps inexpressible in words. As the Lee divides and encircles the city, it well illustrates Spenser's lines: "The spreading Lee that like an Island Fayre, Encloseth Cork with his divided flood." Even the present-day aspect of Cork Harbour and the estuary of the river Lee from the heights of Queenstown is one of the fairest blendings of sea and shore anywhere to be seen. Spike Island, with its convict establishment; Haulbowline, with its naval establishment; Rocky Island, with its powder magazine; Crosshaven Ring; and Rostellan Castle at once attract notice; and the eye roams with pleasure over a charming scene, enlivened with shipping of all kinds and from all ports, from the humble lugger to the steam-collier, and, finally, the ocean leviathans, which, in our strenuous times, have become known as "record-breakers." Into Cork Harbour Sir Francis Drake retreated when hotly pursued by the Spanish fleet. He was so effectually hidden in Carrigaline River, above the village of Crosshaven, that the Spaniards spent several days in fruitless search for him, and the spot is still known as Drake's Pool. About four miles away is the fort-defended entrance to this spacious harbour. Old Ocean seems in some freakish humour to have struck his broad palm against the barrier-strand, pushed his watery fingers into the soil, and clutched at the rocks with his foam-white nails. From its charming situation and equability of climate, Queenstown is one of the best places in Ireland to encounter to their fulness the charms of Ireland's lovely daughters. This fact has been somewhat unduly enlarged upon in the past, it is true, but theirs is a rare and gracious beauty, and it is a general trait, so that there is a good excuse for introducing the subject once again. Some are here with such a rosy gladness; such an eglantine beauty-bloom; such dark hair and flashing eyes, soul-stirring and beaming with goodness; such a graceful mien and frankness of manner, blended with a quiet reserve; and, altogether, such a kindly air about them as to fully merit any eulogy which has been bestowed upon Irish women. One is not surprised at their being addressed by such mellifluous epithets as "_Cushla machree, asthore, mavourneen!_" These are endearments which certainly sound appropriate to all, whatever be the subtle shade of distinction. Entrance to Cork _via_ the river Lee gives prominence, first of all, to Shandon's square church tower, of whose bells sang Father Prout: "The bells of Shandon, that sound so grand on The pleasant waters of the River Lee." Shandon Church is, for itself, decidedly worth seeing, though by no stretch of the imagination could it be called a beautiful structure. Up a long hill and up two flights of stone steps, one climbs to the quiet little old gray church, built in 1720, with its spiring tower and sounding peal of eighteenth-century [Illustration: SHANDON CHURCH TOWER.] bells. Seventeen hundred and fifty is the date cast on each of the eight. St. Anne Shandon, or Sean-dun, signifying "the old fort," is situated on Shandon Hill, and is really a suburb of Cork. Its fame, in the minds of most, reverts to Father Prout's world-famous lyric, "The Bells of Shandon." If "in the mood," the listener will experience much the same emotions as are set forth in those pleasing stanzas. If not, as with most other things which have been similarly eulogized, the traveller will condemn it as mere hollow sentiment and "bosh." But the latter will, likely enough, not prove to be the case. The church was erected on the site of the old Church of Our Lady, or St. Mary Shandon, a very ancient edifice, destroyed at the burning of the suburbs at the siege of Cork by Marlborough in 1690. In the decretal epistles of Pope Innocent III., it is mentioned as the Church of St. Mary in the Mountain. In 1536, the rector of St. Mary's, one Dominick Tyrrey, was elevated to the see of Cork, of which he was the first Protestant bishop. The Rev. Francis Mahony ("Father Prout"), though he spent much of his life abroad, is buried in the churchyard in the family vault at the foot of the tower. The tower, or steeple, which contains the celebrated bells, is of unique construction. It consists of a tower and lantern (170 feet high) of three stories each. Two sides of the steeple, west and south, are built of limestone, and two, north and east, of red stone. The chime of bells itself does not take a high rank among campanologists, since it is not very excellent either in voice or power. Still, given certain conditions, one may well realize Mahony's (Father Prout's) sentiments: "With deep affection And recollection I often think on Those Shandon bells, Whose sound so wild would In the days of childhood, Fling round my cradle Their magic spells. "I have heard bells chiming Full many a clime in, Tolling sublime in Cathedral shrine; While at a glib rate [Illustration: CORK.] Brass tongues would vibrate, But all their music Spoke nought like thine." In the little cemetery of the monastery of the Christian Brothers, near by, rest the remains of Gerald Griffin, the novelist and poet, author of "The Colleen Bawn." The history of Cork is too vast to chronicle here, but its interest lies rather with the more or less fragmentary recollections, which all of us have, of the traditions and legends of its environment. In the ninth century Cork was frequently plundered by the Danes, who, in 1020, founded, for purposes of trade, the nucleus of the present city. At the time of the English invasion it was the capital of Desmond, King of Munster, who did homage to Henry II., and resigned the city to him. For receiving Perkin Warbeck, the pretender to the throne of England, with royal honours in 1493, the Mayor of Cork was hanged, and the city lost its charter, which was, however, restored in 1609. During the civil war, Cork held out for King Charles, but its garrison was ultimately surprised and taken. When, in 1685, the bigoted and cruel Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, Cork, though a Catholic community, opened her friendly arms to welcome the fugitive sons of France, and threw around them the mantle of her protection. The name of St. Finbarr, the first Bishop of Cork, is so commonly referred to in connection with Southern Ireland that it is perhaps allowable to extract and reprint here, from Butler's "Lives of the Saints," the leading events of his life: "Called by some St. Barrus, or Barroeus, he was a native of Connaught, and instituted a monastery at Lough Eirc, which lake, said the antiquarian Harris, was the hollowed basin in which the greater part of the city of Cork now sits. From this monastery and its immediate surroundings grew up the present city of Cork. St. Finbarr's disciple, St. Colman, founded the see of Cloyne, of which he became first bishop. St. Nessan succeeded St. Finbarr at the monastery and built the town of Cork. (This saint, too, is honoured, locally, on the 17th of March and 1st of December.) "The name under which St. Finbarr was baptized was Locahan, the surname Finbarr, or Barr the White, was given to him afterward. He was Bishop of Cork seventeen years, and died at Cloyne, fifteen miles distant. His body was buried in his own cathedral at Cork, which bears his name, and his _reliques_, some years after, were put in a silver shrine and preserved in the same edifice." The Abbey of St. Finbarr was a veritable outpost of Christianity. Dungarvan owes its name, and Waterford its Christianity, to Brother Garvan of this abbey; while Brother Brian became the patron of St. Brienne in France. Cork University was a glorious institution in its time, and many who had no prejudices in favour of Ireland have endorsed its virtues from the times of Johnson to those of Newman, Hallam, and Macaulay. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire the schools and the abbeys of Ireland became famous. "Hither fled the timid for safety, and the leisured for learning." Students came from all lands and teachers went out to all lands. England's Alfred came here to study, and Charlemagne drew his teachers from this "school of the West," as it was afterward called by Johnson. One ancient scrivener writes that at this period nearly all the learned were under the influence of Ireland. The great universities of Oxford, Paris, and Pavia, if not actually of Irish inception, were greatly indebted to the learning which spread forth from the Green Isle. There is scarcely a Continental centre of learning, from Palermo to Bruges, or from Grenada to Cologne, where some Irish saint, patron, or monkish scholar is not known and revered. Cork should be endeared to Americans by reason of the association with the city of two whose names will never be forgotten--William Penn, the Quaker, and Father Mathew, the great temperance advocate. In proof of the successful labours of the latter, a great writer of his time stated that not a single instance of drunkenness came under his observation during a sojourn of some weeks in Southern Ireland. It is a happy change from the rollicking recklessness of the _ould_ Ireland of the fictionists and comic-song [Illustration: _An Old-Style Irish Car_] writers, which, let us hope, has gone for ever, if it ever existed. Father Mathew is buried here, in St. Joseph's Cemetery, and a bronze statue to his memory stands in Patrick Street. Cork is a picturesque and interesting old city. Its churches are mostly modern; but St. Finbarr's Cathedral stands on the site of a very old and famous church, and is itself a fine building. Cork is one of the principal places where the genuine Irish cloak is at home, and most picturesque it is, though few of the younger women of to-day affect it. For the most part, the girls wear the universal shawl, draped over head and shoulders. The cloaks worn by the matrons and elderly women are great full-length wraps of a black or dark-blue cloth, with a wide hood. Rumour has it that they cost from five to ten pounds apiece, and last, literally, from generation to generation, being sometimes passed down as an heirloom from mother to daughter for half a century. There is a factory for the manufacture of these capes at Blarney, not far from the celebrated castle, and the product finds a large sale among lady visitors who like to spin along the roads at thirty miles an hour, and feel it unbecoming to wear the hideous motor-cap and mask of fashion. Cork abounds in "cars" of all degrees of decrepitude and luxuriousness. The Irish jaunting-car is much more a real accessory of Irish life than the shillalah or the shamrock. In Wicklow one finds the cars more numerous than elsewhere; in the west they are the most decrepit, and in Dublin the most luxurious; but in Cork, of all centres of population, they appear to be the most in use. There has been considerable fun poked at them. They are certainly not beautiful, comfortable, or magnificent, and their drivers, like the "jarvies," "cabbies," and "cochers" of other lands, are a species apart from all other humanity. In some parts of the country it is compulsory that the name of its owner, usually the driver, be legibly written on the tailboard of every car. This led to the story which _Punch_, if it did not invent, at least promulgated, that an inspector, who asked Pat what he meant by having his name obliterated, was met with the reply: "Ye lie, sor; it's O'Brien." [Illustration: _A Modern Irish Car_] There are two distinct varieties of car in Ireland, quite apart from the tourist caravans, char-à-bancs, and omnibuses in which visitors are whirled between the beauty-spots of Erin's leafy glades. The characteristics of each are plainly noted in the "inside cars" of Cork--practically extinct elsewhere--and the "outside cars." Seated in the indescribable native vehicle of Cork, which whirls one through the town with unexpected lightness and speed, you converse with the affable driver through a small hatchway, open in fine weather and closed in wet, and flanked on each side by a glass port-hole. If you ask for an explanation of the difference between the two varieties of cars, the driver will most likely reply: "The difference between the two cyars, is it? That's simple, yer honour. Sure, the outside cyar has the wheels inside, and the inside has them outside, as ye see!" Since Blarney, the castle, and the lake are practically a suburb of Cork, they should be considered therewith. Blarney Castle--which is situated, as the native says, "a long mile from the railway station"--is of interest more because it is an exceedingly good specimen of mediæval castle building than because of the notoriety of what Father Prout was pleased to call an "impudence-conferring" stone. As a sentiment or superstition, the alleged incidents or circumstances connected with the "Blarney Stone" are harmless enough; but far more importance has been given to its rather negative charms than is really justified. Blarney Castle itself, with its surrounding "groves of Blarney which look so charming," and its real and tangible fabric, is of vastly appealing interest; but, usually, it has faded into insignificance in the eyes of those who contemplate the setting which has been given to the all-powerful block of stone. The glib tongue of the native has done much to perpetuate the tradition that whoever kisses it--and accompanies the act with persuasive eloquence, so perceptible in all the folk around about Cork Harbour--is for ever endowed with blessings innumerable, if not actually with superhuman power. The "real stone," which bore the inscription, "Cormac MacCarthy Fortis Mi Fieri Fecit, A.D. 1446," now untraceable, or at least illegible, was at the north angle. It was clasped by two iron bars to a projecting buttress at the top of the castle, several feet below the level of the wall, so that, to perform the kissing feat in ancient times, it was necessary to hold on by the bars, and project the body over the wall. The candidate for Blarney honours to-day will find another "real stone," bearing the date 1703, and clasped by two iron bars, placed within the tower, where it is quite accessible. The "Reliques of Father Prout" contain this allusion to the "Stone:" "There is a stone there, That whoever kisses, Oh! he never misses To grow eloquent. 'Tis he may clamber To a lady's chamber, Or become a member Of Parliament. "A clever spouter He'll sure turn out, or An out and outer, To be let alone! Don't hope to hinder him Or to bewilder him, Sure he's a pilgrim From the Blarney Stone." The pleasure-grounds surrounding the castle, which were formerly adorned with statues, grottoes, alcoves, bridges, and every description of rustic ornament, are still very beautiful, although it is true that: "The muses shed a tear, When the cruel auctioneer, With his hammer in his hand, to sweet Blarney came." And so their beauty has gradually diminished, and the fine old trees have been felled, and one looks in vain for the statues of-- "The heathen gods, And nymphs so fair, Bold Neptune, Plutarch, And Nicodemus, All standing naked In the open air." As Father Prout further says, the-- " ... gravel walks there For speculation And conversation"-- are still in good order, and to wander in-- "The Groves of Blarney * * * * * Down by the purling Of sweet silent streams," and among the-- " ... flowers that scent The sweet fragrant air"-- is a most pleasant occupation for a summer's afternoon. Blarney Castle was built in the fifteenth century by Cormac MacCarthy, and consists, to-day, of only the massive donjon tower, perhaps 120 feet in height, and another lower portion, less substantial, though hardy enough to warrant the conjecture that, before the introduction of firearms, it must have been impregnable. It is almost as marvellous as the power attributed to the Blarney Stone that a few lines of rather cheap doggerel, containing in themselves no merit save their absurdity, should succeed in gaining a world-wide notoriety for a place which, otherwise, might not have been greatly celebrated beyond its own neighbourhood. It is altogether incomprehensible to the writer that the real charm and romance of this castle, standing up in its fifteenth-century sternness amidst one of the greenest and most smiling districts in all green Erin, have been so obscured, of late, by the popular and vulgar traditions which are perpetuated in the horse-play of holding one another head downwards over the battlements to "kiss the stone," though this is no longer really necessary, since another more conveniently placed stone has been provided for the purpose. It is a procedure which creates much excitement among a certain class of "trippers," and, as it keeps a certain amount of coin in circulation in the neighbourhood, it may be accounted as a perfectly legitimate enterprise in that no actual harm is done. What a pity it is, though, that Ireland has no commission for the care of historical monuments, as has France! Macroom, _i. e._, the Plain of Croom between Cork and Killarney, was once the home and gathering-place of the famous song-bards of the ancients, the druids. Certainly the druids left a considerable impress upon Ireland, as they did upon Wales [Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE.] and Bretagne; though it may be questioned to-day, in the light of the latest information concerning the druidical race, if their strains of melody actually did pale the cheek of beauty, or even "rise the slumbering passion of the warrior to slaughter." Macroom, to-day, is chiefly famous for its castle. It was built by the Carews in the time of King John, shortly after the Conquest, and was subsequently in the possession of the MacCarthys. It was burned in the rebellion of 1641. The huge square keep, now covered with ivy, is all that remains of the original structure. Admiral Sir William Penn, father of the founder of Pennsylvania, was born here. Macroom, the centre of the sporting gentry of Muskerry, for whom this barony was always famous, can also boast of a band of poets racy of the soil. In 1774, the poems of John Connolly, a Macroom man, were published in Cork. He thus sings the praises of his native town: "Whoever means to shake off gloom Let him repair to sweet Macroom, For here his cares he will entomb And think no more of sorrow. "Let Mallow yield to gay Macroom, For here we know not care nor gloom, Here nature wears perpetual bloom, And quite dispels our sorrow." Near Macroom are the celebrated Inchigeela Lakes and the still more celebrated island and lake of Gougane Barra, the retreat of St. Finbarr, who had truly an eye for the beautiful and grand when he chose such a site as this for his meditations. On the verdant islet are the ruins of the little church, and the arched praying-stations of the pilgrims to the shrine. A holy well is also here, and its primitive materials and rude masonry indicate, at a glance, the centuries that have passed since here dwelt the "Island Saint" and anchorite, the founder of Cork. Of the many venerable anchorites who afterward occupied the dwelling, and imitated the virtues of St. Finbarr, the last was Father Denis O'Mahony, whose tomb, erected by himself in 1700, is still to be seen. Westward, near the border of the lake, is the "Green Valley of Desmond," enclosed by towering mountains, from the side of one of which, "Nad-na-nillar" (the Eagle's Nest), [Illustration: GOUGANE BARRA.] flows the tiny source of the river Lee, which runs through Cork to the sea. Here one fully appreciates the appellation, "Lone Gougane Barra." Callanan, the native bard, has sung of it as follows: "There is a green island in Lone Gougane Barra, Where Allua of songs rushes forth as an arrow; In deep-valleyed Desmond a thousand wild fountains Come down to that lake from their home in the mountains. There grows the wild ash, and a time-stricken willow Looks chidingly down on the mirth of the billow, As, like some gay child, that sad monitor scorning, It lightly laughs back to the laugh of the morning. And its zone of dark hills--oh! to see them all bright'ning When the tempest flings out its red banner of lightning, And the waters rush down, 'mid the thunder's deep rattle, Like clans from their hills at the voice of the battle. And brightly the fire-crested billows are gleaming, And wildly from Mullagh the eagles are screaming; Oh, where is the dwelling in valley or highland So meet for a bard as this lone little island! * * * * * Least bard of the hills, were it mine to inherit The fire of thy harp, and the wing of thy spirit, With the wrongs which like thee to our country has bound me, Did your mantle of song fling its radiance around me. Still, still in those wilds may young liberty rally, And send her strong shout over mountains and valley, The star of the west may yet rise in its glory And the land that was darkest be brightest in story. I, too, shall be gone, but my name shall be spoken When Erin awakens, and her fetters are broken; Some minstrel will come in the summer eve's gleaming When Freedom's young light on his spirit is beaming, And bend o'er my grave with a tear of emotion, Where calm Avon Buee seeks the kisses of ocean, Or plant a wild wreath from the banks of that river O'er the heart and the harp that are sleeping for ever." CHAPTER II. GLENGARRIFF AND BANTRY BAY Two of the most famous men in English literature have passed unstinted praise on the beauty and charm of the southern Irish coast. If one looks at a map of the southwest of Ireland, it will be seen that its whole coast-line is broken into serrations, making harbours, islands, bays, and coves. If he should go to the coast itself, he will have revealed to him a wondrous kaleidoscope,--alternate scenes of sweet, pathetic gentleness, and stern and rugged grandeur, all full of engrossing charm. Leaving the coast and going inland, as there is every facility for doing, one finds the finest lakes in the United Kingdom; and, if there are no Mont Blancs or Matterhorns, there are, at least, beautiful hills and mountains with no less charm and none of their difficulty of access. The great Atlantic waves beat against the wild rocks of the south Irish coast; but the Gulf Stream gives warmth of an almost subtropical mildness to the fresh sea air, and the lowlands are enriched by the soft rains which wash the hills and fall into the great arms of the sea, called Bantry Bay, Kenmare River, and Dingle Bay. Farther north is the ample estuary of the river Shannon and Galway Bay, each with much the same characteristics. To take a steamer from Cork for a tour of the southwest coast will form a unique experience in the itinerary of most folk. Rounding Cape Clear, the small coasting-steamer makes the first stop at the little village of Schull, which stands at the farther extremity of an almost landlocked bay. Here the land on three sides gently shelves to low ranges of verdant hills, while the harbour is speckled with its fishing craft. Leaving Schull, a half-hour or more is passed before we are clear of the many rocky islands of its harbour and come to a view of Brow Head, with its signal-station. Mizen Head and Sheep's Head are seen in their turn; [Illustration: BANTRY BAY.] and the dawn finds the ship snugly anchored at Berehaven. Here at Castletown-Berehaven we are at the home station of the Channel fleet during the autumn manoeuvres. Before us is the grand panorama of Glengarriff and the mountains which shelter Killarney's lakes; while seaward is only the vast surge of the Atlantic. The splendid bay of Bantry, which takes its name from the town which lies sheltered at its head, is unsurpassed as a harbour and roadstead throughout the world. Here the sturdy Atlantic swell, blue as sapphires, rolls in great lashes of foam; and Berehaven, just inside the Bear or Bere Island, is the base of the yearly autumn manoeuvres of the English Channel fleet. From any view-point this rugged, walled bay is more than impressive,--more impressive, even, than Glengarriff itself, which lies still farther inland, its circumference dotted with weed-embroidered boulders. Bantry Bay is twenty-one miles in length; from three to five in width; and has a depth, in parts, as great as 220 feet. Berehaven and Castletown, which are nearest the open sea, lie just inside a jagged fang, which, once rounded, opens up an obscure aperture in the coast-line, and discloses a harbour in which, truly, all the fleets of the world might lie at anchor. Twice the French fleet invaded Bantry Bay. The first time, in 1689, in aid of James II.; and the second, in 1796, by the ill-favoured expedition organized by General Hoche, when the _Surveillante_ was engulfed, and the foe-laden fleet ultimately took their departure without disgorging their army. This latter fleet, which had been arrayed for the invasion of Ireland by Carnot and Clarke, with Theobald Wolfe Tone as the organizer of the Irish Republicans, consisted of twenty-six sail, with a force of nearly seven thousand men. The O'Sullivans were the ancient chieftains or princes of this territory; and, to-day, quite half the population of Castletown, says an imaginative and rollicking Irish writer, are of the same name, the other half being Murphys. As a result of this unfortunate venture, Wolfe Tone quit the country at the pleasure of the authorities, and went to America. Ultimately he returned to France, where he again carried on his conspiracy, occupying himself in luring Irishmen from among the prisoners at Brest to enlist in the French service. This procedure was accomplished by "sending the poor fellows large quantities of wine and cognac, a fiddle, and some _filles Francaises_;" and, when Pat's heart was soft with love and warm with passion, Tone induced him to sign on in the service which had adopted him. It is difficult to characterize a man of Wolfe Tone's kind. Rash and criminal though he was, it is hard to condemn him altogether. He hated England cordially; but he was not alone among Irishmen in that. Indeed, he said: "I like the French, with all their faults and with the guillotine at their head, a thousand times better than I like the English." Whiddy Island, which lies just off the town of Bantry, was a former stronghold of the O'Sullivans of Bere; and an imposing castled ruin tells of the times when violence, even in such a spot as this, had to be met by repression. Bantry lies in a hollow at the head of the bay. The whole bay affords a succession of prospects magnificent and grand. Its views vary from the softness of a landscape nocturne to the rugged splendour of a realistic impression. Weak as are these similes, they can only mark the sense of contrast which the scene awakens. Bantry is in its way an active little place, and, like Castletown, rejoices in a series of sign-boards to which the prefix "O" is all but universal. Its tiny port is busy; and its people are apparently imbued with an industry not always to be noted in these parts. Near Castletown-Bere is Dunboy Castle, two miles away along a road which in summer is hedgerowed with honeysuckle and clematis, ferns and lichen-covered rocks. The present castle of Dunboy is modern, and is therefore less appealing than the older fabric, which so successfully defended itself against Sir George Carew. The story of the chiefs of Dunboy is familiar in outline to most; but the story of its famous siege, when MacGeoghegan fought Dunboy against Carew and his interesting army of four thousand men, has often been overlooked in favour of more theatrically magnificent performances. Why this should be so, it is hard to realize. History has recorded with fidelity and minutely many of its incidents, and, in "The Two Chiefs of Dunboy," it has inspired an historical romance of the first rank. When Donal took his last farewell of his once proud home, it had become a smoking, blood-clotted ruin. "The halls where mirth and minstrelsy Than Beara's wind rose louder, Were flung in masses lonelily, And black with English powder." The tragic story of the siege is thus condensed: The garrison consisted of only 143 chosen fighting men, who had but a few small cannons; while the comparatively large army which assailed them was well supplied with artillery and all the means of attack. At length, on the 17th of June, when the castle had been nearly shot to pieces, the garrison offered to surrender if allowed to depart with their arms; but their messenger was immediately hanged, and the order for the assault given. Although the proportion of the assailants in point of numbers was overwhelming, the storming party were resisted with the most desperate bravery. From turret to turret, and in every part of the crumbling ruins, the struggle was successively maintained throughout the livelong day. Thirty of the gallant defenders attempted to escape by swimming; but the soldiers, who had been posted in boats, killed them in the water; and, at length, the surviving portion of the garrison retreated into a cellar, to which the only access was by a narrow, winding flight of stone steps. Their leader, MacGeoghegan, being mortally wounded, the command was given to Thomas Taylor, the son of an Englishman, and the intimate friend of Captain Tyrell, to whose niece he was married. Nine barrels of gunpowder were stowed away in the cellar; and Taylor declared that he would blow up all that remained of the castle, burying himself and his companions, with their enemies, in the ruins, unless they received a promise of life. This was refused by the savage Carew, who, placing a guard upon the entrance to the cellar, as it was then after sunset, returned to the work of slaughter next morning. Cannon-balls were discharged among the Irish in their last dark retreat; and Taylor was forced by his companions to surrender unconditionally. When, however, some of the English descended into the cellar, they found the wounded MacGeoghegan, with a lighted torch in his hand, staggering to throw it into the gunpowder. Captain Power thereupon seized him by the arms, and the others despatched him with their swords. Fifty-eight of those who had surrendered were hanged that day in the English camp, and others a few days after; so that not one of the 143 heroic defenders of Dunboy survived. On the 22d of June the remains of the castle were blown up by Carew with the gunpowder of the besieged. It was Thackeray, who, if possessed of a certain smugness, was often moved by patriotic and sometimes by charitable motives, said: "What sends picturesque tourists (What, if you please, Mr. Thackeray, are picturesque tourists?) to the Rhine or Saxon Switzerland, when, within five miles of the pretty inn at Glengarriff, there is a country of the magnificence of which no pen can give an idea? I would like to be a great prince, and bring a train of painters over to make, if they could, and according to their several capabilities, a set of pictures of the place. Were such a bay lying upon English shores, it would be the world's wonder." Glengarriff is all that Thackeray pictured it in prose. It is more than that,--more, indeed, than is within the power of words to describe, though its beauty is somewhat of the stage-scenery and landscape-painting order. Travellers from all the corners of the earth have raved over its charm; but they all fail utterly to describe the insinuating peacefulness of its mirrored sky and emerald-clad hills. No one but the artist can at all successfully portray its moods: at times brilliant with sunshine and verdure, and again, sombre and mist-laden with the rains of autumn; but never, or seldom ever, even in the most abnormal winter, bare or bleak. Indeed, this region, together with many others in Ireland, has been, by many eminent scientists, proclaimed one of nature's most famous _sanitoria_. Prince Puckler Muskau, in his tour of Ireland, wrote thus of Glengarriff: "The climate is most favourable for vegetation, moist and so warm that not only azaleas and rhododendra, and all sorts of evergreens stand [Illustration: GLENGARRIFF BAY.] abroad through the winter, but, in favourable aspect, even camellias, dates, pomegranates, magnolias, etc., attain their fullest beauty." Lord Macaulay and Sir David Wilkie called it the fairest spot in the British Isles. The former's stanzas, as given below, are perhaps not of his usual heroic order, and may, once and again, appear unduly sentimental, but they are emphatically true and appreciative: "Hail, charming scene! Glengarriff's bay, Yon mountains, streams, and dells, The Atlantic waters' foaming spray, Creation's wonder tells. "Hail, Bantry's noble harbour deep, Where Britain's fleet may ride, And giant ships, in safety's keep, May in or outward glide. "Thy glorious waters, green and gemmed, With beauteous islands crowned, While the enchanting scene is hemmed With purple hills around. "At morning's dawn or evening's shade Thy glory's still the same: And ever will be so arrayed, With English tourists' fame." An enthusiastic American, who subscribed himself as from New Jersey, has left the following lines upon the register of the hotel at Glengarriff: ADIEU TO GLENGARRIFF "Glengarriff! on thy shaded shore I've wandered when the sun was high, Have seen the moonlit showers pour Through thy umbrageous canopy: * * * * * Glengarriff! might I but delay, * * * * * I would not say good-bye to thee: Alas! far distant is the day When I thy charms again may see. Yet, in the land remote of mine, Remembrance will thy grace renew, So, as thou canst not call me thine, Glengarriff! loveliest, best, adieu!" This valleyed and landlocked harbour of Glengarriff terminates Bantry Bay, which, says Mr. Kipling, "lies just to the eastward of the Fastnet, that well-worn mile-post of the Atlantic liner." In Kipling's "Fleet in Being," which first appeared in the _Morning Post_ (London) in [Illustration: HUNGRY HILL.] 1898, and of which even this author's most ardent devotees appear too frequently to have no knowledge, are to be found some wonderful bits of descriptions of Irish coast scenery. Therein are recounted virile experiences and observations on board the flag-ship of the Channel fleet during the autumn manoeuvres; and, from Lough Swilly in the north to Bantry Bay in the south, the author depicts, with a master mariner's fidelity, the characteristics of the coast-line,--its harbours, bays, headlands, and ports,--in so incomparable a fashion that it is to him that we must accord the rapidly increasing appreciation of, and interest in, the charms of Ireland as a tourist resort. Coupled with the charms of Glengarriff's bay is its sister attraction--no less winsome--of the monarch mountain of these parts, Sliabhna-goil (_i. e._, "the Mountain of the Wild People"), more commonly called "Sugar Loaf." Why it is so named is, of course, obvious to all who see it; but it is a rank departure from its original appellation. This mountain's taller brother Dhade (now Hungry Hill) rears itself in grim severity a little to the westward. Both are conspicuously coast-line elevations of the first rank. Time will allow but a glance at the many beauties of this region; but the leaves of memory will press the fragments of romance, in an all-enduring fashion, to all who come immediately beneath their spell. One legend, repeated here from a source well known, must suffice. It refers to the mountain pass of Keim-an-eigh, "the path of the deer," through which, according to M'Carthy's "Bridal of the Year," and in reality, too: "Streams go bounding in their gladness With a Bacchanalian madness." M'Carthy has put the legend into elegant verse, known of all lovers of Irish song as "Alice and Una." Briefly the tale runs thus: A young huntsman, Maurice by name, had all day pursued a fawn, which at evening fled for refuge-- "To a little grassy lawn-- It is safe, for gentle Alice to her saving breast hath drawn Her almost sister fawn." A romantic affection then sprang up between the two humans, the hunter and the maid; and this magnet drew the youth often hither, in spite of the fact that Una, a fairy queen, was passionately enamoured of the gallant deer-chaser. One evening, as he was wending his way to see his lady fair, the moon grew dark, a great storm arose, and the lovelorn Maurice lost himself in the wood. All this was of course due to the jealous fairy in true legendary fashion. At length he falls in with a noble jet-black steed, which he mounts. This grim shape proves to be a certain dreaded Phooka (the same symbol is renowned throughout Ireland, and has been traced even to the legends of the Northmen), a genii of Una's, who immediately rushes off with the youth through glen and valley, stream and forest, up and down the mountain sides: "Now he rises o'er Bearhaven, where he hangeth like a raven-- Ah! Maurice, though no craven, how terrible for thee! To see the misty shading of the mighty mountains fading, And thy winged fire-steed wading through the clouds as through a sea! Now he feels the earth beneath him--he is loosened--he is free, And asleep in Keim-an-eigh." In his trance-dream he hears the rumble of crashing thunder. The rock opens and displays within a scene of revelry and joy, to which a page bids him welcome, and ushers him through a brilliant assemblage to the very throne of the Queen-fairy Una. She smiles graciously upon him; urges him to leave the world and all its woes to become one of her happy subjects; and promises him that, if he will but take the oath of allegiance, she herself will deign to be his bride. Spellbound by such an appeal, his lips are all but ready to utter the irrevocable vow. "While the word is there abiding, lo! the crowd is now dividing, And, with sweet and gentle gliding, in before him came a fawn; It was the same that fled him, and that seemed so much to dread him, When it down in triumph led him to Glengarriff's grassy lawn, When from rock to rock descending, to sweet Alice he was drawn, As through Keim-an-eigh he hunted from the dawn." "The magic chain is broken--no fairy vow is spoken-- From his trance he hath awoken, and once again is free; And gone is Una's palace, and vain the wild steed's malice, And again to gentle Alice down he wends through Keim-an-eigh. The moon is calmly shining over mountain, stream, and tree, And the yellow sea-plants glisten through the sea. * * * * * "The sun his gold is flinging, the happy birds are singing, And bells are gaily ringing along Glengarriff's sea; And crowds in many a galley to the happy marriage rally Of the maiden of the valley and the youth of Keim-an-eigh; Old eyes with joy are weeping, as all ask, on bended knee, A blessing, gentle Alice, upon thee." CHAPTER III. KILLARNEY AND ABOUT THERE Killarney is a considerable town, rather prim and staid and too offensively well kept to be wholly appealing. It is by no means handsome of itself, nor are its public buildings. The chief industry is catering, in one form or another, to the largely increasing number of tourists who are constantly flocking thither. The value of Killarney, as a name of sentimental and romantic interest, lies in its association with its lakes and the abounding wealth of natural beauties around about it. Torc Mountain and waterfall, Muckross, Cloghereen, the Gap of Dunloe and its castle, the upper, middle, and lower lakes, Purple Mountain, Black Valley, Eagle's Nest, and Innisfallen are all names with which to call up ever living memories of the fairies of legend [Illustration: KILLARNEY AND ABOUT THERE] and folk-lore, and of the more real personages of history and romance. To recount them all, or even to categorically enumerate them, would be impossible here. There is but one way to encompass them in a manner at all satisfactory, and that is to make Killarney a centre, and radiate one's journeys therefrom for as extended a period as circumstances will allow. The guide-books set forth the attractions and the ways and means in the usual conventional manner, but it is useless to expect any real help from them. The true gem of Killarney's many charms is without question Lough Leane and Innisfallen (Monk's Robe Island), which lies embosomed in the lower lake. Yeats, the Irish poet, spent the full force of his lyric genius in the verses which he wrote with this entrancing isle for their motive. Robert Louis Stevenson is reported to have said that, of all modern poets, none has struck the responsive chord of imagination as did this sweet singer with the following lines: "And I shall have some peace there, For peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning [Illustration: ST. FINIAN'S ORATORY, INNISFALLEN.] To where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer And noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. "I will arise and go now, For always, night or day, I hear lake water lapping, With low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, Or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core." Moore's description is perhaps as appropriate, but it is no more beautiful: "Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well, May calm and sunshine long be thine! How fair thou art let others tell,-- To feel how fair shall long be mine." From Glengarriff to Killarney _via_ Kenmare is a long-drawn sweetness of prospect, which it is perhaps impossible to duplicate for its sentimental charm,--an ability to appreciate which belongs to us all, even if only to a limited extent. The road from County Cork to County Kerry--and one journeys only by road from Bantry Bay to Dingle Bay, _via_ Kenmare and Killarney, the age of steam not yet having arrived at these parts--winds fascinatingly up and down hill and dale, diving suddenly through a tunnelled rock, when a transformation takes place, and one leaves the ruggedness and freshness of Bantry Bay for the more or less humid fairy-land of the region about Killarney. The view ahead is peculiarly grand in its contrast with that left behind. Down the beetling precipices along which the road is clinging to its sterile sides, one traces the valley beneath until it blends with the silvery surface of Kenmare River. From Kenmare, the way to Killarney is by the "Windy Gap." Beneath lies an extensive valley, and beyond is the Black Valley. Farther on are the skylines of the mountains which encompass the wild and dark Gap of Dunloe; and, farther still, will be observed the more jagged outlines of "MacGillicuddy's Reeks." Soon one beholds the first view of the beauties of far-famed Killarney, the immense valley in which repose the three lakes,--the upper, lower, and middle, with their numerous islets. _En route_ from Kenmare to Killarney, one first comes to Muckross Abbey and Demesne, of which [Illustration: ON THE ROAD FROM CORK TO KERRY.] Sir Walter Scott has said: "Art could make another Versailles; it could not make another Muckross." This is characteristic of Sir Walter and his fine sentiment; but, as Muckross is suggestive of nothing ever heard or thought of at Versailles, the comparison is truly odious. Muckross is charming. It is thoroughly Irish; and reeks of the native soil and its people, wherein is its value to the traveller. The scenery around about Muckross is very beautiful, but its ruined abbey is the great architectural relic of all Ireland. The ruins consist of the abbey and church, which was founded for the Order of Franciscans by McCarthy Mor, Prince of Desmond, in 1340, on the site of an old church which, in 1192, had been destroyed by fire. The remains of several of this prince's descendants are said to rest here. In the choir is the vault of the ancient Irish sept., the McCarthys, the memory of whom is preserved by a rude sculptured monument. Here also rest the remains of the Irish chieftains or princes of the houses of O'Sullivan Mor and the O'Donoghue. The great beauty of these ruins lies in its gloomy cloisters, which are rendered still more gloomy by the close proximity of a magnificent yew-tree of immense size and bulk. Killarney's lakes are irregular sheets of water lying in a basin at the foot of a very high range of mountains, set with islands and begirt with rocky and wooded heights. They are three in number; what is known as the upper, the middle or Muckross Lake, and the lower lake,--the northernmost,--more properly called Lough Leane. The middle lake is also called the Torc. A winding stream, known as the Long Range, unites the different bodies of water. The chief of the natural beauties of the Long Range is the Eagle's Nest, which rises sheer from the water's edge 1,700 feet. The upper lake is the most beautiful of all, though the smallest of the triad. It is studded with tiny islands and girt with mountain peaks, bare and stern above, but clothed with rich foliage at their base. The middle lake is also a beautiful, though more extensive, sheet, and contains but four islands, as compared with thirty in the lower lake and six in the upper. The Colleen Bawn Caves--reminiscent of Gerald Griffin's story, "The Colleen Bawn," [Illustration: _Cloisters of Muckross Abbey_] and Boucicault's famous play of the same name--are also in the immediate neighbourhood of the middle lake. Torc Cascade and Torc Mountain lies just to the southward, and is justly famed as one of the brilliant beauties of the region, as it falls in numerous sections over the broken rock to fall finally in a precipitous torrent of foam to its ravine-bed below. Ross Castle, like Muckross Abbey, is one of Killarney's chief picturesque ruins. It is on an island in the lower lake, and was built ages agone by the O'Donoghues. It was the last castle in Munster to surrender in the wars of the seventeenth century, giving in only when General Ludlow and his "ships-of-war," as his narrative called them, surrounded it. MacGillicuddy's Reeks lie farthest to the westward in the Killarney region. The name of this stern and jagged range sounds somewhat humourous, and in no way suggests the majesty and splendour of these hills; for they resemble the great mountains of other parts only by reason of their contrast with the low-lying land around their bases. One portion, indeed, rises a matter of 3,400 feet, and forms the most elevated peak in Ireland, grand and majestic, but, for all that, not a great mountain, as is so often claimed by the proud native. The celebrated Gap of Dunloe is far more deserving for its natural scenic splendour, and, in its way, rivals anything in Ireland. The popular method of imbibing the charm of Dunloe is a combination of picnic, _al fresco_ luncheons, and donkey-riding. This answers well enough for the "tripper," but is as unsatisfying to the real lover of nature as an imitation Swiss _châlet_ set out in a London park, or a Japanese tea-garden built out of bamboo poles from Africa. The Gap of Dunloe is a grand defile, perhaps five miles in length, which can only be explored and truly enjoyed by a pilgrimage along its solitary and rugged road on foot. Its scenic aspect is gloomy and grand, with mirrored lakes, lofty mountains, and a thick undergrowth of heather and ivy. It is, however, in no manner theatrical. Through this wild glen ripples the river Lee, linking its five tiny lakes as with a silver thread. At the upper end of the gap one emerges into "The Black Valley," somewhat apocryphally [Illustration: THE EAGLE'S NEST.] stated to be "a gloomy, depressing ravine." The sun, it appears, does not shine down its length for long in the day, as it is flanked on either side by precipitous hills. The average imagination will not, however, conjure up any very dark suspicions with regard to its past, judging from the aspect of the valley between the hours of nine in the morning and two in the afternoon. Both before and after these hours there is no sunlight; and, because of the dense, long-reaching shadows which are projected across it, it was so named. There is a good week's rambling here to spots already famed in history for their beauty; but one must search them out for himself as a personal experience. England's poet laureate has written in praise of Killarney in a fashion which should please his severest critics, those who have mourned the lack of a single thought in his verse. This is certainly not true with regard to his prose, which, in the following lines, so justly and appropriately describes the charm of South-west Ireland: "Vegetation, at once robust and graceful, is but the fringe and decoration of that enchanting district. The tender grace of wood and water is set in a framework of hills,--now stern, now ineffably gentle; now dimpling with smiles, now frowning and rugged with impending storm; now muffled and mysterious with mist, only to gaze out on you again with clear and candid sunshine. Here the trout leaps, there the eagle soars; and there, beyond, the wild deer dash through the arbutus coverts, through which they have come to the margin of the lake to drink, and, scared by your footstep or your oar, are away back to the crosiered bracken or heather-covered moorland. But the first, the final, the deepest and most enduring impression of Killarney is that of beauty unspeakably tender, which puts on at times a garb of grandeur and a look of awe, only in order to heighten by passing contrast the sense of soft, insinuating loveliness. How the missel-thrushes sing, as well they may! How the streams and runnels gurgle and leap and laugh! For the sound of journeying water is never out of your ears; the feeling of the moist, the fresh, the vernal is never out of your heart.... There is nothing in England [Illustration: ROSS CASTLE] or Scotland as beautiful as Killarney; ... and, if mountain, wood, and water, harmoniously blent, constitute the most perfect and adequate loveliness that nature presents, it surely must be owned that it has, all the world over, no superior." CHAPTER IV. AROUND THE COAST TO LIMERICK It is at Fastnet that the great incoming Atlantic liners, bound for Queenstown, or through St. George's Channel to Liverpool, first make land and run up their four-deep strings of signals; where, as Mr. Kipling says: "Every day brings a ship, Every ship brings a word; Well for him who has no fear, Looking seaward, well assured That the word the vessel brings Is the word that he should hear." Beyond Bantry Bay, Black Bull Head passes on the starboard, and, soon after, Dursly Head and Dursly Island. The island is said to contain a population of over five hundred, with no priest, no public house, and no constabulary. A veritable Arcadia! [Illustration: THE GAP OF DUNLOE.] Bolus Head, Skelligs Rocks, and Bray Head passed, one comes to Valentia Island and the entrance to Dingle Bay. One of the most fondly recalled of all Irish legends is that of the landing of the Milesians, as they came up through the Biscayan Bay upon what they then knew as "Innis Ealga"--the Noble Isle. Then it was ruled by three brothers, princes of Tuatha de Danaan, after whose wives (who were also three sisters) the island was alternately called, Eire, Banva, and Fiola. By these names Ireland is still frequently known to the poets. Whatever difficulties or obstacles beset the Milesians in landing, they at once attributed to the "necromancy" of the Tuatha de Danaans. When the Milesians could not discover land where they thought to sight it, they simply agreed that the Tuatha de Danaans had, by their black arts, rendered it invisible. At length they descried the island, its tall blue hills touched by the last beams of the setting sun; and from the galleys there arose a shout of joy. Innisfail, the Isle of Destiny, was found! The legend has furnished Moore the excuse for launching into melody again. He relates it as follows: "They came from a land beyond the sea, And now o'er the western main Set sail, in their good ships, gallantly, From the sunny land of Spain. 'Oh, where is the isle we've seen in dreams, Our destin'd home or grave?' Thus sung they, as by the morning's beams, They swept the Atlantic wave. "And lo, where afar o'er ocean shines A sparkle of radiant green, As though in that deep lay emerald mines, Whose light through the wave was seen, ''Tis Innisfail--'tis Innisfail!' Rings o'er the echoing sea, While bending to heav'n the warriors hail That home of the brave and free." Valentia--the most westerly railway-station in Europe, says Bradshaw--is the true spot where West meets East; where the New World first receives its introduction to the Old. More than half a century ago, the shores of this spacious sheet of landlocked water were selected by the great Duke of Wellington and others as the terminus of a railway which was to be the first link in the chain which was [Illustration: THE BLACK VALLEY.] to bind the Old World and the New, and to join the ocean liners that were run from America to Valentia, as they now do to Queenstown. The project fell through, but the island was afterward selected as the old-world end of the Atlantic cable of 1865, and also that laid by the leviathan steamship, the _Great Eastern_, in 1866. The principal village on the island is called Knightstown. If favoured with a fresh westerly breeze, one beholds from the hillside a scene of grandeur unsurpassed. The ocean engages in conflict with the rugged headlands rising hundreds of feet out of the sea, and hurls its foaming breakers with ceaseless rhythm against the base of the rocks, only to be rolled back in spray and foam. All outside is a scene of wild magnificence, while, such is the perfect shelter, the harbour itself, under all stress of weather, is as placid as a summer lake. Lord John Manners, in his notes of a tour through Ireland, describes the Atlantic here as follows: "The great waves came in with a roar like a peal of artillery, and leapt up against and over the rocks just below us, sending forth a rainbow in one direction, and an immense jet of foam in another. I do not believe I exaggerate in saying that some of the jets of foam sprung a hundred feet into the air, and then the tints! Sometimes a clear green wave would roll its huge volume on the rocks before it broke; at others, dash greenly up to it and dissolve in wreaths of purest white spray, causing, as it broke, a delicate iris to glow on the opposite rocks; while toward the west a veil of foam overhung the coast, lighted up by the golden rays of the setting sun. No words can describe the fascination of the scene." To observe the contrast between nature and the works of man, one has only to visit the isolated premises of the Anglo-American Telegraph Company. The manner in which electricity outstrips the sun in his daily round is here strikingly exemplified. Happening to be in the instrument-room at about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, one sees the operators at work, receiving from, say, Berlin, the reports of the day's markets, and transmitting the information to New York, to be served up fresh on Uncle Sam's breakfast-table, which, even at that early hour is already old news in the Eastern [Illustration: VALENTIA.] world. Lying just inside Valentia Island is Cahirciveen, the birthplace of Daniel O'Connell, and from this point to Dingle, across the bay, is to be seen--though from the seaward side only--the finest rock scenery on the southwest coast. Here Nature seems to have done her best to produce the picturesque with ocean and rock, twisted and split, pierced and tunnelled; every rock seems to have been torn in some gigantic struggle against total destruction, and left to still wage war against storm and tempest. The harbour of Dingle, landlocked and peaceful, is in quiet contrast to all this turmoil, though Dingle's weekly cattle fair will give the stranger the impression that he is witnessing something very akin to the fabled Donnybrook Fair, so far as riotous good humour is concerned. From Slea Head a magnificent view of Dingle Bay is obtained,--its indented shores flanked by the Dingle mountains stretching away for thirty miles of wonderful panorama of islands and rocks out to and around the Blasquetts. The Blasquetts are a group of eight rocky islands, two of them three miles from the coast. In the sound between these two and the mainland one of the ships of the Spanish Armada sank with all on board. Perhaps the wildest scene on the southern coast is presented by the Skelligs Rocks, off Dingle Bay, rising as pinnacles of slate, wind-swept and bare. The cliffs seem painted in bands of cream colour, produced by countless crowds of gannets--most powerful of gulls--sitting on their nests on the ledges of cliff. At the sound of an approaching steamer, the air is filled with a swarm of puffins, or sea-parrots, which fly heavily around the crags; while, from the caves on the lower cliffs, like crowds of the smaller gulls fill the air with their shrill, screaming cry. Limerick is a city which, by very reason of her great past and her matter-of-fact and decidedly ordinary present, presents great and disappointing contrasts. One may read the statistics in the guide-books and learn that 350,000 pigs are killed every year in the town, and of a great many other mundane things which happen here and have no interest whatsoever for him. There is no doubt about the pigs, sausages, and various pork products, for fat swine, [Illustration: THE SKELLIGS ROCKS.] "razorbacks," big pigs, and little pigs swarm everywhere. There is no escaping the Limerick pig. In single file, in battalions, as solitary scout, alive or dead, baconed and sausaged, he dominates the town. Limerick was in existence as long ago as the days of Ptolemy; was scrambled for by the Danes and the Irish kings in Alfred's time; took the fancy of that good judge of "eligible sites," King John, and was decorated with one of his innumerable castles, a fine old relic which still remains. The town was in the very thick of the row raised by Cromwell; and, in the wars of "the silent" William of Orange, it manufactured history as fast as its factories turn out sausages now. The name of Sarsfield, the Jacobite general, is for ever identified with Limerick. The city was taken and retaken more often than we should care to state; it was--and is--fortified up to the very limit; and, whenever anything exciting of a political nature went on, in times past, Limerick was ever to the fore front, ready to emphasize her opinions with the high-shouldered fat little cannon that have somehow got left out on the ramparts, quite forgotten except by "tourist touts," though, truth to tell, not many tourists ever come to Limerick. To-day Limerick--in spite of its activities with respect to sausages--is no more a maker of history, but sits dozing complacently on the estuary of "the finest river in the kingdoms," and cares not apparently for the comings and goings of the outside world. As some poetic soul--possessed by an Irishman of course--has said: "No one cares for Limerick now. Of all the fierce possessors who fought for her when she was young, the local government officially alone remains, like the gray elderly husband of some housewifely woman who was a beauty and a 'toast,' and made men's swords leap from their scabbards for love of her--once." At the mouth of the Shannon, near where its tidal waters meet the sea, Limerick has its "fashionable watering-place" of the conventional pattern. The chief "amusement" of this delectable place appears to be the gathering of "Irish moss," as it is commonly known. Here they call it "Carrageen moss," but it is the same thing, and ultimately turns [Illustration: LIMERICK CASTLE.] up as a dainty and nourishing jelly. The peasantry gather it for profit, the visitors for pastime. It is found in many shallow rock pools at low tide, and grows in short, bushy tufts, coralline in shape. The "moss" must be bleached in the sun, and then boiled down into jelly. "Dulse," another variety of edible seaweed, which requires no preparation, is also found here; and the central ribs of young oarweed are peeled and eaten like celery, which they very much resemble in looks, but--most emphatically--not in taste. Dear also, to Americans, will be the memory of County Limerick as the birthplace of Fitz-James O'Brien. The son of an attorney, he was born in 1828, receiving his education at Dublin University. In his youth he saw service as a British soldier, but early drifted toward journalism and America. Among his earliest compositions were two remarkable poems, "Loch Ine" and "Irish Castles," which present in a picturesque vocabulary many of the salient charms and beauties of his native isle. CHAPTER V. THE SHANNON AND ITS LAKES No river in Great Britain, neither the Thames, nor the Clyde, nor even the Severn, equals the river Shannon and its lakes, either in length or in importance as an inland waterway. The native on its banks tells you that it rivals the Mississippi; but in what respect, Americans, at least, will wonder. Except that it broadens to perhaps a dozen miles in the widest of its lakes, there is, of course, no comparison whatever. The traffic on the river is of no great magnitude compared with that on the Thames and the Clyde; but, were there a demand for such, its capacity would be far greater than either. Moreover, for beauty, either of the dainty and popularly picturesque sort, or of the supremely grand, it has preëminence, and one can journey its whole length, from Killaloe, [Illustration: THE SHANNON AND ITS LAKES] practically a suburb of Limerick, to Carrick-on-Shannon, something over a hundred miles, in steamboats of really comfortable, if not exactly luxurious, appointments. It is the tourist traffic mostly that is catered for; and the traveller, in the season, is likely to find the company mixed, though by no means is it of the "tripper" class. The itinerary comprehends much that is beautiful and much that is historic. From Limerick, one usually makes his way by train, although he may go by car or coach,--such a trip is well worth while,--and embarks upon the tiny steamer at Killaloe. Here, at the lower end of Lough Derg, near Killaloe, stood in the ninth century Brian Boru's palace of Kincora. The mound on which it was built is all that remains of a place that displayed, twelve hundred years ago, the greatest glory of the proud Irish kings. Many were the events of historical moment which took place here, though, as a palace of great splendour and magnitude, it may have been exceeded by Tara and Emania. The memory of Brian Boru's life here [Illustration: KINCORA.] places him in the annals of the world's great rulers as "every inch a king." Neither on the Irish throne, nor on that of any other kingdom, did there ever sit a sovereign more splendidly qualified to rule; and Ireland had not for some centuries known such a glorious and prosperous, peaceful, and happy time as the five years preceding Brian's death. He caused his authority to be not only unquestioned, but obeyed and respected in every corner of the land. So justly were the laws administered in his name, and so loyally obeyed throughout the kingdom, that the bards relate a rather fanciful story of a young and exquisitely beautiful lady, who made, without the slightest apprehension of violence or insult, and in perfect safety, a tour of the island on foot, alone and unprotected, though bearing about her the most costly jewels and ornaments of gold. This legend will be further recalled by the memory of the well-known verses beginning "Rich and rare were the gems she wore." It was at Kincora that the following incident took place: Mælmurra, Prince of Leinster, playing or advising on a game of chess, made or recommended a false move, upon which the patriotic Morrogh, son of Brian, observed that it was no wonder Mælmurra's friends, the Danes (to whom he owed his elevation), were beaten at Glenmana, if he gave them advice like that. Mælmurra, highly incensed by the allusion,--all the more severe for its bitter truth,--arose, ordered his horse, and rode away in haste. Brian, when he heard it, despatched a messenger after the indignant guest, begging him to return; but Mælmurra was not to be pacified, and refused, and concerted and connived with certain Danish agents, always open to such negotiations, those measures which led to the great invasion of the year 1014, in which the whole Scandinavian race, from Anglesea and Man, north to Norway, bore an active part. While Brian was residing at Kincora, news was brought of his noble-hearted brother's death, whereupon he was seized with the most violent grief. Brian's favourite harp--always a legendary and traditional symbol of Irish emotions--was taken down, and he sang that famous death-song of Mahon, [Illustration: AN IRISH PIPER.] recounting all the glorious actions of his life. "His anger flashed out through his tears as he wildly chanted the noble lines," say the chronicles. "My heart shall burst within my breast, Unless I avenge this great king. They shall forfeit life for this foul deed, Or I must perish by a violent death." Of the passionate attachment of the Irish for music, little need be said, as this is one of the national characteristics which has been at all times most strongly marked, and is still most widely appreciated, the harp being universally held as a national emblem of Ireland. Even in the prechristian period that we are here reviewing, music was an institution and a power in Erin. Few spots in Ireland are richer in historical and archæological interest than Killaloe. There is a fine specimen of sixth-century architecture in the well-preserved cell of St. Lua, with its steep roof of stone and cunningly devised arches. It is a venerable building, and nestles under the shadow of the present Protestant cathedral, built by O'Brien, King of Thomond, in the twelfth century. On a small island in the river Shannon are the ruins of an ancient friary, and at a little distance the remains of a small chapel. These are said to mark the position of a ford used by pilgrims who came to visit Killaloe before the bridge, which is itself ancient, was built. Lough Derg is reputedly one of the prettiest pieces of water in Ireland. Its shores are well wooded, and the background all around is made up of swelling upland, dotted here and there with the white houses of the peasantry, while in the far distance are the heather-clad hills of the Counties Clare, Galway, and Tipperary. In Lough Derg, on Station Island, is the reputed entrance to St. Patrick's Purgatory. A wide-spread superstition accounts for its popularity, but whether as a purely "tourist point" or as a place of pilgrimage for penitents, it were better not to attempt to judge. Tradition has it that St. Patrick had prevailed on God to place the entrance to purgatory in Ireland, that the unbelievers might the more readily be convinced of the immortality of the soul and of the sufferings that awaited the wicked after death. A few monks, according to Boate, an old Irish writer, dwelt near the cavern that formed the entrance. "Whoever came to the island with the intention of descending into the cavern and examining its wonders had to prepare himself by long vigils, fasts, and prayers, to strengthen him, as we are told, for his dangerous expedition; but, in reality, by reducing his bodily strength to make his imagination more ready to receive the impressions which it was thought desirable to leave upon his mind. He was then let down into the cavern, whence, after an interval of several hours, he was drawn up again half-dead, and, when he recovered his senses, mingling the wild dreams of his own imagination with what the monks told him, he seldom failed to tell the most marvellous tales of the place for the remainder of his life. It was not till the reign of James II. that the monks were driven away from the place, and the mystery of the dark cavern dissolved." From Killaloe to Portumna, the Shannon flows through Lough Derg, a wide-spread waterway, an elaborate expansion of the river itself. This lake, which is twenty-five miles long and from two to six miles in breadth, has an average depth of about fifty feet. Close to Portumna is the Castle of Ballynasheera, said to have been once the residence of Ireton, Oliver Cromwell's son-in-law. From Ben Hill, a few miles below Portumna, near Woodford, is a splendid view of Lough Derg and the surrounding country. The lake here stretches along between the Slieve Aughty Mountains on the Connaught side and the Arra Mountains on the Munster side, whose lofty summits tower up high into the clouds. The shores, sloping gradually down to the water, are covered with luxurious foliage, through openings in which may be seen the ruins of many an ancient castle and once stately mansion. Portumna itself is a flourishing town, but of no great antiquarian interest. The population of town and district is about two thousand. Near by is Victoria Lock, Melleek, adjacent to which are two strongly built towers, which formerly mounted eight guns, and which, in more romantic times, were erected to guard the pass of the Shannon between Connaught and Leinster. [Illustration: The Stone of the Divisions, Westmeath] Shannon Harbour, at which the Grand Canal joins the Shannon, is situated on the river about six or seven miles from Shannon Bridge, and is immortalized by Charles Lever in "Jack Hinton." As a tourist resort the town appears to have degenerated sadly, a pretentious hotel establishment having been converted over into barracks for the constabulary. From Shannon Harbour the steamer passes Shannon Bridge, and in due course reaches Athlone at the lower end of Lough Ree. "Population, seven thousand. Industry, manufacture of the celebrated woollen tweeds, which provides employment for several hundred operators, both male and female; there are various other smaller manufacturing industries pursued by the town population. In the rural districts, cattle rearing, both in Westmeath and Roscommon, and the pursuit of general agriculture is principally followed, and the inhabitants of these rural districts are generally comfortable and fairly well-to-do." Such is the usual guide-book information concerning Athlone, which lies at the juncture of Roscommon and Westmeath. As a matter of fact, however, almost every stone in the prosperous little city has a historic interest and value, from the ruins of its former splendid ecclesiastical establishments to its old houses and still more ancient fortifications, and the castle erected in 1215 by King John,--a counterpart in every respect of a similar establishment at Limerick. Queen Elizabeth made Athlone the capital of Connaught. After the battle of the Boyne, it underwent two sieges from the forces of King William. Some traces of the old fortifications may be seen, and the castle is still in perfect repair. Just north of Athlone, where the Shannon joins Lough Ree, is Auburn, more popularly known as "Sweet Auburn," whose old ruined parsonage is famous as the early home of Oliver Goldsmith. Fleeting time has changed this modest mansion--whose ruin was deplored by Goldsmith himself--but little. It stands about a hundred yards from the public road at the end of a straight avenue bordered with ash-trees,--a plain rectangular, two-storied house, built in the ugly and uncompromising style that [Illustration: ATHLONE CASTLE.] was popular in Ireland in the early part of the seventeenth century. The roof is off, but the walls remain, and seem still to be haunted by the shade of the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, the original Doctor Primrose in "The Vicar of Wakefield," while his wife, hospitable as of yore, still seems to invite the passing stranger to taste her gooseberry wine. The famous inn,--since rebuilt out of all resemblance to its former self,--immortalized by Goldsmith, and known as the Three Pigeons, where were drawn the "inspired nut-brown draughts," and "where village statesmen talked with looks profound," is but a little distance from the house. The country all around Lishoy--for that is the name of the townland in which Toberclare, this Mecca of the Goldsmith student, is situated--is well wooded and cultivated. The drive from Athlone to "Sweet Auburn" is one of the most delightful in Ireland. As the reputed _locale_ of "The Deserted Village," Auburn, or Lishoy, as it was formerly known, has an unusual share of interest for the literary pilgrim. Goldsmith was not _born_ at Lishoy, as is sometimes stated, but in Pallas, a village in the County Longford, his father being at the time a poor curate and farmer. The infancy of Oliver was, however, spent in Lishoy, and there is little doubt but that the scenes of his childhood became afterward the imaginative sources whence he drew the picture of "Sweet Auburn," though it is doubtless true that the descriptions are general enough in character to apply to many localities in England as well as Ireland: "Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheer'd the labouring swain; Where smiling spring its earliest visits paid, And parting summer's lingering blooms delay'd. Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, Seats of my youth, when every sport could please; How often have I loitered o'er thy green, Where humble happiness endear'd each scene! How often have I paused on every charm! The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm: The never-failing brook, the busy mill; The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill; The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age, and whispering lovers made." Attempts have been made from time to time to justify the procedure, which is customary here, of stripping the hawthorn of its blossoms to sell to tourists; and to explain that it is a perfectly legitimate and artistic thing to have hung the old broken plates and cups of the erstwhile Three Pigeons on the walls of the new inn. Sir Walter Scott attempted to justify all this as "a pleasing tribute to the poet," but there is a hollow mockery about it all that will make the true pilgrim hasten to commune with "The never-failing brook, the busy mill;" and "The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill," all three of which exist to-day, and bear a far greater likeness to the description of the poet than does the reputed inn. Through Lough Ree one journeys along historical ground. Rindown Castle was built, it is said, by Turgesius, a Dane, who made of it an impregnable stronghold, as may be readily believed when one views its rocky promontory. The island of Inchcleraun, commonly called "Quaker Island," is associated with early Celtic Christianity, and has on it the remains of six churches. On this island, Queen Meave is said to have been killed, while bathing, by an Ulster chieftain, who threw a stone from a sling while standing on the shore. Knockcroghery Bay leads to Roscommon, the chief town of the county of the same name. It had its origin at the time when St. Coman founded a monastery there, and to-day may still be seen elaborate remains of a former Dominican establishment of the thirteenth century, and of a fortified castle of the same era. At the head of the eastern arm is All Saints' Island, on which are the well-preserved remains of a church and monastery,--an ancient foundation which, in the seventeenth century, was occupied by the nunnery of the Poor Clares, but was burnt by the soldiery in 1642. It is recorded that the peasants of Kilkenny West retaliated by killing the destroyers. Inchbonin, the "Island of the White Cow," contains the remains of a church and monastery, the foundation of the religious house being attributed to St. Rioch, a nephew of St. Patrick. Here, also, are the remains of several Celtic crosses. Entering the Shannon proper again at Lanesborough, one finally reaches Carrick-on-Shannon, in itself uninteresting enough, but a centre from which a vast amount of profitable knowledge may be obtained. It is the gateway of the pretty valley of the river Boyle, where stands the pleasant little town of the same name, with its famous abbey, which is in rather a better state of preservation than many "chronicles in stone." The choir, nave, and transepts are all in existence, and show, in their construction, all the elements of the West Norman and Gothic work of their time. The nave, with its hundred and thirty-five semicircular arches, which separate it from its aisles, is perhaps the best and most characteristic Norman feature, if we except the square heavy tower. In 1235, the English sacked these sacred precincts, and even--it is said--stripped the monks of their gowns. In 1595 it was turned into a fortress and besieged by the army of the Earl of Tyrone. From the "Hibernia Illustrata" we learn that, "In the cemetery of Kilbronan, not far from Boyle, was buried the famous Carolan, one of the last of the veritable Irish bards; and here for several years the skull that had 'once been the seat of so much verse and music,' was placed in the niche of the old church, decorated, not with laurel, but with a black ribbon. He died in the neighbourhood in the year 1741, at a very advanced age, notwithstanding that he had been in a state of intoxication during probably seven-eighths of his life." From this we may infer that, if liquor was not more potent in those days, it was at least less expensive. CHAPTER VI. GALWAY AND ITS BAY It may not be recognized, it certainly is not a widely known fact, that Galway at one time--however extraordinary it may now appear--arrived at a pitch of mercantile greatness superior, with the single exception of London, to any port in what is now known as the British Isles. From an original letter from Henry Cromwell and the Irish Privy Council, dated Galway, 7th April, 1657, we learn that: "For situation, voisenage, and commerce it hath with Spain, the Strayts, West Indies, and other parts, noe towne or port in the three nations (London excepted) was more considerable." "Another city so ancient as Galway does not exist in Ireland," says an old-time traveller. "Its situation is flat and unpicturesque, but the universality of red petticoats, and the same brilliant colour in most other articles of female dress, gives a foreign aspect to the population, which prepares you somewhat for the completely Italian or Spanish look of most of the streets of the town." "In Galway," writes Köhl, "the metropolis of the west, and a Hesperian colony, he (the traveller) will find a quaint and peculiar city, with antiquities such as he will meet with nowhere else. The old town is throughout of Spanish architecture, with wide gateways, broad stairs, and all the fantastic ornaments calculated to carry the imagination back to Granada and Valencia. Then the town, with its monks, churches, and convents, has a completely Catholic air; and the population of the adjoining country have preserved something of their picturesque national costume." From the earliest times, especially about the fourteenth century, and until a later period, extensive trade was carried on betwixt Spain and Ireland. Galway was always one of the principal ports frequented by foreigners. The richer merchants of the town made periodical visits to Spain, and returned with Spanish luxuries and Spanish ideas. The result of this was that mansions in Spanish style arose and were filled with Spanish furniture; while the ladies used in their dresses the bright colours and light textures of Spain. It is reasonable, too, to suppose that in many instances Spanish servants, seamen, and even workmen, formed alliances with the natives of the soil, and thus the population became, not only in dress but in blood, allied to their foreign visitors. Many of the houses built for the merchant princes of Galway still remain, though in a dilapidated state, and have come to be occupied by the poorest inhabitants. Truly, "Galway was a famous town when its Spanish merchants were princes; but their fine dwellings were at one time usurped and defaced by the rabble, and little remains of the interiors to show their ancient glory." It is probable that, besides the Spaniards, the Italians also traded with Galway, and that banks were instituted by Jews from Lombardy. Little more than fifty years ago, "the tribes of Galway" claimed to themselves the exclusive right of exercising certain civil privileges. Just how far one may go in promulgating a theory, in a book such as this, remains an open question. With regard to the Spaniards in Ireland, it is not so much conjecture as to the time of their advent, or their numbers, as it is with the causes which led up to it. Galway was one day to be the pride and hope of Erin's Isle. This we all know and recognize, and, with this end in view, huge warehouses and quays were built to accommodate a vast ocean-borne traffic which was to come and make it the rival of Liverpool. One may walk along these quays to-day and see the ruin of all this enterprise, for Galway, despite its seventeen thousand inhabitants, is a town which bears, in its every aspect, the appearance of a place that has already sunk into irretrievable decay. As a gateway to Connemara, Galway still exercises great influence on the prosperity of the west of Ireland, and, moreover, has an historic interest which cannot fail to be attractive to the tourist for all time to come. Recalling how James Lynch FitzStephen, in 1493, condemned and actually executed with his own hands his only son Walter, who had murdered a young Spaniard, brings us to the fact that Galway was at one time more a city of Spain than of Ireland. In ancient times Galway was the most famous port in Ireland, and had a very extensive trade, especially with the ports of Hispaniola. Many Spanish merchants, sailors, and fishermen settled here, until, at one time, probably one-fourth of the population of the town was pure Spanish. They built their houses after the Spanish pattern, and mingled with the native Irish population; but not, however, without leaving upon it the ineradicable mark and powerful impress of their own character, and imparting the superstition, the temperament, and the physical qualities of their race. Moreover, it is said that a large portion of the famed Armada was wrecked off the Galway coast; and that, in addition to those already there, these survivors settled and multiplied. In consequence, much of the ancient architecture--discernible even to-day--is obviously of Spanish origin; and there is no doubt that the Spaniards have left their impress on the features and character of the inhabitants of the town and the near-by districts. One notes this as he strolls through the market, where the women are selling fish, for the most part consisting of sea-bream, red mullet, conger-eels, and lobsters. In their complexions, their dark hair and eyes, their high cheek-bones, and their carriage,--in the _mantilla_-like way in which they wear their shawls, and in the brilliant colours of their costumes,--they bear a striking resemblance to the fisherwomen of Cadiz and Malaga. The men are even more strikingly Spanish. The speech is curious, too. It is Gaelic, but it is full of Spanish idioms and terminations. These people live for the most part in a village called the Claddagh, whose population formerly kept itself quite distinct from its Irish neighbours. The people married only among themselves; had their own religion; in a measure, their own municipal government; and pursued their own way without any reference to what went on around them. Of late, however, this exclusiveness has, to a large extent, been broken down. Still the Claddagh is a spot which has no parallel elsewhere [Illustration: CHADDAGH.] in Ireland, and is a distinct survival of the original Spanish settlement. The Galway fisheries are still, and always have been, an important economic factor in the life of these parts. Their conduct is a feature no less interesting in many ways than the more æsthetic aspects of the region. Nowhere else in the island can such a sight be seen as in the salmon season may be observed from Galway Bridge, when the water in the river is low. One looks over the bridge into the water, and sees what is apparently the dark bed of the river; but drop in a pebble, and instantly there is a splash and a flash of silver, and a general movement along the whole bed of the stream. Then one comes to know that what apparently were closely packed stones are salmon, squeezed together like herrings in a barrel, unable to get up-stream for want of water. This salmon fishery, together with the fisheries on the coast, constitute the staple industries of the district; and, as a business proposition, might appeal largely to some company promoter were he able to corner the supply and control the traffic. The hardihood of the population, their aptitude for seamanship, their industrious habits, and their thrifty instincts make them so capable of rising to any opportunities that may be offered to them, that there is no reason why Galway should not become as great a fishing-port as any on the east coast of England. Galway is full of memorials of its ancient days of commercial greatness, when wealthy merchant families inhabited the fine stone mansions now fallen into ruins; and tales of former glories are on everybody's lips. There is no dearth of anecdote about Galway. Some of it is fact; much of it doubtless is not; but there seems no reason why one could not expand a short chapter of its history into a great book were he so inclined. Galway was practically "discovered" by the English in the thirteenth century, "when they took possession of the desirable little town," and portioned it out among thirteen English families--those of Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, Deane, D'Arcy, Lynch, Joyce, Kirwan, Martin, Morris, Skerret, and French. These became known as the Tribes of Galway, and before long became "more Irish than the Irish themselves." This we learn from the written records; but, since they exist so completely and lucidly, there seems no reason to quarrel with the statement. The Lynches were, and are, the most numerous and important of the Tribes of Galway. The name is said to be aboriginal or at least Celtic, and again tradition has it that all the Lynches are descended from the daughter and heiress of a certain lord marshal of the county of Galway in the year 1280. In 1442 a certain Edmond Lynch FitzThomas built at his own expense a bridge called the West Bridge, and twenty years later another, Gorman Lynch, held a patent for coining money; and yet another, James Lynch FitzStephen, the famous Warden of Galway, whose notoriety has been described in Dutton's "Survey of Galway" (1824), lived at the end of the same century. As described by Dutton, the "notorious" incident arose from Lynch FitzStephen having sent his only son to Spain on some commercial affairs, who, returning with the son of his father's Spanish friend and a valuable cargo, conspired with the crew to murder and throw him overboard, and convert the property to their own use. One of the party, as providentially happens in most such cases, revealed the horrid transaction to the mayor. He tried and condemned his son to death, and appointed a day for his execution. It was imagined by his relatives that, through their intercession, and the consideration of his being an only son, he would not proceed to put the sentence into execution. He told them to come to him on a certain day, and they should have his determination. Early on the day appointed, they found the son hanging out of one of the windows of his father's house. It was commemorated by the cross-bones in Lombard Street. Further records have it that the stone bearing the cross-bones was not put up for many years after the transaction, when it was erected on the wall of St. Nicholas's churchyard, and bore the inscription: 1524 Remember Death. All is vanity of vanities. [Illustration: _Judge Lynch's House, Galway_] From this incident--a recorded fact of history be it remembered--the familiar "Americanism" (_sic_) of "lynch-law" probably received its derivation. At any rate, the circumstance is one of significance and plausibility, or it shows once again how the seed of coincidence takes root and thrives many thousands of miles from the land of its first growth. Galway has ever been an important commercial centre, and rightly enough points out the fact that to be as proud and honest as a Galway merchant is to be reckoned as one of the upright of this world. It is a curious fact that, notwithstanding the maritime resources of Galway, salt was one of the commodities imported to it from Spain, and so highly was the import prized that John French, who was mayor in 1538, bore the distinguishing appellation of _Shane ne Sallin_. The county of Galway must have been a quarrelsome and belligerent community in times past, judging from the fact that local history gives elaborate accounts of certain fighting gentlemen known as "Blue-Blaze-Devil-Bob," "Nineteen-Duel-Dick," "Hair-Trigger-Pat," and "Feather-Spring-Ned." But these honourable cognomens are no longer cited with a voice of triumph by the leading citizens; and it may be presumed that Hair-Trigger and Blaze-Devil exploits are becoming rarer. There is no reason to doubt but that this is so, judging from appearances and experiences with which one comes in contact to-day. Historians, anthropologists, and antiquarians have attempted before now to draw comparisons between the inhabitants of Galway and those of Spain. The circumstance has been authenticated and remarked frequently; but it is interesting, if not valuable, to have a native first-hand opinion on the subject. An elderly gentleman whom the author once met, who had lived in Spain and Galway respectively a number of years, remarked many characteristics in common among the middle class; and, again, at the proceedings of a philosophical society, it was stated that "in the lower and more vulgar classes, the old Milesian habits still prevail." Rather a contemptuous way of putting it this, but indolence, or at least something more than a trace of it, _is_, one must admit, still apparent in both places. Of the spoken speech of Galway much has been written, and with good excuse, for Spanish idioms and words still come to the surface here, as does the French tongue in certain parts of Scotland. The writer recalls an incident in the experiences of an ardent automobilist, which took place in the neighbourhood of Galway: He was driving down an extremely steep hill, and was barely able to keep the automobile in hand. There was a safe "run-down" ahead, but a number of Irish-speaking children kept dancing and running around in front, deaf to his uncomprehended cries of "Get away! Take care! you'll be run over!" and it seemed likely that some one would be killed when the motor-car _should_ get its head. Just as that disaster became imminent, however, the driver remembered the one Irish word he understood,--"Faugh-a-ballagh!" (a famous war-cry of olden times, equivalent to "Clear the way"). He only remembered it as the name of a race-horse, but yelled it out; and the children sprang out of his way like arrows, just in time to let the car rush safely past. Galway, too, has the reputation of being one of the few counties left (Cork is another) where the typical "Paddy" of romance is to be found. That is, so far as his or her dress is concerned; and, truth to tell, it has all but disappeared from here, for it is only of a bright summer Sunday, or some local feast-day, that the Irishman, dressed as in the chorus of a comic opera, is ever seen. In Galway itself, on an important market-day, he is still to be seen, and forms a picturesque note to the surroundings which the sentimentalist would indeed otherwise miss. He is found in knee-breeches and tail coat, high _caubeen_ with a pipe stuck in it, and long home-knit stockings, accompanied by the Galway women in short scarlet petticoat and close-hooded cloak. _All_ the latter wear this dress, by the way. There is practically not a woman of the working class in the town--certainly not one in the Claddagh fishing quarter--who does not cling to this bit of colour, as thick as a blanket and very fleecy. It is spun, woven, and made at home; and, as a result, raggedness is exceedingly infrequent among the Galway natives. Indeed, all Connemara is remarkable for the clean, neat, and whole clothing of its people, who are otherwise poverty-stricken. It is only in great towns, where the poor clothe themselves in slop-shop stuffs and cast-off garments of the upper classes, that they are ragged and unkempt. Homespuns and tweeds, such as we are accustomed to see only in smart coat and skirt costumes, or expensive shooting suits, are the daily wear of every one. They cost little,--only the keep of a few hardy mountain sheep, from which the wool is obtained, the loan of a spinning-wheel from a neighbour, and the small fee of a local hand-loom weaver. Thus the people of Mayo and Galway, though often at other times miserably clad, go about with a neat "tailor-made" aspect that is astonishing. The tourists, _i. e._, the ladies, buy the charming Claddagh cloaks and bolts of homespun, which ultimately appear in more fashionable centres as the last thing in the world of fashion. Another form of souvenir, which appears to be irresistible, is the peculiar marriage-ring of Claddagh. This particular pattern has been the marriage-ring of the Claddagh fishing tribes for many centuries. Indeed, every peasant matron in the county wears one. The design is that of a heart over two clasped hands, surmounted by a crown, the signification being "Love and friendship reign." Among the upper classes in Ireland, these rings are often used as guards for engagement and wedding rings. A more interesting monument than any memorial stone in the abbey, or, indeed, in Sligo, is Misgoun Meave, which dominates the whole neighbourhood, the traditional burial-place of Queen Meave. On the top of Knocknarea, a hill over one thousand feet high, stands an immense cairn of stones, almost like a second peak to the hill. Here, overlooking a wide range of beautiful seacoast and country, tradition states that the famous Irish Queen of Connaught, after she had buried three husbands, chose her tomb. Nearly two thousand years have passed since the date popularly assigned to her reign, but there can be no reasonable doubt that she was a thoroughly genuine personality, and left her individual mark upon the history of her time. Like Boadicea, she led her own armies in person, and seems, according to the wild legends told of her exploits, to have been an Amazon of terrible reputation and dauntless courage. She had the red-gold hair that may still be seen in Connaught,--a heritage popularly supposed to have descended from her,--and wore it flowing like a mantle over her. Her beauty was considerable, her temper ungovernable, and her virtue, apparently, doubtful. She was often accompanied to battle by her stalwart sons of middle age; and her own years are reported to have counted well over a century before death at last loosened her iron grip on blood-stained Connaught. One can well understand how such a woman, dying, chose to be buried where, even in death, her sightless eyes might look down upon the land of lake and island, forest, hill, and sea that had been hers so long. A lively French writer, who travelled in Ireland in the early part of the nineteenth century, was evidently much smitten with the fair sex. He says, in part: "The greatest gaiety reigns there,--in fact, the belles of Galway are capable of instructing most French young ladies in the art of coquetry. In the early morning, one sees five or six young ladies, perched upon a jaunting-car, go two miles from the city to refresh their charms by a sea bath, and in the afternoon, if there be no assembly, they go from shop to shop, buying, laughing, and chatting with their friends. There are many in this city who grow old without knowing it." All of which seems a simple and innocuous enough amusement. In spite of which, however, no very apparent coquettishness on the part of Galway young ladies is to be noted to-day,--at least, it has not been observed by the writer of this book. Perhaps that merely points to a lack of susceptibility on his part. T. P. O'Connor once told the story of a travelling showman who brought to Galway from America a panorama of America. "He knew what he was about," said Mr. O'Connor, "when he declared that Chesapeake Bay was the finest bay in the world with two exceptions,--the Bay of Naples and the Bay of Galway; and he was very loudly cheered. "Without exaggeration, it is a beautiful bay, almost landlocked, with mountains--small enough in comparison with others, but to the untravelled eye of the Irish villager solemn and imposing as the Matterhorn--bounding it on the far side, and with a somewhat narrow mouth opening out into the Atlantic. A mouth that, under the light of morning or evening, is something to suggest either the vastness of this world of human beings, or the anticipation of the greater vastness of that other world beyond, which haunted the imaginations and thoughts of the pious Catholics of that region." These few lines serve to give a most truthful word-picture of Galway Bay; and also a glimpse of the brilliancy with which Mr. O'Connor writes. Continuing, Mr. O'Connor writes of his school-days in Ireland thus, in words which give a far more sympathetic and clear knowledge of things as they are--or were--than most reminiscences of a like nature: "There had come to my native town of Athlone a new school, and it was but natural that my father should like me to go there, and, accordingly, I had no more of Galway--except at vacation-time--for five long years. "These years belong to my native town and the school near it; and they were among the most unhappy years of my life. "I remember still the bitter flood of tears I wept the first day after I returned to Athlone from the year or so I had spent in Galway. "But Galway had to me, then, many of the chief charms of boyhood. There was a second house behind that in which we lived, which was usually unoccupied. From its roof you could see one of those beautiful scenes that, once seen, haunt one ever afterward. Beyond the town you could catch sight of the sea; and there, on certain evenings, you saw the fleet of herring-boats as they went out for their night-watch and night harvest of fish,--a sight that was more like something of fairy-land than of reality, though I dare say the poor crews found much grimmer reality than romance in their hard and laborious night-watches." Just off the mouth of Galway Bay are the Aran Islands. Between them and the mainland the sea is often so rough as to make it impossible for small boats to undertake the crossing. The principal food of the inhabitants is dried fish, naturally a home product. The chief patron saint of Munster, aside from St. Finbarr's association with Cork, was St. Albeus. He had already been converted by certain Christianized Britons, and had travelled to Rome before the arrival of St. Patrick among the Irish. After his return, he became the disciple and fellow labourer of that great apostle, and was ordained by him as first Archbishop of Munster, with his see fixed at Emely, long since removed to Cashel. He possessed, according to the chroniclers, the wonderful art of making men, not only Christians, but saints, and for this great ability King Engus bestowed upon him the isles of Aran in Connaught, where he founded a great monastery. So famous did the island become for the sanctity of its people that it was long called "Aran of Saints." The rule which St. Albeus drew up for them is still extant in the old Irish manuscripts. Though zeal for the divine honour and charity for the souls of others fixed him in the world, he was always careful, by habitual recollection and frequent retreats, to nourish in his own soul the pure love of heavenly things, and to live always in a very familiar and intimate acquaintance with himself and in the daily habitual practice of the most perfect virtues. In his old age, it was his earnest desire to commit to others the care of his dear flock, that he might be allowed to prepare himself in the exercise of holy solitude for his great change. For this purpose, he begged that he might be suffered to retire to Thule, the remotest country toward the northern pole that was known to the ancients, which seems to have been Shetland, or, according to some, Iceland or some part of Greenland; but the king guarded the ports to prevent his flight, and the saint died amidst the labours of his charge in 525, according to the Ulster and Innisfallen annals. These islands are three in number: Inishmore, Imishmaan, and Inisheer, and contain among them such a wealth of pagan and Christian antiquities as is excelled by no [Illustration: THE CHURCH OF THE CANONS, ARAN.] locality in Ireland of the same area: perhaps fifteen square miles in all. There is a work published in Dublin, known as "The Illustrated Programme of the Society of Architects," which contains a brief account of the wealth of the architectural and historical lore of these parts. More one could not wish to know unless he were profoundly interested, and less would not even satisfy him if he became at all enamoured of these islands, so full of dreary old places and quaint customs, to say nothing of the wealth of tradition and legend which hangs about it all. Westward, the nearest land is America, where so many stalwart sons of Galway--and daughters, too--have migrated. Here the peasants still reverently believe in the far-famed land of Hy or O,--Brazil, the paradise of the ancient pagan Irish. The praises of the "great fictitious island" were sung by the bards of olden time, and tradition has perpetuated its fame as a "land of perpetual sunshine, abounding in rivers, forests, mountains, and lakes. Castles and palaces arise on every side, and, as far as the eye can reach, it is covered with groves, bowers, and silent glades; its fields are ever green, with sleek cattle grazing upon them; its groves filled with myriads of birds. It is only seen occasionally, owing to the long enchantment, which will, they say, now soon be dissolved. The inhabitants seem always young, taking no heed of time, and lead lives of perfect happiness. In many respects this fabulous land resembles the Tirna-n'oge, the pagan Irish Elysium." Among the chief--and assuredly unique--reliques of these few square miles of _terra firma_ are the ruins of the old fortified Castle of Ardkyne, in which are built the remains of the great church of St. Enna, chief of the Oriels, who, upon his conversion, abandoned his secular rule, and eventually settled (not later than A. D. 489) in Aran, which henceforth became _Ara-na-noamh_, "Aran of the Saints." The church was one of several destroyed by the soldiers of Cromwell; but its plan, about twenty by ten feet, can be traced behind the village. Above the village is the stump of a round tower, and, on the ridge, the oratory of St. Benen, a unique specimen of early Irish church architecture, which has remarkably steep pitched gables. The window in the east wall has its head and splay of a single stone. The narrow north doorway has inclined jambs. If the name refers to the apostle of Connaught, St. Benen of Armagh, it must be a dedication, as he died in 468. The building may with confidence be assigned to the sixth century. St. Edna's burial-place, known as _Tegloch Edna_, is another curious premediæval church. On the Aran Islands there are no bogs, but one has, instead, to dodge his footsteps in and out among pebbles and rolling stones of every size and shape. This is particularly so if one is to make the journey to Dun �ngus, one of the finest prehistoric forts of Western Europe; called, indeed, by Dr. Hindes Petrie, "The most magnificent barbaric monument now extant in Europe." It is, undoubtedly, the most noteworthy object in Aran. It consisted originally of a triple line of works, but the two inner lines, of horseshoe shape on the verge of a bold headland, are those best preserved. Tradition assigns it to �ngus, a Firbolg chief who lived about two thousand years ago. The _chevaux-de-frise_ defending the second line is unmistakable, and the whole is as majestic in its grandeur as its supposed antiquity might indicate. Temple MacDuagh, near Kilmurvy, is a "cyclopean" church of the seventh century, and Dun Oghil is a grand fort consisting of a circular cashel, within a second, which is roughly square. These are the chief features of the great island, with the Temple Brecan, which has a chancel of rude ancient masonry, a choir which more nearly approaches our own time by four or five hundred years and is still modern, and a sacred enclosure devoted to the burial of saints, of which the Irish calendar seems quite full. On Inisheer are the remains of an ancient place of worship dedicated to St. Cavan, brother to St. Kevin, the legend of whose life everywhere confronts one in County Wicklow. There is another to St. Gobnet, abbess of the sixth century. CHAPTER VII. ACHILL TO SLIGO It has been suggested before now that the domain of Achill Island, off the coast of Mayo, that wonderland of natural unspoiled grandeur, be preserved as a sort of national park. Its primitive beauties are impressively great without rising to splendour or magnificence. Said Sir Harry Johnston, in writing to the _London Times_: "Is it impossible that individuals and the State together should intervene before it is too late and save Achill Island as a national park, as a paradise in which the last aspects of the indigenous British fauna may be exhibited? This might be done without disturbing the indigenous population, who could still carry on their fishing industry and the amount of agriculture necessary to their subsistence, without interfering unduly with the wild birds and beasts of the island. There would be, of course, an absolute interdict against 'sportsmen' and gunners; it would no longer be permissible to shoot the seals that haunt the caves and rocks around Achill, while the deer, wild goats, foxes, eagles, ravens, swans, gulls, choughs, and other wild birds and beasts would be similarly protected. People would then visit Achill Island at all seasons of the year (the climate is remarkably mild in winter) for the pleasure and interest afforded by the contemplation of its wild fauna. We should, in short, have an object-lesson of what Ireland and most other parts of the British Isles were like under prehistoric conditions." From this it will be inferred that there is every encouragement for such a procedure, did the powers but take their rightful initiative. Whether such an event, if it come to pass, would make for a greater admiration of this lone and sea-girt bit of _terra firma_, it remains for others than the writer of this book to [Illustration: ACHILL ISLAND] prognosticate. Certainly, under any aspect except that of the erection of multitudinous "resort hotels" and "furnished bungalows," Achill Island is a wonderful resort for those in need of soothing influences; and, for its natural and unspoiled charms alone, should be kept quite as it now is. Achill is a veritable unknown wonderland. Not that it is actually unexplored, that it is vast, or that it is inaccessible. It is none of these; but few foreigners, or "aliens," as the Irish prefer to think of strangers, have ever visited this little-known corner of Ireland, or even know where it is. Achill Island is the largest island on the Irish coast, in shape not unlike an irregular triangle, and contains an area of fifty-five square miles. To the north is the deeply indented Black Sod Bay, with its myriad smaller bays, while to the south is Clew Bay, populated with numerous tiny islets, and the high-held head of Croagh Patrick. Off to the northwest are the "Enchanted Isles," the legendary homes of saints and recluses, among them Inishglora, Inishkeenah, and Inishkea. On one of these it is fondly believed by the natives that Ossian resided. Tradition has preserved the record thus: "Ossine MacFoin, seated on the banks of the Shannon, adoring the Author of Nature in the contemplation of his works, was suddenly hurried away to Tirna-n'oge (the country of youth, or island of immortals), which he describes with all the vivacity that fancy, aided by the sight of so lovely a country as Ireland, could assist the bard with. He remained here for some days he thought, and, on his return, was greatly surprised to find no vestige of his house or of his acquaintance. In vain did he seek after his father Fion, and his Fonne Eirion; in vain sounds the buabhal, or well-known military clarion, to collect those intrepid warriors. Long since had these heroes been cut off in battle; long had his father ceased to live! Instead of a gallant race of mortals which he had left behind, he found a puny and degenerate people, scarce speaking the same language. In a word, it appeared that, instead of two days, he had remained near two centuries in this mansion of the blessed." (O'Halloran.) Achill itself contains scarcely a tree worthy the dignity of the name; but heath, gorse, juniper, and coarse grasses abound. Sleivemore has a height of 2,204 feet and Croghan 2,192. Both rise abruptly from the sea, after the manner of the castellated peaks in the fairy books, which, with their component castles, mostly do not exist out of books. Kildavnet Castle on Achill Sound was one of the numerous retreats of Grace O'Malley. Its square keep still stands. The arm of the sea on which it was built was so deep that vessels rode at low water under the very walls of the castle. "Here," tradition states, "the skull of Grace O'Malley was formerly preserved, and valued as a precious relic. One night, however,--so the legend goes,--the bones of the famous sea-queen were stolen from their resting-place, and conveyed, with those of thousands of her descendants, into Scotland, to be ground into fertilizer. The theft was of course perpetrated in secret, and in the night-time. If the crew had been seized by the peasantry, with their singular cargo, not a man of them would have lived to tell the tale, for the Irish regard with peculiar horror any desecration of the graveyard." According to a recent census, the population of Achill and Achill-beg, the baby islet off the southern limb of its parent, has decreased nearly ten per cent. in the space of ten years; from which fact it may be inferred that the popularity of this salubrious spot--for it ranks high among the world's great natural sanatoria--is not increasing with the rapidity that might be expected. The two villages of the larger island, Keel and Dooagh, seem populous enough, as is also the Protestant community of Dugort. The island, in general, is exceedingly unproductive, though the sea yields a wonderful harvest to the fisher folk. There is but a narrow margin between the well-being and distress of the inhabitants, but signs are not wanting that whatever, in exceptional periods, may have been their condition, at present they are relatively better off than many of their compatriots in the west of Ireland. Considerable numbers annually migrate to the north of England and the south of Scotland for the harvest, just as, with the same motive, the "East-Enders" of London throng to the hop-fields of Kent, and the willing and industrious Bretons cross the Channel, in the autumn, to the hay-fields of England's "home counties." Off the western Irish coast, from Connemara and Mayo, there are yet to be found remote islands with an exceedingly primitive civilization. Achill owes much of its interest to the fact that it exhibits a similar state of things, in many points little altered by contact with the mainland. The people, the cabins they inhabit, and their manner of life show very little change, in spite of the introduction of a good many articles of manufacture which a generation or two ago were quite unheard of. One thing which cannot fail to be noticed will be the queer little "public houses." The tenement itself, however aboriginal, is sure to contain an assortment of strong drinks as varied as the average West End bar. The quality may be dubious, but there will be no question as to the strength and specific gravity of the spirit, particularly the _eau-de-vie_, or the "mountain dew." Of the charms of Dugort, the "Settlement," and Dugort proper, the poet-laureate, in the pages of "Maga," has written eulogistically. He says: "A more perfect place of holiday resort it would not be possible to imagine. There are fine yellow sands, where children may make dykes, fortresses, and mountains of moderate height.... There is fishing, either in smooth or rolling water, for those who love the indolent rocking or the rough rise and fall of the sea; precipitous and fretted cliffs, carved with the likeness of some time-eaten Gothic fane by the architectonic ocean; rides, drives, and walks amid the finest scenery of the kingdom. 'I think she prefers Brighton,' said a stranger to me of his companion; and, if one prefers Brighton, one knows where to go. But if nature, now majestically serene, now fierce and passionate, be more to you than bicyclettes and German bands, you can nowhere be better than at Achill." The Settlement, or modern Dugort, is a group of cabins above the shore, which owed its creation to the Rev. Edward Nangle, a clergyman of the Established Church. In 1831 he visited Achill, and was so impressed with what he deemed the "spiritual destitution" [Illustration: CATHEDRAL CAVES, ACHILL.] of the islanders that he organized a mission. Some seventy acres of land having been bought, two or three cottages were erected in 1833, and in the following year Mr. Nangle settled at what is now the bright little village of modern Dugort. Whatever opinion may be held as to the value or wisdom of his undertaking, Catholic and Protestant alike, now that the dust of the battle has settled, will agree that Mr. Nangle had in him the stuff that heroes are made of. His immediate oversight was withdrawn about 1852, though for the rest of his life he took an active share in promoting the continuance of his work. He died in 1883, in his eighty-fourth year, but long before that time the "mission" had ceased to be a cause of dispute, and now Dugort is merely a small Protestant preserve in a Catholic district. Just south of Achill, in Clew Bay, is Clare Island, which has been likened to the pirate islands of the transformation scenes of the theatre. Certainly the description is a good one, as it is a spot typically suitable in shape and outline for hidden treasures, shipwrecks, and blood-letting galore. Its outline is bold and jagged, and it sits ensconced in a basin of blue water, which, in the twilight, is lit up by the western sun in a manner like nothing else so much as that of the theatre. It was perhaps merely an odd fancy--though a likely enough one--that is responsible for the _simile_; but it is pertinent to remark that this tiny emerald, set in a sea of sapphire, was really one of the many haunts of Grace O'Malley, the famous chieftainess and warring amazon of the sixteenth century. Here she actually did live, hoarded her arms and munitions, concealed her treasures, and imprisoned her captives, hence it is with reason that the description lives to-day. One commends the perspicacity of Grace O'Malley, or Grania Uaile, as she is sometimes called, in having selected such a beautiful spot for her stronghold, sheltered on one side by the purple hills of Connemara, and on the other guarded by the open sea. Next to the headlands of Kerry, Connemara is the westernmost part of Ireland. Its identity is now lost in that of County Galway, but it is still known to travellers as "wild Connemara." Not that it is entirely unpeopled, or [Illustration: IN CONNEMARA.] that there is any special hardship involved in traversing its area; the hotels are more numerous than ever, and it is an open question if the accommodation offered at Recess, Clifden, Westport, and many other of the purely tourist points is not the equal of any in Ireland. They have not the electric light in many instances, and often not water "laid on," but the genuine traveller will not care for this if he can but be sure of his bed and board. To feel sure of the former, however, it will be necessary for him to bespeak it in advance if he travels here in the season. In Connemara there is no great wealth of historical or archæological memorials. In fact, there is a scarcity of both, and one has to take his fill of the wild, natural beauties of the rock-bound coast scenery, the bracing atmosphere, and the wholly unspoiled charm of the place, which, in spite of the advent of the great hotels before mentioned, has not yet become travel-worn. Lough Carib, which is possessed (at Oughterard) of a fine ruined castle, just north of Galway, is the largest of the score of purple, deep-looking lakes with which the western part of the county is dotted. The scenery of lake and sea, of bracken-clad hills and plains, and of great sombre, gloomy mountains makes up an ensemble of surpassing beauty. The centres of population are few, far between, and of minute dimensions. The railway line from Galway ends at Clifden, a town so unimportant and quiet that, in itself, it does not warrant remark. It was founded in the reign of George IV., and this early foundation consisted of but a single house, though it is the gateway to the wonderful coast scenery of the region to the northward, not actually in Connemara, but what is known as "Joyce's Country." Of all the landlocked bays of this region, none equals Killary Harbour, which is simply the elongated estuary of the tiny river Eriff. The hamlet of Leenane is the metropolis of these parts, and is so very small and unimportant that it would hardly be remarked, except for the fact that no other of even the same rank lies within a radius of twenty miles. The situation of Leenane is charming, at the head of Great Killary. Around about are hills of mountainous pretentions, and before its [Illustration: KYLEMORE CASTLE.] doors is a _fiord_, as ample and as calm as many, of more fame, to be found in Norway. Seaward, the great hills come down to the water's edge and almost join hands across the narrow mouth of the estuary, forming a sheltered and landlocked haven of so great a depth as to allow anchorage for even a great battle-ship. Between Galway and Clifden is Recess, a point of vantage from which to visit much that is characteristic of the scenery of Connemara. Firstly, the region is of interest to the fisherman; secondly, the geologist; and, thirdly, to all lovers of nature, which, judging from the recent popularity of "nature books," is perhaps much the largest class. The chief topographical feature, which forms the background to Recess, is the mountain range of the "Twelve Bens," a glorious group of dark-mantled mountains with stony peaks and flinty-quartz hearts. One may tramp Connemara for weeks, and not know all its beauty-spots, or he may scamper around it by coach and rail in two days, and depart thinking he has seen it all; but in either case, his memory, if it be a good one, will sooner or later call him to task for his presumption. For this reason, it is manifestly presumptuous to attempt to give its proper rank to its great wealth of natural attractions among the various collections which Ireland possesses. The scenery about Recess is a picturesque combination of lake and river and mountain; but, to the southward, there are wild and rugged bits of coast and red bracken-covered hills, which look to-day exactly as they did in times primeval. Lough Glendalough, which lies immediately before Recess, is but the foreground of a lovely picture which it will take many days to dissect and fully appreciate. There has ever been a dispute as to whether the glory of the "Twelve Bens" really belonged to Recess or Leenane. It certainly matters little, since they are a wonderfully impressive background viewed from either point. It must be a well-booted and strong-limbed pedestrian who will essay the task of ascending these famous mountains. Benbaun is the monarch of the Bens, and is 2,395 feet in height. Not a very great altitude as Continental [Illustration: KILLARY HARBOUR.] mountains go, but withal a very respectable eminence to climb. North of Achill is Black Sod Bay, whose memory comes down to us through Kipling's reminiscence in "A Fleet in Being." More anciently, it was one of the harbours where a part of the ill-fated Armada was supposed to have gone ashore. There are no great centres of population here in the bleak northwest of County Mayo, and there are no architectural remains of note; but there is local colour, and much of it, for one who would study the poor Irish peasant on his native heath. Until one rounds the headland of Benwee, and passes the "Stags of Broadhaven,"--a head of deep-water pinnacles of rock whose jagged outlines have been likened to a stag's antlers,--and reaches Killala Bay, there is naught of twentieth-century civilization to remind one he is not living in other days, or certainly in other lands and among other associations than those which city folk have come to consider necessaries. Killala Bay is flanked on the west by Downpatrick Head, which rises two thousand feet sheer above the sea-level. It is one of Ireland's true wonders, but attracts few visitors save migratory sea-fowl. Killala itself, one learns from the "Life of St. Patrick," is a place of great age. The holy man himself-- "Came to a pleasant place where the river Muadas (Moy) empties itself into the ocean; and on the south banks of said river he built a noble church called Kill Aladh, of which he made one of his disciples, Muredach, the first bishop." The present cathedral was entirely rebuilt in the seventeenth century, and has no architectural importance. Close by, on a knoll, about which the village is built, is a round tower, eighty-four feet high and fifty-one feet in circumference. "At Kilcummin, on the west side of Killala Bay, a body of French troops, under General Humbert, landed, August 22, 1798, with the object of supporting the United Irishmen. They at once took Killala and Ballina, and at Castlebar the government levies were in such haste to retire without fighting as to give rise to the nickname, 'Castlebar Races.'" Ballina, at the head of Killala Bay, is the "tourist resort" of the region. It is pleasant and delightful in all of its aspects, and in its neighbourhood are some very interesting architectural remains. There are, as is often the case, a Roman Catholic and a Protestant cathedral in the town, and an Augustinian monastery, a ruin of a fifteenth-century structure, also many attractive vistas and spots most worthy of the brush and pencil of the artist. These attractions pall in the mind of the local spreader of publicity, who extols only the size and varieties of fish which may be taken in the river Moy and other near-by waters. From Ballina one reaches Sligo in five and a half hours by means of that still prevalent institution, the genuine Irish "low-backed car." Somewhere in the county of Sligo is the "Valley of the Black Pig," which is possessed of a legend which recounts how, for generations, the Irish peasantry have comforted themselves in adversity by the memory of a great battle fought here in this valley. W. B. Yeats tells how, a few years ago, in the barony of Lisadell in Sligo, a peasant would fall to the ground in a trance as it were, and rave out a description of the bloody battle which once took place. This shows, at least, that tradition and legend alike die hard in the minds of the people, and when Mr. Yeats tells us that men have told him that they have seen the girths instantaneously rot and fall from horses; and that few, if any, who enter the Black Valley ever come out alive, we realize fully how close we are, even in these times, to the age of superstition in Ireland. Mr. Yeats furthermore eulogized the incident in verse. "The dew drops slowly; the dreams gather; unknown spears Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes; And then the clash of fallen horsemen, and the cries Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears. We, who are labouring by the cromlech on the shore, The gray cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew, Being weary of the world's empires, bow down to you, Master of the still stars, and of the flaming door." Sligo itself, with its ten thousand souls and its important and matter-of-fact seafaring trades, is a centre for journeying afoot or awheel amid many charming scenes of lough and lake and sea and shore. Southward is Carrick on Shannon, the gateway to the Shannon's lakes and rivers; northward is the Bay of Donegal, backed by its famous rugged "Highlands;" and, eastward, is Lough Erne, which, with its upper and lower lakes and the river Erne trickling minutely southward, is quite the rival of the long-drawn-out Shannon, or would be if the tide of popular fancy ever turned that way. Enniskillen is the metropolis of Lough Erne. Locally it is known as the Island City by reason of its being apparently surrounded by the all-enfolding waters of the upper and lower lakes. Its fame lies principally in its entrancing situation, and the memory of its various regiments of Enniskillen Dragoons who have fought and won gloriously in many of England's "little wars," and big ones, too, for that matter. The colours borne by the two Enniskillen regiments at Waterloo are still preserved in the parish church. Until the days of James I., Enniskillen was no more than a stronghold of the Maguires, but it then gained much prominence through the eventful part it played in the domestic struggles and troubles of the latter half of the seventeenth century. Of the old castle, which has braved so many fights, only a small portion remains, and is incorporated in the modern military barracks, which, in one way, indicate the importance of Enniskillen. "The Falls of Erne," at Ballyshannon, where the river joins its estuary with its rapid, tumbling torrent falling over a thirty-foot wall of rock, indicate in no unmistakable manner the volume of water which flows from source to sea. At Ballyshannon, which has more than a local renown among disciples of Izaak Walton, is the famous "salmon leap" which, at certain seasons, provides a display of the wonderful acrobatic ability of this gamy fish. But a short three miles from Ballyshannon is Belleek, with its famous china factories which produce a peculiarly lustrous egg-shell ware much admired for its simplicity and crudeness of form, but very transparent and light. Here, too, are another series of rapids, [Illustration: _A Detail of Sligo Abbey_] as great in their way as those farther down-stream. Sir Joseph Paxton called them "the most picturesque in the world," but one should judge for himself. They are marvellously effective, however, for the river falls nearly 150 feet in three miles or less. Sligo itself, in spite of its commercial importance, is not greatly appealing in its interest, if one excepts its old abbey, now a ruin, but once an exceedingly ambitious Dominican establishment. Founded in 1252, it was destroyed by a fire in 1414, though immediately rebuilt. Its Gothic is of that superlative quality known best in the superb monkish erections of the Continent of Europe. There are various monuments yet to be seen therein of local and historical interest, but the chief attraction is what remains of the beautiful cloister, fairly perfect as to preservation, and surrounding three sides of a rectangle. There are forty-six arches, each about four feet and a half in height, all elaborately carved, and quite different one from another. By an ancient and inalienable right, the abbey grounds are still used as a Roman Catholic burial-place. CHAPTER VIII. THE DONEGAL HIGHLANDS The Bay of Donegal, and indeed the whole Donegal district, is mellowed and tempered by the everflowing Gulf Stream, which, so the scientists say, were it diverted by any terrestrial disturbance, would give to the entire British Isles the temperature and climate of Labrador. As this event is hardly likely to take place, and certainly cannot be foretold, the interest in the subject must rank with that which one takes in the announcement of the statisticians, for instance, that an express-train travelling at sixty miles an hour would take millions of years to reach Saturn, were it once headed in that direction and had the elevating and sustaining qualities of an air-ship. Certainly, the mean temperature of the whole south and west coast of Ireland is marvellously mild, and that of Donegal is exceptionally so. The cliffs of Slieve League, which form a jagged, many-coloured precipice, rise at a sharp angle from the northern shore of Donegal Bay to the summit of the storm and wave-riven mountain, a rock wall 1,972 feet high. It is a grand and noble headland, as a glance at the map will show, and is one of the most lofty elevations seen from Bundoran and the southern shores of the bay; moreover it is accounted unique in all the world, by reason of its marvellous colouring. Bundoran is a bustling, thriving place, but of the tourist order _pur sang_, with golf-links, electric lights, and up-to-date hotels, and, for that reason, if for no other, is a place for the genuine lover of the road to avoid. Donegal itself is an improvement. It is a small but attractively placed town at the head of its own bay, and, in spite of its being a coast town, it is more allied with agricultural interests than with trade by sea. The guide-books tell one little of Donegal, and so much the better. One enjoys finding out things for oneself, and so one has practically a virgin field at Donegal unless he will delve deep into frowsy historical works, such as the "Annals" of the "Four Masters" of the old Abbey of Donegal. The retreat where they patched and pieced together this ancient record is no more, but it stood, "proud, grand, and rich" upon the site still marked by some ruinous heaps of stones. Donegal has the usual accompaniment of a castle, but, in this case, it is a sixteenth-century descendant of a former stronghold. It is a fine Jacobean building, built up out of the remnants of its parent, and, with its tall gabled towers and turrets, is in every way a satisfactory example of a mediæval baronial residence, though differing in many essentials from those common throughout Ireland. Killybegs, between Donegal and Slieve League, on the north shore of the bay, is one of those picturesque coast villages on a landlocked tiny bay, of which so many examples exist in the British Islands. It is no more attractive, nor any less so, than others, but it has this distinction--a lengthy sojourn there will demonstrate beyond all doubt that one [Illustration: DONEGAL CASTLE.] can live far away from a great city and yet never miss its whilom attractions. With many other places similarly situated, a run "up to town" is inevitable and necessary; here, one is apparently as completely isolated from the distractions of the great world outside as if he were marooned on a desert isle, with the advantage, however, of being able to get away at once by means of what, to all appearances, is a toy railway running to Donegal. Carrick is another village a little further on and similarly isolated,--more so, if anything, in that the diminutive engine and its toy carriages stop, in its not rapid course, at Killybegs, and one journeys onward by "car." To the southward are the heights of Slieve League, Malin Beg and Teelin Head, and, if one will brave the waves to the extent of rounding these headlands by boat, he will then experience something of the feeling which inspired the following lines, which, if rather pretentious, are in no way fulsome: "Once seen in morning sunshine, the view of the southern face of Slieve League, rising steeply from the sea, can never be forgotten; the impressiveness and matchless colouring of the rock defy description; its beauty must be seen to be believed. Its glorious colours are grouped in masses on the mountain's face: stains of metal, green, amber, gold, yellow, white, red, and every variety of shade are observed, particularly when seen under a bright sun, contrasting in a wonderful manner with the dark blue waters beneath." Some one has compared these variegated cliffs to the effects to be seen, elsewhere, only in the Yellowstone Park and the canyons of Arizona or Colorado. Those who know Bierstadt or Moran's paintings of these wonders of nature, or, better yet, the originals themselves, will appreciate the comparison. The festival of St. Adamnan, eighth in descent from the great King Nial and from Conal, the ancestor of St. Columbkille, is kept with great solemnity in many churches in Ireland, of which he is titular patron, and in the whole diocese of Raphoe, in the county of Donegal, of which he was a native. The abbatial church of Raphoe was changed into a cathedral soon after, when St. Eunan was consecrated the first bishop. He originally entered the monastery founded by St. Columba, and became its fifth abbot. In 701 he was appointed ambassador to King Alfred of the Northern Saxons, to demand reparation for the injuries committed upon Irish subjects in Neath. It was St. Adamnan who first prevailed upon the Church authorities in Ireland to celebrate Easter at the true and appointed time. When he died, he left among his effects a treatise on the right time of keeping Easter, which disposed his people sometime after to forsake their erroneous computation. He wrote, too, the life of St. Columbkille, and also certain canons, and a curious description of the Holy Land as that country stood in his time. This book furnished the Venerable Bede with his principal memorials. In this work on the Holy Land, St. Adamnan mentions the tombs of St. Simeon and of St. Joseph at Jerusalem, and many relics of the passion of Christ, as well as the impression of the feet of the Saviour on Mount Olivet, covered with a church of a round figure, with a hole open on the top, over the impression of the footsteps. He also mentions grasshoppers in the deserts of the Jordan, which the common people eat, boiled with oil; and a portion of the Cross in the Rotunda Church in Constantinople, which was exposed on a golden altar on the three last days of Holy Week, when the emperor, court, army, clergy, and others went to the church at different hours, to kiss that sacred wood. Two landmarks, known to all travellers to the Clyde from America, by way of the north of Ireland, are The Bloody Foreland and Tory Island. The guide-books tell but little concerning this wild land of promontory and cliff, and with some reason, too, for there is little or no population there, except the fisherfolk and a rather primitive race of agriculturists. Donegal is assuredly a land of intermittent beauty, and the hill-encircled loughs and the verdant glens of Donegal Bay give way here to a stern, relentless gray stone formation, with here and there patches of green and purple which indicate nothing so much as the lonesomeness which is inevitable under such conditions. But there is an impressiveness in it all which is inexplicable, since the scenery, [Illustration: LAKE OF SHADOWS, DONEGAL.] though by no means tame, is not of the grandeur of many other parts. It is doubtful if Tory Island--which is but a mere name, even to the few who know it at all--will ever be inundated by any large flow of travel. If it was, there would doubtless be little accommodation provided for them, for the simple reason that it does not exist, though the island is possessed of a population of some hundreds of men and women and children, with schools and a church--in fact two, which are ever a point of contention and argument among their respective constituencies. It was not long since that the cleric in charge of one of these houses of God nearly starved, because he would not desert his post, and "the powers that be" on the mainland had evidently abandoned him to his fate, or had forgotten him altogether. Between the Tory Island and Malin Head, that other beacon-light for seafarers, is the great inlet or fiord of Lough Swilly, meaning in Celtic "Lake of Shadows," which, though quite as beautiful as Lough Foyle, its neighbour on the east, is, for some unexplained reason, quite neglected. Of Lough Foyle, at the head of whose ample waters sits that city familiarly called Derry,--built by certain citizens of London in the reign of James I.,--Sir Walter Scott has said: "Nothing can be more favourable than this specimen of Ireland--a beautiful variety of cultivated slopes, intermixed with banks of wood; rocks skirted with a distant ridge of healthy hills, watered by various brooks; the glens or banks being in general planted or covered with copse." This is not a particularly vivid statement, to be sure, but it is true and temperate, and far more likely to fit in with the views of the casual observer than the rather florid word-paintings of other parts of Ireland which have been offered by rhapsodists of all shades of opinion. CHAPTER IX. LONDONDERRY AND THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY Londonderry was the original site of an abbey for the canons of the Augustinian order founded by St. Columbkille in 546. There was also an abbey for Cistercian nuns founded in 1218, and a Dominican friary founded in 1274, "by request of St. Dominick," as the chronicles put it, whatever significance that statement may have. Derry, as it is commonly called, owes its name to the confiscation of the estates of the O'Neills in 1609, most of the lands being bestowed on various citizens of London. Derry, the ancient name, means "the place of oaks." All this part of Ulster was once heavily forested, but it is now conspicuously bare. Nearly 160,000 acres of the county are still owned by the Irish Society, while two London livery companies, the Skinners' and the Drapers', are also owners of large holdings. Derry is usually described as "a prettily situated town, built upon a high hill." It is quite in keeping with the description, and is also a place of much interest, as will be found upon a close acquaintance, though it is unquestionably a curious mixture of old and new, of foundries, distilleries, and manufactories, which, at every turn, are contrasted with a celebrity and an interest quite of the past. Londonderry was formerly fortified, contrary to the usual Irish conception of military science and architecture, which favoured the method advanced in the Spartan proverb, "The city is best environed which has walls of men instead of brick." There were originally four gates (afterward six) piercing the city walls, Bishops Gate, Ships Quay Gate, New Gate, and Ferry Gate. The Cathedral of Derry is a plain Gothic structure far inferior in rank and splendour to those of its class in other lands, and dates only from the early seventeenth century. The episcopal palace occupies the site of St. Columbkille's abbey. [Illustration: DERRY.] The chief event in Derry's history, and one which is called to the visitor's attention at every turning-point and stopping-place, was the siege so graphically described by Macaulay. In brief, the event took place thus: "A letter was sent to the Earl of Mount Alexander at Cumber in County Down on December 3, 1688, giving the information that six days later certain numbers throughout Ireland, in pursuance of an oath which they had taken, were to rise and massacre the Protestants, men, women, and children. This letter furthermore warned the earl to take particular care of himself, as a captain's commission would be the reward of the man who would murder him." The information reached Derry too late to secure the safety of the city. The terrified Protestants were filled with doubt as to what measures of precaution should be taken. Two companies of the Irish appeared on the opposite bank of the stream, and the officers were ferried over to make proposals for entering the town, which was nearly betrayed into their hands by the treachery of the deputy mayor, who was inclined to favour King James II. Impatient for the return of their officers, the soldiers crossed the river, and came to within three hundred yards of the Ferry Gate. "The young men of the city observing this," says Gordon's "History of Ireland," "about eight or nine of them, whose names deserve to be preserved in letters of gold, _viz._, Henry Campsie, William Crookshanks, Robert Sherrard, Alexander Irwin, James Steward, Robert Morrison, Alexander Coningham, Samuel Hunt, with James Spike, John Coningham, William Cairns, Samuel Harvey, and some others who soon joined them, ran to the main-guard, seized the keys, after a slight opposition, came to the Ferry Gate, drew up the bridge, and locked the gate just as Lord Antrim's soldiers had advanced within sixty yards of it." The siege lasted one hundred and five days, during which time the townspeople were reduced to the direst extremities. "Reduced," writes the historian, "to the extremity of distress, and endeavouring to support the remains of life by such miserable food as the flesh of dogs and vermin, even tallow and hides, nor able to find more than two days' provisions of such substances, the garrison was still assured by the harangues of Walker, in a prophetic spirit, that God would relieve them; and men reduced almost to shadows made desperate sallies, but were unable to pursue their advantage." The besiegers had thrown a boom across the river to prevent all navigation, and Kirk, the Orange admiral, had already been deterred by it from attempting the relief of the town. At length two provision ships and a frigate drew near to the city. One ship "dashed with giant strength against the barrier, and grounded, though subsequently floated out into deep water." Nearly twenty-five hundred citizens died of famine or at the hands of the enemy during the siege. Near Londonderry is the Grianan of Aillach, upon which are the remains of what is thought to have been an ancient royal residence which, in splendour and importance, must have ranked high among the ancient palaces of the Irish kings. By some, however, it has been asserted that this remarkable work, of which, to be sure, only fragmentary ruins remain, was a former temple dedicated to the worship of the sun. At any rate, it was evidently a splendid and imposing structure. Its present appearance is that of a truncated cairn of extraordinary dimensions, which, on closer inspection, proves to be a building constructed with every attention to masonic regularity, both in design and workmanship. A circular wall, of considerable thickness, encloses an area of eighty-two feet in diameter. Judging from the numbers of stones which have fallen off on every side, so as to form, in fact, a sloping glacis of ten or twelve feet broad all around it, this wall must have been of considerable height, probably from ten to twelve feet; but its thickness varies, that portion of it extending from north to south, and embracing the western half of the circle, being but ten or eleven feet, whereas, in the corresponding, or eastern half, the thickness increases to sixteen or seventeen, particularly at the entrance. One of the inevitable illustrations of the old-time school geographies of our youth was a representation of the "Giant's Causeway," with its queer, hassocklike, basaltic stones, built in fantastic forms, like the structures children themselves are wont to erect from their building-blocks. Next in order come the books of pictorial travel and "table books" of the "wonders of the world," where the same picture appears again; and, finally, the astute proprietors of ardent spirit which is distilled at Bushmills,--an ancient town of perhaps a thousand inhabitants, between Portrush, Coleraine, and the basalt-bound coast of Northern Ireland,--have covered walls and fences with quite the most pleasing and alluring of all the pictorial representations of this unique rocky formation. By these various means, the aspect of "The Giant's Causeway" has become familiar to all. So, too, most people are familiar with the chief characteristics; for which reason it is useless to repeat them in detail here. It was in the last years of the seventeenth century that this wonderland of nature first attracted the attention of the inquisitive, and from that time on its peculiarities have drawn many thousands of visitors of all ranks, from the mere pleasure and sensation loving tourist of convention to the profound scientist and antiquarian. The five and six-sided basalt rocks are piled perpendicularly one upon the other, in contrast to most rocky formations, which lie on their sides, and the varying heights of the columns form those significantly named groups known as the "Organ and Pipes," "Samson's Ribs," and the three "Causeways," the chief of which gives its name to the group. By those who have delved into the subject, armed with a profound geological knowledge, plummet and line, and rule and level, we are informed that "There is only one triangular pillar throughout the whole extent of the three Causeways. It stands near the east side of the Grand Causeway. There are but three pillars of nine sides; one of them situated in the Honeycomb, and the others not far from the triangular pillar just noticed. The total number having four and eight sides bears but a small proportion to the entire mass of pillars, of which it may be safely computed that ninety-nine out of one hundred have either five, six, or seven sides." For a further description, which shall be [Illustration: THE HONEYCOMB, GIANT'S CAUSEWAY.] brief and to the point, we have the remarks of Köhl, the antiquarian who devoted so much of his energy to a study of Ireland's peculiar and rare beauties. He says: "With all the explanations that can be offered with respect to the origin of this phenomena, so much is left unexplained that they answer very little purpose. On a close investigation of these wonderful formations, so many questions arise that one scarcely ventures to utter them. With inquiries of this nature, perhaps not the least gain is the knowledge of how much lies beyond the limits of our inquiries, and how many things that lie so plainly before our eyes, which we can see and handle, may yet be wrapped in unfathomable mystery. We see in the Giant's Causeway the most certain and obvious effects produced by the operation of active and powerful forces which entirely escape our scrutiny. We walk over the heads of some forty thousand columns (for this number has been counted by some curious and leisurely persons), all beautifully cut and polished, formed of such neat pieces, so exactly fitted to each other, and so cleverly supported, that we might fancy we had before us the work of ingenious human artificers; and yet what we behold is the result of the immutable laws of nature, acting without any apparent object, and by a process which must remain a mystery for ever to our understanding. Even the simplest inquiries it is often impossible to answer; such, for instance, as how far these colonnades run out beneath the sea, and how far into the land, which throws over them a veil as impenetrable as that of the ocean." There are to be found in this group a great number of caves; some of a unique character, and many more like most other caves, presenting no striking peculiarity. Portcoon Cave is noted for its echo, and Dunkerry Cave for the fact that it can only be entered from the sea. There is a "Giant's Well," of course, which legend tells was but one of the many domestic arrangements which nature had provided for the former Gargantuan inhabitants of these parts, but the chief of all the attractions is the Causeway itself, which is divided into three tongues, the Little, the Middle, and the Grand Causeways. "The Giant's Organ," with its pipes, suggested by the basaltic erections of various heights, possesses perhaps the greatest sentimental interest. The guide-books tell one that he should imagine some gigantic personage seated as if before a keyboard, and ringing out wild melodies in quick succession. It will take an exceedingly vivid imagination to call up this inspiration, and one had much better accept the tale as set forth in the ancient legend, and not attempt to revivify the scene in these advanced days, when the electric-tram from Bushmills is depositing its hundreds daily at the very foot of the Causeway. There are traditions without end which attempt to account for this wonderful natural production of the Causeway itself, but one shall suffice here. If the reader wants more he can get them without number and without end if he will but listen to the voluble guides of the neighbourhood. The Giant Fin M'Coul was the champion of Ireland, and felt very much aggrieved at the insolent boasting of a certain Caledonian giant, who offered to beat all who came before him, and even dared to tell Fin that if it weren't for the wetting of himself, he would swim over and give him a drubbing. Fin at last applied to the king, who, not daring, perhaps, to question the doings of such a weighty man, gave him leave to construct a causeway right to Scotland, on which the Scot walked over and fought the Irishman. Fin turned out victor, and with an amount of generosity quite becoming his Hibernian descent, kindly allowed his former rival to marry and settle in Ireland, which the Scot was not loath to do, seeing that at that time living in Scotland was none of the best, and everybody knows that Ireland was always the richest country in the world. Since the death of the giants, the Causeway, being no longer wanted, has sunk under the sea, only leaving a portion of itself visible here, a little at the island of Rathlin, and the portals of the grand gate on Staffa off the Scottish coast. This certainly seems an acceptably plausible legend, so far as legends can meet those conditions. It is certainly a picturesque one, and the great gateway of the island of Staffa has much if not all the attributes of its brother across the sea. As a whole, the Causeways and their attributes are indeed suggestive--as has been said before by some discerning person--of a scene from Dante's Inferno. More particularly they might be likened to a drawing of Gustave Doré's, illustrating that immortal poem, as we have mostly drawn our conception of what that land was like from his work, rather than from Dante's descriptions. At all events, it is a huge nightmare of scenic effect, although a pleasant one. Between Portrush, really the seaport of Coleraine, and the Giant's Causeway is Dunluce Castle, "the most picturesque ruin ever beheld," said an enthusiastic Irishman. As the Scot will tell you the same of Melrose, the statement may well be left in doubt. At any rate, Dunluce, like Dunseverick, the ancient seat of the O'Cahans or O'Kanes, has been in part hewn out of the coast-line rocks, and possesses a precipitous and jagged barrier which might well be expected to forbid any attack by sea. It is, moreover, entirely separated from the mainland, though at low water connected therewith by a miniature causeway in much the same manner as was originally the famous abbey of Mont St. Michel in Normandy. Among the ruins is a small vaulted chamber in which, it is believed by a great many folk around about, a banshee resides. The reason assigned for this belief is that the floor is always perfectly clean. It is difficult to follow this line of reasoning; more probably the true solution of the problem is that the wind, having free access to and egress from the apartment, carries dust and dirt before it. Another chamber in the northeast side has fearful attractions for the venturesome. The rock which formerly supported this room has fallen away, and, like a dovecot, it is suspended in the air only by its attachment to the main building. The erection of Dunluce Castle has been assigned to De Courcy, Earl of Ulster, and the castle was in the hands of the English in the fifteenth century. In 1580, or thereabouts, Colonel M'Donald, the founder of the family of MacDonnells of Antrim, came to Ireland to assist Tyrconnel against the O'Neill, a powerful chieftain, and was hospitably entertained by M'Quillan, the Lord of Dunluce, whom he assisted in subduing his savage neighbours. Being successful in their enterprise, M'Donald returned to Dunluce, and was pressed to winter in the castle, having his men quartered on the vassals of M'Quillan. M'Donald, however, took advantage of his position as a guest, says history, and privately married the daughter of his host. Upon this marriage the MacDonnells afterward rested their claim to M'Quillan's territory. A conspiracy among the Irish to murder the Scottish chief and his followers was discovered by his wife, and they made their escape, but returned afterward and came to possess a considerable portion of the county of Antrim. The affairs of the M'Quillans and their successors, the MacDonnells, have left endless traditions, but the descendants of the former are now no more known as "kings and lords," having fallen to the condition of "hewers of wood and drawers of water," says a local historian. The Scottish family became lords of Antrim and Dunluce. In the autumn of 1814 a visit was paid to the ruins of Dunluce by Sir Walter Scott, who observed a great resemblance in it to Dunottar Castle in Kincardineshire. A detailed description of the ruins is given in his diary. Just off the Giant's Causeway is Rathlin Island, between which and the Mull of Cantyre on the Scottish coast all the Clyde-bound ships feel their way and the traveller by sea knows that he is well in toward the Firth of Clyde. Rathlin Island may naturally enough be presumed to be of the same strata of rocky formation of which the Causeway is built, practically a link which once may have bound Ireland and Scotland. Robert Bruce, in 1306, during the wars between him and Baliol, fled to this island with three hundred men, returning to Scotland in the spring of the following year. A ruined castle, said to be inhabited by Bruce, and still bearing his name, is situated on a high, almost perpendicular piece of land, and from it may be obtained a view of the Scottish coast. Many of the inhabitants, who number above a thousand, speak only the ancient Irish language. All the world knows Carrick-a-Rede and its famous rope-bridge. It has even been pictured in the school geographies along with such wonders of the world as Niagara Falls and the [Illustration: CARRICK-A-REDE.] Pyramids of Egypt. It is a precipitous island-rock, a hundred feet or more high, which is linked to the mainland by an airy swinging bridge of ropes and "slats," sixty feet long. There are no sights on the tiny island itself, and the bridge is only meant for the accommodation of fisher and shepherd folk, who, according to the guide-books, run across it heavily laden with baskets or carcasses, and in a manner amazing to the ordinary beholder. In practice, or at least so far as the casual traveller is concerned, they do this only as a sort of side-show before an appreciative audience who may have paid the price of admission. Nevertheless, it is a more or less frightful crossing, and one which seems to fascinate all who view it; so much so that the desire to emulate the venturesome native rises high in the stranger's breast. There is no hand-rail to the bridge, only a rope that swings clear away from the slight foothold if it is heavily grasped; and each step makes the whole fabric quiver like a jelly from end to end. Still, by stepping quickly and lightly, and keeping the eyes fixed on the opposite rock, the pass can be made; and if the venturesome traveller misses his footing, and takes a header of a hundred feet, "he will not be drowned," says the enterprising writer of a certain railway-guide; "the fall generally kills him outright." The return journey is the worst, the bridge sloping downward toward the mainland. The local fisher-people, however, are quite accustomed to getting out boats in order to release some unlucky voyager from imprisonment on the rock, when discretion has suddenly over-powered valour at the commencement of the return trip; but again it is a question of price. It will be gathered from the above that the writer's advice, concerning the crossing of the rope-bridge, is paraphrased in one word, "Don't." CHAPTER X. ANTRIM AND DOWN Journeying from the Giant's Causeway to Belfast and Dublin, through the north-eastern counties of Antrim and Down, one comes upon a region little known to the casual traveller, who is usually smitten at once with the charms of Killarney and the South, and who neglects this more conveniently and comfortably traversed region. Truth to tell, the large centres of population of Dublin and Belfast, and sundry visitors from the "Midlands" of England, have appropriated it as their own playground, and, "in the season," are found here in large numbers. This need be no detraction from the charms of the region, which, if not historically and picturesquely possessed of the same qualities as the middle and south of Ireland, at least has the advantage of being an unworn road to the majority of travellers. Drogheda, on the estuary of the river Boyne, is the first happy hunting-ground for the student of history and architecture, after he leaves the immediate environs of Dublin itself. Drogheda is at once ancient and modern. Its shops and factories, its shipping and its tramways, are evidences of that modernity which is ever obtrusive in an old-world shrine of history. Drogheda, according to one authority, was formerly called Tredagh, and originally Imbbar Colpa. "It is so very ancient that it is supposed to have been founded by Heremon, one of the sons of Milesius, who, having arrived from Spain with Heber and his other brothers at Imbbar Sceine (Bantry Bay), was subsequently separated from Heber by a storm, and, while Heber regained the Kerry coast, Heremon, after innumerable hardships, put into Drogheda, where he effected a landing, but with the loss of his brothers and Colpa, the swordsman, who perished in the bay, and from which circumstance the town derived its name." Thus writes Anthony Marmion, in his "History of the Maritime Ports of Ireland." "There can be no doubt," he continues, "that an eastern colony of Mithraic, or sun-worshippers, had been early established in the neighbourhood of Drogheda." Coming, however, to less remote and fabulous happenings, Drogheda, whose Irish name was Droiceheadatha, the Bridge of the Ford, was taken by Turgesius the Dane in 911, and made a stronghold for raids into the surrounding country. Its importance was also recognized by the Anglo-Normans, who built a bridge across the Boyne at this point. The most celebrated military event in the town's history was its siege and capture by Cromwell in 1649. The walls and gates, so unusual in Ireland, were formerly a line of defence a mile and a half or more in circumference, and, from the very substantial remains of the St. Laurence Gate and the West or Butler Gate, it may be inferred that they were a wonderfully effective defence, sharing with the walls of Derry the glory of being the most elaborate works of their kind in Ireland. The most curious architectural embellishment of Drogheda is the famous Magdalen steeple--all that remains of the Dominican Abbey founded in 1224 by the Archbishop of Armagh, whose remains lie buried in the ruins. Here, in 1395, Richard II. of England held court, and within the building four Irish princes did homage to the king, and were knighted by him. Cromwell's cannon razed the building until only the grim, gaunt tower or steeple was left. A sepulchral cairn of stone, known as the Mill Mount, appears to have been the ancient citadel of Drogheda. A mythical hero of the prechristian era, "Ghoban the Smith," is supposed to have been buried here. North of the Boyne estuary is Dundalk Bay, in itself a beautifully disposed body of water which, if not possessed of the ruggedness of the fiords of Western Ireland, is in every way an attractive setting for Dundalk itself, which is mostly a town of one long vertebrate street along which short spines radiate for a brief distance and lose themselves in the background of hills or in the strand of the sea. Edward Bruce, the brother of the Scottish Robert, stormed Dundalk after Bannockburn, and lived here, after taking the town, for two years. He died in the engagement fought near Dundalk with the English army, in 1318. In 1649 Monk held the town for the king against Cromwell. At the head of Carlingford Lough is Newry, pleasantly situated in a valley overlooked by the Carlingford Mountains. It is one of the most ancient towns in the island, being famed even in Irish bardic literature. It was also the seat of a monastery, where St. Patrick himself, it is said, planted a yew-tree, referred to in no complimentary strain in Swift's satiric couplet: "High Church, low steeple, Dirty streets, and proud people." Newry took to itself the admonition, cleaned itself up in later years, and has become in all respects a flourishing modern town. A Cistercian abbey was founded here in 1175, according to the "Monasticum Hibernica," but no remains exist to-day to suggest its former importance. Rostrevor is the chief tourist centre of Carlingford Lough. It is confidently claimed by many to be the most popular resort in all Ireland, which it evidently is. Moreover, it is a marvellously pretty place of the stage-scenery order, but its attractions are somewhat exaggerated. Its popularity is accounted for by its accessibility to Dublin and Belfast, whose work-worn habitants flee here in large numbers, in season and out. Rostrevor, as might be expected, has its popular legend also. It runs as follows: "The Bell of St. Bronach, now to be seen on the altar of the Catholic Chapel, has a strangely romantic history. There is a ruined Church of Kilbroney on the hillside, not far from the town. For hundreds of years, the legend of a fairy bell had been current about Kilbroney. It was said that, whenever misfortune threatened the town, the note of a strange, silvery, unearthly sounding bell echoed through the forests. Many heard the bell, but no one succeeded in solving the mystery, or indeed, ever suspected that there was any solution save a supernatural one. In the end of the eighteenth century, however, an ancient tree was blown down, and, in its hollow heart, was found a bronze church-bell of immense size and of great antiquarian value. It was this bell, hidden in the heart of the tree many centuries before, that had sounded its note of death and terror, whenever a storm of unusual force rocked the great tree in whose depths it lay concealed. No doubt it had been hidden in the tree for safety, during some raid of pagan tribes, and by accident, or through the death of the pious ecclesiastic who concealed it, was never removed." Carlingford itself, and the celebrated beauty of the Lough, will ever appeal to all lovers of nature and romantic associations. The great attraction is Carlingford Castle, one of King John's Irish fortresses, erected in 1210 by De Courcy at the king's bidding. Some ruined castles are interesting, some rather the reverse. Carlingford Castle belongs to the former class. The courtyard, with its walls eleven feet in thickness, and galleries fitted with recesses for archers at each loop-hole; the curious little secret chamber, which one may reach by climbing up a wall, and through a mass of tangled ivy; the spiral staircase winding up to an airy battlemented height; all these are as interesting as they are picturesque. Underground, there is a range of small, gloomy dungeons, hewn out of the solid rock, where many a gallant life must have been worn away in bitter agony and despair, seven centuries ago, in those times when chivalry and romance were inextricably mixed with brutality. Just above the dungeon-cells runs the ruined stone terrace, looking out to sea, where (tradition says) the lords and ladies who accompanied King John to Ireland used to walk up and down of a summer evening, in the cool of the sunset wind. This of course is most probable, and it is perhaps a not unusual proceeding, still it is pleasant to recall. The lute must often have sounded across the waters of the lough in those golden evening hours, the careless laugh rung out, the silken cloak swung, and the gauzy veil fluttered from the high "sugar-loaf" head-dress, within sound of clanking chains, and cries from half-maddened, famishing, and tortured wretches below. One need go no deeper into history than any account of King John, to understand what kind of treatment his prisoners were likely to receive. Greenore, at the mouth of Carlingford Lough, is the key to the passenger traffic between England and Belfast, Londonderry, Enniskillen, and other places in the north and northwest of Ireland. It is a remarkable fact that the strategic importance of Carlingford Lough should be thus recognized in a peaceful fashion at the end of the nineteenth century; for one recalls that the ruined castles at Carlingford and Greencastle were built by the Anglo-Normans, at the close of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries, to protect their lines of communication when invading, in a far different and more tragic fashion, the hills and dales of Ulster. The frowning ruins of Carlingford Castle still seem to guard the western shore of the lough, while the fortress of Greencastle, on the eastern shore, commands a glorious view from its lofty battlements. Greenore supposedly presents many attractions for the tourist, but they are mainly of the kind set forth in the tourist programmes of the shipping companies and the railways, and, in fact, they are but of the conventional variety, though it is only fair to say they are here perused under very attractive and charming conditions. But the various journeyings of the collaborators to this volume were not for the sake of sea-bathing, golf, or tennis; hence Greenore is now dismissed--and gladly. The railway runs the length of Carlingford Lough, along the base of Carlingford Mountain, which rises to nearly two thousand feet, to Newry at the head of the Lough, where, on a rock which projects into the river, stands Narrow Water Castle, built in 1663 on the site of a thirteenth-century edifice erected by Hugh de Lacy. Ardglass, between Carlingford and Belfast Loughs, is seldom heard of in literature or the news items of the daily press; but it is a quaint little town of half a thousand inhabitants situated on the seacoast, with Dundrum Bay and the Mourne Mountains of County Down for a background. Once it was the chief port of Ulster (its name, _Ard-glas_, means the green height), and was so important a town that it was guarded by seven castles, but one of which, Jordan's Castle, is to-day in any state of preservation. The county town of Down is Downpatrick. It is ancient and historic, and has a prospect, [Illustration: _Grave of St. Patrick, Downpatrick_] on the river Quoile, which shows off its imposing cathedral in a most pleasing manner. The native Kings of Ulster had their residence here before the coming of Christianity. The town was known anciently to Ptolemy, who called it _Dunum_. The religious foundation of the place dates from 432 to 440, when St. Patrick established the see and the Abbey of Saul of the Canons Regular, who was superceded in 1183, a few years after the town was taken by John de Courcy, by the Benedictines. The cathedral of to-day is a rehabilitation of an ancient ecclesiastical building, though to all appearances it is a comparatively modern work and is often credited as such. Locally, great importance is naturally attached to the supposed fact that Downpatrick is the burial-place of St. Patrick, and a rough, unhewn boulder marks the spot in the churchyard where his bones rest--or do not rest, for there is great and constant doubt as to whether this is really so or not. However, there are, it is to be presumed, many who would like to believe they had visited such a hallowed spot, and perhaps for this reason the want has been supplied. Moreover, in the old church which stood on the site of the present cathedral, which Harris, the antiquarian, described in 1744, there was an inscription in monkish Latin which, translated, reads: "Three saints do rest upon this holy hill, St. Patrick, Bridget, and Columbkille." This would seem to justify in a measure the claim, though the rhyme is pretty bad. Jeremy Taylor was for a time Bishop of Down, as was also Thomas Percy, celebrated for his famous edition of the "Reliques of Ancient Poetry." There are many historical and ecclesiastical remains in the immediate neighbourhood, including the Cistercian Abbey of Inch, founded in 1187 by John de Courcy, and the celebrated Wells of Struell, supposedly of great virtue for the lame, the halt, and the blind. To-day their efficacy seems somewhat dimmed, as one does not hear of any remarkable cures which have recently taken place. About the only convenient way to reach Armagh,--Ireland's most ancient and famous seat of learning,--when making the coast tour of the north of Ireland, is from Belfast. Armagh, about which so much has been written by all manner of pen-wielders, and about which so much is yet destined to be written, is one of the most attractive towns in Ireland, albeit it is not on the seacoast or on an important waterway. Newcastle, in the minds of many, is merely the home of "The best golf-links in Ireland." This is perhaps a sign of the advanced age in which we live, but Newcastle, forty miles north of Dublin, can lay claim to more than that. Newcastle, as a tourist point and "a beauty-spot," really exists by means of, and on account of, Slieve Donard, the highest mountain in Ulster, which hangs its 2,796 feet right over the little seacoast town, and provides non-golfing visitors with a continual field for pleasant excursions. The beautiful estate of Donard Lodge lying on the slope of the mountain is, too, a great attraction, as also are Castlewellan, the seat of the Earl of Annesley, and the Earl of Roden's domain of Tollymore Park; and as these three estates enclose or command most of the beautiful mountain and forest scenery for which Newcastle is noted, they really form the irresistible attractions of the place. The whole range of the beautiful blue Mourne Mountains can be seen from Castlewellan, which lies on the side of Slieve-na-Slat. Not far from Newcastle is Rostrevor, a pretty ittle village with a church-spire nestling among the trees and overhanging the picturesque coast-line of Carlingford Lough. Much morbid interest is usually awakened by the recollection of certain events which took place in the neighourhood. At Bloody Bridge was a terrible massacre in 1641; Mourne Park and Mourne Abbey are generally famous spots; the village of Killowen, from which the late Lord Russell of Killowen chose his title, contains the house where Pat Murphy, the Irish giant, was born, and the ruined chapel where the celebrated Yelverton marriage took place in 1861. Many will recall the details of this famous _cause célèbre_. Pretty Miss Longworth, a Roman Catholic girl of high family, met and was loved by the Protestant Major Yelverton, whom she nursed in the Crimea. A secret marriage was arranged after both had returned to Ireland, and a hurried journey was made from Waterford to Rostrevor. They rowed down the lough to the little chapel next morning, and were married by the parish priest. In after years came the desertion of the bride and an action for maintenance, which was decided by an Irish jury in the lady's favour, but subsequently reversed by the House of Lords. Probably no mixed-marriage case ever excited so much interest in the three kingdoms, and even yet the chapel and the village are inextricably associated with this sad story of love and betrayal. CHAPTER XI. THE BOYNE VALLEY Drogheda, at the mouth of the Boyne, first calls to mind the memorable siege by Cromwell, and the "Battle of the Boyne." In 1649 Cromwell landed at Dublin with an army of twelve thousand men besides artillery. Drogheda was the first place he attacked. The assailants were twice repulsed, but the third attack, led by Cromwell in person, was successful; and then commenced that indiscriminate slaughter which has rendered the name of the Protector execrated throughout Ireland. It was a plain, matter-of-fact, brutal warfare, this, but the battle of the Boyne--associated with the doubly historic little river which rises out of one of Ireland's famous "holy wells," in the county of Kildare--possesses more largely the elements of romance than many another, though they were more bloody and the results of greater moment. Here, within a mile of Drogheda, where the unlovely obelisk still marks the spot, was fought, in 1690, the celebrated battle between the Prince of Orange and his father-in-law, James II. The armies were nearly equal in strength, thirty thousand men. Five hundred were killed on the side of William of Orange, and one thousand on the other. The account of the flight of James II., taken from Köhl's "Ireland," is interesting: "James II. displayed but little courage in this memorable battle. He abandoned the field even before the battle was decided, and made a ride of unexampled rapidity through Ireland. In a few hours he reached the castle of Dublin, and in the following day he rode to Waterford, a distance of one hundred English miles. Nevertheless, James sought to throw the whole blame of the defeat on the Irish. On arriving at the castle of Dublin, he met the Lady Tyrconnel, a woman of ready wit, to whom he exclaimed, 'Your countrymen, the Irish, madam, can run very fast, it must be owned.' 'In this, as in every other respect, your Majesty surpasses them, for you have won the race,' was the merited rebuke of the lady." An obelisk to-day marks the spot where William commenced the attack, and where Schomberg fell. The inscription which it bears is significant, sectarian, and sentimental, it is true; but it is explanatory of much that makers of guide-books have often neglected or ignored. "Sacred to the glorious memory of King William the Third, who, on the first of July, 1690, passed the river near this place to attack James the Second at the head of a Popish army, advantageously posted on the south side of it, and did on that day, by a single battle, secure to us, and to our posterity, our liberty, laws, and religion. In consequence of this action James the Second left this kingdom and fled to France. "This memorial of our deliverance was erected in the 9th year of the reign of King George the Second, the first stone being laid by Lionel Sackville, Duke of Dorset, Lord Lieutenant of the Kingdom of Ireland. "1736." The entire Boyne valley, restricted though its area is, encompasses much more of the historic past of Ireland than any other spot. There may elsewhere be grander scenery,--admittedly there is,--and there may even be more numerous historic remains, and of greater magnitude; but from Drogheda to its source in Kildare is a grand succession of spots which have made much history for Ireland, and great fame for those who figured in the events that took place. The great figure of prechristian Erin is undoubtedly that of Cormac-Ard-ri-Cormace the First, who reigned in the early years of the third century. "His reign," says Haverty, the historian, "is generally looked upon as the brightest epoch in the entire history of pagan Ireland." He established three colleges; one for war, one for history, and the third for jurisprudence. He collected and remodelled the laws, and published the code which remained in force throughout all Ireland until the English invasion (a period extending beyond _nine hundred years_), and which, outside the English pale, lingered for many centuries after! He assembled the bards and chroniclers at Tara, and directed them to collect the annals of Ireland, and to write out the records of the country from year to year, making them agree with the history of other countries, by collating events with the reigns of contemporary foreign potentates, Cormac himself having been the inventor of this kind of chronology. If this be so, the modern historians who claim to have been the originators of this cochronological scheme have an apology to make. These annals formed the "Psalter of Tara," which also contained full details of the boundaries of provinces, districts, and small divisions of land throughout Ireland. Unfortunately, this great record has been lost, no vestige of it being now, it is believed, in existence. The magnificence of Cormac's palace at Tara was commensurate with the greatness of his power and the brilliancy of his actions. He fitted out a fleet which he sent to harass the shores of Alba or Scotland, until that country also was compelled to acknowledge him as sovereign. He wrote a book, or tract, called "Teagusc-na-Ri," or the "Institutions of a Prince," which is still in existence, and which contains admirable maxims on manners, morals, and government. He died A.D. 266, at Cleitach, on the Boyne, a salmon-bone, it is said, having fastened in his throat while dining, and defied all efforts at extrication. He was buried at Ross-na-Ri, the first of the pagan monarchs for many generations who was not interred at Brugh, the famous burial-place of the prechristian kings. Ferguson's poem, classically entitled "The Burial of King Cormac," recounts the incident of his death at length, and picturesquely. Cormac must have been altogether a glorious personage, judging from a description which has come down to us from an ancient Irish MS.: "Beautiful was the appearance of Cormac (this was before he lost his eye) in that assembly. Flowing, slightly curling hair upon him; a red buckler with stars and animals of gold and fastening of silver upon him; a crimson cloak in wide, descending folds upon him, fastened at his breast by a golden brooch set with precious stones; a neck-torque of gold around his neck; a white shirt with a full collar, and intertwined with red-gold thread upon him; a girdle of gold inlaid with precious stones around him; two wonderful shoes of gold with runnings of gold upon him; two spears with golden sockets in his hand." This, then, is the description of the royal Cormac with his curling, golden hair and opulence of barbaric trappings, and the scenes over which he presided were surely in keeping with his magnificence, though only by a strong effort of imagination can they now be recalled. The chief and most splendid structures of the interior of Ireland in ancient times were Emania and Tara. The former, the one-time palace of the kings of Ulster, was alleged to have been built about three hundred and fifty years before the Christian era. It existed as late as Columba's time, though it had ceased to be a royal residence; and the antiquarians, Camden and Speed, attest that fragmentary remains of this splendid establishment existed even in their day (seventeenth century). If this be really so, the ruin, if it could even be called by so explicit a name, must have been one of the most ancient existing in northern climes. Tara was a place of greater, and yet more modern, celebrity. It was situated in the plain of Bregia, which extended between the Boyne, [Illustration: _The Stone of Destiny, Tara_] the Liffey, and the sea, and was preëminent above all other edifices as having been the residence of Irish kings for upwards of a thousand years. A contributor to the "Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy," writing in 1830, has described Tara as it appeared to him on a recent visit: "Only when one finds himself at the base of the venerable mount does it present an attitude of much interest. At the left are the gloomy remains of the church of Screen and the once noble mansion and demesne of Lord Tara, back of which are the remains of several old stone edifices and of a particularly narrow bridge which still spans a weedy rivulet. Passing through the villages and by the church, one identifies some large rocks as having exercised the strength or yielded to the sword of Fin MacComhal (Fingal). Here one finds himself on the summit of Tara; and if he goes there with none of that wild enthusiasm which requires towers and battlements and draw-bridges and bower-windows, and donjon-keeps, to gratify it, he will feel most awfully the unalterable royalty of the prospect it commands. "When the natural advantages of the scene have obtained their due homage, let the visitor look for vestiges of the past, and there he will not be disappointed; for the place seemeth to bear the shew of an ancient and famous monument." All of which observations are sufficiently noncommittal to be undisputed; and unless one is an arrant idol-breaker,--and we haven't many in these days,--he will be quite willing to accept the description as being sufficiently explicit to permit of his putting himself in the same place, and making the same observations. The site is assuredly authentic, and the link of history which binds its past with the present is something more than a suggestion; though by no means need we seek or envy the emotions which inspired Moore's verses: "The harp that once through Tara's Halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls, As if that soul were fled,-- So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er, And hearts that once beat high for praise, Now feel that pulse no more. "No more to chiefs and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells, The chord alone, that breaks at night, Its tale of ruin tells. Thus freedom now so seldom wakes The only throb she gives, Is when some heart indignant breaks To show that she still lives." Near Drogheda is Monasterboice, a collection of celebrated ecclesiastical ruins. Within an enclosed churchyard, which stands quite apart from any settlement of to-day, are two tiny chapels, a round tower of considerable proportions (110 feet high and 50 feet in circumference at its base), and three stone crosses, the principal of which, known as St. Boyne's Cross, is reputedly the most ancient religious relique now standing in Ireland. Among its rude sculptures, there is an inscription in Irish characters, in which is plainly legible the name of _Murelach_, a king of Ireland who died in 534, about one hundred years after the arrival of St. Patrick. The height of this cross is twenty-seven feet, and it is composed of two stones. The shafts are divided into compartments ornamented with figures. One group represents "a couple of harpers in paradise," of which Köhl says: "No Irishman of the olden times would have thought paradise complete without his beloved national instrument." This recalls Lover's verses, but whether or no so rude a symbolism inspired them it is impossible to state. "Oh! give me one strain Of that wild harp again, In melody proudly its own, Sweet harp of the days that are gone." The entire region of the Boyne valley is rich in tradition and history, far more so than any other area of its size in Ireland. From Drogheda, at the river's mouth, to Trim, just beyond Tara, and to Kells on the Blackwater (not to be confounded with the Blackwater of the south), the Boyne's chief tributary, is scarce fifty miles; but there are a succession of shrines of history of which even the most unfamiliar are household words. At Trim one is in the midst of military and ecclesiastical ruins which will make the lover of architectural remains long for the opportunity of knowing them better. There is the [Illustration: TRIM.] usual "King John's Castle," in reality Dangan Castle, an ancient military erection of the De Lacys, commonly called, and apparently with justification, "the finest example of Anglo-Norman military architecture in Ireland." It was founded in 1170 by the De Lacy who was given, by Henry II., the lordship of Meath, one of the five original kingdoms of Ireland. The original structure was burnt to prevent its falling into the hands of Roderic, King of Connaught. The present remains date from 1220, and, though locally known as "King John's Castle," the records tell us that the monarch himself is only known to have visited Trim for but two days; hence his occupancy, if not his actual proprietorship, was very brief. It must, truly, have been formerly a magnificent work of its kind, its shape being triangular, as is that noblest of all Anglo-Norman castles, Chateau Gaillard in Normandy. Ten flanking towers protected its gateways, which, in their turn, were preceded each by a barbican. The most imposing of its details, which is more or less intact, is the keep, a massive tower sixty-four feet square and sixty feet in height. In this detail it differed greatly from its Norman brothers and sisters: in that at Chateau Gaillard, and others in Normandy, the keep was invariably circular. Trim's ecclesiastical history dates back to the foundation of a church here by St. Patrick in the fifth century. Its site is perpetuated to-day by the famous Yellow Tower of the church of St. Mary's Abbey, the most lofty Anglo-Norman erection in Ireland (125 feet). Its outlines and stages were reduced nearly to ruin by Cromwell's warriors, but enough remains to-day to suggest that its former functions of watch-tower and refuge must have been most efficient. "Literary pilgrims" will be more interested perhaps in visiting the tiny parish of Laracar, so indelibly associated with the lives of Swift and his "Stella." It lies but two short miles south of Trim, and is still one of those delightful, unspoiled, old-time villages which one occasionally comes across. Swift was the incumbent of this parish in 1699, and "Stella," chaperoned by Mrs. Dingley, was quartered here in lodgings. The ladies moved into the glebe-house, so literary gossip says, when Swift was on his travels, and the "Journal to Stella" was addressed there. Swift's house, now but a fragment of a ruin, remains, as also the church in which "dearly beloved Roger" was clerk. Down the Boyne from Trim one comes first to Bective Abbey, which, according to a local authority, differs from every other monastic establishment in the kingdom, in that it was a monastic castle or fortress. It was a Cistercian foundation of the twelfth century, first endowed by O'Melaghlin, a prince of Meath. It is a fine ruin to-day, and, although the parts of its original outlines are somewhat lost, the pointed fenestration is remarkable and unusually well preserved. Hugh de Lacy, after his assassination at Durrow Castle, was brought here for burial, but his head was interred in the tomb of Rosa de Monmouth in the Abbey of St. Thomas at Dublin. Here one is in the immediate vicinity of Tara and its famous hill, the site of Ireland's most celebrated and splendid kingly residence. Between Tara and Kells is Navan, which, of itself, is an ordinary "market town," with nothing to commend it to the lover of beauty and history but its immediate vicinity to the junction of the rivers Blackwater and Boyne. This particular spot, just below Navan, is one of exceptional charm, though, as has been truly said, "the people of Navan have turned their backs upon it," and from scarce a spot in the town itself can a glimpse of either stream be had. Navan has a past decidedly more interesting than its present. Its ancient patronymic was _Nuachongbhail_, and it was one of the earliest fortified places in the county of Meath. Hugh de Lacy walled it around; but remains of this work have now almost disappeared, though there are still some very tangible evidences of the "earliest style of fortifications known in Erin" in the Great Moat of Navan. The Round Tower of Donaghmore, the most perfect of its kind in Ireland, and the ruins of Donaghmore church, are near by. Professor Flinders Petrie ascribes the date of the tower to the tenth century. It is one hundred feet in height, and its base circumference is sixty-six and a half feet. He further describes the remarkable doorway as having "a figure of Our Saviour, crucified, sculptured in relief on its keystone and the stone immediately above [Illustration: _The Round Tower, Kells_] it." This fact should establish beyond all doubt that the motive of these great round towers of Ireland, or at least of this particular one, was Christian and not pagan. One is bound to visit Kells if only to take cognizance of its famous market-cross. Kells, in the county of Meath, is, or should be, coupled, in the minds of visitors, with the name of Tara. They have nothing in common, but they are neighbours, and properly should be seen in connection with each other. Tara presents, at first glance, nothing more than a small conical elevation rising above the Boyne; but its memories as the residence of the magnificent Cormac, St. Patrick, the Druids, the law-givers, the bards, and all the ancient prehistoric civilization which centred around it, are very great. Kells is a dozen or more miles from Tara, and should not be confounded with Kells in Kilkenny. Kells was granted to St. Columba in the sixth century, and a small house still exists which is fondly believed to have been either the oratory or the residence of the saint. In the market-place of Kells was built a castle, in 1178, and opposite to it was erected a stone cross, reputedly the most beautiful of its class known. As to just what was the precise and full significance of these famous crosses, which abound in Ireland, authorities, self-styled ecclesiastical experts, and genuine archæologists alike, fail to agree. Certainly nothing has puzzled people more than the scenes depicted on the bases of some of the crosses. At Kells, for instance, there is, on one side of the base, a hunting-scene, where a man with a shield and spear, preceded by a dog, pursues a collection of animals, among which we may distinguish two stags, a pig, a monstrous bird, and three other animals. On another side there are two centaurs, one armed with a trident, the other with bow and arrow, and having a bird on its back. There also is a bird with a fish in its talons, and another bird on a quadruped of some kind. On the third side there is a contest between foot-soldiers, and on the fourth a procession of four mounted warriors. Primarily, of course, the significance of these crosses was Christian, but whether or not of the superstitious order, as were the gargoyles and grotesque water-spouts seen so [Illustration: THE CROSS OF KELLS.] frequently on continental churches, is apparently a matter of doubt. The subjects pictured on many of these crosses can hardly be assumed to be Scriptural, and are certainly not appropriate to the ideas of Christian art of our own time, nor indeed with those which were put to use in churches and monasteries in the Middle Ages. It has been suggested that they represent lingering pagan notions of the Happy Otherworld of the Celts, since hunting and fighting were among their principal joys; but this again is mere conjecture, and, though pagan influences had perhaps not wholly died out when this cross of Kells was first set up, it is hardly likely that pagan enthusiasm would express itself on a Christian symbol. The crosses of Monasterboice, Kells, Clonmacnois, and Durrow were all either in, or on the very border of, the ancient kingdom of Meath, and may perhaps be grouped together as belonging to a local school which ranked perhaps above all others in the magnitude and beauty of its sculpture. Many other crosses, which once existed throughout Ireland, are now known only by a broken fragment of the shaft, or a base, which may or may not preserve the inscription; and it seems quite probable that no ecclesiastical centre existed which did not, at one time, boast of its Celtic cross standing as a dominant monument of art among all other memorials. The great question which the antiquaries have apparently yet to settle among themselves is as to whether the decoration of these stone crosses, so different from other sculptured stone work to be seen in churches and elsewhere, is really the result of Celtic inspiration, or not. It certainly is partly Roman and partly Byzantine in its motive, though unquestionably the development of the idea was distinctively Celtic or Irish. From ancient records one learns that the Irish craftsmen first worked out their ideas, not on stone, but on parchment, and that these were transferred from illuminated MSS. to the crosses, and again in metal work, where so many similar designs are seen. It is a popular supposition that these motives, spirals, frets, and interlaced bands originated in Ireland or were peculiar to Celtic art. But [Illustration: CROSSES OF CLONMACNOIS, DONEGAL, SLANE, AND MOONE ABBEY.] really the origin of these ornaments and their travels from one country to another show quite the contrary to be the case. Investigation has shown that early civilization, advancing along primitive trade routes, or, more generally, on the lines of communication between different countries or races, was responsible for the diffusion of many arts that have been wrongly ascribed as having been born in one locality or another. Scandinavia, Greece, Egypt, and even farther east, all contributed something, no doubt, to what afterward became known as Celtic art; just how much, or by what process, is the question to decide. At any rate, the result achieved by the artisans who carved these ancient Irish crosses, whatever may have been their source of inspiration, indicates that they were the work of no "'prentice hand." It is evident that no mere underling or stone-cutter chiseled out spiral, fret, and knot, and twisted zoomorph, which one sees on these crosses. It was a master-mind that planned and a master-hand that drew the same patterns on many an Irish vellum. And it was in the depth of the dark ages, too, that Ireland set this bright example to Europe. In the twelfth century one of her books, then perhaps four hundred years old, compelled the admiration of Gerald of Wales, in most things her detractor. "If you examine the drawings closely," he says, "you will find them so delicate and exquisite, so finely drawn, and the work of interlacing so elaborate, while the colours with which they are illuminated are so blended, and still so fresh, that you will be ready to assert that all this is the work of angelic, and not human skill." This is certainly high praise; but, within its limits, the early Irish school of decorative art, in its best products, whether on parchment, metal, or stone, has, of its kind, been hitherto unsurpassed by man. Though the market-cross of Kells is not perfectly preserved--its top is broken off--it may be considered, with that at Monasterboice, to be a remarkable expression of the art of stone-carving. There are a notable richness and elaboration of detail most curious and quite unique. In the churchyard are three other crosses of lesser importance, though one of them is over eleven feet in height. [Illustration: HOLY WELL, KELLS.] The famous "Book of Kells," a manuscript copy of the Gospels in Latin, dating from the eighth century and described as the "most elaborately executed monument (_sic_) of early Christian art now extant," is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. Next to the idyllic and vague figure of Erin, and the more definite, but still apocryphal, one of St. Patrick, that of St. Columba, the real founder of the religious community of Kells, stands out the most prominently. To his era belonged a glorious race of scholars, all of whom gained their learning from the many universities, convents, and monasteries which covered the island. Among those most prominent are the names, first of all, of St. Columba, or Columcille (Dove of the Cell); St. Columbanus; St. Gall, who evangelized Helvetia; St. Livinus, who suffered martyrdom in Flanders; St. Argobast, who became Bishop of Strasburg; and St. Killian. Columba's history is well set forth in sundry places, and is too extended to recount here. Suffice to say that the events of his life were most dramatic, and his attachment to learning, poetry, and literature, in particular, most profound. Montalembert, the historian, says: "He was a poet and writer of a high order of genius, and to an advanced period of his life remained an ardent devotee of the muse, ever powerfully moved by whatever affected the weal of the minstrel fraternity. His passion for books (all manuscript, of course, in those days, and of great rarity and value) was destined to lead him into that great offence of his life, which he was afterward to expiate by a penance so grievous. He went everywhere in search of volumes which he could borrow or copy; often experiencing refusals which he resented bitterly." In the following manner occurred what Montalembert calls "the decisive event which changed the destiny of Columba, and transformed him from a wandering poet and ardent bookworm into a missionary and apostle." "While visiting one of his former tutors, Finian, he found means to copy clandestinely the abbot's Psalter by shutting himself up at nights in the church where the book was deposited. Indignant at what he considered as almost a theft, Finian claimed the copy when it was finished by Columba, on the ground that a copy made without permission ought to belong to the master of the original, seeing that the transcription is the son of the original book. Columba refused to give up his work, and the question was referred to the king in his palace of Tara." What immediately followed, and its sequel, should be read in the words of Montalembert. The accusation of theft, or something akin to burglary, was followed by Columba's withdrawal to his native province of Tyrconnell, where he set to work to excite the natives to proceed against King Diarmid, who had decided against him. "Diarmid marched to meet them in battle at Cul-Dreimhne, upon the borders of Ultonia and Connacia. He was completely beaten, and was obliged to take refuge at Tara. The victory was due, according to the annalist Tighernach, to the prayers and songs of Columba, who had fasted and prayed with all his might to obtain from Heaven the punishment of the royal insolence, and who, besides, was present at the battle, _and took upon himself before all men the responsibility of the bloodshed_." As for the manuscript which had been the object of this strange conflict of copyright, elevated into a civil war, it was afterward venerated as a kind of natural military and religious palladium. Under the name of Cathach or Fightu, the Latin Psalter transcribed by Columba, enshrined in a sort of portable altar, became the national relic of the O'Donnell clan. For more than a thousand years it was carried with them to battle as a pledge of victory, on the condition of being supported on the breast of a clerk free from all mortal sin. Still struggling with a stubborn self-will, Columba found his life miserable, unhappy, and full of unrest; yet remorse had even now "planted in his soul the germs at once of a startling conversion and of his future apostolic mission." Various legends reveal him to us at this crisis of his life, wandering long from solitude to solitude, and from monastery to monastery, seeking out holy monks, masters of penitence and Christian virtue, and asking them anxiously what he should do to obtain the pardon of God for the murder of so many victims as was caused by the battle of Cul-Dreimhne. At length, after many wanderings in contrition and mortification, "he found the light which he sought from a holy monk, St. Molaise, famed for his studies of Holy Scripture, and who had already been his confessor. "This severe hermit confirmed the decision of the synod; but, to the obligation of converting to the Christian faith an equal number of pagans as there were of Christians killed in the civil war, he added a new condition, which bore cruelly upon a soul so passionately attached to country and kindred. The confessor condemned his penitent to _perpetual exile from Ireland_!" This was more hard than to bare his breast to the piercing sword; less welcome than to walk in constant punishment and suffering, so long as his feet pressed the soil of his worshipped Erin! But it was even so. Thus ran the sentence of Molaise: "_Perpetual exile from Ireland!_" Staggered, stunned, struck to the heart, Columba could not speak for a moment. But God gave him in that great crisis of his life the supreme grace to bear the blow and embrace the cross presented to him. At last he spoke, and in a voice choked by emotion he answered: "Be it so; what you have commanded shall be done." From that instant his life was one long penitential sacrifice. For thirty years he lived and laboured in the distant Iona, and the fame of his sanctity and devotion filled the world. As a farewell gift to some Irish visitors at Iona, Columba presented the following verses, deservedly classed among the world's beautiful poetic compositions. The literal translation into English doubtless loses much of the original beauty, but enough, at least, is left to indicate the charm of the original Gaelic thought and sentiment. "What joy to fly upon the white-crested sea; and watch the waves break upon the Irish shore! * * * * * "My foot is in my little boat; but my sad heart ever bleeds! "_There is a gray eye which ever turns to Erin; but never in this life shall it see Erin, nor her sons, nor her daughters!_ "From the high prow I look over the sea; and great tears are in my eyes when I turn to Erin-- "To Erin, where the songs of the birds are so sweet, and where the clerks sing like the birds; "Where the young are so gentle, and the old are so wise; where the great men are so noble to look at, and the women so fair to wed! "Young traveller! carry my sorrows with you; carry them to Comgall of eternal life! "Noble youth, take my prayer with thee, and my blessing; one part for Ireland--seven times may she be blest--and the other for Albyn. "Carry my blessings across the sea; carry it to the West. My heart is broken in my breast! "If death comes suddenly to me, it will be because of greatest love I bear to the Gael!" It was to the rugged and desolate Hebrides that Columba turned his face when he accepted the terrible penance of perpetual exile. Columba did return to Ireland, as history tells. But, though this may be traditional, he returned blindfolded. "The Dove of the Cell" made a comparatively long stay in Ireland, visiting with scarf-bound brow the numerous monastic establishments subject to his rule. At length he returned to Iona, where, far into the evening of life, he waited for his summons to the beatific vision. The miracles he wrought, attested by evidence of sufficient weight to move the most callous skeptic, the myriad wondrous signs of God's favour that marked his daily acts, filled all the nations with awe. The hour and the manner of his death had long been revealed to him. The precise time he concealed from those about him until close upon the last day of his life; but the manner of his death he long foretold to his attendants. "I shall die," he said, "without sickness or hurt; suddenly, but happily, and without accident." At length one day, while in his usual health, he disclosed to Diarmid, his "minister," or regular attendant monk, that the hour of his summons was nigh. A week before he had gone around the island, taking leave of the monks and labourers; and when all wept, he strove anxiously to console them. Then he blessed the island and the inhabitants. "And now," said he to Diarmid, "here is a secret; but you must keep it till I am gone. This is Saturday, the day called Sabbath, or day of rest: and that it will be to me, for it shall be the last of my laborious life." In the evening he retired to his cell, and began to work for the last time, being then occupied in transcribing the Psalter. When he had come to the thirty-third Psalm, and the verse, "_Inquirentes autem Dominum non deficient omni bono_," he stopped short. "I cease here," said he; "Baithin must do the rest." The above is an abridgment of Montalembert's chronicle which must be accepted as truthful. It certainly is as profound and interesting an account of Christian martyrdom and devotion as any extant. CHAPTER XII. BELFAST AND ARMAGH The stranger to Ireland will never imagine, as the result of his visit to Belfast, that the land is the home of the effete civilization that some English writers would have him believe. Belfast, more than all other centres of population in Ireland, more even than Dublin, the capital, is the equal of any city of its size in the known world for transportation facilities of a thoroughly up-to-date order. This, perhaps, does not aid in any way in the serious contemplation of its other charms; but it is a significant "sign of the times," nevertheless. Savants will tell one that here, at the head of Belfast Lough, was fought, in the year 665, a great battle between the Ulidians and the Cruthni. This event is sufficiently remote to have lost some interest, and appears somewhat lacking in appeal in view of what happened afterward, though the region in the immediate vicinity of Belfast does not abound in the wealth of interesting shrines which exist in most other parts of Ireland. John de Courcy built a fortified castle here in 1177, after Ulster had been granted to him by Henry II., but no trace of it remains to-day. The city really owes its rise, however, to the Scottish settlers who came here in large numbers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Before which time, says one writer, "the town consisted of but one hundred and twenty odd huts, and a castle roofed with shingles." It is on record that the town made a vigorous protest against the execution of Charles I., as might have been expected from its religious and political tendencies. In connection with this protest the usually gentle Milton wrote contemptuously concerning "the blockish presbyters of Clandeboye.... The unhallowed priestlings of an unchristian synagogue." The town was incorporated in 1613, but was only given civic dignity in 1888, when its population had grown to 250,000 from its previous minute proportions. The name of the city is evolved from _Bel_, a ford or river-mouth, and _fearsal_, a sand-bank. The chief features of interest in the city proper are unquestionably its attributes of modernity. With such aspects this book has little to do. This is not so, however, with its famous flax and linen industries, made familiar to children of all nations in their very earliest years, when they are given for playthings the spools or bobbins of Barbour's linen thread, with the gaudy end label picturing the "bloody hand of Ulster." The linen industry in Ireland can be traced as far back as 1216, and, in the reign of Henry III., the spinning of linen thread was established as a definite branch of the trade. In 1665 the head of the house of Ormonde, the unfortunate duke, obtained an Act of Parliament for the encouragement of the industry. Up to 1805 linen yarns appear to have been universally spun by hand. Then abortive attempts were made to introduce machinery, but it was only after 1828, when the industry was freed from the restrictive legislation which had been in force since Queen Anne's time, that healthy competition among enterprising private firms finally did away with hand spinning. From that time onward the Irish linen industry developed with great rapidity, especially in Belfast, which is the principal seat of the trade in the United Kingdoms. The chief archæological treasures of Belfast are Cave Hill, three miles north of the city, which is a curious geological formation possessing three caves, which may or may not have more than a geological interest; and "the Giant's Ring," lying to the southward near Ballylesson. This latter is an object of antiquarian regard, consisting of a great circular earthwork, a third of a mile or more in circumference, which encloses a mound of earth about perhaps eighty feet in diameter. There is also a stone altar, or cromlech, assigned by some to druidical inception, and again denied. At any rate, it is one of those curious artificial erections in which the British Isles and Brittany abound, and its actual significance may be great or little. It is impossible, apparently, for the doctors to agree among themselves. There is also a castle at Belfast,--it's an exceedingly impoverished town in Ireland that hasn't a castle,--though in this case it is merely an imposing residence dignified, or glorified, by the more ancient name. It has, however, a wonderful outlook over the lough, showing, under certain conditions of the atmosphere, the Scottish coast and the Isle of Man. It is, however, the note of modernity alone which sounds in Belfast, as one might naturally expect of a city which has now reached a population of around four hundred thousand souls and has doubled its numbers in thirty years. One industry of general interest in these days of universal travel is the great shipbuilding works at Queen's Island. Twelve thousand hands are employed, and the construction of such leviathans as the great White Star liners, the _Oceanic_, the _Celtic_, and the _Baltic_, of a tonnage exceeding twenty thousand, is an art of which their builders are apparently the sole possessors. As might further be expected, the shipping trade of Belfast is considerable, and the city more than holds its own in progress in this line with any in the three kingdoms. Within the immediate vicinity of Belfast--at least within the area of the great city's influence--is the sleepy old town of Carrickfergus, once the site of one of the most powerful fortresses in Ireland. Now it is but a memory, so far as its impregnability goes, though its remains are suggestive enough of the position it once occupied; one of great strategic value when the means of ancient warfare are considered. If the "bloody hand of Ulster" should ever grasp firearms and enter into warfare again, the result might be different to this old castle of Carrickfergus, one of the few in Ireland which are not claimed as having belonged to King John. Southward toward Armagh one first comes to Lisburn, noted principally for its great damask industry. It is truly enough a busy manufacturing town, and has thrived amazingly since the linen manufacture was introduced by the Huguenots who fled to this refuge after the Edict of Nantes. The cathedral here contains a monument to Jeremy Taylor, who was bishop of County Down. Referring to Taylor's tenure in Ireland, it has been the custom to recount it thus: "Under the restoration of Charles II. he was given a bishopric in the wilds of Ireland, in a sour, gloomy country, with sour, gloomy looks all around him ... which broke him at the age of fifty-five." Part of this is true, the latter part, but it was not the gloomy, sour wilds around Lisburn that did it, for the whole neighbourhood around about is a charming place, and must have been then. It seems, indeed, always to smile, and, though possessed of no great grandeur, such as rugged peaks and roaring waters, it in every way fulfils one's idea of a busy town, charmingly environed. Armagh is to-day a "cathedral town" which possesses two cathedrals. One is the ancient and venerable cathedral which belongs to the Established Church, and dates from the thirteenth century; and the other is the modern Roman Catholic Cathedral, which dates only from 1873. Armagh is now, as it always has been, a most important centre of religious and churchly activity. St. Patrick came here to preach the gospel in 432, and a quarter of a century later founded the Church of Armagh. The first edifice endured for nearly four hundred years when it was sacked by the Danes. Reërected again in 1268, it was burned by Shane O'Neill in the sixteenth century, and rebuilt and again burned inside the next half-century. The final rebuilding, or rather the building up from the old fire-swept remains of the ancient structure, took place at the instigation and expense of the Primate Margetson. Armagh is one of the metropolitan sees of Ireland, Dublin being the other; but the Archbishop of Armagh is Primate of Ireland. The chief centre of interest in Armagh lies with the church and its foundation, though, of itself, Armagh is what many other towns of as great promise are not,--a charmingly unspoiled old-world spot which, in spite of the advent of the steam railway, the telegraph, and the telephone, apparently conducts its daily life much as it did three-quarters of a century ago. It is a well-kept little city or town, with no great evidences of modern improvements, though nowhere are there any indications of squalor or decay. In the year 685 Aldfred, son of Ossory, became King of Northumberland. He was educated at Armagh, then a world-famed school of learning, and had written some verses in the Irish tongue descriptive of his impressions of Ireland. Translated into English his descriptions might apply to-day. "I travelled its fruitful provinces round, And in every one of the five I found, Alike in church and in palace hall, Abundant apparel, and food for all." This sounds to-day somewhat like triviality. Perhaps, however, it has lost some of its virtues by translation. Another stanza reads somewhat more melodiously: "I found in Meath's fair principality Virtue, vigour, and hospitality; Candour, joyfulness, bravery, purity, Ireland's bulwark and security." THE END. Index Achill Island, 161-173, 185. Achill Sound, 167. Achill-beg, 168. Adamnan, St., 200, 201. �ngus, 159. Aillach, Grianan of, 213-214. Albeus, Saint, 153-154. Alfred the Great, 17, 201. "Alice and Una," 58-61. All Saints' Island, 126. Anne, Queen, 293. Annesley, Earl of, 245. Antrim, 224, 225, 231. Antrim, Lord, 212. Aran Islands, 153-160. Ardglass, 240. Ardkyne Castle, 158. Argobast, St., 281. Armagh, 159, 245, 295-298. Archbishop of, 234. Arra Mountains, 116. Athlone, 119-120, 123, 152. Athy Family, 138. Auburn, 120-125. The "Three Pigeons," 123-125. Baliol, 226. Ballina, 186-187. Ballylesson, 293. Ballynasheera Castle, 116. Ballyshannon, 190. Bantry, 45-46. Bantry Bay, 5, 40, 43-46, 53, 54, 57, 67, 68, 84, 232. Barrus, Saint, 16. Battle of the Boyne, 120, 248-250. Bear Island, 43. Bective Abbey, 265. Belfast, 231, 236, 239, 290-295. Cave Hill, 293. Giant's Ring, 293. Queen's Island, 294. Belfast Lough, 240, 290. Bell of St. Bronach, 236-237. Belleek, 190. "Bells of Shandon, The," 8-13. Ben Hill, 116. Benbaun, 182. Benen, St., 158-159. Benwee, 185. Bere, 45, 46. Bere Island (see Bear Island). Berehaven, 43, 59. Biscayan Bay, 87. Black Bull Head, 84. Black Sod Bay, 165, 185. Black Valley, 62, 68, 76-79, 188. Blackwater, The, 260, 266. Blake Family, 138. Blarney, 21, 25. Castle (Blarney Stone), 21, 25-30. Lakes, 25. Blasquetts, The, 95. Bloody Bridge, 246. Bloody Foreland, 202. Boate, 115. Bodkin Family, 138. Bolus Head, 87. Boru, Brian (see Brian Boru). Boucicault, 75. Boyle, 128. Boyle, The, 127. Boyne, The, 232, 234, 248-251, 252, 254, 260, 265, 266, 269. Boyne, Battle of the (see Battle of the Boyne). Bray Head, 87. Bregia, 254. Brian Boru, 106-113. Brian, Brother, 17. "Bridal of the Year," 58. Bridge of the Ford (see Drogheda). Brow Head, 40. Browne Family, 138. Bruce, Edward, 234-235. Bruce, Robert, 226, 234. Brugh, 253. Bundoran, 195. "Burial of King Cormac, The," 253. Bushmills, 215. Butler, 16. Cahirciveen, 95. Cairns, William, 212. Callanan, 37. Camden, 254. Campsie, Henry, 212. Cape Clear, 40. Carew, Sir George, 46, 48, 49. Carews, The, 33. Carlingford, 237-238. Castle, 237-238, 239. Carlingford Lough, 235-240, 246. Carlingford Mountains, 235, 240. Carnot, 44. Carolan, 128. Carrick, 199. Carrick-a-Rede, 226-230. Carrickfergus, 295. Carrick-on-Shannon, 106, 127, 189. Carrigaline River, 7. Cashel, 153. Castle of Ardkyne, 158. Castle of Ballynasheera, 116. Castlebar, 186. Castletown, 43, 44, 46. Castlewellan, 245, 246. Cavan, St., 160. Charlemagne, 18. Charles I., 15, 291. Charles II., 296. Claddagh, 134, 146, 147, 148. Claire, County, 114. Clare Island, 173-174. Clarke, 44. Cleitach, 252. Clew Bay, 165, 173. Clifden, 177, 178, 181. Cloghereen, 62. Clonmacnois, Cross of, 273. Cloyne, 16, 17. Coleraine, 215, 223. Colleen Bawn Caves, 72. "Colleen Bawn, The," 15, 72. Colman, St., 16. Colpa, 232. Columba, St., 201, 254, 269, 281-289. Columbanus, St., 281. Columbkille, St., 200, 201, 206, 208. Coman, St., 126. Conal, St., 200. Coningham, Alexander, 212. Coningham, John, 212. Connacia, 283. Connaught, 16, 116, 120, 148, 149, 153, 159, 263. Connemara, 132, 147, 169, 174-181. Connolly, John, 33. Corcaig (see Cork). Cork, 1, 5-25, 26, 30, 33, 34, 37, 40, 67, 146, 153. Abbey of St. Finbarr, 17. Christian Brothers, Monastery of the, 15. Cork University, 17. Patrick, St., 21. Shandon Bells, 8-15. Shandon Hill, 11. St. Anne Shandon, Church of, 8-15. St. Joseph's Cemetery, 21. Cormac, 26, 29, 251-254, 269. Cove (see Queenstown). Croagh, Patrick, 165. Croghan, 167. Cromwell, Henry, 129. Cromwell, Oliver, 99, 116, 158, 233, 234, 235, 248, 264. Crookshanks, William, 212. Croom, Plain of, 30. Crosshaven, 7. Crosshaven Ring, 6. Cul-Dreimhne, 283, 285. Cumber, 211. D'Arcy Family, 138. Dangan Castle, 263. Dante's "Inferno," 229. De Courcy, 224, 237, 243, 244, 291. De Lacy Family, 263. De Lacy, Hugh, 240, 265, 266. Deane Family, 138. Demesne, 68. Derry (see Londonderry). "Deserted Village, The," 123-125. Desmond, 34-37. Prince of, 71. Desmond, King of Munster, 15. Dhade Mountain, 57. Diarmid, King, 283. Diarmid, St., 288. Dingle, 95. Dingle Bay, 5, 40, 67, 87, 95, 96. Dingle Mountains, 95. Dingley, Mrs., 264. Donaghmore Church, 266. Donaghmore, Round Tower of, 266-269. Donegal, 194-202. Castle, 196. Donegal Bay, 189, 194, 202. Donegal Highlands, 189. Donnybrook Fair, 95. Donard Lodge, 245. Dooagh, 168. Doré, Gustave, 223. Down, County, 211, 231, 240, 296. Downpatrick, 240-244. Downpatrick Head, 185. Drake, Sir Francis, 7. Drake's Pool, 7. Drogheda, 232-234, 248, 249, 251, 259, 260. Gates, 233. Magdalen Steeple, 233. Mill Mount, 234. Droiceheadatha (see Drogheda). Dublin, 22, 157, 231, 232, 236, 245, 248, 249, 265, 290, 297. University, 103. Dugort, 168-173. Dun �ngus, 159. Dun Oghil, 160. Dunboy Castle, 46-49. Dundalk, 234-235. Dundrum Bay, 240. Dungarvan, 17. Dunloe, 76. Castle, 62. Dunloe, Gap of (see Gap of Dunloe). Dunluce Castle, 223-225. Dunottar Castle, 226. Dunseverick, 223. Durrow Castle, 265. Durrow, Cross of, 273. Dursly Head, 84. Dursly Island, 84. Dutton, 139. Eagle's Nest, 34, 62, 72. Edna, St., 159. Elizabeth, Queen, 120. Emania, 106, 254. Emely, 153. Enchanted Isles, 165. Engus, King, 153. Enna, St., 154. Enniskillen, 189-190, 239. Eriff, The, 178. Erne, The, 189. Eunan, St., 200. Falls of Erne, 190. Fastnet, 54, 84. Ferguson, 253. Fingal, 257. Fin M'Coul, 221-222. Fin MacComhal, 257. Finbarr, St., 16, 34, 153. Finian, St., 282-283. FitzStephen, James Lynch, 132, 139-143. FitzStephen, Walter, 132, 139-143. FitzThomas, Edmond Lynch, 139. "Fleet in Being, A," 185. French Family, 138. French, John, 143. Gall, St., 281. Galway, 2, 129-152, 157, 178, 181. Bridge, 137. Lombard St., 140. St. Nicholas's Church, 140. West Bridge, 139. Galway Bay, 40, 151. Galway County, 114, 139, 143, 146, 174. Gap of Dunloe, 62, 68, 76. Garvan, Brother, 17. George II., 250. George IV., 178. Gerald of Wales, 278. Ghoban the Smith, 234. Giant's Causeway, 214-223, 226, 231. Glengarriff, 43, 49-57, 60, 61, 67. Glenmana, 110. Goldsmith, Rev. Charles, 123. Goldsmith, Oliver, 120-125. Gordon, 212. Gougane Barra, 34-38. Grand Canal, 119. Grania Uaile (see O'Malley, Grace). Greencastle, 239. Greenore, 238-240. Grianan of Aillach, 213-214. Griffin, Gerald, 15. Hallam, 17. Harris, 16, 244. Harvey, Samuel, 212. Haulbowline, 6. Haverty, 251. Heber, 232. Henry II., 15, 263, 291. Henry III., 292. Heramon, 232. Hoche, General, 44. Humbert, General, 186. Hungry Hill, 57. Hunt, Samuel, 212. Imbbar Colpa (see Drogheda). Imbbar Sceine (see Bantry Bay). Imishmaan Island, 154. Inch, 244. Inchbonin Island, 126. Inchcleraun Island, 125. Inisheer Island, 154, 160. Inishglora Island, 165. Inishkea Island, 165. Inishkeenah Island, 165. Inishmore Island, 154. Innisfail, 87, 88. Innisfallen, 62, 64-67, 154. Innocent III., 11. Ireton, 116. Irwin, Alexander, 212. Island of the White Cow, 126. "Jack Hinton," 119. James I., 190, 206. James II., 44, 115, 211, 249-250. John, King, 33, 99, 120, 237, 238, 263, 295. Johnson, 17, 18. Johnston, Sir Harry, 161. Jordan's Castle, 240. Joyce Family, 138. Keel, 168. Keim-an-eigh, 58, 60, 61. Kells (Kilkenny), 266. Kells (Meath), 260, 265, 269-270, 281. Book of, 281. Cross of, 269-273, 278. Kenmare, 67-68. Kenmare River, 40, 68. Kerry, County, 67, 174, 232. Kevin, St., 160. Kilbronan, 127. Kilbroney, 236-237. Kilcummin, 186. Kildare, County, 248, 251. Kildavnet Castle, 167. Kilkenny, 126, 269. Kill Aladh, 186. Killala, 186. Killala Bay, 185-187. Killaloe, 104, 106, 113-114, 115. Cell of St. Lua, 113. Killarney, 30, 62-83, 231. Killarney Lakes, 43, 62, 68, 72-75. Killary Harbour, 178-181. Killian, St., 281. Killowen, 246. Killybegs, 196, 199. Kilmurvy, 160. Kincardineshire, 226. Kincora, 106-113. Kipling, Rudyard, 54, 84, 185. Kirk, Admiral, 213. Kirwan Family, 138. Knightstown, 91-92. Knockcroghery Bay, 126. Köhl, 130, 219-220, 249. Lake of Shadows (see Lough Swilly). Lanesborough, 127. Laracar, 264-265. Lee, The, 6, 8, 37, 76. Leenane, 178, 182. Leinster, 109. Lever, Charles, 119. Liffey, The, 257. Limerick, 96-103, 106. Castle, 99, 120. Lisadell, 188. Lisburn, 295. Lishoy (see Auburn). Livinus, St., 281. Locahan (see Finbarr, St.). Londonderry, 206, 207-213, 239. Cathedral, 208. Gates of, 208, 212, 233. Long Range, The, 72. Longford, County, 124. Longworth, Miss, 246-247. Lough Carib, 177-178. Lough Derg, 106, 114-116. Lough Eirc, 16. Lough Erne, 189. Lough Foyle, 205-206. Lough Glendalough, 182. Lough Leane, 64, 72. Lough Ree, 119, 120, 125. Lough Swilly, 57, 205. Louis XIV., 16. Lover, 260. Ludlow, General, 75. Lynch Family, 138, 139. Lynch, Gorman, 139. M'Carthy, 58-61. McCarthy Mor, 71. McCarthys, The, 71. M'Coul, Fin, 221-222. M'Donald, Colonel, 224, 225. M'Quillan, 224, 225. Macaulay, Lord, 17, 53, 211. MacCarthy, Cormac (see Cormac). MacCarthys, The, 33. MacDonnells of Antrim, 224, 225. MacFoin, Ossine, 166. MacGeoghegan, 46-49. MacGillicuddy's Reeks, 68, 75-76. Macroom, 30-34. Mælmurra, Prince of Leinster, 109-110. "Maga," 170. Maguires, The, 190. Mahony, Rev. Francis (see Prout, Father). Malin Beg, 199. Malin Head, 205. Mallow, 34. Manners, Lord John, 91-92. Margetson, 297. Marlborough, Duke of, II. Marmion, Anthony, 232-233. Martin Family, 138. Mathew, Father, 18, 21. Mayo, 147, 161, 169, 185. Meath, 263, 265, 266, 269, 273. Meave, Queen, 126, 148-149. Melleek, 116. Milesius, 232. Milton, 291. Misgoun Meave, 148-149. Mizen Head, 40. Molaise, St., 285. Monasterboice, 259-260, 273, 278. Monk, General, 235. Monk's Robe Island (see Innisfallen). Monmouth, Rosa de, 265. Montalembert, 282-284, 289. Moore, Thomas, 67, 87-88, 258-259. Morris Family, 138. Morrison, Robert, 212. Morrogh, 110. Mount Alexander, Earl of, 211. Mourne Abbey, 246. Mourne Mountains, 240, 246. Mourne Park, 246. Moy, The, 186, 187. Muadas, The, 186. Muckross, 62, 71. Muckross Abbey, 68, 71-72, 75. Muckross Lake, 72. Munster, 15, 75, 116, 153. Muredach, 186. Murphy, Pat, 246. Murphys, The, 44. Muskau, Prince Puckler, 50. Muskerry, 33. Nad-na-nillar (see Eagle's Nest). Nangle, Rev. Edward, 170-173. Narrow Water Castle, 240. Navan, 265-266. Great Moat, 266. Neath, 201. Nessan, St., 16. Newcastle, 245-246. Newman, 17. Newry, 235, 240. Nial, King, 200. O'Brien, Fitz-James, 103. O'Brien of Thomond, 113. O'Cahans, The, 223. O'Connell, Daniel, 95. O'Connor, T. P., 150-152. O'Donnell, The, 284. O'Donoghues, The, 71, 75. O'Halloran, 166. O'Kanes, The, 223. O'Mahony, Denis, 34. O'Malley, Grace, 167, 174. O'Melaghlin, 265. O'Neill, Shane, 297. O'Neills, The, 207, 224. O'Sullivan Mor, 71. O'Sullivans, The, 44, 45. Ormonde Family, 292. Ossian, 166. Oughterard, 177. Pallas, 124. Patrick, St., 114, 126, 153, 187, 235, 243-244, 259, 264, 269, 281, 297. Paxton, Sir Joseph, 193. Penn, William, 18, 33. Penn, Admiral Sir William, 33. Percy, Thomas, 244. Petrie, Hindes, Dr., 159. Portrush, 215, 223. Portumna, 115-116. Power, Captain, 49. Prout, Father, 8-13, 26, 27, 28. Purple Mountain, 62. Quaker Island, 125. Queenstown, 1-8, 84, 91. The Beach, 2. Quoile, The, 243. Raphoe, 200. Rathlin Island, 226. Recess, 177, 181-182. Richard II., 234. Rindown Castle, 125. Rioch, St., 126. Rocky Island, 6. Roden, Earl of, 245. Roderic, King of Connaught, 263. Roscommon, 119, 126. Ross Castle, 75. Ross-na-Ri, 253. Rostellan Castle, 6. Rostrevor, 235-236, 246, 247. Catholic Chapel, 236. Sackville, Lionel, 250. Sarsfield, General, 99. Schomberg, 250. Schull, 40. Scott, Sir Walter, 71, 125, 206, 225. Screen, Church of, 257. Shannon, The, 40, 100, 103-128, 166, 189. Bridge, 119. Harbour, 119. Sheep's Head, 40. Sherrard, Robert, 212. Skelligs Rocks, 87, 96. Skerret Family, 138. Slea Head, 95. Sleivemore, 167. Sliabhna-goil, 57. Slieve Aughty Mountains, 116. Slieve Donard, 245. Slieve League, 195, 196, 199-200. Slieve-na-Slat, 246. Sligo, 148, 187-193. Abbey, 193. County, 187. Speed, 254. Spenser, 6. Spike Island, 6. Spike, James, 212. St. Patrick's Purgatory, 114-115. Stags of Broadhaven, 185. Station Island, 114. "Stella," 264-265. Stevenson, R. L., 64. Steward, James, 212. Sugar Loaf Mountain, 57. Swift, Dean, 235, 264-265. Tara, 106, 251-259, 260, 265, 269, 283. Psalter of, 252. Taylor, Jeremy, 244, 296. Taylor, Thomas, 48. Teelin Head, 199. Temple Brecan, 160. Temple MacDuagh, 160. Thackeray, 49-50. Thomond, 113. Tighernach, 283. Tipperary, County, 114. Toberclare, 123. Tollymore Park, 245. Tone, Theobald Wolfe, 44-45. Torc Lake, 72. Torc Mountain, 62, 75. Torc Waterfall (or Cascade), 62, 75. Tory Island, 202, 205. Tredagh (see Drogheda). Trim, 260-265. Tuatha de Danaan, Princes of, 87. Turgesius, 125, 233. Twelve Bens, The, 181, 182. Tyrconnel, 224. Tyrconnel, Lady, 249-250. Tyrell, Captain, 48. Tyrrey, Dominick, 11. Ulster, 154, 207, 224, 239, 240, 243, 245, 254, 291, 292, 295. Ultonia, 283. Valentia Island, 87-95. Valley of the Black Pig, 187-188. Venerable Bede, 201. "Vicar of Wakefield, The," 123. Victoria Lock, 116. Victoria, Queen, 5. Walker, 213. Walton, Izaak, 190. Warbeck, Perkin 15. Waterford, 17, 247, 249. Wellington, Duke of, 88. Wells of Struell, 244. Westmeath, 119. Westport, 177. Whiddy Island, 45. Wicklow, 22, 160. Wilkie, Sir David, 53. William of Orange, 99, 120, 249-250. Windy Gap, 68. Woodford, 116. Yeats, W. B., 64, 187-188. Yelverton, Major, 246-247. 
48379	----	[Illustration: MOLLY'S PEASANTS.] MOLLY AND KITTY, OR PEASANT LIFE IN IRELAND; WITH OTHER TALES. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, BY [Illustration] Trauermantel. BOSTON: CROSBY, NICHOLS, & CO., 111 Washington Street, 1856. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. CAMBRIDGE: METCALF AND COMPANY, STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS. DEDICATION. MY DEAR ERNEST:-- Although it is highly improbable that your happy and sheltered childhood and youth will ever be checkered by the struggles with fortune and the world painted in the following Scenes from Life, yet I am sure they cannot fail to interest you, increase your sympathy with all who suffer, and teach you to rejoice in the well-earned triumphs of uprightness, perseverance, patient study, benevolence, and the forgiveness of injuries. While reading them, will you not sometimes bestow a kind remembrance upon your friend and cousin, THE TRANSLATOR. CONTENTS. PAGE MOLLY AND KITTY, BY OLGA ESCHENBACH 1 THE YOUNG ARTIST, BY MARIA BURG 93 BENEVOLENCE AND GRATITUDE, BY OLGA ESCHENBACH 239 MOLLY AND KITTY, OR PEASANT LIFE IN IRELAND. CHAPTER I. In one of the most desolate regions of Ireland, scarcely ever visited even by the most inquisitive traveller or the most eager sportsman, stood, nearly sixty years ago, a row of low and miserable hovels. They were formed of rough stones rudely piled together, and, at a little distance, looked more like the heaps of stones which in ancient times were thrown together to mark the spot upon which slept the dead, than houses intended to shelter human beings. Upon a closer examination, however, an observer might perceive, if the mould, moss, and mud did not succeed in concealing them from his searching glance, rude doors made of unplaned boards roughly nailed together, without either latch or bolt, with little holes irregularly bored through them to admit the blessed light of heaven, which cheers the poor as well as the rich, within these dark and miserable walls. Notwithstanding this proof, he might still continue to gaze on in doubt, asking his sinking heart if it could be indeed possible that these unformed masses of stone were really intended for homes for beings endowed with quick susceptibilities, and the godlike powers of human reason. But as he inspected the tottering roof, thatched with rushes and covered with turf, he might observe heavy clouds of thick gray smoke curling and eddying from a hole in the top; then his last doubt must cease, and, breathing a deep sigh for the wretchedness surrounding him, he is forced to confess that nowhere throughout the whole extent of civilized Europe are such comfortless dwellings for men and women to be found. Only those who know something of the poverty and misery endured by the Irish people, even at the present date, when the ardent friends of humanity have succeeded in winning for this oppressed and injured race some of the political rights hitherto denied them in consequence of their obstinate adherence to the faith of their ancestors, can form any conception of the state of utter destitution in which they formerly lived. In one of the hovels which we have just described, and whose interior is if possible more repulsive than its exterior, two forms present themselves to our readers. The one is that of a young maiden scarcely sixteen, who kneels upon the earthen hearth, close beside a suspended kettle. The glimmering fire, which she now succeeds in stirring into a bright flame, shows us a slender form, a soft and clear blue eye, long, fair hair, and a pale, pale face, whose features are rendered strangely attractive by the deep melancholy imprinted upon their youthful lines. Her left arm, whose dazzlingly white skin glitters through the holes in the coarse, dark, worn-out garment, holds a child, who stretches one of its little meagre hands towards the cheerful blaze, while with the other it tries to cover its naked knees with its short, torn frock. It shudders as it finds all its efforts vain. Cowering and sinking upon the shoulder of the elder, it murmurs,-- "I am so cold, Molly!--oh! so, so cold, Molly! and so, so hungry!" "Poor little Kitty!" answered the elder maiden, gently, "have patience only for a few minutes more; the potatoes in the pot are already beginning to boil, and on Sunday you shall have something more than potatoes, for father promised to bring a little piece of pork for you home with him." "Molly, won't he bring some stuff with him too, to make a new frock for me, for this one is so short that it won't cover my legs? He promised me he would, and father has never told a single story to his poor little blind Kitty." "We will see about that," answered the sister, soothingly; yet in every tone which breathed so softly from the quivering lips might be read the secret of the bitter suffering which she struggled to repress. "If our father really promised it to you, he will be sure to keep his word. But don't you remember, as he was going away, he called back to you through the open door, 'If I can possibly do it, my little Kitty!'" The child raised her large, sad eyes towards the face of her sister, while the big tears rolled rapidly over her sunken cheeks; at last she stammered through her broken sobs,-- "Are we, then, so very poor, Molly?" "Oh! very, very poor indeed, Kitty." As if to convince herself of the truth of the words which she had just uttered, she suffered her eyes to wander through the miserable room in which she was seated. All they owned in this world stood in this chamber. One corner of it was separated from the rest by a partition of boards: the space thus inclosed was intended either for the pig or the goat of the family. She could scarcely see through the larger apartment for the thick and blinding clouds of smoke; but she knew where the coarse pine table stood, and the low wooden stool. She had herself spread a little moss and a few handfuls of reeds under the wretched beds, to keep them as much as possible from becoming damp and mouldy on the earthen floor. There was but little to count. Apparently not much consoled by the consideration of their possessions, she turned away her melancholy eyes, and again assumed her first position. But the changing expression of her face, and the head, sometimes raised as if in eager expectation, and sometimes sinking as if in despair upon her bosom, gave sufficient evidence that she was in a state of restless anxiety. At last she said to her little sister, who, apparently exhausted by her fit of weeping, was now lying quietly in her arms,-- "Do you hear nothing, Kitty?" After a short pause, the child answered,-- "No; I hear nothing. Nothing at all!" "Nor I, Kitty; and yet father should have been back long ago. Often and often I thought I heard the sound of his footsteps; but I must have been mistaken, or he would now be here. It seems to be growing dark already. If you would only promise me not to stir from this spot, not to move any closer to the fire, I would go a few steps from the door, and look if I could see him coming. I feel so restless and anxious to-day. May the Holy Virgin guard us, and keep any new misfortune from falling upon us!" "Go, sister," answered the little girl; "you need not feel uneasy about me, for indeed I will not stir from this spot, in which you have put me, until you come back. But, Molly, don't stay too long, don't leave me too long alone, because I am so much afraid when you are not with me, and when I cannot hear your voice. I think the angels that mother used to tell us so often about must be just like you, Molly,--so kind and so good." Touched by these simple words, Molly bent down, pressed her lips upon the brow white as marble in its famished pallor, and said softly,-- "God has taken away from us the mother who loved us so dearly, and made an angel of her, because she was so kind and good. When you are good, Kitty, she is glad; and in the blessed place in which she now lives, she feels her happiness redoubled. So you must always be very good, my little sister. How could it be possible that you would do anything which would make your mother and sister feel sad? Don't be afraid if I leave you for a little while. Only think of your dear mother, that she is always near you, that she takes care of you with the truest love, although even from the very day upon which you were born she was so weak and suffered so constantly that she could scarcely be numbered among the living; and I have often spent whole nights upon my knees, with the hot tears running down my cheeks, praying the Merciful One to take the poor sufferer we loved to himself, that she might rest with Him above. At last, Kitty, He took her to heaven!" Then Molly again stirred the fire, seated her little sister upon an old coverlid, the ends of which she tenderly wrapped round the emaciated, half-naked limbs, and left the hovel. The long autumn night was already falling upon the earth, and covered the landscape with its dull, gray veil; the cheerful sky was thickly overcast with dusky clouds, which, constantly changing their fantastic forms, seemed hunting each other through the vaulted gloom. A rough north-wind met poor Molly as she emerged from the hovel, tore the heavy door out of her slight hand, and blew it with a loud crash against the wall. She shuddered with fright, but, almost immediately regaining her self-possession, she attentively examined the door, to ascertain if any of the boards had been broken in the sudden jar; and having soon convinced herself that nothing had been injured, with considerable effort she succeeded in rolling a heavy stone to the door, to prevent the possibility of the recurrence of a like accident. Then she stooped to look again at her little sister through one of the holes which served as windows to the hut. Kitty sat as motionless as she had promised to do, and Molly, apparently satisfied that she would continue to do so, hastened forward upon a narrow footpath, so little frequented that its slight traces were scarcely distinguishable in the increasing gloom. From time to time she stopped, sometimes to look around her, and listen anxiously for the desired footsteps, sometimes to get breath, for a strong and piercing north-wind blew directly in her face, and greatly increased the difficulty of her lonely search. After she had struggled on for a considerable distance, she thought she heard the longed-for sounds; and before she had ventured to give herself fully up to the hope that the so long expected one was indeed near, a tall form stood before her, whom with a loud cry of joy she immediately greeted as "Father!" But there was no response given to her joyful welcome. In utter silence, the tall man grasped the slight girl round her slender waist. Almost carrying her forward, for her feet scarcely even touched the ground, he reached the entrance of his wretched dwelling. With a powerful kick, so that it rolled entirely over, he tossed away the heavy stone from the door, drew, or rather bore, his daughter into the inside of the now dimly lighted hut, rapidly flung the rope which was fastened to the door round a post which seemed planted in the floor for that purpose, and with a few strides stood directly in front of the fire. He then seized the coarse sack which he had carried upon his broad shoulders, and threw it upon the ground with such force that the child who was lying near his feet, and who had probably been asleep, started up with a loud cry of fright. "Don't be frightened, Kitty," said Molly, soothingly, as she threw a handful of shavings into the now sinking fire; "don't be afraid now, for our dear father is with us; the potatoes are cooked enough, and you shall no longer be so very, very hungry." "Is my father indeed here?" said the little girl, at once forgetting both hunger and cold. "Where are you, father? Just speak one word, that your poor little blind Kitty may know where to find you. O, you have been away so long to-day! and yet Molly told me it was not far to the village to which you were going, and that you had not much to do there." But no sound escaped the lips of the one so warmly welcomed. Motionless and with folded arms he still stood before the fire, darkly gazing into its cheerful glow. His eldest daughter then softly approached him; by the blaze of a lighted shaving which she held in her hand, she saw the expressive face of her father, with its weather-beaten skin and labor-wrinkled brow, and with the deepest sorrow impressed upon every line of the manly and handsome countenance. The tears which were hanging upon his long eyelashes, the spasmodic quivering which wreathed its torture round his mouth, could not escape her searching glance, rendered keen through the power of love. Trembling before the recital of some new and dire misfortune, which she felt he was now about to make to her, she leaned her innocent head upon the breast of the beloved and true-hearted father, whose life had been so often and fatally darkened by misfortune. But almost roughly he pushed her away. "Child!" he cried, with an expression of the deepest agony in his fine face, "why do you continue to love a wretch whom the whole world has forsaken? You, too, had better forsake him! Fly,--fly now,--instantly, or he will draw you into a far deeper misery,--a suffering for which there are no words, in comparison with which all you have already endured will seem to you a lot worthy of envy, a destiny full of blessings." Molly fell at his feet, and embraced his knees, while her soft blue eyes gazed pleadingly into his face. "You would drive me from you?" she asked, with trembling tones; "you yourself would rob me of my last hope, my only support? No, father; you cannot mean it so, you cannot be in earnest! There is no happiness which I would not willingly resign, unless it were to be shared with you! All the suffering and agony which God may choose to inflict upon us will I bear without a murmur, with a firm and unblenching spirit, so long as He tears me not from your side! Father, drive me not from you!" Deeply touched, the man gazed upon his fair child. "So said your mother, also," he murmured in a tone of voice scarcely audible, "when her stern father renounced her on my account. She joyfully offered up to me comfort and wealth; through all the bitter renunciations which our poverty forced upon us, her spirit remained unbroken; and even when her eye grew dim with the gathering mists of death, the last breath which escaped from her pale lips was still fraught with blessings, with consolation, with undying love for me!" "My mother was, indeed, good and pious," answered Molly, "and her memory will always be dear to my heart. The heavenly cheerfulness with which she bore all her sorrows and sufferings will always remain in my remembrance, and encourage me to imitate it. But you are not less dear to me than she was. How could my mother find any sacrifice hard which was to be made for your sake? Her father must have been very wicked when he would have forced her to marry a man who was generally despised, only because he was rich, although she frankly confessed to him that she could never be happy with any one but you. When she told the man whom her father would have forced upon her that she could not love him, and when he in consequence ceased to urge his suit, then her father was so enraged at her candor that he renounced and cursed his only child. But you remained true; you clasped the disinherited girl with more love to your bosom than if she had brought you all the wealth of which her father had deprived her. To render her life less laborious, you have yourself suffered tortures. You have never rested night or day, you have shunned no fatigue, you have avoided no hardships; and when at last she fell sick, and grew weaker and weaker every day, and in spite of all your weary struggling you could not procure for her the little comforts which you thought necessary to lighten her sufferings, then you went secretly and sold your farm for a third of its value, because upon no less stringent terms would the heartless purchaser consent to pay you any ready money upon it, and permit you still to remain in possession of it until the dying wife should have closed her eyes in death. For the physician had already said she must soon die, and more significantly than even the prophecy of the skilful doctor did her always increasing weakness whisper it to our sinking hearts. You would not suffer the tranquillity of her rapidly passing hours to be broken, and thus she was never informed of the heavy sacrifice you had made to insure her comfort. Softly she slumbered her life away, for she was never tortured by any fears for the future of her loved ones." "Why do you stop, Molly?" vividly asked the father, as the daughter suddenly ceased in her narration. "O, go on! go on! Confess at once that you have often thought whether your father had not been unwise thus to sacrifice his little farm, which was all he possessed; whether he had not been imprudent to give up his only hope of subsistence for himself and his children, to keep alive, only for a few days longer, the flickering flame of life in the heart of the wife, who, under all possible circumstances of alleviation, was doomed soon to die?" "Is it possible that you can think so meanly of me?" said Molly, hastily, while the indignant blood rushed to her pale cheek, which glowed for a moment like the summer rose. "If a thought so degrading has ever once flitted through my soul, may God and the Virgin forsake me in my hour of need!" A loud cry from Kitty now interrupted them. Tired of the long conversation of which she could understand so little, the child, who had not before ventured to leave the spot upon which her sister had seated her, had at last risen, and, in her attempt to approach the speakers, had fallen over the sack which her father had thrown on the floor on his entrance. "Don't cry, darling," said the soft voice of Molly, as she lovingly caressed the little girl, who was trying to dry the ever-gushing tears with the corner of her apron. "You have not hurt yourself very much, have you, Kitty? It don't pain you now, does it, love? Don't cry any more, and I will tell you what is in the sack over which you fell. May be we shall find some calico in it to make a little frock for you, or some wool to knit stockings for you. I will make them long and thick for you, so that your poor feet will no longer be frozen." So saying, Molly opened the sack, but she quickly drew her hand out again. "What is the matter?" asked her father. "Why do you look so frightened? That which is in the sack cannot possibly hurt you now. I would willingly have spared you the sight, Molly, but you must know it, and perhaps it is better you should hear it now than to-morrow, because you will then have time to make the necessary preparations." As he spoke, he stooped down and lifted up the sack, which was dotted over with dark red spots resembling blood. For a moment he stood as if irresolute, as if his heart failed him; then, with a sudden effort, he raised from the sack the head of a pig, which looked as if it had just been cut off, and held it immediately over the flame, so that his daughter could clearly see it. Molly could not suppress a faint shriek. "Holy Virgin!" she exclaimed, as she covered her face with both hands, from which every trace of color now vanished. "What will become of us! O, I never could have believed it possible that Wilkins would carry his dreadful threat into execution! I never thought that any man would be guilty of such a barbarous deed! He has torn the last hope from the heart of the poor! It is frightful,--horrible,--it must draw down the wrath of God upon him! O merciful God! what will become of us?" "I can soon tell you that," replied her father, with assumed tranquillity. "They will be here early to-morrow to tear all our remaining property from us. As it will not, however, pay more than half the debt, they will then drive us all out of the cabin, and--and--that is all,--that is all, Molly! You can form no idea of what I have lived through to-day. The blood still boils in my veins as I think of it. I was on my way home from the village, where I had changed our few spare potatoes for some other things which we could not do without. I was only about three hundred steps from our own door, when I heard a gun fired close by me. I stopped, and looked round in every direction to see from whence the shot came, when I perceived Wilkins standing in the neighboring field, who in the same moment recognized me, and burst into a loud fit of laughter. 'You ragged rascal!' he cried to me, 'just come a little nearer and look about you, then tell me if I am a bad shot, for your brute lies stone dead upon my first fire.' With these words, he gave a kick to something which lay at his feet. I drew nearer to look at it; it was a pig,--our pig,--the pig which I had intended to sell this very week, so as to be able to pay the rent now due upon the hut;--our pig, to which we have so often given our own meals, and have so often been forced to do without food ourselves that we might fatten it for sale. I was struck dumb! I could force no words through my quivering lips. I felt as if some huge hand, which I could not remove, were grasping my throat, and slowly twisting my neck round. But my horror, my despair, was only pleasure to this inhuman wretch. "With his fierce gray eyes sparkling with malice, he said, in a tone of wild triumph,--'Look now, fellow, didn't I tell before how it would be? It was only yesterday I said to your daughter, You had better tie your pig up tight, for if I ever find him in my field I will without any warning send a ball through his head. And now I have shot it. You had better look out and get the money to pay your back rent. Ha! ha! ha! But we will go shares in the carcass of the pig; for I must be paid for my shot, or else I will have wasted my powder.' 'Halloo, fellows! come here, will you?' he cried to some of his people who were at work in the field; then, cutting off the head of the dead brute with his jackknife, he ordered them to carry the rest of it to his own house. "Then life and motion at once returned to my paralyzed limbs. Before he was aware of my intention, I had seized him by the shoulders, lifted him from the ground, and shaken him violently. He literally foamed with rage, when he found he could not loose himself from the iron grasp of my powerful arms. At last I sat him down again, but not very softly, as you may suppose. No sooner had he felt the ground fairly under his feet, than he ran off as fast as possible; but when he thought himself at a sufficient distance from me to be safe, he turned round and screamed to me,--'Day before yesterday the new landlord arrived here; he is no such milksop as the old one was; he is determined to have his rent, and you may be sure that you must either pay it to-morrow or find another house before night.' "The last cruel words of this barbarous man died away in the wind. I put the head of the pig, which he had designated as my half, into the sack, and then seated myself upon a stone to think how I could tell all this to you, how I could soften it for you, Molly. I thought it over and over until it grew dark, for I could not bear to bring such bad news home, when I remembered that you would be wondering what had become of me; and I had just set out again on my return when I heard you cry, 'Father!' God be thanked that you now know all! I breathe already more freely, for my breast felt as heavy, and my heart as much crushed, as if the weight of the world had pressed upon them! "Now, children, let us eat our supper and go to bed; it is, in all probability, the last night we shall ever spend in this house. However that may be, He who clothes the lilies and feeds the ravens will not desert us. Even if men wearing the human form, yet without compassion for their fellows, should drive us from our only shelter, and force us to take up our abode with the beasts of the field, or the wild things of the forest, yet will He find for us a shelter in which we can lay down our weary heads in safety!" Molly had listened in utter silence to the sad recital of her father. She now poured the potatoes out of the pot into a large, black earthen dish, sprinkled a little salt over them, placed them upon the table, pushed the two wooden stools close to it, and kindled a thin stick of pine, which she put into a hole in the wall, that it might throw its uncertain light over the last meal they were ever to eat together in their present home. Taking little Kitty upon her lap, she sometimes helped her father to a potato, sometimes gave one to the hungry child, but she tasted none herself. Large tears, like pearls, ran unceasingly down her pale cheeks; but no other trace of suffering betrayed the bitter emotions which struggled in her soul. The scanty meal was soon ended; after half an hour had passed, nothing was to be seen in the dark room, nothing heard save the measured breathing of a sleeping child, from time to time the gasping of a suppressed sob, or a deep, yet half-stifled sigh. CHAPTER II. THE NEW LANDLORD. Morning now dawned upon the earth, but no friendly smiles from the joyous sun announced the birth of the young day. The lonely hills in the distance were half veiled with thick gray mists, which, tossed and whirled by the fitful gusts of the dreary autumn wind, looked like the dim ghosts of the dead giants, driven on to judgment by the fell spirits of the gloomy air. As far as the eye could reach, no human form was visible. A flock of sheep were quietly browsing the scanty grass on the slope of a neighboring hill, while a few ravens fluttered and cawed above. Everything seemed dead, even in the little row of wretched hovels which we have described. At last the door of the most miserable among them, with whose inmates we are already acquainted, opened, and Molly and her father stepped out in the bleak, raw morning air. At the same moment, they observed the forms of several men turning into the little footpath which led by these humble dwellings. From the enormous strides taken by them, they seemed to be hurrying forward with all their powers. "Father, do you know those men who seem to be hastening towards us?" asked Molly. "How can you doubt for an instant, my poor child? How fast they hurry on, as if they feared their human prey might escape them! Can you see them distinctly? Wilkins is with them. No doubt he is delighted that he is permitted to take any part in this inhuman act. Look! He has his two furious bloodhounds with him! It seems he has not forgotten the scene of yesterday, and has, therefore, deemed it best to bring his protectors with him. Yes, yes; the very worm will turn when it has been trodden upon." The poor man sighed heavily and deeply, and then cast a pleading, almost a reproachful, glance towards the clouded heavens. He felt his hand suddenly seized, and a shower of hot, hot tears pour upon it; then he shook his head almost defiantly, as if ashamed of his momentary weakness. He pressed his daughter closely to his true heart. "Courage, courage, my dear child!" he said to her. "To-day you will need it all! But the just Judge, the Merciful One, will surely aid us, although no way of safety seems at present open before us." "O father!" answered Molly, sobbing, "what a terrible day! I never could live through it were you not near me. Look! Even the bright sun has wrapped himself in his thickest, darkest veils, that he may not be forced to gaze upon a scene so full of horror." She closed her eyes as she rested her head upon his shoulder, but was soon frightened from her place of refuge by the furious howlings of the fierce hounds. "Ha! ha! ha!" cried Wilkins, who now stood within a few steps of the door, and gazed upon them with an expression of vindictive rage. "Are you contemplating the charming country which surrounds you? Well, well, you will certainly have time enough to study nature in the open air, with no roof between you and the autumn stars. Therefore, perhaps you had better gaze upon the delights of your castle here, think what a charming place of residence it has always been for you, and that, if you really wish to enjoy the luxury of a shelter within its walls, you must pay immediately the rent which is due upon it; for you are in arrears seven months and ten days. Ha! ha! how is it? will you answer me? I must know instantly, O'Neil, whether you are ready to pay me the ready money, the sum due upon the rent, now, or not?" O'Neil answered tranquilly, "You know I cannot pay it; and you know, too, why I cannot; for you yourself robbed me yesterday of the only means to do it which I possessed in the world." Wilkins angrily interrupted him, saying, "What nonsensical stuff! What idle chattering! I know where I am, and what I am doing; and you shall soon know it too! But if the keen wind should nip the nose of your dainty daughter, or freeze your own, then remember that it was warmer in this hut, and that it was no trifle to have handled an honorable sportsman like myself with your rough hands! Ha! ha! The morning air is somewhat bleak, but we shall have rain before night! Go ahead! go ahead, boys! go into the rascal's den, and bring out all you see there. Ha! ha! ha! No doubt you will find things of enormous value in it, for the lord tenant carries his head so high he must surely have thousands at his command!" The men who were with him approached the door of the hovel, in order to execute his brutal commands; but Molly rushed on in advance of them to bring out her little sister, who, utterly unconscious of all the horrors that surrounded her, was still wrapped in peaceful slumber. As Molly lifted the scarcely wakened child tenderly in her protecting arms, she lightly murmured, "O that I, too, were blind! for even to sit in perpetual darkness must be a lighter affliction than to be forced to look upon such things as are now occurring, without possessing the least power to prevent them." "Do you wish to become blind?" asked Kitty, who, almost as in a dream, had heard the sad words of her sister. "O, if you only knew how frightful it is to be blind, you would never, never say such a dreadful thing! O, what a constant happiness it must be to be able to see!" added the poor little blind girl, vividly, while her dead eyes seemed almost to kindle into life as she continued to speak. "Molly, my Molly, if I could only see you, and my dear father, and the blue sky, and all the glittering stars, which you have so often told me were so wonderfully beautiful, then I would willingly endure both hunger and cold, and I would never complain again, Molly!" "Alas, my poor little blind one! hunger and cold you must soon endure, without being able to see the shining stars above, the faces of those you love, or the blue heaven-tent!" sighed Molly, as the rapid tears coursed down her cheeks. "O, my heart will surely break if I am to see my poor little Kitty pine and waste away before my eyes! There is no deeper anguish in this wretched world than to be forced to gaze upon the slow agonies of those whom we love and cannot aid. That is the real torture; that is far worse than death!" In a few moments the men had succeeded in dragging out all the scanty furniture of the unhappy family. Wilkins measured it rapidly with his keen eyes, then turned them away with an expression of the utmost scorn. He muttered angrily between his teeth: "The whole property is good for nothing, except to split up and heat the stove. It would never be worth while to offer such wretched trash for sale, for the whole sum that could be raised upon it would not be enough to buy the most wretched goose that ever starved upon the bogs of Ireland." Then suddenly and angrily turning to O'Neil, who stood, as if turned to stone, before the door of his hut, he said: "Now, O'Neil, what are you standing there for? You had better use the time before the arrival of the landlord, whom I already see in the distance. If you stay here until he comes, he will probably let you taste the delights of his hunting-whip, for he is very generous in the lavish use he is in the habit of making of it." O'Neil shuddered as if stung by a rattlesnake; his hands were clenched as if in a convulsion; his eyes started almost out of his head, as if about to fall from their pained sockets. "Pitiless! inhuman!" he cried, "what do you require from me? O, if indeed a human heart beats in your bosom, look upon these poor girls, and you cannot, I am sure you cannot, re-echo an order so cruel to their unhappy father! Take all that we possess, we will ask to retain nothing; but for the love of God, drive us not out naked, without a shelter, in the freezing autumn blasts! Give me only a respite for three months, and I will do everything. I will work day and night; I will never rest until I have gained enough to pay my rent!" Wilkins looked upon him with a bitter smile, and answered with a harsh voice: "All this is useless. No delay can possibly be granted to you. And I advise you, as a friend, that you had better get out of the way before the new landlord comes." But O'Neil did not seem to regard this warning. "O God!" he cried, "where shall I find words to move this heart of stone?" Then again turning himself towards his enemy, he plead yet more earnestly with him. "Have mercy upon us, Wilkins, I conjure you by all that is holy or dear in your eyes; by the bones of the mother who loved you, and which are now mouldering under the sod; by the trembling head and silver hairs of your aged father; by the Eternal God who rules above the stars, and who suffers no cruelty to pass unpunished! You had a great deal of influence with the former landlord, and I have no doubt that a single word from you would induce the new one to grant me a short delay. Speak it, Wilkins!" "Halloo! what's the matter there?" cried a rough, loud voice; and the speaker, mounted upon a powerful horse, rode towards them. Wilkins bowed to the very ground. "It is the tenant," said he, "of whom I spoke to your worship yesterday; he won't leave the hut, and yet I have already promised it to another." "He must go, and go immediately. There shall be no delay. Where is the rascal who dared to lay his insolent hands upon one of my agents." O'Neil now pressed up to the side of the horse upon which the speaker was seated, and, throwing himself upon his knees, wringing his hands in his wild despair, passionately prayed, "Have pity! O, have mercy upon us! For the sake of the harmless, helpless children!" "Is the rascal mad?" said the angry landlord; "tear him from under the feet of my horse, or I'll drive the iron hoofs into his brain. If he refuses to go away from the cabin willingly, let the bloodhounds loose upon him, and I'll warrant you they'll soon put an end to his Irish howls." Yet again would O'Neil, for the sake of his helpless children, have tried to touch the heart of the barbarous landlord. Again he raised his pleading eyes to the hard face; but its fierce expression told him all hope was vain, and a frightful, shrill cry, almost like a death-shriek, forced its way from his agonized breast. As if suddenly overcome by utter despair, he sprang up with a wild movement from the earth upon which he had thrown himself, took little Kitty in the one arm, while he threw the other round the half-fainting Molly, lifted her entirely from the ground, and, as if hunted and pursued by relentless furies, rushed rapidly away. But scarcely had he lost sight of his wretched hovel, when he fell, completely exhausted, to the ground. The poor occupants of the neighboring cabins, who had been silent, yet indignant, witnesses of the horrible scene which we have just attempted to portray, now approached with various little offerings for the banished and homeless family. One brought a cake of oatmeal, shaped like our pancakes, but as thin as a sheet of paper, and as hard as a stone; another offered a little bag of potatoes, some salt, and a small piece of pork; an old woman presented Molly with a yard or two of coarse linen, and a pair of knit stockings; and a young girl wrapped up the half-naked Kitty in a large piece of heavy cloth spun from wool. Each gave what he had to spare, not only food, but some of the most indispensable utensils for cooking; indeed, many gave more than they could well spare, and the good people would certainly have taken the unhappy, homeless family into their own hovels, if they had not stood in awe of the rage of the landlord, and feared the revenge of his heartless agent. So true is it that compassion dwells rather in the hut of the poor than in the palace of the rich. Silent from excess of feeling, and with many grateful and heartfelt pressures of the hand, O'Neil parted from his kind neighbors. Unsteadily and doubtingly he gazed into the distance. As he threw a despairing glance above, the dark clouds parted; and the bright sun looked cheerful and glad as the heavy folds of his cloud-veil were lifted, and joyously he sent his mild rays upon the moist earth. "This way, this way, dear father. O, let us take this path: it leads to the hills!" said Molly, pointing to a hill down whose side trickled, singing, a little stream. The drops of water sparkled like bright tears as the rays of the sun shone upon them, and the rippling of the brook, as it kissed the pebbles, was soft and tender as the distant echo of a cradle-song, chanted by some fond mother to prolong the sleep of her slumbering child. Silently O'Neil turned into the path which Molly had begged him to take, holding the poor blind child in his arms, who, through her unconscious and innocent questions, constantly added to the tortures of his sick heart. His whole soul was now filled with but one thought, one wish,--the desire to find before nightfall some cleft in the rock, some cavern, which might serve as a temporary shelter for the beings he loved. If he should be able to succeed in gaining any place of refuge, and what means it would be best to take, in order to find some spot in which he could leave his children, while he labored to keep them from dying of hunger, were the questions which filled his soul, and tasked all the powers of his mind to answer. He struggled with all his strength to suppress every other thought, to banish every emotion of anger or hatred from his heart, in order to be able to give every faculty of his being to the solving of these pressing questions. Yet, with all his thinking, with all his struggling, with all his suffering, he could find no egress from the dark labyrinth of cares in which he was involved, in which he perpetually wandered; for although a thousand plans passed through his whirling brain, he was always obliged again to relinquish them, because of some obstacle which rendered their execution impossible. If this man, the lineal descendant of the first possessors of green Erin, now driven about without home, without shelter, to preserve his own miserable life, or to still the painful cries of a frightful death from famine, which was already fastening its accursed fangs in the heart of his children, had been driven in his agony to scorn the laws made by his oppressors, and, like the wild beast, had sprung from his inaccessible cleft in the rock, his last refuge from the cruelty of man, and had carried his booty home to sustain life in his dying children,--to whom should the crime be justly attributed? CHAPTER III. THE STORM. "He clothes the lilies, and feeds the ravens." Not far from the sea-coast, in a cavern formed by the fall of an enormous rock, after a period of about fourteen days from the occurrences which we have just described, we again find the unfortunate family of O'Neil. Aided by his herculean strength, he had succeeded, after the most vigorous efforts, in removing the heavy fragments of fallen rock from the interior of the cave, and thus gained sufficient space to shelter himself and his children from the piercing winds and increasing cold of autumn. The entrance to this subterranean dwelling was partially hidden by a projection in the wall of rock, and this kind freak of nature not only secured them from the unwelcome or untimely gaze of prying eyes, but also gave them some protection against the wind and rain, which might otherwise have rendered their refuge almost untenantable. There was a small opening in the vaulted roof of the cavern, also formed by the hand of nature, which served both as window and chimney, yet which might be entirely closed by rolling a stone upon the outside of the cave. The inside of this primitive dwelling was indeed very far from offering what those accustomed to the slightest degree of comfort are in the habit of calling the "necessaries of life"; yet it might be seen, upon the most cursory glance, that tasteful and industrious hands had labored to remove the most striking appearances of discomfort, and had skilfully used every available means to provide for the most pressing wants of the afflicted family. Some fragments of rock, which they still suffered to remain on the inside, had had their projecting inequalities carefully hewn away, and were thus changed into chairs and tables. Two low benches of stone, which they had found laying along the walls, and which in their long, narrow form somewhat resembled coffins, had been slightly hollowed out, and, covered with reeds and soft moss, they answered in place of beds and bedsteads. A little fire burned in one corner, on a hearth formed of two flat stones, while Molly, occupied with her sewing, was sitting near the entrance, apparently with the intention of getting all the light she could obtain, as it fell but scantily into the interior of the cavern. Kitty, with her head resting in her sister's lap, was kneeling at her feet. "Have you almost finished my little frock, Molly?" asked the blind child. "You will soon have it to put on, Kitty; I have only the sleeves left to finish now!" "It takes you a great while to make it, Molly." "That is very true, darling, for the only needle that I have is too fine to carry the coarse thread; so no matter how much I hurry, the work progresses very slowly." "O my good sister Molly! How much care and trouble you have always had about me! If I could only see, I would work so willingly! but now I can do nothing, except to pray always to the Blessed Virgin to reward you for all the care you take of the poor little blind girl. How often and often you have almost starved yourself, that you might be able to give me something to eat, trying to conceal from me that you were so hungry yourself! but you did not always succeed in hiding it from me, Molly. How lovingly you clasp me in your soft arms, and hold me close to your bosom, to try and warm me when my limbs are half frozen with cold!--But hush!--don't you hear something, sister?" "Nothing, Kitty, but the wind, which howls as it winds through these desolate cliffs." "O, how frightful it is here when father is not with us! 'I will not be back for three days,'--did he not say so, Molly, as he went away?" "Yes, my darling. 'When the sun for the third time stands midway in the sky, I will again be with you,' he said, as he kissed us at parting." "Then he will be here to-morrow. But do you know where he is gone?" "He went to seek work in one of the more distant villages. Perhaps some of the farmers may employ him; he thought he might be able to gain something by aiding in the labor of harvesting. Although we have been so very economical in the use of the food which our kind neighbors gave the morning upon which we were driven from our home, it is already exhausted. If our father should fail in his efforts to get work, we must die of hunger, Kitty." "What do you say? Die of hunger! How horrible! It would have been better, then, that we had been torn to pieces at once by the furious bloodhounds which the angry landlord threatened to set upon us, than to linger on through such a frightful death.--But, Molly, do you hear nothing? nothing at all?" "No, little sister; nothing but the raging of the storm and the surging of the waves as they break upon the coast. You are always so nervous and excitable when our father is away; but be quiet, for another Father, far more powerful, and still more kind than our dear one, is always with us, and watches over us with tender eyes. He will never forsake us; he will deliver us in the time of need; but we must do all we can to help ourselves. In the hour of our greatest necessity, he stands closest to us. He will not suffer us to perish utterly." "Talk on; talk on, dear Molly," said Kitty, pleadingly; "if I can only hear your voice, I don't feel so much afraid, it is so soft and sweet! It is so much like our dear mother's, that I often fancy it she who is speaking to me.--But you surely hear something now, sister!" "I hear nothing but the long cries of the sea-gulls, as they flutter o'er the waves, and their sharp, shrill tones tell us that we will have more wind and rain." "It is very strange that you do not hear anything; for it has seemed to me four or five times as if I heard the death-sobs of some one in the last agony, and a despairing cry for help has at intervals rung in my ears! Are you crying, sister? Or what is that hot drop which has just fallen upon my hand?" "It is only a drop of blood; I have stuck my finger with this fine needle. Your anxiety has excited me also, and it seems to me now as if I too heard long sighs and groans near us. It may, indeed, be possible that some unhappy creature requires our aid. I will at least look out and see if I can discover from whence the sounds come. Remain sitting quite still here, Kitty; your little frock is finished, and as soon as I come back I will put it on you, darling." Molly stepped out in front of the cave. She looked eagerly round in every direction, but she saw nothing save the desolate cliffs, whose naked sides had bid defiance to the storms of centuries, and piles of rocks overgrown with moss, like the gravestones used in the times of the heathens. From one point, where the formation of the hills allowed the distant scene to be visible through the aperture, she saw far in the distance the foaming, tossing waves of the white, wide ocean. [Illustration: MOLLY AND THE STRANGER.] "O, if the slight and tottering boat of some poor fisher, or if some richly laden ship, is now tossing about upon the raging waves of this wild sea, pity those, O thou good and powerful God! who have nothing but a plank between them and eternity!" prayed Molly, with lifted hands. Then again she thought she heard a deep sigh very near her, and at the same moment she stumbled and nearly fell over something which lay at her feet; and as she stooped down to see what it was, she discovered with horror that the dark object before her was a human form, over whose face the fresh blood was streaming, and whose hand still grasped a gun. It was too dark to be able to see the features of the man distinctly; but although his clothes were soiled with blood, it was evident that he belonged to the higher walks of life. "Holy Virgin! What can--what shall I do?" exclaimed Molly. "The wounded man is still living; but if I leave him lying here alone, he must certainly perish; and, poor weak girl that I am, how can I possibly lift his heavy body and carry it into the cave?" She raised the head of the wounded stranger, and held it gently in her arms, so that it might rest more comfortably than upon the hard earth. At last the thought that it would be possible for her to drag him to the cavern struck the compassionate girl. "Perhaps I am strong enough to drag him home; I will at least try it," said Molly. She ran first rapidly back to the cave, in order to remove carefully all the stones which were to be found upon the way over which she judged it best to drag the body; then, hastily returning to the wounded man, she tenderly supported his shoulders, and succeeded in thus moving him a few steps forward. But she was soon forced to stop to get breath and collect new strength; yet she did not suffer her courage to sink, and after many forced stops and many vigorous efforts, she at last succeeded in dragging the wounded man to the entrance of their strange place of shelter. She laid him softly down on the outside of the curtain of rock, ran within, and while she, exhausted and out of breath, explained to little Kitty that she had found a human being who sadly needed their help, she hastily carried the moss from the two coffin-like beds standing against the rocky walls, made a bed of it by the side of the dying fire, and rested not until she had placed the wounded man upon it. She then stirred up the fire, to diffuse more heat as well as to obtain more light, placed shivering little Kitty somewhat nearer to the genial blaze, and again left the cavern to bring some fresh, cool water from the spring, which was not far distant. She was soon back again, and began, as carefully as possible, to wash the clotted blood away from the face of the wounded man, which was still flowing from an open gash upon the forehead. But as she continued to bathe it with the fresh cold water, the blood gradually ceased to flow, and with the hope of entirely stopping it, she took the only handkerchief which she possessed from her neck, and bound it round the wounded head. At last the man opened his eyes. At that moment Molly recognized him,--and, with a sudden shudder, turned away! It was the landlord, whose stony heart her father had in vain attempted to move, before whom he had uselessly humbled himself to the very dust, from whose mouth the fiercest, the most inhuman threats had proceeded, who now lay, prostrate and helpless, before her, whom she had taken in her own arms and painfully brought to their last refuge! But the struggle did not last long in the depths of Molly's heart. What she ought to do, what duty and humanity ordained should be done, even for the most bitter enemy, stood in clear and plain letters before her soul. She did not repent for a moment of that which she had already done; and she determined to offer up everything in her power to preserve the sinking life in the bosom of the barbarous landlord. She knew, by the wild rolling of his bloodshot eyes, by the feverish color which burned upon his cheeks, and which had suddenly succeeded to a death-like pallor, that his life was in danger; but she determined not to tell her sister what a dreadful guest was indebted to them for their strange hospitality. It suddenly occurred to her that she had taken all the moss from the bed of the little girl, and that she must again venture out to search for more; and she rapidly made ready to seek it in the neighborhood of the cavern, before it should be too dark to collect it. When she returned with enough for the little bed, she handed a potato, which she had just raked from the warm ashes, to her little sister for supper. "It is all I can possibly give you, Kitty," she said, in a melancholy tone. "Even the salt is all out; let us hope that our dear father will bring some more home with him to-morrow. Before you go to sleep, darling, pray to the Holy Virgin that she will take care of him, and that she will lead him back again in safety to our arms!" She then placed her sister upon her little bed of moss, sang with her soft young voice a soothing lullaby which she had learned from her mother, and not until she was convinced, by the sweet and measured breathing of the blind child, that she was certainly asleep, did her soothing cradle-hymn cease, or did she leave her side. Then she hastened to the wounded man, by whom she determined to watch during the weary hours of the long night. She found him also sleeping, with his head sunk upon his breast, while he groaned frequently, as if tortured by some frightful dream. He still held the gun spasmodically clasped in his clenched hand; Molly carefully tried to wrest it from his iron grasp. At last she succeeded, for although he sprang up fiercely and looked wildly around him for a moment, he again fell back almost immediately, exhausted and without power. She then took her station near him, that she might watch his feverish movements; her eyes rested long and searchingly upon his features, which strangely reminded her of some face familiar to her, and although she earnestly sought to trace the resemblance, yet she did not succeed in finding out the person whom the countenance of the landlord constantly recalled to her uncertain memory. What a night for the poor maiden! The storm of rain and wind raged still more furiously than it had done during the day. It broke and roared through the sharp rocks, while the howling and whistling of the raging winds sounded like the sobs and sighs of thousands of dying men. Like continuous peals of distant thunder, as they flung themselves in their might against the steep and jagged rocks of the cliff, the breaking of the raging waves might be continually heard. But they only broke to renew the strife; to collect again vast masses of the maddened sea to renew the vain attack upon the rock-bound coast. For a lone and unprotected girl it was also fearful in the inside of the cave. The wind would not suffer the thick smoke to ascend through its usual outlet, and it filled the room with its stifling vapor, while the dying coals glowed upon the hearth like fiery eyes glittering through the gloom, and the heavy, feverish, spasmodic breathing of the suffering man rendered it still more dreadful. Molly felt as if surrounded by the icy air of a charnel-house; as if the cold hands of the dead grasped her throat and stifled her breath! All her limbs shivered as if struck by a sudden chill, until she at last conquered herself sufficiently to be able to leave the spot in which she was seated. After walking up and down the cave for a short time, she grew more tranquil; folding her hands, she knelt by the side of her sleeping sister, and prayed for some time; then she threw some turf upon the dying fire, and again seated herself beside the stranger. Pious hymns breathed lightly through her youthful lips; as the simple but touching words sank deeper into her heart and warmed her soul, her voice unconsciously swelled louder and fuller. The wounded man awoke. Scarcely daring to breathe, he listened to the sweet, enchanting tones, that, like wreaths of early flowers, wound themselves round and into his rapidly returning senses, melting away the bands of ice which surrounded his breast, and stealing into the hidden recesses of his wondering heart. "Where am I?" he suddenly asked, trying to rise as he spoke, while he put his hand to his wounded head. "No, no, it is no dream!" he continued; and then, as if he wished to convince himself that he was really awake, he said, "And yet it seemed to me that I heard the voice of Kitty." When Molly heard him speak, she sprang up, and then knelt down beside him, to ascertain if he required help. The old man at that moment first became aware of the maiden's presence. In the dim light which glimmered from the fire, it would have been difficult to have discerned her countenance clearly. Yet, as if it were a matter of the greatest moment to him to be able to see her features distinctly, he leaned forward and gazed earnestly into her face. Then, as if he feared she might suddenly escape him, he seized her rapidly with both hands, drew her as close as possible to him, and looked long and eagerly into her soft blue eyes, from which so much heavenly sweetness, so much tranquil devotion, shone upon him. "Kitty!" he exclaimed at last, with a voice of anguish. "Kitty, my daughter!" he breathed once more in stifled and scarcely audible tones, and then sank fainting upon the floor. "Holy Virgin! Help! he is dying!" cried Molly, wringing her hands. Tortured by the most dreadful fear, she placed her hand upon his heart; but it seemed to her as if it had already ceased to beat. Then she held her cheek close to his lips, but no breath gave evidence that life yet lingered in his breast. In an agony of fright, she sprang up, seized a bucket, and ran to the entrance of the cave. The morning had not yet dawned, and the storm was still raging without, yet nothing could stay her course; neither the furious wind, which, as if armed with a thousand human hands, seized her upon every side, and with which she was forced to battle for every step which she gained in advance; nor the uncertainty and roughness of the way, which it was almost impossible to find in the heavy gloom. Sometimes she fell down upon a jagged stone, and rose with the blood streaming from her bruised knee; sometimes she fell into a great bush of thorns, which tore both hands and face; but thinking not of her own pain, she rapidly rose again, and hurried on. She had already filled the bucket three times at the spring, fortunately guided to it by the noise of the stream rippling over the stones, and three times she had fallen and spilled the cool water, but she would not relinquish her attempt. She would not despair. Again she filled her bucket, and with the greatest efforts, creeping forward, feeling her way both with her hands and feet, she at last reached the cave with a sufficient supply of the precious fluid. She softly approached the old man, who was still lying in the same situation in which she had left him; she bathed his temples with the cool spring-water, but as this did not seem to produce the desired effect, she sprinkled his whole face with the fresh drops, and tried to make him swallow some,--but it was all in vain! She waited for a few moments; then she wet the handkerchief bound round his wounded head; again she bathed his temples, and hope now began at last to revive for Molly. After she had almost despaired of ever seeing him restored to life, he opened his firmly closed lips, and a light sigh breathed through them. The pallor of death vanished by slow degrees from his face; regular breathings heaved lightly through his breast, and a healthful and necessary sleep now seized upon all his senses. After Molly had gazed upon him attentively for a long time, and had thoroughly convinced herself that the crisis of danger was past, exhausted by the physical exertions and mental agonies of the trying night, she, too, fell into a deep slumber. Stretched upon the hard ground, with her gentle head resting upon its pillow of stone, her wearied eyelids closed, and she softly floated into the lovely land of dreams. It was broad daylight when Molly awoke. From the land of light, of lovely fantasies and sunny hopes, of happy visions, she returned to the sad world of reality; and a single glance round the cavern was sufficient to bring before her memory all the exciting occurrences of the night just past. The wounded man was still asleep, and she was very glad that it should be so; she would have given a great deal to have been certain that his sleep would last until the return of her father, whose arrival she most ardently longed for. Kitty had been awake for a long time, had been frightened at not finding her sister at her side, as she was accustomed to do, had several times called her name lightly, but, receiving no answer, tried to calm herself with the thought that her sister had wakened before her, and had gone to the spring to bring water to prepare their simple meal. But hearing now the tread of light footsteps, she joyfully stretched out both arms to greet the coming one. "It is you, Molly, I know," she cried with a blissful certainty of tone. "My Molly, my only, my good sister!" said she caressingly to Molly; and the child whom she had nurtured as tenderly as the truest mother could have done pressed her closely to her heart, and covered her with the innocent kisses of childlike love. "Be quiet, very quiet, my little darling, for you have not forgotten that we gave shelter last night to a stranger, who requires sleep, and who may easily be awakened by your pleasant chattering. Your breakfast is not yet ready; but if you will sit here quite still and silent, you shall not have to wait for it long." "Never mind the breakfast," said the child; "indeed I am not very hungry; and, unless you will eat it, we can keep the little piece of oatmeal bread, so that our father may have a mouthful of something to taste when he returns, hungry and tired, home. Indeed I am not hungry, Molly," asserted Kitty once more, because she supposed, from her sister's silence, that she did not quite believe her words. "If you would really make me very happy, sit down close beside me, and tell me something out of the Bible. Tell me about blind Tobit, whom the good God made see again as well as anybody else, because he was good, patient, and pious; or else about Joseph, whom the wicked brothers sold into Egypt, and yet God made him great and powerful, and he became the benefactor of thousands in a strange land." Molly did as the little one requested. She took her upon her lap, and related to her all that she had asked for. Her words were simple, but they were colored by the warm, true, and pious feelings of the maiden. From time to time she rose and slipped to the side of the sick man, whom, to her delight, she always found asleep. "Don't you think that father must soon be here?" asked Kitty, after several hours had thus passed away. "O, I hope and wish for it so earnestly!" answered Molly. "While chattering with you, I have quite forgotten to look out and see what kind of weather it is. It seems to me the storm has raved itself to rest. Remain here, darling, near the bed of the sick man, and if, by the lightest change in his breathing, you think that he is awaking, call my name loudly; I will be at the entrance, and will certainly hear you." With these words, Molly placed Kitty at the feet of the sick stranger. "Do not forget you must sit still, Kitty, and be sure to call me if he moves," said Molly as she left the cave. The dear, warm rays of the sun greeted her as she sought the open air. Only the lightest clouds, finer and softer than any web ever woven by human hands, flitted over the high arch of the heavens, for ever changing in form and play of varied light. The air was soft and mild, which it rarely is in the end of autumn in Ireland, and upon the glittering surface of the wide sea millions of white and sparkling waves were dancing, like bright fairies and water-spirits. From the path which lay stretched at her feet, winding now up, now down the cliffs, in a hundred serpent-like turns, sounded, sometimes farther, sometimes nearer, the tones of a single full, clear, and manly voice. Molly listened attentively, and in her eyes, which reflected back so truly every thought of her pure soul, glittered a ray of hope. She was not mistaken; the tones of the dear voice came ever more distinctly to her ears; she could even distinguish the words which fell from the lips of the unseen singer, Erin ma Vourneen, Erin go Bragh! The sounds were close at hand; only a projecting rock hid the coming form from her searching eyes; another second passed, and, with a loud cry of joy, she sank upon the breast of her father. "Father! my dear, dear father!" she cried, almost breathlessly, as she again and again wound her arms around him. O'Neil rapidly placed upon the ground a few cooking utensils which he had brought with him, and a little bag of meal, and then embraced his daughter with all the marks of the truest affection, asking her as many tender questions as if years, in place of days, had passed since they parted. "But where is my Kitty?" said he, anxiously; "nothing has happened to my poor blind girl?" "Nothing, dearest father, nothing! The little one is in the cave; I have just left her, to look out if I could see you coming." "Let us go to her immediately!" "Wait a moment! I am so glad that you are here already; I could scarcely have believed you would have returned so early. What unexpected good fortune has brought you back so soon, and so richly laden, to our arms?" "I met with a farmer not far from here, tolerably well off, who required assistance to dig up his potatoes, and who promised me a little share in the harvest-grain if I would stay and help him. I found him more humane than I had anticipated in the beginning, and when he saw that I labored with all my might to help him, he willingly granted me a day to visit my home, and gave me a share of my wages to bring with me. But now come to Kitty," said O'Neil, quickly, as he commenced to make his way to the cave. "Dear father, yet another word! You will not find Kitty alone!" "Who is with her, then?" asked O'Neil, astonished. "An old man whom I found yesterday evening near this place, bleeding and wounded, who had probably lost his way upon the chase, and injured himself through some unlucky fall." "Did you say he was an old man?" "So he appears to be, for the thin hairs which scantily cover his head are white as snow; but whether they have whitened by the frost of years, or through the weight of cares and sorrows, I am not able to say." "Have you no suspicion who the stranger may be?" "Yes, father, I have more than a suspicion; I know it certainly. Like a flash of lightning, the recognition passed through my soul, when he, after a long fainting fit, opened his eyes and gazed upon me, although I have never seen him but once before, and that but for a flying moment, in the whole course of my life." "And his name is--" "I know it not." "My child, you speak in riddles! You know the stranger; and yet you cannot tell me his name?" "And yet I say nothing but the truth, father!" answered the anxious maiden. "Lead me, then, rapidly to him, Molly! You fill me with curiosity, less through your mysterious words than through the strange anxiety that speaks in your excited voice, and in every line of your quivering face. You try in vain to conceal your uneasiness from me.--Can it possibly be," said he, as if suddenly overcome by some dim divination of the truth,--"Can it be that--Yet no; that would be indeed impossible!" As he suddenly interrupted himself, he pushed the hair, with a restless motion, from his high and broad brow. "What an idea! Only the vain creation of an excited fancy! And yet if it were he! The mere thought of such a possibility drives all the blood back from my throbbing heart!" As he spoke, he covered his eyes with both his hands, as if to exclude some sight of horror, the view of which would blast his eyes for ever! Molly softly approached him, and, throwing her arms tenderly round him, she murmured as lightly as if she feared the sound or meaning of her own words,-- "My dear father, even suppose it should be the man who drove us from our wretched hovel,--who took from us the last of our miserable possessions; suppose it should be the rich landlord, who, in addition to his barbarous conduct, insulted you with the most shameful, the most humiliating words; would you,--could you, render evil for evil? Could you have suffered him to remain exposed to all the horrors of the storm which raged so pitilessly yesterday, wounded and dying; and would you have refused him your aid? O my father, to whom I have always looked up almost as to one of the Holy Ones of heaven, whom in all the trying circumstances of life I have always seen pursue a course so noble, I am sure, very sure, if you had been here, you too would have offered him assistance; and your daughter, in sheltering the unfortunate old man, in doing everything to alleviate his condition which it was possible for her to do, has only fulfilled the divine lessons which you imprinted upon her heart; she was only striving to resemble you; for you have ever been her fairest, highest model, in the practise of every self-sacrificing virtue." For the first time, Molly ventured to look up to the face of her agitated father. Pale, as if already frozen by the stroke of death, he leaned against the steep cliff. Motionless, as if becoming part of the stone itself, his staring eyes moved not in their strained sockets; his long, flaccid arms hung loosely down at his side; the spirit seemed about to leave his powerful body for ever! "Father!" shrieked Molly, in a tone of utter despair. At the same moment, the soft, sweet voice of a child sounded from the cave,--"Molly! my Molly!" "Father!" again repeated Molly, "father! for the love of God, speak! Speak only one word to your anxious child! Do you hear Kitty call me? The wounded man is awake; we _must_ see him!" O'Neil sank, with a spasmodic movement, upon his knees; his soul seemed to be engaged in a fearful struggle, for the large, cold drops of sweat covered his broad brow; he shuddered and quivered, as if convulsed by some dreadful spasm of agonizing pain. "O thou pure Virgin of heaven, thou holy Mother of the Son of God!" he prayed, with a loud voice and uplifted hands, "have mercy upon me! By the bitter pain which pierced thine own tender soul, when thou wert standing under the dreadful cross, on which they crucified thy Holy Son; by all the tears of agony which thou must have shed in witnessing his unmitigated torments, have mercy upon me! Forsake me not! Leave me not to myself, in this wild struggle of my soul! O Merciful Jesus, who died to redeem thy enemies, give me the power to forgive the man whose fell malice deprived my own father of his little all; who has wounded, in the deepest manner, the holiest feelings of my heart, and who was the cause of the early and painful death of the being dearer to me far than my own life,--the beloved wife of my soul! O, enable me not only to forgive, but also to forget, all the misery this man has brought upon me!" The words ceased to sound from the agitated soul of O'Neil; but it was evident he still prayed, for his lips were quivering with the holy thoughts. Tears glittered in his upraised eyes, and, as if he would stifle all the indignant emotions of anger and revenge which surged through the depths of his tortured being, he pressed his hand closely against his heart, whose wild beatings were distinctly heard by poor Molly. But it was now evident that he was gradually becoming more tranquil. Molly knelt close beside him; her head rested upon his shoulder; her ardent prayers were united with his, for she now for the first time fully understood the circumstances in which she had placed him. It was the stern and cruel father of her mother whom she had brought into the cave; whom no entreaties would induce to recall the dreadful curse which he had pronounced upon the innocent head of his only child, and which, like a blighting worm in the heart of the summer rose, had fed upon her tender life, and, after a life of hopeless anguish, laid her in an early grave. CHAPTER IV. THE GRANDFATHER. "Forgive your enemies." Our prayers to be aided in the fulfilment of the Divine commands are always heard by the Holy One who gave them. Molly and her agitated father were still kneeling together at the entrance of the cave, when Molly felt herself suddenly raised from the ground, then closely embraced, and, upon looking up, she saw herself in the arms of her grandfather, who, in the most unexpected manner, had tottered to the rude door of the cavern. "O'Neil," said the old man, while his voice trembled audibly, "O'Neil, I have heard your prayer. I read in your moistened eyes that you have conquered; and that no feelings of revenge or hatred towards the man who has been the cause of all your misfortunes still linger in your soul. I freely acknowledge that I have treated you in the most shameful manner. The eager thirst for gold, that, like a wicked demon, possessed my whole being, induced me to betray your father, whose firmest friend I once was; it enticed me on to wish to sell, for my pecuniary advantage, my own sweet child. Baffled in this inhuman desire, I drove her from her home, burdened with my curse. It was the love of gold which led me on to oppress and abuse my tenants; to torture and drive them, until I had put into my own coffers all which they had gained by the bitter sweat of their rugged brows. Nay, it was indeed sometimes from their very heart's blood that my purse was filled. Tortured by this insatiable thirst for money, and stimulated by my cruel agent, Wilkins, whom you, O'Neil, had several times reproved for his cruelty, and who consequently hated you, I drove you from your last shelter, without suffering myself to be moved by your manly prayers; for Wilkins had already found another tenant, who was willing to pay a higher rent for your wretched hovel. Yet believe, upon my most solemn word, O'Neil, that I have never truly known you. A secret and gnawing anguish has tortured me for years, which I have in vain struggled to suppress. Dreaming and waking was the face of my poor daughter ever before me; sometimes pale and bloody, sometimes in the full brilliancy of her youthful bloom and beauty. O, if in that dreadful morning in which I drove you from your hut I had thrown a single glance upon the face of the maiden whom you call _your_ child, and who is the perfect image of _my_ daughter, now sleeping in the quiet grave, over which you have trained the long moss and planted the violet, certainly I must have granted your prayers, and all would have terminated in a different manner. But I do not regret it for my own sake. I bless my fate which led me to this desolate spot; I bless the fall from my horse, and the wound which I then received. If it had not been for these apparent misfortunes, I would never have found the ministering angel whose sweet compassion was so infinitely grateful to me, when I lay almost without consciousness before her; whose heavenly goodness restored me to life, and has given me back a far greater gift than life,--the possibility to love again! "O'Neil," continued the old man, while from his eyes, which had long since almost forgotten to weep, two great tears rolled down and mingled with his tufted beard of snow;--"O'Neil," he cried, as if from the very depths of his heart, while he stretched out both his hands entreatingly towards the man whom he had so deeply injured;--"O'Neil, for the sake of this angel, forgive the hard father of your Kitty, whom you so ardently, so truly loved, and whose innocent life he filled with bitterness. O, forgive him, as she who has long since gone to her home in heaven forgave the cruel father, upon the very bed of death which he had prepared for her, for the cruel curses with which he had burdened her heart!" Overpowered by a wild rush of alternating feelings, O'Neil fell upon the breast of the old man. "My Kitty! my Kitty!" he cried, gazing up to heaven, while the gushing tears flooded his manly cheeks;--"my Kitty, if you had only lived to have seen this day! But be witness of all my struggling, yet deep feelings! Even as you prayed for and blessed your father with the last gasps of your breath, so will I also forgive him! Now," said he, heaving a deep sigh, and pressing the trembling hand of the old man to his heart, "now all is forgiven! all is forgotten!" The two men clasped each other in a silent embrace, full of holy emotions. Repentance and forgiveness met, and understood each other! Full of the highest happiness, Molly went to the cave to bring her sister out, who, tired of remaining so long alone, had already groped her way to the entrance. "Come, Kitty, come," said she joyously, as she took the little one in her arms, "O, come quickly, for we have found our grandfather!" "Our grandfather?" answered the astonished child; "you seem so rejoiced, Molly, that it must be a very pleasant thing to have found our grandfather!" "O, very, very pleasant!" answered Molly, and then gave the little blind girl into the arms of the old man, who pressed her to his heart, and kissed her. Then he said rapidly: "Now let us all hasten away from this desolate, frightful place; and it shall henceforth be my only care to make you forget all the unspeakable misery you have suffered through my cruelty." Molly and O'Neil again entered the cave, to bid farewell to their strange place of refuge. Molly looked gratefully round, as if to thank it for the shelter it had afforded them. Soon the whole four were on their happy way together home. Their path passed by the hovels whose inmates had evinced so much kind feeling towards the banished family; and they found there a man who, upon a promise of good pay from the landlord, was willing to take them home in his little one-horse wagon. Towards evening they reached the handsome house of the grandfather. The old housekeeper came rushing out to meet them, perfectly astonished to see her master, whose return she had awaited with the most dreadful anxiety during the whole of the stormy night now past, and whom she never thought again to have seen alive, as his horse, covered with foam and blood, had returned home without a rider. She was also very much surprised at the little band of strangers who accompanied the old man. She turned herself right and left in her confusion, without exactly knowing what kind of welcome she was to offer the new guests, who, although scarcely covered with their miserable rags, yet through their noble bearing and appearance inspired respect. At last the old man said to her, in a more friendly tone than she had ever before heard from his lips: "Make haste, Mary! Prepare the very best you have in the house, for I intend to celebrate this evening the happiest festival of my whole life!" He then dismounted from the wagon, and placed himself upon the threshold of his own door, to welcome his new inmates, whom he begged, individually, upon their entrance, to consider the house and everything in it as their own. "Oh!" he exclaimed, as he led them in, and gazed in the soft eyes of Molly, "how poor was I, until this moment, although surrounded by so much wealth! and how truly rich have you always been, although in the midst of such bitter poverty, in the sweetness of your holy love! How warmly my heart beats to-day! how full it is of happy feelings! Like a tree blasted by lightning, I have stood stripped and desolate in the arid desert my own faults had made for me, almost afraid to gaze around me. But I have grown young again in your embracing arms; for the first time since I cursed my poor Kitty, does it seem to me a joy to live!" CHAPTER V. KITTY. "Then said Raphael, I know, Tobias, that thy father will open his eyes." The old man had spoken truly. A thousand joys of which he had never thought before, whose delight he had never even divined, bloomed in his lonely heart. As long as he should live, it was his wish that the family should continue to reside with him; and Molly was to become the guardian angel of the neighboring poor. She did not wait until they begged her assistance; she gave it unasked for to those who required it. She was a daily visitor in their humble homes, and when want and necessity were at last banished by her efforts, she taught the poor economy and neatness, through the beauty of her own example. Wilkins, the cruel agent, was placed in a situation in which he could injure no one; but no revenge was wreaked upon him. He was not punished; he was permitted to retain his house and field, and a great portion of his former income. But his position as agent was given to one whom O'Neil had long known as a good, kind, and just man, entirely incapable of any act of cruelty. During three peaceful years, the old landlord continued to enjoy his quiet life of domestic bliss. He died tranquilly in the arms of his son-in-law, to whom he gave the whole of his estate. O'Neil and his daughters soon after left this property in the charge of a good overseer, to whom the strongest commands were given never to drive or distress any of the tenants on account of their being in arrears for rent. O'Neil was exceedingly desirous to visit the property which had been for many, many years in the possession of his own family, where he had played through the glad days of his happy childhood, and which, through the wonderful providence of a kind God, he could again call his own. A far more lovely landscape surrounded Molly, so susceptible to all the beauties with which Nature decks the earth. Rich grain-fields waved around her; fertile meadows, with their deep-green carpets overgrown with many-colored flowers, lay at her feet; and orchards, in which the sunny-hued fruit burdened the laden branches until they kissed the ground, greeted her happy walks. Under the direction of O'Neil, a row of neat dwelling-houses rose around them, the occupants of which became far more economical and industrious, when they saw that part of the fruit of their labors was for themselves and their children, and that the landlord had no idea of appropriating the whole of their hard earnings to his own use. How happy was Molly, when she saw these healthful and powerful men, from whose bronzed faces content and happiness smiled, and who were now neither wretched nor oppressed, returning with cheerful songs to their expectant wives and playful children! Still a heavy cloud sometimes rested upon her fair young brow. Not seldom gushed the hot tears down her now rosy cheeks, when she looked upon Kitty, who, as she grew older, appeared to feel more and more deeply the many renunciations which the want of sight inflicted upon her. The melancholy plaints of the little girl pained her affectionate heart. Nothing could be more touching than to hear Kitty say,-- "O Molly, if I could only see you and my father,--only once! only once!--I would ask no more! I would gaze upon you until I had imprinted every line of your face upon my soul, and then I would cheerfully close my eyes again in their dreary darkness,--close them for ever, Molly, with your image in my heart!" One day, when Molly was visiting a school which she had established for the instruction of the poor in basket-weaving and other light arts, she heard a beggar, whom she had at various times assisted, telling many wonderful things about a young physician who had lately established himself in a neighboring town, and who, according to his account, had already restored many blind people to sight. She remained standing by the threshold, absorbed in the deepest attention, as long as the narration lasted. She then approached him rapidly, and, while her heart beat high with expectation and new-born hope, she said,-- "Tell me, I beg of you, tell me if what you have been relating is indeed the truth? If it is really true, if my little sister should receive her sight, I would never forget that I had first heard of this happy possibility through you; and, full of gratitude to you, I would take care of you as long as your life should last." "Certainly, all I have said is true," answered the old beggar. "I have seen little Jack sitting at the church door as blind as a post, and now he sees as bright and clear as anybody who has always had two good, sound eyes in his head." Molly ran directly to her father with this joyful news. But her father shook his head, and said earnestly to her,-- "Do not suffer this sweet hope to take such entire possession of you, my kind child! Above all, say nothing about it to Kitty; for the poor little blind girl would suffer tenfold more if she should nourish such a hope, and be doomed to meet with a bitter disappointment. Yet it is possible it may succeed! Kitty was not born blind; she was more than a year old when she lost her sight." When he saw how deeply Molly was distressed by his want of faith in the possibility of Kitty's restoration to sight, he tried to calm her anxiety, and continued,-- "If it should succeed, Molly, who would be happier, who would be more grateful to the good God above, than myself? I would joyfully give up the half of my property, nay, the whole of it, Molly, to open again the sightless eyes of our poor little Kitty! We will set out to-morrow, at the earliest dawn of day, to seek the physician who has given sight to the blind!" The sun had not yet entirely risen, when Molly, after a sleepless night, was already stirring through the house, making the necessary preparations for their contemplated journey. She hurried on everything with as much eagerness as if her life depended upon the loss of a single hour, and succeeded in stimulating the slow coachman to an extraordinary rapid gait in comparison with his usually slow pace. The carriage rolled down the hill upon which the house was built just as the first glittering rays of the sun filled the valley with their rosy light. Molly held her little sister in her arms. Sometimes she pressed her wildly, as if in fear, to her breast; sometimes she looked long and deeply into her large, sad eyes, as if it would be possible to read in them the success or failure of the contemplated experiment. Tortured by the most restless impatience, she asked the old beggar (who had taken his seat by the coachman to show him the way) every five minutes if they were not almost there. "We soon will be! We soon will be!" was his dry answer; but to the excited Molly, so full of hope and fear, this word "soon" seemed to cover an eternity. Always so merciful, both to man and beast, she would not spare a single moment to the poor horses to rest. "Only drive on!--drive on!" she begged; "the poor, tired horses shall have a good rest and plenty of food after we are once there!" In vain Kitty asked where they were going, what was the aim of their journey, and what made Molly so impatient. "You will soon know all about it," was the only answer she received. At last--at last--the travellers stopped before the house pointed out by the beggar! They found the physician to be a young and amiable man, who, after a short examination of the sightless eyes, said he felt certain the operation would succeed, and that it would prove neither difficult nor dangerous. But he said he would not like to undertake it until Kitty had been for a few days under his care. The few days demanded by the young physician were soon over. Resting in the powerful arms of her father, with Molly standing pale and trembling by her side, Kitty awaited the eventful operation. "You need not be afraid, my little angel," said the doctor, consolingly; "I will not hurt you much." "Oh! even if it should hurt me very much," answered the gentle child, "what pain could possibly equal the bliss which I expect to receive from your skilful hands? To see my father, and my Molly,--my Molly!--how long have I yearned with a sick heart to see my Molly!" The physician raised his hand,--touched the darkened eyeballs. A loud shriek of joy,--another and another,--announced the complete success of the delicate operation. But Kitty was forced to conquer her wild longing to gaze on the faces she loved; for after a single fleeting second, the physician carefully bound a thick band of linen round her head, that the tender organs might become gradually accustomed to the light and air. No pen could describe her rapture, when, after the removal of the veiling band, she lay for the first time with the full power of sight in the arms of her loved ones! Tenderly and lovingly, she embraced them again and again; now she gazed into the joy-raying eyes of her happy father,--now into the deep, blue, tender eyes of the beloved Molly,--as if to make up, in the fulness of her bliss, for the long time she had been deprived of this source of delight. Then she suddenly turned round to the young physician who was standing behind her, and who had been deeply touched by this exciting scene. "How shall I thank you?" she cried, pressing his hand to her innocent lips, which he vainly struggled to withdraw. "O, let me kiss your hand," she softly prayed, "let me kiss the dear hand which has enabled me to see my father and my Molly; and tell us how we can make you happy! We can offer you no fitting reward; for what price would be sufficient to pay you for the benefit you have conferred upon us? Only some pledge of our eternal gratitude, some sign of undying remembrance from the family whom you have made so blessed, ought we to give you!" The young man bent down to hide his tears, kissed the grateful child, and murmured lightly: "Your joy, Kitty, which has rendered this hour the happiest of my whole life, and whose remembrance will always be dear to my heart, has already been to me a high and holy reward! But," he continued, in a voice scarcely audible, and broken by emotion, "there is a still higher, a still dearer reward, which I would willingly owe to your prayers for me, Kitty! Ask your dear father to receive me as his son! Ask the beloved sister if she will trust the happiness of her life in my hands! Kitty, plead for me!" He could say no more; he was choked by his emotions. But Molly had understood his broken words; covered with blushes, she flew to her father, who took her by the unresisting hand, and tenderly led her to the young physician. "You have, indeed, chosen the most precious reward," said O'Neil, "yet I willingly give it to you, for you seem to me to be a man of noble character. The manner in which you practise your benevolent art is the surest proof to me of your kind heart!" "Dare I hope that your cherished daughter does not withhold her consent?" asked the young man, with trembling voice, as he pleadingly, yet tenderly, took the hand of the maiden. Candid as she always was, Molly answered softly: "In restoring my little sister to sight, you have made me very happy; yet I must frankly confess that it is not gratitude alone which binds me to you. Another voice speaks to me in the depths of my soul,--the voice of affection; it whispers me that you deserve my confidence. Could you possibly deceive me?" Then the young man raised his hand, as if to take a solemn oath. "Never! never!" with clear and loud, yet solemn and tender tone, he said. "Nothing shall ever part me from thee, no change in destiny shall sever me from thy side! I feel within myself the strength to offer everything up for thee, to conquer all things through my love for thee! Thy holy confidence in me shall never be deceived! Undying love and tenderness for thee, my Molly, shall ever fill the heart in which thou hast trusted!" * * * * * He nobly kept his plighted word; and Molly never had any cause to repent of the confidence which she had reposed in him. O'Neil lived to attain a great age. He lived to see little Kitty married to an excellent young man, who managed his estate with the greatest care, when he grew too old and weak to attend to it himself. And when at last the death-angel came to call him to a higher life above, he blessed with his dying voice his sons, his daughters, and his grandchildren. But the last pressure of the stiffening hand, the last words from the lips that were to open no more on earth, were for his own Molly. "Molly," he painfully sighed, "I can see thy sweet face no longer, for my eyes are darkened by the night of death, but thy image still floats before my parting soul. Thou wert my consolation and support when the hand of the Lord rested heavily upon me. Thy confidence that all would yet be well never wavered; thy gentleness and thy loveliness touched and softened the heart of the long defiant one, who had before scorned all the warnings sent from Heaven, and changed his angry hatred into wonder and love! "Next to God, from whom all good gifts come, I thank thee, my dearly beloved child, that the rough and thorny path of my life was changed into an earthly paradise, which leads to heaven! Molly! my Molly! may thy children resemble thee, and make thee as happy as thou hast made thy father!" THE YOUNG ARTIST. CHAPTER I. THE GUARDIAN ANGEL AND THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC. "Like rainbows o'er a cataract, Music's tones Played round the dazzling spirit." The evening bells were loudly ringing in the little town of Geremberg. Troops of busy workmen were hastening home from the neighboring fields and gardens, while children, with merry shouts, were driving herds of cattle, droves of sheep, and domestic poultry, and their clear and joyous laughter might be heard far above the lowing of the weary cows, or the shrill hissing and cackling of the numberless flocks of noisy ducks and geese. The barking of dogs, with the hoarse oaths and gruff voices of the drovers, added to the general din. Wagons heavily laden with provisions; drawn sometimes by four, sometimes by six horses, rolled wearily along, but the pleasant anticipation of rest at the neighboring inn, and the recollection of its well-filled crib, urged the exhausted steeds to new efforts of their almost failing strength. The lighter farm-carts, full of sweet hay or perfumed clover, upon which lay the rosy-cheeked farm-boys almost buried in their beds of fragrance, easily passed these lumbering trains. With his coarse boots fastened to the dusty wallet which hung upon his back, and his feet wrapped round with bloody bands of dusty linen, the tired wanderer limped painfully on, carefully selecting the grass which grew along the edge of the footpath, because its fresh and dewy growth soothed and cooled the burning of his blistered and wounded feet. All were seeking the same goal, all moving towards the little town from whose glimmering windows the hospitable lights already began to gleam through the deepening twilight, although a rosy and still glowing pile of clouds on the verge of the western horizon yet waved a farewell greeting from the parting sun. The highways were soon deserted, and the whole neighborhood was quiet. Only a solitary woman was now to be seen slowly moving along the pathway; she seemed very much tired, and, seating herself upon the ground, she took a heavy basket from her back, and carefully unbound the cloth which was knotted over it. She then looked cautiously around her in every direction; scarcely breathing, in the earnestness of her search, no nook or corner escaped the prying eagerness of her gaze. A dead silence reigned around, only broken by a confused murmur from the town and the distant barking of dogs. Twilight was entirely over, and a few stars only twinkled in the skies. The woman then rose from the ground, carefully hid her basket in a little ditch, after having taken a thickly veiled object from it, which she carried in her arms to a thicket of hazel-bushes, which separated a piece of meadow ground from a field newly ploughed. She laid the veiled object softly down in the high grass, and was hastening rapidly away, when the screams of a child were heard proceeding from the hazel-bushes. Without once looking behind her, the woman continued to hurry on, but the screams of the child grew louder and louder, and forced her, however reluctant she might be, to return. With her hand threateningly raised over the child, and her voice full of stifled rage, she cried,-- "Will you quit screaming instantly, you little screech-owl? If you don't, I'll whip you soundly!" "Do--do--take itty boy!" sobbed the lisping accents of a child's voice. "Be quiet, and don't dare to stir from this spot, and go to sleep immediately. Do you hear? Or--" A heavy blow accompanied this threat. The child gave a loud shriek, but soon suppressed his cries; even his faint sobs grew by degrees less and less audible, until at last no evidence was given that he still lived. The woman remained in the bushes, sitting beside the child whom she had carried from her basket to that secluded spot. It grew darker and darker, and the timid child anxiously seized the rough hand which had just beaten him; as he had been told to go to sleep, he closed his eyes in fear and trembling, and soon sunk to rest. As he slept tranquilly and soundly, the grasp of the twining fingers grew looser, the little hand opened, while the woman drew hers from the clinging clasp, and lightly, gently, and noiselessly slipped away. With flying feet, she hastened back to the place in which she had left her basket, fastened it quickly upon her back, and, as if able to pierce the surrounding gloom, threw a searching glance in every direction, and then, as if goaded by the fell fiends of a wicked conscience, rapidly fled along the highway upon which she had first appeared. She soon vanished in the darkness of night. The forsaken child slumbered softly on. The bright stars looked inquiringly through the leaves, and mirrored themselves in the tears which still hung on the long eyelashes of the little sleeper. A flashing gleam of white light suddenly broke in through the clustering leaves of the hazel-bushes. A glittering form stood at the side of the helpless infant; she spread her arms over him as if to bless him, and, bending lightly down to him, she imprinted a long and lingering kiss upon his pale, broad brow. The child smiled even in his sleep, and longingly stretched out his arms towards the form of light which still continued to bend fondly o'er him. She stroked the clustering curls tenderly back from the spot which she had just touched with her lips, and the pale brow glittered and gleamed with the bright yet mild radiance, which, like a light seen through a vase of alabaster, seemed to pervade her own aerial figure. She shone, as if the holy starlight had been condensed into a human form to bless and consecrate the helpless innocent. Lightly and gently she passed her transparent hand over the sleeping child. Suddenly a mighty angel, with wings of pure and dazzling lustre, stood at the head of the little sleeper. "What are you doing here, with the little immortal whom the Holy One has committed to my care?" said the angel, earnestly, to the spirit, who glittered as if made of starlight. "I have consecrated the poor forsaken boy as my high-priest. I have kissed his pure brow, breathed the joy of art into his young soul, and thus secured his earthly bliss. Do you not recognize me, holy angel? I am the Spirit of Music!" "Yes, I know you well," answered the earnest angel. "But I know, too, that if your gifts often lead to heaven, they sometimes also lead to hell! Alas! how many of those whom I once loved are now forced to mourn that you ever accorded to them your protection, since your gift has only led them to the home of the fallen angels!" The starry form reproachfully answered: "Am I, then, justly responsible for the evils which result from the ruined nature of man? The source of music springs in heaven! Do not the angels strike the harp, and sing eternal praises round the high throne of God himself?" "They do, and I cannot justly complain of you," answered the guardian angel. "Your gift is indeed a godlike one, but it is also full of danger. Men are very frail; and pride and vanity are the evil germs which lie concealed in every human breast. To uproot these dangerous germs, to guard against their injurious growth, is our never-ending, yet often thankless, occupation; for the Angel of Darkness works against us, cultivating and fostering all that we have condemned. Unfortunately, he often gains the victory; for as the will of man is free, it depends chiefly upon himself whether he will embrace Light or Darkness. If the Evil One conquers, veiling our faces in sorrow, we sadly turn away, and are forced to leave our beloved charge for ever. What is more calculated to cultivate pride or vanity than any extraordinary gift which distinguishes man above his fellows? Thus I am forced to repeat, that your glorious present is still a dangerous one, which may easily become a stumbling-block, a stone of offence, upon which the immortal spirit may be wrecked for ever. For man is only too apt to become vain and presumptuous, to prefer himself to the great Giver of all faculties and arts, and, in the excess of his arrogance, to forget the Holy One, to whom all thanks and all honor are justly due, to whose high service thou, O glittering Spirit of Music! hast ever been firmly attached! Thou seest now why I tremble for the soul of this forsaken infant!" "Thou art his guardian spirit, and it is best it should be so! Guard him, then, in such a way that he shall not be fed upon vanity, that he shall early learn to walk in the paths of religion, which also lead to the highest art. O no! no! Fold thy white and shining wings closely around him! My kiss will not lead him to destruction; it shall only brighten the rough and dark path of life for his tender heart! I have consecrated him to art; do then thy part, and educate him for heaven! Guard him well, for my kiss has made him sacred! We meet again! Farewell!" The star-bright spirit vanished; but the earnest angel knelt in prayer beside the deserted boy, covering the fragile body, that the baneful night-dews might not destroy it, with the glittering and snowy, yet warm and tender, sweep of the drooping, sheltering wings. CHAPTER II. WALTER AND MOTHER BOPP. "Women are soft, mild, pitiable, flexible; But thou art obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless." Clear and bright rose the sun on the following morning. The birds warbled, and the mowers were whetting their scythes in the fields. A butcher's boy from the town, occupied in the business of his master, was going, accompanied by his large dog, to the neighboring village, and thought it best to take the short cut through the meadow. But the dog suddenly ran to the little copse of hazel-bushes, shoved his shaggy head deep in among the leaves, growled, and then sprang barking back to his master, rapidly bounded off again to the thicket, and did everything in his power to awaken the attention of his owner. "Something must certainly be in there," thought the boy, as he hurried to the spot where the dog was still standing and barking, to see if he could discover anything. He drew the branches asunder, looked carefully around him, and at last saw a sleeping child. "What can be the meaning of all this?" he muttered to himself, as he pressed into the thicket. "The deuce take me if it isn't a poor forsaken child! There seems to be a card or a letter pinned upon his breast. The mother who could do such a wicked thing must have had the heart of a vulture! What a beautiful little fellow! Can the poor little rascal have spent the whole night here? I suppose he has, for he looks blue and frozen with the cold! What am I to do with him? If he should waken up and cry, it would drive me crazy, for I am sure I wouldn't know how to quiet him. Oh! now I know what to do with him! I will run back to the town and tell the squire about it, for the child is lying between his two fields; he has plenty, and will take care of him. I will leave my piece of bread close by him, lest he should waken up and cry for hunger. Now I must be off, for I have no time to lose!" The boy soon carried his design into execution. The information that a child, a foundling, had been left upon his land, in the hazel-bushes which separated his meadows from his grain-fields, was given to the squire as he sat at breakfast. The squire frowned, and wanted to hear nothing more about the infant who had been placed upon his farm. In the mean while, some of the people of the town, and some of the servants of the squire, were sent out to see what the truth of the matter really was. Mayor, squire, and magistrates were soon assembled in the council hall, to draw up a record, and to consider what it was best, under the circumstances, to do. The sheriff held the foundling in his arms, and the little fellow looked around him as if quite unconcerned about the matter, while he was busily employed in consuming the hard piece of brown bread which had been given to him by the good-hearted butcher's boy. The child was stripped, in accordance with the command of the squire, in order that the letter, which was firmly sewed to his dress, might be more conveniently read, and also to ascertain if any distinctive mark could be found upon his body. The boy was clad in a dark woollen frock, whose color had become almost undiscernible through constant use, and a fine linen-cambric shirt, without any mark. A little round locket of some worthless metal was fastened round his neck with a silken cord, but all attempts to open the lid were in vain. Either it was not made to open, or the spring which closed it was so hidden that none but those already in the secret could find it out. This little locket gave rise to the supposition that, although the boy seemed, at the present moment, to be utterly forsaken, yet those who had deserted him still preserved a wish to be able to identify him at some future period of his life. The letter was very badly written, and read as follows:-- "My name it is Walter. Though still very young, I have known want and care, As to you I have sung; Whoe'er will receive me Will not be ashamed, If once in his hearing My lineage is named. My parents are dead, They sleep sound in the grave: Alone they have left me, Strange sufferings to brave. I dare say nothing further: Yet pity my grief, Help me in my sorrow, And yield me relief! O, shelter me, women! And harbor me, men! O, save me from famine! In God's name,--Amen!" Mayor, squire, and magistrates looked inquiringly at each other. Many guesses were made, many suppositions proposed to solve the mystery, and the most searching inquiries were to be immediately instituted, with a view of finding out who had been guilty of exposing the unfortunate boy to the solitude and darkness of the past night. In the mean time, it was determined that the child should be taken care of, and, after a protracted discussion, it was finally resolved that he should be boarded with one of the poor families of the village, and that his expenses should be paid out of the revenues of the town. The people were then called together, in order to make them acquainted with the occurrences which we have just related, and the boy was finally apprenticed to the one who was willing to take him at the lowest rate. The town-fiddler, Bopp, had offered to feed and clothe him for so small a sum, that the poor foundling, utterly unconscious of how destiny was disposing of him, was given over to his charge. As he took the helpless infant in his arms, to carry it home to its new brothers and sisters, it grasped his hand with its tiny fingers, and smiled friendlily in his face. * * * * * "Maggie! don't pound so with your feet, for you shake the table so that my writing is blotted, and my letters all humpbacked!" said Conrad, gruffly, to his sister, who was sitting beside him. "What has the pounding of my feet to do with the shape of your letters, I should like to know?" answered Maggie. "I can't help doing it, at any rate; I must beat the time when father plays, it helps me on with my knitting. If you would only be more careful, you would write better. Look here, what a long piece I have knit in my stocking!" With a rapid movement, she held her long blue stocking up immediately in front of her brother's face; but as she did so, she awkwardly gave a great push to his elbow, and so jostled his arm, that it drove the pen full of ink entirely across his copy-book, and spoiled the appearance of the whole page. Crimson with rage, the boy gave the little girl a violent box upon the ears. Maggie shrieked loudly, and tried to revenge herself in the same way. Thus a fierce battle began at the table, round which the children were engaged in their studies. Not far from it two fat, ruddy little boys were playing with the black house-cat. Conrad and Maggie had wrestled and struggled forward until they were close upon the little ones; Maggie stumbled over the cat, and fell upon her little brothers. The children screamed, the cat yelled, so that the baby in the cradle was waked up, and soon added his cries to the general uproar. Quite undisturbed by all this frightful tumult, Father Bopp stood tranquilly at the window, and practised a dance upon the clarionet. He was a little, slender man, and blew with his cheeks puffed out into his instrument. His tailor-work, the signs of his daily occupation, hung upon the wall, between his fiddles and horns. He was so accustomed to the noise of the children, that he continued his practising without appearing in the least disturbed by their deafening din. As tranquil as the musician himself, as undisturbed by all that was going on in the dark, dirty room, a beautiful little boy of about five years old sat quietly at his feet. With his large, dark eyes fastened upon the face of the father, his bare legs doubled up under him, he supported himself, half reclining, upon his left hand, while with the right he beat the time lightly, but accurately, upon his naked knee. He was wretchedly clothed; his torn coat of dark-blue linsey was a great deal too short, and, as it had neither buttons nor hooks to keep it together, it gaped widely in front, exposing his breast and shoulders to view, whose soft forms shone in their warm brown tints. His dark, full curls fell uncombed and uncared for over his rounded forehead and blooming face. "Potz tausend! Odds bodikins! What a noise you are making there!" called the mother from the adjoining kitchen. In the same moment she made her appearance at the smoky door. She was a stout, strong woman, her thick and coarse blond hair fell in uncombed masses from what had once been a black velvet cap, but which had now assumed a gray tint from age and constant wear. A gray petticoat, a long red jacket, a red and black plaid neck-handkerchief, and a blue cotton apron, completed the costume of the mother, whose clothing, as well as her full, red face, bore visible marks of the life of the kitchen. Armed with a broom, she sprang into the sitting-room, and brandished it over the heads of the children, who were still tumbling about upon the floor. "Will you be quiet, you noisy brats?" she loudly cried. "Get up from the floor, instantly! What has happened? O, do quit that everlasting blowing upon the clarionet, man! It is impossible to hear one's own voice with such an incessant clatter! Which of you began it?" "Conrad struck me!" screamed Maggie. "Maggie pushed my elbow when I was writing, and I shall be kept in for it to-morrow!" "They both fell over me, and the cat scratched me!" "They hurt my foot!" "They knocked me in the head!" Thus the children cried and screamed confusedly together, while the baby in the cradle shrieked until it lost its breath. "Silence!" commanded the mother, accompanying her order with a heavy thump of the broom-handle upon the floor. "What are you doing there, Walter?" she angrily cried. "Are you sitting there again, with your eyes and mouth wide open, staring at your noisy father, instead of rocking the cradle, as I ordered you to do? Wait, you little good-for-nothing,--I'll give it to you!" With a single bound, she stood by the frightened boy, tore him up by the arms, slung him round with rude force, and then shook him fiercely. Then she dragged him to the corner in which the cradle stood, and, pushing him down by it, she said: "Sit here upon the floor, and don't stir a single inch; and don't let me hear a single tone, a single sound, from your ugly lips!" She held her red fist, doubled up, threateningly before his eyes. The poor child pressed his lovely face closely upon the dirty floor, to try to stifle the loud sobs of pain which broke from his wounded body and his crushed spirit. In the mean time the children had become more tranquil. Conrad was rubbing out the ugly stroke which marred the beauty of his copy-book; Maggie tried to take up the stitches which had fallen, when she pulled one of the needles out of the long blue stocking; and the two little boys had run into the kitchen to hunt the black cat, which had taken refuge under the table. The tailor-musician had put up his instrument in its allotted place, put on his blue cloth roundabout, and, taking his hat from the nail, was blowing the dust off it, as he said lightly to his wife, who was trying to quiet the baby: "Listen to me, wife! Walter had nothing at all to do with the noise and screaming of the children; so don't be cross to him about it, will you?" "What's that to you, I should like to know? Mind your own business, and don't meddle yourself in things that don't concern you. Stick to your needle and your fiddle: what do you know about children? That's my business; and, potz tausend! I should like to see the man who would dare to meddle in my affairs!" "I am sure I have no wish to do it," said the crest-fallen little tailor, "but you must not abuse Walter; for although he is so very young, he can already play three dances upon the fife; in another year, I can take him about with me when I play at the balls; and thus he will soon be able to gain money for us all." "Indeed!" cried the woman, scornfully. "He is a little miracle in your eyes! But mark well what I say; if I don't keep your infant miracle in order, he'll soon become a monstrous good-for-nothing. Odds bodikins, but I intend to do it, too! Now go about your business at once, and don't bother me with any more of your ridiculous nonsense!" The tailor looked compassionately at the poor, sobbing boy, shrugged his narrow shoulders, and, after an abrupt "good by," left the house. Mother Bopp put the child in the cradle, ordered Walter to rock it and watch the baby, and told Maggie to set the table for supper. This command soon brought the still quarrelling brother and sister again together. They all bestirred themselves busily, shoved the heavy oaken table from the wall out into the middle of the room, and put stools and benches round it. Maggie set a tin salt-cellar upon it, and placed a large spoon near the salt. The four children took their seats at the table. The mother soon brought in a great earthen bowl, full of smoking potatoes, and put them on the table. She then seated herself in the arm-chair, and they all began to eat their supper. But Walter still remained alone on the floor in the corner, and rocked the cradle, while he eagerly breathed the vapor from the smoking potatoes, which soon spread itself through the low room. A considerable time had elapsed, in which Maggie had often touched her mother's arm, and looked pleadingly and significantly towards Walter, but it had not produced the least effect upon Mother Bopp. Maggie had eaten very little herself, and two or three potatoes, which she had carefully selected, still lay before her, which she boldly protected against all Conrad's attempts to appropriate to himself. At last, Mother Bopp cried, "Walter!" and the boy hastened to her side. "Will you always mind what I say to you? will you always do what I tell you to do, and never again lie, like a little idler, upon the floor?" "Yes!" sobbed the boy, "I will never again forget to rock Johnny, even if my father should play upon the clarionet!" "Well, then, if you will promise always to be good, I will punish you no more to-day. Sit down, then, and eat your supper, and mind that you begin no quarrelling with the children!" Walter slipped quietly to the corner of the table, where Maggie made room for him, and secretly shoved before him the potatoes which she had so carefully chosen. "See now," growled Conrad, "you can pick and peel potatoes enough for Walter, but I have to peel them for myself. Can't he peel them for himself as well as I can?" "No, for you are a great deal larger than he is, and can peel two before he is ready with one; and you have already eaten a great many, and he is just beginning," answered his sister. "But I will have these, too!" he cried, defiantly, and attempted to seize them. Walter tried anxiously to cover his treasure with his little hands; Maggie helped him, but Conrad was strong, and soon again began to beat them. Mother Bopp, who had gone for a moment to the cradle, turned angrily round, and in a great passion cried, "What! fighting already? Who began it?" "Conrad took my potatoes from me," said Walter, in a meek voice. "The stupid little devil lies; they didn't belong to him at all, for Maggie peeled them!" screamed Conrad. "I don't tell a lie," said Walter; "he did take them away from me." "Walter is right; Conrad is both a thief and a liar!" asserted Maggie. "Can it be possible that Walter is fighting again? That is too much to bear!" cried Mother Bopp in a rage. "Didn't I just tell you, you must be good, and that you must never fight again? You are a bad, wicked, troublesome fellow! Off,--off to bed with you! You shall not taste a single bite of anything to-night!" "But, indeed, mother," interrupted Maggie, "it is not at all Walter's fault; Conrad--" "Hold your tongue, miss!" cried Mother Bopp. "Much you know about right and wrong, to blame your own brother! You had better take care of yourself, or--" The raised hand and threatening face explained sufficiently this mysterious "or." Maggie sunk into a gloomy silence, and secretly wiped the tears from her eyes. Conrad made a triumphant face at her, and ate at his ease the peeled potatoes which he had so unjustly stolen from the foundling; and poor Walter, hungry and crying, stole to hide himself in his wretched bed. It was very late; everybody had gone to rest, but Walter could not sleep. But when the rest of the family retired, he too, out of fear, pretended to go to sleep, but he could not do so; and as he restlessly tossed about upon his bed, the straw crackled under him. He thought he heard some one lightly calling his name. He sat up, and saw Maggie standing beside him, who asked him in a whisper, "Why don't you go to sleep?" "Dear Maggie, I can't, I am so hungry!" "I thought so, poor little fellow!" she answered compassionately. "Here, I picked up two potatoes while mother was in the kitchen, and slipped away a little bit of bread, too. Eat them, Walter! But take care that you don't let any crumbs fall in the bed; for if mother should find out to-morrow that you have had anything to eat to-night, it would be bad enough for us both!" "Dear, good, kind Maggie, thank you, thank you!" said the child, while he eagerly devoured the cold potatoes. "Good night!" "Good night!" said the children to each other as they parted. Maggie slipped quietly back to her bed again; and after Walter had satisfied his hunger, he slumbered sweetly and quietly on until the morning dawned. * * * * * The scene which we have just sketched may serve to give some idea of the loving hearts to which the poor foundling had been intrusted. Mother Bopp had persuaded her husband, whom she completely ruled, to take the child, because she thought that, where so many children had to be fed, one mouth more would scarcely add anything to the necessary expenses, and that the little sum which the mayor, squire, and magistrates were willing to pay from the town revenues for his keeping would be very useful to her in various ways. In what manner she fulfilled the duties which she had assumed for the deserted boy, we have already seen. At least, the "one mouth more added nothing to the additional expenses." In spite of her cruelty, the boy was strong and healthy, and both in beauty and behaviour far surpassed the little Bopps. This was, however, only a new ground for her deep and intense hatred. Walter was maltreated, starved, and beaten. But, even if crying from pain and hunger, when Father Bopp commenced his daily practising upon his instruments, he would cease upon the very first tones, and, creeping close to the feet of the tailor, he would listen to him with the greatest apparent satisfaction. For this reason, the tailor-musician began to love the deserted boy even more than any of his own children, who never paid the least attention to his playing. This of course increased the hatred of Mother Bopp to the unfortunate orphan, and awakened the envy of her darling, the red-headed, noisy, wicked Conrad. Maggie had felt a tender compassion and real affection for the luckless child, from the first moment in which he had entered her home, a desolate but beautiful creature of about three years old. She cherished and protected him to the extent of her power. The tailor began to give Walter lessons in music when he was only about five years old. He taught him upon a fife which was of the right size for his little hand, and he could soon play several dances tolerably well. It was his intention to render his progress as rapid as possible, and to teach him all the dances in common use, so that he might take him with him to play at fairs, parties, and wedding festivities. Mother Bopp had nothing to urge against it, because she saw that he would soon be able to earn some money in this way; but she always contradicted and battled with her husband, when he spoke of the astonishing talent which the child possessed, or expressed his astonishment at the rapidity of his progress. She said Conrad would have learned a great deal faster, if his father had only taken the trouble to have taught him. But, indeed, she thought it was better it should be so, for Conrad was far too smart to content himself with being nothing more than a town-fiddler. No, indeed! She had higher views for him: he should be a student. When such remarks were made by Mother Bopp, the tailor would heave a light sigh, and say, "Well, well, we'll see about that." He never ventured to contradict his wife openly; but when it grew too stormy and uncomfortable for him at home, he used to go to the Golden Star, and drink his sorrows into forgetfulness. But when he came staggering back to the house, he had often the courage to express and maintain different opinions from those held by his wife. But she always got the upper hand in such contests, for she forcibly supported her right to tyrannize in her own province, and knew how to hold him under the most despotic petticoat government. These vulgar scenes and low squabbles were the first impressions which the young spirit of Walter received. He loved the father and Maggie, and hated the mother and Conrad. When he was about seven years old, he could play the fiddle and fife almost as well as the tailor, and accompanied him everywhere where his business called him. Indeed, the people soon refused to employ the old musician without the young one, which pleased the little tailor exceedingly, because it furnished him with an excuse to have Walter always with him. The squire himself had admired the skill of the foundling, and sent him a present of a violin as a Christmas gift, which made Walter so happy, that it enabled him to bear, almost unnoticed, the constant and provoking malice of Conrad. So Walter, with the new fiddle which the squire had given him at Christmas, went everywhere with the tailor, and his happiest hours were spent far from the house of his tormentors. Without ever growing tired, he played away in the midst of dust and tobacco-smoke, laughed at the coarse jokes which occurred, drank off, without thinking, the brandy and strong beer which was handed to him; and when, through the stimulating effects of such draughts, his shyness and bashfulness vanished, and his vivid spirit manifested itself in droll jests and witty speeches, then old and young would crowd around him, admire his musical talent, and laugh at his smart sayings; and the more impudent and spoiled he became, so much the more was he the petted darling of the farmers and mechanics. Thus was Walter upon the high road to destruction; thus might he have become a complete good-for-nothing. But the stain of this spoiling by the inconsiderate populace was only upon the outer man; and his inner nature remained pure and unhurt, so that the evil vanished as soon as its cause was removed. Notwithstanding the constant interruptions which occurred in his attendance at school, from which, at times of festivals and weddings, he was often absent for whole weeks together, as he was industrious and desirous of acquiring knowledge, he made rapid progress in his studies. The praises and rewards given him by the different teachers in the school excited Conrad's envy to the highest degree, and greatly enraged Mother Bopp. The yearly examinations had just ended. Among those who had taken the highest prizes Walter stood conspicuous. Conrad had obtained none. Walter stood, with his cheeks glowing with excitement, turning over the leaves in the books which he had just received, when the venerable pastor approached him, stroking, as if he were well pleased with him, his dark, clustering curls, and said to him: "I hope, my child, that you will win, next year, the prizes in the higher classes. But in order to render this possible, you must not lose so much time at school as you have done this year. Music, in the right time and place, is certainly a very good thing, my son; but you are now at the right age to acquire more extended and general knowledge, and the loss of proper schooling in our early years can never be replaced by any future application, however severe it may be. It is also high time that you should begin to study the Word of God; and if the director of the school continues to be as well satisfied with you as he is at present, I will take you under my own care, and myself instruct you in all necessary knowledge." Walter's eyes sparkled with delight; an exclamation of grateful joy parted his rosy lips; he stammeringly promised to do all that would be required of him, and with both his little hands he trustingly pressed the hand of the pastor, who bade him a cordial good-by. He then turned to the tailor, and advised him not to keep the child from his school to go about to fairs and weddings with him, and thus prevent his otherwise certain progress in his studies. The tailor promised that he would do so no more, and then spoke of the genius of the boy for music, and of his own strong attachment to him. Then they all left the school-room, and when they stood in the street before the door of the school, the elated tailor could contain himself no longer, but seized the boy in his arms, pressed him to his breast, and kissed him frequently, as he said, "You dear little fellow! I always knew you were a smart boy, and now I am sure you will do me credit some day or other." In a very bad humor, Mother Bopp ran her elbows into his side, and wakened him, not very pleasantly, from his dreams of joy and honor. He saw a dark storm lowering upon the threatening brow of his wife, and knew that, as soon as they were sheltered by the privacy of their own roof, a perfect avalanche of abusive words would flow from the bitter, firmly-closed, thin lips. Frightened at once into silence, he quietly slipped behind his angry spouse, and placed as many of the school-children as he could between himself and the ruffled dame. But as their way led through a back street, in which the glittering sign of the Golden Star enticingly hung, he slipped, unobserved, into the beloved precincts, in order to gain courage to face the tornado which he felt awaited him at home. Poor little Walter was soon driven from the heaven which the praise of his teachers and the smiles of the venerable pastor had prepared for his heart. Conrad told his mother that Walter had made use of the meanest and most disgusting arts of hypocrisy and flattery to win the love of the teacher, and that it was entirely through unjust partiality that he had obtained the prizes, which all the boys in the school knew he did not deserve. "Mean hypocrite!" cried the angry woman, "I'll teach you to play your low tricks upon us, you detestable viper! Do you really think I'll suffer you thus to impose upon my son, and not punish you for it? I don't care whether the schoolmaster or the parson does it, but it's infamous and scandalous that a miserable foundling, whom nobody knows anything about, nor in what jail or penitentiary his parents may now be stuck, should be preferred to the decent children of honest people!" Walter's cheeks glowed like fire; he pressed his hands spasmodically together, while the lightning fairly flashed from his lustrous eye as he gazed angrily at the irritating woman. She well knew that there was nothing she could have said or done which would have wounded him as deeply as this stigma cast upon his unknown parents. "Only look, mother!" said the malicious Conrad. "Look! Walter stares at you as if he were going to eat you up! He scorns and defies you, mother!" "Does he? O, I know how to break him of that! I'll beat the life out of him, or I'll break his defiant temper!" said she, exasperated to perfect fury, while she slapped him again and again, with all her strength, in his face. "March into the room, sir! march! You sha'n't leave the house to-day! You sha'n't go to the school festival at all, sir! You are no fit companion for honest people's sons, you beggar's brat! The pastor shall know before the day is over what a mean, hypocritical, wicked, ungrateful boy you are!" No expression altered in the lines of Walter's young face; he was so accustomed to abuse that he had long borne it with an air of calm and cold defiance. Without making any reply, he went quietly into the room, as he had been ordered, and concealed the rage boiling in his heart under an appearance of perfect indifference. He soon after took up his violin, and, as he played, peace and tranquillity returned to the tortured little breast. Twilight began to darken into night, and the children had not yet returned from the school festival. Walter had played until he was really tired, had put his violin down upon the table, and, with his head resting upon his arm, had sunk to sleep. When the tailor, half intoxicated, returned home, the customary scene of quarrelling was renewed. Walter was awakened by the noise; he listened, and heard the falling of the blows which the strong and vigorous woman was heaping upon the fragile little man whom he loved, and who had never said an unkind word to him since his entrance into the family. His heart bled for the poor tailor, and all the bitterness in his nature was aroused against the wicked woman who treated them both so cruelly. "Wait a moment, wicked woman!" he murmured. "Conrad is not in the house to help you, and the father shall have the best of it to-day!" With one rapid bound he was in the room, and fastened his arms round the feet of Mother Bopp, so that she might be thrown down, and thus forced to release her husband. She was surprised for a moment when she felt herself thus suddenly caught, but seeing immediately that it was only Walter, she tried to push him away with her feet. With her left hand she grasped the little tailor by the throat, while with her right she brandished the yardstick. Again and again she struck him violently over the head and shoulders with it. Alas! Walter could endure it no longer! He seized the round and powerful arm, and fastened his sharp, snow-white teeth firmly in the solid flesh. She screamed loudly with the sudden pain, the yardstick sunk from her right hand, the left loosened its grasp from the throat of the tailor, and wreathed itself in the dark locks of the unfortunate boy. The tailor fell upon the floor, muttering words which were quite unintelligible. Walter had pulled his teeth out of the athletic arm, and the blood dropped down upon his head. He looked at it unaffrighted, nay, rather with a triumphant expression, and said,-- "You shall never beat my father again! I will never suffer you to do it again, never! I am growing taller and stronger every day, and I will henceforth always help him. You cannot treat me worse than you have hitherto done, unless you kill me outright. Do that if you dare; for if you do, you know you will be hanged!" Actually struck dumb with astonishment and rage, the woman looked down upon the defiant little hero. Recovering herself, however, she seized him by the arm, dragged him to the front door, and, as she pushed him down the steps, cried after him,-- "Off with you! off with you, you good-for-nothing little rascal! Go and beg your bread where you can! If you ever dare to enter my house again, I'll strike you dead with a club, like a mad dog! I'll teach you to bite like a bloodhound!" The heavy bolt fell jarringly in its place, and Walter stood in the street alone! Soon after, the school-children, full of joyous prattle, began to return from their festival, and poor Walter hid himself, that they might not see him as they passed by. The moon looked calmly down upon the house from which he had just been driven. He had never known any home but this, and although he had spent many wretched days there, yet the separation from it pained his heart. He said to himself, as the big tears rolled rapidly down his cheeks,-- "How many stories she will tell about me! The good pastor, who spoke so very kindly to me to-day, and my teacher,--oh! they will all learn to think so badly of me, for she will tell them all what a wicked, dreadful boy I am! But she might say of me all she could, if she would only stick to the truth. But she won't do that! Suppose I were to go myself to the pastor, and tell him how it all happened? But that would be of no use to me, for perhaps he would not believe me, and it would not bring me back to my home. Nothing would ever induce me to enter the house again! No, she shall never again have a chance to beat me like a mad dog! I need not beg either, as she says I must. I can support myself very well, if she would only let me have my fiddle! Ah! if Maggie had been there, she could have told the pastor that I only tried to help her father, because he is so much weaker than this strong, cruel woman!" As these thoughts were passing through the mind of Walter, the door of the house was softly opened, and Maggie slipped noiselessly up the street, looking searchingly in every direction, and at last cried, with a suppressed voice,-- "Walter!" "I am here!" answered the boy, and Maggie hastened to meet him. "O Walter!" she said, "why have you treated my mother so badly? Her arm is very much swollen, and she suffers a great deal of pain!" "I am not sorry," answered the boy; "I would like to leave her a long remembrance of Walter." "Shame! shame! Walter, that is wicked!" scolded Maggie. "I never could have believed that you would have spoken in such a cruel manner. Do you not know that he who lifts up his hand against his father or mother stands near his own grave?" "But she is not my mother at all; and you know she has always reviled me as a poor, miserable foundling. But, Maggie, you must not think that I bit her because she whipped me. She may say what she will about it, but I will tell you the truth. I ran in to help your father. Could I stand quietly by, and see him beaten with the hard, heavy yardstick? No! I could not bear it; for he is not strong enough to contend with her,--and he is so good and kind, and never likes to hurt anybody. You know I have borne calmly enough all her harsh treatment to myself, no matter how unjust and unkind she might be to me,--as she was this morning when I brought my school-prizes home, and she beat me; yet you know, Maggie, I never retaliated my wrongs upon her. But indeed I could not see the weak father so abused! Ah, dear Maggie! do not let them slander me! Tell the good pastor, and my kind schoolmaster, that I did not do it to defend myself from her blows, but only to help my poor, weak father!" "Yes, yes, I will! I will indeed!" sobbed Maggie; "but what can you do for yourself, poor boy? Hide yourself anywhere you can to-night, and then come to-morrow and beg mother's pardon, so that you can come home and live with us again!" "Never! never!" said the boy, hastily. "I will never enter the door again! Your mother pushed me out, called me a dog, and threatened to knock me down dead with a club if I ever crossed her threshold again! She said I would have to beg my bread. Beg, indeed! I am far enough from that, I can tell you! If I only had my fiddle, I could take care of myself well enough, for I can play all the dances as well as anybody! Beg, indeed!" "You are right," said Maggie. "You are a musician, and there is no reason you should be beaten and abused by anybody." "Yes,--but without an instrument!" said Walter, sadly. "My fiddle, and the beautiful book that I got to-day in school, as a reward, are surely my own property; they lie both together in the chamber." "Don't fret about them, Walter, for I will bring them both to you," said Maggie, soothingly. "Stay here in the shadow of the wall; as soon as mother goes to sleep, I will find them, and bring them to you. Here is a piece of bread; it is all I could find in the kitchen, and I have brought you a cake home from the school festival. Good-by! Don't grow weary waiting for my return; but if I don't go back now to the house, mother will miss me, and I may not be able to get out again." [Illustration: THE YOUNG ARTIST.] Maggie hastened away, and the boy seated himself in the shadow of the wall, ate his bread and school-cake, and soon slept tranquilly upon the cold stones. After a considerable time had elapsed, Maggie wakened him up; she had the treasured fiddle, and a little bundle in her hand. "Here, poor boy, is your fiddle!" she sobbed; "I have tied your shirts and your book up in this bundle. The father sends you a thousand good-byes; he has somewhat recovered himself, and is very much distressed at your going away. But he thinks that when you get away from here, and mingle in the world, that you may become a great artist. He sends you the few pennies which he had by him, and begs that, when you go into the wide, wide world, you will not forget him, for that he will always love you. He whispered this secretly to me, when mother was in the kitchen, and our wicked Conrad in his chamber. Good-by! good-by, my dear, dear Walter! and don't forget Maggie in the wide, wide world!" "Farewell, dearest Maggie! Stand by your father whenever they treat him badly. When I have grown to be a great artist, as the father says I will,--and you may be sure he must know something about it,--I will have plenty of money; and then you, Maggie, and the good father shall live with me, and I will try to reward you for all the kindness you have both shown me. But I cannot let your mother and Conrad live with me, for they are so bad that they would make us all unhappy; but I will give them plenty of money, so that they can have pancakes every day in the week for dinner, and a nice piece of roast beef for Sundays." "Will you really do all that, Walter?" said the child, as she clapped her hands in astonishment and delight. The boy proudly and confidently nodded an assuring "Yes," and Maggie continued,-- "What a good-hearted boy you are! Only make haste to be a great artist, that we may soon meet again! O how very happy father, you, and I might be together! Until then, Walter, farewell!" "Farewell, Maggie!" said Walter. Then the two children embraced each other. They parted, consoled in some degree by the idea of soon meeting again. Maggie slipped back into the house, and Walter, carrying his bundle on a stick slung over his shoulder, and his violin under his arm, passed, full of hope, through the closing gate of an unhappy past, into the breaking dawn of an uncertain future! CHAPTER III. WALTER FINDS AND LOSES A FRIEND. "The field lies wide before you, where to reap The noble harvest of a deathless name." The pleasant town of Sallheim, in consequence of the exceeding beauty of its situation, was a place of considerable resort. At the very end of the long village the principal hotel, the Golden Crown, was placed. A fine view of the enchanting valley below was to be seen from its garden, and guests of all ages and ranks took refreshments under the shade of its branching trees. The ninepin-alley was always full. A fine band of music often played under the dense shadows cast by the lindens, which attracted numberless visitors from both town and country. Upon one bright afternoon in summer, such crowds of people arrived that the garden was scarcely able to contain them all, for the next day was to be the opening of the great annual fair. Wandering musicians, organ-grinders, harpists, rope-dancers, men with puppet-shows, &c. arrived, and put up at the Golden Crown, in hopes of earning a few pennies from the rapidly gathering throng. Quite a crowd of people were collected round a stout and athletic man, who was giving various proofs of exceeding strength, such as tossing up cannon-balls in the air, and catching them as they fell; balancing a table upon his teeth, upon which his youngest daughter stood; while groups of eager children were standing round a puppet-show, or listening to the music of the harp. Two large pear-trees stood in the outer yard, with chairs and tables placed under them, at a considerable distance from the noise and bustle of the garden. A single person occupied this comparatively quiet spot. He was a little man, not taller than most boys are at ten years of age; his large head was set upon his high, broad shoulders, almost without a visible neck; his chestnut-brown hair, which had fallen out from the crown of his head, streamed long and thin over a high hump which rose upon his back; his nose was large, and curved like the beak of an eagle; his mouth was immense, and fully furnished with white and glittering teeth; while his pale blue eyes, large and round, protruded considerably from their sockets. He rested with his arms leaning upon the table, and his hands, which from their size would have done honor to a large man, were occupied in peeling an apple. Before him stood a waiter, upon which were placed pears, nuts, bread, and wine. He looked good-humored and contented. His coat was of dark, fine cloth; his linen beautifully made, and as white as snow. A little to the left of the pear-trees was seated a slight and sunburnt boy, very meanly clad. A stout stick and a little bundle lay near him on the ground, and a fiddle, wrapped up in a bright-colored handkerchief, showed him to be a wandering musician, who came to try his fortunes, with older men, at the fair. With his dark, curly head supported by his left hand, he was busily engaged in devouring a great bowl of bread and milk. It was Walter, the foundling, who had now been wandering without a home for nearly three months, and who had found some trouble in supporting himself by his playing. He travelled about without any distinctive aim; sometimes he gained small sums of money, for the beautiful boy often awakened a lively interest in his hearers; but he was often forced to listen to harsh words and terms of reproach, which wounded his very soul. He knew now that it was no easy thing to make his own way through the world, and to become a great artist. But he did not lose his courage; he rejoiced that through his almost hourly practice he was constantly acquiring more facility upon his instrument, and that he could play several long pieces, which he had picked up in his wanderings, from hearing them executed by better performers than himself. After Walter had finished his bowl of bread and milk, he stretched his tired limbs out upon the bench, and sought repose. For the first time he now observed his neighbor, whose remarkable appearance at once chained his attention. The little man was eating his nuts apparently with great satisfaction; he cracked them with his sharp, strong teeth, and threw the shells about, right and left, in quite a comical manner. A whole troop of boys, some of them from the village, some of them guests at the inn, had gathered themselves around him. They put their heads together, whispered, coughed, and tittered, pointed their fingers at him, and mimicked all his movements. He appeared to take no notice of them, but went on quietly eating his nuts. This only made the mischievous boys more insolent; first one cried, then another, and at last all together: "Nut-cracker! nut-cracker! crack me a nut! Ha! ha! ha! Halloo! nut-cracker!" The boys came nearer and nearer to him, and declared that, if some one would pull him by the coat-tail, and then shove the very hardest kind of nuts into his mouth, he could surely crack them. They then determined to make the attempt; some of them pulled his coat-tail, while others threw little stones at him. Walter could no longer endure this derision of the stranger. Brandishing his heavy travelling stick in his right hand, he suddenly sprang before the table of the humpback, and said, with flashing eyes: "Shame! shame, boys! to behave so rudely! Do you not see that he cannot protect himself against your mischief, because he is weak? Shame! shame! to attack one who is weaker than yourselves!" The boys stopped their sport for a moment; but they rapidly consulted together, and then hallooed: "What does that beggar-fellow dare to say to us? He had better not try to master us! He's a pretty looking chap, to be sure, to dare to scold us! Up, and catch him! Pound him, and beat him, until he can move no longer!" Part of the boys fell with loud shouts upon Walter, while others threw stones at him. The boy parried their blows with his stick, and defended himself bravely; but at last he must have yielded to numbers, had not assistance come from the quarter from which he least expected it. The little man, for whose sake he had encountered the storm, stood suddenly beside him, tore the two boys who were trying to throw Walter down away with great violence, shook them for a moment in the air, and then threw them upon the ground. Then with his long arms and immense hands he seized upon two other boys, and while he held them in the air he cried, "You bad boys, if you don't let the little fiddler alone, and go away quietly from here immediately, I will toss these two boys like balls among you, and not one of you shall return alive to the house!" The boys were seized with a sudden panic, and with loud shrieks ran away. The man set his two trembling prisoners free, who rapidly fled to join their companions. He then looked round after his little protector. Walter was standing at the well, washing the blood from his still bleeding brow, for he had been struck with a heavy stone. The little man hastened to him, and said in a compassionate tone, "My brave little defender, I hope you are not much hurt?" "O no!" answered Walter, "I don't think it amounts to anything. But don't be offended because I came to your aid. I thought you were weak, and that I could help you; but you are very, very strong!" "Yes, God be thanked! In giving me this strangely disproportioned form, he gave me an extraordinary strength with it, in order that I might be able to protect myself from the ill-treatment my odd appearance might bring upon me. But the laughing and scoffing of bad boys makes, in general, but little impression upon me, and I scarcely ever use my strength, lest I might hurt them. You could not know that, my boy; and that you alone among so many should have struggled to protect me is a sure proof that you have a good heart. Come, child, let me put this piece of healing plaster on your wound; I always carry some about with me in my pocketbook. There, now! it is on, and it will quit bleeding. Now sit down beside me, and tell me what your name is, and why it is that your parents let you travel about alone, at such an early age." Walter immediately did as he had been requested. The deformed and exceedingly ugly man had won his entire confidence. He related his whole history to him, without concealing anything. The little man muttered, now and then, some almost unintelligible words, and moved his thick head and short neck strangely about. After Walter had finished his recital, he laid his large hand upon his dark curls, and said friendlily to him: "My dear boy, if you continue to travel about as you have done, from town to town, with your fiddle, you will never become even a respectable man, much less a great artist; for in this way you will never acquire any knowledge of music, or the meaning of the word of God." "Heaven help me!" sighed the boy; "what will become of me? what had I better do? I cannot go back to Mother Bopp, for she would strike me dead like a dog. Poor, forsaken boy that I am! nobody cares about me; I am entirely neglected. Alas! alas! I have no parents to love me, as other children have!" Thick tears coursed their rapid way over the rosy cheeks of the deserted foundling. "Be still, and do not weep, my poor child! You have a Father above,--one who is a Father to us all,--who loves you, and will take care of you." "No, indeed, sir," said the child, while he looked full into the face of the stranger, with his fearless and lustrous eyes, "no, no, I have certainly no father!" "Believe me, my dear son, you too have a Father,--a good and powerful Father. He dwells above us, in the depths of the blue heavens, but he is also everywhere upon the face of the earth. He sees you always, and always takes care of you. His name is GOD, the Father." "Indeed, sir, you are mistaken. I have heard that he has a great deal to do, and a great many worlds to take care of. He don't trouble himself about a poor, forsaken boy," said the child, sadly. "And yet he has numbered the very hairs of your head, and not a single one falls to the ground without his will," answered the stranger, earnestly. Walter gazed into his face with the greatest astonishment; then ran his fingers through his thick curls, as if to convince himself anew of their immense number, shook his head sadly, and said unbelievingly: "No hair fall from my head without his will! It has also, then, been his will that I should have been exposed in the hazel-bushes; and that Mother Bopp should beat me so cruelly! No good father, that loved his child, would suffer such cruel things to happen to him." "My poor, dear boy!" answered the stranger, deeply touched, "God, the good Father, has certainly permitted that you should have been forsaken when an infant, and have been since so cruelly maltreated. Why he suffered such things to be, and why he gave me a form so fantastic and deformed, we cannot now know, but we shall know his merciful motives when we no longer wear these earthly garments,--when we are with the good Father in heaven. But it must certainly have been for our own benefit: perhaps it was necessary for the salvation of our souls. Believe me, this is true, my son. Trust firmly in the Father in heaven; he is both good and powerful. Although you know so little about him, he will take care of you, and manifest himself at the proper hour. But the night is rapidly approaching, and I must go back to the town. Here, my son, is enough to pay for your night's lodging. If you would like to see me again, do not mingle with the people who attend the Fair,--the organ-grinders, puppet-show men, and the like,--but come to the town in the morning, and inquire for the house of Mr. Burg, the clock-maker; and when you have found it, come in, and you shall not fare the worse for our accidental meeting. Farewell, my poor boy! Trust in the Father in heaven, and implore him for his gracious aid!" He rose rapidly, pressed a guinea into the child's hand, and with long and powerful strides left the inclosure. Walter remained thoughtfully sitting upon the bench. At last, after a long pause, he murmured lightly to himself: "The good God cares for me, and no single hair falls from my head without his will; I must trust in him! So the little man said." His voice grew more cheerful, and, looking at the glitter of the gold which he still held in his hand, he continued: "Then it was the good God who directed that I should meet the kind little man, and that he should give me all this money just at this moment, when I have not a single cent in my pocket, and did not know how I should gain enough to pay for a night's lodging. Yes, that must the good God have done! At any rate, I must thank him for it, for the little man vanished so suddenly that I had no time to say a single word to him." Walter folded his hands, and made a short prayer, such as his childish heart dictated to him. He then took his violin, went contentedly into the house, and, as his benefactor had advised him to do, sought no other companions, but went to bed alone, and soon fell asleep, full of joyous hopes. * * * * * The high-road was filled with people, for the Fair enticed both sellers and buyers to the neighboring town. As Walter walked cheerfully along under the shadow of the tall chestnut-trees which bordered the highway, he hummed a song, and thought of the good little man. Suddenly a coarse voice cried to him: "Good morning, little fiddler! Are you going to the town?" Walter looked round, and recognized the stout, strong man whom he had seen the day before, and who was walking close behind him. A little cart, full of the most heterogeneous baggage, was drawn by a dog, and driven by a boy of about Walter's own age. A maiden somewhat older walked behind the cart, carrying a harp upon her back, and a still smaller girl, who also took a part in the exhibitions of the family, ran alongside. As Walter's eye rapidly glanced over the members of the wandering household, he took off his hat, and politely answered the salutation of the man. "Now, boy, tell me, are you going to the town in order to earn something there?" said the stout man to Walter. "Yes, I am," answered Walter. "Are you entirely alone, or do your parents expect you there?" the man continued. "I am entirely alone!" sighed the boy. "And do you think it possible, you little fool, to get on by yourself? Have you a passport and a certificate from your home?" "No! I have neither. I did not know I should need them," answered Walter. "I thought so! You are already in a scrape, then. There are officers appointed by the government, whose duty it is to see that all strangers possess such papers; they exact them from everybody, little and big, and those who have them not are immediately taken up, and either put in prison, or sent out of the country as nuisances and vagabonds." "O, I am not at all afraid of that!" said Walter. "I know a good gentleman in the town, who would certainly help me." "Oh!" growled the man, "if you have an acquaintance in the town, that is quite another thing! Rosa! Rosa! don't be running about so in every direction! You'll tire yourself out before you come to the town, and then you'll not be fit to do anything. Come to me, and I'll carry you a little!" He raised the little girl in his arms, and swung her upon his back. The child, accustomed to this manner of being carried, fastened her arms and feet around him, and from her new position commenced teasing and tormenting her sister, in no very refined manner. Walter began to dislike his companions, and to feel rather uncomfortable with them, so he tried to walk faster than they were doing so as to leave them behind, but the man hastened his steps, and insisted upon keeping up with him. After a short time he said to him: "Now, tell us, boy, what is the name of your acquaintance? If he is rich and kind, he will probably give me, who am very poor indeed, something worth looking at, if I make my children perform for him. Where does he live?" "His name is--is--I cannot think now of his name! Wait a minute! O yes! He said I must ask for the house of--of--of--the clock-maker. Now, what was the name? Merciful Heaven! Can I have forgotten his name? I will certainly recall it in a moment or two." "O my young fellow!" said the man, while he laughed very loud, "you are really in a bad fix! A friend, whose very name you have forgotten, will not help you out of the hands of the police." "O, I shall certainly be able to recall it to my memory!" said Walter, with the tears running down his cheeks. "My poor child!" said the man, earnestly, "if you can't remember the name before we arrive at the entrance of the town, from which we are not more than a hundred feet distant, you are ruined. The police keep a sharp look-out; without making any bones about it, they will seize you by the throat, and throw you into some dark jail. Then, in the company of rats, toads, and other monsters, you will have plenty of time to think of the name of your kind acquaintance!" "O good Heaven! In that case, I will not enter the town. I will return, and remain in the village," sobbed the boy, and turned rapidly round to take the direction back to the inn. "I really pity you, poor little fellow!" said the man, while he held him fast by the arm. "You will be able to earn nothing in the village, but in the town you might do a sure business. I am a good-hearted fellow,--I wish I could help you! H--m! h--m! let me think a minute! How can I possibly do it?--Yes, yes! I have it now! You can stay with me and labor with us. I can say you are my son. I have my papers in my pocketbook, and they state that I, Christopher Pommer, am travelling with my family. How can the police know whether I have one child more or less? If you are satisfied with my proposal, you shall live with us. I will furnish you with enough to eat and drink; you shall live with me as one of my children, and I will give, in addition, a penny every day. There, boy, you have found a good friend; everything found for you, and a penny a day clear! You see I am rather a good-natured fool! Now, then, are you agreed?" "That depends upon what you will require me to do," said Walter, doubtingly; "for I have never learned to twist about my limbs as you do." "Ah! it would take you a long time to learn that," answered the man, laughingly. "You will only have to do what you like to do,--to play upon the fiddle. My Minnie plays upon the harp; you can play together in the different houses and in the streets, and all the money that the people may give you for it you are to bring to me. You see it is only out of the kindness of my heart that I offer to serve you, for Minnie can earn as much without you as with you!" It seemed to Walter that what the man said was true enough. It was certain that Christopher Pommer and his family did not at all please him; but then he had a perfect horror of jails and rats. Yet it was with a feeling of irresistible repulsion that he entered into the proposed arrangement. "Well, then," said the man, with his harsh, disagreeable laugh, "we must soon commence our preparations for business. What is your name, my son?" "Walter," he answered, with his head sinking upon his bosom. "O boy, be more cheerful! Don't let your head hang down in such a way! I must make you acquainted with your brothers and sisters, for we are almost at home. Halloo, children! Come here! You must learn to know your new brother. This is he. His name is Walter. Walter, this is Minnie, with whom you are to play; this boy is Bastian; and the child upon my back is little Rose." "And this is Nero," cried Rose, as she pointed to the dog in the cart. "True enough," said the man, "he belongs to the family, and earns his own bread with the rest of us. Once for all, I tell you, children, you had better behave yourselves properly, or--or--But here is our inn, the Black Bear; here we are well known: we are good old friends. We will take a bite of breakfast here, arrange our dress a little, and then go to the town to seek work. Whoever brings the most money back with him shall receive a double share. But when it strikes nine o'clock in the evening, everybody must be at home. You, Walter, must first practise a couple of hours with Minnie; then you will go through the town together." "Father," said Bastian, "am I not to go with Minnie, and play upon the flute, as I always do?" "No!" answered the father, gruffly; "you must go with me. You know we were forced to leave your mother at home sick, and you must try to make yourself as useful as possible. You must take the trumpet, and blow it very loud, so as to attract a great many people." "The boy you have picked up can do that. I am sure he looks strong enough!" growled Bastian. "But as I have always been accustomed to go about with Minnie, I don't intend to give it up to him,--and I will go with her!" "Don't mutter such nonsense, boy, or I will have to teach you obedience." Then he whispered to the angry flutist: "Didn't you hear how this little chap managed the fiddle yesterday? He knows something about music, and plays very well; that is the reason why I tried to frighten him into staying with us, with my stories about the police. Be quiet instantly, so that he may not suspect my motives!" In the mean time Walter and Minnie had entered the inn. As soon as they had eaten their breakfast, they began to practise together. As Minnie could only strike a few chords upon the harp, she could soon play a simple accompaniment to some of Walter's pieces, and as he already knew almost all of the tunes which Bastian had executed upon the flute, the two children were ready at the appointed time to commence their musical wanderings. * * * * * Three days and nights had elapsed since Walter had been adopted as a member of the family of Pommer; but he already counted the days until the fair should be over, when he might again wander about alone from village to village, for he felt very unhappy in his present situation. When he came back with Minnie in the evening tired and hungry to the house, they were always harshly greeted, for Pommer never thought they brought enough home, and constantly accused them of having, in some way, wasted the money which they must have received. The penny promised per day was never paid. Often and often Walter had to play dances until daybreak, for the most degraded company, in the hall of the inn. If he hesitated for a moment, or complained of fatigue, Pommer threatened to deliver him up to the police, and the fear he entertained of dark prisons and rats soon brought him to yield to the most unreasonable demands. One evening when Walter had played for the disorderly dancers until long after midnight, when he was at last released and sought his wretched bed of straw, he found Pommer, in a state of complete intoxication, stretched across it in such a way that it was quite impossible for him to find any place upon which to rest his tired limbs. He slipped back into the hall of the inn, and threw himself, in discomfort and dust, upon the hard bench. The tears unconsciously and rapidly streamed from his eyes. "Ah, how unfortunate I am!" he sighed; "I am again entirely forsaken. The little man, whose name I have so unfortunately forgotten, indeed told me that I was not forsaken, and that nothing could happen to me without the will of God. But everything goes wrong with me; what is to become of me? If it is indeed God's will that I should be so miserable and so forsaken upon earth, it would be far better for me to die! O thou good God in the far heavens! if it be indeed true that thou canst see and hear me now, I beg thee with all my soul, let things, if only for this one time, go well with me! O free me from these wicked men, who may perhaps succeed in making me as worthless as they themselves are! Hast thou really seen Father Pommer this very evening putting his hand into the pocket of the red-faced soldier, and stealing his purse from it? Dost thou not know that it must be a very sad thing for me to be forced to call a thief father? O if I only knew if my own father yet lived, and where I could find him! Lead me to him, thou good God, and grant that he may be a kind one! But if he is really dead, then at least take me out of the hands of these bad men! "The little man told me that thou wert my Father in heaven: that thou thyself lovedst me! O dear Father so far above me! I would so like to have a father upon earth, who could teach how to do right,--how to avoid wrong! Do send me one! I will love thee so dearly if thou wilt! I will always obey thee and thank thee! O remember how early I was forsaken,--into what cruel hands I have always fallen! O thou Father above, listen to the cries of the forlorn orphan! Pray, pray, pray listen!" The boy sank to sleep with these prayers on his lips; these sad thoughts in his soul. At daylight in the morning he was wakened by the harsh voice of Pommer, and in a few moments he was again with Minnie in the street. CHAPTER IV. WALTER'S FRIEND. "Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? Draw near them, then, in being merciful!" The children stood before a very handsome house, and played many of their best pieces; yet no window was opened, no friendly face looked out, no kind hands threw gentle gifts to the little musicians. The children and people who were passing by would indeed stop and look at them for a moment; but as soon as Walter came near them with his hat for a collection, they would suddenly turn upon their heels and go away. Minnie and Walter both looked sad, for it was almost noon, and their pockets were yet empty; they were very hungry, and unless they should chance to meet with some wonderful piece of good luck, they had everything to fear from the anger of Father Pommer on their return in the evening. With redoubled eagerness and force the children were playing their last new Polka. Walter's eyes were steadily fixed upon a window, from which he thought he could discern some one watching them, seated behind a curtain, and he hoped to receive something from the half-hidden form. But he felt his arm suddenly seized: he was startled, and looked round to ascertain what it could be; and in the benevolent face that was gazing upon him he instantly recognized, to his unutterable delight, the little man whose name he had forgotten, and whom he had so longed to see. "God be thanked that I have found you! that you are really here! Now, indeed, everything must go right!" he cried, almost beside himself with joy, as he extended his hand to the stranger. "If you really had such a strong desire to see me, why did you not come to my house? for I gave you my name, and you might easily have found me," said the clock-maker. "You did, indeed, but I forgot it! I could not recollect it: that was my bad luck!" said the poor child eagerly. "Did you really forget my name? Did you try hard to recollect it?" asked the little man, doubtingly. "Come, children, they do not seem inclined to give you anything here. Come, I will walk with you a little way." Minnie took her harp, looking very much astonished, and gazing distrustfully at the watch-maker, who did not seem to concern himself at all about the maiden. He asked Walter to tell honestly and truly all that had happened to him since their parting, and what he had done to support himself. The boy related concisely all that had occurred. He told him that, having no passport, he was very much afraid of the police, and of being put into prison; but that the stout man had taken him as his son, and that he played about in all the streets with Minnie, who accompanied his violin with the harp, in order to get as much money as they could. "Then you have found a father, and require no other?" said the clock-maker. "Now everything goes on happily with you: this wild kind of life suits you, and you desire nothing better?" Tears filled the large, dark eyes of the poor orphan; he looked sadly at the stranger, and shook his head. "You are not happy?" answered the stranger; "if you will try to accustom yourself to a regular and industrious life, and if you will promise to be a good, truthful boy, you may come with me. I will take you into my own house, and take care of you as long as you show yourself worthy of my protection." Walter remained motionless for a moment, as if turning into stone; then his eyes sparkled with delight, and with a cry of joy he threw his arms round the neck of the clock-maker, who tried to calm his stormy transport, and said to him: "Gently! gently, my boy! the people in the street are stopping to look and laugh at us as they go by. Once inside of my house, we can talk about it, and rejoice. Come! come quickly with me home!" But Minnie now took Walter's hand, and said defiantly: "I will not let Walter go with you; he must stay with me, because I cannot play or earn anything without him. My father stands at the corner of the next street; I will go and bring him here, for I am sure he will never consent to Walter's leaving us." Walter clung, trembling all over with fear, to his protector, who said sternly to the girl, while he filled her hand with small coins: "Here, child! here is more money than you and Walter would have earned all day to-day and all day to-morrow! Your father has no right to this boy; tell him he must take care to do nothing more against the laws, or I will expose him to the police. You had better join him now; and you, Walter, follow me!" The boy's heart throbbed with joy when, having turned the corner of the street, he could see nothing more of the Pommer family, and he found himself quite alone with his benefactor. He kissed his hand again, and bounded joyfully on beside him. The little clock-maker put all kind of questions to him, which the boy readily and candidly answered. The face of the little man grew more and more friendly and cheerful. They soon arrived at the house. They opened a handsomely ornamented iron gate, and stepped into a pretty garden. The paths were strewed with gravel, the beds were well laid out, and bordered with boxwood. Lilacs, pinks, roses, lilies, and many other beautiful flowers, smiled in luxuriant and variegated bloom around. In the midst of this neat garden stood a small dwelling-house, whose white walls were almost hidden by the clinging vines, which seemed to love to twine about them. In front of the house there was a small place shaped like a semicircle, strewed nicely over with sand almost as white and shining as silver, which was partly shaded by a trellised woodbine, and partly by the low and spreading branches of a large apple-tree. A small table and several seats stood in this place, and a very pretty spinning-wheel, pushed a little to one side, betrayed that the spinner had just left the spot. Mr. Burg called softly, "Christina!" and the called one made her appearance immediately on the threshold of the house. Christina was the twin-sister of the clock-maker Burg. Like him, she was very short, but she was well formed. She wore a dark-colored dress, and a cap and neck-handkerchief of dazzling whiteness, while the large bunch of keys which were fastened to her side spoke of household cares and household thrift. "Here, Christina!" said Burg, in a tone which betrayed suppressed emotion, "here is Walter, of whom I have already spoken to you. He will be our son, and make us happy. Sweetest sister, I think I have brought you a treasure to be valued, as a present from the fair!" Christina took the boy, who was almost as tall as herself, in her arms, and pressed him to her heart; then she laid her hand upon his brow, and said, with a tender yet solemn voice: "God bless thy entrance into this house, my dear child! May his Holy Spirit descend upon thee, so that thou mayest become a pious Christian and a useful man! May his grace be with thee evermore! Amen!" The tears rushed to Walter's eyes,--he did not himself know why, for the soft, friendly face of Christina inspired no sadness or timidity, but the most heartfelt confidence. "I have found the boy in the street, my sweet sister, and I have no doubt that he is really suffering with hunger. I hope your pantry is full enough to satisfy the appetite of the starving child." "Do not be afraid of that," said Christina, laughing. "As I have expected the arrival of our son every hour during the last three days, I have provided for all his wants. Come! come in, brother, and see!" Everything was clean and neat in the little house; everything seemed to correspond with the character of the brother and sister. That especially pleased Walter. His new parents took him by the hand, and led him about the house, showing him the cheerful sitting-room with its vine-curtained windows. At one of these windows stood a table, with very fine tools upon it, and several watches hanging near it, suspended to the wall; at the other, the sewing-table of Christina was placed, her comfortable cushioned chair, and her footstool. The brother and sister worked together in the same room, and it was only over some very delicate piece of mechanism that the clock-maker shut himself up in the apartment at the other side of the house. A savory smell of a good dinner proceeded from the clean kitchen, and it was very agreeable to poor, hungry Walter. They led him about into all the rooms and chambers; at last they took him up a story higher, into a lovely little, friendly room. A neat bed, covered with a white quilt, stood near the wall; chairs, tables, a bureau and a wardrobe, a dressing-glass and a handsome timepiece, were all in their appropriate places, and the snowy window-curtains gave the room a most comfortable appearance. "How do you like this chamber?" said Christina, friendlily, to Walter. "O, it is delightful! Even the Mayor himself in Geremberg has not a single room as beautiful as this one is." "This is your own little room, my boy," said Christina. "You are to sleep in this quiet bed, and if you never forget to say your evening prayers devoutly, God's winged angels will watch over your sleep." "Me? Am I really to sleep in this soft, white, beautiful bed?" said the delighted boy to his benefactress. "Ah, I have never seen one half so beautiful! I have always slept upon straw, or upon the bare ground. O dear sir! O dear, kind lady! how very good you are to poor, forsaken Walter!" He threw his arms around them both, and then sprang delightedly about, gazing on everything around him with rapturous and grateful astonishment. "As several days have passed since we first expected you," said Christina, "I have provided clean linen and new clothes for you, which I think will fit you. You will find everything ready for you in this wardrobe. You must wash yourself very clean, comb your fine hair nicely, put on your new clothes, and always try to keep yourself very neat. We should suffer no stain upon us,--neither upon our souls nor our clothing. Make haste, my son, and get ready. In the mean time, I will set the table, and flavor the soup." With a friendly greeting, Christina left them, while Burg stayed to help the boy to dress. When Walter was well washed, combed, and dressed in his new clothes, his appearance was strikingly handsome. The clock-maker looked at him with undisguised pleasure, while the boy exclaimed, in grateful rapture,-- "My dear, dear sir, how am I to thank you? how am I ever to compensate you for all this?" "I shall be fully compensated, if you will only be good and obedient," answered Burg. "But before all things else, thank God, my son! He has led you, in the most wonderful manner, through much tribulation, to us. It was certainly his kind hand which led me to you, just when I had determined to seek out, and adopt as my own, some forsaken orphan. Do you not acknowledge that you have a Father in heaven, who, even when he appeared to have forsaken you, yet wonderfully led you upon the right way?" Walter was silent, and seemed lost in thought. "Yes," he at last replied, "yes, I now see that he has graciously cared for me. Last night, I prayed to him with all my heart that he would let things go well with me, if only for once; and see! already to-day he has heard and fulfilled my prayer! I believe that, if I had learned to pray to him sooner, he would never have let it gone so badly with me." "Never forget it, then, in the future, my son," said Burg. "Trust always in the good Father above, with a childlike and firm faith; and even if you should be unfortunate in this life, never cease to rely upon the only firm support,--the Father above." "Yes, yes, dear sir! I will certainly trust him," said the boy. "Call me no longer 'Dear sir,' but 'Dear father'; and call my sister, 'Mother.' With God's help, we will try to be kind and conscientious parents to you; and I believe you will be a pious and true son," said Burg, as he kindly pressed the hands of the orphan. Christina's clear voice now called them to dinner. As they entered the dining-room, her eyes fell upon Walter. She looked astonished, and yet full of contentment, for his beauty was very striking in the neat clothes which her care had provided for him. Walter was, as if through magic, suddenly transported into a life differing in all things from the life of his earlier days. He had been abused and forsaken,--driven from the only home he had ever known; he had struggled with cold and want, and lived in poverty, hunger, and dirt. He now lived in the bosom of a tranquil, industrious, and pious family. The brother and sister, secluded from the noisy world, surrounded by their beautiful garden, and in the possession of a fortune more than adequate to their wants, led a pious and charitable life. Christina's character was childlike and simple. She had never known nor ever desired any other happiness than to serve God and to love her twin-brother. With a far keener intellect, the brother's character, in its simplicity and piety, resembled that of the sister. He was an excellent clock-maker, but he gave his clocks into other hands to be sold, as he knew nothing of trading, and hated to be annoyed with it. He said it disturbed the quiet of his soul, and wasted his valuable time. His favorite employment was to imagine ingenious and artistic fancy works, and set them in motion by clock-work. He never sold any of these. He kept them in his parlor, and on festival occasions he would exhibit them to his own and his sister's friends. He had made, among other things, a very complete paper-mill, and a most beautiful church. In the paper-mill, the mill-clappers rattled up and down, the wheels ran merrily round, the mechanism worked well, and all the preparations for making paper were really there; everywhere was seen the appropriate labor, and at last tiny sheets of real paper were made, which the mechanist would kindly distribute among his own and his sister's friends, as remembrancers of them and of his novel invention. The church was lighted up, the many-colored windows glittered, the bells rang, the organ played, and people were seen going in at the various doors, and walking round in the beautiful building. These pieces of artistic mechanism were his delight; he often passed whole nights without sleep in inventing and executing things still more curious and ingenious. The pastor of the parish, and his wife, were his most intimate friends; indeed, it was only upon rare occasions that any other guests were to be met in his house. The brother and sister had lived together nearly half a century in unbroken peace, in heartfelt unity and love, when the melancholy thought presented itself to them, that after their death there would be no one to inherit their highly improved property, no one to take care of and cherish the works of mechanism invented by the clock-maker, no one to whom Christina could confide her pretty house, and carefully and tastefully cultivated garden. They consulted seriously together what would be best to do. We will leave it for the benefit of the poor, said they with one voice; but they sighed, and looked sadly around them. "Our beloved house and garden must in that case be sold," sighed Christina. "God only knows in what hands it will fall, and how it will be taken care of! All that I have planted and nurtured with so much love will be rooted up, or trampled under foot!" "And all my beautiful works of art will be sold," said the brother, in a still more melancholy tone. "If an unskilful hand touches them, if a single wheel gets out of order, they are ruined for ever!" "It is very sad, indeed!" said they both. "Yes, Christina, it is truly melancholy," again commenced the clock-maker, after a long pause; "but it is very sinful to attach ourselves so firmly to such fleeting things. During the whole course of his life, man is constantly forced to struggle with himself that he may not break the holy commandment: 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' Our clinging so firmly to these passing things of earth is nothing but a species of idolatry. Therefore, my dearest sister, we will try to free ourselves from the thraldom of this sin; we will simply leave our property to the poor, and give ourselves no trouble about what shall become of it after we are dead and gone!" Christina secretly wiped the tears from her streaming eyes, answered nothing, but spun industriously on. After a considerable time had elapsed, she said, in a trembling tone: "Listen to me, my dear brother! I would like to make a proposition to you, which I have long cherished in silence. What do you think of our taking some poor, forsaken orphan child into the house, bringing it up to truth and industry, and adopting it as our own son or daughter? We might then divide our property between it and other poor people. In this way we might fulfil our own wishes without being guilty of the sin of idolatry. Indeed, who knows but that, through our careful instruction and education, we might aid in saving the soul of some unfortunate orphan?" The brother gazed upon her with approving and deep tenderness. "My dear Christina," he said, "have you considered fully how much trouble, anxiety, and care the reception of such a charge would entail upon you?" "O, no thought of that kind should ever prevent me," she answered. "I love children dearly, and I have long wished to have the charge of one. I will make but little account of care, anxiety, and trouble for myself, if with the help of the Lord we can only succeed in bringing a forsaken child up to be a good Christian. Then it would doubtless love us as if it were really our own. The human heart constantly longs for love; and, as we grow older, what could be a greater source of pure pleasure for us, than to have a young, innocent, loving, childlike creature constantly with us?" The brother sprang to his feet, seized Christina in his arms, kissed her fondly, and said: "Sister, your words flow from my own heart! I have long cherished the same wish, but could not venture to ask you to assume this additional burden. But now all things seem to have arranged themselves in the happiest manner; and with God's help we will soon find the child we seek!" The good people made a happy choice in selecting Walter; or rather God had graciously provided for the fulfilment of their wishes, and led to them the forsaken boy. They brought him up with prudence and with love. His many and excellent faculties were developed in the highest degree through the best of teachers. The good pastor was his instructor in all that belonged to religion, while the truly Christian life of the pious brother and sister exerted a most beneficial influence upon the heart of the poor boy, and all the bad habits which he had acquired from the vicious examples which had been constantly before his eyes, from the first moment of the precocious awakening of his intelligence until his fortunate reception into the house of his present protectors, rapidly and for ever vanished. His days always began and ended with prayer, and the consciousness of the perpetual presence of the Almighty, in the fulness of his strange love and enduring mercy, was with him in the hours of labor and the moments of relaxation. Burg was anxious that Walter should adopt his own profession, so that when he became the inheritor of his property he might also inherit his artistic skill. But Walter evinced no disposition to embrace it. He was astonished at the works of art, clapped his hands joyfully at the appearance of life in the movements of the diminutive figures, and wished he had the skill to make them; but his desire rapidly vanished when he saw his adopted father at work. His attention was only fastened upon such objects, by their entire novelty, for a few moments; then he would bound away to bring his beloved violin, and play hour after hour upon it with real joy of heart. The clock-maker soon knew what were Walter's peculiar talents, and, very far from wishing to contend with the gifts of nature, at once relinquished his own cherished wish. He shall have every opportunity to cultivate his genius, he said to himself; I will give him every advantage. He took his adopted son by the hand, and led him to the town, where he placed him with a master of high distinction. The master tested the talents of the boy for music, and found them so quick and promising that he readily undertook their cultivation. A new life dawned for Walter; he lived in and for music; for he now heard it in a perfection of which he had never dreamed in his childish years. He pursued his studies with assiduity and delight, and soon surpassed all his associates. His master was astonished at the rapidity of his progress, and every day increased his attachment to the talented boy. After a comparatively short time he found him sufficiently advanced to introduce him into the study of harmony, and thus to open a way for him into the very depths of the art he loved. The glowing and creative imagination of the boy now found the proper element in which to work, while laws and rules based on nature opened and defined his paths through the boundless regions of the tone world. Years sped on. The days which he passed in the peaceful home of his kind protectors, sheltered and cherished by their constant love and care, warmed and lighted by the glittering rays of the science he loved, were as happy as those of his earlier childhood had been miserable. In later years he often spoke, with rapturous gratitude, of the untroubled bliss of the studious, youthful, innocent days of his first introduction into the enchanted realm of Art. CHAPTER V. WALTER AN ARTIST. "In diligent toil, thy master is the bee; In craft mechanical, the worm, that creeps Through earth its dexterous way, may tutor thee; In knowledge (couldst thou fathom all the deeps), All to the seraph are already known; But thine, O man, is Art,--thine wholly and alone!" Christina sat in her full Sunday attire upon her cushioned chair; she looked very much excited, and a restlessness, quite unwonted in her usually calm face, exhibited itself in her whole demeanor. Her small hands were folded together, and the tears which trembled upon her eyelashes, and found their way down her sweet face, showed that, though her prayers were offered up in silence, they came notwithstanding from the very depths of her heart. A tall boy, with a joyous face, now broke suddenly into her room: it was the twelve-year-old Walter. "My darling mother, have I dressed myself as you would like me to do?" he asked, as he placed himself immediately before Christina, whom he had already outgrown. "Kneel down here upon my footstool, my son," said Christina to him, "that I may see if your shirt-collar fits neatly." Walter, humming a song, instantly obeyed. Christina arranged his dark and shining locks, pulled the fine, dazzlingly white shirt-collar quite straight, and shook off a little dust which had just settled upon his new suit of fine cloth. She then gazed lovingly at him, threw her arms round his neck, kissed his brow tenderly, and, in a tone quivering with emotion, said,-- "May God be with you, my dear boy! May his blessing rest upon the events of this evening!" Burg now entered the room with his hat in his hand, and announced that the carriage was at the door. He too gazed upon his adopted son with tender emotion; he embraced him in silence, then, helping his sister to put on her cloak, he led them both to the carriage, which stood at the gate of the pretty garden. That the secluded brother and sister should have driven to the town in a carriage, and in full dress, would have excited the astonishment of all their neighbors, had it not been generally known that Walter was to make his first appearance before the public, that he was to play at a concert which was to take place that very evening. How willingly would all the good people of the neighborhood have crowded into the brilliantly lighted hall, to have heard the boy whom they all loved show his skill in his beloved art! That, however, could not be; but they thought it very natural that Christina, who never left the house except to go to church, should in this case make an exception to the general rule. The concert-room was crowded to overflowing. After the last notes of the overture had died away, Walter stepped forward, and bowed calmly and gracefully to the throng. Struck with the agreeable expression and bearing of the boy, a light murmur of approbation pervaded the whole assembly. He played one of the concertos of Beethoven. His tone was pure and sweet, his execution full of power and energy. Overcoming every difficulty with apparent ease, he stormed through the allegro, exciting a feeling of astonishment in his countless hearers; while in the adagio his melting tones pressed into the depths of every heart, appealing to the feelings as music only can. Such repeated acclamations, such noisy applauses, broke from the dense mass before him when he had finished, that the boy was actually frightened, and, without making the usual bows and acknowledgments, sprang back and hid himself among the musicians of the orchestra. But the cries did not cease, for the audience were determined to greet again the little artist. Then the chapel-master took the blushing boy by the hand, led him again in front of the orchestra, and showed with proud joy to the excited public his favorite and cherished pupil. Again rang the clamor of applauses loud and long; repeated and enthusiastic cries of Encore! encore! Bravo! bravo! seemed to rend the very air. Happy,--yet abashed and half-frightened Walter! The tears ceased not to flow from the streaming eyes of Christina. When she heard the darling of her soul play, as she had never heard him play before, he seemed to her almost strange and wonderful, and her heart trembled within her; while her breast heaved anxiously and almost shudderingly at the loud, stormy, and never-ending applauses which were offered to the child of her love. She scarcely understood their full import, for she had never attended a concert before; she looked anxiously into the face of her brother, who was standing near her seat. He was deeply moved; he grasped and pressed her hand, tears trembled in his large, protruding eyes, the corners of his mouth were twitching with excitement, and the strange contortions of face which he made to try to conceal his emotion, had an almost comic effect. This was remarked by some of the young people in his neighborhood; they whispered to each other, pointed him out to others who were near, and lorgnettes and opera-glasses were instantly directed upon the strange appearance of the deformed clock-maker. As soon as he observed this, he immediately withdrew himself from observation. He left his place, pressed towards the door, escaped from the concert-hall, and the sea of tones whose waves were now rising, now falling, in their stormful play. He felt that he must be alone with God, under the holy arch of the starlit heavens, in order to pour out unobserved the thronging emotions of his excited heart. The concert was over. Burg returned to the hall to seek Christina and Walter. He was detained sometime in the door-way by the press of the hurrying throng. At last, however, he reached his sister, who told him that the chapel-master had taken Walter away to introduce him to a noble family, who loved and patronized art, who gave a party this evening particularly to the artists and the friends of music; and as Walter had been particularly invited by the cultivated Countess W----, whose patronage might be of the greatest service to him, it would not be advisable or courteous to refuse the kind invitation. "It is really painful to my heart to be obliged to give up Walter, upon this evening particularly!" said Christina. "But I did not know what to do; I could not see you anywhere, and the chapel-master was so pressing, and in such a hurry! I strongly recommended to our dear son, however, to be very prudent, and not to suffer himself to be made vain, or to be spoiled!" "I am very sorry!" said Burg. "But it cannot be helped. Come, Christina!" He led his sister to the carriage, and was silent and serious during the whole drive home, as he was in the habit of being when immersed in thought. A few words of deep and highly excited feeling were exchanged by the brother and sister upon the subject of Walter's brilliant success on his first appearance before the public, and hopes and fears alternated in their loving, simple hearts. Wearied by the unwonted excitement of the day, Christina went early to rest; while Burg opened a large book, and lighted another lamp, to await the arrival of Walter home. Twelve strokes slowly sounded upon the various clocks in the house, telling Burg it was already midnight. He rose, as he shut the book of Chronicles in which he had been reading, opened his window, and looked anxiously out into the dark night. After a considerable time had elapsed, he thought he heard the distant rolling of a carriage; it drew nearer,--it stopped before the garden gate. "At last!" said Burg, heaving a deep sigh, as he closed the window. Almost immediately after, the door opened, and Walter entered. "Good evening, my dear son! At last, at last I see you again," said Burg, as he rapidly advanced to meet him. "O my father!" cried Walter, as he threw himself into his arms, "what an evening I have spent! how happy I am!" Burg gazed inquiringly into the glowing face of the boy; it shone with intense excitement and proud joy. "You are still very much excited, my child. You will find it quite impossible to go to sleep in such a state. Come, then, sit down beside me, and tell me all that has happened." "O father, if you had only seen how much they have all honored me! I was dreadfully frightened, at first, with the terrible noise they made in the concert-room; but the chapel-master says that was very stupid in me, and that one soon grows accustomed to all that. The Count laughed at me for running away, very much, at first, and said I must learn to bear still higher marks of honor; that I must learn to wear the immortal crown of laurels, for that, young as I am, I could already take my place with the true artists; that in a few years I would surpass them all, and that my name would be sounded with honor through the whole civilized world. Father! my father! is not that glorious? Everything was beautiful in the Count's house; such immense rooms I never saw before. We were soon seated round a table covered with the most exquisite food. They drank a kind of wine that banged when they took the corks out, as if a pistol had been shot off, close to your ears. It foams and foams; it is quite sweet, and tastes excellently." "Have you taken more than one glass of it, my son?" said Burg, as he anxiously laid his hand on the glowing brow of the excited boy. "No, father, I have not. The beautiful Countess ordered me to take the seat next to her own. Only think, father: the chapel-master says that was the seat of honor! But the Countess would not let them refill my glass. She said it was possible I was not accustomed to it; that my good mother, Christina, would not be pleased if I should be spoiled by drinking too much of it. But only think,--just try to guess what happened next!--No, that is not it. Ah! father, you would never, never guess it! Only think of it! they all drank my health, making their glasses rattle as they did so; and then they all congratulated the chapel-master upon having found such a pupil as I am. They drank his health, too. Ah! there can be no greater happiness in this life than to be an artist! And I am certainly one already, for they all declared I was. When I look at the other scholars of my own age in the institution, I cannot help pitying them; for they are really stupid in comparison with me, and I do not believe that they will ever receive such honors as have been rendered to me to-night." "And whom have you to thank for this distinction?" asked Burg. "Myself and you!" answered Walter, rashly. "You sent me to a most skilful teacher; but he has many pupils who have been studying a great deal longer, yet play much worse than I do." "Then you have no one but yourself to thank for your talent for art?" asked Burg. "Yes, I owe it to my own industry. The chapel-master himself says so." "Procure me still another joy, my dear Walter! Write me a finished poem!" "But, father, how can I do it?" said Walter, quite astonished. "I will give you plenty of time to do it," said Burg. "I will take you to-morrow to a most skilful master in the art of poetry; to please me, you will again be very studious and industrious, and thus you will be a great poet!" "My dear father, I am sorry for it, but I think it would be impossible!" answered Walter. "You know that at school I never wrote with any ease; indeed, I always found it very difficult, for I have no talent at all for it!" "But through your own industry you will certainly learn to compose as well in words as you have done in tones." "O that is entirely different!" said the boy, quickly. "I have a great deal of talent for music, and none at all for poetry." "Ah, indeed!" answered the father, earnestly. "I thought, because you had attributed all the honor of the day to _yourself alone_, that you would be able to make as rapid progress in any other art. But if that is not the case, it seems to me that you cannot claim all the honor for yourself alone, for you have just admitted that success in any art requires, in the first place, talent. Now how have you been able to create this internal talent, which you confess to be the first requisite?" Walter blushed crimson; he looked confusedly upon the floor; then he murmured: "No man on earth can create that,--that is a gift of the good God!" "Then," said Burg, very seriously, "without any merit, any assistance, on your part, out of pure love, God has endowed you with the beautiful and glorious gift of a genius for music. You are only fulfilling a duty, when you cultivate to the utmost of your power the high talent which you have received from God. Would you not be guilty of the blackest ingratitude if you would suffer the capabilities with which he has gifted you to remain uncultured in your soul? And yet you think that you have done something very extraordinary, and that the honor and praise which thoughtless men have so freely lavished upon you belong of right to you alone; whereas all the distinction which has been offered to you is justly and solely due to God. Because you have done in music only what it was your duty to do, would you wish to claim merit for a thing so simple, and would you, in the excess of an idle vanity, forget your Maker, from whose bountiful hand you have received all? "The sweet and foaming wine which you drank to-night is called Champagne. Its taste is very pleasant, yet it is sometimes a poison. One or two glasses, however, is not injurious. But it is often forgotten that a bad spirit lies concealed in the pearly drops which foam and dance upon its surface. He who drinks too much of it loses his force and his senses, and in his drunkenness resembles the madman who forgets his God. Such excess often leads to the commission of great crimes. The applauses of the crowd, the reverence paid to genius, the sweet flattery always offered to the artist in the most intoxicating manner, resemble champagne. The bad spirit which is concealed in the froth of popular applause, to ruin and destroy the artist, is Vanity. Woe to him if he does more than simply taste the sweet draught! If he eagerly gulps it down, he draws in Vanity at the same time, which must lead him to certain destruction; for it entices him away from God, to whom alone all the fame, all the honor, which men so lavishly expend upon the artist is justly due. Vanity is constantly hovering over the robe of light in which all Art is clothed; she skilfully throws her own spotted veil over the glittering raiment, drawing Art gradually down to the service of hell. True, divine Art, however, soon discovers the toils of vanity, and, throwing them off for ever, passes on to that heaven from which she springs. A demon of darkness unfortunately too often borrows her form of light, and assists the work of Vanity in the soul of the artist, which she has subjected to her power. All that he creates gives evidence of the demoniac source from which his works spring, and that love and faith no longer make their home in his spirit. He grows gradually dizzy; he falls from sin to sin, and dies in wretchedness. An early grave, and the speedy forgetfulness of the masses who once caressed and flattered him, is sure to be the fate of the unhappy artist who, in the indulgence of his own vanity, forgets his God. My dear son, pray that you may be protected from demoniac pride, from artistic vanity!" Walter, who had listened to his father with ever increasing emotion, while his handsome face grew pale with varying feelings, now threw himself weeping into his arms, while he cried: "Father, forgive me! I also have been both proud and vain. O, aid me to contend with these wicked spirits! Suffer me not to be conquered by them!" "Pray! pray constantly, my son! In the midst of the intoxicating flatteries which will be offered to you, never forget that it is God alone who has gifted you with a genius for art; that you are nothing more than a miserable worm in his hands, and that it behooves you to bow low before his power, and give to him alone all honor! Never forget that it is your duty to cultivate the talents he has condescended to give you to the utmost extent, that you must one day give an account of the use you have made of them; and when they try to make you believe that you have reached the highest possible point, remember that it is impossible to stand still; that you must go on, or fall backward, and that only in the most constant and unremitted efforts to progress can your duty be fulfilled! Go now to bed, to sleep, my dear, dear son! May God be ever with you!" The preceding conversation, held by Walter with Burg after the intoxication of his first exciting and brilliant success, made a deep impression upon his young soul, and exercised a decisive influence upon the whole course of his life. The growth of vanity was for ever stifled in its first germ. He struggled restlessly forward upon the path of Art, but he gave at the same time the rare example of a young, handsome, and brilliant artist, in the possession of true modesty. He soon grew accustomed to the applauses of the masses; they reached his ear, but the poisoned arrows pressed not into his soul. When Walter had attained his seventeenth year, his master, whom he had long since surpassed, wished that he should make his name known through the civilized world, by extensive travels as an artist. Burg determined to accompany his beloved son, upon his first entrance into the great world. The parting from Christina was very painful; her tears flowed long and fast; she believed she would never see her darling again. Only reiterated promises to write to her constantly, could in any degree calm her distressed heart. The young artist had already earned fame and gold in many of the larger towns, and had made the name of Walter Burg widely and honorably known, when he came into the neighborhood of the scenes of his sad and deserted childhood. Certainly no one there would recognize the poor foundling in the brilliant artist, and he felt the most vivid wish to give a concert in the immediate vicinity of the tailor musician Bopp, and to see him and Maggie again. Burg willingly acceded to his natural request, and the news soon pervaded Geremberg, that the celebrated young artist, Burg, on his journey to Hamburg, would give a concert in the town-hall. The musicians of the town tuned their instruments, and looked at the music placed before them on their desks. No rehearsal had been given, because Walter Burg had only arrived the very evening upon which the concert was to take place. The town musicians determined to play as well as they could, and if the notes came too thick and fast, young Burg might himself provide for getting on as well as possible without them. No person divined that the celebrated artist whom they were momentarily expecting, and little Walter, whose early efforts they had often admired, were one and the same person. Father Bopp sat bent almost double, and held his instrument loosely in his hand; he had grown much thinner, and looked very sad; for with increasing age and poverty his termagant wife burdened him every day more deeply. The hall was soon full; many people were even standing in the open door, who had no money to take seats within, among whom was Maggie. Walter entered, and the concert began. The good people of Geremberg, even the mayor himself not excepted, had never heard such music before. The enchantment and delight was universally felt; yet we must confess that no slight degree of the enthusiasm manifested was to be attributed as much to the exceeding beauty of the young artist, as to his complete mastery of art. Walter played a long time alone; the musicians had all quietly put down their own instruments, and listened attentively to him. Father Bopp wept in the excess of his musical excitement. The concert at last ended. The mayor hastened to congratulate the young man, to tell him of his astonishment and delight, to ask him to stay as long in Geremberg as he possibly could, and also to try to learn something of his life and connections, for it is always esteemed very interesting to know everything about the destiny of a young artist. To his great astonishment, he found the young man standing beside Father Bopp, and putting into his shabby hat the whole sum taken in at the doors, to which he added a small roll of gold. "That is too much, sir!" said Bopp; "the expenses for the whole of us together do not amount to as much as that; besides, the truth is, we have scarcely played at all." "But that is all for yourself, alone," answered the young man. "Father Bopp! can it be possible that you do not recognize me? Yet you yourself gave me my first lessons upon the violin! Open your eyes a little wider, and look at me full in the face. I am your own little Walter!" Father Bopp continued to gaze at him, without being able to articulate a single word; his mouth was wide open, his hat fell from his limber hands, while his trembling arms, deprived of all power to move, anxiously sought to stretch themselves towards the noble form of the young artist. "Indeed, it is true! I am really Walter!" cried Burg, as he threw his arms round the astonished tailor. "Dear, good, kind old Father Bopp! I remember all the pieces which we used to play together, and have become what you always said I would be,--an artist!" The bewildered astonishment of the old man gave place to the strangest manifestations of the wildest joy. He danced about, he stood on one leg, he laughed, he cried, he threw his arms round Walter, then bounded off to gaze in his face, and again returned to embrace him. Burg was standing in the neighborhood, and witnessed the comic manifestations of the excited tailor's joy with heartfelt sympathy. The news that the accomplished young artist was no other than the poor little foundling, who had lived so many years among them, ran through the hall like lightning; it soon reached the outer steps, and the throng who were making their way down them. They all turned back; they crowded round Walter; they renewed their acquaintance with him, and declared they had always known he would make an extraordinary man. At last Walter was free from their noisy demonstrations. He hastened into his own room, where he found Burg and Father Bopp with Maggie, whom Walter really longed to see. She was quite grown up, looked fresh and healthy, and was delighted to meet her early and loved playmate once more. While the two old men talked together, the confidence of their childish years was soon re-established between the young people. Walter gently asked Maggie how all went on now at home; to which she answered, sighing, "Just as it used to do in old times." Conrad was no student, but had become a lazy, useless, worthless fellow, who gave them all a great deal of trouble; but he was still the mother's favorite. Poverty had very much increased upon them; with all her labor, she could scarcely earn enough to support herself; if she could only gain a little spare money to pay the necessary expenses, she would like to be married to their neighbor Peter, whom Walter must remember. Walter consoled her with the hope that he would be able to send her sufficient money to carry out her matrimonial views, as soon as he had earned some more. He was able afterwards to do so; he established Maggie and Peter in a comfortable house, and always supported old Father Bopp. When Bopp and Maggie used to speak of the famous artist, and recounted all the benefits he had showered upon them, then would Mother Bopp cry: "You and he have only me to thank for all these great things; for if I had never driven the boy out of the house, he never could have become what he now is. So you have all a great deal to be grateful to me about!" [Illustration: MAGGIE AND PETER. The first dawning of Love.] After Burg had received from the mayor the clothes which Walter had on when he was first taken from the basket, as well as the clasped locket which had been carefully preserved by the squire, he and Walter sat out on their way to Hamburg. But the interesting events which occurred there will be best learned from a letter which the clock-maker wrote to his affectionate sister Christina. THE CLOCK-MAKER BURG TO HIS SISTER CHRISTINA. Hamburg. MY DEAR CHRISTINA:-- You write to me that you have awaited the arrival of each of our letters with anxiety and impatience, but that after their reception you have always been happy and joyous. I fully believe you, my true-hearted sister; for all the details I have given you of the development of Walter's character have shown him to be kind and good. His own letters have expressed to you the childlike love which he feels for you, and he has written to you in what manner he has been everywhere received, what applause has been showered upon him; and yet you must have seen, from the simple language of his trusting heart, that he has not fallen a prey to vanity, but that he is still the modest and unspoiled youth he was when he parted from you. He has only a proper sense of his own worth; he loves his art, and practises it because he loves it; but his great talents have not made him haughty, presumptuous, or vain; he does not worship himself because he possesses marvellous faculties, the free gifts of his gracious Creator. Yes, my dear Christina! I can truly say, with a joyful heart, that the general and enthusiastic wonder and admiration of applauding throngs have not puffed up our Walter in a vain conceit of himself, but that he gives to God alone the glory! The letters of recommendation and introduction, which were given to us by the Count, Countess, and the chapel-master, have procured for us everywhere a good reception. Especially do we find this to be the case here in Hamburg. But I have already written about this to you, for I now remember that I asked you, in my last letter, to present our grateful thanks to the Count, particularly for his introduction to the Russian Minister, Count Arnoldi. He is a most accomplished person, and we have been received in his house as if we had been his own relatives. Walter feels himself strangely attracted to this lovely family. The minister is an excellent man, and knows perfectly how to make the best use of his great wealth. Weighty matters of necessary business keep him closely chained to his writing-desk during the greater part of the day; but at his late dinner, and during the evening hours, he is an intellectual and cheerful host. His wife was born in Livonia, and is a refined, cultivated, and lovely lady. As a lover and protector of Art, she not only collects together in her house the most distinguished artists, but has also dedicated it to the encouragement and preservation of their most masterly works. The central point of all her love and care is her daughter, the beautiful Sophie, now twelve years old. The little girl has a remarkable talent for music, and much pains has already been taken with its cultivation. Our Walter, still an innocent child in his pure soul, soon won the sympathy of the beautiful girl, and they are truly attached to each other. When she plays upon the piano, he often accompanies her upon the violin; and, in spite of the little time which he has at his own command after the fulfilment of his various duties, he has already composed several pieces for his little friend. Her parents are so attracted by the elegant manners and unblemished character of our dear son, so much won by his marvellous genius and his youthful beauty, that they willingly encourage the friendship of the two innocent children for each other. We visit every day the house of the Russian Minister, and the ties between the old and the young become hourly stronger. The son and heir of the house--about the same age with our son, and also called "Walter"--makes a remarkable exception to the friendship and love which his parents and his sister have evinced to Walter. Indeed, he seems actually to hate him; and as his manners are exceedingly rough and rude, he has made him feel his dislike in the most wounding manner, upon more than one occasion. His step-mother (for he is a son of the first marriage of the Minister) made the remark, one day, that Walter, our son, and their daughter Sophie, resembled each other very much. The young man laughed, and maliciously remarked: "The love which my mother cherishes for music could alone induce her to see such a likeness; for how is it possible that the only daughter of the rich Minister should resemble a travelling artist, who is only the son of a common clock-maker?" "Why not?" answered the lady, quickly. "Beauty and refinement resemble each other, in whomsoever they may be found, as well as coarseness and vulgarity; therefore, I would not be at all astonished if some one should remark a strong resemblance between the only son of the Minister and the boy of one of his peasants!" The young man blushed crimson; and, looking most maliciously at his step-mother and Walter, left the apartment, with a threatening gesture at our darling, who had heard nothing of all this, as he was talking quite unconcernedly with Sophie in the deep embrasure of one of the large windows. The lady of the house made the most graceful apologies to me about what had just occurred, and, with tears in her large eyes, said: "The invincible roughness and vulgar pride of this unendurable boy embitter my whole life, and are preparing a coffin for the noble form of my excellent husband. They seem to be an ineradicable consequence of his early education. How happy are you in the possession of such a son! Let us be candid: we envy you the possession of such a treasure!" You will probably think, my dear sister, that it would be far better for me to relate all this to you, if I were quietly seated by your side, in our own sweet home; and that it would be far more agreeable if I were to write to you only of our own dear Walter, and of his brilliant musical triumphs, than of the malicious and unpolished son of the Minister. You would be right in this decision, and I would not have written all this to you, if I did not think it was all necessary as an introduction to the weighty events which I am forced to impart to you. Yes, my dear, my true-hearted sister! your tender heart will be filled with joy, and yet your soft blue eyes may shed many tears. Hear, then, my pure-hearted one, all that has occurred. May God himself stand by you with his precious grace, and enable you to bear the heavy hours in which all selfishness, even of the highest and noblest kind, must be subjected to a fearful proof! May your self-sacrificing love for Walter enable you to endure all! I had appointed the next day for our departure. Walter did not object to it, although he confessed to me that the separation from the Arnoldi family would be very painful to him, because he loved them--he knew not why--from the very bottom of his heart. I pointed him to the brilliancy of his prospects in the future. He acknowledged that his career was full of hope; yet but slightly consoled he accompanied me, towards evening, to the house of the Minister, who had invited all the friends of the young artist together, to spend the last evening with him at a parting festival in his own house. I hoped that the younger Arnoldi, who greatly prefers card-playing to the most excellent music, would be, as usual, not at home. But it was not so. He was there upon our arrival, and seemed to me to be in a worse humor than ever with our innocent son. He took his place in the deep recess of one of the windows, and I soon remarked that, from behind the half-veiling curtain, he watched every movement made by Walter with a malicious and suspicious air. We were received with the greatest cordiality and affection by all the invited guests, and the different members of the family of the Minister. When the Minister himself asked his daughter to open the piano, and play for the last time with the young artist, tears rushed to the bright eyes and rolled down the rosy cheeks of the beautiful child. At the very moment that Walter and she commenced their duet, a violent and stormy verbal discussion began at the door of the music-room. The loud and shrill tones of a woman's voice were heard far above the instruments, fiercely demanding entrance. After a moment's delay, the door was thrown open; and, in spite of the servants, who were struggling to hold her back, a tall and powerful woman forced herself into the parlor. The Minister moved forward to meet her, and said sternly: "What is the meaning of this strange insolence? If you have really urgent business with me,--if it is necessary that you should yourself have an interview with me,--come to me early to-morrow morning, at a more suitable time. If your business, however, is very pressing, you may follow me now into another apartment." The woman seemed to hesitate for a moment, and looked half-confused round the room; but, rapidly regaining her self-possession, she said, defiantly: "They will no more admit me to your presence to-morrow than they did yesterday and the day before! The command of the young lord, as the people call him, that your servants should set the dogs upon me to drive me away,--should beat me from your door,--has made me raging mad. He needn't think that I am so much afraid of their blows! He had better not threaten me too far! Now I am determined to speak out the whole truth! Have you quite forgotten me, Minister Arnoldi? I am Martha Meyer. I am the daughter of the Meyer to whose care you intrusted your son, nearly eighteen years ago." "Very well! very well, my good woman!" said the Minister, considerably mollified; "it is very natural and very kind in you to come sometimes to visit your old charge. To-morrow morning I will be disengaged, and I will then see what I can do to help you. Go down now into the servant's hall. I will give orders that you shall be well taken care of. Walter, lead the foster-sister of your childhood out, and see that she is supplied with all she needs!" The young man looked very much agitated, and, as he stepped from behind his sheltering curtain, he seized the woman by the arm, and was about to hurry her out. But she loosened her arm from his rough grasp, and screamed out with her whole force: "This is not your own son, Minister Arnoldi, but my brother, Peter Meyer, who has been thrust upon you! He knows it himself well enough, but he has no compassion upon us at all; he leaves us in want and poverty, and when I came just now to beg him for assistance, he pretended not to recognize me, threatened to complain of me to the police, and have me driven from the city. He ordered the servants to set the dogs upon me, and to lash me out of the house if I ever suffered myself to be seen here again!" "Cursed liar!" cried the young man, who had in vain tried to hold his hands before the mouth of the angry woman, and thus arrest the stormy flow of her injurious words. She succeeded, however, in holding him at arm's length from her person, while she continued to shriek: "So, so; I am a liar, am I? Now that you have openly defied me, I will tell the whole story. Minister Arnoldi, my own blessed mother, may God forgive her! imposed this beggar upon you as your child! He is, however, her own son! Your boy Walter she exposed at night to be taken care of as a foundling! I can bring certain proof of all I assert!--Set the dogs upon me, indeed! My own brother, too!" These words fell like a stroke of thunder upon all who were present. The astonished guests gathered together in the background; Madame Arnoldi clasped her daughter anxiously in her arms, as if she feared some one would tear her away from her; and the Minister exclaimed, in a tone stifled by emotion: "Proofs! proofs! I must have full and certain proofs of this horrible story." My dear, dearest sister! I know your tender heart is beating fast; that your eyes are too full of tears to see clearly, and that, trembling with fear and excitement, you are striving to read on! I, too, suffered intensely. I grasped my Walter's hand as if I was determined never to give him up. Alas! My throbbing heart rapidly divined the truth, but it was no time for me to speak, for the angry woman rapidly proceeded in her strange narration. "My mother, seduced by your wealth, determined that her darling little Peter should be your heir. In order to carry out this scheme, she commanded me one day, shortly after the death of my father, to get little Walter ready, for that she intended to take him to another town at a considerable distance, and place him with her aunt as her own Peter, while she intended to make the real Peter pass as your Walter. She concluded, however, afterwards to alter her plan. She made me write a letter, recommending the child to the compassion of all men. As I saw her sew this paper tight upon the dress of the little boy, I thought it more than probable that she would not take him as far as her aunt's. I pitied the beautiful child sorely, for I could not help loving him; but I was dreadfully afraid of my mother, and I did not dare to refuse to do as she told me. I fastened securely and secretly around Walter the locket which you had hung on his neck when you parted from him; and when my mother asked for it, I told her that Peter had had it to play with, and had thrown it into the well. Every word I have spoken is true. I can tell you where your own son is,--for I soon found out what my mother had done with him, and have always, without exciting any suspicion, kept myself fully informed about the fate of your forsaken boy. The well-known clock-maker Burg, now residing in D----, has adopted him as his own son!" You must have already divined, my poor Christina, that this announcement was coming: imagine what an impression these words must have made on all the by-standers! "Burg! Walter Burg!" was echoed and reechoed from every quarter of the room. "Walter Burg is here!" cried Madame Arnoldi, suddenly, as she seized the cold hand of our almost benumbed darling. "Father, here,--here is indeed your son!" "If he is," cried the woman, "he must produce the locket." Walter trembled from head to foot as he produced that dear possession, which you know he has worn upon his heart ever since he left Geremberg. Arnoldi recognized it instantly! "It is a false imitation, only made to ruin me!" said the unhappy young man, whom the events of the last five minutes had transformed to a beggar. The Minister touched the spring, which was only known to himself, the locket sprang open, and suffered the picture of a beautiful woman to be seen. It was Walter's mother! Doubt was no longer possible. "My son! my forsaken son!" cried the Minister. "Our son! our artist son!" said his wife. "My brother! my own dear brother!" exclaimed Sophie. Six loving arms embraced the bewildered, happy, rich, and noble Walter! And I? Ah, Christina! my dear sister! I drew back into a quiet corner, buried my face in my hands, while the hot tears coursed their rapid way down my cheeks, and tried to reprove my weak, selfish, foolish heart, which whispered ever to me: "Poor, poor father! you have no longer a son! For the rich son of the Minister you can do nothing more! He is yours no longer!" I must confess, my heart, that this was very selfish! It was human, indeed, but not Christian. Did we bring up Walter so carefully only for ourselves? Have we loved him solely because he made us happy, and not for his own sweet sake? Who should rejoice over his present good fortune more than we? For although we love him so very dearly, yet nothing in this world can possibly replace the love of tender parents, the affection of brothers and sisters! Therefore, Christina, we will rejoice with our dear Walter from the very depths of our hearts! We will humbly thank the Merciful One that he chose us to shelter his early life, to keep him pure from evil, and to turn his young and grateful soul to the worship of his God! This happiness we have enjoyed in its purity; it will accompany us to our latest hour; its memory will never cease to refresh and console us. My good, my pious, my beloved sister! I call upon you in this hour to make with me this heavy yet righteous sacrifice; for it is our duty to give back the blessed names, which make the heart happy, of father and mother, into the hands of those who claim them by the divine right of nature. After the first intense excitement had subsided, after Walter, in the arms of his parents and amid the tender caresses of his lovely sister, had somewhat regained his bewildered consciousness, the first thought of his true heart was for me! He tore himself free from their clasping arms; he hastened to me, threw himself upon my heart, and said, as he wept: "Father Burg! O, say you will still be my father! O, what would have become of me if you had not taken pity upon me? Happy, happy man that I am! I have now two fathers and two mothers!" "Yes, and a sister that loves you too!" said little Sophie. Now you see, my dear Christina, that Walter will still remain our son! I am very much tired, for these scenes have been full of excitement for my heart. This long letter has also wearied me, and the fear of distressing you, my dear, true sister, has so exhausted me, that I do not feel able to write to you a description of the never-ending joy-festivals of the family of Arnoldi. I will relate all this better to you by word of mouth, for I will follow this letter almost immediately, and I will bring you as many guests as your little house can well hold,--the Minister, his wife, his daughter, and his and our son. Yes, my Christina! you shall soon again clasp the happy Walter to your true heart; you shall soon learn to know the dear ones to whom he now justly belongs; you shall receive the earnest thanks of his grateful father for your holy care of the forsaken orphan; while the beings with whom it has been the pleasure of God to place us in such relations shall learn to esteem and honor your gentle virtues! Will you not, after a few natural tears, my Christina, rejoice with us all in Walter's good fortune? I will come the day before the arrival of our guests, so that I soon hope to hold you to my heart! God be ever with you, my beloved sister! Your loving brother, CHRISTIAN BURG. The Minister Arnoldi lived in St. Petersburg, where he had inherited a handsome property. As his young wife became quite sickly there, by the advice of her physician he took her to Germany. But it was only for a short time that he was allowed to cherish a hope of her ultimate recovery there. The young wife was seized with a most depressing attack of home-sickness; he was forced to yield to her wishes, and, notwithstanding the advanced season of the year, to commence with the poor sufferer their trying journey home. When they had arrived at one of the little towns in the North of Germany, her situation became so critical that it was found impossible to continue their homeward route, and soon after he wept beside the coffin of his young spouse. After she had presented him with a son, she slumbered softly on, until her sleep became the long and dreamless one of death. The poor widower, with his helpless orphan in his arms, stood, without counsel or friends, by the early grave of his wife. It was late in the autumn; the weather was cold and stormy; how could he venture to undertake such an unpleasant journey with his new-born and delicate infant. No choice remained to him but to adopt the means often taken in large cities for the nursing and bringing up of little children; he trusted his greatest treasure, his only and darling son, to the wife of a peasant. She was to be his wet-nurse, and to assume the whole charge of the infant. The pastor of the parish promised to keep an attentive eye upon the child, and the woman was to receive through him a rich reward for her trouble. Before Arnoldi parted from his little Walter, he hung a locket containing a picture of his mother round his neck, and, oppressed with anxiety and pain, he set out on his lonely journey home. The deception and cruel desertion of the woman are already known to the reader. If it had not been for the sudden death of the worthy pastor, it would have been impossible for her to have carried such a wicked scheme into execution. She passed off Peter as Walter Arnoldi, and told the neighbors that she had taken her own child to her sister, because the boys disliked each other, and were constantly quarrelling. Years passed on. Arnoldi was constantly occupied in the most important business, and, as he feared the effect of a change of climate upon the constitution of his son, he thought it best for the boy to be permitted to remain with his nurse, who constantly gave the most encouraging accounts of his increasing strength and of his unbroken good health. Besides, Arnoldi had married again, and was very happy in his second union, while the birth of a daughter placed the memory of the son whom he had never known still more in the background. After he had taken a house and settled himself finally in Hamburg, he sent a faithful servant to bring home his only son. He was almost frightened when the ugly, awkward, rough, little boy was presented to him as his child. He reproached himself bitterly with having left him so long in such rough hands, and sought through redoubled love and attention to compensate for the time he had permitted him to be with entire strangers. But all his care and trouble availed but little; his son assumed, indeed, the outward form of refined society, but his mind continued rough and unformed. Lazy and idle for all mental effort, he was very cunning and skilful in reaching his own low aims. His sister had told him on his departure who he really was, and that it was his duty to send her plenty of money as a reward for keeping his secret. He thought it proper to do this at first, but he soon gave it up. Thereupon, she threatened him to disclose all, and he again sent her money. At last, she received nothing but the advice to trouble him no more. This seemed to awaken Martha's long slumbering conscience. Being once on a visit at D----, she heard accidentally that the clock-maker Burg had adopted a child who had been exposed and deserted at Geremburg. She now knew where the little boy, whom she had left in possession of the locket, was to be found. She visited Hamburg with the intention of getting money from her brother, by constantly threatening to betray his secret to the Minister. She did not know that Walter was then in Hamburg. The harsh reception given her by her brother irritated her almost to madness, so that she betrayed more than she had any intention of doing. But that beneficent God, from whom no secrets are hidden, had arranged it in such a manner that all who were concerned were to meet at the proper time and place. The Minister was so overjoyed at the turn things had taken, that he never thought of inflicting any punishment. He rewarded Martha liberally for her late confession, and promised to Peter Meyer (who devoutly persisted in saying that he had not believed a single word of Martha's story, and that, until he saw the miniature inclosed in the locket, he thought that he was truly Walter Arnoldi) a considerable capital, which was to be paid out to him as soon as he should have mastered any available business, or was willing to commence any reputable occupation. Peter, who now plainly saw that he was forced to relinquish all his hopes as heir, promised to be more industrious; and as he evinced an inclination to go to sea, he was intrusted with a situation on a trading-vessel which had once belonged to the Minister. Walter became, as was to be expected, an artist of the highest fame, and many celebrated performers were formed in his school. He preserved his childlike love and reverence for his adopted parents to the hour of their death; he passed a certain portion of every year in the neat little house in which he had spent the happiest days of his childhood. The pious brother and sister gave their property at their death to the poor; but Walter had purchased, during their lifetime, the house and garden, with all the clocks and pieces of exquisite mechanism, and founded an institution, of which it was one of the conditions that everything within the beloved inclosure of Christina's garden, everything within the walls of her quiet home, should remain for ever undisturbed,--consecrated to the honor and sacred to the memory of Christina and Christian Burg! CONCLUSION. THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC AND THE GUARDIAN ANGEL. "Knowledge by suffering entereth; And Life is perfected by Death!" After a long life full of honor and blessings, the great maestro, Walter Arnoldi, was called from this earth to the better land. The pale Angel of Death, the Spirit of Music, and his own Guardian Angel, stood at his bedside. The starry light again glittered round and through the aerial form of the fair Spirit of Music; the tones of her strange voice were sad, but soothing. She held a glossy wreath, made of the undying leaves of the consecrated laurel; and as she bent to twine it round the pale but calm brow of the artist, she kissed again his broad forehead, and said: "Thou wert a true priest in the service to which I consecrated thee. Lo! I have made thy name immortal. My early kiss did not lead thee to destruction, but kept thy noble soul ever pure from the stains which pollute the common mass of men." "That was because I led him where he could learn to know the Light of Life,--the Son of the Virgin!" said the Guardian Angel. "Without such knowledge, he would have been ruined; for Vanity and Pride, Falsehood and Selfishness, stand continually around the gifted, to seduce them from their duty, to lead the undying soul into the snares of hell. But he humbly bowed before the greatness of his Creator, because he had learned to know the Victim Lamb; he loved him, and believed on his name, to the last hour of his life. He did not claim the glory of his genius as a distinction for himself alone; he used it for the honor of his God! Therefore am I sent to bear the faithful soul home to the throne of God, where, in the tones of heaven, he shall sing eternal praises!" "And high and earnest song shall accompany him on his upward way!" said the Spirit of Music, fondly. The hymn of praise, in the unearthly glory of its heavenly tones, broke from the inspired lips of the glittering and radiant spirit. A smile of strange rapture transfigured the face of the noble artist, as the music of heaven mingled with the memories of his kindred labors upon earth. At that moment the pale Angel of Death kissed his quivering lips, and the three happy spirits, full of joy, bore the redeemed soul to the throne of God! In the morning, the scholars found their beloved master dead, and his head already crowned with a glittering wreath of deep-green laurel. Vain were all their efforts to ascertain what unknown hand had twined it there. Unfaded and unfading, it still lies upon the quiet grave of the true and faithful artist! BENEVOLENCE AND GRATITUDE, OR THE RUSSIAN OFFICER. CHAPTER I. The reign of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, was disturbed by a series of bloody wars, and numerous were the enemies whom his brave people encountered upon all sides. These struggles were illustrated by many deeds worthy of undying renown, and the number of those who proved their love to their king and country, by the sacrifice of life itself, was fearful. Blooming striplings, the sole hope of their aged parents, stout men, the stay and comfort of their families, and noble leaders, whose worth and abilities were universally acknowledged, all fell in the bloody battles, and apparently in vain, for peace seemed as distant as ever. The Russians, under Count Fermor, invaded East Prussia, which Frederick could not defend, owing to its distance from the main body of his states. This province yielded, and the Count crossed Poland and Pomerania with his eighty thousand men, prepared to carry the war into the very heart of the country. He attacked the city of Küstrin, which he reduced in a few hours to a heap of ashes. The citadel alone remained standing, and the Prussian commandant determined to perish with it, rather than yield. Information was speedily brought that Frederick himself was approaching, and this news saved the fortress; for the Russians quitted Küstrin, and, marching northward, encamped at Zorndorf, between the Wartha and the Oder. A most bloody battle was soon after fought in this place. Frederick advanced upon the enemy, who were formidable, not only from their vast superiority in numbers, but also from their incredible hardihood. The Prussians must be victorious, or their very capital would soon be in the power of the enemy, and their whole country lie at the mercy of the Russians. Frederick knew this well, and determined not only to defeat, but to annihilate, his foe. He commanded his men to give no quarter, and to destroy all who fell in their way. The battle was long and desperate. The right wing of the Russian army was finally driven into a swamp, surrounded, and hewn down by the Prussians, scarcely a man escaping; while the left, eager to avenge their slaughtered brethren, made a most furious onslaught. But, notwithstanding their desperate courage, they were driven back, and obliged to quit the field. The ammunition was all exhausted upon both sides, and the fight was hand to hand, with sword and bayonet, when the night came on and put an end to the bloody strife. The Prussians awaited its renewal with the coming dawn, for Count Fermor had drawn up his men in order beyond the swamp; but, after lingering in the neighborhood during the whole of the next day, he finally withdrew with his army towards Poland, leaving twenty thousand dead upon the field of battle. A few days after the occurrences just related, a lively scene was passing in a little town not far from Berlin. The streets were crowded with people, especially the market-place, with its tall, neat houses, whose polished window-panes shone clearly in the bright sunlight. It was Sunday. Well-dressed dames and young maidens, with their hymn-books in their folded hands, and their eyes cast modestly upon the ground, were hastening to the open churches, while their husbands and brothers gathered in groups before the doors to enjoy a little neighborly conversation. The deeds of the great king were upon every tongue; the last battle was variously discussed, and many an honest burgher, who had never passed the limits of his own little town, thought himself quite wise and experienced enough to play the critic. "Ah, good morning to you, brother!" cried the stout grocer Bolt to his brother-in-law, Doctor Heller, who at this moment came down the street, accompanied by two other citizens of the town. "Whither away so fast? Won't you step in and breakfast with me? I will give you a glass of beer that can't be matched. I never drank better in my whole life; and that is saying a great deal, for many and many's the brewing that I have tasted!" "Thank you, my good friend," replied the doctor, as he heartily shook his brother's hand; "thank you, but I must accompany these gentlemen immediately, notwithstanding your enticing offer of beer. But, my old friend, you will keep it until evening, when I can come in and share it with you, will you not? You see I am bound to the hospital. The last battle cost many a poor fellow a broken head, and several of the wounded soldiers are to be brought here, because the nearer hospitals are all filled to overflowing. If I am not mistaken, we are to have a Russian, too, upon our hands, to be taken care of." "Thunder and lightning!" blustered the grocer. "A Russian! Are we to entertain and nurse our worst enemies? That is too bad. I would rather let a whole regiment of Austrians, Frenchmen, Saxons, or whatever names the rascals may be called by, range at will through my house, than harbor a single Russian. They are worse than savages, and more cruel than the fiercest wild beasts. Yes, indeed, my good brother, you had better keep your Russian far enough away from my clutches!" "Come, come!" said the doctor, soothingly, "I too hate the Russians with all my heart, but we must feel as human beings, even towards our enemies; and the poor fellow they will send us here can do us no harm. He may have lost a leg or an arm, and even if his wounds be not severe--" "What! the Devil!" interrupted Bolt. "If my leg or my arm had been shot off, that would have been the end of me. But surely these Russians are not made of the same flesh and blood as we Germans! I will lay you a wager now, whatever you please, that without either arms or legs they would burn the houses over our heads. But look! How lively the burgomaster's granddaughter is to-day! Your servant, Miss Ella!" This greeting was addressed to a little girl, who had just thrust her curly head through the half-opened doorway of the opposite house. "Good morning, neighbor!" replied the child, friendlily, as she skipped up and down the steps to tease her playmate, a large brown spaniel. The men watched the little one's wild bounds for a moment, when the fat grocer broke the silence by muttering, half angrily: "The old man over there lets that child do whatever she pleases." "Who can wonder at that?" replied Doctor Heller, as he shook his brother-in-law's hand previous to parting from him. "The little maiden is so very lovely! and we should do no better if she belonged to either of us. But now farewell, old friend! I have already wasted too much time in gossiping; and do not forget the beer I am to have this evening." After this last remembrance, he hastened away with his two companions. The little girl had meanwhile seated herself upon the uppermost step of the portico. "Atlas!" she cried to the dog, which had now run into the street, "my Atlas, will you not come to me?" The animal ran swiftly towards her, and seated himself lovingly by her side. She threw her arms around his shaggy neck, and leaned her tender chin upon his great head. Doctor Heller had spoken truly when he said, "The little maiden is so very lovely!" for Ella was indeed a beautiful child. Her dark hair fell in long ringlets upon her white neck, her forehead was broad and smooth, her cheeks faintly tinged with red, her large brown eyes, shaded by the long lashes which hung over them as a mourning veil, were filled with the light beaming from a tender and loving soul, and her fresh young mouth, with its smiling lips, was so charming, that the grocer, who was now seated upon the green-painted bench before his shop-door, could not take his eyes from her lovely face. The old burgomaster soon opened the window. "Ella, my dear Ella!" he cried, "do not go into the street. Had you not better come in, my child?" [Illustration: ELLA AND ATLAS.] But Ella threw up her beseeching eyes, and said to the old man: "Indeed I will not go down, grandfather; I will sit here quite quietly: but do, pray, let me stay out a little longer. I would so like to see all those wagons pass which have just turned into our street." The burgomaster could not resist her gentle entreaty, and nodded a kindly yes, saying: "Well, then, you may stay, you little coaxing pussy; but do not forget that to-day is Sunday, and that mother and I are waiting for you to come and read the Gospel to us." He then closed the window slowly, while his eyes rested full of love and kindness upon the joy of his heart, his little grandchild. She certainly did not hear her grandfather's last words, for her whole attention was fixed upon a long train of vehicles, which were moving along as slowly as if they formed part of a funeral procession. Ella sat and gazed upon them. The front wagon finally came quite near, and she then discovered the cause of the slow pace at which they proceeded. Upon the straw which covered the bottoms of the vehicles human forms, clothed in torn uniforms, were lying, and every jolt upon the rough stone pavement seemed to send a thrill of agony through their sensitive frames. Little Ella's tender heart was deeply touched by the sight of this mournful train; bright tears hung upon her long lashes, and her slender arms involuntarily closed still more tightly around the dog's neck. She pressed him to her bosom, as if she would thus quiet the throbbing of her compassionate heart. The last wagon at length passed before the door. Within it was a young man, who half sat and half reclined upon the straw, and whose uniform, differing entirely from that of the others, showed him to be an officer. He had evidently been severely wounded. His left arm was in a sling, and he supported his head, enveloped in a rude bandage, upon his right hand. Both the bandage and the tattered uniform were covered with dark-red blood-stains. As the wagon was passing the burgomaster's house, a trace broke, and the driver left his seat to fasten it. The wounded man looked up, and, observing the child sitting upon the steps, he raised himself with considerable difficulty, and drew his hand slowly across his aching brow. A single look, imploring pity, fell upon Ella; and he then sank back motionless and unconscious upon the straw. The wagon moved on, and the driver seemed to pay more heed to his horses than to his wounded passenger. The little girl's tears fell thick and fast; she watched him until he had disappeared with the others around a corner. She then made a sign to the dog, rose quickly, and, as if inspired by some sudden resolution, hastily entered the house. Still deeply moved, and her eyes filled with tears, she opened the door which led to her mother's apartment. The room was richly and carefully furnished, and bespoke the wealth and taste of its inmates. The long, flowing window-curtains prevented the sun from shining in too brightly; and only here and there could a few beams pierce through a crevice, and as they fell on the floor, they seemed to sport among the roses adorning the cheerful carpet. Ella's mother sat in a high-backed red-velvet arm-chair. She was the widow of an officer,--Major von Herbart. Still in the prime of life, she bore on her countenance, which had once been very beautiful, the traces of a deep sorrow. A dress of pearl-gray merino fell in soft folds around her graceful figure, and her luxuriant dark hair was covered by a simple lace cap. She leaned against the crimson covering of the chair-back, which rose high above her head, and her delicate hand held a Bible, in which she seemed to have been reading. Her eyes were fixed upon the portrait of a young officer, which hung against the wall opposite to her; and hence she did not remark her daughter's entrance, until Ella had seated herself upon a little stool at her mother's feet, and pressed a soft kiss upon the beloved hand. "Naughty child!" said the mother, as she stroked the hair back from the fair young forehead with her white fingers, "how you startled me! And how long you have delayed to-day to read your Bible to your dear grandfather and myself!" Before Ella could respond to this gentle reproach, the old burgomaster entered the room, and seated himself silently in his accustomed place, near his daughter. Ella took the Bible from her mother's lap, and, with a faint and trembling voice, began to read the parable of the good Samaritan, upon which she had accidentally opened. She had often before heard this simple history,--indeed, she almost knew it by heart; but never before had its meaning appeared so clear to her, or penetrated so deeply into her soul. Her voice became firmer, and the words resounded more and more significantly from her lips, until, steadfastly fixing her gaze upon her grandfather's face, she gave utterance to this sentence: "And he went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him." But here she suddenly ceased reading, sprang up, and, throwing her arms around the old man's neck, said: "My dear, my good grandfather! will you not grant your Ella one prayer,--only one? It is something you can do, if you only will; indeed, it will not be hard for you,--only please say 'Yes,' before I tell it to you!" "Another prayer already, my little darling?" replied the burgomaster, smiling. "Have you so soon found out that your old grandfather is too weak and fond to deny you anything? But, be it what it may, I promise you beforehand, that, if I can fulfil your wish, I will do so; but out with it, and do not be hiding behind the bushes, for you know how little that pleases me." "No, no," said Ella, quickly, "I have nothing to hide; you shall know all. You surely saw the wounded men who were brought here to-day, and who, as you told us yesterday, are to be taken to the hospital. Their necessities will I know be there supplied, but still I am certain many things will be wanting which would render their sad fate easier to bear." "You are right, my Ella; they cannot find there all they may require, for our town is not large, and very few are the benevolent hearts willing to make a voluntary offering, after the many heavy taxes we have all been forced to pay. But you must not forget, my child, that the men who have thus excited your compassion are soldiers, and consequently not so spoiled as you are. They can easily do without a thousand comforts which long custom has rendered necessary to your well-being. A soldier, who has passed many a night upon the open field, without other couch than the cold, damp earth, a stone for his pillow, and a cloak his only covering, has no need of a soft feather-bed to rest quietly and soundly; a good bunch of straw is all he requires." The child sighed deeply. The image of the wounded officer who had fallen back fainting upon the straw, the pleading look which his mournful eyes had cast upon her, would not quit her excited fancy, and the desire of assisting him became ever stronger and deeper. "Ah!" said she, after a short pause, "I would not lie in that hospital for anything in the world! I was once there when our coachman's wife had a fever, but I was soon obliged to leave the room; the dreadful heat and poisoned air nearly stifled me, and I certainly should have died, had I been forced to remain there long. The common soldiers may indeed be accustomed to bear much greater hardships; but I saw some officers lying upon the wagons, and they must suffer a great deal. You have promised, dear grandfather, to grant my request: take then one, only one, of those poor fellows into your own house. Others will follow your example, and thus may at least some of them be well cared for. O, do not look so doubtingly!" continued Ella, in her gentlest and most persuasive accents; "I am sure your heart assents to my wish, even if your lips be silent." The little girl did not wait for an answer, but left the room, and in a few moments returned with her grandfather's hat and cane. She placed them both in his hands, tied on her bonnet, threw a light shawl round her shoulders; and, having pressed a warm kiss upon her mother's lips, she led out the half-reluctant old man, who scarcely yet comprehended what he was expected to do. The widow gazed with tearful eyes upon her little daughter's retreating figure. Ella's cheeks soon glowed from the effects of her rapid pace; her dark locks floated in the wind, and her eyes sparkled with joy. She hastened onwards faster and faster, greeting with a gracious smile all the acquaintances whom she met, while from time to time she turned her head back towards the old man, who in vain signed to her that she must moderate her steps. The hospital was soon reached. It was an old building, whose gray walls had already seen many centuries; its lofty windows were filled with numerous little panes, a portion of which were broken out; and the whole aspect of the sombre edifice was such, that no one could wonder at its gloomy effect upon a child's susceptible imagination. Ella shuddered as her foot crossed the threshold. She remembered the dismal scenes she had once before witnessed within these melancholy walls; and, starting back, she covered her face with both hands. But they were not long suffered to remain in this position, for her grandfather soon clasped them in his own, and said, laughing, "Aha, little deer! have I caught you at last? But now you are my prisoner, and I shall not let you escape, or you will run away from me again, and I am already out of breath." "O no!" cried Ella, shuddering, "I could have gone no farther alone. This great old building fills me with dread. Hold me tight, dear grandfather, or I shall be so afraid!" The burgomaster opened the door, and they entered a long, dark passage, in which they met Doctor Heller. "Only see, now!" cried the doctor, as his wondering eyes fell upon Ella and her grandfather; "here are the burgomaster and the little lady in our old dingy castle. To what happy accident do we owe this honor?" "Good day, doctor!" replied the burgomaster, friendlily. "I came to see how your patients are doing, especially the new-comers." "O, quite well,--excellently!" answered the doctor, gayly rubbing his hands. "They are well lodged, and the greater number have already had their wounds dressed; I will bring them all well through." "O, take us to see them!" besought Ella, interrupting him somewhat impatiently. The doctor looked inquiringly at the burgomaster. "You must do as she pleases," said the latter, clapping his hand upon the physician's shoulder; while he added, jestingly, "I believe my little granddaughter has some intention of dabbling in your trade; we will see how she will manage it." The doctor laughed. "Now judge for yourselves," said he, as he ushered them into a spacious hall crowded with the wounded men; "are not those soldiers as well lodged and cared for as if they were princes?" The burgomaster shook his head as he replied gently: "Not quite so, but they must be content, for it is the best we can do for them. I think, however, that some improvements might be made; if, for example, we were to repair the dilapidated rooms upon the other side of the building. But where is Ella?" he exclaimed, as he missed the child from his side. "There she is," said the doctor, somewhat vexed that his arrangements had not met with a more cordial approval; "yonder, by the middle window." The burgomaster turned towards the spot indicated. Upon a heap of straw covered with a coarse cloth, lay the apparently lifeless body of a young man. A feeble sunbeam, which found its way through the dingy window-panes, fell upon his pallid face, and revealed a deep, gaping wound upon his forehead. Long black hair hung in disorder round his temples. His pale lips, shaded by a dark moustache, were rigidly closed, and his right hand was tightly pressed upon his breast, which was not stirred by the faintest sign of breath. Ella hung over the body with her little hands folded together, apparently absorbed in thought. As her grandfather approached, she rose and said: "Only see! there he is. I knew him at once!" "Who is it? Whom have you recognized?" asked the astonished burgomaster. "Certainly not this young man; I do not remember having ever seen him before!" "But I saw him," replied Ella, quickly, as she vainly endeavored to hide her tears; "I saw him as he rode past our door, and he saw me too, for he looked at me so piteously, as if he would have said, 'O do help me!' And then he closed his eyes and fainted. But he is not dead, I am sure he is not, grandfather! Let us take him home to my little room, and he will soon recover. You shall have no trouble with him, nor my dear mother either; I promise you that I will care for everything!" The old gentleman shook his head, and, turning to the doctor, said: "Judging from his uniform, this young man cannot belong to our army. But why has not some one attempted to restore him to life? Apparently, no efforts have as yet been made to aid him!" "He is only a Russian!" replied the doctor, contemptuously; "there is no need for any great hurry about him!" "A Russian!" cried the astonished burgomaster. "A Russian!" repeated Ella, horrified, as all the cruel scenes of which she had been told, in which the Russians had played so prominent a part, passed before her mind. "Yes, a Russian!" said the doctor, coldly; "and now, my little lady, I am sure you will renounce your design of having this man removed to your grandfather's house. Besides, we can scarcely hope that his eyes will ever again open; and if he can be helped," he continued, half angrily, "it can be done as well here as elsewhere." Ella again placed herself beside the wounded man; all her fear had vanished; one look upon the pale young face had told her that all the Russians could not be so bad as they had been represented. "But how can this one ever do us any harm?" she cried, again renewing her entreaties to her grandfather. The old gentleman was at first very averse to granting her request, but all the arguments which he drew from the almost universal prejudices then existing against the young man's nation proved fruitless. Ella begged and prayed, until he finally yielded. An arrangement was made by which the wounded man was to be carefully borne to the burgomaster's upon a litter, which the doctor promised himself to accompany. Ella and her grandfather hastened home to prepare all for his reception. The child proposed to give up her own little room to the stranger, because, as she said, her flowers would please him, and he would be less disturbed by the noise from the street. "But where will you sleep yourself during so long a time?" asked Ella's mother, who was evidently well pleased with her little girl's activity, as she ordered her bed to be exchanged for another, hastily put away her playthings, shut her books up in a closet, and, although everything looked very orderly, still found something new to arrange. "I?" replied Ella, somewhat embarrassed, and standing for a moment irresolute; "I never thought of that!" Then, as if struck by a sudden inspiration, she ran to her mother, threw her arms around her neck, and cried, laughing: "Will you not, my dear mother, if I beg you right hard, take me into your own room, me and my Atlas? Atlas only wants a little place in a corner, and you can let my little bed stand near yours, as it used to do. That will be delightful! I shall enjoy it so much, for early in the morning I can put my head in between the curtains, lift the cover very softly, and, before you know it, I will be right close to you; then you will fold me in your arms, and we will together pray to God never to part us." The child thus prattled on until the flow of her discourse was interrupted by the arrival of the unfortunate man, for whose sake she had been making all these preparations. "Ha!" cried the doctor, as he entered the room, "I can believe that one might be well satisfied here; it looks like a little paradise. Come in, my men, and help me to lay this poor fellow upon the bed,--so. Now you may go.--But, most gracious lady, your most obedient! Pardon me, that in the confusion I did not observe you sooner. Your daughter has brought plenty of trouble into your house; but the old gentleman must bear all the blame; he should not have permitted himself to be so easily persuaded." "Do you then think, my dear doctor, that I have so little compassion?" asked the mother, interrupting him. "Do you think that I would fear a little discomfort when a suffering fellow-creature could be aided? O, I would willingly make still greater sacrifices," she continued, as she clasped the hand of the unconscious youth, "if I could recall life into this young frame,--a life upon which may perhaps depend that of a loving mother!" The doctor laughed scornfully, and muttered, "As if a Russian could have any feeling!" No one heeded this speech, and he continued: "The wound upon the head is not dangerous; I have just dressed it, and there will be no need of amputating the arm. He seems much exhausted from loss of blood, for he has lain in this position during several hours." At this moment the wounded man opened his eyes, which he, however, immediately reclosed, as if blinded by the light; a slight tinge of color flushed his pale cheek, and a faint sigh escaped his lips. "He lives!" cried Ella, joyfully, "he has opened his eyes!" But the doctor quickly laid his finger on his lips, in token that entire quiet was necessary, while he at the same time shut out the light by closing the curtains. A soft twilight thus pervaded the room, and all looks were turned in expectation towards the young Russian, who again opened his eyes, which rested upon those around him, at first with an expression of doubt and amazement, but finally beamed with the most delighted surprise. He sought in vain to rise; he sank back exhausted upon the pillows, and equally fruitless were his efforts to articulate a single word. With some difficulty he seized upon Ella's hand, and pressed it to his heart. This movement told the child very plainly that she had been recognized. She could scarcely conceal her joy. But the physician, who was anxious to avoid every emotion which might prove injurious to the patient in his present state, desired that for a little while he should be left alone. He promised to send an experienced nurse, and to call again in the course of the day. With difficulty could Ella be persuaded to leave her charge; she followed her mother unwillingly, and gazed upon the wounded man until the door of the apartment had closed behind her. CHAPTER II. THE LETTER. One day, about four weeks after the occurrences related in our last chapter, Madame von Herbart was seated in a neat little cabinet, where she usually passed her morning hours, employed in the instruction of her daughter. Through the open door, which offered a pleasant view into a beautiful garden, whose trees and parterres were already tinged with the brilliant hues of autumn, a whole flood of perfumes streamed into the pretty apartment. The widow sat by her writing-table opposite the door, with Ella by her side attentively listening to her mother's words, while she related the history of the noble and high-hearted, but unfortunate Grand-master, Henry von Plauen. She graphically detailed to her daughter the shameful web of hatred, envy, and treachery which caused the downfall of this truly great man. With glowing words she painted the blackness of the ingratitude with which he was rewarded by the very brethren of the order which he had himself saved from ruin by his own exertions, and how they robbed him of all his dignities and honors, keeping a close watch upon him until death freed him from their persecution. "O my child!" she continued, "how great is the sin of ingratitude! What depravity does it not evince, to distress and injure those who have only done us good! Such a deed is never suffered to pass unpunished by a righteous Heaven, and the German order stands as a warning example in history; for the overthrow of the high-hearted Plauen was the first step in its own downfall." "May I come in?" asked a gentle but manly voice, at this moment interrupting the narrative of Madame von Herbart. Ella sprang up from her seat, exclaiming, "It is Theodore!" and hastened to the door. The wounded Russian could scarcely be recognized in the young man who now approached the widow with a light tread, had it not been for the bandage which was still wound about his brow, and the sling in which his left hand rested. Although his wounds were not yet entirely healed, the short time had produced a wonderful change in his appearance. Instead of the deathly pallor, a healthy red tinged his youthful cheeks, his dull, sunken eyes had regained their fire; in short, a change had taken place in his whole exterior, similar to that we may often perceive when the caterpillar, after an apparent death, suddenly throws off his ugly shell and flutters around us as a beautiful butterfly. "May I hope for your pardon, my gracious lady?" asked the young man, in fluent but slightly foreign German, while he reverentially lifted Madame von Herbart's hand to his lips. "May I hope that you will pardon my boldness in having interrupted you?" Madame von Herbart signed to him to be seated upon an arm-chair which Ella had just left, and said kindly: "Your unexpected appearance gives great pleasure. I congratulate you upon the happy termination of your tedious captivity. You have not disturbed us, for Ella's school-hours are just ended." "You teach your daughter yourself?" asked the young Russian, somewhat surprised. "I am too jealous of the love of my only child," replied Madame von Herbart, "to trust any stranger with so important a share of my maternal duties. I often feel the insufficiency of my own acquirements, but I shun no labor in learning all myself which I judge necessary for my child; and thus, while forming her mind, I can at the same time influence her heart. It is said," she added, smiling, "that all mothers think their own children prodigies of loveliness; but though I flatter myself this is not my case, for I know my Ella's faults, yet I venture to hope that she will correct them all, through love for a mother who, since her beloved husband's death, has found her purest and highest happiness in the education of her daughter." A dark shadow, a painful contraction, apparently caused by the remembrance of past days, passed over Theodore's features. He endeavored to conceal the depth of his inward emotion, and cried out: "What is higher and holier in the world than a mother's love?" After a moment's pause, he added, as if speaking to himself: "And what can be more painful than to be forced to part with this heavenly affection early in life?" Madame von Herbart laid her hand upon the young man's head, as if in the act of blessing him, and said tenderly: "Poor boy! you must have been very young when you were torn from the protection of a loving home, and thrust into the world. Scarcely yet a man, you have already used the bloody sword which your feeble hands could hardly lift. Your compatriots have deeply injured my country, and you, too, came as an enemy upon the soil so dear to me; your wounds show that you wore your arms as no idle ornaments, and yet I cannot hate you, for he who needs our aid is no longer an enemy. You are a Russian, and you weep?" she continued, gently raising the young man's head, which had fallen upon his breast. "I have often heard that the Russians were all rough and cruel, and yet you weep. O, do not be ashamed of your tears! they prove the goodness of your heart, and justify the sympathy you have excited within my soul." "O my dear benefactress!" exclaimed Theodore, "where shall I find words to thank you? Could you read my heart,--could you see how the thought of the priceless benefits you have showered upon me fills my whole soul,--how all my feelings are fused into an overwhelming sense of gratitude, which I struggle in vain to express,--you would not wonder at my silence. What true nobility did it not require to take an enemy of your country into your own house, and nurse and treat him with such kindness as you have shown to me!" Theodore was in the highest state of excitement, and again pressed his lips upon the lady's hand. She gently drew it from his clasp, and said, mildly: "But how excited you are! What would Doctor Heller say, were he to see you now? He would think that the fever, which during so many weeks sent the blood seething through your veins, had again seized upon you, and he would quickly withdraw his permission for you to leave your chamber. Away with all thoughts which could be injurious to your health! And now avail yourself of the Doctor's leave to take a stroll in the garden; your little nurse, to whom you owe much more than to me, shall accompany you." "Ah, my little Ella!" cried Theodore, making an effort to appear more calm than he really was, "if you will be my guide, the garden, which as yet I have only seen from my windows, will seem to me doubly beautiful." He then lifted up the child with his uninjured right arm, and kissed and fondled her with a thousand expressions of his gratitude. "But now we must be good children, and do as mamma bids," said he, at length, taking Ella's hand, and leading her out into the garden. In a few moments both had disappeared among the old trees. We will leave the mother alone in her perfumed cabinet, where she drew from one corner of her writing-desk a package of letters, written to her by her late husband before their marriage; we will leave her with these dearly treasured pages, already wet with so many tears, and follow the youthful pair, whom we again find at the end of a shady avenue of lindens. "Take these pears," said Ella to her companion. "They are quite ripe, and my mother planted the tree which bore them before she was as old as I am now; she prefers pears to all other fruits. But you are not gay," she continued, looking true-heartedly into the young man's eyes. "Are you thinking of your mother who is dead?" She waited in vain for an answer, and then prattled on: "My father is dead, too; he fought at Collin, under Ziethen, and as he led his soldiers to seize upon a battery which was doing much harm to the Prussians, a wicked bullet struck him. I cried a great deal, and mamma always weeps whenever she thinks of him, and of my dear brother, who soon followed my father. Ah, if Victor were only alive! He loved me so dearly, and it was such a pleasure to play with him; but since God took him to his beautiful heaven, I like best to stay with mamma and my old grandfather. And when I want to run about awhile, I call Atlas, papa's favorite dog, for I do not care to play with other children." "And do you not like, then, to stay with me, my Ella?" asked the young man. "O yes, I do, indeed! I love you very much. While you were sick I brought you the most beautiful flowers, and the finest fruit from the garden, but you would scarcely ever taste it. Sometimes you seemed to recognize me, and then you would press my hand to your lips, which burned like fire; but you would often push me away from you, and speak words which I could not understand. My grandfather told me it was your mother tongue, and your delirium seemed to lead you again into the battle, for you gave orders, and cried several times, 'Stand fast, comrades! stand fast! We will show that we do not fear death! Let us conquer or die!' Ah! then I often knelt down by the bed, and prayed God that he would soon make you well." "Did you do that? Did you, indeed, do that, my little angel?" asked Theodore, drawing the child gently towards him, while his voice trembled with emotion, and his eyes filled with tears. "Certainly I did it," replied Ella; "and that is why you are well now, for God has promised that, if we call upon him when we are in trouble, he will save us; and as you could not pray yourself, I did it for you." The child ceased; they had just reached the end of the garden, and stood upon a little mound adorned with firs and birches, near a pleasure-house which bore some resemblance to a hermit's hut. "Listen, Theodore; you do not seem to like our garden," said Ella reproachfully, while she laid her hand upon the door, "and yet every one says it is the prettiest in the city, and even strangers often ask for permission to walk through it. But only come in here, and then you will surely exclaim, How beautiful! how glorious!" The child led the young man through the open door with a triumphant air, as if quite sure of the impression to be produced. He looked round attentively. The walls of the little building were clothed with soft, velvety moss, which still retained its hue of tender green; many-colored shells were scattered round, some forming the initials of beloved names, and others disposed in fanciful arabesques. The tessellated floor was strewn with fresh flowers. On one side stood a comfortable sofa, and upon a low stool near the door lay a piece of woman's work, evidently just commenced. The whole made a most favorable impression upon the beholder; nevertheless Theodore looked as if disappointed, and was about making this confession to his little friend, when she suddenly closed the door, and they stood together in the darkness. "Will you play hide and go seek with me, Ella?" cried Theodore, laughing. But scarcely had he uttered these words, when the opposite wall opened as if by magic, and a loud cry of surprise and pleasure burst from his lips, while his eyes rested upon the lovely scene which he suddenly saw before him. Ella stood near with folded arms, and sought to read in his face whether his delight was as great as she had anticipated. Apparently satisfied with her observations, she stepped nearer to him, and, lightly mounting upon the stool, threw her left arm round his neck, and pointed with her right hand towards the valley, stretching beyond the houses of the little city lying at their feet. [Illustration: ELLA AND THEODORE.] "In our garden," she said seriously, "the trees are variously planted and trimmed; the blooming hedges are carefully trained, and my dear grandfather even had a pond made, because I am so fond of the water; but do you see all this? Our good God arranged it all himself, and therefore is it much more beautiful than our garden. How pure and clear is the water of that little lake! See how the birches, with their white stems and long hanging branches, are reflected in its shining mirror; and how the cows pasture and the sheep play so gayly upon the green meadows. Look beyond the lake at that great forest of fir-trees; how quietly the villages rest in its shadow, as if they thought themselves quite safe under its protection!" Her hand still pointed towards the distant view, although Theodore's eyes had long ceased to follow its direction, and rested upon the features of the little speaker. Ella turned towards him, and, as if ashamed, cast down her eyes. "Are you not glad," she said softly, "that God has made it all so beautiful?" Theodore made no answer; he laid his hand upon his troubled breast and sighed: "What a struggle will it cost me to tear myself away! And yet I cannot remain much longer." "You are going away!" cried Ella, looking up in dismay. "You are going to leave us!" she repeated mournfully, bursting into tears. Theodore forced a smile to pacify the child. He kissed the bright drops from her cheek, and said: "Fear nothing, my little one, I will not leave you yet. And for love of you I will again become a child; neither past nor future shall trouble me; I will yield myself entirely to the joy of the present, without looking backwards or forwards. But now, my little angel, leave me for a while!" With these words he led the child to the door, threw himself exhausted upon the sofa, laid his head upon the soft cushion, and, overcome by his unusual excitement, was soon in a deep sleep. He had thus rested about an hour, when he was awakened by a loud voice, which cried: "Now, my young sir! what does all this mean? Window and door both open, and there you lie and sleep. Do you call that reasonable?" The speaker was Frederick, the burgomaster's old servant. "I have been looking for you everywhere during the last hour, and if the little lady had not told me you were here, I might have been looking for you yet. I have a letter for you, brought by a little boy, who begged me to place it in your own hands. I have looked at the paper carefully on both sides, and as there is nothing on it but a line of crooked pot-hooks, that can harm nobody, I may as well give it to you. Here it is." Theodore rose slowly, took the note from the servant's hand, gazed long upon the characters, and finally sank back, pale as death, and gasping for breath. "What a curious people these Russians are!" muttered Frederick, angrily, while he gazed upon the young man with evident displeasure. "God knows I cannot bear a Russian, as, indeed, no true-hearted Prussian can; still, I thought they were men, but this one is no stronger than an old woman. He hangs his head as if the hens had picked up all his crumbs, and is so feeble that he can scarcely stand upon his feet, all because of a couple of sorry blows and a flesh wound, that one of us would not have cared a fig for. Yes, yes, Mr. Ensign, or Mr. Captain, or whatever your title may be, you need not look so incredulous, for I was in both the first Silesian wars, and have stood many a charge when blood fell fast as rain, and the Austrians fled until it was a joy to see them. And when younger men shall be wanting, I may perhaps venture my old bones once more, especially if there be any chance of fighting the Russians.--But, old fool that I am," continued he, interrupting himself, "when I once begin on that subject my heart is on my tongue, and both run away from me as if Captain 'Quickstep' had command.--Nay, that shall not happen again!--But now, right about, my young sir! Wheel round and march into the house. Lay your hand on my shoulder, and I will help you to-day, even if you are a Russian. Any one, to hear you talk, would really think you the child of German parents. Where did you learn our language?" "From my mother," replied Theodore, faintly and abstractedly; "from my mother, who was educated in Germany." The manner in which these words were spoken deprived the servant of the courage to ask any more questions, and both silently entered the house. Theodore went immediately to his own chamber, which he left no more during the whole day. * * * * * A week passed, and Theodore, whose health had before so rapidly improved, seemed to be a changed man since the reception of that letter, of which no one knew anything but Frederick, from whom Theodore had with difficulty succeeded in obtaining a promise of secrecy. No one had ever seen him very gay, but now he would sit for hours motionless in the same spot. No smiles or sounds of joy parted his lips; and when he spoke, the tone of his voice betrayed a deep and hidden sorrow. When he was asked the cause of his altered demeanor, he would shake his head, his eyes would fill with tears, and the most painful expression would rest upon his features. Ella, especially, made him many reproaches, for he had promised her to be very gay; she beset him unceasingly with her sympathizing questions, to which he usually returned no answer. "Are you ill again?" she asked one day, after having exhausted all possible conjectures, to which a dry "No" had been the sole response. "Ah, yes indeed! ill, ill!" replied Theodore, so quickly that one might easily see how glad he was to have found any explanation for his strange conduct. "Yes, dear Ella, believe me, I am indeed ill. But leave me now. I shall soon be better." The deep sigh which accompanied these words betrayed that he himself placed no confidence in his improvement. From this time forward the child persecuted Doctor Heller with prayers to make her poor Theodore well again. The Doctor felt the young man's pulse, and, after a significant shake of the head, he ordered him a quantity of bitter drugs, which the patient regularly threw out of the window. The physician, however, remarked, after a few days, that his medicine had done wonders, and Theodore already looked much better; an opinion in which Ella and her mother did not coincide. CHAPTER III. THE VISIT. Early in the spring, Madame von Herbart had received an invitation from Madame von Carly, a friend of her youth, who owned a beautiful country-seat several miles distant from the city, to bring Ella, and spend a few days with her in the country. Madame von Herbart had declined the invitation, because she was averse to leaving her home and her aged father, who, during her absence, would be entirely alone. In the month of October, when but few fine days could still be hoped for, Madame von Carly came herself to the city, to carry away her friend, and would listen to no excuses. "You must go with me, Maria," she said; "there is no use to say anything; I will dine with you, and immediately after dinner you will drive out with me. Here, Ella! come here, my child! How tall you grow! And always in your little white dresses! They would look well upon my children! I believe five minutes would be long enough to change them into many-colored garments. Come now, talk a little; you are as dumb as a fish!" She continued, rapidly: "Will you not be glad to go to Sergow, and see my Louisa, and Freddy, and William? Both the wild boys long to see you; they call you always their white rose, and made me solemnly promise not to return without you." "But, my good Lina," said Madame von Herbart, who had vainly striven until now to check this stream of words, "perhaps our visit will not be agreeable to your husband?" "What an idea!" cried Madame von Carly. "When I invite you to see me, it is well understood that he will esteem it an honor to receive you. Did you never hear the French proverb: 'Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut!'[1] That is the best and most sensible one I know, and I never fail every day to make a little sermon on this text. But now, make haste! Pack up your things, whatever you may require, and let us dine early, that we may soon be off. The ground in the city burns under my feet. I should die if I were forced to live here a week; I always feel as if I could not draw a free breath until I am beyond the gates.--But I had almost forgotten. How is your father, Maria? The last time I saw him, I did not feel so pleasantly as usual in his society. This eternal talk about war and battles, glorious sieges and new taxes, seems to have thrown a black veil over his cheerful humor. He, too, must go with us to Sergow; one week with us, and the blues would soon be driven out of him. But where is the old gentleman? I would like myself to make the proposition to him." "He is not at home," replied Madame von Herbart, "and I do not expect him in less than two hours. My poor father is now very busy; he has so many cares, and so much trouble, that we must not wonder if he sometimes looks rather serious. He could not possibly leave the city, and you would only embarrass him were you to invite him, for he always finds difficulty in saying 'No.' Please do me the favor not to attack the old gentleman. Be goods now, Lina," begged she, in her most persuasive tones; "promise me that, and I will go with you, and remain three days, although it will be very hard for me to leave my poor father so long alone." "Good! So let it be!'" said Madame von Carly, after a moment's hesitation. "You see I am a good-natured fool, and am always so easily persuaded. But now go and make your arrangements. Ella will entertain me during your absence." Madame von Herbart left the room, wishing heartily that the three days were over. She dreaded the visit, for her friend's impetuosity and excitable temper always inspired her with a certain fear. She was never more polite or more considerate of her words than when with Madame von Carly, but she never felt herself more helpless, or more restrained in her freedom of both thought and action, than when in that lady's company. She feared still more for her daughter than for herself, and would willingly have spared Ella the three days' torment. Since her brother's death, the little girl had lost all desire to play with other children, and, although she was very patient and yielding, willingly enduring any annoyance for her mother's sake, it was impossible for her to make friends with Madame von Carly's wild slips, as she herself called her children, and always cheerfully to endure the pranks which the little pests were continually playing upon her. While Madame von Herbart was packing up, and at the same time wondering over the peculiar mode of education practised by her friend,--whose rude, uncultured nature could not endure that a child should be taught to say "Good morning," and "Thank you,"--Theodore entered. "Are you going away?" he asked, hastily, pointing to the half-filled travelling-bag. "And Ella, too?" He spoke these words with a strange eagerness, and as Madame von Herbart replied with an affirmative nod, he seemed to be almost glad at this intelligence, for a burning red flushed his cheeks, and his eyes glowed: a moment later, all these signs of satisfaction had vanished. He grew very pale, and his voice trembled as he asked: "Are you really going away?" "Yes, dear Theodore!" replied Madame von Herbart, quietly; "to-day, in a few hours. It seems strange to you, because you have seen how seldom I leave the house; and I only go now because I cannot avoid it. But," she added, smiling, "the whole journey will only last three days; on Thursday evening I shall be again at home, and will be very glad to find you much better than I leave you." Theodore made no answer; he laid his hand upon his heart, as if he felt a sharp pain, then slowly turned away, and left the room. He did not appear at dinner, immediately after which the carriage was announced, and Madame von Carly hastened her friend's departure. Ella most tenderly embraced her old grandfather. "Will you think of me, grandfather?" she asked, lovingly. "You must often think of me whilst I am away; but do not be sad, for I will soon return, and bring you something very pretty.--But where is Theodore?" she cried, looking round in surprise; "I almost believe he would let us depart without saying 'Farewell.' Naughty Theodore! I will not love him any more." Apparently to prove the truth of her last words, she ran to the door of the young man's room, opened it a little, and called in, softly: "Theodore! dear Theodore! are you asleep? O do come out! We are going now." "Already!" was the answer; "so soon!" A moment after, the door was thrown open, and the young man stood before the startled child, pale as death, and so agitated that Ella drew back half in fear. "Ella! Ella!" he cried, in a voice of the deepest anguish. He then bent down to the little one, and pressed her so tightly to his beating heart that she uttered a faint scream. Not heeding, or indeed seeming to hear this, he led her into the adjoining apartment, placed her on the sofa, knelt at her feet, and, stroking back the curls from her brow, looked long and earnestly into her dark eyes. They seemed to possess for him a magnetic power, so fixed and immovable was his gaze. The life appeared to be gradually leaving his frame, and he remained thus bowed and motionless until he was aroused from his lethargy by a loud call of "Ella! Ella!" "I must go!" cried the child, springing up. "Did you not hear my mother calling me?" "O, only one minute longer!" begged Theodore. He seized a knife, cut off one of Ella's long silken curls, and, hastily concealing his prize, embraced her again, and held her so fast that she could not escape. He kissed her hands repeatedly; great tears streamed slowly down his cheeks, and a few broken words escaped his lips. Again was heard the voice of Madame von Herbart. "Ella!" she said, in a tone of gentle reproach, "did you not hear me call you?" "Ah! indeed I could not come," replied the child, raising her eyes, as if imploring pardon, to her mother's face, "Theodore held me so fast!" The arm which had so tightly held her relaxed, and she was again free. The young Russian's eyes were fixed, as if on vacancy; he turned towards Madame von Herbart, knelt at her feet, and laid her hand upon his burning brow. "What does all this mean, Theodore?" she asked, surprised and alarmed; "your head burns, and you are fearfully excited. You are certainly more unwell than you have permitted us to think you. Speak, I pray you, and relieve our anxiety. Is it bodily illness alone which has thus overcome you?" Theodore looked at his benefactress; he heard her words, but they bore no meaning to him. He again pressed her hand convulsively; he moved his lips as if about to speak, but only uttered some inarticulate sounds. He then sprang to his feet, and, casting a long and agonized look upon Ella, he hastily fled through the open door, as if he had been pursued by evil spirits. Madame von Herbart shook her head sadly, as she turned to leave the room. Uneasy and oppressed, she entered the carriage with Ella, where her friend, who had been long waiting for her, received her with open reproaches. "One would think you were going to make a voyage round the world," said Madame von Carly, sulkily, "you make such a fuss about going a hundred paces from your own door. Such lamentable parting scenes always seem very comical to me, especially when the long separation which has occasioned so many tears is to last three whole days! Your father will not die if he does not see you until Thursday, and the young Russian can live till then without your care. What a useless burden you have laid upon your shoulders! I certainly should not have acted so, had I been in your place. It is sheer folly to waste so much kindness and sympathy upon a wild foreigner, who, I am quite sure, laughs in his sleeve at all you have done for him, and will reward you by the most shameful ingratitude. And an enemy of your country, too,--a Russian! It frightens me only to hear one named. I would not give a Russian a glass of water to save his life!" "O, do not say so!" replied Madame von Herbart, earnestly. "If I had not known you so many years, I might at this moment doubt your good heart; indeed, such sentiments would induce any one to believe you pitiless and unfeeling. Before offering assistance to the suffering, must we then ask, Who are you? What is your creed? or, In what country were you born?--I am really sorry to hear such words from your lips, and the more so that you are not alone in your prejudices against the Russians; they are shared by nearly all my countrymen, and I cannot esteem it an honor to them. I will readily agree that the Russians are far behind the Prussians in cultivation, and even that many may possess the faults attributed to them; but that gives us no right to contemn a whole nation. It seems to me there is such self-exaltation and such pride in this cold, obstinate mode of judging, which not only outrages reason, but renders us forgetful of our duty as Christians. We should certainly esteem our fellow-men innocent, until they have given us proofs to the contrary.--Theodore ungrateful!" she continued, after a moment's pause; "O, if he could be so, where should we seek for truth and faith among men? If his candid face be that of a hypocrite; if his voice, apparently tremulous with excess of gratitude and feeling, could speak words of falsehood and treachery, in whom could we confide? No! no! it is not possible. So fair a form could not conceal so black a soul!" Madame von Herbart had spoken more vehemently than was her usual custom, and her cheeks glowed, for she felt herself wounded and misjudged. What she considered as a sacred duty towards her fellow-men, had been regarded as the foolish simplicity of a weak good-nature; and one whom daily intercourse, and the apparent candor and excellence of his character, had rendered dear to her heart, had been assailed by the most injurious suspicions. In a few moments, however, she regained her tranquillity, and said, gently: "Even if you have judged rightly, and Theodore could be ungrateful, we will never regret what we have done for him: the hope of thanks was not our motive. Truly, neither my father, my daughter, nor myself had any thought of earthly reward when we opened our house and our hearts to the poor, forsaken, wounded Russian. But perhaps we had better say no more about it." "Well, well!" replied Madame von Carly, hastily, "as you please; I am sure it is quite indifferent to me." Thus saying, she leaned back in one corner of the carriage, and began to count the trees by the way-side. Her friend, however, soon succeeded in diverting her from this rather uninteresting occupation. She asked concerning the harvests; whether her dairy had been productive this year; and if her garden had yielded her as much as usual. Madame von Carly was a notable housekeeper, and entered minutely into all the details of her household economy, and the management of her farm. She talked much, and, on this subject, knowingly. Her servants were all discussed, from her own maid to the lowest scullion; and, from her account, seemed to be endless sources of trouble, through their ignorance, stupidity, or evil dispositions. Madame von Herbart listened most patiently, only now and then endeavoring to interpose a word in exculpation of the frailties of human nature, and by the time they reached Sergow her friend was again quite reconciled with her, and in the best of humors. It was, indeed, no easy task to maintain this good understanding unbroken during three whole days; but Madame von Herbart succeeded better than she had anticipated. On Thursday afternoon, as she was making her preparations for returning home with Ella, Madame von Carly could not conceal her emotion, and said, as she bade her farewell: "Indeed, I do not understand how it is that I love you so well. You can do what you please with me; I may sometimes be a little hasty, but I can never long feel angry with you." She then kissed Ella affectionately, gave her a basket of fine fruit for her grandfather, and a bunch of those tiny roses, whose brilliant coloring, and the late season at which they bloom, render so precious in the autumn to all lovers of flowers. "I will give two roses to grandfather," said the child to her mother, when they were again upon the public road, "and two to Theodore. How glad he will be! He is so fond of flowers, especially of roses." She had scarcely uttered these words, when a sudden wind swept over her beautiful blossoms, and scattered all their tender leaves. "Ah!" sighed Ella, "my joy is soon over! If my old nurse had seen that, she would have said that it boded no good. But you have taught me not to heed such omens." "And yet this time," replied the mother, "your old Catherine would not have been quite wrong; for this first rude blast is but the forerunner of many storms which are to follow soon; winter will soon be here, and you know your good grandfather is never so well when the weather is cold." "Oh!" cried Ella, clapping her hands, "I see the city towers, and even some of the houses! There is the great tree in our garden!" She was so delighted at this discovery, that she wished to leave the carriage and walk, fancying she could thus sooner reach her beloved home. Finally they stopped before the door, and Ella sprang joyfully into the old servant's arms. Atlas welcomed her with every sign of delight. "Aha, my good doggy, did you miss me, too?" she cried, stroking his shaggy coat. The great dog leaped up, and placed both paws on her shoulders, so that she could scarcely free herself. Then quickly running up the steps, she was greeted by the burgomaster, who tenderly folded his beloved grandchild to his heart. "God be thanked!" he cried, embracing his daughter. He then led both his dear ones into his room, whence gratefully streamed the inviting perfumes of the coffee he had had prepared for them. They soon laid aside their wrappings. "But where is Theodore?" was Ella's first question. "Is he better?" added Madame von Herbart, anxiously. "By and by you can judge for yourselves," replied the old man slowly. Ella again embraced her grandfather, caressing him as if she had been many months away from him. She placed his great arm-chair near the table, arranged the cushions, and, seating herself upon his knee, began the narration of all her adventures. While her clear eyes gazed into his face, she remarked the downcast appearance of the old man, who seemed to have no relish for his little grandchild's prattle, to which he usually listened with such delight. "Just see now, mother!" cried the child in a tragi-comic tone of voice, "does not grandfather look to-day exactly like the upper bailiff, when the hail spoiled his best rye-field?" Madame von Herbart looked up as she handed her father his cup, and was startled by the sorrowful expression of his countenance. "What is the matter, my dear father?" she cried, hastening to his side. "Has anything disagreeable happened? O, do tell me quickly!" "It is nothing, my daughter!" answered the burgomaster, endeavoring to soothe her; "several little circumstances have transpired, which have somewhat disturbed my equanimity." "And am I not to know what has troubled you?" "Wherefore not, my child? You must learn them some time, and perhaps it would be better to do so at once. You know I hate all useless secrecy and mysteries. Listen, then. Our king was defeated on the 13th; the news came yesterday, and has been confirmed to-day. He has been forced to pay dearly for his unhappy obstinacy. All his generals warned and implored him to leave the camp which he occupied on the heights of Hochkirch. But he would not be persuaded; he could not be induced to quit his dangerous position, although it was within gunshot of the enemy, because he did not think the Austrians would venture to attack him. The consequence was, that, on the night of the 13th, the crafty Daun left his intrenchments as noiselessly as possible, and surrounded the sleeping Prussians. The watchful Ziethen, who had anticipated such a step, was ready to receive him, fully armed, with all his men. The others were soon aroused, and assembled as best they could in the darkness of the night. All must allow that great order and discipline reign in our army, and thus, although compelled to abandon their position, they performed prodigies of valor, and the enemy did not dare to follow them. But they were forced to leave all their baggage behind them, and many a brave fellow lost his life. The noble Keith and Franz of Brunswick are both dead." "Well, father," said Madame von Herbart consolingly, "we must rejoice that the king is still alive. If he has this time been unfortunate through his own fault, he will soon be able to retrieve his losses.--But what sad news have you still to tell us? I can see that you have not yet unburdened your heart." "You are right," replied the burgomaster reluctantly; "and what I have to tell you will distress the child even more than it does you. If my little Ella will only be reasonable, she will see that it was inevitable; I have often tried to prepare her mind for it. Theodore has gone away! You will never see him again!" "Theodore gone!" cried Ella, "that is impossible! O tell me, grandfather, you are surely jesting! Is it not so? You only want to tease me a little." The old man shook his head, and said: "He left our house secretly yesterday evening." Ella wept quietly. "He is ungrateful, too, then!" sighed Madame von Herbart, "and Lina was right. I never could have believed that he would have deceived us!" "Do not blame him," replied the burgomaster; "I cannot condemn him. I had long observed the inward struggle which was so clearly depicted in his countenance. Believe me, he suffered greatly in being forced to leave us." Thus saying, he drew a letter and a small package from his pocket, which he gave to his daughter, adding: "There, take them! I found them both upon my bed when I awoke this morning. He must have placed them there himself, for I remember distinctly that some one kissed my hand several times when I was in a state between sleeping and waking. The action aroused me; but when I looked up, all was quiet, and I thought it must have been a dream." Madame von Herbart silently took the letter and broke the seal; she read and read, and seemed as if she could not finish it. Her hand trembled, and her eyes filled with tears. Ella glided behind her chair, and looked over her shoulder; but in vain did she wipe her eyes, she could not distinguish a syllable. "O dear mother!" she cried, "read it aloud; I can see nothing, and I would so like to know if he thought of me." The mother read as follows:-- "I can no longer remain in a house in which, after so many stormy days, I had again found peace, and felt so happy. My father's brother, who is the general of the division of the Russian army to which I belong, has learned my wonderful escape, and discovered my retreat. He has secretly sent me an order to join him as soon as my wounds would permit; and as a soldier I must obey, although my heart bleeds at the sad necessity. "How has my poor heart already suffered. How soon in life was I not forced to learn that happiness is a rare sojourner among men. I lost my father before I could lisp his dear name; of course I was too young to know the loss I had sustained, and the less, because my beloved mother redoubled her care and love towards the poor orphan child who lay so helpless in her gentle arms. The boy clung to this one stay with all the passionate tenderness of his character; his mother's eyes were the stars which guided him through the labyrinth of life; nothing could so grieve him as to see them veiled and darkened through his fault. But he was forced with the deepest sorrow to see that the brightness of his stars was fading. His mother's cheek became ever more and more transparent, the words which fell from her pale lips grew fainter and weaker, her wearied feet refused to bear the light weight of her frail figure, and finally--O Heaven! how was it possible that I survived her death? "Men say of many a bitter sorrow, that it is unendurable; and yet I have lived through the deepest anguish. I know no pang of which it may be truly said, that no one has ever borne it,--that all efforts are in vain, and a speedy death the sole refuge. And thus will I strive to overcome the agony which now rends my heart. "Farewell, honored lady, in whom I have found the image of my lost mother so vividly renewed. Your gentle voice will ever echo through my soul. Nothing can efface from my memory the kindness with which you have overwhelmed a stranger, and an enemy to your native land; the remembrance will be most dear to me so long as I shall live. "And you, my little Ella, who would not suffer the glance of a poor wounded man, beseeching you for aid and compassion, to pass unheeded, and who have so often prayed to God for his recovery,--how could I ever forget you? You can scarcely comprehend how two whole nations can feel so bloodthirstily towards one another, how their murderous rage can exceed that of wild beasts, and all because their rulers disagree. You will shudder when you hear that I have again entered the ranks of that army so hated by your countrymen; but I am sure that you will shed more than one tear for the sake of one to whom the memory of the happy days passed near you is so precious. I have but one request to make, and that is, that you will always wear the little cross which accompanies this letter. My mother hung it round my neck when I was a child, since when I have kept and worn it as a sacred relic. Whenever your eyes fall upon it, remember your own kindness and my gratitude. "And what will you say, my venerable benefactor, when, in the morning, instead of me, you will only find this letter? Will you condemn my conduct? I must see you once more, and again press my lips upon your hand! Once more will I give free vent to my feelings, and then must I stifle my emotions, be again a man, and fearlessly bare my breast to the blows of fate. "Farewell! "THEODORE." A deep stillness reigned in the little circle, only broken by Ella's faint sobs. The old burgomaster also dried a quiet tear. "And that was a Russian!" he cried finally, rising to hide his emotion. Madame von Herbart opened the package; it contained a fine gold chain, to which was suspended a cross of the same metal. She hung it silently round her daughter's neck, and Ella found upon her mother's bosom a free place to weep out all her sorrow. FOOTNOTE: [1] A woman's will, God's will. CHAPTER IV. GRATITUDE. Two years had passed; the war still continued, and the position of the Prussian king had not altered for the better. Many of his bravest officers and best generals lay dead upon the battle-field, or were captives in the enemy's hands. Gold and men were both becoming scarce, and still no prospect of peace. But Frederick never thought of yielding; he had determined to conquer or perish in the attempt. His people felt with him, and each Prussian looked with confidence up to his king. All thought that their sovereign would find some means of extricating himself with honor from the unequal struggle. History teaches us that this belief was well founded, for nothing could have been more surprising and favorable to Frederick, than the final conclusion of the seven years' war. On the 1st of August, 1759, Frederick lost a battle upon the heights of Kunersdorf. Notwithstanding the personal danger which he had himself incurred, and the loss of many of his bravest men, the allied Russians and Austrians obtained a complete victory. Kleist, the renowned poet, whose verses breathe the most tender and gentle feelings, gave the highest proof of his courage by the sacrifice of his life. No death among the many which marked that bloody day excited more sympathy than his; and the Russians, among whom he had fallen, honored his memory by a solemn funeral. A Russian officer laid his own sabre upon the hero's coffin, saying: "Such a man should not be buried without a sword!" The allies succeeded in gaining possession of Berlin, where a citizen named Gotkowski distinguished himself by the sacrifice of nearly all his private fortune in the service of his fellow-citizens. Experience soon taught the Prussians that their neighbors, the Saxons, were much more to be feared, as far as cruelty and the destruction of personal property was concerned, than the Russians. They forgot how Frederick had spared the treasures of art in Saxony; and, entering his palaces, they destroyed everything which came within their reach,--furniture, mirrors, tapestries, pictures, and marble statues. The allies occupied Berlin during eight days. The news then came that Frederick was approaching the city in person, and they speedily left it to join the main body of the army, or to seek security in safer positions. Their course, however, was everywhere marked by devastation and ruin, and woe to the town or village through which their march lay. * * * * * One of these detachments of Saxons and Austrians, belonging to the rear, left the highway in order to make a predatory excursion upon the little city already well known to us. Early in the morning, these warriors, who were in such haste to flee before the coming of Frederick, poured through the open gates. They brought with them tumult and confusion, plundered the houses indiscriminately, and seemed determined to wash away the stain left upon their honor by their hasty retreat, in the blood of the defenceless citizens. On all sides were heard the cries of women and children, mingled with rude imprecations and scornful laughter. They advanced farther and farther into the city, and had already reached the market-place. Doctor Heller arrived breathless before the grocer's door, and cried: "Aha, Master Brother! here they are, at last. You have often said that you would rather permit a whole regiment of Austrians to range through your house, than harbor a single Russian;--and you will now have an opportunity of seeing how gently they will proceed with you. They won't leave a tile upon your roof; I tell you, they are worse than Wallenstein's bands, who, as you know, were not remarkable for their tenderness and consideration." The honest grocer stood before his brother-in-law, the very picture of despair. His whole body trembled; he pulled off his white nightcap, and cast a melancholy glance upon his great, flowered dressing-gown, as if he feared he would soon be forced to part from this beloved garment. He finally cried out, in a stifled voice, "Ah, my beer! All my beer!" "Nonsense!" said the Doctor. "Beer here, beer there,--have you lost your senses? Where is your ready money? Have you at least hid that?" The grocer shook his head, and seemed to be fairly benumbed, body and mind, with terror. "What folly!" cried the Doctor, angrily. "Quick! Go at once into your house, and throw it all into the well. In five minutes it may be too late!" So saying, he led the old man with him through the open door. It was indeed full time, for the lawless soldiery were rapidly approaching, destroying all they could not carry away with them. Chairs and mirrors, glass and porcelain, were thrown from the windows in every direction. The robbers fell upon all the casks of wine and brandy which they could find, and their potations only increased their fury and recklessness. They greeted with loud cries of joy the fine stock of spirits of all kinds which they found in the house of our friend, the grocer. They knocked the heads out of the barrels until the whole cellar was afloat, and they could almost have swum in the nectar, which they freely imbibed. The poor grocer fled from room to room until he reached the highest attic, whence he discovered with horror that a thick smoke was beginning to rise from many parts of the city, and that the inhabitants were in vain endeavoring to quench the flames. Suddenly the hoofs of a whole troop of cavalry were heard upon the stone pavement; and, swift as a whirlwind, a band of horsemen rode past, with a noble-looking young leader at their head. They stopped at the market-place, dismounted, and hastened into the plundered dwellings, driving out the robbers, who, not yet comprehending this sudden diversion, left their prey, and fled. Renewed efforts were made to extinguish the flames, and the citizens gazed in silent wonder upon their unexpected deliverers, who were most actively engaged in rendering all the assistance in their power, and were constantly encouraged by their leader to new efforts. No one knew who the officer was. "He is no Prussian!" "He does not speak German with his soldiers!" "How young he is!" And "How stately he looks upon his black steed!" Such exclamations were heard upon all sides, interrupted by the questions: "But who is he?" "Whence comes he?" "Does no one know him?" The young officer gave no heed to the curious glances everywhere turned upon him; he forced his way with considerable difficulty through the crowd, and finally stood before the burgomaster's door. He sprang from his horse, threw the bridle to one of his attendants, and, hastening up the steps, entered the open door,--already filled with the brutal soldiery laden with booty. He scarcely saw them, but hurried on, and soon reached Madame von Herbart's room, where he found no one, but was horrified at the devastation. The windows were broken, the curtains lay torn upon the floor, the furniture was scattered in every direction, and the drawers and closets all rifled. He opened a second and a third door: everywhere he found the same waste and desolation, but not a living creature. Pausing, at length, uncertain which way to turn, a faint, half-stifled cry for help fell upon his ear: "Mother! O mother! save me! He will kill me!" "Ella, I come!" cried the young man. He hurried through several halls and apartments. But one more door divided him from that imploring voice; he flung it open, and stood an instant as if petrified. He found himself in the once charming little cabinet; but how looked it? The chairs were in pieces, the writing-table overturned; books and papers were scattered upon the floor, mingled with flasks of wine, some broken, others half emptied, and the carpet, which had been in many places wantonly cut and torn, dripping with the contents. Amid these wrecks, a young maiden knelt before a great, bearded soldier, whose left hand had seized upon her long, dark locks, while his right held a loaded pistol. "Will you give me the chain?" cried the soldier at this moment, not having observed the entrance of the stranger; "I ask you for the last time. You have hid all your gold and silver, like rascals as you are. We find nothing that can be of any use to us. Give me the chain at once, or I will shoot you down!" "O leave me the chain!" implored the maiden, looking up with tearful eyes into the monster's face; "you have taken everything from us! I cannot give you the cross,--it is a dear remembrance." A loud bark from a dog was heard before the garden door. The rude soldier hastily loosed his grasp from the hair, and seized upon the gold chain which had excited his cupidity, that he might tear it from the young girl's neck. He suddenly felt himself thrust back, and a voice cried in his ear: "Hold, you wretch! You shall not lay the end of your finger upon her!" A swift sabre-stroke gleamed through the air, and cleft the Austrian's skull. But at the same moment a loud report was heard, and the young officer fell mortally wounded upon the floor. "Ella!" he cried, "Ella!" "Theodore!" exclaimed the maiden, who at the sound of his voice had sprung to her feet. Uttering a loud cry, she threw herself upon the prostrate form of the friend whom she had recognized, and whose warm blood streamed over her dress. At this moment, Madame von Herbart and her father rushed into the room. "Ella!" cried the mother, joyfully, as her eye fell upon her child; "O God be thanked! I was in despair, when I could find you nowhere." But Ella made no answer. "Are you hurt?" asked the anxious mother; "your clothes are covered with blood!" So saying, she sank half fainting by her daughter's side. "By whom are you kneeling, Ella?" said the old burgomaster, who had by this time come quite near. "It is Theodore, our Theodore!" sobbed the young girl, in a voice of despair. "Yes, it is Theodore, your Theodore," repeated the young man, endeavoring to rise. "He wished to see you yet once more. Holy angels guided his steps,--and he came in time. O," he continued, with a failing voice, kissing the hand with which Madame von Herbart sustained his head, "O, how happy I feel now! I know that I am dying, but I have been enabled to show you my gratitude: I have preserved your native city! I have saved your child!" He paused an instant, as if exhausted, and then said, "Ella, your hand!" The maiden placed it within his own, and he pressed it convulsively. "Think of me often!" he continued; "and believe me, even the Russian has a heart, which guards the memory of past benefits--until it breaks!" His head sank; his eyes were fixed; he uttered one last sigh, and his soul had fled. "He is dead!" said Madame von Herbart, after a few moments of deep silence. She wept bitterly; it seemed to her as if she had lost a member of her own family. Ella's sorrow was unspeakable. Nothing could convince her that Theodore was really dead. Even when Dr. Heller came and examined his wounds, assuring them that the best marksman could not have taken surer aim, and that the ball had pierced the young Russian's heart, she could not entirely resign the hope that he would again awake from his deep slumber. She strove to warm his cold hands, to breathe new life into his rigid frame. All her efforts were in vain; her touching prayer, that he would open his pale lips and speak but one single word to her, remained unheard. They were obliged to force her with gentle violence from the bloody corpse. * * * * * Theodore's funeral was most solemn; old and young gathered together to join in the last procession. Each one shed a grateful tear in his memory; even the old grocer, Bolt, was seen following the coffin, deeply moved. A white marble monument marked the place of his burial. The inscription consisted in the name, "THEODORE"; and beneath were carved these simple words, "We meet again." No flaunting paragraph proclaimed his deed, which was more surely treasured in the memory of many a feeling and grateful heart than it could have been upon the cold stone. Long, long years after these occurrences, when Madame von Herbart and her father rested quietly by the young Russian's side, a tall female form might often be seen busied among these graves. She adorned them with fresh wreaths; carefully trained the flowers she had planted upon them; and when she slowly turned to leave them, and re-enter her solitary home, she would raise her tearful eyes to heaven, and say, "We shall meet again, my dear ones!" THE END. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes Minor punctuation errors corrected on pages 148 and 261. Original spellings have been retained including the use of both door-way and doorway. On page 260, "apparenly" was changed to "apparently." (...lay the apparently lifeless body...) 
9503	----	and PG Distributed Proofreaders SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS Selected And Edited With Introduction, Etc. By Francis W. Halsey _Editor of "Great Epochs in American History" Associate Editor of "The World's Famous Orations" and of "The Best of the World's Classics," etc._ In Ten Volumes Illustrated Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland Part Two [_Printed in the United States of America_] II CONTENTS OF VOLUME II GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND--PART TWO IV-ENGLISH LITERARY SHRINES-- (_Continued_) STOKE POGIS--By Charles T. Congdon HAWORTH--By Theodore F. Wolfe GAD'S HILL--By Theodore F. Wolfe RYDAL MOUNT--By William Howitt TWICKENHAM--By William Howitt V-OTHER ENGLISH SCENES STONEHENGE--By Ralph Waldo Emerson MAGNA CHARTA ISLAND--By Mrs. S. C. Hall THE HOME OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS--By James M. Hoppin OXFORD--By Goldwin Smith CAMBRIDGE--By James M. Hoppin CHESTER--By Nathaniel Hawthorne EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE--By Frederick A. Talbot THE CAPITAL OF THE BRITISH, SAXON AND NORMAN KINGS--By William Howitt VI--SCOTLAND EDINBURGH--By Robert Louis Stevenson HOLYROOD--By David Masson LINLITHGOW--By Sir Walter Scott STIRLING--By Nathaniel Hawthorne ABBOTSFORD--By William Howitt DRYBURGH ABBEY--By William Howitt MELROSE ABBEY--By William Howitt CARLYLE'S BIBTHPLACE AND EARLY HOMES--By John Burroughs BURNS'S LAND--By Nathaniel Hawthorne HIGHLAND MARY'S HOME AND GRAVE--By Theodore F. Wolfe THROUGH THE CALEDONIA CANAL TO INVERNESS--By H. A. Taine THE SCOTCH HIGHLANDS--By H. A. Taine BEN LOMOND AND THE HIGHLAND LAKES--By Bayard Taylor TO THE HEBRIDES--By James Boswell STAFFA AND IONA--By William Howitt VII--IRELAND A SUMMER DAY IN DUBLIN--By William Makepeace Thackeray DUBLIN CASTLE--By Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDHAL--By Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall LIMERICK--By Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall FROM BELFAST TO DUBLIN--By William Cullen Bryant THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY--By Bayard Taylor CORK--by William Makepeace Thackeray BLARNEY CASTLE--By Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall MUCROSS ABBEY--By Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall FROM GLENGARIFF TO KILLARNEY--By William Makepeace Thackeray LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME II FRONTISPIECE PRINCESS STREET AND SCOTT'S MONUMENT, EDINBURGH STRATFORD-ON-AVON INTERIOR OF TRINITY CHURCH, STRATFORD ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE, NEAR STRATFORD ROOM IN STRATFORD IN WHICH SHAKESPEARE WAS BORN NEWSTEAD ABBEY, BYRON'S ANCESTRAL HOME STOKE POGIS, THE SCENE OF GRAY'S "ELEGY" OXFORD EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH, CANTERBURY EDINBURGH CASTLE AND NATIONAL GALLERY OLD GREYFRIAR'S CHURCH, EDINBURGH HOLYROOD PALACE, EDINBURGH STIRLING CASTLE RUINS OF HOLYROOD ABBEY, EDINBURGH MELROSE ABBEY GLASTONBURY ABBEY CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE, SCOTLAND DUMBARTON ROCK AND CASTLE LIMERICK CASTLE ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY BLARNEY CASTLE MUCROSS ABBEY THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN THE GAP OF DUNLOE IV ENGLISH LITERARY SHRINES (_Continued_) STOKE POGIS [Footnote: From "Reminiscences of a Journalist." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1884. Mr. Congdon was, for many years, under Horace Greeley, a leading editorial writer for the New York "Tribune."] BY CHARLES T. CONGDON It was a comfort as I came out of the Albert Memorial Chapel, and rejoined nature upon the Terrace, to mutter to myself those fine lines which not a hundred years ago everybody knew by heart: "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth ere gave, Await alike th' inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave,"--a verse which I found it not bad to remember as in the Chapel Royal I gazed upon the helmets, and banners, and insignia of many a defunct Knight of the Garter. I wondered if posterity would care much for George the Fourth, or Third, or Second, or First, whose portraits I had just been gazing at; I was sure that a good many would remember the recluse scholar of Pembroke Hall, the Cambridge Professor of Modern History, who cared for nothing but ancient history; who projected twenty great poems, and finished only one or two; who spent his life in commenting upon Plato and studying botany, and in writing letters to his friend Mason; and who with a real touch of Pindar in his nature, was content to fiddle-faddle away his life. He died at last of a most unpoetical gout in the stomach, leaving behind him a cartload of memoranda, and fifty fragments of fine things; and yet I, a stranger from a far distant shore, was about to make a little pilgrimage to his tomb, and all for the sake of that "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," which has so held its own while a hundred bulkier things have been forgotten. The church itself is an interesting but not remarkable edifice, old, small, and solidly built in a style common enough in England. Nothing, however, could be more in keeping with the associations of the scene. The very humility of the edifice has a property of its own, for anything more magnificent would jar upon the feelings, as the monument in the Park does most decidedly. It was Gray's wish that he might be buried here, near the mother whom he loved so well; otherwise he could hardly have escaped the posthumous misfortune of a tomb in Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's. In such case the world would have missed one of the most charming of associations, and the great poem the most poetical of its features. For surely it was fit that he who sang so touchingly of the dead here sleeping, should find near them his last resting-place; that when the pleasant toil in libraries was over, the last folio closed by those industrious hands, the last manuscript collated, and the last flower picked for the herbarium, he who here so tenderly sang of the emptiness of earthly honors and the nothingness of worldly success should be buried humbly near those whom he best loved, and where all the moral of his teaching might be perpetually illustrated. I wondered, as I stood there, whether Horace Walpole ever thought it worth his while, for the sake of that early friendship which was so rudely broken, to come there, away from the haunts of fashion, or from his plaything villa at Strawberry Hill, to muse for a moment over the grave of one who rated pedigrees and peerages at their just value. Probably my Lord Orford was never guilty of such a piece of sentimentality. He was thinking too much of his pictures and coins and eternal bric-a-brac for that. A stone set in the outside of the church indicates the spot near which the poet is buried. I was very anxious to see the interior of the edifice, and, fortunately I found the sexton busy in the neighborhood. There was nothing, however, remarkable to be seen, after sixpence had opened the door, except perhaps the very largest pew which these eyes ever beheld. It belonged to the Penn family, descendants of drab-coated and sweet-voiced William Penn, whose seat is in the neighborhood. I do not know what that primitive Quaker would have said to such an enormous reservation of space in the house of God for the sole use and behoof of two or three aristocratic worshipers. Probably few of my readers have ever seen such a pew as that. It was not so much a pew as a room. It was literally walled off, and quite set apart from the plebeian portion of the sanctuary, was carpeted, and finished with comfortable arm-chairs, and in the middle of it was a stove. The occupants could look out and over at the altar, but the rustics could not look in and at them. The Squire might have smoked or read novels, or my lady might have worked worsted or petted her poodle through the service, without much scandal. The pew monopolized so much room that there was little left for the remainder of the "miserable offenders," but I suspect that there was quite enough for all who came to pray. For it was, as I have said, literally a country church; and those who sleep near it were peasants. It is difficult to comprehend the whole physiognomy of the poem, if I may use the expression, without seeing the spot which it commemorates. I take it for granted that the reader is familiar with it. There are "those rugged elms," and there is "that yew tree's shade." There are "the frail memorials," "with uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked;" there "the name, the years, spelt by the unlettered muse;" and the holy texts strewn round "that teach the rustic moralist to die." There is still "the ivy-mantled tower," tho the "moping owl" that evening did not "to the moon complain," partly because there was no moon to complain to, and possibly because there was no moping owl in the tower. But there was one little circumstance which I may be pardoned for mentioning. Gray, somehow, has the reputation of being an artificial poet, yet for one who wrote so little poetry he makes a good many allusions to childhood and children. As I passed through the Park on my way to the churchyard, I encountered a group of merry boys and girls playing about the base of the monument; and I recalled that verse which Gray wrote for the Elegy, and afterward discarded, under the impression that it made the parenthesis too long. There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen are showers of violets found; The redbreast loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground. I have often wondered how Gray could bear to give up these sweet, tender and most natural lines. I have sometimes surmised that he thought them a little too much like Ambrose Philips's verses about children--Namby Pamby Philips, as the Pope set nicknamed that unfortunate writer. I lingered about the churchyard until that long twilight, of which we know nothing in America, began to grow dimmer and dimmer. If it was still before, it seemed all the stiller now. I was glad that I had waited so long, because by doing so I understood all the better how true the Elegy is to nature. The neighborhood, with its agreeable variety of meadow and wood, has all the hundred charms of the gentle and winning English scenery. The hush, hardly broken even by the songs of the birds, brought forcibly to my mind that beautiful line of the Elegy: "And all the air a solemn stillness holds;" while that other line: "Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight," is exactly true. The landscape did glimmer, and as I watched the sun go down, I pleased myself with the fancy that I was sitting just where the poet sat, as he revolved those lines which the world has got by heart. Just then came the cry of the cattle, and I knew why Gray wrote: "The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea," nor did I fail to encounter a plowman homeward plodding his weary way. As I strolled listlessly back to the station, there was such a serenity on the earth about me, and in the sky above me, that I could easily give myself to gentle memories and poetic dreams. I recalled the springtime of life, when I learned this famous Elegy by heart as a pleasant task, and, as yet unsophisticated by critical notions, accepted it as perfect. I thought of innumerable things which I had read about it; of the long and patient revision which its author gave it, year after year, keeping it in his desk, and then sending it, a mere pamphlet, with no flourish of trumpets, into the world. Many an ancient figure came to lend animation to the scene. Horace Walpole in his lace coat and spruce wig went mincing by; the mother of Gray, with her sister, measured lace for the customers who came to her little shop in London; the wags of Pembroke College, graceless varlets, raise an alarm of fire that they may see the frightened poet drop from the window, half dead with alarm; old Foulis, the Glasgow printer, volunteers to send from his press such, a luxurious edition of Gray's poems as the London printers can not match; Dr. Johnson, holding the page to his eyes, growls over this stanza, and half-grudgingly praises that. I had spent perhaps the pleasantest day which the fates vouchsafed me during my sojourn in England; and here I was back again in Slough Station, ready to return to the noisy haunts of men. The train came rattling up, and the day with Gray was over. HAWORTH [Footnote: From "A Literary Pilgrimage." By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, J. B. Lippincott Co. Copyright, 1895.] BY THEODORE F. WOLFE Other Brontë shrines have engaged us,--Guiseley, where Patrick Brontë was married and Neilson worked as a mill-girl; the lowly Thornton home, where Charlotte was born; the cottage where she visited Harriet Martineau; the school where she found Caroline Helstone and Rose and Jessy Yorke; the Fieldhead, Lowood, and Thornfield of her tales; the Villette where she knew her hero; but it is the bleak Haworth hilltop where the Brontës wrote the wonderful books and lived the pathetic lives that most attracts and longest holds our steps. Our way is along Airedale, now a highway of toil and trade, desolated by the need of hungry poverty and greed of hungrier wealth; meads are replaced by blocks of grimy huts, groves are supplanted by factory chimneys that assoil earth and heaven, the one "shining" stream is filthy with the refuse of many mills. At Keighley our walk begins, and altho we have no peas in our "Pilgrim shoon," the way is heavy with memories of the sad sisters Brontë who so often trod the dreary miles which bring us to Haworth. The village street, steep as a roof, has a pavement of rude stones, upon which the wooden shoes of the villagers clank with an unfamiliar sound. The dingy houses of gray stone, barren and ugly in architecture, are huddled along the incline and encroach upon the narrow street. The place and its situation are a proverb of ugliness in all the countryside; one dweller in Airedale told us that late in the evening of the last day of creation it was found that a little rubbish was left, and out of that Haworth was made. But, grim and rough as it is, the genius of a little woman has made the place illustrious and draws to it visitors from every quarter of the world. We are come in the "glory season" of the moors, and as we climb through the village we behold above and beyond it vast undulating sweeps of amethyst-tinted hills rising circle beyond circle,--all now one great expanse of purple bloom stirred by zephyrs which waft to us the perfume of the heather. At the hilltop we come to the Black Bull Inn, where one Brontë drowned his genius in drink, and from our apartment here we look upon all the shrines we seek. The inn stands at the churchyard gates, and is one of the landmarks of the place. Long ago preacher Grimshaw flogged the loungers from its taproom into chapel; here Wesley and Whitefield lodged when holding meetings on the hilltop; here Brontë's predecessor took refuge from his riotous parishioners, finally escaping through the low easement at the back,--out of which poor Branwell Brontë used to vault when his sisters asked for him at the door. This inn is a quaint structure, low-eaved and cosy; its furniture is dark with age. We sleep in a bed once occupied by Henry J. Raymond, [Footnote: In the editorial sense, the founder of the New York "Times." Mr. Raymond died in 1869, eighteen years after the paper was started.] and so lofty that steps are provided to ascend its heights. Our meals are served in the old-fashioned parlor to which Branwell came. In a nook between the fireplace and the before-mentioned easement stood the tall arm-chair, with square seat and quaintly carved back, which was reserved for him. The landlady denied that he was summoned to entertain travelers here; "he never needed to be sent for, he came fast enough of himself." His wit and conviviality were usually the life of the circle, but at times he was mute and abstracted and for hours together "would just sit and sit in his corner there." She described him as a "little, red-haired, light-complexioned chap, cleverer than all his sisters put together. What they put in their books they got from him," quoth she, reminding us of the statement in Grundy's Reminiscences that Branwell declared he invented the plot and wrote the major part of "Wuthering Heights." Certain it is he possest transcending genius and that in this room that genius was slain. Here he received the message of renunciation from his depraved mistress which finally wrecked his life; the landlady, entering after the messenger had gone, found him in a fit on the floor. Emily Brontë's rescue of her dog, an incident recorded in "Shirley," occurred at the inn door. The graveyard is so thickly sown with blackened tombstones that there is scant space for blade or foliage to relieve its dreariness, and the villagers, for whom the yard is a thoroughfare, step from tomb to tomb; in the time of the Brontës the village women dried their linen on these graves. Close to the wall which divides the churchyard from the vicarage is a plain stone set by Charlotte Brontë to mark the grave of Tabby, the faithful servant who served the Brontës from their childhood till all but Charlotte were dead. The very ancient church-tower still "rises dark from the stony enclosure of its yard;" the church itself has been remodeled and much of its romantic interest destroyed. No interments have been made in the vaults beneath the aisles since Mr. Brontë was laid there. The site of the Brontë pew is by the chancel; here Emily sat in the farther corner, Anne next and Charlotte by the door, within a foot of the spot where her ashes now lie. A former sacristan remembered to have seen Thackeray and Miss Martineau sitting with Charlotte in the pew. And here, almost directly above her sepulcher, she stood one summer morning and gave herself in marriage to the man who served for her as "faithfully and long as did Jacob for Rachel." The Brontë tablet in the wall bears a uniquely pathetic record, its twelve lines registering eight deaths, of which Mr. Brontë's at the age of eighty-five, is the last. On a side aisle is a beautiful stained window inscribed "To the Glory of God, in Memory of Charlotte Brontë, by an American citizen." The list shows that most of the visitors come from America, and it was left for a dweller in that far land to set up here almost the only voluntary memento of England's great novelist. A worn page of the register displays the tremulous autograph of Charlotte as she signs her maiden name for the last time, and the signatures of the witnesses to her marriage,--Miss Wooler, of "Roe Head," Ellen Nussy, who is the E of Charlotte's letters and the Caroline of "Shirley." The vicarage and its garden are out of a corner of the churchyard and separated from it by a low wall. A lane lies along one side of the churchyard and leads from the street to the vicarage gates. The garden, which was Emily's care, where she tended stunted shrubs and borders of unresponsive flowers and where Charlotte planted the currant-bushes, is beautiful with foliage and flowers, and its boundary wall is overtopped by a screen of trees which shuts out the depressing prospect of the graves from the vicarage windows and makes the place seem less "a churchyard home" than when the Brontës inhabited it. The dwelling is of gray stone, two stories high, of plain and somber aspect. A wing is added, the little window-panes are replaced by larger squares, the stone floors are removed or concealed, curtains--forbidden by Mr. Brontë's dread of fire--shade the window, and the once bare interior is furbished and furnished in modern style; but the arrangement of the apartments is unchanged. Most interesting of these is the Brontë parlor, at the left of the entrance; here the three curates of "Shirley" used to take tea with Mr. Brontë and were upbraided by Charlotte for their intolerance; here the sisters discuss their plots and read each other's MSS.; here they transmuted the sorrows of their lives into the stories which make the name of Brontë immortal; here Emily, "her imagination occupied with Wuthering Heights," watched in the darkness to admit Branwell coming late and drunken from the Black Bull; here Charlotte, the survivor of all, paced the night-watches in solitary anguish, haunted by the vanished faces, the voices forever stilled, the echoing footsteps that came no more. Here, too, she lay in her coffin. The room behind the parlor was fitted by Charlotte for Nichols's study. On the right was Brontë's study, and behind it the kitchen, where the sisters read with their books propt on the table before them while they worked, and where Emily (prototype of "Shirley"), bitten by a dog at the gate of the lane, took one of Tabby's glowing irons from the fire and cauterized the wound, telling no one till danger was past. Above the parlor is the chamber in which Charlotte and Emily died, the scene of Nichols's loving ministrations to his suffering wife. Above Brontë's study was his chamber; the adjoining children's study was later Branwell's apartment and the theater of the most terrible tragedies of the stricken family; here that ill-fated youth writhed in the horrors of mania-a-potu; here Emily rescued him--stricken with drunken stupor--from his burning couch, as "Jane Eyre" saved Rochester; here he breathed out his blighted life erect upon his feet, his pockets filled with love-letters from the perfidious woman who brought his ruin. Even now the isolated site of the parsonage, its environment of graves and wild-moors, its exposure to the fierce winds of the long winters, make it unspeakably dreary; in the Brontës' time it must have been cheerless indeed. Its influence darkened the lives of the inmates and left its fateful impression upon the books here produced. Visitors are rarely admitted to the vicarage; among those against whom its doors have been closed is the gifted daughter of Charlotte's literary idol, to whom "Jane Eyre" was dedicated, Thackeray. By the vicarage lane were the cottage of Tabby's sister, the school the Brontës daily visited, and the sexton's dwelling where the curates lodged. Behind the vicarage a savage expanse of gorse and heather rises to the horizon and stretches many miles away; a path oft-trodden by the Brontës leads between low walls from their home to this open moor, their habitual resort in childhood and womanhood. The higher plateaus afford a wide prospect, but, despite the August bloom and fragrance and the delightful play of light and shadow along the sinuous sweeps, the aspect of the bleak, treeless, houseless waste of uplands is even now dispiriting; when frosts have destroyed its verdure, and wintry skies frown above, its gloom and desolation must be terrible beyond description. Remembering that the sisters found even these usually dismal moors a welcome relief from their tomb of a dwelling, we may appreciate the utter dreariness of their situation and the pathos of Charlotte's declaration, "I always dislike to leave Haworth, it takes so long to be content again after I return." GAD'S HILL [Footnote: From "A Literary Pilgrimage." By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, J. B. Lippincott Co. Copyright, 1895.] BY THEODORE F. WOLFE "To go to Gad's Hill," said Dickens, in a note of invitation, "you leave Charing Cross at nine o'clock by North Kent Railway for Higham." Guided by these directions and equipped with a letter from Dickens's son, we find ourselves gliding eastward among the chimneys of London and, a little later, emerging into the fields of Kent,--Jingle's region of "apples, cherries, hops, and women." The Thames is on our left; we pass many river-towns,--Dartford where Wat Tyler lived, Gravesend where Pocahontas died,--but most of our way is through the open country, where we have glimpses of "fields," "parks," and leafy lanes, with here and there picturesque camps of gypsies or of peripatetic rascals "goin' a-hoppin.'" From wretched Higham a walk of half an hour among orchards and between hedges of wild-rose and honeysuckle brings us to the hill which Shakespeare and Dickens have made classic ground, and soon we see, above the tree tops, the glittering vane which surmounted the home of the world's greatest novelist. The name Gad's (Vagabond's) Hill is a survival of the time when the depredations of highwaymen upon "pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings and traders riding to London with fat purses" gave to this spot the ill repute it had in Shakespeare's day; it was here he located Falstaff's great exploit. The tuft of evergreens which crowns the hill about Dickens' retreat is the remnant of thick woods once closely bordering the highway, in which the "men in buckram" lay concealed, and the robbery of the Franklin was committed in front of the spot where the Dickens house stands. By this road passed Chaucer, who had property near by, gathering from the pilgrims his "Canterbury Tales." In all time to come the great master of romance who came here to live and die will be worthily associated with Shakespeare and Chaucer in the renown of Gad's Hill. In becoming possessor of this place Dickens realized a dream of his boyhood and ambition of his life. In one of his travelers' sketches he introduces a "queer small boy" (himself) gazing at Gad's Hill House and predicting his future ownership, which the author finds annoying "because it happens to be my house and I believe what he said was true." When at last the place was for sale, Dickens did not wait to examine it; he never was inside the house until he went to direct its repair. Eighteen hundred pounds was the price; a thousand more were expended for enlargement of the grounds and alterations of the house, which, despite his declaration that he had "stuck bits upon it in all manner of ways," did not greatly change it from what it was when it became the goal of his childish aspirations. At first it was his summer residence merely,--his wife came with him the first summer,--but three years later he sold Tavistock House, and Gad's Hill was thenceforth his home. From the bustle and din of the city he returned to the haunts of his boyhood to find restful quiet and time for leisurely work among these "blessed woods and fields" which had ever held his heart. For nine years after the death of Dickens Gad's Hill was occupied by his oldest son; its ownership has since twice or thrice changed. Its elevated site and commanding view render it one of the most conspicuous, as it is one of the most lovely, spots in Kent. The mansion is an unpretentious, old-fashioned, two-storied structure of fourteen rooms. Its brick walls are surmounted by Mansard roofs above which rises a bell-turret; a pillared portico, where Dickens sat with his family on summer evenings, shades the front entrance; wide bay-windows project upon either side; flowers and vines clamber upon the walls, and a delightfully home-like air pervades the place. It seems withal a modest seat for one who left half a million dollars at his death. At the right of the entrance-hall we see Dickens's library and study, a cosy room shown in the picture of "The Empty Chair;" here are shelves which held his books; the panels he decorated with counterfeit bookbacks; the nook where perched, the mounted remains of his raven, the "Grip" of "Barnaby Rudge." By this bay-window, whence he could look across the lawn to the cedars beyond the highway, stood his chair and the desk where he wrote many of the works by which the world will know him always. Behind the study was his billiard-room, and upon the opposite side of the hall the parlor, with the dining-room adjoining it at the back, both bedecked with the many mirrors which delighted the master. Opening out of these rooms is a conservatory, paid for out of "the golden shower from America" and completed but a few days before Dickens' death, holding yet the ferns he tended. The dining-room was the scene of much of that emphatic hospitality which it pleased the novelist to dispense, his exuberant spirits making him the leader in all the jollity and conviviality of the board. Here he compounded for bibulous guests his famous "cider-cup of Gad's Hill," and at the same table he was stricken with death; on a couch beneath yonder window, the one nearest the hall, he died on the anniversary of the railway accident which so frightfully imperiled his life. From this window we look out upon a lawn decked with shrubbery and see across undulating cornfields his beloved Cobham. From the parqueted hall, stairs lead to the modest chambers--that of Dickens being above the drawing-room. He lined the stairway with prints of Hogarth's works, and declared he never came down the stairs without pausing to wonder at the sagacity and skill which had produced these masterful pictures of human life. The house is invested with roses, and parterres of the red geraniums which the master loved are ranged upon every side. It was some fresh manifestation of his passion for these flowers that elicited from his daughter the averment, "Papa, I think when you are an angel your wings will be made of looking-glasses and your crown of scarlet geraniums." Beneath a rose-tree not far from the window where Dickens died, a bed blooming with blue lobelia holds the tiny grave of "Dick" and the tender memorial of the novelist to that "Best of Birds." The row of gleaming limes which shadow the porch was planted by Dickens's own hands. The pedestal of the sundial upon the lawn is a massive balustrade of the old stone bridge at nearby Rochester, which little David Copperfield crossed "footsore and weary" on his way to his aunt, and from which Pickwick contemplated the castle-ruin, the cathedral, the peaceful Medway. At the left of the mansion are the carriage-house and the school-room of Dickens' sons. In another portion of the grounds are his tennis-court and the bowling-green which he prepared, where he became a skilful and tireless player. The broad meadow beyond the lawn was a later purchase, and the many limes which beautify it were rooted by Dickens. Here numerous cricket-matches were played, and he would watch the players or keep the score "The whole day long." It was in this meadow that he rehearsed his readings, and his talking, laughing, weeping, and gesticulating here "all to himself" excited among his neighbors suspicion of his insanity. From the front lawn a tunnel constructed by Dickens passes beneath the highway to "The Wilderness," a thickly-wooded shrubbery, where magnificent cedars up-rear their venerable forms and many somber firs, survivors of the forest which erst covered the countryside, cluster upon the hill top. Here Dickens's favorite dog, the "Linda" of his letters, lies buried. Amid the leafy seclusion of this retreat, and upon the very spot where Falstaff was routed by Hal and Poins ("the eleven men in buckram"), Dickens erected the chalet sent to him in pieces by Fechter, the upper room of which--up among the quivering boughs, where "birds and butterflies fly in and out, and green branches shoot in at the windows"--Dickens lined with mirrors and used as his study in summer. Of the work produced at Gad's Hill--"A Tale of Two Cities," "The Uncommercial Traveler," "Our Mutual Friend," "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," and many tales and sketches of "All the Year Round"--much was written in this leaf-environed nook; here the master wrought through the golden hours of his last day of conscious life, here he wrote his last paragraph and at the close of that June day let fall his pen, never to take it up again. From the place of the chalet we behold the view which delighted the heart of Dickens--his desk was so placed that his eyes would rest upon this view whenever he raised them from his work--the fields of waving corn, the green expanse of meadows, the sail-dotted river. RYDAL MOUNT [Footnote: From "Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets."] BY WILLIAM HOWITT As you advance a mile or more on the road from Ambleside toward Grasmere, a lane overhung with trees turns up to the right, and there, at some few hundred yards from the highway, stands the modest cottage of the poet, elevated on Rydal Mount, so as to look out over the surrounding sea of foliage, and to take in a glorious view. Before it, at some distance across the valley, stretches a high screen of bold and picturesque mountains; behind, it is overtowered by a precipitous hill, called Nab-scar; but to the left, you look down over the broad waters of Windermere, and to the right over the still and more embosomed flood of Grasmere. Whichever way the poet pleases to advance from his house, it must be into scenery of that beauty of mountain, stream, wood, and lake, which has made Cumberland so famous over all England. He may steal away up backward from his gate and ascend into the solitary hills, or diverging into the grounds of Lady Mary Fleming, his near neighbor, may traverse the deep shades of the woodland, wander along the banks of the rocky rivulet, and finally stand before the well known waterfall there. If he descend into the highway, objects of beauty still present themselves. Cottages and quiet houses here and there glance from their little spots of Paradise, through the richest boughs of trees; Windermere, with its wide expanse of waters, its fairy islands, its noble hills, allures his steps in one direction; while the sweet little lake of Rydal, with its heronry and its fine background of rocks, invites him in another. In this direction the vale of Grasmere, the scene of his early married life, opens before him, and Dunmail-raise and Langdale-pikes lift their naked corky summits, as hailing him to the pleasures of old companionship. Into no quarter of this region of lakes, and mountains, and vales of primitive life, can he penetrate without coming upon ground celebrated by his muse. He is truly "sole king of rocky Cumberland." The immediate grounds in which his house stands are worthy of the country and the man. It is, as its name implies, a mount. Before the house opens a considerable platform, and around and beneath lie various terraces and descend various walks, winding on amid a profusion of trees and luxuriant evergreens. Beyond the house, you ascend various terraces, planted with trees now completely overshadowing them; and these terraces conduct you to a level above the house-top, and extend your view of the enchanting scenery on all sides. Above you tower the rocks and precipitous slopes of Nab-scar; and below you, embosomed in its trees, lies the richly ornate villa of Mr. William Ball, a friend, whose family and the poet's are on such social terms, that a little gate between their premises opens both to each family alike. This cottage and grounds were formerly the property of Charles Lloyd, also a friend, and one of the Bristol and Stowey coterie. Both he and Lovell have been long dead; Lovell, indeed, was drowned, on a voyage to Ireland, in the very heyday of the dreams of Pantisocracy, in which he was an eager participant. The poet's house, itself, is a proper poet's abode. It is at once modest, plain, yet tasteful and elegant. An ordinary dining-room, a breakfast-room in the center, and a library beyond, form the chief apartments. There are a few pictures and busts, especially those of Scott and himself, a good engraving of Burns, and the like, with a good collection of books, few of them very modern. TWICKENHAM [Footnote: From "Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets."] BY WILLIAM HOWITT It seems that Pope did not purchase the freehold of the house and grounds at Twickenham, but only a long lease. He took his father and mother along with him. His father died there the year after, but his mother continued to live till 1733, when she died at the great age of ninety-three. For twenty years she had the singular satisfaction of seeing her son the first poet of his age; carest by the greatest men of the time, courted by princes, and feared by all the base. No parents ever found a more tender and dutiful son. With him they shared in honor the ease and distinction he had acquired. They were the cherished objects of his home. Swift paid him no false compliment when he said, in condoling with him on his mother's death, "You are the most dutiful son I have ever known or heard of, which is a felicity not happening to one in a million." The property at Twickenham is properly described by Roscoe as lying on both sides of the highway, rendering it necessary for him to cross the road to arrive at the higher and more ornamental part of his gardens. In order to obviate this inconvenience, he had recourse to the expedient of excavating a passage under the road from one part of his grounds to the other, a fact to which he alludes in these lines: "Know all the toil the heavy world can heap, Rolls o'er my grotto, nor disturbs my sleep." The lower part of these grounds, in which his house stood, constituted, in fact, only the sloping bank of the river, by much the smaller portion of his territory. The passage, therefore, was very necessary to that far greater part, which was his wilderness, shrubbery, forest, and every thing, where he chiefly planted and worked. This passage he formed into a grotto, having a front of rude stonework opposite to the river and decorated within with spars, ores, and shells. Of this place he has himself left this description: "I have put the last hand to my works of this kind, in happily finishing the subterranean way and grotto. I found there a spring of the clearest water, which falls in a perpetual rill, that echoes through the cavern night and day. From the River Thames you see through my arch, up a walk of the wilderness, to a kind of open temple wholly composed of shells in the rustic manner; and from that distance under the temple you look down through a sleeping arcade of trees, and see the sails on the river passing suddenly and vanishing, as through a perspective glass. When you shut the door of this grotto, it becomes, on the instant, from a luminous room, a camera obscura, on the walls of which all the objects of the river, hills, woods, and boats are forming a moving picture, in their visible radiations; and when you have a mind to light it less, it affords you a very different scene. It is finished with shells, interspersed with looking-glass in regular forms, and in the ceiling is a star of the same material, at which, when a lamp of an orbicular figure of thin alabaster is hung in the middle, a thousand pointed rays glitter, and are reflected over the place. There are connected to this grotto, by a narrow passage, two porches, one toward the river, of smooth stones full of light and open; the other toward the garden, shadowed with trees, rough with shells, flints, and iron ore. The bottom is paved with simple pebbles, as is also the adjoining walk up the wilderness to the temple, in the natural state, agreeing not ill with the little dripping murmur, and the aquatic idea of the whole place. It wants nothing to complete it but a good statue with an inscription, like that beautiful antique one which you know I am so fond of. You will think I have been very poetical in this description; but it is pretty near the truth." But it was not merely in forming this grotto that Pope employed himself; it was in building and extending his house, which was in a Roman style, with columns, arcades, and porticos. The designs and elevations of these buildings may be seen by his own hand in the British Museum, drawn in his usual way on backs of letters. The following passage, in a letter to Mr. Digby, will be sufficient to give us his idea of both his Thamesward garden and his house in a summer view: "No ideas you could form in the winter could make you imagine what Twickenham is in this warm summer. Our river glitters beneath the unclouded sun, at the same time that its banks retain the verdure of showers; our gardens are offering their first nosegays; our trees, like new acquaintance brought happily together, are stretching their arms to meet each other, and growing nearer and nearer every hour. The birds are paying their thanksgiving songs for the new habitations I have made them. My building rises high enough to attract the eye and curiosity of the passenger from the river, where, upon beholding a mixture of beauty and ruin, he inquires, 'What house is falling, or what church is arising?' So little taste have our common Tritons for Vitruvius; whatever delight the poetical gods of the river may take in reflecting on their streams, my Tuscan porticos, or Ionic pilasters." Pope's architecture, like his poetry, has been the subject of much and vehement dispute. On the one hand, his grottos and his buildings have been vituperated as most tasteless and childish; on the other, applauded as beautiful and romantic. Into neither of these disputes need we enter. In both poetry and architecture a bolder spirit and a better taste have prevailed since Pope's time. With all his foibles and defects, Pope was a great poet of the critical and didactic kind, and his house and place had their peculiar beauties. He was himself half inclined to suspect the correctness of his fancy in such matters, and often rallies himself on his gimcracks and crotchets in both verse and prose.... Pope's building madness, however, had method in it. Unlike the great romancer and builder of our time, [Footnote: Sir Walter Scott] he never allowed such things to bring him into debt. He kept his mind at ease by such prudence, and soothed and animated it under circumstances of continued evil by working among his trees, and grottos, and vines, and at his labors of poetry and translations. At the period succeeding the rebellion of 1715, when that event had implicated and scattered so many of his highest and most powerful friends, here he was laboring away at his "Homer" with a progress which astonished every one. Removed at once from the dissipations and distractions of London, and from the agreeable interruptions of such society, he found leisure and health enough here to give him vigor for exertions astonishing for so weak a frame. The tastes he indulged here, if they were not faultless according to our notions, were healthy, and they endured. To the end of his life he preserved his strong attachment to his house and grounds. V OTHER ENGLISH SCENES STONEHENGE [Footnote: From "English Traits." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co. Emerson's second visit to England, during which he saw Stonehenge, was made in 1847. Of all the Druidical remains in Europe, Stonehenge is perhaps the most remarkable, altho at Carnac in Brittany on the northern shore of the Bay of Biscay, are Druidical remains more numerous, but in general they are smaller and less suggestive of constructive design.] BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON We left the train at Salisbury, and took a carriage to Amesbury, passing by Old Sarum, a bare, treeless hill, once containing the town which sent two members to Parliament--now, not a hut--and, arriving at Amesbury, we stopt at the George Inn. After dinner we walked to Salisbury Plain. On the broad downs, under the gray sky, not a house was visible, nothing but Stonehenge, which looked like a group of brown dwarfs in the wide expanse--Stonehenge and the barrows, which rose like green bosses about the plain, and a few hay ricks. On the top of a mountain the old temple would not be more impressive. Far and wide a few shepherds with their flocks sprinkled the plain, and a bagman drove along the road. It looked as if the wide margin given in this crowded isle to this primeval temple were accorded by the veneration of the British race to the old egg out of which all their ecclesiastical structures and history had proceeded. Stonehenge is a circular colonnade with a diameter of a hundred feet, and enclosing a second and third colonnade within. We walked round the stones, and clambered over them, to wont ourselves with their strange aspect and groupings, and found a nook sheltered from the wind among them, where C. [Footnote: Thomas Carlyle, the author of "Sartor Resartus," etc., etc.] lighted his cigar. It was pleasant to see that just this simplest of all simple structures--two upright stones and a lintel laid across--had long outstood all later churches, and all history, and were like what is most permanent on the face of the planet: these, and the barrows--(mere mounds of which there are a hundred and sixty within a circle of three miles about Stonehenge)--like the same mound on the plain of Troy, which still makes good to the passing mariner on Hellespont, the vaunt of Homer and the fame of Achilles. Within the enclosure grow buttercups, nettles, and, all around, wild thyme, daisy, meadowsweet, goldenrod, thistle, and the carpeting grass. Over us, larks were soaring and singing--as my friend said: "the larks which were hatched last year, and the wind which was hatched many thousand years ago." We counted and measured by paces the biggest stones, and soon knew as much as any man can suddenly know of the inscrutable temple. There are ninety-four stones, and there were once probably one hundred and sixty. The temple is circular and uncovered, and the situation fixt astronomically--the grand entrances here, and at Abury, being placed exactly northeast, "as all the gates of the old cavern temples are." How came the stones here, for these sarsens or Druidical sandstones are not found in this neighborhood? The sacrificial stone, as it is called, is the only one in all these blocks that can resist the action of fire, and, as I read in the books, must have been brought one hundred and fifty miles. On almost every stone we found the marks of the mineralogist's hammer and chisel. The nineteen smaller stones of the inner circle are of granite. I, who had just come from Professor Sedgwick's Cambridge Museum of megatheria and mastodons, was ready to maintain that some cleverer elephants or mylodonta had borne off and laid these rocks one on another. Only the good beasts must have known how to cut a well-wrought tenon and mortise, and to smooth the surface of some of the stones. The chief mystery is, that any mystery should have been allowed to settle on so remarkable a monument, in a country on which all the muses have kept their eyes now for eighteen hundred years. We are not yet too late to learn much more than is known of this structure. Some diligent Fellowes or Layard will arrive, stone by stone, at the whole history, by that exhaustive British sense and perseverance, so whimsical in its choice of objects, which leaves its own Stonehenge or Choir Gaur to the rabbits, while it opens pyramids, and uncovers Nineveh. Stonehenge, in virtue of the simplicity of its plan, and its good preservation, is as if new and recent; and, a thousand years hence, men will thank this age for the accurate history it will yet eliminate. MAGNA CHARTA ISLAND [Footnote: From "Pilgrimages to English Shrines." Magna Charta Island lies in the Thames, a few miles below Windsor.] BY MRS. S. C. HALL. The Company of Basket-makers (if there be such a company) have claimed a large portion of the field--where the barons, "clad in complete steel," assembled to confer with King John upon the great charter of English freedom, by which, Hume truly but coldly says, "very important liabilities and privileges were either granted or secured to every order of men in the kingdom; to the clergy, to the barons, and to the people"--the Basket-makers, we say, have availed themselves of the low land of Runnymead to cultivate osiers; piles and stacks of "withies" in various stages of utility, for several hundred yards shut out the river from the wayfarer, but as he proceeds they disappear, and Cooper's Hill on the left, the rich flat of Runnymead, the Thames, and the groves of time-honored Anckerwycke, on its opposite bank, form together a rich and most interesting picture. It is now nearly a hundred years since it was first proposed to erect a triumphal column upon Runnymead; but we have sometimes a strange antipathy to do what would seem avoidable; the monument to the memory of Hampden is a sore proof of the niggardliness of liberals to the liberal; but all monuments to such a man or to such a cause must appear poor; the names "Hampden" and "Runnymead" suffice; the green and verdant mead, encircled by the coronet of Cooper's Hill, reposing beneath the sun, and shadowed by the passing cloud, is an object of reverence and beauty, immortalized by the glorious liberty which the bold barons of England forced from a spiritless tyrant. Tho Cooper's Hill has no claim to the sublimity of mountain scenery, its peculiar situation commands a broad expanse of country. It rises abruptly from the Runnymead meadows, and extends its long ridge in a northwesterly direction; the summit is approached by a winding road, which from different points of the ascent progressively unfolds a gorgeous number of fertile views, such as no other country in the world can give. "Of hills and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires, And glittering towns, and silver streams." We have heard that the views from Kingswood Lodge--the dwelling of the hill--are delicious, and that its conservatory contains an exquisite marble statue of "Hope." On the west of Cooper's Hill is the interesting estate of Anckerwycke Purnish. Anckerwycke has been for a series of years in the possession of the family of Harcourt. There is a "meet" of the three shires in this vicinity--Surrey, Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire. The views from the grounds of Anekerwycke are said to be of exceeding beauty, and the kindness of its master makes eloquent the poor about his domain. All these things, and the sound of the rippling waters of the Thames, and the songs of the myriad birds which congregate in its groves, and the legends sprung of its antiquity, all contribute to the adornment of the gigantic fact that here, King John, sorely against his will, signed Magna Charta! How that single fact fills the soul, and nerves the spirit; how proudly the British birthright throbs within our bosoms. We long to lead the new Napoleon, the absolute Nicholas, the frank, hospitable, and brave, but sometimes overconfident American, to this green sward of Runnymead and tell them that here was secured to the Englishman a liberty which other nations have never enjoyed! Here in the thickset beauty of yon little island, was our Charter granted. There has been much dispute as to whether the Charter was signed upon the Mead or on the island called "Magna Charta Island," which forms a charming feature in the landscape, and upon which is built a little sort of altar-house, so to call it. We leave the settlement of such matters to wiser and more learned heads; but we incline to the idea that John would have felt even the mimic ferry a protection. The island looks even now exclusive, and as we were impelled to its shore, we indulged the belief that the charter was really there signed by the king. There was a poetic feeling in whoever planted the bank of "Forget-me-not" just at the entrance to the low apartment which was fitted up to contain the charter stone, by the late Simon Harcourt, Esq., in the year 1835. The inscription on the stone is as follows:--"Be it remembered, that on this island, in June, 1215, John, King of England, Signed the Magna Charta, and in the year 1834, this building was erected in commemoration of that great and important event by George Simon Harcourt, Esq., Lord of the Manor and then High Sheriff of the county." A gentleman rents the island from Mr. Harcourt, and has built there a Gothic cottage in excellent keeping with the place. It adjoins the altar-room, but does not interfere with it, nor with the privileges so graciously bestowed on the public by Mr. Harcourt--permitting patriots or fishermen to visit the island, and picnic in a tent prepared for the purpose, under the shelter of some superb walnut trees. THE HOME OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS [Footnote: From "Old England: Its Scenery, Art and People." Published Toy Houghton, Mifflin Co.] BY JAMES M. HOPPIN. Twelve miles to the south of Doncaster, on the great Northern line of railway, and just at the junction of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and Lincolnshire, in the county of Nottingham, but bordering upon the fenny districts of Lincolnshire, whose monotonous scenery reminds one of Holland, lies the village of Scrooby. Surely it is of more interest to us than all the Pictish forts and Roman walls that the "Laird of Monkbarns" ever dreamed of. I was dropt out of the railway-carriage, which hardly stopt upon a wide plain at a miniature station-house, with some suspicions of a church and small village across the flat rushy fields in the distance. This was indeed the humble village (tho now beginning to be better known) which I had been searching for; and which nobody of whom I inquired in Doncaster, or on the line of the railway, seemed to know anything about, or even that such a place existed. I made its discovery by the help of a good map. The station-master said he came to Scrooby in 1851, and then it numbered three hundred inhabitants; and since that time there had been but twelve deaths. My search for the manor-house where Brewster and Bradford established the first church of the Pilgrims, was, for a time, entirely fruitless. I inquired of a genuine "Hodge" working in the fields; but his round red face showed no glimmer of light on the matter so far removed from beans and barley. I next encountered a good Wesleyan minister, trudging his morning circuit of pastoral visitation, but could gain nothing from him, tho a chatty, communicative man. At the venerable stone church of Scrooby, very rude and plain in architecture, but by no means devoid of picturesqueness, I was equally unsuccessful. The verger of the church, who is generally the learned man of the village, was absent; and his daughter knew nothing outside the church and churchyard. I strolled along the grassy country road that ran through the place till I met a white-haired old countryman, who proved to be the most intelligent soul in the neighborhood. He put his cane to his chin, shut and opened his eyes, and at last told me in broad Yorkshire, that he thought the place I was looking for must be what they called "the bishop's house," where Squire Dickinson lived. Set at last upon the right track, I walked across two swampy meadows that bordered the Idle River--pertinently named--till I came to a solitary farmhouse with a red-tiled roof. Some five or six slender poplar-trees stood at the back of it, and a ditch of water at one end, where there had been evidently an ancient moat--"a moated grange." It was a desolate spot, and was rendered more so just then by the coming up of a thunder-storm, whose "avant courier," the wind, made the slender poplars and osiers bend and twist. Squire John Dickinson, the present inhabitant of the house, which is owned by Richard Monckton Milnes, the poet, gave me a hearty farmer's welcome. I think he said there had been one other American there before; at any rate he had an inkling that he was squatted on soil of some peculiar interest to Americans. He introduced me to his wife and daughters, healthy and rosy-cheeked English women, and made me sit down to a hospitable luncheon. He entertained me with a discourse upon the great amount of hard work to be done in farming among these bogs, and wished he had never undertaken it, but had gone to America or Australia. The house, he said, was rickety enough, but he contrived to make it do. It was, he thought, principally made of what was once a part of the stable of the Manor House. The palace itself has now entirely disappeared; "but," said my host, "dig anywhere around here and you will find the ruins of the old palace." Dickinson said that he himself was reared in Austerfield, a few miles off in Yorkshire; and that a branch of the Bradford family still lived there. After luncheon I was shown Cardinal Wolsey's mulberry-tree, or what remained of it; and in one of the barns, some elaborately carved woodwork and ornamental beams, covered with dirt and cobwebs, were pointed out, which undoubtedly belonged to the archiepiscopal palace. This was all that remained of the house where Elder Brewster once lived, and gathered his humble friends about him, in a simple form of worship.... This manor was assigned to the Archbishop of York in the "Doomsday Book." Cardinal Wolsey, when he held that office, passed some time at this palace. While he lived there, Henry VIII. slept a night in the house. It came into Archbishop Sandys's hands in 1576. He gave it by lease to his son, Samuel Sandys, under whom Brewster held the manor. Brewster, as is now well known, was the Post-Superintendent of Scrooby, an important position in those days, lying as the village did, and does now, upon the great northern line of travel from London to Yorkshire, Northumberland, and Scotland.... But to look at this lonely and decayed manor-house, standing in the midst of these flat and desolate marshes, and at this most obscure village of the land, this Nazareth of England, slumbering in rustic ignorance and stupid apathy, and to think of what has come out of this place, of what vast influences and activities have issued from this quiet and almost listless scene, one has strange feelings. The storied "Alba Longa," from which Rome sprang, is an interesting spot, but the newly discovered spiritual birthplace of America may excite deeper emotions. OXFORD [Footnote: From "Oxford and Her Colleges." By arrangement with the publishers, Macmillan Co. Copyright, 1893.] BY GOLDWIN SMITH There is in Oxford much that is not as old as it looks. The buildings of the Bodleian Library, University College, Oriel, Exeter, and some others, medieval or half medieval in their style, are Stuart in date. In Oxford the Middle Ages lingered long. Yon cupola of Christ Church is the work of Wren, yon towers of All Souls' are the work of a still later hand. The Headington stone, quickly growing black and crumbling, gives the buildings a false hue of antiquity. An American visitor, misled by the blackness of University College, remarked to his host that the buildings must be immensely old. "No," replied his host, "their color deceives you; their age is not more than two hundred years." It need not be said that Palladian edifices like Queen's, or the new buildings of Magdalen, are not the work of a Chaplain of Edward III., or a Chancellor of Henry VI. But of the University buildings, St. Mary's Church and the Divinity School, of the College buildings, the old quadrangles of Merton, New College, Magdalen, Brasenose, and detached pieces not a few are genuine Gothic of the Founders' age. Here are six centuries, if you choose to include the Norman castle, here are eight centuries, and, if you choose to include certain Saxon remnants in Christ Church Cathedral, here are ten centuries, chronicled in stone. Of the corporate lives of these Colleges, the threads have run unbroken through all the changes and revolutions, political, religious, and social, between the Barons' War and the present hour. The economist goes to their muniment rooms for the record of domestic management and expenditure during those ages. Till yesterday, the codes of statutes embodying their domestic law, tho largely obsolete, remained unchanged. Nowhere else in England, at all events, unless it be at the sister University, can the eye and mind feed upon so much antiquity, certainly not upon so much antique beauty, as on the spot where we stand. That all does not belong to the same remote antiquity, adds to the interest and to the charm. This great home of learning, with its many architectures, has been handed from generation to generation, each generation making its own improvements, impressing its own tastes, embodying its own tendencies, down to the present hour. It is like a great family mansion, which owner after owner has enlarged or improved to meet his own needs or tastes, and which, thus chronicling successive phases of social and domestic life, is wanting in uniformity but not in living interest or beauty. Oxford is a federation of Colleges. It had been strictly so for two centuries, and every student had been required to be a member of a college when, in 1856, non-collegiate students, of whom there are now a good many, were admitted. The University is the federal government. The Chancellor, its nominal head, is a non-resident grandee, usually a political leader whom the University delights to honor and whose protection it desires. Only on great state occasions does he appear in his gown richly embroidered with gold. The acting chief is the Vice-Chancellor, one of the heads of Colleges, who marches with the Bedel carrying the mace before him, and has been sometimes taken by strangers for the attendant of the Bedel. With him are the two Proctors, denoted by their velvet sleeves, named by the Colleges in turn, the guardians of University discipline. The University Legislature consists of three houses--an elective Council, made up equally of heads of Colleges, professors, and Masters of Arts; the Congregation of residents, mostly teachers of the University or Colleges; and the Convocation, which consists of all Masters of Arts, resident or non-resident, if they are present to vote. Congregation numbers 400, Convocation nearly 6,000. Legislation is initiated by the Council, and has to make its way through Convocation and Congregation, with some chance of being wrecked between the academical Congregation, which is progressive, and the rural Convocation, which is conservative. The University regulates the general studies, holds all the examinations, except that at entrance, which is held by the Colleges, confers all the degrees and honors, and furnishes the police of the academical city. Its professors form the general and superior staff of teachers. Each College, at the same time, is a little polity in itself. It has its own governing body, consisting of a Head (President, Master, Principal, Provost, or Warden) and a body of Fellows. It holds its own estates; noble estates, some of them are. It has its private staff of teachers or tutors, usually taken from the Fellows, tho the subjects of teaching are those recognized by the University examinations.... The buildings of the University lie mainly in the center of the city around us. There is the Convocation House, the hall of the University Legislature, where, in times of collision between theological parties, or between the party of the ancient system of education and that of the modern system, lively debates have been heard. In it, also, are conferred the ordinary degrees. They are still conferred in the religious form of words, handed down from the Middle Ages, the candidate kneeling down before the Vice-Chancellor in the posture of medieval homage. Oxford is the classic ground of old forms and ceremonies. Before each degree is conferred, the Proctors march up and down the House to give any objector to the degree--an unsatisfied creditor, for example--the opportunity of entering a caveat by "plucking" the Proctor's sleeve. Adjoining the Convocation House is the Divinity School, the only building of the University, saving St. Mary's Church, which dates from the Middle Ages. A very beautiful relic of the Middle Ages it is when seen from the gardens of Exeter College. Here are held the examinations for degrees in theology, styled, in Oxford of old, queen of the sciences, and long their tyrant. Here, again, is the Sheldonian Theater, the gift of Archbishop Sheldon, a Primate of the Restoration period, and as readers of Pepys's "Diary" know, of Restoration character, but a patron of learning.... The Clarendon was built with the proceeds of the history written by the Minister of the early Restoration, who was Chancellor of the University, and whose touching letter of farewell to her, on his fall and flight from England, may be seen in the Bodleian Library. There, also, are preserved documents which may help to explain his fall. They are the written dialogs which passed between him and his master at the board of the Privy Council, and they show that Clarendon, having been the political tutor of Charles the exile, too much bore himself as the political tutor of Charles the king. In the Clarendon are the University Council Chamber and the Registry. Once it was the University press, but the press has now a far larger mansion yonder to the northwest, whence, besides works of learning and science, go forth Bibles and prayer-books in all languages to all quarters of the globe. Legally, as a printer of Bibles the University has a privilege, but its real privilege is that which it secures for itself by the most scrupulous accuracy and by infinitesimal profits. Close by is the University Library, the Bodleian, one of those great libraries of the world in which you can ring up at a few minutes' notice almost any author of any age or country. This Library is one of those entitled by law to a copy of every book printed in the United Kingdom, and it is bound to preserve all that it receives, a duty which might in the end burst any building, were it not that the paper of many modern books is happily perishable.... We stand in the Radcliffe, formerly the medical and physical library, now a supplement and an additional reading-room of the Bodleian, the gift of Dr. Radcliffe, Court Physician and despot of the profession in the times of William and Anne, of whose rough sayings, and sayings more than rough, some are preserved in his "Life." He it was who told William III. that he would not have His Majesty's two legs for his three kingdoms, and who is said to have punished the giver of a niggardly fee by a prediction of death, which was fulfilled by the terrors of the patient. Close at hand is the Ashmolean, the old University Museum, now only a museum of antiquities, the most precious of which is King Alfred's gem. Museum and Medical Library have together migrated to the new edifice on the north side of the city. But of all the University buildings the most beautiful is St. Mary's Church, where the University sermons are preached, and from the pulpit of which, in the course of successive generations and successive controversies, a changeful and often heady current of theology has flowered. There preached Newman, Pusey, and Manning; there preached Hampden, Stanley, and the authors of "Essays and Reviews." ... On the north of the city, where fifty years ago stretched green fields, is now seen a suburb of villas, all of them bespeaking comfort and elegance, few of them overweening wealth. These are largely the monuments of another great change, the removal of the rule of celibacy from the Fellowships, and the introduction of a large body of married teachers devoted to their profession, as well as of the revival of the Professorships, which were always tenable by married men. Fifty years ago the wives of Heads of Houses, who generally married late in life if they married at all, constituted, with one or two officers of the University, the whole female society of Oxford. The change was inevitable, if education was to be made a profession, instead of being, as it had been in the hands of celibate Fellows of Colleges, merely the transitory occupation of a man whose final destination was the parish. Those who remember the old Common Room life, which is now departing, can not help looking back with a wistful eye to its bachelor ease, its pleasant companionship, its interesting talk and free interchange of thought, its potations neither "deep" nor "dull." Nor were its symposia without important fruits when such men as Newman and Ward, on one side, encountered such men as Whateley, Arnold, and Tait, on the other side in Common Room talk over great questions of the day. But the life became dreary when a man had passed forty, and it is well exchanged for the community that fills those villas, and which, with its culture, its moderate and tolerably equal incomes, permitting hospitality but forbidding luxury, and its unity of interests with its diversity of acquirements and accomplishments, seems to present the ideal conditions of a pleasant social life. The only question is, how the College system will be maintained when the Fellows are no longer resident within the walls of the College to temper and control the younger members, for a barrack of undergraduates is not a good thing. The personal bond and intercourse between Tutor and pupil under the College system was valuable as well as pleasant; it can not be resigned without regret. But its loss will be compensated by far superior teaching. CAMBRIDGE [Footnote: From "Old England: Its Scenery, Art and People." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.] BY JAMES M. HOPPIN. I was struck with the positive resemblances between Oxford and Cambridge. Both are situated on slightly rising ground, with broad green meadows and a flat, fenny country stretching around them. The winding and muddy Cam, holding the city in its arm, might be easily taken for the fond but still more capricious Isis, tho both of them are insignificant streams; and Jesus' College Green and Midsummer Common at Cambridge, correspond to Christ Church Meadows and those bordering the Cherwell at Oxford. At a little distance, the profile of Cambridge is almost precisely like that of Oxford, while glorious King's College Chapel makes up all deficiencies in the architectural features and outline of Cambridge. Starting from Bull Inn, we will not linger long in the streets, tho we might be tempted to do so by the luxurious book-shops, but will make straight for the gateway of Trinity College. This gateway is itself a venerable and imposing structure, altho a mass of houses clustered about it destroys its unity with the rest of the college buildings. Between its two heavy battlemented towers are a statue of Edward III. and his coat-of-arms; and over the gate Sir Isaac Newton had his observatory. This gateway introduces into a noble court, called the Great Court, with a carved stone fountain or canopied well in the center, and buildings of irregular sizes and different ages inclosing it. The chapel which forms the northern side of this court dates back to 1564. In the ante-chapel, or vestibule, stands the statue of Sir Isaac Newton, by Roubiliac. It is spirited, but, like all the works of this artist, unnaturally attenuated. The head is compact rather than large, and the forehead square rather than high. The face has an expression of abstract contemplation, and is looking up, as if the mind were just fastening upon the beautiful law of light which is suggested by the hand holding a prism. By the door of the screen entering into the chapel proper, are the sitting statues of Sir Francis Bacon and Dr. Isaac Barrow, two more giants of this college. The former represents the philosopher in a sitting posture, wearing his high-crowned hat, and leaning thoughtfully upon his hand. The hall of Trinity College, which separates the Great Court from the Inner or Neville Court, (courts in Cambridge, quads in Oxford), is the glory of the college. Its interior is upward of one hundred feet in length, oak-wainscoted, with deep beam-work ceiling, now black with age, and an enormous fireplace, which in winter still blazes with its old hospitable glow. At the upper end where the professors and fellows sit, hang the portraits of Bacon and Newton. I had the honor of dining in this most glorious of banqueting-halls, at the invitation of a fellow of the college. Before meals, the ancient Latin, grace, somewhat abbreviated, is pronounced. We pass through the hall into Neville Court, three sides of which are cloistered, and in the eastern end of which stands the fine library building, built through the exertions of Dr. Barrow, who was determined that nothing in Oxford should surpass his own darling college. The library room is nearly two hundred feet long, with tesselated marble floor, and with the busts of the great men of Trinity ranged around the walls. The wood-carvings of Grinling Gibbons that adorn this room, of flowers, fruit, wheat, grasshoppers, birds, are of singular beauty, and make the hard oak fairly blossom and live. This library contains the most complete collection of the various editions of Shakespeare's Works which exists. Thorwaldsen's statue of Byron, who was a student of this college, stands at the south end of the room. It represents him in the bloom of youth, attired as a pilgrim, with pencil in hand and a broken Grecian column at his feet.... The next neighbor to Trinity on the north, and the next in point of size and importance in the University, is St. John's College. It has four courts, one opening into the other. It also is jealously surrounded by high walls, and its entrance is by a ponderous old tower, having a statue of St. John the Evangelist over the gateway. Through a covered bridge, not unlike "the Bridge of Sighs," one passes over the stream to a group of modern majestic castellated buildings of yellow stone belonging to this college. The grounds, walks, and thick groves connected with this building form an elegant academic shade, and tempt to a life of exclusive study and scholarly accumulation, of growing fat in learning, without perhaps growing muscular in the effort to use it.... King's College, founded by Henry VII., from whom it takes its name, comes next in order. Its wealthy founder, who, like his son, loved architectural pomp, had great designs in regard to this institution, which were cut off by his death, but the massive unfinished gateway of the old building stands as a regal specimen of what the whole plan would have been had it been carried out. Henry VIII., however, perfected some of his father's designs on a scale of true magnificence. King's College Chapel, the glory of Cambridge and England, is in the perpendicular style of English Gothic. It is three hundred and sixteen feet long, eighty-four feet broad, its sides ninety feet, and its tower one hundred and forty-six feet high. Its lofty interior stone roof in the fan-tracery form of groined ceiling has the appearance of being composed of immense white scallop-shells, with heavy corbels of rich flowers and bunches of grapes suspended at their points of junction. The ornamental emblem of the Tudor rose and portcullis is carved in every conceivable spot and nook. Twenty-four stately and richly painted windows, divided into the strong vertical lines of the Perpendicular style, and crossed at right angles by lighter transoms and more delicate circular moldings, with the great east and west windows flashing in the most vivid and superb colors, make it a gorgeous vision of light and glory.... On the same street, and nearly opposite St. Peter's, is Pembroke College, a most interesting and venerable pile, with a quaint gable front. Its buildings are small, and it is said, for some greatly needed city improvement, will probably be soon torn down; on hearing which, I thought, would that some genius like Aladdin's, or some angel who bore through the air the chapel of the "Lady of Loretto," might bear these old buildings bodily to our land and set them down on the Yale grounds, so that we might exchange their picturesque antiquity for the present college buildings, which, tho endeared to us by many associations, are like a row of respectable brick factories. Edmund Spenser and William Pitt belonged to Pembroke; and Gray, the poet, driven from St. Peter's by the pranks and persecutions of his fellow students, spent the remainder of his university life here. Some of the cruel, practical jokes inflicted upon the timid and delicate nature sound like the modern days of "hazing freshmen." Among his other fancies and fears, Gray was known to be especially afraid of fire, and kept always coiled up in his room a rope-ladder, in case of emergency. By a preconcerted signal, on a dark winter night, a tremendous cry of fire was raised in the court below, which caused the young poet to leap out of bed and to hastily descend his rope-ladder into a mighty tub of ice-cold water, set for that purpose.... Sidney Sussex and Imanuel Colleges were called by Archbishop Laud "the nurseries of Puritanism." The college-book of Sidney Sussex contains this record: "Oliver Cromwell of Huntingdon was admitted as an associate on the 26th day of April, 1616. Tutor Richard Howlet." He had just completed his seventeenth year. Cromwell's father dying the next year, and leaving but a small estate, the young "Protector" was obliged to leave college for more practical pursuits. "But some Latin," Bishop Burnett said, "stuck to him." An oriel window looking upon Bridge Street, is pointed out as marking his room; and in the master's lodge is a likeness of Cromwell in his later years, said to be the best extant. The gray hair is parted in the middle of the forehead, and hangs down long upon the shoulders, like that of Milton. The forehead is high and swelling, with a deep line sunk between the eyes. The eyes are gray. The complexion is florid and mottled, and all the features rugged and large. Heavy, corrugated furrows of decision and resolute will are plowed about the mouth, and the lips are shut like a vice. Otherwise, the face has a calm and benevolent look, not unlike that of Benjamin Franklin. In Sidney Sussex, Cromwell's College, and in two or three other colleges of Cambridge University, we find the head-sources of English Puritanism, which, in its best form, was no wild and unenlightened enthusiasm, but the product of thoughtful and educated minds. We shall come soon upon the name of Milton. John Robinson, our national father, and the Moses of our national exodus, as well as Elder Brewster, John Cotton and many others of the principal Puritan leaders and divines, were educated at Cambridge. Sir Henry Vane, the younger, whom Macintosh regarded as not inferior to Bacon in depth of intellect, and to whom Milton addrest the sonnet, who was chosen Governor of Massachusetts, and who infused much of his own thoughtful and profound spirit into Puritan institutions at home and in America, was a student of Magdalen College, Oxford. A little further on to the south of Sidney Sussex, upon St. Andrew's Street, is Christ's College. The front and gate are old; the other buildings are after a design by Inigo Jones. In the garden stands the famous mulberry-tree said to have been planted by Milton. It is still vigorous, tho carefully propt up and mounded around, and its aged trunk is sheathed with lead. The martyr Latimer, John Howe, the prince of theological writers, and Archdeacon Paley, belonged to this college; but its most brilliant name is that of John Milton. He entered in 1624; took the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1628, and that of Master of Arts in 1632. This is the entry in the college record: "John Milton of London, son of John Milton, was entered as a student in the elements of letters under Master Hill of the Pauline School, February 12, 1624...." Milton has indignantly defended himself against the slander of his political enemies, that he left college in disgrace, and calls it "a commodious lie." ... It is noticeable that Cambridge has produced all the great poets; Oxford, with her yearnings and strivings, none. Milton were glory enough; but Spenser, Gray, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Tennyson (a Lincolnshire man), may be thrown in. It might be said of Cambridge, as Dr. Johnson said of Pembroke College, "We are a nest of singing birds here." Milton, from the extreme elegance of his person and his mind, rather than from any effeminateness of character, was called while in the University, "the lady of Christ's College." The young poet could not have been inspired by outward Nature in his own room; for the miniature dormer-windows are too high to look out of at all. It is a small attic chamber, with very steep narrow stairs leading up to it. The name of "Milton" (so it is said to be, tho hard to make out) is cut in the old oaken door. CHESTER [Footnote: From "English Note-Books." By special arrangement with, and by permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1870-1898.] BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. I went with Mr. Ticknor to Chester by railway. It is quite an indescribable old town, and I feel as if I had had a glimpse of old England. The wall encloses a large space within the town, but there are numerous houses and streets not included within its precincts. Some of the principal streets pass under the ancient gateways; and at the side there are flights of steps, giving access to the summit. Around the top of the whole wall, a circuit of about two miles, there runs a walk, well paved with flagstones, and broad enough for three persons to walk abreast.... The most utterly indescribable feature of Chester is the Rows, which every traveler has attempted to describe. At the height of several feet above some of the oldest streets, a walk runs through the front of the houses, which project over it. Back of the walk there are shops; on the outer side is a space of two or three yards, where the shopmen place their tables, and stands, and show-cases; overhead, just high enough for persons to stand erect, a ceiling. At frequent intervals little narrow passages go winding in among the houses, which all along are closely conjoined, and seem to have no access or exit, except through the shops, or into these narrow passages, where you can touch each side with your elbows, and the top with your hand. We penetrated into one or two of them, and they smelt anciently and disagreeably. At one of the doors stood a pale-looking, but cheerful and good-natured woman, who told us that she had come to that house when first married, 21 years before, and had lived there ever since; and that she felt as if she had been buried through the best years of her life. She allowed us to peep into her kitchen and parlor--small, dingy, dismal, but yet not wholly destitute of a home look. She said she had seen two or three coffins in a day, during cholera times, carried out of that narrow passage into which her door opened. These avenues put me in mind of those which run through ant-hills, or those which a mole makes underground. This fashion of Rows does not appear to be going out; and, for aught I can see, it may last hundreds of years longer. When a house becomes so old as to be untenantable, it is rebuilt, and the new one is fashioned like the old, so far as regards the walk running through its front. Many of the shops are very good, and even elegant, and these Rows are the favorite places of business in Chester. Indeed, they have many advantages, the passengers being sheltered from the rain, and there being within the shops that dimmer light by which tradesmen like to exhibit their wares. A large proportion of the edifices in the Rows must be comparatively modern; but there are some very ancient ones, with oaken frames visible on the exterior. The Row, passing through these houses, is railed with oak, so old that it has turned black, and grown to be as hard as stone, which it might be mistaken for, if one did not see where names and initials have been cut into it with knives at some bygone period. Overhead, cross-beams project through the ceiling so low as almost to hit the head. On the front of one of these buildings was the inscription, "God's Providence is mine Inheritance," said to have been put there by the occupant of the house two hundred years ago, when the plague spared this one house only in the whole city. Not improbably the inscription has operated as a safeguard to prevent the demolition of the house hitherto; but a shopman of an adjacent dwelling told us that it was soon to be taken down. Here and there, about some of the streets through which the Rows do not run, we saw houses of very aged aspect, with steep, peaked gables. The front gable-end was supported on stone pillars, and the sidewalk passed beneath. Most of these old houses seemed to be taverns,--the Black Bear, the Green Dragon, and such names. We thought of dining at one of them, but, on inspection, they looked rather too dingy and close, and of questionable neatness. So we went to the Royal Hotel, where we probably fared just as badly at much more expense, and where there was a particularly gruff and crabbed old waiter, who, I suppose, thought himself free to display his surliness because we arrived at the hotel on foot. For my part, I love to see John Bull show himself. I must go again and again and again to Chester, for I suppose there is not a more curious place in the world. EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE [Footnote: From "Lightships and Lighthouses." Courtesy of J. B. Lippincott Co., the publishers.] BY FREDERICK A. TALBOT. It is doubtful whether the name of any lighthouse is so familiar throughout the English-speaking world as the "Eddystone." Certainly no other "pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day," can offer so romantic a story of dogged engineering perseverance, of heartrending disappointments, disaster, blasted hopes, and brilliant success. Standing out in the English Channel, about sixty miles east of the Lizard, is a straggling ridge of rocks which stretches for hundreds of yards across the marine thoroughfare, and also obstructs the western approach to Plymouth Harbor. But at a point some nine and a half miles south of Rame Head on the mainland the reef rises somewhat abruptly to the surface, so that at low-water two or three ugly granite knots are bared, which tell only too poignantly the complete destruction they could wreak upon a vessel which had the temerity or the ill luck to scrape over them at high-tide. Even in the calmest weather the sea curls and eddies viciously around these stones; hence the name "Eddystone," is derived.... As British overseas traffic expanded, the idea of indicating the spot for the benefit of vessels was discust. The first practical suggestion was put forward about the year 1664, but thirty-two years elapsed before any attempt was made to reduce theory to practise. Then an eccentric English country gentleman, Henry Winstanley, who dabbled in mechanical engineering upon unorthodox lines, came forward and offered to build a lighthouse upon the terrible rocks. Those who knew this ambitious amateur were dubious of his success, and wondered what manifestation his eccentricity would assume on this occasion. Nor was their scepticism entirely misplaced. Winstanley raised the most fantastic lighthouse which has ever been known, and which would have been more at home in a Chinese cemetery than in the English Channel. It was wrought in wood and most lavishly embellished with carvings and gilding. Four years were occupied in its construction, and the tower was anchored to the rock by means of long, heavy irons. The light, merely a flicker, flashed out from this tower in 1699, and for the first time the proximity of the Eddystones was indicated all around the horizon by night. Winstanley's critics were rather free in expressing their opinion that the tower would come down with the first sou'wester, but the eccentric builder was so intensely proud of his invention as to venture the statement that it would resist the fiercest gale that ever blew, and, when such did occur, he hoped that he might be in the tower at the time. Fate gratified his wish, for while he was on the rock in the year 1703 one of the most terrible tempests that ever have assailed the coasts of Britain gript the structure, tore it up by the roots, and hurled it into the Channel, where it was battered to pieces, its designer and five keepers going down with the wreck. When the inhabitants of Plymouth, having vainly scanned the horizon for a sign of the tower on the following morning, put off to the rock to investigate, they found only the bent and twisted iron rods by which the tower had been held in position projecting mournfully into the air from the rock-face. Shortly after the demolition of the tower, the reef, as if enraged at having been denied a number of victims owing to the existence of the warning light, trapt the "Winchelsea" as she was swinging up Channel, and smashed her to atoms, with enormous loss of life. Altho the first attempt to conquer the Eddystone had terminated so disastrously, it was not long before another effort was made to mark the reef. The builder this time was a Cornish laborer's son, John Rudyerd, who had established himself in business on Ludgate Hill as a silk mercer. In his youth he had studied civil engineering, but his friends had small opinion of his abilities in this craft. However, he attacked the problem boldly, and, altho his tower was a plain, business-looking structure, it would have been impossible to conceive a design capable of meeting the peculiar requirements of the situation more efficiently. It "was a cone, wrought in timber, built upon a stone and wood foundation anchored to the rock, and of great weight and strength. The top of the cone was cut off to permit the lantern to be set in position. The result was that externally the tower resembled the trunk of an oak tree, and appeared to be just about as strong. It offered the minimum of resistance to the waves, which, tumbling upon the ledge, rose and curled around the tapering form without starting a timber. For forty years Rudyerd's structure defied the elements, and probably would have been standing to this day had it not possest one weak point. It was built of wood instead of stone. Consequently, when a fire broke out in the lantern on December 4, 1755, the flames, fanned by the breeze, rapidly made their way downward. No time was lost in erecting another tower on the rock, for now it was more imperative than ever that the reef should be lighted adequately. The third engineer was John Smeaton, who first landed on the rock to make the surveys on April 5, 1756. He was able to stay there for only two and a quarter hours before the rising tide drove him off, but in that brief period he had completed the work necessary to the preparation of his design. Wood had succumbed to the attacks of tempest and of fire in turn. Smeaton would use material which would defy both--Portland stone. He also introduced a slight change in the design for such structures, and one which has been universally copied, producing the graceful form of lighthouse with which everyone is so familiar. Instead of causing the sides to slope upward in the straight lines of a cone, such as Rudyerd adopted, Smeaton preferred a slightly concave curve, so that the tower was given a waist about half its height. He also selected the oak tree as his guide, but one having an extensive spread of branches, wherein will be found a shape in the trunk, so far as the broad lines are concerned, which coincides with the form of Smeaton's lighthouse. He chose a foundation where the rock shelved gradually to its highest point, and dropt vertically into the water upon the opposite side. The face of the rock was roughly trimmed to permit the foundation stones of the tower to be laid. The base of the building was perfectly solid to the entrance level, and each stone was dovetailed securely into its neighbor. From the entrance, which was about 15 feet above high water, a central well, some five feet in diameter, containing a staircase, led to the storeroom, nearly 30 feet above high water. Above this was a second storeroom, a living-room as the third floor, and the bedroom beneath the lantern. The light was placed about 72 feet above high water, and comprised a candelabra having two rings, one smaller than and placed within the other, but raised about a foot above its level, the two being held firmly in position by means of chains suspended from the roof and secured to the floor. The rings were adapted to receive twenty-four lights, each candle weighing about two and three-quarter ounces. Even candle manufacture was in its infancy in those days, and periodically the keepers had to enter the lantern to snuff the wicks. In order to keep the watchers of the lights on the alert, Smeaton installed a clock of the grandfather pattern in the tower, and fitted it with a gong, which struck every half hour to apprise the men of these duties. This clock is now one of the most interesting relics in the museum at Trinity House.... [Footnote: Trinity House, an association founded in London in 1512-1514, is "empowered by charter to examine, license and regulate pilots, to erect beacons and lighthouses, and to place buoys in channels and rivers."] The lighthouse had been standing for 120 years when ominous reports were received by the Trinity Brethren concerning the stability of the tower. The keepers stated that during severe storms the building shook alarmingly. A minute inspection of the structure was made, and it was found that, altho the work of Smeaton's masons was above reproach, time and weather had left their mark. The tower itself was becoming decrepit. The binding cement had decayed, and the air imprisoned and comprest within the interstices by the waves was disintegrating the structure slowly but surely. Under these circumstances it was decided to build a new tower on another convenient ledge, forming part of the main reef, about 120 feet distant. Sir James Douglass, the engineer-in-chief to Trinity House, completed the designs and personally superintended their execution. The Smeaton lines were taken as a basis, with one important exception. Instead of a curve commencing at the foundation, the latter comprized a perfect cylindrical monolith of masonry 22 feet in height by 44 feet in diameter. From this basis the tower springs to a height which brings the local plane 130 feet above the highest spring tides. The top of the base is 30 inches above high water, and, the tower's diameter being less than that of its plinth, the set-off forms an excellent landing-stage when the weather permits. The site selected for the Douglass tower being lower than that chosen by Smeaton, the initial work was more exacting, as the duration of the working period was reduced. The rock, being gneiss, was extremely tough, and the preliminary quarrying operations for the foundation stones which had to be sunk into the rock were tedious and difficult, especially as the working area was limited. Each stone was dovetailed, not only to its neighbor on either side, but below and above as well. The foundation stones were dovetailed into the reef and were secured still further by the aid of tow bolts, each one and a half inches in diameter, which were passed through the stone and sunk deeply into the rock below.... The tower has eight floors, exclusive of the entrance; there are two oil rooms, one above the other, holding 4,300 gallons of oil, above which is a coal and store room, followed by a second storeroom. Outside the tower at this level is a crane, by which supplies are hoisted, and which also facilitates the landing and embarkation of the keepers, who are swung through the air in a stirrup attached to the crane rope. Then, in turn, come the living-room, the "low light" room, bedroom, service room, and finally the lantern. For the erection of the tower, 2,171 blocks of granite, which were previously fitted temporarily in their respective positions on shore and none of which weighed less than two tons, were used. When the work was commenced, the engineer estimated that the task would occupy five years, but on May 18, 1882, the lamp was lighted by the Duke of Edinburgh, the Master of Trinity House at the time, the enterprise having occupied only four years. Some idea may thus be obtained of the energy with which the labor was prest forward, once the most trying sections were overcome.... When the new tower was completed and brought into service, the Smeaton building was demolished. This task was carried out with extreme care, inasmuch as the citizens of Plymouth had requested that the historic Eddystone structure might be erected on Plymouth Hoe, on the spot occupied by the existing Trinity House landmark. The authorities agreed to this proposal, and the ownership of the Smeaton tower was forthwith transferred to the people of Plymouth. But demolition was carried out only to the level of Smeaton's lower storeroom. The staircase, well, and entrance were filled up with masonry, the top was beveled off, and in the center of the stump an iron pole was planted. While the Plymouth Hoe relic is but one-half of the tower, its reerection was completed faithfully, and, moreover, carries the original candelabra which the famous engineer devised. Not only is the Douglass tower a beautiful example of lighthouse engineering, but it was relatively cheap. The engineer, when he prepared the designs, estimated that an outlay of £78,000, or $390,000, would be incurred. As a matter of fact, the building cost only £59,255, or $296,275, and a saving of £18,000, or $90,000, in a work of this magnitude is no mean achievement. All things considered, the Eddystone is one of the cheapest sea-rock lights which has ever been consummated. THE CAPITAL OF THE BRITISH, SAXON AND NORMAN KINGS [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."] BY WILLIAM HOWITT What an interesting old city is Winchester! and how few people are aware of it! The ancient capital of the kingdom--the capital of the British, and the Saxon, and the Norman kings--the favorite resort of our kings and queens, even till the revolution of 1688; the capital which, for ages, maintained a proud, and long a triumphant, rivalry with London itself; the capital which once boasted upward of ninety churches and chapels, whose meanest houses now stand upon the foundations of noble palaces and magnificent monasteries; and in whose ruins or in whose yet superb minster lie enshrined the bones of mighty kings, and fair and pious queens; of lordly abbots and prelates, who in their day swayed not merely the destinies of this one city, but of the kingdom. There she sits--a sad, discrowned queen, and how few are acquainted with her in the solitude of her desertion! Yet where is the place, saving London itself, which can compete with her in solemn and deep interest? Where is the city, except that, in Great Britain, which can show so many objects of antique beauty, or call up so many national recollections? Here lie the bones of Alfred--here he was probably born, for this was at that time the court and the residence of his parents. Here, at all events, he spent his infancy and the greater portion of his youth. Here he imbibed the wisdom and the magnanimity of mind with which he afterward laid the foundations of our monarchy, our laws, liberties and literature, and in a word, of our national greatness. Hence Alfred went forth to fight those battles which freed his country from the savage Dane; and, having done more for his realm and race than ever monarch did before or since, here he lay down, in the strength of his years, and consigned his tomb as a place of grateful veneration to a people whose future greatness even his sagacious spirit could not be prophetic enough to foresee. Were it only for the memory and tomb of this great king, Winchester ought to be visited by every Englishman with the most profound veneration and affection; but here also lie the ashes of nearly all Alfred's family and kin: his father Ethelwolf, who saw the virtues and talents, and prognosticated the greatness of his son; his noble-minded mother, who breathed into his infant heart the most sublime sentiments; his royal brothers, and his sons and daughters. Here also repose Canute, who gave that immortal reproof on the Southampton shore to his sycophantic courtiers, and his celebrated queen Emma, so famous at once for her beauty and her trials. Here is still seen the tomb of Rufus, who was brought hither in a charcoal-burner's cart from the New Forest, where the chance arrow of Tyrrel, avenged, in his last hunt, the cruelties of himself and his father on that ground.... Historians claim a high antiquity for Winchester as the Caer Gwent of the Celtic and Belgic Britons, the Venta Belgarum of the Romans, and the Wintanceaster of the Saxons. The history of Winchester is nearly coeval with the Christian era. Julius Caesar does not seem to have been here, in his invasion of Britain, but some of his troops must have passed through it; a plate from one of his standards, bearing his name and profile, having been found deep buried in a sand bed in this neighborhood; and here, within the first half century of Christendom, figured the brave descendants of Cassivelaunus, those noble sons of Cunobelin or Cymbeline, Guiderius and Arviragus, whom Shakespeare has so beautifully presented to us in his "Cymbeline." ... Here it was that, while Caractacus himself reigned, the fate of the brave Queen Boadicea was sealed. Stung to the quick with the insults she had received from the Romans, this noble queen of the Iceni, the Bonduca of some writers, and the Boo Tika of her own coins, had sworn to root out the Roman power from this country. Had she succeeded, Caractacus himself had probably fallen, nor had there ever been a king Lucius here. She came, breathing utter extermination to every thing Roman or of Roman alliance, at the head of 230,000 barbarians, the most numerous army then ever collected by any British prince. Already had she visited and laid in ashes Camulodunum, London, and Verulam, killing every Roman and every Roman ally to the amount of 70,000 souls. But in this neighborhood she was met by the Roman general Paulinus, and her army routed, with the slaughter of 80,000 of her followers. In her despair at this catastrophe, she destroyed herself, and instead of entering the city in triumph was brought in, a breathless corpse, for burial. Henry III. was born here, and always bore the name of Henry of Winchester; Henry IV. here married Joan of Brittany; Henry VI. came often hither, his first visit being to study the discipline of Wykeham's College as a model for his new one at Eton, to supply students to King's College, Cambridge, as Wykeham's does to his foundation of New College, Oxford; and happy had it been for this unfortunate monarch had he been a simple monk in one of the monasteries of a city which he so loved, enjoying peace, learning and piety, having bitterly to learn: "That all the rest is held at such a rate As brings a thousand-fold more care to keep Than in possession any jot of pleasure." Henry VIII. made a visit with the Emperor Charles V., and stayed a week examining its various antiquities and religious institutions; but he afterward visited them in a more sweeping manner by the suppression of its monasteries, chantries, etc., so that, says Milner, "these being dissolved, and the edifices themselves soon after pulled down, or falling to decay, it must have worn the appearance of a city sacked by a hostile army." Through his reign and that of Edward VI., the destruction of the religious houses, and the stripping of the churches, went on to a degree which must have rendered Winchester an object of ghastly change and desolation. "Then," says Milner, "were the precious and curious monuments of piety and antiquity, the presents of Egbert and Ethelwolph, Canute, and Emma, unrelentingly rifled and east into the melting-pot for the mere value of the metal which composed them. Then were the golden tabernacles and images of the Apostles snatched from the cathedral and other altars," and not a few of the less valuable sort of these sacred implements were to be seen when he wrote (1798), and probably are now, in many private houses of this city and neighborhood. The later history of this fine old city is chiefly that of melancholy and havoc. A royal marriage should be a gay thing; but the marriage of Bloody Mary here to Philip of Spain awakes no great delight in an English heart. Here, through her reign and that of Elizabeth, the chief events were persecutions for religion. James I. made Winchester the scene of the disgraceful trials of Sir Walter Raleigh, Lords Cobham and Grey, and their assumed accomplices--trials in which that most vain and pedantic of tyrants attempted, on the ground of pretended conspiracies, to wreak his personal spite on some of the best spirits of England. VI SCOTLAND EDINBURGH [Footnote: From "Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh."] BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Venice, it has been said, differs from all other cities in the sentiment which she inspires. The rest may have admirers; she only, a famous fair one, counts lovers in her train. And, indeed, even by her kindest friends, Edinburgh is not considered in a similar sense. These like her for many reasons, not any one of which is satisfactory in itself. They like her whimsically, if you will, and somewhat as a virtuoso dotes upon his cabinet. Her attraction is romantic in the narrowest meaning of the term. Beautiful as she is, she is not so much beautiful as interesting. She is preeminently Gothic, and all the more so since she has set herself off with some Greek airs, and erected classic temples on her crags. In a word, and above all, she is a curiosity. The palace of Holyrood has been left aside--in the growth of Edinburgh, and stands gray and silent in a workman's quarter and among breweries and gas-works. It is a house of many memories. Great people of yore, kings and queens, buffoons and grave ambassadors, played their stately farce for centuries in Holyrood. Wars have been plotted, dancing has lasted deep into the night, murder has been done in its chambers. There Prince Charlie held his fantom levées, and in a very gallant manner represented a fallen dynasty for some hours. Now, all these things of clay are mingled with the dust, the king's crown itself is shown for sixpence to the vulgar; but the stone palace has outlived these changes. For fifty weeks together, it is no more than a show for tourists and a museum of old furniture; but on the fifty-first, behold the palace reawakened and mimicking its past. The Lord Commissioner, a kind of stage sovereign, sits among stage courtiers; a coach and six and clattering escort come and go before the gate; at night, the windows are lighted up, and its near neighbors, the workmen, may dance in their own houses to the palace music. And in this the palace is typical. There is a spark among the embers; from time to time the old volcano smokes. Edinburgh has but partly abdicated, and still wears, in parody, her metropolitan trappings. Half a capital and half a country town, the whole city leads a double existence; it has long trances of the one and flashes of the other; like the king of the Black Isles, it is half alive and half a monumental marble. There are armed men and cannon in the citadel overhead; you may see the troops marshaled on the high parade; and at night after the early winter even-fall, and in the morning before the laggard winter dawn, the wind carries abroad over Edinburgh the sound of drums and bugles. Grave judges sit bewigged in what was once the scene of imperial deliberations. Close by, in the High Street perhaps, the trumpets may sound about the stroke of noon; and you see a troop of citizens in tawdry masquerade; tabard above, heather-mixture trouser below, and the men themselves trudging in the mud among unsympathetic bystanders. The grooms of a well-appointed circus tread the streets with a better presence. And yet these are the Heralds and Pursuivants of Scotland, who are about to proclaim a new law of the United Kingdom before two score boys, and thieves, and hackney coachmen. Meanwhile, every hour the bell of the University rings out over the hum of the streets, and every hour a double tide of students, coming and going, fills the deep archways. And, lastly, one night in the springtime--or, say, one morning rather, at the peep of day--late folk may hear the voices of many men singing a psalm in unison from a church on one side of the Old High Street; and a little after, or perhaps a little before, the sound of many men singing a psalm in unison from another church on the opposite side of the way. There will be something in the words about the dew of Hermon, and how goodly it is to see brethren dwelling together in unity. And the late folk will tell themselves that all this singing denotes the conclusion of two yearly ecclesiastical parliaments--the parliaments of churches, which are brothers in many admirable virtues, but not specially like brothers in this particular of a tolerant and peaceful life. Again, meditative people will find a charm in a certain consonancy between the aspect of the city and its odd and stirring history. Few places, if any, offer a more barbaric display of contrasts to the eye. In the very midst stands one of the most satisfactory crags in nature--a Bass Rock upon dry land, rooted in a garden shaken by passing trains, carrying a crown of battlements and turrets, and describing its warlike shadow over the liveliest and brightest thoroughfare of the New Town. From their smoky beehives, ten stories high, the unwashed look down upon the open squares and gardens of the wealthy; and gay people sunning themselves along Prince's Street, with its mile of commercial palaces all beflagged upon some great occasion, see, across a gardened valley set with statues, where the washings of the Old Town flutter in the breeze at its high windows. And then, upon all sides, what a clashing of architecture! In this one valley, where the life of the town goes most busily forward, there may be seen, shown one above and behind another by the accidents of the ground, buildings in almost every style upon the globe. Egyptian and Greek temples, Venetian palaces and Gothic spires, are huddled one over another in a most admired disorder; while, above all, the brute mass of the Castle and the summit of Arthur's Seat look down upon these imitations with a becoming dignity, as the works of Nature may look down upon the monuments of Art. But Nature is a more indiscriminate patroness than we imagine, and in no way frightened of a strong effect. The birds roost as willingly among the Corinthian capitals as in the crannies of the crag; the same atmosphere and daylight clothe the eternal rock and yesterday's imitation portico; and as the soft northern sunshine throws out everything into a glorified distinctness--or easterly mists, coming up with the blue evening, fuse all these incongruous features into one, and the lamps begin to glitter along the street, and faint lights to burn in the high windows across the valley--the feeling grows upon you that this is a piece of nature in the most intimate sense; that this profusion of eccentricities, this dream in masonry and living rock, is not a drop-scene in a theater, but a city in the world of everyday reality, connected by railway and telegraph wire with all the capitals of Europe, and inhabited by citizens of the familiar type, who keep ledgers, and attend church, and have sold their immortal portion to a daily paper.... The east of new Edinburgh is guarded by a craggy hill, of no great elevation, which the town embraces. The old London road runs on one side of it; while the New Approach, leaving it on the other hand, completes the circuit.... Of all places for a view, this Calton Hill is perhaps the best; since you can see the Castle, which you lose from the Castle, and Arthur's Seat, which you can not see from Arthur's Seat. It is the place to stroll on one of those days of sunshine and east wind which are so common in our more than temperate summer. The breeze comes off the sea, with a little of the freshness, and that touch of chill, peculiar to the quarter, which is delightful to certain very ruddy organizations, and greatly the reverse to the majority of mankind. It brings with it a faint, floating haze, a cunning decolorizer, altho not thick enough to obscure outlines near at hand. But the haze lies more thickly to windward at the far end of Musselburgh Bay; and over the Links of Aberlady and Berwick Law and the hump of the Bass Bock it assumes the aspect of a bank of thin sea fog. Immediately underneath, upon the south, you command the yards of the High School, and the towers and courts of the new Jail--a large place, castellated to the extent of folly, standing by itself on the edge of a steep cliff, and often joyfully hailed by tourists as the Castle. In the one, you may perhaps see female prisoners taking exercise like a string of nuns; in the other, schoolboys running at play, and their shadows keeping step with them. From the bottom of the valley, a gigantic chimney rises almost to the level of the eye, a taller and a shapelier edifice than Nelson's Monument. Look a little farther, and there is Holyrood Palace, with its Gothic frontal and ruined abbey, and the red sentry pacing smartly to and fro before the door like a mechanical figure in a panorama. By way of an outpost, you can single out the little peak-roofed lodge, over which Rizzio's murderers made their escape, and where Queen Mary herself, according to gossip, bathed in white wine to retain her loveliness. Behind and overhead lie the Queen's Park, from Musehat's Cairn to Dumbiedykes, St. Margaret's Loch, and the long wall of Salisbury's Crags; and thence, by knoll and rocky bulwark and precipitous slope, the eye rises to the top of Arthur's Seat, a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bold design. This upon your left. Upon the right, the roofs and spires of the Old Town climb one above another to where the citadel prints its broad bulk and jagged crown of bastions on the western sky.... Perhaps it is now one in the afternoon; and at the same instant of time, a ball rises to the summit of Nelson's flagstaff close at hand, and, far away, a puff of smoke, followed by a report, bursts from the half-moon battery at the Castle. This is the time-gun by which people set their watches, as far as the sea coast or in hill farms upon the Pent-lands. To complete the view, the eye enfilades Prince's Street, black with traffic, and has a broad look over the valley between the Old Town and the New; here, full of railway trains and stept over by the high North Bridge upon its many columns, and there, green with trees and gardens. On the north, the Calton Hill is neither so abrupt in itself, nor has it so exceptional an outlook; and yet even here it commands a striking prospect. A gully separates it from the New Town. This is Greenside, where witches were burned and tournaments held in former days. Down that almost precipitous bank Bothwell launched his horse, and so first, as they say, attracted the bright eyes of Mary. It is now tesselated with sheets and blankets out to dry, and the sound of people beating carpets is rarely absent. Beyond all this, the suburbs run out to Leith; Leith camps on the seaside with her forests of masts; Leith roads are full of ships at anchor; the sun picks out the white pharos upon Inchkeith Island; the Firth extends on either hand from the Ferry to the May; the towns of Fifeshire sit, each in its bank of blowing smoke, along the opposite coast; and the hills enclose the view, except to the farthest east, where the haze of the horizon rests upon the open sea. There lies the road to Norway; a dear road for Sir Patrick Spens and his Scots Lords; and yonder smoke on the hither side of Largo Law is Aberdour, from whence they sailed to seek a queen for Scotland. These are the main features of the scene roughly sketched. How they are all tilted by the inclination of the ground, how each stands out in delicate relief against the rest, what manifold detail, and play of sun and shadow, animate and accentuate the picture, is a matter for a person on the spot, and, turning swiftly on his heels, to grasp and bind together in one comprehensive look. It is the character of such a prospect, to be full of change and of things moving. The multiplicity embarrasses the eye; and the mind, among so much, suffers itself to grow absorbed with single points. You remark a tree in a hedgerow, or follow a cart along a country road. You turn to the city, and see children, dwarfed by distance into pigmies, at play about suburban doorsteps; you have a glimpse upon a thoroughfare where people are densely moving; you note ridge after ridge of chimney-stacks running downhill one behind another, and church spires rising bravely from the sea of roofs. At one of the innumerable windows you watch a figure moving; on one of the multitude of roofs you watch clambering chimney-sweeps. The wind takes a run and scatters the smoke; bells are heard, far and near, faint and loud, to tell the hour; or perhaps a sea bird goes dipping evenly over the housetops, like a gull across the waves. And here you are in the meantime, on this pastoral hillside, among nibbling sheep and looked upon by monumental buildings. HOLYROOD [Footnote: From "Edinburgh Sketches and Memories."] BY DAVID MASSON Mary, Queen of Scots, on her return to Scotland after her thirteen years of residence and education in France, had to form her first real acquaintance with her native shores and the capital of her realm. She had left Calais for the homeward voyage on Thursday, the 14th of August, with a retinue of about one hundred and twenty persons, French and Scottish, embarked in two French state galleys, attended by several transports. They were a goodly company, with rich and splendid baggage. The Queen's two most important uncles, indeed--the great Francis de Lorraine, Duke of Guise, and his brother, Charles de Lorraine, the Cardinal--were not on board. They, with the Duchess of Guise, and other senior lords and ladies of the French court, had bidden Mary farewell at Calais, after having accompanied her thither from Paris, and after the Cardinal had in vain tried to persuade her not to take her costly collection of pearls and other jewels with her, but to leave them in his keeping till it should be seen how she might fare among her Scottish subjects. But on board the Queen's own galley were three others of Guise or Lorraine uncles--the Duc d'Aumale, the Grand Prior, and the Marquis d'Elbeuf--with M. Danville, son of the Constable of France, and a number of French gentlemen of lower rank, among whom one notes especially young Pierre de Bourdeilles, better known afterward in literary history as Sieur de Brantôme, and a sprightly and poetic youth from Dauphiné, named Chastelard, one of the attendants of M. Danville. With these were mixed the Scottish contingent of the Queen's train, her four famous "Marys" included--Mary Fleming, Mary Livingstone, Mary Seton, and Mary Beaton. They had been her playfellows and little maids of honor long ago, in her Scottish childhood; they had accompanied her when she went abroad, and had lived with her ever since in France; and they were now returning with her, Scoto-French women like herself, and all of about her own age, to share her new fortunes.... Then, as now, the buildings that went by the general name of Holyrood were distinguishable into two portions. There was the Abbey, now represented only by the beautiful and spacious fragment of ruin called the Royal Chapel, but then, despite the spoliations to which it had been subjected by recent English invasions, still tolerably preserved in its integrity as the famous edifice, in early Norman style, which had been founded in the twelfth century by David I., and had been enlarged in the fifteenth by additions in the later and more florid Gothic. Close by this was Holyrood House, or the Palace proper, built in the earlier part of the sixteenth century, and chiefly by James IV., to form a distinct royal dwelling, and so supersede that occasional accommodation in the Abbey itself which had sufficed for Scottish sovereigns before Edinburgh was their habitual or capital residence. One block of this original Holyrood House still remains in the two-turreted projection of the present Holyrood which adjoins the ruined relic of the Abbey, and which contains the rooms now specially shown as "Queen Mary's Apartments." But the present Holyrood, as a whole, is a construction of the reign of Charles II., and gives little idea of the Palace in which Mary took up her abode in 1561. The two-turreted projection on the left was not balanced then, as now, by a similar two-turreted projection on the right, with a façade of less height between, but was flanked on the right by a continued chateau-like frontage, of about the same height as the turreted projections, and at a uniform depth of recess from it, but independently garnished with towers and pinnacles. The main entrance into the Palace from the great outer courtyard was through this chateau-like flank, just about the spot where there is the entrance through the present middle façade; and this entrance led, like the present, into an inner court or quadrangle, built round on all the four sides. That quadrangle of chateau, touching the Abbey to the back from its northeastern corner, and with the two-turreted projection to its front from its northwestern corner, constituted, indeed, the main bulk of the Palace. There were, however, extensive appurtenances of other buildings at the back or at the side farthest from the Abbey, forming minor inner courts, while part of that side of the great outer courtyard which faced the entrance was occupied by offices belonging to the Palace, and separating the courtyard from the adjacent purlieus of the town. For the grounds of both Palace and Abbey were encompassed by a wall, having gates at various points of its circuit, the principal and most strongly guarded of which was the Gothic porch admitting from the foot of the Canongate into the front courtyard. The grounds so enclosed were ample enough to contain gardens and spaces of plantation, besides the buildings and their courts. Altogether, what with the buildings themselves, what with the courts and gardens, and what with the natural grandeur of the site--a level of deep and wooded park, between the Calton heights and crags, on the one hand, and the towering shoulders of Arthur's Seat and precipitous escarpment of Salisbury Crags on the other--Holyrood in 1561 must have seemed, even to an eye the most satiated with palatial splendors abroad, a sufficiently impressive dwelling-place to be the metropolitan home of Scottish royalty. LINLITHGOW [Footnote: From "Provincial Antiquities of Scotland."] BY SIR WALTER SCOTT The convenience afforded for the sport of falconry, which was so great a favorite during the feudal ages, was probably one cause of an attachment of the ancient Scottish monarchs to Linlithgow and its fine lake. The sport of hunting was also followed with success in the neighborhood, from which circumstance it probably arises that the ancient arms of the city represent a black greyhound bitch tied to a tree.... A Celt, according to Chalmers, might plausibly derive the name of Linlithgow from Lin-liah-cu, the Lake of the Greyhound. Chalmers himself seems to prefer the Gothic derivation of Lin-lyth-gow, or the Lake of the Great Vale. The Castle of Linlithgow is only mentioned as being a peel (a pile, that is, an embattled tower surrounded by an outwork). In 1300 it was rebuilt or repaired by Edward I., and used as one of the citadels by which he hoped to maintain his usurped dominion in Scotland. It is described by Barbour as "meihle and stark and stuffed weel." Piers Luband, a Gascoigne knight, was appointed the keeper, and appears to have remained there until the autumn of 1313, when the Scots recovered the Castle.... Bruce, faithful to his usual policy, caused the peel of Linlithgow to be dismantled, and worthily rewarded William Binnock, who had behaved with such gallantry on the occasion. From this bold yeoman the Binnies of West Lothian are proud to trace their descent; and most, if not all of them, bear in their arms something connected with the wagon, which was the instrument of his stratagem. When times of comparative peace returned, Linlithgow again became the occasional residence of the sovereign. In 1411 the town was burned by accident, and in 1414 was again subjected to the same calamity, together with the Church and Palace of the king, as is expressly mentioned by Bower. The present Church, which is a fine specimen of Gothic architecture, having a steeple surmounted by an imperial crown, was probably erected soon after the calamity. The Palace arose from its ashes with greater splendor than before; for the family of Stuart, unhappy in some respects, were all of them fortunate in their taste for the fine arts, and particularly for that of architecture. The Lordship of Linlithgow was settled as a dowry upon Mary of Gueldres in 1449, and again upon Margaret of Denmark in 1468. James IV., a splendid gallant, seems to have founded the most magnificent part of Linlithgow Palace; together with the noble entrance betwixt two flanking towers bearing, on rich entablatures, the royal arms of Scotland, with the collars of the Orders of the Thistle, Garter, and Saint Michael. James IV. also erected in the Church a throne for himself, and twelve stalls for Knights Companions of the Thistle.... His death and the rout of his army clouded for many a day the glory of Scotland, and marred the mirth of her palaces. James V. was much attached to Linlithgow, and added to the Palace both the Chapel and Parliament Hall, the last of which is peculiarly striking. So that when he brought his bride, Mary of Guise, there, amid the festivities which accompanied their wedding, she might have had more reason than mere complaisance for highly commending the edifice, and saying that she never saw a more princely palace. It was long her residence, and that of her royal husband, at Linlithgow. Mary was born there in an apartment still shown; and the ill-fated father, dying within a few days of that event, left the ominous diadem which he wore to the still more unfortunate infant.... In the subsequent reign of Queen Mary, Linlithgow was the scene of several remarkable events; the most interesting of which was the assassination of the Regent Murray by Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh. James VI. loved the royal residence of Linlithgow, and completed the original plan of the Palace, closing the great square by a stately range of apartments of great architectural beauty. He also made a magnificent fountain in the Palace yard, now ruinous, as are all the buildings around. Another grotesque Gothic fountain adorns the street of the town.... When the scepter passed from Scotland, oblivion sat down in the halls of Linlithgow; but her absolute desolation was reserved for the memorable era of 1745-6. About the middle of January in that year, General Hawley marched at the head of a strong army to raise the siege of Stirling, then prest by the Highland insurgents under the adventurous Charles Edward. The English general had exprest considerable contempt of his enemy, who, he affirmed, would not stand a charge of cavalry. On the night of the 17th he returned to Linlithgow, with all the marks of defeat, having burned his tents, and left his artillery and baggage. His disordered troops were quartered in the Palace, and began to make such great fires on the hearth, as to endanger the safety of the edifice. A lady of the Livingstone family who had apartments there remonstrated with General Hawley, who treated her fears with contempt. "I can run away from fire as fast as you can, General," answered the high-spirited dame, and with this sarcasm took horse for Edinburgh. Very soon after her departure her apprehensions were realized; the Palace of Linlithgow caught fire and was burned to the ground. The ruins alone remain to show its former splendor. The situation of Linlithgow Palace is eminently beautiful. It stands on a promontory of some elevation, which advances almost into the midst of the lake. The form is that of a square court, composed of buildings of four stories high, with towers at the angles. The fronts within the square, and the windows, are highly ornamented, and the size of the rooms, as well as the width and character of the staircase, are upon a magnificent scale. One banquet room is 94 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 33 feet high, with a gallery for music. The king's wardrobe, or dressing-room, looking to the west, projects over the walls so as to have a delicious prospect on three sides, and is one of the most enviable boudoirs we have ever seen. There were two main entrances to Linlithgow Palace. That from the south ascends rather steeply from the town, and passes through a striking Gothic archway, flanked by two round towers. The portal has been richly adorned by sculpture, in which can be traced the arms of Scotland with the collars of the Thistle, the Garter, and Saint Michael. This was the work of James V., and is of a most beautiful character. The other entrance is from the eastward. The gateway is at some height from the foundation of the wall, and there are opposite to it the remains of a perron, or ramp of mason work, which those who desired to enter must have ascended by steps. A drawbridge, which could be raised at pleasure, united, when it was lowered, the ramp with the threshold of the gateway, and when raised left a gap between them, which answered the purpose of a moat. On the inside of the eastern gateway is a figure, much mutilated, said to have been that of Pope Julius II., the same Pontiff who sent to James IV. the beautiful sword which makes part of the Regalia. "To what base offices we may return!" In the course of the last war, those beautiful remains, so full of ancient remembrances, very narrowly escaped being defaced and dishonored, by an attempt to convert them into barracks for French prisoners of war. The late President Blair, as zealous a patriot as he was an excellent lawyer, had the merit of averting this insult upon one of the most striking objects of antiquity which Scotland yet affords. I am happy to add that of late years the Court of Exchequer have, in this and similar cases, shown much zeal to preserve our national antiquities, and stop the dilapidations which were fast consuming them. In coming to Linlithgow by the Edinburgh road, the first view of the town, with its beautiful steeple, surmounted with a royal crown, and the ruinous towers of the Palace arising out of a canopy of trees, forms a most impressive object. STIRLING [Footnote: From "English Note-Books." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1870 and 1898.] BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE In the morning we were stirring betimes, and found Stirling to be a pretty large town, of rather ancient aspect, with many gray stone houses, the gables of which are notched on either side, like a flight of stairs. The town stands on the slope of a hill, at the summit of which, crowning a long ascent, up which the paved street reaches all the way to its gate, is Stirling Castle. Of course we went thither, and found free entrance, altho the castle is garrisoned by five or six hundred men, among whom are bare-legged Highlanders (I must say that this costume is very fine and becoming, tho their thighs did look blue and frost-bitten) and also some soldiers of other Scotch regiments, with tartan trousers. Almost immediately on passing the gate, we found an old artillery-man, who undertook to show us round the castle. Only a small portion of it seems to be of great antiquity. The principal edifice within the castle wall is a palace, that was either built or renewed by James VI.; and it is ornamented with strange old statues, one of which is his own. The old Scottish Parliament House is also here. The most ancient part of the castle is the tower, where one of the Earls of Douglas was stabbed by a king, and afterward thrown out of the window. In reading this story, one imagines a lofty turret, and the dead man tumbling headlong from a great height; but, in reality, the window is not more than fifteen or twenty feet from the garden into which he fell. This part of the castle was burned last autumn; but is now under repair, and the wall of the tower is still stanch and strong. We went up into the chamber where the murder took place, and looked through the historic window. Then we mounted the castle wall, where it broods over a precipice of many hundred feet perpendicular, looking down upon a level plain below, and forth upon a landscape, every foot of which is richly studded with historic events. There is a small peep-hole in the wall, which Queen Mary is said to have been in the habit of looking through. It is a most splendid view; in the distance, the blue Highlands, with a variety of mountain outlines that I could have studied unweariably; and in another direction, beginning almost at the foot of the Castle Hill, were the Links of Forth, where, over a plain of miles in extent the river meandered, and circled about, and returned upon itself again and again and again, as if knotted into a silver chain, which it was difficult to imagine to be all one stream. The history of Scotland might be read from this castle wall, as on a book of mighty page; for here, within the compass of a few miles, we see the field where Wallace won the battle of Stirling, and likewise the battle-field of Bannockburn, and that of Falkirk, and Sheriffmuir, and I know not how many besides. Around the Castle Hill there is a walk, with seats for old and infirm persons, at points sheltered from the wind. We followed it downward, and I think we passed over the site where the games used to be held, and where, this morning, some of the soldiers of the garrison were going through their exercises. I ought to have mentioned, that, passing through the inner gateway of the castle, we saw the round tower, and glanced into the dungeon, where the Roderic Dhu of Scott's poem was left to die. It is one of the two round towers, between which the portcullis rose and fell. ABBOTSFORD [Footnote: From "Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets."] BY WILLIAM HOWITT Abbotsford, after twenty years' interval, and having then been seen under the doubly exaggerated influence of youth and the recent influence of Scott's poetry, in some degree disappointed me. I had imagined the house itself larger, its towers more lofty, its whole exterior more imposing. The plantations are a good deal grown, and almost bury the house from the distant view, but they still preserve all their formality of outline, as seen from the Galashiels road. Every field has a thick, black belt of fir-trees, which run about, forming on the long hillside the most fantastic figures. The house is, however, a very interesting house. At first, you come to the front next to the road, which you do by a steep descent down the plantation. You are struck, having a great castle in your imagination, with the smallness of the place. It is neither large nor lofty. Your ideal Gothic castle shrinks into a miniature. The house is quite hidden till you are at it, and then you find yourself at a small, castellated gateway, with its crosses cut into the stone pillars on each side, and the little window over it, as for the warden to look out at you. Then comes the view of this side of the house with its portico, its bay windows with painted glass, its tall, battlemented gables, and turrets with their lantern terminations; the armorial escutcheon over the door, and the corbels, and then another escutcheon aloft on the wall of stars and crescents. All these have a good effect; and not less so the light screen of freestone finely worked and carved with its elliptic arches and iron lattice-work, through which the garden is seen with its espalier trees, high brick walls, and greenhouse, with a doorway at the end leading into a second garden of the same sort. The house has a dark look, being built of the native whinstone, or grau-wacke, as the Germans call it, relieved by the quoins and projections of the windows and turrets in freestone. All look classic, and not too large for the poet and antiquarian builder. The dog Maida lies in stone on the right hand of the door in the court, with the well known inscription. The house can neither be said to be Gothic nor castellated. It is a combination of the poet's, drawn from many sources, but all united by good taste, and forming an unique style, more approaching the Elizabethan than any other. Round the court, of which the open-work screen just mentioned is the farther boundary, runs a covered walk, that is, along the two sides not occupied by the house and the screen; and in the wall beneath the arcade thus formed, are numerous niches, containing a medley of old figures brought from various places. There are Indian gods, old figures out of churches, and heads of Roman emperors. In the corner of the court, on the opposite side of the portico to the dog Maida, is a fountain, with some similar relics reared on the stonework around it. The other front gives you a much greater idea of the size. It has a more continuous range of façade. Here, at one end, is Scott's square tower, ascended by outside steps, and a round or octagon tower at the other; you can not tell, certainly, which shape it is, as it is covered with ivy. On this the flagstaff stands. At the end next to the square tower, i. e., at the right-hand end as you face it, you pass into the outer court, which allows you to go around the end of the house from one front to the other, by the old gateway, which once belonged to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. Along the whole of this front runs a gallery, in which the piper used to stalk to and fro while they were at dinner. This man still comes about the place, tho he has been long discharged. He is a great vagabond. Such is the exterior of Abbotsford. The interior is far more interesting. The porch, copied from that of the old palace of Linlithgow, is finely groined, and there are stags' horns nailed up in it. When the door opens, you find yourself in the entrance-hall, which is, in fact, a complete museum of antiquities and other matters. It is, as described in Lockhart's Life of Scott, wainscoted with old wainscot from the kirk of Dumfermline, and the pulpit of John Knox is cut in two, and placed as chiffoniers between the windows. The whole walls are covered with suits of armor and arms, horns of moose deer, the head of a musk bull, etc. At your left hand, and close to the door, are two cuirasses, some standards, eagles, etc., collected at Waterloo. At the opposite end of the room are two full suits of armor, one Italian, and one English of the time of Henry V., the latter holding in its hands a stupendous two-handed sword, I suppose six feet long, and said to have been found on Bosworth field. Opposite to the door is the fireplace of freestone, imitated from an arch in the cloister at Melrose, with a peculiarly graceful spandrel. In it stands the iron grate of Archbishop Sharpe, who was murdered by the Covenanters; and before it stands a most massive Roman camp-kettle. On the roof, at the center of the pointed arches, runs a row of escutcheons of Scott's family, two or three at one end being empty, the poet not being able to trace the maternal lineage so high as the paternal. These were painted accordingly in clouds, with the motto, "Night veils the deep." Around the door at one end are emblazoned the shields of his most intimate friends, as Erskine, Moritt, Rose, etc., and all around the cornice ran the emblazoned shields of the old chieftains of the border.... Then there is the library, a noble room, with a fine cedar ceiling, with beautiful compartments, and most lovely carved pendants, where you see bunches of grapes, human figures, leaves, etc. It is copied from Rosslyn or Melrose. There are three busts in this room; the first, one of Sir Walter, by Chantrey; one of Wordsworth; and in the great bay window, on a table, a cast of that of Shakespeare, from Stratford. There is a full-length painting of the poet's son, the present Sir Walter, in his hussar uniform, with, his horse. The work-table in the space of the bay window, and the fine carved ceiling in this part of the room, as well as the brass hanging lamp brought from Hereulaneum, are particularly worthy of notice. There is a pair of most splendidly carved box-wood chairs, brought from Italy, and once belonging to some cardinal. The other chairs are of ebony, presented by George IV. There is a tall silver urn, standing on a prophyry table, filled with bones from the Piraeus, and inscribed as the gift of Lord Byron. The books in this room, many of which are secured from hurt by wire-work doors are said to amount to twenty thousand. Many, of course, are very valuable, having been collected with great care by Scott, for the purpose of enabling him to write his different works.... The armory is a most remarkable room; it is the collection of the author of Waverly; and to enumerate all the articles which are here assembled, would require a volume. Take a few particulars. The old wooden lock of the Tolbooth of Selkirk; Queen Mary's offering-box, a small iron ark or coffer, with a circular lid, found in Holyrood-house. Then Hofer's rifle--a short, stout gun, given him by Sir Humphry Davy, or rather by Hofer's widow to Sir Humphry for Sir Walter. The housekeeper said, that Sir Humphry had done some service for the widow of Hofer, and in her gratitude she offered him this precious relic, which he accepted for Sir Walter, and delighted the poor woman with the certainty that it would be preserved to posterity in such a place as Abbotsford. There is an old white hat, worn by the burgesses of Stowe when installed. Rob Roy's purse and his gun; a very long one, with the initials R. M. C., Robert Macgregor Campbell, around the touch-hole. A rich sword in a silver sheath, presented to Sir Walter by the people of Edinburgh, for the pains he took when George IV. was there.... Lastly, and on our way back to the entrance-hall, we enter the writing-room of Sir Walter, which is surrounded by book-shelves, and a gallery, by which Scott not only could get at his books, but by which he could get to and from his bedroom; and so be at work when his visitors thought him in bed. He had only to lock his door, and he was safe. Here are his easy leathern chair and desk, at which he used to work, and, in a little closet, is the last suit that he ever wore--a bottle-green coat, plaid waistcoat, of small pattern, gray plaid trousers, and white hat. Near these hang his walking-stick, and his boots and walking-shoes. Here are, also, his tools, with which he used to prune his trees in the plantations, and his yeoman-cavalry accouterments. On the chimney-piece stands a German light-machine, where he used to get a light, and light his own fire. There is a chair made of the wood of the house at Robroyston, in which William Wallace was betrayed; having a brass plate in the back, stating that it is from this house, where "Wallace was done to death by Traitors." The writing-room is connected with the library, and this little closet had a door issuing into the garden; so that Scott had all his books at immediate command, and could not only work early and late, without anybody's knowledge, but, at will, slip away to wood and field, if he pleased, unobserved. DRYBURGH ABBEY [Footnote: From "The Ruined Abbeys of the Border."] BY WILLIAM HOWITT Dryburgh lies amid the scenes in which Scott not only took such peculiar delight, but which furnished him themes both for his poems and romances, and which were rich in those old songs and narratives of border feats and raids which he has preserved in his Border Minstrelsy. Melrose, the Eildon Hills, the haunt of Thomas of Ercildoune, Jedburgh, Yetholm, the Cowdenknowes, the Yarrow, and Ettrick, all lie on different sides within a circle of twenty miles, and most of them much nearer. Smailholme Tower, the scene of some of Scott's youthful days, and of his ballad of "The Eve of St. John," is also one of these. Grose tells us that "The ruins of Dryburgh Monastery are beautifully situated on a peninsula formed by the Tweed, ten-miles above Kelso, and three below Melrose, on the southwestern confine of the county of Berwick." ... The new Abbey of Dryburgh had the credit of being founded in 1150 by David I., who was fond of the reputation, of being a founder of abbeys, Holyrood Abbey, Melrose Abbey, Kelso Abbey, Jedburgh Abbey, and others, having David I. stated as their founder. However it might be in other cases, and in some of them he was merely the restorer, the real founders of Dryburgh were Hugh de Morville, Lord of Lauderdale, and Constable of Scotland, and his wife, Beatrice de Beauchamp.... Edward II., in his invasion of Scotland in 1323, burned down Dryburgh Abbey, as he had done that of Melrose in the preceding year; and both these magnificent houses were restored principally at the cost of Robert Bruce. It was again destroyed by the English in 1544, by Sir George Bowes and Sir Brian Latoum, as Melrose was also. Among the most distinguished of its abbots we may mention Andrew Fordum, Bishop of Moray, and afterward Archbishop of St. Andrews, and Ambassador to France, and who held some of the most important offices under James IV. and James V. The favors conferred upon him were in proportion to his consequence in the state. Along with this abbey of Dryburgh, he held in commendam those of Pittenweem, Coldingham, and Dunfermline. He resigned Dryburgh to James Ogilvie, of the family of Deskford. Ogilvie was also considerably employed in offices of diplomacy, both at London and Paris. The Erskines seemed to keep firm hold of the Abbey of Dryburgh; and Adam Erskine, one of Abbot James's successors, was, under George Buchanan, a sub-preceptor to James VI. This James I. of England dissolved the abbey in 1604, and conferred it and its lands, together with the abbeys and estates of Cambuskenneth and Inehmahorne, on John Erskine, Earl of Mar, who was made, on this occasion, also Baron of Cardross, which barony was composed of the property of these three monasteries. In this line, Dryburgh descended to the Lords of Buchan. The Earls of Buchan, at one time, sold it to the Halliburtons of Mortoun, from whom it was purchased by Colonel Tod, whose heirs again sold it to the Earl of Buchan in 1786. This eccentric nobleman bequeathed it to his son, Sir David Erskine, at whose death in 1837 it reverted to the Buchan family. Two monasteries in Ireland, the abbey of Druin-la-Croix in the County of Armagh, and the abbey of Woodburn in the county of Antrim, acknowledged Dryburgh as their mother. A copy of the Liber S. Mariae de Dryburgh is in the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, containing all its ancient charters. Such are the main points of history connected with Dryburgh; but, when we open the ballad lore of the South of Scotland, we find this fine old place figuring repeatedly and prominently.... Grose says: "The freestone of which the monastery of Dryburgh and the most elegant parts of the Abbey of Melrose were built, is one of a most beautiful color and texture, and has defied the influence of the weather for more than six centuries; nor is the sharpness of the sculpture in the least affected by the ravages of time. The quarry from which it was taken is still successfully worked at Dryburgh; and no stone in the island seems more perfectly adapted for the purpose of architecture, as it hardens by age, and is not subject to be corroded or decomposed by the weather, so that it might even be used for the cutting of bas-reliefs and of statues." ... As the remains of the abbey have since been carefully preserved, they present still much the same aspect as at Grose's visit in 1797. When I visited this lovely ruin and lovely neighborhood in 1845, I walked from Melrose, a distance of between three and four miles. Leaving the Eildon Hills on my right, and following the course of the Tweed, I saw, as I progressed, Cowdenknowes, Bemerside, and other spots famous in border song. Issuing from a steep and woody lane, I came out on a broad bend of the river, with a wide strand of gravel and stones on this side, showing with what force the wintry torrents rushed along here. Opposite rose lofty and finely-wooded banks. Amid the trees on that side shone out a little temple of the Muses, where they are represented as consecrating James Thomson the poet. Farther off, on a hill, stands a gigantic statue of William Wallace, which was originally intended for Burns; but, the stone being too large, it was thought by the eccentric Lord Buchan, who erected it, a pity to cut it down.... I was ferried over by two women, who were by no means sorry that the winds and floods had carried my Lord Buchan's bridge away, as it restored their business of putting people over. I then ascended a lane from the ferry, and found myself in front of an apparently old castle gateway; but, from the Latin inscription over it, discovered that it was also erected by the same singular Lord Buchan, as the entrance to a pomarium, or, in plain English, an orchard, dedicated to his honored parents, who, I suppose, like our first parents, were particularly fond of apples. That his parents or himself might enjoy all the apples, he had under the Latin dedication, placed a simple English menace of steel traps and spring guns. I still advanced through a pleasant scene of trees and cottages, of rich grassy crofts, with cattle lying luxuriously in them, and amid a hush of repose, indicative of a monastic scene. Having found a guide to the ruins, at a cottage near the river, I was led across a young orchard toward them, the two old gables and the fine circular window showing themselves above the foliage. I found the interior of the ruins carpeted by soft turf, and two rows of cedars growing in the church, marking where the aisle formerly ran. The cloisters and south transept were still entire, and displayed much fine workmanship. The great circular window is especially lovely, formed of five stars cut in stone, so that the open center between them forms a rose. The light seen through this charming window produced a fine effect. The chapter-house was also entire, the floor being now only of earth; and a circle was drawn in the center, where the remains of the founder and his lady lie. Here, again, however, the fantastic old Lord Buchan had interfered, and a statue of Locke, reading an open book, and pointing to his own forehead; one of Inigo Jones, and one of Newton, made you wonder what they were doing there. So totally without regard to fitness did this half-crazy nobleman put down his ornaments. The wonder is that his successor had not removed these, and some statues or busts which had as little business on the spot. But the charm of the place in every sense was the grave of Scott. It was in the Lady aisle, and occupies two arches of it; and the adjoining space under the next arch is the burial place of the Erskines, as Scott's burial-place was that of his ancestors, the Halliburtons. The whole, with the tier of small sectional Norman arches above, forms a glorious tomb much resembling one of the chapel tombs in Winchester Cathedral. Taken in connection with the fine ruins, and the finer natural scenery around, no spot can be supposed more suitable for the resting-place of the remains of the great minstrel and romancer, who so delighted in the natural, historic, and legendary charms of the neighborhood, and who added still greater ones to them himself. Since my visit, a massive tomb, of Aberdeen granite, has been placed over the remains of Sir Walter and Lady Scott, and those of their eldest son. A railway also now makes the place much more accessible, the station for Dryburgh being at the village of Newtown, on the other side of the river. Near St. Boswell's, opposite to Dryburgh, has also been lately erected a bridge over the Tweed, opening up the communication betwixt the north and south side of the river, and thus enabling the tourist to explore at great convenience the scenes of ancient loves and feuds, and the haunts of Scott. Here his dust lies amid the objects redolent of his fame; and within a few miles, near Makerstoun, a view may he obtained, from a hill, of Smailholme Tower, where the poet passed some of the years of his boyhood, and the memory of which he has perpetuated in one of the epistles which introduce each Canto of Marmion. MELROSE ABBEY [Footnote: From "The Ruined Abbeys of the Border."] BY WILLIAM HOWITT. The foundation of Melrose Abbey generally dates from 1136, when David I. of Scotland, among his many similar erections, built a church here. But Melrose, as a seat of religion, boasts a much earlier origin. It was one of those churches, or more properly missionary stations, which the fathers of Ireland and of Iona spread over Britain and the continent. It was in fact a portion of that pure and beautiful British church which existed prior to the Roman hierarchy in these islands, and of which the professors presented in their primitive habits and primitive doctrines so apostolic a character.... In 1136 the pious David raised a new and much superior abbey, about two miles westward of the original site, but on the same south bank of the Tweed, and established in it the Cistercians. He conferred on them extensive lands and privileges; the lands of Melrose, Eldun, and Dernwie; the lands and wood of Gattonside, with the fishings of the Tweed along the whole extent of those lands; with the right of pasturage and pannage in his forests of Selkirk and Traguair, and in the forest between the Gala and the Leeder, with wood from those forests for building and burning. In 1192 Jocelin, Bishop of Glasgow, granted to the monks of Melrose the church of Hassindean, with its lands, tithes, and other emoluments, "for the maintenance of the poor and of pilgrims coming to the house of Melrose." From this cause the old tower of Hassindean was called "Monks' Tower," and the farm adjoining the church is still called "Monks' Croft." In fact, the Abbey of Melrose was a sort of inn, not only to the poor, but to some of the greatest men of the time. The Scottish kings from time to time, and wealthy subjects too, added fresh grants; so that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Abbey had accumulated vast possessions and immunities; had many tenants, great husbandmen, with many granges and numerous herds. It had much other property in Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire, Selkirkshire, and Berwickshire. But the abbey church which David built was not that of which we have now the remains. The whole place was repeatedly burned down by the English invaders. In 1215 the rebellious barons of King John of England swore fealty to Alexander II. of Scotland, at the altar of Melrose. Edward I., in 1295-6, when at Berwick, granted the monks of Melrose restitution of the lands of which they had been deprived; but in 1332 Edward II. burned down the abbey and killed the abbot William de Peeblis and several of his monks. Robert I., of Scotland, in 1326 or four years afterward, gave £2,000 sterling to rebuild it; and Edward II., of England, came from New Castle at Christmas, 1341, and held his yule in the abbey, and made restitution of the lands and other property which his father had seized during the late war. In 1378 Richard II. granted a protection to the abbot and his lands; but in 1385 he burned down Melrose and other religious houses on his expedition into Scotland. Robert Bruce, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, granted a revenue to restore the abbey; and betwixt this period and the Reformation arose the splendid structure, the ruins of which yet charm every eye. It is in the highest style of the decorated order, every portion is full of work of the most exquisite character, occasionally mingled with the perpendicular. They are the only ruins of the church which remain, and they present the finest specimen of Gothic architecture and sculpture that Scotland possesses. One of Scotland's most discriminating writers says, "To say that Melrose is beautiful, is to say nothing. It is exquisitely--splendidly lovely. It is an object possest of infinite grace and unmeasurable charm; it is fine in its general aspect, and in its minutest details. It is a study--a glory." The church is two hundred and eighty-seven feet in length, and at the greatest breadth one hundred and fifty-seven feet. The west is wholly ruined; but the great eastern window remains, and one above the southern door, which are extremely fine. The pillars that remain to support the roof are of singular grace, and wherever you turn you behold objects that rivet the attention by their richness of sculpture, tho often only in fragments. The only wonder is that so much has escaped the numberless assaults of enemies. During the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth, the abbey was continually suffering from their inroads, in which the spirit of vengeance against the Scots who resisted their schemes of aggression was mixed strongly with that of enmity to Popery. In the year 1545, it was twice burned and ransacked by the English, first under Sir Ralph Eyre and Sir Bryan Layton, and again by the Earl of Hertford. At the Reformation, when all its lands and immunities were invested in the Crown, they were valued at £1,758 Scots, besides large contributions in kind. Among them, in addition to much corn were one hundred and five stones of butter, ten dozens of capons, twenty-six dozens of poultry, three hundred and seventy-six more fowl, three hundred and forty loads of peats, etc. Queen Mary granted Melrose and its lands and tithes to Bothwell, but they were forfeited on his attainder. They then passed to a Douglas, and afterward to Sir James Ramsay, who rescured James VI. in the conspiracy of Gowrie; then to Sir Thomas Hamilton in 1619, who was made Earl of Melrose, and afterward Earl of Haddington. About a century ago they became the property of the family of Buccleuch, in which they remain. The Douglas built himself a house out of the ruins, which may still be seen about fifty yards to the north of the church. The ruins are preserved with great care, and are shown by a family which is at once intelligent and courteous. The person going round, most generally, points out the shattered remains of thirteen figures at the great eastern window, in their niches, said to have been those of our Savior and his Apostles. They were broken to pieces by a fanatic weaver of Gattonside. A head is also pointed out, said to be that of Michael Scott, the magician, who exerted his power so wonderfully, according to tradition, in this neighborhood, as to split, the Eildon hill into three parts.... The name of Melrose is clearly derived from the Ancient British, Melross, the projection of the meadow. Moel in Welsh and Maol in Irish signify something bald, naked, bare. Thus Moal-Ross, in the language of the Irish monks who first built the church here, would signify the naked promontory. Moel in Welsh is now usually applied to a smooth mountain, as Moel-Siabod; and we find Ross continually showing its Celtic origin where there is a promontory, as Ross on the Moray-frith, and Ross in Herefordshire from a winding of the Wye. But some old sculptor, on a stone still preserved in the village, has made a punning derivation for it, by carving a mell, or mallet, and a rose over it. This stone was part of a wall of the old prison, long since pulled down. The site of Melrose, like all monastic ones, is fine. The abbey stands on a broad level near the Tweed, but is surrounded by hills and fields full of beauty, and peopled with a thousand beings of romance, tradition, and poetry. South of the village rise the three peaks of the Eildon hill, bearing aloft the fame of Michael Scott and Thomas the Rhymer. On the banks of the Tweed, opposite to Melrose, lies Gattonside, buried in its gardens and orchards, and still retaining its faith in many a story of the supernatural; and about three miles westward, on the same bank of the river, stands Abbotsford, raised by a magician more mighty than Michael Scott. How is it possible to approach that haunted abode without meeting on the way the most wonderful troop of wild, and lofty, and beautiful beings that ever peopled earth or the realm of imagination? Scotch, English, Gallic, Indian, Syrian come forth to meet you. The Bruce, the Scottish Jameses, Coeur de Lion, Elizabeth, Leicester, Mary of Scots, James I. of England, Montrose, Claverhouse, Cumberland the Butcher. The Covenanters are ready to preach, and fight anew, the Highland clans rise in aid of the Stuart. What women of dazzling beauty--Flora M'Ivor, Rose Bradwardine, Rebecca the noble Jewess, Lucy Ashton, and Amy Robsart, the lovely Effie Deans, and her homely yet glorious sister Jenny, the bewitching Di Vernon, and Minna and Brenda Troil, of the northern isles, stand radiant amid a host of lesser beauties. Then comes Rob Roy, the Robin Hood of the hills; then Balfour of Burley issues, a stalwart apparition, from his hiding-place, and of infinite humor and strangeness of aspect. Where is there a band like this--the Baron of Bradwardine, Dominie Sampson, Meg Merrilies, Monkbarns, Edie Ochiltree, Old Mortality, Bailie Nicol Jarvie, Andrew Fairservice, Caleb Balderston, Flibbertigibbet, Mona of the Fitful head, and that fine fellow the farmer of Liddesdale, with all his Peppers and Mustards raffling at his heels? But not even out of Melrose need you move a step to find the name of a faithful servant of Sir Walter. Tom Purdie lies in Melrose Abbey-Yard; and Scott himself had engraven on his tomb that he was "the Wood-forester of Abbotsford," probably the title which Tom gave himself. Those who visit Melrose will take a peep at the gravestone of Tom Purdie, who sleeps amid a long line of the dead, reaching from the days of Aidan to our own, as alive he filled a little niche in the regard! of a master who has given to both high and low so many niches in the temple of immortality. CARLYLE'S BIRTHPLACE AND EARLY HOMES [Footnote: From "Fresh Fields." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1884.] BY JOHN BURROUGHS. There was no road in Scotland or England which I should have been so glad to have walked over as that from Edinburgh to Ecclefechan, a distance covered many times by the feet of him whose birth and burial place I was about to visit. Carlyle as a young man had walked it with Edward Irving (the Scotch say "travel" when they mean going afoot), and he had walked it alone, and as a lad with an elder boy, on his way to Edinburgh College. He says in his "Reminiscences" he nowhere else had such affectionate, sad, thoughtful, and in fact interesting and salutary journeys.... Not to be entirely cheated out of my walk, I left the train at Lockerby, a small Scotch market-town, and accomplished the remainder of the journey to Ecclefechan on foot, a brief six-mile pull. It was the first day of June; the afternoon sun was shining brightly. It was still the honeymoon of travel with me, not yet two weeks in the bonnie land; the road was smooth and clean as the floor of a sea beach, and firmer, and my feet devoured the distance with right good will.... Four miles from Lockerby I came to Mainhill, the name of a farm where the Carlyle family lived many years, and where Carlyle first read Goethe, "in a dry ditch," Froude says, and translated "Wilhelm Meister." The land drops gently away to the south and east, opening up broad views in these directions, but it does not seem to be the bleak and windy place Froude describes it. The crops looked good, and the fields smooth and fertile. The soil is rather a stubborn clay, nearly the same as one sees everywhere.... The Carlyles were living on this farm while their son was teaching school at Annan, and later at Kircaldy with Irving, and they supplied him with cheese, butter, ham, oatmeal, etc., from their scanty stores. A new farmhouse has been built since then, tho the old one is still standing; doubtless the same Carlyle's father refers to in a letter to his son, in 1817, as being under way. The parish minister was expected at Mainhill. "Your mother was very anxious to have the house done before he came, or else she said she would run over the hill and hide herself." From Mainhill the highway descends slowly to the village of Ecclefechan, the site of which is marked to the eye, a mile or more away, by the spire of the church rising up against a background of Scotch firs, which clothe a hill beyond. I soon enter the main street of the village, which in Carlyle's youth had an open burn or creek flowing through the center of it. This has been covered over by some enterprising citizen, and instead of a loitering little burn, crossed by numerous bridges, the eye is now greeted by a broad expanse of small cobble-stones. The cottages are for the most part very humble, and rise from the outer edges of the pavement, as if the latter had been turned up and shaped to make their walls. The church is a handsome brown-stone structure, of recent date, and is more in keeping with the fine fertile country about than with the little village in its front. In the cemetery back of it, Carlyle lies buried. As I approached, a girl sat by the roadside, near the gate, combing her black locks and arranging her toilet; waiting, as it proved, for her mother and brother, who lingered in the village. A couple of boys were cutting nettles against the hedge; for the pigs, they said, after the sting had been taken out of them by boiling. Across the street from the cemetery the cows of the villagers were grazing. I must have thought it would be as easy to distinguish Carlyle's grave from the others as it was to distinguish the man while living, or his fame when dead; for it never occurred to me to ask in what part of the inclosure it was placed. Hence, when I found myself inside the gate, which opens from the Annan road through a high stone wall, I followed the most worn path toward a new and imposing-looking monument on the far side of the cemetery; and the edge of my fine emotion was a good deal dulled against the marble when I found it bore a strange name. I tried others, and still others, but was disappointed. I found a long row of Carlyles, but he whom I sought was not among them. My pilgrim enthusiasm felt itself needlessly hindered and chilled. How many rebuffs could one stand? Carlyle dead, then, was the same as Carlyle living; sure to take you down a peg or two when you came to lay your homage at his feet. Presently I saw "Thomas Carlyle" on a big marble slab that stood in a family inclosure. But this turned out to be the name of a nephew of the great Thomas. However, I had struck the right plat at last; here were the Carlyles I was looking for, within a space probably of eight by sixteen feet, surrounded by a high iron fence. The latest made grave was higher and fuller than the rest, but it had no stone or mark of any kind to distinguish it. Since my visit, I believe, a stone or monument of some kind has been put up. A few daisies and the pretty blue-eyed speedwell were growing amid the grass upon it. The great man lies with his head toward the south or southwest, with his mother, sister, and father to the right of him, and his brother John to the left. I was glad to learn that the high iron fence was not his own suggestion. His father had put it around the family plot in his lifetime. Carlyle would have liked to have it cut down about half-way. The whole look of the cemetery, except in the size of the head-stones, was quite American.... A young man and his wife were working in a nursery of young trees, a few paces from the graves and I conversed with them through a thin place in the hedge. They said they had seen Carlyle many times, and seemed to hold him in proper esteem and reverence. The young man had seen him come in summer and stand, with uncovered head, beside the graves of his father and mother. "And long and reverently did he remain there, too," said the young gardener. I learned this was Carlyle's invariable custom: every summer did he make a pilgrimage to this spot, and with bared head linger beside these graves. The last time be came, which was a couple of years before he died, he was so feeble that two persons sustained him while he walked into the cemetery. BURNS'S LAND [Footnote: From "Our Old Home." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.] BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. We left Carlisle at a little past eleven, and within the half-hour were at Gretna Green. Thence we rushed onward into Scotland through a flat and dreary tract of country, consisting mainly of desert and bog, where probably the moss-troopers were accustomed to take refuge after their raids into England. Anon, however, the hills hove themselves up to view, occasionally attaining a height which might almost be called mountainous. In about two hours we reached Dumfries, and alighted at the station there.... We asked for Burns's dwelling; and a woman pointed across a street to a two-story house, built of stone, and whitewashed, like its neighbors, but perhaps of a little more respectable aspect than most of them, tho I hesitate in saying so. It was not a separate structure, but under the same continuous roof with the next. There was an inscription on the door, bearing no reference to Burns, but indicating that the house was now occupied by a ragged or industrial school. On knocking, we were instantly admitted by a servant-girl, who smiled intelligently when we told our errand, and showed us into a low and very plain parlor, not more than twelve or fifteen feet square. A young woman, who seemed to be a teacher in the school, soon appeared, and told us that this had been Burns's usual sitting-room, and that he had written many of his songs here. She then led us up a narrow staircase into a little bedchamber over the parlor. Connecting with it, there is a very small room, or windowed closet, which Burns used as a study; and the bedchamber itself was the one where he slept in his later lifetime, and in which he died at last. Altogether, it is an exceedingly unsuitable place for a pastoral and rural poet to live or die in,--even more unsatisfactory than Shakespeare's house, which has a certain homely picturesqueness that contrasts favorably with the suburban sordidness of the abode before us.... Coming to St. Michael's Church, we saw a man digging a grave, and, scrambling out of the hole, he let us into the churchyard, which was crowded full of monuments. There was a footpath through this crowded churchyard, sufficiently well worn to guide us to the grave of Burns, but a woman followed behind us, who, it appeared, kept the key to the mausoleum, and was privileged to show it to strangers. The monument is a sort of Grecian temple, with pilasters and a dome, covering a space of about twenty feet square. It was formerly open to all the inclemencies of the Scotch atmosphere, but is now protected and shut in by large squares of rough glass, each pane being of the size of one whole side of the structure. The woman unlocked the door, and admitted us into the interior. Inlaid into the floor of the mausoleum is the gravestone of Burns--the very same that was laid over his grave by Jean Armour, before this monument was built. Displayed against the surrounding wall is a marble statue of Burns at the plow, with the Genius of Caledonia summoning the plowman to turn poet. Methought it was not a very successful piece of work; for the plow was better sculptured than the man, and the man, tho heavy and cloddish, was more effective than the goddess. Our guide informed us that an old man of ninety, who knew Burns, certifies this statue to be very like the original. The bones of the poet, and of Jean Armour, and of some of their children, lie in the vault over which we stood. Our guide (who was intelligent, in her own plain way, and very agreeable to talk withal) said that the vault was opened about three weeks ago, on occasion of the burial of the eldest son of Burns. [Footnote: This was written in 1860.] The poet's bones were disturbed, and the dry skull, once so brimming over with powerful thought and bright and tender fantasies, was taken away and kept for several days by a Dumfries doctor. It has since been deposited in a new leaden coffin, and restored to the vault. We went into the church, and found it very plain and naked, without altar-decorations, and having its floor quite covered with unsightly wooden pews. The woman led us to a pew cornering on one of the side-aisles, and, telling us that it used to be Burns's family pew, showed us his seat, which is in the corner by the aisle. It is so situated, that a sturdy pillar hid him from the pulpit, and from the minister's eye; "for Robin was no great friends with the ministers," said she. This touch--his seat behind the pillar, and Burns himself nodding in sermon time, or keenly observant of profane things--brought him before us to the life. In the corner-seat of the next pew, right before Burns, and not more than two feet off, sat the young lady on whom the poet saw that unmentionable parasite which he has immortalized in song. We were ungenerous enough to ask the lady's name, but the good woman could not tell it. This was the last thing which we saw in Dumfries worthy of record; and it ought to be noted that our guide refused some money which my companion offered her, because I had already paid her what she deemed sufficient. At the railway station we spent more than a weary hour, waiting for the train, which at last came up, and took us to Mauchline. We got into an omnibus, the only conveyance to be had, and drove about a mile to the village, where we established ourselves at the Loudoun Hotel, one of the veriest country inns which we have found in Great Britain. The town of Mauchline, a place more redolent of Burns than almost any other, consists of a street or two of contiguous cottages, mostly whitewashed, and with thatched roofs. It has nothing sylvan or rural in the immediate village, and is as ugly a place as mortal man could contrive to make, or to render uglier through a succession of untidy generations. The fashion of paving the village street, and patching one shabby house on the gable-end of another, quite shuts out all verdure and pleasantness; but, I presume, we are not likely to see a more genuine old Scotch village, such as they used to be in Burns's time, and long before, than this of Mauchline. The church stands about midway up the street, and is built of red freestone, very simple in its architecture, with a square tower and pinnacles. In this sacred edifice, and its churchyard, was the scene of one of Burns's most characteristic productions, "The Holy Fair." Almost directly opposite its gate, across the village street, stands Posie Nansie's inn, where the "Jolly Beggars" congregated. The latter is a two-story, red-stone, thatched house, looking old, but by no means venerable, like a drunken patriarch. It has small, old-fashioned windows, and may well have stood for centuries--tho seventy or eighty years ago, when Burns was conversant with it, I should fancy it might have been something better than a beggar's alehouse.... [Burns's farm of] Moss Giel is not more than a mile from Mauchline, and the road extends over a high ridge of land, with a view of far hills and green slopes on either side. Just before we reached the farm, the driver stopt to point out a hawthorn, growing by the wayside, which he said was Burns's "Lousie Thorn"; and I devoutly plucked a branch, altho I have really forgotten where or how this illustrious shrub has been celebrated. We then turned into a rude gateway, and almost immediately came to the farmhouse of Moss Giel, standing some fifty yards removed from the high-road, behind a tall hedge of hawthorn, and considerably overshadowed by trees. The biographers talk of the farm of Moss Giel as being damp and unwholesome; but I do not see why, outside of the cottage walls, it should possess so evil a reputation. It occupies a high, broad ridge, enjoying, surely, whatever benefit can come of a breezy site, and sloping far downward before any marshy soil is reached. The high hedge, and the trees that stand beside the cottage, give it a pleasant aspect enough to one who does, not know the grimy secrets of the interior; and the summer afternoon was now so bright that I shall remember the scene with a great deal of sunshine over it. Leaving the cottage, we drove through a field, which the driver told us was that in which Burns, turned up the mouse's nest. It is the enclosure, nearest to the cottage, and seems now to be a pasture, and a rather remarkably unfertile one. A little farther on, the ground was whitened with an immense number of daisies--daisies, daisies everywhere; and in answer to my inquiry, the driver said that this was the field where Burns ran his plowshare over the daisy. If so, the soil seems to have been consecrated to daisies by the song which he bestowed on that first immortal one. I alighted, and plucked a whole handful of these "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flowers," which will be precious to many friends in our own country as coming from Burns's farm, and being of the same race and lineage as that daisy which he turned into an amaranthine flower while seeming to destroy it. Prom Moss Giel we drove through a variety of pleasant scenes, some of which were familiar to us by their connection with Burns. By and by we came to the spot where Burns saw Miss Alexander, the Lass of Ballochmyle. It was on a bridge, which (or, more probably, a bridge that has succeeded to the old one, and is made of iron) crosses from bank to bank, high in air, over a deep gorge of the road; so that the young lady may have appeared to Burns like a creature between earth and sky, and compounded chiefly of celestial elements. But, in honest truth, the great charm of a woman, in Burns's eyes, was always her womanhood, and not the angelic mixture which other poets find in her. Our driver pointed out the course taken by the Lass of Ballochmyle, through the shrubbery, to a rock on the banks of the Lugar, where it seems to be the tradition that Burns accosted her. The song implies no such interview. Lovers, of whatever condition, high or low, could desire no lovelier scene in which to breathe their vows: the river flowing over its pebbly bed, sometimes gleaming into the sunshine, sometimes hidden deep in verdure, and here and there eddying at the foot of high and precipitous cliffs. Our ride to Ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery and causes a woeful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we see. Much of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly direction. We reached Ayr in the midst of hopeless rain, and drove to the King's Arms Hotel. In the intervals of showers I took peeps at the town, which appeared to have many modern or modern-fronted edifices; altho there are likewise tall, gray, gabled, and quaint-looking houses in the by-streets, here and there, betokening an ancient place. The town lies on both sides of the Ayr, which is here broad and stately, and bordered with dwellings that look from their windows directly down into the passing tide. I crossed the river by a modern and handsome stone bridge, and recrossed it, at no great distance, by a venerable structure of four gray arches, which must have bestridden the stream ever since the early days of Scottish history. These are the "Two Briggs of Ayr," whose midnight conversation was overheard by Burns, while other auditors were aware only of the rush and rumble of the wintry stream among the arches. The ancient bridge is steep and narrow, and paved like a street, and defended by a parapet of red freestone, except at the two ends, where some mean old shops allow scanty room for the pathway to creep between.... The next morning wore a lowering aspect, as if it felt itself destined to be one of many consecutive days of storm. After a good Scotch breakfast, however, of fresh herrings and eggs, we took a fly, and started at a little past ten for the banks of the Doon. On our way, at about two miles from Ayr, we drew up at a roadside cottage, on which was an inscription to the effect that Robert Burns was born within its walls. It is now a public-house; and, of course, we alighted and entered its little sitting-room, which, as we at present see it, is a neat apartment, with the modern improvement of a ceiling. The walls are much overscribbled with names of visitors, and the wooden door of a cupboard in the wainscot, as well as all the other woodwork of the room, is cut and carved with initial letters. So, likewise, are two tables, which, having received a coat of varnish over the inscriptions, form really curious and interesting articles of furniture. I have seldom (tho I do not personally adopt this mode of illustrating my humble name) felt inclined to ridicule the natural impulse of most people thus to record themselves at the shrines of poets and heroes. On a panel, let into the wall in a corner of the room, is a portrait of Burns, copied from the original picture by Nasmyth. The floor of this apartment is of boards, which are probably a recent substitute for the ordinary flagstones of a peasant's cottage. There is but one other room pertaining to the genuine birthplace of Robert Burns: it is the kitchen, into which we now went. It has a floor of flagstones, even ruder than those of Shakespeare's house--tho, perhaps, not so strangely cracked and broken as the latter, over which the hoof of Satan himself might seem to have been trampling. A new window has been opened through the wall, toward the road; but on the opposite side is the little original window, of only four small panes, through which came the first daylight that shone upon the Scottish poet. At the side of the room, opposite the fireplace, is a recess, containing a bed, which can be hidden by curtains. In that humble nook, of all places in the world, Providence was pleased to deposit the germ of the richest human life which mankind then had within its circumference. These two rooms, as I have said, make up the whole sum and substance of Burns's birthplace: for there were no chambers, nor even attics; and the thatched roof formed the only ceiling of kitchen and sitting-room, the height of which was that of the whole house. The cottage, however, is attached to another edifice of the same size and description, as these little habitations often are; and, moreover, a splendid addition has been made to it, since the poet's renown began to draw visitors to the wayside alehouse. The old woman of the house led us, through an entry, and showed a vaulted hall, of no vast dimensions, to be sure but marvelously large and splendid as compared with what might be anticipated from the outward aspect of the cottage. It contained a bust of Burns, and was hung round with pictures and engravings, principally illustrative of his life and poems. In this part of the house, too, there is a parlor, fragrant with tobacco-smoke; and, no doubt, many a noggin of whisky is here quaffed to the memory of the bard, who profest to draw so much inspiration from that potent liquor. We bought some engravings of Kirk Alloway, the Bridge of Doon, and the monument, and gave the old woman a fee besides, and took our leave. A very short drive farther brought us within sight of the monument, and to the hotel, situated close by the entrance of the ornamental grounds within which the former is enclosed. We rang the bell at the gate of the enclosure, but were forced to wait a considerable time; because the old man, the regular superintendent of the spot, had gone to assist at the laying of the corner-stone of a new kirk. He appeared anon, and admitted us, but immediately hurried away to be present at the ceremonies, leaving us locked up with Burns. The enclosure around the monument is beautifully laid out as an ornamental garden, and abundantly provided with rare flowers and shrubbery, all tended with loving care. The monument stands on an elevated site, and consists of a massive basement-story, three-sided, above which rises a light and elegant Grecian temple--a mere dome, supported on Corinthian pillars, and open to all the winds. The edifice is beautiful in itself; tho I know not what peculiar appropriateness it may have, as the memorial of a Scottish rural poet. The door of the basement-story stood open; and, entering, we saw a bust of Burns in a niche, looking keener, more refined, but not so warm and whole-souled as his pictures usually do. I think the likeness can not be good. In the center of the room stood a glass case, in which were deposited the two volumes of the little Pocket Bible that Burns gave to Highland Mary, when they pledged their troth to one another. It is poorly printed, on coarse paper. A verse of Scripture, referring to the solemnity and awfulness of vows, is written within the cover of each volume, in the poet's own hand; and fastened to one of the covers is a lock of Highland Mary's golden hair. This Bible had been carried to America by one of her relatives, but was sent back to be fitly treasured here. There is a staircase within the monument, by which we ascended to the top, and had a view of both Briggs of Doon; the scene of Tam O'Shanter's misadventure being close at hand. Descending, we wandered through the enclosed garden, and came to a little building in a corner, on entering which, we found the two statues of Tam and Sutor Wat--ponderous stonework enough, yet permeated in a remarkable degree with living warmth and jovial hilarity. Prom this part of the garden, too, we again beheld the old Briggs of Doon, over which Tam galloped in such imminent and awful peril. It is a beautiful object in the landscape, with one high, graceful arch, ivy-grown, and shadowed all over and around with foliage. When we had waited a good while, the old gardener came, telling us that he had heard an excellent prayer at laying the corner-stone of the new kirk. He now gave us some roses and sweetbrier, and let us out from his pleasant garden. We immediately hastened to Kirk Alloway, which is within two or three minutes' walk of the monument. A few steps ascend from the roadside, through a gate, into the old graveyard, in the midst of which stands the kirk. The edifice is wholly roofless, but the side-walls and gable-ends are quite entire, tho portions of them are evidently modern restorations. Never was there a plainer little church, or one with smaller architectural pretension; no New England meetinghouse has more simplicity in its very self, tho poetry and fun have clambered and clustered so wildly over Kirk Alloway that it is difficult to see it as it actually exists. By the by, I do not understand why Satan and an assembly of witches should hold their revels within a consecrated precinct; but the weird scene has so established itself in the world's imaginative faith that it must be accepted as an authentic incident, in spite of rule and reason to the contrary. Possibly, some carnal minister, some priest of pious aspect and hidden infidelity, had dispelled the consecration of the holy edifice, by his pretense of prayer, and thus made it the resort of unhappy ghosts and sorcerers and devils. The interior of the kirk, even now, is applied to quite as impertinent a purpose as when Satan and the witches used it as a dancing-hall; for it is divided in the midst by a wall of stone masonry, and each compartment has been converted into a family burial-place. The name on one of the monuments is Crawfurd; the other bore no inscription. It is impossible not to feel that these good people, whoever they may be, had no business to thrust their prosaic bones into a spot that belongs to the world, and where their presence jars with the emotions, be they sad or gay, which the pilgrim brings thither. They shut us out from our own precincts, too--from that inalienable possession which Burns bestowed in free gift upon mankind, by taking it from the actual earth and annexing it to the domain of imagination. Kirk Alloway is inconceivably small, considering how large a space it fills in our imagination before we see it. I paced its length, outside of the wall, and found it only seventeen of my paces, and not more than ten of them in breadth. There seem to have been but very few windows, all of which, if I rightly remember, are now blocked up with mason-work of stone. One mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the eastern gable, might have been seen by Tam O'Shanter, blazing with devilish light, as he approached along the road from Ayr; and there is a small and square one, on the side nearest the road, into which he might have peered, as he sat on horseback. Indeed, I could easily have looked through it, standing on the ground, had not the opening been walled up. There is an odd kind of belfry at the peak of one of the gables, with the small bell still hanging in it. And this is all that I remember of Kirk Alloway, except that the stones of its material are gray and irregular. The road from Ayr passes Alloway Kirk, and crosses the Doon by a modern bridge, without swerving much from a straight line. To reach the old bridge, it appears to have made a bend, shortly after passing the kirk, and then to have turned sharply toward the river. The new bridge is within a minute's walk of the monument; and we went thither, and leaned over its parapet to admire the beautiful Doon, flowing wildly and sweetly between its deep and wooded banks. I never saw a lovelier scene; altho this might have been even lovelier, if a kindly sun had shone upon it. The ivy-grown, ancient bridge, with its high arch, through which we had a picture of the river and the green banks beyond, was absolutely the most picturesque object, in a quiet and gentle way, that ever blest my eyes. Bonny Doon, with its wooded banks, and the boughs dipping into the water! The memory of them, at this moment, affects me like the song of birds, and Burns crooning some verses, simple and wild, in accordance with their native melody.... We shall appreciate him better as a poet, hereafter; for there is no writer whose life, as a man, has so much to do with his fame, and throws such a necessary light upon whatever he has produced. Henceforth, there will be a personal warmth for us in everything that he wrote; and, like his countrymen, we shall know him in a kind of personal way, as if we had shaken hands with him, and felt the thrill of his actual voice. HIGHLAND MARY'S HOME AND GRAVE [Footnote: From "A Literary Pilgrimage." By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, J. B. Lippincott Co. Copyright, 1895.] BY THEODORE F. WOLFE. There is no stronger proof of the transcending power of the genius of Burns than is found in the fact that, by a bare half-dozen of his stanzas, an humble dairy servant--else unheard of outside her parish and forgotten at her death--is immortalized as a peeress of Petrarch's Laura and Dante's Beatrice, and has been for a century loved and mourned of all the world. We owe much of our tenderest poesy to the heroines whose charms have attuned the fancy and aroused the impassioned muse of enamoured bards; readers have always exhibited a natural avidity to realize the personality of the beings who inspired the tender lays--prompted often by mere curiosity, but more often by a desire to appreciate the tastes and motives of the poets themselves. How little is known of Highland Mary, the most famous heroine of modern song, is shown by the brief, coherent, and often contradictory allusions to her which the biographies of the plowman-poet contain. This paper--prepared during a sojourn in "The Land of Burns"--while it adds a little to our meager knowledge of Mary Campbell, aims to present consecutively and congruously so much as may be known of her brief life, her relation to the bard, and her sad, heroic death. She first saw the light in 1764, at Ardrossan, on the coast, fifteen miles northward from the "auld town of Ayr." Her parentage was of the humblest, her father being a sailor before the mast, and the poor dwelling which sheltered her was in no way superior to the meanest of those we find to-day on the narrow streets of her village. From her birthplace we see, across the Firth of Clyde, the beetling mountains of the Highlands, where she afterward dwells and southward the great mass of Ailsa Craig looming, a gigantic pyramid, out of the sea. Mary was named for her aunt, wife of Peter McPherson, a ship-carpenter of Greenock, in whose house Mary died. In her infancy her family removed to the vicinage of Dunoon, on the western shore of the Firth, eight miles below Greenock, leaving the oldest daughter at Ardrossan. Mary grew to young womanhood near Dunoon then returned to Ayrshire, and found occupation at Coilsfield, near Tarbolton, where her acquaintance with Burns soon began. He told a lady that he first saw Mary while walking in the woods of Coilsfield: and first spoke with her at a rustic merrymaking, and "having the luck to win her regards from other suitors," they speedily became intimate. At this period of life Burn's "eternal propensity to fall into love" was unusually active, even for him, and his passion for Mary (at this time) was one of several which engaged his heart in the interval between the reign of Ellison Begbie--"the lass of the twa sparkling, roguish een"--and that of "Bonnie Jean." Mary subsequently became a servant in the house of Burn's landlord, Gavin Hamilton, a lawyer of Mauchline, who had early recognized the genius of the bard and admitted him to an intimate friendship, despite his inferior condition.... Within a stone's-throw of Mary dwelt Jean Armour, and when the former returned to Coilsfield, he promptly fell in love with Jean, and solaced himself with her more buxom and compliant charms. It was a year or so later, when his intercourse with Jean had burdened him with grief and shame, that the tender and romantic affection for Mary came into his life. She was yet at Coilsfield, and while he was in hiding--his heart tortured by the apparent perfidy of Jean and all the countryside condemning his misconduct--his intimacy with Mary was renewed; his quickened vision now discerned her endearing attributes, her trust and sympathy were precious in his distress, and awoke in him an affection such as he never felt for any other woman. During a few brief weeks the lovers spent their evenings and Sabbaths together, loitering amid the "Banks and braes and streams around The Castle of Montgomery," talking of the golden days that were to be theirs when present troubles were past; then came the parting which the world will never forget, and Mary relinquished her service and went to her parents at Campbelltown--a port of Cantyre behind "Arran's mountain isle." Of this parting Burns says, in a letter to Thomson, "We met by appointment on the second Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot on the Ayr, where we spent the day in taking farewell before she should embark for the West Highlands to prepare for our projected change of life." Lovers of Burns linger over this final parting, and detail the impressive ceremonials with which the pair solemnized their betrothal: they stood on either side of a brook, they laved their hands in the water and scattered it in the air to symbolize the purity of their intentions; clasping hands above an open Bible, they swore to be true to each other forever, then exchanged Bibles, and parted never to meet more. It is not strange that when death had left him nothing of her but her poor little Bible, a tress of her golden hair, and a tender memory of her love, the recollection of this farewell remained in his soul forever. He has pictured it in the exquisite lines of "Highland Mary" and "To Mary in Heaven." In the monument at Alloway--between the "auld haunted kirk" and the bridge where Maggie lost her tail--we are shown a memento of the parting; it is the Bible which Burns gave to Mary and above which their vows were said. At Mary's death it passed to her sister, at Ardrossan, who bequeathed it to her son William Anderson; subsequently it was carried to America by one of the family, whence it has been recovered to be treasured here. It is a pocket edition in two volumes, to one of which is attached a lock of poor Mary's shining hair.... A visit to the scenes of the brief passion of the pair is a pleasing incident of our Burns pilgrimage. Coilsfield House is somewhat changed since Mary dwelt beneath its roof--a great rambling edifice of gray weather-worn stone with a row of white pillars aligned along its façade, its massive walls embowered in foliage and environed by the grand woods which Burns and Mary knew so well. It was then a seat of Colonel Hugh Montgomerie, a patron of Burns. The name Coilsfield is derived from Coila, the traditional appellation of the district. The grounds comprise a billowy expanse of wood and sward; great reaches of turf, dotted with trees already venerable when the lovers here had their tryst a hundred years ago, slope away from the mansion to the Faile and border its murmuring course to the Ayr. Here we trace with romantic interest the wanderings of the pair during the swift hours of that last day of parting love, their lingering way 'neath the "wild wood's thickening green," by the pebbled shore of Ayr to the brooklet where their vows were made, and thence along the Faile to the woodland shades of Coilsfield, where, at the close of that winged day, "pledging oft to meet again, they tore themselves asunder." Howitt found at Coilsfield a thorn-tree, called by all the country "Highland Mary's thorn," and believed to be the place of final parting; years ago the tree was notched and broken by souvenir seekers; if it be still in existence the present occupant of Coilsfield is unaware..... Mary remained at Campbelltown during the summer of 1786. Coming to Greenock in the autumn, she found her brother sick of a malignant fever at the house of her aunt; bravely disregarding danger of contagion, she devoted herself to nursing him, and brought him to a safe convalescense only to be herself stricken by his malady and to rapidly sink and die, a sacrifice to her sisterly affection. By this time the success of his poems had determined Burns to remain in Scotland, and he returned to Moss Giel, where tidings of Mary's death reached him. His brother relates that when the letter was handed to him he went to the window and read it, then his face was observed to change suddenly, and he quickly went out without speaking. In June of the next year he made a solitary journey to the Highlands, apparently drawn by memory of Mary. If, indeed, he dropt a tear upon her neglected grave and visited her humble Highland home, we may almost forgive him the excesses of that tour, if not the renewed liaison with Jean which immediately preceded, and the amorous correspondence with "Clarinda" (Mrs. M'Lehose) which followed it..... Poor Mary is laid in the burial-plot of her uncle in the west kirk-yard of Greenock, near Crawford Street; our pilgrimage in Burns-land may fitly end at her grave. A pathway, beaten by the feet of many reverent visitors, leads us to the spot. It is so pathetically different from the scenes she loved in life--the heather-clad slopes of her Highland home, the seclusion of the wooded braes where she loitered with her poet-lover. Scant foliage is about her; few birds sing above her here. She lies by the wall; narrow streets hem in the enclosure; the air is sullied by smoke from factories and from steamers passing within a stone's throw on the busy Clyde; the clanging of many hammers and the discordant din of machinery and traffic invade the place and sound in our ears as we muse above the ashes of the gentle lassie. For half a century her grave was unmarked and neglected; then, by subscription, a monument of marble, twelve feet in height, and of graceful proportions, was raised. It bears a sculptured medallion representing Burns and Mary, with clasped hands, plighting their troth. Beneath is the simple inscription, read oft by eyes dim with tears: Erected over the grave of Highland Mary 1842 "My Mary, dear departed shade, Where is thy place of blissful rest?" THROUGH THE CALEDONIA CANAL TO INVERNESS [Footnote: From "Notes on England." Published by Henry Holt & Co.] BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE In the luminous morning mist, amid a line of masts and rigging, the steamboat sailed down the Clyde to the sea. We proceeded along the indented and rugged coast from one bay to another. These bays, being almost entirely closed in, resemble lakes, and the large sheets of water mirror an amphitheater of green hills. All the corners and windings of the shore are strewn with white villas; the water is crowded with ships; a height was pointed out to me whence three hundred sail may often be counted at a time; a three-decker floats in the distance like a swan among sea-mews. This vast space spread forth and full of life, dilates the mind, one's chest expands more freely, one joyfully inhales the fresh and keen breeze. But the effect upon the nerves and the heart does not resemble that of the Mediterranean; this air and country, instead of pre-disposing to pleasure, dispose to action. We enter a small vessel drawn by three horses, which transports us along the Crinan canal, between two banks of green turf. On the one side are rocks covered with brushwood; on the other, steep declivities of a gray or reddish tinge; this, indeed, is color at least, a pleasure for the eye, well mingled, matched, and blended tints. On the bank and amid the bushes are wild roses, and fragile plants with white tufts smile with a delicate and charming grace. At the outlet from the canal we go on board a large steamer, and the sea opens out wider than ever. The sky is exceedingly clear and brilliant, and the waves break in the sunlight, quivering with reflections of molten tin. The vessel continues her course, leaving in her track a bubbling and boiling path; sea gulls follow unweariedly behind her. On both sides, islands, rocks, boldly-cut promontories stand in sharp relief in the pale azure; the scene changes every quarter of an hour. But on rounding every point the infinite ocean reappears, mingling its almost flat line with the curve of the white sky. The sun sets, we pass by Glencoe, and Ben Nevis appears sprinkled with snow; the bay becomes narrower, and the mass of water, confined amid barren mountains, assumes a tragic appearance. Human beings have come hither to little purpose. Nature remains indomitable and wild; one feels oneself upon a planet. We disembark near Fort William; the dying twilight, the fading red rays on the horizon enable us to get a glimpse of a desolate country; acres of peat-bog, eminences rising from the valley between two ranges of huge mountains. A bird of prey screams amid the stillness. Here and there we see some wretched hovels; I am told that those on the heights are dens without windows, and from which the smoke escapes through a hole in the roof. Many of the old men are blind. What an unpropitious abode for man! On the morrow we voyaged during four hours on the Caledonian canal amidst solitudes, a monotonous row of treeless mountains, enormous green eminences, dotted here and there with fallen stones. A few sheep of a dwarf breed crop the scanty herbage on the slopes; sometimes the winter is so severe that they die; in the distance we perceive a shaggy ox, with savage eyes, the size of a small ass. Both plants and animals perish, or are stunted. In order to make such a land yield anything it must first be replanted with trees, as has been done in Sutherlandshire; a tree renews the soil; it also shelters crops, flocks and herds, and human beings. The canal terminates in a series of lakes. Nothing is more noble than their aspect, nothing more touching. The water, embrowned by the peat, forms a vast shining plain, surrounded by a circle of mountains. In proportion as we advance each mountain slowly grows upon us, becomes more conspicuous, stands forth with its form and physiognomy; the farther blue peaks melt the one behind the other, diminishing toward the horizon, which they enclose. Thus they stand in position like an assemblage of huge, mournful beings around the black water wherein they are mirrored, while above them and the lake, from time to time, the sun flashes through the shroud of clouds. At last the solitude becomes less marked. The mountains are half-wooded at first, and then wholly so; they dwindle down; the widening valleys are covered with harvest; the fresh and green verdure of the herbage which supplies forage begins to clothe the hollows and the slopes. We enter Inverness, and we are surprised to find at almost the extreme north of Scotland, on the border of the Highlands, a pretty and lively modern town. It stretches along the two banks of a clear and rapid river. Many houses are newly-built; we note a church, a castle, an iron bridge. In every part are marks of cleanliness, forethought, and special care. The window-panes shine, the frames have been painted; the bell-handles are of copper; there are flowers in the windows; the poorest nouses are freshly whitewashed. Well-drest ladies and carefully drest gentlemen walk along the streets. Even a desire to possess works of art is shown by Ionian pillars, specimens of pure Gothic, and other architectural gimcrackery, and these prove at least the search after improvement. The land itself is clearly of inferior quality; industry, order, economy and labor have done everything. How great the contrast between all this and the aspect of a small town on the shores of the Mediterranean, so neglected and filthy, where the lower middle class exist like worms in a worm-eaten beam! THE SCOTCH HIGHLANDS [Footnote: From "Notes on England." Published by Henry Holt & Co.] BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE On the slopes the violet heaths are spread like a silken carpet under the scanty firs. Higher still are large patches of evergreen wood, and, as soon as the mountain is approached, a brown circle of barren eminences may be discerned toward the horizon. At the end of an hour the desert begins; the climate is inimical to life, even to that of plants. A tarn, the tint of burned topaz, lies coldly and sadly between stony slopes whereon a few tufts of fern and heather grow here and there. Half a league higher is a second tarn, which appears still more dismal in the rising mist. Around, patches of snow are sprinkled on the peaks, and these descending in rivulets produce morasses. The small country ponies, with a sure instinct, surmount the bog, and we arrive at an elevation whence the eye, as far as it can reach, embraces nothing but an amphitheater of desolate, yet green summits; owing to the destruction of timber, everything else has perished; a scene of ruined nature is far more melancholy a spectacle than any human ruins. On our return across the lake, a bag-piper played his instrument. The music is strange and wild, its effects harmonizing with the aspect of the bubbling streams, veined with striking or somber reflections. The same simple note, a kind of dance music, runs through the whole piece in an incorrect and odd manner, and continually recurs, but it is always harsh and rough; it might be likened to an orange shriveled with the cold and rendered bitter. These are the Highlands. From Braemar to Perth we journey through them for many long miles. It is always a solitude; sometimes five or six valleys in succession are wholly bare, and one may travel for an hour without seeing a tree; then for another hour it is rare merely to see in the distance a wretched twisted birchen-tree, which is dying or dead. It would be some compensation if the rock were naked, and exhibited its mineral structure in all its fulness and ruggedness. But these mountains, of no great elevation, are but bosses with flabby outlines, they have fallen to pieces, and are stone heaps, resembling the remains of a quarry. In winter, torrents of water uproot the heather, leaving on the slopes a leprous, whitened scar, badly tinted by the too feeble sun. The summits are truncated, and want boldness. Patches of miserable verdure seam their sides and mark the oozing of springs; the remainder is covered with brownish heather. Below, at the very bottom, a torrent obstructed by stones, struggles along its channel, or lingers in stagnant pools. One sometimes discerns a hovel, with a stunted cow. The gray, low-lying sky, completes the impression of lugubrious monotony. Our conveyance ascends the last mountain. At length we see a steep declivity, a great rocky wall; but it is unique. We descend again, and enter a habitable tract. Cultivation occurs first on the lower parts, then on the slopes; the declivities are wooded, and then entire mountains; forests of firs spread their somber mantle over the crests; fields of oats and barley extend on all sides; we perceive pretty clumps of trees, houses surrounded by gardens and flowers, and then culture of all descriptions upon the lessening hills, here and there a park and a modern mansion. The sun bursts forth and shines merrily, but without heat; the fertile plain expands, abounding in promises of convenience and pleasure, and we enter Perth thinking about the historical narrations of Sir Walter Scott, and the contrast between the mountain and the plain, the revilings and scornings interchanged between the inhabitants of the Highlands and the Lowlands. BEN LOMOND AND THE HIGHLAND LAKES [Footnote: From "Views Afoot." Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.] BY BAYARD TAYLOR It was indeed a glorious walk from Dumbarton to Loch Lomond through this enchanting valley. The air was mild and clear; a few light clouds occasionally crossing the sun chequered the hills with sun and shade. I have as yet seen nothing that in pastoral beauty can compare with its glassy winding stream, its mossy old woods and guarding hills and the ivy-grown, castellated towers embosomed in its forests or standing on the banks of the Leven--the purest of rivers. At the little village called Renton is a monument to Smollett, but the inhabitants seem to neglect his memory, as one of the tablets on the pedestal is broken and half fallen away. Farther up the vale a farmer showed us an old mansion in the midst of a group of trees on the banks of the Leven which he said belonged to Smollett--or Roderick Random, as he called him. Two or three old pear trees were still standing where the garden had formerly been, under which he was accustomed to play in his childhood. At the head of Leven Vale we set off in the steamer "Watch-Witch" over the crystal waters of Loch Lomond, passing Inch Murrin, the deer-park of the Duke of Montrose, and Inch Caillaeh, "where gray pines wave Their shadows o'er Clan Alpine's grave." Under the clear sky and golden light of the declining sun we entered the Highlands, and heard on every side names we had learned long ago in the lays of Scott. Here was Glen Fruin and Bannochar, Ross Dhu and the pass of Beal-ma-na. Farther still we passed Rob Roy's rock, where the lake is locked in by lofty mountains. The cone-like peak of Ben Lomond rises far above on the right, Ben Voirlich stands in front, and the jagged crest of Ben Arthur looks over the shoulder of the western hills.... When we arose in the morning, at four o'clock, to return with the boat, the sun was already shining upon the westward hills; scarcely a cloud was in the sky and the air was pure and cool. To our great delight, Ben Lomond was unshrouded, and we were told that a more favorable day for the ascent had not occurred for two months. We left the boat at Rowardennan, an inn, at the southern base of Ben Lomond. After breakfasting on Loch Lomond trout I stole out to the shore while my companions were preparing for the ascent, and made a hasty sketch of the lake. We proposed descending on the northern side and crossing the Highlands to Loch Katrine; tho it was represented as difficult and dangerous by the guide who wished to accompany us, we determined to run the risk of being enveloped in a cloud on the summit, and so set out alone, the path appearing plain before us. We had no difficulty in following it up the lesser heights, around the base. It wound on over rock and bog, among the heather and broom with which the mountain is covered, sometimes running up a steep acclivity and then winding zigzag round a rocky ascent. The rains two days before had made the bogs damp and muddy; but, with this exception, we had little trouble for some time. Ben Lomond is a doubly-formed mountain. For about three-fourths of the way there is a continued ascent, when it is suddenly terminated by a large barren plain, from one end of which the summit shoots up abruptly, forming at the north side a precipice five hundred feet high. As we approached the summit of the first part of the mountain the way became very steep and toilsome, but the prospect, which had before been only on the south side, began to open on the east, and we saw suddenly spread out below us the vale of Monteith, with "far Loch Ard and Aberfoil" in the center and the huge front of Ben Venue filling up the picture. Taking courage from this, we hurried on. The heather had become stunted and dwarfish, and the ground was covered with short brown grass. The mountain-sheep which we saw looking at us from the rock above had worn so many paths along the side that we could not tell which to take, but pushed on in the direction of the summit, till, thinking it must be near at hand, we found a mile and a half of plain before us, with the top of Ben Lomond at the farther end. The plain was full of wet moss crossed in all directions by deep ravines or gullies worn in it by the mountain-rains, and the wind swept across with a tempest-like force. I met near the base a young gentleman from Edinburgh who had left Rowardennan before us, and we commenced ascending together. It was hard work, but neither liked to stop; so we climbed up to the first resting-place, and found the path leading along the brink of a precipice. We soon attained the summit, and, climbing up a little mound of earth and stones, I saw the half of Scotland at a glance. The clouds hung just above the mountain-tops, which rose all around like the waves of a mightly sea. On every side, near and far, stood their misty summits, but Ben Lomond was the monarch of them all. Loch Lomond lay unrolled under my feet like a beautiful map; just opposite, Loch Long thrust its head from between the feet of crowded hills to catch a glimpse of the giant. We could see from Ben Nevis to Ayr--from Edinburgh to Staffa. Stirling and Edinburgh castles would have been visible but that the clouds hung low in the valley of the Forth and hid them from our sight. ... At a cottage on the farm of Coman, we procured some oatcakes and milk for dinner from an old Scotch woman who pointed out the direction of Loch Katrine, six miles distant; there was no road, nor, indeed, a solitary dwelling between. The hills were bare of trees, covered with scraggy bushes and rough heath, which in some places was so thick we could scarcely drag our feet through. Added to this, the ground was covered with a kind of moss that retained the moisture like a sponge; so that our boots ere long became thoroughly soaked. Several considerable streams were rushing down the side, and many of the wild breed of black Highland cattle were grazing around. After climbing up and down one or two heights, occasionally startling the moorcock and ptarmigan from their heathery coverts, we saw the valley of Loch Con, while in the middle of the plain on the top of the mountain we had ascended was a sheet of water which we took to be Loch Ackill. Two or three wild-fowl swimming on its surface were the only living things in sight. The peaks around shut it out from all view of the world; a single decayed tree leaned over it from a mossy rock which gave the whole scene an air of the most desolate wildness. From the next mountain we saw Loch Ackill and Loch Katrine below, but a wet and weary descent had yet to be made. I was about throwing off my knapsack on a rock to take a sketch of Loch Katrine, which appeared to be very beautiful from this point, when we discerned a cavalcade of ponies winding along the path from Inversnaid to the head of the lake, and hastened down to take the boat when they should arrive.... As we drew near the eastern end of the lake the scenery became far more beautiful. The Trosachs opened before us. Ben Ledi looked down over the "forehead bare" of Ben An, and as we turned a rocky point Ellen's Isle rose up in front. It is a beautiful little turquoise in the silver setting of Loch Katrine. The northern side alone is accessible, all the others being rocky and perpendicular and thickly grown with trees. We rounded the island to the little bay, bordered by the silver strand, above which is the rock from which Fitz-James wound his horn, and shot under an ancient oak which flung its long gray arms over the water. We here found a flight of rocky steps leading to the top, where stood the bower erected by Lady Willoughby D'Eresby to correspond with Scott's description. Two or three blackened beams are all that remain of it, having been burned down some years ago by the carelessness of a traveler. The mountains stand all around, like giants, to "sentinel this enchanted land." On leaving the island we saw the Goblin's Cave in the side of Ben Venue, called by the Gaels "Coiran-Uriskin." Near it is Beal-nam-bo--the "Pass of Cattle"--overhung with gray weeping birch-trees. Here the boatmen stopt to let us hear the fine echo, and the names of Rob Roy and Roderick Dhu were sent back to us apparently as loud as they were given. The description of Scott is wonderfully exact, tho the forest that feathered o'er the sides of Ben Venue has since been cut down and sold by the Duke of Montrose. When we reached the end of the lake, it commenced raining, and we hastened on through the pass of Beal-an-Duine, scarcely taking time to glance at the scenery, till Loch Achray appeared through the trees, and on its banks the ivy-grown front of the inn of Ardcheancrochan--with its unpronounceable name. TO THE HEBRIDES [Footnote: From "A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D."] BY JAMES BOSWELL. My acquaintance, the Reverend Mr. John Macauley, one of the ministers of Inverary, and brother to our good friend at Calder, came to us this morning, and accompanied us to the castle, where I presented Dr. Johnson to the Duke of Argyle. We were shown through the house; and I never shall forget the impression made upon my fancy by some of the ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay, inviting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought for the moment, I could have been a knight-errant for them. We then got into a low one-horse chair, ordered for us by the duke, in which we drove about the place. Dr. Johnson was much struck by the grandeur and elegance of this princely seat. He thought, however, the castle too low, and wished it had been a story higher. He said, "What I admire here, is the total defiance of expense." I had a particular pride in showing him a great number of fine old trees, to compensate for the nakedness which had made such an impression on him on the eastern coast of Scotland. When we came in, before dinner, we found the duke and some gentlemen in the hall. Dr. Johnson took much notice of the large collection of arms, which are excellently disposed there. I told what he had said to Sir Alexander Macdonald, of his ancestors not suffering their arms to rust. "Well," said the doctor, "but let us be glad we live in times when arms may rust. We can sit to-day at his grace's table without any risk of being attacked, and perhaps sitting down again wounded or maimed." The duke placed Dr. Johnson next himself at the table. I was in fine spirits, and tho sensible that I had the misfortune of not being in favor with the duchess I was not in the least disconcerted, and offered her grace some of the dish that was before me. It must be owned that I was in the right to be quite unconcerned, if I could. I was the Duke of Argyle's guest, and I had no reason to suppose that he adopted the prejudices and resentments of the Duchess of Hamilton.... The duchess was very attentive to Dr. Johnson. I know not how a middle state came to be mentioned. Her Grace wished to hear him on that point. "Madam," said he, "your own relation, Mr. Archibald Campbell, can tell you better about it than I can. He was a bishop of the Nonjuring communion, and wrote a book upon the subject." He engaged to get it for her grace. He afterward gave a full history of Mr. Archibald Campbell, which I am sorry I do not recollect particularly. He said Mr. Campbell had been bred a violent Whig, but afterward "kept better company, and became a Tory." He said this with a smile, in pleasant allusion, as I thought, to the opposition between his own political principles and those of the duke's clan. He added that Mr. Campbell, after the revolution, was thrown into jail on account of his tenets; but, on application by letter to the old Lord Townshend, was released; that he always spoke of his lordship with great gratitude, saying, "tho a Whig, he had humanity." A gentleman in company, after dinner, was desired by the duke to go into another room, for a specimen of curious marble, which his grace wished to show us. He brought a wrong piece, upon which the duke sent him back again. He could not refuse, but, to avoid any appearance of servility, he whistled as he walked out of the room, to show his independence. On my mentioning this afterward to Dr. Johnson, he said, it was a nice trait of character. Dr. Johnson talked a great deal, and was so entertaining, that Lady Betty Hamilton, after dinner, went and placed her chair close to his, leaned upon the back of it, and listened eagerly. It would have made a fine picture to have drawn the sage and her at this time in their several attitudes. He did not know, all the while, how much he was honored. I told him afterward. I never saw him so gentle and complaisant as this day. We went to tea. The duke and I walked up and down the drawing room, conversing. The duchess still continued to show the same marked coldness for me; for which, tho I suffered from it, I made every allowance, considering the very warm part I had taken for Douglas, in the cause in which she thought her son deeply interested. Had not her grace discovered some displeasure toward me, I should have suspected her of insensibility or dissimulation.... He was much pleased with our visit at the castle of Inverary. The Duke of Argyle was exceedingly polite to him, and, upon his complaining of the shelties which he had hitherto ridden being too small for him, his grace told him he should be provided with a good horse to carry him next day. STAFFA AND IONA [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."] BY WILLIAM HOWITT. We are bound for the regions of ghosts and fays, mermaids and kelpies, of great sea-snakes, and a hundred other marvels and miracles. To accomplish all this, we have nothing more to do than step on board the steam-packet that lies at the Broomielaw, or great quay at Glasgow. The volume of heavy black smoke, issuing from its nickled chimney, announces that it means to be moving on its way speedily.... Emerging from the Crinan canal, you issue forth into the Sound of Jura, and feel at once that you are in the stern and yet beautiful region of your youthful admiration. There is the heavy swell and the solemn roar of the great Atlantic. You feel the wild winds that sweep over it. You see around you only high and craggy coasts, that are bleak and naked with the lashings of a thousand tempests. All before you, are scattered rocks that emerge from the restless sea, and rocky isles, with patches of the most beautiful greensward, but with scarcely a single tree. The waves are leaping in whiteness against the cliffs, and thousands of sea-birds are floating in long lines on the billows, or skimming past you singly, and diving into the clear hissing waters as they near your vessel. One of the very first objects which arrests your senses is the Coryvreckan, or great whirlpool of the Hebrides, an awful feature in all the poetry and ballads belonging to these regions. I never visited any part of Great Britain which more completely met my anticipated ideas than this. The day was fine, but with a strong breeze. The sea was rough; the wild-fowl were flying, scudding, and diving on all hands; and, wherever the eye turned, were craggy islands-mountains of dark heath or bare splintered stone, and green, solitary slopes, where scarcely a tree or a hut was to be discovered; but now and then black cattle might be descried grazing, or flocks of sheep dotted the hill sides. Far as we could look, were naked rocks rising from the sea, that were worn almost into roundness, or scooped into hollows by the eternal action of the stormy waters. Some of them stood in huge arches, like temples of some shaggy seagod, or haunts of sea-fowl--daylight and the waves passing freely through them. Everywhere were waves, leaping in snowy foam against these rocks and against the craggy shores. It was a stern wilderness of chafing billows and of resisting stone. The rocks were principally of dark red granite, and were cracked across and across, as if by the action of fire or frost. Every thing spake to us of the wild tempests that so frequently rage through these seas.... Staffa rose momently in its majesty before us! After all the descriptions which we had read, and the views we had seen of this singular little island, we were struck with delighted astonishment at its aspect. It is, in fact, one great mass of basaltic columns, bearing on their heads another huge mass of black stone, here and there covered with green turf. We sailed past the different caves--the Boat Cave and the Cormorant Cave, which are themselves very wonderful; but it was Fingal's Cave that struck us with admiration and awe. To see this magnificent cavern, with its clustered columns on each side, and pointed arch, with the bleak precipices above it, and the sea raging at its base, and dashing and roaring into its gloomy interior, was worth all the voyage. There are no words that can express the sensation it creates. We were taken in the boats on shore at the northeast point, and landed amid a wilderness of basaltic columns thrown into almost all forms and directions. Some were broken, and lay in heaps in the clear green water. Others were piled up erect and abrupt; some were twisted up into tortuous pyramids at a little distance from the shore itself, and through the passage which they left, the sea came rushing--all foam, and with the most tremendous roar. Others were bent like so many leaden pipes, and turned their broken extremities toward us. We advanced along a sort of giant's causeway, the pavement of which was the heads of basaltic columns, all fitting together in the most beautiful symmetry; and, turning round the precipice to our right hand, found ourselves at the entrance of the great cave. The sea was too stormy to allow us to enter it, as is often done in boats, we had therefore to clamber along one of its sides, where a row of columns is broken off, at some distance above the waves, and presents an accessible, but certainly very formidable causeway, by which you may reach the far end. I do not believe that any stranger, if he were there alone, would dare to pass along that irregular and slippery causeway, and penetrate to the obscure end of the cave; but numbers animate one another to anything. We clambered along this causeway or corridor, now ascending and now descending, as the broken columns required, and soon stood--upward of seventy of us--ranged along its side from one end to the other. Let it be remembered that this splendid sea cave is forty-two feet wide at the entrance; sixty-six feet high from low water; and runs into the rock two hundred and twenty-seven feet. Let it be imagined that at eight or ten feet below us it was paved with the sea, which came rushing and foaming along it, and dashing up against the solid rock at its termination; while the light thrown from the flickering billows quivered in its arched roof above us, and the whole place was filled with the solemn sound of the ocean; and if any one can imagine to himself any situation more sublime, I should like to know what that is. The roof is composed of the lower ends of basaltic columns, which have yet been so cut away by nature as to give it the aspect of the roof of some gigantic cathedral aisle; and lichens of gold and crimson have gilded and colored it in the richest manner. It was difficult to forget, as we stood there, that, if any one slipt, he would disappear forever, for the billows in their ebb would sweep him out to the open sea, as it were in a moment. Yet the excitement of the whole group was too evident to rest with any seriousness on such a thought. Some one suddenly fired a gun in the place, and the concussion and reverberated thunders were astounding. When the first effect was gone off, one general peal of laughter rung through the cave, and then nearly the whole company began to sing "The Sea! the sea!" The captain found it a difficult matter to get his company out of this strange chantry--where they and the wind and waves seemed all going mad together--to embark them again for Iona. Venerable Iona--how different! and with what different feelings approached! As we drew near, we saw a low bleak shore, backed by naked hills, and at their feet a row of miserable Highland huts, and at separate intervals the ruins of the monastery and church of Ronad, the church of St. Oran and its burying-ground, and lastly, the cathedral.... Nothing is more striking, in this wild and neglected spot, than to walk among these ruins, and behold amid the rank grass those tombs of ancient kings, chiefs, and churchmen, with their sculpture of so singular and yet superior a style. It is said that there were formerly three hundred and sixty stone crosses in the Island of Iona, which since the Reformation have been reduced to two, and the fragments of two others. The Synod of Argyle is reported to have caused no less than sixty of them to be thrown into the sea at one time, and fragments of others, which were knocked in pieces, are to be seen here and there, some of them now converted into gravestones. They lie on the margin of the stormy Atlantic; they lie among walls which, tho they may be loosened for years, seem as tho they never could decay, for they are of the red granite of which the rocks and islets around are composed, and defended only by low enclosures piled up of the same granite, rounded into great pebbles by the washing of the sea. But perhaps the most striking scene of all was our own company of voyagers landing amid the huge masses of rock that scatter the strand; forming into long procession, two and two, and advancing in that order from one ruin to another. We chanced to linger behind for a moment; and our eye caught this procession of upward of seventy persons thus wandering on amid those time-worn edifices--and here and there a solitary cross lifting its head above them. It was a picture worthy of a great painter. It looked as tho the day of pilgrimages was come back again, and that this was a troop of devotees thronging to this holy shrine. The day of pilgrimages is, indeed come back again; but they are the pilgrimages of knowledge and an enlightened curiosity. The day of that science which the saints of Iona were said to diffuse first in Britain has now risen to a splendid noon; and not the least of its evidences is that, every few days through every summer, a company like this descends on this barren strand to behold what Johnson calls "that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefit of knowledge and the blessings of religion." A more interesting or laudable excursion the power of steam and English money can not well enable our countrymen to make. VII IRELAND A SUMMER DAY IN DUBLIN [Footnote: From "The Irish Sketch Book."] BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY Our passage across from the Head [Holyhead] was made in a rain so pouring and steady, that sea and coast were entirely hidden from us, and one could see very little beyond the glowing tip of the cigar which remained alight nobly in spite of the weather. When the gallant exertions of that fiery spirit were over for ever, and, burning bravely to the end, it had breathed its last in doing its master service, all became black and cheerless around; the passengers had dropt off one by one, preferring to be dry and ill below rather than wet and squeamish above; even the mate, with his gold-laced cap (who is so astonishingly like Mr. Charles Dickens, that he might pass for that gentleman)--even the mate said he would go to his cabin and turn in. So there remained nothing for it but to do as all the world had done.... A long pier, with a steamer or two at hand, and a few small vessels lying on either side of the jetty; a town irregularly built, with showy-looking hotels; a few people straggling on the beach; two or three ears at the railroad station, which runs along the shore as far as Dublin; the sea stretching interminably eastward; to the north the Hill of Howth, lying gray behind the mist; and, directly under his feet, upon the wet, black, shining, slippery deck, an agreeable reflection of his own legs, disappearing seemingly in the direction of the cabin from which he issues; are the sights which a traveler may remark on coming on deck at Kingstown pier on a wet morning--let us say on an average morning; for according to the statement of well-informed natives, the Irish day is more often rainy than otherwise. A hideous obelisk, stuck upon four fat balls, and surmounted with a crown on a cushion (the latter were no bad emblems perhaps of the monarch in whose honor they were raised), commemorates the sacred spot at which George IV. quitted Ireland: you are landed here from the steamer; and a carman, who is dawdling in the neighborhood, with a straw in his mouth, comes leisurely up to ask whether you'll go to Dublin? Is it natural indolence, or the effect of despair because of the neighboring railroad, which renders him so indifferent? He does not even take the straw out of his mouth as he proposes the question, and seems quite careless as to the answer. He said he would take me to Dublin "in three quarthers," as soon as we began a parley; as to the fare, he would not hear of it--he said he would leave it to my honor; he would take me for nothing. Was it possible to refuse such a genteel offer? Before that day, so memorable for joy and sorrow, for rapture at receiving its monarch and tearful grief at losing him, when George IV. came and left the maritime resort of the citizens of Dublin, it bore a less genteel name than that which it owns at present, and was called Dunleary. After that glorious event Dunleary disdained to be Dunleary any longer, and became Kingstown, henceforward and forever. Numerous terraces and pleasure-houses have been built in the place--they stretch row after row along the banks of the sea, and rise one above another on the hill. The rents of these houses are said to be very high; the Dublin citizens crowd into them in summer; and a great source of pleasure and comfort must it be to them to have the fresh sea-breezes and prospects so near to the metropolis. The better sort of houses are handsome and spacious; but the fashionable quarter is yet in an unfinished state, for enterprising architects are always beginning new roads, rows and terraces; nor are those already built by any means complete. [Footnote: This was written in 1842.] Besides the aristocratic part of the town is a commercial one, and nearer to Dublin stretch lines of low cottages which have not a Kingstown look at all, but are evidently of the Dunleary period.... The capabilities of the country, however, are very, very great, and in many instances have been taken advantage of; for you see, besides the misery, numerous handsome houses and parks along the road, having fine lawns and woods, and the sea in our view, at a quarter of an hour's ride from Dublin. It is the continual appearance of this sort of wealth which makes the poverty more striking; and thus between the two (for there is no vacant space of fields between Kingstown and Dublin) the car reaches the city. The entrance to the capital is very handsome. There is no bustle and throng of carriages, as in London; but you pass by numerous rows of neat houses, fronted with gardens, and adorned with all sorts of gay-looking creepers. Pretty market-gardens, with trim beds of plants and shining glass-houses, give the suburbs a riante and cheerful look; and, passing under the arch of the railway, we are in the city itself. Hence you come upon several old-fashioned, well-built, airy, stately streets, and through Fitzwilliam Square, a noble place, the garden of which is full of flowers and foliage. The leaves are green, and not black as in similar places in London; the red-brick houses tall and handsome. Presently the ear stops before an extremely big red house, in that extremely large square, Stephen's Green, where Mr. O'Connell says there is one day or other to be a Parliament. There is room enough for that, or for any other edifice which fancy or patriotism may have a mind to erect, for part of one of the sides of the square is not yet built, and you see the fields and the country beyond.... The hotel to which I had been directed is a respectable old edifice, much frequented by families from the country, and where the solitary traveler may likewise find society. For he may either use the Shelburne as a hotel or a boarding-house, in which latter case he is comfortably accommodated at the very moderate daily charge. For this charge a copious breakfast is provided for him in the coffee-room, a perpetual luncheon is likewise there spread, a plentiful dinner is ready at six o'clock; after which, there is a drawing-room and a rubber of whist, with tay and coffee and cakes in plenty to satisfy the largest appetite. The hotel is majestically conducted by clerks and other officers; the landlord himself does not appear, after the honest comfortable English fashion, but lives in a private mansion hard by, where his name may be read inscribed on a brass-plate, like that of any other private gentleman. A woman melodiously crying "Dublin Bay herrings" passed just as we came up to the door, and as that fish is famous throughout Europe, I seized the earliest opportunity and ordered a broiled one for breakfast. It merits all its reputation: and in this respect I should think the Bay of Dublin is far superior to its rival of Naples. Are there any herrings in Naples Bay? Dolphins there may be; and Mount Vesuvius, to be sure, is bigger than even the Hill of Howth: but a dolphin is better in a sonnet than at a breakfast, and what poet is there that, at certain periods of the day, would hesitate in his choice between the two? With this famous broiled herring the morning papers are served up; and a great part of these, too, gives opportunity of reflection to the newcomer, and shows him how different this country is from his own. Some hundred years hence, when students want to inform themselves of the history of the present day, and refer to files of "Times" and "Chronicle" for the purpose, I think it is possible that they will consult, not so much those luminous and philosophical leading articles which call our attention at present both by the majesty of their eloquence and the largeness of their type, but that they will turn to those parts of the journals into which information is squeezed into the smallest possible print, to the advertisements, namely, the law and police reports, and to the instructive narratives supplied by that ill-used body of men who transcribe knowledge at the rate of a penny a line.... The papers being read, it became my duty to discover the town; and a handsomer town, with fewer people in it, it is impossible to see on a summer's day. In the whole wide square of Stephen's Green, I think there were not more than two nursery-maids, to keep company with the statue of George I., who rides on horseback in the middle of the garden, the horse having his foot up to trot, as if he wanted to go out of town too. Small troops of dirty children (too poor and dirty to have lodgings at Kingstown) were squatting here and there upon the sunshiny steps, the only clients at the thresholds of the professional gentlemen whose names figure on brass-plates on the doors. A stand of lazy carmen, a policeman or two with clinking boot-heels, a couple of moaning beggars leaning against the rails and calling upon the Lord, and a fellow with a toy and book stall, where the lives of St. Patrick, Robert Emmet, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald may be bought for double their value, were all the population of the Green.... In the courts of the College, scarce the ghost of a gyp or the shadow of a bed-maker. In spite of the solitude, the square of the College is a fine sight--a large ground, surrounded by buildings of various ages and styles, but comfortable, handsome, and in good repair; a modern row of rooms; a row that has been Elizabethan once; a hall and senate-house, facing each other, of the style of George I.; and a noble library, with a range of many windows, and a fine manly simple façade of cut stone. The bank and other public buildings of Dublin are justly famous. In the former may still be seen the room which was the House of Lords formerly, and where the bank directors now sit, under a clean marble image of George III. The House of Commons has disappeared, for the accommodation of clerks and cashiers. The interior is light, splendid, airy, well furnished, and the outside of the building not less so. The Exchange, hard by, is an equally magnificent structure; but the genius of commerce has deserted it, for all its architectural beauty. There was nobody inside when I entered, but a pert statue of George III. in a Roman toga, simpering and turning out his toes; and two dirty children playing, whose hoop-sticks caused great clattering echoes under the vacant sounding dome. Walking toward the river, you have on either side of you, at Carlisle Bridge, a very brilliant and beautiful prospect. The four courts and their dome to the left, the custom-house and its dome to the right; and in this direction seaward, a considerable number of vessels are moored, and the quays are black and busy with the cargoes discharged from ships. Seamen cheering, herring-women bawling, coal-carts loading--the scene is animated and lively. Yonder is the famous Corn Exchange; but the Lord Mayor is attending to his duties in Parliament, and little of note is going on. I had just passed his lordship's mansion in Dawson Street--a queer old dirty brick house, with dumpy urns at each extremity, and looking as if a story of it had been cut off--a rasée house. Close at hand, and peering over a paling, is a statue of our blest sovereign George II. How absurd these pompous images look, of defunct majesties, for whom no breathing soul cares a halfpenny! It is not so with the effigy of William III., who has done something to merit a statue. At this minute the Lord Mayor has William's effigy under a canvas, and is painting him of a bright green picked out with yellow--his lordship's own livery. The view along the quays to the four courts has no small resemblance to a view along the quays at Paris, tho not so lively as are even those quiet walks. The vessels do not come above-bridge, and the marine population remains constant about them, and about numerous dirty liquor-shops, eating-houses, and marine-store establishments, which are kept for their accommodation along the quay. As far as you can see, the shining Liffey flows away eastward, hastening (like the rest of the inhabitants of Dublin) to the sea. In front of Carlisle Bridge, and not in the least crowded, tho in the midst of Sackville Street, stands Nelson upon a stone pillar. The post office is on his right hand (only it is cut off); and on his left, Gresham's and the Imperial Hotel. Of the latter let me say (from subsequent experience) that it is ornamented by a cook who could dress a dinner by the side of M. Borel or M. Soyéld there were more such artists in this ill-fated country! The street is exceedingly broad and handsome; the shops at the commencement, rich and spacious; but in Upper Sackville Street, which closes with the pretty building and gardens of the Rotunda, the appearance of wealth begins to fade somewhat, and the houses look as if they had seen better days. Even in this, the great street of the town, there is scarcely any one, and it is as vacant and listless as Pall Mall in October. DUBLIN CASTLE [Footnote: From "Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc."] BY MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL The building of Dublin "Castle"--for the residence of the Viceroys retains the term--was commenced by Meiler FitzHenry, Lord Justice of Ireland, in 1205; and finished, fifteen years afterward, by Henry de Loundres, Archbishop of Dublin. The purpose of the structure is declared by the patent by which King John commanded its erection: "You have given us to understand that you have not a convenient place wherein our treasure may be safely deposited; and forasmuch, as well for that use as for many others, a fortress would be necessary for us at Dublin, we command you to erect a castle there, in such competent place as you shall judge most expedient, as well to curb the city as to defend it if occasion shall so require, and that you make it as strong as you can with good and durable walls." Accordingly it was occupied as a strong fortress only, until the reign of Elizabeth, when it became the seat of the Irish government--the court being held previously at various palaces in the city or its suburbs; and in the seventeenth century, Terms and Parliaments were both held within its walls. The Castle, however, has undergone so many and such various changes from time to time, as circumstances justified the withdrawal of its defenses, that the only portion of it which nows bears a character of antiquity is the Birmingham Tower; and even that has been almost entirely rebuilt, altho it retains its ancient form. The records of this tower--in modern times the "State Paper Office"--would afford materials for one of the most singular and romantic histories ever published. It received its name, according to Dr. Walsh, not from the De Birminghams, who were lords justices in 1321 and 1348; but from Sir William Birmingham, who was imprisioned there in 1331, with his son Walter; "the former was taken out from thence and executed, the latter was pardoned as to life because he was in holy orders." It was the ancient keep, or ballium, of the fortress; and was for a very long period the great state prison, in which were confined the resolute or obstinate Milesian chiefs, and the rebellious Anglo-Norman lords. Strong and well guarded as it was, however, its inmates contrived occasionally to escape from its durance. Some of the escapes which the historians have recorded are remarkable and interesting. The Castle is situated on very high ground, nearly in the center of the city; the principal entrance is by a handsome gateway. The several buildings, surrounding two squares, consist of the lord-lieutenant's state apartments, guardrooms, the offices of the chief secretary, the apartments of aides-du-camp and officers of the household, the offices of the treasury, hanaper, register, auditor-general, constabulary, etc., etc. The buildings have a dull and heavy character--no effort has been made at elegance or display--and however well calculated they may seem for business, the whole have more the aspect of a prison than a court. There is, indeed, one structure that contributes somewhat to redeem the somber appearance of "the Castle"--the chapel is a fine Gothic edifice, richly decorated both within and without. The following description of the ancient character of "the Castle" is gathered from Dr. Walsh: "The entrance from the city on the north side was by a drawbridge, placed between two strong round towers from Castle Street, the westward of which subsisted till the year 1766. A portcullis, armed with iron, between these towers, served as a second defense, in case the bridge should be surprised by an enemy. A high curtain extended from the western tower to Cork Tower, so called after the great Earl of Cork, who, in 1624, expended a considerable sum in rebuilding it. The wall was then continued of equal height until it joined Birmingham Tower, which was afterward used as a prison for state criminals; it was taken down in 1775, and the present building erected on the site, for preserving part of the ancient records of the kingdom. From this another high curtain extended to the Wardrobe Tower, which served as repository for the royal robe, the cap of maintenance, and the other furniture of state. From, this tower the wall was carried to the North or Storehouse Tower (now demolished) near Dame's Gate, and from thence it was continued to the eastern gateway tower, at the entrance of the castle. This fortress was originally encompassed with a broad and deep moat, which has long since been filled up. There were two sally ports in the wall, one toward Sheep (now Ship) Street, which was closed up in 1663 by the Duke of Ormond, after the discovery of Jephson and Blood's conspiracy." The walls by which it was formerly surrounded, and the fortifications for its defense, have nearly all vanished. Neither is Dublin rich in remains of antiquity; one of the few that appertain to its ancient history is a picturesque gateway, but not of a very remote date, called Marsh's Gate. It stands in Kevin Street, near the cathedral of St. Patrick, and is the entrance to a large court, now occupied by the horse police; at one end of which is the Barrack, formerly, we believe, the Deanery, and Marsh's library. ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL [Footnote: From "Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc."] BY MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL If few of the public structures of Dublin possess "the beauty of age," many of its churches may be classed with the "ancient of days." Chief among them all is the Cathedral of St. Patrick; interesting, not alone from its antiquity, but from its association with the several leading events, and remarkable people, by which and by whom Ireland has been made "famous." It is situated in a very old part of Dublin, in the midst of low streets and alleys, the houses being close to the small open yard by which the venerable structure is encompassed. Its condition, too, is very wretched; and altho various suggestions have been made, from time to time, for its repair and renovation, it continues in a state by no means creditable either to the church or the city. It was built A.D. 1190, by John Comyn, Archbishop of Dublin, by whom it was dedicated to the patron saint of Ireland; but it is said, the site on which it stands was formerly occupied by a church erected by the saint himself--A.D. 448. St. Patrick's was collegiate in its first institution, and erected into a cathedral about the year 1225, by Henry de Loundres, successor to Archbishop Comyn, "united with the cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Christ's Church, Dublin, into one spouse, saving unto the latter the prerogative of honor." The question of precedence between the sees of Dublin and Armagh was agitated for centuries with the greatest violence, and both pleaded authority in support of their pretensions; it was at length determined, in 1552, that each should be entitled to primatial dignity, and erect his crozier in the diocese of the other: that the archbishop of Dublin should be titled the "Primate of Ireland;" while the archbishop of Armagh should be styled, with more precision, "Primate of all Ireland"--a distinction which continues to the present day. Above two centuries before this arrangement, however, as the diocese of Dublin contained two cathedrals--St. Patrick's and Christ Church--an agreement was made between the chapters of both, that each church should be called Cathedral and Metropolitan, but that Christ Church should have precedence, as being the elder church, and that the archbishops should be buried alternately in the two cathedrals. The sweeping censure of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, that "in point of good architecture it has little to notice or commend," is not to be questioned; ruins--and, in its present state, St. Patrick's approaches very near to be classed among them--of far greater beauty abound in Ireland. It is to its associations with the past that the cathedral is mainly indebted for its interest. The choral music of St. Patrick's is said to be "almost unrivalled for its combined powers of voice, organ, and scientific skill." LIMERICK [Footnote: From "Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc."] BY MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL Limerick is distinguished in history as "the city of the violated treaty;" and the Shannon, on which it stands, has been aptly termed "the King of Island Rivers." Few of the Irish counties possess so many attractions for the antiquarian and the lover of the picturesque: and with one exception, no city of Ireland has contributed so largely to maintain the honor and glory of the country. The brave defenders of Limerick and Londonderry have received--the former from the Protestant, and the latter from the Catholic, historian--the praise that party spirit failed to weaken; the heroic gallantry, the indomitable perseverance, and the patient and resolute endurance under suffering, of both, having deprived political partizans of their asperity--compelling them, for once at least, to render justice to their opponents; all having readily subscribed to the opinion that "Derry and Limerick will ever grace the historic page, as rival companions and monuments of Irish bravery, generosity, and integrity." From a very early period Limerick has held rank among the cities of Ireland, second only to that of the capital; and before its walls were defeated, first, the Anglo-Norman chivalry; next, the sturdy Ironsides of Cromwell; and last, the victorious array of William the Third. Like most of the Irish sea-ports, it was, in the ninth and tenth centuries, a settlement of the Danes, between whom and the native Irish many encounters took place, until finally the race of the sea-kings was expelled from the country. It is certain that at this early period Limerick was a place of considerable importance; for some time after, indeed until the conquest by the English, it was the capital of the province, and the seat of the kings of Thomond, or North Munster, who were hence called Kings of Limerick. Upon the arrival of Strongbow, Donnell O'Brien swore fealty to Henry the Second, but subsequently revolted; and Raymond Le Gros, the bravest and noblest of all the followers of Strongbow, laid siege to his city. Limerick was at that time "environed with a foule and deepe ditch with running water, not to be passed over without boats, but by one foord only;" the English soldiers were therefore discouraged, and would have abandoned the attempt to take it, but that "a valiaunt knight, Meyler Fitz-Henry, having found the foord, wyth a loud voyce cried 'St. David, companions, let us corageouslie pass this foord.'" For some years after the city was alternately in the possession of the English and the Irish; on the death of Strongbow, it was surrendered to the keeping of its native prince, who swore to govern it for the King of England; but the British knights had scarcely passed the bridge, when he destroyed it and set fire to the town. After again repeatedly changing hands, it was finally settled by the renowned William de Burgo, ancestor of the present Marquis of Clanricarde, and remained an appanage to the English crown. At this period, and for some time after, Limerick, was "next in consequence" to Dublin. Richard the First, in the ninth year of his reign, granted it a charter to elect a mayor--an honor which London did not then enjoy, and which Dublin did not receive until a century later; and King John, according to Stanihurst, was "so pleased with the agreeableness of the city, that he caused a very fine castle and bridge to be built there." The castle has endured for above six centuries; in all the "battles, sieges, fortunes," that have since occurred, it has been the object most coveted, perhaps in Ireland, by the contending parties; and it still frowns, a dark mass, upon the waters of the mighty Shannon. The great attraction of Limerick--altho by no means the only one--is, however, its majestic, and beautiful river: "the king of island rivers,"--the "principallest of all in Ireland," writes the quaint old naturalist, Dr. Gerrard Boate. It takes its rise among the mountains of Leitrim--strange to say, the precise spot has not been ascertained--and running for a few miles as an inconsiderable stream, diffuses itself into a spacious lake, called Lough Allyn. Issuing thence it pursues its course for several miles, and forms another small lake, Lough Eike; again spreads itself out into Lough Ree,--a lake fifteen miles in length and four in breadth; and thence proceeds as a broad and rapid river, passing by Athlone; then narrowing again until it reaches Shannon harbor; then widening into far-famed Lough Derg, eighteen miles long and four broad; then progressing until it arrives at Killaloe, where it ceases to be navigable until it waters. Limerick city; from whence it flows in a broad and majestic volume to the ocean for about sixty miles; running a distance of upward of 200 miles from its source to its mouth--between Loop Head and Kerry Head (the space between them being about eight miles), watering ten counties in its progress, and affording facilities for commerce and internal intercourse such as are unparalleled in any other portion of the United Kingdom. "The spacious Shenan spreading like a sea," thus answers to the description of Spenser; for a long space its course is so gentle that ancient writers supposed its name to have been derived from "Seen-awn," the slow river; and for many miles, between O'Brien's Bridge and Limerick, it rolls so rapidly along as almost to be characterized as a series of cataracts. At the falls of Killaloe, it descends twenty-one feet in a mile; and above one hundred feet from Killaloe to Limerick.... Its banks too are, nearly all along its course, of surpassing beauty; as it nears Limerick, the adjacent hills are crowned with villas; and upon its sides are the ruins of many ancient castles. Castle Connell, a village about six miles from the city, is perhaps unrivaled in the kingdom for natural graces; and immediately below it are the Falls of Doonas where the river rushes over huge mountain-rocks, affording a passage which the more daring only will make; for the current--narrowed to a boat's breadth--rushes along with such frightful rapidity, that the deviation of a few inches would be inevitable destruction. The immediate environs of Limerick are not picturesque; the city lies in a spacious plain, the greater portion of which is scarcely above the level of the water: at short distances, however, there are some of the most interesting ruins in the kingdom, in the midst of scenery of surpassing loveliness. Of these, the tourist should first visit Carrig-o-gunnel, next Adare, and then Castle Connell, the most beautiful of many beautiful places upon the banks of the noble Shannon. FROM BELFAST TO DUBLIN [Footnote: From "Letters of a Traveler."] BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT We left Glasgow on the morning of the 22d, and taking the railway to Ardrossan were soon at the beach. One of those iron steamers which navigate the British waters, far inferior to our own in commodious and comfortable arrangements, but strong and safe, received us on board, and at ten o'clock we were on our way to Belfast. The coast of Ayr, with the cliff near the birthplace of Burns, continued long in sight; we passed near the mountains of Arran, high and bare steeps swelling out of the sea, which had a look of almost complete solitude; and at length Ailsa Craig began faintly to show itself, high above the horizon, through the thick atmosphere. We passed this lonely rock, about which flocks of sea-birds, the solan goose, and the gannet, on long white wings with jetty tips, were continually wheeling, and with a glass we could discern them sitting by thousands on the shelves of the rock, where they breed. The upper part of Ailsa, above the cliffs which reach more than half-way to the summit, appears not to be destitute of soil, for it was tinged with a faint verdure. In about nine hours we had crossed the channel, over smooth water, and were making our way, between green shores almost without a tree, up the bay, at the bottom of which stands, or rather lies, for its site is low, the town of Belfast. We had yet enough of daylight left to explore a part at least of the city. "It looks like Albany," said my companion, and really the place bears some resemblance to the streets of Albany which are situated near the river, nor is it without an appearance of commercial activity. The people of Belfast, you know, are of Scotch origin, with some infusion of the original race of Ireland. I heard English spoken with a Scotch accent, but I was obliged to own that the severity of the Scotch physiognomy had been softened by the migration and the mingling of breed.... At an early hour the next day we were in our seats on the outside of the mail-coach. We passed through a well-cultivated country, interspersed with towns which had an appearance of activity and thrift. The dwellings of the cottagers looked more comfortable than those of the same class in Scotland, and we were struck with the good looks of the people, men and women, whom we passed in great numbers going to their work. At length, having traversed the county of Down, we entered Louth.... Close on the confines of Armagh, perhaps partly within it, we traversed, near the village of Jonesborough, a valley full of the habitations of peat-diggers. Its aspect was most remarkable, the barren hills that inclose it were dark with heath and gorse and with ledges of brown rock, and their lower declivities, as well as the level of the valley, black with peat, which had been cut from the ground and laid in rows. The men were at work with spades cutting it from the soil, and the women were pressing the water from the portions thus separated, and exposing it to the air to dry.... It is the property of peat earth to absorb a large quantity of water, and to part with it slowly. The springs, therefore, in a region abounding with peat make no brooks; the water passes into spongy soil and remains there, forming morasses even on the slopes of the hills. As we passed out of this black valley we entered a kind of glen, and the guard, a man in a laced hat and scarlet coat, pointed to the left, and said, "There is a pretty place." It was a beautiful park along a hillside, groves and lawns, a broad domain, jealously inclosed by a thick and high wall, beyond which we had, through the trees, a glimpse of a stately mansion. Our guard was a genuine Irishman, strongly resembling the late actor Power in physiognomy, with the very brogue which Power sometimes gave to his personages. He was a man of pithy speech, communicative, and acquainted apparently with everybody of every class, whom we passed on the road. Besides him we had for fellow-passengers three very intelligent Irishmen, on their way to Dublin. One of them was a tall, handsome gentleman, with dark hair and hazel eyes, and a rich South-Irish brogue. He was fond of his joke, but next to him sat a graver personage, in spectacles, equally tall, with fair hair and light-blue eyes, speaking with a decided Scotch accent. By my side was a square-built, fresh-colored personage, who had traveled in America, and whose accent was almost English. I thought I could not be mistaken in supposing them to be samples of the three different races by which Ireland is peopled. We now entered a fertile district, meadows heavy with grass, in which the haymakers were at work, and fields of wheat and barley as fine as I had ever seen.... One or two green mounds stood close to the road, and we saw others at a distance. "They are Danish forts," said the guard. "Every thing we do not know the history of, we put upon the Danes," added the South of Ireland man. These grassy mounds, which are from ten to twenty feet in height, are now supposed to have been the burial places of the ancient Celts. The peasantry can with difficulty be persuaded to open any of them, on account of a prevalent superstition that it will bring bad luck. A little before we arrived at Drogheda, I saw a tower to the right, apparently a hundred feet in height, with a doorway at a great distance from the ground, and a summit somewhat dilapidated. "That is one of the round towers of Ireland, concerning which there is so much discussion," said my English-looking fellow-traveler. These round towers, as the Dublin antiquarians tell me, were probably built by the early Christian missionaries from Italy, about the seventh century, and were used as places of retreat and defense against the pagans. Not far from Drogheda, I saw at a distance a quiet-looking valley. "That," said the English-looking passenger, "is the valley of the Boyne, and in that spot was fought the famous battle of the Boyne." "Which the Irish are fighting about yet, in America," added the South of Ireland man. They pointed out near the spot, a cluster of trees on an eminence, where James beheld the defeat of his followers. We crossed the Boyne, entered Drogheda, dismounted among a crowd of beggars, took our places in the most elegant railway wagon we had ever seen, and in an hour were set down in Dublin.... I have seen no loftier nor more spacious dwellings than those which overlook St. Stephen's Green, a noble park, planted with trees, under which this showery sky and mild temperature maintain a verdure all the year, even in mid-winter. About Merrion square, another park, the houses have scarcely a less stately appearance, and one of these with a strong broad balcony, from which to address the people in the street, is inhabited by O'Connell. The park of the University, in the midst of the city, is of great extent, and the beautiful public grounds called Phenix Park, have a circumference of eight miles. THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY [Footnote: From "Views Afoot." Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.] BY BAYARD TAYLOR We passed the Giant's Causeway after dark, and about eleven o'clock reached the harbor of Port Rush, where, after stumbling up a strange old street in the dark, we found a little inn, and soon forgot the Irish coast and everything else. In the morning, when we arose, it was raining, with little prospect of fair weather, but having expected nothing better, we set out on foot for the Causeway. The rain, however, soon came down in torrents, and we were obliged to take shelter in a cabin by the roadside. The whole house consisted of one room with bare walls and roof and earthen floor, while a window of three or four panes supplied the light. A fire of peat was burning on the hearth, and their breakfast, of potatoes alone, stood on the table. The occupants received us with rude but genuine hospitality, giving us the only seats in the room to sit upon; except a rickety bedstead that stood in one corner and a small table, there was no other furniture in the house. The man appeared rather intelligent, and, altho he complained of the hardness of their lot, had no sympathy with O'Connell or the Repeal movement. We left this miserable hut as soon as it ceased raining, and, tho there were many cabins along the road, few were better than this. At length, after passing the walls of an old church in the midst of older tombs, we saw the roofless towers of Dunluce Castle on the seashore. It stands on an isolated rock, rising perpendicularly two hundred feet above the sea, and connected with the cliffs of the mainland by a narrow arch. We left the road near Dunluce and walked along the smooth beach to the cliffs that surround the Causeway. Here we obtained a guide, and descended to one of the caves which can be entered from the shore. Opposite the entrance a bare rock called Sea Gull Isle rises out of the sea like a church-steeple. The roof at first was low, but we shortly came to a branch that opened on the sea, where the arch was forty-six feet in height. The breakers dashed far into the cave, and flocks of sea-birds circled round its mouth. The sound of a gun was like a deafening peal of thunder, crashing from arch to arch till it rolled out of the cavern. On the top of the hill a splendid hotel is erected for visitors to the Causeway; after passing this we descended to the base of the cliffs, which are here upward of four hundred feet high, and soon began to find in the columnar formation of the rocks indications of our approach. The guide pointed out some columns which appeared to have been melted and run together, from which Sir Humphrey Davy attributed the formation of the Causeway to the action of fire. Near this is the Giant's Well, a spring of the purest water, the bottom formed by three perfect hexagons and the sides of regular columns. One of us observing that no giant had ever drunk from it, the old man answered. "Perhaps not, but it was made by a giant--God Almighty!" From the well the Causeway commences--a mass of columns from triangular to octagonal, lying in compact forms and extending into the sea. I was somewhat disappointed at first, having supposed the Causeway to be of great height, but I found the Giant's Loom, which is the highest part of it, to be but about fifty feet from the water. The singular appearance of the columns and the many strange forms which they assume render it, nevertheless, an object of the greatest interest. Walking out on the rocks, we came to the Ladies' Chair, the seat, back sides and foot-stool being all regularly formed by the broken columns. The guide said that any lady who would take three drinks from the Giant's Well, then sit in this chair and think of any gentleman for whom she had a preference, would be married before a twelvemonth. I asked him if it would answer as well for gentlemen, for by a wonderful coincidence we had each drank three times at the well. He said it would, and thought he was confirming his statement. A cluster of columns about half-way up the cliff is called the Giant's Organ from its very striking resemblance to that instrument, and a single rock worn by the waves into the shape of a rude seat is his chair. A mile or two farther along the coast two cliffs project from the range, leaving a vast semicircular space between, which from its resemblance to the old Roman theaters was appropriated for that purpose by the giant. Halfway down the crags are two or three pinnacles of rock called the Chimneys, and the stumps of several others can be seen, which, it is said, were shot off by a vessel belonging to the Spanish Armada in mistake for the towers of Dunluce Castle. The vessel was afterward wrecked in the bay below, which has ever since been called Spanish Bay, and in calm weather the wreck may be still seen. Many of the columns of the Causeway have been carried off and sold as pillars for mantels, and tho a notice is put up threatening any one with the rigor of the law, depredations are occasionally made. Returning, we left the road at Dunluce and took a path which led along the summit of the cliffs. The twilight was gathering and the wind blew with perfect fury, which, combined with the black and stormy sky, gave the coast an air of extreme wildness. All at once, as we followed the winding path, the crags, appeared to open before us, disclosing a yawning chasm down which a large stream falling in an unbroken sheet was lost in the gloom below. Witnessed in a calm day, there may perhaps be nothing striking about it, but coming upon us at once through the gloom of twilight, with the sea thundering below and a scowling sky above, it was absolutely startling. The path at last wound with many a steep and slippery bend down the almost perpendicular crags to the shore at the foot of a giant isolated rock having a natural arch through it, eighty feet in height. We followed the narrow strip of beach, having the bare crags on one side and a line of foaming breakers on the other. It soon grew dark; a furious storm came up and swept like a hurricane along the shore. I then understood what Horne means by "the lengthening javelins of the blast," for every drop seemed to strike with the force of an arrow, and our clothes were soon pierced in every part. Then we went up among the sand-hills and lost each other in the darkness, when, after stumbling about among the gullies for half an hour shouting for my companions, I found the road and heard my call answered; but it happened to be two Irishmen, who came up and said, "And is it another gintleman ye're callin' for? We heard some one cryin' and didn't know but somebody might be kilt." Finally, about eleven o'clock, we all arrived at the inn dripping with rain, and before a warm fire concluded the adventures of our day in Ireland. CORK [Footnote: From "The Irish Sketch Book."] BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. One sees in this country many a grand and tall iron gate leading into a very shabby field covered with thistles; and the simile of the gate will in some degree apply to this famous city of Cork--which is certainly not a city of palaces, but of which the outlets are magnificent. That toward Killarney leads by the Lee, the old Avenue of Mardyke, and the rich green pastures stretching down to the river; and as you pass by the portico of the country jail, as fine and as glancing as a palace, you see the wooded heights on the other side of the fair stream, crowded with a thousand pretty villas and terraces, presenting every image of comfort and prosperity. Along the quays up to St. Patrick's Bridge there is a certain bustle. Some forty ships may be lying at anchor along the walls of the quay; and its pavements are covered with goods of various merchandise; here a cargo of hides; yonder a company of soldiers, their kits, and their dollies, who are taking leave of the redcoats at the steamer's side. Then you shall see a fine, squeaking, shrieking drove of pigs embarking by the same conveyance, and insinuated into the steamer by all sorts of coaxing, threatening, and wheedling. Seamen are singing and yeehoing on board; grimy colliers smoking at the liquor-shops along the quay; and as for the bridge-there is a crowd of idlers on that, you may be sure, sprawling over the balustrade for ever and ever, with long ragged coats, steeple-hats, and stumpy doodeens. At the other extremity of the town, if it be assize time, you will see some five hundred persons squatting in the Court-house, or buzzing and talking within; the rest of the respectable quarter of the city is pretty free from anything like bustle. There is no more life in Patrick Street than in Russell Square of a sunshiny day; and as for the Mall, it is as lonely as the chief street of a German Residenz.... That the city contains much wealth is evidenced by the number of handsome, villas round about it, where the rich merchants dwell; but the warehouses of the wealthy provision-merchants make no show to the stranger walking the streets; and of the retail shops, if some are spacious and handsome, most look as if too big for the business carried on within. The want of ready money was quite curious. In three of the principal shops I purchased articles, and tendered a pound in exchange--not one of them had silver enough; and as for a five-pound note, which I presented at one of the topping booksellers, his boy went round to various places in vain, and finally set forth to the bank, where change was got. In another small shop I offered half-a-crown to pay for a sixpenny article--it was all the same. Half a dozen of the public buildings I saw were spacious and shabby beyond all cockney belief. Adjoining the Imperial Hotel is a great, large, handsome, desolate reading-room, which was founded by a body of Cork merchants and tradesmen, and is the very picture of decay. Not Palmyra--not the Russell Institution in Great Coram Street--present more melancholy appearances of faded greatness. Opposite this is another institution, called the Cork Library, where there are plenty of books and plenty of kindness to the stranger; but the shabbiness and faded splendor of the place are quite painful.... I have said something in praise of the manners of the Cork ladies; in regard of the gentlemen, a stranger must remark the extraordinary degree of literary taste and talent among them, and the wit and vivacity of their conversation. The love for literature seems to an Englishman doubly curious. What, generally speaking, do a company of grave gentlemen and ladies in Baker Street know about it? Who ever reads books in the City, or how often does one hear them talked about at a Club? The Cork citizens are the most book-loving men I ever met. The town has sent to England a number of literary men, of reputation too, and is not a little proud of their fame. Everybody seemed to know what Maginn was doing, and that Father Prout had a third volume ready, and what was Mr. Croker's last article in the Quarterly. The clerks and shopmen seemed as much "au fait" as their employers, and many is the conversation I heard about the merits of this writer or that--Dickens, Ainsworth, Lover, Lever. I think, in walking the streets, and looking at the ragged urchins crowding there, every Englishman must remark that the superiority of intelligence is here, and not with us. I never saw such a collection of bright-eyed, wild, clever, eager faces. Mr. Maclise has carried away a number of them in his memory; and the lovers of his admirable pictures will find more than one Munster countenance under a helmet in company of Macbeth, or in a slashed doublet alongside of Prince Hamlet, or in the very midst of Spain in company with Signor Gil Blas. Gil Blas himself came from Cork, and not from Oviedo. I listened to two boys almost in rags: they were lolling over the quay balustrade, and talking about one of the Ptolemys! and talking very well too. One of them had been reading in Rollin, and was detailing his information with a great deal of eloquence and fire. Another day, walking in the Mardyke, I followed three boys, not half so well drest as London errand-boys: one was telling the other about Captain Ross's voyages, and spoke with as much brightness and intelligence as the best-read gentleman's son in England could do. He was as much of a gentleman, too, the ragged young student; his manner as good, tho perhaps more eager and emphatic; his language was extremely rich, too, and eloquent. Does the reader remember his school-days, when half a dozen lads in the bedrooms took it by turns to tell stories? How poor the language generally was, and how exceedingly poor the imagination! Both of those ragged Irish lads had the making of gentlemen, scholars, orators, in them. I have just been strolling up a pretty little height called Grattan's Hill, that overlooks the town and the river, and where the artist that comes Corkward may find many subjects for his pencil. There is a kind of pleasure-ground at the top of this eminence--a broad walk that draggles up to a ruined wall, with a ruined niche in it, and a battered stone bench. On the side that shelves down to the water are some beeches, and opposite them a row of houses from which you see one of the prettiest prospects possible--the shining river with the craft along the quays, and the busy city in the distance, the active little steamers puffing away toward Cove, the farther bank crowned with rich woods, and pleasant-looking country-houses--perhaps they are tumbling, rickety, and ruinous, as those houses close by us, but you can't see the ruin from here. What a strange air of forlorn gaiety there is about the place!--the sky itself seems as if it did not know whether to laugh or cry, so full is it of clouds and sunshine. Little fat, ragged, smiling children are clambering about the rocks, and sitting on mossy doorsteps, tending other children yet smaller, fatter, and more dirty. "Stop till I get you a posy" (pronounced pawawawsee), cries one urchin to another. "Tell me who is it ye love, Jooly," exclaims another, cuddling a red-faced infant with a very dirty nose. More of the same race are perched about the summerhouse, and two wenches with large purple feet are flapping some carpets in the air. It is a wonder the carpets will bear this kind of treatment at all, and do not be off at once to mingle with the elements; I never saw things that hung to life by such a frail thread. This dismal pleasant place is a suburb of the second city in Ireland, and one of the most beautiful spots about the town. What a prim, bustling, active, green-railinged, tea-gardened, gravel-walked place would it have been in the five-hundredth town in England!--but you see the people can be quite as happy in the rags and without the paint, and I hear a great deal more heartiness and affection from these children than from their fat little brethren across the Channel. BLARNEY CASTLE [Footnote: From "Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc."] BY ME. AND MRS. S. C. HALL Few places in Ireland are more familiar to English ears than Blarney; the notoriety is attributable, first, to the marvelous qualities of its famous "stone," and next, to the extensive popularity of the song,-- "The groves of Blarney, they are so charming." When or how the stone obtained its singular reputation, it is difficult to determine; the exact position among the ruins of the castle is also a matter of doubt; the peasant-guides humor the visitor according to his capacity for climbing, and direct, either to the summit or the base, the attention of him who desires to "greet it with a holy kiss." He who has been dipt in the Shannon is presumed to have obtained, in abundance, the gift of that "civil courage" which makes an Irishman at ease and unconstrained in all places and under all circumstances; and he who has kissed the Blarney stone is assumed to be endowed with a fluent and persuasive tongue, altho it may be associated with insincerity; the term "Blarney" being generally used to characterize words that are meant neither to be "honest nor true." It is conjectured that the comparatively modern application of the term "Blarney" first had existence when the possessor, Lord Clancarty, was a prisoner to Sir George Carew, by whom he was subjected to several examinations touching his loyalty, which he was required to prove by surrendering his strong castle to the soldiers of the Queen; this act he always endeavored to evade by some plausible excuse, but as invariably professing his willingness to do so. The particulars are fully detailed in the "Pacata Hibernia." It is certain that to no particular stone of the ancient structure is the marvelous quality exclusively attributed; but in order to make it as difficult as possible to attain the enviable gift, it had long been the custom to point out a stone, a few feet below the battlements, which the very daring only would run the hazard of touching with their lips. The attempt to do so was, indeed, so dangerous, that a few years ago Mr. Jeffreys had it removed from the wall and placed on the highest point of the building; where the visitor may now greet it with little risk. It is about two feet square, and contains the date 1703, with a portion of the arms of the Jeffreys family, but the date, at once, negatives its claim to be considered the true marvel of Blarney. A few days before our visit a madman made his way to the top of the castle, and after dancing round it for some hours, his escape from death being almost miraculous, he flung this stone from the tower; it was broken in the fall, and now, as the guide stated to us, the "three halves" must receive three distinct kisses to be in any degree effective. The stronghold of Blarney was erected about the middle of the fifteenth century by Cormac Mac Carthy, surnamed "Laider," or the Strong; whose ancestors had been chieftains in Munster from a period long antecedent to the English invasion, and whose descendants, as Lords of Muskerry and Clancarty, retained no inconsiderable portion of their power and estates until the year 1689, when their immense possessions were confiscated, and the last earl became an exile, like the monarch whose cause he had supported. The castle, village, mills, fairs, and customs of Blarney, with the land and park thereunto belonging, containing 1400 acres, were "set up by cant" in the year 1702, purchased by Sir Richard Pyne, Lord Chief Justice, for £3000, and by him disposed of, the following year, to General Sir James Jeffreys, in whose family the property continues. Altho the walls of this castle are still strong, many of the outworks have long since been leveled; the plow has passed over their foundations, and "the stones of which they were built have been used in repairing the turnpike-roads." MUCROSS ABBEY [Footnote: From "Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc."] BY MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL The abbey of Mucross adjoins the pretty village of Cloghreen, [in Kerry] and is in the demesne of Henry Arthur Herbert, Esq., which includes the whole of the peninsula. The site was chosen with the usual judgment and taste of "the monks of old," who invariably selected the pleasantest of all pleasant places. The original name was Irelough--and it appears that long prior to the erection of this, now ruined structure, a church existed in the same spot, which was consumed by fire in 1191. The abbey was built for Franciscan monks, according to Arehdall, in 1440; but the annals of the Four Masters give its date a century earlier: both, however, ascribe its foundation to one of the Mac Carthys, princes of Desmond. It was several times repaired, and once subsequently to the Reformation, as we learn from the inscription on a stone let into the north wall of the choir. The building consists of two principal parts--the convent and the church. The church is about one hundred feet in length and twenty-four in breadth; the steeple, which stands between the nave and the chancel, rests on four high and slender pointed arches. The principal entrance is by a handsome pointed doorway, luxuriantly overgrown with ivy, through which is seen the great eastern window. The intermediate space, as indeed every part of the ruined edifice, is filled with tombs, the greater number distinguished only by a slight elevation from the mold around them; but some containing inscriptions to direct the stranger where especial honor should be paid. A large modern tomb, in the center of the choir, covers the vault, in which in ancient times were interred the Mac Carthys Mor, and more recently the O'Donoghue Mor of the Glens, whose descendants were buried here so late as the year 1833. Close to this tomb, but on a level with the earth, is the slab which formerly covered the vault. It is without inscription, but bears the arms of the Earl of Clancarty. The convent as well as the church is in very tolerable preservation; and Mr. Herbert has taken especial care, as far as he can, to balk the consumer, time, of the remnants of his glorious feast. He has repaired the foundations in some parts and the parapets in others, and so judiciously that the eye is never annoyed by the intrusion of the new among the old; the ivy furnishing him with a ready means for hiding the unhallowed brick and mortar from the sight. In his "caretaker," too, he has a valuable auxiliary; and a watch is set, first to discover tokens of decay, then to prevent their spread, and then to twist and twine the young shoots of the aged trees over and around them. The dormitories, the kitchen, the refectory, the cellars, the infirmary, and other chambers, are still in a state of comparative preservation; the upper rooms are unroofed; and the coarse grass grows abundantly among them. The great fireplace of the refectory is curious and interesting--affording evidence that the good monks were not forgetful of the duty they owed themselves, or of the bond they had entered into, to act upon the advice of St. Paul, and be "given to hospitality." This recess is pointed out as the bed of John Drake--a pilgrim who, about a century ago, took up his abode in the Abbey, and continued its inmate during a period of several years. As will be supposed, his singular choice of residence has given rise to abundant stories, and the mention of his name to any of the guides or boatmen will at once produce a volume of the marvelous. The cloister, which consists of twenty-two arches, ten of them semicircular and twelve pointed, is the best preserved portion of the abbey. In the center grows a magnificent yew-tree, which covers, as a roof, the whole area; its circumference is thirteen feet, and its height in proportion. It is more than probable that the tree is coeval with the abbey; that it was planted by the hands of the monks who built the sacred edifice centuries ago. The yew, it is known, lives to a prodigious age; and in England, there are many of a date considerably earlier than that which may be safely assigned to this. FROM GLENGARIFF TO KILLARNEY [Footnote: From "The Irish Sketch Book."] BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY The journey from Glengariff to Kenmare is one of astonishing beauty; and I have seen Killarney since, and am sure that Glengariff loses nothing by comparison with this most famous of lakes. Rock, wood, and sea stretch around the traveler--a thousand delightful pictures; the landscape is at first wild without being fierce, immense woods and plantations enriching the valleys--beautiful streams to be seen everywhere. Here again I was surprized at the great population along the road; for one saw but few cabins, and there is no village between Glengariff and Kenmare. But men and women were on banks and in fields; children, as usual, came trooping up to the car; and the jovial men of the yacht had great conversations with most of the persons whom we met on the road. A merrier set of fellows it were hard to meet. After much mountain-work of ascending and descending (in which latter operation, and by the side of precipices that make passing cockneys rather squeamish, the carman drove like mad to the hooping and screeching of the red rovers), we at length came to Kenmare, of which all that I know is that it lies prettily in a bay or arm of the sea; that it is approached by a little hanging-bridge, which seems to be a wonder in these parts; that it is a miserable little place when you enter it; and that, finally, a splendid luncheon of all sorts of meat and excellent cold salmon may sometimes be had for a shilling at the hotel of the place.... For almost half the way from Kenmare, this wild, beautiful road commands views of the famous lake and vast blue mountains about Killarney. Turk, Tomies, and Mangerton were clothed in purple like kings in mourning; great heavy clouds were gathered round their noble features bare. The lake lay for some time underneath us, dark and blue, with dark misty islands in the midst. On the right-hand side of the road would be a precipice covered with a thousand trees, or a green rocky flat, with a reedy mere in the midst, and other mountains rising as far as we could see.... And so it was that we rode by dark old Mangerton, then presently past Mucross, and then through two miles of avenues of lime-trees, by numerous lodges and gentlemen's seats, across an old bridge, where you see the mountains again and the lake, until, by Lord Kenmare's house, a hideous row of houses informed us that we were in Killarney. We rattled up to the Kenmare Arms; and so ended, not without a sigh on my part, one of the merriest six-hour rides that five yachtsmen, one cockney, five women and a child, the carman, and a countryman with an alpeen, ever took in their lives. The town of Killarney was in a violent state of excitement with a series of horse-races, hurdle-races, boat-races, and stag-hunts by land and water, which were taking place, and attracted a vast crowd from all parts of the kingdom. All the inns were full, and lodgings cost five shillings a day, nay, more in some places; for tho my landlady, Mrs. Macgillicuddy, charges but that sum, a leisurely old gentleman whom I never saw in my life before made my acquaintance by stopping me in the street yesterday, and said he paid a pound a day for his two bedrooms.... Mrs. Macgillicuddy's house is at the corner of the two principal streets in Killarney town, and the drawing-room windows command each a street. A sort of market is held there, and the place is swarming with blue cloaks and groups of men talking; here and there is a stall with coarse linens, crockery, a cheese; and crowds of egg-and milk-women are squatted on the pavement, with their ragged customers or gossips. Carts, cars, jingles, barouches, horses, and vehicles of all descriptions rattle presently through the streets; for the town is crowded with company for the races and other sports, and all the world is bent to see the stag-hunt on the lake. The morning had been bright enough, but for fear of accidents we took our macintoshes, and at about a mile from the town found it necessary to assume those garments and wear them for the greater part of the day. Passing by the Victoria, with its beautiful walks, park, and lodge, we came to a little creek where the boats were moored; and there was the wonderful lake before us, with its mountains, and islands, and trees. Unluckily, however, the mountains happened to be invisible; the islands looked like gray masses in the fog, and all that we could see for some time was the gray silhouette of the boat ahead of us, in which a passenger was engaged in a witty conversation with some boat still farther in the mist. Drumming and trumpeting was heard at a little distance, and presently we found ourselves in the midst of a fleet of boats upon the rocky shores of the beautiful little Innisfallen. Here we landed for a while, and the weather clearing up, allowed us to see this charming spot. Rocks, shrubs, and little abrupt rises and falls of ground, covered with the brightest emerald grass; a beautiful little ruin of a Saxon chapel, lying gentle, delicate, and plaintive on the shore; some noble trees round about it, and beyond, presently, the tower of Ross Castle, island after island appearing in the clearing sunshine, and the huge hills throwing their misty veils off, and wearing their noble robes of purple. The boats' crews were grouped about the place, and one large barge especially had landed some sixty people, being the Temperance band, with its drums, trumpets, and wives. They were marshaled by a grave old gentleman with a white waistcoat and queue, a silver medal decorating one side of his coat, and a brass heart reposing on the other flap. The horns performed some Irish airs prettily; and, at length, at the instigation of a fellow who went swaggering about with a pair of whirling drumsticks, all formed together, and played "Garryowen"--the active drum of course most dreadfully out of time. Having strolled about the island for a quarter of an hour, it became time to take to the boats again, and we were rowed over to the wood opposite Sullivan's cascade, where the hounds had been laid in in the morning, and the stag was expected to take water. Fifty or sixty men are employed on the mountain to drive the stag lakeward, should he be inclined to break away; and the sport generally ends by the stag, a wild one, making for the water with the pack swimming afterward; and here he is taken and disposed of, how I know not. It is rather a parade than a stag-hunt; but, with all the boats around and the noble view, must be a fine thing to see. Some scores more boats were there, darting up and down in the pretty, busy waters. Here came a Cambridge boat; and where, indeed, will not the gentlemen of that renowned University be found? Yonder were the dandy dragoons, stiff, silent, slim, faultlessly appointed, solemnly puffing cigars. Every now and then a hound would he heard in the wood, whereon numbers of voices, right and left, would begin to yell in chorus--Hurroo! Hoop! Yow--yow--yow! in accents the most shrill or the most melancholious. Meanwhile the sun had had enough of the sport, the mountains put on their veils again, the islands retreated into the mist, the word went through the fleet to spread all umbrellas, and ladies took shares of mackintoshes and disappeared under the flaps of silk cloaks. The wood comes down to the very edge of the water, and many of the crews thought fit to land and seek this green shelter. To behold these moist dandies the natives of the country came eagerly. Strange, savage faces might be seen peering from out of the trees; long-haired, bare-legged girls came down the hill, some with green apples and very sickly-looking plums; some with whisky and goat's milk; a ragged boy had a pair of stag's-horns to sell: the place swarmed with people. We went up the hill to see the noble cascade, and when you say that it comes rushing down over rocks and through tangled woods, alas! one has said all the dictionary can help you to, and not enough to distinguish this particular cataract from any other. This seen and admired, we came back to the harbor where the boats lay, and from which spot the reader might have seen the following view of the lake--that is, you would see the lake, if the mist would only clear away. But this for hours it did not seem inclined to do. We rowed up and down industriously for a period of time which seemed to me atrociously long. The bugles of the Erin had long since sounded "Home, sweet home!" and the greater part of the fleet had dispersed. As for the stag-hunt, all I saw of it was four dogs that appeared on the shore at different intervals, and a huntsman in a scarlet coat, who similarly came and went: once or twice we were gratified by hearing the hounds; but at last it was agreed that there was no chance for the day, and we rowed off to Kenmare Cottage--where, on the lovely lawn, or in a cottage adjoining, the gentry picnic, and where, with a handkerchief full of potatoes, we made as pleasant a meal as ever I recollect. What is to be said about Turk Lake? When there, we agreed that it was more beautiful than the larger lake, of which it is not one-fourth the size; then, when we came back, we said, "No, the large lake is the most beautiful." And so, at every point we stopped at, we determined that that particular spot was the prettiest in the whole lake. The fact is, and I don't care to own it, they are too handsome. As for a man coming from his desk in London or Dublin and seeing "the whole lakes in a day," he is an ass for his pains; a child doing sums in addition might as well read the whole multiplication table, and fancy he had it by heart. We should look at these wonderful things leisurely and thoughtfully; and even then, blessed is he who understands them. 
6599	----	This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions. THE LETTERS OF "NORAH" ON HER TOUR THROUGH IRELAND, BEING A SERIES OF LETTERS TO THE MONTREAL "WITNESS" AS SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT TO IRELAND COMPLETE LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS TO THE PUBLICATION OF MRS. McDOUGAL'S LETTERS FROM IRELAND. Monsignore Farrelly. Belleville, Ont. $ 5.00 Wm. Wilson, Montreal 10.00 Edward Murphy, Montreal 5.00 Joseph Cloran, " 5.00 Timothy Fogarty, " 5.00 Robert McCready, " 5.00 James Stewart, " 5.00 T.J. Potter, " 5.00 John Mahan, Paris (France) 5.00 Henry Hogan, Montreal 5.00 Bernard Tansey, " 2.00 B. Connaughton, " 2.00 F.G. Gormely, " 2.00 J.C. Fleming, Toronto 2.00 C.D. Hanson, Montreal 2.00 D. McEntyre Jr., " 2.00 Ald. D. Tansey, " 4.00 Wm. Farrell, " 2.00 M. Avahill, " 2.00 E.P. Ronavae " 2.00 Michael Sullivan," 1.00 James Guest " 2.00 M.P. Ryan " 5.00 Joseph Dunn, Cote St. Paul 4.00 Owen McGarvey, Montreal 5.00 Daniel Murphy, Carillon, P.Q. 5.00 John Kelly " " 5.00 C.J. Doherty, Montreal 5.00 James McCready " 5.00 Andrew Colquhoun, Winnepeg 5.00 P. Cuddy, Montreal 5.00 W.S. Walker " 5.00 M.J. Quinn " 5.00 Rev. M.J. Stanton, Priest, Westport, Ont. 5.00 E. Stanton, Ottawa 5.00 J. Fogarty, Montreal 5.00 P. McLaughlin, Montreal 3.00 P.J. Ronayne, " 5.00 William Redmond, " 2.00 J.J. Milloy, " 2.00 C. Egan, " 2.00 John Cox, " 2.00 P.J. Durack, " 2.00 John McElroy, " 2.00 Michael Fern, " 2.00 J.I. Hayes, " 2.00 James Maguire, " 2.00 J.J. Curran, M.P., " 2.00 Mrs. McCrank, " 2.00 Dr. W.H. Hingston, " 5.00 John B. Murphy, " 5.00 Tim. Kenna, " 2.00 Matthew Hicks, " 5.00 Patrick Wright, " 5.00 Wm. S. Harper, " 2.00 Richard Drake, " 1.00 James O'Brien, " 5.00 H. Hodgson, " 2.00 P.A. Egleson, Ottawa, Ont. 5.00 John Keane, " 2.00 B.J. Coghlin, Montreal 5.00 Henry Stafford, " 2.00 Mrs. P. McMahon " 2.00 P. Cadigan, Pembroke, Ont. 5.00 H. Heaton, Nebraska, U.S. .50 Thomas Simpson, Montreal 1.00 Alexander Seath, " 2.00 M.C. Mullarky, " 5.00 John Fahey, " 5.00 J.J. Arnton, " 5.00 Richard McShane, " 2.00 B. Emerson, " 2.00 J.D. Purcell, " 2.00 W. O'Brien " 5.00 (Signed) W. Wilson _Treasurer "Norah's Letters" Fund._ A TOUR THROUGH IRELAND I. OFF--EXPERIENCES IN A PULLMAN CAR--HOARDING THE "ONTARIO"--THE CAPTAIN-- THE SEA AND SEA-SICKNESS--IMAGININGS IN THE STORM--LANDING AT BIRKENHEAD. On January 27th I bade good-bye to my friends and set my face resolutely towards the land whither I had desired to return. Knowing that sickness and unrest were before me, I formed an almost cast-iron resolution, as Samantha would say, to have one good night's rest on that Pulman car before setting out on the raging seas. Alas! a person would persist in floating about, coming occasionally to fumble in my belongings in the upper berth. Prepared to get nervous. Before it came to that, I sat up and enquired if the individual had lost anything, when he disappeared. Lay down and passed another resolution. Some who were sitting up began to smoke, and the fumes of tobacco floated in behind the curtains, clung there and filled all the space and murdered sleep. Watched the heavy dark shelf above, stared at the cool white snow outside, wished that all smokers were exiled to Virginia or Cuba, or that they were compelled to breathe up their own smoke, until the morning broke cold and foggy. Emerged from behind the curtains, and blessed the man who invented cold water. Too much disturbed by the last night's dose of second-hand smoke for breakfast at Island Pond. The moist-looking colored gentleman who was porter, turned back to Montreal before we reached Portland. I strongly suspect that a friend had privately presented him with a fee to make him attentive to one of the passengers, for he came twice with the most minute directions for finding the Dominion Line office, at Portland. Still his conscience was unsatisfied, for finally he came with the offer of a tumbler full of something he called pure apple juice. There are some proud Caucasians who would not have found it so difficult to square a small matter like that with their consciences. It was pleasant to look at the comfortable homes on the line as we passed along. Not one squalid looking homestead did we pass; every one such as a man might be proud to own. All honor to the State of Maine. The train was three hours late--it was afternoon when we arrived in Portland. Following the directions of my colored friend, I went up an extremely dirty stair into a very dirty office, found an innocent young man smoking a cigar. He did not know anything, you know, so sat grimly down to wait for the arrival of some one who did. Such a one soon appeared and took a comprehensive glance of the passenger as he took off his overshoes. "Passenger for the 'Ontario,'" explained the innocent young man. "Take the passenger over to the ship," said the energetic one, decidedly. "We will send luggage after you. How much have you?" Explained, handed him the checks, and meekly followed my innocent guide down the dirty stair, across a wide street, up some dirty-looking steps on to the wharf where the 'Ontario' lay, taking in her cargo. Large and strong-looking, dingy white was she, lying far below the wharf. My guide enquired for the captain, who appeared suddenly from somewhere-- a tall man with a resolute face and keen eye, gray as to hair and whiskers, every inch a captain. I knew that his face--once a handsome face, I am sure--had got that look of determination carved into it by doing his duty by his ship and facing many a storm on God Almighty's sea. I trusted him at once. Did not sail through the night as I expected, but were still in Portland when morning came. We had fish for breakfast; found mine frozen beneath the crisp brown outside. After breakfast went up on deck. The sky was blue and bright, the air piercing cold. The town of Portland looked clean and beautiful in the fair sunlight. It is a place that goes climbing up hill. The floating ice and the liquid green water ruffled into white on the crest of the swells, are at play together. The ship moves out slowly, almost imperceptibly. Portland fades from a house- crowned hillside into a white line, darkness comes down. We are out at sea. The glass has gone down; the storm has come up; the sea tyrant has got hold of the solitary passenger and dandles her very roughly, singing "The Wreck of the 'Hesperus'" in a loud bass to some grand deep tune, alternating with the one hundred and third Psalm in Gaelic. The passenger holds on for dear life and wonders why the winds sing those words over and over again. Sabbath passes, day melts into night, night fades into day, the storm tosses the ship and sea-sickness tosses the passenger. The captain enquires, "Is that passenger no better yet?" Comes to see in his doctoral capacity, looks like a man not to be trifled with, feels the pulse, orders a mustard blister, brandy and ammonia, and scolds the patient for starving, like a wise captain and kind man as he is. All the ship stores are ransacked for something to tempt an appetite that is above temptation; but the captain is absolute, and we can testify that eating from a sense of duty is hard work. It was delightful to get rid of an occasional apple on the sly to one of the ship's boys and be rewarded with a surprised grin of delight. It is grand to lie on cushions on the companion-way and watch long rollers as they heave up and look in at the door-way. They rise rank upon rank, looking over one another's shoulders, hustling one another in their boisterous play, like overgrown schoolboys, who will have fun at whoever's expense. Sometimes one is pushed right in by his fellows, and falls down the companion-way in a little cataract, and then the door is shut and they batter at it in vain. Then there is a great mopping up of a small Atlantic. The storm roars without, and within the passenger lies day after day studying the poetry of motion. There is one motion that goes to the tune of "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," but this rocking is so violent that as one dashes from side to side, holding on to the bars above and the edge of the berth, one is led to pity a wakeful baby rocked wickedly by the big brother impatient to go to play. The tune changes, and it is "Ploughing the Raging Main," and the nose of the plough goes down too deep; then one is fastened to the walking beam of an engine and sways up and down with it. A gigantic churn is being churned by an ogre just under our head, and the awful dasher plunges and creaks. Above all the winds howl, and the waves roll, and sometimes slap the ship till she shivers and leaps, and then the "Wreck of the Hesperus" recommences. Things get gloomy, the variations of storm grow monotonous, nothing delights us, no wish arises for beef tea, nothing makes gruel palatable. Neither sun nor stars have been visible for some days; the only sunshine we see is the passing smile of the ship's boys, who are almost constantly employed baling out the Atlantic. It was the ninth night of storm. They say every ninth wave is larger than the rest; the ninth night the wind roared louder than ever, the Almighty's great guns going off. The ship staggered and reeled, struggling gallantly, answering nobly to the human will that held her to her duty, but shivering and leaping after every mighty slap of the mad waves. I got one glimpse at the waves through a cautiously opened door. I never thought they could climb upon one another's shoulders and reach up to heaven, a dark green wall of water ready to fall and overwhelm us, until I looked and saw the mountains of water all around. Land in sight on the 8th of February, the Fasnet rock, then the Irish coast; the great rollers drew back into the bosom of the Atlantic: the winged pilot boats appeared; the pilot climbed up the side out of the sea; we steamed over the harbor bar and stopped at Birkenhead on the Cheshire side to land our fellow-passengers the sheep and oxen. I might have gone up to Liverpool but was advised to remain another night on board and go direct to the Belfast packet from the ship. I considered this advice, found it good and took it. II. FROM LIVERPOOL TO BELFAST--IRELAND'S CONDITION DISCUSSED--EVICTIONS--A SUNDAY IN BELFAST. From Liverpool to Belfast, including a cup of tea, cost in all four dollars and fifty cents. It seems ridiculous to a stranger that the cars and cabs always stop at a little distance from the steamers, so as to employ a porter to lift a trunk for a few yards at each end of the short journey by cab. The kind steward of the "Ontario" came over to the packet to look after his passenger; had promised to see that passenger safely conveyed from one steamer to the other, but, detained at home by sickness in the family, came back to the ship a few minutes too late, and then came over to explain and say good-bye. There could not possibly be a more courteous set of men than the captain and officers of the steamship "Ontario." On the Belfast packet two ladies, one a very young bride on her way from her home in South Wales to her new home in Belfast, were talking of the danger of going to Ireland or living in it at the present disturbed time. A gentleman in a grey ulster and blue Tam o'Shanter of portentous dimensions broke into the conversation by assuring the handsome young bride that she would be as safe in green Erin as in the arms of her mother. Looking at the young lady it was easy to see that this speech was involuntary Irish blarney, a compliment to her handsome face. "You will meet the greatest kindness here, you will have the heartiest welcome on the face of the earth," he continued. "But there is a great deal of disturbance, is there not?" asked her companion. "Oh, the newspapers exaggerate dreadfully--shamefully, to get up a sensation in the interest of their own flimsy sheets. There is some disturbance, but nothing like what people are made believe by the newspaper reports." Old lady--"Why are Irish people so turbulent?" Tam O'Shanter--"My dear lady, Ireland contains the best people and the worst in the world, the kindest and the cruelest. They are so emotional, so impulsive, so impressible that their warm hearts are easily swayed by demagogues who are making capital out of influencing them." Old lady--"Making money by it, do you mean?" Tam O'Shanter, with a decided set of his bonnet--"Making money of it! Yes, by all means. They have got up the whole thing to make money. But here in Belfast, where you are going," with a bow to the bride, "all is tranquil, all is prosperous. In fact all over the north there is the same tranquillity, the same prosperity." Here, a new voice, that of an enthusiastic supporter of the Land League, joined in the conversation, and the controversy becoming personal the ladies disappeared into the ladies' cabin. There was an echo of drunken argument that was likely a continuation of the land question until the wind increased to a gale. The little boat tossed like a cork on the waves; there was such a rattle of glass, such a rolling and bumping of loose articles, such echoes of sickness, above all, the shock of waves and the shriek of winds, and the land question was for the time being swallowed up by the storm. Belfast, with its mud and mist, was a welcome sight. The dirty-faced porters who lined the quay and beckoned to us, and pointed to our luggage silently, seemed to be a deputation of welcome to _terra firma_. At a little distance from the line of porters the jaunting cars were stationed to convey passengers to the hotel. It did look ridiculous to see full-grown people take the long way round in this fashion. At noon Saturday, the 19th of February, I had the blissful feeling of rest connected with sitting in an easy chair before a coal fire, trying to wake up to the blissful fact of being off the sea and in Ireland. On Sunday it was raining a steady and persistent rain; went through it to the Duncairn Presbyterian Church because it was near, and because I was told that the minister was one skilled to preach the gospel to the poor. Found myself half an hour too early, so watched the congregation assemble. The Scottish face everywhere, an utter absence of anything like even a modified copy of a Milesian face. Presbyterianism in Ulster must have kept itself severely aloof from the natives; there could have been no proselytizing or there would have been a mixture of faces typical of the absorption of one creed in another. Judging from the sentiments I have heard expressed by the sturdy descendants of King Jamie's settlers, the sympathy that must precede any reasonably hopeful effort to win over the native population to an alien faith has never existed here. There is a great social gulf fixed between the two peoples, with prejudice guarding both sides. The history, the traditions of either side is guarded and nourished in secret by one, openly and triumphantly by the other, with a freshness of strength that is amazing to one who has been out of this atmosphere long enough to look kindly on and claim kindred with both sides. Still there is a perceptible difference between these Hiberno-Scotch and their cousins of Scotland. Their faces have lost some of the concentrated look of a really Scottish congregation. They are not so thoroughly "locked up;" the _cead mille failte_ has been working into their blood imperceptibly. The look of curiosity is kindly, and seems ready to melt into hearty welcome on short notice. It is not the minister of the Duncairn Church who preaches, but a returned missionary, who tells us by what logical hair-splitting in the regions of Irish metaphysics he confounds Hindoo enquirers after truth, and argues them into the Christian religion. Pity the poor Hindoos upon whom this man inflicts himself. In the afternoon I strayed into a small Sabbath-School where the Bible never was opened; heard a stirring Gospel sermon at night, and joined in a prayer-meeting and felt better. III. BELFAST--TEMPERANCE--"THE EVE OF A GREAT REBELLION"--THE POOR HOUSE-- THE POLICE--COUNTY DOWN--MAKING ENDS MEET--WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO TURN UP. Belfast seems a busy town, bustle on her streets, merchandise on her quays. Did not meet one man on the streets with the hopeless look on his face of the poor fellow who carried my trunk in Liverpool. There must be distress however, for the mills are not running full time, and there are entertainments got up for the benefit of the deserving poor. I saw no signs of intoxication on the streets, yet the number of whiskey shops is appalling. Had a conversation with a prominent member of the Temperance League, who informed me that temperance was gaining ground in Belfast. "Half of the ministers are with us now; they used to, almost entirely, stand aloof." But where are the rest? The land question is the absorbing topic. Every one seems to admit that there is room for vast improvement in the land laws, that there has been glaring injustice in the past. They acknowledge that rents are too high to be paid, and leave anything behind to support the farmer's family in any semblance of comfort. There is a very strong feeling against Mr. Parnell among the Protestants of the north. In fact they talk of him exactly as they did of Daniel O'Connell when in the height of his power. Many whisper to me that we are on the eve of a great rebellion. One strong-minded lady who informed me that she had come of a Huguenot stock talked of the Land Leaguers as if they were responsible for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes: but she acknowledged that the land laws were very unjust and needed reform. Visited the Poor House, a very noble building in well-kept grounds. Went on purpose to see a sick person and did not go all over it. It was not the right day, or something. It was very distressing to see the number of able-bodied looking young men and rosy-cheeked women about the grounds who begged for a halfpenny, and so many loungers in hall and corridor--perhaps they were only visitors. If they were inmates there was plenty of cleaning to be done--the smell in some parts was dreadful. In the hospital part the floors were very clean, and the head nurse, a bright, cheery woman, seemed like sunshine among her patients. She showed us all her curiosities, the little baby born into an overcrowded world on the street, the little one, beautiful as an angel, found on the street in a basket. It was very touching to see the beggar mothers sparing from their own babies to nourish the little deserted waif. A poor house is a helpless, hopeless mass of human misery. One thing that impresses a stranger here is the number of policemen; they are literally swarming everywhere. Very dandified as to dress and bearing, very vigilant and watchful about the eyes, with a double portion of importance pervading them all over as men on whom the peace and safety of the country depend. These very dignified conservators of the peace are most obliging. Ask them any question of locality, or for direction anywhere, and their faces open out into human kindness and interest at once. Went out into County Down by rail about twenty miles. No words can do justice to the beauty of the country, the cleanness of the roads, the trimness of the hedges, and the garden-like appearance of the fields. The stations, as we passed along, looked so trim and neat. The houses of small farmers, or laborers I suppose they might be, were not very neat. Many of them stood out in great contrast as if here was the border over which any attempt at ornament should not pass. On the train bound for Dublin was a little old woman travelling third class like myself, who scraped an acquaintance at once in order to tell me of the disturbed state of the country. She emphasized everything with a wave of her poor worn gloves and a decided nod of her bonnet. "They are idle you know, they are lazy, they are improvident. They are not content in the station in which it has pleased God to place them. I know all about these people. They are turbulent, they are rebellious; they want to get their good, kind landlords out of the country, and to seize on their property. It is horrid you know, horrid!" and the little old lady waved her gloves in the air. "If they had a proper amount of religion they would be content to labor in their own station. I am content with mine, why not they with theirs? You understand that," appealing to me. "Have you a small farm?" I enquired. "Indeed I have not," said the little old lady with the greatest disgust, "I live on my money." It was quite evident I had offended her, for she froze into silence. As I left the train at Tandragee she laid her faded glove on my arm and whispered, "It is their duty to be content in their own station, is it not?" "If they cannot do any better," I whispered back. "They cannot," said the little old lady sinking back on her seat triumphantly. It is rather unhandy, that the names of the stations are called out by a person on the platform outside the cars, instead of by a conductor inside. The manufacturing town of Gilford is a pretty, clean, neat, little place clustered round the mills and the big house, like the old feudal retainers round the castle. Here, as in Belfast, a certain amount of distress must exist, for the mills are not running full time. The wages of a common operative here is twelve shillings (or three dollars) per week. If they have a family grown up until they are able to work at the mills, of course it adds materially to the income. Girls are more precious than boys, I have heard, as being more docile and easier kept in clothing. They can earn about half wages, or six shillings (one dollar and a half) per week. Rents are about two shillings (or half a dollar) per week. It takes one and sixpence for fuel. A young family would keep the parents busy to make ends meet in the best of times. In case of the mill running short time I should think they would persistently refuse to meet. No signs of distress, not the least were apparent anywhere. The mill hands trooping past looked clean, rosy and cheerful, and were decently clad. The grounds around the factory were beautiful and very nicely kept, and beautiful also were the grounds about the great house. I felt sorry that there were no little garden plots about the tenement houses occupied by the operatives; so when hard times come they will have no potatoes or vegetables of their own to help them to tide over the times of scant wages. How I do wish that the large-hearted and generous proprietors of these works could take this matter into consideration. People waiting at the station talked among themselves of hard times, of farms that were run down, that would not yield the rent, not to speak of leaving anything for the tenants to live on. There was no complaint made of the landlords; the land was blamed for not producing enough. Of course, these people ought to know, but the fields everywhere looked like garden ground. The only symptoms of running down that I could see were in some of the houses, two-roomed, with leaky-looking roofs and a general air of neglect. I must own, however, that houses of this description were by far the fewest in number. At one station where we stopped, one respectable-looking man asked of another, "Have you got anything to do yet, Robert?" "Still waiting for something to turn up," was the answer. This man was not at all of the Micawber type, but a well-brushed, decent-looking person with a keen peremptory face, evidently of Scottish descent. A group of such men came on the train, whose only talk was of emigrating if they only had the means. I have heard a great deal of talk of emigration among the people with whom I have travelled since I landed, but have not heard one mention of Canada as a desirable place to emigrate to. The Western States, the prairie lands, seem to be the promised land to everyone. One of these would-be emigrants took a flute out of his pocket and played the Exile of Erin. The talk of emigration stilled and a great silence fell on them all. There were some soldiers on the car, young men, boys in fact, who seemed by the heavy marching order of their get-up to be going to join their regiment. Some of them struggled mannishly with the tears they fain would hide. Truly the Irish are attached to the soil. I could not help wondering if these lads were ordered to foreign service, and on what soil they would lay down their heads to rest forever. Two persons near by, conversing in low tones on the state of the country, drew my attention to them. One was a sonsie good-wife with any amount of bundles, the other a little old man with a face of almost superhuman wisdom. "The country will be saved mem, now; when the Coercion Bill has passed the country will be saved," said the old man. "There's a great deal too much fuss made about everything," remarked the good-wife. "Look at that boy ten years old taken up, bless us all! for whistling at a man." "Did you take notice, mem, that the whistling was derisive, was derisive, it was derisive. That is where it is, you see," said the old man with a slow, sagacious roll of his head. "I would not care what a wee boy could put into a whistle: it was awfully childish for a man and a gentleman to take up just a wean for a whistle." "You see mem, they have to be strict and keep everything down. The Government have ways of finding out things; they know all though, they don't let on. There will be a bloody time, in my opinion." Oh, the wisdom with which the old man shook his head as he said this, adding in a penetrating whisper, "The times of '98 over again or worse." IV. LOYALTY IN THE "BLACK NORTH"--GENTLEMEN'S RESIDENCES--A MODEL IRISH ESTATE--A GOOD MAN AND HIS WIFE--VISITING THE POOR. Down in the North the loyalty is intense and loud. An opinion favorable to the principles of the Land League it would be hardly prudent to express. Any dissatisfaction with anything at all is seldom expressed for fear of being classed with these troublers of Ireland. The weather is very inclement, and has been ever since I landed. Snow, rain, hail, sleet, hard frost, mud, have alternated. Some days have been one continuous storm of either snow or sleet. The roads through Antrim are beautifully clean and neat, not only on the line of rail but along the country roads inland. The land is surely beautiful, exceedingly, and kept like a garden. The number of houses of some, nay of great, pretensions, is most astonishing. Houses set in spacious and well-kept grounds, with porter lodges, terraced lawns, conservatories, &c., abound. They succeed one another so constantly that one wonders how the land is able to bear them all, or by what means such universal grandeur is supported. There is an outcry of want, of very terrible hard times, but certainly the country shows no signs thereof. The great wonder to me is where the laborers who produce all this neatness and beauty live? Where are the small farmers on whom the high rent presses so heavily? Few houses, where such could by any possibility be housed, are to be seen from the roadside. There are so very few cottages and so very many gentlemen's houses that I am forced to believe that the peasantry have almost entirely disappeared. Yet I know there must be laborers somewhere to keep the place so beautiful, Ballymena, always a bustling place, has spread itself from a thriving little inland town into a large place of some 8,000 inhabitants. Notwithstanding the depression in the linen trade, this town presents a thriving, bustling appearance as it has always done. The number of whiskey shops is something dreadful. The consumption of that article must be steady and enormous to support them. There is squalor enough to be seen in the small streets of this town, but that is in every town. The public road from Ballymena to Grace Hill passes through the Galgorm estate which passed from the hands of its last lord, through the Encumbered Estates Court, into the hands of its present proprietor. On this estate a most wonderful change has been effected, and in a short space of time to effect so much. During the old _regime_, and the good old times of absentee landlordism, squalor and misery crept up to the castle gates. The wretchedness of the tenants could be seen by every passer-by. The peasantry tell of unspeakable orgies held at the castle even upon the Sabbath day. The change is something miraculous. The waste pasture-like demesne is reclaimed and planted. The worst cabins have entirely disappeared; the rest are improved till they hardly know themselves. They match the new cottages for which the proprietor took a prize. These little homes with their climbing plants, their trim little gardens, look as if any one might snuggle down in any of them and be content. The castle itself looks altered; it has lost its grim Norman look, and stands patriarchal and fatherly among the beautiful homes it has created. Not far from the castle gate is a pretty church and its companion, an equally pretty building for the National School. I enquired of several how this great improvement came about; the answer was always the same, "The estate passed into the hands of a good man who lived on it, and he had a godly wife." Passing the pretty little church I heard the sound of children's voices singing psalms, and was told that the daughter of the castle was teaching the children to sing; I noticed _In Memoriam_ on a stone in the building, and found that this church was built in memory of the good lady of the castle, who has departed to a grander inheritance, leaving a name that lingers like a blessing in the country side. So the old landlord's loss of an estate has been great gain to this people. It is in the country parts, more remote from the public eye, that one sees the destitution wrought by the depression in the linen trade. People there are struggling with all their might to live and keep out of the workhouses. Hand-loom weaving seems doomed to follow hand-spinning and become a thing of the past. Weavers some time ago had a plot of ground which brought potatoes and kale to supplement the loom, and on it could earn twelve shillings a week. But alas! while the webs grew longer the price grew less and they are in a sad case. I called, with a friend, on some of these weavers: one, an intelligent man, with the prevailing Scotch type of face. We found him, accompanied by a sickly wife, sitting by a scanty fire, ragged enough. This man for his last web was paid at the rate of twopence a yard for weaving linen with twenty hundred threads to the inch, but out of this money he had to buy dressing and light, and have some one, the sickly wife I suppose, to wind the bobbins for him. He must then pay rent for the poor cabin he lived in, none too good for a stable, and supply all his wants on the remainder. Another weaver told me that all this dreary winter they had no bed- clothes. They think by combining together they will be able to obtain better prices; but they are so poor, the depression in the trade is such a fearful reality that I am afraid they cannot combine or co-operate to any purpose. However, people in such desperate circumstances grasp at any hope. It is wonderful with what disfavor some of these people receive a hint of emigration. It seems like transportation to them. Truly these Irish do cling to the soil. The weavers seem to blame the manufacturers for the reduction of wages. They complain that the trade is concentrated into a few hands; that therefore they cannot sell where they can sell dearest, but are obliged to take yarn from a manufacturer and return it to him in cloth. They complain that he still further reduces the poor wage by fines. As many of these have only a hut but no garden ground, they have nothing to fall back on. There are many suffering great want, and with inherited Scotch reticence suffering in silence. There may be some injustice and some oppression, for that is human nature, but the hand-loom weaving is doomed to disappear, I am afraid. There are some complaints of the high price of land here, and of the hard times for farmers, but there is no appearance of hard times. Laborers are cheap enough. One shilling a day and food, or ten shillings a week without food, seems to be the common wage. The people of Down and Antrim, as far as I have gone, are rampantly loyal to Queen and Government and to all in authority. If a few blame the manufacturers, or think the land is too dear, the large majority blame the improvidence of the poor. "They eat bacon and drink tea where potatoes and milk or porridge and milk used to be good enough for them." It is difficult to imagine the extravagance. I went through part of the poor-house in Ballymena. It is beautifully clean and sweet, and in such perfect order out and in that one is glad to think of the sick or suffering poor having such a refuge. What fine, patient, intelligent faces were among the sufferers in the infirmary. The children in the school-room looked rosy and well-fed, and the babies were nursed by the old women. So many of them--it was a sad sight indeed. V. ONE RESULT OF THE COERCION ACT--THE AGRICULTURAL LABORERS IN DOWN AND ANTRIM--WHISKEY--RAIN IN IRELAND--A DISCUSSION ON ORANGEISM. It is the eighth of March. The weather remains frightfully inclement; the snow and sleet is succeeded by incessant rain storms. The Coercion bill has become law and even in the north there seems a difference in the people. There is a carefulness of expressing an opinion on any subject as if a reign of governmental terror had begun. The loyalty always so fervent is now intense and loud. The people here think that there is an epidemic of unreasonableness and causeless murmuring raging at the south and west. In all that I have seen in Down and Antrim, the agricultural laborers seem to be never at any time much above starvation; any exceptionally hard times bring it home to them. In cases of accident, disease, or old age, they have no refuge but the workhouse. There is a constant struggle, as heroic in God's sight as any struggle of their Scottish ancestors, to escape this dreaded fate. When it does overtake them, however, the beggar nurses wait upon the sick beggars with a tenderness that is inexpressibly touching. Emigration is impossible to the laborer or the hand-loom weaver. They have no money, they have nothing to sell to make money, and they are utterly unwilling to be torn from the places where they were born to be expatriated as beggars, and as beggars set down upon a foreign shore. I am literally giving utterance to the opinions expressed to me. I have heard these people loudly accused of extravagance; on enquiry was told that they bought American bacon and drank tea, whereas, if thrifty, they would be content with potatoes and buttermilk, or ditto and stir- about. As the cow has disappeared, and potatoes have been known to fail, I did not see the extravagance so clearly as I saw the parsimony that would grudge the hard-worked laborer or the pale over-worked weaver any nourishment at all. The charge of spending on whiskey seems more likely by the frightful amount of whiskey shops. Ireland's whiskey bill is going up into somewhere among the millions. It is a fearful pity that this tax on the industry and energy of the people could not be abolished. Truth compels me to add that faces liquor-painted abound most among the well-dressed and apparently well-to-do class whom one meets on the way. The tenant-farmers, in some cases, complain of their rents, and would complain more loudly but for fear of being classed with the Land League, for they in the north are intensely loyal. As for the mere laborer, no one seems to consider him or think of him at all. The weather has been so inclement, the days all so much alike, rain, hail, snow, sleet, high winds, and we were so busy coughing that the days slipped by almost unnoticed. Refusing the tempting offer of a free trip to see the beauties of Glengarriff, through the medium of a heavy rain we started for Derry by train. Ah! it does know how to rain in Ireland. Such a downpour, driven aslant by a fierce wind, so that, disregarding the thought of an umbrella, we held on to the rail of the jaunting car and were driven in the teeth of the tempest, smiling as if we enjoyed it, up to the station. Both sides of the road at the station were crowded with men in all sorts of picturesque habiliments. If it had been near the poor-house we would have thought that the population was applying for admittance _en masse_. As it was, seeing the station likewise crowded, the platform beyond crammed, all eager, expectant, waiting on something, we thought it was some renowned field preacher going to give a sermon, or a millionaire going to give largess. Not a bit of it. It was some person, idle and cruel, who was bringing a couple of poor captive deer to be hunted, and the hounds to hunt them, and the immense crowd represented the idle and cruel who had assembled to get a glimpse of this noble and elevating diversion. If it were possible for the deer and the man to change places the crowd would be still more delighted. Leaving Ballymena behind we panted through a completely sodden country. Everything was dripping. In many places the waters were out, and the low-lying lands were in a flood. Potatoes in pits linger in the fields, turnips and cabbages in the rows where they grew, bearing witness that even the last hard winter was many degrees behind the winters of Canada. The land on this road is not so good as what I left behind; therefore there were few gentlemen's houses, and the small farmhouses wore the usual poverty-stricken and neglected appearance. There were more waste hillsides devoted to whins, and flat fields tussocked with rushes as we swept on through the dripping country, under the sides of almost perpendicular rocks, down which little waterfalls, like spun silver, fell and broadened into bridal veils ere they reached the bottom. Then along the historical Foyle, "whose swelling waters," rather muddy at this season of the year, "roll northward to the main," and so following its windings and curvings we flashed into Derry. VI. THE HILLS OF LOUGH SWILLY--TENANTS' IMPROVEMENTS--A MAN-OF-WAR AND MEN OF LOVE--THE PIG--RAMELTON--INTELLIGENT ROOKS--FROM POTATOES AND MILK TO CORNMEAL STIRABOUT AND NOTHING--MILFORD--THE LATE LORD LEITRIM'S INJUSTICE AND INHUMANITY--ACCOUNT OF HIS DEATH. On the 14th March we left Derry by train, crossing from the banks of the Foyle to Lough Swilly. Got on board a little steamer, marvellously like an American puffer, and panted and throbbed across the waters of the Lough. The sun shone pleasantly, the sky was blue, which deserves to be recorded, as this is the very first day since I arrived in Ireland on which the sun shone out in a vigorous and decided manner, determined to have his own way. We have had a few--a very few--watery blinks of sun before, but the rain and sleet always conquered. Sailed up among whin- covered mountains, with reclaimed patches creeping up their sides, and pretty spots here and there, with handsome houses, new and fresh looking, built upon them. It is an inducement to merchants and others to build their brand new houses here, that the air is fresh and pure, the scenery grand and beautiful and the salt water rolls up to the foot of the rocks. It was pointed out to me by a friend, that these mountain-side farms were reclaimed, by great labor I'm sure, by the tenants, trusting to the Ulster custom, but the landlords, knowing that custom was not law, then raised the rents upon them. If they could not, or were not willing to pay the increased rent, increased because of their own labor, they could leave; others would rent the places at the increased figure. "As for you, ye shiftless, miserable tillers of the soil, ye can go where you like; emigrate if you can; get you to the workhouse or the grave if you cannot." It is hard to believe that this could be done, or has been done lawfully again and again. If it is true it spoils the comfort of looking at the pleasant homes built upon reclaimed spots. We look more kindly on the cottage homes nestled among nooks of the hills. The sky did not cloud over again, it remained blue and bright and coaxed the waters of Lough Swilly to look blue and bright also. Flocks of white sea gulls dipped, darted and sailed about in an abandonment of enjoyment. Flights of ducks rose on the wing and whirled past. We sailed between two forts that frown at one another in a grim and desolate manner at Rathmullen. Was informed that a man-of-war ordinarily lay at anchor in this Lough to keep half an eye on things in general, and poteen, I suppose, in particular. It was complained that the blue jackets, finding these mountain girls sweet and pretty, and easy to keep--for since cows are become such a price, a good one, not one of the bovine aristocracy, but a commonly good one, being value for L20, the damsels of the hills are accustomed to "small rations of tea and potatoes"--the sailors marry them, "and that," said my informant, "makes servant girls scarce about here." I did not sympathize properly with this complaint. I was glad to hear that any form of humanity in this island is scarce. I hoped the blue jackets were happy with their Irish wives, for a Liverpool sailor lamented in my hearing that the girls of seaport towns did not often make good sailors' wives. Let us hope that they did better who chose among the wild hills of Lough Swilly. I am told that another cherished institution of Ireland is passing away-- "The pig that we meant To drynurse in the parlor to pay off the rent." The pig is becoming an institution of the past. I was told by a gentleman of the first respectability in Derry, that sucking pigs are sold in that market for thirty shillings. These would be precious to the peasant if he had them, but he has not, nor means to get them. This great resource for paying the rent is gone. Up the Lough we sailed into beautiful Ramelton, an exceptionally pretty, clean little place, boasting of a very nicely kept hotel. The scenery all around is delightful. Across the Lannon River, on the banks of which is one of the principal streets, is a lofty ridge crowned with grand trees. The Lannon runs into Lough Swilly, and is affected by the ebb and flow of the tide. The trees on the ridge are tenanted by a thriving colony of rooks, very busy just now with their spring work. Two delightful roads, one above another, run along the brow of the hill under the shade of the trees. I discovered that rooks know a great deal; that there is infinite variety of meaning in their caw. The young couples who are starting housekeeping have not only to provide materials and build their homes, but to defend their property at every stage from the rapacity of their neighbors. They have also to build in such a manner as to satisfy the artistic taste of the community. I saw an instance of this during a morning walk. Five rooks were sitting in judgment on the work of a young and thoughtless pair of rooks, I suppose. The work was condemned, the young couple were evicted without mercy and the nest pulled to pieces by the five censors with grave caws of disapprobation, while the evicted ones flew round and showed fight and used bad language. The Coercion Act was not in favor among the black coated gentry of the air. It has fallen like a spell over Ireland though, and evictions are hurried through as if they thought their time was short. People are afraid to speak to a stranger. I have succeeded in obtaining introductions, which I hope will give me an entrance into society in Donegal. Was driven by my new friends over a part of Lord Leitrim's estate, and through his town of Milford. The murdered Earl has left a woeful memory of himself all over the country side. He must have had as many curses breathed against him as there are leaves on the trees, if what respectable people who dare speak of his doings say of him be true, which it undoubtedly is. Godly people of Scottish descent, Covenanters and Presbyterians, who would not have harmed a hair of his head for worlds, have again and again lifted their hands to heaven and cried. "How long, Lord, are we to endure the cruelty of this man?" One case (which is a sample case) I will notice. In the plantation of Scottish settlers in the North it seems that either for company or mutual protection against the dispossessed children of the soil, the farmhouses are built together in clachans or little groups. After a lapse of years these clachans in some cases expanded into small towns. The people built houses and made improvements on their holdings, paying their rent punctually, but holding the right to their own money's worth, the result of years of toil and stern economy under the Ulster custom. In this way the greater part of the town of Milford sprung into existence. One John Buchanan, a Presbyterian of Scottish descent, son of respectable people who had lived on this estate for generations, was employed in the land office of the Earl of Leitrim over twenty years. This man trusting to the Ulster custom, and the honest goodness of the old Earl, grandfather of the present Earl, a good landlord and a just man, by all accounts, invested his savings in building on the site of the old farmhouse in Milford a block of buildings--quarrying the stone for them--consisting of two large houses on Main street, and the rest tenement houses on Buchanan street. He improved his farm by reclaiming land, making nice fields out of bog. When the good Earl died and the late Earl came into possession, he immediately raised the rent to nearly double what was paid before, making John Buchanan pay dearly for his improvements. John Buchanan died rather suddenly, leaving a widow and five children. The widow in her overwhelming grief was visited by Lord Leitrim personally. He told her with great abuse and outrageous language, that she had no claim whatever to a particle of the property, "she did not own a stone of it." The widow, worn and nervous with the great trouble she had passed through, was unable to bear this new trouble; his Lordship's violence gave her a shock from which she never recovered. He then sent his bailiffs and put her and her children out; put out the fires, as taking possession, and re-let the place to her, again doubling the rent. Her eldest son, a young lad, boiling with wrath over the wrong done and the language used to his mother, went to his aunt, living at some distance, and besought her to send him out of the country, lest he should be tempted to take vengeance in his own hand. His aunt seeing this danger, fitted him out from her own pocket, and the poor lad, his mother consenting, was expatriated out of harm's way to far Australia. The widow never recovered the shock which Lord Leitrim had given her. It was aggravated by despair at seeing all the savings of her husband's lifetime appropriated by the strong hand, and her children left destitute. She was also in debt to the value of L600 for building material for an addition built to the house and some office houses, built later on, some time after the rest of the property. This debt of L600 wore on her. She had no means of payment; all her means were swallowed up in this property. The creditors could not collect it off the property, it was not held liable for the debt, neither was Lord Leitrim, who had seized the property. Her sense of honesty and the honor of her husband's name made her fret over this debt. The doctor had declared her illness heart disease brought on by a shock, and her death imminent. To soothe her mind her sister again came forward and out of her own pocket paid the money. The widow died and was buried. Their only relative tried what the law would do to redress the grievances of the orphans. The presiding judge, the chairman of the quarter sessions, lifted up his hands saying, "Must I issue a decree that will rob these helpless orphans." The decree was issued, and the children ejected without a farthing of compensation. To leave no stone unturned, the children went in a body to Lord Leitrim to ask, as justice had been powerless, for mercy from him. He ordered his servant to put them out. At the time these orphans were turned out of the house their father built, there was not a farthing of rent due, all had been paid up at the unjust Earl's own estimate. This case had been heard by the Royal Commissioners sent to enquire into these things, but it appears that there is no law to redress a tenant's wrong. This occurred under the tenant custom of Ulster. I drove round this fine property in Milford. It was pointed out to me that almost all the houses in the town were acquired by Lord Leitrim, by the strong hand, in the same way. Passed the house from which the Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Mr. White, was evicted. It was his own private property. It stands windowless and roofless, a monument to the dead earl. The priest of the parish had no house of his own; he was a boarder with one of his flock, who had built himself a house in the time of the good earl. When Lord Leitrim fancied that he had cause of quarrel with the priest he obliged his tenant to put him out, on pain of losing the house which he had built. After he had got rid of priest and minister, he built a little Episcopal Church, that the people might worship at his shrine. The little church stands empty now. The graveyard about this little church was a rocky corner with little soil. The minister ventured to request that the people might have leave to draw a little clay from a hill nearby, to cover the bodies interred there, as there was not soil enough. "I'll not give a spoonful; let their bones bleach there," said the earl. During the life-time of the good earl, the people being encouraged to improve their lands, crept up the mountain side, reclaiming whatever land they could. I have seen some of these portions, and noticed how they had got up close to the rocks, by using the spade where the plough would not go. They cleared off the whins of the mountain; they drained the bogs. They made kilns and burned lime for top-dressing. When the wicked lord came into possession he not only raised the rent on the tenants' improvements, but built a kiln of his own, and burned lime, forbidding them to use theirs, compelling them to buy from him at his price. He would not even allow them to make manure of the floating sea- weed that drifted in from the sea. Went to see the place where Lord Leitrim was done to death. Looked down on Milford Bay, dotted with little treeless and shrubless islands. Round it are round-shouldered hills, brown and bare now--purple with heather bells in summer time, I dare say. On a point stretching out into this bay stands his residence, Manor Vaughan. The road leading from Manor Vaughan to Milford is screened by a plantation of trees. On the opposite side of the bay the hills are really mountains. The murderers crossed the bay, tied their boat to a stone, and waited in the plantation. Lord Leitrim, with his clerk, was driven along on one car, followed by another containing his servants. His car, somewhat in advance, went slowly up a little hill. Those lying in wait fired; the driver fell dead. Lord Leitrim was wounded; he jumped off on one side, the clerk on the other. He had pistols but they were in the car; he retreated, trying to defend himself as they poured on him shot after shot. Those in the other car, instead of coming up, stopped in mortal terror. The clerk, only slightly wounded in the ear, ran to them, exclaiming, "They are killing Lord Leitrim, they have killed me," and dropped dead with nervous terror. The assassins had poured in all their shot, still the Earl was not dead. He might yet have been saved if there had been any one to help him. What must his thoughts have been in that supreme moment. They beat the life out of him, he defending himself to the last. They cut loose their boat, rowed across the bay, cast it adrift, took the mountains and escaped. The Earl fell, his head in a little pool of water. The country people coming in to Milford town passed by with white faces on the other side; no one lifted his head, no one looked to see if life was extinct. At length the constabulary came, and the remains of the dreaded lord were carried in a cart into Milford. There was a _post mortem_ examination; part of his poor remains was buried in the graveyard of the little church which he built, and a load of the clay he refused to his tenants brought to cover it. His name will long linger in evil fame among the mountains and deserts. It is but just to the memory of this man to say, that some, who with good reason abhor his memory, do not believe that charges of gross immorality made against him were true. Others who think themselves equally well informed hold a contrary opinion. To think of mentioning all I have heard of his oppressive injustice would be impossible. I was told that when news of his death came into certain places, men clasped hands and drank one another's health as at a festival; that pious people thanked God for the deliverence, who abhorred the means by which it came about. I saw among the hills three nice farms, which a well-to-do farmer bought and improved, and finally bequeathed to his three sons. One died and the Ahab-like Earl took possession. Wishing to evict another for the purpose of throwing two farms into one, he offered the farm to the remaining brother in addition to his own. The man refused to ruin his brother. The Earl, to punish him, raised his rent from L35 to L70. Griffith's valuation of this farm is L29 5s. Another eviction from Milford was so pitiful in its cruelty that the compassion of the country was aroused, and a home bought by subscription for the old people. I saw the property from which these people were evicted in Milford, a valuable row of houses. The present Earl acknowledged the justice of the claim of John Buchanan's children, and spoke of restitution, but his agent, on whom the mantle of the late Earl had fallen, persuaded him against it, as nearly all the property in Milford town had been acquired in the same way. "Making restitution to one would open up the question of the others, and could not be afforded." VII. IRISH COLD AND CANADIAN COLD--EVIDENCES OF THE FAMINE--PREPARING FOR THE IRISH LAND BILL--THE BAD PEOPLE OF DONEGAL--INFLUENCE OF THE BALLOT ON LANDLORDS--A MOUNTAIN STORM--A "BETTER CLASS" FARMER'S HOME. To make excursions to a short distance from this pretty town of Ramelton and to return again has been my occupation for the last week. It was arranged that on Monday, March 21st, I was to go with some kind friends to see life up among the mountains of Donegal, but down came another storm. Snow, hail, sleet, rain, hail, sleet and rain again. Storms rule and reign among these hills this March, destroying all prospect of March dust I am afraid. Nothing could be done but wait till the storm was over, going to the windows once in a while to watch the snow driving past, or to notice that it had changed to sleet or rain. The mountain tops are white again, and look wild and wintry. To-day it rains with a will. The cold here at present is more chill and penetrating than Canadian cold. I have put on more, and yet more clothing, and I am cold. Many, very many, people during the past dreary winter have had no bed-clothes at all. I am afraid from what I see and hear that the famine was more dreadful here in Donegal than we in Canada imagined. Plenty of people even now are living on Indian meal stirabout, without milk or anything else to take with it. This, three times a day, and thankful to have enough of it to satisfy hunger. It was pitiful to see little children and aged women, with but thin clothes on, walking barefoot through the snowy slush of yesterday. My attention was drawn to a ballad singer, almost blind, "whose looped and windowed raggedness" was picturesque. His dreary attempts at singing with his teeth chattering, the rain and sleet searching out every corner of his rags, was pitiful. He was hardly able to stand against the cutting wind. I sent out and bought his ballad as an excuse to give him the Queen's picture. The songs were clever for local poetry. They were treasonous too, but then loyalty is the song of the well fed, well clad, well-to-do citizen. Treason and wretchedness fit well together, in a helpless, harmless way. Your London correspondent of February 11th remarks, "Even Ireland has nothing left but to settle down and attend to putting in the crops." This is an English and comfortable view--the remark of a man who was not there to see. It is far otherwise here in County Donegal. Evictions are flying about as thick as "the leaves of the forest when autumn hath flown." This wild second winter is the time selected for these evictions. Every local paper has notices of evictions here and there. They tell me that the reason of the great number of evictions at present is to prevent the wretched tenants from having any benefit under the promised Land Bill. If they are evicted now and readmitted as caretakers, they can be sent off again at a week's notice and have no claim under the Ulster custom for past improvements. I think any candid person can see that these people are not in a position to pay back rent, or even present rent at the high rate to which it is raised. In some instances they are not able to pay any rent at all. There had been some years of bad seasons ending in one of absolute famine. The report of the Relief Committee for northern Donegal was published on 28th of October, 1880. I met with a member of that Committee, which was composed of sixteen Protestants and eleven Catholics, including the Catholic Bishop of Raphoe and the Presbyterian member of Parliament. This gentleman informed me that food was given in such quantities as to preserve life only. Seed was also given. Many people of respectable standing, whose need was urgent, applied for relief secretly, not wishing their want to be known. Helped in this careful way the amount given, exclusive of expenses, in North Donegal was L33,660.17.1, of which amount the New York _Herald_ gave L2,000, besides L203 to an emigration fund enabling 115 persons to leave the country. Surely we must think that before these people applied for public charity--and every case was examined into by some of the Committee or their agents-- they had exhausted all their means, and sold all they had to sell. How, then, could they possibly be able to pay back rent in March, 1881? In the middle of my letter I got the long-waited-for opportunity to leave Ramelton behind and go up into the Donegal Hills. The environs of Ramelton are wonderfully beautiful, sudden hills, green vales, lovely nooks in unexpected places, waters that sparkle and dash, or that flow softly like the waters of Shiloh, great aristocratic trees in clumps, standing singly, grouped by the water's edge, as if they had sauntered down to look about them, or drawn up on the hill-side many deep, stretching far away like the ranks of a grand army. All that these can do to make Ramelton a place of beauty has been done. It is hemmed in by hills that lie up against the sky, marked off into fields by whin hedges, till they look like sloping chequer-boards. Beyond them, in places, tower up the mountain-tops of dark Donegal, crusted over with black heather, seamed by rift and ravine, bare in places where these rocks, those bones of the mountains, have pushed themselves through the heather, till it looks like a ragged cloak. The sun shines, the rooks flap busily about, as noisy as a parliament, the air is keen, and so we drive out of Ramelton. The sky was blue, although the wind was cold, and it was blowing quite a gale. We had not left the town far behind when the storm recommenced in all its fury. The hail beat in our faces until we were obliged to cover up our heads. Finally the pony refused to go a step farther, but turned his obstinate shoulder to the storm and stood there, where there was no shelter of any kind, and there he stood till the storm moderated a little, only to recommence again. Up one hill, down another, along a bleak road through a bog, past the waters of Lough Fern, up more hills, round other hills, across other bleak bogs, the little town of Kilmacrennan, up other hills, the storm meanwhile raging in all its fury until we drew up on the lee side of a little mountain chapel. The clergyman, who happened to be there, received us most courteously, and conducted us to his house. We were offered refreshments, and treated with the greatest kindness. Owing to this priest's courtesy and kindness I was provided with a room in the house of one of his parishioners, a mountain side farmer. I parted with my friends with great regret. They returned to Ramelton through the storm, which increased in fury every moment. I, in the safe shelter of the farmhouse, looked out of the window, hoping the storm would moderate, but it increased until every thing a few yards from the house, every mountain top and hill side were blotted out, and nothing could be seen but the flurrying snow driven past by the winds. I have now left the Presbyterians of the rich, low-lying lands behind, and am up among the Catholic people of the hills. I have felt quite at home with these kindly folk. They remind me of the kindliness of the Celtic population of another and far-off land. I like the sound of the Irish tongue, which is spoken all around me. I feel quite at home by the peat fire piled up on the hearth. The house where I am staying is that of a farmer of the better class. A low thatched house divided into a but and a ben. The kitchen end has the bare rafters, black and shining with concentrated smoke. The parlor end is floored above and has a board floor. Among the colored prints of the Saviour which adorn the wall are two engravings, in gilt frames, of Bright and Gladstone, bought when the Land Bill of 1870 was passed. This Bill, by the way, has been evaded with great ease, for the law breakers were the great who knew the law, and the wronged were the poor who were ignorant of it. The farmer's wife could not do enough to make me welcome. She had the kind and comely face and pleasant tongue that reminded me of Highland friends in the long ago. Their name of Murray, which is a prevalent name on these hills, had a Highland sound. Feeling welcome, and safe under the care that has led me thus far, I fell asleep in the best bed, with its ancient blue and white hangings, and slept soundly. These people are very thrifty. The blankets of the bed were homespun; the fine linen towel was the same. The mistress's dress was home-made, and so was the cloth of her husband's clothes. In noticing this I was told that where they could keep a few sheep the people were better off, but it was harder now to keep sheep than formerly. VIII. THE HILL COUNTRY OF DONEGAL--ON THE SQUARE--OFFICE RULES Left up among my country people in this hill country of Donegal, I set myself to see and to hear what they had to say for themselves or against their landlords. In the pauses of storm I walked up the mountains to see the people in their homes. I seem to have lost the power of description. I will never think of scenes I saw there without tears. I never, in Canada, saw pigs housed as I saw human beings here. Sickness, old age, childhood penned up in such places that one shuddered to go into them. Now, mark me! every hovel paid rent, or was under eviction for failing to pay. The landlord has no duties in the way of repairing a roof or making a house comfortable. Such a thing is utterly unknown here. To fix the rent, to collect the rent, to make office rules as whim or cupidity dictates, to enforce them, in many instances with great brutality, is the sole business of the landlord; and the whole power of the Executive of England is at his back. This is not a good school in which to learn loyalty. Submission to absolute decrees or eviction are the only alternative. The tenant has no voice in the bargain. He has no power to be one party to a contract. This irresponsible power of an autocrat over serfs of the soil is bad for both parties. I will try to tell these people's side of the question as nearly in their own words as I can. When the native population was driven off the good valley lands to the hills of Donegal during the confiscation times, they built their cabins in groups, like the Scotch _clachans_, for company, perhaps even for protection. Each man broke up, clearing off stones and rooting up whins, the best patch within his reach. He ditched and drained pieces of low-lying bog, and paid for what he cultivated, all the rest being common. By what title the Clemens of Leitrim got lordship over the wild hills as well as the fat lowlands I cannot tell; but all the country here, for miles and miles, up hill and down vale, is his. The people have absolutely no rights, far as the land is concerned. The first move towards this dreadful state of things was called "Squaring the farms." This was done to compel the people to pay for the wild as well as the cultivated lands. Under the old system a man might have a few goats or sheep, or a heifer, on the hills, and, if his crop was not good, or a hail storm threshed out his oats, he could sacrifice these to pay the rent. When the farms were squared each man drew lots for his new holding. I am speaking of Lord Leitrim's estate. This was a hard decree, but the tenant had no alternative but to submit. A man often found himself squared out of the best of his clearing, squared out of his cabin and all accommodation for his cow or horse, and squared on to a new place without any house on it at all. I made particular enquiry if Lord Leitrim had ever made any allowance or compensation to a man deprived of the house, which he or his fathers had built, after this summary fashion. No compensation. Every fixture put upon the land belonged to the landlord absolutely. "Was there ever any help allowed to a man in building a new house?" "In a very few instances a man got a door and a couple of window-sashes as a charitable assistance, not by any means as a compensation." After some time the wild mountains, where there was nothing but rocks and heather, were fenced off. Before this the goats and sheep grazed up there. A new office rule made the price for a sheep or goat picking a living among the heather. It was one shilling and sixpence for a sheep with a lamb at her foot, and other animals in proportion. Still the wretched men of the hills struggled to live on in the only homes they had, or had ever known. Then the rents were raised. In one instance from L3 11s 4d to L6 5s for 6 Irish acres, the increased value being the result of the man's own hard labor. In another instance from L1 9s 4d to L13. Another office rule charges five shillings for the privilege of cutting turf for fuel even if cut on the little holding for which he is paying rent. Now, when every nerve was strained to pay this rack rent, and cattle were high in price, if the unfortunate tenant failed, why, he was evicted. He might go where he liked, to the workhouse or the asylum, or the roadside, his little clearing would make pasture, and this, at the price of beef cattle, would be still more profitable. For any landlord in this part of Donegal to speak of freedom of contract is a fallacy. It does not exist. The oppression at present exercised by Captain Dopping on the Leitrim estate, which he can carry out safely under the protection of bayonets, would raise up Judge Lynch in America before three months. Lately, the people told me, he visited the farm-houses in person, pulled open the doors of the little room that the better class strive to have, without permission asked, and walked in to inspect if there were any signs of prosperity hidden from the eye that might warrant further extortion. This act was resented with a feeling that found no relief in words. I noticed that there was no word of complaint or denunciation anywhere. Facts were stated, and you understood by glance and tone that the time for mere complaint was past. I was taken to see a paralytic schoolmaster who had dared to build a room next to the school-house out of which he was helped into school every morning, for he could teach, though he had lost the use of his limbs. No sooner did Lord Leitrim know this than he had the paralytic carried out and laid on the road, and the room which he had built with his earnings and the help of his neighbors, was pulled down--not one stone was left upon another. He then lost his situation which was his living. I can hardly bear to describe this man's dwelling in which I found himself, his wife, four children and the cow. The winds of the mountain and the rains of heaven equally found their way in. His wife teaches sewing in the school at a salary of L8 per annum. This, with other help from the Rev. Mr. Martin, formerly Episcopal Rector of Kilmacrennan, who got the wife the post of schoolmistress, has kept these people alive. The father has not seen the sky since he was evicted in 1870. At present there is a writ of ejectment on the house for L9 of back rent, and he is sued for seed, got in the time of scarcity. The house is horrible--there are boards with some straw on them over the beds. The children are very pretty, and as hardy as mountain goats. The father was quite an educated man, to judge from his speech. I, who was well clothed, shivered at the hearth, but want and nakedness stayed there constantly. If this poor man were put in the poor-house, he would have to part from the faithful wife and sweet children; but that is the doom that stares him in the face. The longer I stayed among the hills the more I became convinced that the people had strained every nerve to pay what they considered unjust and extortionate rents. They worked hard; they farmed hard; they wore poor clothing; they left their hill and went over to Scotland or England, at harvest time, to earn money to pay the rent. "And we were not considered as kindly, or as much respected, as their hogs or dogs," said a farmer to me. There was nothing left after the rent for comfort, or to use in case of sickness; they always lived on the brink of starvation. "Why did you not refuse to pay these increased rents when they were put upon you first? You should have refused in a body, and stood out," I said to one man. "Some could do that, my lady, but most could not. At first I had the old people depending on me, and I could not see them on the hillside; now I have little children, and the wife is weakly. And there were many like me, or even worse." Now consider some of the office rules. My lord had a pound of his own: for a stray beast, so much; for a beast caught up the mountain without leave, eviction; for burning the limestone on your own place instead of buying it at the lord's kiln, eviction; for burning some parings of the peat land, the ashes of which made the potatoes grow bigger and drier, eviction. Not only did the man who did not doff his hat to the landlord stand in danger, but the man who did not uncover to his lowest under- bailiff. One exaction after another, one tyranny after another has dug a gulf between landlord and tenant that will be hard to bridge. I saw a stone house used as a barn. Lord Leitrim made the man who built it, who had got permission to build from the good Earl, tear down the chimney and make an office-house of it, on pain of eviction. He must continue to live himself in the hovel. Another widow woman, evicted for not being able to pay her rent, had the roof torn off her house, but has a place like a goose pen among the ruins, and here she stays. Every day rides out Capt. Dopping with his escort of police, paid for by the county, and evicts without mercy. Since the eyes of the world have been drawn to Ireland by the proceedings of the Land League none have been left to die outside. The tenants are admitted as caretakers by the week, but the eviction, I am told, extinguishes any claim the poor people might have under the Ulster Custom. I have seen nothing yet to make me think I was in a disturbed country except meeting Captain Dopping and his escort, and seeing white police barracks and dandy policemen, who literally overrun the country. It carries one's mind back to the days of bloody Claverhouse or wicked Judge Jeffries to hear and see the feelings which the country people-- Catholic as well as Protestant--have towards the memory of the late Earl. "Dear, the cup of his iniquity was full, the day of vengeance was come, and the earth could hold him no longer," said a Protestant to me. "It was bad for the people, whoever they were, that took vengeance out of the hands of the Almighty, but many a poor creature he had sent out of the world before he lay helpless at the mercy of his enemies," said many an orthodox person to me. One poor girl on that dreadful day thanked God that the oppressor was laid low. Her mother evicted, had died on the roadside exposed to the weather of the hills, her brother went mad at the sight of misery he would almost have died to relieve but could not, and is now in the asylum at Letterkenny. One can imagine with what feeling this desolate girl lifted her hands when she heard of the murder, and said, "I thank Thee, O Lord." What kind of a system is it that produces such scenes, and such feelings? It is a noticeable fact how many there are in the asylum in Letterkenny whose madness they blame on the horrors of these evictions. Wise legislation may find a remedy for these evils, but the memory of them will never die out. It is graven on the mountains, it is stamped on the valleys, it is recorded on the rocks forever. IX. ALONG A MOUNTAIN ROAD--WHY THE RENT WAS RAISED--TURNING FARMS INTO PASTURES--ST. COLOMBKILL--IRISH HOSPITALITY--A NOTABLE BALLAD. The twenty-sixth of March rose sunny and cold, and I decided to hire a horse and guide to go to Derryveigh, made memorable by Mr. John George Adair. The road lay through wild mountain scenery. Patches of cultivated fields lay on the slopes; hungry whin-covered hills rose all round them, steep mountains rank upon rank behind; deep bog lands, full of treacherous holes, lay along at the foot of the mountain here and there. The scenery is wild beyond description, not a tree for miles in all the landscape. On some of the lower hills men were ploughing with wretched-looking horses. Men were delving with spades where horses could not keep their footing. The houses were wretched, some only partly roofed, some with the roof altogether gone and a shed erected inside, but for the most wretched of all the hovels rent is exacted. Every bit of clearing was well and carefully labored. The high, broad stone fences round hillside fields were all gathered from the soil. At one place, I was told that the brother of the occupant had sent him, from America, money to make the house a little more comfortable. He roofed it with slate. The rent was raised from L2 9s 4d to L13 10s. I may remark here that the tenants complain that the present Earl, through his agent, Capt. Dopping, is even more oppressive in a steady, cruel manner than the late Earl. The late hard times--the cruel famine--has led to the sacrifice of all stock, so that some of these people have not a four-footed beast on their holding. As we wound along among the hills my guide spoke of getting another man to accompany us, who was well acquainted with the way to Derryveigh, and we stopped at his place accordingly. He came to the car to explain that he was busy fanning up corn, or he would be only too glad to come. In a subdued whisper he told my guide of Capt. Dopping having been at his house, with his bailiffs and body-guard of police--threatening the wife, he said. He then told of the sacrifices he had made of one thing and another to gather up one year's rent. He had to pay five shillings for cutting turf on his own land, and one shilling for a notice served on him. Poor little man, he had a face that was cut for mirthfulness, and his woefulness was both touching and amusing. So we left him and went our way. Along the road, winding up and down among the hills, by sudden bogs and rocky crags still more desolate and lonely looking, we came upon a cultured spot, now and then, where a solitary man would be digging round the edges of the rocks. Again we were among wild mountains heaving up their round heads to the sky and looking down at us over one another's shoulders. It brought to my mind the Atlantic billows during the last stormy February. It is as if the awful rolling billows mounting to the sky were turned into stone and fixed there, and the white foam changed into dark heather. After driving some time the landscape softened down into rolling hills beautifully cultivated, and sprinkled here and there with grazing cattle. We are coming to Gartan Lake, and where there is a belt of trees by the lake shore stands the residence of Mr. Stewart, another landlord. He, when cattle became high-priced, thought that cattle were much preferable to human beings, so he evicted gradually the dwellers who had broken in the hills, and entered into possession, without compensation, of the fields, the produce of others' toil and sweat. His dwelling is in a lonely, lovely spot, and it stands alone, for no cottage home is at all near. He has wiped out from the hill sides every trace of the homes of those who labored on these pleasant fields and brought them under cultivation. Since the Land League agitation began he has given a reduction of rents, and the whole country side feel grateful and thankful. There is no solitude so great that we do not meet bailiffs at their duty, or policemen on the prowl. We are now nearing Derryveigh. There are two lakes lying along the valley connected with a small stream. My guide informed me that both lakes once abounded with salmon. The celebrated St. Colombkill was born on the shores of the Gartan Lake. Being along the lake one day he asked some fishermen on the lower lake to share with him of the salmon they had caught. They churlishly refused, and the saint laid a spell on the waters, and no salmon come there from that day to this. They are plentiful in Upper Gartan Lake, and come along the stream to the dividing line, where the stream is spanned by a little rustic bridge; here they meet an invisible barrier, which they cannot pass. I told my guide in return the story of the Well of St. Keyne, but he thought it unlikely. So there is a limit to belief. Since Mr. Adair depopulated Derryveigh, and gave it over to silence, the roads have been neglected, and have become rather difficult for a car. The relief works in famine time have been mainly road-making, and there are smooth hard roads through the hills in all directions, so the people complain of roads that would not be counted so very bad in the Canadian backwoods. However, the difficulty being of a rocky nature, we left the car at the house of a dumb man, the only one of the inhabitants spared by Adair. He and his sister, also dumb, lived together on the mountain solitudes. She is dead, and a relative, the daughter of one of the evicted people, has come to keep house for him. He made us very welcome, seeing to it that the horse was put up and fed with sheaf oats. I and my guides, for we were now joined by the man who had had the oats to fan-- he had got his brother to take his place and came a short cut across the hills to meet us--so we all three set out to walk over Derryveigh. It was a trying walk, a walk to be measured by ups and downs, for the Derryveigh hamlets were widely scattered. There they were--roofless homes, levelled walls, desolation and silence. And it is a desolation, indeed. Broken down walls here and there, singly and in groups, mark the place where there was a contented population when Mr. Adair bought the estate. He had made plans for turning his purchase into a veritable El Dorado. The barren mountains are fenced off, surely at a great expense, that no sheep or lamb might bite a heather bell without pay. It was to be a great pasture for black-faced sheep. The sides of the mountains, which are bog in many places, are scored with drains to dry up the bog holes and give the sheep a sure footing. I did not see many sheep on the hill or many cattle on the deserted farms. It is an awfully lonesome place; desolation sits brooding among the broken-down walls. My guide, a lonesome-looking man, enlivened our way by remarks like these: "This was a widdy's house. She was a well-doin' body." "Here was a snug place. See, there's the remains of a stone porch that they built to break off the wind." "That was Jamie Doherty's, he that died on the road-side after he was evicted. You see, nobody dare lift the latch or open the door to any of the poor creatures that were put out." And this has been done; human beings have died outside under the sky for no crime, and this under the protection of English law. Many of these people lost their reason, and are in the asylum at Letterkenny. Some are still _coshering_ here and there among their charitable neighbors, while many are bitter hearted exiles across the sea. After walking up and down amid this pitiful desolation, and hearing many a heart-rending incident connected with the eviction, a sudden squall of hail came on, and we were obliged to take shelter on the lee side of a ruined wall till it blew over. To while away the time one of the guides told me of a local song made on the eviction, the refrain being, "Five hundred thousand curses on cruel John Adair." Across the Gartan Lake we could see from our partial shelter the point to which Mr. Stewart wasted the people off his estate. Mr. Stewart's is a handsome lonely place, but when one hears all these tales of spoliation it prevents one from admiring a fine prospect. "He is dealing kindly with the people now," said my guides, "whatever changed his heart God knows." The shower being over we returned to the house of the dummy. In our absence dinner had been prepared for us. She had no plates, but the table on which she laid oat cakes was as white as snow. She gave us a little butter, which, by the signs and tokens, I knew to be all she had, boiled eggs, made tea of fearful strength, and told us to eat. My guides enjoyed the mountain fare with mountain appetites. I tried to eat, but somehow my throat was full of feelings. I had great difficulty to make this mountain maid accept of a two shilling piece for her trouble. We returned by the way we came to a point where we had a view of a rectory which was pointed out to me as the abode of another good rector. These people do seem to feel kindness very much. Here we took another road to visit Glenveigh and see Adair's castle. On the way we were informed by a woman, speaking in Irish, that a process-server near Creeslach was fired at through the window of his house. He had been out serving processes, and was at home sitting with his head resting on his hand. Three shots were fired, two going over his head and one going through the hand on which his head was resting. Two men are taken up to-day. * * * * * I have secured a copy of the ballad referred to by our guide, which records the desolation of Derryveigh. All such actions are celebrated in local poetry; but this is one of the fiercest; you can publish it if you think best:-- DERRYVEIGH. "The cold snow rests on levelled walls, where was a happy home, The wintry sky looks down upon a desolate hearthstone. The hearth by which the cradle song has lulled our infant's sleep, Is open to the pitying skies that nightly o'er it weep. There is rippling in the waters, there is rustling through the air, Five hundred thousand curses upon cruel John Adair. "It is not we that curse him, though in woe our sad heart bleeds, The curse that's on him is the curse that follows wicked deeds. He suspected and he punished, he judged, and then he drew The besom of destruction our quiet homesteads through; So it's rippling in the waters, it is rustling through the air, Five hundred thousand curses upon cruel John Adair. "We little dreamed upon our hills destruction's hour was nigh, Woe! Woe the day our quiet glens first met his cruel eye! He coveted our mountains all in an evil hour, We have tasted of his mercy, and felt his grasp of power; Through years to come of summer sun, of wintry sleet and snow, His name shall live in Derryveigh as Campbell's in Glencoe. "A tear is on each heather bell where heaven's dew distils, And weeping down the mountain side flows on a thousand rills; The winds rush down the empty glens with many a sigh and moan, Where little children played and sang is desolate and lone. The scattered stones of many homes have witnessed our despair, And every stone's a monument to cruel John Adair. "Where are the hapless people, doomed by John Adair's decree? Some linger in the drear poor-house--some are beyond the sea; One died behind the cold ditch--back beneath the open sky, And every star in heaven was a witness from on high. None dared to ope a friendly door, or lift a neighbor's latch, Or shelter by a warm hearthstone beneath the homely thatch. "Beside the lake in sweet Glenveigh, his tall white castle stands, With battlement and tower high, fresh from the mason's hands; It's built of ruined hearth stones, its cement is bitter tears, It's a monument of infamy to all the future years, He is written childless, for of his blood no heir Shall inherit land or lordship from cruel John Adair. "His cognizance the bloody hand has a wild meaning now, It is pointing up for vengeance to Cain-like mark his brow, It speaks of frantic hands that clasped the side posts of the door; Pale lips that kissed the threshold they would cross, oh, never more. The scattered stones of many homes, the desolated farms, Shall mark with deeper red the hand upon his coat of arms. The silver birches of Glenveigh when stirred by summer air Shall whisper of the curse that hangs o'er cruel John Adair." X. WHY THE RENT IS RAISED--THE HISTORY OF AN EVICTION FROM ONE OF THE EVICTED--A DONEGAL CONGREGATION--A CLIMB TO THE TOP OF DOONHILL--DOON HOLY WELL--MAKING THE BEST OF A STRANGER. In the silence of the night when sleep would not come, and when my imagination rehearsed over and over again sights I had seen and tales I had heard, I made an almost cast-iron resolution to escape to the estate of Stewart of Ards and have one letter filled up with the good deeds of a landlord. Alas for me! another storm, a rain storm, and a touch of neuralgia conspired to keep me "ben the house" in the little room upon the mountain side. One can weather snow or hail easier than a mountain rain storm. The rain is laden with half-melted snow, and the wind that drives it is terribly in earnest. It is one queer feature of this mountain scenery, the entire absence of trees. The hills look as if the face of the country had been shaved. Up the hill sides the little fields are divided off by high, broad stone fences, the result of gathering the stones out of the fields. The bog land to be reclaimed requires drains three feet deep every six feet of land. To trench up a little field into ridges six feet apart, to gather stones out of a little field sufficient to surround it with a four feet high stone fence, to grub out and burn whins, to make all the improvements with your own labor, and then to have your landlord come along with his valuator and say, "Your farm is worth double what you pay for it; I can get thirty shillings an acre for it," and to raise the rent to its full value, which you must pay or go out. This sort of thing is repeated, and repeated, in every variation of circumstances and of hardship, and the people submit and are, as a whole, quiet and law-abiding. I was called out of my little den to see a woman, one of the evicted tenants of Mr. Adair. She was on her way to Letterkenny to see her son, who is in the asylum since the eviction. It was hard enough to wander through the ruins and hear of the eviction scenes from others, but to sit by the turf fire and listen to one who had suffered and was suffering from this dreadful act, to see the recollection of it expressed in look and tone was different. This woman--husband dead, son in the asylum--was a decent-looking body in cloak and cap, with a bleached face and quiet voice. "We were all under sentence of eviction, but it was told to us that it was for squaring the farms. Then we were warned to pay in the half- year's rent. It was not due till May, and we had never been asked to pay the rent ahead of us before. But the landlord was a new one, and if he made a rule, why, we must obey him; so we scraped up and sold this and that and paid it. If we had known what was coming we might have kept it, and had a penny to turn to when we were out under the sky. It was to get the rent before he turned us out that he made that plan. We were put out in the beginning of April; our rent was paid up to May. Oh, I wish, I wish that he had driven us into the lake the day he put us out. A few minutes would have ended our trouble, but now when will it end! I have been through the country, my lady, and my boy in the asylum ever since." Went to the Catholic chapel up here in the mountains. It was quite convenient to my lodging. It is a very nice building with a new look. I was surprised to see such a fine building in the mountains, for, owing to the poverty of the people, there were no chapels at all in some places a little time ago. Mass was celebrated in _scalans_, a kind of open sheds, covered over head to protect the officiating priest from the weather, while the people clustered round in the open air. When I spoke of the nice appearance of the chapel I was told that the children of these hills scattered through the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, had helped in its building. There were between seven and eight hundred people present. There were no seats on the floor of the chapel. I could not help admiring the patient, untiring devotion of these people, and the endurance that enabled them to kneel so long. The prevailing type of face is eminently Scottish, so is the tone of voice, and the names, Murrays, Andersons, and the like. Were it not for the altar and the absence of seats I could have imagined myself in a Glenelg Presbyterian congregation. The Irish spoken here, and it is spoken universally, has a good deal of resemblance to Glenelg Gaelic. I was surprised at how much I understood of the conversations carried on around me. The women, too, in their white caps, with their serious, devotional comely faces, reminded me of faces I have seen in dear old Glengarry. There were not half a dozen bonnets in the whole congregation--snow- white caps covered with a handkerchief for the matrons. They wore cloaks and shawls, and looked comfortable enough. I saw some decent blue cloth cloaks of a fashion that made me think they had served four generations at least. The lasses wore their own shining hair "streeling" down their backs or neatly braided up; abundant locks they had, brown color prevailing. Fresher, rosier, comelier girls than these mountain maidens it would be hard to find. The men's clothing, though poor, and in some instances patched in an artistic fashion, was scrupulously clean. In the congregation were some young men well dressed, bold and upright, whose bearing, cut of whiskers, and watch chains, showed that they had lived among our trans- Atlantic cousins of the great Republic. The priest of the hills is the one man whom these people trust. The prevailing type of landlord has been their enemy and oppressor. The priest has been friend, counsellor, sympathizer, helper, as well as clergyman, and so he is _soggarth aroon_. The storm continues at intervals. I get one clear, cold bit of fair weather to climb to the top of Doune hill, where the Ulster kings used to be crowned, a sugar-loaf shaped hill with the top broken off, rising in isolated grandeur up high enough to give one a breather to get to the top. The weather returned to its normal condition of storm, and I was shut up again. I became a little homesick, had the priest to tea, and enjoyed his conversation very much, but he had to go off in the storm on a sick call. A priest in these mountains has not the easiest kind of life in the world. Illusions took possession of my brain. I fancied myself a great queen, to say the least of it. A whisper got among the hills that a great American lady with unlimited power had come seeking the welfare of the country, and so any amount of deputations wafted on me. I will give a few specimens. Two men to see my lady in reference to a small still that had been misfortunately found on the place of an old man upward of eighty. He was fined L12, and would my lady do anything? Two women under sentence of eviction, my lady (I saw the place of one of these, the roof was on the floor, and a little shelter was in one corner like the lair of a wild beast, and here she kept possession in spite of the dreadful Captain Dopping; the agent). Would my lady send out their two daughters to America and place them in decent places? And here was old Roseen, old and miserable, without chick or child, or drop's blood belonging to her in the wide world, and would my lady remember her? Here's the crature of a widow from the mountain with four small children, and no man body to help her with the place, and not a four- footed beast on it belonging to her; all went in the scarcity; would my lady look to her a little, sure she was the neediest of all? And here was the poor cripple boy that his reverence was so good to, &c., &c., &c., in endless file. Nothing kept this over-dose of "my lady" from going to my head like Innishowen poteen, but the slenderness of my purse. Determined at last, warned by my fast-collapsing _portmonnaie_, to refuse to see any more deputations and keep ben-the-house strictly. A cry arose that Captain Dopping and his body-guard, on evictions bent, were coming up the hill. I rushed out, mounted a ditch of sods for one more look at the little tyrant of their fields. As I stood shading my eyes with my hand and looked across at the dreaded agent, a plaintive "my lady," bleated out at my side, drew my eyes down. It was a woman; she did not speak any more, but looked, and that look drew out my fast collapsing purse. I walked slowly into the house, determined to escape from the hills while I had the means left of escaping. XI. THE JAUNTING CAR--SCENERY IN DONEGAL--MOUNTAIN PASTURES--A VISIT TO GLENVEIGH CASTLE. I have returned to pleasant Ramelton, and will write my visit to Glenveigh Castle from here. This town will always be a place of remembrance to me on account of the Christian kindness, sympathy, encouragement and counsel which I have received in it. It was my great good fortune to get an introduction to Mr. and Miss McConnell, a brother and sister, who are merchants in this place. They are of the stock of the Covenanters, a people who have left the stamp of their individuality on the piety of the North of Ireland. Sufferers themselves from Lord Leitrim's tyranny and greed, they sympathize with other sufferers, and sympathize with me in my work to a greater extent than any others since I left home. I can say with feeling, I was a stranger and they took me in. I have been driven in many directions sight-seeing in their cosy little pony carriage. It is a nice little two-wheeled affair. I believe the orthodox name of it is a croydon. It carries four, who sit back to back, while the back seat turns up when not wanted. It was in quite a different trap that I rode in on my visit to Glenveigh. During my journey there we talked, my guide and I, of what constitutes a good landlord. It was a negative sort of goodness which he expected from the good landlord--"that he would not harry the tenants with vexatious office rules; that he would let them alone on their places so long as they paid their rent; that he would not raise the rent so that all grown on the land would be insufficient to pay it." Since the Land League agitation some landlords have granted a reduction of rents, and some have even given a bag of potatoes for seed as a gift to the poorer tenants. The road to the new castle leads through scenery of grand mountain solitudes, treeless, houseless and silent. Our road wound in a serpentine fashion among the mountains. The drains that regularly score the foggy mountain sides produce a queer effect on the landscape. As we wound along the serpentine road nearing the castle, the hills seemed to get wilder and more solemn. No trace of human habitations, no sound of human life, treeless, bare, silent mountains, wastes of black bog, rocks rising up till their solemn heads brushed the sky,--Irish giants in ragged cloaks of heather. At last we came in sight of Loughveigh lying cradled among the rocks, and got a glimpse of the white tower of Glenveigh Castle. There is a small skirting of wood near the castle where the silver barked birch prevails from which the glen takes its name, interspersed with holly trees, which grow here in profusion, and some dark yews, prim and stately, drawn up like sentinels to guard the demesne. No place could be imagined more utterly alone than Glenveigh Castle. The utter silence which Mr. Adair has created seems to wrap the place in an invisible cloak of awfulness that can be felt. Except a speculative rook or a solitary crane sailing solemnly toward the mountain top, I saw no sign of life in all the glen. Owing to the windings of the road it seemed quite a while after we sighted the top of the tower before we entered the avenue which sweeps round the edge of the lake shore, and finally brought us to the castle. The castle stands on a point stretching out into the lake. Opposite, on the other side of the lake, a steep, bare, dark rock rises up to the dizzy height. It is the kind of rock that makes one think of fortified castles, and cities built for defence, that ought to be perched on a summit, but Glenveigh Castle should be a lady's bower, instead of a fortalice. Behind the castle the mountain slopes are clothed with young trees. The castle itself is a very imposing building from the outside; grand, strong, rather repellant; inside it has a comfortless; ill-planned, unfinished appearance. The mantel-piece of white marble with the Adair arms carved on it--the bloody hand, the motto _valor au mort_, the supporters two angels--lies in the hall cracked in two. A very respectable Scotchman, a keeper, I suppose, showed me over the building. He must enjoy a very retired life there, for in all the country for miles there is not a human habitation except the police barrack that looms up like a tall ghost at the other end of the lake. As we drove home through the mountains I noticed that Mukish wrapped herself in the misty folds of her veil. Soon after the storm rolled down the mountain sides and chased us home. XII. GOOD-BYE TO RAMELTON--ON LOUGH SWILLY--A RUINED LANDLORD--FARM STOCK VS. WAGES--A GOOD LANDLORD--A REMINDER OF CANADA--MOVILLE--PORT-A-DORUS ROCKS--ON GOOD TERMS WITH THE LANDLORD. Left Ramelton at seven o'clock Monday morning, April 4th, the hoar- frost lying white on the deck of the little steamer. The cabin was black with smoke that would not consent to go in the way it should go, so one had to be content with the chill morning, the hoar frost and the deck. We steamed up past the town of Rathmullen with the two deserted forts grinning at one another. Two women of the small farming class were, like myself, sitting close to the machinery to get warm. They were gravely discussing the value of a wonderful goose owned by one of them. I do not think the owner of a fast horse could go into greater raptures or more minute description of his good points than these two ladies did about the goose. One declared that she had been offered eight shillings ($2) for the goose and had refused it. This is one proof of the high figure at which all animals, birds and beasts, common to a farm are held. Although this goose was exceptionally valuable, yet a goose is worth five shillings or $1.25. A laborer's wages is two shillings, without food, so it would take him two and a half days' work to earn a goose, a day's work to earn a hen or a duck, fifteen days' work to earn a suckling pig, nearly four months to buy the cheapest cow; always considering that he has food to support him while so earning. I have heard poor men blamed for not raising stock. When the price of stock is considered, and that a small field for grazing purposes is rented at L8, I confess I wonder that any poor man has a cow. If he has, butter is now thirty cents per pound in this locality, and a cow is therefore very valuable. Before I leave bonnie Ramelton behind altogether, I must say that it has been in the past fortunate in a landlord. Old Sir Annesly Stewart, lord of this fair domain at one time, invariably advised his tenants who purposed to build houses, to secure titles first, saying, "Do not trust to me, I am an old man and will soon pass away: who knows what manner of man may succeed me? I will give a free farm grant, equivalent to guarantee deed, I am told, to anyone wanting to build." So the owners of houses in Ramelton pay ground rent, while at Milford, Kilmacrennan and Creaslach the strong hand has seized the tenants' houses without compensation. It is said that the present owner of old Sir Annesly's estate, who is not a lineal descendant, however, feels as Bunyan describes the two giants to feel, who can grin and gnash their teeth, but can do no more. All this and more I hear, as the sun comes up and the frost disappears, and we sail over bright waters. One might enjoy sailing over Lough Swilly, the whole of a long summer day. Everything pleasant comes to an end, and we land at Fahan, and while waiting for the train my attention is drawn to the fair island of Inch, with its fields running up the mountain side, and the damp black rocks through which the railway has cut its way at Fahan. The train comes along, and we go whirling on past Inch, Burnfoot Bridge, and into Derry. A Presbyterian doctor of divinity is in our compartment, and some well-to-do farmers' wives, and again and yet again the talk is of the land and the landlords. Instance after instance of oppression and wrong is gone over. But Derry reached, I must say good-bye to some agreeable travelling companions, and take the mail car to Moville for a tour round Innishowen; Innishowen, celebrated for its poteen; Innishowen, sung about in song, told about in story. "God bless the dark mountains of brave Donegal, God bless royal Aielich, the pride of them all-- She sitteth for ever a queen on her throne, And smiles on the valleys of green Innishowen. A race that no traitor or tyrant has known Inhabits the valleys of green Innishowen." From Derry to Moville is, as usual, lovely--lovely with a loveliness of its own. Fine old trees, singly, in groups, in thick plantations; beautiful fields; level clipped hedges; flowers springing everywhere, under the hedges, in little front gardens, up the banks. The land is dreadfully overrun with gentry's residences fair enough to the eye, some of them very beautiful, but one gets to wonder, if the land is so poor that it is spueing out its inhabitants, what supports all these? The wide Lough Foyle is in sight of the road most of the way, and a sea- bound steamer carries me away in thought to Canada. The air is nipping enough to choke sentiment in the bud. It is bitter cold, and I have the windward side of the car, and shiver at the nodding daffodils in blooming clumps at every cottage as we pass along. There are some waste unreclaimed fields, and the tide is out as we drive along, so that long stretches of bare blue mud, spotted with eruptions of sea weed, fit well with the cold wind that is enjoying a cutting sweep at us. Then we come again to trim gardens and ivy garnished walls. The road follows the curves of the Lough, and we watch the black steamers ploughing along, and the brown-sailed little boats scudding before the breeze. The Lough is on one side, and a remarkable, high steep ridge on the other, yellow with budded whins, green with creeping ivy, and up on the utmost ridge a row of plumed pines. When I noticed their tufted tops standing out against the sky, I felt like saying, "Hurrah! hurrah for Canada!" the pines did look so Canadian looking. I soon was recalled to realize that I was in my own green Erin, and certainly it is with a cold breath she welcomes her child back again. We knew we were nearing Moville: we saw it on a distant point stretching out into the Lough. I forgot to mention that the land began to be full of castles as we drove along the road. We passed Red Castle and White Castle and when we reached Moville, Green Castle was before us a few miles further down. Further down I wished to go, for a very distant relative was expecting me there--Mr. Samuel Sloan, formerly of the Royal Artillery, who had charge of Green Castle Fort for years; but now has retired, and lives on his own property. I like people to claim kindred with me; I like a hearty welcome, the _Cead mille faille ghud_, that takes you out of hotel life and makes you feel at home. I was so welcomed by my distant kinsman and his excellent wife that I felt very reluctant to turn out again to hotel life. Next day after my arrival we got a car and made an excursion down along the coast to Port-a-dorus. I thought I had seen rocks before, but these rocks are a new variety to me. They occur so suddenly that they are a continual surprise. Along the coast, out in the water, they push up their backs in isolated heaps like immense hippopotami lying in the water, or petrified sharks with only a tall serrated back fin visible. There would occur a strip of bare brown sand, and outside of that row upon row of sharp, thin, jagged rocks like the jaw teeth of pre-Adamite monsters. In other places they were piled on one another in such a sudden way, grass growing in the crevices, ivy creeping over them, the likeness of broken towers and ruined battlements, that one could hardly believe but that they were piled there by some giant race. When we had driven as far as the car could go we left car and driver, and scrambled over the rocks like goats. Rocks frowned above us, between us and the sky, rocks all round in black confusion. As we climbed from slippery rock to slippery rock, over long leathery coils of thick sea weed, like serpents, on, on through the _Dorus_ to the open sea, noticing the dark passages, the gloomy caves, the recesses among the cliffs, the narrow passes, where one could turn to bay and keep off many, it was natural to think of rebels skulking here, with a price on their heads, after the '98, or of lawless people stilling illicit _poteen_ to hide it from the gaugers. Sheltered by the rocks of Port-a-dorus, I could enjoy the sea air flavored with essence of sea weed. We watched for a while the waves playing about the rocks and washing through the door in innocent gambols. This sportfulness did not impose upon me nor the rocks either, for the marks of the Atlantic in a rage were graven on their brows in baldness and in wrinkles. Along the road as we drove back I noticed the white cottages of coast guardsmen who have married the maidens of the hills. They were there in their patches of ground, delving with the spade, scattering sea weed manure, the landlords here allowing them to gather all the sea weed that drifts to their shores. Decent looking men these, in their blue uniforms and thoughtful sea-beaten faces, with hardy little children around them, playing or helping. The rocks rise among the fields with the same startling abruptness as they do along the shore, looking still more like ruins of old castles. Round these rocks and among them, in every nook and cranny where there is a spadeful of earth, is delved carefully by these mountain husbandmen. As I looked at the rocks and crags, and the workers among them, I could hardly help thinking they dearly earned all that grew upon them, although there would be no half-yearly rent hanging over them. In one little clearing some children were scattering manure. One, a sturdy little maiden, but a mere baby of about seven years of age, had a fork cut down to suit her size, and was handling it with infantile vigor, laying about her with great vim. It was such a comical sight that we stopped the car to watch her. As soon as she saw she was watched, she dropped the fork and scampered off to hide. A pretty little child, hardy and healthy and nimble as a goat. Of course on this coast there are tall, white light houses, two of them keeping guard over the rocks. Here and there are coast guard stations, white and barrack-like, only holding blue jackets instead of red or green. The tenants along here praised their landlords. One of them, the Marquis of Donegal, was spoken of as a merciful lord all through the hard years. He had forgiven them rent which they could not pay, and lowered the rent when they did pay, returning them some of the money, and the poor people spoke of him with warm gratitude. I notice that the people here have a good many sheep. They are not so very wretched as the mountaineers I saw in northern Donegal. Poor they must be, to dig out a living from among these rocks and keep up a lord besides, but their lord has had a more human heart toward them than other lords over whose lands I have been. XIII. GREEN CASTLE--A LOOK INTO THE FORT--THE OLD AND THE NEW--MARS IN WAITING--A KIND WORD FOR THE LANDLORDS--IN TIME FOR AN EVICTION--FEMALE LAND LEAGUERS--THE "STUPID" IRISH--THE POLICE. Went on an exploring expedition to the ruins of Green Castle. One authority told me it had been the castle of the chief of the clan Doherty, once ruling lord here in the clannish times. Another equally good authority told me it was built by De Burgo in the sixteenth century to hold the natives in awe. Whoever built it, the pride of its strength and the dread of its power have passed away forever. It is a very extensive ruin and covers a large tract of ground. It looks as if three solid, high, square buildings were set, not very regularly, end to end, the outer wall of one built in a semi-circle, and towers raised at every corner and every irregularity of the wall. Of course the roof was on the floor, turrets and towers have lost part of their height and stand, rent and ragged, tottering to their fall. A good deal is said about the Norman style of arch and the Saxon style of arch found in old buildings. I am convinced that the arches of Green Castle, and its architecture generally, had been formed on the pattern of the rocks at Port-a-dorus and the other heaps along the coast. The same massiveness, the same wedge-like stones piled together to form arches prevail in both. Seaward the castle sits on a steep rock, like the rock on which Quebec sits for height, but cleaner scarped, and more inaccessible I should think. To stand on the shore and look up, the castle seems perched on a dizzy height, its ruined battlements and broken towers rising up into the sky. The pretty green ivy forms a kindly hap and a garment of beauty, both for rock and ruin. Long live the ivy green. There is a clean, smooth new fort standing beside the ruined old castle like a prosperous, solid, closely-shaven, modern gentleman beside dilapidated nobility. Its fat, broad tower looks strong enough and solid enough and grim enough for anything. Inside of the fort everything is clean, regular and orderly, as becomes a place under the care of British soldiers. The house, or quarters I suppose they should be called, are clean and bright, whitewashed (I almost said pipe-clayed), to the highest point of perfection. There are fortifications above fortifications here, and plenty of cannon pointed at an imaginary foe. There are cannon balls in scientific heaps waiting to be despatched on errands of destruction. Long may they wait. I saw the outside of the magazine, cased over with so many feet--oh, a great number--of solid masonry, padded over that with a great many feet of earth, containing a fabulous amount of powder--tons and tons of it. Saw also the slippers which the worshippers of Mars put upon their martial feet when they enter into his temple--slippers without a suspicion of shod, hob nail or sparable, with which the heels of the worshippers of Ceres in this country are armed. If any one of these intruded on this domain sacred to Mars, he would in his indignation gift them with the feathered heels of Mercury and send them off with an abrupt message for the stars. Had a great desire to go up to the top of the great tower and see what could be seen from it. I was informed, delicately, that in these disturbed times it was not thought best to admit strangers. The lonely martello tower on the opposite sands was pointed out to me, sitting mistress of desolations in the shadow of the rocks of MacGilligan. I was informed of the money's worth of pile work, thousands upon thousands of pounds sterling, on which this ugly and useless tower is sitting. As I walked around the outside of the fort landward and seaward, I think it quite possible to take it. I make this spiteful remark because I did not get into the tower. On the opposite shores of the lough at the inland end of the range that rose above and behind the martello tower where it slopes down, I saw the rocky figure of a woman, gigantic, solemn, sitting with her hands on her knees looking southward. Looking for what--for the slowly approaching time of peace, plenty and prosperity, of tardy justice and kindly appreciation? The cost of tower and fort would give Innishowen a peasant proprietary, loyal, grateful and loving, that would bulwark the lough with their breasts. Burns is true--a patriotic, virtuous populace forms the best "wall of fire around our much-loved isle." It is not easy to get up and leave Green Castle, and the friends there who made me feel so pleasantly at home; but hearing of evictions that were to take place away in the interior of Innishowen, I bid a reluctant good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Sloan at Green Castle, and hiring a special car set off in the direction of Carndonagh. The road lies between mountains. The valley through which the road threads its way is varied enough; in parts bog of the wildest, and barren-looking fields sloping up to as barren, rocky mountains in their tattered covering of heather, black in its wintry aspect as yet--mountain behind mountain looking over one another's shoulders ever so many deep with knitted brows, wrinkled into deep gullies. One of these mountains (Sliabh Sneach, snow mountain) deserves its name; snowy is its cap, and snow lingers in the scarred recesses running down its shoulders. We passed fair, carefully cultured farms and farm houses, spotlessly white under the shade of trees. Other farms meeting these ran up far on the mountain side. The white houses, with which the mountain sides are plentifully dotted over, show very plainly, and are rather bare-looking and unsheltered among the dark heather. There are more dwellings on the same space in Innishowen among the hills than in the parts of the Donegal mountains where I have been. The people seem better off and more contented. Many of them have a kind word for their landlords. In no part of Innishowen that I saw is the same wretchedness and misery apparent as I saw in "northern Donegal." There is, there must be a less crushing set of office rules. As an instance of this, the car driver informed me that the high, utterly heath-clad mountains were allowed to the people for pasturage, with very little if anything to pay. This accounts for the number of sheep I saw trotting about with lambs at their feet, twins being the rule and even triplets far from uncommon. My informant told me that lambs in early autumn were worth from thirty-five shillings to two pounds when fit to kill. I thought this a fabulous price, but it was confirmed to me by a cattle dealer on the train from Derry to Limavady. If a small farmer had many lambs to sell, he would have material help in making up the rent. My driver had three acres of land; he told me if he owned it out and out, after he got it paid for, he could lived comfortably. He had two horses and a car, and let out his car for hire. I considered that if he got much call for his car he might do that--a special car for four or five miles costing $1.25, and if the driver is a hired man he often depends on his chance, so there must be 25 cents for him also. It is very necessary, if one wants to see anything of the country to get off regular routes at regular times, so posting becomes a necessity. Suddenly we became aware of a great crowd assembled at a group of small houses a little off the public road, and turned our horse's head in that direction. There were a great many cars--well there might be, for there were seventy police on the ground, under the command of a police officer named McLeod. There was an immense crowd of people, who were entirely unarmed, not even a shillelagh among them; but if knitted brows and flashing eyes mean anything, there were men there capable, if any incident set pent-up rage free, to imitate the men of Harlech, who, with plaided breasts, encountered mail clad men. A large proportion of the crowd were women and girls, for there is a flourishing branch of the Ladies' Land League here. The tenants to be evicted were, some of them, tenants of the Rev. William Crawford. I was told by what seemed good authority that the tenants did not owe much rent, but were pressed just now to punish them for joining the Land League. It was believed that the tenants were able to pay, but there was a strike against what they believed exorbitant rent. The evictions were to demonstrate the landlord's power to compel them to pay. There was a great crowd. The policemen were formed in fours, and the crowd howled and hooted as they proceeded to the first house, McCallion's. The policemen took up a position convenient to the house, and a few were stationed at the door. The under sheriff was on the spot. The little cottage was neat and tidy, white-washed of course. I was not inside; I did not like to go; those who were said it was very clean and neat. A room with a few ornaments, a table and some chairs, and a kitchen with its dresser and table, and a few chairs and stools. The rent was L14 6s. The tenant stated that he objected to pay the rent on account of it being too high. The family were sad-looking, but were very quiet. A paper was presented to him to sign, acknowledging himself a tenant at will, and promising to give up the holding on demand; on signing the paper, he got a respite of six months. The crowd then went to the house of James McCauley, when the same form was gone through and the same respite granted. The next house was John Carruthers'. Here the crowd were very much excited, the women screeched, the men howled, and the poor constabulary came in for unlimited hooting. The next place was the joint residence of Owen and Denis Quigley, joint tenants of a little patch. The cottage is in a gulley on the mountain side, about a mile of crooks and turns from John Carruthers' house. The crowd was very large that was gathered round the door. As the police came up how they did howl! How they did shout, "Down with Harvey (the agent), and the Land League for ever." Some of the women declared themselves willing to die for their country. Another man was evicted, a tenant of Mr. Hector McNeil. The rent here was L22 3s and the valuation L18 10s. Like the rest he said he could not pay it because it was too high. At the next place a young lady Land Leaguer delivered a speech--Mary McConigle, a rather pretty young girl. Her speech was a good deal of fiery invective, withering sarcasm and chaff for the police, who winced under it, poor fellows, and would have preferred something they could defend themselves from--bayonets, for instance--to the forked lightning that shot from the tongue and eyes of this female agitator. Whatever would be the opinion of critics about it, Mary McConigle voiced the sentiments of the people and was cheered by the men and kissed by the women. There were a good many speeches made at different times. Father Bradley, a tall, sallow young priest with a German jaw, square and strong and firm, spoke very well, swaying his hearers like oats before the wind. He praised them, he sympathized with them, he encouraged them, putting golden hopes for the future just a little way ahead of them, but through it all ran a thread of good advice to them to be self-restrained and law-abiding. I think I rather admired Father Bradley and his speech. I had a little conversation with him afterward. He said the lands were really rented too high, too high to leave for the cultivator of the soil anything but bare subsistence in the best of years; and when bad years followed one another, or in cases of sickness coming to the head of the family, want sat down with them at once. Mr. Cox, the representative of the Land League, was also there, and made a speech. He and some gentlemen of the press arrived in a car with tandem horses. Such grandeur impressed upon the people the belief that they were connected with law and landlords, so, in enquiring the way, they found the people very simple and ignorant. When they came where roads met they were at a loss to know how to proceed, and a countryman whom they interrogated was both lame and stupid; when he knew, however, who Mr. Cox was, he recovered the use of his limbs and brightened up in his intellect in a truly miraculous manner. There were other speeches during the forenoon of the evictions from Father O'Kane, the gentle little priest of Moville, Mr. McClinchy, the Poor Law Guardian, and others. The greatest success of the day as to speech-making was, after all, the speech of Mary McConigle, to judge of its present effect--no one else was kissed. The gist of most of the speeches which I heard, or heard of, was, advising to hope, to firmness, to stand shoulder to shoulder, and a counsel to be law-abiding, wrapped up in a little discreet blarney. As we drove away in the direction of Carndonagh we passed on the way a wing of the Ladies' Land League, marching home in procession two and two. A goodly number of bareheaded sonsie lasses, wrapped in the inevitable shawl; rather good-looking, healthy and rosy-cheeked were they, with their hair snooded back, and gathered into braids sleek and shining. Brown is the prevailing color of hair among the Irish girls in the four counties I have partly passed through. These Land League maidens reminded me of other processions of ladies which I have seen marching in the temperance cause. They were half shame-faced, half laughing, clinging to one another as if gathering their courage from numbers. Carndonagh, which we reached at last, is another clean, excessively whitewashed little town, straggling up a side hill, with any amount of mountains looming up in the near distance. A little after we arrived the Carndonagh contingent of the police on duty at the evictions came driving in, horses and men both having a wilted look. The drivers came in for some abuse as they took their horses out of the cars on the street. One old man could not at all express what he felt, though he tried hard to do so, and screeched himself hoarse in the attempt. The police, as they alighted down off the cars, made for their barracks-- a tall white house standing sentry at a corner. As one entered, a little child toddled out to meet him with outstretched arms. He stopped to kiss and pet the child, looking fatherly and human. I am sure the little kiss was sweet and welcome after the howls and hoots of the crowd and the sarcastic eloquence of Miss McConigle. I pity the police; they are under orders which they have to obey. I have never heard that they have delighted in doing their odious duty harshly, and the bitter contempt of the people is, I am sure, hard to bear. XIV. THE PEASANTRY--DEARTH OF CAR DRIVERS--A PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER'S OPINION OF THE LAND LAWS--PADDY'S LAZINESS--ILLICIT WHISKEY. After dinner at Cardonagh, went down to the establishment of Mrs. Binns, an outlying branch of the great factory of Mr. Tillie, of Derry. Saw the indoor workers, many in number and as busy as bees. Some of them were very, very young. Mrs. Binns informed me that the times were harder in this part of the country than a mere passer-by would ever suspect; that the clothing to be worn when going out was so carefully kept, from the ambition to look decent, that they appeared respectable, while at the same time sorely pinched for food. The employment given in this factory is all that stands between many households and actual want. The machines here are not run by steam, but by foot power. I noticed weary limbs that were beating time to work! work! work! Mrs. Binns, a kind motherly woman, spoke earnestly of the industry, trustworthiness, self-denial, loyal affection for parents, and general kindliness that characterized the Irish peasantry. This testimony to the qualities of the Roman Catholic peasantry has been the universal testimony of every employer who spoke to me on the subject. I have met with those who spoke of the native Irish, as they spoke of the poor of every persuasion, as lazy, shiftless and extravagant. These people talked from an outside view, and looked down from a certain height upon their poorer neighbors. Invariably I found the most favorable testimony from those who came into nearest contact with these people. As far as personal danger is concerned, having neither power nor inclination to oppress the poor of my people, I feel free to walk through the most disturbed districts as safely as in the days of Brian Boru. To come back from that stately king down the centuries to the present time, I had intended to go from Carndonagh to Malin, and afterward to Buncrana, and from thence to Derry, having nearly gone round Innishowen. But this was not to be. Regular mail cars did not run on the days or in the direction in which I wished to go. I deliberated with myself a little, heard the comments of the people on the events of the day--the regrets that a greater force had not gathered and a greater demonstration been made. The women especially who had been forced to remain at home on the occasion of to-day regretted it very much. My car- man must return home to plough on the morrow; could not by any means go any further with his car just at present. I do think he is afraid. Another car in this little place is not to be had in the present state of police demand, for they are going out for further evictions on the morrow. I retained the car and driver I had brought with me, and returned to Moville. My driver, a rather timid lad, told me he would not like to drive the police to these evictions and then return after dark the same way; he would be afraid. He would not drive the police, he said, on any account; he thought it wrong to do so. I noticed that, on pretence of showing me more of the country, he brought me back to Moville another way. Whether he thought I was likely to be taken for Mrs. Doherty, of Redcastle, who was one of the evicting landholders at the present time, or only for a suspicious character, I cannot say. I was very glad afterward that I had not been able to carry out my original intention of going to Malin, for some of the evictions there were of a most painful character. It was better that I was spared the sight. In the case of a Mr. Whittington, whose residence, once the finest in that locality, is now sorely dilapidated, his wife, with a new born babe in her arms, and a large family of little children around her, were evicted. Is there not something very wrong when such things can be? Of course, when the bailiff carried out the furniture to the the roadside he was jeered and hooted at. All the sympathy of the press is on the side of the landlords, and none but the very poor, who have suffered themselves, have pity, except of a very languid kind, for scenes such as this. There are evictions and harassments flying about, as thick as a flight of sparrows through Innishowen at present. At Moville I had the pleasure of an interview with the Rev. Mr. Bell, the Presbyterian minister of that place. He has studied the subject of the land laws in general and as they affected his own people in particular. Mr. Bell admits that there is great injustice perpetrated under the Land Law as it stands; that the Land Law of 1870 gave relief in many instances, and was intended to give more, but that numerous clauses in the bill made it possible to evade it, and it was evaded by unscrupulous men in many cases. "The necessity of a large measure of land reform, we admit," he says; "we must get this by constitutional means. Real wrongs must be redressed by agitating lawfully, persistently, continually and patiently, till they are redressed constitutionally. We must remain steadfast and never give in, but never transgress the law in any case or take it into our own hands. The Parnell agitation goes beyond this, and when they travel out of the safe path of using constitutional means, into something that leads to confiscation of property and robbery of landlords, and a concealed purpose, or only half concealed, of separation from England, we cannot follow them there." Mr. Bell instanced many cases of gradual prosperity and attainment of wealth among his flock, but they were exceptional cases, and there were better farms in the case for one thing, and leasehold tenure for another, combining with their industry and thrift to account for the success. I had conversation with another gentleman of this congregation, who, like many others, believed firmly in Paddy's laziness and carelessness at home. I am very tired of these statements, for any one can see the thrifty way mountain sides, scraps amid rocks, strips of land inside the railway fences, and every spade breadth is cultivated. It is not fair for a man who has means to judge a poorer man from the outside view of his case. There was a strange inconsistency in this gentleman's opinions, for while he declared laziness to be the cause of poverty and not the oppression of rent raised above value, yet when peasant proprietorship was mentioned as a remedy, he declared he would not take the farms as a gift and try to raise a living out of them. I heard some lament the prevalence of stilling illicit whiskey in Innishowen. The excuse for doing so was to raise money for help in the prevailing poverty. They said the manufacture on the hills, whiskey being so easy to be had, nourished drinking customs among men and women alike, and what was made one way was lost one hundred-fold in another. A priest, recently deceased, a certain Father Elliott, had devoted talents of no mean order and great loving-kindness to the work of stemming this great evil. At his funeral there were between three and four thousand members of the temperance bands, which were the fruit of his labors. He died of typhus fever, and I heard his name mentioned with respectful regret by all creeds and classes. XV. A GLIMPSE INTO THE PAST--THE DERRY OF TO-DAY--PURCHASING TENANT RIGHTS--NIBBLING AT THE TENANT RIGHT--INSTANCES OF HARDSHIP--"LIBERTY OF CONTRACT." At Moville I heard that there were some who had become peasant proprietors by purchasing out and out their holdings, and that they had bitterly repented of so doing; for they had tied a millstone about their necks. I was advised to go to Limavady and see the Rev. Mr. Brown, who had made the purchase for these people, and knew how the bargain was turning out. I was still at Moville. I was to return to Derry by boat, a much preferable mode of travelling to the post car. I mistook the wharf. There are two, one hid away behind some houses, one at the Coast Guard Station standing out boldly into the water. I walked over to the most conspicuous wharf and had the pleasure of hearing the starting bell ring behind me, and seeing the Derry boat glide from behind the sheltering houses and sail peacefully away up the Foyle like a black swan. Why do they paint all the steamers black in this green Erin of ours? Well, as my belongings were on board, there was no help for it but to take a special car and go after my luggage, a long, cold drive to Derry. So much for being stupid. I have been in Derry for some time. At different times I have tried to admire it, and it is worthy of admiration; but some way it is a little difficult to think up thoughts as one ought to think them. Thoughts will not come to order. Besides, Derry "is an old tale and often told." Still, it is an event in one's life to go round the old Derry walls. Owing to the kindness of Mr. Black, I have had that sensation. The gateways, without gates now of course, look like the arches of a bridge, and the walls like streets hung up out of the way. When one looks through a loop hole or over a parapet, there does a faint remembrance come up, like a ghost, of the stirring times that have wrapped themselves in the mist of years, and slid back into the past. I stood over the gates--this one and that one--trying to look down the Foyle toward the point where the ships lay beyond the boom, and to fancy the feelings of the stout-hearted defenders of Derry, as they watched with hungry eyes, and waited with sinking hearts but unflinching courage on the relief that the infamous Colonel Kirk kept lying, a tantalizing spectacle, inactive, making no effort of succor. But the houses are thick outside the walls, and shut up the view and choke sentiment. Of course I was in the cathedral, and looked at the rich memorial windows that let in subdued light into the religious gloom. Saw the shell which was thrown over with terms of capitulation, sitting in a socket on a pillar in the cathedral like a dove on its nest. It might tell a tale of what it saw in its flight through the air from one grim bank to the other, but it maintains a blank silence. Of course I looked up at Walker on his monument, and went home to read Professor Witherow's book on the siege, which was kindly presented to me by Mr. Black, and to listen to people who scruple not to say that the monument, like the London monument of the great fire as described by Pope, "Like a tall bully lifts its head and lies." The moderns are plucking some of the feathers of glory from the wings fame gave to Walker. That is the way the fame of one generation is served by another. Derry seems a very prosperous old maid, proud of her past, proud of her present. The great industry of Derry is shirt making. Was over the largest factory, that of Mr. Tillie, whose branch factory I saw at Carndonagh. This factory employs about twelve hundred hands. These work people were more respectably dressed than any operatives I have seen in Ireland. They all wore bonnets or hats; the mill people at Gilford and Ballymena went bareheaded or with a shawl thrown over the head. In the present woeful depression of the linen trade, it is cheering to look at this busy hive of industry. The shirts are cut out by machinery, the button holes are machine made and the machines are run by steam, a great relief to the operatives. This industry has prospered in Mr. Tillie's hands. He is also a landed proprietor. His own residence, Duncreggan, is very beautiful, and the grounds about it are laid out in fine taste. There are now many other factories in Derry, but this is the largest. There was an effort to begin ship-building here, but it was defeated by the parsimony of the London companies, which are extensive landlords in Derry, and would not give a secure title to the necessary land; so Belfast is the gainer and Derry the loser by so much. Was a Sunday in Derry. She has got faithful watchmen on her spiritual walls. Visited a large living Sabbath-school in connection with Mr. Rodgers' church. Had the privilege of a class, and found that the little maidens had an appreciative knowledge of their Bibles. I hear that there is considerable religious earnestness in Derry, especially among the young men. From Derry I ran down to Limavady to have an interview with the Rev. Mr. Brown anent the purchases made by tenants and how they were getting along afterward. Went down in the evening train. Behold, there was no room for me in the inn, and there was no other hotel in the little town. This was not so pleasant. Had a letter of introduction to a person in the town; made a voyage of discovery; found out his residence, and he was not at home. Obtained a guide and went to the Rev. Mr. Brown's--a good _bittie_ out in the environs; found him just stepping on a car to leave for a tenant right meeting. Got a recommendation from him to a private house where I might, could, would or should get accommodation for the night, and made an appointment with Mr. Brown for the morrow. I may here remark that the residence of the Rev. Mr. Brown is both commodious and elegant. As a rule the ministry are comfortably and even stylishly housed in the North. The next day had an interview with Mr. Brown, a frank, able and communicative man. Under his agency the people had bargained for a part of the Waterford property from the Marquis of that ilk. "The Marquis was a good and generous landlord; all his family, the Beresfords, were good landlords." I had heard that said before. There were reasons why the Marquis was willing to sell, and the tenants were eager to buy. It was a hard pull for some of them to raise the one-third of the purchase money. They paid at the rate of thirty years' rent as purchase money. They are paying now a rent and a half yearly, but hope is in the distance and cheers them on. So if they have a millstone about their necks, as my Moville friend insinuated, it will drop off some day and leave them free for ever. Some of them have already paid the principal. The Marquis got such a high price for his land that he only sold two- thirds of the estate, retaining the rest in his own hands, and raising the rents. Some two or three of the purchasers had a good deal of difficulty in raising their payments, but Mr. Brown has no doubt they will eventually pull through. I heard again and again, before I met with Mr. Brown, of Limavady, that it was about thirty years since the tenants of the rich lands of the Ulster settlement began to feel the landlords nibbling at their tenant right. The needy or greedy class of landlords discovered a way to evade the Ulster custom, by raising the rents in such a way as to extinguish the tenant right in many places. For instance, a tenant wished to sell his interest in a certain place. The agent attended the sale to notify parties wishing to buy that rent would be doubled to any new tenant and there was no sale, for the place was not worth so much. The tenant's right was more than swallowed up by the increase of rent. This was done so successfully that were it not for the Act of 1870, there would be no trace of the Ulster custom left. It has been the custom from the plantation times to let the tenants build, clear, fence, improve, drain, on lands let low because they were bare of improvement. The difference between what the land was worth when the tenant got it, and what generations of thrifty outlay of time and the means made it was the tenant's property, and the Ulster custom allowed him to sell his right to his improvements to the highest bidder. On some lands the tenant right was much more than the rent, as it should be when it was made valuable by years and years of outlay; but landlords, pinched for money, or greedy for money, naturally grudged that this should be, and set themselves by office rules to nip and pick the tenant right all away. One great difference between the men of the lowland farms and the Donegal Celt of the hills is that they have felt and treasured up the remembrance of injustice since the settlement. Their lowland neighbors never began to sympathize with them until they knew how it felt themselves. In speaking of injustice and cruelty toward the hill tenants, I was often told, "Oh, these things are of the past," they occurred thirty years ago. How philosophically people can endure the miseries they do not feel. The sponge has not been created that will wipe off the Donegal mountains the record of deeds that are graven there. To come back to tenant right, an office rule was made giving the out- going tenant three years' rent, in some cases five years' rent for his claim on the farm, and "out you go." Mr. McCausland, whose estate joins Limavady, gave three years' rent. Since the Land Act of 1870, and since the eyes of the world have been turned on the doings of Ireland, he has allowed something more for unexhausted manuring. He has also advanced money to some extent for improvements, adding five per cent, not to the loan, but to the rent, thus making the interest a perpetual charge on the property. Landlords in Donegal did the same with the money they got from Government to lend to the people--got it at one and a half per cent from Government, re-lent it at five per cent, making the interest a perpetual rent charge. "When self the wavering balance shakes 'Tis rarely right adjusted." The tenants, I think, are naturally averse to borrowing money which brings interest in perpetuity over them, and enables the landlord to say, "I made the improvements myself." Into these improvements enters the tenant's labor, as well as the perpetual interest. A good man, a minister, not Mr. Brown, reasoned with me that the landlord was sleeping partner with the tenant, that he gave the land, the tenant the labor, and both should share the profit of improvement. If the land was rent free I could see that partnership just, but as long as a man paid the rent value of the land as he got it, the improvement made by his labor and means through the slow years should be his own. I might think differently if I had an estate with daughters to portion, sons to establish in life, a castle to build, a fine demesne to create, or even a gambling wife or horse-racing sons tugging at my purse strings. Whatever good and sufficient reasons may be found for skinning eels alive, nothing will ever reconcile the eels to it. The companies of Derry, who are great landlords there, the Fishmonger's company, the Mercers, &c., are following suit with the rest in evading the Ulster Custom. It is thought, as these companies never observed the conditions upon which these grants were made to them, but held them merely to make money of them, they should be compelled to sell to the tenants. I agree with this. Still, if the same rule of non-fulfilment of obligation were laid to private landlords there would be compulsion of sale there too. The companies on the whole get the name of being better landlords than private individuals, and are more liberal to their tenants. In cases of hardship the managers for the companies, not the companies themselves, get the blame. The great complaint is the landlord's power to raise the rents as often as he pleases. When a landlord appoints a valuator, the latter understands what he is to do and why he was appointed. The tenant has no say in this matter. Where is the freedom of contract of which so much is said? This arbitrary power of raising the rent at will irresponsibly and thus confiscating the tenant's rights, the people who are affected by the wrong with one voice declare must cease to exist. Instances were given me by Mr. Brown, who, by the way, had just come home from giving his testimony before the Bessborough Commission. A man named Hamilton Stewart was put out of his place, receiving three years' rent as compensation. His predecessors had bought the tenant right of the place; he had improved it after it fell into his hands. All his rights, including the purchase money paid, except the three years' rent, were confiscated. Another case he mentioned as happening on the estate of one Major Scott. A tenant, one John Loughrey, was lost in the river. His widow died in a few months afterward, leaving two little boys absolutely orphans. Their uncle, who lived near, offered to manage the place for the boys and to pay the rent till one of them came of age. Answer--"No, we cannot allow minors to hold land on our estate." Very much against the wishes of the uncle he was obliged to fall in with this landlord's arrangement, and five years' rent were laid down as a settlement of the case by Mr. King, the agent. The boys' uncle thought it a great hardship to have to give up the place the boys' father had improved, for he was a thrifty man, had some money, and was able to improve. When the five years' rent was counted out on the table, Mr. King said to the boys' uncle, "That is the money coming to the boys, count it." He counted it and said, "This is five years' rent certainly." "Now," said Mr. King, "there is a bad house upon the farm; it is not in as good repair as I would like and I would like a good house upon it. I will take L100 of this money and with it I will build a house upon the place." He took L100 of the five years' rent and built a house that was never inhabited. The children never got this money back. This case was referred to again and again in public meetings and other places till Mr. King was obliged to make an effort to explain it away. The children's uncle was rich, and they thought that, therefore, the orphans need not get all the money. Mr. Brown knew this case intimately, as the drowned man, his widow, and orphans were members of his congregation. This is liberty of contract. The argument that the children had relatives comparatively rich was the same argument as Captain Dopping used as a reason for not restoring what was robbed from the Buchanan children--their relatives were rich and therefore they did not need it. Now, what person who was touched with a trial like this would not consider this freedom of contract absolute robbery. In the case of the Loughrey children there had been no agreement or shadow of an agreement with the drowned man to keep up the house, and the house was as good as any of the neighboring houses--a good substantial farm house. This case was brought before the Bessborough Commission. XVI. REMEMBRANCES OF "THE LONG AGO"--A SOAP AND WATER REMEDY NEEDED--SPOILING FOR A FIGHT. After I had seen Mr. Brown, and heard how well his new proprietors were getting along, and had given attention to the complaints of those who were not yet peasant proprietors, I made a sudden determination to run over to Grace Hill for Easter and rest among my ain folk. Was not very well and as home-sick for Canada as an enthusiastic Irishwoman could afford to be. Found a package of letters and papers from home awaiting me and felt better after reading them. Made an effort for old times' sake to be at all the meetings on Easter Sunday and enjoyed them all, seasoned with early recollections. The quaint Litany held heartfelt petitions for me. The love feast with its tea and buns so noiselessly served, brought back many a pleasant memory. Even the minister's face, son of parents much beloved, had a special power of recalling other days. I felt as if in a dream when I sat in Grace Hill church among the people, in the place to which I have so often desired to return. I have felt as if, were I to turn my head as I used naughtily to do when a child, I should see the dear Miss Borg, sitting on the foot-board--a raised seat running along the front wall of the church when it had an earthen floor--her sweet face tinted with autumn red, bearing sweetly and graciously the burden of consecrated years. What a spot of memories is the "God's Acre" on the hill to me, surrounded by solemn firs, shaded by spreading sycamores. Rose up in the morning and left Grace Hill behind me once more. Passed into Derry and found that veteran maiden lady quite well, with a small stir on her streets caused by the Land League meeting. Heard no one speak of it at all, no more than if it had not been, while I waited some hours for the Omagh train. This train, like all third-class trains, which I have yet seen, including one second-class train, by which I travelled a little way, was extremely filthy. One would think a little paint or even soap and water were contraband of war as far as these cars are concerned. After steaming a short distance the solitary lamp went out for want of oil. When the cars were stopped at the next station we were told to go into another compartment that had a lamp--they never seemed to think for a moment of replenishing with oil the lamp in the compartment where we were. The compartment into which we were moved was pretty full already. A good many were smoking strong tobacco, some were far gone in the tipsy direction, one of whom was indulging very liberally in profanity. I was the only woman in the compartment; but my countrymen, as always, were polite, inconveniencing themselves for my accommodation. Even the profane person made a violent effort to curb his profanity when he noticed me. A good many of these persons were going to the Land League meeting. One respectable man spoke to me of the high rate of land and the miseries of the poor, but acknowledged that there were wealthy farmers in Tyrone. He recommended me to a nice quiet hotel near the railway, but it being late and I feeling a little strange, went to the best hotel in the town, the "White Hart," where I was received with uncommon kindness and attention, and allotted a quiet, comfortable bedroom away from the noise of the street. In preparation for the Land League meeting the next day the following lively placard was posted in Omagh: "A general public meeting, with bands and banners, of the Tyrone Orange Leaguers against the murderous, blood-stained, seditious Popish League, commonly called the Irish National Land League, will be held in Omagh on Thursday, April the 21st, 1881, to consider the terms of the Land Bill, and transact other necessary business. A protest will be made at this meeting against the introduction of the principle among the Protestant people of Tyrone that it is good to murder Protestants under the guise of a Land Reform cry. The Land Leaguers have proved themselves murderers and robbers! Why allow the system to be introduced into Tyrone? They are boasted rebels. The swindler Parnell stated in his speech in Cincinnati, 'We will not be satisfied till we have destroyed the last link which keeps Ireland bound to England.' It is now sought to have this disloyal society and association of murderers established in Omagh. They tried in Dungannon first, but the Orangemen frustrated the design. The Orangemen of Omagh and neighborhood know well how to shoulder their rifles. Let them be ready. Trust in God and keep your powder dry! No peace with Rome. No surrender. By order of the Committee." This proclamation was pulled down by the police, but people seemed to expect a faction fight. There was a great force of constabulary in town, and military also. It was pointed out to me how skilfully they were posted, the military entirely out of sight, but in readiness. There were twos and threes here and there, lounging about apparently, but with eyes alert and watchful. XVII. HONORED AS MISS PARNELL--A LAND LEAGUE MEETING--AN EXPENSIVE DOCUMENT-- THE LAND LAW DISCUSSED. In the morning a good many police were scattered about the corners, but no massing of them. All the fiery placards had completely disappeared. I was a little astonished at the scrupulous courtesy with which I was treated, a guide volunteering to show me the place of meeting. Found out afterward that when I arrived at the hotel I was mistaken for Miss Parnell, and felt highly flattered. Omagh was quiet enough; no more stir than would be likely for a fair or market day. No sign or sight of a counter Orange demonstration. The meeting was held in a field on the outskirts of the town, on the property of a gentleman, whose name I forget, but who was described as a very good, kind and considerate landlord. On the highest ground in the field a rather slenderly put up platform was erected, while farther back and lower down a large tent was pitched for the banquet which was to follow the speechifying. The platform, slightly railed in and protected by a primitive gate, was furnished with two tables and a number of chairs. As soon as I came near the platform a gentleman opened the little gate which admitted into the sacred enclosure and invited me to a seat on the platform. I accepted gladly, for I was very tired. Not knowing the mistake under which the people labored, I wondered at the respectful attention that was directed to me. Groups of people came and stared at me through the board enclosure, to go away and be succeeded by other groups, mostly ladies of the country- bred kind. Finally I drew my chair to the back of the platform to be more out of the way, and sat there watching the crowd gather. The crowd was assembling slowly in dozens and half dozens straggling along, no great enthusiasm apparent at all. The great majority wore corduroys of a great many varieties of color and states of preservation or dilapidation. The irrepressible small boys were clustering over the slight fence that surrounded the platform, crawling under it, roosting on top of it, squatting round my chair and smiling up at me as if they expected a universal pat on the head. The time for the meeting arrived, and with it a squad of reporters, who monopolised one table, all the chairs but one, and proceeded to make themselves at home, producing their pencils and note books in a business-like manner. The crowd clustered at the back of the platform began to fling jokes from one to the other about penny-a-liners. Two policemen, one tall, blonde, pleasant featured, one short, dark and rosy-cheeked, arrived next with their note books and pencils. There were a few more policemen at the entrance gate into the field, one soldier standing carelessly on the road, an unconcerned spectator to all appearance. Presently the straggling crowd began to concentrate round the platform. The women who were peeping into the tent and the men who were helping them forsook that pleasing occupation and made for the platform at a double quick trot. Many voices said, "yon's them." Looking along the road toward the town black with the coming crowd, I saw a waggonette drawn by four horses, gallant greys, coming along at a spanking pace. The crowd around me disputed whether the driver was able to bring his four in hand safely through the rather narrow gate, which involved a sharp turn, but he did, and drew up inside with a flourish, to the great admiration of all. The gentlemen came on the platform, Mr. Dillon, a half dozen or so of priests and some other gentlemen. There was a goodly number of people assembled; still not as many as I expected to see. There were not many thousands at all. The faces of the crowd were not by any means so fine as the faces of the Donegal peasantry. They were mixed faces, all but a few seemed simple country people, some of the heavy, low English type, some keen and Scotch, some low Irish. The women were not so fair skinned and rosy as the mountain lasses. There were a good many ladies and gentlemen present. I do not think all who were present were in favor of the Land League, by the remarks which reached me, but the large majority were. As none of the gentlemen speakers spoke to me when they came on the platform, I lost my prestige at once. The first speakers, not accustomed to pitch their voices so as to be heard by a crowd, were quite inaudible where I sat. On the contrary, every word Mr. Dillon said was distinct and clearly audible. He has a clear voice, pleasant to listen to after those who preceded him. He is tall, slim, rather good-looking, very black hair, which he wears long, and which was so smooth and shining that it made him look like an Indian, and truly he is as well made, lithe and nervous-looking as one. His manner is cold and clear and self-repressed; not a word but tells. His speech was exactly the same as he gave in Derry. He did not approve of the Land Bill--and I had thought it so good--but he pointed out a great many defects in it. Faults I never should have suspected to be there, were picked out and brought to view. A very telling speech was made by a dark, thin, wiry man named O'Neil. His speech dealt with the hardships which they had passed through owing to excessive rents and hard years of poor crops. He spoke what the people felt, for many a voice chorused, "True for you; we know that well." In the middle of the speeches the platform prepared to break down, but only collapsed in the middle and fell half way and stopped. Two of the priests spoke also, and spoke well to judge by the people's applause. No one spoke in favor of the Bill. I thought as I sat there of the remark made to me by a Catholic gentleman of Innishowen, who said: "The Irish people have hoped in vain so long, have been deceived so often, that it is hard now to win their confidence." The more I move through the country the more I believe this. Mr. Dillon was the idol of the assembly, that was easy to be seen. A few words with him, a touch of his hand, was an honor. He apologized for Mr. Parnell's absence, who being elsewhere could not possibly be at Omagh that day. I left before the meeting was over. As far as I hear from the Common people themselves, they think the law and the administrators of it sympathize with the landlords only, and let that sympathy influence their decisions. They are, therefore, very averse to go to law to obtain what they consider justice from a landlord. Another great complaint that I hear again and again is the expense attendant on a transfer of property. As an instance, a little property of the value of a hundred pounds changed hands when I was in Ramelton. The deed of transfer was a parchment as big as a table-cloth, and cost L10. XVIII. IRISH HUSBANDRY--A DESCRIPTION OF LORD LEITRIM--ABOVE AND BELOW THE SALT--LANDLORD AND TENANT The valley through which the railway passes from Derry to Omagh is one long stretch of beauty, fertility and careful tillage. Every field, whatever its shape, is cultivated up to the fence and into the corners with a mathematical nicety. The regular fields, the green separating ditches with their grassy covering, the hills cultivated to the very tops, and the trees growing here and there all over made a landscape that should delight the heart of a farmer. Whenever I come to careless husbandry, I will be sure to record it. I have seen nothing of the kind yet on mountain side or valley. I do not wish to fling a rose-colored veil over everything because it is Irish. The country is simply beautiful--no works can do justice to it. Still there are some things one could find fault with freely. Between Omagh and Strabane I took a third-class car. It was dirty, of course, horribly dirty, but, as Mrs. McClarty said, "the dirt was well dried on," and it was almost empty, so I entered. At a way station a great crowd, great compared to the size of the compartment, came surging in. Every man had a clay pipe, every man had a supply of the most villanous tobacco. I do not wonder the Government taxes such tobacco, that it has to be sold by license--some would not grieve if the duty were prohibitory. Soon matches were struck, a tiny flash and a fusilade of reports like toy pistols--all matches here go off like that. Every man began to smoke for dear life, and smoked furiously with great smacks and puffs. And the floor! when the mud of many days that had hardened and dried there was moistened again by tobacco juice! Soon the compartment was filled with smoke, there was literally nothing else to breathe. The car began to heave about like a ship at sea. Fortunately we stopped at a station and some on board got out, so that there was an opportunity of getting close to the door and letting down the glass and a faint was prevented. It was not pleasant to sit there craning one's neck round to breathe at the window, for the seats ran lengthways of the carriage, and keeping all crushed up to keep out of the way of a cross fire of tobacco juice from the opposite benches. Made a vow there and then against third-class carriages. When the train stopped at Strabane was quite dizzy and sick and took refuge in the first 'bus, which 'bus belonged to that superfine establishment, the "Abercorn Arms." Was informed that the late Lord Leitrim had stopped there a day or two before his death on his way to Manorvaughan. "Stopped in this very room," said my informant. "He left here on the Sabbath day in his own carriage for Manorvaughan; he had not much reverence for the day. He was a very old man, walked lame with one leg, had a fiery face and very white hair. I did think they might have respected his gray hair. He had not long to live anyway, they might have spared him." He rested one day at Manorvaughan, the next day he set out for Milford and was killed. "Why did they murder him?" "They said he was a cruel landlord. Yes, a very bad landlord they said he was. He was very impatient to get away from here that morning. He little thought he was hurrying to his death." From Strabane took the Finn Valley Railway, and went off on a voyage of discovery to Rusky. From Killiegordon took a first class ticket, as the distance was short, to see what first-class passengers enjoyed. There is a great difference indeed between first and third. Third-class is a penny a mile, first is two pence half-penny; third is simply horrible with filth, first is as luxurious as carpets, curtains, cushions, spring seats and easy chairs can make it. There is not nearly so much difference in price, as difference in style. As a first-class passenger I was assisted in and out, and the door held open for me; as third or second-class one can get in or out as they please for all the officials care. There is a very wide difference in every respect between those above and those below the line which separates "gentry from commonality." Of course I am using local words. Gentry are expected to have a well-filled and an open hand. If they have not both, what business have they to set up for gentry? Popular opinion thinks of them as Carleton's hedge scholar expressed himself, "You a gentleman? No, nor one of your breed, seed or generation ever was, you proctoring thafe you!" Now the line of demarcation between the people trained by ages to stand with open hand expecting a gift, and those to whom a gift is an insult is hard to find sometimes. A young lad, a sharp boy, had been my guide to two or three places and carried my bag for me. I offered him pay, for pay had been expected from me by every one with whom I came in contact from the moment I landed. Tears came into the poor lad's eyes with mortified anger. One feels bad to hurt anyone's feelings, and between those who have a desire for a gift and are hurt if they do not get one, and those to whom offering a gift is the worst form of insult, one is sometimes puzzled to know what to do. I find a very strong feeling in some places where I have been in connection with the contempt which some owners of the soil feel for the cultivators of it. A landlord--lately an attorney in a country town-- who has succeeded, most unexpectedly, to a great estate, takes no pains to conceal the contempt in which he holds his tenants. He sauntered into a shop, also the post-office of the town, and in the course of conversation informed them that his tenantry were a lazy lot of blackguards. Two of his tenants were present standing in the shop. He did not know them, but they knew him. To the eyes of an outsider like myself the tenants seemed the more gentlemanly of the two parties. This gentleman, it was explained to me by his tenants, was not a specimen of the usual landlord, who, whatever the fault of the land law might be which they believed in and ruled their conduct by, they were gentlemen who would not degrade themselves by such an utterance. The idea is brought forward to me again and again that the best landlord clings to the power to oppress, absolute unquestioned power to do as he likes with his tenantry though he might never exercise it. The Protestants of Derry, Donegal, Tyrone, farmers with whom I have had the opportunity to converse, all refer to this fact. The good landlord considers it an infringement of his rights as a landlord, to take away a power he is too kind to use, although he will admit that some have used it unmercifully. A recent speech of Lord Lifford's complains that things are now claimed as a right that used to be regarded as a favor on the part of the landlords. There is a strong, deep feeling among the best of the tenants against such utterances as these and the spirit behind them. XIX. LANDLORD AND TENANT--THE LAND QUESTION FROM BOTH SIDES. As far as I have travelled yet, in the mountains of Donegal, through Derry, Antrim, Tyrone and Down, I have seen no trace of what Dr. Hepworth lays to the charge of the Irish--laziness, never cultivating a holding up to the line or into the corners. What excited my wonder again and again, is the fact that up to the boundary ditch or hedge, into the corners, up to the very edge of the rocks the tillage extended. I saw men dig up little fields entirely with the spade among the sudden rocks of Port-a-dorus. Some of the patches a horse with a plough attached could not turn in, yet they were tilled; there was not a spade's breadth left in any corner. And they paid high rent for this ground, rocks and all. They fell behind in famine time--not so very far--and humbly grateful were they for the help that came from outside in that time, and a mercy that forgave a little of the rent. I saw men digging on the mountain-side on the Leitrim estate, and wondered how they could keep their footing. As far as I have seen, it is a slander on the people to say they are averse to labor. On the contrary, they are very laborious, and singularly uncareful for their personal comfort. I heard a fellow- countryman at Moville talk of Paddy's laziness. I pointed out to him how carefully mountain-side and rough bog were cultivated. He admitted it, but spoke of want of rotation of crops and absence in many instances of fall-ploughing. This, I humbly consider, is want of skill, or maybe want of means--not laziness. Every one says that the country depends almost solely on agriculture; agriculture rests on farm labor; farm labor pays rents high enough to produce periodical famine. The L90,000 rental of one estate, the L40,000 of another, is all produced by these lazy people. If there were any spot so rocky, so wild, that it was under no rent, one might think them lazy if they failed to make a living out of it, but they make a living and help to support a landlord, too, out of these rocks and morasses. I hope to see life farther south, and see if these lazy people exist there. They do not exist in the north so far as I have seen. It seems to me that the tenant-farmers have been out of sight altogether. Now they have waked up, and there is no power to put them to sleep again. I am more than astonished to find not one intelligent person to defend the Land laws. There is no possibility of understanding previous apathy from an American standpoint unless we think of the thoughtlessness with which the Indians have been treated. The thoughtless landlord has looked upon his own needs according to the requirements of his station, not thinking whether the tenant could pay so much or not, and, whether, if the rent was raised, it left the means of existence behind. I met with very estimable people, who were taking a very high rent; higher than any man could honestly pay, and at the same time laughing at the poverty-stricken devices of their tenants. They did not think. It must be borne in mind that there was a famine in the land but a short time ago, that these thousands and thousands of people who are under eviction now have no money and no place to go to but the ditch-back, or the workhouse. The workhouse means the parting with wife and children. These things must be taken into consideration, to understand the exasperation of mind which is seething through the whole country. I do not think the people here, generally speaking, have any idea of the amount or intensity of hidden feeling. I confess it frightens me. I stayed in a country place for a week. I boarded with a family who were much better off than their neighbors. They were favorites at the office of the landlord, and paid him their rent punctually. I often sat at the kitchen hearth as neighbor after neighbor came in in the evening and told in Irish the tale of some hard occurrence that had taken place. I understood enough to guess the drift of the story. I understood well the language of eye and clinched hand with which my host listened. The people who suffered were his people; their woe was his; he felt for them a sympathy of which the landlord never dreamed; but he never said a word. I thought as I sat there--silent too--that I would not like to be that landlord and, in any time of upheaval, lie at the mercy of this favorite tenant of his. They talk of agitators moving the people! Agitators could not move them were it not that they gave voice to what is in the universal heart of the tenantry. A gentleman connected with the press said to me to-day: "The fact is that any outrage, no matter how heart-rending, committed by a landlord upon his tenantry is taken little notice of--none by Government--but when a tenant commits an outrage, no matter how great the provocation, then the whole power of the Government is up to punish." One great trouble among the people is, they cannot read much, and they feel intensely; reading matter is too dear, and they are too poor to educate themselves by reading. What they read is passed from hand to hand; it is all one-sided, and "who peppers the highest is surest to please." The ignorance of one class, consequent upon their poverty, the insensibility of another class, are the two most dangerous elements that I notice. It is easy to see how public sympathy runs, in the most educated classes. There is great sympathy, publicly expressed, for Captain Boycott and his potatoes; for Miss Bence-Jones, driven to the degrading necessity of milking the cows; but I have watched the papers in vain for one word of sympathy with that pale mother of a family, with her new-born infant in her arms, set upon the roadside the day I was at Carndonagh. Policemen have been known to shed tears executing the law; bailiffs have been known to refuse to do their duty, because the mother's milk was too strong in them; but the public prints express no word of sympathy. In the papers where sympathy with the people is conspicuous by its absence, there will be paragraph after paragraph about prevention of cruelty to animals. I had the honor of a conversation with a lady of high birth and long descent, and, as I happen to know, of great kindness of heart, a landlady much beloved by a grateful and cared-for tenantry. I remarked to her that justice seemed to me to be rather one-sided: "There is much difference unavoidably between one class and another, but there are three places where all classes should stand on an equality-- on a school room floor, in a court of justice, in the house of God." "I would agree with you so far," said the lady, "that they should be on a level when they come before God." I am sure there would be no agitation nor need of coercion if all the landladies and landlords were like this kind-hearted lady in practice. Another instance of kindly thought on the part of another landlady. The famine left many a poor tenant without any stock at all; every creature was sacrificed to keep in life. This lady bought cows for her tenants who were in this sad plight. She left the cows with them until a calf grew up into a milking cow; then the cow was sold to pay the landlady the money invested. If the cow sold for more than was paid for it the balance was the tenant's, and he had the cow besides. "Thus," said the lady to me, "I benefitted them materially at no expense of money, only a little." This lady, who claims and receives the homage of her tenants for the ould blood and the ould name, has by these acts of inexpensive kindness, chained her tenants to her by their hearts. "It's easy to see," said one to me, "that the ould kindly blood is in her." There have been many humble petitions for reduction of rent; many have been granted, more have been refused. The reasons given in one case were, a ground-rent, a heavy mortgage, an annuity, and legacies. The question whether one set of tenants was able to meet all these burdens, not laid on by themselves mind, and live, never was taken into consideration for a moment. When I arrived in Ireland, I met with an English gentleman who took a lively interest in the purpose for which I crossed the sea, namely, to see what I could see for myself and to hear what I could hear for myself on the Land Question. He volunteered a piece of advice. "There are two different parties connected with the Land Question, the landlords and the tenants. They are widely separated, you cannot pass from one to the other and receive confidence from both. If you wait upon the landlords you will get their side of the story; but, then, the tenants will distrust you and shut their thoughts up from you. If you go among the tenants you will not find much favor with the landlords. You must choose which side you will investigate." Considering this advice good, I determined to go among the people and from that standpoint to write my opinions of what I saw and heard. I made up my mind to tell all I could gather of the opinions and grievances of the poor, knowing that the great are able to defend themselves if wrongfully accused, and can lay the land question, as they see it, before the world's readers. I hear many take the part of the landlords in this manner: "You are sorry for the tenants, who certainly have some cause of complaint; can you not spare some sympathy for the landlords who bought these lands at a high figure, often borrowing the money to buy them and are getting no return for the money invested?" Land hunger is a disease that does not attack the tenants alone. The poor man hungers for land to have the means of living; the rich man hungers for land because it confers rank, power and position. As soon as men have realized fortunes in trade they hasten to invest in land. That is the door by which they hope to enter into the privileged classes. Men accustomed to "cut things fine," in a mercantile way, are not likely to except a land purchase from the list of things which are to pay cent. per cent. The tenant has created a certain amount of prosperity, the new landlord looks at the present letting value of the land and raises the rent. This proceeding extinguishes or rather appropriates the Tenant Right. The landlord thinks he is doing no wrong, for, is he not actually charging less than Lord So-and-so, or Sir Somebody or other? which is perhaps very true. All this time the tenant knows he has been robbed of the result of years, perhaps of generations of hard and continuous labor. It is impossible to make such a landlord and such a tenant see eye to eye. A gentleman asked a lady of Donegal if she would shut out the landlord from all participation in profits arising from improvements and consequent increase in the value of the land. I listened for the answer. "I would give the landlord the profits of all improvements he actually made by his own outlay; I would not give him the profits arising from the tenant's labor and means." Now I thought this fair, but the gentleman did not. He thought that all profit arising from improvements made by the tenant, should revert to the landlord after a certain time. I could not think that just. As a case in point, a brother of Sir Augustus Stewart said to a Ramelton tenant: "My brother does not get much profit from the town of Ramelton." "He gets all he is entitled to, his ground rent, we built the houses ourselves," was the answer. These people are safe, having a secure title, not trusting to the Ulster Custom or the landlords' sense of justice. I have not been much among landlords. I did sit in the library of a landlord, and his lady told me of the excessively picturesque poverty prevailing in some parts, citing as an instance that a baby was nursed on potatoes bruised in water, the mother having hired out as wet-nurse to help to pay the rent. There was no cow and no milk. I had a graphic description of this family, their cabin, their manner of eating. The mother cannot earn the rent any longer and they are to be evicted. I was told they were quite able to pay, but trusting to the Land League had refused. Naturally what I have seen and heard among the poor of my people, has influenced my mind. I could not see what I did see and hear what I did hear of the tyranny wrought by the late Earl of Leitrim, and the present Captain Dobbing, or walk through the desolation created by Mr. Adair, without feeling sad, sorry and indignant. XX. LORD LIFFORD--THE DUKE OF ABERCORN--WHOLESALE EVICTIONS--GOING SOUTH-- ENNISKILLEN--ASSES IN PLENTY--IN A GRAVEYARD. On the banks of the Finn, near Strabane, was born the celebrated hero Finn ma Coul. I think this just means Finlay McDougall, and, therefore, claim the champion as a relative. Strabane lies in a valley, with round cultivated hills, fair and pleasant to the eye, swelling up round it. Near it is the residence of Lord Lifford. I have heard townspeople praise him as a landlord, and country people censure him, so I leave it there. His recent speech, in which he complains of the new Land Bill, that, if it passes into law, it will give tenants as a right what they used to get as a favor from their landlords, has the effect of explaining him to many minds. Leaving Strabane behind, went down or up, I know not which, to Newtown- Stewart, in the parish of Ardstraw (_ard strahe_, high bank of the river). In this neighborhood is the residence of the Duke of Abercorn, spoken of as a model landlord. The Glenelly water mingles with the Struell and is joined by the Derg, which forms the Mourne. After the Mourne receives the Finn at Lifford it assumes the name of the Foyle and flows into history past Derry's walls. At the bridge, as you enter the town of Newtown-Stewart, stands the gable wall of a ruined castle, built by Sir Robert Newcomen, 1619, burned by Sir Phelim Roe O'Neil along with the town, rebuilt by Lord Mountjoy, burnt again by King James. Upon a high hill above the town, commanding a beautiful view of the country far and wide, stand the ruins of the castle of Harry Awry O'Neil (contentious or cross Harry), an arch between two ruined towers being the only distinct feature left of what was once a great castle. This castle commanded a view of two other castles, owned and inhabited by two sons or two brothers of this Harry Awry O'Neil. These three castles were separate each from each by a river. Here these three lords of the O'Neil slept, lived and agreed, or quarrelled as the case might be, ruling over a fair domain of this fair country. I do not think the present generation need feel more than a sentimental regret after the days of strong castles and many of them, and hands red with unlimited warfare. Towering up beyond Harry Awry's castle is the high mountain of Baissie Baal, interpreted to me altar of Baal. I should think it would mean death of Baal. (Was Baal ever the same as Tommuz, the Adonis of Scripture?) In the valley beyond is a village still named Beltane (Baal teine--Baal's fire), so that the mountain must have been used at one time for the worship of Baal. The name of the mountain is now corrupted into Bessie Bell. In the valley at the foot of the mountain is the grand plantation that stretches miles and miles away, embosoming Baronscourt, the seat of the Duke of Abercorn, and the way to it in the shade of young forests. There are nodding firs and feathery larches over the hills, glassing themselves in the still waters of beautiful lakes. Lonely grandeur and stately desolation reign and brood over a scene instinct with peasant life and peasant labor some years ago. The Duke of Abercorn was counted a model landlord. His published utterances were genial, such as a good landlord, father and protector of his people would utter. Some one who thought His Grace of Abercorn was sailing under false colors, that his public utterances and private course of action were far apart, published an article in a Dublin paper. This article stated that the Duke had evicted over 123 families, numbering over 1,000 souls, not for non- payment of rent, but to create the lordly loneliness about Baronscourt. His Grace did not like tenantry so near his residence. Those tenants who submitted quietly got five years' rent--not as a right, but as a favor given out of his goodness of heart. They tell here that these evictions involved accidentally the priest of the parish and an old woman over ninety, who lay on her death-bed. He had called upon the priest personally and offered ground for a parochial house; he forgot his purpose and the priest continued to live in lodgings from which he was evicted along with the farmer with whom he lodged. Of the evicted families 87 were Catholics and 36 Protestants. If they had been allowed to sell their tenant right they might have got farms elsewhere. Of those cleared off seventeen who were Protestants and six who were Catholics got farms elsewhere from His Grace. Some sank into day laborers, some vanished, no one knows where. People here say that the reason why there are Fenians in America and people inclined to Fenianism at home is owing to these large evictions-- clearances that make farmers into day laborers at the will of the lord of the land. The people feel more bitterly about these things when they consider injustice is perpetrated with a semblance of generosity. Nothing--no lapse of time nor change of place or circumstances--ever causes anyone to forget an eviction. Now they say that the Duke of Abercorn holds this immense tract of country on the condition of rooting the people in the soil by long leases, not on condition of evicting them out; therefore, he has forfeited his claim to the lands over and over again. This article, published in a Dublin paper, was taken no public notice of for a time, but when sharply contested elections came round, the Duke and four others, sons and relations, were rejected at the polls because of the feeling stirred up by these revelations. Such is the popular report of the popular Duke of Abercorn. Omagh is a pretty, behind-the-age country town. The most splendid buildings are the poor-house, the prison, and the new barracks. The hotels are very dear everywhere; they seem to depend for existence on commercial travellers and tourists. Tourists are expected to be prepared to drop money as the child of the fairy tale dropped pearls and diamonds, on every possible occasion, and unless one is able to assert themselves they are liable to be let severely alone as far as comfort is concerned, or attendance; but when the _douceur_ is expected plenty are on hand and smile serenely. Left Omagh behind and took passage for Fermanagh's capital, Enniskillen of dragoon celebrity. The road from Omagh to Enniskillen showed some, I would say a good deal, of waste, unproductive land. Land tufted with rushes, and bare and barren looking--still the fields tilled were scrupulously tilled. The houses were the worst I had yet seen on the line of rail, as bad as in the mountains of Donegal, worse than any I saw in Innishowen. I wonder why the fields are so trim and the homes in many cases so horrible. Not many, I may say not any, fine houses on this stretch of country. Arrived at Enniskillen on market day, towards the close of April. The number of asses on the market is something marvellous. Asses in small carts driven by old women in mutch caps, asses with panniers, the harness entirely made of straw, asses with burdens on their backs laid over a sort of pillion of straw. I thought asses flourished at Cairo and Dover, but certainly Enniskillen has its own share of them. The faces of the people are changed, the tongues are changed. The people do not seem of the same race as they that peopled the mountains of Donegal. A little while after my arrival, taking a walk, I wandered into an old graveyard round an old church which opened off the main street. Underneath this church is the vault or place of burial of the Cole family, lords of Enniskillen--a dreary place, closed in by a gloomy iron gate. A very ancient man was digging a grave in this old graveyard, sacred, I could see by the inscriptions, to the memory of many of the stout-hearted men planted in Enniskillen, who held the land they had settled on against all odds in a brave, stout-hearted manner. None of the dust of the ancient race has mouldered here side by side with their conquerors. There was a dragoonist flavor about the dust; a military flourish about the tombstones. A., of His Majesty's regiment; B., officer of such a battalion of His Majesty's so-and-so regiment; C., D., and all the rest of the alphabet, once grand officers in His Majesty's service, now dust here as the royal majesties they served are dust elsewhere. Went over to the ancient grave-digger, who was shovelling out in a weakly manner decayed coffin, skull, ribs, bones, fat earth--so fat and greasy-looking, so alive with horrible worms. He was so very old and infirm that, after a shovelful or two, he leaned against the grave side and _peched_ like a horse with the heaves. "How much did he get for digging a grave?" "Sometimes a shilling, sometimes one and six, or two shillings, accordin' as the people were poor or better off." "How were wages going?" "Wages were not so high as they had been in the good times before the famine. A man sometimes got three-and-six or four shillings then; now he got two shillings." "And board himself?" "Oh, yes, always board himself." "Some people now want a man to work for a shilling and board himself, but how could a man do that? It takes two pence to buy Indian meal enough for one meal. You see there would be nothing left to feed a family on." A stout, bare-legged hizzie appeared now, and kindly offered the old man a pinch of snuff out of a little paper to overcome the effects of the smell, and keep it from striking into his heart. This was one errand; to find out who was talking to him was another. She did not; we gave the poor old fellow a sixpence and moved away. XXI. ENNISKILLEN MILITARY PRIDE--THE BOYS CALLED SOLDIERS--REMNANTS OF BY- GONE POWER--ISLAND OF DEVENISH--A ROUND TOWER--AN ANCIENT CROSS--THE COLE FAMILY Owing to the very great kindness of Mr. Trimble, editor of the Fermanagh Reporter, we have seen some of the fair town of Enniskillen. Knowing that Innis or Ennis always means island, I was not surprised to find that Enniskillen sits on an island, and is connected with the mainland by a bridge at either end of the town. Of course, the town has boiled over and spread beyond the bridges, as Derry has done over and beyond her walls. There is a military flavor all over Enniskillen, a kind of dashing frank manner and proud steps as if the dragoon had got into the blood. There is also nourished a pride in the exploits of Enniskillen men from the early times when they struggled to keep their feet and their lives in the new land. They feel pride in the fame of the Enniskillen dragoon, in the deeds of daring and valor of the 27th Enniskilleners all over the world. Enniskillen military pride is closely connected with the Cole family, lords of Enniskillen. The town is not old, only dating back to the reign of the sapient James the First. Remembrance of the sept of Maguires who ruled here before that time, still lingers among the country people. Had a sail on Lough Erne at the last of April; tried to find words sufficiently strong to express the beauty of the lake and found none. It is as lovely as the Allumette up at Pembroke. I can not say more than that. The banks are so richly green, the hills so fertile up to their round tops, checked off by green hedges into fields of all shapes and sizes; the trees lift up their proud heads and fling out their great arms as if laden with blessing; the primroses, like baby moons, more in number than the stars of heaven, glow under every hedge and gem every bank, so that though the Lake Allumette is as lovely as Lough Erne, yet the banks that sit round Lough Erne are more lovely by far than the borders of Lake Allumette. They are as fair as any spot under heaven in their brightness of green. Sailing up the lake or down, I do not know which, we passed the ruins of Portora old castle; ruined towers and battered walls, roofless and lonely. Kind is the ivy green to the old remnants of by-gone power or monuments of by-gone oppression, happing up the cold stones, and draping gracefully the bare ruins. The Island of Devenish, or of the ox, is famed for the good quality of its grass. Here we saw the ruins of an abbey. It has been a very large building, said to have been built as far back as 563. The ruins show it to have been built by very much better workmen than built the more modern Green Castle in Innishowen. The arches are of hewn stone and are very beautifully done without the appearance of cement or mortar. The round tower, the first I ever saw, was a wonderful sight to me. It is 76 feet high, and 41 in circumference. The walls, three feet thick, built with scarcely any mortar, are of hewn stone, and I wondered at the skill that rounded the tower so perfectly. The conical roof is (or was) finished with one large stone shaped like a bell; four windows near the top opposite the cardinal points. There is a belt of ribbed stone round the top below the roof, with four faces carved on it over the four windows. Advocates of the theory that the round towers were built for Christian purposes have decided that there are three masculine, and one feminine face, being the faces of St. Molaisse, the founder of the abbey; St. Patrick, St. Colombkill and St. Bridget. Near the round tower is the ruins of what was once a beautiful church. The stone work which remains is wonderfully fine. The remaining window, framed of hewn stone wrought into a rich, deep moulding, seems never to have been intended for glass. It is but a narrow slit on the outside, though wide in the inside. There are the remains of two cloistered cells, one above another, very small, roofed and floored with stone, belonging to a building adjoining the church. Climbed up the little triangular steps of stone that led into the belfry tower, and looked forth from the tower windows over woodland hill, green carpet and blue waters, with a blessing in my heart for the fair land, and an earnest wish for the good of its people. There is in the old churchyard one of the fair, skilfully carved, ancient crosses to be found in Ireland. It was shattered and cast down, but has been restored through the care of the Government. It is very high and massive, yet light-looking, it is so well proportioned. There are pictures of scriptural subjects, Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, &c., carved in relief over it. Two I saw at Ennishowen had no inscription or carving at all. The Government has built a wall around these fine ruins for their protection from wanton destruction. It takes proof of the kind afforded by these ruins to convince this unbelieving generation that the ancient Irish were skilled carvers on stone, and architects of no mean order. I have looked into some of what has been said as to the uses for which the round towers were built with the result of confusing my mind hopelessly, and convincing myself that I do not know any more than when I began, which was nothing. I am glad, however, that I saw the outside of this round tower. I saw not the inside, as the door is nine feet from the ground and ladders are not handy to carry about with one. XXII. THE EARL OF ENNISKILLEN AND HIS TENANTS--CAUSES OF DISSATISFACTION-- SPREAD OF THE LAND LEAGUE AMONGST ENNISKILLEN ORANGEMEN--A SAMPLE GRIEVANCE--THE AGENTS' COMMISSION--A LINK THAT NEEDS STRENGTHENING--THE LANDLORD'S SIDE. It seems a great pity that the attachment between the Earl of Enniskillen and his tenants should suffer interruption or be in danger of passing away. The Earl, now an old man, was much loved by his people, until, in a day evil alike for him and for his tenants, he got a new agent from the County Sligo. Of course, I am telling the tale as it was told to me. Since this agent came on the property, re-valuation, rent raising, vexatious office rules, have been the order of things on the estate. The result of this new state of things, has been that the Land League has spread among the tenants like wildfire. I did not feel inclined to take these statements without a grain of salt. To hear of the Land League spreading among Enniskillen Orangemen, among the Earl's tenants, of dissatisfaction creeping in between these people historically loyal and attached to a family who had been their chiefs and landlords for centuries, was surprising to me. To convince me that such was the case, I was requested to listen to one of the Earl's tenants reciting the story of his grievances at the hands of the Earl's agent. It was a sample case, I was told, and would explain why the people joined the Land League. It was pleasant enough to have an opportunity of going into the country and to have an opportunity of seeing the farms and the style of living of the Fermanagh farmers, as compared with the Donegal highlands. The country out of Enniskillen is very pretty. May has now opened, the hedges have leafed out and the trees are beginning lazily to unfold their leaves. The roads are not near so good as the roads in Donegal, which are a legacy from the dreary famine time, being made then. The hedges are not by any means so trim and well kept as the hedges by the wayside in Down or Antrim. The roads up to the farm houses are lanes, such as I remember when I was a child. The nuisances of dunghills near the doors of the farmhouses have been utterly abolished for sanitary reasons, also whitewashing is an obligation imposed by the Government. For these improvements I have heard the authorities both praised and thanked. In these times of discontent, it is well to see the Government thanked for anything. The country is hilly and the hills have a uniform round topped appearance, marked off into fields that run up to the hill tops and over them and down the other side. There are, of course, mountains in the distance, wrapped in a thick veil of blue haze. The house to which I was bound was, like most of the farm houses, long, narrow, whitewashed, a room at each end and the kitchen in the middle. I will now let the farmer tell his grievances in his own words. He is about sixty years of age, a professor of religion of the Methodist persuasion, an Orangeman, and a hereditary tenant of Lord Enniskillen, and now an enthusiastic adherent of the Land League. "In 1844 I bought this farm--two years before I was married. There is 17-1/2 acres. I paid L184 as tenant right--that is, for the goodwill of it. The rent was L19 7s 4d. I should have gone to America then; it would have been better for me. I have often rued that I did not go, but, you see, I was attached to the place. My forbears kindled the first fire that ever was kindled on the land I live on. I held my farm on a lease for three lives; two were gone when I bought it. I have been a hard-working man, and a sober man. There is not a man in the country has been a greater slave to work than I have been. I drained this place (fetches down a map of the little holding to show the drains). It is seamed with drains; 11 acres out of 17-1/2 acres are drained, the drains twenty-one feet apart and three feet deep. Drew stone for the drains two miles, L100 would not at all pay me for the drainage I have done. I built a parlor end to my house, and a kitchen; also, a dairy, barn, byre, stable and pig house. Every year I have bought and drawn in from Enniskillen from sixty to one hundred loads of manure for my farm; this calculation is inside of the amount. I have toiled here year after year, and raised a family in credit and decency. When the last life in my lease died, my rent was immediately raised to L27 10s. I paid this for a few years, and then the seasons were bad, and I fell behind. It was not a fair rent, that was the reason I was unable to pay it. I complained of the rent. I wanted it fixed by arbitration; that was refused. I asked for arbitration to decide what compensation I had a right to, and I would leave; that was refused too. I was served with a writ of ejectment. The rent was lowered a pound at two different times, but the law expenses connected with the writ came to more than the reduction given. I had the privilege, along with others, of cutting turf on a bog attached to the place at the time I held the lease; that was taken from us. We had then to pay a special rate for cutting turf, called turbary, in addition to our rent. So that really I am struggling under a higher rent than before, while I have the name of having my rent lowered: I once was able to lay by a little money during the good times; that is all gone now. I am getting up in years. If I am evicted for a rent I cannot pay, I cannot sell my tenant right; I will be set on the world at my age without anything. I joined the Land League. At the time of an election it was cast up to Lord Enniskillen about taking from us the bog. It was promised to us that we should have it back, in these words: 'If there is a turf there you will get it.' After the election we petitioned for the bog, and were refused. We were told our petition had a lie on the face of it. It is the present agent, Mr. Smith, that has done all this. He is the cause of all the ill- feeling between the Earl of Enniskillen and his tenants. He has raised the rents L3,000 on the estate, I am told. He gets one shilling in the pound off the rent; that is the way in which he is paid; so it is little wonder that he raises the rents; it is his interest to do so." I listened to this man tell his story with many strong expressions of feeling, many a hand clench, and saw he was moved to tears; saw the hereditary Enniskillen blood rise, the heart that once throbbed responsive to the loyalty felt for the Enniskillen family now surging up against them passionately. I thought sadly that the loss was more than the gain. Gain L3,000--loss, the hearts that would have bucklered the Earl of Enniskillen, and followed him, as their fathers followed his fathers, to danger and to death. I decided in my own mind that Mr. Smith's agency had been a dear bargain to the Enniskillen family. "The beginning of strife is like the letting out of water; therefore, leave off contention before it be meddled with." After I had listened to the farmer's wrongs and heard of others who also had a complaint to make, I was obliged to think that their case was not yet so hard as the case of those who suffered from the _eccentricities_ of Lord Leitrim. Still, it is a hard case when we consider that the man's whole life and so much money also sunk in rent, purchase, improvements, and when unable to pay a rent raised beyond the possibility of paying, to lose all and begin life again without money or youth and hope, at sixty years of age. People with exasperated minds are driven to join the Land League, in hope that union will be strength, and that ears deaf to petition of right will grant concessions to agitation. I began to feel afraid that I was hearing too much on one side and too little on the other, and I requested to be introduced to some who had ranged themselves on the side of the landlords. I was, as a consequence, introduced to several gentlemen at different times, but I got no light on the subject from any of them. They were so very sure that everything was just as it should be, and nothing short of treason would induce any one to find fault. Still when the question was asked squarely, "Are there no reasons for wishing for reform of the land laws?" the answer was, "We would not go quite so far as that?" There was a vague acknowledgment that, generally speaking, some reform was needed, and yet every particular thing was defended as all right on the whole, or not very far wrong. XXIII. A MODEL LANDLORD--ERIN'S SONS IN OTHER LANDS. I have, at last, heard of a model landlord; not that I have not heard of good landlords before, as Mr. Humphreys and Mr. Stewart, of Ards, in Donegal. I have seen also the effects of good landlordism. When passing through the Galgorm estate I saw the beneficial changes wrought on that place by Mr. Young; but I have heard of many hard landlords, seen much misery as the result of the present land tenure, and I did feel glad to hear men praising a landlord without measure. It was a pleasant change. This landlord who has won such golden opinions is Lord Belmore, of Castle Coole. "The Land League has gained no adherents on his estate," says one to me, "because he is such a just man. He is a man who will decide for what he thinks right though he should decide to his own hurt. Eviction has never occurred on his place; there is no rack rent, no vexatious office rules." As I have listened to story after story of tyranny on the Leitrim estate, so here I listened to story after story of the strict justice and mercy of Lord Belmore. His residence of Castle Coole is outside of Enniskillen a little, and is counted very beautiful. Of course I went to get a peep at it, because he is a lord whom all men praise. "His tenants," said one, "not only do not blame him but they glory in him. Why should they join the Land League? They get all it promises without doing so." As we drove along I heard his justice, his sense of right, his praise, in short, repeated in every way possible. I have noticed about this lord that to mention his name to any one who knows him is quite enough to set them off in praise of him. As he is not an immensely wealthy peer, but has been obliged to part with some of his property, it is the more glorious the enthusiastic good name he has won for himself. We drove across a long stretch of gravel drive through scenery like fairyland. A fair sheet of water lay below the house, bordered by trees that seemed conscious of their owner's renown by the way they tossed their heads upward and spread their branches downward, as saying, "Look at us: everything here bears examination and demands admiration." Swans ruffled their snowy plumage and sailed with stately bendings of their white necks across the lake. Wild geese with the lameness of perfect confidence grouped themselves on the shore or played in the water. Coots swam about in their peculiar bobbing way, as if they were up to fun in some sly manner of their own. Across the lake were sloping hills rising gently from the water arrayed in the brightest of green. Grand stately trees stood with the regal repose of a grand dame, every fold of their leafy dress arranged with the skilful touch of that superb artist, Dame Nature. My driver, with a becoming awe upon him of the magnificent grounds, the stately house and the high-souled lord, drove along the most unfrequented paths, and we came, in the rear of the great house, to a quaint little saw-mill in a hollow, a toy affair that did not mean business, but such as a great lord might have as a proper appanage to wide land and as a convenience to retainers. After some whispered consultation with the man in charge, it was certified that we might drive round, quite round the castle, and, favored by fortune, might chance to see the housekeeper and get permission to see the inside of the house. I knew the house was very nice by intuition; it was very extensive, and I was sure held any quantity of pleasant and magnificent rooms; but someway I did not desire to go through it. I should have liked to have seen its lord, this modern Aristides, whom I was not tired of hearing called the just. The lord with the cold stately manner, but the heart that decided matters, like Hugh Miller's uncle Sandy, giving the poor man the "cast of the bauk," even to his own hurt. We drove down the broad walk just out of sight of the extensive gardens and conservatories, between trees of every style of magnificence down to the lodge gate which was opened to us promptly and graciously. You can always judge of a lord by the courtesy or the want of it in his retainers. Indeed I believe that even dogs and horses are influenced by those that own them, and become like them in a measure. I waft thee my heart's homage, lord of Castle Coole! Thy good name, thy place in the hearts of thy countrymen, could not be bought for three thousand pounds sterling wrung "by ways that are dark," from an exasperated tenantry. The drive back to Enniskillen with another suggestive peep at the lake was delicious and enjoyable. In Enniskillen I wandered into the Catholic church, the only church I could wander into without a fuss about getting the key. It is grand, and severely plain in the absence of pictures and ornaments. I am told there was a good deal of distress in the County Fermanagh, and that they obtained relief from the Mansion House Fund and from the Johnston Committee Fund. This Johnston was a Fermanagh man, and has risen to wealth in the new world under the Stars and Stripes. The sons and daughters of Ireland do not forget, in their prosperity on far-off shores, the land of their birth and of their childhood's dreams. Like the daisies on the sod, With their faces turned to God, Their hearts' roots are in the island green that nursed them on her lap. Suffering from want in those hard times must have been comparatively slight in Enniskillen, as the local charity was strong enough to relieve it, I was informed by an Episcopal clergyman. XXIV. SELLING CATTLE FOR RENT--THE SHADOW OF MR. SMITH--GENERATIONS OF WAITING--UNDER THE WING OF THE CLERGY--A SAFE MEDIUM COURSE--THE CONSTABULARY--EXERTIONS OF THE PRIESTS--A TERMAGANT. Hearing that there was a great disturbance apprehended at Manor Hamilton, in the County Leitrim, and that the military were ordered out, I determined to go there. I wanted to see for myself. I put on my best bib and tucker, knowing how important these things are in the eyes of imaginative people. Arrived at the station in the dewy morning, and found the lads whom I had seen carrying their dinners at the Redoubt drawn up on the platform under arms. How, boyish, slight and under-sized they did look, but clean, smart and bright looking, of course. Applied at the wicket for my ticket, as the 'bus man was eager to get paid and see me safely off. The ticket man told me curtly I was in no hurry, and shut the wicket in my face. The idea prevails here, except in the cases of the local gentry who are privileged, and to whom the obsequiousness is remarkable, that the general public, besides paying for their accommodation, ought to accept their tickets as a favor done them by the Company. This stately official at last consented to issue tickets; as I had not change enough to pay I gave him a sovereign, and, not having time to count the change, I stuffed it into my portmonnaie and made a rush for the cars as they snorted on the start. In spite of my determination, made amid the smoke and filth of the third-class cars between Omagh and Strabane, I took a third-class car, and to my agreeable surprise it was clean, and I had it to myself. We steamed out of Enniskillen, all the workers in the fields and the people in the houses dropping their work to stare at the cars, crowded with soldiers, that were passing. I had a letter of introduction to an inhabitant of Manor Hamilton, as a precaution. We passed one of the entrances to Florence Court, the residence of the once-loved Earl of Enniskillen. When I understood that this nobleman was up in years, his magnificent figure beginning to show the burden of age, and that he was blind, I felt a respectful sympathy for him, and wished that the shadow of Mr. Smith and his three thousand of increase of rent had never fallen across his path. After passing the road to Florence Court, when the train was not plunging through a deep cut, I noticed that the land did not, all over, look so green or so fertile as in the farther down North. There was much land tufted with rushes, much that had the peculiar shade of greenish brown familiar to Canadian eyes. There were many roofless cottages standing here and there in the wide clearings. There were bleak bogs of the light colored kind that produce a very worthless turf, that makes poor fuel. At one of the way stations, a decent-looking woman came into the compartment where I sat. Divining at once that I had crossed the water, she spoke pretty freely. Their farm was on a mountain side. It had to be dug with a spade; horses could not plough it. The seasons had been against the crops for some years. Yes, their rent had been raised, raised at different times until it was now three times was it was ten years ago. She was going to the office to try to get some favor about the rent. They could not pay it and live at all, and that was God's truth. Had no hope of succeeding. Did not believe a better state of things would come without the shedding of blood. "Oh, yes, it is true for you, they have no arms and no drill, but they look to America to do for them what they cannot do for themselves. Oh, of course it should be the last thing tried, but generations of waiting was in it already, and every hope was disappointed some way." The laws got harder and the crops shorter, that was the way of it. Arrived at Manor Hamilton, every male creature about congregated with looks of wonder to watch the military arrive. They were a totally unexpected arrival, and caused the more sensation in consequence. There were none to answer a question until these boyish soldiers had been paraded, counted, put through some manoeuvres of drill, and then "'bout face and march" off. They seemed so alive, so eager for fun, so different from the stolid-faced veteran soldier that I hoped inwardly that to-day's exploits would not deepen into anything worse than fun. When they tramped off, carrying their young faces and conscious smiles away from the station, I found a porter to inform me that Manor Hamilton was a good bit away. As there was no car I must walk, and a passing peasant undertook to pilot me to the town. Passed a large Roman Catholic church in process of erection. It will be a fine and extensive building when finished. They were laying courses of fine light gray hewn stone rounded, marking where the basement ended and the building proper began. Such a building, at such a time, is one of the contradictions one sees in this country. Stopped at a hotel and was waited on by the person to whom my letter of introduction was directed, who introduced me to some other persons, including some priests. It was ostensibly an introduction, really an inspection. Only for this introduction I should not have got admittance into the hotel. People were arriving from every quarter. I stood at an upper window watching the people arrive in town. The first band, preceded by a solemn and solitary horseman, consisted of a big drum beaten by no unwilling hand, and some fifes. They played, "Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching," with great vim. The next detachment had a banner carried by two men, the corners steadied by cords held by two more. It was got up fancy, in green and gold, a picture of Mr. Parnell on one side, and some mottoes on the other. "Live and let live," was one. The band of this company, some half-dozen fifers, were dressed in jackets of green damask rimmed with yellow braid, and had caps made of green and yellow, or green and white, of the same shape as those worn by the police. The operator on the big drum had a white jacket and green cap. He held his head so high, his back was so straight, his cap set so knowingly on one side, he rattled away with such abandon, and looked as if he calculated that he was a free and independent citizen, that I guessed he had learned those airs and that bearing in classic New York. The next detachment had a brass band and some green favors and a green scarf among them. One of the clergy to whom I was introduced, volunteered to show me to a position from which I would safely see the whole performance, which was the auction of cattle for rent--I was quite glad to have the kind offices of this gentleman, as without them I would have seen very little indeed. As I passed down the street under the wing of the clergy, I was amused at the innocent manner in which a half-dozen or so would get between his reverence and me, blocking the way, until they understood I was in his care, when a lane opened before us most miraculously, and closed behind us as the human waves surged on. The police officers and men were patient and polite to high perfection. We made our way to the Court House, where the soldiers were drawn up inside, crowding the entrance hall and standing on the stairs. It was thought the sale would be in the Court House yard, in which case the official offered me a seat on the gallery. As the building was low, the long windows serving for both stories, it would be only a good position if the cattle were auctioned in the Court yard. This had been done before, and would be prevented if possible this time, as it was too private a proceeding. Meanwhile I sat in the official room, the kitchen in short, and waited looking at the peat fire in the little grate, the flitches of bacon hanging above the chimney, the canary that twittered in a subdued manner in its cage, as if it felt instinctively the expectant hush that was in the air. It was decided to hold the sale on the bridge, so I was piloted through the military, through a living lane of police, through the surging crowd, to a house that was supposed to command the situation, and found a position at an upper window by the great kindness of the clergyman who had taken me in charge. It is something awful to see a vast mass of human beings, packed as closely as there is standing room, swayed by some keen emotion, like the wind among the pines. It is wonderful, too, to see the effects of perfect discipline. The constabulary, a particularly fine body of men, with faces as stolid as if they were so many statues, bent on doing their duty faithfully and kindly. They formed a living wall across the road on each side of an open space on the bridge, backs to the space, faces to the crowd, vigilant, patient, unheeding of any uncomplimentary remarks. The cause of all this excitement was the seizure of cattle which were to be sold for rent due to Cecil White, Esq., by his tenants, at the manor of Newtown. The crowd here was far greater than at Omagh the day of the Land League meeting. The first roll of the drum had summoned people from near and far in the early morning. I am not a good judge of the number in a crowd, but I should say there were some thousands, a totally unarmed crowd; very few had even a stick. There were few young men in the crowd-- elderly men and striplings, elderly women and young girls, and a good many children, and, of course the irrepressible small boy who did the heavy part of the hissing and hooting. These young lads roosted on the Court House wall, on the range wall of the bridge so thickly that the wonder was how they could keep their position. The crowd heaved and swayed at the other end of the bridge, a tossing tide of heads. The excitement was there. I could not see what was going on, but a person deputed by the clergyman before mentioned, came to bring me to a better station for seeing what was going on at the other end of the bridge. The crowd made way, the police passed us through, and we got a station at a window overlooking the scene. Out of the pound, through the swaying mass of people, was brought a very frightened animal. If she had had no horns to grip her by, if she had had the least bit of vantage ground to gather herself up for a jump, she would have taken a flying leap over the heads of some and left debtor and creditor, and all the sympathizers on both sides behind her, and fled to the pasture. She was held there and bid for in the most ridiculous way. All that were brought up this way were bought in and the rent was paid, and there the sale ended There might have been serious rioting but for the exertions of the Catholic clergy. Members of the Emergency Committee were particularly liable to a hustling at least. The least accidental irritation owing to the temper of the crowd would have made them face the bayonets with their bare breasts. The police were patient, the clergy determined on keeping the excitement down, and all passed off quietly enough. There were a few uncomplimentary remarks, such as addressing the police as "thim bucks" which remark might as well have been addressed to the court house for any effect it had. There were a few hard expressions slung at Mr. White which informed all who heard them that Mr. White was cashiered from the army for flogging a man to death, that he had well earned his name of Jack the flogger, &c. The crowd dispersed from the bridge. The youthful military passed on the march for the train to return to their barracks, the crowd, now good- natured, giving them a few jokes of a pleasant kind as they passed; the soldiers looking straight ahead in the most soldierly manner they could assume, but smiling all the same, poor boys, for surely compliments are better than hisses and hoots. I never heard a sound so dreadful as the universal groan or hoot of this great crowd. There was some speaking, a good deal of speaking, from the window of the hotel, praising the crowd for their self-control, and advising them to go home quietly for the honor of the country and the good cause. After the sale, the three bands and the great crowd, paraded the streets. The cattle were brought round in the procession, their heads snooded up for the occasion with green ribbon. I do not think the cattle liked it a bit; they had had a full share of excitement in the first part of the day. The most active partisan of the Land League was an elderly girl. She was the inventor and issuer of the most aggravating epithets that were put into circulation during the whole proceedings. Her hair was dark and gray (dhu glas), every hair curling by itself in the most defiant manner. The heat of her patriotism had worn off some of the hair, for she was getting a little bald through her curls--such an assertive upturned little nose, such a firm mouth, such a determined protruding chin. This patriot had a short jacket of blue cloth, and could step as light and give a jump as if she had feathered heels. She reminded me of certain citizenesses in Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities." May God of His great mercy give wisdom and firmness to the rulers of this land. XXV. THE LABORING CLASSES IN MANOR HAMILTON--THEIR HOMES--LOOKING FOR HER SHARE--CHARGES AGAINST AN UNPOPULAR LANDLORD. I called upon a clergyman in Manor Hamilton in pursuit of information as to the condition of the laboring class. Manor Hamilton is a small inland town, depending solely on agriculture. Want of work is the complaint. Out of work is the chronic state of things among the laboring population. A few laborers are employed on the Catholic church in process of erection. The railway is newly finished between Enniskillen and Manor Hamilton. While it was being made it supplied work to a great many. Rail communication with the rest of the country must be a benefit to the town and the surrounding country. The hopes nourished by the Land League prevent the people from sinking into despair or rousing to desperation. "Have the laboring class any garden ground to their homes?" I asked. "No. You would not like to see their homes. They are not fit for anyone to go into," was the answer. It is good sometimes to look at what others are obliged to endure. Having provided myself with infinitesimal parcels of tea and sugar for the very aged or the helplessly sick, I set out with the clergyman and went up unexpected lanes and twisted round unlikely corners, dived into low tenements and climbed up unreliable stairs into high ones. One home, without a window, no floor but the ground, not a chair or table, dark with smoke, and so small that we, standing on the floor, took up all the available room, paid a rent of $16 per year, paid weekly. The husband was out of work, the wife kept a stall on market days, and sold sweets and cakes on commission. Another hovel, divided into two apartments like stalls in a horse stable, a ladder leading up to a loft where an old gate and some indescribably filthy boards separated it into another two apartments, accommodated four families. The rent of the whole was $52 per year, paid weekly. One of the inmates of this tenement, an old, old man, whose clothing was shreds and patches, excused himself from going into the workhouse by declaring that there were bad car-ack-ters in there, while he and his father before him were ever particular about their company. Children, like the field daisy, abound everywhere. In one hovel a brand new baby lay in a box, and another scarcely able to walk toddled about, and a lot more, like a flock of chickens, were scattered here and there. In one of these homes a small child was making a vigorous attempt to sweep the floor. On asking for her mother, the little mite said, "She is away looking for her share." This is the popular way of putting a name on begging. One inhabitant made heather brooms, or besoms, as they are called here. He goes to the mountain, cuts heather, draws it home on his back, makes the besoms, and sells them for a halfpenny apiece. In one hovel a little boy lay dying of consumption--another name for cold and hunger--his bed a few rags, a bit of sacking and a tattered coat the only bed-clothes. "I am very bad entirely, father," was the little fellow's complaint. I stood back while the father talked to him, and it was easy to see that he had well practised how to be a son of consolation. It was a cold windy day, and the wind blew in freely through the broken door. Surely, I thought, the workhouse would be comparative comfort to this child; but it seems that the whole family must go in if he went. The saddest consideration of all is the want of work--excitement like what is in the country now must be bad for idle and hungry men. Mr. Corscadden and Mr. Tottenham, the contractor for the railway, are the two landlords who are most unpopular. Mr. White, one of those who had the cattle seized for rent, is also unpopular, very. Mr. Corscadden is a new landlord, comparatively speaking; was an agent before he became a proprietor. He is at open war with his tenantry. He requires an escort of police. His son has been shot at and missed by a narrow enough shave, one ball going through his hat, another grazing his forehead. This is coming quite nigh enough. Some buildings on his property in which hay was stored were burned--by the tenants, thinks Mr. Corscadden; by the Lord, say the people. I hope to see Mr. Corscadden personally, so I have made particular enquiries as to what he has done to deserve the ill- feeling that rages against him. The chief charges against Mr. Corscadden are wasting away the people off the land to make room for cattle and black-faced sheep; taking from the people the mountain attached to their farms which they used for pasture, and then doubling the rent on what remained after they had lost part. The land out by Glenade (the long glen) is very poor in parts. The amount of cultivated fields does not seem enough to supply the inhabitants with food. The country has in a large degree gone to grass. There is also a suspicion of grass on the mountain sides which are bare of heather and whins. They say the grass is sweet and good, and that cattle flourish on it, but the improved quality of stock and milch cows require additional tub feed to keep them in a thriving condition. There are some rich-looking fields, but the most of the land has a poverty- stricken look and the large majority of the houses are simply abominable. It is spring weather and spring work is going on. Men are putting out manure, carrying it in creels on their backs. Asses are the prevailing beasts of burden, carrying about turf in creels or drawing hay--a big load to a small ass. Men and women and children are out planting potatoes in patches of reclaimed bog. Very few cattle are to be seen compared to the extent of the grazing lands. The formation of rock here in the mountain tops has a resemblance to the fortification-looking rocks at McGilligan, but they are neither so lofty nor so abrupt. In one place there was a mighty cleft in the rock, as if some giant had attempted to cut a slice off the front of the rock and had not quite succeeded. I was told by my driver that an old man lived in the cleft behind the rock; it was said also that a ghost haunted it. I wonder if the ghost makes poteen. Apart from the condition of the country and the poverty of the people a drive through the long glen of Glenade on a pleasant day is delightful. The hills swell into every shape, the houses--if they were only good houses--nestle in such romantic nooks, and the eternal mountains rising up to the clouds bound the glen on each side. I saw one house made of sods, thatched with rushes, that was not much bigger or roomier than a charcoal heap. I would have thought it was something of that kind only for the hole that served for a chimney. The people are very civil, and if they only knew what would please you, would say it whether they thought it or not. If they do not know what side you belong to, no people could be more reticent. The Land League is very popular. Since the Land League spread and the agitation forced public attention to the extreme need of the people many landlords have reduced their rents. Lord Massey is a popular landlord; anything unpopular done on his estate, Mr. LaTouche, his agent, has laid to his door. XXVI. TENANTS VOLUNTARILY RAISING THE RENT TO ASSIST THEIR LANDLORDS-- BEAUTIFUL IRISH LANDSCAPES--CANADIAN EYES--RENTS IN LEITRIM--THE POTATO. Determined, if possible, to hear something of the landlord's view of the land question, I wrote to Mr. Corscadden, the so unpopular landlord, asking for an interview. This gentleman, some time ago, moved the authorities to erect an iron hut for the police at Cleighragh, among the mountains that garrison Glenade. There had been an encounter there, a kind of local shindy, between him and his tenants, when they prevented him from removing hay in August last. The police came in large numbers to erect the hut, but it could not be got to the place, for no one would draw it out to Glenade. Mr. Corscadden bought this small parcel of land at Glenade from a Mr. Tottenham; not the unpopular Tottenham, but another, much beloved by his people. He lived above his income, and was embarrassed in consequence. His tenants voluntarily raised the rents on themselves for fear he would be obliged to sell the land, and they might pass into the hands of a bad landlord. They raised the rent twice on themselves, and after all he was obliged to sell, and the fate they dreaded came upon them; they passed into Mr. Corscadden's hands. During the famine this part of Leitrim got relief from the Mansion House Fund. Mr. Corscadden never gave a penny; never answered a letter addressed to him on the subject. Having posted my letter I went out among the people who were, or were to be, evicted in the country around Kiltyclogher, (church of the stone house, or among the stones). We left the bright green fields that belt around Manor Hamilton and the grand trees that overshade the same green fields, and drove up among the hills, in a contrary direction from Glenade. A beautiful day, warm and pleasant, shone upon us; the round- headed sycamores are leafed out, and the larch has shaken out her tassels, the ditch backs are blazing with primroses and the black thorns are white with bloom, and there are millions of daisies in the grass. We passed over some good land at the roadside, some green fields in the valleys, but there is a very great deal of waste and also of barren land. A great deal of the tilled land is bog, a good deal of the waste land is shallow earth overlying rocks, some is cumbered with great boulders, and rough with heather and whins. My companion, a lady active in the Ladies' Land League, thought it good land and worth reclaiming if let at a low rent. I, looking at it with Canadian eyes, would not have taken a gift of it and be bound to reclaim it. If I rented a few acres of those wild hills, and rooted out the whins and raised and removed the stones, I would think it unjust to raise the rent on me because of my labor. It is admitted by all who know anything of the matter, that the tenants have reclaimed what land is reclaimed. Rent in County Leitrim has been raised from L24,990 to L170,670 within the last eighty years, and is L34,144 above the Government valuation. We called at the house of a tenant farmer who had been evicted for non- payment of rent, and was back as a weekly tenant. He was putting in some crop, working alone in the field. He came to speak to my companion. He had got no word from the landlord as to whether he would put in any crop or not. He was in sore anxiety between his fear of offending the landlord, and the fear of doing anything against the rules of the Land League. His little boys were putting out manure in creels, carrying it on their shoulders. He had no means of paying rent. If he were forgiven the rent due and a year's rent to come, he might then be in a position to resume paying rent. This is my own opinion. The poor man himself was sorely perplexed and cast down. A thin, white, helpless-looking man. The terrors of the eviction had taken hold of his wife, who was sickly. The only hope they had was that God would bless the potato crop, for they had secured Champion potatoes for seed. The potatoes that used to flourish in Ireland forty years ago, have entirely passed away. Even the Champion potato is not very good. The skin is thick and has a diseased appearance and the potato has black spots on the outside. I think the land is suffering from an overdose of such manure as they apply here, and the leaf mould is entirely exhausted. Of course this is the opinion of one who knows nothing of farming. Passed another house, a widow's, who has been evicted. The family had been put out and the official went to get some water to quench the fire; all the little household belongings were scattered about. Putting out the fire and fastening up the door were the last acts of the eviction. While the official's back was turned, the widow slipped in again, and was fastened up in the house, the children being outside. Her sons are a little silly. The children camp outside and she holds the garrison inside. She thinks the Land Bill or the Land League, or something miraculous will turn up to help her if she keeps possession for a while. Fear that she has done wrong and laid herself open to some greater punishment, and excitement have blanched her face. In the dim evening she sits at the window inside; the children have a gipsy fire and sit under the window outside. When the gloaming has passed and dark night settled down, the police come over from the barracks to see if any of the children have gone in beside the mother. This would be taking forcible possession, and some other process of law would be possible. To make assurance sure, the policeman puts his head close to the window, sees the widow's white face and wild eyes sitting in the dark alone, and the children sitting under the window, and then the party, with something like tears in their eyes, something very like pity in their hearts, go back to the barracks. I wonder how these things will end. It is not stubbornness, but helplessness and despair that makes them cling so to their homes, combined with an utter dread of the disgrace and separation involved in going to the workhouse. I listened to one tale after another of harassment, misery and thoughtless oppression in Kiltyclogher till my heart was sick, and I felt one desire--to run away that I might hear no more. I applied the traditional grain of salt to what I heard, but could not manage to add it to what I saw. Mr. Tottenham rules part of Kiltyclogher. This man has a very evil name among the tenants. Reclamation of land by very poor people is a very serious matter. Not only do the bogs require drains twenty-one feet apart and three deep (I have seen the people in the act of making such drains again and again); not only do the surface stones require to be gathered off, but great stones and immense boulders that obstruct the formation of the drains, have to be removed, and as they have no powder for blasting, they take the primitive method of kindling great fires over the rock and splitting it up that way, so that their husbandry is farming under difficulties. As the Fermanagh farmer said, they put their lives into it. In the long ago the landlords of Ireland, though extravagant, were not, as a class, unkindly, but their waste involved the land, and their absenteeism prevented any thoughts for the benefit of the country ever occurring to them. The commercial spirit has invaded the aristocracy and men have begun to see visions of redeeming their lands from encumbrances and to dream dreams of still greater aggrandizement, all to be realized by commercial tact in raising the rents and abolishing the long-suffering people who could not be squeezed any farther. It was then that the beginning of the present desperate state of things was inaugurated. I do not think the landlords deliberately meant to oppress. I think they looked to the one thing, raising their rental, increasing their income, and went over everything, through everything to the desired end. They have succeeded in making a wide separation between the land-holding and land-tilling classes. It will be a difficult matter to bring them together again. XXVII. A HARD LANDLORD INTERVIEWED--CONFLICTING STATEMENTS--COLD STEEL. The morning after our return to Manor Hamilton, Mr. Corscadden called on me in response to my note asking for an interview. I had formed a mental picture of what this gentleman would be like from the description I had heard of his actions. I found him very different. An elderly man, tall, gray-haired, soft-spoken, with a certain hesitation of manner, dressed like a better class-farmer, eyes that looked you square in the face without flinching, and yet had a kindly expression. This was Mr. Corscadden. I need not say he was not the man I expected him to be. He, very kindly indeed, entered into an explanation of his management of this property since it fell into his hands. He mentioned, by the way, that he was a man of the people; had risen to his present position by industry and stern thrift; what he had he owed, under the blessing of God, to his own exertions and economy. He declared that he ruled his conduct to his tenants by what he should wish to be done to himself if in their place. He then took up the case of one tenant, James Gilray, who waited on him to enquire, "What are you going to do with me?" This man, according to Mr. Corscadden's statement, owed three years' rent, amounting to L30; owed L15 additional money paid into the bank for him; owed L6 for a field, "for which I used to get L11 to L12." "Now," said Mr. Corscadden to him, "what do you want?" "I want," said the man, "to have my place at the former rent." "Do you," said Mr. Corscadden, "want your land at what it was 118 years ago? Land has raised in value five times since then." There is here a wide discrepancy between this statement of Mr. Corscadden's and the statement of another gentleman--not a tenant--who professed himself well acquainted with the subject. He said that before Mr. Corscadden bought the land the tenants had voluntarily increased the rent on themselves twice, for fear of passing out of the hands of the man they knew into the hands of a stranger; so that it was under a rack rent when Mr. Corscadden bought it. Another case referred to by Mr. Corscadden was that of a man to whom he had rented a farm of 20 acres at L16. He got one year's rent; two and a half years were due, when he served a writ of ejectment. Mr. Corscadden said to this man; "You are a bad farmer and you know it. You have about L150 worth of stock; I will give you L40; leave my place and go to America. He took the money," said the old gentleman pathetically, "and did not go to America, but rented another farm. The woman at Glenade whom you went to see I have kept--supported--for years. Her husband did not pay his rent, and I gave him L10 to pay his passage to America. He is a bad man. It is rumored that he has married another woman; his wife never hears from him." "It is wonderful, Mr. Corscadden," I remarked, "when you are so kind that you have such a bad name as a landlord. Mr. Tottenham and you are the most unpopular landlords in Leitrim." "I do not know why; I act as I would wish others to do to me. I do not forget that I have to give an account to the Holy One." "You are accused of wasting away the tenants, because cattle and sheep are more profitable than people." "I transferred two to places down near the sea and gave them better land than I took from them. I have been speaking about the others whom I paid to remove." "People complain that you took the mountain pasture from the tenants and then raised the rent of the remainder to double of what they had paid for all." "Not double, nearly double. As to the mountain, I called them together and proposed taking the mountain, as they had nothing to put on it; they had not a beast. They consented, at least they made no objections. I wanted the mountains for Scotch sheep. I put on about a hundred; there are few to be seen now; they have disappeared." He then mentioned the shooting at his son, the burning of the office houses with hay and potatoes stored there, the trouble he had had about the police hut which the constabulary had drawn to Glenade that morning. "That will cost the country as much as L500," said Mr. Corscadden. "They are unthrifty in this country, they eat all the large potatoes, plant all the little runts, till they have run out the seed." (Alas, what will not hunger do!) "They come into market with their butter in small quantities, wasting a day and sacrificing the butter." (Need again: time is wasted here, for labor is so plentiful and men are so cheap that time has no value in their eyes.) I asked Mr. Corscadden what he thought would be a remedy for this dreadful state of things. He did not see a remedy except emigration. Mr. Corscadden took his leave politely, wishing me a pleasant tour through my own country. I have as faithfully as possible recorded Mr. Corscadden's side of the story. The tenant's side I have softened considerably, and omitted some things altogether to be inside of the mark. One thing I forgot to mention: Mr. Corscadden said that the tenants might raise a couple of pigs or a heifer and pay the rent and have all the rest to themselves. I said, "When these bad years ending in one of positive famine have stripped the poorer tenants bare, and pigs are so dear, where could a poor man get thirty shillings to buy a sucking pig or buy provender to feed it?" This is true, the first step is the difficulty. They might do this, or this, or this, and it would be profitable, but where are the means to take the first step? It is easy to stand afar off and say, be economical, be industrious, and you will prosper. In the meantime pay up the back rent or get out of this and give place to better men. They tell me that Mr. LaTouche charges the poor creatures interest on all the back rent. Some who have paid their rent here did not--could not--raise it on their farms, but got it from friends in America. Mr. Corscadden asked me in the course of our conversation what I would consider a fair rent. I said I would consider the rent fair that was raised on the land for which rent was paid, leaving behind enough to live on, and something to spare, so that one bad season or two would not reduce the tenant to beggary. The fact of the matter is, and I would be false to my own conscience if I hesitated to say it, these people have been kept drained bare; the hard years reduced them to helpless poverty, and now the only remedy is to get rid of them altogether. The price of these military and police, the price of these special services rendered to unpopular landlords to aid them in grinding down these wretched people, spent to help them would go far to make prosperity possible to them once more. If they had a rent they could pay and live, the millstone of arrears taken from about their necks, I believe they would become both loyal and contented. Empty stomachs, bare clothing, lying hard and cold at night through poverty is trying to loyalty. The turbary nuisance is the great oppression of all. Want of food is bad, but want of fuel added to it! Forty years ago renting land meant getting a bit of bog in with the land. When there is a special charge for the privilege of cutting turf and the times so hard there is much additional suffering. In the famine time people getting relief had to travel for the ticket, travel to get the meal, and then go to gather whins or heather on the hills to cook it, and the hungry children waiting all the time. A respectable person said to me the famine was worst on respectable people, for looking for the red ticket and carrying it to get meal by it was like the pains of death. Wherever I went through Leitrim I saw people, scattered here and there, gathering twigs for fuel or coming toward home with their burden of twigs on their backs. I declare I thought often of the Israelites scattered through the fields of Egypt gathering stubble instead of straw. A tenant who objects to anything, who is not properly obedient and respectful, can have the screw turned upon him about the turf as well as about the rent. XXVIII. THE MANOR HAMILTON WORKHOUSE--TO THE SOUTH AND WESTWARD--A CHANGE OF SCENERY--LORD PALMERSTON. Before leaving Manor Hamilton, I determined to see the poor-house, the last shelter for the evicted people. I was informed that it was conducted in a very economical manner. It is on the outskirts of the town. On my way there I went up a little hill to look at a picturesque Episcopalian church perched up there amid the trees, surrounded by a pretty, well-kept burying-ground. The church walls were ornamented with memorial slabs set in the wall commemorating people whose remains were not buried there. A pretty cottage stood by the gate, at the door of which a decent-looking woman sat sewing. I addressed a few questions to her as to the name of the pastor, the size of his flock, &c. Her answers were guarded--very. I made my way down the hill, and over to the workhouse. The grounds before the entrance were not laid out with the taste observable at Enniskillen. Perhaps they had not a professional gardener among their inmates. At the entrance a person was leaning against the door in an easy attitude. I enquired if I might be allowed to see through the workhouse. He answered by asking what my business was. I informed him that I was correspondent for a Canadian newspaper. He then enquired if the paper I wrote for was a Conservative paper. I replied that I would not describe it as a Conservative paper, but as a religious paper. He then said the matron was not at home, and I prepared to leave. I enquired first if he was the master. He replied in the affirmative, and then said he would get the porter to show me round. "You will show her through," he said, to a stout, heavy person sitting in the entry. This gentleman, who brought to my mind the estimable Jeremiah Flintwinch, accordingly showed me through the building. We passed the closed doors of the casual ward, where intending inmates were examined for admittance, and casuals were lodged for the night. Every door was unlocked to admit us and carefully locked behind us, conveying an idea of very prison-like administration. The able-bodied were at work, I suppose, for few were visible except women who were nursing children. There was a large number of patients in the infirmary wards. One man whose bed was on the floor was evidently very near the gate we all must enter. He never opened his eyes or seemed conscious of the presence of a stranger. I noticed a little boy lift the poor head to place it easier. I saw no one whom I could imagine was a nurse. The kindness and tenderness of the beggar nurses in the sick wards of the workhouse at Ballymena struck me forcibly. The absence of anything of the kind struck me forcibly in Manor Hamilton. The children in this workhouse were pretty numerous. They demanded something from me with the air of little footpads. The women were little better. I was told, pretty imperatively, to look in my pockets. One woman rushed after me half way up stairs as if she would compel a gift. Coming back with my throat full of feelings, I was directed to a little desk behind the door, where lay the book for visitors: I was shown the place where remarks were to be entered. I wrote my name standing, as there was no other way provided. I was hardly fit to write cool remarks. The locked doors, the nurses conspicuous by their absence, the importunate beggars, the absent matron, the whole establishment was far below anything of the kind I had yet seen in Ireland. One woman had made her appearance from some unexpected place, and explained to me with floury hands, that if she were not baking she would herself show me through the house. I think it is hard for struggling poverty to go down so far as to take shelter in the workhouse. It must be like the bitterness of death. I cannot imagine the feeling of any human beings when the big door clashes on them, the key turns, and they find themselves an inmate of the workhouse at Manor Hamilton. I do not wonder that the creatures starving outside preferred to suffer rather than go in. When I returned to the entrance the master had been joined by some others who were helping him to do nothing. He asked me over his shoulder what I thought of the house. I answered that it was a fine building, and walked down the avenue, wishing I was able to speak in a cool manner and to tell him what I thought of the house and of his management of the same. Left Manor Hamilton on the long car for Sligo. The long car is the unworthy successor of the defunct mail coach of blessed memory. It is an exaggerated jaunting car arranged on the wheels and axles of a lumber waggon and it is drawn by a span sometimes; in this case, by four horses. A female was waving her hands and shouting incoherent blessings after us as we started. It might be for me or it might be for the land agent, who sat on the same side. I smiled by way of willingness to accept it, for it is better to have a blessing slung after one than a curse or a big stone. Our road skirted Benbo (the hill of cattle), sacred now to rabbits and hares and any other small game that can shelter on its bald sides. Up hill and down hill, between hills and around hills, mountains of every shape and degree of bareness and baldness looking down at us over one another's shoulders as we drove along. An ambitious little peasant clung on behind with his hands, his little bare feet thudding on the smooth road and over the loose layer of sharp stones that lay edge upwards in places. He thought he was taking a ride. We passed small fields of reclaimed bog, where ragged men were planting potatoes in narrow ridges. We passed the brown fields where nothing will be planted; passed the small donkeys with their big loads; passed green meadows on a small scale; in places here and there, passed the houses, dark, damp and unwholesome, where these people live. After we had rumbled on for some miles, enjoying blinks of cold sunshine, enduring heavy scudding showers, the landscape began to soften considerably. The grass grew green instead of olive, and trees clustered along the road. Umbrageous sycamores, claiming kindred with our maples, began to stand along the road singly and in clusters. We were still in a valley bounded by mountains, but the hill-sides waved with dark green and light green foliage, where the fir stretched upward tall plumes and the larch shook downward tasseled streamers. The green of the fields became greener and richer, the dark sterile moss-covered mountains retreated and frowned at us from the distance; we were leaving the hungry hills of north Leitrim for the pleasant valleys that lie smiling around Sligo. The trees grew larger, the sycamores massed together in their full leafiness, bringing visions of a sugar bush in the time of leaves; they were mingled with the delicious green of the newly-leaved beech. The round-headed chestnuts, with their clustered leaves, were covered with tall spikes of blossom like the tapers on an overgrown Christmas tree. The ash and oak are shaking out their leaves tardily; the orchards are white with the bridal bloom of May. The fields are flocked with myriads of happy eyed daisies, the ditch backs glowing with golden blossoms. My eyes make me wealthy with looking at beauty. We are nearing the town, for the woodland wealth is enclosed behind high walls. Grand houses peep from among the branches; trim lodges, ivy- garnished, sit at the gates, glimpses of gardens are seen, all the wealth of leafage and blossoming that fertility spreads over the land when spring breathes is here. In a glow of sunshine after the rain-- smiles after tears--we enter Sligo. We draw up in the open street, everyone alights from our elevation as they can. No one takes notice of any other by way of help. Each gets off and goes his several way. The land agent, who has sat in high-bred silence all the way, pays his fare and goes off on the car that awaits him. The rest disperse. I pay my fare. The driver asks to be remembered. I mentally wonder what for. I paid a porter to place my bag on the car. I got up as I could, I scramble down as I may. I will pay another porter to take me to a hotel. The driver's whip takes as much notice of me as he does. Why in the world should I remember him? It is part of a system of imposition and it would be rank communism to find fault, so I remember him; he thanks me, and this little game of give and take ends. Installed in the Imperial Hotel I send off my one letter of introduction, which remains. Discover the post office, find no letters, return and sit down to write across the water. The lady proprietor of the Imperial Hotel has been across the Atlantic and has a warm feeling toward the inhabitants of the great republic; she shares the benefit of this feeling with the wandering Canadian and takes us out to see Sligo. Gladly do we lay down the pen to look Sligo straight in the face. Sligo looks nice and clean. Belfast is large, prosperous, beautiful; but many of her fine buildings and public monuments look as if they required to have their faces washed, but Sligo buildings are fair and clean. We pass a rather nice building, suppose it a school, but we are informed it is the rent-office of the late Lord Palmerston. That astute nobleman showed his usual good sense, if it was his choice, to own lands in the sunny vales of Sligo instead of the hungry hills of Leitrim. If some have greatness thrust upon them, some in the same way inherit lands. Out of the town we went, and climbed up a grassy eminence; with some difficulty got upon the "topmost tow'ring height" of an old earthwork--blamed on the Danes of course; everything unknown is laid on them. The square shape, the remains of the ditch that surrounds it look too much like modern modes of fortification not to have a suspiciously British look. Of course we are both delightfully ignorant on the subject. The scenery from our elevated position is glorious. At our feet Sligo, all her buildings, churches and convents white in the sunshine, around her the fairest of green fields; the blue waters of Lough Gill sparkling and glancing from among trees of every variety that in spring put on a mantle of leaves. On every side but the gate of the west through which we see a misty glance of the far Atlantic, Sligo has mountains standing sentry around her. One, Knock-na-rea, is seen from a great distance, a long mountain with a little mountain on her breast. The bells were chiming musically, the sound floating up to where we stood. Below us, on the other side of the old earthwork, a little apart from one another, stood two great buildings, that are so necessary here, the poor-house and the lunatic asylum. These magnificent and extensive buildings must have cost an immense sum. The asylum has been enlarged recently, as the freshly-cut stone and white mortar of one wing testified. As I looked, a band struck up familiar airs. We saw them standing in a field beside the asylum. I was told that the band was composed of patients. This made the music more thrilling. When they struck up "Auld Lang Syne," or "There Is no Luck About the House," there was a wail in it to my ears, after home, happiness and reason. We got down from our high position and came home by another way, passing through some of the poorer streets of Sligo, which are kept scrupulously clean. Even here women and girls were gathering sticks to cook the handful of meal. The poor are very poor on the bare hills of Leitrim, or in this green valley of Sligo. XXIX. ON LOUGH GILL--TWO MEN--STAMPEDE FROM SLIGO--THE ANCIENT AND THE MODERN. I was a little disappointed that I was getting no information on any side of the question of the day, and my letters which were to be sent to Sligo not coming to hand, I was advised to go down the beautiful Lough Gill to Drumahaire to see the ruins of Brefni Castle, the place from which the fair wife of the O'Ruarke, Prince of Brefni, fled with McMurrough, which was the cause of the Saxon first gripping green Erin. I thought I might as well, and set out to walk to the boat landing, a good _billie_ out of Sligo, along the street, past small tenement houses inhabited by laborers, who do not always obtain work, past the big gloomy gaol, past the dead wall and the high bank on the top of which goats are browsing, down to the landing beside the closely-locked iron gate, and the little lodge sitting among the trees behind it, belonging to the property of a Captain Wood Martin. Had the felicity, while yet some way off, of seeing the shabby little boat cast off the rope and puff herself and paddle herself slowly off down the lake. Coming back a very pretty girl electrified me by informing me that I was from America. She advised me to take a small boat and have a sail on Lough Gill, for I would always regret it if I did not see its beauty when I had the opportunity. In her excessive kindness she introduced me to a river maiden, strong and comely, who would row me about with all kindness for a small consideration. Prudently discovered what the consideration was to be, and then gave in to the arrangement. The water nymph had been away gathering sticks; she had to empty her boat and I waited a little impatiently, a little ruefully. The boat was big, clumsy and leaky, but the girl was eloquent and eager to persuade me it was a fast and comfortable boat. She produced an ancient cushion from somewhere; there was a clumsy getting on board, and she pushed off. We went sailing down among the swans, the coots and the rushes, and passed little tree-laden islands, hooped with stone wall for fear they might be washed away. The sun shone pleasantly, the swans floated on majestically, or solemnly dived for our pleasure, the coots skimmed about knowing well we had not often enjoyed the pleasure of watching them. The grand woods that encompass the residence of Wynne of Hazelwood spread out over many, many acres, caught the sunlight on one side. The broad green meadows of Captain Wood Martin lying among the trees looked like visions of Eden on the other. My river maiden discovered to me a swan's nest among the reeds; told me stories of the fierceness of brooding swans, and offered to get me a swan's egg for a curiosity, nevertheless. Remarking to her that Captain Wood Martin kept his grounds locked up very carefully; enquired what should happen if we drew ashore and landed on his tabooed domain. The water maiden said one of his men would turn us out. Enquired if he was a good landlord. "Oh, sure he has ne'er a tenant at all at all on his whole place; it does be all grazing land. He takes cattle to graze. He charges L2 a year for a yearling and L5 a year for a four-year-old, and he has cattle of his own on it." How do you know the price? "Sure I read it on the handbills posted up." Looking at the other side of the glorious lake, at the long thicket of trees that shades the demesne that Wynne of Hazelwood keeps for his home and glory, stretching over miles of country; saw the little grey rabbits, more precious than men in my native land, that were hopping along, after their manner, quite a little procession of them, at the edge of the bush; and said, "What kind of a landlord does Wynne of Hazelwood make?" "Is it Mr. Wynne, ma'am? Oh, then, sure it's him that is the good landlord and the good man out and out. He is a good man, a very good man, and no mistake." "Why, what makes you think him such a good man?" "Because he never does a mane or durty action; he's a gentleman entirely." "Come now, you tell me what he does not do; if you want me to believe in your Mr. Wynne, tell me some good thing he has done." "I can soon do that, ma'am," said my water maiden. "Last winter was a hard winter; the work was scarce, and the poor people would have starved for want of fire but for Mr. Wynne of Hazelwood." "He let you gather sticks in his woods, then?" "He did more than that; he cut down trees on purpose for the people, and we drew them over the ice, for the lough was frozen over. We had no fire in our house all last winter, and it was a cold one, but what we got that way from Mr. Wynne." Mr. Wynne's eloquent advocate rowed along the lake close in shore, for fear of any doubt resting on my mind, and showed the stumps of the trees, cut very close to the ground, a great many of them indeed, as a proof of Mr. Wynne's thoughtful generosity. We rowed along over the laughing waters among the pretty islands, and finally pulled ashore on the Hazelwood demesne and landed. We walked round a little bit, filling our eyes with beauty; feloniously abstracted a few wild flowers and a fir cone or two, and reluctantly left Hazelwood. Now this gentleman was not a perceptible whit the poorer for all the cottage homes that were warmed by his bounty--yes, and hearts were warmed, too, through the dreary winter. "Blessed is he that considereth the poor." There is riches for you--oh master of Hazelwood! The emigration from Sligo amounts to a stampede now. How many more would leave the island that has no place for them, if they only had the means? I missed that Drumahaire boat no less than three times--that is, she was either gone before the time when she was said to go, or was lying quietly at the wharf, having made up her mind not to stir that day. She seemed to have no stated time for going or coming, or if she had, to keep it as secret as an eviction, for no one could be found to speak with certainty of her movements. When disappointed for the third time, my very kind friend, Mrs. O'Donell, of the Imperial Hotel, took me on her own car to Drumahaire. We drove completely round lovely Lough Gill, seeing it from many points of view. Sligo is not altogether a garden of Eden, for we passed a great deal of poor stony barren land here and there during this journey. Like all hilly land, there are pretty vales among the hills and fair, broad fields here and there, but there is much barren and almost worthless soil. Now, there is one thing that has struck me forcibly since I came to Ireland. I saw it in Down, Antrim, Derry, Donegal, wherever I have been as well as in Sligo. The poorer and more worthless the land, there were the tenants' houses the thickest. The good land has been monopolized to an immense extent for lands laid out for grandeur and glory--and they are grand and gloriously beautiful. Then pride and fashion demand that the mountain commons be reserved for game, that is, rabbits. A man must have extensive wilds to shoot over, so the poor laborers are huddled into houses--awful hutches without gardens, and the poor farmers are clustered on barren soil, trying to force nature to allow them to live after paying the rent. We got to Drumahaire, stopped at a dandy iron gate beyond which the turrets of Brefni Castle were waving funereal banners of ivy, entered and found ourselves in a private domain. Here in the shadow of the old castle was the handsome modern cottage, extensive and stylish, inhabited by Mr. Latouche, the agent so much dreaded, so much hated in Northern Leitrim. This is the gentleman who is accused of charging the tenants 10s. 6d. for potatoes which the landlord sent down to be given to the tenants at five. If racking the tenantry is the condition on which he gets this lovely home, it is a temptation certainly. We felt as if we were in the wrong place, as, after glancing at the handsome cottage, the trim lawn fringed with shrubbery and then at the ruins we took the lower walk hoping to get round under the shelter of some trees to the ruins. A small river brawled over the stones below--far below where we were walking. A detached portion of the ruins sitting on a rock overlooked both us and the river. Was it in any part of this building that the naughty lady watched for her lover? A little further on we looked down some steps into gardens stretching along beside the river--gardens blazing with flowers and sweet with blossomed fruit trees. It was so unexpected, so splendidly beautiful, it surpassed a dream of fairy-land. We passed on, saw a shadowy lady among the flowers on the lawn, knew it was the wraith of the unhappy and guilty Dearvorgill. Stole out of the farther gate--at least I did-- feeling naughty and intrusive. Found ourselves in the clean little town of Drumahaire, a pretty little village, straggled over a hillside among the trees. Went into a shop to enquire for the veritable Brefni Castle. A sad and hungry-looking man scenting a possible sixpence started forward as guide. He piloted us back by the way we came into the ruins we had passed. Was determined to see visions and dream dreams amid these historical ruins. Alas, it was a disgraceful failure. Not only was the back of the modern tyrannical cottage laid up against the tyrannical castle of history, but the ancient and modern were dovetailed into one another, trying to bewilder you as to where ancient history and legend ended, and modern anecdote began. We looked into the great hall with its deep fire-place at the side, and upwards where another stately apartment had once been, a lofty presence room over the great hall, but the week's wash of the La Touches was flapping in the wind that moaned through the deserted halls of the O'Ruarke. Looked into a tower to find a peat stack, climbed over a load of coal to see the withdrawing room of the departed, but not forgotten great lady, or the kitchen that cooked for the men-at-arms, who waited on the lord's behest. Peeped into a turret and was insolently asked what we meant by a splendid but ill-tongued peacock; admired the ivy green that happed the bare walls and noticed that the chickens roosted there in its shelter. We drove home by another way, among gay, green woods under the shelter of mighty rocks, passed more ruins. We stopped to examine these older ruins of the ancient O'Ruarkes. A Milesian gentleman showed us through them. It is the correct thing to have a ruin on your place; it is a kind of patent of gentility. If a banshee could be thrown in along with a ruin, a new man would give a great price for an old place. But banshees are getting scarce and decline to be caught. This ruin has been patched over, clumsily but earnestly, so that hardly a speck of the original ruin is left. It was delightful to listen to our Milesian guide. My companion was bound to get some information out of him. He was cautious, not knowing who we were or what design we might have to entangle him in his talk; he was determined that he would not give the desired information. He conquered. The ruins were not worth sixpence altogether to look at, but I gave him sixpence as a tribute to genius. And so in the dim evening we drove back to Sligo. XXX. SLIGO'S GOOD LANDLORDS--THE POLICE AND THEIR DUTIES--A DOUBTFUL COMPLIMENT--AN AMAZON. It has been something wonderful to me that when I left Leitrim, I seemed to have left all bad landlords behind me. Every one I came in contact with in Sligo, rich or poor, had something to say about a good landlord. Some were thoughtfully kind and considerate, of which they gave me numerous instances; others if the kind actions were unknown, positively unkind ones were unknown also, so their portraits came out in neutral tints. I conversed with high Tories and admirers of the Land League, but heard only praise of Sligo's lords of the soil. I thought I should leave Sligo, believing it an exceptional place, but just before I left I heard two persons speak of one bad landlord of Sligo. On May 18th I left the green valleys of Sligo behind and took passage on the long car for Ballina. I found that the long car was to be shared with a contingent of police, who were returning to their several stations after lawfully prowling round the country protecting bailiffs and process-servers in their unpopular work. I cannot believe that these quiet, repressed conservators of the peace can possibly feel proud of their duties. These duties must often--and very often--be repugnant to the heart of any man who has a heart, and I suppose the majority of them have hearts behind their trim jackets. I liked to look at these men, they are so trim, clean, self-respectful. They have also a well-fed appearance, which is comfortable to notice after looking at the hungry- looking, tattered people, from whom they protect the bailiffs. We passed Balasodare--I did not stop, for I felt that it was better to get this disagreeable journey over at once. We stopped at a place called Dromore west, to change horses and to change cars. We had dropped the police, a few at a time, as we came along, so that now the car was not by any means crowded. We all stood on the road while the change of horses was being made. It was slow work, and I went into a shop near to ask for a glass of water. The mistress of the shop enquired if I would take milk. I assented, and was served with a brimming tumbler of excellent milk. Payment was refused, and as I turned to leave, I was favored with a subdued groan from the women assembled in the shop. Evidently they thought I was some tyrant who required the protection of the police. It would not flatter me--not much--to be taken for some landholders here. When my police fellow-voyagers were dropped at their comfortable white barracks here and there, and only one was left, we fell into conversation to beguile the time. He had been at one time on duty in Donegal and knew how matters were there, from his point of view, better than I did. We spoke of Captain Dopping, and his opinion of him was if anything lower than mine. He expressed great thankfulness that guarding the Captain had never been his duty. Whether he disliked it from moral causes, or for fear of intercepting in his own person a stray bullet intended for the gallant captain, he did not say. Arrived at Ballina after a long, tiresome journey, yet like everything else in this world it had its compensations. Ballina is a kind of seaport town, in the Rip Van Winkle way. An inlet from Killala Bay called the Moy runs up to the town. There is no stir on the water, no perceptible merchandise on the quay. One dull steamboat painted black, in mourning for the traffic and bustle of life that ought to be there, slides out on its way to Liverpool and creeps back again cannily. Unless you see this steamboat I can testify that you might put up quite a while at Ballina and never hear its existence mentioned, so it cannot be of much account. The streets are thronged with barefoot women and ragged lads with their threepenny loads of turf. The patient ass, with his straw harness and creels, is the prevailing beast of burden everywhere I have travelled since I entered Enniskillen with the exception of Sligo. Sligo town, like Belfast in a lesser degree, has the appearance of having something to do and of paying the people something who do it. The traders who come to Ballina market seem to trade in a small way as at Manor Hamilton. Still, the town is handsome and clean, a large part of the population, prosperous-looking, in an easy going way, the ladies fine-looking and well dressed. One wonders what supports all this, for the business of the town seems of little account. Spent a Sunday here and after church became aware that the too, too celebrated Miss Gardiner, with her friend Miss Pringle, had arrived at the hotel on their way to Dublin, on evictions bent. The police had marched out in the evening to her place to protect her in. I was eager to see this lady, who enjoys a world-wide fame, so sent her my card requesting an interview, which she declined. I caught a glimpse of her in the hall as she passed out with her friend and guard. She is a very stout, loud-voiced lady, not pretty. The bulge made by the pistols she carries was quite noticeable. "Arrah, why do you want to see either of them," said a maiden to me. "Sure they both of thim drink like dragons"-- dragoons she meant, I suppose--"an' swear like troopers, an' fight like cats." This was a queer bit of news to me. I did not take any notice of it at that time; but, dear me, it is as common news as the paving stories on the street. Miss Gardiner is almost constantly at law with her tenants, lives in a state of siege, maintains, at the cost of the country, an armed body guard, and is doing her very best to embroil the country in her efforts to clear the tenants off her property. At the Ballycastle petty sessions a woman summoned by this lady for overholding, as they call it, appeared by her son and pleaded that she had been illegally evicted. Miss Gardiner told them they might do what they liked, but she must get her house. Now this house never cost Miss Gardiner a farthing for repairs nor for erection, and it is all the house the wretched creatures have, and, of course, they hold to it as long as they are able. The priest attempted to put in a word for the woman, and was unmercifully snubbed by the bench. In Miss Gardiner's next case, the bench decided that the service was illegal. Miss Gardiner then called out, "I now demand possession of you in the presence of the court." The bench would not accept this notice as legal. She had a great many cases and gained them all but this one. This particular Sunday when I had the honor of seeing her she was bound for Dublin on eviction business. XXXI. KILLALA--THE CANADIAN GRANT TO THE FAMINE FUND AND WHAT IT HAS DONE-- BALLYSAKEERY--THREE LANDLORDS--A LANDLORD'S INTERESTING STATEMENT. I had the very great pleasure of a drive to the ancient town of Killala, accompanied by the wife of the Rev. Mr. Armstrong, who superintends the orphanage and the mission schools in connection with the Presbyterian Church of Ballina. Killala is an old town with a gentle flavor of decay about it. It has a round tower in good preservation, and an ancient church. I was shown the point where the French landed at the stirring time of war and rebellion. It makes my heart glad to hear in so many places of the benefit the Canadian grant has been to this suffering country. I heard with great pleasure of fishing boats along the coast named Montreal, Toronto and other Canadian names in affectionate remembrance of the Canadian dollars that paid for them. This grant has been a means of convincing the people that there is such a place as Canada. The peasant mind had a sort of belief that America consisted of two large towns, New York and Philadelphia. In one instance the Canadian paid nets arrived on Thursday; they were in the water on Saturday, and many boats returned laden with mackerel. So great a capture had not been remembered for many years. In one locality where the nets given were valued for less than L200, it was proved that the boats had brought in during four weeks over L1,200 worth of mackerel. After we had taken a view of Killala we had a pleasant interview with the good minister at Ballysakeery. Here we received one of those welcomes that cheer the travellers' way and leave a warm remembrance behind. The famine pressed hard upon Mayo. Many respectable people were obliged to accept relief in the form of necessary food, seed potatoes and seed oats. It is a noticeable fact that here, as in Leitrim--that part at least of Leitrim in which I made investigations--the landlords in a body held back from giving any help to the starving people on their lands. Sir Roger Palmer gave potatoes to his tenants and sold them meal at the lowest possible figure, thus saving them from having the millstone of Gombeen tied round their neck. Sir Charles Gore, a resident landlord, has the name of generosity at this time of want, and justice at all times, which is better to be chosen than great riches. The Earl of Arran, who has drawn a large income, he and his ancestors, from this part of Mayo for which they paid nothing, not only gave nothing but gave no reply whatever to letters asking for help. The land belonging to the Earl of Arran here--I cannot undertake to write the name of the locality by the sound--was a common waste and was let by the Earl at two shillings and sixpence per acre to Presbyterian tenants, who came here from the North I believe. Of course they had to reclaim, fence, drain, cultivate for years. They built dwellings and office houses, built their lives into the place. After they had spent the toil of years on improvement, their rents were raised to seven and sixpence per acre, five shillings at one rise; then it was raised to ten shillings; the next rise was to fifteen shillings and then to twenty. The land is not now able to bear more than fourteen shillings an acre rent and support the people who till it. These people have been paying a rack rent for years to this nobleman, the Earl of Arran, yet when starvation overtook them, he had neither helping hand nor feeling heart for them. The distress of this last famine was so great in this corner of Mayo that people on holdings of thirty acres were starving--would have died but for the relief afforded. It takes some time--and more than one good harvest--for people who have got to starvation to recover themselves far enough to pay arrears of rent. We visited the ruins of Moyne Abbey, which are in good preservation yet. One of the present lords of the soil had a part of it made habitable and lived there some time, but it is again unroofed and left to desolation. It has been a very extensive building, stretching over a great extent of land now cleared of ruins. What remains is still imposing. We had a pleasant interview with the Rev. Mr. Nolan, the kind and patriotic priest of this neighborhood, and we returned to Ballina as gratified and as tired as children after a holiday excursion. I was introduced at Ballina to a landlord, a fine, clever-looking man, with that particularly well-kept and well-fed appearance which is as characteristic of the upper classes in Ireland as a hunger-bitten, hunted look is characteristic of the poor. I would not like to employ as strong language in speaking of the wrongs of the tenantry as this gentleman used to me. He is both landlord and agent. He condemned all the policy of the Government toward Ireland in no measured terms. Spoke of the emigration that is going on now, as well as the emigration that had taken place after the last famine, as men going out to be educated for and to watch for the time of retribution. Retribution for the accumulated wrongs which mis-government had heaped upon Ireland he looked upon as inevitable, as coming down the years slowly but surely to the place of meeting and of paying to the uttermost farthing. Well, now, these are queer sentiments for a landlord to hold and to utter publicly. He acknowledged freely that a great part--a very great part--of the excessive rents extorted on pain of eviction, the eviction taking place when the unfortunate fell behind, were really premiums paid on their own labor. Furthermore, he acknowledged that he himself had raised the tenants' rents on the estates for which he was agent, compelling them to pay smartly for the work of their own hands. He spoke highly of the people as a whole, of their patience, their kindliness to one another, and their piety. He spoke of the case of one man, a peasant, who could only speak broken English, who came under his notice by coming to him to sell rye-grass to make up his rent. This man with the imperfect English was a tenant of the gentleman's brother. He held three acres, two roods of land in one place at a rent of L7 5s, where his house stood; one acre, at L1 4s. Of course he or his ancestors built the house. His poor rate and county cess is 16s, or $46.25 yearly for four acres, two roods of land. If they got it for nothing they could not live on it, say some. The best manure that can be put upon land is to salt it well with rent, say Mr. Tottenham and Mr. Corscadden. Well, this man since the famine, has no stock but one ass and a few hens. He cut and saved his rye-grass himself, sold it for L3 10s, sold his oats for L3 4s 6d; had nothing more to sell; had remaining for his wife and two little ones a little meal and potatoes. He is a year and a half behind in his rent, and likely, after all his toil and struggle, to be set on the roadside with the rest. He has no bog near, there is none nearer than over five miles, except some belonging to Miss Gardiner. Of course that mild and sober spinster that will not oblige her own tenants has nothing in the way of favor for outsiders. It took him twelve days last year to make sufficient turf to keep the hearth warm. He went to the bog in the morning on his breakfast of dry stirabout, with a bit of cold stirabout in his pocket to keep off the hungry grass, as the peasant calls famished pains, and walked home to his dry stirabout at night, having walked going and coming eleven Irish miles over and above his day's work. He drew home seventy ass loads of turf at the rate of two loads per day--twenty-two Irish miles of a walk. Let Christians imagine this man at his toil in his thin clothing, poor diet and bed of straw with scanty coverlet, toiling early and late to pay an unjust rent. Often after his hard day's work he has gone out at night with the fishers and toiled all night in hopes of adding something to his scanty stores. Said the landlord, "The vilest criminal could not have a harder life than this God-fearing uncomplaining peasant. What I tell you I drew from him, for he made no complaint." "You have a hard life of it, my man," said the landlord to him. He was not his tenant. "Well, sir, sure God is good and knows best," was the man's answer. I was very much astonished at this gentleman's narrative and his other admissions, and I ventured to enquire for my own satisfaction had he made restitution to the tenants. "Have you, sir, restored what you have robbed?" I did not suggest the four-fold which is the rule of that Book which we acknowledge as a guide and law-giver. "I am doing so," he replied, and he handed me a printed address to the tenants, offering twenty-five percent reduction on arrears, if paid within a certain time. Now, I was very much interested in this gentleman and in his opinions, but I could not bring myself to agree with him that this was restitution. However, I state the matter and leave it to that enlightened jury, the readers of the _Witness_, "too large to pack at any rate," and let them give their decision. I think myself that a little of the Sermon on the Mount, applied conscientiously, would be good for those who hold the happiness of Ireland in their hands. When justice becomes loud-voiced and likely to pass into vengeance, they talk of giving a little as charity. XXXII. THE STORY OF AN EVICTION. On the 20th of May I received a whisper of an eviction that was to occur up in the neighborhood of the Ox Mountains. Great opposition was expected, and therefore a large force of police was to be there. I procured a car, and in company with the local editor went to see. The landlord of this property is an absentee; the agent--a Mr. Irwin--lived in a pleasant residence which we passed on our way. We noticed that it was sheepshearing time at his place, and many sheep were in the act of losing their winter covering. After we left Ballina behind, and followed in the wake of the police for some time, we seemed to have got into the "stony streak." Such land! Small fields--pocket handkerchiefs of fields--the stones gathered off them built into perfect ramparts around them! I enquired of one gentleman what was the rent exacted for this land so weighted down with stones--for in addition to the high, broad fences surrounding the little fields some of them had cairns of stones built up in the middle of them. He said thirty shillings an acre ($7.50); asked another who said fifteen ($3.75). I fancy one would need to see the office receipts to know correctly. There is little cultivation in this part of the country. Hopeless- looking ragged men, and barefoot ragged women, were at work in the fields; little ragged children peeped from the wretched houses at the police as they passed. And indeed they were a fine squad of broad- shouldered, good-looking men, heavily-armed, marching along, square and soldier-like, with a long, swinging step that goes over the ground quickly. We followed them up a stone-fenced lane just wide enough for the car to pass. As we went along, men working at building a stone wall, looked at the procession with a cowed frightened look. Our carman gave them the "God save you" in Irish, and in answering they turned on us surely the weariest faces that ever sat on mortal man. The lane becoming narrower, we soon had to leave the car and follow the police on foot through a pasture sprinkled with daisies. Suddenly we saw the police scatter, sit down on the ditch and light their pipes, throw themselves on the grass, group themselves in two's and three's here and there. The end of the journey was reached. We looked round for the wild men of Mayo from whom the bailiff, sub- sheriff, and agent were to be protected, who were, I was told, to shed rivers of blood that day. They were conspicuous by their absence. There were three or four dejected-looking men standing humbly a bit off, three women sitting among the bushes up the slope, that was all. The house where the eviction was to be held was a miserable hovel, whose roof did not amount to much, sitting among untilled fields, with a small dung heap before the door. It was shut up, silent and deserted. The bailiff, a gentleman who, if ever he is accused of crime, will not find his face plead for him much, broke open the door and began to throw out the furniture on the heap before the door. Here are the items: One iron pot, one rusty tin pail, two delf bowls,--I noticed them particularly, for they rolled down the dungheap on the side where I stood,--one rheumatic chest, one rickety table, one armful of disreputable straw, and one ragged coverlet. This was supposed to be the bed, for I saw no bedstead; there was no chair, no stool, or seat of any kind. The sub-sheriff with the bailiff's assistance fastened the door with a padlock. He handed the agent a tuft of grass as giving him possession, and the eviction was over. The agent--a large-featured man--seemed undecided as to whether he would view the transaction in a humorous light or as a scene where he was chief sufferer. He came forward and offered some rambling remarks addressed to nobody in particular. He drew our attention to the condition of the roof which needed renewing, to the fields that were uncropped. This was certainly shiftless, but when he mentioned that the man had gone to England "in the scarcity" to look for work, and was lying sick in an English hospital, we did not see how he could help it. He told us how bad the man was; how he pitied his wife, who was, he said, worse than himself. She was not present, being from home when her poor furniture was pitched out. He lamented over the fact that this man had sent him nothing of his wages, while another man had sent him as much as thirty pounds. He then went into details of these evicted tenant's married life; how his wife and he lived, and how they agreed; and rambled off into general philosophic remarks rather disagreeable and nasty. No one seemed to pay any attention, although he looked from one to another for an answering smile of appreciation to his funny attempts to justify himself and amuse his hearers. Some one asked him how much rent was due; he said ten or eleven years. Two years were due, as we found by the law papers on returning to Ballina. He then made an attack on the poor men standing there, asking why they were not at home working, and telling them what they should be doing. While he lectured these men in a joking voice, he turned his eye from one to another of those present as if he were seeking for applause. These men, not heeding the agent, were presenting a petition to the sub- sheriff. I drew near to learn what it was. They were thin, listless looking witted men. One could not help wondering when they had last eaten a square meal. Half-starved in look, wretched in clothing, stood like criminals awaiting sentence, with dreadfully eager eyes and parched lips that would not draw together over their teeth, before the plump rosy sub-sheriff. They asked for some meal on credit which the sub- sheriff refused. I asked them if they owed any rent. No, they did not owe a penny of rent, they said. Remember there was only one harvest between them and the famine year. They had also put in the crops in their little holdings, they said, "but as God lives we have neither bite nor sup to keep us till harvest time." The sub-sheriff asked why they did not go to a certain dealer. They said the terms were so hard that they could never pay him. "How much would keep you till the crops come in," he asked. Two hundred of Indian meal for each they said. Finally he promised them one hundred each on credit, even if he had to pay it out of his own pocket. "That is what you will have to do," said the agent. We left and drove home. We saw the police, hot and tired, march past to their barracks after our return. These men had a long march, loaded down with arms to protect the bailiff, the stalwart agent, the rosy sub- sheriff from a crowd of five hunger-bitten peaceable men and three ragged women. The whole crowd might have been put to flight by any one of the three with one hand tied behind him. I forgot to mention that the agent offered to one of the women there all the tenant's poor things that were thrown out, which was an honest and honorable proceeding on his part, and very generous. XXXIII. A SEVERE CRITICISM JUSTIFIED--PROCESS SERVING BY THE AID OF THE POLICE-- THE WHITE HORSE OF MAYO--PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP. I am glad to see by the papers that the state of the workhouse at Manor Hamilton has been censured by the doctors, and deliberated about at a meeting of guardians. It is certainly the worst conducted workhouse I have seen as yet in Ireland, and it says with a loud voice, woe to the poor who enter here. It was told me on this twenty-seventh day of May that if I really wanted to see a disturbance a serious collision was apprehended between the constabulary and the people, at some distance from Ballina. I have been led to distrust the accounts of disturbances that appear in the papers, or at least to admit them with caution. I was assured that now at least I should see the wild men of Mayo, for they had assaulted the process server and stripped him of his clothing, taking his processes from him, some days before, and they would be out in thousands this day to oppose the serving of the processes. Got a car, as travelling companion the local editor, and driven by a knowledgable man, followed in the wake of the police, seventy of them, toward the scene of the disturbance to be. The police had one hour the start of us. It was a dim day of clouds and watery blinks of sunshine. As we drove along all historical spots were pointed out to me, being a stranger, with great politeness. A place on the road where the French had surged up from Killala and met and fought with the English, was pointed out to me. "Here they were defeated, thim French." We passed the place where lived from colthood to glory the celebrated white horse of Mayo, the "Girraun Bawn." This horse, a racer, "bate" all Ireland in his day, and was ridden without a saddle or bridle. Mayo was very proud of this racing steed, so much so that when horses were seized and impounded for the county cess, a farmer who had received his mare back again, considering that it would be a disgrace if the king of horses were left in the pound, returned to Castle Connor to the pound, left his own horse there and released "Rie Girraun." This celebrated horse was stolen it appears. After some time a troop of dragoons were quartered in Mayo, whose commanding officer rode a horse suspiciously like "Rie Girraun." The servant man who had ridden and cared for the white horse of Mayo recognized the horse and drew inconveniently near to the soldiers on parade to make sure whether it was "Rie Girraun" or not. The officer, annoyed at the man intruding where he was not wanted, asked him what business he had there. He said, "The horse your honor rides was stolen from this place, and I was looking at him to be sure. He is the famous white horse of Mayo." He was asked to prove it, which he undertook to do if the officer would alight, which he did. The peasant, then, hidden behind a stone ditch, called to the horse in Irish, asking him if he would have a glass of whiskey. The horse had been accustomed to get this when he had won a race, and knew the taste of poteen. He pricked up his ears and galloped round, looking for the voice. On the words being repeated two or three times, he vaulted over the stone wall and came to his old friend hidden behind. The officer would not part with the horse, but he paid liberally for him--so it seems the white horse of Mayo ended his days in the service of royalty. The grandson of the possessor of the white horse was the other day fined L6 for possessing poteen, and was unable to pay it. Listening to these stories we came up with the police, who had alighted from their cars and were going through their exercise preliminary to a march. We made our way through the cars, our driver chaffing a little with the drivers of the other cars. Just opposite where the police left the cars was the most utterly wretched house that I had yet seen. A large family of ragged people gathered at the door, looking to be in anything but fighting trim. We drove slowly, the police marched quickly, until we saw them take to the fields, when we alighted per force and followed them. A slim, fair-haired woman, with her arms bare and her feet and legs in the same classic condition under her short dilapidated skirts, began to make some eloquent remarks. If there had been a thousand or two like her I do think the seventy police would have had hard work to protect the bailiff. One of our company, a gentleman, remarked to her that she had a fine arm of her own. "Troth, sir," said she, "If I was as well fed as yourself it's finer it would be." We agreed with this gentleman that if this woman was fed and clothed like other people she would certainly be a fine-looking person. She drew near to enquire if we were in any way connected with the police. Her enquiries were especially directed to myself. She was told that I was an American lady, and a few faces that scowled were smoothed into smiles immediately. There were by this time four women and half a dozen boys present. No one spoke above their breath but our woman of bare arms. In answer to something addressed to her by our party, she said, "Sure they could not take a better time than seed time to droive us out of our senses. Sure God above has an eye and an ear for it. Look here," she said, throwing out her handsome bare arm, "look at the bare fields lying waste because the seed cannot be got to put in the ground; they're cryin' up to God against it. The cratures here have not enough yellow male to keep the hunger off. If they had waited till harvest there would be a color of justice to it." This woman had all the talking to herself, no one else had anything to say. She herself was not among those against whom the processes were served. We saw the process server leave the ranks of the police and walk down to a wretched little cabin and return in a few moments. The order to march was given, and the police tramped along to the next house, a bit off the road. Two or three little children were in the field, apparently herding cattle. The least one said to his brother in an accent of terror, "Jimsey, Jimsey, the war is come at last." Along the road, tramp, tramp, off the road through the bogs, every house called at seeming worse than the last. A rumor had been running along before us--ever before us--of an Amazonian army with pitchforks, tongs and the hooks used for drawing the sea weed ashore, armed and ready, some three hundred strong, waiting for the police. We never came up to this army or caught a sight of their rags. Crossing a field we were told of a merciful lady, a Mrs. Major Jones, who gave them seed potatoes and trusted them with meal when they had nothing to eat. As the police halted before some houses we heard the muttered exclamations of the few women near, "Eagh! eagh! oh, Lord, and them in need of charity!" Well, we never came up with the army of women. The processes were not all served, for some of the houses were empty, and there was no one on whom to serve them; we turned our steps, or our horses rather, homeward to Ballina, the boys calling out in compliment to America, "Three cheers for the noble lady," as we drove off. The threatened rain came on and came down heavily and we got our share of it before we got under shelter. An elderly gentleman was introduced to me at Ballina who had had a very great opportunity of noticing the working of the law and the struggles of the people. He admitted to me that some might possibly have paid some rent before the agitation began, but kept it back hoping for a permanent reduction, and then when they had it by them had used it for living, and now had nothing to meet the rent with. He said, however, that the most part had not recovered from the effects of the scarcity sufficiently to be able to pay up arrears-- or, indeed, to pay anything on arrears. We conversed a little about peasant proprietorship. He instanced the case of two persons who had become owners of church land, one of eight acres, another of sixteen. He spoke of the prosperity that had crowned their labors ever since hope came to them and they had something to struggle for. He said they came now decently clad to church and market. He had been in their houses and noticed as much as two flitches of bacon hanging in the chimney. One of them owned a team of horses. A man with a team of horses on his farm is in a different position from a man with only an ass and creels. Absolutely, said he, the man has devoted a portion of his land to apple trees. It was a touching thing to see the earnestness with which this man spoke of these great evidences of prosperity--horses to work the farm, two flitches of bacon and planting apple trees. In Mayo, in two instances, I have seen a corner left untilled in a field. As there was an ass in one, and a goat browsing in the other, I do not know but what it was the best thing they could do to leave them untilled. I may as well mention that the wretched people on whom the processes were served lived in Sligo, and the landlords who were pursuing them, as it were between the hay and the grass, were Sligo landlords, of those whom I heard praised so highly in Sligo town. Round Ballina, as round Sligo, there are few tenants on the land near the town; it has gone to grass and has cows instead of tenants. Sir Charles Gore's demesne and residence is very fine, and, as he seems to have a blessing with it, long may he enjoy his good things. XXXIV. THE LAND OF FLAMES--A RELIC WITH A HISTORY--CATTLE VS. MEN--THE MEETING OF EXTREMES--"PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE." Was invited by a friend to visit Rappa Castle to see a celebrated vessel which once belonged to Saint Tighernain, the saint who belongs more especially to the west and the clock which was removed from Moyne Abbey when it was dismantled. This vessel, belonging to the saint called Mias Tighernain--which I would freely translate as meaning Tighernain's own--has been used until of late years, when the clergy interposed and forbid it, for the discovery of stolen goods. Any one swearing falsely on the Mias Tighernain was sure to come to grief. People swearing falsely on the Bible have been known to escape visible consequences. Our car driver, a not very old man at all, told us he was present himself when a numerous household were brought together to be sworn on the Mias Tighernain for the discovery of a large sum of money which had been stolen. The thief was discovered but money was not. It is very pleasant to drive along through the fair but tenantless lands that surround Ballina. The county of Mayo is beautifully diversified by mountain and valley, wood and water, glen and stream. The tall hedges of white thorn in their bridal white perfume the air. Myriads of primroses smile at the passer-by from sunny banks. Small golden blossoms, like whin blossoms, cluster thickly here and there, and the starry-eyed daisies, white and sweet with blushes edged, lift their modest faces to the sky. Even the bog waste is nodding all over with a cotton flower, white as a snowflake; they call it _ceanabhan_ in Irish, and the peasantry use it as a comparison when praising the white arms and bosoms of the Mayo maidens. Surely one might say this bright May morning with Tim, "Glory be to God, but it is a purty world!" When we crossed the boundaries, passed the lodge gates into the demesne lying around Rappa Castle, the residence of Captain Knox, there was a change to still greater beauty. Money will build a grand and stately home in the fair proportions of a castle, but money has to run in the blood for centuries to produce a scene like this. Broad lands swelling and sinking like an emerald sea, trees that stand out singly wrap themselves in aristocratic leafiness, spreading their magnificent arms toward you, saying, "Look at me! I am not of yesterday; the dews of heaven, the fatness of the earth, the leisure of centuries, fanned by breezes, tended by culture, have made me what I am, a 'thing of beauty' to gladden your eyes." They stand in groups upon the slopes and whisper this to one another; they open their ranks to give you delicious glimpses into further away "spots of delight:" they are drawn up in ranks shading mysterious walks that lead away into the grand dim woods. They distract you and bother you with their loveliness till you wish that the English language had a bushel more adjectives. Rappa Castle where we arrived with a beggarly feeling of having exhausted our adjectives is a large comfortable building not very much like one's idea of a castle. We drove up to the rear entrance--it is always prudent to take the lowest room--and waited on the car while a messenger was despatched with our request. Presently the messenger came back with directions to us to drive round to the hall door. We were received by a respectable servant in plain dark clothes, who looked like a minister or a mild edition of a churchwarden. He ushered us from the entrance hall--a comfortably furnished apartment--across a second, into the crowning glories of a third, where we were requested to wait till Captain Knox made his appearance, which was not a long time. The owner of Rappa Castle, a landlord against whom nothing in the way of blame is said, was assuredly of as much interest to us as the relics which his house possessed. A tall, fine looking, kindly faced man, rosy with health, courteous and pleasant, came into the room. We told our errand and the Captain went for the Mias Tighernain and placed it in our hands. It is evidently only part of the original dish, the socket where the upper part rested being still there. It is very heavy, formed of three layers of thin bronze bound at the edge with brass--evidently a later thought, and done for preservation. There are three bands of silver across it, which show the remains of rich figuring. There was originally a setting of three stones, one of which still remains and looks as if it might be amber. It is as large as a soup plate. Something is among the layers of metal which rattles when shaken. It is one of the oldest relics in the country. Whoever made it had no mean skill in the art of working metals. According to a certain Father Walsh it was used to wash the saint's hands in at mass. This dish, after lying at the bottom of Lough Conn for a hundred years, came up to the surface and revealed itself. It has been used as a revealer of secrets ever since it came into the hands of the Knox family. We requested afterwards to see the clock of Moyne Abbey, and were taken by the courteous captain across other rooms to the flagged kitchen, where the clock ticked as it has done for three hundred years--or since the Abbey was dismantled, how long before history hath not recorded. The case is of some dark wood beautifully carved. I thought it was bog oak; Captain Knox said mahogany, which would make the case to be much younger than the clock. The Captain assured us that it was the best time-keeper in the world. It only requires winding once a month; used to show the day of the month, but some meddler disarranged that part of the machinery. The dial plate is of some white metal, brilliant and silvery. Captain Knox said it was brass, but I have seen things look more brazen that were not so old. Nothing could exceed the courtesy of Captain Knox. He made some enquiries about Canada, and deplored the rush of cattle across, which was injurious to the interests of graziers, of whom he was one. It would have been discourteous to express the wish that lay in my mind, that they might come in such numbers as to lower the price of cows and grazing also till the poor man might be able to have a cow oftener and milk to his "yellow male" stir-about till it might be not quite so impossible to replace the cow seized for the rent and the County cess. I saw a trial in the papers lately of a woman who was in bed, in her shake-down, when she became aware that the cow--the only cow--was taking a lawful departure. Up she got, in the same trim as that in which Nannie danced in Kirk Alloway, and by the might of her arm rescued the cow. She was condemned to jail, but one's sympathies go with the law breakers here often. At least mine do. I did sympathize with this woman of one cow and a large family. Why should any one have power lawfully, to "lift" the only cow from half-starved children. The defence for this woman was that through trouble she did not know what she was doing. It was a mean, paltry defence; she did know that she wanted to keep her cow, and the law should be altered to enable her to do so. The law that enables men of means to strip these poor wretches of everything that stands between them and their little children and starvation, is a monstrous law for Christians to devise and execute, and is worse for the rich and for the executive of the law than even for the sufferers. All these things flashed through my mind as we conversed with Captain Knox. On leaving Rappa Castle we paused a little on the doorsteps to take one more look at the beauty of the grounds. I wish I had words to convey to others a little of the delight which the scene gave to me. The trees, branched down almost to the ground, have gotten themselves into so many graceful attitudes. The bending thick-leaved branches look like green drapery, the larch flings its tassels down in long pendants fluttering in the breeze, the spruce and balsam--they are a little unlike ours of the same name, but I do not know any other names for them--rise in pyramids of dark green tipped with sunny light green, the cedars fling their great arms about cloaked with rich foliage, the laburnums shake out their golden ringlets and tremble under the weight of their beauty, the copper beeches stand proudly on an eminence where every graceful spray shows against a background of blue sky. There are vistas opening among the trees giving glimpses of the brightest green and dashes of waters like bits of captured sky. I gave a glance at the owner, tall and stately, with ruddy, pleasant face and kind blue eye, and acknowledged that he looked every inch an English squire. With many thanks for his kindness we took our departure. Were glad to hear from both friend and car driver that nothing of cruelty and oppression could be laid to the charge of this man. As I stood beside him at his own door, drawing all of the beauty I could into my soul through my eyes to carry away with me, I thought if I were born into that place with its associations, could I, would I mar any corner of it to make a homestead for starving Thady, ragged Biddy, and the too numerous children? Who knows what transformation might lie in the pride and power of possession! There was a single laborer working before the castle raking up the gravel walk, I think. "I would he were fatter!" If he were only in as good condition as the beautiful dogs of superior breed which we saw in the castle yard; but the dogs are fed at the expense of the proprietor of this fair domain, the thin laborer at his own. We returned by another way. After we left the grounds we noticed with sad eyes the miserable cabins and barren fields at his gates. People of the upper, middle and comfortable classes are so used to horrible cabins, thin laborers, old women, barefoot, toothless, ragged and wretched, begging by the wayside to keep out of the dreaded workhouse, that the sight makes not the slightest impression. People tell me over and over again that they deserve their poverty, for it is the result of extravagance and drunkenness. This assertion makes one stare and then consider whose faces show the greater evidence of the action of different liquors. It would be an easy matter in a national gathering to pick out the class and the strata of society that is the support of the liquor traffic in Ireland. XXXV. WORKHOUSES--THE POOR LAW--A REASONABLE SUSPECT. Returning from Rappa Castle we must pass the Ballina workhouse. My friend had business there. As it was Board day, and I had about an hour to spare, I thought I would look in and see what I thought of it in the light of a possible refuge for many evicted ones. There were some wretched looking people, applicants for out-door relief, waiting about the entrance when we went in. I have been informed and have seen it confirmed in newspaper reports of the proceedings of Boards of Guardians, that it is a rule of universal application by every means possible to discourage out-door relief in every form. "Let the poor come into the union altogether," is the spirit that actuates the Boards of Guardians, so it was pointed out to me that these applicants for out- door relief had small chance of success. It was a Board day, and the master of the house, a polite little man, apologized profusely for not accompanying me over the building. He deputed the schoolmaster of the establishment to show me through in his place. I followed the Ballina Schoolmaster of the Union from the entrance along the gravel walk bordered with flowers to the house proper, and into the refectory or eating room. One does not want in every workhouse to look at the same things, when they see they are the same as in the last. I noticed the set of printed rules hung up on a card and lifting it down sat down to read the rules contained on it. They were very strict, and conceived in such a spirit that a naturally tyrannical man could make a pauper's life a very miserable burden to him. After I read these rules I questioned the schoolmaster, a very nice person, as to the administration of this workhouse. He casually mentioned that able-bodied paupers only got two meals in the day. This was such a surprising statement to me that I said, "Your workhouse then is harder to the poor inmates than the workhouses elsewhere. I have made enquiry in several places as to the diet given, and they invariably told me of three meals, mentioning also that they had meat allowed them three times per week."--They have given you "the infirmary diet," said the schoolmaster, gravely. We conversed a little while on this subject, and as I was to go by train to Castlebar, fearing my time was too short, I did not penetrate into the workhouse any further. Coming out we encountered the doctor, a very courteous person. Hoping to get further information, confirmatory or contradictory of this most astounding piece of news respecting the food allowance, I referred to it before the doctor, who qualified the statement by informing me that if actually engaged at work for the house they were allowed a third meal. I was thoroughly surprised at this. The conviction forced itself upon me, that the poor having taken refuge in the house from actual starvation, the house considered itself justified in keeping them on short commons ever after. As I left the building feeling very sad over this information, I could not help wishing that these creatures, guilty of the crime of poverty, had the nourishing fare given to the criminals in our common gaol at Pembroke on the Ottawa. Now the workhouses are by no means crowded; the Ballina workhouse, for instance is empty enough to afford a wing as a temporary barracks for some military. I have been told by what I consider good authority, that for every shilling levied of the distressingly great poor rate eightpence is needed to pay the administrative officials. While thinking of these things, I take up the Castlebar local paper and notice in the report of the proceedings of the Board of Guardians, that a doctor not attending to his duty through being "in a state of health not compatible with much exposure to rough weather or country professional work," was to be allowed for a still greater length of time a substitute at three guineas per week. During the debate on this motion a member reminded the Board that last year they paid L54 for substitute work for one official on the plea of ill- health; another complained that sums of L50 were voted to officials, while paupers were denied shillings of out-door relief. Still another complained that the auditors would disallow the relief given to cases which require relief, while they never disallow sums paid incurred by leave of absence of officials. The whole administration of the poor law is complained of pretty universally in this style. The poor rate is excessively high, the administration very expensive, and the economy is practised where it is least needed, is the complaint I hear again and yet again. At the station a great crowd and a rather excited one was assembled. A Mr. Moffany had been arrested as a reasonable suspect, and was to be taken to Kilmainham. The man who was arrested was a small, sickly- looking, by no means interesting specimen of humanity, slightly lame. He was in some sort of shop-keeping business. The crowd on the platform was dense and composed mostly of the poorer class, who were enthusiastic enough for anything. The policemen in charge, civilly and politely, with no fuss or force, got their suspect into a second class carriage and got in beside him. The suspect put his head out of the window and addressed the crowd, expressing his willingness to suffer for the good cause, and said he was not likely to come out of the prison alive owing to his state of health. He advised them to be law-abiding and to go home quietly. Oh, the cheering there was; the endeavors to get near enough to shake him by the hand; the surging to and fro of the crowd, the half-crying hurrahs of the women; the waving of handkerchiefs and caps was something to be remembered. As the train moved off slowly the people ran alongside cheering themselves hoarse, shouting words of encouragement and blessing, of hope and farewell till the train quickened its speed and left them behind. XXXVI. DEPARTURE OF EMIGRANTS--TURLOUGH--THE FITZGERALDS--FISH--THE ROYAL IRISH WATCHDOGS. The day on which I had to return to Sligo from Castlebar an immense crowd was gathered at the station, and I wondered what was the matter. It was a gathering to see emigrants start for America. The emigrants took the parting hard. If they had been going to instant execution they could not have felt worse. Three young girls of the party had cried until their faces were swollen out of shape. The crowd outside wept and wailed; some clasped their hands over their heads with an upward look to heaven, some pressed them on their hearts, some rocked and moaned, some prayed aloud--not set prayers, but impromptu utterances wrung out by grief. The agony was so infectious that before I knew what I was about I was crying for sympathy. I was not to say sorry for them, for I knew the fine, healthy, strong girls were likely to have a better chance to help their parents from the other side of the water than here, and the young men might make their mark in the new world and make something of themselves over there. Still it was hard to witness the agony of their parting without tears. When the carriage moved off, the cry "O Lord!" with which the passengers started to their feet and the relatives outside flung up their hands, was the most affecting sound I ever heard. It was a wail as if every heart-string was torn. A countryman explained to me that the Irish were a people that wept tears out of their hearts till they wept their hearts away. By the conversation of the emigrants, I found that one girl had turned back. "She failed on us, my lady," said her comrade. "Her heart gave up when she saw the mother of her in a dead faint and she turned back. One has but the one mother and it is hard to kill her with the bitter grief of parting before the time." People who have travelled much, and are loosely tied to any spot on earth, ridicule the affection of these mountain people for their cabin among the hills, but love of home is a glorious instinct, and if the country of these people could afford them a little bit of the soil for a home--liberty to live and toil--they would be both loving and loyal. All the poor want is permission to live in a corner of their own country. Castlebar is reached by rail. The station is a little out of town. Castlebar is the first town where my few belongings were fought for. The victor in the strife was a most determined old man. I thought he had a car, but he had only his sturdy old legs. He shouldered my big bag, little bag and bandbox and trudged off. I ventured to ask him had he not a car. "Sorra a car, miss. After all your sitting in the cars sure it will do you all the good in life to walk a bit." They think to flatter elderly women by calling them Miss individually. I had an introduction to a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary in Castlebar. He was son to a gentleman who was kind enough to claim kindred with me in Antrim. When I alighted from the cars I noticed a sub-constable with quiet face taking note of all arrivals, and saw that he was good enough looking to be an Antrim man. Found I was right and entered Castlebar protected by a member of the force. Paid the victorious old heathen who had walked off with my luggage the price of a car, partly for his bravery and partly for his impudence. The approach to Castlebar from the station, about a mile, is bounded on one side by Lord Lucan's demesne, shut in behind a high wall, over which the tall trees wave their arms at you. Another domain, Spencer Park, I think, is on the other side, and as it is only shut in by a hedge, one gets delicious peeps at it as one goes along. Went, with my new acquaintance, who got leave and put on plain clothes for the occasion, to the small Presbyterian Church in Castlebar. There were about a dozen present. Presbyterianism does not, as a rule, flourish in Mayo, though there are a good many small congregations and many mission schools. My friend of "the force" got leave of absence for a day and having got into plain clothes drove with me to Pontoon Bridge between Lough Conn and Lough Cullin. As we passed the poor-house he told me of the awful crush that took place round its doors, where the relief was served during the scarcity. The press and struggle of the hungry creatures were so dreadful that no serving could be attempted for some days. I could not help pitying the force standing in mud ankle-deep trying to beat back the frantic people, to make serving the relief possible. But, oh! the despair of the people who had to go and come again because the press was so great. It seemed to a civilian like me that the matter was badly planned and by heartless people, or two or even three places would have been appointed for the distribution of the relief and not send them home without. I often wonder if I am too tender-hearted, too easily moved. The want of feeling toward the very poor strikes me forcibly wherever I turn. I think that it was not so to such a perceptible degree before the poor-houses were built. I solemnly think the Poor Law system educates people into hardness of heart. The road out from Castlebar was very beautiful but thinly populated. All gone to grass near the town, hardly any cottages at all. Our first visit was to Turlough where there is a round tower with an iron gate quite close to the ground. The other two which I had seen before at Devinish and at Killala had their doors about eleven feet from the ground. The top of this round tower was broken and it had been mended by the Government. There is a story among the peasantry to the effect that it never had been finished at all. They say it was the work of the celebrated _Gobhan saer_, an architect who seems to have had a hand in every ancient building almost. The finishing of the rounded top of this tower was done by an apprentice who was likely to rival his great master. He, in a sudden fit of jealousy, before it was quite finished pulled away the scaffolding and the too clever apprentice was killed. There is a ruined abbey adjoining the round tower. It is roofless and open, yet still an iron gate opens from one part to another. Here in this abbey has been the burying-place of many of the sept of the Fitzgeralds, and it was interesting to pass from tablet to tablet and read of the greatness that had returned to dust. The most remarkable dust which moulders here is the celebrated George Robert Fitzgerald, a man who was handsome, well educated, who had spent much of his time at the French Court. In Ireland he felt himself as absolute as King Louis (le petit grand). In pursuance of a private feud he arrested his enemy, and with a slight color of law murdered him. The act was too glaring, he was tried and to his great surprise hung. The rope broke twice, and the country people believe that the breaking of the rope gave him a right to a pardon. They tell me that the sheriff, a personal enemy, in spite of the signs and tokens of the breaking ropes, hung him while he had a reprieve in his pocket. There is a kind of Rob Royish flavor about the memory of this man in the country side. Continued our drive to Pontoon. As soon as the land became rugged, boggy and comparatively worthless the tenant houses became more plentiful. Saw some sheep about, which is always a cheering sign amid the utter poverty of the people. On the way to Pontoon, on the top of a rock stands one of the famous rocking stones of the Druidical time in Ireland. A party of soldiers in their boisterous play determined to roll it down from the rock. This they were unable to do, easy as the matter looked, but they destroyed the delicate poise of it, and it rocks no more. The rocks become bolder and the scenery wilder as you come to the shores of Lough Conn. Lough Cullen, or lower Lough Conn, has bare round- shouldered rocks sleeping round it, reminding one of the rocks on the Ottawa about the Oiseau. The Neiphin Mountain towers up among the rocks far above them all, looking over their heads into the lake. Lough Conn is three miles long, and in its widest place three miles wide. Where the upper and lower lakes meet it is narrow as a river, and over this the bridge is placed. The marvel here is that a strong current sets in from Lough Conn to Lough Cullen half the time, and then turns and sets from Lough Cullen to Lough Conn. The bridge is called Pontoon because a bridge of boats was made here at the time of the French invasion. Saw some fishermen fishing in the lakes. There were many boats here and there lying on the sandy shore, or anchored out in the lake. These fishermen had no boats; they had waded out waist-deep, and stood fishing in the water dressed in their shirts. As the fishing is strictly monopolized, I should not wonder if these breekless, boatless fishermen were poaching. The quantum of fish in the waters, the scarcity of fish on the shore is often referred to as a proof of the people's laziness. The fishing is so severely monopolized that fish diet and fishing are to the people almost lost arts. I heard of the delicious oysters found on the coast, but one would require to go to England or Dublin to test their flavor. Lobsters could be purchased in their season at Montreal, but not at the seaports in Mayo. I asked for a bit of fish at Castlebar, where I remained some time, and once succeeded in buying a small herring, for which I paid 2 1/2 pence. To return to Pontoon; we stood on the bridge in the sunlight and drank in the scene--broad blue waters, spotted with islands, guarded by the munitions of rocks, watched over by the eternal mountains, bald and wrinkled, every wrinkle scored deep on their brows, heather on the cliffs, ivy creeping some places, ferns waving their delicate fronds in another; bare, desolate grandeur here, tree-crowned hill tops waving their magnificence before you there. This was the scene spread out on either hand. We came back over the bridge to the police barracks, sitting on a rock with its back to a grove of trees, and reached by a flight of stone steps. I was introduced to the sergeant in charge, a fine specimen of the Donegal men. Tall and straight, strong and kindly are the men of Donegal. The sergeant took us to a hill back of the barracks where was a very lonely vale surrounded by steep hills wooded to the top. Down the perpendicular sides of this hill a waterfall dashes in the rainy seasons, but it was only a tinkling splash at this time. The sergeant and I had some conversation about Donegal, and of course Lord Leitrim. This noblemen has graven his name with an iron pen and lead on the rocks for ever. We bade adieu to the kindly sergeant and drove back to Castlebar in the quiet evening. Opposite the Turlough round tower is the charming residence of a Fitzgerald, one of the race whose dust moulders in an aristocratic manner in the ruined abbey of Turlough. This gentleman, not thinking himself safe even under protection, has left the country. Only fancy a squad of police marching from their barracks in the dusk, five or ten miles as the case may be, pacing round a gentleman's house in rain or snow, sleet or hail, no shelter for their coercion heads, no fire at which to warm their protecting fingers; pace about from dusk till dawning, march back to barracks and to a few hours' rest. I was silly enough to suppose that the protected family would provide a bowl of hot coffee for their protectors through the silent watches of the night, or a glass of the handier and very popular whiskey, but dear, oh no! the most of them would not acknowledge the existence of the Royal Irish protectors with a word or a nod no more than if they were watch dogs. XXXVII. CASTLEBAR--WASTING THE LAND--CASTLE BOURKE--BALLINTUBBER ABBEY. Castlebar is not a large town at all. It is, like all other towns which I have yet seen in Ireland, swarming with houses licensed to sell liquors of different kinds to be drunk on the premises. In one street I noticed on the side of the car on which I sat every house for quite a little distance was a licensed whiskey shop. The country people bring in ass-loads of what they have to sell. Very few horses are to be seen in the hands of country people. Their trading is on a decidedly small scale. The number of women who attend market barefoot is the large majority. The ancient blue cloth cloak is the prevailing hap. Upon a day my friend and I went out to see the glories of Ballintubber Abbey. It was not possible for him to go in plain clothes so soon again; so I had the appearance of an obnoxious lady of the land, protected by a member of the force. We drove out of Castlebar some seven or eight miles in the opposite direction from where Pontoon Bridge lies. Our road lay for miles through the country wasted of inhabitants by the Marquis of Sligo after the great famine. Here and there a ruin where a cabin has been speaks that it was once inhabited. The people tell that Lord Sligo's people were rented the land in common by the settlement. All but two of one settlement had paid; as those two could not pay, the whole were evicted. My informant thought the settlement deserved eviction when they did not subscribe and pay for the two who could not pay. He never seemed to think they might not be able to do so, nor that it was cruel to evict all for the sake of two. Lord Lucan made a great wasting also at that time. Between the land near the town devoted to private demesnes, laid out for glory and beauty, and the lands wasted of inhabitants, you can travel miles and miles on more than one side of Castlebar and see scarcely a tenant; a herd's cabin, a police station, being the only houses. As soon as we come to barren land over-run with stones, tenant houses become thicker. We passed a cabin of indescribable wretchedness; a woman who might have sat for a picture of famine stood at the door looking at us as we passed. She had a number of little children, of the raggedest they were, around her. Some time ago the father of these scarecrows was suspected of having stolen some money, and a posse of the much enduring police were sent out to search in the dead of the night. The family were in bed. The bed was a few boards laid on stones, on which was spread a little green hay, and among the loose hay they slept. The terror of the little creatures pulled out of bed, while the wretched lair was searched and they stood on the floor naked and shivering, was described to me by one who assisted at the search. The bed was overturned, but the money was not found. We drove on through the "stony streak" out to a clearer grass country to Castle Bourke, a lonely looking ruin sitting among her own desolations. It once covered a great deal of land, and there is evidence of additions having been made to it at different times. This Castle Bourke was one of the castles of the Queen of the West, the celebrated Grace O'Malley. This castle is one of those given to Grace by her husband of a year, Sir Richard Bourke. There are still the remains of three buildings; one, said to be the prison, was loopholed through the solid stone, some loopholes being quite close to the ground, some straight through, some slanting, so as to cover a man come from what direction he might, or what height soever, even if he crept on the ground. Most of the castle, as well as these buildings attached, had their roof on the floor, but in the square tower of the castle proper still remains a stone staircase of the circular kind. As you go up this stair lit by narrow slits in the wall formed in hewn stone you find an arched door at three different places admitting to three arched galleries roofed and floored with stone. These have their loophole slits to peep out of, or fire out of, stone spouts through which molten lead or boiling water could be poured on the besiegers. In one gallery a trap door let down to an underground passage which came out at the lake some distance off. By this they could send a messenger to raise the O'Malley clans, or by it could escape if necessary. The goats of Mayo are inquisitive, and would persist in climbing the circular stair and exploring the galleries. Whenever they found this secret passage, for pure mischief they fell down and were killed, to the great loss of their owners; so the secret passage is filled up, for which I was very sorry. We must take our car again and rattle back over the road to Ballintubber Abbey. Ballintobar (town of the well) near this was one of the sacred wells of St. Patrick. The abbey gates were locked, and it was some time before the key was forthcoming. The church part of the abbey is entire except the roof and the lofty bell tower. The arch that supported the tower was forty-five feet in height, but I do not know how high the tower was which it supported. At last the key was found and we were admitted into the church. The chancel is still roofed, and here in these solemn ruins, watched over by the crows and the jackdaws, the few inhabitants still left assemble for mass. There is a rude wooden altar and a few pine benches; the ivy waves from the walls; the jackdaws caw querulously or derisively; the dead of the old race for centuries sleep underneath, and now in a chancel the remnant gather on a Sabbath. I cannot describe it as an architect or antiquarian, and these classes know all about it better than I do, but I want to convey as far as I can the impression it made upon me to others as delightfully ignorant on the subject. The roof is made in the same way as all arched roofs of old castles which I have yet seen, of thin stones laid edge-wise to form the arch and cemented together. The country people tell me that a frame of wood was made over which they formed the arch and then poured among the stones thin mortar boiling hot. On the inside of the arch run along ribs of hewn stone cemented into their places, running up to meet in a carved point at the extreme top. These groinings spring from short pillars of hewn stone that only reach part way down the wall to the floor and run to a point. These consoles are highly ornamented with sculpture. The mouldings round the doors, and the stone window frames and sashes, are wonderfully well done, and would highly ornament a church of the nineteenth century. I think we undervalue the civilization of the far past of Connaught. Those who erected such churches, such abbeys and such castles were both intelligent and possessed of wealth in no small degree. The ingenuity of the cut stone hinge on the stone that closes the tomb in the chancel, the carving on the tomb of the Prince of the O'Connor line, the staunch solidness of every wall, the immense strength of every arched roof, show skilled builders, whether they worked under the direction, of the Gobhan Saer or another man. The plans of the castles, for offence, defence or escape, show them to have been built by men of skill for men of large means and great power. XXXVIII. OVER-POPULATION OF THE WEST--HOW PEOPLE FORM THEIR OPINIONS--MR. SMITHWICK AND JONATHAN PYM--A DEARTH OF FISH. Left Castlebar with regret and went down to Westport. I find at every step since I landed the information that in going round Ireland I should have begun at Dublin. In Dublin I could have procured a guide book. I have sought for one in every considerable town from Belfast round to the edge of Galway without obtaining it. If I had started from Dublin I should have taken a tourist's ticket there. Well, I am not sorry for that, for it is rather hard on me when I get into the beaten track where I encounter tourists--some of them are trying specimens of humanity. However, I am made to feel as if I was patting the wrong foot, instead of the best foot foremost. I got into Westport in the fair sunlight in the early part of June. Between Castlebar and Westport the land is part stony, part bog, part better land under grass. Mountains with hard names, that one makes haste to forget, are to be seen all round from whatever side of the car you look. They are all over--a good deal over--one thousand feet high. A few lakes are spread out here and there also. I am as ignorant of their names as of those of the lakes I saw crossing Maine. Westport, like Castlebar, has a mall. Castlebar mall is a square of grass with some trees drawn up on one side. It is fenced in with chains looped up on posts--a fence that nobody minds except to step over and they track the grass with paths running in every direction. Westport's mall is a long space with trees standing sentry by a river, walled in as if it were a canal. I had a wish to meet with a Mr. Smithwick, a land agent, from whom I might receive a good deal of information. I had information from himself that he should be at Newport upon the day after I arrived at Westport. I fought successfully against myself, and got up at an uncomfortably early hour and went to Newport by mail car. Newport, Mayo, is six Irish--seven and a half English--miles from Westport and is at the head of Clew Bay. The road lies through a nice rolling country, entirely desolate and empty. The only passenger by the car besides myself, was a gentleman, English I presume, who, after he became tired of silence, began a conversation with me, taking for his subject the over-population of the West. I looked to the side of the car where we sat--it was a country of fine grassy hills with not one wreath of smoke curling up from a solitary chimney as far as the eye could reach. I leaned over the well of the car and looked to the other side--to the limit of the horizon, behold, the land was empty of house or home or human being. I looked over the horses' ears--there was the same scene of utter desolation. I turned round with difficulty and looked behind us--saw the same grassy hills swelling up in green silence without man or beast. I said softly, "Lift up thine eyes, sir stranger, and look northward and southward, eastward and westward. Is not the land desolate without inhabitant, where then is the over-population?" The strange gentleman looked, not at the empty hills and the silent green valleys, but at his fellow-traveller with emotions of fear. To doubt that this fair and desolate Mayo is over- populated is to show signs of lunacy or worse. Fenianism, Communism, or even Nihilism, is possible if there is no lunacy to account for such strange ideas. Mildly, but with resolution like Samantha's, I urged on the gentleman to look at the prospect, and he was like one awakening from a dream, for the country from Newport to Westport, seven and a half miles, is without inhabitants. I believe Lord Lucan was chief exterminator over this stretch of country. Brought up at the little inn at Newport, and the stranger and I had breakfast together. We conversed about over- population. He had travelled much, and when he recollected what his eyes saw instead of what his ears heard of a false cry, he admitted that a loneliness had fallen upon this part of the west. After breakfast he went his way, with a new subject for thought, and I, deserted in a wilderness of a commercial room, took out some paper and began to write. There was no sound but the steel scratch of a pen that grew monotonous. After a long time--some hours--of solitude, the door opened and a gentleman entered with some luggage and a young woman followed him. I gathered up my scribblings and put them away. The gentleman took off his overcoat, and shining out of the breast pocket was a bright revolver. I grew afraid, though, generally speaking, I am too busy to think of being afraid. There was a trans-Atlantic look about the gentleman, a Mississippi appearance about the too conspicuous revolver, and, I admit, I thought of some Fenian leader and wondered what Stephens was like. I heard the gentleman order lunch and afterward he left the room. When he returned he introduced himself as Mr. Smithwick. He was not at all the kind of gentleman I had expected to see. By some perversity he had become fixed in my imagination as a very tall gentleman with fair curled hair. Now this was sheer foolishness, but it had a disastrous effect on the interview. My mind, instead of gathering itself up into an attitude for receiving information about the land question, would go off wool-gathering in speculation whether this was the very Mr. Smithwick or not. The gentleman said with all politeness that he was willing to give me all the information in his power on any subject on which I wanted information. There is something not canny in the west. I had felt it before, but never as I did then. I could not possibly disentangle my ideas enough to be clear as to what information I did want. I was under some spell. I could only look at Mr. Smithwick, wondering if he was he, and smile at my own stupidity. Time passes quickly; the gentleman remained but about an hour and a half at most, and he had to have luncheon out of that and attend to some little business in town besides. Before I got to be myself he was gone. We did talk a little about reclaiming bog land. He put the cost per acre for trenching, laying stones in the drains, sand and manure, at L21 per acre. Reclaiming bog land has been done by tenant farmers all over the country, who were evicted afterward when they fell behind in rent in the bad years, and did not get any compensation for the land so reclaimed. Mr. Smithwick did not think the relief money in all cases reached those for whom it was intended; believed it was partly intercepted on the way. Did not have a high opinion of his countrymen of the poorer class. Thought them a useless set who did not do the work of their farms properly; did not even make a drain properly if done for themselves; made it in a proper manner if made on another man's land, because there he was overseen, and if he slighted his work he would not get paid for it. In short, "Paddy anywhere but at home is a splendid man, but at home he is worthless." Mr. Smithwick deplored the present agitation among the people; deplored it as an agitation got up, not for people's benefit, but to feather the nests and fill the pockets of agitators. He informed me that he himself had to carry a pistol wherever he went. In speaking of rents Mr. Smithwick informed me that the lands were really rented low; that the people could pay, and were quite able to pay, were it not for the advice of agitators; said he was getting no rent at all these years. The total cessation of rent coming in was a great deprivation to landlords, who depended on their rents for the means of living. Mr. Smithwick thought emigration was the remedy for the undeniable poverty of the country, for if the people got their farms for nothing they could not make a living out of them, owing to their shiftless method of farming. I objected that it would be scarcely fair to send their people, who were so useless and helpless, over to be a burden on us, but Mr. Smithwick thought that they would soon come in to our ways, and help themselves, and be not a burden but a help to the community. I found out in conversation with this gentleman that to reach Ballycroy, where he lives, I should have come from Ballina. I seem perversely to take the long way round. Mr. Smithwick kindly explained to me the way I should go to reach Ballycroy by private car. He thought there was so little of interest in that direction that it would hardly repay me for a long tiresome journey, and that Connemara direction was much more full of interest. After his croydon had driven off I began to remember various points on which I should have liked to obtain his opinion that I had never thought of once when I had the opportunity. Perhaps it was the very early drive that had wearied me, but I was dreadfully stupid all through the interview. I had counted a great deal on seeing this man, and I seemed to myself to have gained nothing of facts to which one could refer triumphantly in support of an opinion in consequence of it. To wake myself up I enquired of the civil landlady if there were any wonderful sights to be seen in the neighborhood within an easy drive. Yes, there was Borrishoole Monastery (the place of owls) and Carrig a Owlagh (rock of the fleet) Castle, one of the strongholds of Granna Uisle Well, got a car and driver and drove off to see these ruins. I was told that no tourist ever visited Newport without going to see them. As we rattled and jolted over the roughest bit of road which I have yet seen in Ireland, the driver, a dark, keen-eyed man, began to talk of landlords, of the wasting and exterminating Lords Lucan and Sligo. I asked him whom did he think a good landlord. He answered immediately, "Jonathan Pym." "If you think him so good you might say Mr. Pym." "When a man is the best in any way he's too big for Mr.," said the man readily. "I dare say," I remarked, "that this Jonathan Pym is very little better than the rest." "But I say he is," retorted the man fiercely. "Where inside of the four seas of Ireland will you get his aiquil? He bought the land, coming among us a stranger, and he did not raise the rents. The people live under the rents their fathers paid." "Well, that's not much?" "If you were a tenant you would think differently. He took off the thatch of the cabins and put on slates at his own expense: There is not a broken roof on the land that he owns. Every tenant he has owns a decent house, with byre and barn, shed and stable, and he done it all out of the money he had, that never was lifted out of the land, and after all left them in at the ould rents. There has never been wan eviction on his place yet." "Has he been shot at yet?" I enquired innocently. "Arrah, what would he be shot for?" demanded the man, turning his swarthy face and black eyes full on me. "I thought maybe some one might shoot him for fun," I explained, feebly. "Fun!" growled the car-man, "quare fun! If a man is shot or shot at he deserves it richly. He's not a rale gentleman, word and deed, like Jonathan Pym." The driver continued to praise the wonderful landlord, Jonathan Pym, in a growling kind of tone as if, were I his spouse, he would thwack me well to cure my unbelief, as we jolted over the stones to the ruins of the monastery of owls. There is a lake, the lake of owls, near this ruin, and in it, it is said, gentlemen anglers can readily obtain leave to fish. I have heard that amateur anglers give the fish they catch to the person who gives the permit, retaining the sport of catching as their share; or if they want the fish paying for them at market price. I think this unlikely, but it may be so nevertheless. The monastery was once a splendid place, to judge by the remains of the carving on window and arched door. One of the skulls of Grace O'Malley used to be kept here as a precious relic. There was another at Clare Island and I think I also heard of another. It seems some speculative and sacrilegious Scotchman brought a ship round the west coast of Ireland to gather up the bones lying in the abbeys to crush them for manure, and they took the brave sea queen's bones and skull with the rest. Returned to Newport in a very undecided frame of mind whether to go to Ballycroy or not. There was a Land League meeting to be held there, and I might see that; but then I had been at two Land League meetings, and they are pretty much alike. Of course it is well to see a great assemblage of people, for they always are of interest as showing what condition the people are in, and what sentiments find an echo in their hearts. But the length of the way, the uncertainty of a place to stop at had some weight, and I found myself unable to decide. To clear up my brain I asked for a bit of fish for dinner, but such a thing could not be obtained at Newport. The fish caught there are exported. They might get a fish by going down to the boat for it, and paying dearer for it than the Dublin price. I asked for fish at Westport with the same result. If you mention salmon they will say, "Oh, yes," and if not stopped, rush off and buy a can of American salmon for you. I got something to eat--not fish, and not very eatable--and wrote a little while, with the same stupid sensation bothering me that I had felt during my interview with Mr. Smithwick, and decided to put off all decision and go to bed, which I did. In the morning, having found that Newport was the nearest point by which to reach Achill Island, I determined to go there, and if I thought I could endure the journey to diverge at Mulrany and drive to Ballycroy on my return from Achill Island. XXXIX. BY THE SHORE OF CLEW BAY--ACROSS ACHILL ISLAND--A LONELY LOVELY RETREAT. The drive from Newport, Mayo, to Mulrany was very pleasant. The roads winds along Clew Bay, that bay of many islands, for quite a distance. Clew Bay was resting, calm as a mirror, blue and bright, not a lap of the wave washed up on the shore of Green island or Rocky Point the day we drove past. No fisher's boat divided the water with hopeful keel. The intense solitude of bays and inlets as well as the loughs looks like enchantment. It reminds one of the drowsy do-nothingness of "Thompson's Castle of Indolence," only here the indolence is not the indolence of luxurious ease but of hunger and rags. If the knight of arts and industry will ever destroy monopoly, and these silent waters will be alive with enterprise: "When many fishing barks put out to fish along the coast." there will be a happy change in the comfortless cabins that dot the shores of Clew Bay. The islands of Clew Bay, being treeless and green, have a new look, as if they had just heaved up their backs above the waters and were waiting for the fiat that shall pronounce them good. I looked with longing eyes in the direction of Clare Island, that has one side to the bay and one side to the broad Atlantic which lies between me and home. On Clare Island is the remains of Doona Castle, the principal stronghold, of the heroic Grace, where she held the heir of Howth captive till ransomed, and till his father learned to understand what _Cead mille failte_ means at dinner time. Here, by Tulloghan Bay, I was told to look across the bay, where the heather-clad mountains rise above the broad heather-clad bog, where the road to Ballycroy winds along between the bay and the mountains, past houses of mortarless stone, hard to be distinguished from the heath; for over there in a certain spot occurred the shooting affray which has made young Mr. Smith, the son of the then agent for the Marquis of Sligo, a man of renown. The hard feeling between the exterminating Marquis, the agent who executed his will and the tenantry was intense. Four men were lying in wait here with the intention of shooting Mr. Smith, who was expected to pass that way. He drove along accompanied by his son. The would-be assassins fired; they were concealed above the road; the shots passed harmlessly over the heads of the two Smiths. Young Mr. Smith, who is an exceptionally good shot--can hit a small coin at an immense distance-- saw the men run and fired after them, killing one, fired again, wounding another, and would have fired again, but was prevented by his father. Young Mr. Smith is quite a hero among the people on this account. There is an expressed regret that Mr. Smith the elder interfered to prevent the young marksman from shooting them all; very few would blame him if he did, as the men, though too nervous to do harm, lay in wait for the purpose of murder. Still it is revolting to hear people in cold blood regret so heartily that there was not more bloodshed. The scenery--as scenery--was as grand as bare heathery mountains and wide desolate waters could make an almost treeless solitude, but viewed as a home for human beings, viewed as land that has rent and taxes and existence to be carved out of it, it has a hopeless look. The houses are something dreadful, to consider them in the light of human habitations. Limestone does not abound here, and therefore the houses of the poorer sort are built like a cairn or a fence of loose stones without mortar. When the Atlantic winds sweep in here in winter time, the crevices in these houses will be so many chinks to whistle through. God pity the poor! The people along the road here had a thrifty look; the men wore homespun coats; the pinned-up dresses of the women showed petticoats which were homespun of warm madder red, well dyed, good and comfortable looking. Of course the majority of the women were barefoot, but they were used to it. At Molraney we stopped to deliver mails. In these cases the passengers sit on the car in the street, while the driver hands in the mail, gossips awhile, goes into the convenient "licensed to sell" for a taste of something, and the police saunter down for the mail and look you over, judiciously but not offensively, and at last you make another start. Arrived at the Sound, you find a nice-looking hotel for such a remote place. There is any amount of liquor to be got: you can also get the never-varying chop or steak served up with another variety of miserable cooking, but you cannot get a bit of fish any more than if the sea were five hundred miles off instead of lapping on the rocks less than a perch away. Was pulled across the Sound by two young girls, who handled the big oars as if they were used to them, and urged the boat with its load of men across the green waters very swiftly with their strong white arms. As we neared the island of Achill trees were conspicuous by their absence, and purple heather was plentiful. Achill island is a treeless place. There are mountains beyond mountains lying against the sky, heather clad or mossgrown; there are small lakes lying at the foot of mountains or between mountains; there are dreary expanses of bog stretching for miles on each side of the road between us and the mountains, and rising out of the bog are wee bits of fields and most horrible habitations. We passed the plantation, noticeable because there is not another, that Mr. Pike has coaled to flourish round his fine house. There are dark green firs, feathery light green larches, birches, and other trees that dress in green only when summer comes; great clumps of laurel and rhododendron, the latter one mass of blossoms that almost hide the leaves beneath their rosy purple. Mr. Pike has already made for himself a delicious looking home amid this barren waste. It enriched our eyes to look at it. Mr. Pike and Mr. Stoney, of the castellated new building down at the edge of Clew Bay, have the distinction of being the most unpopular landlords in this part of the country. After we passed Mr. Pike's place there were no more trees. The houses are very bad indeed; the cattle in the pasture are of the small native breed, and have little appearance of milk; the sheep are very miserable and scraggy. I have often heard of Cook's recipes saying, "Take the scrag end of a piece of mutton." These recipes must have emanated from Achill Island, where the mutton must be pretty much all scrag. After we drove a long way--what appeared a long way--I do not believe they measure all the crooks and turns this most serpentine of roads into the miles--we passed establishment of lay brothers called the Monastery. There is quite a block of white buildings, and a good many reclaimed fields, green with the young crops, lie in the valley below them. There is a bell in a cupola that will call to work and worship, and a chapel where they meet to pray. The valley where their fields lie stretches to the sea, and in the bay lay a smack of some kind by which they trade to Westport. They labor with their own hands, so have not the name of employing any laborers, but have the name of dispensing charity. I should have liked to see the buildings and the brethren, but did not make the attempt. At length we came to Dugart, the Missionary settlement. A little row of white-washed houses on one side of a street that ran up hill, another row of whitewashed houses that ran along the brow of the hill at a right angle. Slieve Mor behind towering up between the village and the sea; below the hill at the foot of another mountain is the rectory, beside it the church, both having a trimming of young trees; some good fields, the best I have seen in Achill, and a pretty garden lie round both rectory and church. This is the mission village of Dugart. At the corner where the two rows of whitewashed houses meet is the Post Office. As we drove up there was a gentleman with a northern kindliness in his face, a long brown beard, an unmistakable air of authority, whom we found out was the rector of Achill. After introduction and some conversation, he kindly invited me to the rectory after I had brushed off some of the dust of travel. The Dugart hotel possesses a large collection of stuffed sea birds, the proprietor having taste and skill in that direction, and I was enabled to take a nearer view of specimens of the birds that sail and scream round the Achill mountains, eagles and gulls, puffins and cormorants, than I would otherwise have done. After a little rest and refreshment I walked down the hill to the lonely, lovely rectory in the valley below. There is a solidity about a stone house, stone porch and stone wall in every part of Ireland; a strength that makes one think how easily a house could be turned into a fortalice at a short notice. I confess I liked this rector, so tall and stately, with his long beard, grave, kindly face, northern speech, penetrating look, with a certain air of authority as became a pastor in charge. When he asked me pleasantly if I had come as a friend, I thought at once of the Bethlehem elders to Samuel, "Comest thou peaceably?" I think I almost envied this man his position, the power which he holds as a leader to be a patriot worker for the good of his countrymen and countrywomen on the barren isle of Achill. We walked upon the shady path that leads from rectory to church, under green arches of leafage, in the real dim religious light which grand cathedrals only imitate. There is a nice useful garden on one side of the path, stocked with things good for food and pleasant to the eye. Along one side is a hedge eight feet high of fuschia growing thus in the open air, proving that it is possible to turn sheltered spots of barren Achill into nooks suggestive of Eden. The little church to which this romantic path brought us was such a church as one might snuggle down in to learn the way to Zion, and enjoy the comfort of the old, old story. This mission was begun by the Rev. Edward Naugh, I believe, in the famine time. It invaded the island with bread and the Bible. I hear that it has done much good, chiefly, I believe, in educating and emigrating the people. The village of the mission opposite the rectory has two schools, an inn or hotel, a co-operative store, a post-office, some dwellings of coastguard's men and other official and semi-official people, the agent over the mission property for one. A little further away on the sea sands is a miserable collection of cabins inhabited by the people. There were some poor-looking farmhouses dotting the mountain side. As far as I could learn there was no industry on Achill Island but tilling their miserable crofts. The fishing was monopolized by one man, a Mr. Hector, a Scotchman. The people as far as I could learn had no boats fitted for deep sea fishing and the coast fishing was monopolized. They are said to be lazy, unthrifty, unenergetic. I enquired a little about this and it seemed to me as if there was a door locked and barred between them and any field for the display of energy with hope--without an atmosphere of hope, energy is a plant that will not thrive. It is hope, and nothing but hope, that nerves the backwoods settler of Canada to do battle with summer heat and winter snow, with the inexorable logic of circumstances, and he conquers because he has hope. Over every peasant holding in Ireland of the western part there is written, "Here is no hope." The superior mind looks upon the peasantry as minors who are not able to judge for themselves, who need to be tied down with office rules, and held in by proprietory bit and bridle. They admit, that they do well in the free air of Canada, but they contend that thrift, forethought, frugality is produced in them by desperation. I see desperation all round here producing a recklessness and despair. I know that hope is the star that shines for the backwoods Canadian to light him to competence. I did not see any of the mission tenants in Achill. I saw nothing but what lay on the surface. I have no doubt that the mission has done good in many ways, great good. I am sorry, however, that they lost the opportunity of testing the capabilities of the islanders to flourish as peasant proprietors; it is not always well for the church to have vineyards and oliveyards, manservants and maidservants. It is well sometimes for the church to come down like her Master and to be alongside of the discouraged mortal who has toiled through a lifetime and caught nothing but hunger and rags, to share with them the toil and want. XL. REMEMBRANCES OF THE GREAT FAMINE--THE "PLANTED" SCOTCH FARMERS--A BEAUTIFUL EDIFICE. On my return from Achill Island I decided that I would not take another post car drive to Ballycroy, and returned to Mulraney again along the same road in the shadow of the mountains. On to Newport we drove, back over the road winding along the side of Clew Bay, and across the head of the bay through the lonely country leading back to Westport. The driver, a weather-beaten man in a weather-worn drab coat, entertained me with tales of the clearances made in the famine time that left the country side so empty. It is hard to believe that ever human beings were so cruel to other human beings in this Christian land, and that it passed unknown, or comparatively unknown, to the rest of the world. This man told, with a certain grim satisfaction, of what he called God's judgments which had fallen on "exterminators." The common people of the West have a firm belief that God is on their side, no matter what trouble he allows to come over them. "Sure I do feel my heart afire, when gintlemen sit on my car driving through this loneliness an' talk of over-population. Over-population! and the country empty!" I wish I could remember all this old man said, but I can only recall snatches here and there. It is most amazing to think that, when the world at large was sending help to save the Irish people alive in the awful visitation, so many were throwing their tenants out on the road to die. And these people had by hard toil won a living here and paid rent. Every rood of this land, every cabin had helped to swell princely revenues, until the finger of God came down in famine, and then, when the revenue stopped, there was no pity, and it seemed to these poor people that there was no one that regarded them. I do not wish to ever come to that time of life when I can hear of the scenes that wasted this country without feeling a passion of sorrow and regret. I spoke of these things to a worthy gentleman resident in another part of the country and he brushed it aside as if it were a fly, saying, "Oh, that is long past, thirty years and more." Memory is very strong among people who seem to have little to look forward to--the past seems the principal outlook. Every incident of the French landing here so far back as '98 is told to me in the West here with a freshness of detail as if it happened a few years ago; one can imagine, therefore, how the cruel evictions of the famine time fit themselves into the memory of the people, especially as the rush of fresh evictions are awaking all the horrors of the past. It seemed a gloomy satisfaction to this man to tell over what he considered God's judgments which had fallen on exterminators. He pointed out to me many who seemed doomed to be the last of their race. At last we passed the long, dead wall which encloses the magnificent demesne of the Marquis of Sligo and drew up at Westport once more. The local papers which await me are full of Miss Gardner and her war with her tenants--more evictions, emergency men from Dublin to hold possession--and all the rest. I was introduced by a Protestant clergyman to a gentleman connected with the executive of the law for a quarter of a century. He knows the heartrending inner history of legal eviction. This gentleman has a wonderful tenderness in his heart for Miss Gardner. "Sure she grew up among us. The other one (Miss Pringle) found her as kindly a woman as was on God's earth and has made an ogre of her." I will give an extract or two out of the softest part of the statement he has drawn up for me. He tells of a landlord who evicted whole townlands in 1847. He hated the people because the famine swept over them. He became possessed with the same ideas as other landlords of the period, whose income had diminished through the visitation of God, that if the present possessors were rooted out and depopulated lands planted with Scotchmen, their skill and capital would prevent a recurrence of famine. Now it is a fact freely attested to me by clergymen of different denominations that the planted people of Mayo required help, and help to a very large amount to keep them from starvation during the last scarcity. On many estates in Mayo and the adjoining parts of Sligo the Protestant population would have died of hunger but for the large help given both denominationally, and otherwise. They could not have seeded their grounds but for seed freely given them. Fields in Mayo this season are lying bare because the wretched people are not able to get seed to put in the ground. Some of the planted people complained to me that though when they settled on their present lands they got them cheap, two shillings and sixpence an acre for wild land, yet as they improved their land the rent was raised to five, to seven and six, to fourteen, and now to over a pound an acre. These men also complained that they could not possibly exist at all during these last seasons and pay the rent which was laid on them in consequence of the improvements done by their own labor. I find by the most conclusive proof that a difference of religious belief did not enable the settlers any more than the natives to pay a rent that could not be produced from the soil. The desire to change the nationality and religion of his tenants was so strong in one landlord that, in the words of my informant, "A scene of ruthless havoc began among his tenantry. To stimulate the slowness of the crowbar brigade he was known to tear down human habitations with his own hands." I remember these poor people standing in the market in those dark days of famine, having their bits of furniture for sale on the streets, and there were none to buy. I have heard the wailing of men, women and children on the coach-top day after day, when these fortunate unfortunates were escaping from their native land forever. I saw those who could not go in the agonies of death in the fever sheds. These scenes happened over thirty years ago, but they will never be forgotten. Four large townlands, on which eighty homes had been, became a wilderness of grass and rank weeds. No Scotch were forthcoming for the wrecked farms. There was a Nemesis in store for him. His day of eviction came about, and in his trouble his tenants saw retribution. As charity kept some of his tenants alive, so he also was indebted to the charity of friends, and passed away to meet his tenants at a bar where high blood or aristocratic connections do not sway the Judge who sits on the throne of justice, nor does party prejudice blind his eyes. When Miss Gardner came of age it took all the property of her father to pay the money secured to her by her mother's settlement, and she entered into possession in his stead. Like Queen Elizabeth, whom Miss Gardner greatly resembles, she had in her youth known troubles; sympathy for these trials, so well known to the peasantry, made them receive her with open arms and open hearts. In the interval between Miss Gardner entering into possession and her coming under the influence of Miss Pringle she set herself to repair the havoc made by her predecessor, and was the idol of her tenantry. She was near neighbor to the model farm and orphanage presided over by the Scotch ladies. Philanthropy collected the vast sums which bought and stocked the model farm at Ballinglen. When their mode of managing matters there could be no longer hidden from the Presbyterian Church which they misrepresented, the mission came out largely indebted to these ladies. It took all the stock to pay off its indebtedness to one lady, and the farm itself to pay the other. It is the lady who got the farm as her share, that lives with Miss Gardner, and gets the credit of her every unpopular act. She has divided between her and her only friend in the dark days. This Scotch hag found her a kind-hearted woman, and has made her into an ogre. Some of this communication, the hardest of it, I shall reserve, also several confirmatory anecdotes given me at Westport. In mercy to the readers, I will only say that Miss Gardner has intense courage and an intellect of masculine strength, and resembles Queen Elizabeth in more ways than one. It is a great pity that she has not Queen Bess's popularity or her care for her people. Westport, when I have time to look at it, is a very pretty town. Its buildings, its hotels and the warehouses on the quay look as if it once had an extensive and flourishing trade, or was prepared for and expecting it. There was, I am told, once a flourishing linen trade here, but it has gone to decay. The town is in a little hollow, with pleasant tree-crowned green hills rising all round it; at one side is the demesne of the Marquis of Sligo, which is open to the public. These grounds extend for miles, and are as beautiful as gorgeous trees, green grass, dark woods, waters that leap and flash, spanned by rustic bridges, can make them. There are winding walks leading through the green fields, under trees, into woods, up hill and down, into shady glens, where you might wander for miles and lose yourself in green-wood solitudes. Crowds of Westport folk, in the calm evening, saunter through the grounds and enjoy their beauty. The little town has a subdued expression of prosperity. You feel conscious that some business is going on that enables the inhabitants of the town to live comfortably and to dress respectably. You hear of the mills of the Messrs. Livingstone, of their business in trading and land- owning, until you are convinced that they are the centre round which this little world revolves. I had a lady pointed out to me here as being in such embarrassed circumstances, owing to the non-payment of rent, that her son was obliged to join the police force to earn a living. I heard also great sympathy expressed for another gentleman in Dublin who has many sons, whom he has brought up to do nothing, and who has been reduced by the strike against rent to absolute poverty. I am told that banks in Dublin are glutted with family silver left as security for loans. These people are to be pitied, for poverty is poverty in purple or in rags; but when poverty comes to actual want, it is still more pitiful. XLI. GOING TO ENGLAND FOR WORK--CANADA AND AMERICA. I have been going against the stream on my travels. I am reminded, incessantly that I should have begun at Dublin. Going backward, as I am doing, the orthodox route is to Leenane, passing Erriff and the Devil's Mother, but the regular cars were not yet running, I was told, nor were they likely to run this summer, as, owing to the exaggerated reports of outrage, tourists are not expected in any numbers. Was persuaded to take a special car to go by Leenane round the coast. Would have liked to do so, but not to bear all the expense myself. The further west the more expensive the car, I find. Instead, I returned to Castlebar, and on to Balla. Balla is the small town where the Land League was born. In the compartment to which I was consigned there were some gentlemen, for gentlemen and ladies of very great apparent respectability do travel in the cars devoted to the humbler people; there were also some respectable looking laborers who were going over to England to look for work. A discussion arose in our compartment as to what constituted politeness. One gentleman defined it as ceremonious manners, the result of early training; while another objected that that was only the veneer of manners, as all true politeness arose from the heart. I listened awhile and then spoke across the seat to a decent, dejected looking man with a little bundle beside him tied up in a blue and white check handkerchief. "Yes, he was going to England to look for work; many had to go for the work was not to be had at home." "The rents were so high, and the taxes, what with one thing and another, there was a new cut always coming heavier than the last." "The people are being crushed out of the country very fast, and that was God's truth." "And you are from America? It is a fine country they say. I would be there long ago but for the heavy care I have here that I can neither take with me nor leave behind." "Yes, I go over to England every year. For a good many years past I have always worked for the same man, ever since I went there first." "It grows harder to live in Ireland every year." I told this man amid the craned necks and open mouths of his companions, some of the advantages of Canada as a home. I do not know why it is that the people know so little of Canada. I was listened to with exclamations of "Well, well!" "Boys a boys!" "Dear O dear!" "Hear that, now! A man might live there!" Getting at last across the Mayo plains to Claremorris, I parted from my acquaintances with many a "God bless you," while many hands lifted out my travelling bags. At Claremorris a car man asked if I was a pilgrim for Knock which was the first intimation that I had that I was in the vicinity of Knock. Hired this car man, who was also owner of the car, to drive me there. I have always heard that those born on Christmas Day are privileged to see apparitions. I have not yet come into that part of my inheritance, but do not know how soon I may. On the way, which led through a well-cultivated, fertile country, waving with trees, and showing glimpses of great houses peeping out among them, the driver asked me if I had ever heard of Captain Boycott. I said there were few who had not. "He used to live in that house up there; he was agent in this part of the country, but he left us, thank God." "What made people dislike him so?" "Because he was the height of a great tyrant." "Come now, what did he do?" "Everything he could do to oppress the creatures who were in his power. I have known a man come home to his little family with three shillings for his week's wages, all the rest scratched off him in fines. If you have a family yourself you will understand what their living would be when they paid the rent of the cabin. A man dazed with hunger would not have all his wits about him and there would be more fines. In that way the mane hound got his work done for half price, and ground the life out of the people. There was no word of an emergency man to pity or help them. God help us; how true it is that the help does not go where the want is." We got to Knock, a country church in a country place. Alighted, and while the carman tied his horse I looked round me. There was an enclosure round the chapel. At one side was a row of wooden booths, where relics, beads and trinkets were sold. On the other side of the enclosure was a school for girls. It was at the end of the church where the apparition is said to have appeared that we entered. All the plaster on this end was removed by devotees. In the spot where the apparition was said to have been seen, there was a life-size statue of the Virgin in plaster. All over the gable were strips of wood cleated on, behind which were ranged walking-sticks and crutches in regular order till the whole gable was covered. There was a long frame-work of wood about twelve feet long and three broad, also filled with crutches and walking- sticks. As I stood looking, the car man came in after tying his horse, and knelt down on the damp earth before the Virgin's shrine and repeated a prayer. He was not ashamed to practice what he believed before the world and in the sight of the sun. When his prayer was over he joined me, and drew my attention to the number of crutches and sticks left behind by those who were benefited. I pointed out to him a very handsome black-thorn stick among the votive offerings, and asked him would it be a sin to steal it, as black-thorns were in demand over the water. He told me if I did that whatever disease was laid down there by the owner of the stick would cleave to me. I thought of Gehazi and restrained my hands from stealing the black-thorn. There is one nice characteristic of a genuine Irishman, he can take a joke. There were many masons working at an enlargement of the church. We went in. It had an earthen floor, and there were many people kneeling on it at their prayers. Some were silently making the stations of the cross, others, a large number, were reciting the rosary aloud under the leadership of a young woman, who repeated one part, when they all answered in concert. The windows were darkened by the scaffolding and building outside, and as I sat there seeing and hearing, looking toward the altar, in the shadow of a pillar I saw a hand steal out. I own I was startled; but when my eyes got accustomed to the gloom, I saw it was a man at the top of a ladder quietly painting away as if the church were empty. After a while I came out and went over to the school. There were 78 children present, all girls, all clean and decent. There was one teacher, a pleasant-faced young woman, who had two monitor assistants. The order kept was very good, the school furniture neat, a good many maps on the wall, and the children seemed busy and interested. The teacher told me that the income of the school, owing to results fees--a sum paid by Government according to the progress of the pupils, was sometimes as high as L80 per annum. After leaving the school, went over to the booths to buy some trifle as a memorial of Knock. The man in the booth told me I had come from America. There was another man with his arm in a sling, who had come from America also. He had come to visit Knock. I asked him if his arm was better. He said it was, but not entirely well. I asked the man in the booth if he had ever seen anything. He said that he did not come there to see anything, but to make a living. He and the American had both bits of the original plaster, which they showed to me. The priest of the place was not at home. He lives in a cottage down the hill a bit, in sight of the church. I had seen all there was to be seen, so I made my purchase and bid good-bye to Knock, and drove back to Claremorris. Claremorris is a nice enough little town, very quiet, as if not much of any great work was going on. Where there are factories I notice the people step quickly and look straight ahead. Over towns which depend on the trading of the country round there is an air of repose and leisure. I did not see much of Claremorris, for I soon left it behind in going to Ballinrobe by car. The land here seems very rich. I remarked this to my travelling companions, who told me that I was on the rich plains of Mayo. The fields are large and well cultivated. There were no signs of the abject poverty, wee, stony fields, horrible rookeries of houses that exist in the shadow of the Ox hills. Not that the houses of the laborers here were good; for that, a good, decent laborer's house, I have not yet seen in Ireland, except on Mr. Young's Galgorm estate. They may exist on other estates, I dare say they do, but I have not seen them. This country over which we were travelling was as rich with round-headed trees and wide meadows as a gentleman's park. The road, a particularly meandering one, passed through Hollymount--a lovely place--and through Carrowmore, my companions telling me of the landlords and the tenants as we drove along. The rent was high and hard to make up, the turf far to draw, that was all. There was no account of vexatious office rules or special acts of tyranny related to me at all. Ballinrobe, on the river Robe, is near Lough Mask, and is another quiet, pretty, leisurely little town. I was troubled with neuralgia and did not see much of it. Opposite the hotel was the minister's residence, amid gardens, all shut in behind a stone wall high enough for a rampart. Through an archway from the street was the church where he ministered, sitting meditating among the tombs. I wandered into this place one day on my way to the post-office. Noticed the great number of the name of Cuffe who were buried there. Cuffe is the family name of Lord Tyrawley. The Catholic church sits back from the street a good way and the ground before it is laid out in flowers. There are some images of saints through the grounds, which are set in arches of rock work, over which climbing plants are trained. There is also a community of Christian Brothers, who have a school here. Their building had so much glass in front, with so many geraniums in flower, a perfect blaze of them behind the glass, that it looked like a conservatory. Left Ballinrobe behind and drove to Lough Mask Castle, where the celebrated Captain Boycott managed to kick up such a fuss. We passed a couple of iron huts occupied by policemen, who came out to look at us. I may as well mention that after I left Ballinrobe I found that the driver was more "than three-quarters over the bay." He had a way of talking to himself on the land question, of Captain Boycott, Lord Mountmorris and Lord Ardilaun, that was not pleasant to listen to, especially as he spiced his monologue with many words that savored strongly of brimstone. I was not without hope that the fresh air might dissipate the fumes of liquor from his brain as we drove along. I had the more hope of this as I could see that he was a habitual drinker, poor man, as his face but too plainly testified. Drink is universal here, as medicine a universal remedy, as a daily, almost hourly, stimulant for young, and old, rich and poor, man and woman. They tell me that Scotland is worse; if so, Scotland should be prayed for. I confess that I have not seen much drunkenness. I saw very few that I could call drunk, but it is constant, steady, universal, or almost so, sipping and tippling. XLII. LOUGH MASK CASTLE--CAPTAIN BOYCOTT AND HIS POLICY--LORD MOUNTMORRIS. Well, my Jehu did sober up considerably before we halted at the entrance gates of Lough Mask Castle. The sharp hi! hi! of the driver brought out the gate keeper, a poor looking and sour looking woman, who admitted us into the drive which lay through some fields and beside some young plantations. In one place the driver pulled up, our way lay through a large field divided by the road into two unequal parts. He told me to look round me, which I did. "On one side here, were the dragoons; their horses were picketed here; on the other side was the infantry. It was awful weather. What them men and their horses stood of hardships and misery no tongue could tell. The dragoons marched down here, looking fine and bowld, their horses were sleek and fat and shining, when they marched away they wor staggering with the wakeness and the men wor purty wilted looking. He made them believe he needed protection." This with a growl that had depths of meaning in it. "He's coming back here again. Out among nagurs or anywhere else he could not find them to put up with him like ourselves." Of course I omit the strong words that were used as garnishing. I must own that this was the first time that any carman had used profane language before me--and it wasn't himself was in it at all at all but the whiskey. "The soldiers, whin they wor here," continued the old man, "cut down the trees of the plantation for firing. That went to his heart, it did. How could they help themselves, I'd like to know? Sure they would have perished with the cowld and the wet among the pelting of the snow and the sleet. Wherever they are this blessed day they don't admire the memory of Captain Boycott. What I like is behaviour in aither man or baste, and Captain Boycott had no behaviour. They killed a sheep to ate, or maybe two, and sorra a blame to them. It was ate or die wid them; but ye see the gallant Captain didn't like it." About this time a volley of anathemas was poured out against the absent Captain. During all this we were sitting on the car viewing the field where the bivouac had been. A policeman with a questioning look on a pleasant face came along from the great house with a tin pail in his hand. "What have you got in the can!" asks this inquisitive car driver. "Milk," responded the policeman. "You would have got no milk at the big house in Captain Boycott's time." "Oh; yes, I would," said the other, "when I paid for it." I did not like to question this man, for he did swear so, but I ventured to ask if Mrs. Boycott were equally as much disliked as her husband. "Never heard a word against her in my life. The people had no reason but to like her. Hard word or hard deed she left no memory of behind her." We drove past the residence where Captain Boycott lived, a fine spacious house finished in plaster to imitate stone. The grounds near the house were nicely laid out, but that is the universal rule in Ireland. Drove through a gateway into the yard. In a stable loft in the yard some policemen were lodged. The driver hallooed at them, and one came down the stone steps to see what protective duty was asked of him. I asked him to show me the ruins, and he complied in the kindest manner. Across the barnyard and through a shed we made our way into the castle ruins. There are many nooks and crannies, as is the case in these ancient ruins generally, but the main body of the castle was divided into two large apartments, with the roof on the floor of course. I noticed the track of recent fire along the old walls. He said it was made by the officers who were down there on protective service for Capt. Boycott. They had one apartment and cooked there, and the police the other. These quarters open to the sky, and having stones on the floor, did not look comfortable. We went up the circular stairs to the ramparts at the top. There is a walk round the top behind the battlements. Looking down at the remains of a fireplace in what was a lofty second story, my guide told me there was a name and a date there. The name Fitzgerald, I forget the date; so this must have been one of the Geraldine castles. There is a fine view from the battlements. Lough Mask, which is very shallow here, a little water and a great many stones overtopping it in profusion, lies before us, and an extensive country, partly fertile, in round hills and green valleys, partly crusted over with stones. A policeman, not my guide on this occasion, told me, illustrative of the disposition of Captain Boycott, that the hut in which the police were sheltered was very damp--water, in fact, was running on the floor under their bed. They had a small coal stove, and on the coal becoming exhausted before they got a further supply, one of the men being down sick, they ventured to ask Captain Boycott for the loan of a lump or two of coal to keep their stove going till their supplies were received, and he refused them. They were obliged to protect his ass and water cart down into the lake to draw water from out beyond the edge where the water was deep, and, therefore, could be dipped up clean. He would not allow them to get any of the water for their own use after it was drawn, or lend them the ass to draw for themselves. They had either to wade out in the lake or dip up as they could at the edge. I made a slight mistake in saying that the castle was entirely roofless; there was part of an arched roof where the fire had been. I asked the policeman if they had any night patrol duty now. Oh, yes, he said, we patrol every night, although we never see anything worse than ourselves. Left Lough Mask, its castled ruins and modern mansion behind us, and drove through the gates again. I felt convinced that the people were not filled with an unreasoning hate against Captain Boycott. They thought they had reason, deep reason, and they scrupulously excepted Mrs. Boycott from any censure bestowed on him. Along the road we drove, until from an eminence we could see Lough Mask in its beauty, with its bays and islands spread out beneath us. This view gave us a part of the Lough where the water covers the stones. This particular evening the water was as calm as a mirror and as blue as the sky above it, and the trees on the hills and bays around it in their greenness and leafiness, round-headed and massive, were all bathed in sunlight. We came to fields a little more barren-looking, where bare stone fences took the place of the rich hedgerows, turned up a road that lay between these stony ramparts, and drove along for a little time. I was wondering in my own mind about Captain Boycott. Did he, in his own consciousness, think he was doing right in his system of fines? He knew how small and miserable the wages were: he knew of the poor, comfortless homes and the "smidrie o' wee duddy weans" that depended on the poor pennies the father brought home; he knew that he came out well fed and leisurely to find fault with a peasant who was working with a sense of goneness about the stomach. Did he think that increasing the hunger pain would make him more thoughtful, more orderly? Would he have done better if he had been suddenly brought to change places with his serf? If he could not help fining the people until he fined off the most of their wages, were they to blame for refusing to work for him? Was the Government right in taking his part when it had neither eye nor ear for his people's complaint? I was questioning with myself in this helpless fashion, when I heard my driver inquire in Irish of a bare-footed country girl if we were near the spot where Lord Mountmorris was murdered. This question, and the surprise with which I became aware that I understood it, made me forget Captain Boycott for the time being and wake up to the present time. We had stopped our car and were waiting on the girl's answer, which she seemed in no hurry to give. At length lifting a small stone she threw it on the road a car's length behind us, answering in Irish that there was the spot where he was found. The murderer was hidden in the field opposite. The road was bare of the shelter of hedge or ditch, bush or tree. It was late; he was coming home alone, his police escort for some reason were not with him that particular night. Lord Mountmorris was murdered, and some one has a mark on his hand that all the water of the Lough will not wash off. We drove along the road, a bleak and bare road, with a hill on one side of it and a steep slope down on the other, until we came to a small plantation, a lodge gate, and drove up an avenue with small plantations of young trees here and there, some grass lands, a few beasts grazing about, some signs of where flower beds and flower borders had been better cared for once on a time than now, and came to a comfortable, roomy square house finished in plaster. This was castle something, the residence of the late Lord Mountmorris. With a blessing, content and three hundred a year one could fancy that person sung of by Moore, "With the heart that is humble," being able to make out life nicely here. When a man has a title to his name with all the requirements which it implies and demands, one could imagine a constant and wearing struggle going on. I have earnestly and constantly sought to find a reason that could possibly irritate an ignorant and exasperated peasant to the point of taking the life of this man, I have found none. He was unhappily addicted to drink, it is said, but he must have had a large majority of the inhabitants of Ireland of all creeds and classes on the same side with him in this, to judge by the number of houses licensed to sell liquor to be drunk on the premises which are required for the drouthy part of the population. He is accused of having warped justice to favor his friends in his capacity of magistrate. I have heard that accusation brought against other magistrates again and again, who were not molested. He is said to have boasted when _fou_ that he was a spy for the castle authorities, and could have any of them he chose to point at taken up. This was mere bluster, I suppose. There does seem no reason why the poor man should be cut off in the midst of his days by a guilty hand, for there is no record of any tangible injury which he had done to any man. Here on the spot where he fell, among the common people, I did not hear anything that seemed to give a reason for any hatred that would lead to murder being entertained against the deceased nobleman. We turned away from the house and grounds, and I felt sad enough when we passed the place where he lay in the dark night amid bare, barren loneliness until the alarm was given. Heath in full blossom of purple clung to the ditch back, foxglove in stately array nodded at us from above, flowers that creep and flowers that wave were springing everywhere, the rains of heaven had washed off the red stain, but I could not shut my eyes to it. I saw the human body, dignified into something awful by the presence of death, lying there waiting for the hands that were to take it up reverently, and bear it away for investigation and burial. I saw the dyed stones of the road that will never lose the mark of guilt that colored them with the blood shed there. Lord Mountmorris' residence was a nice, roomy house. All these houses are called castles, and castles they are compared with the cabins. The land around it did not seem very good. There was something pathetic in the evident attempt to keep up lordly state on a poor income and off poor soil. Happy America, whose people are not compelled by the inexorable logic of circumstances to be lords, but can be plain farmers. It is really a hard thing to be a lord sometimes, when a place is sunk with mortgages, and burdened with legacies and annuities, and no means of redemption but the rents and these stopped. We drove back the way we came. Ascending the hill we met a little beast, so small, so black and shaggy, that I thought at first it was one of our Canadian black bears. I asked what it was, and--laughing at my ignorance--the man told me that it was a Highland Kyloe, one of the famous black cattle that I have heard so much about, but had never seen a specimen of the breed before. It would have been big for a bear, but certainly was small for a cow, while a goat has the appearance of giving as much milk. XLIII. CONG The land as we neared Cong, between Cong and Lough Mask, as seen from the rather roundabout road we travelled, has a very peculiar appearance. It is stony with a very different stoniness from any part of Ireland which I had seen before. In some places the earth, as far as the eye could reach, was literally crusted with stone. The stone was worn into rounded tops and channelled hollows, as if it was once molten, like red hot potash, and every bubbling swell had become suddenly petrified, or as if it had once been an uptilted hillside over which a rapid river had fallen, wearing little hollows, and sparing rounded heights as it dashed over in boiling fury for ages, accomplishing which result it deserted this channel; and through some internal movement the bed of the torrent was levelled into a plain. Some agency or other has worn this solid rock into a truffle pattern that is very wonderful to see. Over all this part the stony formation recurs again and again. A person remarked to me that it looked like the bottom of a former ocean. Judging by the marks worn into the stone I should say it was not a pacific ocean. We came to a blacksmith's shop with the arch of the door formed into a perfect horse-shoe; this, I was told, was the boundary line between Mayo and Galway. In a few minutes we stopped before the "Carlisle Arms," in the little village of Cong. Cong village is not very large, and has not a wealthy appearance. There is a look generally spread over the people who come in to trade as if their fortune was as stoney as their fields. I had not been long in the "Carlisle Arms" before my attention was called to certain framed mementos that hung round the room. By some of these mementos hung the tale as to how Cong hotel came to be named the "Carlisle Arms." On a certain occasion, when the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Earl of Carlisle, was making some sort of progress through Ireland, he proposed stopping at the hotel at Maam, a hotel under the thumb of the late Lord Leitrim, who had some pique at the Lord Lieutenant, which determined him to order under pain of the usual penalty that there be no admittance to the Viceroy of Ireland at this hotel. His Lordship for once felt the power of a text of Scripture, and sent orders that from the highways and hedges they should be compelled to come in; that his house should be filled to the entire exclusion of Her Majesty's representative. Lord Carlisle did not, like Mr. Goddard the other day at Charleville, proffer money, or take any steps to try the lawfulness or unlawfulness of this proceeding, but, having sent a courier to precede him, hurried on to Cong, and conferred the distinction of his presence on that hotel. That the proprietors did their best to entertain him I have no doubt, speaking from experience. That he appreciated their efforts he has left on record in a neat acknowledgement, which hangs above the mantlepiece framed and glazed, as Uncle Tom desired to do with his letter from Massa George. The Lord Lieutenant's photo hangs there too, in a nice frame, as a memento of his having been received at Cong when refused at Maam. Also he consented that the hotel should be known as the "Carlisle Arms" henceforth. I wonder very much that there was not at least as much public indignation felt against Lord Leitrim or the innkeeper whom he influenced when he refused shelter to Her Majesty's representative here, the head of the executive, as is now expressed against this hotel-keeper, who refused to receive Mr. Goddard. I suppose the cases are different someway. During the famine time a large sum of money was voted, partly by Government, partly from the county taxes, for Relief Works. It was determined to make a canal to connect Lough Corrib and Lough Mask. The canal was made at the expense of much blasting, much building of strong and costly stone work. If they could only have resurrected the famous Irish architect _Gobhan Saer_, he would have advised making a well- cemented bottom for the canal considering that a subterraneous river runs from one lake to the other under it. They did not do this, however, and when the grand canal was finished and the water let on the bottom fell out in places and the waters fell through to their kindred waters. The next famine they will require to dig and blast downward and still downward till they find the underground river and the runaway water. Coming past the costly and well-built bridge which spans the almost dry stream that pours into the leaky canal somewhere, I saw some women round a hollow in the stream that retained a little water. They were rinsing out some woollen stuffs after dying them blue. They had warm petticoats of madder red, and I was glad to see them look so comfortably clad and thrifty. After returning to the hotel I was waited on by an elderly lady of the peasant class, a woman over eighty years of age. She had for sale some pillow lace edging of her own manufacture, which she offered at threepence per yard. This was the way she made her living, paid her rent and kept herself out of the workhouse. The lace was pretty and very strong. She generally succeeds in disposing of it to lady tourists. There were some lady tourists as well as gentlemen staying at Cong. They were on pleasure bent, and had been dreadfully annoyed and disgusted in Galway at the heartbreaking scene attending the departure of some poor Irish emigrants. They are unreasonable in their grief, and take parting as if it were death; but it is as death to many of the aged relatives who will see these faces whom they love no more. I could not help thinking how differently people are constituted. When I saw the streaming eyes, the faces swollen with weeping, and heard the agonized exclamations, the calls upon God for help to bear the parting, for a blessing on the departing, I had to weep with them. These people were all indignation where they were not amused. The old women's cries were ill-bred howlings to their ears, their grief a thing to laugh at. They made fun of their dress--how they were got up--as if their dress was a matter of choice; grew indignant in describing their disgust at the scene. Ah, well, these poor mountain peasants were not their neighbors, they were people to be looked at, laughed at, sneered at, and passed by on the other side; but I--these people are my people and their sorrow moveth me. XLIV. THE ASHFORD DEMESNE--LORD ARDILAUN--LOUGH CORRIB. The Ashford demesne affords walks or drives for miles. Everything that woods and waters, nature and art can do to make Ashford delightful has been done. I got a companion, a pretty girl, a permit from some official who lived in a cottage at Cong, and set out by way of the Pigeon Hole to see at least part of the place. I may as well mention here how surprised we were to hear the Antrim tongue from the recesses of the cave, and to find a group of strangers exploring on their own account. They were working men who had come from Belfast to work for Lord Ardilaun, and were making the most of a holiday before they began. I was very much surprised to see men from Antrim, where the wages are much higher than here, come down to work in the west where labor is so cheap, and want of work the complaint. To show how cheaply men work here, I may mention that being at a village which lies outside of Lord Ardilaun's demesne, but on his estate, I was standing on the road and a clergyman was talking in Irish to a man who was employed at mason work in repairing the wall, a small quiet looking man who did not stop work as he talked. Of course I could not understand more than the scope of their discourse, but I understood distinctly one question asked; "How much do you get for a day's work?" "One shilling and two pence a day." "Without food of course?" "Of course." I had heard in the North that casual laborers get two shillings a day there, but they do not get two shillings when employed constantly. The laborers on one well-managed estate which I have been over in Antrim are paid ten shillings a week, and pay one shilling a week out of that for their cottages, which are kept in good repair at the expense of their employer. Of course these men must have been workmen skilled in some particular work, or they would not have come from the wages of the North to the West to work at the common rate of wage going here, which I am told is at the highest seven shillings a week and rent to pay out of that. Of course, when masons are paid one and twopence, laborers will be paid much less. The avenue along which we travelled was a causeway made at great expense along the brow of a steep hill or rather ridge, one side being supported by a stone wall. This work, undertaken for the benefit of travellers to Ashford, must have afforded constant employment for a good many men for a long time. Arriving at a modern archway in the ancient style protected by an iron gate, we sought admittance, showing our permit from the office. The keeper's wife examined it and passed it over to the keeper, who examined it also, asked some prudent, cautious questions, and we were admitted to a part of the grounds. This gate keeper, a remarkably gentlemanly old man, in his respectable blue broadcloth, his comely sagacious, weather-beaten face, his guarded manner of speaking, and his name, Grant, made me quite sure that he was a Highlandman, which he was not, but a Western Irishman. He informed us as we went along that only part of the grounds could be seen on account of the troubled state of the country. Whether there was any part of the demesne that an elderly woman and a pretty girl were likely to run away with became a subject of thought to me. Conscientiously this delightful old man kept us off tabooed walks and shunted us into permissible places. Where all was beautiful and new, and time having a limit, we were quite willing when brought to order, to follow on the allowed path. I was admiring a tree of the regally magnificent kind, leaf-draped branches like green robes sweeping down to the emerald sward, that always remind me of the glorious trees which sunlight loves to gild in the grounds at Castle Coole; I remarked on its exceeding beauty to our guide, who said it would bear a nearer view, and we followed him on a path through the grass till we stood beside it. Parting the foliage we found ourselves at a natural grotto of light-colored stone, where a stream of "the purest of crystal" came from under the rock at one end, and glancing in the stray beams of sunlight that found their way in through the arch of leaves, flashed down a tiny cascade in a shower of diamonds, and with a little gurgling laugh hid under the rock again, racing on to join the subterranean waters that laugh together over the failure of the great canal. The new tower is built after the fashion of the ancient towers with the spiral staircase, that was common to all castles and abbeys of the west. The mason work was much coarser and more roughly done, but the imitation of the ancient tower was very good other ways. I do not believe that modern masons could produce so perfect a specimen of workmanship as the tower of Moyne Abbey, with its spiral staircase of black marble. The view from the top of the tower at Ashford repaid well the expenditure of breath to climb up to it. The house is a castle and made after the pattern of ancient castles; it is large and must contain any amount of lofty and spacious rooms, which it is to be supposed are furnished as luxuriously and magnificently as possible. It is certainly a very fine building, and looks as nice and new as stone and mortar can make it, but the ivy green will soon cover it all up with its green mantle. We were not able to walk over even the allowed portion of the grounds, as they extended for miles. We parted from our gentlemanly conductor at a certain gate. He was so nice that we felt almost ashamed to offer the expected gratuity which was, however, thankfully received. I pondered a little way over the man's remarks who had been our guide through the demesne. He always kept repeating that we might have been shown the gardens and the house, but for the disturbance in the country. I wondered to hear hints of trouble on this estate, for no man, woman or child, with whom I conversed, but spoke highly of the generosity, magnanimity and kindliness of Lord Ardilaun, and his father before him. I have seen in his lordship's own writing and over his signature the statement that, during prosperous years, even, the rent has not been raised, that he had for years spent on his property more than double the rental in improvements and for labor. When I read this I thought of the causeway raised along the brow of a hill over which I walked in the demesne, I thought at the time what an amount of labor was expended to place it there. There has also been made an addition to the castle, which must have given a great deal of employment. Some, or rather a great deal of the property was bought from the late Earl of Leitrim, who had raised the rents, it is asserted, to the "highest top sparkle" before selling, to enhance the value. I do not know anything of the value of land here; it is very stony land. I was pointed out a field which was not very stony, comparatively speaking, but still had more stones, or stony crust rather, than a good farmer would desire. I was told it paid L2 per acre. I wonder how it is possible to raise rent and taxes off these fields, never to mention support for the farmers. The land requires very stimulating manure to produce a crop. When bad years come, and render the tenant farmers unable to purchase guano, the crops are worthless almost. The necessity of buying artificial manure is a terrible necessity that American farmers know nothing of. I dare say the tenants expect too much in many instances, for they are accustomed to be treated as children in leading strings. The amount of dependence on this one and that one in superior stations is very wonderful, but their utter helplessness to take the first step toward better times is also wonderful. I have heard of men, by the last bad seasons unable to buy guano, having to strip the roofs off their houses that the rain may wash off the soot into the land to fructify it. On account of shelter for game, it is not permissible to cut heather for bedding, for stock, or covering for houses. Breaking this prohibition even on land for which they pay rent and taxes is, they complain, punished with fines of from two and sixpence to seven and sixpence for as much as could be carried on the back. For a farmer to get on here he must be able to buy manure. The crop on a farm has to pay rent, which is high, and taxes, which are heavy, even if no guard for somebody has to be paid for, or no malicious outrage is levied for on the county in compensation, and manure, which, if got before paying, is charged, I am told, twenty-five percent additional for waiting; all this must be met before the support of the family can be thought of beyond merely existing. The more one looks at the want of the people, the more one becomes bewildered with the perplexities of the situation, and the more hopeless about the setting of things right by the Land Bill or anything else. It is pleasant to hear on all sides praises of Lord Ardilaun as a high- spirited, generous man. The slight difference of opinion between him and his people is blamed on the fact of his not being able to understand how poor the tenants are, or how what is little in his eyes may be life or death to them. There was some trouble, I believe, about the building of a causeway across to some sacred island, which was built by the people without leave asked, or in spite of prohibition given; but in the main I think that Lord Ardilaun is very much loved. How it does rain in this green land. I think it rained every day of the days I remained at Cong except the blink of sunshine that shone on the castle and grounds the day that I went over part of the Ashford _demesne_. At Cong, for the first time in my life, I heard the Irish lament or caoine for the dead. Some one was brought in from the country to be buried in the Abbey of Cong. It was a simple country funeral. The dead was borne on one of the carts of the country, followed by the neighbors, and accompanied by the parish priest of Cong. The day was very wet even for Ireland. After the burial service was over the women, kneeling by the new made grave, among the rank wet grass, and the dripping ivy, raised the caoine. It was a most unearthly sound, sweet like singing, sad like crying, rising up among the ruined towers, and clinging ivy and floating up heavenwards. I believe the stories of banshees must have arisen from the sound of the caoine. These mourning women were very skilful, I was told, and were relations of the dead whom they mourned, and whose good qualities mingled with their love and grief rose in wailing cry and floated weirdly over the ruins and up to the clouds. I had at this time an invitation from Mr. Sydney Bellingham to come over to Castle Bellingham to see life from another standpoint. I was standing at the window debating with myself. I did not like to leave the West before seeing a little more of it, and I do want, in the interests of truth, to look at things from every available standpoint. If I go to Castle Bellingham I must go now, I reasoned, for after this they go to England. As I stood there thinking, a handsome car dashed past with a gentleman and lady on it, followed by another with a guard of policemen. I enquired who this guarded gentleman was, and was told it was that Mr. Bourke who went into the Catholic church armed to the teeth. I have been nearly five months in Ireland, travelling about almost constantly, and as yet have only seen three persons who were protected by police, two men and one woman. I decided to leave Cong, and after studying on the map the nearest way to Castle Bellingham, determined to take that way. Left Cong in the early morning to sail down Lough Corrib to Galway. For some reason the landing place has been altered, and is now some distance from Cong, at which it used to be. This change is a drawback to Cong. There are mills at Cong that used to grind indian corn, but they are not used now for some reason or other, and are falling into ruin. The shifting of the landing place was done by Lord Ardilaun, the stoppage of the mills by him also. The landing place where the little steamer waited for freight and passengers had a little crowd, who seemed to have more to do than just to look on, and there was a little hum of traffic that sounded cheerful. It was a very windy day; Lough Corrib's waves had white caps on. The sun came out fitfully, and the clouds swept great shadows over the mountain sides. There were patches of green oats bathed in sunshine, and plantations of larch and fir standing close and locked in shadow. The wind was so strong that the little steamer seemed to plough her way with a bobbing motion like the coots on Lough Gill. We had a fine view from the lake of Ashford _demesne_, and the castle looking still grander and newer in the distance, all its towers and pinnacles bathed in the cold sunshine. There are many islands in Lough Corrib besides the islands that the priest and people of Clonbur built the causeway to. It is strange that two lords take their titles from islands in this lake, Lord Inchiquin and Lord Ardilaun. Some of the peasantry felt hurt because Lord Ardilaun took his title from an island instead of from some part of the mainland. I was pointed out in the distance from the lake, Moytura house, the home of Sir William Wilde; it stands where was fought the battle of Moytura in ancient times. From the steamer we saw the ruined fortress, Annabreen Castle, said to be six hundred years old. The masonry is very curious, being all done within and without, quoins, doorways, window frames, of undressed stone, and yet most admirably done. I stood on the deck of the little steamer while the wind blew in the teeth of the little boat and made her shiver and rock, and I endured sharp neuralgiac pain, and lost my veil, which was blown off and went sailing off into the lake because I would not miss seeing all Lough Corrib had to show. I saw the ivy plaided walls of Caislean na Cailliach, and on a little island the remains of an old uncemented stone fort, so old that antiquity has forgotten it. The scenery was very grand, the islands grassy and round, or waving with trees, the lake covered with white horses riding with tossing manes to the shore; the little boat with its broad breast holding its own against the swells, the shores with green mountains checked off into fields, with higher mountains blue in the distance rising behind them. All under "The skies of dear Erin, our mother Where sunshine and shadow are chasing each other." The little steamer steamed up to the wharf and backed and stopped, in most American fashion, at a lonely backwoods-looking wharf, but the pillars for the snubbing rope were pillars of stone, and near were the ruins of a tall square castle in good preservation. There are also the walls of the bishop's residence here, with the bells of St. Brendan; they told me this was the saint who discovered the happy land flowing with milk and honey, the key to which lies hidden in Cuneen Miaul's tomb and the ruins of an extensive abbey, a monastery and a nunnery and other buildings. Truly the banks and islands of Lough Corrib are made classic by ruins. They say the carved mouldings and stone work on these ruins are considered the most beautiful and most perfect in Ireland. We passed, farther on, the ruins of Armaghdown, the castle fort of the bog. After this the land got low and flat, and we saw Menlough Castle, where a baronet of the name of Blake resides, when he's at home. It is counted the most beautiful of all the ancient castles which are still inhabited. All I can say is, it looked well from the lake. Lough Corrib is calculated to cover 44,000 acres, and is well supplied with fish. XLV. THE EASTERN COAST--THE LAND QUESTION FROM A LANDLORD'S STANDPOINT. Went through Galway to the station as fast as a jaunting car could take me, and took the train for Dublin. Crossing Ireland thus from Galway to Dublin, I noticed that the land got to be more uniformly fertile as we neared the eastern coast. From Dublin the road ran down the coast, in sight of the sea for most part. Through counties Dublin, Meath and Louth, the land looked like the garden of Eden. It was all like one demesne heavy with trees, interspersed with large fields having rich crops and great meadows waving with grass; the cultivation, so weedless, so regular, every ridge and furrow as straight as a rule could make it, every corner cultivated most scrupulously. It was a great pleasure to look at the farms. Truly this is a rich and fertile land. And yet in no place which I have seen so far have I noticed any laborers' cottages, fit to live in, except on a few places in Antrim. This east coast was beautiful exceedingly, and yet I saw on this good land mud huts which were not fit to be kennels for dogs inhabited by human beings. I heard a shilling a week spoken of as rent for these abominable pigsties, collected every Saturday night. Twenty-five cents looks small, but it is taken out of a small wage. The country railway stations are very nice to look at. Arrived at Castle Bellingham, received a very kindly welcome indeed. Felt inclined to snuggle down into enjoyment here, to the neglect of my work. The country is so fertile, so beautiful, the large fields waving with luxuriant crops. The roses are in bloom climbing over the fronts of the houses, clinging round the second-story windows and on to the roof. It is a feast to look at them, hanging their heads heavy with beauty in clusters of three, creamy-white or red of every shade, from the faintest pink to the velvet leaf of deepest crimson. I suppose that they flourish best amid frequent rains, for this has been a remarkably rainy season, and the wealth of roses is wonderful to see, the air is sweet with their breath. South Gate House, Castle Bellingham, is one of the houses that tempts one to the breach of the tenth commandment. I have stood in the front garden and looked at it trying to learn it off by heart. It is draped with a wonderful variety of roses climbing over it, wreathing round it, heavy with bloom. Every inch of land in the front garden is utilized with the taste that creates beauty. Inside the house is a constant surprise; the comfort and cosiness, the space to be comfortable in, room after room appearing as a new revelation, made it appear a very desirable residence to me. At the end of the house, from the conservatory, can be seen the tree under which His Majesty, of glorious, pious and immortal memory, eat his luncheon on his way to fight for a kingdom at the Boyne. The Bellinghams were an old family then. Some say proudly, "We came over with good King William." Others can say, "He found us here when he came." The evening after my arrival was taken up looking at the house, looking at the grounds, wondering over the ferns and flowers, and deciding that it was rather nice to be an Irish country gentleman. The next morning found me through the gardens wondering over the abundance of fruit and the perfect management that made the most of every corner. Mr. Bellingham drove me over to Dunany Castle, where Sir Allan Bellingham resides at present. The road lay through the usual beautiful country that spreads along this east coast, plantations of fine trees, large fields of grain, great meadows and bean fields that perfumed the air. We passed a large mill; I took particular notice of it, because mills do not often occur as a feature in the landscape on the western coast. There were mills at Westport belonging to the Messrs. Livingstone, but they were not as obtrusive as American mills are. One became aware of them by the prosperity they created. In Cong, the corn mill standing idle and falling to ruin, was the last mill which I had observed. This was one reason of my noticing this mill, which was busily working. When we came where the road lay along the shore, Mr. Bellingham stopped the carriage that I might see the salmon fishers hauling in their nets. This salmon fishery is very valuable. In 1845 the right to fish here was paid for at the rate of L10 per annum; in 1881 the right to fish brings L130. Still, I am told, the man who has the fishing makes a great deal. The fish are exported. This salmon fishery belongs to Sir Allan Bellingham. It was a strange sight to me to see so many men and boys walking unconcernedly waist deep in the sea. I wondered over the number of men and boys which were required to haul in one net. Truly, fishing is a laborious business, but still, how pleasant to see the busy fisher folk, and to know that work brings meat. I remembered the silent waters on long stretches of the western shores. I remembered the rejoicing at Dromore west, over the Canadian given boats. God bless, and prosper, and multiply the fisher folk. In from the sea, through the pleasant land, we drove a little farther into the solemn woods that surround Dunany Castle. As we neared the castle the woods became broken into a lawn and pleasure ground, and at a sudden turn we found ourselves before the castle. I am not yet tired of looking at castles, whether in ruins, as relics of the past, or inhabited as the "stately houses where the wealthy people dwell." Dunany, with its court-yard, where wines, climbing roses and Virginia creepers grew luxuriantly over the battlemented walls, reminded me of descriptions I had read of Moorish houses in sunny Spain. Every house has a history, and it is no wonder if these great houses tell a story of other times and other scenes that has a powerful influence on the minds of the descendants of those who founded these houses and carved out these fortunes. There were little children playing before the castle, happy and free, that ran to meet their uncle. We were received by Sir Thomas Butler, Sir Allan's son-in-law, whom I had met with before on the evening of my arrival at Castle Bellingham. My errand to Dunany Castle was, strictly speaking, to gather the opinions of these gentlemen on the land question, but the quaint, foreign look of the castle, and the historic names of Butler and Bellingham, sent my mind off into the past, to the battle of the Boyne, and into the dimness beyond, when the war cry of "A Butler" was a rallying cry that had power in the green vales of Erin. In the cold Celtic times when men held by the strong hand, the numerical fighting power of the clan was of the utmost importance, a chieftain being valued by the number of men who would follow him to the field. As a consequence, men were precious. In these more peaceful times, when the lords of the soil are rated by their many acres, lands, and not likely lads, are the symbol of greatness. Sir Allan Bellingham is such a fresh-looking active gentleman that I could hardly bring myself to think that he had reached, by reason of strength, the scriptural fourscore. I was almost too much taken up admiring to think of the Land Question, but, after the fashionable five o'clock tea, had some conversation with Sir Allan and Sir Thomas on the subject. Sir Allan thought the Land League much to blame for the present miserable state of affairs. Men well able to pay their rents, and supposed to be willing to pay their rents, were prevented from paying from a system of terrorism inaugurated by the Land League. Some instances were given. One was of the man who had the mill which we passed on the road, who being behind in his rent, was willing to pay but dare not do it. Certainly by the busy appearance of the mill and by the style of his dwelling-house it did not seem to be inability that kept him from paying. Another instance was that of a man holding a large farm, on which he had erected a fine house, which I saw in passing, a very nice residence indeed, with plate glass windows, and carpeted throughout with Brussels carpets, I am told. The large fields were waving with a fine crop; there were some grand fields of wheat, the stack yard had many stacks of last year's grain and hay. This man had given his son lately L2500 to settle himself on a farm. It certainly would not be poverty that prevented him paying his rent, for there was every evidence of wealth around him. I heard of men, who, having paid their rent, could not get their horses shod at the blacksmith's shop. For breaking the rules of the Land League they were set apart from their fellows. I can well imagine that serious embarrassments must arise to landlords when their rents, their only income, are kept back from them. How I would rejoice to know that landlord and tenant were reconciled once more, that lordship and leadership were united in one person. Sir Thomas Butler informed me that, "when a landlord dies and his son succeeds him the Government do not charge him succession duty on his rental but on Griffith's (or the Poor Law) valuation of his estate, plus 30 per cent. If his estate is rented at only 10 per cent over the valuation, he has to pay Government all the same, and is consequently over charged 20 per cent because in the opinion of the Government authorities, the fair letting value of land is from 25 to 30 per cent over Griffiths valuation, and they charge accordingly." (I suppose it is founded upon this law of succession duty that when a tenant dies the widow has the rent raised upon her.) "Under the Bright clauses of the Land Act of 1870 the Government is authorized to advance to the tenant two-thirds of the purchase money for his holding. At first the Treasury fixed 24 years' purchase of the valuation as the scale they would adopt, and under that they lent 16 years' purchase to the tenant, who at once remonstrated that their interest was a great deal more. After numerous enquiries, &c., the treasury changed the 24 years into 30 years, and consequently let the tenants 20 years value of their valuation, they finding the other ten years, clearly showing that in the opinion of the tenants themselves and the Government land was worth 30 years' purchase of its valuation. What is the proposal now by the tenants and agitators? That they should clearly only pay at the rate of Griffith's valuation, which, a few years ago, they themselves asserted was fifty percent below the selling value, and which valuation was taken when wheat, oats, barley, butter, beef, mutton and pork were much below the present value. Landlords have not raised their rents in proportion. My own estate in 1843 had 116 tenants, in 1880 it had 105 tenants on 5,760 statute acres. The difference in the rent paid in 1880 over that paid in 1843 is L270, barely six percent on the whole rental, which is almost 16 percent over valuation. Over L2,000 was forgiven in the bad years after potato famine, and over L1,000 has been lost by nonpaying tenants, and a considerable sum has been expended in improvements without charging the tenant interest; in some cases the cost has been divided between landlord and tenant. It is a very common practice in Ireland to fix a rent for a tenant and to reduce that rent on the tenant executing certain improvements. No improving tenant, or one who pays his rent, is ever disturbed in possession of his farm--it is only the insolvent one that is put out, and by the time the landlord can obtain possession of the farm it is always in a most delapidated condition. An ejectment for non-payment of rent cannot be brought till a clear year's rent is due, and usually the tenant owes more before it is brought, and he has always from date of decree to redeem the farm by paying what is due on the decree with costs. The landlord has, in case of redemption by the tenant, to account for the profits he has made out of the land during the six months. When dilapidation and waste have taken place no compensation for the loss can be obtained by the landlord from the the tenant. In cases of leases, the landlord finds it quite impossible to enforce the covenants for good tillage and preservation of fences, buildings, &c. Poor rates, sanitary, medical charities, election expenses, cattle diseases and sundry other charges are paid by the poor rate, which is levied on the valuation of house or farm property, consequently the funded property-holder, banks, commercial establishments pay far less in proportion to business done than the landholder, who cannot make as much out of a L50 holding as a banker or publican ought to do out of a house valued at L50. The present agitation against rents is political, and the rent question has been brought prominently forward by the leaders with the view of getting the farmers on their side as the great voting power. It would have been quite useless their endeavoring to enlist the farmers without promising them something to their own advantage; but the interest in the land is only a veil under which the advances for total separation from England can be made, and will be thrown aside when no further use can be made of it." These are Sir Thomas Butler's sentiments and opinions. His opinions, formed from his standpoint, are worthy of consideration. With a lingering look at bonnie Dunany, we bade adieu to Lady Butler and the two baronets, and were driven back to South Gate over another and more inland road. XLVI. THE EAST AND THE WEST--LANDLORDS AND LANDLORDS. For good and sufficient reasons the railway carriage whisked through the rich country, carrying me from Castle Bellingham to Rath Cottage by the Moat of Dunfane. There is one beautiful difference between the North and the West; the North is full of people, the hill sides are dotted thickly with white dwellings--so much for the Ulster Custom. It pleases the people to tell them that the superior prosperity of their northern fields is due to their religious faith. Some parts of Lord Mount Cashel's estate, when sold in the Encumbered Estates Court, did not pass into hands governed by the same opinions as to the rights and duties which property confers as are held by Mr. Young, of Galgorm Castle. Their tenants complain of rack rents as bitterly as if they lived in the west. They are looking eagerly to the new law for redress. In fact when they find their tenant-right eaten up by a vast increase of rent they consider their faith powerless in the face of their landlord's works. I do not think any one can pass through this country without noticing a vast difference which is not a religious difference, between one property as to management and another, between one part of the country and another. In some parts the tenants build the houses, whatever sort of houses they are able to build; they repair them as they are able, and the landlords get the rent of them. If by any means they can improve them, the landlord improves the rent to a higher figure. I was over one property in the County Antrim, the property of a man who combines landholding as a middleman, with trade in linen fabrics and manufacturing or bleaching, or both. I cannot say that this gentleman is excessively popular, but he is exceedingly prosperous. His private residence, as far as taste goes, a taste that can be gratified regardless of expense, is as perfectly beautiful within its limits as the property of any lord of the soil which I have come across. Indeed, the arrangements made at such cost, kept up to such perfection, spoke of one who owed his income to trade and not to his land alone. His hot- houses, heavy with grapes, rich with peaches and nectarines, and fragrant with rare flowers, were verily on a lordly scale. It was his tenement houses that attracted my attention chiefly. They were well- roofed, slated in almost every instance; not a roof was broken that he owned. The cottages were rough cast and washed over with drab; they were covered with roses that were in as rich bloom as if they were blooming for gentry. Truly the tenants planted them, but a tenant who plants roses is not living in a state of desperation as to the means of existence. When he sent men to wash over the tenement houses, and the good wives trembled for the roses. "The gardener shall come and arrange them again and see that they are not harmed in the least," he said. They tell me that this gentleman, being a trader with a commercial mind, takes for his tenements the utmost they will bring. If so, when he builds the houses, and keeps them in thorough repair, it is surely doing what he will with his own. Others who do not build, who never repair, surely raise the rent on what is, strictly and honestly speaking, not their own. There is a difference between this gentleman, whose tenants say, "He will send his own gardener to fix up the roses again after the white, or rather gray washing," and the lord in the West whose tenants say, "If he saw a patch of flowers at the door, he would compel us to grub it up as something beyond our station." The agent on the Galgorm estate told me that during twenty-five years, when he was in Lord Mount Cashel's land office, there was but one eviction, and that man got four hundred pounds for his tenant right before he left the yard. This is one man's testimony of one landlord. Ulster, as a whole, has had more evictions, pending the Land Bill, than any other of the provinces. It is true that she has more people to evict. Her rent-roll during the last-eighty years has risen from L124,481 to L1,440,072. One million, three hundred and fifteen thousand five hundred and ninety one pounds of a rise. XLVII. THE CENTRAL COUNTIES--SOME SLEEPY TOWNS. Away from the North once more, this time direct southwards; paused on the Sabbath-day in the neighborhood of Tandragee, and went to a field- meeting at a place called Balnabeck--I wonder if I spell it right? This gathering in a church-yard for preaching is held yearly as a commemoration service because John Wesley preached in this same graveyard when he made an evangelistic tour in Ireland. Although this is only a yearly service, and a commemoration service of one whom the people delight to honor, they made it pretty much a penitential service. There were no seats but what the damp earth afforded, no stand for the officiating minister but a grave; it was not, therefore, a very attentive congregation which he addressed. The speaker, a Mr. Pepper, had emigrated from thence when a lad to America. He now returned to the people who had known him in earlier days. It was certainly listening under difficulties, and we were obliged to leave, by limb-weariness, before the service was over. I had an opportunity on the morrow of seeing the handsome weaving of damask. The looms are very complicated and expensive affairs, and do not belong to the weaver but to the manufacturer. The pattern is traced on stiff paper in holes. Was very much interested in watching the process of weaving; of course did not understand it, and therefore wondered over it. The web was two and a half yards wide, was double damask of a fern pattern. The weaver, a young and nice-looking man, with the assured manner of a skilled worker, informed me proudly that he could earn three shillings a day--75 cents. Out of this magnificent income he paid the rent of his house--which was not a palace either--and supported his wife and family. His wife, a pretty and rather refined looking young woman, had a baby, teething sick, in the cradle. It must wail, and mother could only look her love and coo to it in softest tones, for if she took the little feverish sufferer up the pirns would be unwound and the husband's three shillings would have a hole in it, so both wife and baby had a share in the earning of that three shillings--baby's share the hardest of all. Called in to see another weaver of damask to-day; he could earn fifteen pence a day. He was a melancholy little man, of a pugnacious turn of mind, I am afraid. He said that fifteen pence a day was but little out of which to pay rent and support a wife and family. Thinking of the wife and baby at the other house, we said that seeing the wife wound the bobbins, cooked, kept house, nursed and washed for her family that she earned her full share of the fifteen pence. Would not be surprised to hear that there had been a controversy raging on this very subject before we came in, the man's face became so glum and the woman's so triumphant. It was an enthusiastic blessing she threw after us when we left. Visited a great thread factory, where the yarn is made ready that is woven into double damask, and thread for all purposes supplied to all parts. In whatever part of Ireland the tall factory chimney rises up into the air the people have not the look of starvation that is stamped on the poor elsewhere. Still, if we consider a wage of seven to twelve shillings a week--twelve in this factory was the general wages--and subtract from that two shillings a week for the house and three shillings a week for fuel the operators are not likely to lay up large fortunes. As they have no gardens to the houses owned by the factory, nor backyard accommodation of any kind, the cleanliness and tidy appearance of houses and workpeople are a credit to them. But when times grow hard, and the mills run half time, and not even a potato to fall back upon, there must be great suffering behind these walls. There are large schools, national schools, in this village, and the children over ten years of age, who work in the factory, go to school half time. They are paid at the rate of two-pence halfpenny a day for the work of the other half of the day--that is equivalent to five cents. The teachers of the schools informed me that, when the little ones came in the morning, as they did on alternate weeks, that they learned well, but when they came in the afternoon they were sleepy and listless. On that morning they had to rise at five o'clock. The schools which I have seen in Ireland, for so far, are conducted on the old plan; children learn their lessons at home, repeat them to the teachers in school, who never travel out of record, are trained in obedience, respect to superiors, and in order, more or less, according to the nature of the teacher. They still adhere to the broad sound of A, which has been so universally abandoned on the other side of the water. The factories at Gilford are very remunerative; great fortunes, allowing of the purchase of landed estates and the building of more than one castlelike mansion have been made in them. From Tandragee to Portadown, in Armagh, which we travelled in a special car, took us through the same green country waving with crops, and in some places shaded heavily with trees. In the environs of Gilford--as if that very clean manufacturing town set an example that was universally followed--all the houses are clean and white as to the outside, further away the dreadful-looking homes abound. Portadown, all we saw of it, just passing through, is a clean and thrifty little town. We would have liked to linger in Armagh a little while, but we must hurry down to the South. Got a glimpse of Armagh Catholic cathedral--a very fine building, not so grand, however, as the Cathedral at Sligo. Took notice of a very fine memorial window, with the name of Archbishop Crolly on it. I remember him very well, saw him frequently, got a pat on the head from him occasionally. He seemed partial to the little folks, when we played in the chapel yard--a nice place to play in was the chapel yard in Donegal street. He was then Bishop Crolly, and I was a very small heretic, who loved to play on forbidden ground. Walked about a little in Armagh between the trains, saw that there were many fine churches and other nice buildings from the outside view of them, and passed on to Clones. The land as seen from the railway is good in some places, poor in others, but in all parts plenty of houses not fit to be human habitations are to be seen. Clones is a little town on a hill, with a history that stretches back into the dim ages. It has a round tower that threatens to fall, and will, too, some windy night; an abbey almost gone, but whose age and weakness is propped up by modern repairs, as, they say, the tenure of some land depends on the old gable of the abbey standing; a three-story fort, that, as Clones is built on a hill and the fort is built on Clones, affords a wide view of the surrounding country. Clones has a population of over two thousand, has no manufactory, depends entirely on the surrounding farming population, does not publish a newspaper, and is quietly behind the age a century or two. The loyal people who monopolize the loyalty are in their own way very loyal. It is delightfully sleepy, swarming with little shops with some little things to sell; but where are the buyers? If a real rush of business were to come to Clones I would tremble for the consequences, for it is not used to it. I was quartered in the most loyal corner of all the loyal places in Clones. Every wall on which my eyes rested proclaimed that fact. Here was framed all the mysterious symbols of Orangeism, which are very like the mysterious symbols of masonry to ignorant eyes. There was King William in scarlet, holding out his arm to some one in crimson, who informed the world that "a bullet from the Irish came that grazed King William's arm." On the next wall is the battle of the Boyne, with some pithy lines under. "And now the well-contested strand successive columns gain, While backward James' yielding band is borne across the plain; In vain the sword that Erin draws and life away doth fling, O worthy of a better cause and of a nobler king! But many a gallant spirit there retreats across the plain, Who, change but kings, would gladly dare that battlefield again." I read that verse, like it, transcribe it, and turn to study the handsome face of Johnston of Ballykillbeg, who is elevated into the saint's place alongside of King William on many, many cottage walls, when the hostess appears. Noting the direction of my glance, she informs me of the martyrdom which Mr. Johnston has suffered from Government. She has a confused idea that Mr. Johnston is at present returning good for evil by holding our gracious Queen upon the throne in some indirect way. After carefully finding out what my religious opinions are, she informs me of evangelistic services that are held in a tent at the foot of the hill on which Clones sits. These services are not, she says, in connection with the "Hallelujahs" or the "Salvations," but are authorized by the Government, and are under the wing of the Episcopal Church. Of course tent services under the wing of the Episcopal Church are worth going to, so we attend. The service is quite as evangelical as if it were preached by "Hallelujahs." There is a very large audience, and the people seem very attentive. My hostess is much affected. She tells me that if she can work hard and manage well and be content with her station, reverencing her betters as she ought to do, she hopes to get to heaven at last. Almost in the same breath she informs me that all the people of Mayo will go to hell, if any one goes, for that is their _desarvings_. Yes. The Mayo people are sure to be damned. "God forgive me for saying so," adds my hostess, as a saving clause. I am afraid the evangelistic services have failed as yet as far as my hostess is concerned; and Mayo, beautiful and desolate Mayo, may be glad that the keys of that inconveniently warm climate are not kept by a Clones woman whom I know. There are few who have not something to be proud of. My woman of Clones is proud of the fact that she entertained and lodged for a night the potato pilgrims--thirty-five of them--who went to Captain Boycott's relief down to Lough Mask. After she had mentioned this circumstance a few times, and did seem to take much spiritual comfort from the face, I ventured to inquire if she were paid for it. Oh, yes, she was; but if she had not been--she was all on the right side, she was that; and if she had the power would sweep every Papist off the face of the earth. She was wicked, she said, on this subject. I did not believe this woman; her talk was mere party blow. The whole street about her was full of Papists, small and great. I do not think she would sweep the smallest child off the face of the earth, except by a figure of speech. There are those who really know what language means who are responsible for this bloodthirsty kind of talk. It means little, but it keeps up party spirit. I thought of speeches which I heard on the 12th of July by ministers of the Gospel, with all the Scripture quotations from Judges, and Samuel, telling an inflamable people--only they were too busy with their drums and fifes to listen--that "God took the side of fighting men--Gideon meant battle--an angel was at the head of the Lord's host--Scotland was especially blest because it was composed of fighting men." Does the Gospel mean brother to war against brother for the possession of his field? How much need there is for our loving Lord to rebuke His disciples by telling them again, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of, for the leaders of my people cause them to err." Clones takes its name from a word that may signify the meadow of Eois, or high meadow. It has a history that goes back to grope about Ararat for the potsherds thrown out of the ark. It has a very old and famous round tower, used at some time as a place of sepulchre, for a great quantity of human bones have been found in it. In one stone of this tower is the mark of two toes printed into the stone, or the mark of some fossil remains dislodged by a geological hammer. As Clones sits upon a hill, and the fort sits on the highest part, it commands an extensive view. There is also an ancient cross in the market square, once elaborately carved in relief, but the figures are worn indistinct. There are the remains of an old castle built in among the modern walls and hidden out of sight. There are stories of an underground passage between the abbey and the castle. In fact, they came on this underground way when levelling the market space, but did not explore it. There is such a romance about mystery that it is as well, I suppose, not to let too much daylight shine in upon it. Clones, with its abbey, was burned by De Lacy in the thirteenth century, which was, perhaps, its last burning. I was glad on the evening on which I climbed to the top of the fort to find little gardens lying up the slope at the back of the poorer houses. Clones is better off in this respect by being behind the age. In Antrim and Down, in too many instances, the farmers have taken the cotter's gardens into their fields. I wished to be sure if the gardens belonged to the people who lived in the thatched cottages, and I spoke across the hedge to a man who was digging potatoes in one of them, a man with a leather apron, marking him out as a shoemaker, and a merry, contented face. Yes, the gardens belonged to the cottages at the foot of the hill. All the cottages had gardens in Clones. The people had all gardens in Clones. They were not any of them in want. They had enough, thank God. There was every prospect of a good harvest and a good harvest brought plenty to every home. A few words often change the world to us. I climbed the three-storey fort at Clones feeling sad and hopeless in the grey evening, everything seemed chill and dreary like the damp wind, and this man's cheery words of rejoicing over the prospect of good crops, over the yield of the little gardens, touched me as if sunset splendor had fallen over the world, and I came down comforted with the thought that our Father who gives fruitful seasons will also find a way for Ireland to emerge from the thick darkness of her present misery. I was referred to the Presbyterian minister of Clones for information on the antiquities of Clones, and from his lecture, which he with great kindness read to me, I gathered what historical hints I have inserted here. At the minister's I met with a pleasant-faced, motherly looking lady who talked to me of the Land question, the prevailing topic. From remarks she made I gathered that she was an enthusiastic church member, but on the Land question she had no ideas of either justice or mercy that could possibly extend beyond the privileged classes. I referred to the excessive rents, she gave a mild shake of her motherly chin and spoke of the freedom of contract. I spoke of new landlords making new and oppressive office rules and raising the rents above the power to pay of the tenants he found there when coming into possession. She said they might suffer justly if they had no written guarantee. She actually considered that a gentleman was not bound by his word of promise, nor did he inherit any _verbal_ agreement entered into by the man from whom he inherited his property. I spoke of the hardship of a long life of toil and penury ending in the workhouse. She said when they knew they must go into the workhouse eventually why did they not go in at once without giving so much trouble. I asked her if she, who seemed to know what it was to be a mother, would not if it were her own case put off going into the workhouse, which meant parting with her children, to the very last. The idea of mentioning her name in the one breath with these people precluded the possibility of answering. She threw down her knitting and left the room. Was it not sad to think that this Christian lady had yet to learn the embracing first two words of the Lord's prayer, Our Father. Looking at the strength of this caste prejudice, as strong here as in India, I often feel sad, but Our Father reigns. Protestant ministers belonging _ex-officio_ to this upper caste, and being, so to speak, a few flights of stairs above their people, cannot speak with the power of knowledge which our Lord had by His companionship with the poor of His people. I was more astonished than I can describe at the sentiments that met me in this red hot corner of Monaghan. "The people were armed," they said, "the people had revolvers and pikes, they would rise and murder them if they were let up at all." They did not exactly know what this let up meant, and I am sure I did not either. I heard a great deal about '98; surely '98 ought to get away into the past and not remain as a present date forever. I cannot for the life of me see what '98 has to do with allowing a man to live by his labor in his own country. The land question affects all and is outside of these old remembrances. I must acknowledge that I have heard no Roman Catholic mix the land question with religion; they keep it by itself. I was informed that when I passed Clones I was in Ireland, as if Clones was an outpost of some other country. The Episcopal Church in Clones is built on an eminence and is reached by a serious flight of steps; it looks down on the ancient cross which stands in the market place. This church is being repaired and was therefore open, so I climbed the long flight of steps and went in to see it. It certainly is being greatly improved. A grand ceiling has replaced the old one, a fine organ and stained glass windows add to the glory of the house. I had an opportunity of speaking with the rector, and his curate, I imagine. They pointed out the improvements in the church, which I admired, of course, and they told me some news which was of more interest to me than either organ tone or dim religious light streaming through stained glass. They said that the temperance cause was flourishing in connection with their congregation. Both these clergymen were strict teetotalers, they said, and workers in the total abstinence field. The number of pledged adherents to the temperance cause had increased some hundreds within a given time. There was every encouragement to go on in the fight with all boldness. Truly these gentlemen had good cheer for me in what they said on this subject, for the drinking customs are a great curse to the people of the land wherever I have been. From Clones to Belturbet Junction, where there were no cars, and there was the alternative of waiting at the station from two to seven p.m., or getting a special car. Waiting was not to be thought of for a moment, so got a car and a remarkably easy-going driver. He informed me that the rate of wages about that part of the country was one shilling a day with food. He thought the people were not very poor. The crops were good, the wages not bad, and he thought the people were very contented. Belturbet is another quiet little town, larger than Clones I should say. Like Clones it has no newspaper, no specific industry, but depends on the farmers round. Procured a car and drove out to the village of Drumalee. The land is middling good as far as the eye can judge. This neighborhood abounds with small lakes. Here for the first time I saw lads going to fish with the primitive fishing rods peculiar to country boys. The country round here is full of people and there is no appearance of extreme poverty. The houses are rather respectable looking, comparatively speaking. There is a fine Catholic chapel in Drumalee built of stone in place of the mud wall of seventy odd years ago. Saw no old people about and found that almost the recollection of Father Peter Smith, the blessed priest who wrought miracles, had faded away from the place, also that of his friend the loyal Orangeman who always got Orange as a prefix to his name. The police in these midland counties are not so alert and vigilant, like people in an enemy's country, as they are in the west. They do not seem to have "reasonable suspects" on their minds. The asses of Belturbet, although some of them appear dressed in straw harness, and with creels, are well fed and sleek and do not bray in a melancholy, gasping manner as if they were squealing with hunger as the Leitrim asses do. It rained pretty steadily during the time I was in Belturbet, and the principal trading to be seen from my window was the sale of heather besoms. A woman and a young girl, barefooted and bareheaded, arrived at the corner with an ass-load of this merchandise. They were sold at one half-penny each. They were neatly made, and the heather of which they were composed being in bloom they looked very pretty. How it did rain on these dripping creatures! Being shut up by the weather I took an interest in the besom merchants and their load, which was such a heavy one that a good-natured bystander had to help to lift the load off the ass's back. It was a long while before a customer appeared. At length a stout woman, with the skirt of her dress over her head, ran across the street to buy a broom. She bargained closely, getting the broom and a scrubber for one half-penny, but as she was the first purchaser she spat upon the half- penny for luck. Then came some more little girl buyers, who inspected and turned over the brooms with an important commercial air, with intent to get the worth of their half-penny and show to their mothers at home that they were fit to be trusted to invest a half-penny wisely. They bought and others came and bought until the stock began to diminish sensibly. A little man who had arrived with his load of besoms somewhat later sold none. I saw him glance from his load to the stock of mother and daughter, fast selling off, and become aware that his stock as compared with theirs was rather heathery, and he began to trim off roughnesses with his knife. I hope he succeeded in selling. Drove out to Drumlane, where are the ruins of a large church and abbey and round tower. The driver, a Catholic, talked a little, guardedly, of the high rents. A broken-down looking man, who opened the iron gates for us into the ruins, complained heavily of the rents. He was only a laborer himself, the farmer he worked for was paying fifty-five shillings an acre for part of his farm and L3 for the rest. The land on which I looked was rented at L3. My only wonder is that the lands thus rented pay the rent alone without supporting in any manner the tillers of the soil. It was all pasture at this particular place. The ruins here of the church are very extensive, of the abbey only the fragment of a wall is standing. My guides informed me that there was an underground passage in old days between the abbey and the church, so that the bishop was not seen from the time he left the abbey until he appeared on the high altar. They remarked that a story handed down from father to son as a true record of a place should be believed before a written account. They made no allowance for the coloring given to a story as it passed through the imaginations of successive generations. I assured them that I accepted all legends as historical facts to a certain extent. They were made happy, and were in a fit state of mind to _insinse_ me into the facts of the case about the round tower. It is of great thickness, the area enclosed would make a good sized room. The stone work is remarkably solid and good, and every stone smoothly fitted into the next with no appearance of mortar. It is wonderful to see how the projection of one stone is neatly fitted into a cavity made to correspond in its fellow. On one stone a bird is cut in relief, another nearly the same in the attitude of following is cut on another stone. There is also a representation of a coffin. The beautiful stone work goes up a great way, and suddenly stops, the remainder of the building being done in a much rougher manner. Seeing that I was of a reasonable turn of mind, they informed me that the lower portion of this round tower was built by a woman, but she being jeered at and tormented by the men masons, jealous of her work, disappeared in the night, leaving the masons to finish it, which they did, but not nearly so well, as we could see. On the way from Drumlane to Ballyconnell the driver began to talk of the bitter feeling that was kept up in the country on party subjects. He said that religion forbid it, for if we noticed in the Lord's prayer it was a prayer to forgive us as we forgave others. He thought Ireland could not prosper or have God's blessing until the bitterness of party spirit went down. Found Ballyconnell just such another sleepy little town as Clones and Belturbet. Here I had the comfort of meeting a friend who had puzzled a little over the land question in a misty sort of way, and was willing to give the benefit of his observations and conclusions. From Clones to Belturbet and on to Ballyconnell, as I have mentioned before, I believe, is pretty much the same sort of country, good fields, middling and good pastures alternating with stretches of bog and many small lakes dotted about here and there. Every appearance of thrifty, contented poverty among the people as far as met the eye. They were better clad, the little asses shod, and sleek and fat, so different from other places. Still, the best of the common people all along here is not very good to trans-Atlantic eyes, and the houses one sees as they pass along are dreadfully bad. I spoke of this to my friend in Ballyconnell, who informed me that the people were harassed with ever-increasing rent, that as soon as they could not meet it they were dealt with without mercy. A man who had toiled to create a clearing--put a life's labor into it--was often not able to pay the increased rent and then he was put out, while another man paid the increased rent on his neighbor's lost labor. This friend of mine held the opinion that landlords of the old stock never did wrong, never were rapacious or cruel; it was the new landlords, traders who bought out in the Encumbered Estates Court, who had no mercy, and the agents. Here again was brought up the story denied before that the agents had a percentage on the rents collected. One cannot agree with the fact of all landlords of the old stock being considerate and kind and all new landlords rapacious; for Lord Leitrim was of the old stock, and who would wish to succeed to the inheritance of hatred he left behind him, and Lord Ardilaun, a new landlord, is well spoken of by all his people. Every one with whom I spoke of him, including the parish priest, acknowledged him to be a high-toned, grandly benevolent man, who, if he differed from his tenants, differed as one on a height of grandeur may misjudge the ability of the poor. XLVIII. IN THE COUNTY CAVAN--THE ANNALS OF THE POOR--BURYING THE PAST. As an instance of hardships of which the poor had to complain, my informant mentioned the case of one very old man, whose children had scattered away over the world, which meant that they had emigrated. He held a small place on a property close beside another property managed by my informant's brother. This old man had paid his rent for sixty-nine years; he and his people before him had lived, toiled and paid rent on this little place. He was behind in his rent, for the first time, and had not within a certain amount the sum required. He besought the intercession of my friend's brother, who, having Scotch caution in his veins, did not, though pitying, feel called upon to interfere. The old man tendered what money he had at the office and humbly asked that he might have time given him to make up the rest. It was refused with contempt. "Sir," faltered the old man, "I have paid my rent every year for sixty- nine years. I have lived here under three landlords without reproach. I am a very old man. I might get a little indulgence of time." "All that is nothing to me," said the agent. "Sir," said the old man, "if my landlord himself were here, or the General his father, or my Lord Belmore who sold the land to him, I would not be treated in this way after all." "Get out of this instantly," said the agent, stamping his foot, "How dare you give such insolence to me." "You see," explained my friend, "he was very old, it was not likely that any more could be got out of him even if he got time, for he was past his labor. Besides there was a man beside him who held a large farm, and he wanted this old man's little holding to square off his farm, so the old man had to go to the wall, but I was sorry for him." There is a good deal of this unproductive sorrow scattered over Ireland among the comfortable classes. There are a good many also who feel like that motherly Christian lady in Clones who said to me, "When they have to go into the poor-house at the last, and they know it will come to that, why not go in at once?" I am convinced more and more every day of the widespread need there is that some evangelistic effort should be made to bring a practical Gospel to bear on the dominant classes in Ireland. My friend and I walked up to the church to search for some graves in the churchyard that lies around it. He drew my attention to the socket where a monument had been erected but which was gone, and mentioned the circumstances under which it had disappeared. A gentleman of the country, an Episcopalian, had fallen in love with and married a Catholic lady. The usual bargain had been made, the daughters to follow the mother's faith, the sons to go with the father. There was one son who was a member of the Episcopalian church. It seemed that the son loved and reverenced his Catholic mother, and that she was also loved and reverenced by her Catholic coreligionists. When she died she was buried in the family burying plot of ground in the Episcopalian churchyard. Her son erected there a white marble cross to his mother's memory. At this cross, on their way home from mass, sundry old women used to turn in, and, kneeling down there, say a prayer. This proceeding, visible from the church windows, used to annoy and exasperate the officiating clergyman very much. At the time of the disestablishment of the Church a committee was being formed to make some arrangements consequent upon this event. The Episcopal son of this Catholic mother was named on the Committee, and a great opposition was got up to his nomination on account of his being only Protestant by half blood. There was no objection to him personally, his faith or belief was thought sound, except that part of it which was hereditary. My friend considered this very wrong, and ranged himself on the side of the gentleman who was the cause of the dispute. The dispute waxed so hot that the parties almost came to blows in the vestry room. During the time this war raged some bright genius, on one of the days of Orange procession, had a happy thought of putting an orange arch over the churchyard gate, in such a manner that the praying women should have to pass under it if they entered. I am not quite sure whether the arch was destroyed or not; as far as my memory serves I think it was. Something happened to it anyway. Something also happened to the monumental cross, which was torn down, broken up and strewed round in marble fragments. The gentleman prosecuted several Orangemen whom he suspected of this outrage. There was not evidence to convict them. An increased ill-feeling got up against the gentleman for a prosecution that threw a slur on the Orange organization. The Orange society offered a reward of L60 for the discovery and conviction of the offenders, but nothing came of it. My friend thought it was done by parties unknown to bring reproach on the Orange cause. The gentleman of the half-blood had not been so much thought of by his fellow church members since this transaction. I spoke to my friend upon the unchristian nature of this party spirit, which he agreed with me in lamenting, but excused by telling me outrages by the Catholic party which made me shudder. All these outrages were confirmed by the ancient woman who kept the key of the church, and who stood listening and helping with the story, emphasizing with the key. I asked when these outrages had taken place, and was relieved considerably to hear that they happened about 1798 and 1641. Asked my friend if the other side had not any tales of suffered atrocities to tell? He supposed they had, thought it altogether likely. Why then, I asked him, do you not bury this past and live like Christians for the future. I am often asked this question about burying the past, said my friend. My answer is, let them bury first and afterwards we will. Let them bury their Ribbonism, their Land Leagueism, their Communism and their Nihilism (making the motion of digging with his hands as he spoke) and after that ask us to bury our Orangeism, our Black Chapter, our Free Masonry, and we will do it then. As we came down the hill from the church, I said to my friend, "You acknowledge that there are wrongs connected with land tenure that should be set right. You say that you see things of doubtful justice and scant mercy take place here, that you see oppression toward the poor of your country; why, then, not join with them to have what is wrong redressed, fight side by side on the Land Question and leave religious differences aside for the time being?" "I would be willing to do this," said my friend, "I do not believe in secret societies, although I belong to three of them, but a man must go with his party if he means to live here. There are many Orangemen who have become what we call 'rotten,' about Fermanagh, over one hundred have been expelled for joining the Land League." Party spirit is nourished, and called patriotism; it is fostered and called religion, but it is slowly dying out, Ireland is being regenerated and taught by suffering. In all suffering there is hope. This thought comforted me when I shook hands with my friend and turned my back to Ballyconnell and to Belturbet and took the car for Cavan, passing through the same scenery of field and bog and miserable houses that prevail all over. The only manufacture of any kind which I noticed from Clones to Cavan, a large thriving town bustling with trade, was the making of brick, which I saw in several places. These inland towns seem to depend almost entirely on the agricultural population around them. From Cavan down through the County Cavan, is swarming with Land Leaguers they say, although I met with none to know them as such. Poor land is in many places, a great deal of bog, many small lakes and miserable mud wall cabins abounding. In every part of Ireland, and almost at every house, you see flocks of ducks and geese; raising them is profitable, because they do not require to be fed, but forage for themselves, the ducks in the water courses and ponds, while the geese graze, and they only get a little extra feed when being prepared for market. Ducks can be seen gravely following the spade of a laborer, with heads to one side watching for worms. Neither ducks nor geese, nor both together, are as numerous as the crows; they seem to be under protection, and they increase while population decreases. As one journeys south the change in the countenance of the people is quite remarkable. In Down, Antrim, Donegal, the faces are almost all different varieties of the Scottish face--Lowland, Highland, Border or Isle--but as you come southward an entirely different type prevails. I noticed it first at Omagh. It is the prevailing face in Cavan; large, loose features, strong jaws, heavy cheeks and florid complexion, combined mostly with a bulky frame. You hear these people tracing back their ancestors to English troopers that came over with Cromwell or William the Third. They have a decided look of Hengist and Horsa about them. The feeling against the Land League among the Conservative classes in the north is comparatively languid to the deeper and more intense feeling that prevails southward. The gulf between the two peoples that inhabit the country widens. After leaving Cavan we crossed a small point of Longford and thence into Westmeath, passing quite close to Derryvaragh Lake, and then to Lake Owel after passing Mulingar, getting a glimpse of yet another, Westmeath Lake. After passing Athlone and getting into Roscommon we got a view of that widening of the Shannon called Lough Ree, sixteen miles long and in some parts three miles wide. A woman on the train told me of that island on this lough, Hare island, with Lord Castlemaine's beautiful plantation, of the castle he has built there, decorated with all that taste can devise, heart can desire or riches buy. A happy man must be my Lord Castlemaine. Lough Ree is another silent water, like the waters of the west unbroken by the keel of any boat, undarkened by the smoke of any steamer, the breeze flying over it fills no sail. I have mentioned before how completely the County Mayo has gone to grass. The same thing is apparent in a lesser degree elsewhere. There is not a breadth of tillage sufficient to raise food for the people. Cattle have been so high that hay and pasturage were more remunerative, and the laborers depend for food on the imported Indian meal. The grassy condition of every place strikes one while passing along; but Roscommon seems to be given up to meadow and pasture land almost altogether. The hay crop seems light in some places. The rain has been so constant that saving it has been difficult in some places. I saw some hay looking rather black, which is an unbecoming color for hay. Roscommon is a very level country as far as I saw of it, and very thinly populated. The town of Roscommon has a quiet inland look, with a good deal of trading done in a subdued manner. There is the extensive ruin of an old castle in it; the old gaol is very castle-like also. I drove over to Athleague as soon as I arrived, a small squalid village some four Irish miles away. The land is so level that one can see far on every side as we drive along, and the country is really empty. The people left in the little hamlets have one universal complaint, the rent is too high to be paid and leave the people anything to live on. It was raised to the highest during prosperous years; when the bad years came it became impossible. I enquired at this village of Athleague what had become of all the people that used to live here in Roscommon. They were evicted for they could not pay their rents. Where are they? Friends in America sent passage tickets for many, some, out of the sale of all, made out what took them away; some were in the poor house; some dead and gone. The land is very empty of inhabitants. CHAPTER XLIX AN EMPTY COUNTRY--RAPACIOUS LANDLORDS. From Roscommon I drove to Lanesborough where Longford and Roscommon meet at a bridge across the Shannon, and where a large Catholic church stands on each side of the river. The bridge at Lanesborough, a swing bridge, substantial and elegant, the solid stone piers--all the stone work on bridge and wharves is of hewn stone--speak of preparations for a great traffic which is not there, like the warehouses of Westport. Seeing all facilities for trade and all conveniences for trade prepared, and the utter silence over all, makes one think of enchanted places where there must come a touch of some kind to break the charm before the bustle of life awakes and "leaps forward like a cataract." One man stood idle and solitary on the wharf at Lanesborough as if he were waiting for the sudden termination of this spell-bound still life. My glimpse of Longford from the neighborhood of Lanesborough showed a place of wooded hills and valleys covered with crops, and with this glimpse we turned back over the plain of Roscommon. The road lay through peat bog for a good part of the way, and the mud-wall cabins were a sad sight indeed. Empty as the country is, eviction is still going on. Many have occurred lately, and more are hanging over the people. From Roscommon to Boyle, across more than one-half the length of this long county, from Roscommon to French Park, the country is so completely emptied of inhabitants that one can drive a distance of five miles at once without seeing a human habitation except a herd's hut. The country is as empty as if William the Conqueror had marched through it. Several persons called upon me to give me some information on the state of things in general. I also received some casual information. One gentleman of large experience from his position, a person of great intelligence and cultivation, while utterly condemning the Land League, admitted that some change in the Land Law was absolutely necessary. He instanced one case where a gentleman acquired a property by marriage and immediately set about raising the rent. Rent on one little holding was raised from L2 to L10 at one jump. In no case was it less than doubled. This landlord complains bitterly that the people under the influence of the Land League have turned against him. They used to bow and smile, and it was, "What you will, sir," and, "As you please." Now they are surly and sullen and will not salute him. The farmer who holds a good-sized farm always wishes to extend its borders and is ready and eager to add the poor man's fields to his own. Concentration of lands into few hands, reducing small farmers into laborers, is the idea that prevails largely. My Athleague friend, a very interesting old gentleman, after mentioning the great depopulation of Roscommon, spoke of good landlords, such as Lord Dufresne, Mr. Charles French, the O'Connor Don, Mr. Mapother; but he paused before mentioning any oppressive ones. "Would his name appear?" No. His name should not appear. "Well, for fear of getting into any trouble I will mention no names, but we find that they who purchased in the Encumbered Estates Court are the most rapacious landlords." One gentleman, who was representing to me the discouragement given to improvement, mentioned a case where a person of means who held a little place for comfort and beauty, but lived by another pursuit than farming, sought the agent to know if he could obtain any compensation for improvements which he had made, and which had made his place one of the most beautiful in Roscommon. He wanted to be sure that he was not throwing his money away. When he sought the agent on this subject he found him on his car preparing to drive away somewhere. He listened to his tenant's question as to compensation for outlay, and then whipped up the horse and drove away without answering. I had a call from an elderly gentleman, before I left Roscommon, who gave me his views on the question very clearly. He thought as God had ordained some to be rich and others to be poor, any agitation to better the condition of the poor was sheer flying in the face of the Almighty. Under cover of helping the poor the Land League were plotting to dismember the British Empire. There never had been peace in the country since the confiscation, and there never would be until the Roman Catholic population were removed by emigration and replaced by Protestants. The blame of the present disturbed condition of the country he laid upon four parties: First, the Government, who administered the country in a fitful manner, now petting, now coercing, while they should keep the country steadily under coercion, for alternately petting and coercing sets parties against one another more than ever. Second, landlords and agents, who rented land too high and raised the rent on the tenant's own invested improvements. Third, the priests, who could repress outrage and reveal crime if they chose to do so. Fourth, Catholic tenants who took the law into their own hands instead of patiently waiting for redress by law. According to this gentleman, the only innocent persons in Ireland were the Protestant tenantry; so to root out the Catholics and replace them by Protestants was the only possible way to have peace in the country. Boycotting he referred to especially as a dangerous thing, which paralyzed all industry and turned the country into a place governed by the worst kind of mob law. Another gentleman of position and experience said that a strike against paying rent led easily into a strike against paying anything at all; that society had really become disorganized. Many held back their rents, which they were well able to pay--had the money by them. The Land League had done a great deal of harm. At the same time this gentleman confirmed the Athleague gentleman's statement that rents were raised past the possibility of the tenant's paying, that eviction was cruel and persistent, the belief being that large grass farms were the only paying form of letting land. In fact, he said, he himself had evicted the tenants on his property on pain of being evicted himself. He held land, but at such a rent that if living by farming alone he would not be able to pay it. He gave some instances of boycotting. One was that travelling in the neighboring county of Longford he had occasion to get a smith to look at his horse's shoes, and was asked for his Land League ticket. On saying he had none, the smith refused to attend to the horse's shoes. Roscommon had boycotted a Longford man who had taken willow rods to sell because he had not a Land League ticket, and a Longford smith in reprisal would not set the shoe on the horse of a Roscommon man unless he had a Land League ticket. When the gentleman explained that he had bought five hundred of those same rods from that same man the smith attended to the horse, and the boycotting was over. I heard of other cases of boycotting. It is not by any means a new device, although it has come so prominently before the public lately. From Roscommon I crossed country past Clara and Tullamore, across King's county into Portarlington on the borders of Queen's county. Portarlington is the centre of a beautiful country full of cultivated farms as well as shut-up and walled-in gentlemen's seats. Walking down the principal street, I noticed a large placard fastened to a board hanging on a wall; thought it was a proclamation and stopped to read it. It was an exposition of the errors of the Catholic Church in such large type that he that runs may read it. I have some doubts whether this is the best way of convincing people of an opposite belief of their errors. I went into the shop thinking I might perhaps buy a newspaper. I fear me the mistress of the establishment, a timid, elderly woman, imagined me to be a belligerent member of the attacked church come to call her to account, for she retreated at a fast run to the kitchen from which she called an answer in the negative to my enquiry. Returning to my abiding place, I asked the hostess if the town contained many Catholics. "Oh, dear no," she replied, "there are few Catholics. The people are nearly all Protestants." In this neighborhood the celebrated John George Adair, of Derryveigh celebrity, has a magnificent residence called Belgrove Park. He has the name of being a very wealthy man. He is not praised here, but has the reputation of being hard- hearted, exacting and merciless. I doubted a little whether it was really the same man, as they called him, irreverently enough, Jack Adair, but to convince me they immediately began repeating the verses with their burden of five hundred thousand curses on cruel John Adair, which they could repeat readily with variations. The railway facilities are very slow and conservative in their motions. I could not get on to Limerick the same day, but had to remain over night in Portarlington. At Limerick Junction there was another wait of two hours, and at last we steamed into Limerick. It is a large city of tall houses, large churches and high monuments. The inhabitants say it was celebrated for its tall houses five or six hundred years ago. L. THE CITY ON THE SHANNON. The Shannon is a mighty river running here between low green banks. The tide comes up to Limerick and rises sometimes to the top of the sea wall. A fine flourishing busy town is Limerick with its shipping. I have discovered the post-office, found out the magnificent Redemptorist Church. Noticing this church and the swarm of other grand churches with the same emblems and the five convents as well as other buildings for different fraternities, noticing also the queer by-places where dissenting places of worship are hidden away, one concludes that they are in a Catholic city, and so they are. On Sunday found out a little Presbyterian Church hid away behind some houses and joined its handful of worshippers. In the afternoon walked along the streets for some way and found myself all at once in what is called the English part of the town, but which looked more foreign than any place I have yet seen on my own green isle. The houses were tall, and had been grand in King Donagh O'Brien's time, I suppose. The streets were very narrow. The last week's wash, that looked as if the Shannon was further away than it is, fluttered from the broken windows of the fifth story. All the shops were open; there did not seem to be any buyers, but if there were, they might get supplied. The very old huckster women sat by their baskets of very small and very wizened apples, and infinitesimal pears that had forgotten to grow. Two women, one in a third-story window and one on the street, were exchanging strong compliments. In fact, as our cousins would say, "there was no Sunday in that English quarter worth a cent." I made my escape with a sick longing for some one to carry a gospel of good tidings of great joy in there. Next morning I found out the English Cathedral, which is at the very border, so to speak, of that forgotten place. It stands in pretty grounds. The elderly gentleman who has the care of it, and who shows it off like a pet child, happened to be there, and took charge of me. He was determined I should conscientiously see and hear all about that church. This church was built in 1194 by Donagh O'Brien, King of Munster. It was not new even then, for King Donagh made his new church out of an old palace of his. I followed that old man while he pointed out the relics of the old and the glories of the new, the magnificent painted windows, the velvet of the costliest that covered the altar, the carvings of price, the cushions and the carpets, and, a few steps away, the fluttering rags, the horrible poverty, the hopeless lives of the English quarter. Truly the fat and the wool are in one place, and the flock on the dark mountains in another. Outside are various stone cupboards, called vaults, where highbred dust moulders in state free from any beggarly admixture. That old man wished to delude me up unknown steps to the battlements and up to other battlements on the top of the church tower--it was raining heavily, and the gray clouds lying on the house tops, you could hardly have seen across two streets--to see the view forsooth; then he volunteered to set the bells ringing in my honor, but I declined. He then told me of the bells--it was new to me; it may not be new to others. They were--well--taken without leave from Italy. The Italian who cast them pilgrimed over the world in search of them. Sailing up the Shannon he heard his long-lost bells, and it killed him, the joy did. The puritan soldiers destroyed the profusion of statues that decorated this church. Noticed one simple monument to one Dan Hayes, an honest man and a lover of his country. Near this cathedral is the house where Ireton died, tall and smoky, battered and fallen into age, but very high. Its broken windows showed several poverty-stricken faces looking down on the cathedral grounds, which, of course, are kept locked. King John's castle, very strong, very tall, very grim, seems mostly composed of three great towers, but there are really seven. Inside the walls is a barrack that could lodge 400 men. Limerick is full of old memorials of present magnificence and of past and present need. The inhabitants proudly tell you that it never was conquered, not considering capitulation conquest. The city raised the first monument to O'Connell. Of course I saw it, and thought it a good likeness. There is a square of grass and trees near it, where is a monument of Spring Rice, he who, when O'Connell was sick once, a political sickness, was said to be in despair: "Poor Spring Rice, with his phiz all gloom, Kept noiselessly creeping about the room; His innocent nose in anguish blowing, Murmuring forth, 'He's going, going.'" I did not hear the sweet bells that charmed the life out of the poor wandering Italian, still I think I have perhaps told enough about the ancient city of Limerick on the Shannon. From Limerick up through Clare, the railway passes along by the river Fergus, a big tributary of the Shannon. A Clare man informed me that Clare returned Dan O'Connell to Parliament. He sank his voice into an emphatic whisper to inform us that Dan was the first Catholic who ever got into Parliament. I have been taken for this one and that one since I came to Ireland, and have been amused or annoyed, as the case may be, but I am totally at a loss to know whom I resembled or was taken for in the County Clare. A decent-looking countrywoman shook hands with me, telling me she had seen me in some part of Clare a month ago, and I had never set foot into the county until to-day. "You remember me, my lady, I saw you when you stopped at ----" some whispered name with an O to it. The woman's face was strangely familiar, but I was on entirely new ground. There is enchantment in this western country. I was completely bewildered when a frieze-coated farmer told me, "That was a grand speech you made at Tuam, and true every word of it." It was a little confusing, seeing that I have never been in Tuam, or very near it at all. This old gentleman enquired coaxingly if I were going to speak at Ennis, and assured me of a grand welcome to be got up in a hurry. Then he and the farmer's wife exchanged thoughts--that "I did not want anybody to know I was in it"--in aggravating whispers as I looked steadily out of the windows to assure myself that I was I. My friend in frieze then began to draw my attention to certain landmarks, the ruins of this abbey and that castle, and the other graveyard as points of interest with which I was supposed to be familiar. Truly this part of Clare seemed to have any amount of square castles in ruined grandeur scattered along the line of rail. We stopped at a station and saw Ennis lying below us, and O'Connell's statue rising up between us and the sky. My two friends parted from me here to my immense relief. I felt as if I were obtaining admiration on false pretences. The woman took my hand, and, with a long fond look, began to bless me in English, but her feelings compelled her to slide off into fervent Irish. The frieze-coated gentleman stood, hat in hand, and bowed and bowed, and "his life was at my service, and if I wished to pass unnoticed sure he could whisht, and good-by and God bless you." and away they went. For whom did they take me? Clare is pretty stony. Again I saw fields from which stones had been gathered to form fences like ramparts. Again I saw fields crusted with stone like the fields of Cong, with the same waterworn appearance, but not so extensive. The little, pretty station of Cusheen seemed an oasis in a stony wilderness. Past many a little field hemmed in with stony barricades, past many an ancient ruin, sitting in desolation, into Athenry, the ancient Ath-an- righ, the fortress of kings. It was pouring rain, it often is pouring rain. I took shelter in the hotel whose steps rise from the railway station. There, in a quaint little corner room with a broad strip of window, I settled myself to write with the light of a poor candle, and the rain fell outside. Athenry bristles with ruins. King John has another castle here all in ruins. There is a part of a wall here and there, and the arch of a gate which has been patched up and has some fearful hovels leaning up against it. It has the ruins of an abbey and of a priory. The names of Clanricarde and De Birmingham linger among these ruins; the modern cabins, without window pane or any chimney at all, but a hole in the roof, are mixed up with the ruins also. The well-fed maid at the hotel informed me that they were very poor. There is no work and no tillage, the land being in grass for sheep. "I do not believe any of them know what a full meal means. No one knows how they manage to live, the creatures," said the maid, comfortably. So the night and the morning passed at Athenry, and we passed on to the village of Oranmore. LI. GALWAY AND THE MEN OF GALWAY. From Athenry and its ruins went to Oranmore and its ruins. The poverty of Athenry deepens into still greater poverty in Oranmore. The country is under grass, hay is the staple crop, so there being little tillage, little labor is required. They depend on chance employment to procure the foreign meal on which they live. Some depend for help to a great extent on the friends in America. There is a new pier being built here, for an arm of the sea runs up to Oranmore. They told me that this pier was being built by the Canadian money. It will be a harbor of refuge for fishing craft and better days of work and food may yet dawn upon the West. Behind the pier are the ruins of a large castle which belonged to the Blakes, one of the Galway tribes. It was inhabited by the last Blake who held any of the broad acres of his ancestors within the memory of the old people. I stood in the roofless upper room which had been the dancing saloon, penetrated into galleries built for defence lit only by loop holes, went down the little dark stair into the dungeon, tried to peer into the underground passage that connected with the seashore, ascended to the battlements and looked over the lonely land and explored multitudes of small rooms reached by many different flights of stone steps. These people are largely of the Norman blood. Oh, for the time when peace and plenty, law and order shall reign here; when the peasant shall not consider law as an oppressor to be defied or evaded, an engine of oppression in the hands of the rich, but an impartial and inflexible protector of the rights of rich and poor alike! A young priest told me here that the clergy about this place were opposed to the teachings of the Land League--did not countenance it among their people. A Catholic gentleman in Roscommon told me the same concerning the bishop and clergy of his own locality. The tillage about Galway is careful and good, what there is of it. I saw great fields of wheat that had been cleared of stones, by generations of labor I should say. I had this fact brought to my mind by some peasants in the neighborhood of Athenry, in this way: "A man works and his family works on a bit of ground fencing it, improving it, gathering off the stones; as he improves his rent is raised; he clings to the little home; he gets evicted and disappears into the grave or the workhouse, and another takes the land at the higher rent; improves from that point; has the rent raised, till he too falls behind and is evicted; and so it goes on till the lands are fit for meadowing and grass, and the holdings are run together and the homes blotted out." Of course I do not give the man's words exactly, but I give his thoughts exactly. Galway was something of a disappointment to me at first, it had not such a foreign look as I expected. It is a very busy town, has every appearance of being a thriving town, every one you meet walks with purpose as of one who has business to attend to. It is refreshing to see this after looking at the hopeless faces and lounging gait of the people of many places in the west. Wherever the tall chimneys rise the people have a quick step and an all-alive look. I wandered about Galway, and to my great delight had a guide to point out what was most worth looking at. Of course I heard of the bravery of the thirteen tribes of Galway, who snapped up Galway from the O'Flaherties and assimilated themselves to the natives as more Irish than themselves. After walking about a little I did notice the arched gateways and the highly ornamented entrance doors which they concealed. The first place of interest pointed out to me was Lynch castle. From one of the windows of this castle Warder Lynch, in 1493, hung his own son. It is said from this act the name Lynch Law arose. The Lynch family, originally Lintz, came from Lintz in Austria. This mayor or Warder Lynch was a wealthy merchant trading with Spain. He trusted his son to go thither and purchase a cargo of wine. The young man fell into dissipation, and spent the money, buying the cargo on credit. The nephew of the Spanish merchant accompanied the ship to obtain the money, and arrange for further business. The devil tempted the young Lynch to hide his folly by committing crime. Near the Galway coast the young Spaniard was thrown overboard. All the friends of the family and his father received the young merchant after his successful voyage with great joy. The father consented to his son's marriage with his early love, the daughter of a neighbor, who gladly consented to accept the successful young merchant for his son-in-law. All went merry as a marriage bell. Just before the marriage a confessor was sent for to a sick seaman, who revealed young Lynch's crime. The Warder of Galway stood at the bed of this dying man, and heard of the villany of his beloved son. Young Lynch was arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced. The mother of young Lynch, having exhausted all efforts to obtain mercy for her son, flew in distraction to the Blake tribe--she was a Blake--and raised the whole clan for a rescue. When the hour of execution dawned, the castle was surrounded by the armed clan of the Blakes, demanding that the prisoner be spared for the honor of the family. The Warder addressed the crowd, entreating them to submit to the majesty of the law, but in vain. He led his son--who, when he had borne the shame, and came to feel the guilt of his deeds, had no desire to live--up the winding stair in the building to that very arched window that overlooks the street, and there, to that iron staple that is fixed in the wall, he hung him with his own hands, after embracing him, in sight of all the people. The father expected to die by the hands of the angry crowd below, but they, awed, went home at a dead march. The mother died of the shock, and the sternly just old man lived on. I looked at his house in Lombard street. Over the entrance is a skull and cross bones in relief on black marble, with this motto, which I copied, "REMEMBER DEATH Vanitie of vanities, and all is but vanitie." There is a fine museum in Queen's College, Galway, which I did not see. Of course there are many things I did not see, although my eyes were on hard duty while there. I did see specimens of that most beautiful marble of Connemara. It is worked up into ornaments, in some cases mounted with silver. As soon as any one enquires for it they are known to be from America. A book shaped specimen that I coveted was priced at twelve and sixpence. It is there yet for me. It is of every shade and tint of green, and is really very lovely. I saw many specimens of it manufactured into harps stringed and set in silver, with a silver scroll, and the name of Davitt or Parnell on them in green enamel. There were brooches and scarf pins of this kind. I did not notice the name of the great Liberator among these ornaments. The Claddagh was a great disappointment to me. I heard that it was not safe to venture into it alone. I got up early and had sunshine with me when I strolled through the Claddagh. I saw no extreme poverty there. Most of the houses were neatly whitewashed; all were superior to the huts among the ruins at Athenry. The people were very busy, very comfortably clothed, and, in a way, well-to-do looking. Some of the houses were small and windowless, something the shape of a beehive, but not at all forlornly squalid. They make celebrated fleecy flannel here in Claddagh. They make and mend nets. They fish. I saw some swarthy men of foreign look, in seamen's clothes, standing about. You will see beauty here of the swarthy type, accompanied by flashing black eyes and blue black hair, but I saw lasses with lint white locks also in the Claddagh. The testimony of all here is that the Claddagh people are a quiet, industrious, temperate and honest race of people. I am inclined to believe that myself. It is a pretty large district and I wandered through it without hearing one loud or one profane word. I was agreeably disappointed in the Claddagh. Claddagh has a church and large school of its own. They told me that the Galway coast has the same flowers as the coast of Spain. I can testify that flowers abound in little front gardens, and window panes, and in boxes on every window ledge. I did not go to see the iodine works, where this substance is manufactured from sea weed. I saw people burning kelp--and smelled them too--on the Larne and Carnlough coast and in Mayo. They burn the dried sea weed in long narrow places built of stone. They are not kilns, but are more like them than anything else I know of. You see stacks and ropes of the sea weed put up to dry. Kelp burning is not a fragrant occupation, and its manufacture is not specially attractive. I think Galway is a very prosperous thriving town. I went to the bathing place of Salt Hill, a long suburb of pretty cottages, mostly to be let furnished to sea bathers. I should have gone on to Cushla Bay and to the islands of Arran, but I did not. I looked round me and returned to Galway. There is difference perceptible to me, but hardly describable between the Galway men and the rest of the West. The expression of face among the Donegal peasantry is a patience that waits. The Mayo men seem dispirited as the Leitrim men also do, but are capable of flashing up into desperation. The Galway men seem never to have been tamed. The ferocious O'Flaherties, the fierce tribes of Galway, the dark Spanish blood, have all left their marks on and bequeathed their spirit to the men of Galway. I met one or two who, like some of the Puritans, believed that killing was not murder, who urged that if the law would not deter great men from wrong-doing it should not protect them. When trade revives and prosperity dawns upon the West the fierce blood, like the Norman blood elsewhere, will go out in enterprise and spend itself in improvements. Land was pointed out to me in Galway for which L4 an acre was paid by village people to plant potatoes in. This is called conacre. In going through Galway City, even in the suburbs, I did not see great appealing poverty such as I saw elsewhere. There was the bustle of work and the independence of work everywhere, but in the country, there seems poverty mixed with the fierce impatience of seeing no better way to mend matters. I heard of evictions having taken place here and there, but saw none. LII. THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY. There is a good deal of disturbance about Limerick, according to the papers. A traveller would never discover it. It does not appear on the surface. I have been a little here and there in the environs of Limerick, and have seen no sign of any mob or any disturbance. Police go out unexpectedly to do eviction service and it is only known when the report comes in the papers. I did not hear in Limerick town or county, in any place where I happened to be, of any landlord who had got renown for any special hardness. There was a person boycotted quite near to the city who was getting help from neighboring landowners to gather in his crops. What his offence was I did not learn. In Limerick I met with an old and very dear friend who gave me a few facts about boycotting as seen in personal experience. An outlying farm was taken by my friend from which a widow lady had been evicted before the present agitation commenced. A premium of L100 was paid for possession. My friends had congratulated themselves on this transaction having occurred before the organization of the Land League; but one night an armed and masked party took the widow lady and reinstated her in her place. My friends were startled a little by a visit from this party, who informed them that they were returning from reinstating the lady in her place. Had they any objection? No, they had no objection. Would they disturb her in possession? No, they would not disturb her in possession. If they had only the L100 which they had invested they were quite willing to surrender the farm. Three cheers were given for my friends, three cheers for the widow lady, a gun was fired off, there was a wild cheer for Rory of the Hills, and they disappeared. The widow lady after some time quietly left the place of her own accord, and everything was as it had been before. They, the armed party, found out that they were not doing the lady a kindness by reinstating her, and so the matter ended. Limerick, though an old city, is not a very large one. Going down the principal street--George's street--you can look down any of the cross streets beyond the masts on Shannon and see on the other side of the river oats, waving yellow and in stocks, up the slope. Standing on the Wellesley Bridge, where young Fitzgibbon in bronze stands on a granite pedestal, perpetually endeavoring to draw his sword--which he succeeded in drawing to some purpose at Alma and Inkerman, if we are to credit the pedestal, which we do--you can look down the Shannon, over the boats and among the steamboat chimneys and the ships' masts, and see the green banks of the Shannon, broad and wide, with cattle standing ankle deep in the rich pasture. You can see them as they extend far away, widening as they go, till the horizon shuts out any farther view. The constant rain of these two last months, I am afraid, will damage the ripening crop. It is near the close of August and there is hay yet uncut, there is hay lying out in every form of bleached windrow, or lap, or spread, under the rain. Some of it looks quite spoiled. No one, I suppose, leaves Limerick without gazing at and perhaps wishing for some of the beautiful specimens of Limerick lace that are displayed in the shop-windows. From Limerick to Killarney in the rain through a country gradually growing poorer. At the junction there was a detention which enabled me to walk about a little. There was a detachment of police that filled a couple of car passing on their way to eviction in one direction; a large detachment returning from eviction got out of the cars here. Eviction in this part of Ireland is feverishly active, and on every hand you hear of Mr. Clifford Lloyd. A person with whom I had some conversation told me I could have no idea of the state of the country without penetrating through it away from the line of rail. Of course this is so. As we neared Killarney the waters were out over the low lying lands and the hay looked pitiful. In a pelting rain we steamed into Killarney, passed through the army of cabmen and their allies and were whirled away to Lakeview House on the banks of the lower Killarney lake, a pretty place standing in its own grounds. Killarney is a nice little town with some astonishing buildings. I have heard it styled as a dirty town; it struck me as both clean and rather stylish in its general appearance. It seems to depend almost entirely on tourists. Unlike Limerick, unlike Galway, but very like other western towns the number of people standing idly at the corners, or leaning against a tree to shelter from the rain, strikes a stranger painfully. The lounging gait and alert eyes mark people who have no settled industry, but are watching their chance. We were allured to Lakeview Hotel by a printed card of terms and found it delightfully situated. Did not intend to linger here any time, did not seem to care much for the lakes now when I had got to see them. It was a damp evening, the mountains, that loom up on every hand, were wrapped in their gray cloaks, the lake whipped up by the squally winds had risen in swells and everything looked dismal. I shall see some one convenient sight and look round me and leave in the morning, I said. The only available sight to be seen that night was Torc Cascade--well, I will be content with that. I must take a car; bargained for that, and drove through the walled-up country. Every place here is walled up, enclosed, fenced in. I noticed some cottages that were pictures of rustic beauty, others that were dirty hovels. The pretty cottages were occupied by laborers on the estates that border on the lake. Passed a handsome, little Episcopalian church in a sheltered place; near it were two monumental crosses of the ancient Irish pattern, erected by the tenants to the memory of Mr. Herbert, who was their landlord and who is spoken of by the people as one who deserved that they should devote some of their scant earnings to raise a cross to his memory. In due time we arrived at a little door in the wall, where a man stood in Mr. Herbert's interest, who gave a small ticket for sixpence, unlocked the little arched door and admitted the stranger into this temple of nature and art. A board hung on a tree was the first object, warning visitors not to pluck ferns or flowers, the man at the gate having notice to deprive marauding visitors of anything so gathered. There is a winding gravel walk leading up the height almost alongside of the brawling stream that leaps from rock to rock. I did not see any flowers at all, but the common heather bell in two varieties and the large coarse fern so common in our Canadian woods. There are many cascades unnamed and unnoticed in our Canadian forests as handsome as Torc Cascade. When you get up a good way you come to a black fence that bars the way. You are above the tall firs, and the solemn Torc Mountain rises far above you. I would have been lost in admiration had I never seen the upper Ottawa or the River aux Lievres. Feeling no inclination to commit petty larceny on the ferns, I descended slowly and returned. The ruined abbey of Muckross is another of the sights of Killarney. Every visitor pays a shilling to Mr. Herbert for permission to enter here. I did not go to see it, but some of the party at the hotel did. They described the cloisters as being in a good state of preservation-- cloisters are a kind of arched piazza running round a court yard, in this case having in its centre a magnificent yew tree. These ruins are taken great care of, therefore parts of the abbey are in a pretty good state of preservation. They tell of a certain man named John Drake, who took possession of the abbey kitchen about one hundred years ago, lived there as a hermit for about eleven years in the odor of sanctity. There was quite a party going through the gap of Dunloe, which reduced the price of the trip to very little, comparatively speaking, and I was persuaded to join it. Every available spot about here has a lordly tower, a lady's bower, an old ruin or a new castle. The Workhouse is fine enough and extensive enough for a castle, and the Lunatic Asylum might be a palace for a crowned head. There are the ruins of Aghadon Castle on one ridge and the shrunk remains of a round tower. A brother of the great O'Connell lives here in a white house bearing the same name as the hotel, Lakeview House. We look with some interest at Dunloe Castle. once the residence of O'Sullivan Mor, and listen to the car-man who tells us of the glories of the three great families that owned Kerry, O'Sullivan Mor, O'Sullivan Bear and great O'Donoghoe. Of course we hear legend after legend of the threadbare tales of the Lakes. We heard much of the cave of Dunloe which has many records, in the Ogham character, of Ireland in the days of the Druids. All this time we were driving along a road with bare mountains, and tree-covered mountains rising on every hand. It reminded me in some places of the long glen in Leitrim, in others of Canadian scenes among the mountains. We began to be beset by mounted men on scrubby ponies. They gathered round us, riding along as our escort, behind and before and alongside urging on us the necessity of a pony to cross the road through the gap. Their pertinacity was something wonderful. The carman stopped at a miserable cabin said to have been the residence of the Kate Kearney of Lady Morgan's song. That heroine's modern representative expects everyone to take a dose of goat's milk in poteen from her, and leave some gratuity in return. The whole population turned out to beg under some pretext or another. One very handsome girl, bareheaded and barefooted, and got up light and airy as to costume, begged unblushingly without any excuse. She gathered up her light drapery with one hand, and kept up with the horse, skelping along through mud and mire as if she liked it. I noticed that she was set on by her parents who were the occupiers of a little farm. Suddenly our car stopped at a house where all sorts of lake curiosities were exposed for sale. From this point it was four miles, Irish miles, through the gap to the lake to the point where we took the boat. This was one circumstance of which we were not aware when we started; it was therefore a surprize. I am sorry to say that this gap was a disappointment to me. It was a difficult path among bare mountains, but nothing startling or uncommon. What was uncommon was the relays of indefatigable women that lay in wait for us at every turn. Goats' milk and poteen, photographs, knitted socks, carved knick-nacks in bog oak; everything is offered for sale; denial will not be taken. You pass one detachment to come upon another lurking in ambush at a corner. There are men with small cannons who will wake the echoes for a consideration; there are men with key bugles who will wake the echoes more musically for a consideration; there is the blind fiddler of the gap who fiddles away in hopes of intercepting some stray pennies from the shower. One impudent woman followed us for quite a way to sell us her photograph, as the photograph of Eily O'Connor, murdered here by her lover many years ago--murdered not at the gap but in the lake. There was a large party of us and these followers, horse, foot and artillery, I may say were a persistent nuisance all the way. The ponies, crowds of them, followed us to the entrance of the Gap, where they disappeared, but the women and girls never faltered for the five miles. The reiterated and re-reiterated offer of goat's milk and poteen became exasperating; the bodyguard of these pertinacious women that could not be shaken off was most annoying. The tourists are to the inhabitants of Killarney what a wreck used to be to the coast people of Cornwall, a God-send. One does feel inclined to lose all patience as they run the gauntlet here, and then one looks around at the miserable cabins built of loose stones, at the thatch held on by ropes weighted with stones, the same as are to be seen in Achil Island, among the Donegal hills, or the long glens of Leitrim, notices the patches of pale, sickly, stunted oats, the little corners of pinched potatoes--a girl passed us with a tin dish of potatoes for the dinner, they were little bigger than marbles--the little rickles of turf that the constant rain is spoiling, and one sees that as there is really no industry in the place, of loom or factory, that want and encouragement have combined to make them come down like the wolf on the fold to the attack of tourists. It spoiled the view, it destroyed any pleasure the scenery might have afforded, and yet under the circumstances it was natural enough on their part. "We depend on the tourists, this is our harvest," the carmen explained to us. From the hotel keeper to the beggar all depend on the tourist season. After all it was something to have passed through between the Macgillicuddy's Reeks and the purple mountain; something to see water like spun silver flinging itself from the mountain top in leaps to the valley below, to struggle up and up to the highest point of the gap and look back at the serpentine road winding in and out beside small still lakes through the valley far below. Of course we look into the Black Lough where St. Patrick imprisoned the last snake. Of course we had pointed out to us the top of Mangerton, and were told of the devil's punch bowl up there. Down through the Black Valley we came to the point where the boats waited for us, leaving the black rocks, the bare mountains, the poor little patches of tillage, the miserable huts and the multitudinous vendors of goat's milk and poteen behind. To our surprise the way to the boats was barred by a gate, and at the gate stood a man of Mr. Herbert's to receive a shilling for each passenger before they could pass to the boats. "He makes a good thing out of it," remarked the boatmen. I do not know how many more fees are to be paid for a look about the lakes of Killarney, but this gate, Torc Cascade and Muckross Abbey cost each tourist two shillings and sixpence to look at them. The upper lake is beautiful, fenced around by mountains of every size and variety of appearance. Of course they are the same mountains you have been seeing all day, but seen from a different standpoint. The Eagle's Nest towers up like an attenuated pyramid, partly clothed with trees, and is grand enough and high enough for the eagles to build on its summit, which they do. Here were men stationed to wake the echoes with the bugle. As our boat swept round, recognizing that we had not employed them, they ceased the strain until we passed, but the echoes followed us and insisted on being heard. There are many, many spots on the Upper Ottawa as fair and as romantic as the Lakes of Killarney, and they are very lovely. The trees on the islands have a variety that do not grow in our Canada, principally the glossy-leaved arbutus. From the upper lake we slid down a baby rapid under an old bridge--built by the Danes of course, the arch formed as the arches of the castles in the west--into the middle lake. The day had been one of dim showers, but in the middle lake the sun streamed out and touched the peak of the purple mountain and all the mountain sides and woody islands with splendor, that streamed down in golden shafts along the rain that was falling on some, and chased for a moment the shadows that lay on others. We slid down a fainter rapid under another bridge into the last and largest lake. On every lake there are buildings of glory and beauty to be seen nestling on the banks among the trees, or towering on the heights, owned by the wealthy and titled people that own the land round the lakes. A cottage built for Her Majesty was pointed out to us, and we heard of a royal deer hunt held here. We heard rapturous accounts of stags hunted to the verge of death, and saved alive to repeat the ennobling sport. And we censure without measure the Spanish bull fight where the animals are killed once! How many deaths do these timid deer suffer? I am afraid we are not as noble and merciful a people as we think we are. There are sights to be seen and tales to be heard about these lakes of loveliness that would occupy weeks, but a glimpse and away must suffice for some, and our party all left Killarney on the next morning. I must say that the wealth and the poverty, the unblushing begging, the want of any remunerative industry, the idle listless people about the corners, made Killarney a sad place to me. LIII. CORK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. After returning from the lakes the rain came down in such torrents as made us feel very thankful to be indoors again. We heard it raining all through the night as if the days of Noah were returned once more. Every one became anxious about the harvest in consequence of this steady rain. The bishop has recommended prayer in all the Catholic churches for seasonable weather to save the harvest. Murmurs of the appearance of rot in the potatoes reach me frequently. I have noticed disease in the potatoes appearing on the dinner table, a kind of dry rot, only to be noticed after cutting the potato. From Killarney to Cahirciveen is forty-five miles; beyond that is the island of Valentia. There are many wild views to be seen on this island, the property of the Knight of Kerry. The traveller here can notice how the Atlantic is wearing away the Kerry coast. The first part of this drive of forty-five miles is through a poor, poverty-stricken country, with such cabins of mud and misery as are an amusement to the tourist and a pain and a shame to the Irish lover of his country. There is nothing about these habitations to hint that any idea of comfort had ever penetrated here. For the reason of pelting rain and driving winds I was forced to give up my intention of going across by car to Kenmare, and from thence to Skibbereen, and took the train for Cork. The land seems to grow better the nearer we come to Cork. Arrived at Cork, the first object which attracted my attention was the monument to Father Mathew. The temperance cause to which he dedicated his life sadly needs another champion. Will another Father Mathew arise? As soon after my arrival in Cork as I was comfortably settled, I sallied out to discover the river Lee with an insane notion that I would hear "the bells of Shandon that sound so grand on" its pleasant waters. I discovered the river with tree-shaded, secluded dwellings on one bank and a wide green pasture on another. There was a bridge at the place where I first came in sight of the river, and a great crowd, so eager as to be silent, gazing up the stream. Thinking it was a boat race that drew their attention, I crossed the bridge to gain the green pasture at the other side. The pasture was reached by a little arched door through a boundary wall, where a policeman kept guard. There was a great crowd around this little door. There had been an accident, a boat had upset and all in it had been lost; they were searching for the bodies. I asked for admittance and the policeman unlocked the door and allowed me to pass. Followed the path along the water side, and came to the crowd round the four bodies laid upon the wet meadow grass. A father, so quiet, partially gray, trim and respectable looking, a young lad in blue boating costume, a young girl in black, farther on another in whom they thought there were signs of life, and about her two doctors were working, applying a galvanic battery. The mother had been restored and was conveyed into one of the houses. I never saw any attempts to recover a drowned person before. I wondered that they left the body lying on the damp earth in wet clothing. They told me that it might be fatal to move her before they succeeded in bringing her back to life. They tried a long time in vain, then they laid the four bodies all in a row for the coroner. The damp grass, the trampling and sympathetic crowd, the four bodies in their wet garments laid on the bank, will always rise in my memory along with my first sight of the river Lee. Cork seems a rich city, full of business, bustle on all the wharves, buying and selling on all the streets. The buildings are very grand. Alongside the river is a long ridge rising up to a tree-crowned summit. On that hillside is tier upon tier of grand houses, grand churches, fine convents and public buildings of one kind and another. You come upon fine churches through the town in corners where you do not expect them. The church of churches in Cork is the Protestant Cathedral, of St. Finn Barre--whoever he was. This church sits high up on a rocky foundation, its pointed spires of exquisite stone-work pierce the sky. It is not finished, scaffoldings are there, and skilled chisels and cunning hammers have been knapping and polishing there for many a day, and are likely to continue hammering and chiselling for many a day more. Inside, it is marble of Cork, marble of Connemara, marble of Italy, polished to the brightest. The gates which admit from one ecclesiastical division to another are wrought in flowers that blaze in gold. Before the altar, parables of our Lord are wrought in mosaic on the floor. On the wall the different noble families who belong here, or have money invested here, have their shields containing their coats of arms on the wall. Into this grand church have been wrought the religious ideas of the church people for years, at the cost of L100,000, and there is an immense golden angel on the point of a gable calling with two trumpets for L25,000 more to finish it. None but a rich city could afford the splendid buildings that are in Cork. The evening on which I arrived in Cork was signalized not only by the boat accident, but by a grand wedding, the wedding of a Sir George Colthurst in the splendid cathedral church just mentioned, and there was any amount of fashion, and high birth and young beauty gathered there. The bride was beautiful, the bride was "tall," and not yet, they say, out of her teens. She was dressed in white satin and silver cloth, Irish lace and orange blossoms, and wore no jewels. None but invited eyes were allowed to look at the grand ceremony which made the fair bride and the lord of Blarney castle one. Some tenants of the bridegroom got up a bonfire, had some barrels of beer given them to rejoice withal, and were dancing to the music produced by six fiddlers, when they were surrounded by a small army of disguised people, fired into, beaten and dispersed. The first accounts put the number of wounded at twenty, to-day they are reduced to five--perhaps that is the proportion of exaggeration in newspaper accounts of outrage generally. The newly-made bride and bridegroom went to see the wounded, leaving cordials and money at every house. One thing is observable in Cork, the determination to make an effort to restore native industry from its present languishing condition. Passing along the streets I notice clerks in the windows affixing labels on goods with the words, "Irish Manufactures," "Cork made goods," "Blarney tweeds," "Irish blankets," "Cork made furniture." There have been meetings held on the subject since I came here. No city in the world could appear to be more quiet and law-abiding than Cork to all appearance. As one instance of the exaggeration of reports concerning outrages, I see the disturbance in Cork that took place at the rejoicings about Sir George Colthurst's marriage advertised with the heading 20 men shot. The local report says five injured, one shot, but not fatally. Went down the river Lee to Queenstown. It did not rain except a few drops during the whole time. The sun shone, the clouds, some of them were billowy and white, and massed themselves on a deep, blue sky. The little steamer was crowded fore and aft with holiday passengers, and a large quantity of small babies. The river Lee, from Cork to Queenstown, wears a green color, as if it were akin to the ocean. Flocks of sea gulls flying about, or perching on the ooze where the tide is out, make one think of the sea, but the green banks of the river are there to testify against it. We expected to find that the scenery from Cork to Queenstown was beautiful, and so it is. There is no use in trying to praise it, for all praise seems flat compared with the reality. There are glorious, steep slopes leading up to fair, round hills, waving with golden grain, or green with aftermath, checked off into fields by gay, green hedges or files of stately trees. On the slope, half way up the slope, snuggling down at the foot of the slope, are residences of every degree of beauty. Houses, square and solid, with wide porticos; houses rising into many gabled peaks; houses that have swollen into all sorts of bay windows running up to the roof, or stopping with the first story. Houses that fling themselves up into the sky in towers and turrets, and assert themselves to be, indeed, castles. Queenstown comes at last, a town hung up on a steep hillside, and on the very brow of the hill is an immense cathedral, unfinished like St. Finn Barre's, of Cork. In these cathedrals two forms of religious belief are slowly and expensively trying to express themselves in stone, chiselled and cut into a thousand forms of beauty, in marbles, polished and carved, in painted windows, in gildings and draperies of the costliest. Looking at these costly fanes erected to be a local spot where Jehovah's presence shall dwell, one can scarcely believe that He will dwell in the heart of the poor who are willing to receive Him in the day of His power. Is the soul of the beggar more dear to God as a dwelling place than these lofty temples? Forever the world is saying "Lord, behold what manner of stones and what buildings are here?" And the Lord cares more for the toiling fisherman, the poor disheartened widow, and the laboring and heavy laden peasant than the grandest buildings. The cost of these churches would buy out Achil island and the appurtenances thereof, I think. It would maybe purchase the wildest tract of the Donegal mountains. I wonder if a hardy mountain people, who could live on their own soil, and begin to feel the stirrings of enterprise and energy, would be as acceptable to Him who came anointed to preach the gospel to the poor as these poems in stone. Who knows? We sat on a bench under the trees and looked at the harbor--its waters cut by many a flying keel, at Spike Island lying in the sun, all its fortifications as silent and lonely looking as if no convict nor any other living creature was there. Steamboats for "a' the airts the winds can blaw," were passing out and away, leaving a train of smoke behind them, and big sail vessels, three-masted and with sails packed up, are waiting to go, and revenue cutters and small passenger boats are flying about each on their way. A lady sits by me and is drawn to talk to the stranger of the greenness of the grass here winter and summer, of the beauty spread out all around. She tells of one who died away in another land brought home to lie under the daisies here, just twenty years ago to-day. Other people, she says, are proud of their country, are fond of their country, but none have the same love for their country as the Irish have for green Erin. Every inch of ground; every blade of grass in Ireland is holy, says this lady with tears in her eyes. She is thinking of the dust that Irish grass covers from her sight. It is on an anniversary we meet; she cannot help speaking on this day of sacred things. The steamboat is wading up to the wharf. We do not know one another's names, but we have drawn near to each other--we clasp hands and part with a mutual God bless you. The little boat swallows up all that are willing to come on board, and like a black swan she sails up over the calm river, under the bright sky, past the handsome houses and the lovely grounds, among the clustering masts back to the rich city of Cork. All the people injured in the attack on the rejoicing at Sir George Colthurst's marriage are pronounced recovered to-day, except the one who was wounded by a shot; he is still in the infirmary. A dignitary of the Catholic Church who preached at Millstreet, where the disturbance took place, introduced into his sermon remarks on the state of society there, when his hearers became affected with coughing to such a degree that the rev. gentleman had to stop for a time and speak directly to his hearers. After the sermon most of the congregation left the church before mass-- few remaining. The sun has come out and the harvest will be greatly benefited by this tardy warmth, I am sure. There has been some marching of soldiers--dragoons--fine looking men on fine horses--through the streets to-day, to the blare of a military band, accompanied and escorted by all the loose population of Cork. I was much interested to see among the running crowd the good pace made by a man with a wooden leg, who really could hop along with the best of them. This is all the apology for a crowd which I have seen in Cork. I have not heard the roar of one belated drunkard; such sounds have broken slumber in other towns. Whatever excitement may be in the county, the city of Cork seems as quiet, as orderly and as thriving as any city in the kingdom. I have discovered that, though the lower part of the river Lee is crowded with masts and alive with traffic, the upper part, flowing along under the shadow of green trees and bordered by wide meadows, is as quiet as if it were flowing through the country miles from any city. I have discovered the magnificent promenade called the Mardyke, a wide, gravelled road overarched with trees, running along by the river. When the evening lamps are lit, the susceptibility of Cork wander here in pairs and "in couples agree." There are plenty of comfortable seats in which to rest, for the promenade is a very long one, and the shimmer of the many lamps among the green foliage has a pretty effect. LIV. CORK, TO BANDON, SKIBBEREEN AND SKULL. From Cork by the new railway to Skibbereen there is one rather noticeable feature by the way. All the way stations in small places are wooden houses built American fashion, either clapboarded or upright boards battened where they meet. The road is through a hilly country and therefore lies mostly through deep cuttings that shut out the scenery. There is one long tunnel not far from Cork that educates you into a sense of what utter darkness means. It is pleasant to look over rich pastures back to the city crowding its lofty hills, and to notice what a grand steeple-crowned city it is. The train crawls along through deep cuts, past these little wooden stations where everything is more primitive and backwoods looking than anything I have seen before in Ireland. The porters are civil and obliging, ready to answer the questions of the ignorant, even of those who travel third-class. The vast majority of the passengers are small traders, market-women and farmers' wives, who have been away making purchases. By the time we reach Dunmanway we had our allowance of light served out to us, a lamp being thrust through the ceiling of the car from the top, and by its light we steamed into Skibbereen. I expected Skibbereen to be a small assemblage of mud huts, but was surprised to find it a large town of tall houses. As the bus rattled along through one gaslight street after another, I kept asking myself, is this really Skibbereen. The little hotel where we stopped was very comfortable, very clean, and possesses a good cook. The next day in exploring the by streets and suburbs of the town I saw poverty enough, want enough. It was market day and the streets were crowded with country women in blue cloaks. These cloaks are all the same make, but some of them, owing to their material, were very stylish and shrouded as pretty black eyed, black-haired, rosy- cheeked women as I ever saw. Some of these cloaks are made of very fine material, the pleating about the shoulders very artistic, and the wide hoods lined with black satin when worn round the face make the wearers look like fancy pictures. Some of the women gather them round them in folds like drapery. I noticed at once that the artist who made the statues of O'Connell and Father Mathew had studied the drapery from the cloaks of some Claddagh or Skibbereen woman. Market day is used as a day for confession, and the clergy are on hard duty on that day. Skibbereen boasts of a bishop and numerous resident priests. The town is as quiet as if such a thing as a riot, an outrage or a mob was never known. In a little corner, squeezed in between houses, is a neat Methodist chapel and the parsonage beside it. Called on the minister, who received me graciously and was courteous and communicative. Having been by virtue of his office over a great part of Ireland he had seen a good deal of the oppression of the tenant, partly from the thoughtlessness of absentee landlords, partly from the want of any sympathy with the tenants. Had the Land League confined themselves to moderate efforts, and to the employment of constitutional means--means not tending to the dismemberment of the empire, he would have joined them with heart and soul, knowing the need there was of redress to the wrongs of the small farmer. He advised me to take a car and go on to Skull through Ballydehob if I wished to see poverty and misery. The road from Skibbereen to Ballydehob and Skull runs along the coast mostly. All that grand rocks and great stretches of water dotted with many islands can do to make this scenery grand, wild and romantic has been done by Dame Nature. It is not satisfying to merely pass along. One would like to tarry here and get acquainted with nature in these out-of- the-way haunts of hers. The cottages are most miserable, most ruinous. There is no limestone here. It resembles Achil Island in this respect. The houses are built of stones and daubed with clay. The clay soon filters away under the combined action of winter wind and winter frost, and the houses look like piles of stones tottering to fall. I heard of a pier being built somewhere here, with part of the Canadian money, which a priest assured me would be a great benefit to the poor people. I was very sorry to leave this part without seeing more of the country and the people. I left Skibbereen on a car for a journey by the coast the other way to meet the train at Bandon to return to Cork. The only industry of any kind which I saw between Skibbereen and Bandon was a slate quarry which they told me shipped a great quantity of slates besides supplying local demands. As we advanced eastward we left the heather-clad mountains behind us, the landscape softened down considerably, and became almost empty of inhabitants. That reminds me that about Skull was almost emptied of inhabitants also. About the time of the great famine the people fled away. The remains of houses are scattered all along on that road. Some cause has also emptied this part of the country of people. There is much unreclaimed land here, which is not to be wondered at, seeing that a fine for reclamation was exacted in the shape of increased rent. Clonakilty is another little town thronged with small traders and places "licensed to sell." As we passed east the long boundary walls that enclose gentlemen's plantations begin to prevail. A little way, maybe two miles, out of Clonakilty is the property of Mr. Bence Jones, who has created some stir in the world. One hears story after story of his grasping and overbearing disposition. The chief accusation is adding to a man's rent if his father dies. Case after case of this was spoken of by the passengers on the car with me. Whether these accusations against Mr. Bence Jones were true or false, here is his place, and a very fine place it is. The lodge is at one side of the road, the entrance to his residence at the other. The residence is very nice, very commodious, and is at some distance from the road. The property is extensive, but very poor land--mountain and bog. His walled- in plantation ran along the road for quite a great distance. When they spoke of him on the car the mere mention of his name caused the driver to lose himself in profanity. From Clonakilty to Bandon was a long, dreary drive, and the night had fallen for some time, sharp and chill, before we entered the second time into merry Bandon town. It is quite a large place, and, entered by another way than the railway, looks bright and pleasant. The houses are lofty on the principal streets, and the whole town has a scattered appearance. It was a welcome sight to us, weary of travelling by car, and visions of a warm fire and a good supper--for I had travelled from breakfast without waiting to eat--ran in my head; but it was Saturday night, a train was almost due for Cork, and, contenting myself with an after-night glimpse of merry Bandon town, I came to the ponderous station, and started in due time for Cork. At one of the first way stations, where is the little clapboarded waiting-room, two policemen entered our compartment with a prisoner. Whether he was a suspect or was charged with a specific crime we did not learn, but surely such a poor scare-crow never was arrested before. He was black with dirt, as if he had been taken out of the bog, or from a coal-pit. His clothes were thin and ragged, and he had such a fierce, desperate look. The policemen fraternized with their fellow-passengers and chatted merrily. The prisoner listened to their talk with a kind of dumb fierceness, shaking his head from side to side as I have seen an angry horse do. It was very chilly, and he was so miserably clad that he shivered, though he tried not to do so. The way was long by train, and he might have marched for many a weary mile before he got on the train. He lay down on the seat and tried to sleep but could not, so he started up and resumed the wild glancing from side to side and the fierce head shakes. I began to think he might be very hungry, and if he was, he was not likely to get anything in gaol till morning. I had some biscuits and cheese in my satchel, and they began to struggle to get out, and at last I consented and handed the little parcel silently to the prisoner. He did not thank me, except by falling to and eating like a famished creature. Arrived at Cork, the police took him away on a car, and the last glimpse I got of him he was eating as if he had not eaten before for a week. I was very thankful when Sabbath morning found me in Cork again and with power to rest. There is not much appearance of Sabbath in the streets of Cork; it looks like a vast crowd keeping holiday. A great many shops are open; the stall women are in their places and seem to drive a good trade. I even heard a woman crying her wares as on any other day. I do not think that a little more Sabbath would hurt this fair town in the very least. I rested this day. In the evening I had the pleasure of hearing "the bells of Shandon" ringing the people in to worship in the old Shandon Church. I heard them while walking by "the pleasant waters of the river Lee." I followed their chime and enjoyed it, sweetly solemn and grand it was, and thought of Father Prout who has made them so famous, and finally found myself at Shandon church. When the chimes ceased I went up the high steps into the old church. It is very old. It is high, long and narrow. The tower, in which are the famous bells, seems of better workmanship than the church. It is built in stories. The bells were chiming out, "Oh, that will be joyful!" as I entered. It is a nice, homely, comfortable church; but so plain that the tide of fashion has rolled past it into another quarter of the town. The pulpit and reading-desk were supplied by a gray-haired clergyman, who had power to read the service, so that it had a newness as if it had never been heard before and to preach to the heart. With the echo of his words and the echo of the bells of Shandon the Sabbath closed. LV. THE SOUTH--THE FEELING OF THE PEOPLE--EVICTIONS AND THE LAND LAW. In conversing with a very sensible gentleman in Cork, he mentioned the competition among the farmers themselves as one reason of the high rents. I have heard this brought forward again and again in every part of Ireland. It is difficult to get so far into the confidence of the southern people as to know what they really think or feel. Without an introduction from one whom they trust they are very reticent and non- committal. There is another party who will not be drawn into giving an opinion for fear of their names appearing in print in company with these opinions. Cork is such a brilliant city, such a sunshiny city, for the sun shone while I was there as it did not shine anywhere else where I have been for the last two months, such a brisk, busy city, that I felt some regret at leaving it. Cork is a busy town, but there are many idle hands and hungry mouths within its boundaries. The prevalence of drinking habits is deplored by many with whom I conversed here. Speaking of the movement, now so rife, for encouraging home manufacture, especially in the shoe trade, a lady remarked that if there were a revival in trade without a revival in temperance many shoemakers would only work three days a week as had been the case in good times before. It was a sunny day when I looked my last on the busy city on the river Lee, on the numerous basket women that squat in its streets, some knitting or crocheting for dear life, some sitting with arms crossed, fat and lazy, basking contentedly in the sun beside their baskets of miserable stunted apples that would be thrown to the pigs in Canada. Between Cork and Mallow my travelling companion was an elderly Scotchman, a cattle dealer, who deplored the disturbed state of the country very feelingly. He admitted that there was undeniable need of a revision of the land tenure but thought that the people went about securing it in a very wrong way. I ventured to suggest that there was likely to be an agitation in Scotland on the land question. "Aye, there will and must be that, but they will manage it differently," said the old gentleman. He censured my excitable country people pretty freely. I enquired why he did not return to Scotland to live in that tranquil country. "He had been long, out of Scotland, about forty years, and had got into the ways of the Irish, and truly they were a kind-hearted people and easily pleased." Another gentleman in this compartment pointed out to me Blarney Castle in the distance, and Blarney woollen mills nearer hand, where the celebrated Blarney tweed is manufactured, and whispered to me that Father ----, I did not catch the name with the noise of the cars, had appeared in a suit of Blarney tweed. There and then I wished that every reverend Father in Ireland was dressed in native manufacture. A little fiddler was playing in the car for halfpence, and the Irish gentleman paid him to play Scotch tunes in our honor, thinking we were both Scotch, I and the old Scotch gentleman. I asked the child to play "Harvey Duff," as I wanted to hear that most belligerent tune. The poor child looked as frightened as if I had asked him to commit high treason and shook his head. At Mallow the fine old Scotchman got off the train. We had had a long talk on country and country's needs, and his fervent "God bless you" at parting was a comfort and encouragement to me, indeed it was. At a station we took up some police who had been drinking--one sergeant was very drunk; then some soldiers who had been drinking, and some civilians who were in the same state. One fine looking young farmer of the better sort was fighting drunk. There were sober people and a good many women also on the car. It was one of those cars whose compartments are boxed up halfway. The sergeant spilled a box of wafers and felt that he did not wish to pick them up; another policeman in an overcoat set himself to gather them up. I heard the young farmer say to him, "You're a peeler," and in a moment every man in the car was on his feet. We had not yet left the station, and many women rushed out of the car. The official came and locked the doors, and we steamed out of the station with all the men on their feet in a crowd, gesticulating and shouting at one another at the top of their voices. As they swayed about with the motion of the carriage, every soldier and constable with his rifle in his hand, I found myself wondering if they were loaded or could possibly go off of themselves. As soon as I could distinguish words among the war of sounds I understood that the young farmer accused the soberest sergeant of being one of the party that shot young Hickey at Dr. Pomeroy's, and that he was burning for revenge. The constable was a Northman, I knew by his tongue, and he was at a northern white heat of anger. The young farmer was almost mad with rage and drink. The drunken sergeant seemed to sober in the congenial element of a probable row, and he and two sober civilians exerted themselves to keep the peace, and to pacify the farmer and get him to sit down. In one of the pauses in the storm the peace-making sergeant wanted a match; an old man behind me who had matches was appealed to for one and he declined, averring with much simplicity that he was afraid of being shot. His wife in a vigorous whisper advised him to keep his matches in his pocket. Everyone in that car, drunk or sober, peace-making or not, sympathised with that young farmer and were against the police. We reached Fermoy quite late. The next morning early I took a car and drove out to Mitchelstown, at the foot of the Galtees. Passed at a distance, half hidden among embowering woods, the castle residence of Lord Mount Cashel, who seems to be as much liked here as he was on the Galgorm estate, but there were whispered reminiscences of by-gone wicked agents. The country on the way to Mitchelstown is partly very rich-looking now waving with the harvest. There is a long valley in sight stretching away for many miles, yellow with ripened corn and dotted with farm houses, each with a few sheltering trees. Upon what is called mountain land I saw a fine little farm that had been reclaimed from the heather quite recently. The farmer and his sons were binding after the cradle. He holds this land at two shillings and sixpence an acre, and hopes under the new Land Law that it shall not be raised on him. Mitchelstown is quite a large place, and was as quiet as Indian summer. Had my worst experience of hotel life in Fermoy, and gladly left it behind for Cappoquin. The road lies alongside a lovely valley of the Blackwater, and one has glimpses of the most enchanting scenery as they steam along. Cappoquin is quite a nice town, and seems to have some trade by river as well as by rail. Walked out through the fair country to Mount Mellary Monastery, a property reclaimed out of the stony heathery mountain by the monks of La Trappe. They have succeeded in creating smiling fields among the waste of the mountain wilderness. They hold the land on a lease of 999 years. No woman is allowed into the precincts of the monastery proper, but there is a hospice attached where travellers are received and entertained without charge, but any gratuity is accepted. There is also a school among the buildings. The valley between Cappoquin and Mount Mellary is strikingly beautiful. There is tradition of a great battle having been fought here once in the dim past when a hundred fights was no uncommon allowance of battle to one warrior. All is quiet and peaceful here now. The crops are being gathered in in the sunshine, and everything is smiling and serene. I received very much kindness in Cappoquin for which there will always be sunshine over my memories of it. LVI. TIPPERARY--OVER THE KNOCK-ME-LE-DOWM MOUNTAINS--"NATE CLOGHEEN"--CAHIR-- WATERFORD--DUBLIN. From Cappoquin I proposed to go to Cahir, across the pass, through the Knock-me-le-Down Mountains. Took a car for this journey which was driven by the only sullen and ill-tempered driver which I had seen on my journey through Ireland. The road passed through Lismore, a little town about four miles from Cappoquin, which is in a red hot state of excitement just now; the bitterest feelings rage about the land question. Evictions and boycottings are the order of the day. The feeling of exasperation against the police is so determined that supplies of any kind for their use could not be purchased for any money in Lismore. The police feel just as exasperated against Miss Parnell, who attends all evictions as a sympathizer with the tenants, and reports all the proceedings. The police made an effigy of her and stoned it to pieces to relieve their feelings. The road to Lismore lay along a fair valley; the town itself was a pleasant surprise. It looked as peaceful and peaceable as possible when I passed through it; there was neither sight nor sound to reveal the present state of things among the people. From the grand castle of Lismore the road wound along between low range walls, ivy-covered and moss-grown, that fenced in extensive woods, clothing bold hills and deep valleys with wild verdure. The wildness of these woods and their thick growth of underbrush reminded me of far off Canadian forests. We overtook a decent-looking country woman, who was toiling along the road with a big basket; the car man took her up; she seemed an old acquaintance. On one side of the road below the range wall a shallow little river ran brawling among the stones. I tried to find out its name from the woman with the basket but she could only tell its name in Irish, a very long name, and not to be got hold of hastily. "Her son was in America--God bless it for a home for the homeless!--and he had that day sent her L120, which she was carrying home in the bosom of her dress." "She had good boys who neither meddled with tobacco or drink, and not many mothers could say that for their sons." "Her boys were as good boys to their father and mother as ever wore shoes, thoughtful and quiet they were." "They had good learning and did not need to work as laborers." I asked her why she did not go out to America. "Ould trees don't take kindly to transplanting," she said, "I will see the hills I have looked at all my life around me as long as I see anything. I want the green grass that covers all my people to cover me at last." At a turn in the road the woman left us to climb a steep _boreen_ that led to her home among the hills, with her heavy basket and her son's love gift of L120 in her bosom, and I sat in the car dreamily looking at the wooded hills and wondered how dear a hilly country is to its inhabitants. The most beautiful thing which I saw in Killarney was the feeling of proprietorship and kinship that all the people felt in and for the mountains and lakes. It takes a lifetime to get thoroughly acquainted with the eternal hills. They have ways of their own that they only display upon long acquaintance. You can see shadowy hands draw on the misty night cap or fold round massive shoulders the billowy gray drapery or inky cloak when passing rain squall or mountain tempest is brewing. They wrinkle their brows and draw near with austere familiarity; they retreat and let the sunshine and shadows play hide-and-seek round them, or lift their bald heads in still summer sunshine with calm joyfulness. The dwellers among them learn to love them through all their varying moods. As I dreamed dreams the car driver, the surliest of his class which I have met, was urging a tired horse up a gradual ascent higher and higher among the hills, until we left houses, holdings, roads--except the gamekeeper's or bog rangers' track--far below us. These wild places, he told me, had no deer, but unlimited grouse, hares and rabbits. I was inclined to think very slightly of rabbits, especially when told of land that had formerly supported inhabitants having been given over to small game of this kind; but a gentleman landholder told me of a nobleman's estate (I will not name him for fear I mistake the name) which averaged 1,000 rabbits weekly, which were worth one shilling and sixpence a couple after all expenses were paid. I have respected rabbits as rivals of human beings ever since. We got up among the bleak mountains at last, high and bare, except where their rocky nakedness was covered with ragged heather. Silent and awful their huge bulk rose behind one another skyward. After we had long passed sight or sound of human habitation, we suddenly came to a whitewashed cosy police station in the shelter of the mountains, with a pretty garden in front, and a pleasant-faced constable came down for the mail. It was such a lovely place for a man to wear a cheerful face in, that I could not help saying, "You have a nice place here, sergeant." "Yes," he smilingly answered, "but lonely enough at times." The car man was very sullen, and seemed eager to pick a quarrel with the policeman, which the other evaded with dexterous good nature, while another policeman, pipe in mouth, hands in pockets, gloomed at the driver from behind him. I should not wonder if my driver resented me speaking to the policeman, for feeling runs high against them in these southern counties for a long time now; he was still more sullen, at all events, after we passed the station. I was told that from these Knock-me-le-Down Mountains, I could see a glimpse of the Galtees, but the mountains began to array themselves in, what the sullen driver called fog, cloaks of gray mists that fell in curling folds down their brown sides. Up and up we climbed, along a road that twisted itself among the solemn giants of the hills sitting in veiled awfulness. We passed a boundary ridge that separated the Duke of Devonshire's lands from the next landlord, and I thought we were at the highest point of the pass, and here the storm came down, and the mountain rain and mountain winds began to fight and struggle round every peak and through every glen. I have never ventured among the mountains yet without rousing the fury of the mountain spirits. The jaded horse got himself into a staggering gallop, and so, chased by the storm, we threaded our way about and around on the downward slope of the mountains. It grew very dark, and we jaunted along a bit in one direction, and then turned sharp and jaunted off in another, the driver informing me that this was the V of the mountains, and miles immeasurably spread seemed lengthening as we hurried on. We reached at length, at the foot of the hills, the "town of nate Clogheen, where Sergeant Snap met Paddy Carey." As far as the darkness permitted us to see, Clogheen is still neat Clogheen. A little further west is the classic little town of Ballyporeen, which has danced to music that was not wedding music more than once during late years. After we left Clogheen and struck through a wide plain for Cahir the moon came out and touched the dark mountains with silver and they folded away their gray robes until we should return. Those eight Irish miles from Clogheen to Cahir were the longest miles I have ever met with, exceeding in length the famous Rasharken miles. Here in a rambling, forsaken like assemblage of stairs and passages, called a hotel, we found a room and I rested for the remaining hours of the night. I never bestowed whip money so grudgingly as I did on the sullen driver who brought me through the Knock-me-le-down mountains. Under his care all my bags and parcels came to grief in the most innocently unaccountable way and were carried in in a wrecked condition. In the morning the melancholy waiter who set my little breakfast at one end of a desert of a table in a dusty wilderness of a room, commenced bemoaning over the poverty of the country. It was a market morning and there were many asses, creels and carts with fish drawn up in the market place. I ventured to suggest a fish for breakfast, which was an utter impossibility. Cahir has a handsome old castle standing close to its main street which is still inhabited. We dropped down by rail through Clonmel to Waterford, our companions by the way being all returning tourists, English and Welsh people over for a holiday to see the disturbances in Ireland, which they had always missed seeing some way. We amused ourselves in drawing comparisons between the lines of rail in Ireland and those in other countries to the total disparagement of Irish railways. They spoke of the railways in England and Wales, and I exalted Canadian railways. Waterford seemed a pretty, lively, bustling town. The river seemed alive with boats; there was a good deal of building going on near the depot, and the people had a step and an air as if they had something to do and were hurrying to do it. It looked very unlike its ancient name, which was, I am told, the Glen of Lamentation. Tales still linger here of the sack of Waterford by Strongbow and his marriage to Princess Eva, and of the landing here of Henry the Second when he came to take possession. From Waterford up through Kilkenny in the sunshine, wondering to see hay still being cut in September. Heard no word of Kilkenny black coal or Kilkenny marble and passed on to Bagenalstown in Carlow and up through Kildare to Dublin. The days were passing so swiftly away that there was but a little time to see Dublin sights; the question was, therefore, what to see and what not to see. Owing to the kindness of Miss Leitch, an art student, I had the privilege of half an hour in the Academy. Having so little time I spent it all before Maclise's picture of the marriage of Strongbow and Princess Eva and in a small way understood how a great painter can tell a story. The museum of Irish antiquities was the next place. I wanted to see the brooch of Tara and saw it, but I was not prepared to see so many reliques of gold and silver telling their own tale of the grandeur of the native rulers of the Ireland of long ago. The ingenuity shown in the broad collars of beaten gold which made them be alike fitted for collar or tiara was surprising. The shape of the brooches and cloak clasps are so like the Glenelg heirlooms which I saw in Glengarry families that the relationship between the clans of the Highlands and the Irish septs is quite apparent. There was quite a large room entirely devoted to gold and silver ornaments. One side was given up to gold collars, neck ornaments, bracelets, armlets and cloak clasps, all of gold. There was another cabinet of rings of various kinds. Some of the rings and bracelets are quite like modern ones. Saint Patrick's bell was another object of great interest to me. It was plain and common-looking, evidently for use, shaped a good deal like a common cow bell. I liked to think how often it had called the primitive people to hear God's message of mercy to them from the lips of his laborious messenger. Beside it stood the elaborate case which the piety of other ages manufactured for the bell. It is such an easy matter to deck shrines and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous when they are gone past the place where the echoes of man's praise can reach. It is easier than hearing and obeying the message which they carry. We were given a powerful magnifying glass to inspect the workmanship of the shrine that held the bell, but my thoughts would turn back to the plain common-looking bell itself. Still I did admire the exquisite workmanship of the shrine, which could only be fully appreciated when seen through the magnifying glass. It required the magnifying glass also to fully bring out the richness of the delicate tracery on the brooch of Tara. There were in another room quite a number of short swords of cast bronze similar to the one presented to me in Mayo. Some of them had been furbished up till they looked like gold. There were some specimens of the bronze chain mail used by the ancient Irish, and the foot covering, which they wore a good deal like Indian moccassins, answering exactly to the description given by Scott in the notes to the Lady of the Lake, of the kind of brogans of the dun deer's hide which shod the fleet-footed Malise, messenger of the fiery cross. There was also a woollen dress found in a bog, which was exactly shaped like a modern princess dress. I was sorry I had only one poor sixty minutes to carry off all my eyes could gather up in that time of these reliques of ancient Ireland. I would recommend any one who cares for the ancient history of Ireland to study these records of the past. What we see affects us more than what we hear. DUBLIN--HOME AGAIN. To my friend, Councillor Leitch, one of the many successful men who have migrated from the Moravian settlement of Grace Hill, I had expressed a wish to see the face of Jonathan Pim, the landlord of whose goodness I heard so much in the neighborhood of Clew Bay. Through Mr. Leitch's kindness I obtained a seat in the gallery of the round room of the Mansion House where the meeting was held to consider the advisability of holding an exhibition of Irish manufactures. It was expected that I should see Mr. Jonathan Pim at this meeting, but he was not there; he was represented by his son. It was something for my backwoods eyes to be privileged to see this grand room, built, I hear, for the reception of His Gracious Majesty King George the Fourth when he made his visit to Ireland, called the "Irish Avatar." At one side of the round room was a sort of dais, on which was a chair of state that, I suppose, represented a throne. Round the gallery were hung shields, containing the coats-of- arms of the worshipful the Lords Mayor of Dublin. The chair was occupied by the present Lord Mayor, a very fine-looking gentleman who became his gold chain of office well. The day before I had been taken by Mrs. Leitch to an academy of arts and industry. For some reason of alterations and repairs there was no admission beyond the vestibule. In this entrance hall were specimen slabs and pillars of all the Irish marbles, which were there in as great variety as in Shushan the palace. There was the marble of Connemara in every shade of green, black marble of Kilkenny, red marble of Cork, blue credited to Killarney, I think, and many, many others. I think there was hardly a county in Ireland unrepresented. I do think that among all this wealth of marbles the Irish people might gratify their most fastidious taste without sending to Italy. I saw a good many productions of Irish industry, but they seem always confined to the localities which produce them. You see things in shop windows ticketed Scotch and English, but, until this new movement began, nothing marked Irish. Yet Limerick laces might tempt any fine lady, as well as Antrim linens and Down damasks. There is also Blarney tweed of great cheapness and excellence, Balina blankets, and the excellent Claddagh flannel. If there were enterprise as well, and a desire to patronize home industries, I think the chimneys of factories now silent and idle might smoke again. I particularly noticed in every corner of Ireland where I have been that where I saw the tall chimneys of factories in operation I did not see barefoot women with barefoot asses selling ass loads of turf for threepence. I left Dublin--really, I may say, an almost unseen Dublin--behind me and turned my face Belfastwards. Drogheda is the last place of which I have taken any notes. I was a day or two there. In fact I was more than a few days, but was confined to my room by a severe neuralgia most of the time. There is a fine railway bridge here, lofty enough for schooners to sail under. The land on both sides of the river is like a garden, and is devoted to pleasure grounds in the usual proportion. I was wishful to see the very spot on the banks of the Boyne where James and William fought for a kingdom long ago. As I looked at the fair country checked off into large fields by green hedges, at the waving trees of enclosed pleasure-grounds, I recalled King William's words about Ireland, "This land is worth fighting for," and I thought he was right. The Boyne is but a small river, no wider than the Muskrat at Pembroke, but deep enough to carry schooners a little way up. There is a canal beside it, and it was full of barges carrying coal and other things. Near to Drogheda town, in the suburbs, is a bridge over the Boyne. I crossed it looking for the locality of the battle. Meeting a clerical- looking gentleman, I enquired if he could point out to me where the battle of the Boyne was fought. This gentleman, who was a Franciscan friar, directed me to keep along the road by the river bank, when I would come to another bridge and the monument beside it. "It stands there a disgrace to Drogheda and a disgrace to all Ireland," he said. He showed me the new Franciscan church, a very grand cut stone building. There is also a Dominican church, and an Augustinian, besides two others, and there was the foundation stone of still another to the memory of that Oliver Plunket, Catholic archbishop and primate of Ireland, put to death in the time of Titus Oates. I was informed that the proportion of Catholics to Protestants in Drogheda is six to one. Walking through Drogheda on market day I did not see one barefoot woman in the crowd; all were pretty well dressed and well shod. The asses were sleek and fat, shod and attached to carts. How different from Ramelton, Donegal, Manor Hamilton, Leitrim, Castlebar or Mayo, where straw harness, lean asses and hungry, barefoot women abound. The land is good round Drogheda, and there is manufacturing going on. This makes the difference. I will never get up along the Boyne at this rate. I went along the south side and, hearing the cheery clack of a loom, went into a cottage to see the weaver, a woman. She was weaving canvas for stiffening for coats. Could make threepence a yard, which was better pay a good deal than the Antrim weavers of fine linen make. She was much exercised in her mind against Mr. Vere Forster, who helps young western girls to emigrate to America, confounding him with the infamous wretches who decoy girls to France and Belgium. I tried to set her right, to explain matters to her, but I am afraid that I did not succeed in convincing her. The land on both sides of the Boyne is dotted with houses and filled with people, so the country looks more cheerful than in empty Mayo or Roscommon. I spoke to a farmer who was looking hopefully at a large field of oats, and asked him what rent he paid. Owing to his nearness to Drogheda he paid L7 per acre. "How can you pay it?" I asked. "I can pay it in good years well enough," he said. "What have you left for yourself?" "I have the straw," he answered. I walked on and got weary enough before I came to the iron bridge and the monument. The monument has a very neglected, weather-stained appearance. Where Duke Schomberg was said to have fallen there was a growth of red poppies. I plucked some as a memorial of the place. I returned by the Meath side along a lovely tree-shaded road. Some work-people explained to me that the late severe winters had destroyed the song birds of Ireland. I did not hear one lark sing in all the summer since I came. These working people were all anxious to emigrate if they had some means, and listened eagerly to the advantages of Canada as a place for settlement. I was one Sabbath day in Drogheda, and attended service in the Presbyterian church there, which was opposite the spot where the great massacre of women and children took place in Cromwell's time. This was eagerly pointed out to me. The congregation was very small, not half filling the church. Between Dublin and Belfast I had as travelling companion a Manchester merchant, who had run over during his holidays to have a peep at the turbulent Irish. He had been in Ireland for a few weeks, and had visited some cabins and spoken to some laborers, and had settled the matter to his own satisfaction. "The ills of Ireland arise from the inordinate love of the soil in the Irish, and their lower civilization. For instance, an English farmer in renting a farm would consider how much would support his family first, and if the landlord would not accept as rent what was left the bargain would not be struck. The Irish farmer would think first how much he could give the landlord, and would calculate to live somehow, not as any human beings should live, but somehow on the balance." This was his theory. He denounced in no measured terms the union of Church and State, blaming this for the prevalent unbelief. In many parts of Ireland I have been taken for some one else. I have had secrets whispered to me under the mistake that I was somebody else, and words of warning given that were of no use to me, but the funniest of all was on my way from Dublin to Belfast. At a station in Down, I think, a gentleman got into our compartment who was in the good-natured stage of tipsyness. He seemed to labor under the impression that I had, in company with my brother, canvassed eagerly for Colonel Knox at the Tyrone election. He felt called upon to tell me some home truths, the bitterness of which he qualified with nods and smiles. "We bate your Colonel Knox, mem, in spite of you and your brother. Thank God for the ballot, mem, we can vote according to our own consciences, mem, not as we're told as it used to be, mem. You and your party think you have all the sense and learning and religion in Ireland, mem. All your religion is in your song, 'We'll kick the Pope before us.' All your learning, mem, is to hold up King William a decent man and abuse King James at the Orange meetings in Scrabba where your brother speaks. You and your kind need to know nothing but what happened in '98 and only one side of that. What happens in '81, mem, you hold your noses too high to notice." In this manner my tipsy friend ran on until the train stopped at Lisburn, when he left with a parting benediction. "God bless you, mem, you're better natured than I thought you were. May you go to heaven and that's where your brother won't go in a hurry." I had to go to Liverpool to catch the ship and so had to forego seeing many things in Belfast which I had hoped to see. It was with some gladness I saw the ship "Ontario" again. Having arrived before the other cabin passengers I took the opportunity of going over the steerage with Mr. Duffin, the excellent chief steward. The quarters for steerage passengers were on the same deck as the saloon, as lofty and as well ventilated. The berths were arranged in groups with an enclosed state room to each. Single men by themselves, families by themselves, single women by themselves and foreigners by themselves, every division having their own conveniences for cleanliness and comfort. I am sure the arrangements for steerage passengers on the "Ontario" would have gladdened the heart of Miss Charlotte O'Brien. I speak for myself, and I know I speak the sentiments of all the cabin passengers, when I say that nothing could exceed the provisions made for our comfort, or the courtesy and kindness shown by the captain and officers of the "Ontario" to us all, both in saloon and steerage. In conversation on board these sentiments came up often, and with enthusiasm, and captain and crew, and the stout ship met with no measured praise. Before retiring behind the curtain to shake hands with sea-sickness again, we had a long, fond look at the land we were leaving. Liverpool had receded into a long, low line of twinkling lamps. My thoughts went through the mist to the land of my own people now passing through the throes of a great change. Erin, beloved and beautiful, once more The time of parting comes to thee and me; The sad delight of pilgrimage is o'er, And voices call to me across the sea. In Canada the magic summer shines, A purple haze upon the mountain broods, The soft warm breeze is whispering through the pines. And leaping waters thunder through the woods. September radiance tints the forest grand, The maples are aflame upon the hills; From bursting barns plenty smiles o'er the land, Where the tall farmer owns the soil he tills. Erin, thy robe of green is dewed with tears, Fields outrage-stained, thy west wind thick with sighs, Thou that hast walked with woe down through the years, Weighted with all the wrongs of centuries. Erin, beloved with love akin to pain, Through woe and outrage, turbulence and strife, Thou shalt arise and enter once again Into a higher, freer, glorious life. A LAST WORD--THE CAUSE OF IRELAND'S TROUBLES. Because I have had the privilege of being Irish correspondent for the Montreal _Witness_ for a time, I think it right to explain to you the change which travelling through my native country has produced in my sentiments and the convictions forced upon me. Brought up in the North of Ireland in a purely Hiberno-Scotch neighborhood, I drank in with my native air all the ideas which reign in that part of Ireland. The people with whom I came in contact were Conservatives of the strongest type; from my youth up, therefore, I had the cause of Ireland's poverty and misery as an article of belief. I never dreamed that the tenure of land had anything to do with it. Landlords were lords and leaders, benefactors and protectors to their tenants in my imagination. I changed my opinion while in Ireland, and now I believe that the land tenure is the main cause of Ireland's miseries. English history is pretty much a history of struggles against monopolies of one kind and another. There is no monopoly, it seems to me, which bears such evil fruit as the monopoly of all the land of a country in the hands of a few. It is bad for the country, bad for the people, and bad for the landlords, whether the monopolists are honorable companies, a landed aristocracy, or an ecclesiastical corporation. God's-law, which is the law of our faith, shows plainly how the Great Lawgiver regards the monopoly of land by the care which He took to have a direct interest in the land of Canaan by personal inheritance for every Jew. To guard against the might of greed, to prevent the poor of the land, touched by misfortune or snared by debt, from sinking into farm laborers or serfs of the soil he instituted the year of jubilee when every man returned to his inheritance. I first thought over these things in connection with the land question in Ireland when travelling there and seeing the evils arising from the existing tenure of land. I met with testimony everywhere of how often and how fatally the will of a lord interfered to prevent prosperity. There might have been a seam of coal opened in Antrim but for one landlord. In the present depressed state of the linen trade what a boon that would have been to the country. There might have been ship-building on the Foyle, to the great benefit of Derry and her people, but for the absentee landlords, the London companies. Donegal might have had a coal mine opened, but the landlord would neither open it himself nor let anyone else do it, and yet the great want of Donegal is employment for her people. I did not think for a moment that the landlords of Ireland were, as a rule, naturally worse than other men, but they have too much power, and when "self the wavering balance shakes, it's rarely right adjusted." I blame the system, not the men. There were and are landlords in Ireland too noble to abuse their power, of which class the Earl of Belmore is an illustrious example; but these men are noble in spite of the system which afforded every facility for the enormities of Lord Leitrim. The evil of the Land Tenure is intensified by the fact that one class makes laws for another, and that the same class has all the executive of these laws under their control. There was no power in the law to protect the inhabitants of Milford when the earnings and savings of their whole lives, and the private property of their minister were confiscated by the strong hand, and some were reduced in consequence to beg their bread. The law, planned expressly to be an expensive luxury, was only for the rich, and was known to the poor, if they dared to contend with their landlord, as an engine of oppression. The judge who gave the award in Mrs. Auldjo's case knew better than anyone else the cost of Irish law, and that the award he gave her under the Act of 1870 was a defeating of the intentions of the law, as it was really less than the law costs. His award added insult to injury to a woman who was a widow, and wantonly ruined in fortune because she dared to contend with a lord. The same spirit of partisanship invented the infamous Grand Jury system. After I left Antrim, while travelling through the wilds of Donegal, the glens of Leitrim, and all through beautiful and desolate Mayo, I wondered over the absolute power which was left in the hands of the landholders and the great gulf which separated them from the land- tilling class. Public opinion, which they control, seems to have absolutely no sympathy with the common people when they were behind in their rents, although they were emerging from a period of agricultural distress, culminating in absolute famine. I watched the papers, I took good heed to the conversation that went on around me, and saw or heard no expression of sympathy when events took place which, I had thought, impossible under British law. When Mrs. Whittington, of Malin, was put out in the wild March weather, with a child three days old in her arms and a flock of six around her, I looked for some one to raise a voice of protest, but there was not a whisper. When a landlord's official forced his way past husband, doctor and nurse, to the bedside of Mrs. Stewart, to order her to get out of bed to go to the workhouse, bringing on fits that caused the death of her babe and nearly cost her her life, I watched eagerly for some voice to say this should not have been done, but there was none. I have heard of retreating armies stopping and hazarding battle, rather than forsake a childing woman in her extremity, in countries not boasting of so enlightened a government as our own. I had so gloried in the British Constitution, its justice, its mercy! I waited to see what the law would do in this case. All the facts were admitted in court, yet this man, who forgot that he, too, was born of a woman, was triumphantly acquitted and not one word of disapproval appeared in any public print that I saw. I have often come home after seeing that on the side of the oppressor was power--the power of bayonets--and that the poor had no helper, until I could not sleep for pain and could only cry to our Father--theirs and mine--How long, Lord, how long! A friend described to me quite gaily a scene at the Castlebar workhouse during the last famine, when the starving creatures coming for relief surged round the workhouse gate and pressed and hustled and trampled down one another, how the police standing ankle deep in mud had to lay about them with their batons, and the poor creatures were sent home again, and yet again, until they would learn to keep order--keep order-- and they were starving! A lady in Clones, who was talking to me on Sabbath School work and missionary enterprise in a highly edifying manner, could only express her surprise about the poor of her own people who were doomed to the poor house, that they did not go in at once without struggle or fuss. And yet she had been a mother, and must have known what parting with children meant to a mother's heart. For my part I sympathized with that mother of whom I read in the papers, who was taken before a magistrate and sentenced for making a disturbance in the workhouse when she heard the master beating her child. I wondered much at a noble and high-minded Irish gentleman who feels strong sympathy with the Oka Indians, who, in speaking to me of a man caught in company with another fishing by night, thereby transgressing the law, and was deliberately shot down by the agent of the property, expressed his regret that the other had not been also shot. Hardening the heart I hold to be one of the very apparent effects of the land system. Another evil is the encouragement of unutterable meanness; a meanness that allows rich men to manage to extract under pressure gratuitous work out of these poor people. No one needs to be told that the Irish peasant is worse fed, worse clothed, worse housed than any peasant in Europe, yet gentlemen will take from these gratuitous work, and see so little to be ashamed of in the transaction as to write about it over their own signature, as Ernest Cochrane did in the columns of the _Witness_. I have heard of miles of separating fence being made, in this way, of walls being built and even of monuments being erected "in memoriam" in the same way. I was told of a noble lord having brought a gentle pressure to bear on his Irish tenants to cause them to subscribe over and above their rents for the benefit of those who were suffering from an accident in his English collieries. I have wondered to hear gentlemen, and even clergymen, in Ireland wishing that the people would rise in rebellion so that there might be an opportunity of laying the cold steel to them and putting them down effectually. I have also wondered at the refusal of the authorities to have the riots in Limerick investigated; surely that does not look like impartial justice. I have wondered again over the openly avowed purpose of rooting the people out of the country. I have looked with great concern and astonishment at the lands already wasted and almost without inhabitants. I have read with great pain the Lord Lieutenant's speech at Belfast, aspersing the country as disloyal and threatening them with greater tyranny. The people are disloyal, to a system of oppression and absolutism which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear; but I believe from my heart that they are more loyal to Her Majesty than their oppressors are, for the system has made them oppressors. Only notice, from Mr. Smith's evidence at the Land Court recently, concerning the Enniskillen estate, for which he is agent, it is proven that even in Protestant Ulster a landlord can abolish the Ulster custom--the root of Ulster's exceptional prosperity--at the motion of his own will. In the trials for turbary in the Kiltyclogher cases a rule made by a landlord in his office overrides even a lease, and is accepted as _de facto_ law in the court. These things have convinced me that the exterminating landlords are the parties who are guilty of high treason against the commonwealth of England. The loyalty of Irish Catholics to a country that had scant justice to give them has been proven on every battle field from far India to the Crimea. No history of England's wars in these later times can be written truly without acknowledging the Irish blood given like water for England's honor. Scotland has been more favored of late years, although the time is not so far distant when her language, her dress and ancient customs were also proscribed. Watching this, I have found myself wishing that some Irish Walter Scott would arise whose pen would make Ireland's lakes and glens, mountain passes and battlemented rocks, ruined castles and mouldering abbeys, famous and fashionable as Scotland's brown heath and shaggy wood, till the Queen would love to have a home there, and the nobles of the land would follow in her shadow. I have changed my opinion on this also. The nobles come to covet the homes of the people. The Highlands of Scotland seem destined to become a hunting ground. The hardy mountaineers, guilty of no crime, must give up their hamlets and shielings, the inheritance of their fathers, at the order of any trader who has coined the sweat of his fellow men successfully into guineas, or any idle lord who has money. If "a death grapple of the nations" should ever come to England will she miss the Connaught Rangers, the glorious 88th who won from stern Picton the cheer, "Well done 88th," or the Enniskillen dragoons so famed in song and story, or the North Cork that moved to battle as to a festival? Will she miss "the torrent of tartan and steel" that charged at the Alma, or the cry that "the hills of grey Caledon know the shout of McDonald, McLean and McKay, when they dash at the breast of the foe?" Will she miss the clansmen of Athol, Breadalbane and Mar? Will the exterminating lords who must have hunting grounds at all hazards come to the front with squadrons of deer or battalions of rabbits? Surely it is an aweful thing to sweep the inhabitants of a country for gain. If Britain ever has to call on these Varuses for her legions, or to repeat George II.'s cry at Fontenoy, will the enemy be able to countervail the Queen's damage? I would earnestly plead with the authorities, even yet, to try a little conciliation instead of such strong doses of coercion. History tells how cheaply the disturbed Highlands were pacified compared with the expense of coercing them, which was a failure. The tithe of the expense for bayonets would, I am convinced, make the West of Ireland contented and make future prosperity possible. THE END. 
35529	----	http://www.archive.org/details/charmofireland00stevuoft Transcriber's note: An o with a macron is represented in the text by [=o]. THE CHARM OF IRELAND [Illustration: TWO TINY CONNAUGHT TOILERS _See page 356_] THE CHARM OF IRELAND by BURTON E. STEVENSON Author of "The Spell of Holland," "The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet," etc. With Many Illustrations from Photographs by the Author New York Dodd, Mead and Company 1914 Copyright, 1914 By Dodd, Mead & Company _TO_ J. I. B. _THIS BOOK_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I DUBLIN'S SATURDAY NIGHT 1 II LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF AN ANCIENT CAPITAL 9 III THE ART OF ANCIENT ERIN 26 IV ON THE TRAIL OF THE SHAMROCK 42 V THE COUNTRY OF ST. KEVIN 59 VI DROGHEDA THE DREARY 85 VII HOLY CROSS AND CASHEL OF THE KINGS 97 VIII ADVENTURES AT BLARNEY 113 IX CUSHLA MA CHREE 128 X THE SHRINE OF ST. FIN BARRE 139 XI A TRIP THROUGH WONDERLAND 153 XII THE "GRAND TOUR" 177 XIII ROUND ABOUT KILLARNEY 192 XIV O'CONNELL, JOURNEYMAN TAILOR 203 XV THE RUINS AT ADARE 224 XVI "WHERE THE RIVER SHANNON FLOWS" 242 XVII LISSOY AND CLONMACNOISE 265 XVIII GALWAY OF THE TRIBES 292 XIX IAR CONNAUGHT 314 XX JOYCE'S COUNTRY 339 XXI THE REAL IRISH PROBLEM 358 XXII THE TRIALS OF A CONDUCTOR 375 XXIII THE LEACHT-CON-MIC-RUIS 398 XXIV THE WINDING BANKS OF ERNE 415 XXV THE MAIDEN CITY 438 XXVI THE GRAINAN OF AILEACH 458 XXVII THE BRIDGE OF THE GIANTS 472 XXVIII THE GLENS OF ANTRIM 485 XXIX BELFAST 503 XXX THE GRAVE OF ST. PATRICK 519 XXXI THE VALLEY OF THE BOYNE 534 XXXII THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE 559 INDEX 567 ILLUSTRATIONS Two Tiny Connaught Toilers _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE Dublin Castle 10 O'Connell, alias Sackville, Street, Dublin 10 Ruins of St. Mary's Abbey Howth 22 The Evolution of the Jaunting Car 28 The Cross of Cong 40 The Shrine of St. Patrick's Bell 40 Glendalough and the Ruins of St. Kevin's Churches 66 The Road to St. Kevin's Seat 74 The First of St. Kevin's Churches 74 The Round Tower, Clondalkin 88 St. Lawrence's Gate, Drogheda 88 Holy Cross Abbey, from the Cloisters 100 The Mighty Ruins on the Rock of Cashel 100 Cashel of the Kings 104 Blarney Castle 116 A Cottage at Inchigeelagh 144 The Shrine of St. Fin Barre 144 The Bay of Glengarriff 164 The Upper Lake, Killarney, from the Kenmare Road 164 Old Weir Bridge, Killarney 188 The Meeting of the Waters 188 Ross Castle, Killarney 188 Muckross Abbey, Killarney 194 The Cloister at Muckross Abbey 194 The Choir of the Abbey at Adare 232 The Castle of the Geraldines, Adare 232 The Shannon, near World's End 248 St. Senan's Well 248 The Bridge at Killaloe 258 The Oratory at Killaloe 258 Entrance to St. Molua's Oratory 262 A Fisherman's Home 262 The Choir of the Abbey at Athenry 270 A Cottage at Athenry 270 The Goldsmith Rectory at Lissoy 276 The "Three Jolly Pigeons" 276 On the Road to Clonmacnoise 288 St. Kieran's Cathair, Clonmacnoise 288 The Market at Galway 296 "Ould Saftie" 296 The Claddagh, Galway 300 A Claddagh Home 300 A Galway Vista 302 The Memorial of a Spartan Father 302 The Connemara Marble Quarry 322 A Connemara Home 322 In "Joyce's Country" 344 On the Shore of Lough Mask 344 The Cloister at Cong Abbey 348 The Monks' Fishing-house, Cong Abbey 348 The Turf-Cutters 356 A Girl of "Joyce's Country" 356 Cromlechs at Carrowmore 392 Sligo Abbey from the Cloister 400 The Leacht-Con-Mic-Ruis 400 A Ruin on the Shore of Lough Gill 402 The Last Fragment of an Ancient Stronghold 402 A Cashel near Dromahair 408 St. Patrick's Holy Well 408 The Coast at Bundoran 416 The Home of "Colleen Bawn" 416 Birthplace of William Allingham 430 Castle Donegal 430 The Walls of Derry 466 The Grainan of Aileach 466 The "Giant's Head," near Portrush 480 The Ruins of Dunluce Castle 480 The Giant's Causeway 482 The Cliffs beyond the Causeway 482 The Grave of Ossian 496 An Antrim Landscape 496 A Humble Home in Antrim 498 The Old Jail at Cushendall 498 The City Hall, Belfast 516 High Street, Belfast 516 The Grave of Patrick, Brigid and Columba 522 The Old Cross at Downpatrick 522 The Great Rath at Downpatrick 526 The Inner and Outer Circles 526 The Central Mound 526 The Eye Well at Struell 528 The Well of Sins at Struell 528 The Birthplace of John Boyle O'Reilly 540 Entrance to Dowth Tumulus 540 Entrance to Newgrange 546 The Ruins of Mellifont 546 The Round Tower, Monasterboice 554 The High Cross, Monasterboice 554 Muiredach's Cross, Monasterboice 556 THE CHARM OF IRELAND CHAPTER I DUBLIN'S SATURDAY NIGHT TWILIGHT was at hand when the little steamer, slender as a greyhound, cast loose from the pier at Holyhead, made its way cautiously out past the breakwater, and then, gathering speed, headed away across the Irish Sea, straight toward the setting sun. The boat showed many evidences that the Irish Sea can be savage when it chooses. Everything movable about the decks was carefully lashed down; there were railings and knotted ropes everywhere to cling to; and in the saloon the table-racks were set ready at hand, as though they had just been used, and might be needed again at any moment. But, on this Saturday evening in late May, the sea was in a pleasant, even a jovial, mood, with just enough swell to send a thin shower of spray across the deck from time to time, and lend exhilaration to the rush of the fleet little turbine. There were many boats in sight--small ones, for the most part, rolling and pitching apparently much worse than we; and then the gathering darkness obscured them one by one, and presently all that was left of them were the bobbing white lights at their mastheads. A biting chill crept into the air, and Betty finally sought refuge from it in the saloon, while I made my way back to the smoking-room, hoping for a friendly pipe with some one. I was attracted at once by a rosy-faced old priest, sitting at one of the corner tables. He was smoking a black, well-seasoned briar, and he bade me a cheery good-evening as I dropped into the seat beside him. "You would be from America," he said, watching me as I filled up. "Yes," I answered. "From Ohio." "Ah, I know Ohio well," and he looked at me with new interest, "though for many years I have been in Illinois." "But you were born in Ireland?" "I was so; near Tuam. I am going back now for a visit." "Have you been away long?" "More than thirty years," he said, and took a few reflective puffs. "No doubt you will find many changes," I ventured. But he shook his head. "I am thinking I shall find Tuam much as I left it," he said. "There are not many changes in Ireland, even in thirty years. 'Tis not like America. I am afraid I shall have to give up smoking while I am there," he added, with a little sigh. "Give up smoking?" I echoed. "But why?" "They do not like their priests to smoke in Ireland." I was astonished. I had no suspicion that Irish priests were criticised for little things like that. In fact, I had somewhere received the impression that they were above criticism of every kind--dictators, in short, no act of whose was questioned. My companion laughed when I told him this. "That is not so at all," he said. "Every priest, of course, has authority in spiritual matters; but if he has any authority outside of that, it is because his people trust him. And before they'll trust him, he must deserve it. There is no people in the world so critical, so suspicious, or so sharp-sighted as the Irish. Take this matter of smoking, now. All Irishmen smoke, and yet there is a feeling that it is not the right thing for a priest. For myself, I see no harm in it. My pipe is a fine companion in the long evenings, when I am often lonely. But of course I can't do anything that would be making the people think less of me," and he knocked his pipe out tenderly and put it sadly in his pocket, refusing my proffered pouch. "You will have to take a few whiffs up the chimney occasionally," I suggested. His faded blue eyes lit up with laughter. "Ah, I have done that same before this," he said, with a little chuckle. "That would be while I was a student at Maynooth, and a wild lot we were. There was a hole high up in the wall where the stove-pipe used to go, and we boys would draw a table under it, and stand on the table, and smoke up the chimney, turn and turn about," and he went on to tell me of those far-off days at Maynooth, which is the great Catholic college of Ireland, and of his first visit to America, and his first sight of Niagara Falls, and of how he had finally decided to enter the priesthood after long uncertainty; and then presently some one came to the door and said the lights of the Irish coast could be seen ahead, and we went out to look at them. Far away, a little to the right, a strong level shaft of light told of a lighthouse. It was the famous Bailey light, at the foot of the Hill of Howth, so one of the deckhands said; and then, still farther off, another light began to wink and wink, and then a third that swept its level beam across the sea, stared one full in the eye for an instant, and then swept on; and then more lights and more--the green and red ones marking the entrance to the harbour; and finally the lights of Kingstown itself stretched away to the left like a string of golden beads. And then we were in the harbour; and then we were beside the pier; and then Betty and I and the "chocolate-drop"--as we had named the brown English wrap-up which had done such yeoman service in Holland that we had vowed never to travel without it,--went down the gang-plank, and were in Ireland! There is always a certain excitement, a certain exhilaration, in setting foot for the first time in any country; but when that country is Ireland, the Island of the Saints, the home of heroic legend and history more heroic still, the land with a frenzy for freedom yet never free--well, it was with a mist of happiness before our eyes that we crossed the pier and sought seats in the boat-train. It is only five or six miles from Kingstown to Dublin, so that at the end of a very few minutes our train stopped in the Westland Row station, where a fevered mob of porters and hotel runners was in waiting; and then, after most of the passengers and luggage had been disgorged, and a guard had come around and collected twopence from me for some obscure reason I did not attempt to fathom, went on again, along a viaduct above gleaming streets murmurous with people, and across the shining Liffey, to the station at Amiens Street, which was our destination. Our hotel, I knew, was only two or three blocks away, and the prospect of traversing on foot the crowded streets which we had glimpsed from the train was not to be resisted; so I told the guard we wanted a man to carry our bags, and he promptly yelled at a ragamuffin, who was drifting past along the platform. "Here!" he called. "Take the bags for the gintleman. Look sharrup, now!" But there was no need to tell him to look sharp, for he sprang toward me eagerly, his face alight with joy at the prospect of earning a few pennies--maybe sixpence--perhaps even a shilling! "Where is it you'd be wantin' to go, sir?" he asked, and touched his cap. I named the hotel. "It's in Sackville Street," I added. "That's not far, is it?" "'Tis just a step, sir," he protested, and picked up the bags and was off, we after him. It was long past eleven o'clock, but when we got down to the street, we found it thronged with a crowd for which the sidewalks were much too narrow, and which eddied back and forth and in and out of the shops like waves of the sea. We looked into their faces as we went along, and saw that they were good-humoured faces, unmistakably Irish; their voices were soft and the rise and fall of the talk was very sweet and gentle; but most of them were very shabby, and many of them undeniably dirty, and some had celebrated Saturday evening by taking a glass too much. They were not drunk--and I may as well say here that I did not see what I would call a drunken man all the time I was in Ireland--but they were happy and uplifted, and required rather more room to walk than they would need on Monday morning. Our porter, meanwhile, was ploughing through the crowd ahead of us like a ship through the sea, swinging a bag in either hand, quite regardless of the shins of the passers-by, and we were hard put to it to keep him in sight. It was farther than I had thought, but presently I saw a tall column looming ahead which I recognised as the Nelson Pillar, and I assured Betty that we were nearly there, for I knew that our hotel was almost opposite the Pillar. Our porter, however, crossed a broad street, which I was sure must be Sackville Street, without pausing, and continued at top speed straight ahead. We followed him for some moments; but the street grew steadily darker and more deserted, and finally I sprinted ahead and stopped him. "Look here," I said. "We don't want to keep on walking all night. How much farther is the hotel?" He set down the bags and mopped his dripping face with his sleeve. "I'm not quite sure, sir," he said, looking about him. "I don't believe it is up this way at all," I protested. "It's back there on Sackville Street." "It is, sir," he agreed cheerfully, and picked up the bags again and started back. "That _is_ Sackville Street, isn't it?" I asked. "Sure, I don't know, sir." "Don't know?" I echoed, and stared at him. "Don't you know where the hotel is?" "You see, sir, I'm a stranger in Dublin, like yourself," he explained. "Well, why on earth didn't you say so?" I demanded. He didn't answer; but of course I realised instantly why he hadn't said so. If he had, he wouldn't have got the job. That was what he was afraid of. In fact, he was afraid, even yet, that I would take the bags away from him and get some one else to carry them. I didn't do that, but I took command of the expedition. "Come along," I said. "You follow me." "Thank you, sir," he said, his face lighting up again, and fell in behind us. As we retraced our steps, I tried to figure out how he had expected to find the hotel by plunging straight ahead without asking the way of any one, and for how long, if I had not stopped him, he would have kept on walking. Perhaps he had expected to keep going round and round until some good fairy led him to our destination. At the corner of Sackville Street, I saw a policeman's helmet looming high above the crowd, and I went to him and asked the way, while our porter waited in the background. Perhaps he was afraid of policemen, or perhaps it was just the instinctive Irish dislike of them. This particular one bent a benignant face down upon us from his altitude of something over six feet, and in a moment set us right. The hotel was only a few steps away. The door was locked, and I had to ring, and while we were waiting, our porter looked about him with a bewildered face. "What name was it you gave this street, sir?" he asked, at last. "Sackville Street," I answered, and pointed for confirmation to the sign at the corner, very plain under the electric light. From the vacant look he gave it I knew he couldn't read; but he scratched his head perplexedly. "A friend of mine told me 'twas O'Connell Street," he said finally, and I paid him and dismissed him without realising that I had been brought face to face with the age-long conflict between English officialism and Irish patriotism. Ten minutes later, I opened the window of our room and found myself looking out at Lord Nelson, leaning sentimentally on his sword on top of his pillar--posing as he so often did when he found himself in the limelight. Far below, the street still hummed with life, although it was near midnight. The pavements were crowded, side-cars whirled hither and thither, some of the shops had not yet closed. Dublin certainly seemed a gay town. CHAPTER II LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF AN ANCIENT CAPITAL I KNOW Dublin somewhat better now, and I no longer think of it as a gay town--rather as a supremely tragic one. Turn the corner from any of the main thoroughfares, and you will soon find yourself in a foul alley of crowded tenements, in the midst of a misery and squalor that wring the heart. You will wonder to see women laughing together and children playing on the damp pavements. It is thin laughter and half-hearted play; and yet, even here, there is a certain air of carelessness and good-humour. It may be that these miserable people do not realise their misery. Cleanliness is perhaps as painful to a person reared in dirt as dirt is to a person reared in cleanliness; slum dwellers, I suppose, do not notice the slum odour; a few decades of slum life must inevitably destroy or, at least, deaden those niceties of smell and taste and feeling which play so large a part in the lives of the well-to-do. And it is fortunate that this is so. But one threads one's way along these squalid streets, shuddering at thought of the vice and disease that must be bred there, and mourning, not so much for their unfortunate inhabitants, as for the blindness and inefficiency of the social order which permits them to exist. [Illustration: DUBLIN CASTLE © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.] [Illustration: O'CONNELL, ALIAS SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN] These appalling alleys are always in the background of my thoughts of Dublin; and yet it is not them I see when I close my eyes and evoke my memory of that ancient town. The picture which comes before me then is of the wide O'Connell Bridge, with the great monument of the Liberator guarding one end of it, and the curving street beyond, sweeping past the tall portico of the old Parliament House, past the time-stained buildings of Trinity College, and so on along busy Grafton Street to St. Stephen's Green. This is the most beautiful and characteristic of Dublin's vistas; and one visualises it instinctively when one thinks of Dublin, just as one visualises the boulevards and the Avenue de l'Opera when one thinks of Paris, or the Dam and the Kalverstraat when one thinks of Amsterdam, or the Strand and Piccadilly when one thinks of London. It was in this direction that our feet turned, that bright Sunday morning, when we sallied forth for the first time to see the town, and we were impressed almost at once by two things: the unusual height of Dublin policemen and the eccentric attitudes of Dublin statues. There are few finer bodies of men in the world than the Royal Irish Constabulary. They are as spruce and erect as grenadiers; throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, I never saw a fat one. They are recruited all over the island, and the tallest ones must be selected for the Dublin service. At any rate, they tower a full head above the average citizen of that town, and, in consequence, there is always one or more of them in sight. As for the statues, they sadly lack repose. The O'Connell Monument is a riot of action, though the Liberator himself is comparatively cool and self-possessed. Just beyond the bridge, Smith O'Brien poses with leg advanced and head flung back and arms proudly folded in the traditional attitude of haughty defiance; opposite him, Henry Grattan stands with hand outstretched midway of an eloquent period; and, as you explore the streets, you will see other patriots in bronze or marble doing everything but what they should be doing: standing quietly and making the best of a bad job. For to stand atop a shaft of stone and endure the public gaze eternally _is_ a bad job, even for a statue. But a good statue conceals its feeling of absurdity and ennui under a dignified exterior. Most Dublin ones do not. They are visibly irked and impatient. I mentioned this interesting fact, one evening, to a Dublin woman of my acquaintance, and she laughed. "'Tis true they are impatient," she agreed. "But perhaps they will quiet down once the government stops calling O'Connell Street by a wrong name." "Where _is_ O'Connell Street?" I asked, for I had failed to notice it. "Your hotel faces it; but the government names it after a viceroy whom nobody has thought of for a hundred years." It was then I understood the confusion of the man who had carried our bags up from the station; for to every good Irishman Sackville Street is always O'Connell Street, in honour of the patriot whose monument adorns it. That it is still known officially as Sackville Street is probably due to the inertia of a government always suspicious of change, rather than to any desire to honour a forgotten viceroy, or hesitation to add another leaf to O'Connell's crown of laurel. O'Connell himself, in some critical quarters, is not quite the idol he once was; but Irishmen agree that the wide and beautiful street which is the centre of Dublin should be named after him, and his monument, at one end of it, is still the natural rallying-place for the populace, whose orators love to illustrate their periods by pointing to the figure of Erin breaking her fetters at its base. At the other end of the street is a very noble memorial of another patriot--Charles Stewart Parnell. Parnell's fame burns brighter and clearer with the passing years, and this memorial, so simple, so dignified, and yet so full of meaning, is one which no American can contemplate without a thrill of pride, for it is the work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens--a consummate artist, American to the marrow, though Dublin-born, of a French father and an Irish mother. Midway of this great thoroughfare, rises the Nelson Pillar--a fluted column springing a hundred and fifty feet into the air, dominating the whole town. I do not understand why Nelson should have been so signally honoured in the Irish capital, for there was nothing Irish about him, either in birth or temperament. Perhaps that is the reason. Stranger things have happened in Ireland. And indeed it is no stranger than the whim which set another statue to face the old Parliament House--a gilded atrocity representing William of Orange, garbed as a Roman emperor in laurel-wreath and toga, bestriding a sway-backed horse! The Home Rule Parliament will no doubt promptly change the street signs along the broad thoroughfare which forms the heart of Dublin; but meanwhile everybody agrees in calling the bridge O'Connell's monument faces by his name. A very handsome bridge it is, and there is a beautiful view from it, both up and down the river. Dublin is like Paris, in that it is built on both sides of a river, and the view from this point reminds one somewhat of the view along the Seine. There are many bridges, and many domed buildings, many boats moored to the quays--and many patient fishermen waiting for a bite! A short distance beyond the bridge is the great granite structure with curving façade and rain-blackened columns, a queer but impressive jumble of all the Greek orders, which now houses the Bank of Ireland. Time was when it housed the Irish Parliament, and that time may come again; meanwhile it stands as a monument to the classical taste of the eighteenth century and its fondness for allegorical sculpture--Erin supported by Fidelity and Commerce, and Fortitude supported by Justice and Liberty! Those seem to me to be mixed allegories, but never mind. Those later days of the eighteenth century were the days of Dublin's glory, for then she was really, as well as sentimentally, the capital of Ireland. Her most beautiful public buildings date from that period, and all her fine spacious dwelling-houses. After the Union, nobody built wide spacious dwellings, but only narrow mean ones, to suit the new spirit; and the new spirit was so incapable of living in the lovely old houses that it turned them into tenements, and put a family in every room, without any sense of crowding! I sometimes fear that the old spirit is gone for good, and that not even independence can bring it back to Dublin. It was the Irish House of Commons which, in 1752, provided the funds for the new home of Trinity College, just across the street--a great pile of time-worn buildings, also in the classic style, and rather dull; but it is worth while to go in through the great gateway for a look at the outer and inner quadrangles. Beyond the college stretches Grafton Street, the principal shopping-street of Dublin, and at its head is St. Stephen's Green, a pretty park, with some beautiful eighteenth century houses looking down upon it. This was the centre of the fashionable residence district in the old days, and the walk along the north side was the "Beaux Walk." Such of the residences as remain are mostly given over to public purposes, and the square itself is redolently British; for there is a statue of George II in the centre, and one of Lord Eglinton not far away, and a triumphal arch commemorating the war in South Africa. But, if you look closely, you may find the inconspicuous bust of James Clarence Mangan, who coughed his life out in the Dublin slums while Tom Moore--who was also born here--was posing before fine London ladies; and Mangan had this reward, that he remained sincere and honest and warmly Irish to the last, a true bard of Erin, and one whose memory she does well to cherish. How feeble Tom Moore's tinklings sound beside the white passion of "Dark Rosaleen!" Over dews, over sands, Will I fly for your weal: Your holy, delicate white hands Shall girdle me with steel. At home in your emerald bowers, From morning's dawn till e'en, You'll pray for me, my flower of flowers, My dark Rosaleen! My own Rosaleen! You'll think of me through daylight's hours, My virgin flower, my flower of flowers, My dark Rosaleen! A short walk down Kildare Street leads to a handsome, wide-flung building with a court in front, once the mansion of the Duke of Leinster, but now occupied by the Royal Dublin Society. The wing at the right is the Science and Art Museum, that to the left the National Library. The latter is scarcely worth a visit, unless there is some reading you wish to do, but we shall have to spend some hours in the museum. On this Sunday morning, however, Betty and I walked on through to Leinster Lawn, a pleasant enclosed square, with gravelled walks and gardens gay with flowers, but marred with many statues; and here you will note that a Victorian government spent a huge sum in commemorating the virtues of the Prince Consort. We contemplated it for a while, and then went on to the great building which closes in the park on the north, and which houses the National Gallery of Ireland. We found the collection surprisingly good. It is especially rich in Dutch art, and possesses three Rembrandts, one of an old and another of a young man, and the other showing some shepherds building a fire--just such a subject as Rembrandt loved. And there is a good Teniers, and an inimitable canvas by Jan Steen, "The Village School." There are also a number of pictures by Italian masters, but these did not seem to me so noteworthy. This general collection of paintings is on the upper floor. The ground floor houses the National Portrait Gallery, composed for the most part of mediocre presentments of mediocre personalities, but with a high light here and there worth searching for. Sir Godfrey Kneller's portrait of Dick Steele is there, and Holbein's Henry Wyatt, and Zuccaro's Raleigh, and there are three or four portraits by Lely and Reynolds, but not, I should say, in their best style. Let me add here that there is in Dublin another picture gallery well worth a visit. This is the Municipal Gallery, housed in a beautiful old mansion in Harcourt Street--another memorial of spacious eighteenth century days, where that famous judge and duellist, Lord Clonmell, lived. The house itself would be worth seeing, even if there were no pictures in it, for it is a splendid example of Georgian domestic architecture; but there are, besides some beautiful examples of the Barbizon school, a number of modern Irish paintings which promise much for the future of Irish art. * * * * * The day was so bright and warm that it seemed a pity to spend the whole of it in town, so, after lunch, we took a tram for the Hill of Howth. Most of the tram lines of the city start from the Nelson Pillar, so we had only to cross the street to the starting point. There seems to be a considerable difference of opinion as to the correct pronunciation of "Howth." Perhaps that is because it is a Danish word--hoved, a head--the Danes having left the mark of their presence in the names of places all over Ireland, even in the names of three of its four provinces. Only far Connaught escaped the stigma. At any rate, when I asked a policeman which tram to take for Howth, I pronounced the word as it is spelt, to rhyme with "south." He corrected me at once. "'Tis the Hill of Hooth ye mean," he said, making it rhyme with "youth," "and that's your tram yonder." We clambered up the steep stairway at the back to a seat on top, and presently we started; and then the conductor came around with tickets, and asked where we were going--in Ireland, as everywhere else in Europe, the fare is gauged by the length of the journey. "To the Hill of Hooth," I answered proudly. "Ah, the Hill of H[=o]th, is it," he said, making it rhyme with "both," and he picked out the correct tickets from the assortment he carried, punched them and gave them to me. We used the pronunciations indiscriminately, after that, and I never learned which is right, though I suspect that "H[=o]th" is. Howth is a great detached block of mountain thrown down, by some caprice of nature, at the sea-ward edge of a level plain to the north of Dublin Bay, where it stands very bold and beautiful. It is some eight or ten miles from Dublin, and the tram thither runs through the north-eastern part of the town, and then emerges on the Strand, with Dublin Bay on one side and many handsome residences on the other. Away across the bay are the beautiful green masses of the Wicklow hills, and presently you come to Clontarf, where, on Good Friday, nine hundred years ago, the Irish, under their great king, Brian Boru, met the marshalled legions of the Danes, and broke their power in Ireland. For the Danes had sailed up the Liffey a century before, and built a castle to command the ford, somewhere near the site of the present castle; and about this stronghold grew up the city of Dublin; and then they built other forts to the south and north and west; bands of raiders marched to and fro over the country, plundering shrines, despoiling monasteries, levying tribute, until all Ireland, with the exception of the extreme west, crouched under the Danish power. The Danes, it should be remembered, were the terror and scourge of Europe, and since the Ireland of that day was the richest country of Europe in churches and monasteries and other religious establishments, it was upon Ireland the Pagan invaders left their deepest mark. For a hundred years they had their will of the land, crushing down such weak and divided resistance as the people were able to offer. And then came Brian Boru, a man strong enough to draw all Ireland into one alliance, and at last the Danes met a resistance which made them pause. For twenty years, Brian waged desperate war against them, defeating them sometimes, sometimes defeated; but never giving up, though often besought to do so; retiring to his bogs until he could recruit his shattered forces, and then, as soon as might be, falling again upon his enemies. In the intervals of this warfare, he devoted himself to setting his kingdom in order, and to such good purpose that, as the historians tell--and Tom Moore rhymes--a lone woman could make the circuit of Erin, without fear of molestation, though decked with gold and jewels. Brian did more than that--and this is the measure of his greatness: he built roads, erected churches and monasteries to replace those destroyed by the Danes, founded schools to which men came from far countries, and "sent professors and masters to teach wisdom and knowledge and to buy books beyond the sea." It was in 1014 that the final great battle of Clontarf was fought. Both sides, realising that this was the decisive struggle, had mustered every man they could. With Brian were his own Munster men, and the forces of O'Rourke and Hy Many from Connaught, and Malachy with his Meath legions, and Desmond with the men of Kerry and West Cork--a wild host, with discipline of the rudest, trusting for victory not to strategy or tactics, but to sheer strength of arm. And what a muster of Danes there was! Not only the Danes of Dublin, but the hosts from the Orkneys and "from every island on the Scottish main, from Uist to Arran"; and even from far-off Scandinavia and Iceland the levies hastened, led by "Thornstein, Hall of the Side's son, and Halldor, son of Gudmund the Powerful, and many other northern champions of lesser note." It is characteristic of Irish history through the ages that, on this great day, one Irish province cast in its lot with its country's enemies, for the battalions of Leinster formed side by side with the Danes. There are Danish and Irish sagas which tell the story of that fight, and blood-stirring tales they are. Brian Boru, bent under the weight of seventy-four years, took station apart on a bit of rising ground, and there, kneeling on a cushion, alternately prayed and watched the battle. The Danes had the better of it, at first, hewing down their adversaries with their gleaming axes; but the Munster men stood firm and fought so savagely that at last the Danes broke and fled. One party of them passed the little hill where Brian knelt, and paused long enough to cut him down; but his life's work was done: the power of the Danes was broken, and there was no longer need to fear that the Norsemen would rule Ireland. Just north of Clontarf parish church stands an ancient yew, and tradition says that it was under this tree that Brian's body was laid by his men. The tradition may be true or not, but the wonderful tree, the most venerable in Ireland, is worth turning aside a few moments to visit. It stands in private grounds, and permission must be asked to enter, but it is seldom refused. Like too many other spots in Ireland, Clontarf has its tragic memory as well as its glorious one, for it was here that O'Connell's Home Rule movement, to which thousands of men had pledged fealty, dropped suddenly to pieces because of the indecision of its leader at the first hint of British opposition. But there is no need to tell that story here. * * * * * The town of Howth consists of one long street running around the base of the hill and facing the harbour and the Irish Sea. The harbour is enclosed by impressive piers of granite, and was once a busy place, for it was the Dublin packet station until Kingstown superseded it. Since then, the entrance has silted up, and now nothing rides at anchor there but small yachts and fishing-boats. On that clear and sunny day the view was very beautiful. A mile to the north was the rugged little island known as Ireland's Eye, and far away beyond the long stretch of low coast loomed the purple masses of the Carlingford hills. Away to the east stretched the Irish Sea, greenish-grey in the sunlight, with a white foam-crest here and there, and to the south lay Dublin Bay against the background of the Wicklow mountains. High on a cliff above the haven lie the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, and we presently clambered up to them. We found them encircled by an embattled wall, but a neighbourhood urchin directed us to a pile of tumbledown buildings at the corner as the home of the caretaker. He was not there, but his wife was, as well as a large collection of ragged children, and one of these, a girl of ten or thereabouts, was sent by her mother to do the honours. She was very shy at first, but her tongue finally loosened, and we were enraptured with her soft voice and beautiful accent. Her father was a fisherman, she said; they were all fisher-families who lived in the tumble-down pile, which was once a part of the abbey and so comes legitimately by its decay, since it is four or five hundred years old, and has apparently never been repaired. Of the abbey church itself, only the walls remain, and they are the survivals of three distinct buildings. The west front is part of the original Danish church, built in 1042, and is pierced by a small round-headed doorway, above which rises an open bell-turret. In 1235, the Archbishop of Dublin rebuilt the Danish church, retaining only its façade. The interior, as he remodelled it, consisted of a nave and one aisle, separated by three pointed arches. They are still there, very low and rude, marking the length of the Archbishop's church. Two centuries later, this was found too small, and so the church was lengthened by the addition of three more arches. They also are still standing, and are both higher and wider than the first three. The tracery in the east window is still intact, and is very graceful, as may be seen by the photograph opposite this page, in which the variation in the arches is also well shown. Note also the round-headed doorway at the side, with the remains of a porch in front--a detail not often seen in old Irish churches. And, last of all, note the ruined building in the corner. Although it has no roof, it is still used as a dwelling, as the curtained window shows. [Illustration: RUINS OF ST. MARY'S ABBEY, HOWTH] Just inside the east window of the church is the tomb of Christopher, nineteenth Lord Howth, who died about 1490. It is an altar tomb, bearing the recumbent figures of the knight and his lady, the former's feet resting, after the usual fashion, on his dog. Considering the vicissitudes of weather and vandalism through which they have passed, both figures are surprisingly well preserved. The Howth peninsula still belongs to the Howth family, who trace their line direct to Sir Almericus Tristram, an Anglo-Norman knight who conquered and annexed it in 1177, and the demesne, one of the most beautiful in Ireland, lies to the west of the town. The castle, a long, battlemented building flanked with towers, is said to contain many objects of interest, but we did not get in, for the gardener informed us that it was open to the public only on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The grounds are famous for their gorgeous rhododendrons, and there is a cromlech there, under which, so legend says, lies Aideen, wife of Oscar, son of Ossian and chief hero of those redoubtable warriors, the Fianna. * * * * * In Ireland, during the summer months, sunrise and sunset are eighteen hours apart, and so, though it was rather late when we got back to the hotel, it was as light as midday. We were starting for our room, when a many-buttoned bell-boy, with a face like a cherub, who was always hovering near, stopped us and told us shyly that, if we would wait a few minutes, we could see the parade go past. During the morning, we had noticed gaily-uniformed bands marching hither and thither, convoying little groups of people, some of them in fancy costume, and had learned that there was to be a great labour celebration somewhere, with music and much oratory. We had not thought it worth while to run it down, but we said we should be glad to see the parade, so our guide took us out to the balcony on the first floor, and then remained to talk. "You would be from America, sir, I'm thinking," he began. "Yes," I said. "Then you have seen Indians!" "Indians? Why, yes, I've seen a few." "On the war-path?" he cried, his eyes shining with excitement. I couldn't help laughing. "No," I said. "They don't go on the war-path any more. They're quite tame now." His face fell. "But you have seen cowboys?" he persisted. "Only in Wild West Shows," I admitted. "That's where I have seen most of my Indians." "They're brave lads, aren't they?" and his eyes were shining again. "Why, have you seen them?" I questioned in surprise. "Ah, I have, sir, many times, in the moving-pictures," he explained. "It must be a fine thing to live in America!" I found out afterwards that the Wild West film is exceedingly popular in Ireland. No show is complete without one. I saw some, later on, and most sanguinary and impossible they were; but they were always wildly applauded, and I think most Irishmen believe that the life of the average American is largely employed in fighting Indians and rescuing damsels in distress. I tried to tell the bell-boy that life in America was much like life everywhere--humdrum and matter-of-fact, with no Indians and few adventures; but I soon desisted. Why should I spoil his dream? And then, from up the street, came the rattle and blare of martial music, and we had our first view of an Irish performer on the bass-drum. It is a remarkable and exhilarating spectacle. The drummer grasps a stick in each hand, and sometimes he pounds with both of them, and sometimes he twirls one over his head and pounds with the other, and sometimes he crosses his arms over the top of the drum and pounds that way. I suppose there is an etiquette about it, for they all conduct themselves in the same frenzied fashion, while the crowd stares fascinated. It is exhausting work, and I am told that during a long parade the drummers sometimes have to be changed two or three times. But there is never any lack of candidates. There were thousands of men in line, that day, members of a hundred different lodges, each with its banner. Their women-folk trooped along with them, often arm-in-arm; and they trudged silently on with the slow and dogged tread of the beast of burden; and the faces of men and women alike were the pale, patient faces of those who look often in the eyes of want. It melted the heart to see them--to see their rough and toil-worn clothing, their gnarled and twisted hands, their heavy hob-nailed shoes--and to think of their treadmill lives, without hope and without beauty--just an endless struggle to keep the soul in the body. Minute after minute, for almost an hour, they filed past. What they hoped to gain, I do not know--a living wage, perhaps, since that is what labour needs most in Ireland--and what it has not yet won! Our Buttons had watched the parade with the amused tolerance of the uniformed aristocrat. "There's a lot of mad people in Dublin," he remarked cheerfully, as we turned to go in. CHAPTER III THE ART OF ANCIENT ERIN DUBLIN is by far the most fascinating town in Ireland. She has charm--that supreme attribute alike of women and of cities; and she has beauty, which is a lesser thing. She is rich in the possession of many treasures, and proud of the memorials of many famous sons. Despite all the vicissitudes of fortune, she has remained the spiritual and artistic capital of Ireland, and she looks forward passionately to the day when the temporal crown will be restored to her. To be sure, there is a canker in her bosom, but she knows that it is there; and perhaps some day she will gather courage to cut it out. Among her memorials and treasures, are four of absorbing interest--the grave of Swift, the tomb of Strongbow, the Cross of Cong and the Book of Kells. It was for the first of these, which is in St. Patrick's Cathedral, that we started Monday morning, and to get there we mounted for the first time to the seats of a jaunting-car. I suppose I may as well pause here for a word about this peculiarly Irish institution. Why it should be peculiarly Irish is hard to understand, for it furnishes a rapid, easy, and--when one has learned the trick--comfortable means of locomotion. Every one, of course, is familiar with the appearance of a jaunting-car--or side-car, as it is more often called--with its two seats back to back, facing outwards, and a foot-rest overhanging each wheel. Opposite the next page is a series of post-card pictures showing its evolution from the primitive drag, which is the earliest form of vehicle all the world over, and which still survives in the hilly districts of Ireland, where wheels would be useless on the pathless mountain-sides. Then comes a rude cart with solid wheels and revolving axle working inside the shafts, still used in parts of far Connaught, and then the cart with spoke wheels working outside the shafts on a fixed axle--pretty much the form still used all the world over--just such a "low-backed car" as sweet Peggy used when she drove to market on that memorable day in spring. The next step was taken when some comfort-loving driver removed the side-boards, in order that he might sit with his legs hanging down; and one sees them sitting just so all over Ireland, with their women-folk crouched on the floor of the cart behind, their knees drawn up under their chins, and all muffled in heavy shawls. I do not remember that I ever saw a woman sitting on the edge of a cart with her legs hanging over--perhaps it isn't good form! Thus far there is nothing essentially Irish about any of these vehicles; but presently it occurred to some inventive Jehu that he would be more comfortable if he had a rest for his feet, and presto! the side-car. It was merely a question of refinements, after that--the addition of backs and cushions to the seats, the enlargement of the wheels to make the car ride more easily, the attachment of long springs for the same purpose, and the placing of a little box between the seats for the driver to sit on when his car is full. In a few of the larger places, the development has reached the final refinement of rubber tires, but usually these are considered a too-expensive luxury. [Illustration: THE EVOLUTION OF THE JAUNTING CAR] Now evolution is supposed to be controlled by the survival of the fittest, but this is only half-true of the side-car; for, while admirably adapted to hilly roads, it is the worst possible conveyance in wet weather. Hilly roads are fairly frequent in Ireland, but they are nowhere as compared to wet days, and the side-car is a standing proof of the Irishman's indifference to rain. Indeed, we grew indifferent to it ourselves, before we had been in Ireland very long, for it really didn't seem to matter. I suppose it is the climate, so soft, so sweet, so balmy that one gets no harm from a wetting. The Irish tramp around without any thought of the weather, work just the same in the rain as in the sun, never think of using a rain-coat or an umbrella--would doubtless consider the purchase of either a waste of money which could be far better spent--and yet, all the time we were in Ireland, we never saw a man or woman with a cold! The Irish are proud of their climate, and they have a right to be. And, now I think of it, perhaps the climate explains the jaunting-car. That compound, by the way, is never used by an Irishman. He says simply "car." "Car" in Ireland means a side-car, and nothing else. In most other countries, "car" is short for motor-car. In Ireland, if one means motor, one must say motor. But the visitor will never have occasion to mean motor unless he owns one, for, outside of the trams in a few of the larger cities, the side-car is practically the only form of street and neighbourhood conveyance. One soon grows to like it; we have ridden fifty miles on one in a single day, and many times we rode twenty-five or thirty miles, without any undue sense of fatigue. The secret is to pick out a car with a comfortably-padded back extending in a curve around the rear end of each seat. One can tuck oneself into this curve and swing happily along mile after mile. The driver of a side-car is called a jarvey. I don't know why. The Oxford dictionary says the word is a "by-form of the surname Jarvis," but I am not learned enough to see the connection, unless it was Mr. Jarvis who drove the first side-car. I wish I could say that the jarvey differed as much from the cabbies and chauffeurs of other lands as his car does from the cab and the taxi; but, alas, this is not the case. He is just as rapacious and piratical as they, though he may rob you with a smile, while they do it with a frown; and he has this advantage: there is no taximeter with which to control him. Everywhere, if one is not a millionaire, one must be careful to bargain in advance. Once the bargain is concluded, your jarvey is the most agreeable and obliging of fellows. He usually has every reason to be, for nine times out of ten he gets much the better of the bargain! I have never been able to decide whether, in these modern times when piracy on the high seas has been repressed, men with piratical instincts turn naturally to cab-driving, or whether all men have latent piratical instincts which cab-driving inevitably develops. The Dublin jarvey is famous for his ability to turn a corner at top-speed. He usually does it on one wheel, and the person on the outside seat has the feeling that, unless he holds tight, he will certainly be hurled into misty space. We held on, that morning, and so reached St. Patrick's without misadventure in a surprisingly few minutes. St. Patrick's Cathedral is not an especially impressive edifice. It dates from Norman days, and was built over one of St. Patrick's holy wells; but, like most Irish churches, it was in ruins most of the time, and fifty years ago it was practically rebuilt in its present shape. Sir Benjamin Guinness, of the Guinness Brewery, furnished the money. Like all the other old religious establishments, it was taken from the Catholics in the time of Henry VIII and given to his Established Church--the Episcopal Church, here called the Church of Ireland--and has remained in its possession ever since, though the church itself was disestablished some forty years ago. By far the most interesting fact about St. Patrick's is that Jonathan Swift was for thirty-two years its Dean, and now lies buried there beside that "Stella" whom he made immortal. A brass in the pavement marks the spot where they lie side by side, and on the wall not far away is the marble slab which enshrines the epitaph he himself wrote. It is in Latin, and may be Englished thus: Jonathan Swift, for thirty years Dean of this Cathedral, lies here, where savage indignation can no longer tear his heart. Go, traveller, and, if you can, imitate him who played a man's part as the champion of liberty. Another slab bears a second epitaph written by Swift to mark the grave of "Mrs. Hester Johnson, better known to the world by the name of 'Stella,' under which she is celebrated in the writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of this Cathedral." Whether she should have borne the name of him who celebrated her the world will never know. She died seventeen years before him, "killed by his unkindness," and was buried here at midnight, while he shut himself into a back room of his deanery across the way that he might not see the lights of the funeral party. He had faults and frailties enough, heaven knows, but the Irish remember them with charity, for, though his savage indignation had other fuel than Ireland's wrongs and sorrows, yet they too made his heart burn, and he voiced that feeling in words more burning still. He died in a madhouse, as he expected to die, leaving "the little wealth he had To build a house for fools and mad, And showed by one satiric touch No nation wanted it so much." There is another characteristic epitaph of Swift's on a tablet in the south wall, near the spot where General Schomberg lies--that bluff old soldier who met glorious death at the head of his victorious troops at the battle of the Boyne. Swift wished to mark the grave with an appropriate memorial, but Schomberg's relatives declined to contribute anything toward its cost; whereupon Swift and his Chapter put up this slab, paying tribute to the hero's virtues, and adding that his valour was more revered by strangers than by his own kindred. There are many other curious and interesting monuments in the place, well worth inspecting, but I shall refer to only one of them--the one which started the feud that sent Strafford to the scaffold. It is a towering structure, erected by the great Earl of Cork to the memory of his "virtuous and religious" Countess, in 1629. It stood originally at the east end of the choir near the altar, but Strafford, instigated by Archbishop Laud, who protested that it was a monstrosity which desecrated that sacred place, compelled its removal to the nave, where it now stands. The Earl of Cork never forgave him, and hounded him to his death. The monument is a marvel of its kind, containing no less than sixteen highly-coloured figures, most of them life-size. The Earl and his lady lie side by side in the central panel, with two sons kneeling at their head and two at their feet, while their six daughters kneel in the panel below, three on either side of an unidentified infant. After contemplating this huge atrocity, one cannot but conclude that the Archbishop was right. Back of the Cathedral is a little open square, where the children of the neighbouring slums come to play in the sunshine on the gravelled walks; and dirty and ragged and distressful as they are, they have still about them childhood's clouds of glory. So that it wrings the heart to look at the bedraggled, gin-soaked, sad-eyed, hopeless men and women who crowd the benches and to realise not only that they were children once, but that most of these children will grow to just such miserable maturity. We walked from the Cathedral up to the Castle, that morning, crossing this square and traversing a corner of the slums, appalling in their dirt and squalor, where whole families live crowded in a single room. In Dublin there are more than twenty thousand such families. Think what that means: five, six, seven, often even eight or nine persons, living within the same four walls--some in dark basements, some in ricketty attics--cooking and eating there, when they have anything to cook and eat; sitting there through the long hours; sleeping there through the foul nights; awaking there each morning to another hopeless day of misery. Think how impossible it is to be clean or decent amid such surroundings. Small wonder self-respect soon withers, and that drink, the only path of escape from these horrors, even for a little while, is eagerly welcomed. And the fact that every great city has somewhere within her boundaries some such foulness as this is perhaps the one thing our civilisation has most reason to be ashamed of! * * * * * Dublin Castle is interesting only because of its history. It was here, by what was then the ford across the Liffey just above the tideway, that the Danish invaders built their first stronghold in 837, and from it the last of them was expelled in 1170 by Strongbow at the head of his Anglo-Norman knights; here, two years later, Henry II received the submission of the overawed Irish chiefs; and from that day forward, this old grey fortress cast its shadow over the whole land. No tribesman was too remote to dread it, for the chance of any day might send him to rot in its dungeon, or shriek his life out in its torture-chamber, or set his head to blacken on its tower--even as the shaggy head of Shan the Proud blackened and withered there for all the world to see. In a word, it is from the Castle that an alien rule has been imposed on Ireland for more than a thousand years, until to-day to say "the Castle" is to say "the Government." Of the mediæval castle, only one of the four towers remains, and the curtains which connected them have been replaced by rows of office-buildings, where the Barnacles who rule Ireland have their lairs. A haughty attendant--not too haughty, however, to accept a tip--will show you through the state apartments, which are not worth visiting; and another, more human one, will show you through the chapel. It is more interesting without than within, for over the north door, side by side in delightful democratic equality, are busts of Dean Swift and St. Peter, while over the east one Brian Boru occupies an exalted place between St. Patrick and the Virgin Mary, while on the corbels of the window-arches the heads of ninety sovereigns of Great Britain have been cut--I cannot say with what fidelity. It is but a step from the Castle to Christ Church Cathedral, by far the most interesting building in Dublin. The Danes founded it in 1038; then came Strongbow, who built an English cathedral atop the rude Danish church, which is now the crypt, and his transepts and one bay of his choir still survive. There were various additions and rebuildings, after that, but in 1569 the bog on which the Cathedral is built moved under its weight, the entire south wall of the nave and the vaulted roof fell in, and the debris lay where it fell until 1875, when Henry Roe, of Roe's Whiskey, furnished the money for a complete restoration. It is a significant coincidence that St. Patrick's was restored from the profits of a brewery and Christ Church from the profits of a distillery, for it was by some such profits that they had to be restored, if they were to be restored at all, because brewing and distilling are the only industries which have flourished in Dublin since the Act of Union. All others have decayed or withered entirely away. Wherein is food for thought! But this takes nothing from the fact that Christ Church is an interesting structure; and the most interesting thing in it is the tomb of Strongbow. Richard de Clare his name was, second Earl of Pembroke, and it was to him, so legend says, that Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster, appealed for aid, in 1166, after he had been driven from his kingdom and compelled to restore to Tiernan O'Rourke, Prince of Breffni, Dervorgilla--otherwise Mrs. O'Rourke--with whom he had eloped. It wasn't the lady that Dermot wanted--it was revenge, and, most of all, his kingdom--we shall hear more of this story later on--and Strongbow readily agreed to assist. He needed little persuasion, for the Normans had been looking longingly across the Irish Sea for many years; and Dermot got more than he bargained for, for Strongbow brought his legions over from Wales, entered Dublin, and soon established English rule so firmly that it was never afterwards displaced. When Strongbow died, he was buried here in the church that he had built, and a recumbent statue in chain armour was placed above the tomb, with legs crossed above the knees to indicate three crusades. Crossed at the ankles would have meant one crusade, between knee and ankle, two. I don't know how the old sculptors indicated four crusades; perhaps they never had to face that problem. Some critics assert that this is not the old statue at all; but if we paid heed to the critics, there would be mighty little left to believe! If you will lay your hand upon the head of the statue, you will find that the top is worn away into a hole. And that hole was worn by human fingers--thousands upon thousands of them--placed there just as yours are, as witness to the making of a deed or the signing of an agreement or the paying of a debt. Almost all of such old documents in Dublin were "Made at the Tomb of Strongbow." Thither people came for centuries to settle accounts, and the Irish are so conservative, so tenacious of tradition, that I dare say the tomb is sometimes the scene of such transactions, even yet. Beside the knight's statue lies a truncated effigy supposed to represent his son, whom, in a fit of rage, he cut in two with a single stroke of his sword for cowardice on the battle-field. There are many other things of interest about the church, especially about the crypt, where one may see the old city stocks, and the tabernacle and candlesticks used at the Mass celebrated here for James II while he was trying to conquer Ulster; and the church is fortunate in possessing a most intelligent verger, with whom it is a pleasure to explore it. We talked with him quite a while that day, and he lamented bitterly that so few visitors to Dublin think the church worth seeing. I heartily endorse his opinion of them! * * * * * Which brings us to those two wonderful masterpieces of ancient Irish art, the Cross of Cong and the Book of Kells. The Cross of Cong is in the National Museum of Science and Art, and is only the most interesting of many interesting things which have been assembled there. The first exhibit as one passes through the vestibule, has a flavour peculiarly Irish. It is an elaborate state carriage, lavishly decorated with carvings and inlay and bronze figures, and it was ordered by some Irish lord, who, when it was completed, found that he had no money to pay for it, and so left it on the builder's hands. What the poor builder did can only be conjectured. Perhaps he took down his shillelagh and went out and assaulted the lord; perhaps he fled to the hills and became a brigand; perhaps he just sat philosophically down and let _his_ creditors do the worrying. Just beyond the vestibule is a great court, containing a remarkable collection of plaster replicas of ancient Celtic crosses. They should be examined closely, especially the two which reproduce the high and low crosses at Monasterboice. We shall see the real crosses, before we leave Ireland, but they have iron railings around them, which prevent close examination, and they are not provided with explanatory keys as the replicas are. Half an hour's study of the replicas helps immensely toward appreciation of the originals. The chief glory of the museum is its collection of Irish antiquities on the upper floor. It starts with the Stone Age, and we could not but remark how closely the flint arrow-heads and spear-heads and other implements resemble those of the Indians and Moundbuilders, so common in our part of Ohio. Then comes the Bronze Age, with a magnificent collection of ornaments of hammered gold, and some extraordinarily interesting examples of cinerary urns and food vessels--for the old Irish burned their dead, and, after the fashion of most Pagan peoples, put food in the grave beside them, to start them on their journey in the other world. In the room beyond are the so-called Christian antiquities: that is, all the objects of art, as well as of domestic and military usage, which date from the time of St. Patrick down to the Norman conquest--roughly, from 400 A. D. to 1200 A. D. Before that time, Ireland was Pagan; after the Norman conquest, she was crushed and broken. It was during these eight hundred years, while the rest of Europe was struggling in ignorance and misery through the Dark Ages, that Ireland touched the summit of her artistic and spiritual development--and a lofty summit it was! Her art was of home growth, uninfluenced from any outside source, and it was admirable. Her schools and monasteries were so famous that students from all over Europe flocked to them, as the recognised centres of learning. Scholars were revered and books were holy things--so holy that beautiful shrines were made to hold them, of gold or silver, set with precious stones. Five or six of them, nine hundred years old and more, are preserved in this collection. The bells used by the early Irish saints in the celebration of the Mass were also highly venerated, and, cracked and worn by centuries of use, were at last enclosed in shrines. Most holy of all, of course, was the rude little iron bell used by St. Patrick, and recovered from his grave in 552. The exquisite shrine made for it by some master artist about 1100 is here, as is also the bell itself. There is a picture of the shrine opposite the next page; the bell is merely a rude funnel made of two bent iron plates rivetted together and then dipped in molten bronze--not much to look at, but an evoker of visions fifteen centuries old for them who have eyes to see! I should like to say something of the croziers, of the brooches, of the chalices which are gathered here; but I must hasten on to the chief treasure, the Cross of Cong. It is perhaps the very finest example of early Irish art in existence anywhere. It was made to enshrine a fragment of the True Cross, sent from Rome in 1123 to Turlough O'Conor, King of Ireland, and it is called the "Cross of Cong" because Rory O'Conor, the last titular King of all Ireland, took it with him to the Abbey of Cong, at the head of Lough Corrib, when he sought sanctuary there in his last years, and it was by the Abbots of Cong that it was preserved religiously through the long centuries. The last Abbot died about a hundred years ago, and the museum acquired the cross by purchase. There is a picture of it opposite the next page, which gives some faint idea of its beauty. It was in a cavity behind the central crystal that the fragment of the True Cross was placed; but it is not there now, and nobody seems to know what became of it. Perhaps it doesn't matter much; at any rate, all that need concern us here is the fact that, eight hundred years ago in Ireland, there lived an artist capable of producing a masterpiece like this. [Illustration: THE CROSS OF CONG] [Illustration: THE SHRINE OF ST. PATRICK'S BELL] It is of oak, covered with plates of bronze and silver, washed in places with a thick coating of gold, and with golden filigree work of the most exquisite kind around the central crystal. It is elaborately carved, front and back, with the intertwined pattern characteristic of Irish ornamentation, and every detail is of the finest workmanship. It is inscribed with a Latin verse, Hac cruce crux tegitur qua passus conditor orbis, "In this cross is the cross enclosed upon which suffered the Founder of the world"; and there is also a long inscription in Irish which bids us pray, among others, for Turlough O'Conor, King of Erin, for whom the shrine was made, and for Maelisu MacBraddan O'Echon, the man who fashioned it. Thus is preserved the name of a great artist, who has been dust for eight centuries. The Book of Kells is even more wonderful. It is to the library of Trinity College we must go to see it--and go we must!--for it is indisputably the "first among all the illuminated manuscripts of the world." No mere description can give any idea of its beauty, nor can any picture, for each of its pages is a separate masterpiece. Kells was a monastery celebrated for its sanctity and learning, and it was there, sometime in the eighth century, that an inspired monk executed this Latin copy of the Gospels. It is of sheepskin parchment, and each of its pages is framed with exquisite tracery and ornamentation, and with a beautiful harmony of colouring. Most wonderful of all, perhaps, the colours are as fresh and brilliant as they were when they came from the artist's brush, eleven centuries ago. There are many other things in this old library worth seeing--among them the Book of Darrow, thirteen centuries old, and ornamented with designs which, as Betty remarked, would make beautiful crochet patterns. And there is Brian Boru's harp--the very one, perhaps, that shed the soul of music through Tara's halls--only unfortunately, the critics say that it isn't more than five or six hundred years old. And there are stacks of modern books, and the attendant who piloted us around remarked sadly that many of the best of them were never taken off the shelves, except to be dusted. I couldn't help smiling, for that is a complaint common to all librarians! * * * * * We went out, that night, to a big bazar given for the benefit of the Passionist Fathers, where we were made almost riotously welcome. "America" is the open sesame to every Irish heart; and how winning those bright-eyed Irish girls were in their quaint costumes! Ordinarily Irish girls are shy with strangers; but they were working in a good cause that night, and if any man got out of the place with a penny in his pocket it must certainly have been because he lacked a heart! And the nice old women, with smiling eyes and wrinkled, pleasant faces--we could have stayed and talked to them till morning! Indeed, we almost did! CHAPTER IV ON THE TRAIL OF THE SHAMROCK OUR third day in Dublin was ushered in by a tremendous explosion. In a minute the street outside was filled with dense black smoke, and then in another minute with excited people. When we got down to breakfast, we found that the suffragettes had tried to blow up the post-office, which is next to the hotel, by throwing a bomb through the door. But the woman who threw the bomb, like most women, couldn't throw straight, and instead of going through the door, the bomb struck a stone at the side of it and exploded. Our bell-boy proudly showed us the hole that it had made in the wall. The day was so bright and pleasant that we decided to spend it somewhere in the country, and as we wanted to see a round tower, and as there is a very handsome one at Clondalkin, a few miles west of Dublin, we decided to go there. The ride thither gave us our first glimpse of rural Ireland--rather unkempt, with the fields very lush and green; and then, when we got off the train, we were struck by a fact which we had occasion to remark many times thereafter: that railroads in Ireland are built with an entire disregard of the towns along the route. Perhaps it is because the towns are only Irish that the railroads are so haughty and disdainful--for of course the roads are English; at any rate, they never swerve an inch to get closer to any town. The train condescends to pause an instant at the point nearest the town, and then puffs arrogantly on again, while the passengers who have been hustled off hoof it the rest of the way. We got off, that morning, at a little station with "Clondalkin" on it, but when we looked about, there was no town anywhere in sight. We asked the man who took the tickets if this was all there was of the town, and he said no, that the town was over yonder, and he pointed vaguely to the south. There was no conveyance, so we started to walk; and instead of condemning Irish railroads, we were soon praising their high wisdom, for if there is anything more delightful than to walk along an Irish lane, between hedgerows fragrant with hawthorn and climbing roses, past fields embroidered with buttercups and primroses and daisies, in an air so fresh and sweet that the lungs can't get enough of it, I don't know what it is. And presently as we went on, breathing great breaths of all this beauty, we caught sight of the conical top of the round tower, above the trees to the left. I should say that Clondalkin is at least a mile from its station, and we found it a rambling village of small houses, built of stone, white-washed and with roofs of thatch. Many of them, even along the principal street, are in ruins, for Clondalkin, like so many other Irish villages, has been slowly drying up for half a century. There was a great abbey here once, but nothing is left of it except the round tower and a fragment of the belfry. The tower stands at the edge of what is now the main street, and is a splendid example of another peculiarly Irish institution. For these tall towers of stone, resembling nothing so much as gigantic chimneys, were built all over eastern and central Ireland, nobody knows just when and nobody knows just why; but there nearly seventy of them stand to this day. They are always of stone, and are sometimes more than a hundred feet high. Some of them taper toward the top in a way which shows the high skill of their builders. That they were well-built their survival through the centuries attests. The narrow entrance door is usually ten or twelve feet from the ground, and there is a tiny window lighting each floor into which the tower was divided. At the top there are usually four windows, one facing each point of the compass; and then the tower is finished with a conical cap of closely-fitted stones. As to their purpose, there has been violent controversy. Different antiquarians have believed them to be fire-temples of the Druids, phallic emblems, astronomical observatories, anchorite towers or penitential prisons. But the weight of opinion seems to be that they were built in connection with churches and monasteries to serve the triple purpose of belfries and watch-towers and places of refuge, and that they date from the ninth and tenth centuries, when the Danes were pillaging the country. In case of need, the monks could snatch up the most precious of their treasures, run for the tower, clamber up a ladder to the little door high above the ground, pull the ladder up after them, bar the door and be comparatively safe. I confess I do not find this theory convincing. As belfries the towers must have been failures, for the small bells of those days, hung a hundred feet above the ground in a chamber with only four tiny openings, would be all but inaudible. As watch-towers they were ineffective, for the enemy had only to advance at night to elude the lookout altogether; and as places of refuge, they leave much to be desired. For there is no way to get food or water into them, and the enemy had only to camp down about them for a few days to starve the inmates out. However, I am not an antiquarian, and my opinion is of no especial value--besides, I have no better theory to suggest. Whatever their purpose, there they stand, and very astonishing they are. The Clondalkin tower, for the first thirteen feet, is a block of solid masonry about twenty feet in diameter, and above this is the little door opening into the first story. New floors have been built at the different levels and ladders placed between them, so that one may climb the eighty-five feet to the top, but we were contented to take the view for granted. While I manoeuvred for a photograph in a field of buttercups which left my shoes covered with yellow pollen, Betty got into talk with the people who lived in the cottage at the tower-foot, and then she crossed the street to look over a wall at a tiny garden that was a perfect riot of bloom, and by the time I got there, the fresh-faced old woman with a crown of white hair who owned the garden had come out, and, after a few minutes' talk, started to pick Betty a bouquet of her choicest flowers. Betty was in a panic, for she didn't want the garden despoiled,--at the same time she realised that she must be careful or she would hurt the feelings of this kindly woman, who was so evidently enjoying pulling her flowers to give to the stranger from America. It was at that moment the brilliant idea flashed into her head to ask if the true shamrock grew in the neighbourhood. "Sure, miss, I have it right here," was the answer, and the owner of the garden picked up proudly a small pot in which grew a plant that looked to me like clover. "But doesn't it grow wild?" Betty asked. "It does, miss; but 'tis very hard to find. This was sent me by my brother in Tipperary. 'Tis the true shamrock, miss," and she broke off a spray for each of us. Let me say here that she knew perfectly well Betty was a married woman; her first question had been as to our relationship. But all over Ireland, women, whether married or single, are habitually addressed as "miss," just as, conversely, in France they are addressed habitually as "madame." But we had got the old woman's mind off her flowers, and we managed to escape before she thought of them again. There are not, I fancy, many visitors to Clondalkin, for, as we sauntered on along the street, we found ourselves objects of the liveliest interest. It was a kindly interest, too, for every one who could catch our eyes smiled and nodded and wished us good-day, just as the Dutch used to do in the little towns of Holland. We were heading for the church, and when we reached it we found that there was a large school attached to it, and most of the pupils were having their lessons outdoors, a group in this corner and a group in that. The small children were being taught by older ones, and the older children were being taught by nuns; but I am afraid that our passage through the school-yard nearly broke up the lessons. It was a sort of triumphal progress, for, as we passed each class, the teacher in charge would say "Stand!" and all the children would rise to their feet and stare at us with round eyes, and the teacher would bow gravely. I am sorry now I didn't stop and talk to some of them, but the formal nature of our reception confused and embarrassed us, and we hastened on. We took a look at the church, which is new and bare; and then we walked on toward the gate, past a lawn which two gardeners were leisurely mowing. It was evident from the way they returned our greeting that they wanted to talk, so we stopped and asked if we could get a car in the village to take us back to the station. "You can, miss," said the elder of the two men, who did all the talking, while his younger companion stood by and grinned. "There is a very good car to be had in the village," and he told us where to go to find the owner. "You would be from America? I have a sister and two brothers there." And he went on to tell us about them, where they lived and what they were doing and how they had prospered. And then Betty asked him if he could find her a piece of the true shamrock. "I can, miss," he answered instantly, and stepping over a low wire fence, he waded out into a meadow and came back in a moment with a clover-like clump in his hand. "This is it, miss," he said, and gave it to her; "the true shamrock." We examined it eagerly. It was a trefoil, the leaf of which is like our white clover, except that it lacks the little white rings which mark the leaf of ours, and it blossoms with a tiny yellow flower. I confess that it wasn't at all my idea of the shamrock, nor was it Betty's, and she asked the gardener doubtfully if he was sure that this was it. "I am, miss," he answered promptly; "as sure as I am of anything." "But down in the village," said Betty, "a woman gave me this," and she took the spray from her button-hole, "and said _it_ was the true shamrock. You see the leaf is quite green and larger and the blossom is white." "True for you, miss; and there be some people who think that the true shamrock. But it is not so--'tis only white clover. The true shamrock is that I have given you." "Well, you are a gardener," said Betty, "and ought to know." "Ah, miss," retorted the man, his eyes twinkling, "you could start the prettiest shindy you ever saw by getting all the gardeners in Ireland together, and asking them to decide which was the true shamrock!" I suppose I may as well thresh out the question here, so far as it is possible to thresh it out at all, for though, in the east, the west, the north and south of Ireland, we sought the true shamrock, we were no more certain of it when we got through than before we began. The only conclusion we could reach, after listening to every one, was that there are three or four varieties of the shamrock, and that almost any trefoil will do. The legend is that, about 450, St. Patrick reached the Rock of Cashel, in his missionary journeyings over Ireland, and at once went to work to convert �ngus MacNatfraich, the ruling king who lived in the great castle there. One day, out on the summit of the rock, as the Saint was preaching to the king and his assembled household, he started to explain the idea of the Trinity, and found, as many have done since, that it was rather difficult to do. Casting about for an illustration, his eyes fell upon a trefoil growing at his feet, and he stooped and plucked it, and used its three petals growing from one stem as a symbol of the Three-in-One. This simple and homely illustration made the idea intelligible, and whenever after that St. Patrick found himself on the subject of the Trinity, he always stooped and plucked a trefoil to demonstrate what he meant. Now of course the true shamrock is the particular trefoil which St. Patrick plucked first on the Rock of Cashel, but there is no way of telling which that was. In his subsequent preaching, the Saint would pluck the first that came to hand, since any of them would answer his purpose, and so, sooner or later, all the Irish trefoils would be thus used by him. The Irish word "seamrog" means simply a trefoil, and in modern times, the name has been applied to watercress, to wood-sorrel, and to both yellow and white clover; but nowadays only the two last-named kinds are generally worn on St. Patrick's day. Whether white or yellow clover is worn is said to depend somewhat on the locality, but the weight of authority is, I think, slightly on the side of the yellow. Whatever its colour, it is a most elusive plant and difficult to get. Our original idea was that every Irish field was thick with shamrocks, but in no instance except that of the gardener at Clondalkin, do I remember any one finding some growing wild right at hand. Indeed, in most localities, it didn't seem to grow wild at all, but was carefully raised in a pot, like a flower. Where it _did_ grow wild, it was always in some distant and inaccessible place. I should have suspected that this was simply blarney, and that our informants either wished to keep our profane hands off the shamrock or expected to get paid for going and getting us some, but for the fact that those who raised it always eagerly offered us a spray, and those who didn't usually disclaimed any exact knowledge of where it grew. We bade the Clondalkin gardener and his helper good-bye at last, and walked on down to the village for a look at the remnant of the fort the Danes built here as their extreme western outpost against the wild Irish, and presently we fell in with an old woman, bent with rheumatism, hobbling painfully along, and she told us all about her ailment, and then as we passed a handsome house set back in a garden surrounded by a high wall, she pointed it out proudly as the residence of the parish priest. Then we thought it was time to be seeing about our car, and started down the street to find its owner, when we heard some one running after us. It was a man of about thirty, and his face, though not very clean, was beaming with friendliness. "Is it a car your honour would be wantin'?" he asked. "Yes," I said. "How did you know?" "The man up at the church told me, sir. He said you'd be wishin' to drive to the station." "Well, we do," I said. "It's too far to walk. Have you a car?" "I have, sir, and it's myself would be glad to carry you and your lady there." "All right," I agreed; and then, as an afterthought, "How much will you charge?" "Not a penny, sir," he protested warmly. "Not a penny." I stared at him. I confess I didn't understand. He returned my stare with a broad smile. "The Dublin train doesn't go for an hour yet, sir," he went on. "If you'll just be wanderin' down this way when the time comes, you'll find me ready." "It's mighty kind of you," I said hesitatingly; "but we couldn't think of troubling you. . . ." "Niver a bit of trouble, sir," he broke in. "I'll be that proud to do it." He seemed so sincerely in earnest that we finally agreed, and he raced away as he had come, while we went on to the village post-office to mail a postcard--and perhaps find some one else to talk to. The post-office was a little cubby-hole of a place, in charge of a white-haired, withered little old woman, whom we found very ready to talk indeed. At first there were the inevitable questions about America and about our family history, and then she told us about herself and her work and the many things she had to do. For every Irish post-office, no matter how small, is the centre of many activities. Not only does it handle the village mail, but it is also the village telegraph-office, and it does the work--by means of the parcel-post--which in this country has been done until quite recently by the express companies. Furthermore it is at the post-office that the old age pensions are disbursed and the multifarious details of the workman's insurance act attended to. The latter is too complicated to be explained here, but we soon had a demonstration of the working of the old age pension, for, as we sat there talking, a wrinkled old woman with a shabby shawl over her head, came in, said something we did not understand, held out her hand, was given three or four pennies, and walked quickly out. "The poor creatures," said the postmistress gently, "how can one be always refusin' them!" And then, seeing that we did not understand, she went on, "That one gets an old age pension, five shillings the week; but it never lasts the week out, and so she comes in for a bit of an advance. I shouldn't be giving it to her, for she's no better in the end, but I can't turn her away. Besides, she thinks--and there's many like her--that the pension may be stoppin' any time, next week maybe, and so what she gets this week is so much ahead. Many of them have no idea at all of where the money do be coming from." I am not myself partial to pensions of any sort, for no permanent good can come from alms-giving, which weakens instead of strengthens; but Ireland, perhaps, needs special treatment. At any rate, the pensions have been a great help. Every person over seventy years of age and with an income of less than ten shillings a week, receives five shillings weekly from the government. The same law applies to England and Scotland, but there is an impression that Ireland is getting more than her share. Certainly there is a surprisingly large number of people there whose income is under ten shillings and whose years exceed threescore and ten. I questioned the postmistress about this, and she smiled. "Yes, there be a great many," she agreed. "In this small place alone there are fifty poor souls who get their five shillings every Friday. Are they all over seventy? Sure, I don't know; there be many of them don't know themselves; but they all think they are, only it was very hard sometimes to make the committee believe it. There is Mary Clancy, now, as spry a woman as you will see anywhere, and lookin' not a day over fifty. The committee was for refusin' her, but she said, said she, 'Your honours, I was the mother of fourteen children, and the youngest of them was Bridget, whom you see here beside me. Bridget was married when she was seventeen, and she has fifteen children of her own, and this is the youngest of them she has by the hand--you'll see that he is four years old. Now how old am I?' The gentlemen of the committee they looked at her and then they looked at each other and then they took out their pencils and made some figures and then they scratched their heads and then they said she should have a pension. And sure she deserved it!" We agreed with her,--though, as I figured it out afterwards, Mrs. Clancy may still have been a year or two under seventy--and then she went on to explain that the pensions had been a blessing in another way, for not only do they give the old people a bit to live on, but their children treat them better in consequence. In the old days, the parents were considered an encumbrance, and whenever a marriage contract was made or a division of the property, it was always carefully stipulated who should look after them. Naturally in a land where a man was hard put to it to provide for his own family, he was reluctant to assume this additional burden, and the result often was that the old people went to the workhouse--a place they shunned and detested and considered it a disgrace to enter. But the pension has changed all that, for a person with a steady income of five shillings a week is not to be lightly regarded in Ireland; and so the old people can live with their children now, and the workhouses are somewhat less crowded than they used to be. But they are still full enough, heaven knows, in spite of the aversion and disgust with which the whole Irish people regard them. Let me explain briefly why this is so, because the establishment of the workhouse system is typical of the blind fashion in which England, in the past, has dealt with Irish problems,--the whole Irish problem, as some protest, is merely the result of a stupid people trying to govern a clever one! About eighty years ago, England realised that something must be done for the Irish poor. Irish industries had been killed by unfriendly legislation, the land was being turned from tillage to grass, and so, since there was no work, there was nothing for the labouring class to do but emigrate or starve. In fact, a large section of the people had not even those alternatives, for there was no way in which they could get money enough to emigrate. The Irish themselves suggested that something be done to develop the industrial resources of the country, so that the able-bodied could find work, and that some provision be made for the old, sick and infirm who were unable to work, and for children who were too young. Instead of that, and in spite of frenzied and universal Irish protest, a bill was put through Parliament extending the English workhouse system to Ireland. Now, the workhouse system was devised to provide for tramps--for people who would not work, though work was plentiful; so there is a stigma about the workhouse which the Irish poor detest and which most of them do not deserve. They enter it only when driven by direst need--and how dire that need has been may be judged by the fact that, in 1905, for instance, the number of workhouse inmates exceeded forty-five thousand. Of these, about four thousand might be classified as tramps. The remainder were aged and infirm men and women, young children, and a sprinkling of starving middle-aged who could find no work--but the disgrace of the workhouse was upon them all. To-day, the traveller in Ireland finds one of these mammoth structures in every town--in nearly every village, for their total number is 159. In fact, the two most imposing buildings in the average Irish town are the workhouse and the jail. And there is a savage irony in this, for not only are there few voluntary paupers in Ireland, but there is amazingly little crime. Six millions a year of Irish money are spent to maintain the workhouses; how much the jails cost I don't know; but perhaps in that golden age which some optimists believe will follow the coming of Home Rule, workhouses and jails alike will be transformed into schools and factories, and Irish money will be spent in brightening and beautifying the lives of Ireland's people. * * * * * We bade good-bye, at last, to the little Clondalkin postmistress, with many mutual good wishes, and wandered forth to find the Samaritan who had offered to take us to the station; and finally we saw him standing in a gateway beckoning to us, and when we reached him, we found the gateway led to the house which had been pointed out to us as that of the parish priest. It was a beautiful house, with lovely grounds and gardens and a large conservatory against one end, and we stood hesitating in the gateway, wondering if we would better enter. "Come in, sir; come in, miss!" cried our new-found friend. "The Father is away from home the day, worse luck, but he'd never forgive me if I didn't make you welcome." "Oh, then you're the gardener," I said. "Sure, I'm everything, sir," and he hustled us up the path, his face beaming with happiness. "And how grieved His Riverence will be when he comes back and learns that he missed you. If he was anywhere near, I'd have gone for him at once, but he went to Dublin to the conference and he won't be back till evenin'. He's a grand man, God bless him, and has travelled all over the world, and it's himself would know how to talk to you! There is the cart, sir; but there's no hurry. I must cut some blooms for your lady." Betty was already admiring the flowers--great scarlet peonies, white and pink geraniums, cinerarias, laburnums, and I know not what beside; but she tried to stop him as he made a dash at them, knife in hand. "Oh, but you mustn't cut them!" she cried. "What would the Father say!" "Sure, miss, if he was here, he'd make me cut twice as many!" he retorted, and went on cutting and cutting. "If he was here, 'tis not by this train you'd be leaving. He'd take you all over the house, and it would break his heart if you didn't stop for tea. It's sorry he'll be when he gets home and I tell him of you!" We too were sorry, and said so--sorrier, next day, when we learned from Katherine Tynan Hinkson what an accomplished and interesting man he is. Meanwhile, the gardener had entered the greenhouse and was attacking the plants there. Almost by main force, and sorely against his will, we made him stop. As it was, Betty had about all she could carry--as lovely a bouquet, she protested, as she had ever had in her life. And the joy of this simple, kindly fellow in being able to give it to her was beautiful to see. Then he brought out a fat little mare and hitched her to the cart, and insisted on driving us for a while along the fragrant country roads before he took us to the station. And I am sure that he valued our thanks much more than the coin I slipped into his hand. We went out, that night, to see some friends in Dublin, and Betty took part of her bouquet along to give to them. And as we were walking up Grafton Street, an old and tattered woman, with two or three grimy little bouquets in her hands, fell in beside us and begged us to buy one. Finally she laid one of them on top of the gorgeous bunch Betty was carrying. "Take it, miss; take it!" she urged. "Just see how beautiful it is!" "It's not beautiful at all!" Betty protested. "It's faded." "And so am I faded, miss," came the instant retort. "Sure, we can't all be fresh and lovely like yourself!" Of course, after that, I bought the bouquet! CHAPTER V THE COUNTRY OF ST. KEVIN DUBLIN is fortunate in its environs. A few miles to the south or west, and one is in the midst of lovely scenery. The Liffey, just above the town, changes from an unsightly stream into a beautiful river; just to the south lie the Wicklow hills--one can reach their foot by tram-line and some of their wildest beauties are within an hour's walk; a short run by rail takes one to Bray, from where the Dargle, a glen beloved of Dubliners, is within easy reach. But the wise traveller will keep on to Rathdrum, and from there drive over to Glendalough. Or the trip may be made all the way from Dublin by motor-omnibus, and by this route one gets the full beauty of the Wicklow passes; but I think the car trip preferable, at least in fine weather. The forty-mile run from Dublin to Rathdrum is by the very edge of the sea. The roadway has been cut high in the face of the cliffs that fringe the coast--sometimes piercing a projecting headland, sometimes spanning a deep gully, sometimes skirting a sheer precipice--and the view at every turn is very romantic and beautiful. The train pauses at Bray, and then, still hugging the coast, reaches Wicklow, where it turns inland and mounts toward the hills along a pleasant valley to Rathdrum, perched in the most picturesque way on the steep banks of the Avonmore, for all the world like an Alpine village. Betty and I were the only ones who descended at Rathdrum, that day, and we were glad, for it is peculiarly true of a side-car that two are company and any larger number a crowd. The car was waiting, and in a few minutes we were off on the twelve-mile drive. The road mounted steeply for a time, passed through a dingy village clinging to a hillside, and then suddenly emerged high above the lovely Vale of Clara. Far down, so far it seemed the merest ribbon, the Avonmore sparkled over its rocky bed; beside it, here and there, a thatched cottage nestled among the trees; and the greenest of green fields ran back to the hills on either side. Here the gorse began, mounting the hillsides in a riot of golden bloom, only to be met and vanquished on the highest slopes by the low, closely-growing heather, brown with last year's withered flowers, but soon to veil the hilltops in a cloud of purple. But the gorse was in its glory--every hedge, every fence, every wall, every neglected corner was ablaze with it; it outlined every field; the road we travelled was a royal way, bordered on either side with gold. "Unprofitably gay?" Betty hotly disputed it. For how could such beauty be unprofitable? It was a perfect day, with the air magically soft and the sun just warm enough for comfort, and we sat there, mightily content, drinking in mile after mile of loveliness. Away across the valley, we caught a glimpse of Avondale House, a school of forestry now, but sacred to every Irishman as the home of Parnell. A little farther on, Castle Howard glooms down upon the valley where the Avonmore meets the Avonbeg--that "Meeting of the Waters" celebrated by Tom Moore. But it would take a far greater poet to do justice to that exquisitely beautiful Vale of Avoca, stretching away into the shimmering distance. The road turned away, at last, from the edge of the valley and plunged into a beautiful wood, and we could see that the bracken was alive with rabbits. It was a game preserve, our driver said, and he told us to whom it belonged, but I have forgotten. I suggested that, when he had nothing better to do, it would be easy enough to come out and knock over a rabbit. "They would be putting a lad away for six months for the likes of that," he protested. "Surely no one would grudge you a rabbit now and then!" "Ah, wouldn't they?" and he laughed grimly. "There's nothing the keepers like so much as to get their hands on one of us. Why, sir, 'tis a crime for a man to be caught on the far side of that wall. Not but what I haven't got me a rabbit before this," he added, "and will again." We passed a gang of men repairing the road, and two or three others sitting along the roadside, breaking stone by hand, and wearing goggles to protect their eyes from the flying splinters; and our driver told us how the contract for keeping each section of road in shape was let each year by the county council to the lowest bidder, and the roads inspected at regular intervals to see that the work was properly done. Two shillings a day--fifty cents--was about the average wage. I suppose it is because stone is so plentiful and labour so cheap that the roads all over Ireland are so good; but one would be inclined to welcome a rut now and then, if it meant a decent wage for the labourers! We emerged from the wood presently, and then, away to the left, our jarvey pointed out the high peaks which guard the entrance to Glendalough--and let me say here that the word "lough," which occurs so frequently in Irish geography, means lake, and is pronounced almost exactly like the Scotch "loch." Glendalough is one of the most beautiful and romantic spots in Ireland, and its story runneth thus: In the year 498, the King of Leinster had a son whom he named Caomh-ghen, or Gentle-born, and whom to-day we call Kevin. The King had been converted by St. Patrick himself, and he brought his boy up a Christian; and Kevin had never the slightest doubt as to his vocation, but knew from the very first that he must be a priest. So he was sent first to St. Petroc's school in Wicklow, and then to his uncle, St. Eugenius, who had a school near Glenealy. Kevin grew in grace and wisdom, and likewise in beauty, until a handsomer lad was to be found nowhere in Erin, and many a girl looked sideways at him as he passed, but he paid no heed. One of them, seeing him so fair and saintly, lost her heart to him entirely, and her head as well, for she grew so shameless that she followed him in his walks, pleading with him, touching his hand, kissing his robe--all of which must have been most embarrassing to that modest and retiring man. At last, one day, she waylaid him in a wood, and, hungry with passion, flung herself upon him. There are two versions of what followed. One is that St. Kevin escaped by jumping into a bush of nettles, and cooled the damsel's ardour by beating her with a branch of them, whereupon she asked his pardon and made a vow of perpetual virginity. The other, and much more plausible one, is that, after the manner of women, she loved Kevin more desperately after he had beaten her than she had before, and that finally the Saint, worn out by a struggle in which he saw that he would some day be defeated, resolved to hide himself where no man could discover him, and betook himself to the wild and inaccessible spot where the mountains meet above Glendalough. There high in the side of the cliff above the lake, he found a crevice where he made his bed, and lay down with a sigh of relief for the first peaceful sleep he had had for a long time. Here is Tom Moore's rendering of the rest of the story: On the bold cliff's bosom cast, Tranquil now he sleeps at last; Dreams of heaven, nor thinks that e'er Woman's smile can haunt him there. But nor earth nor heaven is free From her power if fond she be; Even now while calm he sleeps, Kathleen o'er him leans and weeps. Fearless she had tracked his feet To this rocky, wild retreat, And when morning met his view, Her wild glances met it too. Ah! your saints have cruel hearts! Sternly from his bed he starts, And, with rude, repulsive shock, Hurls her from the beetling rock. Glendalough, thy gloomy wave Soon was gentle Kathleen's grave! Soon the saint (but, ah! too late) Felt her love and mourned her fate. When he said, "Heaven rest her soul!" Round the lake light music stole, And her ghost was seen to glide Smiling o'er the fatal tide. Most biographers of the Saint hotly deny that he killed the fair Kathleen, and point out that he was far too holy a man to do such a thing, even in a moment of anger; but, on the other hand, Kathleen's ghost may be seen almost any night sitting on a rock by the lakeside, combing its yellow hair and lamenting its sad fate. What, then, are we to believe? My own theory is that when the Saint opened his eyes, that fatal morning, and found his tempter bending over him, he sprang hastily away, well knowing to what lengths her passion led her, and inadvertently brushed her off the narrow ledge of rock. The horrified Saint scrambled down the cliff as quickly as he could, but the too-impulsive girl was dead. A good many people will add that it served the hussy right. This seems to me a reasonable theory; whether it be true or not, Saint Kevin dwelt seven years in his cave, after Kathleen's death, without being further disturbed. Then one day, a shepherd climbing down over the cliff searching for a lost sheep, came upon the holy man, sitting meditating in his cell, and hastened away to spread the news of the discovery of a new saint. Great throngs crowded the lake to get a glimpse of him, much to his annoyance, and besought him to come down so that they could see him better. This he sternly refused to do, and told them to go away; but finally he permitted them to build him a little chapel on a shelf of rock near his cell. That was in June, 536; but the number of his disciples increased so rapidly that the chapel soon proved too small, and at last an angel appeared to him and ordered him to found a monastery at the lower end of the lake. This he did, and it soon became one of the most famous in Ireland. It must have been a picturesque place; for there was a special stone-roofed cell for the Saint, and no less than seven churches to hold the people, and a great huddle of domestic buildings to protect the students from the rain and cold, and finally a tall round tower, from which to watch for the Norse invader. St. Kevin himself died in the odour of sanctity on the third day of June, 618. What I like about this story of St. Kevin are the dates--they give it such an unimpeachable vraisemblance! After his death, the monastery had a varied history. It was destroyed by fire in 770, and sacked by the Danes in 830 and many times thereafter; but the final blow was struck by the English invaders in 1308, when the place was burnt to the ground. Since then it has been in ruins, much as it is to-day. As we drove into the valley, that lovely day in May, no prospect could have been more beautiful. To right and left, in the distance, towered the bare brown hills, very steep and rugged, with the blue lake nestling between. In the foreground lay the ruins of the seven churches, with the round tower rising high above them; and, from among the trees, peeped here and there the thatched roof of a cottage with a plume of purple smoke rising from its chimney. It was like a vision--like some ideal, painted scene, too lovely to be real--and we gazed at it in speechless enchantment while our jarvey drove us around the lower lake, under the shadow of the hills, and so to the little inn where we were to have lunch. [Illustration: © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. GLENDALOUGH AND THE RUINS OF ST. KEVIN'S CHURCHES] We were looking in delight at the inn, with its thatched roof and whitewashed walls, when a formidable figure appeared in the door--a towering young woman, with eyes terrifically keen and a thick shock of the reddest hair I ever saw. She was a singularly pure specimen, as I afterwards learned, of the red Irish--a sort of throw-back, I suppose, to the old Vikings of the Danish conquest. I admit that I quailed a little, for she was looking at us with an expression which seemed to me anything but friendly. "Can we get lunch?" I inquired. "You can," she answered, short and sharp like the snap of a whip, and she stood in the doorway staring at us, without making any sign that we should enter. "Is it ready?" I ventured further, for the long drive had made us very hungry. "It is not." Let me say here that very rarely does any one of Irish blood say "yes" or "no" in answer to a question. When you ask the man at the station, "Is this the train for So-and-so?" he will invariably answer, "It is," or "It is not," as the case may be. When you ask your jarvey if he thinks it will rain to-day, his invariable answer is "It will not." I never heard an Irishman admit unreservedly that it was going to rain. But before I had time to ask the red-headed girl any further questions, she was hustled aside by a typical little brown Irishwoman, who asked us in and made us welcome. Lunch would be ready in fifteen minutes, she said; meanwhile, if we wished, we could walk to the waterfall. Of course we _did_ wish, and set eagerly forth past the end of the upper lake, across a bridge, past a great empty hotel which was falling to decay, and up a little stream to the fall. It is really a series of rapids rather than a fall, and only mildly pretty; but growing abundantly in the damp ground along the margin of the stream was what Betty declared to be the true shamrock--a very beautiful trefoil, evidently a variety of oxalis, and certainly much nearer our ideal of the shamrock than the skimpy plant shown us by the gardener at Clondalkin. We gathered some of it, and then hastened back--for we didn't want to be late for lunch. As we were passing the lake, we noticed an extremely dirty and unkempt individual, who looked like a vagabond, sitting on a stone, and as soon as he saw us, he jumped up and fell in beside us. "Your honour will be goin' to St. Kevin's bed," he began. "Where is the bed?" I asked. "In the cliff beyant there, sir," and he pointed across the lake. "How do we get to it?" "Sure I'll carry your honour and your lady in me boat." I looked at the fellow, and at the wide lake, and at the little flat-bottomed skiff moored to a rock near by, and I had my doubts as to the wisdom of entrusting ourselves to the combination. He read the doubt in my face, and broke in with voluble protests. "Arrah, you must go to the bed, your honour," he cried; "and your honour's lady, too. 'Tis the place where the blessed Saint lived for siven years, and if you sit down in his seat you will niver have the backache, and if you lie down in his bed you will niver have any ache at all, at all, and if you make three wishes they will surely come true." Betty and I glanced at each other. We were tempted. Then I looked at our would-be guide. "Why don't you make three wishes yourself?" I asked. "I have, your honour." "Did they come true?" "They did, your honour," he answered instantly. "I asked for a light heart, a quick wit and a ready tongue. Your honour can see that I have all of them." My heart began to warm to him, for he was the first person we had met in Ireland who talked like this. "Now just be lookin' at this, your honour," he went on, and led us to the side of the road where stood a cross of stone--the terminal cross, as I afterwards learned, which marked the boundary of the old monastery. "Do you see them marks? This large one is the mark of a horse's hoof, and this small one of a colt's; and 'twas by a miracle they came there. In the old time, there was a man who stole a mare and her foal, but who denied it, and who was brought before St. Kevin. The Saint placed the man in front of this cross and told him if he was guilty to be sayin' it, and if he was not guilty to be sayin' it; and the man said he was not guilty. And as he spoke the words, the shape of the hoofs appeared on the cross, and when the man saw them, he knew it was no use tryin' to deceive the Saint, so he confessed everything. And there the hoof-prints are to this day." They certainly bore some resemblance to hoof-prints, and I could not but admire the ingenuity of the tale which had been invented to explain them. "What happened to the thief?" I asked. "Did the Saint let him go?" "He did not, your honour, for it was the law that he must be hanged. But before he died, he asked the Saint to grant him one favour, and the Saint told him to name it; and the man asked that he be buried in the same graveyard with the Saint himself, and that on his grave a stone be placed with a hole in the middle, so that, if a horse stepped over his grave, he might put out his hand and pull it in. The Saint kept his promise, and in the graveyard yonder you may see the stone." As, indeed, we did; at least, there is a grave there covered by a stone with a large round hole in the middle. "And now, your honour," went on our guide, as we came to the door of the inn, "you will be wantin' me to row you over to the Saint's bed, I'm thinkin'." "What is the fare?" I asked. "As much over sixpence as you care to give, your honour." "All right," I said. "We'll be ready presently." And we went in to lunch. We certainly enjoyed that meal, though I have forgotten its ingredients; but I have not forgotten the clean, pleasant dining-room in which it was served. And then we sallied forth for the visit to St. Kevin's bed. Our guide was awaiting us, and helped us into his boat and pushed off; and at once began to recount the legends of the lake; how the fairies danced punctually at nine every evening, whenever there was a moon, while at eleven the ghost of the fair Kathleen sat on a stone and sang and combed her hair, and at twelve the wraith of a wicked sorceress struck blind by St. Kevin glided about the lake. I forget what else happened, but it was evident that any one spending a night there would not lack for entertainment. And he told us why no skylark ever sings in the vale of Glendalough. It seems that when St. Kevin was building his monastery, he had a great number of workmen employed, and the rule was that they should begin the day's labour with the singing of the lark and end it when the lambs lay down to rest. It was summer time, and the larks began to sing about three in the morning, while the lambs refused to retire until nine at night. The workmen thought these hours excessive, and so complained to St. Kevin, and he listened to them, and looked at them, and when he saw their poor jaded faces and tired eyes wanting sleep, his kind heart pitied them, and he promised to see what he could do. So he raised his eyes to heaven and put up a prayer that the lark might never sing in the valley, and that the lamb might lie down before the sun was set; and the prayer was granted, and from that day to this Glendalough has been famous as "the lake whose gloomy shore Skylark never warbles o'er." At what hour the lambs now go to rest our boatman did not state, and I did not have time to make any observations for myself; but I commend the question to the attention of antiquarians. By the time all these tales had been told, we were across the lake and drawing in toward a high cliff on the other side; and suddenly somebody shouted at us, and, as the hills shuttlecocked the echo back and forth across the water, we looked up and saw two men clinging to the cliff about forty feet up. As our boat ran in to the shore, they came scrambling down and helped us out upon a narrow strand. "The seat and the bed are up yonder," said our guide. "Them ones will help your honour up." I looked at the perpendicular cliff, quite smooth except for a little indentation here and there where one might possibly put one's toe, and my desire to sit in St. Kevin's seat suffered a severe diminution, for I have no head for heights. I said as much and listened sceptically to the fervent assurances of the guides that there was no danger at all, at all, that they had piloted thousands of people up and down the cliff without a single mishap, glory be to God. I knew they were talking for a tip, and not from any abstract love of truth. But in matters of this sort, Betty is much more impulsive than I--as will appear more than once in the course of this narrative--and she promptly declared that she was going up, for the chance to be granted three wishes was too good to be missed. So up she went, one man pulling in front and the other guiding her toes into those little crevices in the rock; and presently she passed from sight, and then her voice floated down to me saying that she was all right. Of course I had to follow, if I was to escape a lifetime of derision, and after a desperate scramble, I found her sitting on a narrow ledge at the back of a shallow cave in the cliff, with her eyes closed, making her three wishes. Then I sat down and made mine; and then the guides offered to conduct us to St. Kevin's bed, but when I found that the bed was a hole in the cliff into which one had to be poked feet first, and that to get to it one had to walk along a ledge about three inches wide, I interposed a veto so vigorous that it prevailed. Having got up, it was necessary to get down, and when I looked at the cliff, I understood why St. Kevin had stayed there seven years. The method of descent is simply to sit on the edge and slide over and trust to the man below. Fortunately he was on the job, so we live to tell the tale. As to the efficacy of the seat, I can only say that two of my three wishes came true, which is a good average. I don't know about Betty's, for it breaks the charm to tell! I asked our boatman afterwards why he didn't pilot his passengers up the cliff himself, and so earn the extra sixpence which is the fee for that service; and he told me that he couldn't because that was an hereditary right, controlled by one family, in which it had been handed down for generations. The father trains his sons in the precise method of handling the climbers, so that they become very expert at it, and there is really no great danger. One member of the family is always on the lookout above the cliff, and when any visitor approaches, two members climb down to offer their services. Our boatman added that he wished he belonged to the family, because in good seasons they made a lot of money. We pushed out into the lake again, and rowed up a little farther to another narrow beach, whence a rude flight of steps led to a shelf of rock many feet above the lake, on which are the ruins of St. Kevin's first little church. There is not much left of it, which is natural enough since it was built nearly a thousand years before America was discovered; but I took the picture of it which is reproduced opposite the next page, and which gives a faint idea of the beauty of the lake. All during the afternoon, I had been conscious, at intervals, of a dull rumbling among the hills, and as we pushed out from the shore, I heard it again, and asked the boatman if it was thunder, for the clouds had begun to bank up along the horizon, and I remembered that we had twelve miles to ride on a side-car before we reached the station. But he said that it wasn't thunder; there was an artillery camp many miles away among the hills and the rumbling was the echo of the guns. He also assured me, after a look around, that it wouldn't rain before morning. The basis of an Irish weather prediction, as I have said before, is not at all a desire to foretell what is coming, but merely the wish to comfort the inquirer; but in this case the prediction happened to come true. When we got back to the inn, we found a new arrival, a very pleasant woman who had come over in the coach from Dublin. Her husband, I learned, was an inspector employed by the National Education Board, who had come to Glendalough to inspect the schools in the neighbourhood. He had started out to inspect one at once, but when he returned I had a most interesting talk with him concerning education in Ireland, and the problems which it has to face. [Illustration: THE ROAD TO ST. KEVIN'S SEAT] [Illustration: THE FIRST OF ST. KEVIN'S CHURCHES] The Irish schools, like everything else Irish, are controlled by a central board which sits at Dublin Castle. There are sixty-six other boards and bureaus and departments sitting there, each dealing with some special branch of Irish affairs, and all of them are costly and complicated. These sixty-seven varieties must cause a pang of envy in the breast of our own Heinz, for that is ten more than he produces! The particular board which controls the schools is called the National Education Board, and, like all the others, it is in no way responsible to the Irish people. In fact, it isn't responsible to anybody. Its members are appointed for life, and it is virtually a self-perpetuating body, for vacancies are usually filled in accordance with the recommendation of a majority of its members. It is absolutely supreme in Irish educational affairs. The elementary schools in Ireland are known as "National Schools," and each of them is controlled by a local manager, who is always either the priest or the rector of the parish--the priest if the parish is largely Roman Catholic, the rector if it is largely Protestant. If there are enough children, both Catholic and Protestant, to fill two schools, there will be two, and the two creeds will be separated. This is always done, of course, in the cities, and in the north of Ireland there are separate schools for the Presbyterians; but in the country districts this cannot be done, so that, whatever the religious complexion of the school, there will always be a few pupils of the other denomination in it. In the villages where there is a church, as at Clondalkin, the school is usually connected with the church and in that case, if it is Roman Catholic, the teachers will be nuns. The local manager of the school has absolute authority over it. He employs and dismisses the teachers; he prescribes the course of study; no book which he prohibits may be used in the school; any book, within very wide limits, which he wishes to use, he may use; he determines the character of the religious instruction. If he is a Catholic, this is, of course, Catholicism; if he is a Protestant, it is Protestantism--which means in Ireland either Presbyterianism in the north or Church of Irelandism in the south and west. But, as a very noted preacher remarked to me one evening, if he should happen to be a Mohammedan, he would be perfectly free to teach Mohammedanism. The secular instruction given in the schools is supposed not to be coloured by religion, but it is inevitable that it should be; and this is especially true of Ireland, in whose history religious differences have played and still play so large a part. The result is that the memory of old wrongs, far better forgotten, is kept alive and flaming; and not only that, but the wrongs themselves are magnified and distorted out of all resemblance to the truth. Some one has remarked that half the ill-feeling in Ireland is caused by the memory of things that never happened; and furthermore such atrocities as did occur in some far distant day are spoken of as though they happened yesterday. To every Catholic, Limerick is still "The City of the Violated Treaty," although the treaty referred to was made (and broken) in 1691, and Catholics have long since been given every right it granted them. In Derry, the "siege" is referred to constantly as though it were just over, though as a matter of fact it occurred in 1689. To shout "To hell with King Billy!" is the deadliest insult that Catholic can offer Protestant, though King Billy, otherwise William III of Orange, has been dead for more than two centuries. And when one asks the caretaker of any old ruin how the place came to be ruined, the invariable answer is "'Twas Crummell did it!" although it may have been in ruins a century before Cromwell was born. A certain period of every day, in every National School, is set apart for religious instruction. When that period arrives, a placard on the wall bearing the words "Secular Instruction," is reversed, displaying the words "Religious Instruction" printed on the other side. Then everybody in the schoolhouse who does not belong to the denomination in which religious instruction is to be given is chased outside. Thus, as you drive about Ireland, you will see little groups of boys and girls standing idly in front of the schoolhouses, and you will wonder what they are doing there. They are waiting for the religious instruction period to be ended. No Protestant child is permitted to be present while Catholic instruction is going on, and no Catholic child while Protestant instruction is being given. The law used to require the teacher forcibly to eject such a child; but this raised an awful rumpus because, of course, both Catholics and Protestants are anxious to make converts, and the teachers used to say that they had conscientious scruples against driving out any child who might wish to be converted. So the law now requires the teacher to notify the child's parents; and the result is, I fancy, very painful to the child. All of which, I will say frankly, seems to me absurd. I do not believe that religious and secular instruction can be combined in this way, especially with a mixed population, without impairing the efficiency of both. The first real struggle the Home Rule Parliament will have to face, in the opinion of my friend the inspector, is the struggle to secularise education. And this, he added, will not be a struggle of Protestant against Catholic, but of clerical against anti-clerical, for, while religious instruction is a far more vital principle with the Catholic church than with the Protestant church, Protestant preachers in Ireland are just as jealous of their power over the schools and just as determined to retain it, as the Catholic priests. The influence of the clergy in Ireland is very great, and I am inclined to think they will win the first battle; but I also think that they are certain to lose in the end. The General Education Board keeps in touch with the local schools by employing inspectors, who visit them three times a year and report on their condition. These visits are supposed to be unexpected, but, as a matter of fact, they seldom are. "Word always gets about," my informant explained, with a smile, "that we are in the neighbourhood, and of course things are furbished up a bit." "I should like to visit some of the schools," I said. "You are at perfect liberty to do so. Any orderly person has the right to enter any school at any time." "It is the poor little schools I wish to see," I added. "You will find plenty of them in the west of Ireland--in fact, that is about the only kind they have there. And you will probably scare the teacher out of a year's growth when you step in. He will think you are an inspector, or a government official of some kind, who has heard something to his discredit and has come to investigate." "Something to his discredit?" I repeated. "Perhaps that he doesn't try to make the children in his district come to school. That is one great fault with our system. We have a compulsory education law, and every child in Ireland is supposed to go to school until he is fourteen. But no effort is made to enforce it, and not over half the children attend school with any sort of regularity. Often, of course, their parents need them; but more frequently it is because the parents are so ignorant themselves that they don't appreciate the value of an education. That isn't their fault entirely, for until thirty or forty years ago, it was practically impossible for a Catholic child to get any education, since the schools were managed by Protestants in a proselytising spirit and the priests would not allow Catholic children to attend them. "I have some of the old readers that were used in those days," went on the inspector, with a smile, "and I wish I had them here. They would amuse you. In one of them, the Board cut out Scott's lines, "'Breathes there a man with soul so dead Who never to himself has said This is my own, my native land,' and so on, fearing that they might have a bad effect upon Irish children by teaching them to love the land they were born in, and substituted some verses written by one of their own members. One stanza ran something like this: "'I thank the goodness and the grace Which on my birth have smiled, And made me in these Christian days A happy English child.' The Board claimed there was nothing sectarian about that stanza, but I wonder what the O'Malleys over in Joyce's Country thought when their children recited it? I'll bet there was a riot! And the histories had every sort of history in them except Irish history. Ireland was treated as a kind of tail to England's kite, and the English conquest was spoken of as a thing for which Ireland should be deeply grateful, and the English government was held up to admiration as the best and wisest that man could hope to devise. "Ah, well, those days are over now, and they don't try to make a happy English child out of an Irish Catholic any longer. The principal trouble now is that there isn't enough money to carry on the schools properly. Many of the buildings are unfit for schoolhouses, and the teachers are miserably paid. The school-books are usually poor little penny affairs, for the children can't afford more expensive ones. We visit the schools three times a year and look them over, but there isn't anything we can do. Here is the blank we are supposed to fill out." The blank was a portentous four-page document, with many printed questions. The first section dealt with the condition of the schoolhouse and premises, the second with the school equipment, the third with the organisation, and so on. As might be expected, many of the questions have to do with the subject of religious instruction. Here are some of them: Note objections (if any) to arrangements for Religious Instruction. Have you examined the Religious Instruction Certificate Book? Are the Rules as to this book observed? Is the school _bona fide_ open to pupils of all denominations? In case of Convent or Monastery schools, paid by capitation, state is the staff sufficient. The "Religious Instruction Certificate Book"--note the reverent capitals--is the book in which the religion of each child is certified to by its parents, so that there can be no controversy on the subject, and in which the child's attendance is carefully entered. There is also a Punishment Book, in which the teacher, when a child is punished, must enter the details of the affair for the inspector's information; and an Observation Book, in which the inspector is supposed to note suggestions for the teacher's guidance; as well as records of attendance and proficiency, and all the usual red tape of the Circumlocution Office. I have never seen any of these books, but I fancy that, with the exception of the first-named, few teachers spend much time over them. As I have said before, the local manager has absolute control of the school, and the poverty of the school funds is sometimes due to his desire to keep this power wholly in his own hands. The government grant is intended only as a partial support, and is supposed to be supplemented by a local contribution. But frequently no local contribution is asked for or desired, because, if one was made, the persons who made it would rightfully claim some voice in the management of the school. I have heard queer tales of managers' eccentricities. One of them read somewhere of the high educational value of teaching children to fold paper in various shapes, and so had the children in his school devote an hour every day to this exercise. It was popular with the children, but the indignation of their parents may be imagined. They were, however, quite powerless to do anything except raise a row. Another, who believed that the highest function of education was to develop the æsthetic consciousness, had the children in his school arrange rags of various colours in symphonies, and the people in his parish nearly went mad with rage. But these, of course, were exceptions. As a rule, the course of study is utilitarian and humdrum enough, and the only colour the manager injects into it is that of religion. I note that the subjects of study mentioned in the inspector's blank are oral and written English, history, arithmetic, geography, object lessons and elementary science, cookery and laundry work, singing, drawing, needlework, and training of infants. This sounds ambitious enough, but I fancy it is mostly blarney, so far as the small schools are concerned, at any rate. About all most of them do is to teach the children to read and write and cipher--and these most haltingly. Twenty per cent of the people in western Ireland are still unable to do even that. "You are a Nationalist, I suppose?" I said, after I had finished looking through the blank. "I am," he assented emphatically. "Why?" I asked. "Because it is bad for Ireland to be treated like a spoiled child. That is the way England treats us now--we can get anything we want if we yell loud enough. And it's bad for England, too. She has problems enough of her own, heaven knows, but all she can think about is Ireland. Every sensible Englishman will be glad to get rid of us, so his government can have a little time to attend to its own affairs. What Ireland needs is to be chucked overboard and told to sink or swim. We'll swim, of course, but the shore's a long way off, and it will be a hard pull; but the harder it is, the closer we Irishmen will be drawn together. Home Rule won't bring any shower of blessings--it's more apt to bring hardships for a while; but it will give us a chance to stop thinking about our wrongs, and go to work to make Ireland a country worth living in." The time had come for us to take our leave, and the inspector and his wife walked with us, for half a mile or so, along a beautiful path through the woods on the other side of the lower lake, and finally, with many expressions of good-will, bade us good-bye. We went on again, to the ruins of St. Kevin's seven churches, with the round tower looming high above them, while all about are the mounds and slabs of the old graveyard. All the churches are little ones--mere midgets, some of them--and they are in all states of preservation, from a few fragments of wall to the almost perfect "St. Kevin's Kitchen"--a tiny structure with high stone roof, which was set apart for the Saint's use, and which was so solidly built that it passed unharmed through the many burnings and sackings of the monastery, and still stands intact, defying the centuries. There is a queer little tower at one end of it, and a chamber above between the vault and the high roof; but most of these pre-Norman churches are small and bare of ornament, and remarkable only for their great age. We spent some time in the graveyard, looking at the crosses and ornamented tombstones, and sculptured fragments lying about, and then we inspected the round tower; but my picture of it looks like a silhouette against the sunset sky; and finally we went on to the road, where our car was waiting. As we swung along through the fresh, cool air of the evening, we drew our jarvey into talk. He was very pessimistic about the state of the country, and apparently did not believe that Home Rule would help it much. There was no chance, he said, for a man to get ahead. It was a hard struggle for most of them to get enough to eat and a place to sleep and a few clothes to wear. A little sickness or bad luck, and there was nothing left but the workhouse--the workmen's insurance act did not include men like him. His own wages were ten shillings ($2.40) a week, and there were many who could not earn even that. On ten shillings--eked out by such tips as he picked up from his passengers--he managed to clothe and feed himself, but that was all. Marriage was not to be thought of; there was no hope of saving money enough to go to America; in fact, there was no hope of any kind. But though he spoke bitterly enough, he didn't seem unreasonably cast down, and I dare say spent little time thinking about his hard fate except when some passing Americans like ourselves reminded him of it. And at last, just as dusk was falling, we wound down into the valley at Rathdrum; and presently our train came along; and an hour later we were again walking along O'Connell Street. It was long past nine o'clock, but not yet dark. CHAPTER VI DROGHEDA THE DREARY THERE was one more excursion we wanted to make from Dublin. That was to Drogheda (pronounced Drawda) of bitter memory; from where we hoped to drive to the scene of the battle of the Boyne, and on to Dowth and Newgrange, the sepulchres of the ancient kings of Erin, and finally to the abbeys of Mellifont and Monasterboice. So we set forth, next morning, on this pilgrimage; but fate willed that we were not to accomplish it that day. Drogheda is about thirty miles north of Dublin, near the mouth of the River Boyne, and the ride thither, for the most part close beside the sea, is not of special interest, as the coast is flat and the only town of any importance on the way is Balbriggan, celebrated for its hosiery. Drogheda itself is an up-and-down place, built on the side of a hill. I suppose the castle which was the nucleus of the town stood on top of the hill, and houses were gradually built from it down to the ford from which the town takes its name. Encircled with walls and dominated by its castle, it was no doubt picturesque enough, but it is singularly dingy and unattractive now, with slums almost as bad as Dublin's and evidences of biting poverty everywhere. We blundered into the fish-market, as we were exploring the streets, and watched for some time the haggling between the dealers and the women who had come to market--a haggling so vigorous that it often threatened to end in blows. Most of the fish had been cut up into pieces, and every piece was fingered and poked and examined with a scrutiny almost microscopic; and then the would-be purchaser would make an offer for it, which would be indignantly refused. Then the dealer would name his price, and this never failed to arouse a storm of protest. Then dealer and purchaser would indulge in a few personalities, recalling with relish any discreditable facts in the other's private life or family history; and finally, sometimes, an agreement would be reached. In any case, the price was never more than a few pennies, and the reluctance with which they were produced and handed over proved how tremendously hard it had been to earn them. Drogheda recalls Cromwell to every Irishman, usually with a malediction, for it was here that the massacre occurred which made and still makes the Great Protector anathema in Catholic Ireland. Briefly, the facts are these: The Irish Catholics, under Owen Roe O'Neill, had, naturally enough, supported Charles I against the Parliament, and when the Parliament cut off his head, promptly declared for his son, Charles II, and started in to conquer Ulster, which was largely Protestant then as now. Cromwell realised that, before the Commonwealth would be safe, the rebellion in Ireland must be put down, and at once addressed himself to the task. He landed at Dublin about the middle of August, 1649, and marched against Drogheda, which was held by an Irish force of some three thousand men. Arrived before it, he summoned the town to surrender; upon its refusal, took it by storm, and "in the heat of action," as he afterwards wrote, ordered that the whole garrison be put to the sword. Not more than thirty of the three thousand escaped, and such Catholic priests as were found in the place were hanged. Cromwell afterwards sought to justify this cruelty on two grounds: as a reprisal for the killing of Protestants in Ulster, and as the most efficacious way to strike terror to the Irish and end the rebellion. As a matter of fact, it cannot be justified, as John Morley very clearly points out in a chapter of his life of Cromwell which should be read by every one interested in Irish history. Some fragments of the old walls still remain, and one of the gates, which will be found pictured opposite the next page. It spans what is now the principal street, and consists of two battlemented towers, pierced with loopholes in each of their four stories, and connected by a retiring wall also loopholed. It is so well preserved because it stands on the opposite side of the town from the one Cromwell attacked, and is the most perfect specimen of the mediæval city-gate which I saw anywhere in Ireland. When one has seen it, one has exhausted the antiquarian interest of Drogheda, for all that is left of the old monastery is a battered fragment. As for the modern town, the churches are rococo and ugly, while the most imposing building is the workhouse, capable of accommodating a thousand inmates. Having satisfied our curiosity as to Drogheda, we addressed ourselves to getting out to the battlefield and abbeys. The railroads sell combination tickets for the whole trip, at three or four shillings each, carrying their passengers about in brakes; but these excursions do not start till June, so it was necessary that we get a car. At the station, and again at the wharf by the river, we had observed large bulletin boards with a list of the jaunting-car tariffs fixed by the corporation, and giving the price of the trip we wanted to take as ten shillings for two people. In the square by the post-office, a number of cars were drawn up along the curb, and, picking out the best-looking one, I told the jarvey where we wanted to go. [Illustration: THE ROUND TOWER, CLONDALKIN] [Illustration: ST. LAWRENCE'S GATE, DROGHEDA] "Very good, sir," he said. "I'm the lad can take ye. Do you and your lady get right up." "What is the fare?" I asked. "One pound, sir." "The legal fare is just half that," I pointed out. "It may be," he agreed pleasantly. We left him negligently flicking his horse with his whip, and presently we met a policeman, and told him we wanted to drive out to Monasterboice, and while we didn't mind being robbed, we didn't care to be looted, and we asked his advice. He scratched his head dubiously. "Ye see it is like this, sir," he said; "there is no one to enforce the regulations, so the jarvies just charge what they please. I'm free to admit they have no conscience. There is one, though, who is fairly honest," and he directed us to his house. "Tell him you come from me, and he'll treat you well." But that transaction was never closed. We found the house--grimy, dark, dirt-floored, trash-littered--with the man's wife and assorted children within; but the woman told us that "himself" had driven out into the country and would not be back till evening. And just then it began to drizzle most dismally. "This is no day for the trip, anyway," I said. "Suppose we wait till we get to Belfast, and run down from there." So it was agreed, and we made our way back to the station, through a sea of sticky mud, and presently took train again for Ireland's ancient capital. * * * * * We were ready to leave Dublin for a swing clear around the coast of Ireland, and late that afternoon, having sifted our luggage to the minimum and armed ourselves cap-à-pie against every vicissitude of weather, we bade our friends at the hotel good-bye (not forgetting the bell-boy), drove to the station, and got aboard a train, which presently rolled away southwards. It was very full--the third-class crowded with soldiers in khaki bound for the camp on the Curragh of Kildare, and our own compartment jammed with a variety of people. In one corner, a white-haired priest mumbled his breviary and watched the crowd with absent eyes, while across from him a loud-voiced woman, evidently, from her big hat and cheap finery, just home from America, was trying to overawe the friends who had gone to Dublin to meet her by an exhibition of sham gentility. In the seat with us was a plump and comfortable woman of middle age, with whom we soon got into talk about everything from children to Home Rule. What she had to say about Home Rule was interesting. Her home was somewhere down in the Vale of Tipperary, and I judged from her appearance that she was the wife of a well-to-do farmer. She was most emphatically not a Nationalist. "It isn't them who own land, or who are buyin' a little farm under the purchase act that want Home Rule," she said. "No, no; them ones would be glad to let well enough alone. 'Tis the labourers, the farm-hands, the ditch-diggers, and such-like people, who have nothin' to lose, that shout the loudest for it. They would like a bit of land themselves, and they fancy that under Home Rule they'll be gettin' it; but where is it to come from, I'd like to know, unless off of them that has it now; and who would be trustin' the likes of them to pay for it? Ah, 'tis foolish to think of! Besides, if everybody owned land, where would we be gettin' labour to work it? No, no; 'tis time to stop, I say, and there be many who think like me." "What wages does a labourer make?" I asked. "From ten to twelve shillin's a week." "All the year round?" "There's no work in winter, so how can one be payin' wages then?" "But how can they live on that?" "They can't live on it," she said fiercely; "many of them ones couldn't live at all, if it wasn't for the money that's sent them from America. But what can the farmers do? If they pay higher wages, they ruin themselves. Most of them have give up in disgust and turned their land into grass." "What do the labourers do then?" I asked. "They move away some'rs else--to America if they can." "Perhaps Home Rule will make things better," I suggested. "How, I'd like to know? By raisin' taxes? That same is the first thing will happen! No, no; the solid men hereabouts don't want Home Rule--they're afraid of it; but they know well enough they must keep their tongues in their mouths, except with each other. The world's goin' crazy--that's what I think." Now I look back on it, that conversation seems to me to sum up pretty well the situation in rural Ireland--the small farmer, handicapped by poverty and primitive methods, ground down in the markets of the world, and in turn grinding down the labourers beneath him, or turning his farm into grass, so that there is no work at all except for a few shepherds. And I believe it is true that, as a whole, only the upper class and the lower class of Irishmen really want Home Rule--the upper class from motives of patriotism, the lower class from hope of betterment; while the middle class is either lukewarm or opposed to it at heart. The middle class is, of course, always and everywhere, the conservative class, the class which fears change most and is the last to consent to it; in Ireland, it is composed largely of small farmers, who have dragged themselves a step above the peasantry and who are just finding their feet under the land purchase act, and I think their liveliest fear is that a Home Rule Parliament will somehow compel them to pay living wages to their labourers. I can only say that I hope it will! Outside, meanwhile, rural Ireland was unfolding itself under our eyes, varied, beautiful--and sad. The first part of it we had already traversed on our excursion to Clondalkin; beyond that village, the road emerged from the hills encircling Dublin, and soon we could see their beautiful rounded masses far to the left, forming a charming background to meadows whose greenness no words can describe. Every foot of the ground is historic; for first the train passes Celbridge where Swift's "Vanessa" dwelt, and just beyond is Lyons Hill, where Daniel O'Connell shot and killed a Dublin merchant named D'Esterre in a duel a hundred years ago--an affair, it should be added, in which D'Esterre was the aggressor; and presently the line crosses a broad and beautiful undulating down, the Curragh of Kildare, where St. Brigid pastured her flocks, and it was made in this wise: One time, when Brigid, who was but a poor serving-girl, being the daughter of a bond-woman, was minding her cow, with no place to feed it but the side of the road, the rich man who owned the land for leagues around came by, and saw her and her cow, and a pity for her sprang into his heart. "How much land would it take to give grass to the cow?" said he. "No more than my cloak would cover," said she. "I will give that," said the rich man. "Glory be to God!" said Brigid, and she took off her cloak and laid it on the ground, and she had no sooner done so than it began to grow, until it spread miles and miles on every side. But just then a silly old woman came by, bad cess to her, and she opened her foolish mouth and she said, "If that cloak keeps on spreading, all Ireland will be free." And with that the cloak stopped and spread no more; but the rich man was true to his word, and Brigid held the land which it covered during all her lifetime, and it has been a famous grazing-ground ever since, though the creatures are crowded off part of it now by a great military camp. Beyond the Curragh, the train rumbles over a wide bog, which trembles uneasily beneath it, and the black turf-cuttings stretch away as far as the eye can see; and then the Hill of Allen looms up against the horizon, where the Kings of Leinster dwelt in the old days, and the fields grow greener than ever, but for miles and miles there is not a single house. And this is the sad part of it; for this fertile land, as rich as any in the world, supports only flocks and herds, instead of the men and women and children who once peopled it. They have all been driven away, by eviction, by famine, by the hard necessity of finding work; for there is no work here except for a few herdsmen, and has not been for half a century. For when the landlords found--or fancied they found--there was more money in grazing than in agriculture, they turned the people out and the sheep and cattle in--and the sheep and cattle are still there. But the landscape grows ever lovelier and more lovely. Away on either hand, high ranges of hills spring into being, closing in the Golden Vale of Tipperary, and one realises it was a true vision of the place of his birth that Denis McCarthy had when he wrote his lilting verses in praise of it: Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the springtime of the year, When the hawthorn's whiter than the snow, When the feathered folk assemble and the air is all a-tremble With their singing and their winging to and fro; When queenly Slievenamon puts her verdant vesture on And smiles to hear the news the breezes bring; When the sun begins to glance on the rivulets that dance-- Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the spring! Slievenamon is not in sight from the train--we shall see it to-morrow from the Rock of Cashel; but just ahead is a rugged hill with a singular, half-moon depression at the summit, for all the world as though some one had taken a great bite out of it--and that is precisely what happened, for once upon a time the Prince of Darkness passed that way, and when he came to the hill, being pressed with hunger, he took a bite out of the top of it; but it was not to his taste, so he spat it out again, and it fell some miles away across the valley, where it lies to this day, and is called the Rock of Cashel, while the hill is known as the Devil's Bit. And then we came to Thurles--and to earth. Now Thurles--the word is pronounced in two syllables, as though it were spelled Thurless--is a small town and has only two inns. We knew nothing of either, so we asked the advice of a bluff, farmer-looking man in our compartment, who was native to the place. He declined, at first, to express an opinion, saying it would ill become him to exalt one inn at the expense of the other, since the keepers of both were friends of his; but after some moments of cogitation, he said that he would recommend one of them, since it was kept by a poor widow woman. I confess this did not seem to me a convincing reason for going there; but our new-found friend took charge of us, and, having seen us safely to the platform, called loudly for "Jimmy," and an old man presently shambled forward, to whose care, with many wishes for a pleasant journey, we were committed. The old man proved to be the driver of a very ramshackle omnibus, in which we were presently rumbling along a wide and dreary street. The hotel, when we got to it, proved bare and cheerless, with every corner crowded with cots. The landlady explained that the great horse-fair opened in a day or two, and that she was preparing for the crowds which always attended it; but finally she found a room for us away up in the attic, and left us alone with a candle. The weather had turned very cold, and we were tired and uncomfortable, and even our electric torch could not make the room look otherwise than dingy; and I think, for a moment, we regretted that we had come to Ireland--and then, presto! change. . . . For there came a knock at the door, and a soft-voiced maid entered with towels and hot water, and asked if there wasn't something else she could do for us; and then another came, to see if there was anything _she_ could do, and between them they lapped us in such a warmth of Irish welcome that we were soon aglow. I left them blarneying Betty and went down to the shining little bar, where I smoked a pipe in company with two or three habitués and the barmaid, and had a most improving talk about the state of the country. They were as hungry to hear about America as I was to hear about Ireland, and it was very late before I mounted the stairs again. All through the night, we were awakened at intervals by the tramping and neighing of the horses arriving for the fair. CHAPTER VII HOLY CROSS AND CASHEL OF THE KINGS IF one doesn't like bacon and eggs, one must go without breakfast in Ireland, unless one likes fish, or is content with bread and butter. Every evening Betty would have a colloquy with the maid, which ran something like this: "What will ye be wantin' for breakfast, miss?" "What can we have?" "Oh, anything ye like, miss." "Well, what, for instance?" "There's bacon and eggs, miss, and there's fish." We usually took bacon and eggs, for fish seemed out of place on the breakfast-table. Besides, we were sure to encounter it later at dinner. "And will ye have coffee or tay, miss?" the maid would continue. We took coffee once, and after that we took tea. The tea is good, though strong, and it seems somehow to suit the climate; but one sip of Irish coffee will be enough for most people. So next morning we sat down to our breakfast of tea and bacon and eggs with a good appetite. The cloth was not as clean as it might have been, but the eggs were fresh and the bacon sweet, and the bread and butter were delicious--as they are all over Ireland--and the tea tasted better than I had ever imagined tea could taste, and outside the sun was shining brightly, but no brighter than the face of the maid who waited on us, and there was a pleasant stir of movement up and down the street, for it was Saturday and market-day, so that it was quite impossible to be otherwise than happy and content. And presently the car I had arranged for the night before drove up, and we were off on the four-mile drive to the ruins of Holy Cross Abbey. We had to go slowly, at first, for the street was crowded with people come to market, and with the wares exposed for sale. There were little carts heaped high with brown turf, which might be bought for two or three shillings a load, though every load represented as many days' hard work; there were red calves in little pens, and chickens in crates, and eggs and butter in baskets; and there were a lot of pedlars offering all sorts of dry-goods and hardware and odds and ends to the country-people who stood stolidly around, apparently rather sorry they had come. The faces were typically Irish--the men with short noses and shaved lips and little fuzzy side-whiskers, and the women with cheeks almost startlingly ruddy; but there wasn't a trace of those rollicking spirits which the Irish in books and on the stage seldom fail to display. Once clear of the crowd, we rolled out of the town, over a bridge above the railway, and along a pleasant road, past little thatched cottages overflowing with children; meeting, from time to time, a family driving to town, all crowded together on a little cart behind a shaggy donkey, the men with their feet hanging down, the women scrooched up under their shawls, with their knees as high as their chins. They all stared at us curiously; but our driver passed them by with disdain, as not worth his notice, and from a word or two he let fall, it was evident that he considered them beneath him. The road was rather higher than the surrounding country, and we could see across it, north and south, for many miles; then it descended to a winding stream, the Suir, flowing gently between rushy banks, and presently we saw ahead a great pile of crumbling buildings--and then we were at Holy Cross, one of the most exquisite and interesting of the hundreds of ruins which cover Ireland. That word "hundreds" is no exaggeration. In a single day's journey, one will see scores; and as one goes on thus, day after day, one begins to realise what a populous and wealthy country Ireland was eight hundred years ago, how crowded with castles and monasteries; and I think the deepest impression the traveller bears away with him is the memory of these battered and deserted remnants of former grandeur. And yet it is not quite just to blame England for them, as most of the Irish do. It was the English, of course, who broke up the monasteries and destroyed many of the castles; but the march of the centuries would probably have wrought much the same ruin in the end; for men no longer live in castles, finding homes far pleasanter; and it is not now to monks they go for learning, nor is the right of sanctuary needed as it was in the time when might made right, and a poor man's only hope of safety lay in getting to some altar ahead of his pursuers. Yet one cannot tread these beautiful places without a certain sadness and regret--regret for the vanished pomp and ceremony, the cowled processions and torch-lit feasts, the shuffle of feet and the songs of minstrels--in a word, for the old order, so impressive, so picturesque--and so cruel! [Illustration: HOLY CROSS ABBEY, FROM THE CLOISTERS] [Illustration: THE MIGHTY RUINS ON THE ROCK OF CASHEL] Holy Cross was a great place in those days, for, as its name indicates, it held as its most precious relic a fragment of the True Cross, given by the Pope, in 1110, to Donough O'Brien, grandson of Brian Boru, and thousands of pilgrims came to pray before it. The relic had many strange vicissitudes, in the centuries that followed, but it was not lost, as was the one which the Cross of Cong enshrined, and it is preserved to-day in the Ursuline convent at Blackrock. Holy Cross had better luck than most, for, at the dissolution in 1563, it was granted to the Earl of Ormonde, a friend who cherished it. But the end came with the passing of the Stuarts, and now it is deserted save for the old woman who acts as caretaker, and who lives in a little ivy-covered house built against the wall of the great church. She opened the iron gate which bars access to the ruins, and let us wander about them at will, for which we were grateful. The plan of the place is that common to almost all monastic establishments: a cruciform church, with the altar at the east end, as nearest Jerusalem, the arms of the cross, or transepts, stretching north and south, and the body of the cross, or nave, extending to the west, where the main entrance was; a door from the nave opened to the south into a court around which were the cloisters and the domestic buildings--the refectory, the chapter-house and the dormitories; and still beyond these were the granaries and storehouses and guest-houses and various out-buildings. Also, like most others, it stands on the bank of a river, for the monks were fond of fishing,--and had no mind to go hungry on Friday! The roof of the church has fallen in, but it is otherwise well-preserved, even to the window-tracery; and the square tower above the crossing is apparently as firm as ever. The whole place abounds in beautiful detail, proof of the loving workmanship that was lavished on it; but its bright particular gem is a little sanctum in the north transept, surrounded by delicate twisted pillars and covered by a roof beautifully groined. Whether this was the sanctuary of the relic, or the place where the monks were laid from death to burial, or the tomb of some saintly Abbot, no one knows; but there it is, a living testimony to the beauty of Irish artistry. The cloister is now a grass-grown court, and only a few arches remain of the colonnade which once surrounded it; but the square of domestic buildings about it is better preserved than one will find almost anywhere else, and deserves careful exploration. As was the custom in most of the abbeys, the friars, when they died, were laid to rest beneath the flags of the church floor; the church is still used as a burial place, and is cluttered with graves, marked by stones leaning at every angle. One's feet sink deep into the mould--a mould composed, so the caretaker told us in awestruck voice, of human dust. We mounted the narrow staircase to the tower roof and sat there for a long time, gazing down on these lichened and crumbling walls, restoring them in imagination and repeopling them with the White Brothers and the pilgrims and the innumerable hangers-on who once crowded them. It required no great stretch of fancy to conjure the old days back--that day, for instance, three centuries and more ago, when Red Hugh O'Donnell, marching southward from Galway with his army to join the Spaniards at Kinsale, came down yonder white highway, and stopped at the monastery gate, and invoked a blessing from the Abbot. And the Abbot, with all the monks in attendance, carried the fragment of the Cross in its gilded shrine out to the gate, and held it up for all to see, and Red Hugh and his men knelt down there in the road, while the priest prayed that through them Ireland might win freedom. And even as they knelt, a wild-eyed rapparee came pounding up with the news that a great force of English was at Cashel, a few miles away; so Red Hugh had to flee with his men over the hills to the westward, to die a year later, poisoned by a man he thought his friend. We descended after a time, and crossed the river to have a look at the Abbey from that vantage-ground; and at last, most regretfully, we mounted the car again and drove back to Thurles. An hour later, we were at Cashel--the one place in all Ireland best worth seeing. I write that in all earnestness. If the traveller has time for only one excursion out of Dublin, he should hesitate not an instant, but go to Cashel. I shall try to tell why. Cashel is a rock some three hundred feet high dropped down among the pastures along the northern edge of the Golden Vale of Tipperary. I do not know how the geologists explain it. How the Irish explain it I have told already. Its sides are of the steepest, and its flat top is about two acres in extent. In itself it is a natural fortress, and it was of course seized upon as such by the dim people who fought back and forth over the length and breadth of Ireland in the far ages before history begins. At first it was strengthened by a wall around the top. Any such defensive wall in Ireland is called a cashel, as one of earth is called a rath, and there are both raths and cashels all up and down the land, for forts have always been sorely needed there; but this is the Cashel above all others. Buildings were put up inside the wall, rude at first, but gradually growing more elaborate, and when the real history of the place begins, say about fifteen centuries ago, it was already the seat of the Kings of Munster, that is of the southern half of Ireland. Hither about 450 came St. Patrick to convert the King and his household; it was while preaching here that he is said first to have plucked the trefoil or shamrock to illustrate the principle of the Three-in-One; Brian Boru strengthened its fortifications; and in 1134 was consecrated here that wonderful chapel of Cormac McCarthy, King of Munster, which still endures as a most convincing demonstration of the beauty of old Irish architecture. Then a round tower was put up, and then a castle, and then a great cathedral, for King Murtough had granted the Rock to "the religious of Ireland," and the Archbishop of Cashel came, before long, to be nearly as powerful as the great Archbishop of Armagh; and then a monastery was built, and schools, under the sway first of the Benedictines and later of the Cistercians. All this made a stupendous group of buildings, a splendid and impressive symbol of Cashel's greatness. [Illustration: © Underwood & Underwood, N.Y. CASHEL OF THE KINGS] But under Elizabeth, the scale turned. Dermot O'Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel, was taken prisoner and carried to Dublin and hanged. His successor, Milar Magrath, abjured his religion, under Elizabethan pressure, and to prove the sincerity of his Protestantism, married not once, but twice. From that time on, the place was used as a Protestant cathedral, until, in 1744, Archbishop Price succeeded to the see. Now the Archbishop was a man who loved his ease, and though his palace was situated conveniently enough at the foot of the Rock, his church was perched most inconveniently upon it, and the only way even an archbishop could get to it was to walk. Price spent a lot of money trying to build a carriage road up the Rock, but finally he gave it up and procured from Parliament an act decreeing that, whereas, "in several dioceses, cathedral churches are so incommodiously situated that they cannot be resorted to for divine service," power should be given the chief governor, with assent of the privy council, to "remove the site of a cathedral church to some convenient parish church." Two years later, in 1749, an act was passed directing that the cathedral be removed from the Rock into the town. This was, of course, impossible in any but a metaphorical sense; but, incredible as it may seem, since he couldn't remove it, Price determined to destroy it, secured from the government the loan of a regiment of soldiers, and set them to work tearing it down. They stripped off the leaden roof, knocked in the vaulting, and left the place the ruin that it is to-day. It might be remarked, in passing, that here is one ruin "Crummell" didn't make. George II was King of England in 1749, and Cromwell had been dead nearly a hundred years. I shall never forget my first glimpse of this stupendous pile of buildings, looming high in air, all turrets and towers, like those fairy palaces which Maxfield Parrish loves to paint. A short branch runs from Goold's Cross to Cashel, and it was from the windows of the rickety little train we peered, first on this side and then on that--and then, quite suddenly, away to the left, we saw the Rock, golden-grey, high against the sky, so fairy-like and ethereal that it seemed impossible it could be anything more than a wonderful vision or mirage. And then the train stopped, and we jumped out, and hurried from the station, and presently we were following the path around the Rock. But that was too slow, and with a simultaneous impulse we left the path and climbed the wall, and hastened upward over rock and heather, straight toward this new marvel. We skirted another wall, and climbed a stile--and then we were stopped by a high iron gate, secured with a chain and formidable padlock. But we had scarcely time to feel the shock of disappointment, when we saw hastening upward toward us a sturdy old man, with weather-beaten face framed by a shock of reddish-grey hair and beard, and a moment later we had the pleasure of meeting John Minogue, the caretaker--the most accomplished caretaker, I venture to say, in all the length and breadth of Ireland. For, as we soon found, he has the history and legends and architectural peculiarities of Cashel at his tongue's end--he knows them intimately, accurately, in every detail, for he has lived with them all his life and loves them. He unlocked the iron gate and ushered us in, and chased away the rabble of ragged children who had followed him up from the village; and then began one of the most delightful experiences that I have ever had. I almost despair of attempting to describe it. At our feet lay the Vale of Tipperary--an expanse of greenest green stretching unbroken to the foot of a great mountain-chain, the Galtees, thirty miles away. Farther to the north, we could just discern the gap of the Devil's Bit, beyond which lay Limerick and the Shannon. And then we walked to the other side of the Rock, and there, away in the distance, towered the great bulk of "queenly Slievenamon," the Mountain of Fair Women, and as we stood there gazing at it, John Minogue told us how it got its name. It was in the days when Cormac son of Art was King of Erin, and Finn son of Cumhal, Finn the Fair, he of the High Deeds,--whose name I shall spell hereafter as it is pronounced, Finn MacCool--had been declared by birthright and by swordright Captain of that invincible brotherhood of fighting-men, the Fianna. Finn was past his youth, and had a comely son, Ossian the sweet singer; but at times his spirit hung heavy on him, for his wife was dead, and no man has peaceful slumber who is without a fitting mate. So he looked about for one to share his bed, but found it hard to choose, for there were many fine women in Erin; and at last in his perplexity he sat himself down on the summit of Slievenamon, and said that all who wished might run a race from the bottom to the top, and she who won should be his wife. So it was done, and the race was won by Gráinne, daughter of the great Cormac himself. The feast was set for a fortnight later, in the king's hall at Tara--and what happened there we shall hear later on. We might have been standing yet upon the Rock, gazing out across that marvellous valley, if John Minogue had not dragged us away to see the wonders of the place. Not the least of them is the weather-beaten stone cross, with the crucifixion on one side and an effigy of St. Patrick on the other, which stands just outside the castle entrance, on the rude pedestal where the Kings of Munster were crowned in the old, old days. Here it was, perhaps, that St. Patrick himself stood when he stooped to pluck the trefoil, and that King �ngus was baptised. Legend has it that, as he was performing that ceremony, the Saint, without knowing it, drove the spiked end of his crozier through the King's foot. �ngus said never a word, nor made complaint, thinking it part of the rite; but when the Saint went to take up his crozier and saw what he had done, he blessed the King and promised that none of that royal stock should die of wounds forever. Perhaps the promise was not "forever," for, five centuries later, Brian Boru, the greatest of them all, was killed in battle at Clontarf, as I have told. But the greatest wonder of all at Cashel is the jewel of a chapel built by Cormac and standing as firm to-day as when its stones were laid, eight centuries ago. It nestles in between the choir and south transept of the later cathedral, and its entrance is the most magnificent doorway of its kind existing anywhere on this earth. It is round-headed, as in all Irish Romanesque, with five deep mouldings rich in dog-tooth and lozenge ornamentation, and though it is battered and weather-worn, it is still most beautiful and impressive. Inside, the chapel is divided into nave and chancel, both very small, but decorated with a richness and massiveness almost oppressive--twisted columns, arcaded walls, dog-tooth mouldings, rounded arches, traceried surfaces, sculptured capitals, and I know not what beside. Facing the choir is a stone sarcophagus, beautifully ornamented with characteristic Celtic serpent work, as may be seen in the photograph. It is called "King Cormac's Coffin." It was in the small apartment over the nave and under the steep stone roof that Cormac was struck down by an assassin, as he knelt in prayer. It was something of a relief to get out into the high, roofless cathedral, where one feels at liberty to draw a deep breath. The cathedral is rich with sculptures, too; but I shall not attempt to describe them. I can only hope that it may be your fortune to visit the place, some day, and have John Minogue to take you round. But, let me warn you, he does not waste himself on the unsympathetic. While we stood admiring the sculptures of St. Patrick and St. Brigid and eleven of the apostles, in the north transept (the sculptor omitted St. Matthew for some unknown reason; or perhaps our guide told me why and I have forgotten); as we stood there gazing in delight at these inimitable figures, a party of four or five entered the church, and stood staring vacantly about. "See here, Mr. Minogue," I said, after a time, "we can amuse ourselves for a while, if you'd like to look after those other people." Minogue shot one glance at them. "No," he said; "they're not worth it. Now come--I must show you the round tower." A beauty the tower is, with walls four feet thick, built of great blocks of stone, and a little round-headed doorway, twelve feet above the ground. It stands eighty-five feet high, and is wonderfully preserved; but when we looked up it from the inside, we saw that the old masons did not succeed in getting it quite true. * * * * * It was an hour later--or perhaps two hours later--that we emerged again from the iron gate, and found the rabble of children still waiting. They closed in on us at once, murmuring something in a queer half-mumble, half-whisper, of which we could not understand a word. "What is it they're saying?" we asked. "They're saying," explained Minogue, "that if your honour will toss a penny amongst them, they will fight for it; or, if you'd rather, they will put up a prayer for you, so that you will get safe home again. They don't consider that begging, you see, since they offer some return for the money." And then, as they hustled us more closely, he turned and shouted something at them--some magic incantation, I fancy, for they scurried away as though the devil was after them. I regretted, afterwards, that I had not asked him for the formula--but in the end, we found one of our own, as you shall hear. Our guide insisted that we go down with him to his house and see his books, and write our names in his album, and have a cup of tea. He lived in an ivy-covered cottage, just under the Rock, and his old wife came out to welcome us; and we sat and talked and wrote our names and looked at his books--one had been given him by Stephen Gwynne, and others by other writers whose names I have forgotten; but the treasure of his library was a huge volume, carefully wrapped against possible soiling, which, when unwrapped, proved to be a copy of Arthur Champneys' "Irish Ecclesiastical Architecture," and with gleaming face our host turned to the preface and showed us where Champneys acknowledged his indebtedness for much valuable assistance to John Minogue, of the Rock of Cashel. We bade him good-bye, at last, and made our way down through the quaint little town, which snuggles against one side of the Rock--a town of narrow, crooked streets, and thatched houses, and friendly women leaning over their half-doors, and multitudinous children; but the most vivid memory I have of it, is of the pleasant tang of turf smoke in the air. And presently we came out again upon the road leading to the station. From the top of the Rock we had seen, in the middle of a field not far away, a ruin which seemed very extensive, and Minogue told us that it was Hore Abbey, a Cistercian monastery built about 1272, but had added that it was scarcely worth visiting after Cashel. That was perhaps true--few ruins can compare with Cashel--but when we saw the grey bulk of the old abbey looming above the wall at our left, we decided to get to it, if we could. It required some resolution, for the way thither lay across a very wet and muddy pasture, with grass knee-high in places, and Betty would probably have declined to venture but for the assurance that there are no snakes in Ireland. The nearer we got to the ruin, the worse the going grew, but we finally scrambled inside over a broken wall, and sat down on a block of fallen masonry to look about us. The mist, which had been thickening for the last half hour, had, almost imperceptibly, turned to rain, and this was mizzling softly down, shrouding everything as with a pearly veil, and adding a beauty and sense of mystery to the place which it may have lacked at other times. But it seemed to us singularly impressive, with its narrow lancet windows, and plain, square pillars. Such vaulting as remains, at the crossing and in the chapels, is very simple, and the whole church was evidently built with a dignity and severity of detail which modern builders might well imitate. It seems a shame that it is not kept in better order and a decent approach built to it; but I suppose the Board of Works, whose duty it is to care for Irish ruins, finds itself overburdened with the multiplicity of them. We sat there absorbing the centuries-old atmosphere, until a glance at my watch told me that we must hurry if we would catch our train. We _did_ hurry, though with many a backward glance, for one is reluctant to leave a beautiful place which one may never see again; but we caught the train, and the last glimpse we had of Cashel was as of some gigantic magic palace, suspended in air and shrouded in mist. CHAPTER VIII ADVENTURES AT BLARNEY IT was getting on toward evening when we caught our train on the main line at Goold's Cross. The storm had swept southward, and the hills there were masked with rain, but the Golden Vale had emerged from its baptism more lush, more green, more dazzling than ever. We left it behind, at last, plunged into a wood of lofty and magnificent trees, and paused at Limerick Junction, with its great echoing train-shed and wide network of tracks and switches. Beyond the Junction, one gets from the train a splendid view of the picturesque Galtees, the highest mountains in the south of Ireland, fissured and gullied and folded into deep ravines in the most romantic way. The train had been comparatively empty thus far, and we had rejoiced in a compartment to ourselves; but as we drew into the station at Charleville, we were astonished to see a perfect mob of people crowding the platform, with more coming up every minute. The instant the train stopped, the mob snatched open the doors and swept into it like a tidal wave. When the riot subsided a bit, we found that four men and two girls were crowded in with us, and the corridor outside was jammed with people standing up. We asked the cause of the excitement, and were told that there had been a race-meeting at Charleville, which had attracted a great crowd from all over the south-eastern part of Ireland, especially from Cork, thirty-five miles away. Our companions soon got to chaffing each other, and it developed that all of them, even the two girls, had been betting on the races, and I inferred that they had all lost every cent they had. It was assumed, as a matter of course, that nobody would go to a race-meeting without putting something on the horses; it was also assumed that every normal man and woman would make almost any sacrifice to get to a meeting; and there was a lively discussion as to possible ways and means of attending another meeting which was to be held somewhere in the neighbourhood the following week. And finally, it was apparent that everybody present had contemplated the world through the bottom of a glass more than once that day. As I looked at them and listened to them, I began to understand the cause of at least a portion of Irish poverty. It was a good-humoured crowd, in spite of its reverses, and when a girl with a tambourine piped up a song, she was loudly encouraged to go on and even managed to collect a few pennies, found unexpectedly in odd pockets. Then one of the men in our compartment told a story; I have forgotten what it was about, but it was received uproariously; and then everybody talked at once as loud as possible, and the clatter was deafening. We were glad when we got to Cork. * * * * * Cork is superficially a sort of smaller Dublin. It has one handsome thoroughfare, approached by a handsome bridge, and the rest of the town is composed for the most part of dirty lanes between ugly houses. In Dublin, the principal street and bridge are dedicated to O'Connell; in Cork both bridge and street are named after St. Patrick--that is about the only difference, except that Cork lacks that atmosphere of charm and culture which makes Dublin so attractive. We took a stroll about the streets, that Saturday night after dinner, and found them thronged with people, as at Dublin; but here there was a large admixture of English soldiers and sailors, come up from Queenstown to celebrate. Many of them had girls on their arms, and those who had not were evidently hoping to have, and the impression one got was that Cork suffers a good deal from the evils of a garrison town. There is a tradition that the girls of Cork are unusually lovely; but I fear it is only a tradition. Or perhaps the lovely ones stay at home on Saturday night. Sunday dawned clear and bright, and as soon as we had breakfasted, we set out for the most famous spot in the vicinity of Cork, and perhaps in all Ireland, Blarney Castle. Undoubtedly the one Irish tradition which is known everywhere is that of the blarney stone; "blarney" itself has passed into the language as a noun, an adjective, and a verb; and the old tower of which the stone is a part has been pictured so often that its appearance is probably better known than that of any other ruin in Europe. Blarney is about five miles from Cork, and the easiest way of getting there is by the light railway, which runs close beside a pretty stream, in which, this bright morning, many fishermen were trying their luck. And at last, high above the trees, we saw the rugged keep which is all that is left of the old castle. Almost at once the train stopped at the station, which is just outside the entrance to the castle grounds. [Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE] "The Groves of Blarney" are still charming, though they have changed greatly since the day when Richard Milliken wrote his famous song in praise of them. There were grottoes and beds of flowers, and terraces and rustic bowers there then, and statues of heathen gods and nymphs so fair all standing naked in the open air; but misfortune overtook the castle's owner and The muses shed a tear when the cruel auctioneer, With his hammer in his hand, to sweet Blarney came. So the statues vanished, together with the grottoes and the terraces; but the sweet silent brook still ripples through the grounds, and its banks are covered with daisies and buttercups, and guarded by giant beeches. Very lovely it is, so that one loiters to watch the dancing water, even with Blarney Castle close at hand. Approached thus, the massive donjon tower, set on a cliff and looming a hundred and twenty feet into the air, is most impressive. To the left is a lower and more ornamental fragment of the old castle, which, in its day, was the strongest in all Munster. Cormac McCarthy built it in the fifteenth century as a defence against the English, and it was held by the Irish until Cromwell's army besieged and captured it. Around the top of the tower is a series of machicolations, or openings between supporting corbels, through which the besieged, in the old days, could drop stones and pour molten lead and red-hot ashes and such-like things down upon the assailants, and it is in the sill of one of these openings that the famous Blarney stone is fixed. Legend has it that, once upon a time, in the spring of the year when the waters were running high, Cormac McCarthy was returning home through the blackness of the night, and when he put his horse at the last ford, he thought for a moment he would be swept away, so swift and deep was the current. But his horse managed to keep its feet, and just as it was scrambling out upon the farther bank, McCarthy heard a scream from the darkness behind him, and then a woman's voice crying for help. So he dashed back into the stream, and after a fearful struggle, dragged the woman to safety. In the dim light, McCarthy could see only that she was old and withered; but her eyes gleamed like a cat's when she looked at him; and she called down blessings upon him for his courage, and bade him, when he got home, go out upon the battlement and kiss a certain stone, whose location she described to him. Thereupon she vanished, and so McCarthy knew it was a witch he had rescued. Next morning, he went out upon the battlement and found the stone and kissed it, and thereafter was endowed with an eloquence so sweet and persuasive that no man or woman could resist it. Such is the legend, and it may have had its origin in the soft, delutherin speeches with which Dermot McCarthy put off the English, when they called upon him to surrender his castle. Certain it is that it was fixed finally and firmly in the popular mind by the stanza which Father Prout added to Milliken's song: There is a stone there, that whoever kisses Oh! he never misses to grow eloquent. 'Tis he may clamber to a lady's chamber, Or become a member of Parliament. A clever spouter he'll sure turn out, or An out and outer, to be let alone; Don't hope to hinder him, or to bewilder him, Sure he's a pilgrim from the Blarney Stone. And ever since then, troops of pilgrims have thronged to Blarney to kiss the stone. The top of the tower is reached by a narrow staircase which goes round and round in the thickness of the wall, with narrow loopholes of windows here and there looking out upon the beautiful country, and a door at every level giving access to the great, square interior. The floors have all fallen in and there is only the blue sky for roof, but the graceful old fireplaces still remain and some traces of ornamentation, and the ancient walls, eighteen feet thick in places, and with mortar as hard as the rock, are wonderful to see; and finally you come out upon the battlemented parapet, with miles and miles of Ireland at your feet. But it wasn't to gaze at the view we had come to Blarney Castle, it was to kiss the stone, and we went at once to look for it. It was easy enough to find, for, on top of the battlement above it, a row of tall iron spikes has been set, and the stone itself is tied into the wall by iron braces, for one of Cromwell's cannon-balls almost dislodged it, and it is worn and polished by the application of thousands of lips. But to kiss it--well, that is another story! For the sill of which the stone forms a part is some two feet lower than the level of the walk around the parapet, and, to get to it, there is a horrid open space some three feet wide to span, and below that open space is a sheer drop of a hundred and twenty feet to the ground below. When one looks down through it, all that one can see are the waving tree-tops far, far beneath. There is just one way to accomplish the feat, and that is to lie down on your back, while somebody grasps your ankles, and then permit yourself to be shoved backward and downward across the abyss until your mouth is underneath the sill. Betty and I looked at the stone and at the yawning chasm and then at each other; and then we went away and sat down in a corner of the battlement to think it over. We had supposed that there would be some experienced guides on hand, anxious to earn sixpence by assisting at the rite, as there had been at St. Kevin's bed; but the tower was deserted, save for ourselves. "Well," said Betty, at last, "there's one thing certain--I'm not going away from here until I've kissed that stone. I'd be ashamed to go home without kissing it." "So would I," I agreed; "but I'd prefer that to hanging head downward over that abyss. Anyway, I won't take the responsibility of holding you by the heels while you do it. Perhaps some one will come up, after awhile, to help." So we looked at the scenery and talked of various things; but all either of us thought about was kissing the stone, and we touched on it incidentally now and then, and then shied away from it, and pretended to think of something else. Presently we heard voices on the stair, and a man and two women emerged on the parapet. We waited, but they didn't approach the stone, they just looked around at the landscape; and finally Betty inquired casually if they were going to kiss the Blarney stone. "Kiss the Blarney stone?" echoed the man, who was an Englishman. "I should think not! It's altogether too risky!" "But it seems a shame to go away without kissing it," Betty protested. "Yes, it does," the other agreed; "but I was here once before, and I fought that all out then. It's really just a silly old legend, you know--nobody believes it!" Now to my mind silly old legends are far more worthy of belief than most things, but it would be folly to say so to an Englishman. So the conversation dropped, and presently he and his companions went away, and Betty and I sat down again and renewed our conversation. And then again we heard voices, and this time it was two American women, well along in years. They asked us if we knew which was the Blarney stone, and we hastened to point it out to them, and explained the process of kissing it. There were postcards illustrating the process on sale at the entrance, and we had studied them attentively before we came in, so that we knew the theory of it quite well. "We were just sitting here trying to screw up courage to do it," Betty added. The newcomers looked at the stone, and then at the abyss. "Well, _I'll_ never do it!" they exclaimed simultaneously, and they contented themselves with throwing a kiss at it; and then _they_ went away, and Betty and I, both rather pale around the gills, continued to talk of ships and shoes and sealing-wax. But I saw in her eyes that somehow or other she was going to kiss the stone. And then a tall, thin man came up the stair, and _he_ asked us where the stone was, and we showed him, and he looked at it, and then he glanced down into the intervening gulf, and drew back with a shudder. "Not for me," he said. "Not--for--me!" "We've come all the way from America," said Betty, "and we simply _can't_ go away until we've kissed it." "Well, _I've_ come all the way from New Zealand, madam," said the man, "but I wouldn't think for a minute of risking my life like that." "It used to be a good deal more dangerous than it is now," I pointed out, as much for my own benefit as for his. "They used to take people by the ankles and hold them upside down outside the battlement. I suppose they dropped somebody over, for those spikes were put there along the top to stop it. If the people who hold your legs are steady, there really isn't any danger now." The New Zealander took another peep over into space. "No sirree!" he said. "No sir--ree!" But he didn't go away. Instead, he sat down and began to talk; and I fancied I could see in his eyes some such uneasy purpose as I saw in Betty's. And then a boy of twelve or fourteen came up. He was evidently native to the neighbourhood, and I asked him if he had ever kissed the stone. "I have, sir, many a time," he said. "Would you mind doing it again, so that we can see just how it is done?" He readily consented, and lay down on his back with his head and shoulders over the gulf, and the New Zealander took one leg and I took the other. Then the boy reached his hands above his head and grasped the iron bars which ran down inside the battlement to hold the stone in place. "Now, push me down," he said. My heart was in my mouth as we pushed him down, for it seemed an awful distance, though I knew we couldn't drop him because he wasn't very heavy; and then we heard a resounding smack. "All right," he called. "Pull me up." We pulled him up, and in an instant he was on his feet. "That's all there is to it," he said, and sauntered off. "Hm-m-m!" grunted the New Zealander, and sat down again. I gazed at the landscape for a minute or two, my hands deep in my pockets. When I turned around, Betty had her hat and coat off, and was spreading her raincoat on the parapet opposite the stone. "What are you going to do?" I demanded sternly. She sat down on the raincoat with her back to the abyss. "Come on, you two, and hold me," she commanded. I suppose I might have refused, but I didn't. The truth is, I wanted her to kiss the stone as badly as she wanted to; so I knelt on one side of her and the New Zealander knelt on the other, and we each grasped an ankle. She groped for the iron bars, found them after an instant, and drew herself toward them. "Now, push me down," she said. We did; and as soon as we heard the smack, we hauled her up again, her face aglow with triumph. It took her some minutes to get her hair fixed, for most of the hair-pins had fallen out. When she looked up, she saw that I had taken off my coat. "What are you going to do?" she demanded, in much the same tone that I had used. "I'm going to kiss that stone," I said. "Do you suppose I'd go away now, without kissing it? Why, I'd never hear the last of it! Get hold of my legs," and I sat down, keeping my eyes carefully averted from the hundred-and-twenty-foot drop. "Oh, but look here," she protested, "I don't know whether I'm strong enough to hold you." "Yes, you are," I said, making sure that there was nothing in my trousers' pockets to fall out. "Now, then!" Just then four or five Irish girls came out upon the tower, and Betty, stricken with the fear of losing me, asked them if they wouldn't help, and they said they would; so, with one man and four women holding on to my legs, I let myself over backwards. One doesn't realise how much two feet is, till one tries to take it backwards; it seemed to me that I was hanging in midair by my heels, so I kissed a stone hastily and started to come up. "That wasn't it," protested one of the girls who had been watching me; "you've got to go farther down." So they pushed me farther down, and I saw the smooth, worn stone right before my eyes. "Is this it?" I asked. "Yes," she said; so I kissed it, and in a moment was right side up again; and I don't know when I have felt prouder. And then the New Zealander, his face grim and set, began to take things out of his trousers' pockets. "If you people will hold me," he said, "I'll do it too." So we held him, and _he_ did it. Then he and I offered to hold the Irish girls, but they refused, giggling, and as there was nothing more to do on top of that tower, we went down again, treading as if on air, more elated than I can say. That sense of elation endures to this day, and I would earnestly advise every one who visits Blarney Castle to kiss the stone. I am not aware that I am any more eloquent than I ever was, and Betty never had any real need to kiss it, but to go to Blarney without doing so is--well, is like going to Paris without seeing the Louvre, or to the Louvre without seeing the Winged Victory and the Venus of Milo. Really, there isn't any danger, if you have two people of average strength holding you; and there isn't even any very great sense of danger, since your back is to the abyss and you can't see it. My advice is to do it at once, as soon as you get to the top of the tower, without stopping to think about it too long. After that, with a serene mind, you can look at the view, which is very, very lovely, and explore the ruin, which is one of the most interesting and noteworthy in Ireland. * * * * * We sat down on a bench just outside the castle entrance to rest after our exertions. There was a young man and woman on the bench, and in about a minute we were talking together. It turned out that they were members of Alexander Marsh's company, then touring Ireland in classical repertoire, and would open in Cork in "The Three Musketeers" the following evening. I had never heard of Alexander Marsh, but they both pronounced his name with such awe and reverence that I fancied he must be a second Irving, and I said at once that we should have to see the play. We went on to talk about that high-hearted story, which I love; and I noticed a growing embarrassment in our companions. "See here," said the man at last, "you know the book so well and think so much of it, that I'm afraid the play will disappoint you. For one thing, we can't put on Richelieu. The play makes rather a fool of him, and the Catholics over here would get angry in a minute if we made a fool of a Cardinal, even on the stage. So we have to call him Roquefort, and leave out the Cardinal altogether, which, of course, spoils the whole point of the plot. It's a pity, too, because his robes are gorgeous. Of course it doesn't make so much difference to people who haven't read the book--and mighty few over here have; but I'm afraid you wouldn't like it." I was afraid so, too; so we promised we wouldn't come. And then they went on to tell us about themselves. They were married, it seemed, and were full of enthusiasms and ideals, and they spoke with that beautiful accent so common on the English stage; and he had been to New York once, and for some reason had fared pretty badly there; but he hoped to get to America again. He didn't say why, but I inferred it was because in America he could earn a decent salary, which was probably impossible in the Irish provinces. We left them after a while, and wandered through what is left of the groves of Blarney, and visited the caves in the cliffs under the castle, at one time used for dungeons, into which the McCarthys thrust such of their enemies as they could capture. And then we explored the charming little river which runs along under the cliff, and walked on to Blarney Lake, a pretty bit of water, with more than its share of traditions: for, at a certain season of the year, a herd of white cows rises from its bosom and feeds along its banks, and it is the home of a red trout which will not rise to the fly, and it was into this lake that the last of the McCarthys cast his great chest of plate, when his castle was declared forfeited to the English, and his spirit keeps guard every night along the shore, and the secret of its whereabouts will never be revealed until a McCarthy is again Lord of Blarney. We walked back to the entrance, at last, and had a most delicious tea on the veranda of a clean tea-shop there, with gay little stone-chatters hopping about our feet, picking up the crumbs; and then we loitered about the quaint little village, and visited the church, set in the midst of a pretty park, and wandered along a road under lofty trees, and were wholly, completely, riotously happy. We had kissed the Blarney Stone! CHAPTER IX CUSHLA MA CHREE IT was very evident, as we went back to Cork, that the people who live there do not regard it as an earthly paradise, for it seemed as though the whole population of the place was out in the fields. We had seen the same thing at Dublin the Sunday before--every open space near the city crowded with men and women and children; from which I infer that the Irish have sense enough--or perhaps it is an instinct--to get out of their slums and into the fresh, clean air whenever they have a chance. And the way they lie about in the moist grass on the damp ground is another proof of the amenity of the Irish climate. When we got back to the town, we decided we could spend an hour very pleasantly driving about and seeing the place; and, since the day was fine, we voted for an outside car. Be it known, there are two varieties of car in Cork: one the common or garden variety, the outside car, and the other a sort of anti-type called an inside car. The difference is that, in an outside car you sit on the inside, that is in the middle with your feet hanging over the wheel, while in an inside car you sit on the outside, that is over the wheel with your feet hanging down in the middle. Also the inside car has a top over it and side-curtains which can be let down in wet weather. I hope this is clear, for I do not know how to make it clearer without a diagram. Both inside and outside cars are rather more ramshackle in Cork than anywhere else in Ireland. The legal rate for a car in Cork is one shilling sixpence per hour, and I decided in advance that, come what might, come what may, I would not pay more than twice the legal rate for the use of one. So when we got off the train at the Cork terminus, I passed under review the cars standing in the street in front of it, while each individual jarvey, seeing I was interested, stood up in his seat and bellowed at the top of his voice. Finally I picked out the least disreputable one and looked the jarvey in the eye. "We want to drive around for an hour or two," I said. "How much will you charge an hour?" "Jump right up, sir," he cried, and wheeled his car in front of me with a flourish. "You'll have to answer my question first." "'Twill be only five shillings an hour, sir." I passed on to the next driver, who had been listening to this colloquy with absorbed interest. His price was four shillings. So I passed on to the third. His price was three shillings. I suppose if I had passed once again, the price would have been two shillings; but three shillings was within my limit, so we mounted into our places and were off. I fear, however, that that phrase, "we were off," gives a wrong idea of our exit. We did not whirl up the street, with our horse curvetting proudly and the jarvey clinging to the reins. No, nothing like that. The horse trotted--I convinced myself of this, from time to time, by looking at him--but he was one of those up-and-down trotters, that come down in almost exactly the same place from which they go up. The jarvey encouraged him from time to time by touching him gently with the whip, but the horse never varied his gait, except that, whenever he came to a grade, he walked. Sometimes we would catch up with a pedestrian sauntering in the same direction, and then it was quite exciting to see how we worked our way past him, inch by inch. This mode of progression had one advantage: it was not necessary to stop anywhere to examine architectural details or absorb local atmosphere. We had plenty of time to do that as we passed. In fact, in some of the slum streets, we absorbed rather more of the atmosphere than we cared for. Cork is an ancient place, built for the most part on an island in the River Lee. St. Fin Barre started it in the seventh century by founding a monastery on the island; the Danes sailed up the river, some centuries later, and captured it; and then the Anglo-Normans took it from the Danes and managed to keep it by ceaseless vigilance. The Irish peril was so imminent, that the English had to bar the gates not only at night, but whenever they went to church or to their meals, and no stranger was suffered inside the walls until he had checked his sword and dagger and other lethal weapons with the gate-keeper. But the Irish have always had a way with them; and what they couldn't accomplish by force of arms, they did by blarney;--or maybe it was the girls who did it! At any rate, at the end of a few generations Cork was about the Irishest town in Ireland, and levied its own taxes and made its own laws and even set up its own mint, and when the English Parliament attempted to interfere, invited it to mind its own business. The climax came when that picturesque impostor, Perkin Warbeck, landed in the town, was hailed as a son of the Duke of Clarence and the rightful King of England by the mayor, and provided with new clothes and a purse of gold by the citizens, together with a force for the invasion of England. The result of which was that the mayor lost his head and the city its charter. Cork is a tragic word in Irish ears not because of this ancient history, but because of the dreadful scenes enacted here in the wake of the great famine of 1847. It was here that thousands and thousands of famished, hopeless, half-crazed men and women said good-bye to Ireland forever and embarked for the New World. Hundreds more, unable to win farther, lay down in the streets and died, and every road leading into the town was hedged with unburied bodies. That ghastly torrent of emigration has kept up ever since, though it reached its flood some twenty years ago, and is by no means so ghastly as it was. Yet every train that comes into the town bears its quota of rough-clad people, mere boys and girls most of them, with wet eyes and set faces, and behind it, all through the west and south, it leaves a wake of sobs and wails and bitter weeping. Cork possesses nothing of antiquarian interest. The old churches have all been swept away. The oldest one still standing dates only from 1722, and is worth a visit not because of itself, but because of some verses written about its bells by a poet who lies buried in its churchyard. St. Anne Shandon, with its tall, parti-coloured tower surmounted by its fish-weathervane, stands on a hill to the north of the Lee. The tower contains a peal of eight bells, and it was their music which furnished inspiration for Father Prout's pleasant lines: With deep affection and recollection I often think of the Shandon bells, Whose sounds so wild would, in the days of childhood, Fling round my cradle their magic spells. On this I ponder where'er I wander, And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee,-- With thy bells of Shandon, that sound so grand on The pleasant waters of the River Lee. Of course we wanted to see St. Anne Shandon and to hear the bells, so, with some difficulty, we persuaded our driver to put his horse at the ascent. The streets rising up that hill are all slums, with little lanes more slummy still ambling away in various directions; and all of them were full of people, that afternoon, who hailed our advent as an unexpected addition to the pleasures and excitements of the day, and followed along, inspecting us curiously, and commenting frankly upon the details of our attire. The impression we made was, I think, on the whole, favourable, but there is a certain novelty in hearing yourself discussed as impersonally as if you were a statue, and after the first embarrassment, we rather enjoyed it. At last we reached the church, and stopped there in the shadow of the tower until the chimes rang. They are very sweet and melodious, and fully deserve Father Prout's rhapsody. The wife of the inspector we met at Glendalough had told Betty of a convent at Cork where girls were taught lace-making, and had given her the names of two nuns, either of whom, she was sure, would be glad to show us the school. It is in the convents that most of the lace-making in Ireland is taught nowadays, and of course we wanted to see one of the schools, so Monday morning we sallied forth in search of this one. We found it without difficulty--a great barrack of a building opening upon a court. Both nuns were there, and I do not remember ever having received anywhere a warmer welcome. Certainly we might see the lace-makers, and Sister Catherine took us in charge at once, explaining on the way that there were not as many girls at work as usual that morning, because one of their number had been married the day before, and the whole crowd had stayed up very late celebrating the great event. And then she led us into a room where about twenty girls were bending over their work. They all arose as we entered, and then I sat down and watched them, while Sister Catherine took Betty about from one girl to the next, and explained the kind of lace each was making. Some of it was Carrickmacross, of which, it seems, there are two varieties, appliqué and guipure; and some of it was needle-point, that aristocrat of laces of which one sees so much in Belgium; and some of it was Limerick, and there were other kinds whose names I have forgotten, but all of it was beautifully done. The designing is the work of Sister Catherine, and, while I am very far from being a connoisseur, some of the pieces she afterwards showed us were very lovely indeed. Then we were asked if we wouldn't like to hear the girls sing, and of course we said we would, so one of them, at a nod from the Sister, got to her feet and very gravely and earnestly sang John Philpot Curran's tender verses, "Cushla ma Chree," which is Irish for "Darling of My Heart": Dear Erin, how sweetly thy green bosom rises! An emerald set in the ring of the sea! Each blade of thy meadows my faithful heart prizes, Thou queen of the west! the world's cushla ma chree! Thy gates open wide to the poor and the stranger-- There smiles hospitality hearty and free; Thy friendship is seen in the moment of danger, And the wanderer is welcomed with cushla ma chree. Thy sons they are brave; but, the battle once over, In brotherly peace with their foes they agree; And the roseate cheeks of thy daughters discover The soul-speaking blush that says cushla ma chree. Then flourish forever, my dear native Erin, While sadly I wander an exile from thee; And, firm as thy mountains, no injury fearing, May heaven defend its own cushla ma chree! It is a very characteristic Irish poem of the sentimental sort, and it has been set to a soft and plaintive air also characteristically Irish, and it took on a beauty which the lines by themselves do not possess as we heard it sung that morning, with the girls, bending to their work, joining in the chorus. Then we were shown over the convent, and finally taken to the parlour, where Sister Bonaventura joined us, and where we had a very pleasant talk. The convent's chief treasure is the great parchment volume in which its history is noted from day to day. How far back it goes I have forgotten, but I think to the very founding of the institution, and it is illuminated throughout very beautifully, while the lettering is superb. The great events in the life of every nun are recorded here, and those events are three: when she became a novice, when she took the final vows, and when she died. Those are the only events that concern the community, except that sometimes when death followed a painful and lingering illness, it was noted how cheerfully the pain was borne. Occasionally some delicate woman found the hard life more than she could endure, and then she was permitted to put aside her robes and go back into the world. I spent half an hour looking through the book, and Sister Bonaventura showed me the record of her own entry into the convent. It was in the year in which I was born, and I shivered a little at the thought that, during all the long time I had been growing to boyhood and manhood and middle age, she had been immured here in this convent at Cork; during all the years that I had been reading and writing and talking with men and women and knocking about the world, she had been doing over and over again her little round of daily duties; but when I looked at her bright brave face and quiet eyes, and listened to her calm sweet voice, I wondered if, after all, she hadn't got farther than I! It would be a mistake, however, to think of these nuns--or of any I ever met--as pious, strait-laced, lachrymose creatures. They were quite the reverse of that; they were fairly bubbling over with good humour and with big-hearted blarney. Some one had given them a victrola, and it was evidently the supreme delight of their lives. "We can't go to the opera," they said; "but the opera comes to us. We have a concert nearly every evening, and it's sorry we are when the bell rings and we have to go to bed." They showed us their austere little chapel, after that, and introduced us to the Mother Superior, a very delicate, placid, transparent woman of more than eighty, who reminded me of the sister of Bishop Myriel; and I am sure they were sorry when we had to say good-bye. * * * * * We went down to Monkstown by rail, that afternoon, to see Queenstown harbour. The line runs close to the river, passing Passage, whose charms have been celebrated by Father Prout, and finally reaching Monkstown, on the heights above which stands the famous, four-square castle which cost its owner only fourpence. The story goes that, in 1636, John Archdeckan marched away to the war in Flanders, and his wife determined to surprise him, on his return, by presenting him with a stately castle. So she gathered a great number of builders together and gave them the job on the condition that they would buy all their food and drink and clothing from her. When the castle was done, she balanced her accounts and found that she had expended fourpence more than she had received. At Monkstown, we took a boat and ferried across the harbour, past many grey men-of-war which lay at anchor there. Very beautiful it is, with the high, green-clad hills pressing about it on all sides, and shrouding the entrance so completely that one might fancy oneself in a landlocked lake. Queenstown is built on the side of one of these hills, and is dominated by the great, white cathedral, which has been building for fifty years, and is not yet finished. It is a curious coincidence that the two ports of Ireland by which most visitors enter and leave it should be named after two people whom the Irish have little reason to love. In 1821, when George IV embarked at the port of Dunleary, just below Dublin, he "graciously gave permission" that its name might be changed to Kingstown in honour of the event. In 1849, Queen Victoria paid one of her very few visits to Ireland, and sailed into the Cove of Cork. As she herself wrote, "To give the people the satisfaction of calling the place Queenstown, in honour of its being the first spot on which I set foot on Irish ground, I stepped on shore amidst the roar of cannon and the enthusiastic shouts of the people." Forty years later, when the Irish had come to realise that the Queen had no interest in them, they had the dignity and good sense to put aside the servility to which they have sometimes been too prone, and to refuse to take part in the celebration of her Jubilee. But Queenstown is still Queenstown. The town consists of a single long street of public houses and emigrant hotels and steamship offices facing the water, and some steep lanes running back up over the hill, and the day we were there, it was crowded with emigrants, Swedes and Norwegians mostly, who had been brought ashore from the stranded _Haverford_, and who spent their time wandering aimlessly up and down, trying to find out what was going to happen to them. There were many sailors and marines knocking about the grog-shops, as well as the crowd of navvies and longshoremen always to be found lounging about a water-front. This water-front is one great landing-stage, and it is here that perhaps a million Irish men and women have stepped forever off of Irish soil. We climbed up the hill presently to the cathedral, which owes not a little of its impressiveness to its superb site. Its exterior is handsome and imposing--good Gothic, though perhaps a trifle too florid for the purest taste; but the effect of the interior is ruined by the absurd columns of the nave, made of dark marble, and so slender that the heavy structure of white stone above them seems to be hanging in the air. * * * * * We had hoped to go by rail to Youghal and take steamer up the Blackwater to Cappoquin, and from there drive over to the Trappist monastery at Mt. Melleray; but we found that the steamer did not start until the fifteenth of June, so most regretfully that excursion had to be abandoned. Those who have made it tell me it is a very beautiful one. Cloyne is also perhaps worth visiting; but we were tired of Cork and hungering for Killarney, and so decided to turn our faces westward next day. CHAPTER X THE SHRINE OF ST. FIN BARRE THERE are two ways of getting from Cork to Killarney, one by the so-called "Prince of Wales Route," because the late King Edward went that way in 1858, and the other by way of Macroom. Both routes converge at Glengarriff and are identical beyond that, and as the best scenery along the route is between Glengarriff and Killarney, I don't think it really matters much which route is chosen. The "Prince of Wales Route" is by rail to Bantry, and then either by boat or coach to Glengarriff, which is only a few miles away. The other route is to Macroom by rail, and from there there is a very fine ride by coach of nearly forty miles to Glengarriff. We chose the Macroom route because of the longer coach ride and because it touches Gougane Barra, the famous retreat of St. Fin Barre. I think, on the whole, it is the more picturesque of the two routes; but either is vastly preferable to the all-rail route. Indeed, the visitor to Killarney who misses the run from Glengarriff, misses some of the most beautiful and impressive scenery in all Ireland. * * * * * It was shortly after nine o'clock that our train pulled out of the station at Cork, and at first the line ran between small, well-tilled fields, each with its cosy cottage. The whole country-side had an air of content and passable well-being; every wall was gay with the yellow gorse, and in the fields the green of potato and turnip was just beginning to show above the dark earth of the ridges in which they were planted. These ridged fields, which we were to see so often afterwards in the west of Ireland, tell of a ground so soaked with moisture that it must be carefully and thoroughly drained before anything will grow in it. The ridges, which run with the slope of the land, are usually about eighteen inches wide, and are separated by ditches a foot wide and a foot deep to carry off the excess moisture. There is always a trickle of water at the bottom of these ditches, and the task of keeping them open and free from weeds is a never-ending one. Presently on a high rock away to the left, appeared the tower which is all that is left of the old stronghold of the Barretts, and farther on are the green-clad ruins of Kilcrea Abbey, and near by is another great keep marking an old castle of the McCarthys. And then the train skirts the wild bog of Kilcrea, and then there are more ruins, and still more; and at last the train stops at its terminus, Macroom. The motor-coach was awaiting us, and we were relieved to find that, so far from being crowded, there was only one other couple, Americans like ourselves, to make the trip. The season had opened only the day before, and, after we got started, the driver confided to us that this was the first time he had ever been over the road. Even if he hadn't told us, we should soon have had every reason to suspect it. The road follows the valley of the Lee, which is not here the single clear and shining stream which we saw above Cork, but is broken into a score of channels between islands covered with low-growing brush--a sort of morass, of a strange and weird appearance. Here and there an ivied ruin towers above the trees, for this was the country of the O'Learys and these are the strongholds they built to defend it against the aggressions of their neighbours; and then we rattled down the street of a little village, and the driver brought the coach to a stop before the door of an inn, told us that this was Inchigeelagh and that there would be ten minutes for refreshments, and then disappeared in the direction of the bar. I suppose he got his refreshments for nothing, as a reward for stopping there. At least I can think of no other reason for stopping, since Inchigeelagh is only half an hour from Macroom, unless it was to give the nerves of the passengers a chance to quiet down a little. For we had already begun to realise that our driver was a speed-maniac. He had struck a hair-raising gait from the start, had sent the lumbering bus down grades and around turns at a rate that was decidedly disconcerting, and while there had been no especial danger except to the people we met--for the road was bordered by high earthen walls--the rattle and jar of the solid tires had been enough to make the teeth chatter. So we were glad when the racket stopped, and we could get down and stroll about a little; and we soon found that Inchigeelagh is a very quaint village. We walked down to the bridge over the Lee, and looked at Lough Allua stretching away to the west; and then we stopped at a tumbledown cottage to talk to an old woman who was leaning over her half-door; and she invited us in and asked us to sit down. It was my first glimpse of the interior of an Irish cottage of the poorer class, and it opened my eyes to the cruel lot of the people--and there are many, many thousands of them--who are compelled to live in such surroundings. There was just one room, perhaps eight feet by fifteen, lighted by two little windows about eighteen inches square, one on either side the door. The doorway was just high enough to enter without stooping, and ran from the ground right up to the eaves. The floor was of clay, and the walls inside had been daubed with mud to fill up the cracks and then whitewashed, but the damp had flaked the whitewash off in great leprous-looking blotches. The ceiling was formed by some rough boards laid on top of the joists overhead, so low that one feared to stand upright, and I suppose the dark space under the thatch was used as a sleeping-room, for there was a ladder leading to it, and I saw nothing in the room below which looked like a bed. There may have been a bed there, however, which, being new to rural Ireland, I did not recognise as such. At one end of the room was an open fireplace in which a few blocks of turf smoked and flared, with that pungent odour which we had already come to like, but which, at such close quarters, was a little over-powering. A black and battered pot hung on a crane above the fire, and some sort of mess was bubbling in it--potatoes I suppose. There was a rude table, and two or three chairs, and all sorts of rags and debris hung against the walls and piled in the corners, and a few dishes in a rough home-made dresser, and an old brush-broom, and some boxes and a lot of other indescribable trash. Three or four bedraggled chickens were wandering in and out, and I glanced around for the pig. But there was no pig--this family was far too poor to own one. It seemed impossible that a human being could live for any length of time in a place so bare of comfort, and I looked at the old woman, who had sat down across from us, and wondered how she managed to survive. I suspect she was not half so old as her wrinkled face and sunken eyes and shrivelled hands indicated. She lived there with her husband, she said, and had for many years. He was a labourer, and, in good times, could earn ten shillings a week; but most of the time it was impossible to find any work at all. She had no relatives in America to turn to, and neither she nor her husband was old enough to get a pension, so that it was a hard struggle to keep out of the workhouse. But they _had_ kept out thus far, glory be to God, though the struggle was growing harder every year, for they were getting older and their rheumatism was getting worse, and neither of them could work as they once could. All this was said quite simply, in a manner not complaining, but resigned, as if accepting the inevitable. Her philosophy of life seemed to be that, since Fate had chosen to set herself and her husband in the midst of circumstances so hard, there was nothing to do but struggle on as long as possible, with the certainty of coming to the workhouse in the end. No doubt they would be far more comfortable in the workhouse than they had ever been outside of it, and yet they had that horror of it which is common to all Irish men and women. The horror, I think, is not so much at the abstract idea of receiving charity as at the public stigma which the workhouse gives. The Irish have been eager enough to draw their old age pensions, and many of them, who shrink from the workhouse as from a foul disgrace, do not hesitate to beg a few pennies from the passing stranger. [Illustration: A COTTAGE AT INCHIGEELAGH] [Illustration: THE SHRINE OF ST. FIN BARRE] The old woman at Inchigeelagh, however, did not beg, nor intimate in any way that she desired or expected money, but she did not refuse the coin I slipped into her hand, after I had taken the picture of her and of her cottage, which you will find opposite this page. Perhaps she would have liked to do so, but the little coin represented a measure of potatoes or of turnips, and so a little less hunger, a little more strength. How many of us, I wonder, would be too proud to beg if we could find no work to do, and our backs were bare and our stomachs empty? The tooting of the horn warned us that our bus was ready to go on again, and we were soon skirting the shore of Lough Allua, with picturesque mountains closing in ahead. And then our driver crossed the bridge over the Lee, and made a wrong turning, and didn't know it until somebody shouted at him and set him right; and this small misadventure seemed completely to wreck his self-control, so that, when he got back to the main road, he rushed along in a manner more terrifying than ever. The fearful racket heralded our approach, else there must have been more than one bad accident; and I can yet see wild-eyed men leaping from their seats and springing frantically to their horses' heads, while the white-faced women seated in the carts peered out at us under their shawls as we brushed past, and no doubt sent a malediction after us. Geese, chickens and pigs scurried wildly in every direction, and that we did not leave the road strewn with their dead bodies was little less than a miracle. The road ran between high hedges, so that we could see only a little way ahead, and we got to watching the curves with a sort of fascination, for it seemed certain that we _must_ run into something at the next one. We had been mounting gradually all this time, often up gradients so steep that they kept the driver busy with his gears, and the view had gradually widened and grown in impressiveness. Then we turned off a narrow road at the right, and I thought for a moment our driver had gone wrong again. "We're going to Gougane Barra," he explained, seeing my look, for I sat on the seat beside him, and in a few minutes we were skirting a narrow lough, hemmed in, on the north, by a range of precipitous mountains, with gullied sides patched with grey granite and dark heather, as bare and desolate as a mountain could be. There is an inn by the lake shore, and the bus stopped in front of it. The driver showed us with a gesture the little island containing the shrine of St. Fin Barre, and then hastened away into the inn. We four started for the island, and presently we heard heavy steps behind us, and an animated scarecrow armed with a big stick came running up and shouted something in an incomprehensible tongue, and waved the stick above his head, and proceeded to lead the way. He was evidently the guide, so we followed him along the border of the lake, and across the narrow strip of land which now connects the island with the shore, and all the time our guide was talking in the most earnest way, but not a word could any of us understand. It sounded remotely like English, and he evidently understood English, for when we asked him to repeat some particularly emphatic bit, he would do so with added emphasis, but quite in vain. I shall never forget how earnestly he would look in our faces, raising his voice as though we were deaf, and pointing with his stick, and gesturing with his other hand, in the effort to make us understand. We persuaded him to go and sit down, after awhile, and then we had a chance really to look about us. There is something indescribably savage and threatening about that dark sheet of water, shadowed by gloomy cliffs, bare of vegetation, and torn into deep gullies by the cataracts which leap down them. Through the hills to the east, the water from the lake has carved itself a narrow outlet, and the stream which rushes away through this gorge is the beginning of the River Lee. No place so grand and desolate would be without its legend, and this is Gougane Barra's: When the blessed Saint Patrick gathered together all the snakes in Ireland and drove them over the mountains and into the western sea, there was one hideous monster which he overlooked, so well had it concealed itself in this mountain-circled tarn. It was a winged dragon, and it kept very quiet until the Saint was dead, for fear of what might happen; but, once Patrick was gathered to his fathers, the dragon fancied it might do as it pleased. So it issued forth, all the more savage for its years of retirement, and started to lay waste the country. The frightened people appealed to their saints to help them, and among those who put up prayers was a holy man named Fineen Barre, who had a hermitage on an island in the lake, and so knew the dragon well. And the saints in heaven looked down and saw the distress of the poor people and pitied them, and they told Fineen Barre that they would give him power to slay the dragon on one condition, and that condition was that he should build a church on the spot where the waters of the lake met the tide of the sea. Fineen accepted the condition gladly, and went out and met the monster and slew it and threw its body into the lake, and its black blood darkens the water to this day. And when that was done, he set off down the river, and at the spot where its waters met the tide, he built his church, and the city of Cork grew up about it. And then in place of the church, he built a great cathedral, and when he died his body was placed in a silver coffin and buried before its high altar. Then the city was plundered by the Danes, who dug up the coffin and carried it away, and what became of the Saint's bones no one knows. But the little island where he first lived has been a holy place from that day to this, and on the anniversary of his death, which comes in September, crowds of pilgrims journey here to say their prayers before the thirteen stations set apart by tradition, and to bless themselves with water from the Saint's well. The well is just at the entrance to the island, and its water is supposed to possess miraculous power. Our voluble but ununderstandable guide invited us by urgent gestures to test its efficacy, but the water looked scummy and dirty, and we declined. A few steps farther on is a small, stone-roofed chapel, built in the likeness of Cormac's chapel on the Rock of Cashel, and in it services are held during the days of pilgrimage to the shrine. There are also some remains of an old chapel, supposed to have been Saint Fin Barre's own; but by far the most interesting thing on the island is the stone enclosure within which the pilgrims say their prayers. The enclosure, which is surrounded by a heavy wall of stones laid loosely on each other, after the ancient Irish fashion, is about thirty feet square, and its level is some feet below that of the ground outside, so that one goes down into it by a short flight of steps. In the centre of the enclosure a plain wooden cross stands on a platform of five steps. On the flagstone at its foot is an inscription telling in detail how the "rounds" are to be performed on the vigil and forenoon of St. Fin Barre's feast-day. In the enclosing wall, which is fourteen feet thick in places, under heavy arches, are eight cells, which may be used as places of retreat by those undergoing penance. The Stations of the Cross are set in the upper portion of the wall, but are ugly modern plaster-casts. I took a picture of the place, which will be found opposite page 144, and which gives a fairly good idea of it. In the middle of a scrubby grove, a little way from the enclosure, is a wishing-stone, which had evidently been much used, I hope to good purpose, for the stone itself was covered with trinkets and the bushes round about were hung thickly with rags and hairpins and rosaries and other tokens. I picked up somewhere, perhaps from the jargon of the guide, that this wishing-stone is the altar of Fin Barre's old chapel, but I haven't been able to verify this, and it may not be so; but the game is to put up a prayer to the Saint, and make your wish, and leave some token to show you are in earnest, and the wish will surely come true. Of course we made a wish and added some half-pennies to the collection on the altar. In turning over the trinkets already deposited there, we were amused to find two bright Lincoln cents. On the shore just opposite the island is a little cemetery held in great repute because of the holy men who are buried there. For the island has been the home of a succession of hermits from the time St. Fin Barre left it to build his church at Cork, and there are many legends of their saintly lives and wonderful deeds. When they died, they were buried in the cemetery, where there is also a cross to the memory of Jeremiah Callanan, a poet native to the neighbourhood, who celebrated the shrine in some pretty verses beginning: There is a green island in lone Gougane Barra, Where Allua of songs rushes forth as an arrow; In deep-valleyed Desmond--a thousand wild fountains Come down to that lake, from their home in the mountains. But the wild honking of the horn told us it was time to go; our guide realised this, too, and was back at our heels more voluble and inarticulate than ever; not too inarticulate, however, to sell a knobby shillelagh to our companions and to accept with thanks the pennies I dropped into his hand. He tried to stay, hat in hand, until we departed, but the strain was too much for him, and after a moment he made off for the bar of the inn. Our chauffeur was evidently vexed that we had lingered so long at the shrine of the Saint, for he hurtled us down the rough by-road at a great rate, whirled into the smoother highway on two wheels, and then opened his throttle wide and pushed up his spark and let her rip. The road mounted steadily, with the view to the south opening more and more, and a rugged range of hills ahead coming closer and closer, until they lay flung right across the road, and then we swept around a sharp turn and entered the Pass of Keimaneigh. The guide-books assert that no pass in Europe exceeds it in grandeur, but this is a gross exaggeration--it is not nearly so fine, for instance, as the Pass of Llanberis; and yet it is wild and savage and very beautiful--a deep gorge cut right through the mountains by a glacier, which has left the marks of its passage on the rocks on either side. There is just room between the craggy precipices for a narrow road and the rugged channel of the rushing stream which drains the mountains. The pass is most picturesque near its eastern end, for there the cliffs are steepest, and the overhanging crags assume their most fantastic shapes. In every nook and cranny of the rocks ferns and heather and wild-flowers have found a foothold, the feathery plumes of London-pride being especially noticeable. Here in Ireland it is called St. Patrick's Cabbage, and no doubt there is a legend connecting the Saint with it, but I have never happened to run across it. As we plunged deeper into the pass, the walls on either side closed in more and more, great boulders dislodged from the heights above crowded the road so closely that more than once it was forced to turn aside to avoid them; the greenery of fern and colour of flower gave place to the sober hue of the heather and the dark green of the bog-myrtle; and then we were suddenly conscious that the stream by the roadside, which had been flowing back toward Cork, was flowing forward toward Bantry Bay, and we knew that we had reached the summit of the watershed dividing east from west. And then the hills fell back, and there, far below us, stretched a great rugged valley, with a tiny river wandering through, and white threads of roads curving here and there, and Lilliputian houses scattered among the fields. The car paused for an instant on the edge of this abyss and then plunged into it. At least, that was the sensation it gave its passengers. I do not know that I have ever travelled a steeper road, or one which wound more threateningly near the unguarded edges of precipices--certainly not in a heavy motor-bus hurtling along at thirty miles an hour. Perhaps the brakes were not holding, or perhaps the driver had had a drink too much; at any rate, we bounced from rock to rock and spun around sharp turns, only a foot or two from the edge of the road, which there was absolutely nothing to guard and which dropped sheer for hundreds of feet. But at last the more hair-raising of these turns were left behind, the road straightened out along the side of the hill, and then, far ahead, we saw opening out below us the blue waters and craggy shores of Bantry Bay. Down and down we dropped, with new vistas opening every minute, until we were running close beside the border of the bay, and for ten miles we followed its convolutions. Then we swung away between high hedges, and Betty nearly fell out of the bus--for the hedges were of fuchsias, ten feet high and heavy with scarlet flowers! That was the crowning delight of that wonderful drive. We ran between high rows of fuchsias for perhaps half a mile; then we turned through a gate into beautiful grounds; and a moment later we were climbing out in front of the hotel at Glengarriff--half an hour ahead of schedule time! CHAPTER XI A TRIP THROUGH WONDERLAND YOU may well believe that, with such variegated loveliness all about us, we did not linger in the hotel a moment longer than was necessary, but made a hasty tea and sallied forth to explore the neighbourhood. First of all, Betty must pick some fuchsias, so we went back to the road, and climbed over a wall into a field surrounded by high hedges of the gorgeous flower. It was a new experience for Betty to reach up overhead and break off great branches which were simply masses of scarlet bells, until she had her arms full, and I suspect she went a little wobbly over it; but she was to have the same experience many times thereafter, for the fuchsia grows in great profusion throughout southern and western Ireland. I saw but one variety, however, the flower of which has a dark blue trumpet and scarlet bell, but this is perhaps the most showy of all, and nothing could be more gorgeous than a hedge in full bloom. In the woods, or in gardens where they are left untrimmed, the bushes will grow into veritable trees, twenty-five or thirty feet high. We went back to the hotel, when Betty had gathered all she could carry, and she sent the flowers up to our room by a maid who laughed sympathetically--I fancy she had seen such attacks of madness more than once before--and then we started along a winding path which led through the woods down to the shore of the bay. And we soon found that fuchsias were not the only things which grow to giant proportions here, for the path was hedged with ferns four or five feet high--great, lordly fellows, standing stiffly upright as though on parade. Ferns were everywhere, even on the trees overhead, for the trees are padded with moss, and in this the ferns have found a foothold. And there were holly trees still scarlet with last year's berries, and hawthorn fragrant with bloom; and over everything the English ivy ran riot--rather in the same fashion, I thought as I looked at it, in which England herself has run riot over Ireland. We got down to the shore of the bay, at last, and I quite agree with Thackeray that it is a world's wonder, with its rock-strewn shore and emerald islands and pellucid water, framed in, all about, by rugged mountains. We wandered along its edge, gay with sea-pinks, for an hour or more, and then spent another hour loitering in the woods, and finally walked on, between the flaming hedges and fern-draped trees, to the little village, which we could smell, long before we came to it, by the tang of peat-smoke in the air. It is a mere huddle of low, thatched houses, and I judge that, even amid these gorgeous surroundings, life can be as hard and sordid as anywhere in Ireland. A little distance from the village was a pretty, two-storied villa, covered with roses and climbing vines, and with a large garden beside it, blazing with a great variety of gorgeous bloom. We stopped to look at it over the gate, and the gardener espied us and came hurrying forward to ask us in to see the flowers. And one of the plants he showed us most proudly was a single, sickly-looking stalk of Indian corn, about a foot high, growing in a pot. When we told him that, in the state we came from, Indian corn filled thousands and thousands of acres every summer, and grew from eight to ten feet high, he looked as though he scarcely believed us. But that little stalk of corn brought home to me, as perhaps nothing else could have done, the fact that my own particular corner of the earth is divinely favoured, too, in ways unknown even to Glengarriff. * * * * * I had a most improving conversation, that night, in the smoking-room of the hotel, with a Catholic priest and a salesman for the British Petroleum Company. The priest, who must have been at least sixty-five, had the typical long, thin Irish face, and was intensely Nationalist. The salesman was younger and rather rubicund, and I judge that he was an Englishman and a Unionist. It was the priest who did most of the talking about Home Rule, after I got him started, and he protested earnestly that Ulster's fears of unfair treatment were utterly unfounded. The Catholics, he said, didn't want supremacy; all they wanted was equality, but they _did_ want that, and felt they were entitled to it. England, he admitted, had made great strides within the past ten years toward atoning for her old injustice to Ireland, and was evidently trying hard to do what was right. "Yes," broke in the salesman; "she's going altogether too far. What with old age pensions and the purchase act and poor relief and railway building and putting up labourers' houses and what not, she's spending twice as much on this country as she gets out of it. It won't do; it has got to stop." "I don't believe England spends more on Ireland than she gets out of us," said the priest quickly. "Here it is in black and white," and the other triumphantly slapped the paper he had been reading. "Imperial expenditures for Ireland, 1912-13, £12,381,500; received from Ireland, £10,850,000; deficit, £1,531,500--that would be about seven and a half million dollars," he added, for my benefit. "Over a million and a half pounds sterling that England has made Ireland a present of in the past year! What do you think of that?" and he turned back to the priest. "The figures may be true," said the latter, slowly, "and then again they may not. I have been told that England burdens Ireland with many expenditures which don't belong to us. But in any event, I agree with you that charity does us no good--it does us harm. We don't want charity." "Hm-m-m!" grunted the salesman sceptically. "I'll admit," went on the other, "that there are and always have been many Irishmen only too eager to take alms--more shame to them. There have always been many ready to sell themselves for a good position under government, and to sell their country too, if need be. We have our share of patriots, but we have more than our share of traitors, I sometimes think. But it isn't by them the country should be judged. What true Irishmen want is the right to stand alone like men and fight their own battles, and in fighting them, the north and south will forget their foolish quarrel and become friends again as they should be. They aren't half as far apart, even now, as some would have you believe. Most of this talk about Ulster is the black work of men who make their living out of it, who care nothing for Ireland, and take advantage of every little by-election to stir the fire and keep the pot bubbling." I remarked that this ceaseless agitation over elections was unknown in America, where all the elections were held on one day, after which there were no more elections for a year. The priest stared at me in astonishment. "Did I understand you to say," he asked, "that the elections all over your country are held on the same day?" "Yes," I said; "on a day early in November, fixed by law." "I don't see how you manage it." "It isn't hard to manage--it's really very simple." "But where do you get enough police?" "Enough police?" "Yes. Here in Ireland, when we have an election, we have to send in the police from all the country round to keep the peace. If we tried to have all our elections on one day, there would be riots everywhere." "What about?" I asked. "I don't know--the people wouldn't know themselves, most likely; but there's many of them would welcome the chance for a shindy, if the police wasn't there. Isn't it the same in America?" I told him I had been an election officer many times, but had never seen any serious disorder at the polls. "Aren't there many riots next day?" he asked. "Why," I said, "the day after election is the quietest day in the year. Everybody goes to work as though nothing had happened." "I don't think there is much danger of riots," put in the salesman, "but we couldn't have your system over here because with us a man has a right to vote wherever he owns property and pays taxes, and if all the elections were held on one day, he couldn't get around." "Ah, yes," nodded the priest; "I did not think of that. How do you manage it in America?" "With us," I explained, "every man has one vote and no more." Again his eyes goggled. "Would you be telling me," he gasped, "that your millionaires, your men of vast properties, have no more votes than the poor man?" And when I told him that was so, I think he was by way of pitying our millionaires, as men deprived of their just rights--as, perhaps, in some respects, they are. And then the salesman told me that he had been to America, as far west as Kansas, where he had visited some friends. He had gone over, he said, with that sort of good-natured contempt for everything American so common in England, but he had come away convinced that there was no country on earth to match it. "The only thing I saw to criticise in America were the roads," he added. "Why don't you take a leaf from Lloyd George's book? He has put a tax of three-pence a gallon on gasoline used by pleasure cars, and this tax goes into a fund for the upkeep of the highways, proportioned according to the number of cars in each county. Gasoline used in commercial cars pays a tax of three-ha'-pence a gallon. A great sum is collected in this way, and the upkeep of the highways is thrown upon the people who do them the most damage. If you'd do the same in America, your roads would soon be as good as ours; and nobody could complain that the tax was unjust." I agreed that it was a clever idea, and I hereby call it to the attention of our lawmakers. "Well," said the priest, who had been listening attentively to all this, "I am glad to know the truth about this tax. I had heard of it, and had thought it another English exaction laid upon Ireland. Now I see that I was wrong; for, as you say, it is a just tax." And then he told us some stories of the old days, of famine and persecution and eviction, of the hard fight for life on the rocky hillsides, while the fertile valleys were given over to grazing or ringed with high walls and turned into game preserves. There were lighter stories, too, of the humorous side of Irish character, and one of them, though I suspect it is an old one, I will set down here. The southwest coast of Ireland, of which Bantry Bay forms a part, is one of the most dangerous in the world, because of the rugged capes which stretch far out into the ocean and the small islands and hidden reefs which lie beyond. It is just the sort of coast where fish abound, and so little villages are scattered all along it, whose men-folks fish whenever the weather lets them, and at other times labour in the tiny potato patches up on the rocky hillsides. Naturally they are familiar with all the twists and turnings of the coast, and are always on the lookout to add to their scanty incomes by a job of piloting. One day the crew of a fishing-boat perceived a big freighter nosing about in a light fog, rather closer inshore than she should have been, and at once lay alongside and put a man aboard. "Will you be wantin' a pilot, sir?" he asked the captain, who was anxiously pacing the bridge. The captain stared a moment at the dirty and tattered visitor. "Who the devil are you?" he demanded, at last. "Me name's McCarthy, sir. I'm a pilot, sir." "A pilot!" and the captain looked at McCarthy again. "I don't believe it." "'Tis the truth I'm tellin' you, sir," protested McCarthy. "Well," said the captain, "if it's the truth, you can easily prove it. Let me hear you box the compass." McCarthy was nonplussed. More than once, sitting over a pot of ale in some public house, he had heard old sailors proudly rattle off the points of the compass, but, though he remembered how the rigmarole sounded, he had no idea how to do it, nor even any very clear idea of what it meant. "Faith, I can't do it, sir," he admitted. "Can't do it?" roared the captain. "Can't box the compass! And yet you call yourself a pilot." McCarthy did some rapid thinking, for he saw a good job, which he could ill afford to lose, slipping through his fingers. "It's like this, sir," he said, finally, "in our small place, it's the Irish we would be using, niver a word of English, and all the English any of us knows is just the little we might pick up from bein' after the ships. I can't box the compass in English, but I can box it in the Irish, sir, if that will do." The captain looked into the speaker's guileless eyes and also did some rapid thinking. He knew no Gaelic, but he needed a pilot badly, and he reflected that, in any language, it ought to be possible to tell whether the compass was being boxed correctly, because the words would have to follow each other with a certain similarity of sound, as north, north-and-by-east, north-north-east, north-east-by-north, and so on. "All right," he growled, "go ahead and let's hear you." "My father," McCarthy began solemnly in his homely Gaelic; "my grandfather, my grandfather's grandmother, my grandmother's grandfather, my great grandfather, my great grandfather's grandmother, my great grandmother's great. . . ." "Hold on," shouted the captain, quite convinced. "I see you know how. Take charge of the ship!" And McCarthy thereupon proved he knew how by getting the vessel safely past Cape Clear! * * * * * It was pouring rain, next morning, a steady, driving rain, which looked as though it might last forever, and we were confronted by the problem which so often confronts the traveller in Ireland, whether to go or stay. To go meant the possibility of having the most beautiful drive in Ireland obscured in mist; to stay meant a dreary day at the hotel, with no assurance that the next day would be any better, or the next, or the next. At last we decided to go. Never after that was the problem so difficult, for we soon realised the folly of permitting Irish rain to interfere with any plan. In the first place, the rain is not an unmixed evil, for it is soft and fresh and vivifying, and it adds mystery and picturesqueness to the most commonplace landscape; and in the second place, it is very fickle, begins unaccountably, stops unexpectedly, and rarely lasts the day through. In fact, the crest of any ridge may take one into it, or out of it, as we were to find that day. So when, about ten o'clock, the bus came puffing up to the door, we climbed aboard. The road, for a little way, wound up the valley of the Glengarriff River, and then, striking off into the mountains, climbed upward at a gradient that tested the power of the engine. Almost at once we were in the mountain mist, soft and grey, eddying all about us, whirling aside for an instant now and then to give us tantalising glimpses down into the valleys, and then closing in again. Up and up we went, a thousand feet and more, and at last we came to the crest of the mountain range which divides County Cork from County Kerry. The road plunges under the crest through a long tunnel, and then winds steeply down into the valley of the Sheen. Again there was a series of sharp and unprotected turns, just as on the day before, and this time with the added complication of a slippery, sloppy road; but I have never ridden with a more careful or more accomplished driver than we had that day, and he nursed the heavy bus along so quietly and with such easy mastery that no one thought of danger. Gradually the mist lightened and cleared away, until we could see the wide valley far below, with the tiny winding river at the bottom, and the walled fields and midget houses. There was a succession of such valleys all the way to Kenmare, and we finally rolled up before the big hotel there just in time for lunch. We walked down into the village, afterwards, and found it more bustling and prosperous than any of the other small villages we had seen. This is due partly perhaps to the tourist traffic, for Kenmare is a famous bathing and fishing resort; but homespun tweeds are manufactured there in considerable quantities, and at the convent scores of girls are employed at lace-making, Celtic embroidery, wood-carving and leather-work. The school is said to be one of the best managed in Ireland, and I was sorry that we did not have time to visit it. We saw, however, some of the Kerry girls in the street, and they were fully handsome enough to give colour to the doggerel: 'Tis sure that the lads will be goin' to Cork When their money is gone and they're wantin' to work; But 'tis just as sure that they'll turn back to Kerry For a purty colleen when they're wantin' to marry. Kerry is a poor country and always will be, for it consists mostly of stony hills, and though it is renowned for its scenery, no one except the hotel keepers can live on that. Such little hill farms as have been wrested from the rocks produce but scantily; so when there is a "long family," as the Irish put it--and "long families" are the rule--one son will stay at home to look after the old people, and the others will fare forth into the world to search for a living. I hope it is true that they come back when they're searching for wives. Otherwise the lot of the Kerry girls, hard enough under any circumstances, would be harder still. Nowhere in Ireland are there brighter eyes or redder cheeks. [Illustration: THE BAY AT GLENGARRIFF] [Illustration: THE UPPER LAKE, KILLARNEY, FROM THE KENMARE ROAD] The rain was quite over by the time we were ready to start again, and the mist had disappeared under the rays of the sun, so that we had the benefit of the full beauty of the Kenmare River, which is really a wide bay, as we ran close along its western bank. Then the road doubled back from it, and presently the driver stopped at a spot where a narrow footpath struck down into the woods, and advised us to take it, saying that he would wait for us at its other end. In a moment we found ourselves clambering down the side of a wildly-beautiful ravine, with the roar of rushing water rising from below, and trees festooned with ferns and ivy meeting above our heads. And then, high above us, we saw the arch of a stone bridge; and quite suddenly we came out upon the stream, the Blackwater, foaming over the rocks. It was at its very best, from the heavy rain of the morning, and we stood there watching it, fascinated by its beauty, as long as we dared. We went on again close beside the shore of the bay, and in half an hour came to Parknasilla, where there is another big hotel, set in the midst of beautiful grounds, and with superb views opening on every side. The climate here is sub-tropical, and the vegetation mounts to a climax of riotous profusion, with palms and calla lilies growing in the open. The bay, too, is very fine, with bluff, rock-strewn shores, and innumerable green islets speckling its sparkling waters, and rugged mountains closing in the distance. Then again we were off, mounting steadily, steadily, winding under beetling crags and above grey precipices; up and up, with the world sinking away into the valley at our left, and the heathery, rock-strewn heights soaring upward at our right; and finally, at our feet, opened the wonderful panorama of the Brown Valley--brown bog, brown rock, brown heather, mounting to the distant slopes of Macgillicuddy's Reeks. We dropped down toward it, mile after mile; then up and up again, to the crest of the ridge beyond--and there, far below us, lay the lakes of Killarney, rimmed with green hills and dotted with green islands--the most sweetly beautiful in all the world. * * * * * The loveliest general view of the lakes of Killarney to be had from anywhere is as one drops down toward them along the Kenmare road. Their individual beauties may, of course, be seen to better advantage closer at hand; but from this height, the whole wonderful panorama stretches before one. Right across the valley opens the Gap of Dunloe, with the rugged Reeks on one side and the green clad Purple Mountain on the other; below is the narrow, island-dotted, hill-encircled upper lake; farther away is Muckross Lake, and far in the distance stretch the blue waters of Lough Leane, the largest of them all. My advice is to take a long look at it, for you will never see anything more lovely. The road soon dropped among the trees, and our driver pointed out with evident pride the Queen's cottage on the shore of the upper lake, built a good many years ago in order that Victoria, on her tour of the lakes, might have a fitting place in which to lunch, and which has never been occupied since. Then the road ran close beside the border of the middle lake, plunged again into the woods for a mile or two; and at last the bus stopped before the inn where we intended to stay, and we climbed down regretfully. The inn was a long, two-storied building, standing a little back from the road, and the porter who came running out to take our bags might have stepped straight out of Pickwick, he was so fat, so jolly, and so rubicund. I had some films I wanted developed at once, because I was afraid the damp weather would affect them, and I asked him where I could get it done. "There's a man just this side of the village can do it, sir," he said. "You will see his sign as you go along the road." "How far is it?" I asked. "The village is two mile, sir." "Then it's less than two miles?" "It is, sir." I turned to Betty. "We've got plenty of time before dinner," I said. "Suppose we walk in and see the town." And Betty, wotting little of what was before her, consented. I put my films in my pocket, and we set off eagerly along the pleasant road, past a little village, past a church with a graveyard back of it and a Celtic cross high on the hillside above it, past a hotel or two, around one turn after another, with green-clad hills mounting steeply to our right and the blue lake lying low on our left. We met an occasional cyclist, or a donkey-cart being driven home from market, or a labourer trudging stolidly home from work, or two or three girls strolling along with arms interlaced, exchanging confidences. And the air was very sweet and the evening very cool and pleasant, and the sky full of glorious colour-- "We must certainly have come two miles," said Betty. "What do you suppose is the matter?" "I don't know," I said, looking at my watch and noting that we had been half an hour on the road. "Perhaps we'll see the town around the next turn." But we didn't. All we saw was about half a mile of empty road. We covered this and came to another turn, and there before us lay another long stretch of road. Determined not to give up, we pushed on, and came to a bridge over a rippling little stream, which we learned afterward was the Flesk, and we stopped and looked at it awhile and rested. "We must be nearly there," I said encouragingly. "What's bothering me," explained Betty, "isn't the distance we have to go to get there; it's the distance we have to go to get back." There was another bend in the road just beyond the bridge, and we turned this, confident that the village would be there. But it wasn't. We saw nothing but the smooth highway, stretching away and away into the dim distance. I looked at my watch again. "We've been walking nearly an hour," I said. "It looks as though we might miss dinner, after all." And just then there came the trot of a horse and the jingle of harness along the road behind us, and a side-car drew up with a flourish. "Would your honour be wantin' a car?" asked the jarvey, leaning toward us ingratiatingly. "We were told there was a photographer's just this side of the village. Do you know where it is?" "I do, your honour." "How far is it?" "'Tis just over there beyont. If you will step up on the car, I'll have ye there in a minute. I'm goin' right past it." Of course we got up. And, as the jarvey had said, the photographer's shop was just around the next bend. But before I got down, I made a bargain with him to drive us back to our hotel, and, after I had left my films, we set merrily off through the gathering dusk. "There's one thing I don't understand," I said, at last. "The porter at the hotel said it was only two miles to the village. Yet we walked for an hour without getting there." "He meant Irish miles, your honour," explained the jarvey, laughing. "There is an old saying that 'an Irish mile is a mile and a bit, and the bit is as long as the mile.' You see, here in ould Ireland we always stretch everything." I have found since that the Irish mile is about a mile and a quarter; but this is no real measure of its elasticity. More than once thereafter we saw one mile stretch out to three; and we soon came to realise that the Irish mind is extremely vague and inexact when it comes to distances and directions. We got back to the hotel to have our first view of what proved to be a nightly ceremony. On a stand in the entrance hall was a huge platter, and on the platter lay a huge salmon, and a card leaning against it announced that it weighed fourteen pounds and had been caught that day by Captain Gregory, and there were flowers all about it, so it's a proud fish it should have been. There were five or six other salmon on a lower table, each with a card giving its weight--anywhere from five pounds to eleven--and the whole collection represented the day's catch of the guests of the hotel. For the hotel, being handy to the lakes, and clean and comfortable and homelike, is a favourite resort of the fishermen who come to Killarney during the salmon season. Every evening while we were there, as the fishermen came in, tired and wet, with their boatmen tramping behind them carrying the fish--if there were any--they were met at the door by the rotund porter, his face beaming like a full moon--a red harvest moon!--and the fish would be solemnly weighed, and the biggest would be decorated with flowers and awarded the place of honour, and the others would be grouped around it, and after dinner, the fishermen would stand and look at them, their hands deep in their pockets; and later on there would be a great bustle as the fish were wrapped in straw and tied up, ready to be sent by parcel-post to admiring friends back home! * * * * * It was a cosmopolitan crowd which gathered that evening after dinner about the big fireplace in the smoking-room, where a most welcome and comforting wood fire blazed and crackled. The weather had turned very cold, and Betty and I were dressed as warmly as we had been at any time during the winter, though it was the fifth of June, and the papers were running long columns about the fearful heat wave which had America in its grip. There was a sturdy, red-faced old Scotchman in carpet slippers, and a sallow, heavy-lidded ancient whom the others addressed as "colonel," and just such a close-clipped, stiff-backed sporting squire as is Canon Hannay's Major Kent, of near Ballymoy; and there were two or three other Englishmen with no outstanding characteristic except their insularity; and the talk was of flies and rods and casts, and everybody was indignant at the suffragette who had rushed out on the track and tried to stop the Derby; and there was a steady emptying of tall glasses and a steadily-deepening cloud of tobacco smoke, and everybody was very comfortable and cosy. And presently the old Scotchman took pity on me as a mere American who knew nothing about the high mysteries of sport. "It must be a great pleasure for you to sit before an open fire like this," he said. "It is," I agreed. "There's nothing more pleasant than a wood fire." "Ye may well say so. But of course in America you have nothing like it." "Nothing like it?" I repeated, looking at him. "Why no," he said. "You never see an open fire in America. All you have is steam pipes running all around the room." I looked at him again to see if he was in earnest; and then I tried gently to disabuse his mind of that idea. But it was no use. Indeed, he got rather huffy when I said I had never seen a room with steam pipes running all around it. The savage insularity of the average Englishman is matter for never-ending amusement, once one has grown accustomed to his contempt. He believes that all American men are money-grubbers, and all American women social climbers, who chew gum and talk loudly, while their daughters are forward minxes who call their fathers "popper," and that men, women, and children are alike wholly lacking in culture and good-taste. The peculiar thing about it is that he never for an instant doubts his own good taste in telling one all this frankly to one's face. This is no fancy sketch. My own opinion is that the average Englishman has no genuine feeling of friendship for America, and his ignorance of things American is abysmal. One day, on the boat coming home, a well-educated Englishman whom I had got to know, asked me the name of a man with whom I had been talking. "That is Senator So-and-so," I answered. "What is a senator?" he inquired. I remember that one day Betty and I and two other Americans happened to be driving through the Tyrol in a coach with two Englishmen, and they began to discuss American railway accidents--a favourite topic with Englishmen when Americans are present; and one of them remarked that it was no wonder there were so many accidents in America, since when Americans built a railroad all they did was to lay the ties along on top of the ground and spike the rails to them. I asked him if he had ever been to America, and he said no, and I advised him to run over and pay us a visit some time. This huffed him. "Ah!" he said. "But what you Americans would give for a king!" "Give for a king?" "Yes; you would give anything for a king. Then you could have a court and an aristocracy, and some real society. You're sick of your limping, halting, make-believe government, and you know it!" We all four stared at him in astonishment, wondering if he had gone suddenly mad. Then Betty got her breath. "No," she said; "you're really wrong about that. You see we settled the king question back in 1776." The rest was silence. But really Englishmen aren't to blame for their distorted ideas of America, for they get those ideas from the English newspapers, and the only kind of American news most English newspapers publish is freak news. During that week, for instance, almost the only American news in any of the papers was about the terrific heat-wave, about Harry Thaw's escape from Matteawan, and about some millionaire who had taken bichloride of mercury by mistake, and lived for ten days or so afterwards, occupying the time very cheerfully in closing up his affairs. After his death, one of the great London dailies published a column editorial about the affair, reasoning in the most solemn manner that his survival for so long a time could have been due only to the remarkable tonic properties of the American climate. With the Irish it is entirely different. In the first place, America is to them the haven to which a million Irishmen have fled from English persecution; and in the next place, their knowledge of the country comes not from newspapers but from letters written by relatives and friends. The letters are somewhat rosier, I fear, than the facts warrant, but they establish a kindly feeling which makes every Irishman ready to welcome the passing American as a friend and brother. The only trouble is that he is also apt to regard him as necessarily a millionaire. It is undoubtedly true that a large portion of the lower-class Irish consider it no disgrace to beg from an American. Not that they are habitual beggars, but when an American comes their way, they seem to consider it a waste of opportunity if they do not apply for a small donation. In tourist centres, such as Dublin and Killarney, they are very persistent, especially the children, and will follow along for minutes on end telling the tale of their poverty and distress in queer bated voices, as though they lacked the strength to speak aloud. But Betty accidentally discovered a cure for this nuisance, quite as effective as John Minogue's, and I take pleasure in passing it on. Like most other people who have lived together for a long time, we have developed a lot of symbols and pass-words, without meaning to any one but ourselves; and it has become a rather foolish habit of mine when we are together and I see something I especially admire, to express my admiration by uttering the single word "Hickenlooper." And Betty, if she agrees, says "Oppenheimer," and we understand each other and pass on. One day in Cork, a group of children were unusually annoying, and followed along and followed along, until Betty, losing patience, turned upon them sharply, pointed her finger at them, and said "Oppenheimer!" I shall never forget the startled look in their eyes, as they stopped dead in their tracks, stared at her for an instant, and then fled helter-skelter. We decided afterwards that they thought she was putting a curse on them. She tried it more than once thereafter, and it never failed to work; so, if you are annoyed beyond endurance by juvenile beggars in Ireland, turn upon them sharply, point your finger at them, and say "Oppenheimer!" And since I am giving advice, I will give one bit more before I close this chapter. Among the purchases which Betty had made in New York, just before we sailed, was a small electric torch. I had derided it as unnecessary, but she had insisted on bringing it along, and had put it in our travelling-bag when we were sorting over our luggage in Dublin. The first night at Thurles, in a dreary little room, with only the flickering candle for a light, I acknowledged her wisdom, for the bright glow of the torch was very welcome. Again at Glengarriff candles were the only illumination, and that night at Killarney, when I got to our room, I found her in animated conversation with the chambermaid by the light of a single tallow dip. They were talking about America, I think, and the maid's eyes were shining with excitement and her cheeks were flushed and the beautiful soft brogue was rolling off her tongue, when a sudden gust from the open window blew the candle out. Betty picked up the torch from the dresser and pressed the button. "Glory be to God! What's that?" cried the girl, as the glare flashed into her astonished eyes. "It's only a torch," said Betty. "It won't hurt you." And then, when I had lighted the candle again, she showed the girl how it worked. "Glory be to God!" she cried again. "The wonder of it! You would niver be gettin' that in Ireland!" "No; I got it in New York." "Ah, 'tis a wonderful place," said the girl, reverentially. "No place but America would be havin' such things as that!" Now this is no doubt a libel upon Ireland, for I suppose one can get electric torches there. At any rate, my advice is to get one somewhere--a good one--and take it along in your handbag. This advice is good for the continent as well as for Ireland, but it is especially good for the latter, and the reason is this: In the old days, when English prodigals wasted their substance on castellated palaces, the Irish squire, being a wiser man, spent his money on good wine and good horses--or, when he had no money, ran light-heartedly into debt for them. As to his family mansion, he contented himself with adding a wing from time to time, as it might be needed, either because of the increasing number of his children, or the widening circle of his friends. The result was a singular house, often only one story high, never more than two, flung wide over a great deal of ground, and of a most irregular plan. Such a house had many advantages, for, as another writer has pointed out, "at one end of it the ladies could sleep undisturbed, no matter how joyous the men were at the other; there were no stairs to fall down; and the long narrow corridors were pleasant to those who found it hard to direct their devious steps." But the time came when these hospitable Irishmen found themselves overwhelmed by debt, their houses were taken from them, and many of them, since they were too large for any private family, were converted into inns. The traveller in rural Ireland will encounter more than one of them, and will find those long, shadowy, zig-zag corridors eerie places after night, unless he has a torch to light his steps. The doors are not always fitted with locks, and if the window is kept open, an intruder has only to step over the sill. We never had any intruder; but had we had, I am sure one flash from the torch would have sent him flying. CHAPTER XII THE "GRAND TOUR" THERE are many excursions which can be made over and around the Killarney lakes, but the most important one--the "grand tour," so to speak--starts at the town, proceeds by car to Kate Kearney's cottage, then by pony through the Gap of Dunloe, then by boat the full length of the lakes to Ross Castle, and back to town again by car. This round takes a day to accomplish, and gives one a very fair idea of Killarney. It is about all most of the people who come to Killarney ever see of it. In fact, some of them don't see that much--as will presently appear. Now Killarney is to Ireland what the Trossachs are to Scotland and Niagara Falls to America--in other words, its most famous show-place; and so it has passed more or less under the control of that ubiquitous exploiter of show-places, Thomas Cook. Cook arranges all the excursions, Cook controls most of the vehicles, Cook's boats are the biggest and safest, and so, if you wish to see Killarney "in the least fatiguing manner," you must resign yourself to Cook. Let me say here that I admire Cook; there is no place where a traveller is served more courteously, more fairly, or more intelligently than in a Cook office. No one need be ashamed to make intelligent use of Cook. The reason of his disrepute is that he has come to be used so largely by self-complacent people whose idea of seeing Europe is to gallop from place to place in charge of a conductor. But that isn't Cook's fault. Killarney is the one place in Ireland which every tourist wants to see, not because it is characteristically Irish, but because it has been very carefully exploited. In my own opinion, a trip to Holy Cross and Cashel, or to Mellifont and Monasterboice and the tombs of the kings, or to the congested districts of Connaught, is far better worth while. But the great bulk of tourist traffic follows the beaten path, and in Ireland the beaten path leads straight to Killarney. * * * * * As we sat at breakfast next morning, we witnessed the ceremonial rites involved in getting the fishermen started off for the day's sport. The rotund porter acted as major-domo, and puffed and panted and hurried hither and yon, his brow creased with the anxieties of his high office. It is a point of honour with all true fishermen to wear only the most faded, rain-stained, disreputable of garments, and it was a weird-looking company which gathered in front of the hotel that morning, with their hats, decorated with many-coloured flies, flapping around their brick-red faces. There was one woman in the lot who was going out with her father--a short, square spinster, evidently hard as nails, with a face as red as the reddest, and boots as heavy as the heaviest. The wonder was that she didn't smoke a pipe like the others. They overhauled their tackle with great care--shook out the lines, tested rods and reels, examined the flies, and finally trudged away, the boatman following, laden with rain-proofs and lunch-basket and gaff and landing-net, and with a broad grin on his face at the prospect of sharing his employer's tobacco and lunch, and of earning a few shillings in so pleasant a manner. When we had finished breakfast, we went out to have a look at the weather, and found the sun shining brightly, with every prospect of a pleasant day. The porter assured us that there was no chance of rain; but we had already had some experience of the fickleness of the Irish climate, so we went back and prepared for the worst, and clambered presently to the seat of the car Cook sent for us. On the way in to the village, we stopped at another hotel to pick up three American women who had been touring the continent and England, and who, by a long jump, had managed to squeeze in one day for Killarney before hastening on to Queenstown to catch their boat. They had arrived late the night before, and would leave for Cork as soon as the tour of the lakes had been completed, and they were jubilant because the day was so fine. They had feared it might rain, and that their long journey would be for nothing. The only protection against rain they had with them was two small umbrellas, and I could see that they were somewhat amused at our rain-coats and leggings. There was a long open coach, with seats for about twenty people, waiting in front of Cook's office in the village, and presently, as cars drove in from the various hotels, this was filled to overflowing, and at last we rumbled away. We were fortunate in having been assigned to the front seat with the driver, a handsome, good-humoured fellow, not averse to talking; and behind us we could hear the merry chatter of the happy and contented crowd. We passed the workhouse, which, as usual, is the biggest building in the place, and then the lunatic asylum, which is almost as big, and then we saw the ruins of Aghadoe high on the hillside--and then I felt a drop of rain on my cheek. There was another drop, and then another, and then a gentle patter, and then a rushing and remorseless downpour. We held the rubber lap-robe up under our chins and the water ran down it in streams. The happy chatter had turned to exclamations of consternation and dismay, and we did not need to look around to realise the havoc which the rain was working. The driver chirruped to his horses and endeavoured to divert his passengers with a few stanzas of a classic Irish drinking song, rendered in a resounding baritone: Let the farmer praise his grounds, Let the huntsman praise his hounds, The shepherd his dew-scented lawn; But I, more blest than they, Spend each happy night and day With my charming little cruiskeen lawn, lawn, lawn, With my charming little cruiskeen lawn. "What does cruiskeen lawn mean?" asked a man's voice behind us. "Oh, it is just a term of endearment," said a woman's voice in answer. "Don't you remember the song about Willy Reilly and his dear cruiskeen lawn?" "Oh, yes," said the man. I caught a twinkle in our driver's eye, but he said nothing. After all, Willy Reilly, being a true Irishman, no doubt loved his cruiskeen lawn, or little full jug, almost as well as his colleen bawn, or fair-haired lassie. So we rolled merrily on, and presently turned into a hilly lane, where a crowd of ragamuffins mounted on bony steeds awaited us. These were the pony-boys, and a wild-looking lot they were as they fell in about us and proceeded to act as a sort of cavalry escort. We took a bridge and a steep grade beyond at a gallop, and drew up in front of a white-washed, slate-roofed little house, which our driver announced was Kate Kearney's cottage, and his bedraggled passengers made a break for its welcome shelter. It was Lady Morgan who celebrated Kate's charms in the ingenuous verses beginning, Oh, did you not hear of Kate Kearney? She lives on the banks of Killarney, From the glance of her eye shun danger and fly, For fatal's the glance of Kate Kearney, and she is supposed to have lived somewhere in this neighbourhood, though it is a long way from the "banks of Killarney." At any rate, this spick-and-span cottage, very unlike Kate's, has been given her name, and I dare say that any of the girls who tend bar inside would answer to it, just to keep up the local colour. The room into which the door opens has a bar at one end and an open fire at the other, and while the women of the party crowded about the fire, the men paused before the bar for a taste of potheen. There are many other opportunities to taste it before one gets through the gap, but if it is to be done at all, it would better be done here, for here one gets a clean glass to drink it out of. The whiskey is supposed to be surreptitious, but of course it has paid the tax like any other; an inch of it is poured into the bottom of the glass, and then the glass is filled with milk, and one drinks it and smacks one's lips and looks knowing. I drank a glass of it in the interests of this narrative, and I am free to say I have drunk many things I liked better. At the end of half an hour, everybody had managed to get fairly dry, and a prolonged discussion arose whether to go on through the gap or turn back to the town. The rain was still falling steadily, and there was no sign of break in the heavy clouds, though our conductor contended that they were clearing away to the westward. The motley crew of pony-boys, with their shaggy "coppaleens," were all most insistent that the shower would soon be over, and that it would be a great mistake to go back. Betty and I had already made up our minds: we were going to see the thing through whatever happened; but the rest of the crowd vacillated back and forth in cruel indecision, especially the three women who must see Killarney to-day or never. We advised them to risk it; but in the end, only one other member of the party, a little German Jew, decided to do so, and all the rest clambered back into the bus and were driven off toward the town. The Cook's conductor stayed with us to act as pilot. I wish you could have heard the chorus of commendation from those Irish throats as Betty mounted her pony. Sure she was the brave lady, she was the wise lady, the torrents and cataracts would be that fine; let the featherbed trash drive off back to the town, sure they were not worth a thought; the shower would soon pass by, and it would be a fine day, and anyway the Irish rain was a soft sweet rain that never did any harm, and the gap was the grandest sight in the whole world--so their tongues ran on. I gave my camera into the keeping of the pony-boy who was going along with us, and scrambled into the saddle. I have had mighty little equestrian experience since my hobby-horse days, and I cannot pretend that I enjoyed that ride, for the road was rough and up-and-down and the pony anything but a smooth stepper. If I had it to do again, I think I should walk. The distance is only about five miles, and a person not thoroughly at home in the saddle has far more leisure to survey the beauties of the gap when he is using his own legs than when he is bumping along on a "coppaleen." The accompaniments of the ride are more diverting than the ride itself. We had gone scarcely a dozen yards, when we found a photographer with his camera set up in the middle of the road, who took our pictures on the off chance that we'd buy one. Then from the shelter of a rock arose a battered human, with a still more battered cornet, which looked as though it had been used as a shillelagh in moments of absent-mindedness, and he offered to awake the echo for a penny. I produced the penny, but the blast he blew upon the horn was so faint and wavering that Echo slept on undisturbed. Then we came to an individual playing with great violence upon a wheezy accordion. The pony-boys said that he had been a great actor, but that rheumatism had overtaken him, so that he could strut the boards no longer, and he had finally been reduced to playing an accordion in the Gap of Dunloe, and they besought charity for him, as the most deserving case in the gap. And then we came to two men with a small cannon, which they offered to discharge for sixpence. And then began a long procession of barefooted old women, pretending to offer homeknit woollen socks and home-distilled potheen for sale, but really begging--begging most insistently, running along beside the ponies with their poor red feet slopping in the mud or slipping over the stones; voluble with their blessings if they got a small coin, and plainly thinking themselves insulted if they didn't. Meanwhile, we had mounted into the gap along a rough and winding bridle-path, and a desolately-impressive place we found it. A little river, the Loe, runs at the bottom, and close on either side high, frowning, rock-strewn precipices tower steeply upwards. There is no sign of vegetation--except a patch of heather maintaining a perilous foothold here and there on the bare and desolate hills,--the Tomies on one side and McGillicuddy's Reeks on the other. And then, at what seemed the most desolate spot, we came to a substantial, two-storied house, a station of the Royal Irish Constabulary. What the police could find to do in such a desert was difficult to imagine; but we stopped a few minutes to talk with them, and they evidently welcomed the diversion. Legend has it that the Gap of Dunloe was cleft by Finn MacCool with a single blow of his great sword, and that it was here, in the Black Lough into which the River Loe presently widens, that St. Patrick imprisoned the last snake in Ireland, by persuading it to enter a box on the promise that he would release it to-morrow. When the morrow came, the too-trusting serpent reminded the Saint of his promise, and asked him to open the lid, but Patrick replied that it was not yet to-morrow, but only to-day, and so the snake is still there in the box on the bottom of the lake, waiting for to-morrow to come. It makes such a fearful bubbling sometimes that it scares all the fish away, so that, while there are fish in plenty in the other lakes, there is none in this. There is a bridge at one end of the lake, and if one makes a wish as one crosses it, the wish will come true. The road mounts steadily, curving from side to side of the valley, and one should stop from time to time and look back, or the full beauty of the place will be lost. We found the wind rushing along the heights, as we worked our way upward, and the rain fairly poured at times, so that the cataracts performed splendidly. At least I can vouch for two of them--one down Betty's nose and the other down mine! But presently, the clouds blew away, and the rain stopped just before we came out on the heights above the Black Valley. This is undoubtedly the most beautiful point of the ride. To the right a savage glen runs back into the very heart of the Reeks, ending in a pocket shut in by sheer and rugged precipices. Far below lies the valley, with a silver ribbon of a river winding through it, and to the left shine the blue waters of the upper lake. I dismounted at this point, turned my pony over to the boy, and went down the winding road on foot, for I didn't want anything to distract my eyes from this wonderful view. And presently we were down among the trees, before a little lodge called for some unknown reason "Lord Brandon's Cottage," in which sat a man to whom we had to pay a shilling each before we could pass to the landing-place at the head of the lake, where the boats and lunch were waiting. Killarney is about the only spot in Ireland which is exploited in this manner, but here you will find fees exacted at every turn--a petty annoyance which, added to the persistent begging and insistent demands for tips, does much to interfere with the pleasure of the Killarney trip. At the landing we found two boats which had rowed up from Ross Castle during the morning--a small one with two oarsmen and a larger one with four. The conductor marshalled us into the big one, took his seat at the stern, got out our lunches, which had been sent up from the hotel, tucked us in with heavy waterproofs, drew the tiller-lines across his lap and gave the signal to start. The upper lake is much the most beautiful of the three, with its many islands, and the high hills hemming it in. Near its lower end is Arbutus Island, and it is worth pausing a moment beside it to look at the arbutus, that handsomest of shrubs, with ruddy stem and glossy leaf, which is indigenous all about Killarney, but reaches its height of glory on this little island. It is impossible to tell where the outlet of the lake is, until you are right upon it, but it suddenly opens out between two high rocks, and the boat enters the Long Range--the winding river some three miles in length which connects the upper and middle lakes. The rock on the left is called Colman's Leap, and the legend is that, once upon a time, this Colman, who was lord of the upper lake, was chased down the mountain by some supporters of The O'Donaghue, and took a flying leap across the river, in proof of which you may still see the print of his feet in the rock where he landed on the other side. Our guide offered to show us the foot-prints, if we required any proof of the story, but we assured him of our unquestioning belief. The Reach itself is quite as beautiful as any of the lakes, for its banks are covered with the most varied and luxuriant vegetation; and once, as we drifted quietly along, we saw a red deer browsing among the bracken. And then we drifted past the foot of a great precipice, and the channel narrowed, the current quickened, and the boatmen prepared to run the rapids into the middle lake. One of the boatmen was a wild-eyed old fellow, very nervous and fidgety, who had considerable difficulty in wielding an oar against the husky fellow opposite him, and more than once the steersman had admonished him to put more ginger into it. Now, as we drew near the rapids, his agitation increased, his eyes grew wilder than ever, and as the current caught us and we shot under the ancient arch of masonry called the Old Weir Bridge, he managed to strike his oar on a rock with a force that nearly broke it. The nose of the boat swerved alarmingly for an instant, but the steersman brought her round with a quick jerk, and in a minute more we were in the quiet waters of the middle lake. The atmosphere was far from quiet, however, as the steersman relieved his mind. Let it be added that the rapids are not very terrible, as will be seen from the picture opposite this page, and even if the boat struck a rock and was ripped in two, one could get ashore without much difficulty. [Illustration: OLD WEIR BRIDGE, KILLARNEY] [Illustration: THE MEETING OF THE WATERS] [Illustration: ROSS CASTLE, KILLARNEY] Just beyond, at the "meeting of the waters," there is a whirlpool called O'Sullivan's Punchbowl, and every rock and cave along the shore has its tradition, many of them manufactured, I suspect, for the consumption of the summer visitor. Most of the traditions are of The O'Donaghue, Chieftain of the Glens. A long cave is O'Donaghue's Wine-cellar; a depression at its mouth is O'Donaghue's Chair; and a tall knoll beside it is O'Donaghue's Butler, otherwise Jockybwee. The boat leaves the middle lake under another massive, high-hipped arch of masonry--Drohid-na-Brickeen, "The Bridge of the Little Trout," or Brickeen Bridge, as it is called now--and emerges into Glena Bay, another place of beauty; but, as we were gazing at its loveliness, the boat suddenly pitched sideways, then tried to stand on end, and we started round to find ourselves in the midst of an ugly expanse of white-capped water. We had never thought of rough water on Killarney; yet here it was, and mighty rough at that. The lower lake is five miles long and half as wide, and when the wind gets a good sweep at it, it can kick up a sea that is not to be despised. "'Tis just O'Donaghue's white horses out for a frolic," said the steersman encouragingly, and took a new grip of his lines. The oarsmen bent to their work, and we headed out into the lake, for it was necessary to cross to Ross Island. We said nothing, but held tight, and grinned palely at each other when the boat made a peculiarly ferocious pitch; the spray flew in sheets, the wind dashed the spindrift viciously in our faces, and we would have been very wet indeed but for the waterproofs. But after the first few minutes, we began to enjoy it, for it was evident that the boat was a staunch one, and even if it went over, it wouldn't sink. I don't suppose there was really any danger of its going over, though it hung at an alarming angle on the side of a huge wave, once or twice; and at the end of half an hour, we swept under the lee of Ross Island, and our sweating boatmen paused to take breath. The excitable one was trembling so he could scarcely get his pipe between his teeth. That night at the hotel, Betty was talking to two Englishwomen who had hired a boatman to row them out to Inisfallen Island. The lake hadn't been especially rough when they went out, and it wasn't until they got out of the lee of the island on the return trip that they realised its fury. Their boatman, at the end of a few moments, found himself unable either to get ahead or to go back; the most he could do was to keep the boat's head to the waves, and for nearly an hour they tossed there, shipping great seas, bailing desperately, too frightened to be sea-sick, and finally giving themselves up for lost, when the wind shifted and their boatman managed to struggle past the point of Ross Island. They expressed surprise that their hair wasn't white, and said that they would consider all the remainder of their lives sheer gain, because they felt that, except for a miracle, they would have ended on June 5, 1913. No doubt they exaggerated their danger, but just the same I would advise any one who is nervous on the water to be sure that the lower lake is fairly smooth before attempting to cross it. We certainly drew a breath of relief when we stepped ashore in the shadow of the ivy-clad ruins of Ross Castle. The castle itself is not of especial interest, for all that is left of it is the ruin of the old keep, with some crumbling outworks, not nearly so imposing as Blarney. About the only reason to visit it is to get the view from the top, which is very fine. But it has some stirring associations, for it was the stronghold of the great O'Donaghue, whose legend dominates the whole district. The story goes that, every May morning just before sunrise, the old warrior, armed cap-à-pie, emerges from the lake, mounts his white horse, and rides like the wind across the waters, attended by fairies who strew his path with flowers. It was here the Royalist forces made their last stand against Cromwell, and they thought they were safe, because the castle was a strong one, and was built on an island, which made it unusually difficult to attack; and furthermore there was an old legend which said it would never be taken until a fleet swam upon the lake. Ludlow brought an army of four thousand men over the mountains, and started a siege, but made little progress; and then, one morning, as the garrison looked out over the battlements, they saw a fleet of boats bearing down upon them across the lake, and they rubbed their eyes and looked again, only to see the boats nearer, and now they could discern the pieces of ordnance mounted in the bows and the soldiers who crowded them, and they were so awed by the fulfilment of the prophecy that they surrendered without more ado. That was the end of Ross Castle, but nobody knows certainly to this day how Ludlow got the boats over the hills from Castlemaine. * * * * * A pretty drive along the margin of the middle lake brought us back to the hotel, where we found all the fishermen assembled, for the water had been too rough for fishing. We hurried out of our wet things, and dinner certainly tasted good; and when we joined the others about the fire, that evening, we found that we had qualified for admission to their charmed circle by going through the gap and crossing the lake on such a day. We were no longer tenderfeet. CHAPTER XIII ROUND ABOUT KILLARNEY WE had been assured more than once, during our trip through the Gap of Dunloe, that the Irish rain is a soft, sweet rain, which does nobody any harm, and we found that this was true, for we felt splendidly next morning. The only evidence of our strenuous experience was a certain redness of visage, which grew deeper and deeper, as the days went on, until it approached that rich brick-red, which we had already noted as a characteristic of Irish fishermen. The day was bright and warm, and after breakfast we walked in to the town to take a look at our films. We found the road even more beautiful in the morning than it had been in the evening, and, since we knew how long it was, it did not seem long at all. But we were rather disappointed in the films. I had not appreciated how much the moisture in the atmosphere diminished the intensity of the sun, and so most of the films were under-exposed. Amateur photographers in Ireland will do well to remember that they must use an aperture twice as large or an exposure twice as long as is necessary anywhere else. We walked on in to the town, and were sauntering along looking in the windows, when some one touched me on the elbow. "Hello, comrade," said a voice, and I swung around to find myself looking into the face of a tall, thin American whom we had met at Dublin looking at the Book of Kells in Trinity College Library. We had fallen into talk upon that occasion, and he had confided to us that he was from Massachusetts, that he was a bachelor, that he had started out by himself to see Europe, and that he was very lonely. He looked lonelier than ever, standing on this Killarney street corner, and he said that he was getting disgusted with Ireland, that it seemed to be raining all the time, that Killarney wasn't half as beautiful as he had been led to believe, and that he had about made up his mind not to go up the west coast, as he had intended, but to go straight to the continent. We remarked that we intended going up the west coast, and I saw his eye light with anticipation, but there are some sacrifices too great for human nature, and I didn't suggest his coming along. * * * * * Perhaps the most interesting show-place in the vicinity of Killarney is Muckross Abbey, and we spent that afternoon exploring it and its grounds. Muckross is far surpassed in interest by many other Irish ruins, but it is very beautiful, embowered as it is in magnificent trees and all but covered with glistening ivy. It is not very old, as Irish ruins go, for it dates only from the latter half of the fifteenth century, when it was founded for the Franciscans. The gem of the place is undoubtedly the cloister, with its arcade of graceful arches ranged around a court and lighting a finely-vaulted ambulatory. In the middle of the court is a giant yew, many centuries old, which spreads its branches from wall to wall. It is encircled with barbed wire, and I don't know whether this is to protect it from vandals, or to protect vandals from it--for the legend is that whoever plucks a spray of this tree dies within a twelvemonth. [Illustration: MUCKROSS ABBEY, KILLARNEY] [Illustration: THE CLOISTER AT MUCKROSS ABBEY] The adjoining graveyard is crowded with interesting old tombs, and as we were wandering about looking at them, a funeral arrived. The priest walked in front, reading the burial service, while his assistant walked beside him, holding an umbrella over him, for it had begun to rain. Both of them wore black and white scarfs draped over one shoulder and strips of black and white cloth tied about their hats. Behind them came the coffin, carried on the shoulders of four men, the pair in front and the pair behind gripping each other about the waist so as not to be thrown apart by the inequalities of the path. Then came the mourners, about a dozen men, each with a black streamer about his hat. A number of women came last, their shawls over their heads. The coffin was placed on the ground, and every one knelt in the dripping grass, bareheaded under the drenching rain, until the service was concluded. One of the mourners, at the proper moment, produced from beneath his coat a little black bottle which proved to contain the holy water, and with this the priest sprinkled the rude black casket, with little crosses for the screw-heads. Then the priest and his assistant went away, and the men hastened to get to their feet and clap on their hats, and then there was a general production of black clay cutties, and in a moment a dozen deep puffs of smoke were floating away before the breeze. The women of the party retired behind a corner of the abbey to eat a bite of lunch, and the men stood around talking and smoking; and finally the caretaker produced four long-handled spades, and there was an animated discussion as to just where the grave should be dug. As is usually the case with Irish graveyards, this one was so crowded that it was no easy matter to find room for a fresh grave, but at last the spot was fixed upon, and four of the men fell to with the spades. When they grew tired, four others took up the work, and in half an hour the shallow grave was dug, the coffin placed in it, and the earth heaped back upon it. There was no keening. One of the women who was with the party told us that the funeral procession had come all the way from the end of the upper lake, more than fourteen miles away, and that the deceased was a woman of ninety-six. Fancy the tragedies she must have seen! For she was a woman of twenty-six, married, no doubt, with children, in the famine of '47. How many of them died, I wondered, and how had she herself managed to survive the awful years which followed? Her home beyond the upper lake--I could close my eyes and see it--the dark little cabin with its thatched roof and dirt floor and single room; I could picture the rocky field from which she and her husband had somehow managed to wring a livelihood; I could see her running with her poor bare feet through mud and over stones beside some laughing tourist in the hope of getting a penny or two-- But it is too tragic to think about! The shower passed, after a time, and we went on along a beautiful walk leading toward the lake--the Friars' Walk, it is called, and it is bordered by century-old beeches, yews, pines and limes, the most magnificent trees that I have ever seen, so glorious and inspiring that we were lured on and on. We came to the shore of the lake, at last, where the waves have carved the rocks into beautiful and fantastic shapes, and we followed the shore a long way, stopping at every jutting headland for a long look out over the grey, wind-swept water. Then the path turned inland and came out upon the middle lake, and here we found the fishermen from our hotel just getting to land, in a very drenched and disconsolate condition, for the water had been too rough for good sport. That evening before the fire, the old Englishman, of whom I have already spoken, relieved his mind to me upon the subject of Ireland and the Irish. He said it was no use to try to help the Irish: in the first place, they didn't deserve any help; in the second place they took your help with one hand and bludgeoned you with the other; and in the third place any attempt to help them only made matters worse. Take the old age pensions, for example. They were a farce. Hundreds and hundreds of farmers had given their property to their children, so that they could go into court and swear they possessed nothing and claim a pension. Thousands more who were nowhere near seventy were drawing pensions because there was no way to prove just how old they were. And most of the pension money went for drink. Every pensioner had credit at the public houses, and his pension was usually drunk away long before it was received. The only effect of the act had been to make the Irish worse drunkards than ever--and they were already the worst in the world. That was the cause of their poverty; that was the reason they lived in filth and wretchedness. They were without ambition, without pride, without any sense of manhood or decency--all they wanted was whiskey, and they would do anything to get it. All this, I dare say, is the honest belief of a great many Englishmen; and there is in it just that small grain of truth which makes it sting. But I grew tired of listening, after a time, and went out to the bar, where a very loquacious Ulsterman with the broadest of Scotch accents was explaining his woes to the grinning barmaid. He had just been dismissed, it seemed, from some position in the neighbourhood because he had "been out with a few friends" the night before. He was convinced that his late employer was no gentleman, because a gentleman would have understood the circumstances and overlooked them; he pronounced Kerry the most God-forsaken of counties, and announced his intention of getting back to Ulster as soon as he could. No doubt his experience in the south of Ireland made him a more rabid Orangeman than ever, and I suppose he lost no time in signing the covenant and enlisting in Ulster's "army." * * * * * We had planned to spend our last day at Killarney walking and driving about the neighbourhood, and we were delighted, when we came down to breakfast that Saturday morning, to find the weather all that could be desired, with the sun shining from a brilliant sky, and not a cloud upon it, except high, white, fair-weather ones flying before the wind. So as soon as we had eaten, we started away on a car for a drive through the deer-park of the Earl of Kenmare, a walk along the "fairy glen" which traverses it, and then another drive up along the heights to the ruins of Aghadoe. We met many little carts driving in to Killarney, for it was market day--the identical type which had already grown so familiar: a flat cart with a man driving, his legs hanging down, and his women-folks crouched behind him under their shawls, with their knees drawn up to their chins, and the shaggy donkey which furnished the motive power, trotting briskly and alertly along. I don't know what the poor Irish would do without this serviceable little beast, long lived and useful in so many ways, able to exist on stones and nettles, and costing only a pound or two. Betty was so impressed with their usefulness that she wanted to buy one and send it home, but that speculation fell through. As we climbed higher and higher up the heights, the wind grew cold and cutting, but the view below us over the lakes to the south opened more and more--a glorious panorama of wood and hill and white-capped water, with ever-varying light and shade under the drifting clouds. But what a contrast between this smiling landscape and the one which met our eyes when we turned them to the north, where one bleak and desolate hill towered behind another, away and away as far as the eye could see, a wilderness of grey boulders and black, fissured crags. The car stopped at last before some stone steps leading over a wall, but as we started to mount them, a woman came running out of a near-by cottage and insisted on unlocking the gate for us, in the hope, of course, of getting a tip. She was the caretaker in charge of the ruins of Aghadoe, and she tried to tell us something about them, but the visitor who has to rely on her for information must content himself with very little. The story, as I piece it together, is something like this: About the middle of the seventh century, there dwelt at Killarney a very holy man named St. Finian the Leper, and on Inisfallen, the largest of the Killarney islands, he founded an abbey, whose ruins may yet be seen there; and here at Aghadoe, the Field of the Two Yews, he built a church, which became the seat of a bishop. As was often the case, the original church proved, in time, to be too small, and an addition was tacked on to it. A round tower was also built as a protection against the Danes, and a little farther down the slope, a rude castle was put up as a residence for the bishop. There is very little left of the castle and the round tower, but the walls of the church are still standing. The early church built by St. Finian forms the western part, or nave, and is entered by a beautiful round-headed doorway, of the familiar Celtic type. The rain of centuries has washed away much of the carving, but enough remains to show how elaborate it was. The windows here are also round-headed, but the later portion, or choir, is lighted by narrow lancet windows, which prove that it was built some time in the thirteenth century, after the Normans came. These are the only things of interest left in the ruins, and the visit to them is worth making not so much on their account, as for the magnificent view over the lakes. We drove back to Killarney along the border of the lower lake, through the Kenmare demesne, and past the many-gabled mansion of the Earl, which has since been destroyed by fire; and we spent a very pleasant hour wandering about the village. The main street at Killarney is unattractive enough, crowded as it is with shops whose principal stock in trade is post-cards and photographs and books of views and monstrosities in bog oak and Connemara marble--souvenirs, in a word, for Cook tourists to take home. But turn up any of the narrow lanes which branch off on either side, and there is authentic Ireland--the Ireland of plastered cottages and thatched roofs and half-naked children and gossiping women leaning over their half-doors. As it was market day, the lanes were more than usually crowded, and I explored them one after another, to an accompaniment of much good-humoured chaffing from the girls and women, especially when I unlimbered my camera. Then we walked out and took a look at the cathedral, a towering structure, still uncompleted as to its interior and bare and cold, but an impressive proof of the influence of the church which could raise the money to build so great an edifice in this poverty-stricken land; and then we stopped at some of the shops and looked at the Irish homespun, and spent a little time at an auction-sale, where the bidding was very slow and cautious, and finally we caught the omnibus back to our hotel. * * * * * There was still one place we wished to see. That was the Torc cascade, and, after tea, we set out to walk to it. The road lay for about a mile along the road skirting Muckross Lake, and then we came to a gate where a boy was waiting to exact a fee of nine-pence. Then we mounted a steep path, under magnificent pines, close beside the brawling Owengarriff River, up and up, with a lovely view of the lakes opening below us; and finally we came to the cascade--a white welter of water slithering down over the black rocks, very beautiful and impressive. We sat there for a long time, looking at it and at the stately wood which clothed the opposite hillside, and at the blue water lying far below us, and at the green hills away beyond, and we both agreed that, next to the view from the Kenmare road, this was the most glorious view to be had about Killarney. Subsequent reflection has not altered this, and, after the trip through the Gap of Dunloe and across the lakes, I should certainly place this one to the Torc cascade. Beside it, the view from Aghadoe is nowhere. We went on reluctantly, at last, mounting still higher until we came to a path bearing away to the left through the woods, and we followed this until we came to a mountain road which we had been told was there. It is called the Queen's Drive, and I suppose Victoria passed this way during her visit to the lakes; and it led us past the reservoir which supplies Killarney with water, and on down through magnificent woods whose beauty is marred only by a lot of so-called "monkey trees"--a monstrosity which had annoyed us all through Ireland, but to which I have not yet referred. The monkey tree is a sort of evergreen, with long, thin branches clad with close-growing foliage, and looking not unlike monkeys' arms. In fact, the tree itself resembles in a grotesque way a lot of monkeys swinging in midair, and hence its name. It is a hideous thing, and yet a specimen grows in every dooryard. There was one in front of our hotel, there were others along the road; here they had been planted in great numbers and reached an unprecedented size--but we were glad to observe that a few were dying. The monkey tree seems to be to Irish homes what the rubber-plant used to be to American ones, and it appalled us to see how many little ones were being started in tiny front yards, which they would one day overshadow and render abominable. I can only hope that, in some happy hour, a wave of reform will sweep over Ireland and carry these monstrosities before it. We came out, at last, upon a little huddle of houses on the hillside above our hotel, and stopped to talk to some children and their mother, then went on downward, in the gathering dusk, very happy because of a beautiful and satisfying day. And just as we turned into the highroad, Betty saw something gleaming on the ground at her feet, and stooped and picked up a shilling. From what ragged pocket had it fallen, we wondered? How great a tragedy would its loss represent? We looked up and down the road, but there was no one in sight. So we decided to keep it for luck, and we have it yet. CHAPTER XIV O'CONNELL, JOURNEYMAN TAILOR THERE was quite a crowd on the platform, that Sunday morning, of travellers turning their backs on Killarney, and we found ourselves eventually in a compartment with two Americans, man and wife, who were plainly in no pleasant humour. The man was especially disgruntled about something, and I judged from his exclamations that he had got decidedly the worst of it when it came to settling the bill. It is in some such mood as this, I fear, that many people leave Killarney. But the view from the window soon made us forget our fellow-passengers. The road runs for a time close beside the Flesk, one of the prettiest of Irish rivers, while away to the south rose the beautiful Killarney hills, peak upon peak, with mighty Mangerton dominating all of them. And then came the Paps, two conical elevations separated by a deep ravine; and then the bleak brown slopes of the Muskerry hills, with a ruined castle of the McCarthys guarding the only pass into the valley. To the north a boggy plain stretched away and away, ridged with black pits, like long earthworks, from which the turf had been cut. The hills to the south grew gradually less rugged, and presently we dropped into the beautiful valley of the Blackwater, with many ruined castles perched on the crags which overshadow it--castles built by the McCarthys, the O'Callaghans, and I know not what other septs, memorials of the old days of raid and counter-raid, of warring clans and treacherous chieftains. And then we came to Mallow, and had to change into another carriage, where we found five Americans, who were also coming from Killarney, and who also believed that they had been held up. Their grievance was against the hotel at which they had stopped, and they said wildly that it was no better than a den of thieves. This, of course, was an exaggeration, and, in any event, I did not pity them much, for it was soon evident that their visit to Ireland had been a waste of time. They knew nothing of her history and traditions; her ruins held no meaning for them; her empty valleys told them nothing of her past; they had never heard of Cormac, or Finn the Fair, or Ossian, or Conn the Hundred Fighter, or even of Brian Boru; they had never heard of that old civilisation which the Danes swept away, and saw nothing very wonderful in the Cross of Cong or the Book of Kells. So to them Ireland had proved a disappointment, just as she will to every one who visits her in ignorance and indifference. We reached Limerick Junction, at last, and changed thankfully to the branch which runs to Limerick, twenty miles away. And almost at once we came upon traces of Patrick Sarsfield, of glorious memory, for a few miles beyond the Junction, to the left of the line, are the ruins of a castle, which was held by the English, but which he surprised one night, on one of those famous raids of his, and captured and blew up. And then the line mounted the hills which divide the Vale of Tipperary from the valley of the Shannon, crossed them, and came out upon a land as beautiful and fertile as any we had seen in Ireland. Such lushness, such greenness, such calm, quiet loveliness can surely be matched in few other spots upon this earth. It was still early afternoon when the train rolled in to the station at Limerick, and on the platform we met the actor and his wife whom we had talked with at Blarney a week before. They had come to Limerick, where their principal was a great favourite, for a three weeks' engagement. I saw the actor afterwards on the street, and he told me that the theatre was in terrible shape, for some misguided enthusiasts had attempted to hold a Unionist meeting there, a few days previously, and the patriotic Limerickians had nearly torn the place to pieces. Limerick is by far the most important town of central or western Ireland; in fact it is surpassed in population only by Belfast, Dublin and Cork, and it has many amusing points of resemblance to the two latter. It is divided into two parts by a branch of the Shannon; it has one long, curving principal street leading to a bridge; the street is known officially as George Street, after an English king, but to all Irishmen it is O'Connell Street, in honour of the Liberator whose statue is its chief adornment; this street is a street of bright and attractive shops, not in itself interesting, but cross the bridge to the older part of the town, or turn up any of the little lanes which lead off from it, and you will find nothing more picturesque anywhere--nor more distressful. We walked along George Street, that afternoon, and crossed the bridge to the island on which Limerick had its birth. The bridge is called Matthew Bridge, not after the Disciple, but after Ireland's great apostle of temperance. Beyond the bridge is a maze of narrow, crooked streets, and we made our way through them to the old cathedral, whose tower served as guide. We got there just as vespers were over, and we found the verger very willing to show us about. I do not imagine there are many Protestants at Limerick; at least, a very small portion of this impressive old church serves the needs of the congregation, and the rest of it is bare and empty--and imposing. Rarely indeed have I seen a more sombre interior, for the walls are very massive, and the windows small, and there is a surprising number of dark little chapels--the principal one, of course, being dedicated as a burial place for the Earls of Limerick. The carved miserere seats are worth examining, as are also many of the old tombs which clutter the interior. There is an elaborate one to the Earl of Thomond in the chancel, and a carved slab covering the grave of Donall O'Brien, King of Munster, who founded the cathedral in 1179; but among the quaintest is a slab built into the wall of the nave with this epitaph cut upon it: MEMENTO MORY HERE LIETH LITTELL SAMUEL BARINGTON THAT GREAT UNDER TAKER OF FAMOUS CITTIES CLOCK AND CHIME MAKER HE MADE HIS ONE TIME GOE EARLY AND LATTER BUT NOW HE IS RETURNED TO GOD HIS CREATOR THE 29 OF NOVEMBER THEN HE SCEST AND FOR HIS MEMORY THIS HERE IS PLEAST BY HIS SON BEN 1693 We spent a very pleasant half hour in the church, and then we wandered on through the crooked streets to the magnificent Norman castle, set up here to defend the passage of the Shannon. Most venerable and impressive it is, with its great drum towers, and curtains ten feet thick. Just in front of it the Shannon is spanned by a fine modern bridge, replacing the ancient one which was the scene of so many conflicts, and at the farther end of it, mounted on a pedestal, is the famous stone on which Sarsfield signed his treaty with the English in 1691--the treaty which guaranteed equal rights to Catholics, but which, as every Catholic Irishman somewhat too vividly remembers, resulted only in a more bitter persecution. Irish memory, curiously enough, seems always to grow clearer with the passing years, and the mists of two centuries accentuate, rather than obscure, the fame of Limerick as "The City of the Violated Treaty." The story runneth thus: The River Shannon, with its wide estuary, its many lakes, and its mighty current flowing between impassable bogs or beetling cliffs, has always been a formidable barrier between east and west Ireland. In the old days, the only doors in this barrier was the ford at Athlone, just below Lough Ree, and another all but impassable one at Killaloe, just below Lough Derg; but in the ninth century, the Danes sailed up from the sea, landed on an island at the head of the tideway, fortified it, and so started the city of Limerick. The current of the river was divided here, and the invaders managed in time to get a bridge across, and so opened another door in the Shannon barrier. Brian Boru drove them out, at last, and then the Normans came and, after their fashion everywhere, rendered their hold secure by erecting a great round-towered castle to guard the bridge. Edward Bruce captured it in 1316, and three centuries later, Hugh O'Neill held it for six months against Cromwell's great general, Ireton. The Ironsides captured it, finally, and Ireton died of the plague not long afterwards in a house just back of the cathedral. But it was in the war against William of Orange that Limerick played its most distinguished part. I have already told how the Irish chose the cause of the Stuarts against the Parliament; how they proclaimed Charles II king as soon as his father's head was off, and of the vengeance Cromwell took. So it was inevitable that they should espouse the cause of James II against the Protestant William, whom the English had called over from the Netherlands to be their king. James came to Ireland to lead the rebellion, proved himself an idiot and a coward, and ended by running away and leaving the Irish to their fate. William's troops swept the country, took town after town and castle after castle, until Limerick remained nearly the last stronghold in Irish hands. So William marched against it, at the head of 26,000 men, but the position was a very strong one, and that ablest of Irish generals, Patrick Sarsfield, was in command of the town, and William was beaten back. The next year another great army under General Ginkle marched against the place, first capturing Athlone, and so getting across the river. A terrific attack was concentrated on the fortress guarding the bridge, a breach was made, the fort stormed, and the garrison put to the sword, only about a hundred out of eight hundred escaping across the other branch of the river into Limerick. Sarsfield still held the town, but his men were disheartened by the loss of the castle. Ginkle, on the other hand, realised that to take the town would be no easy task. A truce was proposed, negotiations began, both sides were eager to end the war, and the result was that the famous Treaty of Limerick was signed by Ginkle and Sarsfield on the third day of October, 1691, on a stone near the County Clare end of the bridge over the Shannon. There were twelve articles in the treaty, and some of them were kept--the one, for instance, permitting all persons to leave the country who wished to do so, and to take their families and portable goods along; but one was not kept, the most important one, perhaps, which provided that Irish Catholics should enjoy all the religious rights they possessed under Charles II, and that all Irish still in arms, who should immediately submit and take the oath of allegiance, should be secured in the free and undisputed possession of their estates. In a word, the price of peace was to have been a general indemnity and freedom of religious worship. It was not an excessive price, but it was never paid. The Protestant colonists in Ireland protested in great wrath that they had been betrayed, and the Irish Parliament, which the colonists controlled, after a bitter fight, repudiated the treaty, or, at least, confirmed only so much of it as "consisted with the safety and welfare of his Majesty's subjects in Ireland," and passed a number of new laws aimed at Catholics, disqualifying them from teaching school, from sending their children abroad to be educated, from observing any holy day except those set apart by the Church of Ireland, and many others of the same sort, some of almost insane malignity. All this was, of course, quite unjustifiable, but "King Billy" seems to have been in no way responsible for it. In any event, it happened more than two centuries ago, all these laws have long since been repealed, and it seems absurd to keep their memory so fresh and burning. One word more, and I am done with history. After the surrender of Limerick, Sarsfield and his men were given the choice of enlisting in William's army or leaving the country. They chose the latter, and went to France, where the last Catholic king of England had sought refuge. He, of course, was unable to maintain them, so they enlisted under the French king, Louis XIV, and formed the Irish Brigade, which was afterwards to become so famous, and in which, during the next fifty years, nearly half a million Irishmen enlisted, as the best means of avenging themselves on England. The part they played at Landen, at Barcelona, at Cremona, at Blenheim, at Ramilles, and finally at Fontenoy--all this is matter of history. * * * * * We crossed the bridge again, after a look at the treaty stone--which, enshrined on its lofty pedestal, is really a monument to English perfidy--passed the castle, and plunged into the crooked streets of "English Town," as this oldest part of Limerick is called, with its tall, foreign-looking, tumbledown houses--as picturesque a quarter as I have seen anywhere. For Limerick grew into an important city in the century following its capture by the English, and many wealthy people put up handsome town-houses, four or five stories high, with wide halls and sweeping stairs and beautiful doorways and tall windows framed in sculptured stone. It is these old houses which shadow the narrow lanes of "English Town," and they are all tenements now, for the well-to-do people--such of them as are left--have moved over to the newer, more fashionable, more sanitary quarter. No attempt is made to keep them in repair, and many of them have fallen down, leaving ragged gaps in the street. Others seem in imminent danger of falling, and the distressed look of the place is further heightened by the great fragments of the old walls which remain here and there. This part of Limerick is on the island where the town started; the part just beyond the bridge which leads to the mainland is called Irish Town, and it, too, was once included in the city walls, a long stretch of which is still standing back of the ancient citadel. Here too, especially along the quay, are handsome houses, long since fallen from their high estate, and now the homes of the poorest of the poor, a family in every room. It is something of a shock to see these ragged and distressed people climbing the beautiful stairways, or sitting in the handsome doorways or leaning out of the carved windows, very much at home in the place which was once the abode of wealth and fashion, while the noisy play of dirty and neglected children echoes through the rooms which once rang with gentle laughter and impassioned toast. Newtown-Pery, the newer part of the town, built on land reclaimed from the river by the Pery family, the Earls of Limerick, who still own it, contrasts strongly with the older part, for its streets are wide and straight and run regularly at right angles, and it is a bustling place, but quite without interest to the stranger. The houses are almost uniformly four stories high, and are built of a peculiar dark-brown brick, which makes them look much older than they really are. And down along the water-front are nearly a mile of quays, with floating docks and heavy cranes, and towering warehouses looking down upon them. Time was when Limerick fondly hoped to become the greatest port in Ireland. She had every advantage--a noble situation on the broad estuary of the Shannon, up which ships from America could sail direct to her wharves--but in spite of great expenditures to improve her harbour facilities, not only did no new trade come, but such as she already had withered and withered, until to-day her tall warehouses are empty, her quays almost deserted, and in the broad expanse of the Shannon there are few boats except excursion steamers and pleasure yachts. The cause of this decay? Irishmen assert that there is only one cause--unjust and discriminating laws passed by England to protect her own trade by destroying Irish industry. No doubt this is true; but these laws have been repealed for many years, and there is little evidence of the healthy revival of these industries anywhere in Ireland. Such revival as there is has been carefully fostered by various government agencies; there has been no great spontaneous revival, and perhaps there never will be. But it is a melancholy sight--the empty, decaying mills, the idle factories, the deserted warehouses, the ruined dwellings, which the traveller sees all up and down the land. I went out for another stroll about the town, after tea, for I wanted to see the new Catholic cathedral, whose tall spire dominates the landscape for many miles around. And as I went, I could not but notice the impress the English have left on the names of the streets. The principal street, as I have said already, is George Street; then there is Cecil Street, and William Street, and Nelson Street, and Catherine Street, and George and Charlotte Quays opposite each other. There is one, however, named after a local celebrity whom all Irishmen should delight to honour--Gerald Griffin, an authentic poet, whose "Eileen Aroon" is one of the tenderest and most musical of lyrics. Gerald Griffin Street is one of the most important in Limerick, and it is by it that one gains the cathedral, an impressive building, especially as to its interior, dimly lighted through high, narrow lancet windows. And here again one admires not so much the church itself, as the indomitable spirit which could undertake the task of building such an edifice in want-stricken Ireland. The Sarsfield monument is in the cathedral square, a rampageous figure, charging with drawn sword off the top of a shaft of stone--perhaps the most ridiculous tribute to a great soldier and patriot to be seen anywhere on this earth. I, at least, have never seen any to match it, unless it be that imperturbable dandy, supposed to represent Andrew Jackson, who calmly doffs his chapeau from the back of a rearing horse in front of our own White House! I walked on, after that, down toward the quays, along little lanes of thatched houses, and then back into the region of the old mansions, with their chattering women and sprawling children; and then, suddenly, I became aware of the girls. Limerick, like Cork, is supposed to be famous for the beauty of its women, and the younger generation was out in force, that Sunday evening, rigged up in its best clothes, evidently ready for any harmless adventure. There _were_ some nice-looking girls among them, no doubt of that, with bright eyes and red lips and glowing cheeks, and the advent of a stranger in their midst filled them with the liveliest interest, which they were at no pains to dissemble. I know nothing about the psychology of Irish girls, for I was not in a position to investigate or experiment; but while they are shy, at first, I should judge that most of them are not altogether averse to mild flirtation. The glance of their eye is not, perhaps, as fatal as Kate Kearney's, but it is very taking. I wish I could say as much for the boys; but if there were any witty, invincible Rory O'Mores left in Ireland, I didn't see them. The Irish young man seems very different indeed from the light-hearted, audacious, philandering scapegrace so dear to Lover and Lever and scores of lesser poets, and once so familiar upon the stage. They are not forever breaking into song, they do not brim with sentiment, they are not, so far as I could judge, full of heroic emotions and high ambitions. In fact, they are quite the opposite of all that--matter-of-fact, humdrum, rather stupid. Of course there are exceptions, and I was fortunate enough to meet one that very evening. I stopped in at a tobacconist's to get a paper, and fell into talk with the proprietor; and presently there entered a man who bought a pennyworth of tobacco, filled his pipe, and then remained for a word, seeing that I was a stranger. We were talking about Ireland, and in a very few minutes the newcomer had the centre of the stage. O'Connell, journeyman tailor, so he introduced himself, and I wish I could paint a picture of him that would make him live for you as he lives for me. He was a faded little man, of indeterminate age, with a straw-coloured moustache and sallow skin, but his eyes were very bright, and before long his face was glowing with an infectious enthusiasm. His clothes were worn and shabby, but one forgot them as he stood there and talked--indeed they even lent a sort of dignity to his lean, nervous little figure. First he told of how Cleeve, the big butter man, was trying to get the city to close the swing bridge over the Shannon, so that his heavy trams, which went about the country collecting milk, could cross it. To close the bridge would shut off permanently about four hundred yards of quay; but, so Cleeve argued, the quays were little used, and the town would never need that stretch above the bridge. But O'Connell did not believe it. "'Tis true," he said, "that England with her cruel laws, has killed our trade and brought us all to want; 'tis true that we have no use for the quay at present. But all that will be changed when we get Home Rule. Then, sir, you will see our quays crowded with boats from end to end; you will see our mills and factories humming with life, you will see our warehouses piled with commodities from every quarter of the world. To shut off part of them, just because this bloated butter-maker wants it, would be a crime against the people of this town." "How is all this to be brought about?" I asked. "'Tis you Americans will be doing it, sir. The Irish in America, our brothers, God bless them, will rally to the ould land. Her children will come home to the Shan Van Vocht, once she is free of England. 'Tis them ones will set us on our feet again. They will be putting their money into our industries, till in the whole island there will be not an idle wheel or a smokeless chimney." I told him I was afraid his dreams were too rosy; that the American Irish, like all other Americans, would be governed by dividends, not by sentiment, in the investment of their money. But nothing could shake his belief in the good time coming. I asked him what he thought of Ulster, and he laughed. "The Protestants have nothing to fear from Home Rule," he said. "'Tis them will control this government. We Catholics are going to pick the best and strongest men in this island to man the ship, and there will be more Protestants than Catholics amongst them. We will need strong arms at the helm, and what do we care what their religion may be, if only they're good men and true? You're a Protestant, I take it, sir?" "Yes," I said; "I am." "And does that make me think any the less of you? Not a bit of it. 'Tis the same God we look at, only with different eyes." "Not even that," I corrected; "with the same eyes--just from a different angle." "You've said it, sir. I can't improve on that. Well then, what is it the Ulster men are afraid of? They say it's the priests. But how silly that is! Let them look back into history, and see what has happened when the priests interfered with things that did not concern them. In spiritual matters I bow to my priest; in everything else, I am independent of him. It is so with all Irishmen, and has always been. Do you remember what the great O'Connell said: 'I would as soon,' said he, 'take my politics from Stamboul as from Rome.' Do you remember what happened when Rome tried to prevent the Catholics of Ireland from contributing to the testimonial for the greatest patriot Ireland has ever had, Charles Stewart Parnell? But of course you don't. I'll just tell you. Why, sir, the whole country was on fire from end to end. 'Make Peter's Pence into Parnell's Pounds' was the battle-cry, and the money poured in like rain. Mr. Parnell's friends had hoped to raise fifteen thousand pounds for him. When they got the money counted at last, they had near forty thousand pounds. What do you think of that now?" "I think it was fine," I said. "But why is it, then, Ulster is so frightened?" "Ah, Ulster isn't frightened--it's just a lot of talk from people who live by talkin'. There's many Catholics who are against Home Rule, and there's many Protestants who are for it. They'll all be for it, after they've tried it a while. And we won't let the Protestants stay out--we can't afford to--we need them too much. Why, sir, our leaders have always been Protestants, and I'm thinking always will be." "There was O'Connell," I reminded him. "I have not forgotten him--I quoted him but a moment since; and 'tis true he was a great man and a true patriot. But he fell into grievous error when he chose Catholic emancipation, when he might have got Home Rule. What did Catholic emancipation mean to me and thousands like me? It meant just nothing at all. It meant that some Catholics of O'Connell's own class could hold jobs under government--that was all. The greatest man this island ever produced, sir, was a Protestant. I have mentioned him already; his name was Charles Stewart Parnell!" I wish you could have seen his shining eyes and heard his quivering voice as he went on to tell me about Parnell; and how, after the scandal which ruined his life--a scandal prearranged, so many think, by his political enemies--he had come to Limerick to address a meeting, with death in his face and a broken heart in his eyes; and there had been some in the crowd that hissed him and pelted him with mud; and the little tailor, his chest swelling at the old glorious memory, told how he had been one of those who rallied around the stricken leader and beat the crowd back and got him safe away. There were tears in his eyes before he had ended. "Ah, woman," he went on, "'twas not only Parnell you ruined then, it was ould Ireland, too! And not for the first time! Why, sir, 'twas because of a woman the British first came to this island. Troy had her Helen, as Homer tells, and so had Erin. 'Twas the same story over again. Dervorgilla the lady's name was, and she was the wife of Tiernan O'Rourke, Prince of Breffni, who had his fine castle on the beautiful green banks of Lough Gill. It was there that Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster, saw her, and after that no other woman would do for him. So he courted her in odd corners and whispered soft honeyed words into her ear; and she listened, as women will, and her head was turned by his flattery. One day her husband, who was a pious man, kissed her good-bye and started on a pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Purgatory in Lough Derg; and he was there nine days; and when he came back, what did he find? Ah, sir, Tom Moore has told it far better than I can: "'The valley lay smiling before me, Where lately I left her behind; Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me, That saddened the joy of my mind. I looked for the lamp which, she told me, Should shine when her Pilgrim returned; But, though darkness began to enfold me, No lamp from the battlements burned! "'I flew to her chamber--'twas lonely, As if the loved tenant lay dead;-- Ah, would it were death, and death only; But no, the young false one had fled. And there hung the lute that could soften My very worst pains into bliss; While the hand, which had waked it so often, Now throbbed to a proud rival's kiss.'" I wish I could convey the tremor of the voice with which O'Connell, journeyman tailor, recited these silly lines. I can see him yet, standing there, one hand against his heart, his eyes straining up to the battlements from which no welcoming light gleamed. I can see the proprietor of the little shop, as he lounged against his counter, smiling good-naturedly. I can see the two or three other men who had drifted in, listening with all their ears. And then O'Connell went on to tell how O'Rourke, finding his wife had fled with MacMurrough, appealed to his overlord, King Turlough O'Conor, and how the two of them so harassed MacMurrough that he was compelled to restore Dervorgilla to her husband and to flee to England, where he went to Strongbow and persuaded him to bring his Normans to Ireland to help him in his feud; and how Strongbow, once he got a firm grip on the land, refused to loosen it, and the curse of English rule had been on Ireland ever since. I looked this story up, afterwards, and found that legend tells it much as O'Connell did, and it is probably true. But, just the same, it is hardly fair to lay the whole blame for Ireland's woes on Dervorgilla, for the Normans had been looking longingly across the Irish Sea years before MacMurrough fled to them, and would no doubt have crossed it, sooner or later, without an invitation. The tragic point of the story is that, as usual, the invader found the Irish divided and so unable to resist. We shall see the castle from which Dervorgilla fled, before our journey is done, and also the place where she lies buried, at Mellifont, in the valley of the Boyne. The quotation from Tom Moore had turned my little tailor's thoughts toward poetry, and he asked if I knew this poem and that, and when I didn't, as was frequently the case, he would quote a few lines, or sing them, if they had been set to music. "Of course you know 'To the Dead of Ninety-eight'?" he asked. "Yes," I said; "but that is not Johnson's noblest poem. Do you know his 'Ode to Ireland'?" "I do not," he answered. "Let us have it, sir." How sorry I was that I couldn't let them have it, or didn't have a copy that I could read to them, for it is a stirring poem; I had to confess that I didn't know it, but I can't resist quoting one splendid stanza now-- "No swordsmen are the Christians!" Oisin cried: "O Patrick! thine is but a little race." Nay, ancient Oisin! they have greatly died In battle glory and with warrior grace. Signed with the Cross, they conquered and they fell; Sons of the Cross, they stand: The Prince of Peace loves righteous warfare well, And loves thine armies, O our Holy Land! The Lord of Hosts is with thee, and thine eyes Shall see upon thee rise His glory, and the blessing of His Hand. "Have you heard Timothy Sullivan's 'Song from the Backwoods'?" he asked me finally, and when I said I never had, he sang it for the assembled company, and a splendid song I found it. Here it is: Deep in Canadian woods we've met, From one bright island flown; Great is the land we tread, but yet Our hearts are with our own. And ere we leave this shanty small, While fades the Autumn day, We'll toast Old Ireland! Dear Old Ireland! Ireland, boys, hurray! We've heard her faults a hundred times, The new ones and the old, In songs and sermons, rants and rhymes, Enlarged some fifty-fold. But take them all, the great and small, And this we've got to say:-- Here's dear Old Ireland! Good Old Ireland! Ireland, boys, hurray! As he went on with the song, the others in the shop warmed up to it and joined in the chorus so lustily that a crowd gathered outside; and the shopkeeper got a little nervous, fearing, perhaps, a visit from some passing constable, and he whispered in O'Connell's ear, when the song was done, and there were no more songs that evening. But still we sat and talked and smoked and O'Connell told me something of himself: of the fifteen shillings a week he could earn when he had steady work; of the three-pence a week he paid out under the insurance act, and how, if he was sick, he would draw a benefit of ten shillings a week for six months. He said bitterly that, if he lived in England, he would get free medical attendance, too, but that had been refused to Ireland through the machinations of the doctors and their friends. He told of the blessing the old age pension had been to many people he knew, and he admitted that England had been trying, of late years, to atone for her old injustices toward Ireland, and was now, perhaps, spending more money on the country than she got out of it. "But there is a saying, sir, as you know," he concluded, rising and knocking out his pipe, "that hell is paved with good intentions; and however good England's intentions may be, she can never govern us well, because she can never understand us. Besides, it's not charity we want, it's freedom. Better a crust of bread and freedom, than luxury and chains! We'll have some hard fights, but we'll win out. Come back in ten years, sir, and you'll see a new Ireland. Take my word for it. It's glad I am that I came in here this night," he added. "I was feeling downcast and disheartened; but that is all over now. This talk has been a great pleasure to me. Good-bye, sir; God save you!" and he disappeared into the night. CHAPTER XV THE RUINS AT ADARE WE threw back the shutters, next morning, to a cold and dreary day of misting rain; and after a look at it, Betty elected to spend it before a cosy fire in our great, high-ceilinged room. I have wondered since if our hotel at Limerick was not one of those handsome eighteenth-century mansions, brought by the hard necessities of time to the use of passing travellers. It is difficult to explain the gorgeousness of some of its rooms on any other theory. Ours was a very large one, with elaborate ceiling-mouldings and panelled walls and a mantel of carved marble, which Betty inspected longingly. She could see it, I fancy, in her own drawing-room, and perhaps its beauties had something to do with her decision to spend the day in front of it. There were two or three pictures I wanted to take--one of the old castle and another of the crooked little lane I had wandered through the night before; so I set forth to get them, along busy George Street, with its bright shops, and then across the river to English Town, and so to the castle front. I found it very hard to get anything like a satisfactory picture of it, because the parapet of the new bridge is in the way, and because the angle of my lens was not wide enough to take in both the towers. I did the best I could, took a last look at the treaty stone, but forbore to add to its fame by photographing it; and then traversed again the quaint old streets, with their ramshackle houses, and so came to the little lane. The town, as I came through it, had been full of market-carts drawn by ragged donkeys and driven by shawled women, and I loitered about for a time, hoping that one of them would come this way and so add a touch of human interest to my picture. A painter was busy giving one of the thatched houses a coat of white-wash; only it wasn't white-wash, properly speaking, because a colouring-matter had been added to it which made it a vivid pink. This pink wash is very popular in Ireland, and, varied sometimes by a yellow wash, adds a high note to nearly every landscape. I talked with the man awhile, and then, the rain coming down more heavily, I slipped into a cobbler's shop for shelter. It would be difficult to imagine anything more comfortless and primitive than that interior. The shop occupied one of the two rooms of the family home--bare little rooms with dirt floors and tiny windows and no furniture except the most necessary. Somebody has said that there are two pieces of furniture always worthy of veneration--the table and the bed; but I doubt if even that philosopher could have found anything to venerate in the specimens which this house contained. The table was a rude affair of rough boards, with one corner supported by a box in lieu of a leg, and the bed was a mere pile of rags on a sort of low shelf in one corner. What sort of fare was set forth upon that table, and what sort of rest the bed afforded, was not difficult to imagine. The cobbler was tapping away at a pair of shoes, trying to mend them, and sadly they needed it. Indeed, they were such shoes as no self-respecting tramp would wear in America, and I could not but suspect that the cobbler had fished them from a garbage heap somewhere, and was trying, as a sort of speculation, to make them worth a few pennies. Two or three blocks of turf smoked and flared in a narrow fire-place, and, as always, a black pot hung over them, with some sort of mess bubbling inside it. The cobbler's wife sat on a stool before the fire contemplating the boiling pot gloomily, and a dirty child, of undeterminable sex, played with the scraps of leather on the floor. I apologised for my intrusion; but the atmosphere of the place was not genial. I fancied they resented my presence,--as I should have done, had our positions been reversed--and so, as soon as the downpour slackened a bit, I pressed a penny into the baby's fist and took myself off. The cobbler, suddenly softened, followed me outside to see me take the picture, and perhaps to be in it; but that picture was a failure, all spotted by the rain. I intended going to Adare, a little town not far away, said to possess a most remarkable collection of ruins, but it was yet an hour till train time, and I spent it exploring the town back of the railway station. I found it a most picturesque collection of crooked streets and quaint houses, and my advent was frankly treated as a great event by the gossips leaning over their half-doors. How eager they were to talk; I should have liked to stop and talk to all of them; but when I got ready to take a picture of the very crookedest street, their interest in my proceedings was so urgent and humorously-expressed that I lost my head and forgot to pull the slide--a fact I didn't realise until I had bade them good-bye and was walking away; and then I was ashamed to go back and take another. The train for Adare was waiting beside the platform when I got to the station, and I carefully selected a vacant compartment and clambered aboard. And then a guard came along and laughingly told me I would have to get out, because that car was reserved for a "Mothers' Union," which was going to Adare to hold a meeting. So I got out and waited on the platform till the Union arrived--some twenty or thirty comfortable-looking matrons, in high spirits, which the miserable weather did not dampen in the least. Irish meetings are held, I suppose, just the same rain or shine. It was Simeon Ford who remarked that if the Scotch knew enough to go in when it rained, they would never get any outdoor exercise. This is equally true of the Irish--only in Ireland, one doesn't need to go in, for sure 'tis a soft rain that does nobody any harm! Adare is about ten miles from Limerick and the road thither runs along the valley of the Shannon, with its lush meadows and lovely woods, veiled that day in a pearly mist of rain. As usual, the station is nearly a mile from the town, and as I started to walk it, I saw a tall old man coming along behind me, and I waited for him. "'Tis a bad day," I said. "It is so," he agreed; "and it's a long walk I have before me, for my house would be two miles beyont the village." "They tell me there are some fine ruins in the village." "There are so;" and then he looked at me more attentively. "You're not a native of these parts?" he asked, at last. "No," I said; "I'm from America." "From America!" he echoed, incredulously. "Yes; from the state called Ohio." "Think of that, now!" he cried. "And I can understand every word you say! Why, glory be to God, you speak fairer than the old woman up here along who has never crossed the road!" I should have liked to hear more about this remarkable old woman, but he gave me no chance with his many questions about America. He had a son in New Jersey, he said, and the boy was doing well, and sent a bit of money home at Christmas and such like. It was a wonderful place, America. Ah, if he were not so old-- So, talking in this manner, we came to the town, and he pointed out the inn to me, opposite a picturesque string of thatched cottages nestling among the trees, and bade me Godspeed and went on his way; and I suppose that night before the fire he told of his meeting with the wanderer from far-off America, and how well he could understand his language! I went on to the inn, which was a surprisingly pretty one, new and clean and well-kept; and I took off my wet coat and sat down in the cosy bar before a lunch which tasted as good as any I have ever eaten; and then I lit my pipe and drew up before the fire and asked the pretty maid who served me how to get to the ruins. They were all, it seemed, inside the demesne of the Earl of Dunraven, the entrance to which was just across the road, and it was necessary that I should have an entrance ticket, which the maid hastened to get for me from the proprietor of the inn. When she gave it to me, I asked the price, and was told there was no charge, as the Earl of Dunraven was always glad for people to come to see the ruins. All honour to him for that! So it was with a very pleasant feeling about the heart that I presently crossed the road and surrendered a portion of my ticket to a black-eyed girl at the gate-house, and she told me how to go to get to the ruins, and hoped I wouldn't be soaked through. But I didn't mind the rain; it only added to the beauty of the park. Besides, I was thinking of "Silken Thomas." Have you ever heard of "Silken Thomas," tenth Earl of Kildare? Probably not; yet he was a great man in his day--not so great as his grandfather, that greatest of the Geraldines, whose trial for treason before Henry VII is a thing Irishmen love to remember. "This man burned the cathedral at Cashel," said the prosecutor, "and we will prove it." "Spare your evidence," said the Earl. "I admit that I set fire to the church, but 'twas only because I thought the archbishop was inside." "All Ireland cannot rule this man!" cried one of his opponents. "Then, by God, this man shall rule all Ireland!" said the King, and Kildare was made lord lieutenant, and went back to Dublin in triumph. It was in the thirteenth century that Adare came into possession of this mighty family, and the second Earl built a great castle here, on the site of an older one which had belonged to the dispossessed O'Donovans. The first Earl had already built near by a monastery for the Augustinians; and another Earl and his pious wife built a yet handsomer one for the Franciscans; so that here was citadel and sanctuary for them, when they grew weary of fighting, or when the tide of battle went against them. It was a Kildare who led the northern half of Ireland against the southern, at the great battle of Knocktow, where Irishmen slew each other by thousands, while the English looked on and chuckled in their sleeves; and after that, the Kildares waxed so powerful that Wolsey, the great minister of the eighth Henry, took alarm at their over-vaulting ambition, and caused the head of the house, the ninth Earl, to be summoned to London. He went unwillingly, though he had been given every assurance of safety; and his misgivings proved well-founded, for he was at once imprisoned in the Tower. He left behind him in Ireland his son, "Silken" Thomas, so-called from the richness of his attire and retinue, a youth of twenty-one; and when the news came that the old Earl had been put to death, Silken Thomas, deeming it credible enough, renounced his allegiance to England, marched into Dublin, and threw down his sword of state before the Chancellor and Archbishop in St. Mary's Abbey, and then rode boldly forth again, none daring to stop him. But it came to naught, for a great English force wore him out in a long campaign, seduced his allies from him, and finally persuaded him to yield on condition that his life should be spared. He sailed for England, assured of a pardon, was arrested as soon as he landed, and was beheaded, and drawn and quartered on Tower Hill, together with five of his kinsmen. So ended the haughty Geraldines. The estate was confiscated, and the castle, after being besieged by Desmonds and O'Connells, by Irish and by English, was finally taken by Cromwell's men and destroyed, and they also, perhaps, put the finishing touches to the monasteries. That was the wild old story I was thinking of as I made my way along the winding road, over a beautiful little stream in which I could see the trout lurking, and then across a golf ground to the ivy-draped ruins of the old abbey of the Franciscans, built by the Geraldines in the heyday of their power. It is a beautiful cluster of buildings, with a graceful square tower rising high above them; and they are in excellent preservation, lacking only the roofs and a portion of gable here and there. Even the window tracery is, for the most part, intact. The interior of the church is of unusual richness and beauty, abounding in delicate detail--recessed altar-tombs, richly-carved sedilia, arched vaults, graceful mouldings, and the window traceries are very pure and lovely. Here, as at Muckross, the cloisters are especially beautiful, and are perfectly preserved. They are lighted on two sides by pointed arches arranged in groups of three, while on the side next the church the arches are grouped in pairs, and the fourth side is closed in by a lovely arcade, with double octagonal columns. Here, also as at Muckross, the friars planted a yew tree in the centre of the court, and it is now a venerable giant. Whether it is as deadly as the Muckross yew I do not know. [Illustration: THE CHOIR OF THE ABBEY AT ADARE] [Illustration: THE CASTLE OF THE GERALDINES, ADARE] Beyond the cloisters are the refectory and domestic offices and dormitories, all well-preserved, and repaying the most careful scrutiny. I don't know when I have been more ecstatically happy than when, after examining all this beauty, I sat myself down under an arch in the very midst of it, and smoked a pipe and gazed and gazed. I tore myself away at last, and made my way across the meadow to the ruins of the castle, which I could see looming above the trees by the river. Right on the bank of the river it stands, and at one time there was a moat all around it which the river fed. One can see traces of the moat, even yet, with a fosse beyond, and there is enough left of the castle to show how great and strong this citadel of the Geraldines was. There is a high outer wall, all battlemented, pierced by a single gate; and then an inner ward, also with a single gate, flanked by heavy defending towers. Within this looms the ultimate place of refuge, the mighty donjon, forty feet square, with walls of tremendous strength, and flanking towers, and every device for defence, so that one wonders how it was ever taken. One can still go up by the narrow stone stair, and from the top look down upon these walls within walls, and fancy oneself back in the Middle Ages, with their pageantries and heroisms and picturesque mummeries; and one can see, too, how hard and comfortless life was then, save for the few who held wealth and power in their mailed fists. "The good old times!" Not much! The sad, cruel, gruesome, selfish, treacherous old times, whose like, thank heaven, will never be seen again upon this earth! The rain was pouring down in sheets as I left the castle, but I could not forbear going back again to the friary for a last look at it; and then I tramped happily back along the road to the gate; and the black-eyed girl was there to welcome me, and to say how sorry she was that the day was so bad. But I did not think it bad; I thought it beautiful, and said so; only I was afraid my photographs wouldn't be worth reproducing. And then the girl asked me if I wouldn't come in and sit by the fire a bit, and we had a little gossip, of course about America. She had a married sister in New York, she said, and she hoped some day to join her. And then she told me that the cottage next door was where the famous Adare cigarettes were made--an industry started by the Earl, who grew the tobacco on his place. I stopped in to see the factory, and found four girls rolling the cigarettes and a man blending the tobaccos. He told me that the Earl had planted twenty-five acres with tobacco, and that it did very well; but it was not used alone, as it was too dark, but blended with the lighter Maryland, brought from America. I bought a packet of the cigarettes in the interests of this narrative, but they did not seem to me in any way extraordinary. I went on again and stopped in at the parish church, which was at one time a Trinitarian Friary, or White Abbey, founded seven hundred years ago. It was falling into ruins, when the Earl, who seems omnipotent in these parts, restored it and fitted it up as a church and turned it over to the Catholics. There is a big school attached to it now, and as I entered the grounds, a white-coifed nun who was sitting at a window looking over some papers, fled hastily. The church itself is chiefly remarkable for a very beautiful five-lighted window over the altar. Just outside is a handsome Celtic cross, surmounting the fountain where the villagers get their water. There was a store farther down the street, and I stopped in to get some postcards. It was the most crowded store I ever saw, the ceiling hung with tinware, the shelves heaped with merchandise of every kind, and the floor so crowded with boxes and barrels that there was scarcely room to squeeze between them. I remarked to the proprietor that he seemed to carry a large stock, and he explained that he tried to have everything anybody would want, for it was foolish to let any money get away. While we were talking, a girl came in to sell some eggs. She had them in a basket, and the man took them out, but instead of counting them, he weighed them. I went on back to the station, after that, through the driving rain, and I was very wet by the time I got there--wet on the outside, that is, but warm and dry and happy underneath. And at the station, I found three men, who were engaged in a heated argument as to whether a man weighed any more after he had eaten dinner than he did before. One of the men contended very earnestly that one could eat the heartiest of meals without gaining an ounce of weight if one only took the precaution of drinking a mug or two of beer or porter with the meal, since the drink lightened the brain and so neutralised the weight of the food in the stomach. He asserted that he had seen this proved more than once, and that he was willing to bet on it. He was also willing to bet that he could put twelve pennies into a brimming glass of stout without causing it to spill. As the village was a mile away, there was no place to get a glass of stout and try this interesting experiment. And then one of the men, looking at my wet coat and dripping cap, asked me if I had been fishing. "No," I said. "I was tramping around through the demesne looking at the ruins and trying to get some pictures of them," and I tapped my camera. He looked at the camera and then he looked at me. "Where would you be from?" he asked. "From America." "From America?" he echoed in surprise. "Ah, well," he added, after a moment's thought, "that do seem a long way to come just to get a few photos!" I couldn't help laughing as I agreed that it did; but I had never before thought of it in just that way. And then he told me that he had five brothers in America, but he himself had been in the army, and was minded to enlist again. In the army, one got enough to eat and warm clothes to wear and a tight roof to sleep under, which was more than most men were able to do in Ireland! The Mothers' Union presently arrived, very wet but very happy. I was curious to know what they had discussed at their meeting, and what conclusions they had reached, but the train pulled in a moment later, and I had no time to make any inquiries. If Betty had been along, I think I should have persuaded her to attend that meeting; but I found her very warm and comfortable before her fire back at Limerick, and I confess that I was glad to get out of my wet things and sit down in front of it. At 9:25 o'clock that night, when we supposed that most of Limerick was in bed, we heard the sound of music and the tramp of many feet in the street below, and looked out to see a band going past, followed by a great crowd of men tramping silently along in the wet. Ordinarily, I would have rushed out to see what was up; but I was tired, and the fire felt very good, and so I sat down again in front of it. I have been sorry since, for I suspect it was a Home Rule meeting, and Limerick has a great reputation for shindies. Perhaps O'Connell, journeyman tailor, made a speech. If he did, I am sorrier still, for I am sure it was a good one! * * * * * There was one thing more at Limerick we wished to see--the great butter factory of the Messrs. Cleeve, on the other side of the Shannon. We had already seen, rumbling through the streets of Limerick, the heavy steam trams carrying enormous iron tanks, which collect the milk from the country for miles around--from ten thousand cows some one told us--and we had seen so few industries in Ireland that it seemed worth while to inspect this one. So, next morning, we walked down to the water-front, past the towering, empty warehouses, to the swing bridge which Cleeve wants to close so that his trams can get across the Shannon without going away around by the castle. The bridge, a very fine one, was named originally after Wellesley, but has been re-christened after Patrick Sarsfield, in whose honour the street which leads up from it is also named. The swivel which allows boats to pass and which isn't strong enough to carry the weight of Cleeve's trams, is on the Limerick side, and just beyond it is a statue which one naturally thinks is Sarsfield's, until one reads the inscription at its base and finds it is a presentment of a certain Lord Fitzgibbon, who was killed in the charge of the Light Brigade. Beyond that, the bridge stretches away across the wide and rapid stream, by far the biggest river in Ireland. The butter factory is not far off, and we entered the office and told the clerk who came forward that we should like to see the place. He asked for my card, had me write my American address on it, and then disappeared with it into an inner room. There was a delay of some minutes, and finally one of the Messrs. Cleeve came out, my card in his hand. After greeting us quite cordially, he looked at the camera which I had under my arm, and asked if I expected to take any pictures of the place. "Why, no," I said; "I hadn't thought of doing so. I certainly won't if you don't want me to." "Are you interested in the butter business?" "Only as a private consumer." "Or in the condensed milk business??" "No," I said promptly, "neither of us is interested in that, even as consumers." And then, seeing that he still hesitated, I explained that we were just travelling Americans who had heard about the factory and thought we should like to see it; but that if it was against the rules, he had only to say so, and it would be all right. "It isn't against the rules," he explained. "In fact, we welcome visitors; only we have to be careful. We have some secret processes, especially with our condensed milk, which we wouldn't care to have our competitors know about. But I'm sure you're all right," he added, and called a clerk and told him to show us everything. Most interesting we found it, for twenty-three million gallons of milk are used there every year, and are converted not only into butter and condensed milk, but into buttons and cigarette holders and all sorts of things for which celluloid is commonly used. It was in this use of one of the by-products of the business, casein, so our guide explained, that much of the profit was made, since both the butter and the condensed milk had to be sold on a very close margin. The factory is a very complete one, making everything it uses--its own cans and boxes, its own labels, its own cartons, its containers of every kind and shape, as well as their contents. And the machinery with which this is done is very intricate and ingenious. Our guide said that one of the principal hazards of the business was the likelihood that some new machine would be invented at any time to displace the old ones, and would have to be purchased in order to keep abreast of competition. We saw the long troughs into which the milk is poured and strained and heated to Pasteurize it, and then run through the separators. In the next room were the great churns, from which the yellow butter was being taken; and beyond were the mechanical kneaders, which worked out the superfluous water and worked in the salt; and then the butter was put through a machine which divided it into blocks weighing a pound or two pounds, and then each of these blocks was carefully weighed, to be sure that it was full weight, and if it wasn't a little dab of butter was added before it was wrapped up and placed in the carton. And during all these processes it was never touched by any human finger. On the floor above were the great copper retorts in which the milk was being condensed by boiling. We looked in through a little isinglassed opening, and could see it seething like a volcano. And still higher up were the machines which turned the hardened casein, which would otherwise be wasted, into buttons and novelties of various kinds. The place seemed very prosperous and well-managed, and, so our guide assured us, was doing well. We were glad to find one such place in southern Ireland. Of course there are many others; and perhaps the impression I have given of Limerick does the town injustice, for it is a busy place. It is famous for its bacon, to the making of which ten thousand pigs are sacrificed weekly. It used also to be famous for its lace, worked by hand on fine net; but Limerick lace is made almost everywhere nowadays except at Limerick, although there is a successful school there, I believe, in one of the convents. The name of the town has also passed into the language as that of a distinctive five-line stanza, which Edward Lear made famous, and of which such distinguished poets as Rudyard Kipling, Cosmo Monkhouse, George du Maurier, Gelett Burgess and Carolyn Wells have written famous examples. The limerick is said to have been originally an extempore composition, a lot of people getting together and composing limericks, in turn, as a sort of game designed to while away an evening. Whether this was first done at Limerick I don't know, but the name came from the chorus which was sung after every stanza in order to give the next person time to get his limerick into shape: Oh, won't you come up, come up, come up, Oh, won't you come up to Limerick? Oh, won't you come up, come all the way up, Come all the way up to Limerick? At least, that is the way I heard the chorus sung once, many years ago, without understanding in the least what it meant. The invitation, of course, is for the passing ship to enter the wide estuary of the Shannon and sail up to Limerick's waiting quays. If the first limerick was composed at Limerick, it must have been a long time ago, and I doubt if any are produced there nowadays. We took a last stroll about the town, after we had seen the butter-making, and looked at the great artillery barracks, and the big market, and the mammoth jail and the still more mammoth lunatic asylum, where the inmates are decked out in bright red bonnets, which I should think would make them madder still. And then we walked through an open space called the People's Park, whose principal ornament is a tall column surmounted by the statue of a man named Spring Rice. Betty remarked that she had heard of spring wheat, but never of Spring Rice, and asked who he was; but I didn't know; and then we came to the Carnegie Library, and went inside to see what it was like. I have seldom seen a drearier place. In the reading-room a few shabby men were looking over some newspapers, but the rest of the building was deserted, except for one old man, who may have been the librarian. There were few books, and the names of those the library had were arranged in a remarkable mechanism which resembled a lot of miniature post-office boxes; and when the book was in, the name was turned out toward you, and when it was out, the card was turned blank-side out. It was the most complicated thing I ever saw in a public library. I suppose after a while, when the library gets more books, this bulletin will be used only for the newer ones; but I don't imagine there is a great demand for books in Limerick. At least mighty few seemed to be in circulation. Where life's realities are so bitter, where want is always at one's heels, there is little time for intellectual recreation. How bitter those realities are we realised, as we had never done before, on our way back to the station; for, on the doorstep of a low, little house, sat a ragged girl of six or eight, cuddling her doll against her breast and crooning to it softly. And the doll was just a block of turf, with a scrap of dirty rag for a dress. CHAPTER XVI "WHERE THE RIVER SHANNON FLOWS" I HAVE already spoken of the wonders of the River Shannon, which rises in a bubbling cauldron away above Lough Allen, and flows down through ten counties to the sea; widening into lakes twenty miles long, or draining vast stretches of impassable bog; navigable for more than two hundred miles; and, finally, the great barrier between eastern Ireland, which the Danes and English over-ran and conquered, and western Ireland, which has never ceased to be Irish, and where the old Gaelic is still the language of the people. The most beautiful portion of the river lies between Lough Derg, at whose lower end stands the ancient town of Killaloe, and Limerick, which marks the limit of the tideway. In this twenty-mile stretch, the river, for the first and last time in its course, is crowded in between high hills, and runs swift and deep and strong. It was this stretch we started out from Limerick, that day, to explore, and our first stopping-place was Castleconnell, about halfway to Killaloe. We found it a perfect gem of a town, situated most romantically on the left bank of the river, and with one of the nicest, cleanest, most satisfactory little inns I have ever seen. It reminded us of our inn at Killarney, for it was a rambling, two-storied structure, and the resort of fishermen. Castleconnell, as the guide-book puts it, is the Utopia of Irish anglers. I can well believe it, for the salmon we saw caught at Killarney were mere babies beside the ones which are captured here. We made straight for the river as soon as we had divested ourselves of our luggage, down along the winding village street, past the ruins of the castle which was once the seat of the O'Briens, kings of Thomond, and which Ginkle blew up during the siege of Limerick, thinking it too dangerous a neighbour; and then we turned upstream, close beside the water's edge, for two or three miles. The exquisite beauty of every vista lured us on and on--the wide, rushing river, with its wooded banks, broken here and there by green lawns and white villas, lovely, restful-looking homes, whose owners must find life a succession of pleasant days. For this portion of the valley of the Shannon seems to me one of the real garden spots of the world. The river was in flood, and so not at its best for fishing, but nevertheless we passed many anglers patiently whipping the water in the hope that, by some accident, a passing fish might see the fly and take it. And at last we came to the end of the river road--a place called "World's End," where we had expected to get tea. But the refreshment booth was closed and there was no sign of any one in the neighbourhood. We were very hungry therefore, when we got back to our inn, and our high tea tasted very good indeed, served in the pleasantest of dining rooms, on a table with snowy linen and polished dishes and shining silver, and by a waiter who knew his business so well that I judged him to be French. What a pleasure that meal was, after the slovenly service of the house at Limerick, most of whose customers were commercial travellers! Irish commercial travellers, I judge, are the least fastidious of men! Just across the street from the inn at Castleconnell is the place where the famous Enright rods are made, and after tea we went over to take a look at them. I know nothing about rods, but any one could appreciate the beauties of the masterpieces which the man in charge showed us. And then he asked us if we wouldn't like to try one of them, and insisted on lending us his own--hurrying home after it, and stringing on the line and tying on the flies, and pressing it into my hand in a very fever of good-nature. I confess I shrank from taking it. I had a vision of some mighty fish gobbling down the fly and dashing off with a jerk that would crumple up the rod in my hands, and I tried to decline it. But he wouldn't hear of it--besides, there was Betty, her eyes shining at the prospect of fishing in the Shannon. So I took the rod at last, and we went down to the river again, and worked our way slowly down stream, along a path ablaze with primroses, and cast from place to place for an hour or more. There were many others doing the same thing, and they all seemed to think that the fish would be sure to rise as the twilight deepened. But they didn't, and I saw no fish caught that day. This didn't in the least interfere with any one's pleasure, for your true angler delights quite as much in the mere act of fishing as in actually catching fish. But it was with a sigh of relief I finally returned the rod intact to its owner. He said that I was welcome to it any time I wanted it, but I did not ask for it again. There were five or six fishermen staying at the hotel, and they came in one by one, empty-handed. They had had no luck that day--the water was too high; but it was already falling, and they were looking forward to great sport on the morrow. That morrow was a memorable one for us, also. It was a perfect day, and we set out, as soon as we had breakfasted, for the falls of Doonas and St. Senan's well, one of the most famous of the holy wells of Ireland. To get to it, it was necessary to cross the river, and the only way to get across is by a ferry, which consists of a flat-bottomed skiff, propelled by a man armed only with a small paddle. As I looked from the paddle to the mighty sweep of the river, rushing headlong past, I had some misgivings, but we clambered aboard, and the boatman pushed off. He headed almost directly upstream, and then, when the current caught us, managed by vigorous and skilful paddling to hold his boat diagonally against it, so that it swept us swiftly over toward the other bank, and we touched it exactly opposite our point of departure. It was an exhibition of skill which I shall not soon forget. We stepped ashore upon a beautiful meadow rolling up to a stately, wide-flung mansion, and turned our faces down the river. Already the fishermen were abroad, some of them casting from the bank, but the most out in midstream, in flat-bottomed boats like the one we had crossed in, which two men with paddles held steady in some miraculous way against the stream. One was at the bow and the other at the stern, and they did not seem to be paddling very hard, but the boat swung slowly and steadily back and forth above any spot which looked promising, no matter how swift the current. It grew swifter with every moment, for we were approaching the rapids, and at last we came out on a bluff overhanging them. Above the rapids, the river flows in a broad stream forty feet deep, but here it is broken into great flurries and whirlpools by the rocky bed, which rises in dark irregular masses above its surface, and the roar and the dash and the white foam and flying spray are very picturesque. For nearly a mile the tumult continues, and then the stream quiets down again and sweeps on toward Limerick and the sea. We followed close beside it to a little inn called the "Angler's Rest," set back at the edge of a pretty garden, entered through a gate with three steps, on which were graven the words of the old Irish greeting, "Cead Mile Failte," a hundred thousand welcomes. We sat down for a time at the margin of the river and watched the changing water, and then set off to find St. Senan's well. There are really two wells. The first is in a graveyard, a few rods away, where a fragment of an old church is still standing. It is a tangled and neglected place, with the headstones tumbled every way, and bushes and weeds running riot, but the path that leads to the well shows evidence of frequent use. The well itself is merely a small hollow in an outcropping of rock--a shallow basin, about a foot in diameter, but always miraculously full of water. I don't know how the water gets into it, or whether it is true that the basin is always full, but it certainly was that day; and the legend is that whoever bathes his forehead in that water will never again be troubled with headache, provided that he does it reverently, with full belief, and with the proper prayers. The well is shadowed by a tall hawthorn bush, and this bush is hung thick with cheap rosaries and rags and hairpins and bits of string and other tokens placed there by the true believers who had tested the wonderful properties of the water. We tested them, too, of course, and added our tokens to the rest. The principal well is a little farther up the road, set back in a circle of trees and approached by a short avenue of lindens. It is a far more important well than the other--is one of the most famous in Ireland, indeed--and is covered with a little shrine, which you will find pictured opposite the next page. The shrine is hung with rosaries and crowded with figurines and pictures of the Virgin and of various saints, among which, I suppose, the learned in such matters might have picked out Saint Senan, who blessed this well and gave it its miraculous power. The trees which encircle the glade in which the well stands are also hung with offerings--sacred pictures, rosaries, small vessels of gilt, and the crutches of those who came lame and halting and went away cured. On either side of the entrance is a bench where one may sit while saying one's prayers, and in front of the shrine is a shallow basin, some two feet wide and a yard long, into which the water from the well trickles, and where one may sit and wash all infirmities away. The water is held to be especially efficacious in curing rheumatism and hip disease and diseases of the joints; and I only hope the cripples who left their crutches behind them never had need of them again. [Illustration: THE SHANNON, NEAR WORLD'S END] [Illustration: ST. SENAN'S WELL] This whole valley of the Shannon, from Killaloe to the sea, is dominated by the patron of this well, St. Senan, a holy man who died in 544, and whose life resembled that of St. Kevin, whom we have already encountered at Glendalough. Like Kevin, Senan was persecuted by the ladies, who, in all ages, have taken a peculiar delight in pursuing holy men, and he was finally driven to take refuge on a little island at the mouth of the Shannon, Scattery Island, where he hoped to be left in peace. But he was destined to disappointment, for a lady named Cannera, since sainted, followed him and asked permission to remain. This scene, of course, appealed to Tom Moore, and he enshrined it in a poem, of which this is the final stanza: The Lady's prayer Senanus spurned; The winds blew fresh, the bark returned; But legends hint that had the maid Till morning's light delayed, And given the Saint one rosy smile, She ne'er had left his lonely isle. I do not know upon what evidence Moore bases this slander of a holy man; but, at any rate, he stayed on his island, and built a monastery and collection of little churches there for the use of the disciples who soon gathered about him, and their ruins, which much resemble those at Glendalough, even to a tall round tower, may be seen to this day. Some antiquarians hold that St. Senan is merely a personification of the Shannon; but I don't see how a personification could build a collection of churches. It is more satisfactory, anyway, to think of him as a person who once existed, and lived a picturesque life, and built churches and blessed holy wells, and died at a ripe age in the odour of sanctity. We sat for a long time before his shrine, looking at the tokens and the crutches, and wishing we had been there the day they were abandoned. To be made whole by faith is a wonderful thing, whatever form the faith may take, and I should like to have seen the faces of the cripples as they felt the miracle working within them, here in this obscure place. Unlettered they no doubt were, unable to read or write perhaps, believing this flat and stable earth the centre about which the universe revolves; but they touched heights that day which such sophisticated and cynically sceptical persons as you and I can never reach. We left the shrine, at last, and made our way back to the river, and up along it, past the rapids, to the ferry. The ferryman was watching for us, and had us back on the Castleconnell side in short order. He evidently considered the sixpence I gave him a munificent reward for the double trip. When we got back up into the village, we found it in the throes of a great excitement over the arrival of three itinerant musicians, two of whom played cornets, while the third banged with little sticks upon a stringed instrument suspended in front of him. The cornetists paused from time to time, to make short excursions, cap in hand, in search of pennies, but the third man never stopped, but kept playing away all up the street and out of sight. We came across them again when we walked over to the station to take the train for Killaloe; but I judge their harvest was a slender one, for the people who hung out of gates and over doors to listen to the music, disappeared promptly whenever the collectors started on their rounds. We had a little while to wait at the station, and I got into talk with the signalman, who told me he had a brother, a Jesuit priest, in Maryland, and who wanted to hear about America, whither he hoped to be able to come some day. That it would be at best a far-off day I judged from the wistful way in which he said it. And then he saw that I was interested in the signal-system by which the trains on his little branch were managed, and he explained it to me. For each section of the road there is a hollow iron tube, some two feet long, with brass rings around it, called a staff. The engine-driver brings one of these staffs in with him, and this must be deposited in an automatic device in the signal-house and another received from the signalman before the train can proceed. When the staff is deposited in the machine, it automatically signals the next station and releases the staff in the machine there, ready to be given to the engineer of the approaching train. No staff, once placed in the machine, can be got out again until it is released in this way, and as no train can leave a station until its engineer has received a staff, it is practically impossible for two trains to be on the same section of road at the same time. The system is rather slow, but it is sure; and being automatic, it leaves nothing to chance, or to the vagaries of either engineer or signalman. The bell rang, signalling the approach of our train, the signalman carefully closed the gates across the highway which ran past the station, and a crowd of men and boys collected, to whom the arrival of the train was the most important and interesting event of the day; and then it puffed slowly in, and we climbed aboard. Killaloe is only ten miles or so from Castleconnell, but we had to change at a station called Bird Hill; and then the line ran close beside the Shannon, with lofty hills crowding down upon it, and at last we saw the beautiful bridge which spans the river, and beyond it the spires and roofs of the little town. Not unless one knows one's Irish history will one realise what a wonderful place Killaloe is; for Killaloe is none other than Kincora, a word to stir Irish hearts, the stronghold of the greatest of Irish kings, Brian Boru. When that great chieftain fell at Clontarf, MacLiag, his minstrel, wrote a lament for him in the old Gaelic, and James Clarence Mangan has rendered it into an English version, of which this is the first stanza: O, where, Kincora, is Brian the Great? And where is the beauty that once was thine? O, where are the princes and nobles that sate At the feast in thy halls, and drank the red wine? Where, O, Kincora? It was by no mere chance that Kincora, the seat of the Kings of Thomond, was situated just here, for it was this point which controlled the valley of the lower Shannon. Limerick marks the head of the tideway navigable from the sea, then come fifteen miles of rushing torrent, of fall and rapid, which no boat can pass; and then comes the long stretch of placid lake and river over which boats may go as far as the ford of Athlone, and farther. Between Athlone and the sea, there was just one ford--a treacherous and hidden one, it is true, possible only to those who knew every step of it, but still a ford--and it was here, a little above the present town of Killaloe, where Lough Derg begins to narrow between the hills. Brian was born here in 941. Twenty years before, the Danes had sailed in force up the Shannon and fortified the island at the head of the tideway which is now the oldest part of Limerick. They set themselves to ravage the wide and fertile valley, to sack the shrines of the churches, to exact tribute from every chieftain--nay, from every family. MacLiag, Brian's bard, author of that old epic, "The Wars of the Gael with the Gall," another Homer almost, who told the story of Danish oppression down to their final defeat at Clontarf, thus described the burden under which, in those days, the people of Ireland groaned: "Such was the oppressiveness of the tribute and the rent of the foreigners over all Erin, that there was a king from them over every territory, a chief over every chieftaincy, an abbot over every church, a steward over every village, and a soldier in every house, so that no man of Erin had power to give even the milk of his cow, nor as much as the clutch of eggs of one hen, in succour or in kindness to an aged man, or to a friend, but was forced to keep them for the foreign steward or bailiff or soldier. And though there were but one milk-giving cow in the house, she durst not be milked for an infant of one night, nor for a sick person, but must be kept for the foreigner; and however long he might be absent from the house, his share or his supply durst not be lessened." Brian had an elder brother, Mahon, who was king of South Munster, and dwelt at Cashel, and the two did what they could against the invaders, killing them off "in twos and in threes, in fives and in scores"; but always fresh hordes poured in, and at last Mahon grew disheartened at the seemingly endless struggle against these stark, mail-clad warriors; while as for Brian, his force was reduced to a mere tattered handful, hiding in the hills. Then it was that he and Mahon met to discuss the future. "But where hast thou left thy followers?" Mahon asked, looking at the men, only a score in number, standing behind their chief. "I have left them," answered Brian, "on the field of battle." "Ah," said Mahon, sadly. "Is it so? You see how little we can do against these foreigners." "Little as it is," said Brian, "it is better than peace." "But it is folly to keep on fighting," said Mahon. "We can not conquer these shining warriors, clad in their polished corselets. The part of wisdom is to make terms with them, and leave no more of our men dead upon the field." "It is natural for men to die," answered Brian calmly; "but it is neither the nature nor the inheritance of the Dalcassians to submit to injury and outrage. And yet I have no wish to lead any unwilling man to battle. Let the question of war or peace be left to the whole clan." So it was done, and "the voice of hundreds as of one man answered for war." Mahon abode loyally by this decision, and there was a great muster, and a fierce battle near the spot where Limerick Junction now stands, and the Danes were routed, "and fled to the ditches, and to the valleys, and to the solitudes of that great sweet-flowery plain," and the Irish pursued them all through the night, and with the morning, came to Limerick, and stormed and took the island fortress; plundered it, and reduced it "to a cloud of smoke and red fire afterwards." Then Mahon was murdered by some such treachery as stains so many pages of Irish history, and Brian became king of all Munster. His first work was to punish his brother's murderers, which he did with grim celerity, so that, as the chronicler puts it, they soon found that he "was not a stone in place of an egg, nor a wisp in place of a club, but a hero in place of a hero, and valour in place of valour." After that, with new energy, he turned against the Danes, and harried them and was himself harried, defeated them and was himself defeated, but fought on undaunted year after year, until the final great victory at Clontarf, where he himself was slain. And during all the years that he was king of Munster, he ruled it, not from Cashel, but from Kincora, his well-beloved castle here at the ford of the Shannon. The ford is no longer there, for an elaborate system of sluice-gates and weirs has been constructed to hold the water back and regulate the supply to the lower reaches of the river, and one crosses to the town upon a beautiful stone bridge of thirteen arches, between which the water swirls and eddies, forming deep pools, where great salmon love to lurk. At its other end is the town, with its houses mounting the steep slope from the river, and dominated by the square tower of its old cathedral. It was to the cathedral we went first, and a venerable pile we found it, dating from the twelfth century, and attributed to that same Donall O'Brien, King of Munster, who built the one at Limerick. But, alas, it is venerable only from without; as one steps through the doorway, all illusion of age vanishes, for the interior has been "improved" to suit the needs of a small Church of Ireland congregation. The Protestants in this parish are so few that the choir of the cathedral is more than ample for them; so it has been closed off from the rest of the church by a glass screen with hideous wooden "tracery"--there is a rose window (think of it!) sawed out of boards; and beyond this screen an ugly pavement of black and yellow tiles has been laid over the beautiful grey flags of the old pavement, and pews have been installed. One of the transepts is used as a robing-room; in the other an elaborate combination of steam-engine, dynamo and storage-batteries has been placed to furnish heat and light--and this, mind you, in the church which was once the royal burying-place of the Kings of Munster! It seems foolish to maintain a great church like this for the use of so small a congregation as worships here, and yet the same thing is done all over Ireland, though it would seem to be only common sense to give the big churches to the big congregations, and to provide small churches for the small ones. But I suppose no one in Ireland would dare make such a suggestion. I am surprised that the energetic vicar of this parish has not decided that the church is too dark and hired some workmen to knock out the lancet windows. These windows are one of its chief beauties, they are so tall, so narrow, so deeply splayed--the very earliest form, before the builders gathered courage to cut any but the smallest openings in their walls. And in the wall of the nave, blocked up and with use unexplained, is a magnificent Irish-Romanesque doorway. Tradition has it that it was the entrance to the tomb of King Murtough O'Brien, and its date is placed at the beginning of the twelfth century. The man who built it was an artist, for nothing could be more graceful than its four semi-circular arches, rising one beyond the other and covered with ornamentation--spiral and leaf work, grotesque animals with tails twined into the hair of human heads, flowers and lozenges, and the familiar dog-tooth pattern, of which the Irish were so fond. Interesting as the church is, or would be but for the "improvements," it is far outranked by a tiny stone structure just outside--the parish church of Brian Boru himself. It is less than thirty feet long, and the walls are nearly four feet thick, and the two narrow windows which light it, one on either side, are loopholes rather than windows; and the doorway by which it is entered, narrower at the top than at the bottom, is a veritable gem; and the high-pitched roof of fitted blocks of stone is twice as high as the walls;--and on the stone slabs of its pavement Brian Boru was wont to kneel in prayer, five centuries before Columbus sailed out of Palos! Of course I wanted a picture of this shrine; but there were difficulties, for it stands in a little depression which conceals part of it, and the high wall around the churchyard prevented my getting far enough away to get all of the high-pitched roof on the film. The caretaker, who was most interested in my manoeuvres, brought a ladder at last, and I mounted to the top of the wall, and took the picture opposite the next page; but, even then, I didn't get it all. The graveyard about these churches is a large one, but it is crowded with tombs; and the north half of it is mown and orderly, and the south half is almost impenetrable because of the rank and matted grass and weeds and nettles. This is the result of an old quarrel, more foolish than most. For, like Ireland itself, this graveyard is divided between Protestants and Catholics, the Protestants to the north and the Catholics to the south of the church; and the Protestants consider their duty done when they have cared for the graves in their own half; while the Catholics hold that, since the Protestants claim the cathedral, they are bound to look after its precincts; and the result is that the visitor to those precincts is half the time floundering knee-deep in weeds. The most interesting tomb in the place is in the midst of this tangle, therefore a Catholic's. It bears the date 1719, and is most elaborately decorated with carved figures--one kneeling above the legend, "This is the way to Blis"; another, a man with crossed arms, inquiring, "What am I? What is man?"--two questions which have posed the greatest of philosophers. One panel bears this sestet: How sweetly rest Christ's saints in love That in his presence bee. My dearest friends with Christ above Thim wil I go and see And all my friends in Christ below Will post soon after me. [Illustration: THE BRIDGE AT KILLALOE] [Illustration: THE ORATORY AT KILLALOE] We left the place, at last, and walked on along the street, peeping in between the bars of an iron gate at the beautiful grounds of the Bishop's palace; and then up a steep and narrow lane to the little plateau which is now the town's market-place, but where, in the old days, Brian's palace of Kincora stood. Not a stone is left of that palace now, for the wild men of Connaught swept down from the mountains, in the twelfth century, while the English were trying to hold the castle and so control the destinies of Clare, and drove the intruders out, and tore the castle stone from stone, and threw timber and stone alike into the Shannon. Just beyond the square stands the Catholic church--a barn-like modern structure, hastily thrown together to shelter the swarming congregation, for which the cathedral would be none too large. We went on down the hill, past the canal, with the roaring river beyond, and the purple vistas of Lough Derg opening between the hills in the distance, along an avenue of noble trees, and there before us lay a great double rath, sloping steeply to the river, built here to guard the ford. The ford lies there before it--a ford no longer, since the sluices back up the water; but in the old days this was the key to County Clare, this was the path taken by the men of Connaught in raid and foray; and here it was that Sarsfield, with four hundred men, followed Hogan the rapparee, on that night expedition which resulted in the destruction of the English ammunition-train. Aubrey de Vere has told the story in a spirited little poem, beginning, Sarsfield went out the Dutch to rout, And to take and break their cannon; To Mass went he at half past three, And at four he crossed the Shannon. We had hoped to go to Athlone by way of Lough Derg, but we had already learned that that was not to be, for we had been told, back at the bridge, that the passenger service across the lake would not start until the sixteenth of June. And we were sorry, for, from the summit of this old rath, the lake, stretching away into the misty distance, looked very beautiful and inviting. We made our way back to the village and stopped in at a nice little hotel just below the bridge, and had tea, served most appetizingly by a clean, bright-eyed maid; and then, while Betty sat down to rest, I sallied forth to see, if possible, the greatest curiosity of all about Killaloe--the original church or oratory of St. Molua, on an island near the left bank of the Shannon, about half a mile downstream. Now to get back to St. Molua, one has to go a long way indeed, for he died three hundred years before Brian Boru was born. He was the first bishop of Killaloe, which is named after him, "cill" meaning church, and Killaloe being merely a contraction of Cill Molua, the church of Molua. The little oratory on the island, to which he retired for contemplation, after the manner of Irish saints, was built not later than the year 600. You will understand, therefore, why I was so eager to see it, and I went into the bar to consult with the barmaid as to the best manner of getting to it. I had been told that it was possible to reach it from the left bank of the river without the aid of a boat, but the maid assured me this could be done only when the river was low, and was out of the question in the present stage of the water. So she went to the door and called to a passing boatman, and explained my wishes, and he at once volunteered to ferry me over to the island. His house, he said, was just opposite the island, and his boat was tied up at the landing there; so we walked down to it, along the bank of the canal which parallels the river. A little way down the canal was a mill, and a boat was tied up in front of it unloading some grain, and when I looked into the boat, I saw that the grain was shelled Indian corn! It was not from America, however, but from Russia, and my companion told me that quite a demand for cornmeal was growing up in the neighbourhood, and that it was used mixed with flour. And then he listened, his eyes round with wonder, while I told him how corn grows. He had never seen it on the ear, and did not know the meaning of the word "cob," except as applied to a horse. "And of course you have seen bananas growing!" he said, when I had finished, and I think he scarcely believed me when I tried to explain that a country warm enough for corn might still be too cold for bananas. We finally reached his house--a little hovel built on a bluff overhanging the river--and went down some rude stone steps to the water's edge; and he unchained his boat, and whistled to his dog, and pushed off. It was quite an exciting paddle, for the current was very swift; but we got across to the island at last, after some hair-raising scrapings against rocks and over submerged reefs. We found the island a tangle of weeds and briars, but we broke our way through, and after some searching, found the tiny church, almost hidden by the bushes about it. They were so thick that I found it quite impossible to get a picture of the whole church, but by breaking down some of them, I finally managed to get a picture of the narrow inclined doorway, with my guide's dog posing on the threshold. The oratory is built solidly of stone, with walls three feet thick, and a steep stone roof. Its inside measurements are ten feet by six! There is a single window, with a round head cut out of a block of stone, and in the wall on either side just below it is a shallow recess. The ceiling has fallen in, but one can still see the holes in the walls where the supporting beams rested. Above it, under the steep roof, was a croft, where perhaps the saint slept. Consider, for a moment, what was going on in the world when this little church was built. It takes us back to the age of legend--the age of King Arthur and his knights--to that dim period when the Saxons were conquering England, and the Frankish kingdom was falling to pieces, and Mohammed was preaching his gospel in Arabia. A century and a half would elapse before Charlemagne was born, and two centuries before the first Norse boat, driving westward before the tempest, touched the New England coast! [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO ST. MOLUA'S ORATORY] [Illustration: A FISHERMAN'S HOME] There is, of course, a holy well on the island--the one at which St. Molua drank; and we found it after a long search, but the river was so high that it was under two or three feet of water. There were some rags and other tokens hanging on the neighbouring bushes, but not many, and I judge that few people ever come to this historic spot. At last I was ready to go, and we climbed into the boat and started for the mainland; and once I thought we were surely going to capsize, for the boat got out of control and banged into a rock; but we finally stemmed the current, and the boatman dropped his paddle and snatched up a pole, and pushed along so close to the shore that the overhanging branches slapped us in the face, and the dog, thinking we were going to land, made a wild leap for the bank, fell short, and nearly drowned. When we were safe again at the landing-place, and the boat tied up, I asked my companion how much I owed him for his trouble. "Not a penny, sir," he said, warmly. "It's glad I am to oblige a pleasant gentleman like yourself." "Oh, but look here," I protested, "that won't do," and I fished through my pockets and was appalled to find that I had only nine-pence in change. "Wait till we get back to the hotel," I said, "and I'll get some money." "What is that you have in your hand, sir?" "Oh, that's only nine-pence." "That would be far too much, sir," he said; and when I hesitatingly gave it to him, he as hesitatingly took it, and I really believe he was in earnest in thinking it too much. On our way back to the town, he expounded to me his theory of life, which was to give faithful service to one's employer, and help one's fellow-men when possible, and never bother unduly about the future, which was never as black as it looked. And I agreed with him that trouble always came butt-end first, and that, after it had passed, it frequently dwindled to a pinpoint--the which has been said in verse somewhere, by Sam Walter Foss I think, but I can't put my hand on it. * * * * * We got back to Castleconnell just as the fishermen were coming in, and it was far from empty-handed they were this time. The array of salmon stretched out on the floor of the bar, when they had all arrived, was a very noble one. And everybody stood around and looked at them proudly, and told of the enormous flies that had been used, and how one monster had whipped the boat around and towed it right down through the rapids, and lucky it was that the water was high or it would infallibly have been ripped to pieces, but the boatmen kept their heads and managed to get it through, and when the salmon came out in the quiet river below and found itself still fast, it gave up and let itself be gaffed without any further fuss. And again after dinner, we saw the familiar sight of the catch being wrapped in straw to be sent by parcel post back to England, as proof of the anglers' prowess; and I can guess how those battles on Shannon water were fought over again when the angler got back to the bosom of his family. As for me, I have only to close my eyes to see again that noble stream sweeping along between its green, flower-sprinkled banks, foaming over the weirs, brawling past the rapids, hurrying between the quays of Limerick, and widening into the great estuary where it meets the sea. Into the West, where, o'er the wide Atlantic, The lights of sunset gleam, From its high sources in the heart of Erin Flows the great stream. Yet back in stormy cloud or viewless vapour The wandering waters come, And faithfully across the trackless heaven Find their old home. CHAPTER XVII LISSOY AND CLONMACNOISE SINCE we could not get to Athlone by water, we must needs get there by rail; so, most regretfully, next morning, we bade good-bye to Castleconnell and took train for Limerick. Half an hour later, we pulled out of the Limerick terminus, circled about the town, crossed the Shannon by a long, low bridge, and were in County Clare. Ruins are more numerous here than almost anywhere else in Ireland, for this western slope of the Shannon valley, so fertile and coveted, was famous fighting-ground. There are one or two in sight all the time, across the beautiful rolling meadows. Near Cratloe there are three, their great square keeps looming above the trees, and looking out across the wide Shannon estuary. A little farther on is the famous seat of the Earls of Thomond, Bunratty Castle, a fine old fortress, with all the approved mediæval trimmings of moat, guard-room, banqueting-hall, dungeons and torture-chamber, and I am sorry we did not get to visit it. Indeed, there are many places in the neighbourhood worth a visit--but if one is going to visit every Irish ruin, he will need ten years for the task. Only it does cause a pang of the heart to pass any of them by. We must have passed at least fifty by, that day; but I found that the train stopped for a while at Ennis, the chief town of Clare, and I hurried out to see what I could of it. It is certainly a picturesque place, with narrow winding streets, and queer little courts, and houses painted pink or washed with yellow ochre. I glanced in at the new Catholic cathedral, whose most impressive feature is a rather good picture of the ascension over the high altar; and then spent a few minutes among the ruins of the Franciscan friary, a queer jumble of buildings which I did not have time to untangle. As usual, the two biggest buildings in the town are the jail and the lunatic asylum, and I passed them both on my way back to the station. Some of the lunatics were languidly hoeing a big potato patch that day, with five or six guards looking on. I have never looked up the statistics of lunacy in Ireland, but if all the asylums are full, the rate must be very high. About half a mile beyond Ennis, the train passes a most imposing ruin, very close to the railway. It is the ruin of Clare Abbey, and is dominated by a great square tower, which must be visible for many miles around. There is still another ruin, that of Killone Abbey, only a few miles away, and for a connoisseur in ruins, Ennis would be an excellent place to spend a few days. From Ennis, we turned almost due northward toward Athenry, and the landscape became the rockiest I have ever seen. Every little field was surrounded by a high stone wall, and as these walls did not begin to exhaust the supply, there were great heaps of rocks in every available corner--every one of them dug from the shallow soil with almost incredible labour. The fact that any one would try to reclaim such land speaks volumes for the hard necessities of the people who settled here. I don't suppose they enjoyed the labour, but they had no choice--at least, their only choice was to wrest a living from these rocky fields or starve. No doubt many of them did starve, but the rest kept labouring on, with insect-like industry, reclaiming this corner and that, adding to the soil of their fields inch by inch. There is an old saying that in this district, and in others like it in Connaught, the first three crops are stones, and I can well believe it. The green appearance of these hillsides is a delusion and a snare, for it is nothing but a skin of turf over the rocks, and these rocks must be dug away to the depth of two feet, sometimes, before the soil is reached. In any other part of the world, a man who would attempt to convert such a hillside into an arable field would be thought insane; here, in the west of Ireland, it is the usual thing. Most tragic of all, after it was fit for tillage, it did not belong to the man whose labour had made it so, but to his English landlord, who promptly proceeded to raise the rent! We ran out of this rocky land, at last, and crossed a vast bog, scarred with long, black, water-filled ditches, from which the turf had been taken. There were a few people here and there cutting it, but a woman who had got into the compartment with us said that the continued wet weather had made the work very difficult and dangerous. All the people hereabouts, she added, lived by the turf cutting, at which they could earn, perhaps, ten-pence a day; but in bad seasons they were soon close to starvation. I remarked that, with such wages, they must be close to it all the time, and she smiled sadly and said that that was true. Only, of course, in the bogs the children can work, as well as the men and women, and that helps. Indeed, we saw them many times--little boys and girls who should have been at school or running free, gaining health and strength for the hard years to come, tugging at the heavy, water-soaked blocks of peat, and laying them out in the sun to dry. It takes a month of sun to dry the peat; in wet weather it won't dry at all, and so isn't salable. Truly, the lives of the poor Irish hang on slender threads! There are ruins of castles and monasteries and raths and cashels all through this region, and a lot of them cluster about the dirty little town of Athenry, which can boast a castle, two monasteries, city walls and an old gate. Such richness was not to be passed by, and we left the train, checked our luggage at the parcel office, fought off a jarvey who was determined to drive us to the ruins which we could see quite plainly just across the track, crossed the road by the overhead bridge, and came out in the streets of the village. Athenry is typically Irish, with streets running every way, houses built any way, and their inhabitants leaning over the half-doors, or braced against the walls at the street corners, or going slowly about such business as they have. Life has stood still here for at least a century; and yet Athenry was once a royal town--"The Ford of the Kings" its name signifies--and a royal court was held here in the great castle, and a beautiful monastery was built near by at the express wish of St. Dominick himself, and it became a famous place of learning, to which scholars flocked from all over Europe. Alas and alack! Vanished, those high conceits! Desolate and forlorn, We hunger against hope for that lost heritage. For the red tide of war swept over Athenry more than once, and left it but smoking ruins. Eleven thousand Connaughtmen lay piled about the walls one summer day in 1316, all that was left of the army that tried to make Edward Bruce king of Ireland; two centuries later, when the Earls of Clanricarde swept Connaught with fire and sword, Athenry fell before them, and was left in ashes; and when it struggled to its feet again, it was only to fall before the destroying hand of Red Hugh O'Donnell, who left scarcely one stone upon another, and from that blow it never rallied. One of the old gates still survives, well preserved in spite of war and weather, and near it is a quaint old market cross, with the Virgin and Child on one side and Christ on the other. All that is left of the thirteenth century castle is the gabled keep, looming high on a rock just back of the town, and some fragments of the battlemented curtains. All the floors have fallen in, and its four massive walls are open to the heavens. Red Hugh, when he destroyed it, did his work well! The ruins of the abbey nestle in the shadow of the rock on which the castle stands, and we made our way down to them, along disordered streets swarming with geese, ducks, dogs, chickens and children, only to find the way closed by an iron gate, securely padlocked. But a passer-by told us that the village blacksmith had the key, and indicated vaguely the way to his shop, which we found after some circuitous wanderings. The smith was a gnarled little man, quite the reverse of Longfellow's, and as soon as we had made our errand known, he snatched down the keys and hastened to lead the way to the ruins, leaving his work without pausing to remove his apron, and without a backward glance at his helper, who stood open-mouthed by the forge. [Illustration: THE CHOIR OF THE ABBEY AT ATHENRY] [Illustration: A COTTAGE AT ATHENRY] There were three gates to unlock before we reached the ruins, and then the blacksmith hurried back to his work, leaving his daughter to keep an eye on us. The church is all that is left of the monastery, for the domestic buildings, and even the cloisters have been swept entirely away by the rude hand of time, and the far ruder ones of the villagers who needed stone for their houses. The church itself has suffered more than most, for not only is the roof gone, but the tower and one transept and most of the window-tracery, and the whole interior has been swept by a savage storm, the tombs hacked and hewed, and the carved decorations knocked to fragments. Doubtless if we had questioned the girl who stood staring at us, she would have said that "Crummell did it," and in this case, history would bear her out, for the Puritan soldiery _did_ do a lot of damage here. They and the sans-culottes suffered from the same mania--a sort of vertigo of destructiveness before memorials of kings or Catholics! But they couldn't destroy everything, and what is left in this old church is well worth seeing, for there are some graceful pointed windows, and six narrow lancets in a lovely row along the north wall of the choir, and a fine arcade in the north transept, and many details of decoration beautiful in spite of mutilation. The place is crowded with tombs, for this was the burial place of the Dalys and the Lynchs and the De Burgos, and is still in use as such. The tomb of the "noble family of De Burgh" is in one corner, and there are many mural tablets, with inscriptions in French and Latin and Gaelic, as well as English. In fact one of them announces in French and Latin and English, presumably so that every one except the Irish might read, that "here is the antient Sepulchre of the Sept of the Walls of Droghty late demolished by the Cromellians." We went back through the town, at last, and while I was manoeuvring for the picture opposite page 270, Betty got into talk with a girl who was leaning over a half-door, and found, marvellous to relate, that she had once lived in Brookline, Mass. We asked her why she had come back to Ireland, and after a moment's thought she said it was because "America wasn't fair." We thought of aristocratic Brookline, the abode of millionaires, and then we looked about us--at the ragged donkey standing across the way, at the pig wandering down the middle of the dirty street, at the low little houses and the shabby people--and perhaps we smiled, but be sure it was in sympathy, not in derision. We crossed over to the railway hotel, finally, and had lunch, and when we came out, the woman who managed the place waylaid us at the front door for a chat. She told us of a woman from the village who was on the _Titanic_, but was saved, and discussed various scandals in high life, which she had gleaned from the half-penny press; and then we spoke of the girl we had met in the village, and she deplored the high-and-mighty airs which some of the girls who come home from America give themselves. "But I once heard one of them put well in her place," she added, "when she came back with her hat full of flowers and her petticoat full of flounces, and walked about the town as though we were all dirt beneath her feet. Well, one day an old man stopped her for a word, a friend of the family who wished her well, but she put up her nose at him--and perhaps he was not very clean--and was for going past. But he put out his hand and caught her by the arm. 'You're after bein' a fine lady now,' says he, 'but I mind the time, and that but a few years since, when I've seen ye sittin' on your bare-backed ass, with your naked legs hangin' down--yes, and I can be tellin' ye more than that, if so be ye wish to hear it!' She didn't stay long in the village after that," added the speaker, with a chuckle of relish. Our train came along, presently, and we were soon running over as dreary, bleak and miserable a land as any we had seen in Ireland. Vast boggy plains, bare rocky hillsides, with scarcely a house to be seen anywhere--only a ruin, now and then, marking the site of some ancient stronghold; and so, in the first dusk of the evening, we came to Athlone. One would have thought that, with so important a town, the station would have been placed somewhere near it; but habit was too strong for the builders of the line, and so they put the station about a mile away, at the end of a dreary stretch of road, beyond a great barrack, along the river, past the castle, and over the bridge. Athlone has been famous for its widows ever since the days of Molly Malone, ohone! who Melted the hearts Of the swains in them parts; and we found that the best hotel in the place, which was not as good as it might have been, was managed by a widow, who might well have posed for the lovely Molly. She had not been a widow long, and I judged would not be if the swains of the town had any voice in the matter, for the bar was very popular when she was behind it. We went out, after dinner, to see the town, and found it one of the most ugly and depressing we had yet encountered--a sort of cross between a town and a village, but with the attractions of neither. The water-front is its most interesting part, for a fragment of the old castle which was built to guard the second of the all-important fords of the Shannon still stands there. Kincora, you will remember, guarded the other. But Kincora was three days' march to the southward; and for two days' march to the northward there was no other place where the Shannon could be crossed; and so here at the ford just below Lough Ree, in the old days, a franklin named Luan set up a rude little inn, and the place came to be known as Ath Luan, Luan's Ford--Athlone. Here in the year 1001, hostages were sent from all Ireland to meet Brian Boru and proclaim him High King; and here, a century later, the O'Conors built a rath and a tower to guard the ford and levy tribute upon all who used it. In another hundred years, the Normans had seized it, and put up the strong, round-towered castle, parts of which still remain; and for seven centuries after that, the English power "sat astride the passage of Connaught," save for the brief time, after the battle of the Boyne, it was held by the Irish. But Ginkle captured it, as he was soon to capture Limerick, and a few years later, most of what was left of the town was destroyed when the magazine of the castle blew up during a thunderstorm. But though there is little in Athlone to delay the visitor, there are two places in the neighbourhood worth seeing. Nine miles to the north is Lissoy, made immortal by Goldsmith as Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain; and ten miles to the south, on the bank of the Shannon, are the ruins of Clonmacnoise, whither, twelve centuries ago, men in search of knowledge turned their faces from all the corners of Europe. * * * * * It was for Lissoy we started next morning, on a car for which I had bargained the night before. Our jarvey was a loquacious old fellow, who talked unceasingly, but in so broken a brogue that it was only with the greatest difficulty we could follow him. He had known some people who had gone down on the _Titanic_, and he told us all about them; but most of his talk was a lament for the hard times, the sorrowful state of the country, the paucity of tourists, and the vagaries of the landlady, of whom he spoke in the most mournful and pessimistic way. She was not, I gathered, a native of Athlone, but a Dublin woman whose ideas were new-fangled and highfalutin, and who, I inferred, did not look kindly upon the careless habits of her "help." The road lay through a pleasant, rolling country, with glimpses of Lough Ree to the left, and on a hill to the right a tall shaft which our jarvey told us marked the exact centre of Ireland. When one looks at the map, one sees that it is at least somewhere near the centre. But it has been explained to other passers-by in many ways: as the remains of a round tower, as a tower which a rich man built in order to mount to the top of it every day to count his sheep, as a pole for his tent put up by Finn MacCool, as a wind-mill in the old days, and as a dozen other things--anything, in fact, that happened to occur to the man who was asked the question. One answer, you may be sure, he never made, and that was that he didn't know! There _are_ some remains of old windmills in the neighbourhood--we saw one or two on near-by hillsides, close enough to recognise them; and if I had known at the time what a divergence of opinion there was about that lonely tower in the distance, I would have driven over to it and investigated it on my own hook. But our jarvey's answer was so positive that it left no room for doubt, so we drove on through a village of tiny thatched houses, with the smoke of the turf giving a pleasant tang to the air; then up a long hill, to the left at a cross-roads, and at last our jarvey drew up before a five-barred gate. We looked at him questioningly, for there was no village in sight. "'Tis here it was, sir," he said, "sweet Auburn, the loveliest village of the plain. 'Twas up that path yonder the village preacher's modest mansion rose, though there is little enough left of it now; and over yonder, behind that wall with the yellow furze atop it, unprofitably gay, was where the village master taught his little school, and there is nothing at all left of that; and a little furder on is the 'Three Jolly Pigeons,' where news much older than the ale went round." [Illustration: THE GOLDSMITH RECTORY AT LISSOY] [Illustration: THE "THREE JOLLY PIGEONS"] I looked at him wonderingly. "Where did you pick up all that patter?" I asked. He snickered. "Ah, you would not be the first gintleman I have driven out here, sir," he explained; "and many of them would be speakin' parts of the poem." "I suppose ale is still to be obtained at the 'Three Jolly Pigeons'?" "It is, sir, if so be your honour would be wantin' some. And they have one of the big stones of the old mill for a doorstep," he added, as an extra inducement not to pass it by. We got down from our seats, went through the gate, and up the path which Goldsmith and his father trod so many times; for, whether or not Lissoy was really Auburn, there can be no doubt that the elder Goldsmith was really vicar here, and that he lived in the house, the rectory of Kilkenny West, of which only a fragment of the front wall remains, and that Oliver was a boy here. The ash trees which shadowed the path have disappeared, but there are still plenty of gabbling geese around, and a file of them went past as I took a picture of the remnant of the rectory. A shed with a hideous roof of corrugated iron has been built behind it, and near by is a two-storied house where the present tenant lives. We found an old woman, for all the world like Goldsmith's "widowed, solitary thing," carding wool in an outhouse, and she showed us the old well, deep in the ground, walled around and approached by a steep flight of steps. There was nothing more to see, so we went back to the gate, escorted by three friendly pigs, and clambered up to our seats again, and looked out over the valley. There is nothing in that valley but gently-rolling pastures, and nothing lives there now but sheep and cattle. And it sends a chill up the spine to realise that once a village stood there, and that it has melted away into the earth. Not a stone is left of its houses, not a sod of its walls, not a flower of its gardens. But that village was Lissoy, not Auburn. No such village as Auburn ever existed in Ireland, where the young folks sported on the village green, and the swain responsive to the milkmaid sung, and the village master taught his school during the day, and argued with the preacher in the evening, and a jolly crowd gathered every night at the inn to drink the nut-brown ale. There is not a single Irish detail in that picture; it is all English, just as Goldsmith intended it should be, for it was of "England's griefs" he was writing, not of Ireland's. In that day, few people here in Westmeath spoke anything but Irish; the village children knew nothing of schools, except hedge-row ones, taught by some fugitive priest; the "honest rustics" had no "decent churches," but only hidden caves in dark valleys, where Mass was said secretly and at the risk of life; and, rest assured, when any inhabitant of this valley had money to spend for drink, he wasted it on no such futile beverage as nut-brown ale! I am sure that little of it is sold to-day at the "Three Jolly Pigeons," where we presently arrived, a low wayside tavern with thatched roof and plastered wall, kept by John Nally, who welcomed us most kindly, and grew enthusiastic when I proposed to take a picture. There was a rickety donkey-cart standing by the door, and its owner came out to be in the picture, too--raggeder even than his donkey, disreputable, dirty, gin-soaked, and with only a jagged tooth or two in his expansive mouth, but carefree and full of mirth. Betty, who had been admiring the supreme raggedness of the donkey, asked its name. "Top o' the Mornin', miss," answered the man, with a shout of laughter, and I am sure the name was the inspiration of the moment. And then, while our jarvey drank his whiskey, I had a talk with Mr. Nally, who, of course, for reasons of trade perhaps, is firmly of the belief that Auburn is Lissoy and no other. And he told me of another poet who was born down on the banks of the Inny, a mile or two away, and who, in the old days, spent many an evening at the Pigeons--Johnny Casey he called him, and it turned out to be that same John Keegan Casey, who wrote "The Rising of the Moon," and "Maire my Girl," and "Gracie og Machree," and "Donal Kenny,"--Irish subjects all, and most of them local ones, as well. Donal Kenny, for instance, was a bold blade, a clever hand with the snare and the net, who turned the heads of all the girls in the neighbourhood, and broke those of most of the boys, until it was glad they were when he went off with himself to America. I have looked up the poem since, and I fear that Casey enveloped the parting scene with exaggerated sentiment; yet the verses have a swing to them: Come, piper, play the "Shaskan Reel," Or else the "Lasses on the Heather," And, Mary, lay aside your wheel Until we dance once more together. At fair and pattern oft before Of reels and jigs we've tripped full many; But ne'er again this loved old floor Will feel the foot of Donal Kenny. We tore ourselves away, at last, taking a road which ran along the border of the lake--a beautiful sheet of bluest water, dotted with greenest islands, with the rolling plains of Roscommon rising beyond. And then, from the top of a long hill, we saw below us the spires of Athlone, and soon we were rattling down into the town. * * * * * That morning, while looking through our guide-book, we had encountered a sentence which piqued our curiosity. It was this: "Some of the walls of St. Peter's Abbey remain, in which can be seen one of those curious figures called 'Sheela-na-gig." I remembered dimly that, back at Cashel, John Minogue had called our attention to a grotesque figure with twisted legs and distorted visage carved on a stone, and had called it something that sounded like Sheela-na-gig; but I wasn't sure, and so we started out blithely to find this one. Right at the start, we met with unexpected difficulties, for nobody at the hotel, not even the ancient jarvey, had ever heard of the Sheela-na-gig. The barmaid, however, said that St. Peter's Abbey was on the other side of the river, past the castle, so we went over there, and found that part of the town much more dilapidated and picturesque than the more modern portion on the Westmeath side. We wandered around for quite a while, asking the way of this person and that, and finally we wound up at St. Peter's church, a new structure and one singularly uninteresting. It was evident that there was no Sheela-na-gig there; and at this point Betty surrendered, and went back to the hotel to write some letters. But I had started out on the quest of the Sheela-na-gig, and I was determined to find it. I thought possibly it might be somewhere among the ruins of the Franciscan Abbey, which stand close to the other side of the river, so I crossed the river again, and after walking about a mile along a high wall through a dirty lane, reached a gate, only to find it locked. There was a man inside, raking a gravelled walk, but he said nobody was admitted to the ruins, and anyway he was quite positive that there was no such thing as a Sheela-na-gig among them. He added that a portion of the ruins had been torn down to make room for an extension of the Athlone Woolen Mills, and perhaps they had the Sheela-na-gig there. I had no faith in this suggestion, but for want of something better to do, I turned in at the office of the mills, and was warmly welcomed by the manager, who invited me to inspect the place. It is an exceedingly rambling and haphazard structure, but it gives employment to hundreds of people, mostly girls and women, whose pale faces and drooping figures bore testimony to the wearing nature of the work. The mill gets the wool in the raw state, straight from the grower, and the processes by which it is cleaned and carded and spun into thread, and dyed, and woven into cloth, and inspected, and weighed, and finally rolled up ready for the market, are many and intricate. The manager told me that the mill turned out thirty thousand yards of tweed a week, and he hoped to turn out even more, as soon as a reduction of the tariff permitted him to get into the American market. Even with a duty of forty-five per cent., he could compete with American tweeds, and with a lower duty he could undersell them. It needed only a glance at the shabby, toil-worn men and women working in his factory to understand why this was true. I didn't ask him what wages his women earned, but I _did_ ask as to their hours of labour. They go to work at 6:30 in the morning and work till six in the evening, with a three-quarter hour interval for breakfast and the same for lunch. I saw groups of them, afterwards, strolling about the streets in the twilight, and sad and poor and spiritless they looked. Yet they are eager for the work, for at least it keeps them alive, and one can scarcely blame the manager for sticking to the market price, and so doing his best to meet a remorseless competition. I confess that such economic problems as this are too stiff for me. As I was about to leave, I casually mentioned my search for the Sheela-na-gig--and he knew where it was! It was over on the other bank, it seemed, not far from the river-front, and he directed me with great detail how to get to it; but, alas, in such a town of crooked streets, definite direction was impossible. However, with hope springing eternal, I crossed the bridge a third time, turned up-stream close beside the river, wandered into a board-yard, extricated myself, got into a blind alley that ended in a high wall and had to retrace my steps; asked man after man, who only stared vacantly and shook their heads; and finally found a boy who knew, and who eagerly left his work to conduct me to the spot. Imagine with what a feeling of triumph I stood at last before the Sheela-na-gig! It is carved over the wide arch of the entrance to what was once an abbey, but what I think is now a laundry--an impish, leering figure, clasping its knees up under its chin, and peering down to see who passes. Underneath the imp are the words "St. Peter's Port," and underneath the words is a grotesque head. On either side of the arch is a sculptured plaque, that to the left bearing the words "May Satan never enter," and that to the right, "Wilo Wisp & Jack the Printer,"--the two, of course, forming a couplet. While I was staring at these remarkable inscriptions and trying to puzzle out some meaning for them, an old woman, who had been watching me with interest from the door of her house, came out and tried to tell me the history of the gate. But she spoke so incoherently that I could make nothing of it beyond the fact that the inscriptions originated in two men's rivalry for possession of the property; so somebody else will have to untangle that legend. A little way up the street there was a shop which, among other things, had post-cards displayed for sale, and I stopped in, thinking I might get a picture of the gate and perhaps learn something more of its story. But when I asked for such a card, the proprietor stared at me in amazement. "There is no such gate hereabouts," he said. "But there is," I protested; "right there at the end of the street. Do you mean to say you have never seen the Sheela-na-gig, nor read that line about Wilo Wisp and Jack the Printer?" He rubbed his head dazedly. "I have not," he admitted. "Look at that, now," he went on; "here have I been going past that gate for years, and you come all the way from America and see more in one minute than I have seen in me whole life!" Then he asked me if I had been up on top the castle, which was just opposite his shop, and I replied that I had not. "Nor have I," he said; "but I am told there is a grand view from up there." "Why not go up with me now?" I suggested. "I might," he agreed; and then he looked at the tall keep of the castle and shook his head. "'Tis not to-day I can be doing it; you see, I must stay with the shop." So I left him there, and essayed the heights of the castle by myself. Only for a little way, however, was I by myself, for some families connected with the garrison live there, and they are all prolific; so I soon found myself surrounded by a horde of ragged children, who begged for ha'pennies in the queer bated voice which seems to go with begging in Ireland. I distributed a few, but that was a mistake; for when they found I not only had some ha'pennies but was actually willing to part with them, they grew almost ferocious; I said "Oppenheimer!" in vain, and I was only saved at last by a husky woman who issued forth from one of the towers and swept down upon them, vi et armis, and drove them headlong out of sight. She was red-headed and curious, and she stopped for a bit of talk. (I pass over the part about America.) "How do you like living in the old castle?" I asked her, finally. "Sure, 'tis a grand place, sir." "Do you ever see any ghosts?" "Ghosts? Niver a one, sir." "Nor hear any banshees?" "Banshees is it? Sure, they niver come to this place, sir, 'tis that healthy, bein' so high." And it must, indeed, be healthier than the narrow, gloomy, squalid streets below. I could look down into them from the top of the tower, to which I presently mounted, and see their swarming life--men and women idling about, a girl drawing water from the public pump, a boy skinning some eels at the corner, small children playing in the gutters. On the other side lay the river, empty save for a few small launches, and beyond it the roofs of the newer part of the town, and beyond the town the beautiful Westmeath hills. Just at my feet was the bridge across the Shannon, connecting east and west Ireland. It is a modern one, but it stands on the site of the old one, built while Elizabeth was queen, and the scene of a desperate conflict when Ginkle stormed the town. Of the castle itself, only the keep is old. The drum-towers, which frown down upon the river, are of later date, though one would never suspect it to look at them; but when one gets to the top of them, one finds embrasures for artillery, and the approach is up a graded way along which the guns can be taken. The old drawbridge and portcullis which guarded the entrance to the keep are still in place, but there is little else of interest. * * * * * The ruins of the ancient abbey of Clonmacnoise lie close beside the Shannon, some ten miles below Athlone, and the road thither winds through a rolling country down to the broad river, which here flows lazily between flat banks. One would expect so noble a stretch of water to be crowded with commerce, but it was quite empty that morning, save for an occasional rude, flat-bottomed punt, loaded high with turf, which a man and a boy would be poling slowly upstream toward Athlone. It was a desolate scene; and Clonmacnoise looked desolate, too, with its gaunt grey towers, and huddle of little buildings, and cluttered graveyard. It seemed incredible that this obscure corner of the world was once a centre of learning toward which scholars turned their faces from the far ends of Europe, to which Charlemagne sent gifts, and within whose walls princes and nobles were reared in wisdom and piety. Yet such it was--the nearest to being a national university among all the abbeys, for it was not identified with any class or province, but chose its abbots from all Ireland, and welcomed its students from all the world. The abbey was founded by St. Kieran in 548. St. Kieran belonged to what is known as the Second Order of Irish Saints, founders of monasteries and of great co-operative communities, as distinguished from the First Order--St. Patrick and his immediate successors--who were bishops and missionaries and founders of churches, and the Third Order, who were hermits, dwelling in desert places, often in small stone cells, just as St. Molua did in his little cell near Killaloe. St. Kieran had already started an abbey on an island in Lough Ree, but grew dissatisfied with it, for some reason, and he and eight companions got on board a boat and floated down the river, rejecting this place and that as not suited to their purpose, and finally reaching this sloping meadow, where their leader bade them stop. "Let us remain here," he said, "for many souls will ascend to heaven from this spot." So the abbey was started, and, though Kieran himself died in the following year, it grew rapidly in importance. Let me try to picture the place as it was then. The students lived in small huts crowded about the precincts; the classes were held in the open air; only for purposes of worship were permanent buildings built. Here, as at Glendalough, there was not one large church, but seven small ones; and the students seem to have attended divine service in the groups in which they studied. It was a self-supporting community, tilling its own lands, spinning its own wool, weaving its own cloth, and building its own churches; and its life, while not austere, was of the simplest. The students, at times, numbered as many as three thousand. The teaching was free, but from every student a certain amount of service was required in the interest of the community. The principal study, of course, was that of religion, but from the very first the heathen classics and the Irish language, arithmetic, rhetoric, astronomy and natural science were taught side by side with theology. The life at Clonmacnoise was typical of that at all the other monastic schools with which Ireland was then so thickly dotted; and it is the more interesting because the whole continent of Europe, at that time, was groping through the very darkest period of the Middle Ages. Culture there was at its lowest ebb--knowledge of Greek, for instance, had so nearly vanished that any one who knew Greek was assumed at once to have come from Ireland, where it was taught in all the schools. Those schools sent forth swarms of missionaries, "the most fearless spiritual knights the world has known," to spread the light over Europe; they established centres at Cambrai, at Rheims, at Soissons, at Laon, at Liége; they founded the great monastery at Ratisbon; they built others at Wurzburg, at Nuremberg, at Constanz, at Vienna--and then came the Vikings, and put an end to Irish learning. For the Vikings were Pagans, and the shrines of the churches, the treasuries of the monasteries and schools, were the first objects of onslaught. For two centuries, the Danes made of Ireland "spoil-land and sword-land and conquered land, ravaged her chieftaincies and her privileged churches and her sanctuaries, and rent her shrines and her reliquaries and her books, and demolished her beautiful ornamented temples--in a word, though there were an hundred sharp and ready tongues in each head, and an hundred loud, unceasing voices from each tongue, they could never enumerate all the Gael suffered, both men and women, laity and clergy, noble and ignoble, from these wrathful, valiant, purely-pagan people." The Danes aimed to destroy all learning, which they hated and distrusted, and they very nearly succeeded. [Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO CLONMACNOISE] [Illustration: ST. KIERAN'S CATHAIR, CLONMACNOISE] I have already told how, under Brian Boru, the Irish drew together, and finally managed to defeat the Danes at Clontarf; and for a century and a half after that, ancient Erin seemed rising from her ashes. The books destroyed by the Danes were re-written, churches and monasteries rebuilt, schools re-opened--and then came Strongbow at the head of his Normans, and that dream was ended. There was civilisation in Ireland after that, but it was a civilisation dominated by England; there was education, but not for the native Irish; there were great monasteries, but they were built by French or Norman monks--by Franciscans or Cistercians or Augustinians; and finally even these were swept away with the coming of the Established Church. * * * * * I shall not attempt to describe the ruins of the seven churches of Clonmacnoise, except to say that, though they are all small, they are crowded with interesting detail; and there are two round towers, somewhat squat and rude, as a witness to the danger of Danish raiders; but the glory of the place is the magnificent sculptured cross, erected a thousand years ago over the grave of Flann, High King of Erin, and still standing as a witness to Irish craftsmanship. It is ten feet high, cut from a single block of stone, and elaborately carved from top to bottom, and its date is fixed by an Irish inscription which can still be deciphered: "A prayer for Colman who made this cross on the King Flann." It was Flann who built the largest of the stone churches, near which the cross stands, about 909, and at that time Colman was Abbot of Clonmacnoise. Flann died five years later, and Colman honoured his memory with this magnificent tribute. Its maker's name is lost, but there can be no doubt he was a great artist. On one side he has represented scenes from the founding of Clonmacnoise, and on the other scenes from the Passion of the Saviour. The crucifixion, as usual, is depicted at the intersection, while hell and heaven are shown on the arms themselves, crowded with the damned or the blessed, as the case may be. There is another cross in the graveyard scarcely less interesting, though no one knows on whose grave it stands, and there is the shaft of a third. And all about them are crowded the lichened tombstones marking the graves of the fortunate ones who won sepulture in St. Kieran's cathair, and who, on the last day, will be borne straight to heaven with him. For this enclosure was once the very holiest in Ireland. It was here that Kieran was laid, and then his prophecy was remembered that many souls would ascend to heaven from this spot; and the belief gradually grew that no one interred "in the graveyard of noble Kieran" would ever be adjudged to damnation. In consequence, so many people wanted to be buried there that there wasn't room for all of them, and in the end, even powerful kings and princes were forced to contend with great gifts for a place of sepulture. Here Flann was laid; and hither was borne the body of Rory O'Conor, the last who claimed the kingship of all Ireland, after his death at Cong. The great abbey at Cong served well enough as the retreat for his declining years, but it was only at Clonmacnoise, in the sacred cathair of Kieran, that he would be buried. And, as I closed the chapter on the Shannon with some verses of one of Ireland's truest poets, I cannot do better than close this one with his lovely rendering of the lament which Enock O'Gillan wrote many centuries ago for THE DEAD AT CLONMACNOISE In a quiet-watered land, a land of roses, Stands St. Kieran's city fair, And the warriors of Erin in their famous generations Slumber there. There beneath the dewy hillside sleep the noblest Of the clan of Conn, Each below his stone with name in branching Ogham And the sacred knot thereon. There they laid to rest the seven kings of Tara, There the sons of Cairbré sleep-- Battle-banners of the Gael that in Kieran's plain of crosses Now their final hosting keep. And in Clonmacnoise they laid the men of Teffia, And right many a lord of Bregh; Deep the sod above Clan Creidé and Clan Conaill, Kind in hall and fierce in fray. Many and many a son of Conn the Hundred-fighter In the red earth lies at rest; Many a blue eye of Clan Colman the turf covers, Many a swan-white breast. CHAPTER XVIII GALWAY OF THE TRIBES IT was in the dusk of early evening that our train started westward from Athlone, and we soon found ourselves traversing again the dreary bogs which we had crossed on our way from Athenry. I have seldom seen a more beautiful sunset than the one that evening, and we watched the changing sky and the flaming west for long hours; and then, just as darkness came, the great reaches of Galway Bay opened before us, and we were at our journey's end--Galway of the Tribes, the beautiful old town which is the gateway to Connemara. There is a good hotel connected with the railway, and we had dinner there, and then went forth to see the town. We were struck at once by its picturesqueness, its foreign air. The narrow curving streets do not somehow look like Irish streets, nor do the houses look like Irish houses; rather might one fancy oneself in some old town of France or Belgium. We were fascinated by it, and wandered about for a long time, along dim lanes, into dark courts, looking at the shawled women and listening to the soft talk of the strolling girls. * * * * * Nobody knows certainly how Galway got its name. Some say it was because a woman named Galva was drowned in the river; others maintain that the name was derived from the Gallæci of Spain, who used to trade here; and still others think that it came from the Gaels, who eventually occupied it in the course of their conquest of Ireland. Whatever the origin of the name, the town was but a poor place, a mere trading village of little importance, until the English came. Richard de Burgo was granted the county of Connaught by the English king in 1226, and six years later he entered Galway, rebuilt and enlarged the castle which had been put up by the Connaught men, threw a wall around the town, and so established another of those centres of Norman power, which were soon to overshadow the whole of Ireland. It was a very English colony, at first, with a deep-seated contempt for the wild Irish. Over the west gate, which looked toward Connemara, was the inscription, FROM THE FURY OF THE O'FLAHERTIES GOOD LORD DELIVER US. and one of the by-laws of the town was that no citizen should receive into his house at Christmas or on any other feast day any of the Burkes, MacWilliamses, or Kelleys, and that "neither O' nor Mac shalle strutte ne swaggere thro the streetes of Gallway." The years wore away this animosity, as they have a fashion of doing in Ireland, and by Cromwell's time, the citizens of the town had become so Irish that they were contemptuously called "the tribes of Galway" by the Puritan soldiers. But, as was the case of the Beggars in Holland, a name given in contempt was adopted as a badge of honour, and the "Tribes of Galway" became a mark of distinction for men who had suffered and fought and had never been conquered. There were thirteen of these tribes; and the Blakes and Lynches and Joyces and Martins who still form the greater part of the old town's population are their descendants--but how fallen from their high estate! For many years, Galway had a practical monopoly of the trade with Spain, there was always a large Spanish colony here, and it is to this long-continued intercourse that many persons attribute the foreign air of the town. I have even seen it asserted that the people are of a decided Spanish type; but we were unable to discern it, and I am inclined to think the Spanish influence has been much exaggerated. Its period of prosperity ended with the coming of the Parliamentary army, which took the place and plundered it; and the final blow was struck forty years later, when the army of William of Orange, fresh from its victories to the east, laid siege to it and captured it in two days. The old families found themselves ruined, trade utterly ceased, the great warehouses fell to decay, and the mansions of the aristocracy, no longer able to maintain them, were given over to use as tenements. There is to-day about Galway an air of ruin and decay such as I have seen equalled in few other Irish towns; but there are also some signs of reawakening, and it may be that, after three centuries, the tide has turned. * * * * * We found the streets crowded, next morning, with the most picturesque people we had seen anywhere in Ireland, for it was Saturday and so market day, and the country-folk had gathered in from many miles around. The men were for the most part buttoned up in cutaways of stiff frieze, nearly as hard and unyielding as iron; and the women, almost without exception, wore bright red skirts, made of fuzzy homespun flannel, which they had themselves woven from wool dyed with the rich crimson of madder. The shaggier the flannel, the more it is esteemed, and some of the skirts we saw had a nap half an inch deep. They are made very full and short, somewhat after the fashion of the Dutch; but the resemblance ended there, for most of these women were barefooted, and strode about with a disregard of cobbles and sharp paving-stones which proved the toughness of their soles. Galway, as well as most other Irish towns, boasts a number of millinery stores, with windows full of befeathered and beribboned hats; but one wonders where their customers come from, for hats are a luxury unknown to most Irish women, who habitually go either bareheaded, or with the head muffled in a shawl. All the women here in Galway were shawled, and beautiful shawls they were, of a delicate fawn-colour, and very soft and thick. We went at once to the market, and found the country women ranged along the curb, with great baskets in front of them containing eggs and butter and other products of the farm. How far they had walked, that morning, carrying these heavy burdens, I did not like to guess, but we met one later who had eight miles to go before she would be home again. A few had carts drawn by little grey donkeys; and the old woman in one of these was so typical that I wanted to get her picture. She was sitting there watching the crowd with her elbows on her knees, and a chicken in her hands, but when she saw me unlimbering my camera, she shook her head menacingly. [Illustration: THE MARKET AT GALWAY] [Illustration: "OULD SAFTIE"] There was a constable in the crowd, and he offered to clear the bystanders away, so that I could get a good picture of her. I remarked that she seemed to object, and he said that he didn't see why that made any difference, and that it wouldn't do her any harm. But I preferred diplomacy to force, and finally I asked a quaint-looking old man standing by if I might take his picture. "Ye may, and welcome," was the prompt response. So I stood him up in front of the cart and got my focus. "Will ye be seein' the ould saftie!" cried the woman. "Look at the ould saftie standin' there to get his picter took." And she went on to say other, and presumably much less complimentary things, in Irish; but my subject only grinned pleasantly and paid no heed. If you will look at the picture opposite this page, you can almost see the scornful invectives issuing from her lips. My subject was very proud indeed when I promised him a print; and I hope it reached him safely. Eggs are sold by the score in Galway, and the price that day was one shilling twopence, or about twenty-eight cents--which is not as cheap as one would expect them to be in a country where wages are so low. But perhaps it is only labour that is cheap in Ireland! One row of women were offering for sale a kind of seaweed, whose Celtic name, as they pronounced it, I could not catch, but which in English they called dillisk; a red weed which they assured us they had gathered from the rocks along the beach that very morning, and which many people were buying and stuffing into their mouths and chewing with the greatest relish. It did not look especially inviting, but the women insisted, with much laughter, that we sample it, and we finally did, somewhat gingerly. The only taste I detected in it was that of the salt-water in which it had been soaked; but it is supposed to be very healthy, and to be especially efficacious in straightening out a man who has had a drop too much. No matter how tangled his legs may be, so the women assured us, a few mouthfuls of dillisk will set him right again; and no man with a pocketful of dillisk was ever known to go astray or spend the night in a ditch. I regret that we were not able to experiment with this interesting plant; but if it really possesses this remarkable property, it deserves a wider popularity than it now enjoys. While I was talking to the women and the constable--who was a Dublin man and very lonesome among these Irish-speaking people, who regarded him with scorn and derision--Betty had been exploring the junk-shops of the neighbourhood, and presently came back with the news that she had discovered a Dutch masterpiece. Now we are both very fond of Dutch art, so I hastened to look at the picture; and, indeed, it may have been an Ostade, for it was a small panel showing two boors drinking, and it seemed to me excellently painted; but when the keeper of the shop saw that we were interested, he named a price out of all reason, and I was not certain enough of my own judgment to back it to that extent. I intended to go back later on and do a little bargaining; but I didn't; and the first connoisseur who goes to Galway should take a look at the picture--it is in a little shop just a few doors from the cathedral--and he may pick up a bargain. We went on down the street, and crossed the Corrib River to the Claddagh--a picturesque huddle of thatched and whitewashed cottages, the homes of fishermen and their families, Irish of the Irish, who, from time immemorial have formed a unique community, almost a race apart. Galway, within its walls on the other side of the river, was very, very English; here on this strip of land next to the bay, the despised Irish built their cabins, and formed a colony which made its own laws, which was always ruled by one of its own members, where no strangers were permitted to dwell, and whose people always intermarried with each other. That old semi-feudal condition is, of course, no longer strictly maintained; but the Claddagh people still keep to themselves, the men follow the sea for a living just as they have always done, and the women peddle the catch about the streets of Galway, as has been their custom ever since the English settled there. They wear a quaint and distinctive costume, one feature of which is the red petticoat I have already described, and common to all Connemara women. But in addition to this is a blue mantle, and a white kerchief bound tightly round the head, and then over this, if the woman is unusually well-to-do, a fawn-coloured shawl. The feet are usually bare, and so are the sturdy legs, some inches of which, very red and rough from exposure to every weather, are visible below the short skirts. The houses of the Claddagh have been built wherever fancy dictated, and in consequence form a most confusing jumble, for one man's back door usually opens into another man's front yard. How a man gets home from the tavern on a dark night I don't know, but I suspect that the consumption of dillisk is large. We stopped to talk to a woman leaning over a half-door; and her children, who had been playing in the dirt, gathered around, and there is a picture of her quaint little house opposite the next page. Then while I foraged for more pictures, Betty sat down on a stone, and a perfect horde of children soon assembled to stare at her. They were very shy at first and perfectly well-behaved; but gradually they grew bolder, and finally, under careful encouragement, their tongues loosened, until they were chattering away like magpies. The people of the Claddagh are said to be a very moral and religious race, who never go to sea or even away from home on any Sunday or religious holiday; and these dirty, unkempt, neglected, but chubby and red-cheeked children were capital illustrations of Kipling's lines: By a moon they all can play with--grubby and grimed and unshod-- Very happy together, and very near to God. They were certainly happy enough; and, whether they were near to God or not, they had all evidently been taught their catechism with great care, for when Betty took from one of them a little picture of the Madonna and asked who it was, they answered in chorus, without an instant's hesitation, "The blessed Virgin, miss." The Claddagh people are dark as a rule, though here and there one sees a genuine Titian blond, and Spanish blood has been ascribed to them; but they probably date much farther back than the Spaniards--back, indeed, to that ancient, original Irish race, "men of the leathern wallet," antedating the Milesians or Gaels who now form the bulk of the Irish people. The older race took refuge in the bleak Connemara hills before the stronger invaders, to come creeping down again and found their colony here at the mouth of the Corrib when the invaders had swept on eastward to the kindlier and more fertile country there. Their whole life is bound up in this topsy-turvy little settlement, where they live just as they have lived for centuries, undisturbed by the march of civilisation. [Illustration: THE CLADDAGH, GALWAY] [Illustration: A CLADDAGH HOME] We tore ourselves away, at last, from this primeval place, and recrossed the river to the turf market, with its familiar little carts piled high with the dark fuel. "The bogs are very wet this year, are they not?" I asked an old man. "They are, sir, God save ye," he replied, his wrinkled face lighting up at the chance to talk to a stranger. "There never was such a year for rain. I'm sixty year, God bless ye, and I've never seen such another." And then he went on to relate the story of his life, with a "God save ye" to every clause. A hearty old fellow he was, in spite of his sixty years; and he had driven his cart of turf down ten miles out of the mountains, that morning, and would drive ten miles back that night; and if he was lucky he would get half a crown--sixty cents--for the load of turf which had taken a hard day's labour to cut, and numerous turnings during a month to dry. We went on past some fragments of the old walls, with a most romantic arched gateway, and through the fish market, over which the red-skirted women from the Claddagh presided--great strapping creatures, with broad hips and straight backs and shining, good-humoured faces. Most of them were selling an ugly, big-mouthed, unappetising-looking fish, whose name I couldn't catch; but they told us it was a fish for poor people, not for the likes of us, God bless ye--full of bones and scarcely worth the trouble of eating, but plentiful and therefore cheap. The principal street of Galway is called Shop Street--a name so singularly lacking in imagination that it would prove the English origin of the town at once, were any proof needed--and about midway of this stands a beautiful four-storied building, known as Lynch's Castle, once a fine mansion but now a chandler's shop. The walls are ornamented with carved medallions, and there is a row of sculptured supports for a vanished balcony sticking out like gargoyles all around the top; and over the door there is the stone figure of a monkey holding a child, commemorating the saving of one of the Lynch children from a fire, by a favourite monkey, some centuries ago. The Lynches were great people in old Galway, and another memorial of them exists just around the corner--a fragment of wall, with a doorway below and a mullioned window above, and it was from this window, so legend says, that James Lynch Fitzstephen, sometime mayor of Galway, hanged his son with his own hands. The principal inscription reads: This memorial of the stern and unbending justice of the chief magistrate of this city, James Lynch Fitzstephen, elected mayor A. D. 1493, who condemned and executed his own guilty son, Walter, on this spot, has been restored to its ancient site A. D. 1854, with the approval of the Town Commissioners, by their Chairman, Very Rev. Peter Daly, P. P., and Vicar of St. Nicholas. Below the window is a skull and crossbones, with a much more interesting inscription: 1524 REMEMBER DEATHE VANITI OF VANITI AND AL IS BUT VANITI [Illustration: A GALWAY VISTA] [Illustration: THE MEMORIAL OF A SPARTAN FATHER] The story of the very upright Fitzstephen runs in this wise: He was a merchant, prominent in the Spanish trade, and fortunate in everything except in his only son, Walter, who was as bad a nut as was to be found anywhere. But he had shown some fondness for a Galway lady of good family, and it was hoped she might reform him; when, unhappily, she looked, or was thought to look, too favourably upon a handsome young hidalgo, who had come from Spain as the guest of the elder Fitzstephen. So young Walter waited for him one night at a dark corner, thrust a knife into his heart, and then gave himself up to his father, as the town's chief magistrate. Walter, as is often the way with rake-hellies, was a great favourite in the town, and everybody interceded for his pardon, but his father condemned him to death. Whereupon a number of young bloods organised a rescue party, but just as they were breaking into the house, the inexorable parent put a noose about his son's neck, and hanged him from the window mullion above the crowd's head--the same mullion, I suppose, which you can see in the picture opposite the preceding page. Just behind the reminder of this fifteenth-century Brutus, stands the fourteenth-century church of St. Nicholas, a venerable and beautiful structure, with good windows and splendid doorways, and containing some interesting tombs--one of them in honour of Mayor Lynch, the hero of the tragedy I have just related. On the south wall is a large tablet to "Jane Eyre, relict of Edward Eyre," (I wonder if Charlotte Brontë ever heard of her), who died in 1760, aged 88. At the bottom of the slab the fact is commemorated that "The sum of 300L was given by the Widow Jane Eyre to the Corporation of Galway for the yearly sum of 24L to be distributed in bread to 36 poor objects, on every Sunday forever." The sexton told us that the yearly income from this bequest was now thirty-six pounds, but that the weekly distribution of bread had occasioned so much disturbance that it had been discontinued, and the income of the bequest was now divided equally among twelve deserving families. As we stood there, the peal of bells in the tower began to ring for service, but their musical invitation went quite unheeded by the crowd in the market-place outside, all of whom, of course, were Catholics. One woman, clad in black, slipped into a pew just before the curate began to read the lesson. We waited a while to see if any one else would come, but no one did, and at last we quietly took ourselves off. There was one other sight in Galway we wanted to see--the most famous of its kind in Ireland--and that was the salmon making their way up the Corrib River from the sea to spawn in the lake above; and the place to see them is from the bridge which leads from the courthouse on the east bank of the river to the great walled jail on the west bank. Just above the bridge is the weir which backs up the water from Lough Corrib to afford power for some dozen mills--though all the mills, so far as I could see, are decayed and ruined and empty. But below this weir the salmon gather in such numbers that sometimes they lie side by side solidly clear across the bed of the stream. A number of fishermen were flogging the water, and we sat down under the trees on the eastern bank to watch them for a while before going out on the bridge. Two or three of them were stationed on a narrow plank platform built out over the water just in front of us, and the others were on the farther bank, in the shadow of the grey wall of the jail. This is supposed to be the very best place in all Ireland to catch salmon, and, in the season, more anglers than the short stretch of shore can accommodate are eager to pay the fifteen shillings, which is the fee for a day's fishing there. They fish quite close together, which is somewhat awkward, but has its advantages occasionally; as, for instance, on that day, not very long ago, when one enthusiast, having hooked a noble fish, dropped dead in the act of playing it. The long account of this sad event which the Galway paper published, concluded with the following paragraph: Our readers will be glad to learn that the rod which Mr. Doyle dropped was immediately taken up by our esteemed townsman, Mr. Martin, who found the fish still on, and after ten minutes' play, succeeded in landing it--a fine clean-run salmon of fifteen pounds. One cannot but admire the quick wit of Mr. Martin, who, seeing at a glance that his fellow-townsman was past all human aid, realised that the only thing to do was to save the fish, and saved it! But no fish were caught while we were there. We had rather expected to see one hooked every minute, but we watched for half an hour, and there was not even a rise; so at last we walked out on the bridge to see if there were really any fish in the stream. The bridge has a high parapet, worn glassy-smooth by the coat-sleeves of countless lookers-on, and there are convenient places to rest the feet, so we leaned over and looked down. The water was quite clear, and we could see the stones on the bottom plainly--but no fish. "Look, there's one," said a voice at my elbow, and following the pointing finger, I saw a great salmon, his greenish back almost exactly the colour of the water, poised in the stream, swaying slowly from side to side, exerting himself just enough to hold his place against the current. Then the finger pointed to another and another, and we saw that the river was alive with fish--and then I looked around to see whose finger it was, and found myself gazing into the smiling eyes of a young priest--not exactly young, either, for his hair was sprinkled with grey; but his face was fresh and youthful. "Of course you're from America," he said. "One can see that." And when I nodded assent, he added, "Well, you Americans brag like hell, but you have good reason to." I glanced at him again, thinking perhaps I had mistaken his vocation; but there was no mistaking his rabat. "I have been to America," he went on. "I went there as a beggar for a church here; and after my mission was done, I rested and enjoyed myself; and I want to say that there is no country like America." The words were said with an earnestness that warmed my heart; and of course I agreed with him; and then, when he learned we were from Ohio, he told us how he had crossed our State on his way to San Francisco, and that seemed to establish a kind of relationship; and when we were satisfied with looking at the fish, he insisted on taking us through the marble works, just across the river, where some great columns of Connemara marble were being polished. It comes from a quarry high on Lissoughter, which we were soon to visit--though we didn't know it then!--and it is very beautiful indeed, usually a deep green, but sometimes a warm brown, and always gorgeously veined. And then he asked us if we wouldn't like to see Queen's College, the Galway branch of the National University of Ireland; and of course we said we would, and so we started for it, he pushing his wheel before him; and on the way, we met a handsome old man, who stopped when he saw us, and smilingly asked for an introduction. It proved to be Bishop O'Dee, and even in the short chat we had with him, it was easy to see that he deserved his reputation for culture and scholarship. He has two pet aversions, so our guide told us, as we went on together, bribery and drunkenness. I don't imagine there is much bribery in Connaught, but I fear the Bishop has a formidable antagonist in John Barleycorn. We came to the college presently--a fine Gothic building, with a good quadrangle, and we went through its somewhat heterogeneous museum and looked in at some of the halls. There are now about a hundred and forty pupils, so our guide said, and the new seminary, which drew students from all the west of Ireland, and which was just getting nicely started, was certain to increase this number greatly. The National University of Ireland was established in 1908, as I understand it, for the purpose of affording Catholic youth an opportunity for higher education. The act provides that "no test whatever of religious belief shall be imposed on any person as a condition of his becoming or continuing to be a professor, lecturer, fellow, scholar or student" of the college; nevertheless it is well understood that its spirit and atmosphere are Catholic, and such Protestant youth as desire higher education usually enter Trinity College, Dublin, or Queen's College, Belfast. There are three colleges in the National University of Ireland--University College, Dublin, which is the parent institution, Queen's College, Cork, and Queen's College, Galway. All of them are maintained by state grants. I am not quite clear as to the maintenance of the new seminary, to which our guide next conducted us; but it is a mammoth building, with queer squat towers, giving it an aspect quite oriental. Our guide said that the architecture was Irish-Romanesque, but it reminded me of nothing so much as of the pictures I had seen of the temples of ancient Syria and Egypt. The seminary is really an intermediate school, and is planned on a very extensive scale. Its promoters are hoping great things for it, which I trust will come to pass. We mounted to the top of the main tower, and looked out over the bay and the hills, and talked of America and of Ireland, and of many other things, and then our guide asked us if we wouldn't come and have tea with him. "Ah, I hope you will come," he urged, seeing that we hesitated. "When I was in America, the welcome I got was so warm and open-hearted, that I feel I am forever indebted to all Americans, and it is a great pleasure to me when I am able to repay a little of that kindness. It's few opportunities I have, and I hope you won't refuse me this one." So we accepted the invitation, telling him how kind we thought it, and started back through the streets, with the women and children courtesying to our guide as we passed, and he never failing to give them a pleasant word. "'Tis not to my own quarters I'll be taking you," he explained, "but to those of a brother priest, who will be proud to have them put to this use," and he stopped in front of a row of little houses, called St. Joseph's Terrace, and opened the door of one of them, and ushered us in, and called the old servant, and bade her get us tea. It was served in a bare little dining-room--with bread and butter and jam and cake--and very good it tasted, though the tea was far too strong for us, and we had to ask for some hot water with which to weaken it. Our host laughed at us; he drank his straight, without milk or sugar, and he told us about the first time he ordered tea in New York. When he started to pour it, he thought the cook had forgot to put any tea in the pot, so he called the waiter and sent it back; and the waiter, who was Irish and understood, laughed and took the pot back and put some more tea in. "It was still far too weak," went on our host; "but I was ashamed to say anything more, so I drank it, though I might as well have been drinking hot water. Indeed, I got no good tea in America. And I nearly burnt my mouth off me once, trying to eat ice-cream. I took a great spoonful, without knowing what it would be like, and I thought it would be the death of me. And I shall never forget the first time they served Indian corn. It was in great long ears, such as I had never seen before; and I had no idea how to eat it, so I said it didn't agree with me; and then I was astonished to see the other people at the table--educated, cultured people they were, too--pick it up in their fingers and gnaw it off just as an animal would! Ah, that was a strange sight!" I do not know when I have spent a pleasanter half-hour; but he had to bid us good-bye, at last, for he was due at some service; and he wrung our hands and wished us Godspeed, and sprang on his bicycle and pedalled off down the road, turning at the corner to wave his hat to us. And I am sure his heart was light at thought of the good deed he had done that day! * * * * * Galway possesses a tram-line, which starts at the head of Shop Street and runs out to a suburb called Salthill; and as this happens to pass St. Joseph's Terrace, we walked slowly on until a tram should come along. And in a moment a woman stopped us--a woman so ragged and forlorn and with such a tale of woe that, in spite of my dislike for beggars and suspicion of them, I gave her sixpence; and she fairly broke down and wept at sight of that bit of silver, and we walked on followed by her blessings and thinking sadly of the want and misery of Ireland's people. We had another instance of it, before long, for after we had got on the tram, an old man stopped it and tried to clamber aboard, but the conductor put him off, after a short sharp altercation, and he followed us along the sidewalk, shaking his stick and, I suppose, hurling curses after us. The conductor explained that the old fellow had no money to pay for a ticket, but had proposed to pay for it after he had collected some money which was due him in Galway. This he no doubt considered an entirely reasonable proposition, and he was justly incensed when the conductor refused to extend the small necessary credit. "Them ones gave us trouble enough at first," the conductor added. "They thought because the trams were owned by the town that they should all ride free, and that only strangers should be made to pay. Even yet, they think it downright savage of us to put them off just because they haven't the price of a ticket. It costs us no more, they say, to take them than to leave them, and so, out of kindness and charity, we ought to take them. Och, but they're a thick-headed people!" he concluded, and retired to the rear platform to ruminate upon the trials of his position. We got down at the head of Shop Street, and Betty went on to the hotel to rest, while I spent a pleasant half-hour wandering about the streets and through the calf-market. There were numbers of little red calves, cooped up in tiny pens, and groups of countrymen standing about looking at them, their hands under their coat-tails and their faces quite destitute of expression. At long intervals there would be a little bargaining; which, if the would-be purchaser was in earnest, grew sharper and sharper, sometimes ending in mutual recriminations, and sometimes in an agreement, in which case buyer and seller struck hands on it. Then the calf in question would be caught and his legs tied together, and a piece of gunny-sack wrapped about him, and he would be carried away by his new owner. Or perhaps he might be sent somewhere by parcel-post. Calves tied up in gunny-sacks with their heads sticking out form a considerable portion of the Irish mail--how often have I seen the postmen lifting them on and off the cars or lugging them away to the parcel-room! Betty rejoined me, after a time, and we got on the tram to ride out to Salthill. Curiously enough, when we had climbed to the top of it, we found sitting there the old man whom we had seen put off earlier in the afternoon. I don't know whether he recognised us; but he at once proceeded to relate to us the story of that misadventure, with great warmth and in minutest detail--just as he would relate it, no doubt, to every listener for a month to come. "Why, God bless ye, sir, I told the felly he should have his penny," he explained, with the utmost earnestness. "There was a man in the town would be owin' me eight shillin's, and he had promised to pay me this very evenin'--but it was no use; he put me off into the road, bad cess to him, and it was in my mind to lay my stick across his head. But he can't put me off now," he added triumphantly, and held up his ticket for us to see. And then he told us how he had five miles to walk beyond the end of the tram-line before he would be home; but he seemed to think nothing of having had to walk ten or twelve miles to collect his wages. Indeed, most Irish regard such a walk as not worth thinking of; which is as well, since many children have to walk four or five miles to school, and men and women alike will trudge twice that distance in going from one tiny field to another to do a bit of cultivating. Our new-found friend seemed quite taken with us, for when the tram came to a stop, he asked us if we wouldn't have a drink with him; and when we declined, bade us a warm good-bye, with many kind wishes, and then shambled over to the public-house for a last drink by himself. Twenty minutes later, we saw him go past along the road, his face to the west, on the long walk to his tiny home among the hills. Salthill is a popular summer resort, and has a picturesque beach. The view out over Galway Bay is very beautiful, and the wide stretch of water seems to offer a perfect harbour; but there were no ships riding at anchor there. Time was when the people of the town fancied their bay was to become a world-famous port because of its nearness to America, and a steamship company was formed, and the government was persuaded to build a great breakwater and half a mile of quays and a floating dock five acres in extent. But the company's life was a short one, for one of its boats sank and another burned, and the other companies all preferred to go on to Liverpool or London or Southampton, and the docks and quays and harbour of Galway were left deserted, save for the little hookers of the Claddagh fishermen. CHAPTER XIX IAR CONNAUGHT WE were ready to say good-bye to Galway and to fare westward into far Connaught, most primitive of Irish provinces; but on Sunday there is only a single train each way, and the westbound one leaves Galway at six in the morning. We managed to catch it, somewhat to our surprise, crossed the Corrib River on a long bridge and viaduct, and were at once in Iar Connaught--West Connaught, the domain of the wild O'Flaherties, from whom the dwellers in Galway every Sunday besought the Lord to deliver them. The train skirts the shore of Lough Corrib, and one has beautiful glimpses of the lake and the hills beyond; and then it plunges into a wild and desolate country, strewn with great glacial boulders, some of them poised so precariously on hill-side and cliff-edge that it seems the rattle of every passing train would bring them crashing down. And then we came out upon wide moors, crossed by innumerable little streams, and then ahead of us the great Connemara mountains began to loom against the sky--gigantic masses of grey granite, bare of vegetation, even of the skin of turf which can find foothold almost anywhere, but which is powerless against these masses of solid rock. The Maamturk Mountains are the first to be seen, rugged giants two thousand feet high, and the road mounts toward them over a pass, and then dips rapidly to the station at Recess, which was our stopping-point. It was still so early that there was nobody about, and when we got to the hotel we found it locked; but the porter hastened to open the door in answer to our ring, and we found ourselves in one of the nicest hotels we had encountered anywhere in Ireland. We had already made up our minds to spend that Sunday climbing Lissoughter, a mountain just back of the hotel, famous for the view from its top; and so, as soon as we had disposed of our luggage and eaten a most appetising breakfast, we inquired how to get to it. And Sheila was summoned to tell us--Sheila with a complexion like peach-bloom, and the brightest of blue eyes, and the fluffiest of brown hair, fit to pose as the prototype of Sweet Peggy, or Kathleen Bawn, or Kitty Neil, or any other of the lovely girls the Irish poets delighted to sing. Not the least of the attractions of this hotel at Recess are the girls who work there--as bright and blooming a lot of Irish lasses as one could wish to see--and Sheila, I think, was the flower of them all. She told us how to go, and we set off happily through the soft, bright air of the morning. Our road, at first, lay along the margin of a placid lake, then turned off sharply to the right, and the climb began. It was an easy climb, with beautiful views over bogs and lakes and mountains opening at every step. There was a wet bog on either side the road, and at a place where the peat was being cut, we walked out to take a closer look at it. And as we stood there gazing down into the black excavation, we felt the ground trembling beneath our feet; and when we looked up, there was a man striding upward toward us, two hundred feet away, but at every stride shaking the bog so that we could feel the tremor distinctly. The bog shook more and more as he approached and passed us; and then the tremor grew fainter and fainter as he went on his way. Unless I had felt it, I would never have believed that the footsteps of a single man could have created so wide a disturbance, and I understood how serious were the difficulties the railways had to face in getting across the bogs of central Ireland. Half a mile farther on, we came to a cluster of little cabins clinging to the hillside, and we paused to ask the way of a man who was pottering about them; and, after a moment, we found that we were talking to Mr. Rafferty, who with his brother, both bachelors, own the only quarry in the world which produces Connemara marble; and when he offered to show it to us, you may well believe we assented. From the very first moment, I had perceived an air about Mr. Rafferty which puzzled me. He was undoubtedly Irish, and yet his manner of speaking was not precisely the Irish manner I had grown accustomed to; his intonation was not precisely the Irish intonation, his choice of words and acquaintance with slang was surprisingly wide for a man born and reared in Connemara, and there was a certain alertness about him which was not Irish at all. And then, when he started to tell us his story, I understood, for he had been born in New York and spent the first fifteen or twenty years of his life there. Not until then did I realise in how many subtle, scarcely recognisable ways does the American Irishman differ from the Irish Irishman. His father was a Connemara man who had gone to America in the decade following the great famine and settled in New York, where the son who was talking to us was born. The father had come back to Connemara, again, for some reason, and had settled at Recess, and, by mere accident, one day discovered the vein of marble high on the side of Lissoughter. There was no railroad in the valley then, and nobody supposed the vein would ever be of any value, so he managed to get control of it, and his sons came back from America to help him work it. Its development was very slow and difficult, for the only way of getting the marble to market was to haul it along the mountain roads to Galway, forty miles distant. But since the coming of the railroad, all that is changed. Some primitive machinery has been installed, larger blocks can be handled, and already more than one office building in New York has its vestibule embellished with the beautiful green stone. Even the fragments are carefully saved and worked up into small ornaments and novelties to sell to tourists--round towers and Celtic crosses and such things. We were at the entrance to the quarry by this time, and he took us through and explained its workings to us. It is a surface vein, as you will see from the photograph opposite page 322, which I took next day, and no one knows its depth or its extent. Enough has been uncovered to last for many years, at the present rate of quarrying. Of course if it was in America, a great company would be formed to exploit it, and modern machinery installed, and it would be yanked out by the thousands of tons a day; but since it is in Ireland, I doubt if the rate of production will ever be largely increased. We bade Mr. Rafferty good-bye at last, and took up the climb again toward the summit of the mountain which loomed before us; up and up, with the view opening more and more. Away at the bottom of the valley ran the white ribbon of a road, with a cluster of thatched roofs huddled near it, here and there; and beyond the valley towered the granite sides of the Twelve Pins of Bunnabeola, the loftiest and most picturesque mountains in these western highlands. We came to a cabin, presently, away up there by itself on the mountain side, and we stopped long enough to leave the specimens of marble which Mr. Rafferty had given us, for they threatened to become embarrassingly heavy before the climb was ended. The family who lived there came out to show us the best way up the hill, and stood watching us as we climbed on. The path for a time lay along the bottom of a brook; then we came out upon the bare hillside, with an outcrop of granite here and there and dripping bog between, and no living thing in sight except agile, black-faced sheep, who peered down at us curiously from every crag. The way grew steeper and steeper and the stretches of bog more wet and treacherous; but always the view was more magnificent, especially to the west, where the Twelve Pins were, and to the south, where the plain stretched away, gleaming with innumerable little lakes. I never saw so many lakes at one time as I saw that day--there must have been two or three hundred of them between us and the far horizon, each of them gleaming in the sun like a polished mirror. After an hour of this steep and slippery work, Betty declared that she had had enough; but the last grey escarpment of the mountain loomed just over our heads, and I hated to give up with the goal so near. She said she would wait for me while I went up alone, so, leaving her cosily seated in a niche in the cliff, I scrambled on, along the granite wall, on hands and knees sometimes; and at last I came out upon the very summit, with one of the most beautiful views in all Ireland at my feet. Lissoughter stands exactly at the end of a great transverse valley, with the Maamturk Mountains on one side and the Twelve Pins on the other, and at the bottom of this valley gleam the waters of Inagh and Derryclare; and the granite hills stretch away as far as the eye can see, one behind the other, rugged and bleak, without a sign of vegetation--far more impressive than the green-clad hills about Killarney. The day was gloriously clear, and I sat there for a long time, gazing first this way and then that, and I can shut my eyes now and see again that glorious landscape. The top of Lissoughter is a ring of granite, with a bog in the depression in the centre; and on the highest point of this ring some one had heaped up a little cairn of stones. Feeling something like Peary at the north pole, I tore a leaf from my note-book, wrote my name and address upon it, with greetings to the next comer, and placed it under the topmost stone of this cairn. I did not suppose that it would ever be discovered, but when I got home, I found a postal awaiting me from an Irish girl, who had climbed Lissoughter with a party a week later, and found my note where I had left it. When we got down again to the cottage where we had left our marble, we found the man of the house out in front, and stopped for a chat with him. Yes, it was a fine day; very wet it had been, but a few more such days as this would do the potatoes a world of good, and one could get into the bogs again to cut the winter fuel. As we talked, children gathered from various directions, until there were ten standing about staring at us, and Betty asked him if they were the neighbours' children. "They are not, miss," he answered, grinning. "They're all mine." "All yours!" echoed Betty, and counted them again. The man turned to the eldest girl. "Mary Agnes, go bring the baby," he said; and Mary Agnes disappeared indoors, and came out presently with number eleven. How they manage to live I don't know; but they do live, and, so far at least as the children are concerned, even grow fat. Their bright eyes and red cheeks spoke of anything but undernourishment, and it must take a large pot to hold enough to satisfy that family! How the pot is filled is the mystery. Their home was typical of Connaught--and of the poorer part of all Ireland, indeed: a low cabin, built of stones and whitewashed, with two rooms, a dirt floor, a few pieces of rude furniture, a pile of straw and rags for a bed, and hardly enough clothes to go around. In fact, below the age of ten or twelve, it was impossible to tell the boys from the girls, for they were all dressed alike in a single garment, a sort of shift made of homespun flannel, and usually, I judge, cut out of the mother's old red petticoats; and boys and girls alike have their hair cropped close. All through Connemara we saw this fashion--a single rudely-made garment of wool, worn by the children of both sexes all the year round, without undergarment of any kind, without shoes or stockings. The flannel the garments are made of is practically indestructible, and I fancy they are taken off only when outgrown and passed on to the next youngest member of the family. When a boy outgrows it and is privileged to put on trousers, it is a proud day for him, for he ceases to be a mere petticoated "malrach" and becomes a "gossure." Mary Agnes, the oldest member of this particular family, was a girl of sixteen, who was soon to leave for America to try her fortune; I don't know by what miracles of self-denial the money for her passage had been scraped together! She was an ugly girl, with bad teeth and stupid expression, and I am afraid she will find life no bed of roses, even here in America. The rest of the children went to school; and the nearest schoolhouse was five Irish miles away! We went on at last, down past the other cabins, which are occupied by the men employed in the quarry. They were all faithful replicas of the one I have described, and they were all swarming with children. I never ceased to be astonished at these children, for though they were dirty and half-naked, they all seemed plump and healthy. Potatoes, I suppose, is the main article of their diet, for every cabin had its deep-trenched patch, won by back-breaking toil from the rocks of the hillside. That leisurely walk down into the green valley is unforgettable, the day was so bright, the air so fresh and sweet, the view so lovely. [Illustration: THE CONNEMARA MARBLE QUARRY] [Illustration: A CONNEMARA HOME] We spent the remainder of the afternoon playing clock golf, and exploring the beautiful garden attached to the hotel; and that night we sat in front of a great open fire-place where a wood fire crackled, and luxuriated in the pleasant fatigue of a well-spent day. If I had known as much then as I do now, we would have spent other evenings there, for Recess is as good a point as any from which to explore Connaught, and the hotel there is immeasurably superior to any other in that section of Ireland--clean and bright and comfortable and well-managed, with food that was a pleasant variant from the unimaginative dishes we had grown so weary of. It has been built by the railroad company to encourage tourist traffic, and I don't see how it can pay; but, for the sake of travellers in that part of Ireland, I hope it will never be closed. I said something of this, that evening, to the manager and to Sheila; and added to the latter that if she would tell me the secret of her complexion, I would make a fortune for both of us. "'Tis just the air," she laughed. "Send your lady friends out here to us, and we'll soon have them blooming like roses." So there is another reason for a stay at Recess. * * * * * I clambered back up to the quarry, next morning, for I wanted some pictures of it, and of the quaint cabins along the way. I found Mr. Rafferty there, and a gang of men busy loading some blocks of marble upon a cart, preparatory to taking them down the mountain. Just back of the quarry, two red-skirted women were digging in a potato patch, and they looked so picturesque and Millet-like that I asked them if I might take their picture. They held a quick consultation, and then said I might provided I paid them two shillings first! But I _did_ want a picture of one of those poor little mountain cabins, and on my way back, I saw a woman standing at the door of one of them, and she passed the time of day so amiably that I stopped to talk. The year had been very hard, she said--as what year is not, in such a place!--and her husband was even then at Oughterard, trying to find work. Meanwhile, she was left with the children, to do the best she could, and what they found to live on I don't know; but she was glad for me to take a picture of her little place, with herself and the children and the dog standing in front of it, and I am sure the coin I slipped into the baby's fist was very welcome. That picture is opposite page 322, and it gives a better idea than any mere description could of these damp, dark, comfortless mountain homes, with their low walls, and tiny windows, and leaky, grass-grown thatch, tied on with ropes. Both the boys in the picture wear the red flannel garment common to all Connemara children. The girl has just outgrown it. Farther on, I came upon a woman and her daughter, a girl of about sixteen, working in a potato patch; and the girl was really pretty, although at the moment she was engaged in spreading manure with her hands about the roots of the plants. Her skirt was kilted high, revealing her graceful and rounded legs, and when she smiled her teeth were very white. That was the finishing touch, for teeth are bad in Ireland, and most pretty girls need only smile to disillusion one. So, after some talk about the weather, and about America, I asked the mother if I might not take the girl's picture; and the girl was willing enough, for she hastily let down her skirt, blushing with pleasure; but her mother shook her head. "You are not the first one to be askin' that," she said; "but I have said no to all of them, for I would not have her growing vain." "She has a right to be vain," I pointed out, "for she is very pretty; and it wouldn't hurt her to have her picture taken." "Handsome is as handsome does," said her mother; "and she is not as good as she looks." No doubt with a little more blarney I could have won her consent; but in my heart of hearts I knew she was right, and I didn't try to persuade her. It was not the first time I realised I was not cut out for a photographer! She said the girl would be going to America before long, and I advised her to take care of her teeth, and bade them good-bye and went on my way. I have regretted since that I didn't try the blarney, for that picture would certainly have embellished the pages of this book! I had thought that the fine weather would bring out the turf cutters in force, and I had hoped to get a picture of them at work; but the cuttings were all empty, for some reason, and at last, after a final long look at the beautiful valley, I made my way back to the hotel, and an hour later we were faring westward toward Clifden. The road ran for many miles with the granite masses of the Twelve Pins towering on the right, springing sheer two thousand feet from the bogs around them--great cones rising one behind the other, their summits gleaming so white in the sun that they seemed crowned with snow. We ran away from them, at last, across a dreary moor, down to the sea, and so to Clifden. Clifden is a little modern town with a single wide street overlooking the bay; but we had time for only a glance at it, for the motor-bus was waiting which was to take us to Leenane,--which is pronounced to rhyme with "fan," as though it had no final "e"--and we were soon climbing out of the town, with a beautiful view of the bay to the left, and on a cliff close to the shore the great masts of the Marconi station, which is in touch with the coast of Newfoundland. No contrast could have been more complete--this latest and greatest of the achievements of science, set down in a country where nothing has altered for five centuries; a country to which the description penned by Rory O'Flaherty, more than a century before our Revolution, applies as closely and completely as it did when it was written. Another contrast, just as great, is that between the handsome young Italian who set those masts here and the men who live in the little cottages along the sea under them. And yet Marconi himself is half Irish--for his mother was Irish, and he has married an Irish girl; and I fancy he is glad that one of the greatest of his stations should be here on the Irish coast. We mounted steadily along a winding road, and at every turn the scenery grew more superb--great sweeps of rugged landscape, of bog and rocky field and granite mountain, rousing the soul like a blare of martial music. Beyond Letterfrank, the road dips into the lovely Pass of Kylemore; and again, as back at Glengarriff, it was bordered with fuchsia hedges, gay with scarlet flowers. And presently we were running close beside Kylemore Lake, with the white towers of the castle gleaming above the trees on the other side--a magnificent structure, now owned by the Duke of Manchester--financed by his Cincinnati father-in-law! And then we came out upon a wide moor, and the road climbed up and up--and all at once, we came to the top of the pass, and there, far below us lay Killary Bay, a narrow arm of the Atlantic running back into the very heart of the Connemara mountains, which press upon it so closely that there is barely room for the road between rock and water. We dropped down toward it, passed a tiny mountain village, came out upon the shore, and sped along at the very edge of the water, until, far ahead, we saw the cluster of houses which is Leenane; and in another moment we had stopped before the rambling building which is McKeown's Hotel. McKeown himself is a bearded giant of a man, with bronzed face and the sunniest of smiles, and his hotel is a sort of paradise for fishermen. To others it is not so attractive; but in surroundings it could hardly be surpassed. Right at its door stretches Killary Bay; back of it tower the steep hills, and across the inlet grey and purple giants spring two thousand feet into the air, right up from the water's edge. A few looms have been set up by Mr. McKeown in a building adjoining the hotel, and tweeds are woven there from yarn spun in the neighbourhood, forming a small industry which gives employment to a number of persons; and a few yards farther down the road is a station of the constabulary, and it looked so bright and inviting that I stopped in for a chat with the men. I have already spoken of the Royal Irish Constabulary--the force which polices the country; slim, soldierly men, governed from Dublin Castle, and really constituting an army, eleven thousand strong, armed with carbines, sword bayonets and revolvers, and ready to be concentrated instantly wherever there is trouble. They are nearly all Irishmen, so it is not a foreign army, but they are seldom assigned to the districts where they were born and reared; and the men who command them from Dublin Castle are English army officers, who are in no way responsible to the public. All, in fact, that Ireland has to do with the Royal Irish Constabulary is to foot the bills. Because of this fact, because in the old days they were called out to assist at every eviction and at every political or religious arrest, because their services are still required at every trial and mass-meeting and fair and market, and finally because their demeanour is sometimes rather top-lofty, the Irish generally regard them with a suspicion and dislike which seem to me undeserved. So far as I came into contact with them, I found them courteous and kindly men, and apparently as good Irishmen as any one could desire. But there is one cause for complaint which has a real basis, and that is that, in a country which is as free of crime as Ireland now is, a police force should be maintained which averages one to every 394 of the population, and which costs annually about $7,500,000. In the old days of evictions and coercion acts and political and religious strife, some such force may have been necessary; but that need has passed. Crime is to-day much less frequent and serious in Ireland than in England, yet in Ireland the per capita cost of the police is $1.64, while in England it is only fifty-six cents. But the members of the constabulary are not to blame for this, and one grows accustomed to seeing them everywhere--at the Dublin crossings, at the street corners of every little village, walking briskly in pairs along the loneliest of mountain roads, stationed in the wilds of the hills or amid the desolation of the bogs, often with no house in sight except the barrack in which they live. I certainly got a warm welcome, that day, from the sergeant in charge of the Leenane barrack, and from the one constable who happened to be on duty there. They showed me all through the place, clean and bare and Spartan-like, with their kits along the wall, ready to be caught up at a moment's notice, for a call to duty may come at any time, and there must be no delay. It was a real barrack, too, with heavy bars across the windows, and a door that would resist any mob. And then they showed me their equipment. To the belt which they all wear a leather case is suspended for the baton, and a square leather pouch which contains a pair of handcuffs. At the back is the ammunition pouch, and on the side opposite the baton hangs the sword-bayonet, which can also be used as a knife or dagger. The small carbine they carry weighs only six and a half pounds, but is wonderfully compact and efficient, with a six-shot magazine, and a graduated sight up to two thousand yards. No man in this station had ever had occasion to use his rifle, and they all said earnestly that they hoped they never would. They have a beat of twelve miles along the mountain roads, and they cover it twice every day and once every night. I asked them the reason for so much vigilance, for I could not imagine any serious crime back in these hills among this simple and kindly people; and they said that there was really very little crime; but a sheep would be missing now and then, or a bit of poaching would be done, or perhaps a quarrel would arise between some farmer and his labourers and a horse would be lamed--it was such things as those they had to be on the lookout for. The position of constable is a good one--for Ireland; and I imagine that most of those who enter the service stay in it till retired, for it carries an increase of pay every five years, with a pension after twenty-five years' service, or in case of disability. We sat and talked for a long time about America and Ireland, and intelligent fellows I found them, though perhaps with a little of the soldier's contempt for the shiftless civilian. And then I walked on to the village which nestles at the head of the bay, a single street of slated houses. Everybody wanted to talk, and I remember one old granny, with face incredibly wrinkled, who sat in front of her door knitting a stocking without once glancing at it, and who told me she was eighty-five and had nine children in America. And I met the girl who, with her brother, teaches the village school, and she asked me if I wouldn't come in, before I left, and see the school, and I promised her I would. Then I noticed that one of the little shops had the name "Gaynor" over the door, and I stopped in to ask the proprietor if he knew that was also the name of the mayor of New York. He did--indeed, he knew as much about Mayor Gaynor as I did. There were two other men sitting there, and they asked me to sit down. One of them was a mail carrier, and he told me something of his trips back up into the hills, and how almost all the letters he delivered were from America, each with a bit of money in it. "When there is bad times in America," he went on, "and when men are out of work there, it pinches us here just as hard as it pinches them there--harder, maybe, for if the money don't come, there is nothing for it but the work-house. A man can't make a living on these poor hill farms, no matter how hard he tries, and there is no work to be had about here, save a little car driving and such like in the summer for visitors like yourself." "Why do they stay here?" I asked. "Why don't they go away?" "Where would they go? There's no place for them to go in Ireland--America is the only place, and every one that can raise the money does go there, you may be sure. Them that's left behind are too poor or too old to cross the sea; and then, however bad it is, there is some that will not leave the little home they was born in, so long as they can stay there and keep the soul in their body. There be some so wrongheaded that they won't even move down into the valley farms which they might be getting from the Congested Districts Board." * * * * * I have been fighting shy of the Congested Districts Board ever since I left Cork; but here, in the very heart of the worst of the congested districts, I may as well explain what the words mean. No one, travelling from Galway to Clifden and then on to Leenane, as we had done, would have thought of the district as "congested," for, while the little huddles of thatched roofs which mark a village are fairly frequent, they are scarcely noticeable in the great stretches of hill and bog and rocky meadow among which they nestle. And, indeed, "congested," in this sense, does not mean crowded with people; it means exceptionally poor; and there is no district of Ireland poorer than Connaught, that land of bog and granite, where every inch of ground must be either elaborately drained or wrested from the rock, and where, even after years of labour, the fields are still either so wet that a little extra rain ruins them, or so full of stones that the reaping must be done with the hook. In Connaught, even the poorest man has a right to be proud of his home, because, however small and mean it may be, it represents infinite toil. But how does it come that any one lives in these hills, where life is such a constant and heartrending struggle? The answer is that Connaught is the Irish pale. After Cromwell had subdued Ireland, the Puritan Parliament announced that it was "Not their intention to extirpate the whole nation," as many people had been led, not unreasonably, to believe; and a year later, they proved their humanitarian intentions by enacting that such Irish as survived should be permitted to live thereafter between the Atlantic and the Shannon, certain portions of which were set aside, as the Parliament said in unintentional rhyme, "For the habitation of the Irish nation." It was stipulated, however, that they should not settle within four miles of the sea, within four miles of a town, nor within two miles of the Shannon; they were given until the first of May, 1654, to get into their new homes, after which date, any found outside of Connaught were to be treated as outlaws and killed out of hand. The misery and sufferings of the little bands of terror-stricken people, wandering in the depth of winter westward along unknown roads to an unknown, inhospitable country, will not bear thinking of--or, thinking of it, one can understand something of Irish hate for Cromwell's memory. As a matter of fact, the edict sounds worse than it was, as such edicts usually do, for it was impossible for it to be literally carried out. All the Irish were not banished to Connaught, for many of them preferred to face death where they had always lived rather than among the Connemara hills; and they were not murdered out of hand, but given work, for the new landlords were glad to employ them at menial labour, since no other labourers were to be had. But from that time on, it was usually the Protestant Englishman who lived in the mansion house, and the Irish Catholic whose home was roofed with thatch and floored with dirt. Let us be careful not to grow sentimental over the wrongs of Ireland, nor to magnify them. They are not unique, for they have been paralleled many times in history. We should be careful, too, not to judge a seventeenth-century Parliament by twentieth-century ideals. There is this to be said for it: that its only hope of existence lay in stamping out rebellion, and the only way, apparently, to stamp out rebellion in Ireland was to kill the rebels. That the Parliament chose to banish them rather than kill them is so much to its credit, and I doubt not that, after the vote had been taken, many of those old Puritans went home with the feeling that they had done a merciful and Christian deed. Nor should we forget that the wars of religion were as bitter on one side as on the other: St. Bartholomew was far more bloody than Drogheda, and the removal of the Irish to Connaught was matched by the banishment of the Huguenots from France, thirty years later. It did not seem possible, in that day, that Protestant and Catholic could ever live side by side in peace and friendship, and that narrow bigotry alone would strive to keep alive the memory of those mistaken, centuries-old feuds and persecutions. The best portions of Connaught were already fully settled, as the fugitive Irish found when they got there; furthermore, although the broad Shannon formed a natural moat which would hold safely the Irish who had crossed it, it was further strengthened by giving to Cromwell's soldiers all the broad belt of fertile land along the river, as well as the rich valleys running back into the hills. All that was left for the newcomers were the bleak moors and rocky mountain-sides, where no one else would live; and since these, for the most part, were quite unfit to be cultivated, there was every reason to believe that the people condemned to live among them would soon cease from troubling. But they didn't--at least, all of them didn't. They built rude shelters of rock for their families, and the cabins one sees to-day throughout Connemara are the direct descendants of those early ones, with scarcely an altered feature. They set to work to reclaim the hillsides, and though, every year, the spade turned up a new crop of stones, the fields slowly grew capable of producing a little food. Before that time, of course, many of the people had starved, but those that were left were all the better off, and it looked, for a while, as though they might some day be able to open the door without seeing the wolf there. But the end was not yet. It should be remembered that these mountain farms did not belong to the people who had created them, and who laboured constantly to improve them, but were part of the "plantation" of some court favourite or adventurer, so that rent must be paid for them; and as the farm improved the rent was raised, although the improvement resulted from the labour of the man who paid the rent, so that, in the end, it was not the tenant who was richer, but the landlord. If the rent was raised to a point where the tenant couldn't pay it, or if the landlord wanted the land, the tenant was evicted with absolutely no compensation for the improvements he had made. Then it was a question either of going to America, or, if there wasn't money enough for that, as was usually the case, of taking up some other stretch of rocky hillside, and beginning the weary struggle all over again. The craze for grazing, which started some forty or fifty years ago, resulted in the eviction of many thousands from farms their own industry had made, and to-day, as one drives through Connaught, one sees great stretches of land given over to sheep which were once part of such farms, and one can tell it is so by the faint ridges which mark the old tillage. So evolution proceeded, but for the Irish peasantry it was devolution, for every step was a step downward; and millions of them left the land in despair, and millions of those that remained were unable to make enough to live on; and the workhouses kept getting bigger and bigger, and the people poorer and poorer; until finally, a few English statesmen, with a somewhat broader outlook than the average, saw that something had to be done, and set about doing it. There is no need for me to enumerate the steps that were taken--some of them wise, many of them foolish; but the greatest of all was the enactment of legislation permitting and assisting tenants to become the owners of the land on which they lived. This was in 1891, when the Congested Districts Board was established, with wide powers, which have since been made wider still; but the kernel of it all is this: in the west of Ireland, where the need is greatest, the board has power to condemn and purchase at a fair valuation the fertile land of the great land-owners, except the demesne, which is the park about the mansion house, and can then re-sell this land to small farmers, giving them about sixty years to pay for it, the payments being figured on the basis of the cost price, plus interest at the rate of four per cent. Such condemnation and re-selling is necessarily slow, but it is going steadily forward, and must in the end, change the whole face of western Ireland. Indeed, there are some who think it has already done so. The Congested Districts Board has done much more than buy and re-sell land; it has aided and developed agriculture, improved the breeding of stock, encouraged the establishment of industries, developed the fisheries along the western coast, established technical schools--in short, it has assumed a sort of paternal oversight of the districts committed to its care. All of the "congested districts" aren't in the west of Ireland--there are districts in the east and south where the holdings are "uneconomic"--that is, where the income possible to be derived from them is not enough to support a family--sometimes not enough even to pay the rent. But conditions are worst in Connaught, and remain worst, in spite of the work of the board. It is here that life has sunk to its lowest terms, where the usual home is a hovel unfit for habitation, sheltering not only the family, but the chickens and the pigs and the donkey; it is here that manure is piled habitually just outside the door, and where fearful epidemics sweep the countryside. At the time we were at Leenane, there was an outbreak of typhus a few miles back in the mountains. It had been announced with hysterical scare-heads by the Dublin papers, but the people of the neighbourhood thought little of it--they had seen typhus so often! Which brings me back to Gaynor's general store, and the mail-carrier who was telling me about the letters from America. "Yes," Gaynor put in, "and about the only letters that go out from here are for America--and well I know what is inside them! There was a time when I sold stamps to the poor people, or gave credit to them when they couldn't pay, and the only stamps I ever thought of buying was the tuppence-ha'penny ones, which we used to have to put on American letters. And many is the letter I have written for poor starving people praying for a little help from the son or daughter who had gone to the States, and who was maybe forgetting how hard life is back here in Connaught." "Not many of them do be forgetting," said the mail-carrier, puffing his pipe slowly; "I will say that for them. There be many away from here now," he went on, "just for the summer--gone to England or Scotland to help with the harvest. It is a hard life, but they make eighteen shillings a week there, and the money they bring back with them will help many a family through the winter. There be thousands and thousands here in Connaught who could not live but for the money they make every year in this way." He stopped to watch Gaynor weigh out a shilling's worth of flour--American flour!--for a girl who had come in with a dingy basket, into which the flour was dumped; and then he went on to tell me something about his trips up over the hills--for no house in Ireland is too poor or too remote for the mail-carrier to reach. Talk about rural delivery! With us, a man must have his mail-box down by the highroad, where the carrier can reach it easily; in Ireland, the carrier climbs to every man's very door, and puts the letter into his hand--and I can imagine the joy that it brings. Irish mail-carriers play Santa Claus all the year round! I tore myself away, at last, from this absorbing conversation, and started back to the hotel. The sun had not yet set; but suddenly the thought came to me that it must be very late, and I snatched out my watch and looked at it. It was half-past eight--an hour after the hotel's dinner time! However, in a fishing hotel, they are accustomed to the vagaries of their guests; and I found that dinner had been kept hot for me. * * * * * An hour later, as we sat on the balcony in front of our room, gazing out across the moonlit water, we heard the tread of quick feet along the road, and, looking down, saw pass two constables, starting out upon their night patrol. And whenever I think of Leenane, I see those two slim, erect figures marching vigorously away into the darkness along the lonely road. CHAPTER XX JOYCE'S COUNTRY TWENTY-FIVE miles away to the eastward from Leenane, across a wild stretch of hill and bog known as Joyce's Country, are the ruins of the old abbey of Cong, and thither we set out, next morning, behind a little black mare who would need all her staying powers for the trip that day, and on a car driven, as was fitting, by a man named Joyce--as perhaps half the men are who live in this neighbourhood. "Jyce" is the local pronunciation; and the Joyces are one of the handsomest and fiercest breeds of mountaineers to be met with anywhere--fit companions for those of Kentucky and Tennessee. The original Joyces were Welshmen, so it is said, who came to Ireland about 1300, and, with the permission of the all-powerful O'Flaherties, settled in this country between Lough Mask and the sea. Why they should have chosen so inhospitable a region I don't know--perhaps because no one else wanted it. Certainly the O'Flaherties didn't; for they preferred to live along the sea, where fish was plentiful. But the Joyces were an agricultural people; they turned as much of the hillside as they could into arable land, cultivated with the spade to this day and reaped with the hook. On the rest of it, they grazed their flocks, and they still graze them there. It was a beautiful, warm day, with fleecy clouds in the sky and a blue haze about the hills, and everybody was out enjoying the sunshine as we drove through the village and turned up along the shoulder of the Devil's Mother Mountain. The fine weather had brought the men and women out to work in the potato fields--such of the men, that is, as hadn't yet left for England or Scotland to spend the summer in the fields there. Usually there were five or six women to one man, each of them armed with a spade or a fork, and it was pitiful to see the poor little patches in which they were working. Almost always they were on a steep hillside--there isn't much else but hillside hereabouts which can be cultivated, for even where there happens to be a little level land in the valley, it is almost always wet bog in which nothing can be grown. The patches were very, very small, and each of them was surrounded by a high wall built of the stones which had been dug from the ground; and at the bottom of every slope was a pile of surplus stones which had been rolled there out of the way. The potatoes were planted in drills about two feet wide, and then between the drills a deep trench was dug to carry off the water, for even on the hillsides the ground is very wet; and these trenches must be kept clear of weeds so that the water will run off freely, and of course the drills must be kept clear of weeds too; and the ground is so poor that manure must be freely used, and the only way to get it where it is needed is to place it there by hand. And almost every time the spade is driven into the ground, it brings up more stones which must be carried away, until it sometimes becomes quite a problem what to do with them. As many as possible are built into the fences; and the dominant feature of every Connemara landscape is the zig-zag tapestry of stone walls which covers it. They run in every direction--up the sides of hills so steep that it seems a miracle they don't slide off, around fields so small that the ground can't be seen above the fence, along the tops of high ridges where they form grotesque patterns against the sky which shines through every chink, in places where there seems to be no need whatever for a wall and yet to which the stones have been carried with prodigious labour. But do not suppose that, even with all this toil, the fields are cleared of stones. Everywhere there are outcroppings of solid rock which the tiller of the field has been unable to dislodge, and around which he must sow and reap. In consequence, there are practically no fields in which it would be possible to drive a plow, and few indeed in which it is possible to swing a scythe. The fields themselves are so small that one wonders anybody should trouble to cultivate them at all. I have seen scores and scores not more than fifty feet square, each surrounded with its high wall; I have seen many less than that, with just space enough for a two-roomed hovel, where the family must take the stock into the house with them, because there is no place for an out-building, and where the manure must be heaped against the wall, because to throw it a foot away would be to put it on land belonging to some one else. The land which the family itself cultivated might lie in twenty different places, miles away. This complication, which is unparalleled elsewhere in the world, arose in this way: Half a century ago a man would lease some acres of ground and by terrific labour convert it into tillable land. As his sons grew up and his daughters married, he would sub-let to each of his sons and sons-in-law small portions of his holding, and their other relatives would do the same, so that, while each of them might be the tenant of four or five acres, they would be scattered in a dozen different places. A second generation further complicated things. An acre field would be split up between ten different tenants, each with his stone wall around his portion; and one of the biggest jobs the Congested Districts Board has had to tackle is that of so redistributing the land that each tenant shall have a compact portion. Imagine the small farmers of any neighbourhood called together for the purpose of redistribution, each of them suspicious and jealous of all the others, each of them believing that his scattered bits of land are quite exceptionally valuable, each of them remembering the bitter labour by which he reclaimed each rood; and then imagine the patience and tact which are needed to convince them that they are not being cheated, and to persuade them to agree to the proposed re-allotment. Talk about the labours of Hercules! Why they were child's play compared with this! * * * * * We drove on, that morning, down a wide valley, past these tiny walled fields and thatched houses, now and then passing one of the neat little slated cottages which the County Council builds where it can, but which are distressingly few and far between; and then we came out into the grazing country, with stone walls running right up the thousand-foot hillsides to the very top, and the white sheep dotted over the green turf; and then we turned off along a side-road, which speedily mounted through a narrow pass, across a wide bog, and so to the head of a deep gorge where, far below us, stretched the blue waters of Lough Nafooey, lying in a deep cup of granite mountains. I have never seen a steeper road than that which zig-zags down into this valley, and I was very glad indeed to get off and walk, not only because of the steepness, but also because on foot I could stop whenever I chose and look at the beautiful scene below--the long, narrow lake, crowded in on the south by steep, bare mountains, and with a white ribbon of road running along its northern edge, past a cluster of houses built close beside it, and with the furrowed fields behind them mounting steeply upwards. The whole village was out at work in the fields, and the red petticoats of the women gave the scene just that added touch of colour it needed. The mountains on the southern shore grew less rugged presently, and as soon as the ground grew level enough for tillage, it presented such a complicated pattern of stone walls as must be unique, even here in this bewalled district. For more than a mile we drove along opposite them; and then we reached the end of the lake, and struck off along another valley toward Lough Mask. We were soon on another desolate moor, dotted with the black stumps of bog oak; and then the road sank into a pass, as the hills closed in on either side, and skirted a dancing brook, and then before us opened the lower part of Lough Mask. [Illustration: IN "JOYCE'S COUNTRY"] [Illustration: ON THE SHORE OF LOUGH MASK] I have said that these Irish mountaineers are fierce, and I must explain now what I meant by that, for a kindlier people, one more eager to bid you welcome or help you on your way, you will find nowhere. The same is true of the Kentucky mountaineers; and yet they do not hesitate to put a bullet through any man they regard as an enemy. So with the Joyces and the O'Malleys. It was here among these hills that the "Invincibles" and the "Moonlighters" ranged in the days of the Land League; their notions of right and wrong were, and still are, the old primitive ones. They believe in the Mosaic law of an eye for an eye; murder after murder has been done here, and no one disapproved; and yet a man with a purse filled with gold, or a woman with no protection save her chastity, might walk these roads unharmed and unafraid on the darkest night. Just before one reaches the bridge over the narrow stream through which the upper lake flows into the lower, the road passes close to a cluster of houses, and it was in one of them that two bailiffs of Lord Ardilaun were beaten to death, and their bodies placed in sacks weighted with stones; and then they were carried down to the lake, and every one along the road was made to lend a hand to carrying them. That was but one tragedy of many such--outbreaks of the feud which started six centuries ago, and which only within the past decade has shown any sign of being outlived and forgotten. I do not know when I have been more impressed and astonished than when I stood on the bridge over the river below Lough Mask, and gazed out upon that noble sheet of water, stretching away to the north like an inland sea. It was dotted with beautiful islands, but no farther shore was visible, not even when we mounted a bold crag overhanging the water in order to get a wider view. We went on again, with the lake at our left, and then the road turned away between high stone walls--only these walls were solidly built of dressed stones laid in mortar, and were surmounted with broken glass set in cement. There was a gate here and there, through which we could catch glimpses of wild and unkempt woods, a-riot with a luxuriant vegetation bearing witness to the richness of the soil. The wall must have been ten feet high, and after we had gone on for half an hour with no sign of it coming to an end, we asked the driver what it was, and he told us that it was the wall surrounding part of the estate of Lord Ardilaun, which stretches clear on to Cong, a distance of six or eight miles--the very choicest land of the whole district. Some of it is let to tenants, so our driver said, at rents which are almost prohibitive; but the most part is walled in, with many notices against trespassing posted about it--a preserve for woodcock. We dropped through the little town of Rosshill, once the seat of the Earl of Leitrim (but now owned by Lord Ardilaun), and then into Clonbur (also owned by Lord Ardilaun), where the wall stopped for a while to make room for the houses, but began again as soon as the village ended; and then we passed a curious collection of cairns on a plateau at the side of the road, some of them surmounted by weather-blackened wooden crosses; and then on a hill to the right we saw another great cairn; and then we suddenly realised that we were on the battlefield of Moytura, which raged for five days over this peninsula between Lough Corrib and Lough Mask, so long ago that nobody knows exactly when it was, though it has been roughly dated at two thousand years before Christ. The contestants in that battle were the Firbolgs, the men of the leathern wallets, who had come from the south to Ireland five days before the flood, and the De Dananns, a tall, fair, blue-eyed race of magicians from the north, who had "settled on the Connemara mountains in the likeness of a blue mist." The De Dananns were the victors, and the cairns we saw that day were the monuments they raised over the burial places of their dead warriors. There was another famous battle on this same peninsula, not so many years ago, for over there on the shore of Lough Mask lived Captain Boycott, whose name has passed into the language as that of the silent and effective weapon which the peasantry forged against him, in Land League days. Half a mile farther, and a sharp turn of the road brought us into the village of Cong, a single street of drab houses, whose principal attraction is the ruins of the abbey where the Cross of Cong was fashioned; but the long drive had made us hungry, and so first of all we stopped at a clean little inn and had tea, and it was set forth in a service of old silver lustre which Betty marvelled over so warmly that she almost forgot to eat. And then we started for the abbey, which, of course, like everything else hereabouts, belongs to Lord Ardilaun. From the road, all that one can see of it is a portion of the wall of the church, so overgrown with ivy that even the windows are covered; but we managed to rout out a boy, who took us around to the cloister side, which is very beautiful indeed, with its lovely broken arcades, its rounded arches, its clustered pillars, and round-headed windows--some glimpse of which will be found in the photograph opposite page 346. There is not much of interest left in the church, but in one corner is a small, dark, stone-roofed charnel house, still heaped high with the whitened skulls of the monks who were entombed there. The abbey stands close to the bank of that wonderful white river which, coming underground from Lough Mask, bursts from the earth in a deep chasm a mile above Cong, and sweeps, deep and rapid, down into Lough Corrib. And the monks at Cong were more ingenious than most, for there, on a little island in the middle of the river, stand the ruins of their fishing-house, constructed over a narrow channel into which the nets were dropped, and they were so arranged that when a fish was captured, its struggles rang a bell back at the abbey, and some one would hasten to secure it. We made our way through an orchard of beautiful old apple trees bearded with lichen, waist-deep in grass, to the very edge of the stream, that I might get the picture of this labour-saving edifice, which you will find opposite the preceding page. Then the boy asked us if we would care to see Ashford House, the seat of Lord Ardilaun; and for the benefit of those of my readers who are wondering from what ancient family Lord Ardilaun is descended, I may as well state here that he is none other than Guinness, of Guinness's Stout, and takes his title of Baron Ardilaun from a little island out in Lough Corrib. We said, of course, that we should like to see Ashford House, and we walked for half a mile through the beautiful woods of the demesne, up to the great mansion of limestone and granite, set at the edge of a terrace sloping down to the lake. The entrance to it is under a square tower with drawbridge and portcullised gateway, and the house itself is a mammoth affair, with turrets and battlements and towers and machicolations and other mediævalities, quite useless and meaningless on a modern residence, and there are acres and acres of elaborately-planted grounds, with sunken gardens and fountains and long shady avenues stretching away into dim distance. [Illustration: THE CLOISTER AT CONG ABBEY] [Illustration: THE MONKS' FISHING-HOUSE, CONG ABBEY] But nobody lives here except a few caretakers, for Lord Ardilaun, an old man of seventy-three, prefers the south of France, so that Ashford House is deserted from year's end to year's end, except for a few days now and then when a shooting-party of more than usual importance comes to kill the woodcock. For the ordinary party, another mansion, farther down the lake on Doon Hill, suffices; but when the king comes, as he did in 1905, of course the great house has to be opened. One reads in Murray, which is a very British guide-book, how, on that occasion, the king and his party killed ninety brace of woodcock in a single day; and how, five years later, 587 brace were bagged in five days; but it will be quite impossible for you to understand, unless you are also British, the peculiar veneration with which such coverts as these are regarded by British sportsmen, and the peculiar cast of mind which deems it right and proper that thousands of fertile acres should be maintained as game preserves in a land where most of the people are forced to wring their livelihood from the rocky hillsides. It is only for such great parties that Lord Ardilaun returns to do the honours; and he hastens away again, as soon as the parties are over. He knows nothing of his tenants; he leaves the collection of his rents to a factor, and the preservation of his coverts to a force of gamekeepers, and any one caught inside the wall may expect to be prosecuted to the limit of the law. Now I have no quarrel with Lord Ardilaun. The stout he sells is honest stout, and he got possession of this estate by honest purchase, which is more than can be said for most great estates in Ireland. But he presents an example of that absentee landlordism which has been the chief and peculiar curse of this unfortunate country. With landlords who lived on their estates and looked after their properties and got acquainted with their tenants and took some human interest in their welfare, the tenants themselves seldom had any quarrel. It was the landlords who lived in England or on the continent, who entrusted the collection of rents to agents, and whose only interest in their Irish estates was to get the largest possible returns from them--it was these men who kept the country in an uproar of eviction and persecution. Indeed, I believe that if all Irish landlords were resident landlords, the Irish labourer would be better off without the land purchase act; for there are no more grasping and exacting masters in the world than the small farmers to whom the great estates are passing. The old owners might be despotic, but they were not mean; and where they lived among their people and came to know them, their despotism was usually a benevolent despotism, tempered with mercy. The rule of the small farmer will be a despotism, too, but there will be no mercy about it. Joyce, our driver, voiced all this in a sentence, as we were driving back. "Land purchase, is it?" he said, puffing his short pipe, and staring out across the hills. "Yes, I have heard much of it; but I'm thinking it will be a cruel time for the poor." * * * * * The neighbourhood of Cong is remarkable for its natural curiosities, for the ground to the north toward Lough Mask is honeycombed with caves, made by the water working its way through to Lough Corrib. Geologists explain it learnedly, and doubtless to their own satisfaction, by saying that the peninsula is composed of carboniferous limestone which has been perforated and undermined by the solvent action of the free carbonic acid in the river water; but I prefer to believe, with the residents of the neighbourhood, that it was the work of the Little People. The lofty tunnel through which the sunken river flows is accessible in several places, and one of these, called the Pigeon Hole, is not far from the village and is worth visiting. It is in the centre of a field, and is a perpendicular hole some sixty feet deep, clothed with ferns and moss and very damp indeed, and the steps by which one goes down are very slippery, so that some caution is necessary; but there at the bottom is a vaulted cavern through which the river sweeps. The girl who has come along, carrying a wisp of straw, lights it and walks away into the depths of the cavern, but the effect is not especially dazzling and the smoke from the straw is most offensive. They order these things better in France--at the Grotto of Han, for instance! Another curiosity of the peninsula is not a natural but an artificial one--a canal dug during famine times with government money to connect Lough Corrib with Lough Mask. This was expected to be a great blessing to the west of Ireland, extending navigation from Galway clear up across Lough Mask and Lough Conn to Ballina; but, alas, when it was finished, it was found that the canal wouldn't hold water, for the rock through which it was cut was so porous that the water ran through it like a sieve, and left the canal as dry as a bone. So there it remains to this day, and one may walk from end to end of it dryshod and ponder on the marvels of English rule in Ireland! One thing more at Cong is worth inspecting, and that is the old cross which stands at the intersection of the street with the road to the abbey. It was erected centuries ago to the memory of two abbots, Nicol and Gilbert O'Duffy, whose names may yet be read on its base; and it is a cross that can work miracles. Here is one of them: There was a boy here at Cong, once, who was stupid and could learn nothing, but spent all his time wandering along the river or climbing the hills or lying in the fields staring up at the sky. Everybody said he would come to a bad end; but one day he sat down on the base of this cross, and fell asleep with his head against it; and that night, when he went home, he took up the newspaper which his father was reading and read aloud every word that was on it; and they took him to the priest, thinking a spell was on him, and there was not a book the priest had, in Latin or Irish or any language whatever, but the boy he could read it at a glance; and they sent him down to Cork to the college there, but there was nothing his masters could teach him that he did not know already; and the fame of him became so great that when Queen Victoria was looking about her for a man to put at the head of the new college at Galway, she hit upon him, and so he was given charge of Queen's College, and his name was O'Brien Crowe, and he made that college a great college, and he taught things there that no other man in Ireland had ever so much as dreamed of! I am sorry I had not heard this tale when I was at Galway; I should have liked to ask Bishop O'Dee how much of it is true. * * * * * We returned to Leenane by a different road, which lay for some miles close beside the shore of Lough Corrib, white-capped now under a stiff wind which had arisen, and studded with lovely green islands. It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful of the Irish lakes, but even here the shadow of Land League days still lingers, for close by the shore is Ebor Hall, which was the residence of Lord Mountmorris, who was beaten to death near by; and as we drove on, our jarvey pointed out the scenes of similar if less famous tragedies, whose details I have forgotten. But all that was thirty years ago; the problem which the Land League tried to solve has been solved in another fashion; the peasantry of Ireland have won the fight for fair rent, fixed hold, and free sale, and can afford to forget the past. Just beyond the Doon peninsula, the road opens up the long expanse of the narrow arm of the lake which runs back many miles into the mountains, and on an island a little distance from the shore, towers the keep of a ruined castle--Caisleán-na-Circe, or Hen Castle in the prosaic vernacular. Islands, as you will have remarked before this, were a favourite place in Ireland for castles and monasteries, and the deeper the water about them the better, for it was a welcome defence in the days when midnight raids were the favourite pastime of every chief, and no sport was so popular with the English as that of hunting the Irish "wolves." There are many legends to explain the name of this castle in Lough Corrib. One is that the castle was built in a single night by an old witch and her hen, and she gave it and the hen to The O'Flaherty, telling him that, if the castle was ever besieged, he need not worry about provisions, since the hen would lay eggs enough to keep the garrison from want. It was not long before a force of O'Malleys ferried over from the mainland and camped down about the walls, and O'Flaherty, forgetting the witch's words, killed the hen and was soon starved out. Another legend is that the castle was held during a long siege by the formidable Gráinne, wife of Donell O'Flaherty, and that her husband was so proud of her that he named the place Hen Castle in her honour. Still another is that the Joyces were holding it against the O'Flaherties, but were about to surrender, when the famous Grace O'Malley marched a party of her clansmen over the mountains from the sea and drove the O'Flaherties off, and so it was named after her. These are examples of what the Irish imagination can do when it turns itself loose; for the fact is that the castle, at least as it stands now, was built by Richard de Burgo, that first old doughty Norman ruler of Connaught, to hold the pass from the isthmus of Cong into the wilds of Connemara. The keep is plainly Anglo-Norman, flanked by great square towers of cut limestone. A few miles farther on is the village of Maam, set in the midst of magnificent scenery at the intersection of two valleys, one running to the west and one to the south, closed in by the wildest, bleakest, ruggedest of mountains. Our driver drew up here to water and wind the horse, and I wandered about the village for a while, and stopped at last at the open door of a little cottage where an old woman and some children were sitting before a flaring fire of turf, and a hen was hovering some chickens in a basket in one corner. Three or four others were wandering about the dirt floor, looking for crumbs as a matter of habit, though they must have known perfectly well that there were no crumbs there. I was welcomed heartily and invited to sit down before the fire, with that instinctive courtesy and open-heartedness which is characteristic of the Irish peasantry. Let the traveller take shelter anywhere, pause before any door, and he will be greeted warmly. There is an old Irish riddle which runs something like this: From house to house it goes, A wanderer frail and slight, And whether it rains or snows, It bides outside in the night. It is the footpath the Irish mean; and if they could bring it in out of the rain and the snow, I am sure they would, just as they bring their chickens and cats and dogs and pigs and donkeys in, to share the warmth of the fire. So in this little cottage a stool was at once vacated for me and set in a good place, and a ring of smiling faces closed around me, and the rain of eager questions began as to whence I came and whither I was going. I wish I could give you some idea of the tangle of trash that littered the single room of that hovel--old clothes, old boards, broken baskets, a pile of turf in one corner but scattered all about where the chickens had been scratching at it, a low shelf piled with rags and straw for a bed, a rude dresser displaying some chipped dishes--but I despair of picturing it. And the dirty, ragged children, with their bright eyes and red cheeks; and the old woman, wrinkled and toil-worn, but obviously thinking life not so bad, after all. . . . A whistle from Joyce told me that he was ready to start, and we were soon climbing out of the valley, emerging at last upon a vast moor, with great mountain masses away to the south, their summits veiled in mist. We could see groups of people working in the bog here and there, and at last we came upon two men and two boys cutting turf close to the road. I asked them if I might take their picture, and they laughed and agreed, and it is opposite this page, but the sun was setting and the light was not good enough to give me a sharp negative. Still one can see the man at the bottom of the ditch cutting the peat with a sharp-edged instrument like a narrow spade and throwing the water-soaked bricks out on the edge, where the boys picked them up and laid them out at a little distance to dry. [Illustration: THE TURF-CUTTERS] [Illustration: A GIRL OF "JOYCE'S COUNTRY"] "There's one would make a picture," said Joyce, about ten minutes later, and I turned to see him pointing with his whip at a little girl unloading turf from the panniers of a donkey by the side of the road. Needless to say, I was out of my seat in an instant, and Betty, scarcely less excited, was asking the girl if I might not take her picture; and then Joyce said something to her in the Irish, and then from across the bog came her mother's voice telling her, also in Irish, to hold still and do as the gentleman wished. She was a child of eight or ten, with dark hair and eyes, and slighter and frailer than the average Irish child; and she wore the characteristic garment fashioned from red flannel which all the poor children in Connemara wear; and she was bare-headed and barefooted; and her task was to drive the ragged little donkey out into the bog and fill the panniers with the bricks, and drive it back again to the side of the road, and pile the turf there, ready for the cart which would take it away. From the place where the turf was being cut to the roadside was at least a quarter of a mile, and how often that child had travelled that road that day I did not like to think. From the pile of turf that lay at the side of the road, it was evident she had not idled! She was not without her vanity, for she had her skirt kilted up, and let it quickly down as soon as she realised what I wanted; and then she let me pose her as I wished. You should have seen her astonishment when I pressed a small coin into her hand, as some slight recompense for the trouble I had given her; you should have seen her shining eyes and trembling lips. . . . Up we went and up, with the mists of evening deepening about us; and at last we reached the summit of the pass, and dropped rapidly down toward Leenane. Half an hour later, we trotted briskly up to the hotel, the little mare apparently as fresh as ever, in spite of the fifty miles, up hill and down, she had covered that day. CHAPTER XXI THE REAL IRISH PROBLEM IT was well we went to Cong when we did, for the next day was cold and rainy, with a clammy mist in the air which settled into the valleys and soaked everything it touched. I walked over to the village, after breakfast, to keep my promise to the school-teacher. The school is a dingy frame building with two rooms and two teachers, a man for the older pupils and a woman for the younger ones. They are brother and sister, and from their poor clothes and half-fed appearance, I judge that teachers are even worse paid in Ireland than elsewhere. But they both welcomed me warmly, and the man hastened to set out for me the only chair in the place, carefully dusting it beforehand. He called the roll, and it was delightful to hear the soft, childish voices answer "Prisent, sorr," "Prisent, sorr." Then he counted heads to be sure, I suppose, that some child hadn't answered twice, once for himself and once for some absent friend. There were about thirty children present, ranging in age from six to fifteen; and they were all barefoot, of course, and such clothing as they had was very worn and ragged, and most of them had walked four or five miles, that morning, down out of the hills. The teacher said sadly that the attendance should be twice as large, but there was no way of enforcing the compulsory education law, though the priest did what he could. I wish I could paint you a picture of that school, so that you could see it, as I can, when I close my eyes. In the larger room there was a little furniture--a chair and cheap desk for the teacher, some rude forms for the children, and a small blackboard; but the other room was absolutely bare, and the children sat around on the floor in a circle, with their legs sticking out in front of them, red with cold, while the teacher stood in their midst to hear them recite. Each of them had over his shoulder a cheap little satchel, usually tied together with string; and in this he carried his two or three books--thin, paper-covered affairs, which cost a penny each; and all the children, large and small, had to carry their books about with them all the time they were in school because there was no place to put them. The reading lesson had just started when I entered the room where the smaller children were, and it was about the advantages of an education. It brought tears to the eyes to hear them, in their soft voices and sweet dialect, read aloud with intense earnestness what a great help education is in the battle of life and in how many ways it is useful. When the reading was done, the teacher asked them the meaning of the longest words, and had them tell again in their own way what the lesson had said, to be certain that they understood it. Poor kiddies! As I looked at them, I could see in my mind's eye our schoolhouses back home, heated and ventilated by the best systems--there was ventilation enough here, heaven knows, for the door was wide open, but no heat, though the day was very raw and chilly, and the children were shivering--equipped with expensive furniture and the latest devices of charts and maps; and I could see the well-fed, well-clothed children, with their beautiful costly books which make teachers almost unnecessary, languidly reading some such lesson as was being read here in Connaught, on the advantages of an education! It would not have been read so earnestly, be sure of that, nor with such poignant meaning. And in that moment, I thrilled with a realisation of Ireland's greatest and truest need. It is not land purchase, or reform of the franchise, or temperance, or home rule, though these needs are great enough; it is education. It is education only that can solve her industrial problems and her labour problems; and, however she may prosper under the favouring laws of a new political régime, it is only by education, by the banishment of ignorance and illiteracy, that she can hope to take her place among the nations of the world. It was a sort of vision I had, standing there in that bare little room, of a new Ireland, dotted with schools and colleges, as she was a thousand years ago, illumined with the white light of knowledge; but here, meanwhile, were these eager, bright-eyed, ragged little children, stumbling along the path of knowledge as well as they could; but a rocky path they find it, and how deserving of help they are! I wish you could have seen those soiled, thumbed little readers, which cost, as I have said, only a penny each, and which, if they had cost more, would have been beyond the reach of the average Connaught family. I bought a few of them, afterwards, to bring home with me, and when I looked through them, I found them very primitive indeed. Here, for instance, is Lesson Six in the primer: Pat has a cat. It is fat. It is on the mat. The cat ran at the rat. It bit the fat cat. Pat hit the rat. The rat ran. The cat ran at it. The rat bit the fat cat. Cats and rats used, I remember, to be favourite subjects in the readers of my own early school days; and so were dogs. It is still so in Ireland, as Lesson Eight will show: Is it a dog? It is a fox. Was the fox in a box? The dog was in the box. He was in the mud. Rub the mud off the dog. He ran at the fox in the mud. The dog ran at the fox and bit it. My principal objection to this is that it is nonsense: how, for example, if the dog was in the box, could it have been also in the mud? These questions occur to children even more readily than to adults, and to teach them nonsense is wrong and unjust. Also these lessons tell no story; they have no continuity; they ask questions without answering them; they change the subject almost as often as the dictionary. Here, for instance, is the first lesson of the second term: Tom put the best fish in a dish. The cat sat near it on a rug. Let the hen rest in her nest. Frank rode a mile on an ass. He went so fast he sent up the dust. The last sentence shows it was an Irishman made this book; but why, in this lesson, did he not continue with the story of the fish in the dish, which the cat was plainly watching from the rug with malicious intent, instead of branching off to a wholly irrelevant remark about a hen, and then to an account of Frank's adventure with an ass? Perhaps the first step to be made in educational reform in Ireland is the adoption of better school-books, and there is no reason why this step should be delayed. I went back, presently, to the other room where the larger boys and girls were reciting in small sections, standing shrinkingly before the shrivelled little teacher, whose fierceness, I am sure, was assumed for the occasion, and he got out for me a sheaf of compositions which the boys and girls had written on the subject, "My Home," and of which he was evidently very proud. They were written in the round, laborious penmanship of the copy-book, and the homes which they described were, for the most part, those poor little cabins clinging to the rocky hillsides, which I have tried to picture; but here the picture was drawn sharply and simply, with few strokes, without any suspicion that it was a tragic one. For instance, this is John Kerrigan's picture of My Home. My home is in County Galway and is placed in Ganaginula. It is built on a height near the roadside. The length of it is eighteen feet and the breadth is six feet. It is about ten feet high. The covering is timber and thatch. It is built with stones and mortar. There are four windows, two in the kitchen and two in the room. The floor is made of sand and gravel. That was all that John Kerrigan found to describe about his home, and I dare say there wasn't much more; but it is easy to picture it standing there on the bleak hillside, with its low walls of rubble and its roof of thatch, and its two little rooms, nine feet by six, with dirt floor and tiny windows. And at one end of the kitchen there would be an open fireplace, with some blocks of turf smoking in it, and above the turf there would be hanging a black pot, where the potatoes are boiling which is all John will have for supper. . . . I put the compositions aside, for a lesson in Gaelic had begun. The teacher wrote on the little blackboard some sentences composed of the strangest-looking words imaginable, and the pronunciation of them was stranger still. But the lesson proceeded rapidly, and it was evident that most of the children understood Gaelic quite as well as they did English. That, of course, is not saying very much; and I fancy that about all these children can be expected to learn is to read and write. Indeed, it is a wonder that they learn even that, for the odds against them are almost overwhelming. I bade them good-bye at last, and returned pensively to the hotel, and there I found the district physician making some repairs to his motor-cycle. It probably needs them often, for the roads up into the hills are trying for anything on wheels; but he said it was surprising where it would go and how much knocking about it would stand. And then, naturally enough, we fell into talk about his work. Every poor person in Ireland is, as I understand it, entitled to free medical attendance. The country is divided into districts, in each of which a doctor is stationed, paid partially by the government and depending for the remainder of his income on his private practice. Before a person is entitled to free attendance, he must secure a ticket from one of the poor-law guardians, who have the management of the charities in each district; and no physician is compelled to give free attendance, unless the person asking for it can produce one of these tickets. "Even then," continued the doctor at Leenane, who was explaining all this to me, "I don't put myself out, if I think the person presenting the ticket can afford to pay. I look him over, of course, and give him some medicine, with instructions how to take it--the law compels me to do that; but I don't bother myself to see whether the instructions are carried out. And if he's really sick, he soon realises that if he wants me to be interested, he's got to pay for it, and he manages to find a guinea or so. This sounds hard-hearted, perhaps; but it's astonishing how many beggars there are in this country, and how the poor-law guardians let themselves be imposed on. Why, people come to me with cards and try to get free attendance who could buy and sell me ten times over! I don't bite my tongue telling them what I think of them, you may well believe. The trouble is, the poor-law guardians are natives of the district and they all have some axe to grind; so the doctor, who is a stranger for whom they care nothing, gets the worst of it. This is about the worst district in Ireland, anyway, so big and poor and full of hills. A man has to work himself to death to make three hundred pounds a year out of it." Various reflections occurred to me while he was talking. One was that three hundred pounds a year is many, many times the income of the average dweller in Connaught; and another was that, to leave any discretion to the physician in regard to the treatment of charity patients is not without its dangers; and still a third was that, in any sudden emergency, such as might occur at any time, many valuable minutes would be lost if the poor-law guardians had to be hunted up and a card obtained before the doctor could be summoned. I suppose, in such cases, the doctor is summoned first, and the card secured when there is time to do so. It is probably only in cases of dire need that the district doctor is summoned at all. The fact that he is a stranger and a government appointee is enough to make a large section of the Irish peasantry distrust him. This one told me that he is never called for confinement cases, because every old Irish woman considers herself competent to handle them, and usually is; and that other cases are treated with "home remedies" or visits to holy wells, until they get so bad that the doctor is turned to as a last resort. "The ignorance of the people is past all belief," he went on. "They haven't any idea of what causes disease; they never heard of germs; they don't know it is unhealthy to have a stinking heap of manure and human excrement under the window or in front of the door; they don't believe there is any reason why a person dying with consumption shouldn't sleep in the same bed with other people, and eat out of the same dishes, and spit all about the place. And so we have typhus, and tuberculosis--you Americans are partially responsible for that." "In what way?" I asked. "The people born and reared in these western highlands, with lungs adapted through long generations to this soft, moist climate, can't stand the American atmosphere. When they are poor and live crowded together in your towns, consumption gets them; and then, when they're too far gone to work, they come back home to cough their lives out and poison all their friends. They lie in these dark cabins without a window, which soon become perfect plague-spots; and the children, playing on the filthy, infected floor, get the infection in their lungs; or perhaps they cut their knees and rub it into the sore. Ugh! it makes one sick to think about it. There ought to be a law preventing any such infected person landing in Ireland--you won't let such a one land in America." I had to admit that that would be one way of dealing with the mischief; and I suggested that another way would be to try to educate the people to some knowledge of the simpler facts of hygiene. But the doctor snorted. "Educate them!" he echoed. "You can't educate them! Why, you haven't any conception of the depths of their ignorance. And they're superstitious, too; they don't believe in science; they think it's something irreligious, something against their faith. If prayers to the Virgin won't cure them, or a visit to some holy well or other, why nothing will. If I do cure them, I don't get the credit--they simply believe they've got on the good side of one of their saints. What is a man to do against such ignorance as that? The only reason they don't all die is because this country is so full of little streams that the running water carries off most of their filth, and the turf smoke which fills their houses helps to disinfect them." I agreed that his was a hard task; and left him still tinkering with his motor-cycle, and went over to smoke a pipe with the men at the stables. Joyce, our driver of the day before, was there, and he smiled as he pointed his pipe-stem toward the doctor, with whom he had seen me talking. "He's a hard one, he is," he said. "Not a word of advice nor a sup of medicine do you get out of that one, if he thinks you've got a shillin' about you. He thinks we're all liars and thieves, which is natural enough, for he's an Englishman--and I'm not sayin' but what it may be true of some of us," and he grinned around at his companions. "Tell the gintleman about the other one," one of them suggested. "Ah, Mister O'Beirn, that was," said Joyce; "a Galway man, born to the Irish. How he got the app'intment, I don't know; but he did stir this district up--went about givin' long talks, he did, about how we're made and why we get sick, and such like; and he went into the houses and made the women wash the childer and set things to rights, and they bore with him because they knew he meant them no harm. He wore himself to a bone, he did, and we were all fond of him; but I'm not sayin' it wasn't a relief when he was moved to another district, and we could make ourselves comfortable again." "No doubt the children are glad, too," I ventured. "They are, sir; and why should one bother washin' them when they get dirty again right away? Sure the women have enough to do without that!" But it would be a mistake to suppose that the lives of the women and girls are all work and no play. Betty chanced to remark to the girl who waited on our table at the hotel that she must find the winters very lonesome. "Oh, not at all, miss," she protested. "We have a very good time in the winter with a dance every week; and at Christmas Mr. McKeown do be givin' us a big party here at the hotel. Then there will be maybe two or three weddings, and as many christenings, and some of the girls who have been to America will come home for a visit and there will be dances for them, so there is always plenty to do." So Leenane has its social season, just the same as New York and Paris and London; and I suppose the same is true of every Irish village. The Irish are said to be great dancers, but we were never fortunate enough to see them at it. You may perhaps have noticed that in such Irish conversations as I have given in these pages, I have contented myself with trying to indicate the idiom, without attempting to imitate the brogue; and this is because it is impossible to imitate it with any degree of accuracy. Such imitation would be either a burlesque or would be unreadable. For example, while we were talking to the waitress at Leenane, Betty asked her what a very delicious jam which she served with our tea was made of. "Black törn, miss," she answered--at least, that is what it sounded like. "Black törn?" repeated Betty. "What is it? A berry or a fruit?" The girl tried to describe it, but not recognisably. "Can you spell it?" asked Betty at last. "I can, miss; b-l-a-c-k, black, c-u-r-r-a-n-t, törn," answered the girl. * * * * * We bade good-bye to Leenane, that afternoon, taking the motor-bus for Westport, and my friends of the constabulary were out to see me off and shake hands, and Gaynor sent a "God speed ye" after us from the door of his little shop, and the schoolmaster and his sister waved to us from the door of the school. It was almost like leaving old friends; and indeed, I often think of them as such, and of that drab little town crouching at the head of Killary, and of how serious a thing life is to those who dwell there. We looked back for a last glimpse of it, as we turned up the road out of the valley--the row of dingy houses, the grey mountains rising steeply behind them, the broad sheet of blue water in front--how plainly I recall that picture! There were three other passengers on the bus--an elderly man and woman, rather obese and grumpy, and a younger man with clean-shaven eager face; and we were puzzled for a time to determine their relationship, for the younger man was most assiduous in attending to the wants of his companions and pointing out the places of interest along the road. And then, finally, it dawned upon us--here was a personally conducted party; a man and wife who had brought a guide along to see them safely through the wilds of Ireland! The road from Leenane to Westport is not nearly so picturesque as that from Clifden, for we soon ran out of the hills, and for miles and miles sped across a wild bog, without a sign of life except a few sheep grazing here and there. We met a flock of them upon the road, and the way the shepherd's dog, at a sharp whistle from him, herded his charges to one side out of the way was beautiful to see. Then at last, far below us, at the bottom of a valley, we saw the roofs of Westport, and we started down the road into it--a steep and dangerous road, for we came within an ace of running down a loaded cart that was labouring up; and when we came to the foot of the hill, we were startled by a remarkable monument looming high in the middle of the principal street--a tall, fluted shaft, with two seated women at its base, rising from an octagonal pedestal, and surmounted by a heroic figure in knee breeches and trailing robe--without question the very ugliest monument I ever saw. It was so extraordinarily ugly that we came back next day to look at it, and discovered the following inscription: To the Memory of GEORGE GLENDINING Born in Westport 1770 Died in Westport 1845 If the deceased had any other claim to fame except that he was born in Westport, and also ended his days there, it does not appear upon his monument. * * * * * Westport has only one hotel, and it is probably the worst in Ireland. When we had been ushered along its dark and dirty corridors, into a room as dingy as can be imagined, and had found that it was the best room to be had, and that there was nothing to do but grin and bear it, we sat down and looked at each other, and I could see in Betty's disgusted face some such thought as Touchstone voiced: "So here I am in Arden. The more fool I. When I was at home, I was in a better place." "'Travellers must be content,'" I said. "Let's get out of here and look at the town." Betty agreed with alacrity; but we soon found that it is a dull and uninteresting place, offering no diversion except a stroll through Lord Sligo's demesne. The gate was open, so we entered and plodded along a sticky road, past the square, unimpressive mansion-house, out to the head of Clew Bay. We walked on, past the longest line of deserted quays and empty warehouses we had encountered in Ireland. There must be half a mile of quays, and the warehouses are towering, four-storied structures, with vast interiors given over to rats and spiders; and all along that dreary vista, there was just one boat--a small one, unloading lumber. It was government money, I suppose, which built the quay, and a government board which authorised it; and looking at it, one realises where Canon Hannay got the local colour for the descriptions of the activities of government boards which are scattered through his Irish stories. For Canon Hannay, whose pen name is George A. Birmingham, lives here at Westport; and the bay which faces it is the scene of most of his tales. It is a beautiful bay, dotted with the greenest of islands; and it was among those islands that the irrepressible Meldon sailed in quest of Spanish gold; it was there the Major's niece had her surprising adventures; and I have wondered since if the grotesque statue back in the town may not have suggested that of the mythical General John Regan. And there, in the distance, towering above the bay, is Croagh Patrick, the great hill, falling steeply into the water from a height of 2500 feet, down which Saint Patrick one fine morning drove all the snakes and toads and poisonous creatures in Ireland, to their death in the sea below. Indeed, the marks of their passage are still plainly to be seen, for the precipice down which they fell is furrowed and scraped in the most convincing manner: The Wicklow hills are very high, And so's the Hill of Howth, sir; But there's a hill much bigger still, Much higher nor them both, sir; 'Twas on the top of this high hill St. Patrick preached his sarmint That drove the frogs into the bogs And banished all the varmint. The legend is that St. Patrick, who had spent forty days on the mountain in fasting and prayer, stood at the edge of the precipice and rang his little bell--the same bell we have seen in the museum at Dublin--and all the snakes and toads in Ireland, attracted by the sound, plunged over the cliff and so down into the sea. From a distance, Croagh Patrick seems to end in a sharp point; but there is really a little plateau up there, some half-acre in extent, and a small church has been built there, and on the last Sunday in July, pilgrims gather from all over Ireland and proceed to the mountain on foot and toil up its rugged sides and attend Mass on the summit and then make the rounds of the stations on their knees, just as has been done from time immemorial. For Croagh Patrick is a very holy place, since Ireland's great apostle prayed and fasted there, and those who pray and fast there likewise shall not go unrewarded. * * * * * I heard the click of a typewriter, as I went up the walk to the rectory, that evening, to spend a few hours with Canon Hannay, and it must be only by improving every minute that he gets through the immense amount of work he manages to accomplish. He had just arranged for an American lecture tour in the following October, and both he and his wife were pleasantly excited at the prospect of encountering American sleeping-cars and soft-shelled crabs and corn on the cob, and other such novelties, some of which they had heard were very dreadful. I reassured them as well as I could; and then we talked awhile about George Moore's inimitable reminiscences, and Canon Hannay's own books; but the gist of the evening was the discussion of Ireland and Irish problems which occupied the greater part of it. It was very late indeed when I arose to say good-night. CHAPTER XXII THE TRIALS OF A CONDUCTOR WE took a last look about the town, next morning, not forgetting the Glendining monument, which has the fascination supreme ugliness sometimes possesses; and then we walked on down to the station, where a loquacious old woman accosted Betty with a tale of woe which culminated in an appeal for aid; and it was suddenly borne in on me that not once in the whole of Connaught had we encountered a beggar. Not even a child had held out its hand or indicated in any way that it desired or expected alms. And I do not know that I can pay any greater compliment to the people of that distressful province than by setting down this fact. We were in Mayo now--and Mayo is different! The first town out of Westport is Castlebar, which, as Murray puts it, "has all the buildings usual in a county town, viz. Asylum, Gaol, Court-house and Barracks," and they can be seen looming up above the other buildings as the train passes, some half mile away. Beyond Castlebar, the line crosses the so-called plains of Mayo, a vast expanse of naked limestone rock, very ugly and sinister; and then to the left is a village dominated by a round tower; and finally we came to Claremorris, where we were to change cars. Claremorris, no doubt, also has an asylum, a jail, a court-house and a barracks; but we didn't go out to see, for nobody seemed to know just when our train might be expected, and we were afraid to run any risks. So we sat down on the platform, and Betty fell into talk with a clean, nice-looking old man, who was carefully gathering up all the dodgers and posters and old newspapers that were lying around, and folding them up and putting them in his pocket, I suppose to read at leisure after he got home. And he told about where he lived, and how many children he had, and described the disposition of each of them; and then he questioned Betty about her condition in life, and age, and size of family, and all the time he was looking intently at her mouth. "Tell me, miss," he said, at last, "is them your own teeth you've got?" "Indeed they are," laughed Betty, and clashed them to prove it. "I would hardly believe it," he went on, and looked closer. "I niver saw any like them." "They're strong as iron," and Betty clashed them again. "And white as snow. I wish my daughter was here, for she will not believe me when I tell her." Good teeth, as I have remarked before, are the exception in Ireland; and most of those that appear good at first glance, turn out, at second glance, to be fabrications of the dentist. Perhaps it has always been so. Irish poets are fond of dwelling on the glories of Irish hair, and it is still glorious; they tell over and over again of the brightness of Irish eyes, and they are still bright; they describe how many times the beauty of Irish complexions, and there is none to match them anywhere else in the world; but I do not remember that any of them refer to Irish teeth. It is a pity, for many a pretty face is ruined by the ugly teeth a smile discloses. We got away from Claremorris, finally, after narrowly escaping being carried back to Westport, and proceeded northward over a new line which has been built across the plains of County Mayo. There were few passengers, and we had a compartment to ourselves, except for two priests who rode with us for a short distance, and who wanted to know all about President Wilson, of whom they had heard many splendid things. Just where we crossed into County Sligo I don't know; but we were in it at Collooney, a village more prosperous than most, with a number of mills; and then we came to Ballysadare, where there are some famous salmon fisheries. As we ran on past Ballysadare, a hill like a truncated cone loomed up on the left, and in the centre of the level top was something that looked like a huge bump, and as we drew nearer, we saw that it was a great cairn of loose stones piled on top of each other. The hill was Knocknarea, and the cairn, which is six hundred feet around and thirty-five feet high, is said to have been piled over the body of Meave, Queen of Connaught, by her tribesmen, in the first century after Christ. Meave was killed while bathing in Lough Ree by Conal Carnach, who, angry at her share in the death of the mighty Cuchulain, put a stone into a sling and cast it at her with such sure aim that he inflicted a mortal wound. There is some dispute as to whether she was really borne to the top of Knocknarea for burial; but the cairn is called "Miscan Meave," or "Meave's Heap," and if it does not actually cover her body, it probably commemorates her death. She lived so long ago that her name has passed into folk-lore--in England as Queen Mab. Knocknarea, with its strange shape, dominates the whole landscape, and is in sight all the way to Sligo, for the train describes a half-circle around it. Sligo itself is a considerable town, with more bustle about its streets than is usual in western Ireland, and the proprietor of its principal hotel is a canny individual who follows the precept, once so popular with American railroads, of charging all the traffic will bear. When I asked the price of a double room, he looked me over, and then he said ten shillings the night. "Ten shillings a night!" I echoed, in some surprise, for I had not expected to encounter rates so metropolitan on the west coast of Ireland; and then I asked to see the room, thinking it might be something palatial. But it was quite an ordinary room; clean and airy and comfortable enough; but I judged the usual charge for it was about five shillings. There are few things I detest more than being overcharged. "Come along," I said to Betty. "There's another hotel in this town; we'll have a look at it." The proprietor was waiting nervously in the lobby. "What's the matter?" he asked, as we came down. "Isn't the room all right?" "Oh, it's right enough," I said; "but I'm not going to pay two prices for it." "But this is the best hotel in Sligo," he protested. "There's an American millionaire and his wife staying here right now." "Well, I'm not a millionaire," I said; "and even if I were, I wouldn't pay ten shillings for that room," and I started to walk out, for I didn't want to argue about it. But he followed me to the door. "What would you pay, now?" he asked, ingratiatingly. I looked at him in surprise, for I hadn't had any idea of fixing his rates for him. "Five shillings," I said. "You may have it for six," he countered. I hesitated. I didn't like the man; but it was a nice room, and the dining-room looked clean. Probably we should fare worse if we went farther. "All right," I agreed finally; and I am bound to admit that he never showed any malice, but treated us as nicely as possible during all our stay in Sligo. Perhaps he is a retired jarvey, and this is just his way of doing business. * * * * * Sligo, with its well-built houses and bustling streets, has every appearance of being prosperous, and I have been told that it is one of the few towns in Ireland which is growing in population. It has had its share of battles and sieges, for Red Hugh O'Donnell captured it from the English, and then the English captured it from Red Hugh, and camped in the monastery and did what they could to destroy it; but enough of it remains to make a most interesting ruin, and we set out at once to see it. It is a Norman foundation, dating from 1252, but a good deal of the existing structure is later than that. The most interesting feature, to my mind, is the row of eight narrow lancet windows lighting the choir of the church. I like these early lancets, and I am inclined to question whether the wide windows and elaborate tracery of later Gothic are as dignified and severely beautiful. There is a grace and simplicity about these tall, narrow openings, with their pointed arches, which cannot be surpassed. There are some interesting monuments, too, in the choir, notably a most elaborate one to O'Conor Sligo against the south wall. O'Conor and his wife, life-size, kneel facing each other in two niches, over and below and on either side of which are sculptured cherubs and saints and skulls and swords and drums and spades and hooks and hour-glasses, together with the arms of the family and an appropriate motto or two. From the choir, a low door gives access to the charnel-house, and beyond that is the graveyard; while from the nave there is an entrance to the cloisters, three sides of which are very well preserved, though the level of the ground almost touches the base of the pillars. It is, I should say, at least four feet higher than it was when the cloisters were built, and this accretion is mostly human dust, for the graveyard has been in active use for a good many centuries. Burials grew so excessive, at last, that before one body could be placed in the ground, another had to be dug out of it; and gruesome stories are told of the ruthless way in which old skeletons were torn from the graves and thrown out upon the ground and allowed to lie there, a scandal to the whole county. All that has changed now, and there wasn't a bone in sight the day we visited the place. Indeed, the old caretaker waxed very indignant about the way he had been wronged. "'Tis in that book you have in your hand the slander is," he said, and nodded toward my red-bound Murray, and I read the sentence aloud: "The exposure of human remains, and the general neglect here and in other church ruins, are a scandal to the local authorities." "Now, I ask ye to look around, sir," continued the caretaker, excitedly, "and tell me if ye see anywhere aught to warrant such words as them ones. Human remains, indeed! Ye see, sir, it was like this. The day the felly was here who wrote that book, I had just picked up a bone which had got uncovered on me, and slipped it under a tomb temporary like, till I could find time to bury it decent; and then he come by, and saw it, and that was what he writ. The bones do be workin' up to the surface all the time--and how can that be helped, I should like to know? But I put them under again as soon as I see them. As for neglect--look about ye and tell me if ye see neglect." I assured him that everything seemed to be in good shape, for the grass had just been cut and everything was very tidy. And then he told me that he and his helper had been working on the place for a week past, because, in a few days, the Irish Antiquarian Society was to meet at Sligo, and its members would be poking their noses about everywhere. From which I inferred that, perhaps, at ordinary times, the place may be rather ragged, and that an occasional bone _may_ escape the guardian's watchful eye. When we got back to the hotel and entered the dining-room for dinner, we were amused to find that the American millionaire and wife, of whom the proprietor had boasted, were no other than the personally-conducted couple who had come with us on the coach from Leenane to Westport. They were eating grumpily, while their guide, who ate with them, was doing his best to impart an air of cheerfulness to the meal by chattering away about the country. The head-waiter hovered near in a tremor of anxiety, and almost jumped out of his skin whenever the guide raised his finger. I went into the smoking-room, later on, to write some letters; and presently the door opened, and the guide slipped in, and closed the door carefully, and sat down with a sigh, and got out a pipe and filled and lighted it, and rang for a whiskey and soda. And then I caught his eye, and I couldn't help smiling at its expression, and in a minute we were talking. He was a special Cook guide, he told me, and the two people with him were from Chicago. "I fancied," he went on, "when I took this engagement, that I was going to have an easy time of it with just two people, but I have never worked so hard in my life. The man is all right; but all the woman wants to do is to keep moving on. You know Glengarriff? Well, then you know what a jolly place it is, and what a splendid trip it is over the hills from Macroom. Would you believe me, that woman would not even turn her head to look at that view. I would say to her, 'Now, Mrs. Blank, isn't that superb!' and she would just bat her eyelids; and when we got to Glengarriff, she raised a most awful row because we had to stay there over night, and because there was no light but candles in the bedrooms. "I don't know why such people travel at all," he went on wearily. "Yes I do, too--she travels just to buy post-cards and send them back home. She buys a hundred at every stop, and as soon as she gets them addressed and posted, she is ready to start on. Ruins? Why she won't look at ruins. She wouldn't even get out of the carriage at Muckross Abbey--but she thinks that new Catholic cathedral at Killarney a marvel of beauty. It is the only thing she has grown enthusiastic about since she has been in Ireland. We had planned to stay at Killarney four days, but she wanted to go on before she had been there four hours. I tell you, sir, it's disheartening." I asked him how long he had been conducting for Cook, and he said only for a short time, for he was an actor by profession, and hoped to return to the stage some day. But by a run of bad luck, he had been involved in three or four failures, and had been driven to Cook's to make a living. He had been to America, and he told me with what company, but I have forgotten, and then he was going on to tell me what rôles he had played and which of them had been his greatest successes, and the worn, harassed look left his face--and just then the door opened and the Chicagoan stuck his head in, and frowned when he saw us talking and laughing together; and my companion grew suddenly sober, and went out to see what was wanted, and I didn't see him again. I suppose they were on their way at daybreak. Sligo is the centre of one of the most interesting districts in Ireland for the antiquarian. There is that great cairn on the top of Knocknarea, and on the plain of Carrowmore near the mountain's foot is such a collection of megalithic remains as exists nowhere else in the British Isles, while on the summit of a hill overshadowing Lough Gill is a remarkable enclosure, resembling Stonehenge, but far more extensive. It was for Carrowmore we set off on foot, next morning, determined to spend the day, which was beautifully bright and warm, in a leisurely ramble over the plain, which, four thousand years ago, was the scene of a great battle, in which the De Dananns were again the victors, as they were at Moytura, below Lough Mask. This battle is known as Northern Moytura, and here the De Dananns met and conquered Balor of the Evil Eye and his Formorians, and after that they were undisputed masters of Erin for a thousand years, until the Milesians, or Gaels, sailing from south-western Europe, beached their boats upon the shore of Kenmare Bay. It was to mark the graves of the warriors who fell in that dim-distant fray that the circles and cromlechs which dot its site were probably erected; but the Irish have another theory, which we shall hear presently. I shall not soon forget that walk, at first through the busy streets of the town, past solid, well-built houses of brick, with bright shops on the lower floor and living-rooms above; then into the poorer and quainter quarter, where the houses are all one-storied, built of rubble, roofed with straw, and, as we could see through the open doors, stuffed with trash, as all these little Irish houses seem to be; and finally out along the country road, between fragrant hedges, occasionally passing a pretty villa, set in the midst of handsome grounds--and then we came to a place where the road branched, and we stopped. Our guide-book gave no definite directions as to how to get to Carrowmore. "On Carrowmore," it says, with magnificent vagueness, "within three miles south-west of Sligo, is a large and most interesting series of megalithic remains"; nor does it tell how far the remains are apart, or how to find them. If it had been Baedeker, now, we would not have stood there hesitant at the cross-roads, because he would not only have told us which way to turn, but would have provided a diagram, and led us step by step from one cromlech to the other. There is no Baedeker for Ireland, which is a pity, for I have never yet found a guide to equal that painstaking German. There was no one to ask, so we took the road which led toward Knocknarea; but after we had gone some distance, a telegraph-boy came by on his wheel, and told us that we should have taken the other road; so we walked back to the branch and turned up it. The road mounted steadily, and after about a mile of up-hill work, we came to a cluster of thatched houses, and I went up to one of them to ask the way of a woman who was leaning over her half-door. I think I have already said somewhere that Irish directions are the vaguest in the world--perhaps this is the reason Murray is so vague, since it is written by an Irishman!--and the conversation on this occasion ran something like this: "Good morning," I began. "It is a fine day, isn't it?" "It is so, glory be to God." "Can you tell me how to get to the cromlechs?" "The cromlechs? What might that be?" "The big stone monuments that are back here in the fields somewhere." "Ah--so it is the big stones you would be after?" "Yes. Can you tell me how to get to them?" "I might," said the woman cautiously. She had been looking at me all this time with the brightest of eyes, and then she looked at Betty, who had remained behind at the gate. "Is yon one your wife?" she asked, with a nod in Betty's direction. "Yes." "You would be from America." "Yes." "Have you people hereabouts?" "Oh, no; we haven't any relatives in Ireland." "And would you be comin' all this way just to see the big stones?" "We want to see everything," I explained. "The stones are near here, aren't they?" "They are so. Just a step up yonder lane, and you are right among them." She was preparing to ask further questions; but this direction seemed definite enough, so I thanked her and fled, and Betty and I proceeded to take a step up the lane. We took many steps without seeing any stones; and finally we turned up a narrow by-lane, and came to a tiny cottage, hidden in the trees. We were greeted by a noisy barking, and then a man hurried out of the cottage and quieted the dog and told us not to be alarmed. We told him we were looking for the stones. "There be some just a small step from here," he said; "but you would never find them by yourselves, so I will go with you. You are from America, I'm thinking?" "Yes," I admitted, wondering, with sinking heart, if it was going to begin all over again. "I have four brothers in America, and all doing well, glory be to God, though seldom it is that I hear from them." "How did you happen to stay in Ireland?" I asked. "One must stay with the mother," he explained simply. "I was the oldest, so that was for me to do." He was a nice-looking man of middle age, with a kindly, intelligent face, and eyes very bright; and while his clothes were old and worn, they were clean. "She is dead now, God rest her soul," he added, with a little convulsion of the face I didn't understand till later, "and I am alone here." "What," I said; "not married?" "No," he answered, with a smile, "there's just Tricker and me." "Tricker?" "Sure that's the dog, and a great help he is to me. Come here, Tricker, and show the lady and gentleman what you can do." The shaggy black dog came and sat down in front of him, looking up at him with shining eyes. "You would hardly believe it, miss, but Tricker gathers all my eggs for me, and he can tell a duck egg from a hen egg. If I do be having a bit of company, I will tell Tricker to go out and bring in some duck eggs, and I have never known him to make a mistake. Or perhaps I will be wanting some water from the spring, and I just give Tricker the bucket and send him for it. Or perhaps I will be wanting some coal, and then I just tell Tricker to fetch it." There was a little pile of coal lying in one corner of the yard, and I had noticed it with some surprise, for we had seen nothing but turf in the west of Ireland; but our host told us that the coal came from Donegal and that it was better than turf and even cheaper in the long run. "Tricker," he said, "take in some coal!" Tricker ran to the coal and picked up a lump in his jaws and trotted through the open door of the house and laid the lump down on the hearth inside; then he came back and took in another lump, and then a third, and finally his master stopped him. "He would be taking it all in if I left him to himself," he said. "He is not very well, for he was kicked by the mare the other day, and I thought for a time he was going to die on me. But he did not, glory be to God, and I think he will soon be well again. And now, if you will come this way, I will be showing you the stones." He led the way across a field, which he said was his, and then over a stone wall into another; and in the middle of it was a depressed tomb with slabbed sides, in which, I suppose, at some far-off time, the body of some chieftain had been laid; and then our guide showed us the path which we must follow to get to the cromlechs; and then I put my hand in my pocket. "Ah, no," he protested, drawing back. "For Tricker," I said; "to get him some dainty, because he's ill." His face softened. "Ah, well, sir," he said, "if you put it like that, I'll take it, and Tricker and I both thank ye kindly; and you, miss. God speed ye," and he stood watching us for quite a while, as we made our way up toward the road which ran along the edge of the ridge above us. As soon as we gained it, we saw the first of the cromlechs; and then, in a farther field, we saw another--great stones, standing upright in a circle of smaller ones, with a mighty covering slab on top, grey and lichened, and most impressive. They are supposed, as I have said, to mark the graves of warriors who fell in battle four thousand years ago; but the Irish peasantry explain them in a more romantic way, as the beds which Diarmuid prepared nightly for his mistress, Gráinne, during the year they fled together up and down Ireland to escape the wrath of her husband, the mighty Finn MacCool. Gráinne, you will remember, was the daughter of King Cormac, and she it was who won that race up Slievenamon for the honour of Finn's hand. There was a splendid wedding at Tara; but as Gráinne sat at the feast, she looked at the man she had just married, and saw that the weight of years was on him; and then she looked about the board and noticed a "freckled, sweet-worded man, who had the curling, dusky black hair, and cheeks berry-red," and she asked who he was, and she was told that he was Diarmuid, "the white-toothed, of lightsome countenance, the best lover of women and of maidens that was in the whole world." And Gráinne looked on him again, and her heart melted in her bosom; and she mixed a drink and sent it about the board, until there came upon all the company "a stupor of sleep and deep slumber." Then she arose from her seat and went straight to Diarmuid, and laid a bond upon him that he should take her away; and Diarmuid, who was leal to Finn, asked his comrades what he should do, and they all said he must bide by the bond she had laid on him, for he was bound to refuse no woman, though his death should come of it. "Is that the counsel of you all to me?" asked Diarmuid. "It is," said Ossian and Oscar and all the rest; and then Diarmuid rose from his place, and his eyes were wet with tears, and he said farewell to his comrades, for he knew that from that day he was no longer a member of the goodly company of the Fianna, but only a hunted man. And he and Gráinne fled from Tara to Athlone, and crossed the Shannon by the ford there, with Finn's trackers close behind them; and for a year and a day they travelled through the length and breadth of Ireland; and every night Diarmuid built for his love a chamber of mighty stones, and carpeted it with sweet grass, and crept softly in beside her and held her in his arms till morning, so that no hurt might come to her. And there the chambers remain to this day, 366 of them, to prove the story true. I wish I could tell the remainder of the legend, but there is no space here; besides you will find it and many others like it very beautifully told in one of the most fascinating Irish books I know--Stephen Gwynne's "Fair Hills of Ireland"; a book which I have pillaged remorselessly, and which I recommend to every one planning to visit the Island of the Saints. There are really more than 366 of the cromlechs, though nobody knows the exact number; and they are the most venerable monuments reared by man in Ireland. The growth of peat around certain of them proves that they have stood where they now stand for at least four thousand years. How the huge covering stones, sometimes weighing hundreds of tons, were lifted into place, no one knows, just as no one knows how the Egyptians raised their great monoliths from the quarry. There are two most impressive cromlechs at Carrowmore, quite close together, and my pictures of them are opposite the next page. The first one we came to stands near the road in a pasture, and it was merely a question of clambering over a wall to get to it; but to reach the other, it was necessary to cross a newly-cultivated field; and as there were some men working in it, I asked permission to do so. "Ah," said one of them, "so it is the big stones you have come to see. You're very welcome. I only wish you could take them with you." "So do I," I said. "We haven't anything like them in America. Everybody would want to see them." "That is just the trouble here. There are always people coming to see them, and they tramp about over my field, with no thought of the damage they will be doing, and without asking my leave, as you have done. And then it is at least half an acre of good land that the stones make good for naught, and good land is not that plentiful in Ireland that we can afford to waste any of it. And then there's the trouble of ploughing around them." [Illustration: CROMLECHS AT CARROWMORE] The farmer was right, in a way, for a half acre of good land would have been of far more value to him than this beautiful cromlech in the midst of its circle of stones; but how happy I would have been to give it half an acre, if I could have wafted it home to America! The circle is considerably more than a hundred feet in diameter, and the stones which compose it are great boulders, four or five feet high, set on end. The cromlech itself is very imposing, with massive side supports, six or seven feet high, and a mighty covering stone, flat on the under side. It is like a giant bestriding the landscape; and Betty remarked that it reminded her of the legs of Uncle Pumblechook, with several miles of open country showing between them. My picture of it has Knocknarea in the background, and if you look closely, you will see the little bump in the middle of its summit which is the cairn of Queen Meave. The hill was only a mile or so away, and I proposed going over to it, but Betty vetoed that, for it meant some stiff climbing, and we had already walked a good many miles; so we started back slowly along the road to Sligo, and a beautiful road it was, with the purple hills in the distance, and the green rolling fields on either side, and the whitewashed cottages gathered close beside it. And the doors of all of them were wide open, and the people who lived in them, hearing our footsteps, came out to pass the time of day and make some comment on the weather; and one old woman, who had been hoeing her potatoes, was so eager to talk that we stopped and sat down on the low wall in front of her cottage, and stayed for half an hour. She began with the usual questions--where we were from, if we were married, how old we were, and so on; and then she started to tell us about herself, omitting no detail, however intimate. "I have been to America," she said; "for seven years I lived there, and a grand place it is; and you will be wondering why I ever came back to County Sligo. 'Twas because of this bit of land, which would be mine, and this houseen, which is a poor one, but I was born there, and I will die there, glory be to God. I would ask you in, but it is that dirty, I am ashamed of it. There is so much to be done in the field that I have had no time for the house; besides, I am getting old and my legs are very bad. I got a bottle from the doctor, and I do be taking a sip of it now and then, but it does me no good. I am thinking there is nothing will cure me. "We were not always down in the world like this," she rattled on. "There was a time when we were well off. That was before my man was hurted. He was a county councillor, then, and as handsome a man as you would be seeing in a day's walk; and many's the time he has gone to Dublin with a flower in his button-hole, and me looking after him with pride, for he was always a good head to me. But a horse kicked him, and broke his leg and his arm, and he has not had the right use of either since; and so we started going down; and when one starts doing that, there's no stopping. "That's himself going there," she added, indicating an unkempt figure limping painfully along the road with the help of a heavy cane. "He's ashamed for you to see him, he's that dirty;" but curiosity proved stronger than pride, in the end, and he finally came hobbling up to us, a wreck of a man with dirty clothes and unkempt hair and unshaven face and battered derby hat--and yet one could see that he had been a handsome fellow once. We mentioned our stopping at the house of the bachelor who owned Tricker, and both our companions grew serious. "Ah, poor boy," said the woman, "he does be havin' a hard time. There was no one but his mother--all the others had gone to America; and he looked after her as careful as a daughter could; but she was very feeble, and he come home from the field one day to find her dead on the hearth. She had fallen in the fire and burned, bein' too weak to get up. It was a great shock to him, her dyin' in a way so painful and without a priest; and we all felt for him, though he was to blame for not marryin' some girl who could have looked after the old woman. He is well off, but there's no girl could put the comether on him, though many have tried,--nice girls, too, as nice as ever put a shawl across their heads." I remarked that we had been surprised at the number of bachelors in Ireland; we had supposed that all Irishmen married and had "long families," but it was not so at all. Some were too poor to marry, and that we could understand; but many that were not poor preferred to stay single. There were the Rafferty brothers, owners of the Connemara marble quarry; there was the proprietor of the hotel at Castleconnell; and now here was this man. "It is so," the old woman agreed. "There be many bachelors hereabouts--men too who could well afford to take a wife. The priest gets very warm over it. Not long ago, he said some words about it in the church--he said if it was left to him, he would be puttin' all these bachelors in a boat with a rotten bottom, and sendin' them out to sea, and sink or swim, small loss it would be whatever happened. For he said they were poor creatures, who thought of nothing but their own pleasure, who wasted their money in Dublin, instead of raising a family with it, and who would come to no good end. And I'm thinking that was nothing to what he had been saying to them in private. For of course, before he said anything in public, he had been after them to let him speak to the fathers of some of the nice girls there be about here." Among the Irish, especially the Irish peasantry, marriage is still largely a matter of arrangement between the families of the young people; though I doubt if it is ever quite so carelessly done as in one of Lever's books, where, after the bargain has been made, the father of three daughters asks the suitor which one it is he wants, and the suitor has them all brought in so that he may inspect them before he makes up his mind. It is always a solemn occasion, however, with the suitor's relatives ranged along one side of a table, and the bride's relatives along the other--male relatives, be it understood, for it is not lucky for a woman to take part in a match-making; and the bargaining is very shrewd and quite without sentiment; but the marriages thus arranged usually turn out well. For, if they are without romance, they are also without illusion. The woman knows beforehand what will be expected of her as wife and mother; the man is quite aware that matrimony has its rough side; and so there is no rude awakening for either. It is really a partnership, in which both are equal, and which both work equally hard to make successful. But I suspect that, in Ireland as elsewhere, marriage is not the inevitable thing it once was, especially for the men. It may be, as the priest said, that they have grown selfish and think only of their own comfort; or it may be that their needs have become more complex and their ideals harder to satisfy. Whatever the cause, Ireland certainly has her full share of bachelors. * * * * * We went to a picture-show at Sligo, that night, and I have never seen a livelier audience. There was, of course, a cowboy film which was received with the keenest pleasure; and there was a lurid melodrama, which culminated in the hero flinging the villain over a high cliff, at which those present rose to their feet and stamped and cheered; and then King George was shown reviewing the Life Guards, and the crowd watched in moody silence--a silence that was painful and threatening. As the troops marched past, gallant and glittering, a sight to stir the blood, there was not the suspicion of a cheer or hand-clap--just a strange, breathless silence. We were to witness the same thing thereafter in "loyal" Derry--the most convincing evidence imaginable of the feeling toward England which every Irishman, Protestant or Catholic, carries deep in his heart. CHAPTER XXIII THE LEACHT-CON-MIC-RUIS WE wanted to drive around Lough Gill, a distance of about twenty-five miles, and I had mentioned this project to our landlord the day before, and asked the price of a car. He said it was a long trip and a trying one on a horse, and that the price would be twenty shillings, and I saw the same glitter in his eye which had been there when he named the price of a room. That afternoon, I happened to see a sign over a shop announcing that posting was done in all its branches. Remembering the glitter in the landlord's eye, I stopped in and asked the woman in charge if a car could be had for the trip around Lough Gill. She said it might, and the price would be twelve shillings, including the driver. I closed with her on the spot, and told her to have the car ready at nine o'clock next morning; and somewhat to my surprise it was; and we set forth on what was to prove one of the most beautiful and adventurous excursions we had had in Ireland. It was a bright, warm day, and our jarvey, a picturesque old fellow, was quite certain it would not rain; but we put our rain-coats and all our other waterproof paraphernalia in the well of the car, so as to be prepared for the worst; and we elected to go out by the northern shore and come back by the southern one. For a mile or two our road lay through beautiful fragrant woods, and then we came out high above the lake. There is no prettier lake in Ireland than Lough Gill, with its green islands, and its blue water reflecting the blue sky and the fleecy clouds, and its banks covered with a vegetation almost as varied and luxuriant as that about Killarney, and the purple mountains crowding down upon it--only it is hardly fair to call them purple, for they are of many colours--the grey granite of their towering escarpments gleaming in the sun, the wide stretches of heather just showing a flush of lavender, the clumps of dark woodland clothing the glens, the broad spread of green pastures along their lower slopes, all combining in a picture not soon forgotten. For two or three miles we trotted on with this fairy scene stretched before us, and then we turned back into the hills, for we wanted to see the Leacht-Con-Mic-Ruis, the Stone of Conn the Son of Rush, set up on a neighbouring hilltop as a warning and a sign. At least, Murray calls it the Leacht-Con-Mic-Ruis, but our driver had never heard of it, though he protested that he knew every foot of the neighbourhood. Perhaps he did not recognise the words as I pronounced them, and as he could not read, it did no good for me to show them to him in the book. So I described it to him as well as I was able, never having seen it myself and having only the vaguest idea what it looked like, as a collection of great standing stones on top of a hill not far away; and still he had never heard of it. He was inclined to turn back to the lake, but I persisted; and finally he stopped a man who was driving a cart in to Sligo, and they talked together awhile in Irish, and then our driver turned up another road, not very hopefully. [Illustration: SLIGO ABBEY FROM THE CLOISTER] [Illustration: THE LEACHT-CON-MIC-RUIS] It was a very hilly road, and our horse developed an alarming propensity to gallop--a propensity which the driver encouraged rather than strove to check, so that we felt, a good part of the time, as though we were riding to a fire at break-neck speed. The jaunting-car, it should be remembered, is a two-wheeled vehicle, and when the animal between the shafts takes it into his head to gallop, it describes violent arcs through the air. But we hung grimly on, and finally our driver drew up at a house near the roadside. "'Tis here," he said. We got down and looked around, but saw nothing that resembled the Leacht-Con-Mic-Ruis; and then a woman came out of the house, and we asked her if she knew where it was, and, wonder of wonders! she did. Most wonderful of all, she had been to see it herself, so she knew where it was not vaguely but precisely, and she told us just how to go. It was on the hill back of the house, and she showed us the path which we must follow, and told us to look out for the rabbit-warrens, or we might sprain an ankle; and we set off through knee-deep heather up over the hill. It was quite a climb, and when we got to the top we saw no standing stones, and I wondered if we were going to miss them, after all; but we pressed on, and then, as we topped the next rise, my heart gave a leap--for there before us was the Leacht-Con-Mic-Ruis--the most remarkable stone enclosure I have seen anywhere, with the exception of Stonehenge--and Stonehenge is more remarkable only because its stones are larger. In every other way--in extent and in complexity--this enclosure far outranks Stonehenge. Great upright rocks, lichened and weatherbeaten by the rains and winds of forty centuries, form a rude oblong, about a hundred and fifty feet in length by fifty feet across. It stretches east and west, and at the western end is a square projection like a vestibule, divided into two chambers; while at the eastern end are two smaller oblongs some ten or twelve feet square, and their doorways are two trilithons--that is to say, two great rocks set on end with another rock laid across them, just as at Stonehenge. I despair of trying to picture it in words, but I took two photographs, one of which is opposite the preceding page, and gives some idea of the appearance of this remarkable monument--at least of the trilithons. But it gives no idea of its shape or its extent. There was no vantage point from which I could get a photograph that would do that. Its effect, here on this bleak hilltop, with other bleak hills all around as far as the eye could see, was tremendously impressive. Nobody knows who built it, nor when it was built, nor why. That it was a shrine of some sort, a holy place, seems evident; and to me it seemed also evident that the holy of holies were those two little chambers back of the trilithic doorways; and it seemed to me also significant that they should be at the east end, nearest the sunrise, just as the altars in Gothic churches are, and that there should be a vestibule or entrance at the west end. Surely it was built with some reference to the sun; and I tried to picture the horde of panting men, who had, with incredible labour, hacked out these giant stones from some quarry now unknown, and pulled them up the steep hillside and somehow manoeuvred them into place. Some powerful motive must have actuated them, and I can think of none powerful enough except the motive of religion--the motive of building a great temple to the God they worshipped, in the hope of pleasing Him and winning His favour. [Illustration: A RUIN ON THE SHORE OF LOUGH GILL] [Illustration: THE LAST FRAGMENT OF AN ANCIENT STRONGHOLD] What strange rites, I wondered, had these old stones witnessed; what pageantries, what sacrifices, what incantations? Of all that ancient people there remains on earth not a single trace, except in such silent monuments of stone as this, so mighty the passing centuries have been powerless to destroy them, more mysterious, more inscrutable than the Sphinx. We tore ourselves away, at last, and went silently down through the heather, which was fairly swarming with rabbits; and we mounted our car and headed back toward the lake. We came out presently close beside the shore, and followed it around its upper end. Just there, out at the end of a point of land, stands the fragment of a tower, and our jarvey told us it was all that was left of the castle from which Dervorgilla eloped with Dermot MacMurrough--a tale already told by the little tailor of Limerick. Of course I wanted a picture of it, and after much manoeuvring, I managed to get the one opposite this page, which I include only because of the beautiful Japanesy branch across one corner; for this wasn't Breffni's castle at all, as we were presently to find. A little farther on, and quite near the road, was another ruin, and a most imposing one, with drum towers at the four corners, and a dilapidated cottage hugging its wall; and I took a peep within the square enclosure, used now as a kind of barnyard. There were little turrets looking out over the lake, and a spiral stair in one corner, and mullioned windows and tall chimneys and yawning fireplaces; and it looked a most important place, but I have not been able to discover anything of its history. Then we went on again, with beautiful views of the lake at our right, and high on our left the flat-topped mountain called O'Rourke's Table, where, once upon a time, as told by the old ballad, "O'Rourke's Noble Feast" was spread: O'Rourke's noble fare will ne'er be forgot By those who were there, or those who were not. His revels to keep, we sup and we dine On seven score sheep, fat bullocks and swine, and so on. It is, indeed, a table fit for such a celebration--a rock plateau with sheer escarpments of grey granite dropping away from it, and a close cover of purple heather for a cloth. The road curved on along the lake; then turned away from it through a beautiful ravine; and then a sparkling river was dashing along at our right, and beyond it loomed the grey walls of a most extensive ruin; and then we dropped steeply down into the town of Dromahair, and stopped at a pretty inn to bait the horse. I wanted to get closer to the ruins, and I asked if there was a bridge across the river, and was told that there was, just behind the hotel. So I made my way down to it, to find that the "bridge" was a slender plank, without handrail or guard, spanning some ugly-looking rapids. I looked at the plank, and I looked at the swirling water, and I looked at the grey ruins on the farther shore, and I hesitated for a long time; but I wasn't equal to it; and I turned away at last and made my way back to the village in the hope of finding some more stable bridge there. The dominating feature of the village is not the workhouse or lunatic asylum, but an enormous mill, five stories high, built of black stone as hard as flint, to endure for all eternity, but forlorn and deserted; and while I was gazing at it and wondering where the money had come from to build it, a man came out of the house attached to it and spoke to me. He was an Englishman, he said, who was spending his vacation at Dromahair. I asked him if there was any other bridge across the river except the slender plank, and he said there was not; and that it was characteristic of the Irish that there should not be, for a more careless, shiftless, happy-go-lucky race did not exist anywhere on earth. I asked him about the mill, and he said that it was just another example of Irish inefficiency and wrong-headedness; that it had been erected at great expense and equipped with the most costly machinery to grind American grain, which was to be brought up Sligo Bay from the sea, and up the river and across the lake; and then, when all was ready, there was no grain to grind--or none, at least, which could be brought to the mill without prohibitive expense. Furthermore, the power was so poor and costly that it would have been impossible to operate the mill profitably even if there had been plenty of grain. But the owner of the mill, with some sort of dim faith in the power of Home Rule to produce the grain, was preparing to install a turbine to run the machinery, and had already started to build a big aqueduct to bring the water in from above the rapids. The rapids are just above the mill, and are quite imposing; and there, just beyond them, is the abbey. I was near enough to see it fairly well, though not, of course, in detail as I should have liked to do; but I comforted myself with the thought that it is a comparatively modern one, dating from the sixteenth century, when Margaret, the wife of another O'Rourke, having, perhaps, like Dervorgilla, done something she regretted, built it for the Franciscans. I had another comfort, too; for I asked the Englishman if he had seen the Leacht-Con-Mic-Ruis; and he said that he had been hunting for it for a week, but hadn't been able to find it, as none of the people thereabouts seemed to know where it was; and he was astonished when I told him that we had found it, and commented with envy upon the energy of Americans. He asked me where it was, and I told him as nearly as I could; and then he wanted me to come in and have tea, and was for sending up to the hotel for Betty; but I had to decline that invitation. I think he was lonely and glad to find some one to talk to, for he was unusually expansive for an Englishman; and he said he would send his car in to Sligo after us, if we would come out next day; but I told him we were going on to Bundoran. And then I left him and went back up the hill to the ivy-covered ruin which was really the castle of Tiernan O'Rourke. It stands on the edge of the hill overlooking the valley--the same valley which lay smiling before him that evening he came back from his pilgrimage to Lough Derg; and up there was the battlement from which no light burned. It was battered down in the sixteenth century, in some obscure fight, and all that is left of the castle now is the shell of its walls. I am afraid Tom Moore, as well as O'Connell, journeyman tailor, has invested the story with a glamour which did not belong to it; for Tiernan O'Rourke was a one-eyed bandit who had sacked the abbey of Clonard a few years before, and who certainly had need of pilgrimages to shrive him from his sins; and Dervorgilla, so far from being a "young false one," was forty-two years old; and MacMurrough took care to carry off, not only the lady's person, but all her movable property, and most of her husband's, as well. * * * * * The clouds were gathering in the west as we set out from Dromahair, and presently the rain began to slant down, slowly and softly at first, and then in a regular torrent. I do not know when I have seen it rain harder; but we were soon fixed for it and didn't mind. Dromahair is about twelve miles from Sligo, and they are hilly miles, so we knew that we had at least three hours of this wet work ahead of us; but the people working in the fields or plodding along the road paid no attention to the rain, so why should we? In fact, most of them, though without any sort of protection, seemed to be quite unconscious that it was raining at all. And then, just when the rain was hardest, I saw to the left a circle of stones crowning a little hill, and I knew it was a cashel. A cashel, as I have explained already, is a fort made of stones, just as a rath is a fort made of earth, both being in the form of a circle; and I knew I could get pictures of raths without much difficulty, but I didn't know when I would see another cashel; so I made the driver stop, and got my camera out of the well, and started off through a field to get a picture of this one, not heeding Betty's anxious inquiry if I had suddenly gone mad. That field into which I plunged was thigh-deep with dripping grass, and I didn't realise how wet it was until I was well into it, and then there was nothing to do but go on. So I scrambled up the hill and took two pictures, shielding my lens, as well as I could, against the driving rain; and I hadn't any idea that the pictures would be good ones, but they were, and one of them is opposite the next page. There was no vantage point from which I could take a picture which would show the circular shape of the cashel; but it had been built in a perfect circle about sixty feet in diameter. It was on top of a steep hillock, of which it occupied nearly the whole summit. The walls, pierced only by a single narrow entrance, were about six feet high, and four or five feet thick, and the lower stones were very massive, as the picture shows. They had been roughly dressed and laid without mortar--the ancient Irish knew nothing of mortar, apparently, for all these old stone circles are uncemented; but they had been so nicely fitted that they were still in place after many centuries, though the clambering ivy was doing its best to pull them down. Right in the middle of the circle was a great stone slab, flush with the ground. The only use I could imagine for it was as a base for a shrine or altar; but as I went down to the road again, an old man came out of a little house to talk, and he said that some antiquarians from Sligo, who believed the slab covered the entrance to a secret passage, had taken it up and found beneath it, not a passage, but a beautifully fitted pavement; and that the parish priest, investigating on his own account, had dug up some wood ashes, and so decided that this was the place where the fire was built. [Illustration: A CASHEL NEAR DROMAHAIR] [Illustration: ST. PATRICK'S HOLY WELL] "But no one knows," my informant rambled on. "Maybe some day some wise man like yourself will be able to tell us what it was for." I remarked that the man who did so would have to be far wiser than I; but he protested that he knew a wise man when he saw one; and I suspect that there is a blarney stone in some of these ruins, which the general public doesn't know about. I was sorry it was raining, for there was another cashel on a hill to the right, and a great rath a little farther off, and I should have liked to explore both of them; but really the weather was too bad, so I went back reluctantly to the car, which our jarvey had driven close under a clump of trees for shelter, and we were soon jogging contentedly on again. The valley which slopes down here to Lough Gill seems very fertile, and the little farms have a more prosperous look than is usual in Ireland. This is partly due to the fact that a number of neat labourers' cottages have been built to replace the usual tumbledown hovels, and still more are going up. This erection of labourers' cottages, which is going on to-day all over Ireland, seems to me almost as important as land purchase. If there is any class of Irish more deserving of pity than another, it is the agricultural labourer. He is worse off than the tenants; he has no land, however poor, to cultivate, except perhaps a tiny patch in front of his door; he has no means of livelihood except the unskilled labour of his hands; if he can manage to earn ten shillings a week he is unusually fortunate. In most cases, his average income throughout the year will be scarcely half that. So naturally the labourers and their families live in the most wretched of all the wretched hovels, in want, discomfort and peril of disease. It is for the relief of these unfortunate people that the new houses are being built. They are very plain; but they have large windows which can be opened, and stone floors which can be cleaned, and tight slate roofs, and sanitary outbuildings; and each of them has a half acre or so of garden, where vegetables enough to support the family can be raised during the summer; and they rent for from two to three shillings a week--just enough to pay interest on the amount invested in the house, with a small sinking fund for upkeep and repairs. The money needed is borrowed from the government by the county council, and the council has control of the houses, decides where they shall be built, what rent shall be asked for them, and exercises a general supervision over the tenants. The same thing is being done in the towns, where the insanitary dwellings of the poorer artisans are being replaced by comfortable houses, rented at a very low rate. Nearly a hundred thousand of these cottages have been built within the past ten years, replacing as many insanitary shacks, which, for the most part, have been torn down. The shacks were much more picturesque, but nobody regrets them. And the severely utilitarian aspect of the new dwellings will no doubt soon be masked with vines and climbing roses. It was such cottages as this, then, that gave the valley sloping down to Lough Gill an unusually prosperous appearance, and many more were in course of erection throughout the neighbourhood. We padded past them, along the road above the lake, between beautiful hedgerows, gay with climbing roses; and then we turned away through a luxuriant wood, where the bracken was almost waist-high and the trees were draped with moss and ferns, just as we had seen them along the southern coast. And then we passed through a gate and jolted down a very rough and narrow lane; and finally our driver stopped at the edge of a wood, and pointed to a path running away under the trees. "'Tis the path to St. Patrick's holy well," he said; and we clambered down, and made our way under the trees and up the hillside, and there before us was the well. It is a lively spring, which bubbles up from the ground in considerable volume, fills a deep basin, and then sparkles away down into the valley. A wall has been built around it, with an opening on one side, and steps by which one may descend and drink of the magic water. Just above it on the hillside is a shrine, something like the one we had seen at St. Senan's well--really an altar, where, I suppose, Mass may be celebrated; and it was crowded with figurines of the Virgin and small crucifixes and rosaries and sacred pictures, and the bushes all about were tied with rags and strings and other tokens which the pilgrims to the shrine had left behind. This well is a very famous one, and the number of pilgrims who come to it prove how general is the belief in its powers. It is really a belief in the power of prayer, for prayer is always necessary. I tried to get a picture of the well and the shrine above it, but it was very dark under the trees, and there was no place where I could rest my camera for a time exposure; but the photograph opposite page 408, is better than I had any reason to expect. We found that the rain had ceased when we came out from under the trees, and we jogged happily back to the highroad and on towards Sligo; and presently far ahead the bay opened out, rimmed by romantic hills, green nearly to the summit, and then culminating in steep escarpments of grey rock; and beneath us in the valley lay the roofs and spires of the town, and we were soon rattling through its streets. We went back to the hotel to change out of our wet things and get a cup of hot chocolate; and then we took a last stroll about the streets, and stopped to see the church of St. John, said to be older than the abbey, but recently restored and now used by a Church of Ireland congregation. The graveyard about it is full of interesting tombs, and the street it fronts is one of the most romantic in the town. Indeed, the whole town is interesting; its greatest drawback for the visitor being the beggars who infest it, and who are nearly as pertinacious as those at Killarney. We went back to the hotel, at last, and told the proprietor that we were going to Bundoran by the four o'clock train. "You will make a great mistake," he protested, "to leave Sligo without going around Lough Gill." It was then I had my revenge. "We have been around Lough Gill," I explained sweetly. "That's where we were this morning." * * * * * It is no easy task to travel along the west coast of Ireland. The great bays which indent it, running far inland, and the mountain ranges which tower one behind the other, make it impossible to follow anything like a straight line. The only thing to do is to zig-zag around them. Our journey, that afternoon, was a striking example of this. Bundoran lies twenty-two miles north along the coast from Sligo; but to get there by rail, it was necessary to travel ninety-two--forty-eight miles north-eastward to Enniskillen, and then forty-four miles westward to the coast again. The road to Enniskillen parallels Lough Gill, though it is so hemmed in by hills that we caught no glimpse of the water; and then proceeds across a dreary bog, climbing up and up with a wide valley opening to the south; and then runs into woodland and even orchards--the first, I think, that we had seen in Ireland; and then drops down toward Enniskillen, whose name lives in English history as that of one of the most famous of its regiments. It is said to be a pretty town, nestling between two lakes and entirely water-girt; but we did not stop to see it. We changed instead to the Bundoran line, which runs along the northern shore of Lough Erne; and we found the train crowded with people, on their way to spend the week-end at that famous resort; at least so we supposed, but when we got to Pettigoe, there was a crowd on the platform, waving flags and shouting, and as the train stopped somebody set off a series of bombs; and most of the passengers piled out of the train to take part in the celebration; and then we saw a man and woman standing rather sheepishly in front of another man, who was evidently delivering an address of welcome. We asked the guard what it was all about, and he said that the citizens of Pettigoe were welcoming home a fellow-townsman who had gone to Australia and won a fortune and also a wife--or perhaps I should put it the other way around--and had come back to Pettigoe to live. I was half-inclined to get off there myself, in order to visit St. Patrick's Purgatory, a famous place of pilgrimage on an island in Lough Derg, five miles away; but from the map it looked as though it would be possible to drive over from Donegal, which would be much more convenient. I found out afterwards that there is a mountain range between Donegal and Lough Derg, and no direct road over it; so we did not get to visit the island where, so legend says, St. Patrick had a vision of purgatory, and which became so celebrated that pilgrims flocked to it from all over Europe. The time prescribed for the ceremonies is from the first of June to the middle of August, and the island is often so crowded with penitents performing the rounds that visitors are not permitted to land. Our train moved on, after the address of welcome was concluded, and we could see the blue waters of Lough Erne stretching away to the south, while westward the sun was setting in a glory of crimson clouds; and presently the broad estuary of the Erne opened below us, hemmed in with high banks of yellow sand; and then we were at Bundoran--a bathing resort, consisting of a single street of boarding-houses facing the sea; and a little farther on, a great hotel, built on a projecting point of the cliffs. As we paused at its door to look about us, we realised that we had come very far indeed from primitive Connemara, for the first thing which met our eyes was a huge sign: BEWARE OF GOLF BALLS! CHAPTER XXIV THE WINING BANKS OF ERNE THE weather god was certainly good to us in Ireland. The occasional showers and two or three heavy downpours were merely short interludes, and by no means unpleasant ones, in the long succession of sweetly beautiful days which I remember when I run my mind back over those delightful weeks. That day at Bundoran was one of them, soft and fragrant and altogether perfect. There is nothing Irish about Bundoran except its climate--not, at least, if one stays at the hotel which has been built there by the Great Northern Railroad, and which is one of the most satisfactory hotels I was ever in. And perhaps it would be as well to say a word here about Irish hotels. The small, friendly inn, which is one of the delights of European travel, does not exist in Ireland; or, if it does, it is so carelessly managed that it is not endurable. Commercial hotels are also apt to be inferior. The only hotels that are sure to be pleasant and satisfactory are the large ones which cater to tourist traffic. In the more important towns, of course, there is never any difficulty in finding a good hotel; in the smaller towns, the only safe rule is to go to the best in the place, and if there is one managed by the railway, that is usually the one to choose. Some years ago, the Irish railways realised that the surest way to encourage tourist traffic in the west and south was to provide attractive hotel accommodations, and they set about doing this with the result that the traveller in Ireland is now well provided for. Such hotels as those at Bundoran, Recess and Parknasilla--and there are many others like them, handsome buildings, splendidly equipped, set in the midst of beautiful surroundings--leave nothing to be desired. Nor are their rates excessive, considering the excellent service they offer, averaging a little over three dollars a day. In the smaller towns, the tariff is considerably less than this, though the service is almost as good. In places where the railroad does not itself own or manage a hotel, it usually sees to it that at least one under private management is kept up to a satisfactory standard. So no one wishing to explore Ireland need hesitate on account of the hotels. They will be found, with a few exceptions, surprisingly good. [Illustration: THE COAST AT BUNDORAN] [Illustration: THE HOME OF "COLLEEN BAWN"] The hotel at Bundoran is set close to the edge of the scarred and weather-beaten cliffs, which look right out over the Atlantic toward America. It was along the top of these cliffs that we set out, that Sunday morning, and below us lay the strand where three galleons of the Spanish Armada went to pieces, as they were staggering homewards from the battle in the Channel. From time to time, an effort is made to find these "treasure ships," but, though cannon and anchors and such-like gear have been recovered, no one as yet has found any treasure. The great waves which roll right in from the Atlantic, and which proved too much for the galleons, have worn the cliffs into the most fantastic shapes; and a little way above the hotel there is a natural arch, called the Fairy Bridge, some twenty-five feet wide, which the water has cut in the rocks. When the tide comes in, it may be seen boiling and bubbling below the bridge, as in a witch's cauldron. Most beautiful of all is a wide yellow strand, a little farther on, with the rollers breaking far out and sweeping in, in white-topped majesty. We sat for a long time watching them, rolling in in long lines one behind the other; and then we scrambled down to the beach through the bare and shifting dunes. Seen thus from below, the black cliffs are most impressive. We went on again, at last, over the upland toward a wide-flung camp, where the Fourth Inniskillens were getting their summer practice; and one of the men directed us how to find a cromlech and a cairn, which we knew were there somewhere, but which we were unable to see amid the innumerable ridges. From the cairn, which crowns a little eminence overlooking the Erne estuary, there was supposed to be, so our acquaintance said, an underground passage to the other side of the river, where stands the old castle of the Ffolliotts; but as the estuary is at least a mile wide, I doubt if this ever existed except in the imagination of the country-side. The castle is there, however,--we could see its towers looming above the trees; but there was no way to get to it, that day, for the river lay between. I was determined to see it closer before we left the neighbourhood, because it was from that castle that the fair Colleen Bawn eloped with Willy Reilly. Farther down the stream, a two-masted schooner lay wrecked beside a sand-bank, and across from us some soldiers were fishing in tiny boats, while a company was going through some manoeuvres on the shore, so far away they looked like a company of ants deploying this way and that. For a long time we watched them; then we bade our companion good-bye, and went slowly back through the bracken, where Betty picked a great bouquet of primroses and violets and blue-bells; and we stumbled upon another ancient burial-place; and stopped at the ruins of an old church; and got back finally to the hotel to find the golf-links full of industrious players. Betty got into talk with the owner of a shaggy English sheep-dog--shaggy clear to its feet, and looking for all the world like Nana, the accomplished nurse of the Darling children; and I went on down to the beach to watch the tide come in. It was swirling threateningly about the black rocks; and out at the farthest point of them I found a man sitting. He invited me to sit down beside him, and we fell into talk. He was a handsome old fellow, a barrister from Dublin, who had come clear across Ireland (which isn't as far as it sounds) to get a breath of sea air. There was no air like the Bundoran air, he said, and two or three days of it did him a world of good. And then we began to talk about Ireland; and I was guilty of the somewhat banal remark that, before Ireland could make any real progress, life there would have to be made attractive enough to keep her young people at home, for she could never hope to get ahead as long as her best blood was drained away from her. He pooh-poohed the idea. "The best advice you can give any Irish man or Irish girl," he said, "is to leave the country the first chance they get; and that will always be good advice, because there will never be anything here for them to do. All this talk about the revival of industry is foolish. You can't revive what's dead; and industry here has been dead for three hundred years. Besides this is an agricultural country, and it will never be anything else; and over wide stretches of it, grazing pays better than tillage will ever do, so grazing there will be. Home Rule will make no difference--how can it? I suppose we're going to get it, and I'll be glad to see it come, if only to stop this ceaseless agitation; but as for its reviving any industries, or increasing wages, or making Ireland a place for ambitious young people to live in--I don't believe it." "You don't foresee a roseate future, then?" "Not for Ireland. All these schemes for land purchase and new cottages and pensions and so on may make life here a little more comfortable than it has been; but this country has been in a lethargy for centuries, and it will never be shaken off. The Irish have no ambition; they just live along from day to day without any thought for the future; and they will always be like that. It's their nature." He would doubtless have said more to the same effect, for he was very much in earnest, but the rising tide drove us in, and I did not see him again. * * * * * The picturesque old town of Ballyshannon is only a few miles from Bundoran, and we took train for it next morning, after a last stroll along the cliffs and a look at the "rock-pool," a treasure-house of fossils and marine growths of every kind. First of all, we wanted to see the Colleen Bawn castle, so we got a car at the station, and set out. Ballyshannon, after the fashion of Irish towns, is built on the side of a hill, and no horse unaccustomed to mountaineering could have got up the street which leads from the river; but our horse had been reared in the town, so he managed to scramble up; and then we turned to the left and followed along the river to the falls--a dashing mass of spray, where the whole body of water which rushes down from Lough Erne sweeps roaring over a cliff some thirty feet high. Two or three miles along country roads brought us to a gate; and here our driver, looking a little anxious, had a short conference with a woman who lived in a neat labourer's cottage near by; and finally he opened the gate and drove through. Half a mile along this lane brought us to another gate; and there our driver stopped, and showed us the castle just ahead, and said that was all the farther he could go, and that we would have to walk the rest of the way. There was a certain constraint in his manner which I did not understand till afterwards. We went on through the gate, and across what had once been the demesne, but had been swept bare of trees, and was now divided between a meadow and a stable-yard, and in a few minutes we stood before the castle which was the scene of a romance very dear to Irish hearts. It is not really a castle, but merely a tall and ugly house, with three bays and a low terrace in front, and it is not very old, since it dates only from 1739, when it was built as the home of the Ffolliotts, a powerful English family into whose hands this whole neighbourhood had fallen. The Ffolliotts, of course, were Protestants, and Willy Reilly was a Catholic; but Helen Ffolliott was so ill-advised as to fall in love with him, and one night packed up her jewels and eloped. A hue and cry was raised after them, and they were soon captured, and Reilly was thrown into Sligo jail, and it looked for a while as though he might be "stretched," for all this happened about 1745, when the penal laws against Catholics were most severe. But the fair Helen came to the rescue, and swore at the trial that she had been the leader in the affair, not Reilly, and so he escaped with a sentence of banishment. What happened thereafter history does not state; but Will Carleton, who wove a poor romance about the affair, manages to reunite the lovers in the end. It is not to be wondered at that Reilly became a popular hero. Here was a young and handsome Catholic, who, in the most daring way, had captured the heart of a great Protestant heiress, the daughter of a persecutor of Catholics, and, in addition, a girl so lovely that she was the toast of the whole country-side. The ballad which celebrated the affair had an immense vogue. It is a real ballad, rough and halting, but rudely eloquent. You remember how it starts: "Oh! rise up, Willy Reilly, and come alongst with me, I mean for to go with you and leave this countrie, To leave my father's dwelling, his houses and fine lands;" And away goes Willy Reilly and his dear Colleen Bawn. In the ballad, the family is called Folliard, which is the way the name is still pronounced in the neighbourhood; but the old mansion is now occupied by a tenant. And pretty soon we understood our jarvey's uneasiness, for first a man came to the front door and looked at us, and then went quickly in again; and then an old woman opened the side door, and glared at us, and when we asked if we might have a glimpse of the interior, slammed the door in our faces. I must give her credit, however, for restraining a particularly savage-looking dog eager to be at us. But it was evident we weren't wanted there, for even the turkey gobbler resented our visit, and strutted fiercely about us, trying to scare us out. So we went back to the car, and our jarvey breathed a sigh of relief when he saw us. "Sure, I didn't know whether you'd come back alive or not," he said. "The master is away from home the day, and the woman that does work for him wouldn't be above settin' the dog on you. But it's all right, glory be to God," and he climbed up to his box and drove us back to Ballyshannon. We left our luggage at the station of the Donegal narrow-gauge railway, and then walked down into the town. We found it a quaint place, with the friendliest of people; and we were fortunate in discovering a clean inn on the main street, where we had the nicest of lunches, after which we set off to see the abbey. The road to the abbey lies through a deep, romantic dell, at the bottom of which we found a grain mill working, its great wheel turned by the brook which rushes through the glen; and a little farther on were four or five other mills, all fallen to decay, their wheels mere skeletons, and their machinery red with rust. Just beyond, a little higher up the hill, stands all that is left of the abbey, a few shattered fragments of the old walls. Yet the abbey was, in its day, a great foundation, patronised by the mighty Prince of Tyrconnell, and taking its name of Assaroe from the falls in the river--Eas Aedha Ruaidh, the Waterfall of Red Hugh, who was High King of Erin about three centuries before Christ, and who was swept over the falls and drowned while trying to cross the ford above them. A boy who played about the ruins described them, when he grew to manhood, in a musical stanza: Grey, grey is Abbey Assaroe, by Ballyshanny town, It has neither door nor window, the walls are broken down; The carven stones lie scattered in briars and nettle-bed; The only feet are those that come at burial of the dead. A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide, Singing a song of ancient days, in sorrow, not in pride; The bore-tree and the lightsome ash across the portal grow, And heaven itself is now the roof of Abbey Assaroe. We had heard certain legends of underground passages, which could still be explored, and we asked an old man who was cutting grass in the graveyard if he knew anything about them, and he said that he did not. We remarked that it was a hard task cutting the grass around the gravestones; and he said it was so, and would not be worth doing but that the grass was given to him for the cutting; but the guardians were unreasonable men who wanted it cut long before it was ready--it ought really to stand a week longer, now, but them ones would not wait! We went back past the mill, and met a man in flour-besprinkled clothes, who bade us good-day and stopped to talk; and it proved to be the miller. He invited us in to see the mill, which was grinding Russian corn, very red and hard, into yellow meal which was used for feeding cattle. We tried to tell him something of the delights of corn-bread and griddle-cakes, but he was plainly sceptical. He was an Ulster man, and had been running the mill for three years, but he said it was a hard struggle to make both ends meet. If it was not that his power cost him nothing, he would have had to give it up long ago. Power apart, I could imagine no poorer place for a mill, for it was at least two miles from the railway, and the road into the hollow was so steep that it must be a terrific struggle to get a loaded wagon into or out of it. There had been a number of mills in the neighbourhood at one time, but they had all given up the struggle long ago, except one flour mill, which had somehow managed to survive. We told him that we had seen the ruins of some of them as we went to the abbey. "Have you been to the abbey?" he asked. "Did you see the underground passages?" "Are there really some?" "Come along, and I'll show you." We protested that we didn't want him to leave his work, but he said the mill could take care of itself for awhile; and we started off together up the hill, through a gate to the right, and then knee-deep through the grass to the brook which ran at the bottom of the ravine, under the walls of the monastery. And there, sure enough, was the mouth of a passage cut in the solid rock of the bank. It was about six feet high by three wide, and ran in about a hundred feet, for all the world like the entrance to a mine. How much farther it extended I don't know, for an iron gate had been put across it to keep out explorers; but there can be no doubt that, at one time, it connected with the abbey itself, and formed a secret means of ingress and egress, which was no doubt often very convenient. And then our guide showed us something else, which was far more interesting. In the penal days, Catholic priests were forbidden to celebrate Mass under the severest penalties; but nevertheless they managed to hold a service now and then in some out of the way place, carefully concealed, with sentries posted all about to guard against surprise. A short distance down stream from the entrance to the secret passage was a shallow cave in the cliff, so overhung with ivy that it could scarcely be seen, and here, many times, the Catholics of the neighbourhood had gathered at word that a priest would celebrate Mass. On the heights all about lookouts would be placed, and then the men and women would kneel before the mouth of the little cave and take part in the sacrament. At the back of the cave, the shelf of rock which served as the altar still remains, and at one side of it is a rude piscina--a basin hollowed in the rock, with a small hole in the bottom to drain it; and it was here the vessels used in the celebration of the Mass were washed, after the service was over. I wanted mightily to get a picture of this cave, but it had started to shower, and though I got under the umbrella and made an exposure, the picture was a failure. We bade our guide good-bye, with many thanks for his kindness, and went slowly back along the highroad toward Ballyshannon; and presently from a tiny cottage beside the road two old women issued and greeted us with great cordiality. They were clean and neatly dressed, and the younger one, who did most of the talking, seemed to be quite unusually interested in our private history and solicitous for our welfare, and the blarney with which her tongue plastered us was the most finished I have ever listened to. We thanked her for her good wishes, and were about to go on, much pleased at this new demonstration of Irish cordiality, when we had a rude awakening. "Ah, your honour," she said, "would you not be giving me something for my poor sister here? You see she is all twisted with rheumatism, and can scarcely walk, and the medicine do be costing so much that she often must go without it. Just a small coin, God bless ye." I didn't want to give her anything, for I suspected that she made a practice of waylaying passers-by and begging from them; and then I looked at the older woman, who was standing by with her hands crossed before her, and I saw how the fingers were twisted and withered and how the face was drawn with pain--so I compromised by dropping sixpence into the outstretched hand. "If your honour would only be makin' it eightpence now," the woman said quickly; "we can get three bottles of castor-oil for eightpence--" But the other woman stopped her. "No, no," she protested; "take shame to yourself for askin' the kind gentleman for more. We thank your honour, and God bless ye, and may He bring ye safe home." And the other woman joined in the blessings too, and they continued to bless us, considerably to our embarrassment, until we were out of ear-shot. Betty had had enough of Ballyshannon; besides, the showers were coming with increasing force and frequency; so she elected to go back to the railway station and rest, while I wandered about for a last look at the town. And now, I suppose, I shall have to say a word about its history. All this country to the north of Lough Erne is Tyrone--Tir Owen, the Province of Owen--and was once a great principality, which stretched eastward clear to the shore of the Channel about Belfast. Northwest of it, answering roughly to the present county of Donegal, was Tyrconnell--Tir Connell, the Province of Connell; and Connell and Owen were brothers, sons of Nial of the Nine Hostages, who was King of Ireland from 379 to 405, and whose eight sons cut Ireland up between them into the principalities which were, in time, by their own internecine warfare, to make Ireland incapable of defending herself against the invader. Saint Patrick, about 450, found Connell in his castle on Lough Erne and baptised him; and then he journeyed north to Owen's great fortress, which we shall see before long on a hill overlooking Lough Swilly, and baptised him. Five centuries later, when Brian Boru had brought all Ireland to acknowledge his kingship, he decreed that every family should take a surname from some distinguished ancestor, and so began the era of the O's and the Macs. The two great clans of Tyrone and Tyrconnell chose the names of O'Neill and O'Donnell, and the river Erne was the frontier of the O'Donnell domain. There was a ford here at Ballyshannon, and so, of course, a castle to guard it, and many were the herds of lifted cattle which the O'Donnells, sallying south into Sligo, drove back before them into Donegal. Cattle was the principal form of property in those old days--about the only kind, at least, that could be stolen--and so it was always cattle that the raiders went after. The English brought a great force against the place in 1597, and for three days besieged the castle and tried unavailingly to carry it by assault; and then the O'Donnell clans poured down from the hills, and the English, seeing themselves trapped, tried to cross the river at the ford just above the falls; and the strongest managed to get across, but the women and the wounded and the weak were swept away. There is no trace remaining of the castle, but just below the graceful bridge of stone which crosses the river is the ford over which the English poured that day, and an ugly ford it is, for the water runs deep and strong, quickening at its lower edge into the rapids above the falls. From the centre of this bridge, some twenty-five years ago, the ashes of one of Ireland's truest poets were scattered on the swift, smooth-running water and carried down to the sea, and a tablet marks the spot: WILLIAM ALLINGHAM A Native of This Town Born 1824; died 1889. Here once he roved, a happy boy, Along the winding banks of Erne, And now, please God, with finer joy, A fairer world his eyes discern. It is certainly a halting quatrain, quite unworthy the immortality of marble. A couplet from Allingham's own poem in praise of his birthplace would have been far more fitting; but I suppose that the lines on the tablet were composed by some local dignitary, and that nobody dared tell him how bad they were. I know of no more graceful tribute to any town than Allingham paid to Ballyshannon in his "Winding Banks of Erne." The first stanza gives a savour of its quality: Adieu to Ballyshanny, where I was bred and born; Go where I may, I'll think of you, as sure as night and morn: The kindly spot, the friendly town, where everyone is known, And not a face in all the place but partly seems my own; There's not a house or window, there's not a field or hill, But east or west, in foreign lands, I'll recollect them still; I leave my warm heart with you, though my back I'm forced to turn-- Adieu to Ballyshanny, and the winding banks of Erne. You will note that the savour is the same as that of the lines I have already quoted describing Abbey Assaroe, and of course the same hand wrote them. I wish I could quote the whole poem to Ballyshannon, for it is worth quoting, but one more stanza must suffice, the last one: If ever I'm a moneyed man, I mean, please God, to cast My golden anchor in the place where youthful years were passed; Though heads that now are black or brown must meanwhile gather grey, New faces rise by every hearth, and old ones drop away-- Yet dearer still that Irish hill than all the world beside; It's home, sweet home, where'er I roam, through lands and waters wide. And if the Lord allows me, I surely will return To my native Ballyshanny, and the winding banks of Erne. His birthplace is not far away--one of a row of plain old stone houses standing in the Mall, with a tablet: WILLIAM ALLINGHAM Poet Born in This House 19th March, 1824 I walked on past it, down to the river below the falls, where, close to the water's edge, a seat has been placed under a rustic canopy, and I sat there for a long time and watched the foaming water rushing over the cliff, with a crash and roar which, as Allingham says, is the voice of the town, "solemn, persistent, humming through the air day and night, summer and winter. Whenever I think of that town, I seem to hear the voice. The river which makes it, runs over rocky ledges into the tide. Before, spreads a great ocean in sunshine or storm; behind stretches a many-islanded lake. On the south runs a wavy line of blue mountains; and on the north, over green, rocky hills, rise peaks of a more distant range." [Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF WILLIAM ALLINGHAM] [Illustration: CASTLE DONEGAL] It is up from the ocean the salmon come in the spring, seeking a place to spawn, and before they can get into the "many-islanded lake," they have to pass the falls. It is a ten-foot leap, even at flood-tide; but they take it, and a beautiful sight it must be to see them do it. But I saw none that day. Just below the falls is a little island, Inis-Saimer, said to be the spot where the Firbolgs, the earliest inhabitants of Ireland, first touched foot to Irish soil. It is given over now to some small buildings connected with the fishery, which is very valuable. There were a number of boats out, that day, with fishermen in them patiently whipping the water, but I did not see any fish caught. Ballyshannon is not, I judge, so prosperous as it once was, for across the river from where I sat were a number of tall mills and warehouses, empty and evidently dropping to decay. But it is more bustling than many other towns in Ireland, and has perhaps not sunk quite so deeply into the Slough of Despond. And then again, as the towering mass of the Belfast Bank in the main street warned me as I walked back through the village, we were getting nearer to the hustling north! The little train we were to take for Donegal backed up to the platform soon after I reached the station. It is a narrow-gauge road, and the coaches are miniature affairs, scarcely high enough to stand up in, as we found when we entered. And just then the heavens opened, and the rain poured down in sheets. We closed door and windows, and congratulated ourselves that we were snug and dry--and then the other passengers began to arrive, soaked through and dripping wet; and as the train consisted of only two coaches, our compartment was soon invaded by two women and two girls, whose gowns were fairly plastered to them. They dried themselves as well as they could, but little streams of water continued to trickle off of them for half an hour. The road runs through a bare, bleak valley for the first part of the way, clinging perilously to the hillside, and then climbs steeply over the watershed into the valley of the Ballintra, which is green and smiling and apparently prosperous; and at last winds down along the shore of Donegal Bay, through a district of orchards and lush meadows and beautiful hedges and comfortable houses, and so into the picturesque town--Dunna-Gall, the Fort of the Strangers--the ancient seat of the O'Donnells; but to me Donegal, town and county, has one connotation which overshadows all others, and that is with Father O'Flynn. Just where he lived I don't know, but the tribute which Alfred Perceval Graves paid him is the most eloquent ever paid in rhyme to any priest--and, as a comment upon the efforts of selfish politicians to fan the flame of religious bigotry in Ireland, it is worth remembering that it was written by a Protestant! Do you know the poem? Well, if you do, you will be glad to read it again, and if you do not, you will have every reason to thank me for introducing you to it; so, just to give myself the pleasure of writing it, I am going to quote it entire, for it would be a crime to leave out a line of it. FATHER O'FLYNN Of priests we can offer a charmin' variety, Far renowned for larnin' and piety; Still, I'd advance ye widout impropriety, Father O'Flynn as the flower of them all. Here's a health to you, Father O'Flynn, _Sláinte_ and _sláinte_ and _sláinte_ agin; Powerfulest preacher, and Tinderest teacher, and Kindliest creature in ould Donegal. Don't talk of your Provost and Fellows of Trinity, Famous forever at Greek and Latinity, Faix! and the divels and all at Divinity-- Father O'Flynn'd make hares of them all! Come, I vinture to give ye my word, Niver the likes of his logic was heard, Down from mythology Into thayology, Troth! and conchology if he'd the call. Och! Father O'Flynn, you've the wonderful way wid you, All ould sinners are wishful to pray wid you, All the young childer are wild for to play wid you, You've such a way wid you, Father avick! Still, for all you've so gentle a soul, Gad, you've your flock in the grandest control, Checking the crazy ones, Coaxin' onaisy ones, Liftin' the lazy ones on wid the stick. And, though quite avoidin' all foolish frivolity, Still, at all seasons of innocent jollity, Where was the play-boy could claim an equality At comicality, Father, wid you? Once the Bishop looked grave at your jest, Till this remark set him off wid the rest: "Is it lave gaiety All to the laity? Cannot the clargy be Irishmen too?" There is a quaint old inn in Donegal, with dining and sitting rooms crowded with "curiosities" gathered from the four quarters of the globe by the proprietor, who was once a soldier; and his daughter looks after the comfort of the guests; and we had there that night a most satisfying dinner. And then, as it was still quite light, I filled my pipe and started out to stroll about the town; but I hadn't gone far when I heard a bell being rung with great violence, and when I looked again, I saw the small boy who was ringing it; and when he passed me, I asked him what the matter was, and he handed me a poster, printed most gorgeously in red and black, and these were the first lines of it: TOWN HALL, DONEGAL Monday Evg., June 23rd, 1913 MONSTER ATTRACTION Powerful Performance! For the Benefit of Mr. Joe Cullen, The Donegal Old Favourite On which occasion the ladies and gentlemen of the Donegal Amateur Dramatic and Variety Club will Appear. Then followed the programme. There were to be four scenes from "The Ever Popular Play Entitled Robert Emmet," also "The Laughable Sketch Entitled The Cottage by the Sea," also "The Irish Farce, Miss Muldowedy from Ireland," the whole to be interspersed with variety turns by members of the club, as well as Mr. Cullen. "Don't Miss This Treat," the poster concluded. "Motto, 'Fun without Vulgarity.'" Blessing the chance which had brought us to Donegal upon this day, I hastened back to the hotel, showed the poster to Betty, and three minutes later, we were sallying forth in quest of the town-hall, whose entrance proved to be up a little court just across the street. The prices of admission, so the bill announced, were "2s., 1s. and 6d.," and I consulted with the abashed young man at the door as to which seats we should take. He advised the shilling ones, and we thereupon paid and entered. I wondered afterwards where the two shilling seats were, for the shilling ones were the best in the house. Although it was nearly time for the performance to begin, we were almost the first arrivals; but we soon heard heavy feet mounting the stair, and quite a crowd of men and boys began to file into the sixpenny seats at the rear. A few girls and women came forward into the shilling seats; but from the look of them, I suspected that they were deadheads, and I fear that Mr. Cullen did not reap a great fortune from that benefit! There was a tiny stage at one end of the hall, and the stage-manager, after the habit of all such, was having his troubles, for he could not get the footlights--a strip of gas-pipe with holes in it--to work. We thought for a while that he was going to blow himself up, and the whole house along with him; but he gave up the struggle, at last; the pianist played an overture, and the curtain rose. I have never seen the whole of "Robert Emmet," but from what I saw of it that night, I judge that it must have been written for a star, for nobody does much talking except Emmet himself. He, however, does a lot; and it was fortunate that, in this instance, he was impersonated by Mr. Cullen, for I am sure none of the other actors could have learned the part. Mr. Cullen proved to be a hatchet-faced old gentleman without any teeth; but he had a pleasing voice, and Emmet's grandiloquent speech from the dock was greeted with applause. Of the two farces I will say nothing, except that they were really not so bad as one would expect, once the actors had recovered from their embarrassment when they perceived two strangers present; but the feature of the evening was the songs, which were many and various and well-rendered. I remember only one of them, which we then heard for the first time, but which we were to hear many times thereafter, a lilting, catchy air, in which the audience assisted with the chorus, which ran something like this: It's a long way to Tipperary, It's a long way to go; It's a long way to Tipperary, The sweetest land I know. Good-bye, Piccadilly, Farewell, Leicester Square; It's a long, long way to Tipperary, But my heart is there. It is the old, old theme of the Irish exile longing for home; the theme of I know not how many poems, from the time of St. Columba, banished overseas and "thinking long" of Derry mine, my own oak grove, Little cell, my home, my love; down through Father Dollard's lilting "Song of the Little Villages": The pleasant little villages that grace the Irish glynns Down among the wheat-fields--up amid the whins; The little white-walled villages, crowding close together, Clinging to the Old Sod in spite of wind and weather: Ballytarsney, Ballymore, Ballyboden, Boyle, Ballingarry, Ballymagorry by the Banks of Foyle, Ballylaneen, Ballyporeen, Bansha, Ballysadare, Ballybrack, Ballinalack, Barna, Ballyclare, to the tender verses by Stephen Gwynne with which I will close this already, perhaps, too-poetical chapter: Ireland, oh, Ireland! centre of my longings, Country of my fathers, home of my heart, Overseas you call me, "Why an exile from me? Wherefore sea-severed, long leagues apart?" As the shining salmon, homeless in the sea-depths, Hears the river call him, scents out the land, Leaps and rejoices in the meeting of the waters, Breasts weir and torrent, nests him in the sand; Lives there and loves; yet with the year's returning, Rusting in his river, pines for the sea; Sweeps down again to the ripple of the tideway, Roamer of the ocean, vagabond and free. Wanderer am I, like the salmon of thy rivers; London is my ocean, murmurous and deep, Tossing and vast; yet through the roar of London Reaches me thy summons, calls me in sleep. Pearly are the skies in the country of my fathers, Purple are thy mountains, home of my heart: Mother of my yearning, love of all my longings, Keep me in remembrance, long leagues apart. CHAPTER XXV THE MAIDEN CITY ASs far back as its history goes, Donegal was the seat of the O'Donnells, that powerful clan of which the choicest flowers were Hugh Roe and Red Hugh, and here they had their castle, on a small bluff overlooking the waters of the River Eask. It still stands there, remarkably well-preserved considering its vicissitudes, one of the handsomest semi-fortified buildings in existence anywhere. It is by far the most interesting thing to be seen in the town of Donegal, and we set out for it immediately after breakfast next morning. Donegal we found by daylight to be a pleasant little town, with a single street of two-storied houses curving down over the hill toward the river, and a few narrow lanes branching off from it, after the traditional fashion of the Irish village. The castle is nestled in a bend of the river, which defends it on two sides, and there is still a trace of the moat which used to defend the other two. The best view of it is from the bridge crossing the river, and surprisingly beautiful it is, with its gabled towers and square bartizan turrets and mullioned windows. The picture opposite this page shows how the castle looks from the land side, with one of the square turrets, perfectly preserved; but the mullioned windows are the most striking feature of this side of the building, which was the domestic side, and so had larger openings than the one overlooking the river, which was more open to attack. Just when the castle was built no one knows, but it was thoroughly restored and largely added to by Sir Basil Brooke, to whom it was granted after the confiscation in 1610, when the power of the O'Donnells was finally broken. Red Hugh was really the last of the line, and his short life of twenty-eight years was more crowded with adventure than that of most heroes of romance. He was the son of Hugh O'Donnell, head of the clan, and of a high-spirited daughter of the Lord of the Isles, Innen Dhu Mac Donnell, whom Hugh of the Red Hair resembled in more ways than one. He was kidnapped by the English when only thirteen, and taken to Dublin and imprisoned in the castle there, as a hostage for his father's good behaviour. A year later, he managed to escape; was recaptured, escaped again; and, by remarkable cunning and daring, eluded the pursuers who were close after him, and got through to Donegal. He arrived there to find a great force of English camped about the place; but, half dead with exposure as he was, he mustered a force of his clansmen, marched on the English and put them to rout--a good beginning for a boy of fourteen. From that time forward, he was the firebrand which kept all Ireland alight against the invaders; but at last, as has happened so frequently in Irish history, a traitor in his own camp overthrew him--his cousin and brother-in-law, Nial Garv the Fierce, who, being older than Hugh, thought that he should have had the O'Donnellship and been crowned at the Rock of Doon, and so grew jealous of the red haired lad, and ended by going over to the English. There was red battle between them after that, and the English were treated to the pleasant spectacle of Irishmen slaying each other; but Hugh was called away to Kinsale to join the Spaniards, stopping at Holy Cross on the way, as we have seen, for the Abbot's blessing, and then going on to a ruinous defeat. He went to Spain, after that, to plead for more help, and died there, of poison it is said, at the age of twenty-eight, and lies buried at Valladolid. His brother, Rory O'Donnell, was recognised by the English and made Earl of Tyrconnell, but at the end of a year or two he found himself so surrounded with intrigue that, in fear for his life, he gathered up such of his belongings as he could and fled the country. O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, fled with him, and this "flight of the earls" was the end of Irish power in the north of Ireland, for their estates were declared forfeit, and divided among adherents of the English court. Nial Garv, who had contributed so much to the O'Donnells' overthrow, put in a claim for their estates, but was arrested and sent to the Tower of London and left to rot there till he died. Such was the end of Donegal as the seat of a Celtic Princedom, for the new prince was an Englishman, Sir Basil Brooke. It is his imprint you will see upon the castle as it exists to-day--particularly in the great sculptured chimney-piece which stands in what was once the banqueting hall, and which is a marvel of elaborate, though not very finished, carving. Brooke was a Catholic and a royalist, a supporter of Charles I, and after the fall of that unlucky monarch, was imprisoned in the Tower and his estate declared forfeited to the Parliament. The old castle, now the property of the Earl of Arran, fell gradually to ruin, until to-day only the shell remains. Next to the chimney-piece, the most interesting feature of the interior is the vaulting of the lower rooms, which are lighted only by narrow slits like loopholes. This vaulting is made of flat stones, an inch or two in thickness, set on edge, and though rough enough, is as firm to-day as the day it was put in place. As we came out of the grounds, we were accosted by an old man with a flowing white beard, who suggested that we visit his tweed depot, just across the street, and see for ourselves what Donegal tweeds really were. He was so pleasant about it that we couldn't refuse; and to say that we were astonished when we stepped inside his shop would be putting it mildly, for there, in that village of twelve hundred people, was the largest stock of tweeds and other Irish weaves that I have ever seen. The place was fairly jammed with great rolls of cloth; and when we said we weren't especially interested in tweeds, but might be in a steamer-rug, he led us up to a wide balcony and produced rug after rug; beautiful rugs, soft and thick, pure wool in ever fibre. Of course we succumbed! Mr. Timony, for such was the old man's name, was very proud of his shop, as he had a right to be, and of his American custom. He told us that President Woodrow Wilson and William Randolph Hearst had both been among his visitors, and he evidently considered them equally distinguished! It had begun to shower again by the time we tore ourselves away from Mr. Timony, and Betty elected to return to the hotel; but I wanted to see the ruins of the old abbey, a little way down the river, and walked out to it. There is scarcely more left of it than there is of Assaroe--just some fragments of ivy-clad wall standing in the midst of a graveyard, as may be seen from the picture opposite page 438. The graveyard is still used, and when I got there, I found three men trying to decide on the site for a grave, while the diggers stood by, with their long-handled spades, waiting the word to begin. They had a hard time finding a place, for the graveyard is crowded, like most Irish ones, and they wandered about from place to place for quite a while. That so little is left of the abbey is due to the fact that in 1601, Nial Garv took possession of the place, and Red Hugh besieged him there, and in some way Garv's store of gunpowder exploded and tore the buildings to pieces. All of which is told in that priceless volume of Irish history which was written here, the "Annals of the Four Masters," a book of eleven hundred quarto pages, which, by some miracle of luck, has been preserved. The "four masters" were four monks of the abbey, and it is largely to their labours we owe what history we have of the times in which they lived. There are a few arches of the cloisters still standing, and they resemble those at Sligo not only in shape and character, but also in the fact that repeated burials have raised the ground about them many feet above its ancient level, so that what was once a lofty arched doorway can now be passed only by stooping low. Hugh Roe O'Donnell and his wife, Fingalla, who founded the monastery for the Franciscans in 1474, are said to be buried here, but I did not find their graves. There is also a legend that castle and abbey were at one time connected by a secret passage, but I scarcely believe it, for they are a long way apart. The rain was sheeting down in earnest when I finally left the place, but the gravediggers were bending to their task, quite oblivious of the downpour. * * * * * We bade good-bye to Donegal that afternoon, and took train for Londonderry and the "Black North." And it was not long before we realised that we had turned our backs upon the Ireland of the Irish and entered the Ireland of the English and the Scotch--a very different country! Just outside of Donegal, we witnessed one of those leave-takings, which have occurred a million times in Ireland during the past fifty years. As the train stopped at a little station, we saw that the platform was crowded, and then we perceived the cause. A boy and two girls, some seventeen or eighteen years old, were setting out for Derry to take ship for America, and their relatives and friends had come down to see them off. There were tears in every eye, and if blessings have any virtue, enough were showered on that trio that afternoon to see them safely through life. The guard came along presently, and hustled them into the compartment ahead of ours--he had seen such scenes a hundred times, I suppose, and had long since ceased to be impressed by them--and then the three children hung out of the door and took a last look at their people; and then the engine whistled and the train started slowly, and one man, his face working convulsively, began to run along beside it, then suddenly recollected himself, and stopped with a jerk. The whole country-side must have known that the three were going, for every house for miles had a group of men and women out to wave at them as the train passed; and the exiles waved and waved back, and leaned out and gazed at the country they were leaving, as though to impress its every feature on their minds. And indeed it is a beautiful country, for the road follows the valley of the Eask, and presently Lough Eask opened before us, lying in a deep basin at the foot of lofty hills--such hills as cover the whole of Donegal and make it one of the most picturesque of Irish counties. Beyond the lake, the line traverses one of the wildest valleys we had seen in Ireland, the Gap of Barnesmore--a bleak, rock-strewn defile, with a little stream running at the bottom and the post-road following its windings; but the railway line has been laid, most perilously it seemed, right along the face of the mountain. There were evidences of land-slips here and there, and it was plain that great boulders were always rolling down, so I should fancy that a sharp watch has to be kept on those five miles of road-bed. But we got across without accident, and the views out over the valley and the Donegal mountains were superb--I only wish we had had time to explore them more thoroughly. Just beyond the gap, the line passes Lough Mourne, a melancholy little lake set in a framework of bleak hills, and then runs on across a still bleaker moor; but gradually, as the hills are left behind, the character of the country changes, the houses become more numerous, the fields larger and less stony, one sees an orchard here and there--and then, quite suddenly, the whole landscape becomes prosperous and pastoral, and we caught our first glimpse of wide fields covered with a light and vivid green, which we knew was the green of flax. After that, there was no time, until we left Ireland, that this new and lovely tint was not among the other tints of whatever landscape we might be looking at. We paused for a moment at the prosperous little town of Stranorlar, and then went on northwards, past one village after another, along the valley of the Finn, to Strabane--like Leenane, pronounced to rhyme with "fan." We had an hour or two to wait here, so we walked up into the town, and had lunch at a pleasant inn, and then took a look about the place; and I think it was then we began to realise that the picturesque part of Ireland was behind us. Certainly there is nothing picturesque about Strabane, although it resembles most other Irish towns in having a huge workhouse and jail. But it has also some large shirt-factories, whence came the whirr of machinery, and where we could see the girls and women in long rows bending to their tasks; and it has great ware-houses, not falling to ruin like those of Galway and Westport and Ballyshannon, but filled with merchandise and busy with men and drays. We were so unaccustomed to such a sight that we stopped and looked at it for quite a while. It is a fifteen mile run from Strabane to Derry, for the most part along the bank of the Foyle, through a beautiful and prosperous country, with many villages clustered among the trees; and at six o'clock we reached the "Maiden City,"--by far the busiest town we had seen since Dublin. In fact, as we turned up past the old walls and came to the centre of the town, the bustle of business and roar of traffic seemed to me to surpass Dublin; and more than once, when we were settled in our room, the unaccustomed noise drew us to the window to see what was going on. We went out, presently, to see that portion of the town which stands within the ancient walls; but before I describe that excursion, I shall have to tell something of what those walls stand for. Fourteen hundred years ago--in 546, to be exact--Columba, greatest of Irish saints after Patrick and Brigid, passed this way, and stopping in the oak grove which clothed the hill on which the town now stands, was so impressed with the lovely situation, that he founded an abbey there, which was known as Daire-Columbkille--Columba's Oak-grove. There was another reason, perhaps, besides the beauty of the spot, which persuaded the Saint to choose this site for his monastery, and that was the nearness of the great fort on Elagh mountain, the stronghold of the Lord of Tyrone. He doubtless hoped that, in the shadow of that mighty cashel, his abbey would be safe from spoliation; but in this he was disappointed, for its position on a navigable river, so close to the sea, made it easy prey to the Danes and the Saxons, and they sailed up to it time and again and laid it waste. But it grew in importance in spite of repeated burnings, and it held off the English longer than most, for, though it was plundered by Strongbow's men in 1195, and included in the grant to Richard de Burgo, the Red Earl of Ulster, in 1311, it was not until 1609, two years after that "flight of the earls" which left Tyrone and Tyrconnell confiscated to the English, that it was really conquered. In confiscating this vast domain, as in all previous and subsequent confiscations in Ireland, the English crown proceeded upon the theory that all the land a chief ruled over belonged to that chief; but in Ireland this was not at all the case, for there the land belonged, and always had belonged, not to the chief but to his people. This, however, was not allowed to interfere in any way with its re-apportionment among court favourites and companies of adventurers; and Derry, together with a vast tract of land about it, was granted to the Corporation of London, which thereupon proceeded to re-name it Londonderry, in token of its subserviency. Three years later, the Irish Society for the New Plantation in Ulster was formed, and to it was granted the towns of Coleraine and Londonderry, with seven thousand acres of land and the fisheries of the Foyle and the Bann. The society was pledged to enclose Derry with walls, and these were laid out and built in 1617. They were strong and serviceable, as may be seen to this day, and so wide that a carriage and four could drive along the top of them. The new colonists were mostly Protestants, and in the war which soon followed between King Charles and the Parliament naturally chose the Republican side, so that Derry quickly became the centre of resistance to royalty in Ulster. The town prospered under the Commonwealth, but the ups and downs of Irish politics after the Restoration kept it in a perpetual turmoil. I have already told how, after the fall of Charles I, Cromwell's army conquered Ireland, drove the Irish to the hills west of the Shannon, and divided the fertile land among the Puritan soldiers and the adherents of the Parliament. When Charles II was restored to the throne, part of the price exacted from him for that restoration was the so-called Act of Settlement, in which this division of the land among its Protestant conquerors was confirmed. That the Irish should protest against the injustice of this was natural enough; and that, once seated on the throne, the king should give ear to the protestations was natural too, since the Irish had been his father's allies and had lost their lands in fighting his battles for him. So, while Irish Catholic Ireland brought heavy pressure to bear on the king, English Protestant Ireland was on pins and needles through fear of what might happen. Finally the Cromwellians agreed to surrender a third of the estates in their possession, and on this basis peace of a sort was patched up. That was in 1665, and it looked for a while as though Protestant and Catholic would thereafter be able to live together in amity, for there was a general revival of industry which resulted in a prosperity the country had seldom known, and a consequent abatement of religious discord. But Charles died, and his brother, James II, at once proceeded to remodel the Irish army upon a Catholic basis, even going so far as partially to disarm the Protestants, who of course immediately concluded that they were all going to be massacred in revenge for Drogheda. But James soon found himself facing a rebellion in England, and in 1688 a large force of Irish troops were transported to England to help him hold his throne. Among these troops was the regiment which had been stationed at Derry; and when, alarmed at the attitude of the town, the king attempted to throw another garrison into it, rebellion flamed up swift and fierce, and some apprentice boys seized the keys of the city gates and closed and locked them in the face of the royal army. Enniskillen followed suit, and everywhere throughout the north of Ireland, the Protestants began to form town companies and to arm and drill for their own defence. Thus was organised the first "army of Ulster"! It was soon to be needed--as I hope and believe the latest one will never be! Certain English leaders, determined to get rid of James at any cost, had invited William Prince of Orange to bring an army to England to restore liberty and rescue Protestantism from the destruction which seemed to threaten it. William, it should be remembered, stood very near the English throne, for his mother was the eldest daughter of Charles I, and his wife was his own cousin, the eldest daughter of Charles's son, James II. William, who had been expecting such an invitation, at once gathered a great army together and landed in England in November. James, finding himself detested and deserted by all parties, fled to France; and William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Ireland, of course, was still in rebellion. There is no more pathetic page of Irish history than that which tells of Irish loyalty to the Stuarts; for the Stuarts cared nothing for Ireland, but only for themselves, and used the Irish merely as pawns in their selfish struggle for power. The poor Irish stood firm for James, and got a great army together; and James came over from France with a small French force, and together they marched against Derry, which the Protestants still held, but which James expected to capture with little difficulty. The commander at Derry was a man named Robert Lundy, a Protestant and soldier of some experience, but he seems to have been a Jacobite at heart for, after one skirmish near Strabane, he held a council of war, recommended immediate surrender, ordered that there should be no firing, and sent word to James that the city was ready to submit. But he had reckoned without Derry's militant spirit; for when news of his decision got abroad, the people sprang to arms, and Lundy escaped with his life only by fleeing in disguise. Meanwhile, the Rev. George Walker and Major Henry Baker and Captain Adam Murray, three militants to the backbone, took charge of affairs and put Derry in the best state of defence possible; but the outlook was not bright. Military opinion was agreed that the town could not hold out against such an army as James was bringing against it; it seemed likely that to defend it would be to invite another Drogheda; and while the debate in the town council was still raging, James appeared under the walls expecting an immediate surrender. Negotiations were begun; but the sight of the Catholic army was the last thing needed to inflame the townsmen. A group of them managed to get a cannon pointed in the king's direction and touched it off. The ball is said to have passed so close to him that the wind of it blew off his hat; at any rate, the negotiations ended then and there, and with a shout of "No surrender!" Derry prepared for the struggle. That was the eighteenth day of April, 1689, and for fifteen weeks the town held out against a strict siege, which nothing could break. There were assaults and sallies, a bombardment which killed many people--all the accompaniments of a siege, with the final accompaniment of famine. It was the old story of horseflesh, mice and rats and even salted hides being greedily devoured; of a garrison thinning wofully from death and disease; but though there seemed to be no choice except starvation or surrender, nobody thought of surrender. And then, on Sunday, July 28th, a relief fleet which had been hovering uncertainly at the mouth of the harbour for some weeks, ran the batteries, broke the boom across the river, swept up to the city, and the siege was ended. Such was the siege of Derry. A thousand incidents, impossible to set down here, are treasured in the minds of every inhabitant; and, lest the great event should ever be forgotten, two anniversaries connected with it are celebrated every year, on December 18th the Closing of the Gates against the King's Army, and on August 12th the Raising of the Siege. There are processions and meetings and speeches of a very Protestant character, and at the December festival the effigy of the perfidious Lundy is hanged and burnt--not without some little rioting, for rather more than half the population of Derry is Catholic and Nationalist. One of the popular airs upon these occasions is, of course, "Boyne Water," and another is about Derry herself. It is called THE MAIDEN CITY Where Foyle his swelling waters rolls northward to the main, Here, Queen of Erin's daughters, fair Derry fixed her reign; A holy temple crowned her, and commerce graced her street, A rampart wall was round her, the river at her feet; And here she sat alone, boys, and, looking from the hill, Vowed the Maiden on her throne, boys, would be a Maiden still. From Antrim crossing over, in famous eighty-eight, A plumed and belted lover came to the Ferry Gate: She summoned to defend her our sires--a beardless race-- They shouted "No Surrender!" and slammed it in his face. Then, in a quiet tone, boys, they told him 'twas their will That the Maiden on her throne, boys, should be a Maiden still. Next, crushing all before him, a kingly wooer came (The royal banner o'er him blushed crimson deep for shame); He showed the Pope's commission, nor dreamed to be refused; She pitied his condition, but begged to stand excused. In short, the fact is known, boys, she chased him from the hill, For the Maiden on her throne, boys, would be a Maiden still. On our peaceful sires descending, 'twas then the tempest broke, Their peaceful dwellings rending, 'mid blood and flame and smoke. That hallowed graveyard yonder swells with the slaughtered dead-- O brothers! pause and ponder--it was for us they bled; And while their gift we own, boys--the fane that tops our hill-- Oh! the Maiden on her throne, boys, shall be a Maiden still! Nor wily tongue shall move us, nor tyrant arm affright, We'll look to One above us who ne'er forsook the right; Who will, may crouch and tender the birthright of the free, But, brothers, "No Surrender!" no compromise for me! We want no barrier stone, boys, no gates to guard the hill, Yet the Maiden on her throne, boys, shall be a Maiden still! There is a good marching song, if there ever was one--a song to make the heart leap and the spirit sing, when a thousand voices roar it in unison; and it very fairly represents the spirit of Derry and of the whole of Protestant Ulster--a spirit which is admirable, though often mistaken, and sometimes made use of for base and selfish ends. The song was written by a woman, a native of Derry, of course, Charlotte Tonna, some sixty years ago; and it is a song of which Ireland, north and south, should be proud. Let me tell here, as briefly as may be, the rest of the story of that ill-fated rebellion, of which Derry wrote one terrific chapter, for unless we know it, it will be impossible for us to understand Ulster. The relief of the Maiden City was followed by the complete defeat of the royal army before Enniskillen, and no further attempt was made to subjugate the north of Ireland. James took up headquarters at Dublin, and every nerve was strained to recruit an army capable of withstanding the one which William was certain to bring into Ireland. The king of France sent seven thousand veterans, with a park of artillery and large stores of arms and ammunition, every device of religious and racial hatred was employed to persuade Irishmen to enlist; so that when, on June 30, 1690, the Protestant and Catholic armies stood facing each other on either side Boyne River, a few miles above Drogheda, the Protestants had no very great numerical advantage. In discipline and general efficiency, however, their advantage was immense, and the odds against James were so great that it was folly for him to risk a battle; but he could not make up his mind what to do, and in consequence, when William threw his troops across the river, he caught the Irish unprepared, and defeated them after a brisk engagement. James was the first to gallop from the field. He reached Dublin that night, snatched a few hours' rest, and then pressed on to Waterford, where he took ship for France. Deprived of their cowardly leader, and perhaps with some comprehension of how they had been betrayed, the Irish would have been glad to lay down their arms on terms of a general amnesty, which William, for his part, was willing to grant. But the English settlers intervened. They had been compelled to restore to the Irish a third of the estates which the Commonwealth had confiscated; there were thousands of other fertile acres which the settlers coveted; and, as a result of their influence, the amnesty, when finally published, was confined to the tenant and the landless man. In consequence, the Irish army was held together by Tyrconnell and Sarsfield, and the rebellion did not end until Athlone, Cork, Kinsale, Limerick, and finally Galway had been captured by the English. The Irish troops were permitted to go to France and enlist in the king's army, as has been told already; and so ended the hope of placing a Catholic monarch on the English throne. So ended, too, for more than two centuries, Catholic liberty in Ireland. It is this Protestant triumph which is so dear to Ulster, and which the walls of Derry have been preserved to commemorate. Their preservation is a great inconvenience to the inhabitants of that town, but any one who proposed to remove them would be treated as a traitor. They circle the steep hill upon which the oldest part of the town is built, and when one wishes to enter it, one must go around to one of the gates. There are seven gates, now, instead of the original four; but it takes quite a walk, sometimes, to get to one, for the walls are something over a mile around. But no patriotic resident would think of objecting to this--indeed, the walk gives him time to meditate upon his city's glory and to thank the Lord that he was born there. I suspect that the Catholics of Derry are just as proud of the walls as the Protestants are. It so happened that there was a gate not far from our hotel, so we passed through it, and found ourselves confronted by one of the steepest streets I have ever seen. The hill on which the old citadel was built slopes very abruptly on this side toward the river, and no attempt has been made to cut it down. We managed to climb it, and came out upon the so-called Diamond--the square at the centre of the town where the old town hall once stood, but which has now, to quote Murray, "been converted into a pleasant garden by the London Companies." For it should be remembered that the grant made to the London Companies three hundred years ago is still in force. The Diamond is the heart of the town, and from it four arteries radiate, running to the four original gates; other smaller streets zig-zag away in various directions, and everywhere is the vigorous flow of life and trade. The shops are bright and attractive, and that evening crowds of girls, freed from the day's labour in the factories, were loitering past them, arm in arm, staring in at the windows and chattering among themselves. They were distinctly livelier than the factory girls of Athlone, and I judge that life is easier for them and that they are better paid. We walked about for a long time, and then, for want of something better to do, went to a moving-picture show. I have forgotten all the pictures but two--a meeting of the Knights of the Garter at Windsor and a review of a body of English cavalry. In the former, King George and Queen Mary twice passed slowly before the audience; in the latter, the king, on a spirited horse, cantered down the field and then took his station in the foreground while his troops galloped past. It was a stirring scene; but the audience watched it in stony, almost breathless silence, without the shadow of applause--and this in "loyal Derry"! I am inclined to think that, with reference to England, the north of Ireland and the south of Ireland are "sisters under their skins." We had been wondering, during the final reel, how we were going to find our way back to the hotel through the dark and unfamiliar streets, for it was nearly ten o'clock; and we came out into them with a start of astonishment, for it was still quite light, with the street lights not yet on. So we loitered about for half an hour longer; and then, from the balcony in front of our window, sat watching for an hour more the fascinating life flowing past below us. One feature of it was a boy quartette,--one of the boys with a clear, high soprano voice,--which sang very sweetly, "It's a long way to Tipperary"; and then, just as we began to think everybody had gone to bed, there came a blast of martial music down the street, and the tramp of feet, and a company of men swung past, going heaven knows where; but the fife-and-drum corps which marched at their head was making the windows rattle with "The Maiden on her throne, boys, shall be a Maiden still!" It was the first of many such processions we were to see during our remaining weeks in Ireland. CHAPTER XXVI THE GRAINAN OF AILEACH DERRY has a charm--the charm of the hive--for it is a busy town, and a cheerful one. It is only on mooted anniversaries, I fancy, or when some fire-brand politician comes to town, that the Protestants and Catholics amuse themselves by breaking each other's heads. At other times they must work amicably side by side. At least, I saw nobody idle; and Catholics and Protestants alike were plainly infected by the same spirit of hustle. The cause of the difference between the north and south of Ireland has been hotly debated for a hundred years. Why is the north energetic and prosperous, while the south is lazy and poverty-stricken? Some say it is the difference in climate, others the difference in religion. I could perceive no great difference in the climate, and as for religion--strange as it may seem to those who think of Ulster only in the light of Orange manifestoes--there are almost as many Catholics as Protestants in the north of Ireland. My own opinion is that the Celt is easy-going in the south and industrious in the north because of the environment. "Canny" is undoubtedly the best of all adjectives to apply to the Scotch--they are congenitally thrifty and industrious. The Celt, on the other hand, is congenitally easy-going and unambitious. Left to himself, among his own people, weighted with centuries of repression, he falls into a lethargy from which it is impossible to awaken him--from which, I sometimes think, he will never be awakened. But put him in another environment, and he soon catches its spirit. At least, his children catch it, and their children are confirmed in it--and there you are. Put them back in the old environment, and in another generation or two they will have slipped back into the old habits of carelessness and improvidence. This, it seems to me, is the Irishman's history not only in the north of Ireland, but here in America. He is adaptable, impressionable, and plastic. * * * * * It would be absurd for any one to go to Derry without making a circuit of the walls, and this we proceeded to do next morning. We mounted them at the New Gate, where they are at least twenty-five feet high. There is a promenade on top about fifteen feet wide, and along the outer edge the old cannon given by the London companies still frown down through the embrasures of the battlement. Outside the wall there was originally a moat, but this has disappeared, and so have many of the old bastions. A few of them still remain--the double bastion where the fruitful gallows stood, and from which the noisy old gun, affectionately christened "Roaring Meg," still points out over the town. And back of the cathedral, the old wall stands as it stood during the siege, with its high protecting parapet, crowned with little loop-holed turrets. The cathedral itself is a quaint, squat structure, with pinnacled tower, standing in the midst of a crowded graveyard, the most prominent object in which is an obelisk erected over the bodies of those who fell in the siege. The inscription, as is fitting, is long and eloquent. The church itself is comparatively modern and uninteresting, but it is filled with trophies of the siege--a bomb-shell containing a summons to surrender which fell in the cathedral yard, the flags taken from the French during a sally, memorials of the Rev. Mr. Walker, and so on. It is still called after St. Columba, although the abbey built by the Saint stood outside the present walls. A little distance past the cathedral is another bastion which has been turned into a foundation for the great monument to Walker--a fluted column ninety feet high, surmounted by a statue of the hero, his Bible in one hand. Time was when he held a sword in the other, but legend has it that the sword fell with a crash on the day that O'Connell won Catholic emancipation for Ireland. A fierce controversy has raged about the part Walker really played in the siege; and it is probable that he at least shared the honours with Murray and Baker. However that may be, he must have been an inspiring figure, as he walked about the walls, with his white hair and impassioned face and commanding vigour--a vigour which his seventy-two years seem nowise to have impaired; and his end was inspiring, too, for he did not rest quietly at home, content with his laurels, as most men would have done. Instead, he joined William's army, was in the forefront at the Battle of the Boyne, and managed to get killed there while exhorting the troops to do their duty. * * * * * The town of Derry has long since outgrown the old walls, but there is little else worth seeing there, unless one is interested in a busy port, or in humming factories, or rumbling mills, or clattering foundries. Of these there is full store. But a few miles to the west, on the summit of a hill looking down upon Lough Swilly, is the cashel which was once the stronghold of the Kings of Ulster, and for it I set out that afternoon. Murray, with that vagueness delightful in the Irish but exasperating in a guide-book, remarks that "it can be reached from Bridge End Station on the Buncrana line," so I proceeded to the station of the Buncrana line on the outskirts of the town, and bought a ticket to Bridge End Station. The ticket seller had apparently never heard of the Grainan of Aileach, as the cashel is called, and seemed rather to doubt if such a thing existed at all; but I determined to trust to luck, and took my seat in the little train which presently backed in along the platform. The Buncrana line is, I judge, a small affair; at any rate, the train was very primitive, and the two men who shared the compartment with me complained bitterly of the poor service the railroads give the people of Ireland. They said it was a shame and a disgrace, and that no free people would put up with the insults and ignominy which the railroads heap upon the Irish, and much more to the same effect. I had heard this complaint before and have read it in more than one book; but I never had any real cause of complaint myself. Beyond a tendency to let the passengers look out for themselves, the guards are as courteous as guards anywhere; and only once, on the occasion of the race-meeting at Charleville, did we suffer from crowding. This was not because we travelled first, because we didn't--we travelled second; and when I was alone, I always travelled third, as I would advise any one to do who wishes really to meet the people. Bridge End Station is only a few minutes' run from Derry, and when I got off there, I asked the man who took my ticket if he could direct me to the cashel. "I can," he said; "but it is a long way from here, and a stiff climb. Do you see that hill yonder?" and he pointed to a lofty peak some miles away. "It is there you will find the fort, right on the very top." "Have you ever been there?" I asked. "I have not, though I'm thinking I will go some day, for them that have seen it tell me it is a wonderful sight. But 'tis a long walk." "Well, I'm going to try for it," I said, and hitched my camera under my arm. "How do I start?" "By that road yonder; and turn to your right at the village. Good luck to you, sir." I could see he didn't really believe I would get to the cashel; but I set off happily along the road, between high hedges; and presently I passed a village, and turned to the right, as he had told me; and then two barefooted children caught up with me, on their way home from school. They knew the way to the cashel very well, though they had never been there either; and presently they left me and struck off across the fields; and then I came to a place where the road forked, and stopped to ask a man who was wheeling manure from a big stable which way to go. He too was astonished that any one should start off so carelessly on such an expedition; but he directed me up a narrow by-way, which soon began to climb steeply; and then the valley beneath me opened more and more, and finally I saw to my right the summit I was aiming for, and struck boldly toward it along a boggy path. The path led me to the rear of a thatched cottage, where two men were stacking hay. They assured me that I was on the right road, and I pushed on again for the summit, past another little house, from which a man suddenly emerged and hailed me. "Where be you going?" he demanded. "To the fort," I said. "It's up this way, isn't it?" "It might be." "Am I trespassing?" I asked, for there seemed to be an unfriendly air about him. "You are so," he answered. "I'm sorry," I stammered; "if there's another way--" "There is no other way." "Well, then, I'll have to go this way," I said. "I'll not do any harm." "That's as may be. You must pay three-pence if you wish to pass." I paid the three-pence rather than waste time in argument, which, of course, wouldn't have done any good; and his countenance became distinctly more pleasant when the pennies were in his hand, and he directed me how to go; and I started up again, over springy heather now, along a high wall of stones gathered from the field; and then the ground grew wet and boggy, just as it is on the mountains of Connemara, and I had to make a detour--the man who directed me, probably thought nothing of a little bog! A ploughman in a neighbouring field stopped work to watch me with interest until I passed from sight, and two red calves also came close to investigate the stranger; and then I crested the last ridge and saw towering before me the stronghold where Owen, son of Nial the Great, established himself to rule over his province, Tyrone. For a moment I was fairly startled at the huge apparition, grey and solitary and impressive, for I had expected no such monster edifice--a cyclopean circle of stone, looking like the handiwork of some race of giants, three hundred feet around and eighteen feet high, with a wall fourteen feet in thickness! The outer face of the wall is inclined slightly inwards, and is very smooth and regular. It is made of flat, hammer-dressed stones of various sizes, carefully fitted together, but uncemented, as with all these old forts. The stones are for the most part quite small, very different from the great blocks used in the other cashels I had seen. There is a single entrance, a doorway some five feet high by two wide, slightly inclined inward toward the top, and looking very tiny indeed in that great stretch of wall; and then my heart stood still with dismay, for there was an iron gate across the entrance, and I thought for a moment that it was locked. With a sigh of relief I found that the padlock which held it was not snapped shut, and I opened it and entered. It was as though I had stepped into some old Roman amphitheatre, for the terraces which run around it from top to bottom have the appearance of tiers of seats. They mount one above the other to the narrow platform at the top, which is guarded by a low parapet. Two flights of steps run up the slope, but an active man would have no need of them. On either side of the entrance door a gallery runs away in the thickness of the wall, opening some distance away on the interior, and designed, I suppose, to enable an extra force to defend the entrance. Of the castle which once stood within that stone circle not a trace remains, and the circle itself, as it stands to-day, is largely a restoration, for Murtagh O'Brien captured it in 1101 and did his best to destroy it, and the storms of the centuries that followed beat it down stone by stone. But these fragments have all been gathered up and put back into place, so that the great fort stands to-day much as it did in the days of its glory, except that the outworks of earth and stone which formed the first lines of defence, have disappeared. The cashel was to this great fortification what the donjon tower was to the later Norman castle--the ultimate place of refuge for the garrison. "Grainan" means a royal seat, and "Aileach," so say the Four Masters of Donegal, was a Scotch princess, "modest and blooming," who lost her heart to Owen of the Hy-Nial, and followed him back to Erin. After the division of the north of Ireland with his brother Connell, he set up his palace here--Connell's you will remember was at Donegal--and so this became the royal seat of the rulers of Tyrone. Hither came St. Patrick to baptise Owen and his family; hither came St. Columba before his exile to Iona; hither captive Danes were dragged in triumph. But at last Murtagh O'Brien, King of Munster, led a great raid to the north, and defeated the army of Tyrone and captured the mighty fortress, and made each of his soldiers carry away a stone of it in token of his triumph. [Illustration: THE WALLS OF DERRY] [Illustration: THE GRAINAN OF AILEACH] That ended its earthly glory, but it remains glorious in legend; for it is beneath its old grey walls that the Knights of the Gael stand deathless and untiring, each beside his steed with his hand upon the saddlebow, waiting the trumpet-call that shall break the charm that binds them, and release them to win back their heritage in Erin. In the caves within the hill the knights stand waiting--great vaulted chambers whose entrance no man knows. Nor does any man know when their release will come, whether to-morrow or not till centuries hence, for 'tis Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan herself who must choose the day and hour. Sore disgrace it is to see the Arbitress of thrones Vassal to a Saxoneen of cold and sapless bones! Bitter anguish wrings our souls; with heavy sighs and groans We wait the Young Deliverer of Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan. Glorious is the view from the top of those old walls. To the right is Lough Foyle, to the left Lough Swilly, with the hills of Donegal, draped in silver mist, beyond--wild, grey crags, rising one behind the other; and away to the north, beyond the wide valley, are the hills of Inishowen--Owen's Island, if you know your Irish. I have never gazed upon a more superb picture of alternating lake and hill and meadow, of flashing mountain-top and dark green valley. But if I was to get back to Derry that night, I had need to hasten; so I clambered down, after one long last look. I had still my picture to take, and made two exposures, but they give only a faint idea of the majesty of this great fort, standing here on this wild, deserted hilltop; and then I started downwards, with long steps, past the cottages, with the beautiful valley before me, back to the highway, down and down among the trees, past the village and so to the station. The guard was waiting there. "Well," he said, as I sat down mopping my face, for I had covered three miles in half an hour, "did you see the fort?" "I did so," I answered, for I had long since fallen naturally into the Irish idiom; and I told him what it was like; but I think he was unconvinced. "Was there a man stopped you?" he asked. "There was--a man at the end of the lane right under the fort, who made me pay three-pence before he would let me pass." "Ah, that would be O'Donnell," said the guard, convinced at last. "He has been given the key to keep. Did he give you the key?" "He did not. But the iron gate was unlocked." "That was by accident, I'm thinking," said the guard. "He is not caring whether one can enter or not, so long as he has his three-pence." So I would advise all wayfarers to the Grainan of Aileach to make sure that the gate of it is unlocked, or to demand the key, before surrendering their three-pence to O'Donnell. When I got into the train again, I found as a fellow-passenger one of the men who had come out from Derry with me, and after I had described the cashel to him--for he had never seen it--we got to talking about Home Rule. In spite of its militant Protestantism, Derry has a very large Catholic population, and my companion said that opinion in the town was about equally divided for and against Home Rule. "The result is," he went on, "that whenever we have a meeting, no matter which side it's on, there's sure to be a shindy, and the police has their hands full. Most of the fellys who do the fighting don't care a rap about Home Rule, but they just take pleasure in layin' a stick against somebody's head. It's all done in a friendly spirit, and next day they will be workin' side by side the same as ever. The only ones who are really fighting Home Rule are the big landlords and manufacturers, who imagine they'll get the worst of it in the matter of taxation at the hands of a Catholic parliament, and they do everything they can to keep their people stirred up. That has always been their policy; and the big Catholic employers in the south--what few of them there are--aren't a whit better. They're all afraid that if the Catholic workingmen and the Protestant workingmen once get together they'll fix up some kind of a union, and demand better wages. As long as they can be kept fighting each other, there's no danger of that; and the poor idiots haven't sense enough to see how they're being made fools of. But they'll see it some day, and then look out!" "How about this army of Ulster the papers are so full of?" My companion laughed. "There isn't any army around here, unless you can call a few hundred devil-may-care boys an army. I did hear something about some drill going on, but as far as fighting goes that's all nonsense. The boys are ready enough to crack a head with a stick, but they're the first to run when the police arrive, and they'll think a long time before they try to stand up against the British army. I'll not say that they're not more in earnest over Belfast way; but even there, a few politicians have stirred up most of the talk--Sir Edward Carson and the likes of him. It's all a political game, that's how I look at it." I walked around Derry for a time that afternoon, and so far as public buildings go, Catholicism and Protestantism seem about equally represented--and with the strangest contrasts. Across the road from St. Columb's College are the Nazareth Homes; around the corner from St. Augustine's Church is the Apprentice Boys' Hall; a few steps farther on is a Presbyterian church, and the Freemasons' Hall, and then St. Columb's Temperance Hall, and then a convent; and if you walk back again to the Diamond and make some inquiries, you will find that one of the radiating streets is the home of militant Catholics, and the next the home of militant Orangemen, and you will be accommodated with a fight at any time if you go into the latter and shout "To hell with King Billy," or into the former and shout "To hell with the Pope!" And if you buy one of the two papers which the town supports, you will read denunciations of Home Rule and contemptuous references to "croppies," while, if you buy the other, you will read denunciations just as fierce of Orange plots against Ireland. I have wondered since how much of this agitation is subsidised and how much is real. I have heard both Catholics and Protestants complain that it is kept alive in great part by professional agitators, working in very diverse interests but to a common selfish end--and that end, as my friend of the morning pointed out, the continuance and, if possible, the deepening of the rift between the two religions. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that Protestants and Catholics alike take a fierce joy in an occasional fight, as lending a real interest to life. But I am convinced that religion has really little to do with this--that it is just the peg upon which the quarrels are hung. If it wasn't that, it would probably be something else, for Irishmen have been fighting each other ever since history began. The fights at Donnybrook were as fierce as any, though there wasn't a Protestant in the crowd! The Orange Societies, of course, with their parades and taunting songs and flaunting banners and praise of Cromwell and "King Billy," do not make for peace. Usually, on such occasions, blows are exchanged; and so the name of Orangeman has come to be associated with riots. But, as another writer has pointed out, in considering these things, "you should not forget the common pugnacity. Only an Irishman can appreciate the fierce joy of shouting 'To hell with the Pope!' Many a man who had no claim to belong to the Orange Society has known the delight of breaking Catholic heads or of going down in a lost battle, outnumbered but damaging his foes to the last. And many who are slow to attend Mass, are quick to seize their cudgels when they hear the Orange bands play the tune of Boyne Water. Like the Crusaders, the Protestant and Catholic champions alike feel that by their battles they make amends for the errors and shortcomings of peace." So it is a mistake to take these rows too seriously. To an Irishman they are never serious; they are rather the innocent and natural diversions of a holiday, small events which add to the savour of existence; and, indeed, they are far less numerous and far less deadly than they once were. In time, if the people are let alone and old sores are allowed quietly to heal, they will probably cease altogether. It is a mistake, too, I think to take the Orangemen too seriously. They have such a habit of hyperbole that most Irishmen smile at their hysterics and threats of civil war as at sheer fudge. In fact, the Ulster controversy is so full of comic opera elements that it is difficult to keep from smiling at it. For instance, Sir Edward Carson's elder son is a member of the United Irish League because he believes in a united Ireland, while John Redmond's nephew and adopted son is enrolled among the Ulster Volunteers because he is opposed to coercion! Gilbert and Sullivan never invented anything more fantastic. CHAPTER XXVII THE BRIDGE OF THE GIANTS THERE is no busier place in Derry than the stretch of quays along the river, and one may see ships there not only from England and Belgium and France, but from Australia and Argentina and India and Brazil. The river is wide and deep, with the channel carefully marked by a line of buoys extending clear out into Lough Foyle; but there are no better facilities here for shipping than at any one of half a dozen ports along the western coast, all of which are silent and deserted. For a port is of no use unless there is something to ship out of it in exchange for the things which are shipped in, or money to pay for them--and there is neither in the west of Ireland. And, just as there is no more dismal sight than a line of deserted quays, so there is no more interesting sight than a line of busy ones, and we loitered for a long time, next morning, along those of Derry, on our way to the Midland station, on the other side of the river. There is a big iron bridge across the river just above the quays, but that seemed a long way around, so when we came to a sign-board announcing a ferry we stopped. My first thought was that the ferry-boat was on the other side; then I perceived a small motor-propelled skiff moored beside the quay, and one of the two men in it asked me if we were looking for the ferry, and I said yes, and he said that that was it. So we clambered down into the boat and started off; and I scarcely think that that trip paid, for we were the only passengers, and the river is wide, and gasolene is expensive, and somebody had to pay the men their wages--and the fare is only a penny. The part of the town which lies east of the river is industrial and unattractive. There are some big distilleries there, and a lot of mills and a fish-market, and row upon row of dingy dwellings; but the biggest building of all is the workhouse--one point, at least, in which the towns of the north resemble those of the south. There is another point, too--the jail, without which no Irish town is complete. Derry has one of which it is very proud--the latest word in jails, in fact--a great, circular affair, with the cells arranged in so-called "panoptic" galleries, that is in such a fashion that the guards stationed in the centre of the jailyard can see into all of them. But we had crossed the river not to see the town which lay beyond it, but to take train for Portrush, and we were soon rolling northward close beside the bank of the river, with a splendid view of "The Maiden on her hill, boys," on the opposite shore, dominated by the cathedral tower and Walker's white monument. Just before the river begins to widen into the lough, the train passes the ruins of an old castle of the O'Dohertys, standing on a point which juts out into the water--a castle which saw rather more than its share of siege and sally; for this is Culmore, which was always the first point of attack when any expedition advanced against Derry. Beyond it the water widens, and on the farther shore, which is Inishowen, there are pretty villas, standing in luxuriant woods--the homes of some of Derry's wealthy citizens. Then the train turned inland across a stretch of country so flat and carefully cultivated that it might have been Holland; and then the hills began to crowd closer and closer to the shore, until the train was running along its very edge, under precipitous crags, past grotesque pinnacles of white chalk or black basalt, and fantastic caverns worn in the cliffs by the century-long action of the waves. For that stretch of blue water stretching away to the north, so calm and beautiful, was the Atlantic, and it thunders in upon this coast, sometimes, with a fury even the rocks cannot withstand. We turned away from it, at last, up the wide estuary of the River Bann, and so we came to Coleraine, chiefly connected in my mind with that beautiful Kitty, who, while tripping home from the fair one morning with a pitcher of buttermilk, looked at Barney MacCleary instead of at the path, and stumbled and let the pitcher drop; but, instead of crying over the spilt milk, accepted philosophically the kiss which Barney gave her; with the result that "very soon after poor Kitty's disaster The divil a pitcher was whole in Coleraine." Among the innumerable other laws for which Lloyd-George is responsible, there is one requiring all the shop-keepers of the United Kingdoms to close their places of business one afternoon every week in order to give their employés a short vacation; and in every town the shop-keepers get together and decide which afternoon it shall be; and if you arrive in the town on that afternoon, you will find every shop closed tight, often to your great inconvenience. It was Thursday afternoon when we reached Coleraine, and Thursday is closing day there; and we found that not only were the shops closed, but the train schedule was so altered that we had a long wait ahead of us. But we were richly compensated for the delay, for, as we started out to explore the town, we saw written in chalk on a wall just outside the station, To hell with the pope! and under it in another hand, To hell with King Billy! and then a third hand had added, God save King Will! No more pope! I had heard, of course, that the accepted retort for Catholics to make, when the Pope was insulted, was to consign William of Orange to the infernal regions; but such a retort seemed so weak and ineffective that I could hardly believe in its reality. Yet here it was, and some Orangeman had paused long enough to add what is probably the usual third article of the controversy. What the fourth article is I can't guess; perhaps it is at this point that the cudgels rise and the rocks begin to fly. And it seems to me characteristic of Ireland that the Catholic in this case, instead of erasing the offending sentence, should have let it stand and answered it in kind. Cheered and heartened by this encounter, we walked on to look at Coleraine, but found it an uninteresting manufacturing town, with nothing in it of historical importance, for it is one of the plantations made by the London Companies, some time after 1613. It was closed as tightly, that afternoon, as on a Sunday, and we soon wearied of looking at ugly houses and silent factories, and made our way back to the station, meditating upon that black day for the Irish when this whole county, having been duly confiscated, was made over by royal edict to the hundred London adventurers, whose heirs or assigns still own it. Yet the conquest had one advantage: the O'Dohertys and the O'Cahans knew only the arts of war; the newcomers brought with them the arts of peace. One of them was distilling, and the Irish had never drunk such whiskey as the "Coleraine" which was produced here in the succeeding years. There is no more popular story in this region than that of the priest who was preaching a temperance sermon, and, after pointing out the evils of over-indulgence, continued with great earnestness, "And, me boys, 'tis the bad stuff you be takin' that does the worst of the mischief. I niver touch a drop meself--but the best Coleraine!" We got away from Coleraine, at last, and ran northward toward the sea again, across uneven sand-drifts, past Port Stewart, where Charles Lever was once a dispensary doctor and occupied his leisure hours, which were many, in setting down the adventures of Harry Lorrequer; and then the road ran on close beside the sea to Portrush, with its pleasant beach and rock-bound bathing-pool, which was full of people on this holiday. But Portrush is a place of summer hotels, so we did not linger there, but transferred quickly to the electric line which runs on to the Giant's Causeway, fourteen miles away. This line was established in 1883, and so is the oldest electric road in the world; and I judge that it is still using the cars it started out with. At least, the two which composed the train that day were exceedingly primitive; one was open and the other was closed, and you took your choice. We chose the open one, of course, on the side overlooking the sea; and presently we started through the town, a man ringing a bell with one hand and waving a flag with the other, preceding us to make certain the track was clear. The bell, I suppose, is for blind people and the flag for deaf people, and the fact that the man is armed with both proves how thorough the Irish can be when they really put their minds to it. Although the line has been in operation for thirty years, it is still evidently regarded with fear and wonder by the people who live along it. Time was when the power was conveyed by means of the "third rail," so common in the United States. With us, however, the rail is only used along a guarded right-of-way. Here it was exposed close up by the fence at the roadside, and though it was well out of the way, it was nevertheless stumbled over by many men and beasts, with the usual result. There were many protests, and in the course of fifteen or twenty years, the Board of Trade was moved to investigate. The evidence at the hearing was most conflicting. The people of the neighbourhood asserted that their lives were in constant danger. The company, on the other hand, claimed that no sober man would ever step on the rail, since to get to it he had to cross the tracks. The people of the neighbourhood protested indignantly against this reflection upon their habits, and asked triumphantly if the horses and cows and other poor beasts that were killed were also drunk. The company retorted that, so far as the horses and cows were concerned, it was the practice of the natives, for miles around, whenever they had an animal about to die, to lead or, if it was unable to walk, to haul it to the railway, and prop it against the fence with a foot on the rail, and then to demand compensation for its death. There was, perhaps, a grain of truth in this; but the board, nevertheless, ordered the company to take up the rail and substitute an overhead wire for it, and this has been done. The only way the natives can get damages now is to inveigle a car to run into them, and this is well-nigh impossible, for the cars are run very slowly and carefully, and at every curve there is a signal cabin, where a watchful guard, armed with a red flag and a white one, keeps careful eyes upon the track. We were just gathering speed outside the town, when we saw in a near-by field an aggregation whose bills had attracted our attention, more than once, in our journeyings about Ireland. It was "Buff Bill's Circus," and the picturesqueness of its lithographs had made us most anxious to see it. Here it was, at last, and it consisted of three tiny tents and one van and three or four horses, and five or six people, who at this moment were eating their midday meal, seated on the ground about a sheet-iron stove, while the youngsters of the neighbourhood looked on. I am sorry we did not get to see the show, for I am sure we should have enjoyed it. Then the road mounted to a terrace high above the sea, and the views over coast and water were superb. The effects of erosion are especially fantastic, and the line passes fretted spires, and yawning caverns, and deep gullies and mighty arches, all worn in the chalk and basalt cliffs by the ceaseless action of the waves; and at one place there is a grotesque formation which does indeed, as may be seen from the picture opposite the next page, resemble a "Giant's Head." And there is one most picturesque ruin, for, ten miles out from Portrush, all that is left of Dunluce castle overhangs the sea from the summit of a precipitous rock, separated from the mainland by a deep chasm. The chasm is twenty feet wide, and in days of old there was a drawbridge over it; but the bridge has disappeared, and now there is just an arch of masonry about two feet wide and without protection of any sort. It takes a steady head to cross it, but the Irish are fond of just such breakneck bridges. The castle itself, with its roofless gables and jagged walls, seems a part of the rock on which it is built. It is said to possess a banshee, and one can well believe it! Dunluce is interesting because it was once a stronghold of the Scotch invaders who succeeded in conquering all this northeast coast of Ireland from here around to Carlingford Lough, away below Belfast. Scotland is only a few miles away across the North Channel--one can see its coast on a clear day from the cliffs above Benmore; and it was natural enough that there should be sailing back and forth. Owen, first lord of Tyrone, brought a wife from Scotland--that Aileach, after whom he named his fortress; and they had many children, one of whom went back to Scotland and became the head of that princedom whose chief afterwards called himself "Lord of the Isles." In Ireland, the family was O'Donnell; but in Scotland the members of Clandonnell were not Os but Macs. Angus MacDonnell married a daughter of the great house of O'Cahan, and by this means and by that, the Scotch gradually won a foothold on the Irish coast and built castles up and down it; and finally, in a pitched battle, defeated the Irish who held the land about Dunluce and had built this castle here. [Illustration: THE "GIANT'S HEAD," NEAR PORTRUSH] [Illustration: THE RUINS OF DUNLUCE CASTLE] It was besieged and captured after that, once by the Irish under Shane O'Neill, and once by the English under Sir John Perrot; and during the troubled times of the Commonwealth and Restoration fell into ruins and was never restored--partly, no doubt, because it was no longer safe; for one night in 1639, there was a great party in the castle, and a storm arose, and the waves dashed against the rock below it, and suddenly part of the rock gave way and carried the kitchen and eight servants down into the abyss. Just beyond the castle, the road rounds a point and runs down into the valley of the Bush River, where stands the little town of Bushmills, known all over the world because of the whiskey which is made there; and then it passes a great house on a cliff overlooking the sea, Runkerry Castle; and then high up on the slope ahead loom two big hotels, and the tram stops, for this is the Causeway. Both the hotels at the Causeway are owned by the same man, but each maintains its runner, and each runner makes a lively bid for your custom; and then, when you have made your choice and started toward it, you will suddenly be conscious of a rough voice speaking over your shoulder, and you will turn to find a man striding at your heels, a man unshaven and clad in nondescript clothes; and if you listen very attentively you will presently understand that he is offering to guide you about the Causeway. Everybody in the vicinity of the Causeway makes his living off the people who visit it, and the favourite profession is that of guide. Now a guide is wholly unnecessary, for a broad road leads directly to the Causeway, and once there it is simply a question of using one's eyes. But from the persistence of the guides, one would think there was great danger of getting lost, or of falling overboard, or of experiencing some other horrible misfortune, if one ventured there unattended. Every guide carries also in his waistcoat pocket one or more fossils, which he found himself and prizes very highly, but is willing to sell for a small sum, as a personal favour. When his supply is exhausted, he goes and buys some more from the syndicate which ships them in in quantity. For it should be remembered that the Causeway is as strictly organised for profit and as carefully exploited as is Killarney. As soon as we had arranged for our room, we set off for the Causeway, running the gauntlet of guides posted on both sides of the road. Then a man with a pony-cart wanted to drive us to our destination, and one would have thought, from the way he spoke, that it was a long and trying journey; then we refused three or four offers of fossils and postcards; and finally we found ourselves alone on a road which swept round the edge of a great amphitheatre of cliff; and the face of that cliff is worth examining, for it is formed of the lava flow from some long-extinct crater, and the successive flows, separated by the so-called ochre beds, or strata of dark-red volcanic ash, can be plainly distinguished. The road gradually drops, until it is quite near the sea; and then it passes a number of shanties, from which old women issue to waylay the passer-by with offers of fossils and post-cards and various curios; and then the visitor is confronted by a high wire fence, beyond which, if he looks closely, he will see a little neck of land running out into the water--and that is the celebrated Giant's Causeway. [Illustration: THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY] [Illustration: THE CLIFFS BEYOND THE CAUSEWAY] It is so small and so seemingly insignificant that Betty and I stared at it through the fence with a distinct shock of disappointment; then we went on to the gate, paid the sixpence which is extorted from every visitor, registered ourselves on the turnstile, and entered. The misfortune of the Causeway is that its fame is too great. The visitor, expecting to see something magnificent and grandiose, is rather dashed at first to find how small it is; but after a few minutes' wandering over the queer columns of basalt, this feeling passes, and one begins to realise that it is really one of the wonders of the world. I am not going to describe it--every one has seen photographs of it, or if any one hasn't, he will find some opposite this page; and the photographs picture it much better than I can. There are some forty thousand of the pillars, the guide-book says; five-sided or six-sided for the most part, averaging, I should say, about fifteen inches in diameter, and so close together that a lead pencil is too thick to be thrust between them. The pillars are divided into regular, worm-like segments, some six or eight inches thick, and there are quite a lot of segments lying about, broken off from the columns. The whole bed is said by geologists to be nothing but a lava-flow, which broke up into these columnar shapes when it cooled and contracted. The native Irish have a far better explanation than that. In the old days, the mighty Finn MacCool, annoyed at the boasting of a Caledonian rival on the hills across the channel, invited him to step over and see which was the better man. And the giant said he would be glad to come over and show Finn a thing or two, if it wasn't for wetting his feet. So Finn, in a rage, built a causeway right over to Scotland, and the Scotch giant came across on it; and of course Finn beat him well (for this is an Irish legend); but with that generosity which has always been characteristic of Irishmen after they have whipped their opponents, he permitted his humbled rival to choose a wife from the many fair girls of the neighbourhood, and to build him a house and settle down; which the Scotch giant was very glad to do; for every one knows that the Scotch women are rough and hard-bitten, also that Scotland is a land of mist and snow, not fair like Ireland, which has always been the loveliest country in the world. And presently, since the causeway wasn't needed any more and impeded navigation, Finn gave it a kick with the foot of him and sunk it in the sea, all but this little end against the Irish coast. And there it stands unto this day to witness if I lie. Whatever you think of the Causeway, you will certainly be impressed when you pass out between the clustered columns of the Giant's Gateway, and start on the walk under the beetling cliffs beyond. The narrow path mounts up and up, under overhanging masses of columnar stone, which all too evidently crashes down from time to time, for there are great piles of debris below, and the path is either swept away in places or recently repaired; so most visitors hurry past with one eye upward, and the other contemplating the beauty of the scene below. At least we did; and then we came out at Chimney Point, crowned with its chimney-like columns--a mass of basalt on top of a red ochre bed. And here there was a seat where we sat down to contemplate one of the most impressive views in Ireland--a combination of blue sea and white surf and black crag and columned cliff not soon to be forgotten. We went on, at last, around the point of the cliff, where the path overhangs the depths below and is guarded by an iron railing; on and on, past clusters of columns named looms or organ pipes, or whatever Irish fancy may have suggested; and at last we turned slowly back, and spent another half hour at the Causeway, hunting out the wishing-chair, and the giant's cannon, and Lord Antrim's parlour--all of which may easily be found; and then we took a drink from the giant's well, a spring of pure, cold water, bubbling up from among the rocks; and so back to the hotel and to dinner. CHAPTER XXVIII THE GLENS OF ANTRIM THERE are some caves at the Causeway which are said to be well worth visiting, but we found, next morning, that a stiff wind during the night had kicked up such a sea that it was impossible to get to them. So we spent the morning walking down to a beautiful beach some distance below the hotel, and building a driftwood fire there, and watching the waves roll in. Then, while Betty went in to read some just-arrived letters from home, I went on along the top of the cliffs above the Causeway. There is a path which follows the edge of the cliff closely, and a more magnificent view I have never seen. At Chimney Point the rollers were breaking in especial violence over the black rocks, on which one of the galleons of the Armada went to pieces. Her name was the Gerona, and some of her guns were rescued from the surf and added to the armament of Dunluce castle. Legend has it that she brought her disaster upon herself by running in too near the coast to fire at the chimney rocks, which she mistook for the towers of Dunluce. The bay where the bodies of her crew were washed ashore has been called Port-na-Spania ever since. A little farther on is the uttermost point of all, Pleaskin, where the view reaches its greatest grandeur, for one is here four hundred feet above the sea, and on that bright, clear, wind-swept morning, I could see the purple peaks of the Donegal coast stretching far to the west, while to the northeast loomed the misty outline of the Scottish hills, scarcely discernible against the sky. And all between stretched the white-capped waters of the North Channel, with a tossing boat here and there, and at my feet were the last black basalt outposts of Erin, with the rollers curling over them in regular, heavy rhythm. If Ireland has anything to show more fair I did not see it. I went slowly back, at last, along the path, over the springy heather; and an hour later we had said good-bye to the Causeway, and were rattling away along a pleasant road toward Ballycastle. We were the only voyagers, that day, so instead of the heavy bus, a side-car had been placed at our disposal. It was the first car we had mounted since our ride around Lough Gill; and how good it felt to settle back again into the corner of the seat, and swing along mile after mile! Our jarvey was an old fellow who was loquacious enough, at first, and who stopped to show us, in a ravine not far from the Causeway, a crevice in the rock which he said was used as a pulpit by the first Presbyterian preacher in Ulster--for it should be remembered that for many years the Presbyterians and other nonconformists were treated as harshly by the established church as the Catholics were. And then we came to a little village where the children were gathering for school, and our jarvey stopped to water the horse, which gave us the opportunity to have a word with the children. And fairly surprised we were when they began to talk, for they spoke a Scotch as broad as any to be heard in the Highlands. Their names were Scotch, too--Fergus and Angus; and the only thing we encountered on that drive which astonished us more were the sign-posts at the cross-roads, the directions on which are all in Gaelic. We had seen Gaelic sign-posts before, in the west, but they always had the direction in English, too. Here there was no English. It is a riddle that I have never unravelled, for I heard no Gaelic spoken here. Of course it is spoken; but so many wayfarers along this road speak only English that I cannot understand the contempt for them which the sign-boards indicate. I have referred already to the Irishman's love for breakneck bridges, and the prize one of all is at the village of Ballintoy, into which the road drops down the steepest of hills. A little distance away along the cliffs is an isolated rock some sixty feet from the shore, and spanning the abyss between cliff and rock is the craziest bridge ever devised by man. Two rings, about eighteen inches apart, have been embedded in the rock on either side, and between these rings two ropes have been stretched. These are lashed together at intervals by transverse cords, and to these cords short lengths of narrow plank have been tied side by side. For a handrail, a slender rope has been stretched between two rings some three feet higher than the others--and there you are. It is hardly correct to say that any of the ropes have been "stretched," for they hang in a long curve, and in the wind that was blowing that morning the bridge swung to and fro in the dizziest fashion. There was a crowd of small boys at its land end, who offered to negotiate the passage for a penny each, but we refused to pay for the privilege of seeing them risk their lives. And yet, probably, it would not have been risking them, for they were used to the bridge and thought nothing of crossing it. Nay, more, the men of the neighbourhood cross it carrying heavy burdens, for they are fishermen and keep all their ropes and nets and even their boats out on the rock, round which, at certain stages of the tide, the salmon circle, so that they can be caught by nets shot out from the rock. There is no harbour for the boats, so they have to be hoisted up to a terrace in the rock some twenty feet above the water by means of a windlass; and then, having made everything snug, the fishermen cross back over the bridge with the catch on their shoulders. It need scarcely be added that I, who had balked at the far more substantial bridges at Dromahair and Dunluce, never for an instant thought of crossing this one. We climbed out to the top of the cliffs again, and jogged along with the beautiful sea to our left, and the beautiful rolling country to our right, its meadows brilliant with the lush green of the young flax; and then we turned back inland between high hedgerows; and the bright sun and the soft air proved too much for our jarvey, who dropped gently to sleep--a fact we didn't notice until the horse, after a backward glance, stopped to take a few bites from the hedge. The driver woke with a start and jerked the horse angrily back into the middle of the road, and then glanced guiltily at us, but we were gazing far away into the distance; and then he dropped off again, and again the horse, feeling the slackened reins, stopped for a bite; and then, for fear that a motor-cycle or something might run into us, I filled my pipe and offered my pouch to the driver, and he filled up thankfully, and that kept him awake until we dropped down into the beautiful old town of Ballycastle, nestling under the high hills of Antrim. "Bally," which figures in so many Irish place-names, is from the Gaelic "baile," meaning town or village, and so Ballycastle is merely the Irish form of what in English would be prosaic Castletown. We had tea at a clean and pleasant inn, and then spent an hour wandering about the place--to the site of the old abbey, near a sweet little river, and then down to the shore, which has been desecrated with golf-links; but the green slopes of Rathlin Island, just off the coast, are very lovely, and just outside the bay the cliffs culminate in a mighty bluff called Fairhead; and then back to the town along an avenue of beautiful trees, for a visit to the "Home Industry Depot," a room crowded with fantastic toys and some good wood-carving, all done in the neighbourhood--about the only industry of any kind, so the keeper of the shop said, now carried on in Ballycastle. Time was when Ballycastle fancied it was destined for greatness, for a seam of coal was discovered in the hill above the town, and an enterprising Scotchman named Hugh Boyd leased the right to work it from the Earl of Antrim, and built foundries and tanneries and breweries to consume it; but unfortunately the seam turned down instead of up, Boyd died, and nobody was found with sufficient energy to contend against so many difficulties; so the whole enterprise dropped dead. I don't know how the inhabitants came to turn to toy-making and wood-carving; perhaps some expatriated Swiss settled here,--that shop certainly did remind us of Lucerne! There are far older memories which cluster around Ballycastle; for the stream which ripples past the abbey was in the old days called the Margy, and it was here, according to the most ancient of Irish legends, that the children of Lir, King of the Isle of Man, sought shelter after they had been turned into four white swans by their step-mother. I should like to tell that story, but there is no space here--besides, it has already been most nobly told by Mr. Rolleston. It will be found, with many others, in his "High Deeds of Finn," a book I most heartily recommend. We were not yet at the end of our day's journey, for we had still to go on to Cushendall, sixteen miles away, and so we went back to the hotel, to find a long inside-car waiting. There were two other passengers, women of the neighbourhood, who had come in to town to do some shopping; and their gossip was most entertaining; but we dropped them before long, and then the road mounted up and up along the valley of a little river, which we could see gleaming far below us; and at last we came out upon a bog as wild and desolate as any in Connemara. There were again the familiar black cuttings, the piles of turf, and here and there a group of men and women labouring at the wet, back-breaking work. This bog, so our driver said, supplied the fuel for the whole district, and nobody hereabouts ever thought of burning coal. The road was quite deserted, save for a cart now and then, loaded high with turf, lumbering heavily down toward the town; and presently even these ceased, and there was no single sign of life as far as the eye could reach--only the silent bog, desolate, vast, impressive, rolling away into the distance with a beauty all its own--a beauty difficult to express, but very poignant. How high we were upon that moor we did not realise until we came to the verge of one of the beautiful Glens of Antrim and saw, nestling away below us, the spires and roofs of Cushendall. They were perhaps half a mile away, but we travelled at least three miles to get down to them, winding back and forth along the side of the glen, crossing a great viaduct eighty feet high, past picturesque thatched houses, past the fairy thorn which no man in the village would touch for love or money, past a fragment of ruin which was once the castle where the MacDonnells stood off the English; and then we turned away to the right and began to climb again; and presently we had climbed out of Glendun into Glenaan, and I should hate to have to decide which is the more lovely. We emerged, at last, into more open country, with high hills at our right pierced by shadowy valleys; and then the houses became more frequent, and we could see the people gathering down from the fields for the night. Twilight was at hand; but, though it must have been nearly nine o'clock, we were amused to see that the ducks and chickens were still pecking cheerfully about the door-steps, apparently with no thought of retiring. Poultry, in Ireland, leads a strenuous life, for in summer the sun rises at three and does not set till nine. Perhaps it is these long hours which give Irish chickens an indolent air, and which explain the frequent naps one sees them taking on the family doorstep. The houses grew more and more frequent, until we were rattling down a wide street of them, under an avenue of lofty trees, and knew we were at Cushendall. * * * * * Some three miles west of the town, on the top of a bare and windy hill looking down over the Glenaan valley, is a circle of stones placed there, so legend asserts, to mark the grave of Ossian, son of Finn MacCool, and sweet singer of the Fianna of Erin; and it was to find this spot I set out next morning, through fine, windy weather. I knew where the valley of the Glenaan was, for we had passed its mouth the evening before, but as to the position of the grave itself I knew nothing. The guide-book devoted only a vague line to it; but I have a firm belief in my luck, and I knew I should find it somehow. For a mile or more my road lay back over the way we had come, mounting steadily toward the entrance to the Glenaan Valley; and I met many little carts coming in to market, for it was Saturday; and every one who wasn't going into town was taking advantage of the fine day by working in the fields, or putting new coats of dazzling whitewash upon their houses, or digging in the little flower-gardens in front of them. And everybody was in cheerful humour and passed the time of day with the heartiest good will. And then I came to the entrance of the valley, and turned westward along the road which traverses it. The mountains soon began to close in on either hand, and the houses strung along the road or perched on narrow plateaus grew smaller and smaller; slate gave way to thatch, stone floors gave way to dirt ones, and the windows shrank to a single immovable sash of four small panes. In a word, as the land grew poorer, the people grew poorer, too; and the conditions of life seemed not so very different from those in far Connaught. Indeed it may very well be that this is one of those "congested districts" which are scattered over the east of Ireland. I stopped, at last, and asked an old man in a blue flannel smock if he could tell me the way to Ossian's grave; and he told me to fare straight on till I came to some stepping-stones, and to cross the stones and push right up the hill. So I went on happily, for the air was very sweet, and the sun just warm enough, and the great wind was driving white clouds before it across the sky, and the sunshine in the faces of the people I met added to the beauty of the day; and at last I came to a cluster of thatched cottages where the little river turned in close to the road and rippled between a row of stepping-stones; and I asked a pleasant-faced woman if that was the way to Ossian's grave, and she said it was; to cross the stones and go right up the hill, and I would find a house there where I could get further directions. The road beyond the stones ran up the hill and into the yard of a farm-house; and in the yard there was a dog with a very savage bark; but there was also a blue-eyed girl who quieted him, while she stared at me curiously. I asked her the way to the grave, and she pointed up the hill, with a little motion of her hand toward the right, and I set off again. The road had dwindled to the merest mountain path, with a wall on either side of earth and stones, crested with prickly gorse; but I came to a break in it, at last, opening to the right, and scrambled through; and then, a minute later, in the midst of a heather-carpeted field on the very summit of the hill, I saw the grave. It is formed of standing stones, covered with lichen and crumbling under the storms of centuries, and the vestibule, so to speak, is a semi-circle some twenty feet in diameter opening toward the east. Back of this are two chambers, one behind the other, divided by two large uprights, and I suppose it was in one of these that the body of the bard was laid--if it was laid here at all. My own guess would be that these weather-beaten stones, like those others on the hill beside Lough Gill, antedate Ossian by at least two thousand years. But that is an unimportant detail; and it may be, indeed, that when the great singer died, his comrades could think of no more fitting place to lay him than within the guardian circle of this monument of an older race, looking down across the valley and out toward the sea. Fact and fancy have been so mingled in the Ossianic legend that it is impossible to disentangle them, nor is it profitable to try. It is fairly certain that he was born somewhere about the middle of the third century after Christ, and legend has it that he spent two hundred years in the Land of Youth with Niam of the Golden-hair. When, homesick for Erin, he returned to it, it was to find his father's courts overgrown with grass and St. Patrick preaching there, and his disputes with Patrick are recorded at great length in the tales of the Fenian cycle; for Ossian bewailed the vanished days of those mighty fighters, and wished for nothing better than to join them, in whatever world they might be, while Patrick laboured to convert him from such heathen fancies and to save his soul. It is to this story reference is made in the stanza from Lionel Johnson's "Ode to Ireland," which I quoted on page 221. Up there on the bleak hill-top the wind was roaring; but I found a nook between two of the great stones where it could not reach me, and I lighted my pipe and sat there and looked down over the valley and thought of the old days, and so spent a sweet half hour. The valley had changed but little, I fancied, with the rolling centuries; there were tiny, high-walled fields and low thatched houses on the lower slopes; but above them sprang the primal hills, clothed with heather, their bones of granite gleaming here and there, back and back over the Glens of Antrim, through which the red tide of tribal warfare had poured so many times. And over eastward lay Cushendall, nestling among its trees, with the gaunt, truncated mass of Lurigethan hill overshadowing it, and beyond that, faint and far and scarcely distinguishable from the blue sky, lay the blue sea. That valley and those hills belong to the Earl of Antrim--his estate includes some thirty-five thousand acres of Irish soil, around which he may build walls and post notices and set guards; and as I sat there gazing out at them, I realised far more keenly than I had ever done the absurdity of the idea that any portion of this earth's surface can rightfully belong to any man. Trace any title back, for a hundred years, or a thousand years, or two thousand years, and one finds that it started in a theft--theft on the part of an individual from the tribe which held the land in common; and the solemn farce of sale and transfer and inheritance after that was merely the passing on of stolen goods. Perhaps some day we may win through to the ideal of an earth belonging equally to all men, with private right only in the things man's industry creates. [Illustration: THE GRAVE OF OSSIAN] [Illustration: AN ANTRIM LANDSCAPE] I knocked out my pipe, at last, reluctantly enough, and took the picture of the stones which is opposite this page, but which gives a poor idea of them; and then I started downward, through the break in the hedge, through the farmyard, going warily for fear of the dog, and so to the stepping-stones; and when I looked at them, I saw what a perfect picture they made, with the stream rippling through, and the thatched cottages beyond, with the smoke whipped from their chimneys, and a single tree bending before the wind. That picture in miniature is opposite this page; but I could not snare with my camera the tang of the turf, the softness of the air, the glory of the sun, nor the murmur of the water. Those you will have to evoke for yourself, as best you can. In the road beyond I found a mail-carrier, who had completed his morning-round among the hillside dwellings, and who was turning back to Cushendall; and we went on together. He was a tall, lithe lad, as he had need to be to get over his daily route among these hills; and, like every one else, he hoped some day to win his way to America. He knew many of its towns from the postmarks on the letters he carried. In the last month, he said, there had been fully a hundred from America, and welcome letters they were, for nearly all of them contained a bit of money. Many of the dwellers in these hills--like thousands more all over Ireland--would find life outside the work-house impossible but for the help from their sons and daughters in America; and it gives one a good feeling at the heart to think of those devoted boys and girls putting by every month a portion of the money which was hard to win and harder still to save, to send to the old people who were left at home. By the side of the road, as we walked along, I saw a hovel more primitive and comfortless than most--just a tiny hut of a single room, dark and cold and bare; but against one end of it grew a great fuchsia bush, clothing it with glory. A wrinkled old woman, clad in filthy clothes, was standing in the doorway, and my companion passed the time of day with her, while I unslung my camera, for I wanted a picture of the tiny house and the great bush. I would have liked a picture of the old woman, too; but she said she was too dirty, and went in until the picture was taken which is opposite the next page. Then she came out and asked if I would send her one. It was the first time, she said, that any one had thought her houseen worth a picture; so I promised she should have one, and she gave me her name, and the postman promised it should reach her. We went on together, after that, and I asked him what the people of the neighbourhood thought about Home Rule. [Illustration: A HUMBLE HOME IN ANTRIM] [Illustration: THE OLD JAIL AT CUSHENDALL] "The truth is, sir," he answered, "that we don't know what to think, what with this man telling us one thing and that man another; but most of the poor people about here would be glad to see it, for they can't be worse off than they are, and a change might better them. Drilling and arming? Ah, there's none of that around here; there's no army of Ulster in these parts. That's just talk." He left me at the crossroads, for he had still a letter or two to deliver farther down the road, and I went on by myself toward the town. There were more whitewashers out, and they were splashing the lime about in the most reckless fashion, besprinkling the hedges and the shrubbery and even the road, somewhat to the danger of the passers-by; and at the first houses of the town I met Betty. She had been talking to the caretaker of the churchyard about the true shamrock; and he said that it did not grow wild thereabouts, but that he had some in a pot at home and would be glad to bring her a spray; and he told her of a ruined church and an old Celtic cross out along the road above the cliffs, very near, he said--not over eight minutes' walk at the most. So we determined to take a look at it; but first we walked about the town a little, and found it quite an ordinary town, except for a great square tower at the intersection of the principal streets--a tower erected, so the tablet on it says, "as a place of confinement for rioters and idlers." I suppose the town has a modern jail now--perhaps even with panoptic galleries! At any rate, the tower is no longer used. I took a picture of it, and if you will look at the picture closely, you will see a girl drawing water from the town pump just below the tower. We started off finally for the ruins, first to the cliffs along the sea, and then on along the path which runs at their very edge. The view was very lovely, and we didn't notice how the time was flying; but I looked at my watch presently and found that we had been walking twenty minutes, with no ruins in sight. We pushed on ten minutes longer, and had about given them up, when some children directed us which way to go, and we finally found the few remaining fragments of Layd Church, so overgrown with ivy and embowered in trees that they were scarcely recognisable as ruins at all. The cross proved to be a very modern one; and the graveyard is sadly neglected, with the grass knee-deep among the tombs, which have fallen into sorry disarray. Most of them cover some long-dead MacDonnell--they were all MacDonnells, in the old days, who lived in the Glens of Antrim. The "eight minute walk" had taken more than half an hour, and we had need to hasten if we were to get back to the hotel in time for lunch, for the car which was to take us to Larne was to start at two; but we made it, and when the car drove up, we found it was a long outside-car with room for five people on each side. We chose the forward end of the side next the sea; and then the car proceeded to another hotel in the town, where five or six more people were waiting; and the two women who were condemned to the landward side complained bitterly. They were making the trip, they said, just to see the sea, and here they would be compelled to sit the whole way facing the blank cliff. "Sure, there's nothing I can do, miss," said the jarvey, who had listened sympathetically; "I can't make the car any longer, now can I? Maybe you might be glancin' over your shoulder from time to time; anyway I'm thinkin' you'll be seein' enough of the sea before you're home again." And with that they had to be consoled. The road runs inland for about a mile beyond Cushendall, and then turns down close to the shore of Red Bay, a vast amphitheatre of red sandstone cliffs, in whose face the road is cut. At the deepest point of the circle, where the Vale of Glenariff opens up into the mountains, is clustered a little village of white houses; and then the road runs on round the base of towering precipices; and suddenly the red sandstone changes to chalk, and the water washing against the shore, which has been a lovely green, turns milky white, with outstanding pinnacles of chalk, worn to fantastic shapes, keeping guard above it. We had noticed an increasing crowd upon the road, all walking or riding southwards; and presently two barefooted boys jumped up on the footboard and asked if they might ride a little way; and they told us that there was a circus at Carnlough to which every one was going; and they each had the tuppence necessary for admission gripped in a grimy fist, and were very excited indeed. Carnlough, as we soon found, is a small town consisting principally of a curving beach, where a few people were bathing; and the white tent of Duffy's Circus--a much larger affair than Buff Bill's--was pitched close beside the road. The urchins dropped off and made for the entrance; and as we passed, we caught a strain of "The Stars and Stripes Forever," painfully rendered by the circus band. We rolled on around another wide bay, and came to Glenarm, where we paused to change horses; and then on again, under the white cliffs, past quarries where flint and chalk are mined for the Belfast market; and always at our feet lay the Irish Sea, stretching away to the dim horizon, its colour changing with every passing cloud. In and out the road circled, following the long curves of the coast; past the ruins of a castle which O'Halloran, a famous outlaw, built for himself on the top of a small rock with the sea washing round it; past another amphitheatre where the rocks change back from chalk to basalt; through a short tunnel and so to Larne. The most interesting thing about Larne is its handsome new harbour built for the express steamers which cross several times daily to Stranrear, the shortest of the routes to Scotland. Edward Bruce chose this route when he came over with an army of six thousand men to help the Irish drive the English from Ireland, as his brother Robert had driven them from Scotland the year before at Bannockburn. It was in May, 1315, that the Scotch drew up in battle array along this strand; and a year later Bruce was crowned King of Ireland; but though at first he drove the Normans before him, his own army was gradually worn down by privation and disease, and he himself was killed at the battle of Faughart. So ended one more Irish dream! We changed at Larne from road to rail, and were soon rolling southward, still close beside the water, past a string of seaside resorts, each of which added its quota of passengers--perspiring men and women and tired but happy children; and so we came to the old town of Carrickfergus, with its magnificent castle overlooking Belfast Lough. Its great square keep, ninety feet high, looked most imposing in the gathering twilight--how many assaults had it withstood in the seven centuries of its existence! Bruce captured it, but the MacDonnells failed. Schomberg, William's general, had better luck, and it was on the quay below it that the great Orangeman first set foot in Ireland. It has some American associations, too; for John Paul Jones sailed his good ship _Ranger_ under its walls in 1778, and captured the British ship-of-war _Drake_. Murray, good British guide-book that it is, refers to the founder of the American navy as "the pirate Paul Jones." But we can afford to smile at that! Carrickfergus is doubtless worth a visit, though the castle is used as an ordnance depot now, and visitors are admitted only to the outer court. But even that would be worth seeing; and the town possesses an old church, and some fragments of its old walls, and doubtless many interesting old houses. I am sorry we did not spend a day there. But our train rolled on, close beside the border of Belfast Lough, and presently, far ahead, we saw the gleaming spires and clustered roofs of the citadel of Ulster. CHAPTER XXIX BELFAST IT had been on a Saturday evening that we first saw Dublin, and it was on a Saturday evening that we reached Belfast; and we had thought the streets of Dublin crowded, but compared with those of Belfast, they were nowhere. Even in our first ride up from the station, along York Street and Royal Avenue, it was evident that here was a town where life was strenuous and eager; there was no mistaking its air of alert prosperity; and when, after dinner, we sallied forth on foot to see more of it, we found the sidewalks so crowded that it was possible to move along them only as the crowd moved. It was a better-dressed crowd than the Dublin one, but I fancied its cheeks were paler and its bodies less robust. Indeed, I am inclined to think the average stature in Belfast an inch or so under the average elsewhere. Great numbers of the men and women we saw on the streets that night were obviously undersized. I am by no means tall; five feet eight inches is, here in America, about the average; but when I walked among that Belfast crowd, I overtopped it by half a head. It was this strange sensation--the sensation of being a tall man, which I had never before experienced--which first drew my attention to the stature of the crowd. There must be several regiments of British troops stationed at Belfast, for soldiers were much in evidence that evening, and in a great diversity of uniform. They, too, for the most part, seemed undersized, in spite of their erect carriage; and they were, as is the way with soldiers everywhere, much interested in the girls; and the girls, after the fashion of girls everywhere, were much interested in the soldiers--and there was a great deal of flirting and coquetting and glancing over shoulders and stopping to talk, and walking about with clasped hands. Next to the crowd, the most interesting feature of Belfast is the shops, which are very bright and attractive. The Scotch have a genius for fancy breads and cakes, and the bakers' shops here were extremely alluring. There seemed to be also an epidemic of auction sales and closing out sales and cut price sales, announced by great placards pasted all over the windows; but there were so many of them that I fancy most of them were fakes. One notices also in Belfast the multiplicity of bands. It seemed to me that night that a band, playing doggedly away, was passing all the time. Sometimes the band would be followed by a body of marching men, sometimes by men and women together, sometimes it would be just playing itself along without any one behind it. Nobody in the crowd paid much attention, not even when a big company of boy scouts marched past, looking very clever in their broad hats with the little chin-straps, and grey flannel shirts and flapping short trousers showing their bare knees. What I am setting down here are merely my first impressions of Belfast. I do not allege that they were correct impressions, or that they fairly describe the town, but, as we were fresh from many weeks in the south and west of Ireland, the sense of contrast we experienced that first evening is not without significance. We went back to the hotel, finally, for we had had a strenuous day; but for long and long we could hear the bands passing in the street below; and then the martial rattle of drums and scream of fifes brought us to the window, and we saw a great crowd of children march past, with banners waving and tin buckets and shovels rattling. It was a Sunday School picnic, just back from a day at the seashore; and the air which the fifes and drums were playing with a vigour that made the windows rattle was "Work, for the Night is Coming!" I had never before realised what a splendid marching tune it is! * * * * * I am sorry we did not go to church, next morning, for the pulpits of Belfast were thundering against Home Rule, as we saw by the Monday papers. Instead, we walked down to the river, for a look at the harbour and custom house, and then about the streets to the city hall, with its dome and corner towers oddly reminiscent of St. Paul's Cathedral; and then we took a tram to the Botanical Gardens. The tram ran along a tree-embowered street, lined on either side with villas set in the midst of grounds so beautiful that any of them might have been the gardens; but when we reached the end of the line, we found we had come too far. The conductor was greatly chagrined that he had forgot to tell us where to get off, and sternly refused to accept any fare for the return trip. The gardens, which we finally reached, are very attractively laid out, but far more interesting than the flowers and the shrubs was the crowd which was coming home from church. There seems to be a church on every square in Belfast, and I judge they were all full that day--as they no doubt are every Sunday, for church-going is still fashionable in the British Isles; and the crowd which poured along the walks of the gardens was as well-dressed and handsome as could be seen anywhere. It was a crowd made up of people evidently and consciously well-to-do, and one distinctive characteristic was a certain severity of aspect, a certain prevalence of that black-coated, side-whiskered, stern-lipped type which was much more common in America thirty years ago than it is now. Our type has changed--has softened and grown more urbane; but I should judge that the cold steel of Calvinism is as sharp and merciless as ever in Belfast. The men walked slowly along in twos and threes, talking over the sermons they had just listened to; and the sermons, judging from the newspapers, were all cast in the same mould; and that mould gives so clearly the Orange attitude toward Home Rule, that I shall try to outline it here, quoting literally from the newspaper accounts. Home Rule, then, according to the Belfast preachers, is a Papal-inspired movement, whose object is "to thrust out of their birthright over one million enterprising, industrious, and peaceable citizens, whose only crime was their loyalty to Crown and Constitution, and to put them under that Papal yoke from which their sires had purchased their liberty. Their beloved island home had never been more prosperous. They were grateful and they were satisfied, but their Roman Catholic fellow countrymen seemed to have no sense of satisfaction or gratitude. The Irish Nationalists had entered into a movement to sacrifice Protestantism upon the altar of Home Rule, but Orangemen and Protestants had entered into a covenant the object of which was the maintenance of their rightful heritage of British citizenship, of their commercial and industrial progress, and of their freedom. In the same spirit of patriotic Protestantism as was displayed at the siege of Derry, they would go forth to combat the onslaughts of Rome, and they would show that the same spirit lived in them as in their illustrious sires." Some of the services concluded with singing a new version of the National Anthem: Ulster will never yield; God is our strength and shield, On Him we lean. Free, loyal, true and brave, Our liberties we'll save. Home Rule we'll never have. God save the King. That last line is so perfunctory that it provokes a smile. I am anxious to state the case against Home Rule as fairly as I can, the more so because, as the readers of this book must have suspected before this, I have little sympathy with the die-hard Unionists. I do not believe that they represent Ulster in any such absolute sense as they claim to do, for in the first place they hold only sixteen out of the thirty-three Ulster seats in Parliament, and in the second place, even in the four counties which are largely Protestant, there is a very strong Nationalist sentiment. My own conviction is that the Orange Societies are being be-fooled by a clique of politicians and aristocrats whose quarrel is not with Home Rule but with the Liberal party. Nobody denies that the funds for the organisation and equipment of the Orange army have been supplied by the Conservative party, whose campaign chest has been sadly depleted by the immense sums needed to keep the agitation going. Certain leaders of that party have done their utmost to foment religious and racial hatred, not because of any religious convictions of their own, nor because of any special sympathy for Ulster, but in the hope of overthrowing the government and stopping the march of social reform. They might just as well try to stop the march of time--and some day, perhaps, they will realise it! And yet-- These fighting preachers, these uncompromising, wrong-headed, upright old Calvinists, are undoubtedly in earnest. The congregations which sat in grim-faced silence that day listening to this oratory, were in earnest, too. But I cannot believe that, in their inmost heart of hearts, they really dread the subversion of Protestantism. What they dread is, in the first place, some diminution of their supremacy in Irish politics, and, in the second place, some diminution of their control of Irish industry. In other words, the attack they really fear is against their pocket-books, not against their creed. And it is not impossible that their pocket-books may suffer; indeed, I think it probable that when the Home Rule Parliament has made its final adjustments of revenue, Ulster will be found to be bearing somewhat more of the burden than she now does, though perhaps not more than her just share. But this doesn't make the situation any the less serious, for ever since the world began it has been proved over and over again that the very surest way to drive men to frenzied resistance is to attack their pocket-books. As for the religious bogy, I personally believe most sincerely that it _is_ a bogy. Such danger to Protestantism as exists comes, not from the Irish Catholics, but from the politicians who are using it as a football. There was a sentence in one of the sermons preached that day to the effect that Irish Protestants laboured to help Irish Catholics to civil and religious liberty, when Irish Catholics were unable to help themselves, and this is a fact which I am sure Irish Catholics will be the last to forget. A century ago, Ulster was as fiercely Nationalist as she is fiercely Unionist to-day; it was in Belfast that the Society of United Irishmen was organised, and its leader was Theobald Wolfe Tone, a Protestant, and its first members were Presbyterians, and one of its objects was Catholic Emancipation. And, as a close to these disconnected remarks, I cannot do better than repeat an anecdote I saw the other day in the _Nineteenth Century_. Some sympathetic neighbours called upon the mother of Sir David Baird to condole with her over her son's misfortunes, and they told her, with bated voices, how he had been captured by Tippoo Sultan, and chained to a soldier and thrust into a dungeon. Baird's mother listened silently, and then a little smile flitted across her lips. "God help the laddie that's chained to my Davie!" she said softly. And anybody that's chained to Ulster will undoubtedly have a strenuous time! * * * * * The _News-Letter_ is the great Belfast daily, and while I was looking through it, Monday, for fear I had missed some of the pulpit and platform fulminations, I chanced upon another article which interested me deeply, as showing the Protestant attitude toward control of the schools. The article in question was a long account of the awarding of prizes at one of the big Belfast National schools, as a result of the religious education examination, and it was most illuminating. The chairman began his remarks by saying that "nothing is pleasanter than to hear a pupil repeat faultlessly the answers to the one hundred and seven questions in the Shorter Catechism, without a stumble, placing the emphasis where it is due, and attending to the stops," and he went on to report that these one hundred and seven questions had been asked orally of each of 396 children, that there was not a single failure, and that practically all the children were in the first honour list--that is, had answered faultlessly the whole one hundred and seven. And then another speaker, a clergyman, of course, like the first, told impressively of the meaning of education. It was, he said, the duty of every child to store his mind with all manner of knowledge and to seek diligently to gain information from day to day. But religion was the sum and complement of all education. Without it, all other acquirements would be little better than the beautiful flush upon the consumptive's cheek, the precursor of sure death and decay. He reminded them that even the very youngest there was guilty in the sight of God, for that awful word sinner described them all. Then a third speaker remarked that while the staff of the school was doing a fine work in teaching the boys and girls to read and write and cast up accounts, that that wasn't nearly so fine as teaching them the catechism and encouraging them to study their Bibles. And then a fourth speaker emphasised this; and then there was a vote of thanks to all the speakers, and the prize Bibles were distributed, and everybody went away happy--at least, the adults were all happy, and I can only hope the children were. From all which it is evident that the Presbyterians will fight for their schools as hard, if not harder, than the Catholics will for theirs. But to me, the thought of those poor children being drilled and drilled in the proper answers to the 107 questions of the Catechism, until they could answer them all glibly and without stopping to think, is a painful and depressing one. I suppose that is the way good Orangemen are made; but the Catechism has always seemed to me a rickety ladder to climb to heaven by. * * * * * I was fortunate enough to witness another peculiar symptom of Belfast's temper, that afternoon, when I went down to the Custom House, which stands near the river. It is a large building occupying a full block, and there is a wide esplanade all around it; and this esplanade has, from time immemorial, been the platform which any speaker, who could find room upon it, was privileged to mount, and where he might promulgate any doctrine he could get the crowd to listen to. There was a great throng of people about the place, that afternoon, and a liberal sprinkling of policemen scattered through it; and then I perceived that it wasn't one big crowd but a lot of smaller crowds, each listening to a different orator, whose voices met and clashed in the air in a most confusing manner. And I wish solemnly to assert that the list which follows is a true list in every detail. At the corner of the building, a reformed drunkard, with one of those faces which are always in need of shaving, stood, Bible in hand, recounting his experiences. At least, he said he had reformed; but the pictures he painted of the awful depravity of his past had a lurid tinge which held his auditors spell-bound, and it was evident from the way he smacked his lips over them that he was proud of having been such a devil of a fellow. Next to him a smartly-dressed negro was selling bottles of medicine, which, so far as I could judge from what I heard, was guaranteed to cure all the ills that flesh is heir to. The formula for this wonderful preparation, he asserted, had been handed down through his family from his great-great-grandmother, who had been a famous African voodoo doctor, and it could be procured nowhere else. The open-mouthed Belfasters listened to all this with a deference and patience which no American audience would have shown, and the fakir took in many shillings. Next to him, a company of the Salvation Army was holding a meeting after the explosive fashion familiar all the world over; and at the farther corner, a white-bearded little fellow was describing the horrors of hell with an unction and exactitude far surpassing Dante. I don't know what his formula was for avoiding these horrors, for I didn't wait to hear his peroration. Just around the corner, two blind men were singing dolefully, with a tin cup on the pavement before them, and straining their ears for the rattle of a copper that never came; and farther along, a sharp-faced Irishman was delivering a speech, which I judged to be political, but it was so interspersed with anecdote and invective and personal reminiscence, that, though I listened a long time, I couldn't make out who he was talking against, or which side he was on. His audience seemed to follow him without difficulty, however, and laughed and applauded; and then a little fellow with a black moustache advised the crowd, in a loud voice, not to listen to him, for he was a jail-bird. I saw the constables edge in a little closer; but the speaker took the taunt in good part, admitted that he had done twelve months for some offence, and thanked the crowd with tears in his voice because they had raised two pounds a week, during that time, for the support of his family. The crowd cheered, and the fellow who had tried to start trouble hastened to take himself off. Thinking over all which, now, it occurs to me that the speech may have been a labour speech, and not a political one at all. I gave it up, at last, and moved on to where a man was making an impassioned plea for contributions for an orphan asylum. He had a number of sample orphans of both sexes ranged about him, and he painted a lively picture of the good his institution was doing; but how he hoped to extract donations from a crowd so evidently down at heel I don't see. Next to him, a frightful cripple, who could stand erect only by leaning heavily upon two canes, was telling the crowd how exceedingly difficult it was for a rich man to get into heaven. Next to him, a lot of women were holding some sort of missionary meeting; and just around the last corner, a roughly-dressed man, with coarse, red-bearded face, whose canvas placard described him as a "Medical Herbalist," was selling medicines of his own concoction. He had no panacea, but a separate remedy for every ill; and I listened to his patter for a long time, though obviously he didn't welcome my presence. He proved that slippery-elm was harmless by eating some of it, and argued that plantain, "which ignorant people regarded as a weed, made the best medicine a man could put into his inside," and he proved this proposition by saying that it must be so because plantain had no other known use, and it was inconceivable that the Lord would have taken the trouble to create it without some purpose. He also proved that he was a capable doctor because he was not a doctor at all, but a working-man, and it was the working-man who made the world go round. Inconceivable as it may seem, this ignorant and maudlin talk was listened to seriously and even respectfully, and he sold a lot of his medicines. Medicine seems to be one of the dissipations of the Belfast folk. The largest crowd of all was gathered before a man who held the centre of the fourth side of the esplanade, and who was talking, or rather shouting, against Home Rule. He was garbed as a clergyman, and he wore an Orange badge, and he was listened to with religious attention as he painted the iniquity of the Catholic church and the horrible dangers of Catholic domination. His references to King Billy and the Boyne and the walls of Derry were many and frequent, and he had all sorts of newspaper clippings in his pockets, from which he read freely, and though he was very hoarse and bathed in perspiration, he showed no sign of stopping. He intimated that, once Home Rule was established, the revival of the inquisition would be but a matter of a short time, that no Protestant would be allowed to own property, that no Protestant labourer could expect employment anywhere until he had abjured his religion, that their children would be taken away from them and reared in Catholic schools, and he called upon them to arm and stand firm, to offer their lives upon the altar of their country, and not retreat a step before the aggressions of the Scarlet Woman. I don't know how much of this farrago his audience believed, but their faces were intent and serious, and I fear they believed much more than was good for them. I happened upon a song of Chesterton's the other day which brought those strained and intent faces vividly before me: The folks that live in black Belfast, their heart is in their mouth; They see us making murders in the meadows of the South; They think a plow's a rack, they do, and cattle-calls are creeds, And they think we're burnin' witches, when we're only burnin' weeds. Those lines are scarcely an exaggeration; and after I had stood there listening for half an hour, I began to feel uneasily that perhaps, after all, there is in Ulster a dour fanaticism which may lead to an ugly conflict. Those political adventurers who have preached armed resistance so savagely, without really meaning a word of it, may have raised a Frankenstein which they will find themselves unable to control. [Illustration: THE CITY HALL, BELFAST] [Illustration: HIGH STREET, BELFAST] As I turned away, at last, sick at heart that such things should be, I passed close by a little group of men who were standing on the sidewalk opposite, listening to the denunciations of Rome with flushed faces and clenched hands. "Let's have a go at him!" said one of them hoarsely; and then he caught my eye, as I lingered to see what would happen. "What do you think of that, anyway, sir?" he asked. "I think it's outrageous," I said. "But I wouldn't raise a row, if I were you boys; you'll just be playing into his hands if you do." Their leader considered this for a moment. "I guess you're right, sir," he agreed, at last. "Come on, boys," and they slouched away around the corner. But perhaps, afterwards, when they had got a few more drinks, they came back again. It is a peculiarity of Belfast that the public houses are allowed to open at two o'clock Sunday afternoon, and they are crammed from that time forward with a thirsty crowd. * * * * * There is nothing of antiquarian interest at Belfast, and its public buildings, though many and various, are in no way noteworthy. The sycophancy of the town is evidenced by a tall memorial to Prince Albert, not quite so ugly however, as the one at London; while in front of the city hall stands a heroic figure of Victoria. There is a statue to the Marquis of Dufferin, and one to Harland the ship-builder, and one to Sir James Haslett; and many militant divines, in flowing robes, are immortalised in marble. But search the streets as you may, you will find no statue to any Irish patriot or Irish poet. Nor will you find a street named after one--yes, there is Patrick Street, but it is a very short and unimportant street, and may easily escape notice. The shadow of the Victorian Age lies deeply over the place. The greatest quay is Albert Quay, and the ship channel is Victoria Channel, and the square at the custom house is Albert Square, and a little farther along is Victoria Square, and just around the corner is Arthur Square, and the principal avenue is Royal Avenue, and the broad street which leads into it is York Street, and the street next to it is Queen Street, and leading off of that is Kent Street, and a little distance away is Albert Street leading up to Great Victoria Street, and I am sure that somewhere in the town there is a Prince Consort Street, though I didn't happen upon it! The churches are all modern and uninteresting, though, strangely enough, the Catholic ones are as large and ornate as any. You wouldn't think it from the way Ulster talks, but about a fourth of the population of Belfast is Catholic. There are two small museums, neither of which is worth visiting; in a word, the whole interest of Belfast is in its shops, its factories and its commerce. The shops are wonderfully attractive, especially, of course, in objects made of linen. For Belfast is the world-centre of the linen trade, whose foundations were laid by the Huguenots who found a refuge here after Louis XIV banished them from France. It was the one Irish industry which England did not interfere with, because England produced no linen; and consequently it prospered enormously, until to-day there are single factories at Belfast where four thousand people bend over a thousand looms or watch ten thousand spindles, and the annual value of the trade is more than sixty million dollars. There are great tobacco factories, too, covering acres of ground; and the biggest rope-walk in the world; and a distillery which covers nineteen acres and--but the list is interminable. The most interesting and spectacular of all these mighty industries will be found along the river banks, where the great ship-building yards are ranged, where such monsters as the _Olympic_ and the fated _Titanic_ were built and launched, and where the rattle and clangour of steel upon steel tells of the labour of twenty thousand men. And surely the clang and clatter of honest toil which rises from Belfast on week days must be more pleasing to the Almighty than the clang and clatter which rises from it on Sunday! I should think He would be especially disgusted with the noises which emanate from about the Custom House! CHAPTER XXX THE GRAVE OF ST. PATRICK THE shops of Belfast, with their embroidered linens (duty, forty-five per cent!), proved a magnet too great for Betty to resist, but I hied me away, next day, into County Down, on a pilgrimage to the grave which is said to hold the three great apostles of Erin--Saint Brigid and Saint Patrick and Saint Columba. It is in the churchyard of the village of Downpatrick that the grave lies, and the thirty mile run thither from Belfast is through a green and fertile country covered with broad fields of flax. There are raths and tumuli here and there, and a few ruins topping the neighbouring slopes, but it is not until one reaches Downpatrick that one comes upon a really impressive memorial of the old days. The cathedral is visible long before the train reaches the town, standing on the edge of a high bluff overlooking the valley of the Quoile, and it was to it I made my way from the station, up a very steep street, for Downpatrick, following the fashion of Irish towns, is built on the side of a hill--and also follows the fashion in having an Irish Street and an English Street and even a Scotch Street, the surviving names, I suppose, of the quarters where the people of those various nations once lived close together for mutual protection. The cathedral was locked, as Protestant churches have a way of being; but the caretaker lives near by and came running when his wife told him that there was a strange gentleman wished to see the church. He was a very Scotch Irishman, and as he took me around the bare, white interior, he said proudly: "There's not much high church about this. Not a bit of flummery will we have here--no candles or vestments or anything of that sort. Our people wouldn't stand it--it savours too much of Romanism." "And yet," I said, "it was Saint Patrick who founded this very church, and you have him and Saint Brigid and Saint Columba buried in your churchyard." "Yes, and we're proud to have them," he retorted quickly, "for they weren't Romanists--they were just Christians, and good ones, too. The Protestants of Ireland can honour Patrick and Brigid just as much as the Catholics do. It wasn't till long after their day that the Irish church made submission to Rome." There is a modicum of truth in this, for, though it is probable that St. Patrick was regularly ordained a bishop and is even sometimes asserted to have been sent on his mission by Pope Celestine himself, the ties which bound Irish Catholics to Rome were for many centuries very slight indeed, and it was not until after the Norman conquest that the authority of Rome was fully acknowledged; and this independence has persisted, in a way, even to the present day; for while Irish Catholics, of course, acknowledge absolutely the supremacy of the Holy See in all spiritual affairs, they have always been quick to resent its interference in things temporal, and their tolerance toward other religions than their own stands almost unique in history. It is, perhaps, a racial characteristic, for the Pagan Irish, during all the years of Patrick's mission among them, never seriously persecuted him and never slew a Christian. Here at the spot where that mission began it is fitting that I should say a word of it. Of Saint Patrick himself very little is certainly known, for he was a man of deeds and not of words, and left no record of his life; but there seems no valid reason to doubt the traditional account of him; that he was born at Kilpatrick, in Scotland, somewhere about 390; that his father was a Roman citizen and a Christian; that, when about sixteen years of age, he was captured by a band of raiding Irish, carried back to Ireland as a slave, sold to an Ulster chief named Milcho, and for six years tended his master's flocks on the slopes of Slemish, one of the Antrim hills. In the end he escaped and made his way back to his home in Britain; but once there his thoughts turned back to Erin, and in his dreams he heard the cries of the Pagan Irish imploring him to return, bearing the torch of Christianity. The voices grew too strong to be resisted, and in 432 he was back on the Irish coast again, having in the meantime been ordained a bishop of the Catholic Church; and he sailed along the coast until he came to Strangford Lough, where he turned in and landed. His purpose was to go back to Slemish and ransom himself from the master from whom he had escaped, but he paused at a large sabhall, or barn, and said his first Mass on Irish soil. It was to that spot he afterwards returned, when the hand of death was upon him, to end his days; and the little village that stands there is Sabhall, or Saul, to this day. He went on, after that, to the great dun, or fort, of the kings of Ulster, which we ourselves shall visit presently, and from which Downpatrick takes its name. Then, finding his old master dead, he began his life-work. His success was so extraordinary that at the end of thirty years, the conversion of the Irish was complete. [Illustration: THE GRAVE OF PATRICK, BRIGID AND COLUMBA] [Illustration: THE OLD CROSS AT DOWNPATRICK] At last, feeling his end near, he made his way back to the sanctuary at Saul, died there, and was brought for burial to this bluff overlooking the great rath below. Legend has it that Saint Brigid wove his winding-sheet. She herself, when she died, was buried before the high altar of her church at Kildare; and there are two stories of why her body was removed to St. Patrick's grave. One is that, in 878, her followers, fearing that her grave would be desecrated by the Danes, removed her body to Downpatrick and buried it in the grave with the great apostle, where the remains of St. Columba had been brought from Iona and placed nearly two centuries before for the same reason. The other story is that the bones of St. Brigid and St. Columba both were brought here in 1185 by John de Courcy, to whom Ulster had been granted by the English king,--and who had surprised and captured Downpatrick eight years previously,--in the hope of conciliating the people he had conquered. Either story may be true; but all that need concern us now is that there seems to be no question that the three great apostles of Ireland really do lie at rest within this grave. De Courcy enlarged the cathedral, which, before that, had been a poor affair, dedicated it to Saint Patrick, and caused effigies of the three saints to be placed above the east window with a Latin couplet over them: Hi tres in duno, tumulo tumulantur in uno Brigida, Patritius, atque Columba pius. The stone which marks the grave is in the yard just outside the church--a great, irregular monolith of Mourne granite, weatherworn and untouched by human hand, except for an incised Celtic cross and the word "Patric" in rude Celtic letters--one monument, at least, in Ireland which is wholly dignified and worthy. One other thing of antiquarian interest there is near by, and that is an ancient cross, said to have stood originally on the fort of the King of Ulster, but removed by De Courcy and set up in front of his castle in the centre of the town, as a sign of his sovereignty, where it was knocked to pieces when the castle was. The fragments have been put together, and battered and worn as it is, the carvings can still be dimly seen--the crucifixion in the centre, with stiff representations of Bible scenes below. It is ruder than most, as may be seen from the photograph opposite page 522, for the circle which surrounds the cross is merely indicated and not cut through. There has been much controversy as to the origin of this circle, which is the distinctive feature of the Celtic cross; but I have never yet seen any theory which seemed anything more than a guess--and not a particularly good guess, either. Of the first church which was built here not a trace remains, and even of the structure of 1137 there is little left. For Downpatrick, with the priories and monasteries and hospitals and convents and other religious establishments which had grown up around the sacred grave of the saints, was one of the first objects of attack when Henry VIII began his suppression of the religious houses. Lord Grey marched hither at the head of a regiment of soldiers and plundered the place and set fire to it, so that only an empty shell was left. The crumbling and blackened ruin stood undisturbed for more than two hundred years, and when its restoration was finally undertaken, it was found that only five arches of the nave were solid enough to be retained. So the present structure is only about a century old, except for that one stretch of wall and a recessed doorway under the east window. The old effigies of Brigid and Patrick and Columba, which Grey pulled down and knocked to pieces, have been replaced in the niches above the window, but they are sadly mutilated. In the vestry is a portrait of Jeremy Taylor, who was Bishop of Down for nearly seventy years, but there is little else of interest in the church. The most imposing thing about it is its position at the edge of the high bluff, looking out across the valley of the Quoire to the Mourne mountains. Just to the north of this bluff and almost in its shadow, close to the bank of a little stream, still stands the enormous rath built two thousand years ago by Celtchair, one of the heroes of the Red Branch of Ulster, and here he and the chiefs who came after him had their stronghold. So great was its fame that Ptolemy, in far off Egypt, heard of it, and it was gradually enlarged and strengthened until there were few in Ireland to equal it. The sea helped to guard it, for at high tide the water flowed up over the flats along the Quoile and lapped against it; but the erection of sluice-gates farther down the stream has shut away the tide, and it stands now in the midst of a marsh. To get to it, one passes along the wall of the jail--one of the largest I had seen anywhere in Ireland, and which Murray proudly says cost $315,000--and scrambles down into the marsh, and there before one is the rath. My picture of it, the top one opposite the next page, was taken from close beside the jail, many hundreds of yards away, and gives no idea of its size, except for the thread-like path which you may perceive running up one end, which is two or three feet wide, and fully seventy feet long. The rath is an immense circular rampart of earth, nearly three quarters of a mile in circumference, fifty feet high, and so steep that I had great difficulty in getting up it, even by the path. Around it runs a fosse or ditch some forty feet wide and nine or ten feet deep. This, of course, was deeper in the old days, and would remain filled with water even when the tide was out. Inside the circular rampart, the ground drops some twenty feet into a large enclosure, near the centre of which a great mound, surrounded by a ditch ten feet deep, towers sixty feet into the air. The central mound corresponds to the keep or donjon tower of more modern forts, the last place of refuge and defence when the outer ramparts had been forced; and it was on this mound that the dwellings of the chiefs stood, rude enough, no doubt, though they were the palaces of kings. The tribal huts clustered in the enclosure about the foot of the mound; and so perfectly is the whole place preserved--though of course there is now no trace of hut or palace--that one has little difficulty in picturing the busy life which went on there--the throngs of men and women and children, the tribal council gathered on the summit of the great mound to listen to the chief, the departure of expeditions for war or for the chase, the arrival of envoys from some other chieftain or perhaps of some minstrel, his harp slung across his shoulder. . . . [Illustration: THE GREAT RATH AT DOWNPATRICK] [Illustration: THE INNER AND OUTER CIRCLES] [Illustration: THE CENTRAL MOUND] I tore myself away, at last, for there was another place I wished to visit, and it was three miles distant--the Holy Wells of Struell. The caretaker at the cathedral had pointed out the route, so I climbed back past the prison, and went down through the town and up Irish Street beyond, and over Gallows Hill, where some unfortunate Irishmen were hanged during the rebellion of '98. The road beyond ran between high hedge-rows and under arching trees, whose shade was very grateful, for the day was the hottest I had experienced in Ireland; and then it crossed the white high-road and ran close under a long stretch of wall which surrounded an enormous and ornate building. I asked a passer-by what it was, and he answered that it was a madhouse, and big as it was, was none too big. Murray supplies the information that it cost half a million. There is a workhouse in the town which, from the look of it, must have cost $300,000--or say a million dollars for the three together, the jail, the workhouse and the asylum, every cent of it, of course, raised by taxation from the poorest people in the world! Sadly pondering this, I went on along the lane, and the heat made the way seem very long. But a girl I met assured me that I had not much farther to go--only past the farm at the foot of the hill; and presently I came to the farm, a handsome one, with the dwelling-house surrounded by well-built barns and stables, and a man there directed me to the wells, down a little by-road. Five minutes later, I had reached the rude stone huts which cover the Holy Wells of Struell. Down the middle of a pretty valley, a small stream leaps from rock to rock, pausing here and there in little pools, and these pools are the "wells." Each of them is protected by a stone-walled, stone-roofed cell, built in the old days when the wells were in their glory, and now falling to decay. Just beyond the wells is a group of thatched cottages, and a girl of eight or nine, seeing my approach, hurried out from one of them and volunteered to act as guide, scenting, of course, the chance to earn a penny. And she took me first to what she said was the drinking-well, a little grass-grown pool in a fence-corner, and though she seemed to expect me to drink, I didn't, for the water looked stale and scummy. Then we climbed a wall, and walked over to a stone cubicle, which stood in the middle of a potato patch. This is the eye-well, and the cell over it is just large enough to permit a person to enter and kneel down above the water and bathe the affected parts. I took a picture of it which you will find opposite the next page. Then she led me to the largest well of all, the body well, or well of sins, where it is necessary to undress and immerse the whole body. The stone building over the body well is divided into two parts by a solid wall, and one part is for men and the other for women. The disrobing is done in the outer chamber, which has a low stone bench running around three sides, and then the penitent enters a small inner chamber, descends some six or seven steps into the pool of water, and, I suppose, places himself below the stream which falls into the pool from the end of a pipe. As its name indicates, this well was supposed to have the power of washing away all disease, both physical and moral, and time was when it was very popular. The effect of the cold bath was so exhilarating, and the sudden sense of freedom from sin and disease so uplifting, that the penitents would sometimes rush forth to proclaim their blessed state without pausing to resume their garments. Naturally a lot of impious Orangemen would gather to see the fun; and finally both the secular authorities and the Catholic clergy set their faces against the practices, with the result that they gradually fell into disuse. Only single pilgrims, or small companies, at most, come now to bathe in the magic waters, and their behaviour is most circumspect. The cells, themselves, are well-nigh in ruins. A chapel to Saint Patrick, from whom these waters derive their efficacy, was begun during the day of their popularity, but was never finished, and now only a fragment of it remains. [Illustration: THE EYE WELL AT STRUELL] [Illustration: THE WELL OF SINS AT STRUELL] While I was manoeuvring for a photograph of the well of sins, a middle-aged woman came out of a near-by cottage to advise me where to stand. She had seen many pictures taken of the well, she said, and the place that made the best picture was on top of the wall around her garden, and I climbed up on it, and found that she was right. "'Tis a warm day," she went on, when I descended, "and your honour must be tired with the long walk. Will you not come in and sit a spell?" "Thank you," I said; "I'll be glad to--it _is_ hot," and I followed her into a lovely old kitchen, with floor of flags, and whitewashed walls gleaming with pots and pans, and with a tall dresser in one corner glittering with a brave array of china. In here it was quite cool, so that after the first moment, the open grate of glowing coals, with the usual bubbling pot above it and the usual kettle on the hob, felt very pleasant. I expressed surprise that she was burning coal, and she said the landlords of the neighbourhood had shut up the peat-bogs, in order to make every one buy English coal; and it was very hard indeed on the poor people, who had always been used to getting their fuel for the labour of cutting it, besides shutting them off from earning a little money by selling the turf to the people in the town, who would rather have it than coal. But the landlords were always doing things like that, and it did no good to complain. She had two brothers in America, she said, and lived here at Struell and kept house for a third. She and her brother were both unmarried, and would probably always remain so. Then, of course, she wanted to know about my condition in life, and I described it as freely as she had described her own. And then she asked me if I wouldn't like a glass of milk, and when I said I would, she hastened to get it from the milk-house, through which a clear little stream trickled, and very sweet and cool it was. And then we got to talking about Ulster's attitude toward Home Rule. County Down, you should remember, is one of the nine counties which form the Province of Ulster, and is the most strongly Protestant of all of them outside of Belfast and Antrim, for only about one third of its 200,000 people are Catholic. "God knows what will happen," said my hostess, very seriously. "I have been hearing a lot of wild talk, but paid no heed to it, for these Orangemen are always talkin' about this or that, and their talk means nothing. But I've come to think it may be more than just talk this time. I heard a few days since that all the Orangemen hereabouts have been getting together three evenings every week in a meadow over beyont, and an officer of the army comes there and drills them till it is too dark to see. And they say, too, that there is a gun ready for each of them, with plenty of powder and lead to put into it; and they've sleuthered a lot of poor boys into joinin' with them who have not the courage to say no. But I'm hoping it will pass by, and that no trouble will come of it. I am a Catholic myself, but we have never had any trouble with the Protestants. We get along very well together, and why shouldn't we? Some of my best friends are Protestants, and I know they wish us no harm. No, no, we are well-placed here, though them ones in the south do be calling us the black north." I told her something of the destitution and misery I had seen in the south and west; but she showed no great sympathy--rather a contempt, I fancied, for people who could be so easy-going and unambitious. She herself seemed of a very different breed; and the shining kitchen, as clean as a new pin, proved what a delight and pride she took in her home and how energetic a housewife she was. Personally she was just as clean and tidy as her kitchen, with hair neatly brushed and a bit of white about her throat; and the apron she had on was a fresh one, newly-ironed--something I never saw upon any peasant woman of the south. She brought out an album of photographs, presently--photographs of herself and of her brother, and various photographs of the wells, and I promised to send her a print of mine, if it proved to be a good one. And then I bade her good-bye and started back the way I came; but I can still see her shrewd and kindly face, with the little wrinkles at the corners of the eyes, and the cool, sweet-smelling kitchen where I spent that pleasant hour. I walked about the steep streets of Downpatrick quite a while, after I reached the town, and found them unusually quaint. Like so many other towns in Ireland, this one is all too evidently on the down grade. The tall houses, which were once the residences of the well-to-do, have been turned into tenements, and while they are not so dirty and repulsive as those of Dublin and Limerick, they are still bad enough. Others of the houses are empty and falling into ruin. One curious thing about the place is that from any quarter of it the town-hall is visible, standing in the hollow at the bottom of the hill, for the five principal streets start from it--Irish Street and English Street and Scotch Street and two others whose names I have forgotten, but which were, perhaps, the neutral ground of trade. I made my way down to the station, at last, and as the train started, a young fellow in the same compartment with me bade a tearful farewell to the relatives and friends who had gathered to see him off, and sat for some time thereafter weeping unaffectedly into his handkerchief. When he was a little calmer, I asked him if he was going to America. He said no; he was going only to Belfast, but that was a long way! It is really only about thirty miles; but thirty miles is a great journey to the average Irishman. For the Irishman is no traveller; he is quite content to spend his life within the circle of one small horizon, and never so happy as when sitting at his own fireside. Indeed, he is apt to regard with suspicion those who have nothing better to do than wander about the world. Mayo tinkers have always had a bad name in Ireland, not because they do anything especially to deserve it, but merely because they make their living in an unnatural fashion by roaming from place to place. Surely there must be something wrong with a man who does that! * * * * * That night, at Belfast, we went to a variety show. The Wild West film seems as popular here as in the rest of Ireland, for a particularly sensational one, where the heroine escaped from the Indians by going hand over hand along a rope above a deep ravine, into which the Indians were precipitated by the hero, who cut the rope when they started to cross by it, was received with great enthusiasm. There were also some scattered cheers when a conjuror, with carefully calculated effect, produced portraits of the King and Queen from somewhere and waved them before the audience. But the cheers were thin and forced, and by far the most of those present sat grimly silent and stared at the pictures with set faces. CHAPTER XXXI THE VALLEY OF THE BOYNE I HAD one other trip to make in Ireland. That was to the scene of the battle of the Boyne, to the tombs of the kings at Dowth and Newgrange, and to the ruins near-by of two of the most famous and beautiful of the old abbeys, Mellifont and Monasterboice. Readers of this book will remember that, early in the narrative, Betty and I had journeyed up from Dublin to Drogheda for the purpose of visiting these historic places, but had been prevented by a combination of unforeseen circumstances. It was, then, for Drogheda that I set out next morning, Betty having voted for another day in the Belfast shops; and by a singular coincidence it was the first day of July, the anniversary of that other day in 1690 when the army of William of Orange defeated the battalions of Irishmen who had rallied around James--and surely never had braver men a poorer leader! But it was not really the anniversary, for the change in the calendar has shifted the date to July 12th, and it is on that day the Orangemen celebrate. It is an eighty mile run from Belfast to Drogheda, and one of the most picturesque and interesting in the east of Ireland; and the weather god was kind to the last, for a brighter, sweeter day it would be impossible to imagine. As the train leaves the city, there are glimpses to the right of the purple hills of Antrim; and then the train pauses at the busy town of Lisbun, and continues on over the Ulster canal, past the battlefield of Moira, past the beautiful woods of Lurgan, and then through a prosperous and fertile country, with broad fields of grain and flax, and pretty villages, and so into Portadown, once the stronghold of the McCahans. I was travelling third that day, as always when alone, and the compartment had four or five people in it; and I had noticed that one of them, a man poorly clad and with a kit of tools in a little bag, had been looking anxiously from the window for some time. Finally he leaned over and touched me on the knee. "Can you tell me, sir, if this is the train to Derry?" he asked. "No; it's going to Dublin," I said; and just then it rumbled to a stop, and he opened the door and slipped hastily out. What happened to him I don't know, but he was in no way to blame for the mistake, which was due to the abominable custom they have in Ireland of starting trains for different places from the same platform, within a minute or two of each other. That morning, at Belfast, there had been a long line of coaches beside one of the platforms; no engines were as yet attached to them, but the front part of the line was destined for Dublin, and the rear portion for Derry, but there was no way to tell where one train ended and the other began, and no examination was made of the passengers' tickets before the trains started. I was wary, for I had been caught in exactly the same way once before, at Claremorris Junction, and had escaped being carried back to Westport only by stopping the train, amid great excitement, after it had started. So, that morning at Belfast, I had assured myself by repeated inquiry of various officials that the carriage I was in was going the way I wanted to go; but any traveller unwary or unaccustomed to the vagaries of Irish roads, such as this poor fellow, might easily have been caught napping. Where it is necessary to start two trains close together from the same platform, it would seem to be only ordinary precaution to examine the passengers' tickets before locking the doors. From Portadown, the road runs along the valley of the Bann, past the ruins of the old fortress of Redmond O'Hanlon, an outlaw almost as famous in Irish history as Robin Hood is in English; and then it passes Scarva, with a mighty cairn marking the grave of Fergus Fogha, who fell in battle here sixteen centuries ago. Here, too, are the ruins of one of General Monk's old castles, and on a neighbouring slope the grass-green walls of a great rath, the stronghold of some more ancient chieftain. Indeed, there are raths and cashels and ivy-draped ruins all about, the work of Irish and Dane and Norman and later English, for here was a pass across the bog from Down into Armagh, and so a chosen spot for defence and the exacting of tribute. Then the train is carried by a viaduct half a mile long over the deep and wild ravine of Craigmore, leaves Newry on the left and climbs steadily, with beautiful views of the Mourne mountains to the right, plunges at last through a deep cutting, and comes out under the shadow of the Forkhill mountains, with the mighty mass of Slieve Gullion overtopping them. Just beyond is Mowry Pass, the only pass between north and south, except round by the coast, and so, of course, the scene of many a desperate conflict. From this point on, for many miles, the scenery is very wild and beautiful, and every foot of it has been a battle-ground. Just before the train reaches Dundalk, it passes close to the hill of Faughart, topped by a great earthwork, and it was here that Edward Bruce was slain in battle a year after he had been crowned king of Ireland; and farther on is another rath, the Dun of Dealgan, where dwelt Cuchulain, chief of the Red Branch Knights, and one of the great heroes of Irish legend. It was from Dun Dealgan that Dundalk took its name, and Dundalk was for centuries the key to the road to Ulster and the northern limit of the English pale, which had Dublin for its centre. Merely to enumerate the battles which have been fought here would fill a page; but the train rumbles on, past a little church which uses the fragment of a round tower for a belfry, past the modern castle of the Bellinghams, built from the proceeds of a famous brewery, past a wayside Calvary, and so at last into Drogheda. And when I arrived there, I had completed the circuit of Ireland. The car which was to make the round of the Boyne valley was waiting outside the station, at the top of that long, ugly street which looked so familiar now that I saw it again; and after waiting awhile for other passengers and finding there was none, we drove down into the town, where another passenger was waiting--a clergyman with grey hair and blue eyes and white refined face, Church of England by his garb, and, as I found out afterwards, Oxford by residence. And here again it looked for a moment as though I was to be balked a second time of seeing Mellifont and Monasterboice, for it was Tuesday, and on Tuesday, it seemed, the round was by way of Slane; but the driver left the choice of routes to his passengers, and the clergyman said he didn't care where we went so we saw the Boyne battlefield; and with that we set off westward along the pleasant road, and soon, far ahead, we saw the top of the great obelisk opposite the place where Schomberg fell. The road dips steeply into King William's Glen, along which the centre of the Protestant army advanced to the river, and then we were on the spot where the cause of Protestant ascendency in Ireland triumphed finally and irrevocably and where the Cromwellian settlements were sealed past overthrow. William, with his English and his Dutch, had marched down from Dundalk, and James, with his Irish and his French, had marched up from Dublin, and here on either side of this placid little river, where the hills slope down to the Oldbridge ford, the armies took their station; and here, a little after ten o'clock in the morning, brave old Schomberg, whose tomb, you will remember, we saw in St. Patrick's at Dublin (how long ago that seems!), led his Dutch guards and his regiment of Huguenots into the water, across the ford, and up the bank on the other side. There, for a moment, his troops fell into disorder before the fierce attack of the Irish, and as he tried to rally them, a band of Irish horse rushed upon him, circled round him and left him dead upon the ground. Almost at the same moment, the white-haired Walker, who had exhorted the defenders of Derry never to surrender, was shot dead while urging on the men of Ulster. But though the Irish were able to hold their ground at first, and even to drive their assailants back into the river, a long flanking movement which William had set on foot earlier in the day, caught them unprepared, and they gave way, at last, before superior numbers and superior discipline. Long before that, King James had fled the field, and, without stopping, spurred on to Dublin, thirty miles away. He reached that city at ten o'clock that night, tired, hungry, and complaining bitterly to Lady Tyrconnell that the Irish had run faster than he had ever seen men do before. Lady Tyrconnell was an Irishwoman, and her eyes blazed. "In that, as in all other things," she said, "it is evident that Your Majesty surpasses them"; and Patrick Sarsfield, who had been placed that day in command of the king's bodyguard, and so had got nowhere near the fighting, sent back to the Protestants his famous challenge, "Change kings, and we will fight it over again!" Well, all that was more than two centuries ago; there is no more placidly beautiful spot in Ireland than this green valley, with the silver stream rippling past; but the staunch Protestants of the north still baptise their babies with water dipped from the river below the obelisk. And they are not altogether wrong, for that river is the river of their deliverance; and perhaps, in some distant day, when new justice has wiped out the memory of ancient wrong, Irish Catholics will agree with Irish Protestants that it was better William should have won that day than James. [Illustration: THE BIRTHPLACE OF JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY] [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO DOWTH TUMULUS] My clerical companion, guide-book in hand, had carefully noted every detail of the field, and it was evident from his shining eyes how his soul was stirred by the thought of that old victory. But our driver sat humped on his box, smoking silently, his face very grim. This job of driving Protestant clergymen to Boyne battlefield must be a trying one for the followers of Brigid and Patrick! But at last my companion had seen enough, and closed his book with a little sigh of happiness and satisfaction; and our driver whistled to his horse, and we climbed slowly out of the valley. We had about a mile of hedge-lined road, after that, and, looking down from it, we caught glimpses of wooded demesnes across the river, with the chimneys of handsome houses showing above the trees--and they, too, are the symbols of William's victory, for they are the homes of the conquerors, the visible signs of that social order which Boyne battle established, and which still endures. And then our driver, who had recovered his good-humour, pointed out to us a great mound in the midst of a level field--a circular mound, with steep sides and flat top, and a certain artificial appearance, though it seemed too big to be artificial. And yet it is, for it was built about two thousand years ago as a sepulchre for the mighty dead. For all this left bank of the river was the so-called Brugh-na-Boinne, the burying-ground of the old Milesian kings of Tara; and two great tumuli are left to show that the kings of Erin, like the kings of ancient Egypt and the kings of the still more ancient Moundbuilders, were given sepulchres worthy of their greatness. Yet there is a difference. The tombs of the Moundbuilders were mere earthen tumuli heaped above the dead; the pyramids of the Egyptians were carefully wrought in stone. The tumuli of the ancient Irish stand midway between the two. First great slabs were placed on end, and other slabs laid across the uprights; and in this vaulted chamber the ashes of the dead were laid; and then loose stones were heaped above it until it was completely covered. Sometimes a passage would be left, but that would be a secret known to few, and when the tomb was done it would seem to be nothing more than a great circular mound of stones. As the years passed, the stones would be covered gradually with earth, and then with grass and bushes, and trees would grow upon it, until there would be nothing left to distinguish it from any other hill. Only within the last half century have the tumuli been explored, and then it was to find that the Danes had spared not even these sanctuaries, but had entered them and despoiled the inner chambers. Nevertheless, they remain among the most impressive human monuments to be found anywhere. This first tumulus we came to is the tumulus of Dowth, and a woman met us at the gate opening into the field where it stands, gave us each a lighted candle, and led the way to the top of an iron ladder which ran straight down into the bowels of the earth. We descended some twenty feet into a cavity as cold as ice; then, following the light of the woman's candle, we squeezed along a narrow passage made of great stones tilted together at the top, so low in places that we had to bend double, so close together in others that we had to advance sideways blessing our slimness; and finally we came to the great central chamber where the dead were placed. It is about ten feet square, and its walls, like those of the passage, are formed by huge blocks of stone set on end. Then other slabs were laid a-top them, and then on one another, each slab overlapping by eight or ten inches the one below, until a last great stone closed the central aperture and the roof was done. In the centre the chamber is about twelve feet high. Many of the stones are carved with spirals and concentric circles and wheel-crosses and Ogham writing--yes, and with the initials of hundreds of vandals! In the centre of the floor is a shallow stone basin, about four feet square, used perhaps for some ceremony in connection with the burials--sacrifice naturally suggests itself, such as tradition connects with Druid worship; and opening from the chamber are three recesses, about six feet deep, also constructed of gigantic stones, and in these, it is surmised, the ashes of the dead were laid. From one of these recesses a passage, whose floor is a single cyclopean stone eight feet long, leads to another recess, smaller than the first ones. When the tomb was first entered, little heaps of burned bones were found, many of them human--for it should be remembered that the ancient Irish burned their dead before enclosing them in cists or burying them in tumuli. There were also unburned bones of pigs and deer and birds, and glass and amber beads, and copper pins and rings; and before the Danes despoiled it, there were doubtless torques of gold, and brooches set with jewels--but the robbers left nothing of that sort behind them. Nobody knows when this mound was built; but the men who cut the spirals and circles--and in one place a leaf, not incised, but standing out in bold relief--must have had tools of iron or bronze to work with; so the date of the mound's erection can be fixed approximately at about the beginning of the Christian era. For the rest, all is legend. But as one stands there in that cyclopean chamber, the wonder of the thing, its uncanniness, its mystery, grow more and more overwhelming, until one peers around nervously, in the dim and wavering candle-light, expecting to see I know not what. With me, that sensation passed; for I happened suddenly to remember how George Moore and A. E. made a pilgrimage to this spot, one day, and sat in this dark chamber, cross-legged like Yogin, trying to evoke the spirits of the Druids, and just when they were about to succeed, or so it seemed, the vision was shattered by the arrival of two portly Presbyterian preachers. There is another entrance to the tumulus, about half way up, which opens into smaller and probably more recent chambers; and after a glance at them, we clambered to the top. Far off to the west, we could see the hill of Tara, where the old kings who are buried here held their court and gave great banquets in a hall seven hundred feet long, of which scarce a trace remains; and a little nearer, to the north, is the hill of Slane, where, on that Easter eve sixteen centuries ago, St. Patrick lighted his first Paschal fire in Ireland, in defiance of a Druidic law which decreed that in this season of the Festival of Spring, no man should kindle a fire in Meath until the sacred beacon blazed from Tara. You may guess the consternation of the priests when, through the gathering twilight, they first glimpsed that little flame which Patrick had kindled on the summit of Slane, just across the valley. That, I think, is easily the most breathless and dramatic moment in Irish history. The king sent his warriors to see what this defiance meant, and Patrick was brought to Tara, and he came into the assembly chanting a verse of Scripture: "Some in chariots and some on horses, but we in the name of the Lord our God." And so his mission began. On the other side of the mound, across a field and beyond a wall, I could see what seemed to be an ivy-draped ruin, and I asked our guide what it might be, and she said it was the birthplace of John Boyle O'Reilly. It was but a short walk, and my companion said he would wait for me; so I hastened down the mound and across the field and over the wall, and found that what I had seen was indeed a tall old house, draped with ivy and falling into ruin. Just back of it is a church, also in ruins, and again its wall is a granite monument to O'Reilly, more remarkable for its size than for any other quality. There is a bust of the poet at the top, and on either side a weeping female figure, and a long inscription in Gaelic, which of course I couldn't read; and which may have been very eloquent. But if it had been for me to write his epitaph, I would have chosen a single verse of his as all-sufficient: Kindness is the Word. Then, as I was wading out through the meadow to get a picture of the house, I met with a misadventure, for, disturbed by my passage, a bee started up out of the grass, struck me on the end of the nose, clung wildly there an instant, and then stung viciously. It was with tears of anguish streaming down my cheeks that I snapped the picture opposite the preceding page. Dowth Castle is not the ancestral home of the O'Reillys; that stood on Tullymongan, above the town of Cavan, of which they were lords for perhaps a thousand years. Dowth Castle, on the other hand, was built by Hugh de Lacy, as an outpost of the English pale; but it came at last into the hands of an eccentric Irishman who, about a century ago, bequeathed it and some of the land about it as a school for orphans and a refuge for widows. The Netterville Institution, as it was called, came to comprise also a National school, and of this school John Boyle O'Reilly's father, William David O'Reilly, was master for thirty-five years. He and his wife lived in the castle, here in 1844 the poet was born, and here he spent the first eleven years of his life. What fate finally overtook the castle I don't know, but only the ivy-draped outer walls remain. The trim modern buildings of the Institution cluster in its shadow. I made my way back to the car, where my companion, who was not interested in O'Reilly, was awaiting me somewhat impatiently, and I think he regarded the bee which had stung me as an agent of Providence. But we set off again, and the car climbed up and up to the summit of the ridge which overlooks the river; and presently we were rolling along a narrow road bordered with lofty elms, and then, in a broad pasture to our right, we saw another mound, far larger than the first, and knew that it was Newgrange. [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO NEWGRANGE] [Illustration: THE RUINS OF MELLIFONT] Four mighty stones stand like sentinels before it. The largest of them is eight or nine feet high above the ground and at least twenty in girth; and they are all that are left of a ring of thirty-five similar monsters which once guarded the great cairn with a circle a quarter of a mile around. Like the tumulus of Dowth, this of Newgrange is girdled by a ring of great stone blocks, averaging eight or ten feet in length, and laid closely end to end; and on top of them is a wall of uncemented stones three or four feet high. Behind the wall rises the cairn, overgrown with grass and bushes and even trees; but below the skin of earth is the pile of stones, heaped above the chambers of the dead. The entrance here is a few feet above the level of the ground, and is the true original entrance, which the one at Dowth is not, for the level of the ground there has risen. This little door consists of two upright slabs and a transverse one. Below it is placed a great stone, covered with a rich design of that spiral ornamentation peculiar to the ancient Irish--emblematic, it is said, of eternity, without beginning and without end. The stone above the door is also carved, and my photograph, opposite this page, gives a very fair idea of how the entrance looks. We found a woman waiting for us--she had heard the rattle of our wheels far down the road, and had hastened from her house near by to earn sixpence by providing us with candles; and she led the way through the entrance into the passage beyond. As at Dowth, it is formed of huge slabs inclined against each other, but here they have given way under the great weight heaped upon them, and the passage grew lower and lower, until the woman in front of us was crawling on her hands and knees. The clergyman, who was behind her, examined the low passage by the light of his candle, and then said he didn't think he'd try it. "Oh, come along, sir," urged the woman's voice. "'Tis only a few yards, and then you can stand again. If you was a heavy man, now, I wouldn't be advisin' it; I've seen more than one who had to be pulled out by his feet; but for a slim man the likes of you sure it is nothing." He still held back, so I squeezed past him, and went down on hands and knees, and crawled slowly forward in three-legged fashion holding my candle in one hand, over the strip of carpet which had been laid on the stones to protect the clothing of visitors. As our guide had said, the passage soon opened up so that it was possible to stand upright again. I called back encouragement to my companion, and he finally crawled through too; and then, as I held my candle aloft, I saw that we had come out into a great vaulted chamber at least twenty feet high. Here, as at Dowth, the sides are formed of mammoth slabs, and the vault of other slabs laid one upon the other, each row projecting beyond the row below until the centre is reached. Here too there are three recesses; but everything is on a grander scale than at Dowth, and the ornamentation is much more elaborate. It consists of intricate and beautifully formed spirals, coils, lozenges and chevrons; and here, also, the vandal had been at work, scratching his initials, sometimes even his detested name, upon these sacred stones. There was one especially glaring set of initials right opposite the entrance, deeply and evidently freshly cut, and I asked the woman how such a thing could happen. "Ah, sir," she said, "that was done by a young man who you would never think would be doing such a thing. He come here one day, not long since, and with him was a young woman, and they were very quiet and nice-appearing, so after I had brought them in, I left them to theirselves, for I had me work to do; but when I came in later, with another party, that was what I saw. And I made the vow then that never again would I be leaving any one alone here, no matter how respectable they might look." We commended her wisdom, and turned back to an inspection of the carvings. It was noticeable that there was no attempt at any general scheme of decoration, for the spirals and coils were scattered here and there without any reference to each other, some of them in inaccessible corners which proved they had been made before the stones were placed in position. Evidently they had been carved wherever the whim of the sculptor suggested; and so, in spite of their delicacy and beauty, they are in a way supremely childish. But there is nothing childish about the tomb itself. Nobody knows from what forgotten quarry these great slabs were cut. Wherever it was, they had to be lifted out and dragged to the top of this hill and set in position--and many of them weigh more than a hundred tons. The passage from the central chamber to the edge of the mound is sixty-two feet long; the mound itself is eight hundred feet around and fifty high, and some one has estimated that the stones which compose it weigh more than a hundred thousand tons. For whom was it built? Perhaps for Conn, the Hundred Fighter, for tradition records that he was buried here, and he was worthy of such a tomb. If it was for Conn--and of course that is only a guess--it dates from about 200 A. D., for tradition has it that it was in 212 that Conn was treacherously slain at Tara, while preparing for the great festival of the Druids. Conn's son, Art, was the last of the Pagan kings to be buried in the Druid fashion, for Art's great son, Cormac, who came to the throne in 254, chose another sepulchre. He seems to have got some inkling of Christianity, perhaps from traders from other lands who visited his court. At any rate, he turned away from the Druids, and they put a curse upon him and caused a devil to attack him while at table, so that the bone of a salmon stuck in his throat and he died. But with his last breath he forbade his followers to bury him at Brugh-na-Boinne, in the tumulus with Conn and the rest, because that was a grave of idolaters; he worshipped another God who had come out of the East; and he commanded them to bury him on the hill called Rosnaree, with his face to the sunrise. They disregarded his command, and tried to carry his body across the Boyne to the tumulus; but the water rose and snatched the body from them, and carried it to Rosnaree; and so there it was buried. From Newgrange, one can see the slope of Rosnaree, just across the river; but there is nothing to mark the grave of the greatest of the early kings of Erin. Round Cormac spring renews her buds; In march perpetual by his side, Down come the earth-fresh April floods, And up the sea-fresh salmon glide. And life and time rejoicing run From age to age their wonted way; But still he waits the risen Sun, For still 'tis only dawning Day. The road to the ruins of the abbey of Mellifont runs back from the river, up over the hills, past picturesque villages, through a portion of the Balfour estate, and then dips down into the valley of the Mattock, on whose banks a company of Cistercians, who had come from Clairvaux at the invitation of the Archbishop of Armagh, chose to build their monastery. They called it Mellifont--"Honey Fountain"--and the buildings which they put up were a revelation to the Irish builders, who had been contented with small and unambitious churches, divided only into nave and chancel. Here at Mellifont was erected a great cruciform church, with a semi-circular chapel in each transept, as at Clairvaux; and to this were added cloister and chapter-house and refectory, and a most beautiful octagonal building which was used as a lavatory. It marked, in a word, the introduction of continental elaborations and refinements and luxuries into a land where, theretofore, austerity had been the ruling influence. That was in 1142, and there is not much left now of that mighty edifice--a portion of the old gate-tower, some fragments of the church, and a little more than half of the octagonal lavatory. Five of its eight sides remain, and they show how beautiful it must once have been--as you may see from the photograph opposite page 546. Another thing may be seen in that photograph--the corner of a huge, empty, decaying mill, such as dot all Ireland, symbols of her ruined industry! A clean, pleasant-faced old woman, who opened the gate for us, intimated that we could get lunch at her cottage, which overlooked the ruins; but my companion had brought his lunch in his pocket and presently sat down to eat it, while I made my way alone up to the cottage. There was a long table spread in one room, and while the tea was drawing, I told my hostess and her daughter about my encounter with the bee, and asked if I might have some hot water with which to bathe the sting. They hastened to get me a basin of steaming water and a clean towel, and then they talked together a moment in low tones, and then the old woman came hesitatingly forward. "If you please, sir," she said, "I have often been told that with a sting or bite or anything of the sort a little blueing in the water works wonders, and indeed I have tried it myself, and have found it very good. Would your honour be trying it, now, if I would get my blueing bag?" "Why of course I would!" I cried; "and thank you a thousand times for thinking of it!" Whereupon, her face beaming, she snatched the blueing bag from her daughter, who had it ready, and gave it to me, and I sloshed it around in the basin until the water was quite blue, and bathed my face in it; and whether it was the heat of the water or the blueing I don't know, but the sting bothered me very little after that, except for the swelling, and that was not so bad as I had feared it would be. I sat down finally to a delightful lunch of tea and bread and butter and cold meat and jam; and then I got out my pipe and joined my hostess on the bench in front of the house, and her daughter stood in the door and listened, and we had a long talk. As usual, it was first about herself, and then about myself. Her husband was dead and she suffered a great deal from rheumatism, which seems to be the bane of the Irish; but she had her little place, glory be to God, and she picked up a good many shillings in the summer time from visitors to the ruins, though many that came to see them cared nothing for them nor understood them. Indeed, many just came and looked at them over the gate, and then went away again. And just then I witnessed a remarkable confirmation of this; for a motor-car, with two men and two or three women in it, whirled up the road below and stopped at the gate outside the ruins. My hostess caught up her keys and started hastily down to open it, but before she had taken a dozen steps, the man on the front seat spoke to the chauffeur, and he spun the car around and in another moment it had disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust. I confess that I was hot with anger when my hostess, with a sad little smile, came back and sat down again beside me, for I felt somehow as though she had been affronted. I went back to the ruins presently, and my new friend came along, finding I was interested, and we spent half an hour wandering about them, while she pointed out various details which I might otherwise have missed. Next to the lavatory, the most interesting feature of the place is a beautiful pavement of decorated tiles which is preserved in St. Bernard's chapel. The whole church was at one time floored with these tiles, and a few detached ones may still be seen at the base of the pillars. There also remain many details of sculpture which show the loving labour lavished on the place when it was built--the individual work of the artisan, embodying something of his own soul, which gives these old churches a life and beauty sadly wanting in most new ones. The cemetery is near the bank of the river; but potatoes are raised there now, in a soil made fertile by royal as well as sacred dust; for here Dervorgilla, the false wife of Tiernan O'Rourke, chose to be laid to rest, in the hope, perhaps, that in the crowd of holy abbots and monks which would rise from this place, she might slip into heaven unobserved. Three miles away from Mellifont stand the ruins of another abbey, centuries older and incomparably greater in its day--an abbey absolutely Irish, with rude, small buildings, but with a giant round-tower and two of the loveliest sculptured crosses in existence on this earth. Monasterboice it is called--Mainister Buithe, the abbey of Boetius--and the way thither lies along a pleasant road, through a wooded valley--which, fertile as it is, is not without its traces of desolation, for we passed more than one vast empty mill, falling to decay. Then, on the slope of a hillside away ahead, we saw the round tower, or what is left of it, for the top of it is broken off, struck by lightning, perhaps. But the fragment that remains is 110 feet high! And seeing it thus, across the valley, with the low little church nestling at its base, one is inclined to think that Father Dempsey was not altogether wrong when he said he cared nothing about the theories of antiquarians concerning the round towers, for he knew what they were--the forefingers of the early church pointing us all to God. [Illustration: THE ROUND TOWER, MONASTERBOICE] [Illustration: THE HIGH CROSS, MONASTERBOICE] My companion and I were discussing these theories, when our jarvey saw the opportunity to spring a joke, which I have since discovered to be a time-honoured one. "Your honours are all wrong," he said, "if you will excuse my sayin' so. It has been proved that the round towers was built by the government." "Built by the government?" repeated my companion. "How can you prove that?" "Easy enough, your honour. Seein' they're no manner of use and cost a lot of money, who else could have built them?" And this, I take it, was his revenge for the Boyne battlefield. We stopped presently beside a stile leading over the stone wall at the side of the road, and here there was waiting another old woman, to unlock the entrance to the tower. We clambered over the stile and made our way up through the grass-grown, unkempt graveyard, first to the tower--one of the mightiest of these monuments of ancient Erin, for it is seventeen yards around at the base, and tapers gradually toward the top, and the only entrance is a small doorway six feet above the ground; and it takes no great effort of imagination to fancy the monks clambering wildly up to it, clutching the treasures of the monastery to their bosoms, whenever word came that the raiding Danes were in the neighbourhood. Ladders have been fixed so that one can climb to the top, but we did not essay them. No trace remains of the monastic buildings which clustered at the tower foot; for, unlike those at Mellifont and in England and on the continent, these were not wrought of stone, but were mere shacks, as in every truly Irish abbey, scarcely strong enough to screen from wind and weather the groups of scholars who gathered to study here. They lived a strait and austere life, and the only permanent structures they built were the churches. Here, as usual, they were small, the largest one being only forty feet in length; and the walls that remain prove how bare and mean they must have looked beside the carved and columned splendours of Mellifont. But Monasterboice has one glory, or rather two, beside which those that remain at Mellifont are as nothing; and these are the huge Celtic crosses, the most perfect and beautiful in the land. One of them is tall and slender and the other is short and sturdy, and both are absolute masterpieces. The high cross, as the tall one is called, stands near the tower-foot and close beside the crumbling wall of one of the old churches. It is twenty-seven feet high, and is composed of three stones, the shaft, the cross with its binding circle, and the cap. The shaft, which is about two feet square and eighteen feet high, is divided into seven compartments on either face, and in each of them is an elaborately-sculptured representation of some Bible scene, usually with three figures. Although much worn, it is still possible easily to decipher some of them, for there is Eve accepting the apple from the serpent while Adam looks mildly on, and here they are fleeing from Paradise before the angel with the flaming sword, and next Cain is hitting Abel on the head with a club while a third unidentified person watches the scene without offering to interfere. At the crossing there is a splendid crucifixion, with the usual crowded heaven and hell to left and right; the binding circle is beautifully ornamented with an interlacing design; and the cap-stone represents one of those high-pitched cells or churches, such as we saw at Killaloe and Glendalough. [Illustration: MUIREDACH'S CROSS, MONASTERBOICE] Beautiful as this cross is, it is surpassed by the other one, Muiredach's Cross, from the inscription about its base: "A prayer for Muiredach for whom this cross was made." That inscription gives us its date, at least within a century, for two Muiredachs were abbots here. One of them died in 844 and the other in 924, and as the latter was the richer and more distinguished, it is presumed that the cross is his. That would make its age almost exactly ten centuries. And yet, in spite of those ten centuries, the sculptures which enrich it from top to bottom are as beautiful to-day as they ever were. Look at the picture opposite this page--it is not my picture, though I took one, but there is an iron fence about the cross now which spoils every recent photograph--and you will see what a wonderful thing it is. It is a monolith--one single stone, fifteen feet high and six feet across the arms--and every inch of it is covered with ornamentation. It is the western face the picture shows, with the crucifixion occupying its usual position. Below it are three panels of extraordinary interest, for they show Irish warriors and clerics in the costumes of the period, all of them wearing fierce mustachios. In the upper panel are three clerics in flowing robes, the central one giving a book to one of his companions and a staff to the other; in the central panel are three ecclesiastics each holding a book; and in the lower panel a cleric in a long cloak, caught together at the throat with a brooch, stands staff in hand between two soldiers armed with Danish swords. At the foot of the shaft two dogs lie head to head. On the other side, the central panel shows Christ sitting in judgment, with a joyous devil kicking a damned soul into an already-crowded hell. The method of separating the blessed from the damned is shown just below, where a figure is carefully weighing souls in a pair of scales--a subject familiar to every one who has visited the Gothic cathedrals of France, where almost invariably a devil is trying to cheat by crouching below the scales and pulling down one side. The lower panels in the cross represent the usual Scriptural subjects--the fall of man, the expulsion from Eden, the adoration of the magi, and so on; and again at the base there are two dogs, only this time they are playing, and one is holding the other by the ear. All of this sculpture is done with spirit, with taste and with fine artistry; and another glory of the cross is the elaborate tracery of the side panels, and of the front, back, inside and outside of the circle. Of this, the photograph gives a better notion than any description could. Who was he? Was he sad or glad Who knew to carve in such a fashion? Those questions we may never answer. All we can say certainly is that he was a great artist; and his is the artist's reward: But he is dust; we may not know His happy or unhappy story: Nameless, and dead these centuries, His work outlives him,--there's his glory! We tore ourselves away at last from the contemplation of this consummate masterpiece, and drove slowly back to Drogheda, through a beautiful and fertile country, which, save for the thatched cottages, and gorse-crowned walls and hedges, did not differ greatly in appearance from my own. And I was very happy, for it had been a perfect day. Nowhere else in Ireland is it possible to crowd so much of loveliness and interest into so short a space. All unwittingly, I had saved the best for the last. CHAPTER XXXII THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE I CAN imagine no greater contrast to the quiet and peaceful valley of the Boyne than was Belfast that night. The Orangemen had already begun to celebrate King Billy's victory, and were practising for the great demonstration of the twelfth, when England was to be shown, once for all and in a manner unmistakable, that Ulster was in earnest. As I came up on the tram from the station, we ran into a mob of people, marching along in the middle of the street and yelling at the tops of their voices, and we had to wait until they had passed. I asked a fellow-passenger what was going on, and he answered with a little smile that the Orange societies had all been given new banners that night and were flinging them to the breeze for the first time. I asked him who had given the banners, and he said he didn't know. At the hotel, I found that Betty had sought the sanctuary of our room, and was watching the tumult from the window. She said it reminded her of the French Revolution, and the comparison was natural enough. The especial scene she had in mind, I think, was that draggled procession of shrieking fishwives which escorted the king and his family in from Versailles. I do not know how many Orange societies there are at Belfast, but we saw at least a dozen march past that night, each of them headed by a band or drum-corps, and each with a bright new Orange banner flaunting proudly in the breeze. Each banner bore a painted representation of some Orange victory; King Billy on his white horse fording the Boyne being a favourite subject; and the banners were very large and fringed with gold lace and most expensive-looking; and before them and beside them and behind them trailed a mob of shrieking girls and women and ragamuffin boys, locked arm and arm half across the street, breaking into a clumsy dance now and then, or shouting the lines of some Orange ditty. There were many men in line, marching along more or less soberly; but these bacchantes outnumbered them two to one. They blocked the street from side to side, stopped traffic, and conducted themselves as though they had suddenly gone mad. Presently all the societies, which had been collecting at some rendezvous, marched back together, with the mob augmented a hundred-fold, so that, looking down from our window, we could see nothing but a mass of heads filling the street from side to side--thousands and thousands of women and girls and boys, all vociferous with a frenzied intoxication--and in the midst of them the thin stream of Orangemen trudging along behind their banners. I went down into the street to view this demonstration more closely, for it was evident that here at last was the spirit of Ulster unveiled for all to see; but at close quarters much of its impressiveness vanished, for the mob was composed largely of boys and girls out for a good time, and rejoicing in the unaccustomed privilege of yelling and hooting to their hearts' content. A few policemen would have been quite capable of dealing with that portion of it. But the men marching grimly along behind their banners were of different stuff; they were ready, apparently, for any emergency, ready for a holy war; and I wondered if their leaders, who had sown the wind so blithely as part of the game of politics, were quite prepared to reap the whirlwind which might follow. A man with whom I fell into talk said there would be a procession like this every evening until the twelfth; but I should think the drummers would be exhausted long before that. I have described the contortions of the Dublin drummers, but they are nowhere as compared with the drummers of Belfast. And, though about a fourth of Belfast's population is Catholic, you would never have suspected it that night, for there was no disorder of any kind, except the wild disorder of the Orangemen and their adherents. I suspect that, in Belfast, wise Catholics spend the early evenings of July at home. * * * * * We went out, next morning, to Ardoyne village, to see one of the few establishments where linen is still woven by hand. A beautiful old factory it is, with the work-rooms grouped around an open court which reminded us of the Plantin-Moretus at Antwerp; and the Scotchman in charge of it took us through from top to bottom. I have forgotten how many looms there are--some thirty or forty; and it was most interesting to watch the weavers as they shot the shuttle swiftly back and forth with one hand and worked the heavy beam with the other, while with their feet they controlled the pattern. Nearly all the weavers were old men, and our guide told us it was growing more and more difficult to replace them, because hand-weaving had been so largely displaced by machine-work that it was rapidly becoming a lost art. Few young men were willing to undertake the long apprenticeship which was necessary before they could become expert weavers, and he foresaw the time when hand-weaving would cease altogether. Then we went upstairs, where the pattern mechanism is mounted above each loom; and though I understood it, in a way, after long and careful explanation, I am quite incapable of explaining it to anybody else, except to say that the threads which run down to the loom below are governed by a lot of stiff cards laced together into a long roll, and cut with many perforations, so that the roll looks something like the music-rolls used in mechanical piano-players. Last of all we were shown some of the finished product, and very beautiful it was, strong as iron--far stronger than machine-woven linen, for the shuttle can be thrown by hand more often to the inch than is possible by machine; and some of the patterns, too, were very lovely; one, in especial, from the Book of Kells, the interwoven Celtic ornamentation, the symbol of eternity. Of course we talked about Home Rule, and our Scotch host, who was evidently a devoted Orangeman, was very certain Ulster would fight before she would acquiesce. If the fight went against her, he prophesied that no Protestant industry which could get out of Ireland would stay to be taxed out of existence by a Dublin Parliament, and he said that many of the great factories had already secured options on English sites, and were prepared to move at any time. I remarked that it seemed to me the wiser plan would be to wait and see how Home Rule worked before plunging into revolution; then, if it was found that Ulster was really oppressed, it would be time enough for her army to take the field. And I told him something of what I had seen and heard in the south and west of Ireland--that, among all the people I had talked with, not one had expressed himself with any bitterness toward Ulster, and that many had said frankly that the leaders of the Irish people would be largely Protestant in the future, just as they had been in the past. But he was unconvinced, and very gloomy over the outlook. We came away finally, and took a last look about Belfast--at the busy streets, the bright shops, the humming factories, the clattering foundries; and then the hour of departure came. The jarvey who drove us to the boat was a jovial, loquacious son of the Church, with good-natured laughter for Orange excesses. "Why should we Catholics interfere wid them?" he asked. "We'd only be gettin' our heads broke, and all the papers would be full of the riots in Ulster. Sure, haven't I seen them before this treatin' a small fight at the corner as though it was a revolution? No, no; we'll just stay quiet and let them have their fun. It does good to them and no harm to us. They'll settle down again when the Home Rule bill is passed, and then we'll be Irishmen all, please God!" From the bottom of my heart I said I hoped so. Indeed, I can think of no better watch-word to replace "No Surrender!" and curses on King Billy and the Pope than "Irishmen All!" * * * * * There are few busier ports than Belfast, and we made our way down to the quay through a tangle of drays that would have done no discredit to the New York water-front; and at last we found our boat and got aboard. And presently the ropes were cast off, and we steamed slowly down the river, between long lines of lofty scaffolding shrouding the hulls of scores of mighty ships, one day to play their part in the commerce of the world. And then we were in Belfast Lough, with the grim keep of Carrickfergus looming on the western shore; and then the bay widened, the shores dropped away, and we headed out across the white-capped waters of the Irish Sea. For long and long in the distance, we could see the purple masses of the Antrim hills, growing fainter and ever fainter, until at last they merged into the purple of the western sky. And so we looked our last upon the Island of the Saints. THE END INDEX Abbeys, 21-22, 99-102, 108-109, 110-112, 193-196, 199, 229-233, 266, 269-271, 280, 285-291, 346-347, 379-382, 405, 422-423, 442-443, 550-558 Adare, 226-236 Aghadoe, 180, 198-200, 201 Aideen, 23 Aileach, 465, 480 Allen, Hill of, 93 Allen, Lough, 242 Allingham, William, 428-430 Allua, Lough, 141, 144 America, Irish Idea of, 24, 170-174 Annals of the Four Masters, The, 442, 465 Antrim, County, 489, 521, 530, 534, 564 Antrim, Earl of, 489, 495-496 Antrim, Glens of, 491, 495, 499 Arbutus Island, 186 Archdeckan, John, 136 Architecture, see Irish Architecture Ardilaun, Lord, see Guinness Ardoyne, 561-563 Armada, The, 416, 485 Armagh, 103, 536, 550 Arran, Earl of, 441 Art, see Irish Art Ashford House, 347-348 Assaroe, Abbey, 422-423, 429 Asylums, 180, 240, 266, 375, 526 Athenry, 266, 268-272, 292 Athlone, 207, 209, 252, 259, 265, 272-285, 292, 390, 454, 456 Auburn, see Lissoy Avoca, Vale of, 61 Avonbeg, The, 60 Avonmore, The, 59, 60 Baedeker, Karl, 385 Baird, Sir David, 509-510 Baker, Henry, 450, 460 Balbriggan, 85 Ballina, 351 Ballintoy, 487 Ballintra, The, 432 Ballycastle, 486, 489-490 Ballysadare, 377 Ballyshannon, 419-431, 445 Balor of the Evil Eye, 384 Banishment to Connaught, The, 331-333 Bank of Ireland, 13 Bann, The, 447, 474, 536 Bantry Bay, 139, 151, 159 Barnesmore, Gap of, 444 Beggars, 109-110, 144, 173-174, 183-184, 186, 283-284, 310, 364, 375, 412, 426-427 Belfast, 89, 205, 427, 469, 479, 501, 502, 503-519, 530, 532-533, 534, 535, 536, 559-564 Belfast Lough, 502, 564 Bird Hill, 251 Birmingham, George A., see Hannay, J. A. Black Lough, 184 Black Valley, The, 185 Blackrock, 100 Blackwater, The, 138, 164, 203 Blarney Castle, 115-127, 190, 205 Bogs, 93, 267-268, 315-316, 370, 490-491 Book of Kells, see Kells Boru, Brian, see Brian Boru Boycott, Captain Charles C., 346 Boyd, Hugh, 489-490 Boyne, The, 85, 221, 454, 537, 538-540, 549, 559 Boyne, Battle of the, 31, 85, 274, 453-454, 460, 534, 538-540 Bray, 59 Breffni, Prince of, see O'Rourke, Tiernan Brian Boru, 18-20, 34, 41, 100, 103, 107, 204, 208, 251-259, 273, 288, 427 Bridge End, 461, 462 Brigid, see St. Brigid Brooke, Sir Basil, 439-441 Brown Valley, The, 165 Bruce, Edward, 208, 269, 501, 502, 537 Brugh-na-Boinne, 540-550 Bundoran, 405, 412-419 Burgo, Richard de, 271, 293, 354, 447 Burial, Ancient Irish, 38, 540-544 Bushmills, 480 Cairns, 345-346, 377-78, 384, 392, 417, 536, 540-550 Callanan, Jeremiah, 149 Cannera, 248 Cape Clear, 161 Cappoquin, 138 Car, see Jaunting-car Carleton, Will, 421 Carlingford, 21, 479 Carnach, Conal, 377 Carnlough, 500-501 Carrick-a-Rede, 487-488 Carrickfergus, 502, 564 Carrowmore, 384, 385 Carson, Sir Edward, 469, 471 Casey, John Keegan, 278-279 Cashel, Rock of, 49, 94, 102-112, 148, 178, 229, 253, 254, 279 Cashels, 103, 406-408, 461, 462-467, 536 Castlebar, 375 Castleconnell, 242-251, 263-264 Castlemaine, 191 Castles, 116-125, 207, 230-234, 243, 265, 268-269, 283-285, 353-354, 402-403, 438-441, 479-480 Catholic Emancipation, 218, 460 Cavan, 545 Celbridge, 92 Celtchair, 524 Celtic Crosses, see Crosses Champneys, Arthur, 110 Charles I, 86, 441, 447, 449 Charles II, 86, 210, 448 Charleville, 113-114, 461 Children, 32, 98, 106, 109-110, 320-321, 358-360 Church of Ireland, 30, 75, 411 Churches, 21-22, 30-32, 34-37, 87, 131-132, 138, 200, 206, 213, 233-234, 255-257, 303, 459-460, 519-524 Ciaran, see St. Kieran Civilization, Ancient Irish, see Irish Civilization, Ancient Claddagh, The, 298-300 Clandonnell, see MacDonnell Clanricarde, Earls of, 269 Clara, Vale of, 60 Clare, Abbey, 266 Clare, Richard de, see Strongbow Clare, County, 209, 258, 265-266 Claremorris, 375-377, 535 Cleeve, The Messrs., 215, 236-239 Clew Bay, 371-372 Clifden, 324-325, 331, 370 Climate, 28, 60, 128, 161-162, 179, 358, 398, 415 Clonard, 406 Clonbur, 345 Clondalkin, 42-57, 67, 75, 92 Clonmacnoise, 274, 285-291 Clonmell, Lord, 16 Clontarf, 18-20, 107, 251, 252, 254, 288 Cloyne, 138 Coleraine, 447, 474-476 Colleen Bawn, 417, 420-422 Collooney, 377 Colman, Abbot, 289 Colman's Leap, 187 Columba, see St. Columba Cong, 339, 345, 350-352, 354, 358 Cong, Abbey of, 39, 290, 346-348 Cong, Cross of, 26, 37, 39-40, 100, 204, 346 Congested Districts Board, 331-336 Conn the Hundred Fighter, 204, 291, 549 Conn, Lough, 351 Connaught, 17, 19, 27, 178, 258, 267, 269, 274, 293, 306, 314-369, 375, 493 Connell of the Hy-Nial, 427-428, 465 Connemara, 200, 292, 293, 300, 314-336, 346, 414, 463, 490 Connemara Marble, 306, 316-318 Constabulary, see Royal Irish Constabulary Convent Schools, 133-134, 163 Cook's Tours, 177-178, 182, 382-383 Cork, 114-116, 128-138, 139, 147, 149, 151, 174, 205, 214, 331, 352, 454 Cork, County, 19, 162 Cork, Earl of, 32 Cormac, see MacArt or MacCarthy Cormac's Chapel, 107-108, 148 Corrib, Lough, 39, 304, 314, 346, 347, 348, 350, 351, 352-354 Corrib, River, 298, 300, 303, 314, 347 Cottages, 88, 141-144, 181, 195, 225-226, 320-321, 354-355, 362-363, 384-385, 497 Craigmore, 536 Cratloe, 265 Crime, 55-56, 327-328, 344 Croagh Patrick, 372-373 Cromlechs, 23, 384, 385, 386, 388-392, 417 Cromwell, Oliver, 76, 86-87, 105, 116, 118, 190, 208, 231, 270, 293, 331-332, 448, 470, 538 Cross of Cong, see Cong, Cross of Crosses, Celtic, 37, 288-289, 351-352, 523, 553-558 Crowe, O'Brien, 351-352 Cuchulain, 377, 537 Cullen, Joe, 434-436 Culmore, 473 Curran, John Philpot, 134 Cushendall, 490, 492, 495, 496, 498-500 Cushendun, 491 Dalcassians, 253 Danes, The 17, 18-20, 22, 33, 34, 44, 50, 65, 66, 130, 147, 199, 204, 207, 242, 252-254, 287-288, 446-447, 465, 522, 536, 541, 542, 555 Dargle, The, 59 Dark Rosaleen, 14-15 Darrow, Book of, 41 Day, Length of Irish, 23, 338, 456-457, 491-492 De Courcy, John, 522-523 De Dananns, The, 346, 384 De Lacy, Hugh, 545 De Vere, Aubrey, 259 Derg, Lough, 207, 219, 242, 252, 258-259, 406, 413 Derry, 76, 397, 443, 446-461, 466, 467-474, 535, 539 Derryclare, 319 Dervorgilla, 35, 219-221, 402, 405-406, 553 D'Esterre, 92 Devil's Bit, The, 94, 106 Devil's Mother Mountain, 340 Diarmuid, 389-391 Dillisk, 296-297, 299 Dollard, James B., 436 Donegal, 413, 431, 432-443, 465 Donegal, County, 388, 427, 428, 440, 444, 466, 486 Donnybrook, 470 Doon, Rock of, 440 Doonas, Falls of, 245-246 Down, County, 519, 530, 536 Downpatrick, 519-532 Dowth, 85, 534, 540-544, 546, 547 Dowth Castle, 544-545 Drogheda, 85-89, 449, 450, 454, 534, 537, 538 Dromahair, 403-406, 488 Druids, The, 44, 542, 543-544, 549 Drummers, 24-25, 561 Dublin, 4-41, 56, 58, 59, 85, 86, 89, 92, 102, 104, 114, 115, 128, 137, 173, 174, 193, 205, 229, 230, 418, 439, 446, 453, 454, 503, 531, 534, 535, 537, 538, 539, 561 Dublin Bay, 17-18, 21 Dublin Castle, 18, 32, 33-34, 74, 327 Dundalk, 537, 538 Dunleary, 137 Dunloe, Gap of, 165, 177, 181-186, 192, 201 Dunluce Castle, 479-480, 485, 488 Dunraven, Earl of, 229, 233-234 Eask, Lough, 444 Eask, River, 438, 444 Education, see Schools Emigration, 131, 138, 330-331, 418-419, 443-444 Ennis, 265-266 Enniskillen, 412-413, 449, 453 Episcopal Church, see Church of Ireland Erne, Lough, 413, 414, 420, 427 Erne, River, 414, 417-418, 420, 428-431 Established Church, see Church of Ireland Eugenius, see St. Eugenius Eyre, Jane, 303 Famine, 93, 131, 195, 351 Faughart, 501, 537 Ffolliotts, The, 417, 420-422 Fianna, The, 23, 106, 390, 492 Fin Barre, see St. Fin Barre Fingalla, 443 Finn MacCool, 106-107, 184, 204, 275, 389-391, 483-484, 492 Firbolgs, The, 299-300, 346, 431 Fishing, 169, 178-179, 191, 242-245, 263-264, 303-306, 326, 431 Fitzgibbon, Lord, 237 Fitzstephen, James Lynch, 301-303 Flann, High King of Erin, 288-289, 290 Flax, 445, 488, 519, 535 Flesk, The, 167, 203 Flight of the Earls, The, 440, 447 Flowers, 43, 57, 60, 152, 154, 164-165, 418 Fogha, Fergus, 536 Formorians, The, 384 Foyle, Lough, 466, 472 Foyle, River, 446, 447 Fuchsias, 152-153, 326, 497 Funerals, 194-195 Gaelic, 161, 242, 363, 487, 489 Gaels, The, 293, 300, 384, 466, 540-544 Galtees, The, 106, 113 Galway, 102, 292-313, 314, 317, 331, 351, 352, 445, 455 Game Preserves, 61, 345, 348-349 George II, 14, 105 George IV, 137 George V, 396, 456 Geraldines, see Kildare, Earls of Giant's Causeway, The, 477, 480-486 Gill, Lough, 219-220, 384, 398-412, 486, 494 Ginkle, Gen. Godert de, 209, 243, 274, 285 Glenaan, 491, 492-496 Glenariff, Vale of, 500 Glenarm, 501 Glendalough, 59, 62-84, 133, 248, 286, 556 Glendining Monument, The, 370-371, 372, 375 Glendun, 491 Glenealy, 62 Glengarriff, 139, 152-162, 174, 326, 382 Goldsmith, Oliver, 274-279 Goold's Cross, 105, 113 Gougane Barra, 139, 145-149 Government, The, 34, 54-55, 74, 79, 104, 327-328, 351, 372 Grainan of Aileach, The, 461, 462-467 Gráinne, 107, 389-391 Grattan, Henry, 11 Graves, Alfred Perceval, 432-433 Grazing, 90-91, 93, 335, 419 Griffin, Gerald, 213 Guinness, Sir Benjamin, 30, 344, 345, 346, 347-349 Gwynne, Stephen, 110, 391, 437 Hannay, J. A., 170, 372, 373-374 Heather, 60, 399, 400, 402 Hen Castle, 353-354 Henry II, 33 Henry VII, 229 Henry VIII, 30, 230, 524 Hill of Howth, see Howth Hinkson, Katherine Tynan, 57 Holy Cross Abbey, 98-102, 178, 440 Holy Wells, 147-148, 245-249, 262, 365, 410-411, 526-531 Home Rule, 12, 20, 56, 77, 82, 83, 89-91, 155-157, 216-218, 236, 404, 419, 467-469, 498, 505-510, 514-516, 529-530, 559-564 Hore Abbey, 110-112 Hospitality, 41, 45-46, 50-57, 95-96, 110, 154-155, 244, 305-309, 354-355, 551-552 Howth, 4, 16-18, 20-23 Howth, Lord, 22-23 Hy Many, 19 Hy-Nial, see Nial, Connell, Owen Idioms, 46, 66-67, 368-369 Inagh, 319 Inchigeelagh, 141-144 Indian Corn, 154-155, 260, 309 Industrial Depression, 54-55, 212-213, 215-216, 371-372, 404-405, 419, 422-424, 489-490 Inebriety, 5-6, 33, 114, 196-197, 306-307 Inisfallen, 189, 199 Inishowen, 466, 474 Inis-Saimer, 431 Inns, 66-67, 94-98, 164-166, 174-175, 224, 228-229, 242-244, 315, 322, 326, 346, 371, 378-379, 415-416, 433-434, 480-481 Inny, The, 278 Insurance, Workman's, 52, 84, 222-223 Ireland's Eye, 21 Ireton, Gen. Henry, 208 Irish Architecture, 21-22, 101, 103, 107-108, 111-112, 193-196, 199, 231-233, 255-257, 261, 270-271, 285-290, 307-308 Irish Art, 26, 37-41, 288-289, 543, 547-548, 555-558 Irish Brigade, The, 210 Irish Character, 3, 37, 98, 114, 159-161, 196-197, 214-215, 386-389, 393-396, 404, 458-459, 470-471, 475, 532 Irish Civilization, Ancient, 18, 19, 38, 99-100, 204, 286-290, 525-526 Irish Girls, 41, 115, 124, 163-164, 214-215, 315, 323-324 Irish Sea, 1, 21, 35, 59, 220, 495, 500, 501, 564 Jails, 55-56, 240, 266, 375, 473, 525 James II, 36, 208, 210, 449-455, 534, 538-540 Jarvey, The, 29-30, 88, 129, 168, 274-275, 398, 399, 486, 488-489, 500, 563 Jaunting-Car, The, 8, 26-30, 60, 88, 98, 128-130, 400, 486 Johnson, Mrs. Hester, 30-31 Johnson, Lionel, 221, 495 Jones, John Paul, 502 Joyce's Country, 79, 339-357 Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, 466 Kearney, Kate, 181-182 Keimaneigh, Pass of, 150-151 Kells, Book of, 26, 37, 40-41, 193, 204 Kenmare, 163, 200 Kenmare, Earl of, 198 Kenmare, River, 164, 384 Kenny, Donal, 278-279 Kerry, County, 19, 162, 197 Kevin, see St. Kevin Kieran, see St. Kieran Kilcrea Abbey, 140 Kildare, 522 Kildare, Curragh of, 89, 92-93 Kildare, Earls of, 229-231 Killaloe, 207, 242, 248, 250 251-263, 286, 556 Killarney, 138, 139, 165-203, 242, 319, 412, 481 Killary Bay, 326, 369 Killone Abbey, 266 Kilpatrick, 521 Kincora, 251-263, 273 Kingstown, 4, 21 Kinsale, 102, 440, 454 Knocknarea, 377-378, 384, 385, 392 Knocktow, 230 Kylemore, Pass of, 326 Labour Problem, 23-25, 54-55, 61-62, 83-84, 90-91, 281, 330-331, 332-333, 349-350, 468 Labourers' Cottages, 342, 408-410 Lace-making, 133-134, 163, 239 Land League, The, 344, 346, 352, 353 Land Problem, 90-91, 266-267, 330-336, 340-342, 348-350, 353 Landlords, 332-333, 334-336, 345, 349-350, 529 Larne, 499, 501, 502 Layd Church, 499 Leacht-Con-Mic-Ruis, The, 384, 398-402, 405 Leane, Lough, 165 Lee, The, 130, 132, 140, 141, 144, 146 Leenane, 325, 326-338, 339, 352, 357, 358-369, 445 Legends, 48-49, 62-65, 68-69, 70-71, 92-93, 94, 106-107, 117, 120, 126, 136, 146-147, 159-162, 184-185, 187, 188, 190, 194, 199, 219-221, 246-247, 248-249, 275, 286-291, 292-293, 301-303, 346, 351-352, 353-354, 372-373, 377-378, 389-391, 413, 465-466, 483-484, 485, 490, 494-495, 521-522, 549 Leinster, Province, 19 Letterfrank, 326 Lever, Charles, 214, 395, 476 Liffey, The, 5, 18, 33, 59 Limerick, 76, 106, 204-227, 236-242, 243, 251, 252, 254, 264, 265, 274, 402, 454, 531 Limerick, Treaty of, 208-210 Limerick Junction, 113, 204, 254 Limericks, 240 Linen, 518, 519, 561-563 Lir, Children of, 490 Lisbun, 535 Lissoughter, 306, 315-320 Lissoy, 274-279 Lloyd-George, David, 158-159, 474 Loe, The, 184 Londonderry, see Derry Lord of the Isles, The, 439, 480 Loughs, see name of each Lover, Samuel, 214 Loyalty, 396-397, 456, 532-533 Ludlow, Gen. Edmund, 190-191 Lundy, Robert, 450, 452 Lurgan, 535 Lynch, James, 301-303 Lyons Hill, 92 MacArt, Cormac, 106-108, 389, 549-550 MacCarthy, Cormac, 103, 116-117, 126, 204 McCarthy, Denis A., 94 McCarthy, Dermot, 117 MacCool or MacCumhal, Finn, see Finn MacCool MacDonnell, Angus, 480 MacDonnell, Innen Dhu, 439 MacDonnells, The, 491, 499, 502 Macgillicuddy's Reeks, 165, 184, 185 McKeown, R. H., 326-327, 368 MacLiag, 251-252 MacMurrough, Dermot, 35, 219-221, 402 MacNatfraich, �ngus, 49, 107 Maam, 354-355 Maamturk Mountains, 314, 319 Macroom, 139, 140, 382 Magrath, Milar, 104 Mahon, King of Munster, 253-254 Mahony, Francis Sylvester (Father Prout), 118, 132, 136 Mail, 330, 337-338, 496-497 Mallow, 204 Mangan, James Clarence, 14-15, 251 Marconi, Guglielmo, 325 Margy, The, 490 Markets, 98, 200, 294-297, 311 Marriage Contract, 54, 395-396 Mask, Lough, 339, 343-345, 346, 347, 350, 351, 384 Matthew, Father, 206 Mattock, The, 550 Maynooth, 3 Mayo, County, 375, 377 Meath, 19, 543 Meave, 377-378, 392 Meeting of the Waters, The, 60-61 Mellifont, 85, 178, 221, 534, 538, 550-553 Milcho, 521 Milesians, The, see Gaels Milliken, Richard, 116, 118 Minogue, John, 105-111, 173, 279 Moira, 535 Molua, see St. Molua Monasterboice, 37, 85, 88, 178, 534, 538, 553-558 Monasteries, 18, 19, 21-22, 65-66, 99-102, 103, 108-109, 110-112, 230-234, 268-271, 285-291, 379-382 Monastic Schools, 19, 38, 104, 268-269, 285-291 Monk, Gen. George, 536 Monkey Trees, 201-202 Monkstown, 136 Moore, George, 374, 543 Moore, Thomas, 14, 19, 60-61, 63-64, 219-220, 221, 248, 406 Mount Melleray, 138 Mountmorris, Lord, 352 Mourne, Lough, 445 Mourne Mountains, 524, 536 Moytura, 346, 384 Moytura, Northern, 384 Muckross Abbey, 193-196, 231-232 Muckross Lake, 165, 201 Muiredach, 556 Munster, 19, 20, 103, 107, 116, 253, 254, 465 Murray, Adam, 450, 460 Murray's Guidebook, 348, 375, 381, 385, 399, 455-456, 461, 502, 525, 526 Nafooey, Lough, 343 Nally, John, 278 National Education Board, The, 74-82 National Gallery of Ireland, The, 15-16 National Museum of Science and Art, The, 15, 37-40, 373 National Schools, see Schools National University of Ireland, The, 306-307 Nationalists, see Home Rule Nelson, Horatio, 6, 8, 12, 16 Netterville Institution, The, 545 Newgrange, 85, 534, 546-550 Newry, 536 Nial Garv, 439-440, 442 Nial of the Nine Hostages, 427, 464 Normans, The, 22-23, 33, 35, 38, 65, 130, 199, 207, 208, 220-221, 274, 288, 293, 354, 379-382, 501, 520, 536 O'Brien, Donall, 206, 255 O'Brien, Murtagh, 256, 465 O'Brien, Smith, 11 O'Cahans, The, 476, 480 O'Connell, Daniel, 10, 12, 20, 92, 115, 205, 217, 218, 460 O'Conor, Rory, 39, 290 O'Conor, Turlough, 39, 40, 220 O'Dee, Bishop, 306-307, 352 O'Dohertys, The, 473, 476 O'Donaghue, The, 187, 188, 190 O'Donnell, Hugh, 439 O'Donnell, Hugh Roe, 438, 443 O'Donnell, Red Hugh, 102, 269, 379, 438-440, 442 O'Donnell, Rory, 440 O'Donnells, The, 428, 432, 438-439, 480 O'Duffy, Gilbert and Nicol, 351 O'Echon, Maelisu MacBraddan, 40 O'Flaherty, Rory, 325 O'Flaherty, The, 293, 314, 339, 353-354 O'Gillan, Enoch, 290 O'Hanlon, Redmond, 536 O'Hurley, Dermot, 104 O'Malleys, The, 79, 344, 353-354 O'Neill, Hugh, 208 O'Neill, Owen Roe, 86 O'Neill, Shane, 480 O'Neills, The, 428, 440 O'Reilly, John Boyle, 544-545 O'Reilly, William David, 545 O'Rourke, Tiernan, 35, 219-221, 405-406, 553 O'Rourke's Table, 403 O'Sullivan's Punchbowl, 188 Old Age Pensions, see Pensions Ormonde, Earl of, 100 Orangemen, 197, 458, 469, 470-471, 475, 506-508, 511, 514-516, 528, 530, 534, 559-564 Oscar, 23, 390 Ossian, 23, 106, 204, 221, 390, 492-495 Oughterard, 323 Owen of the Hy-Nial, 427-428, 464, 465-466, 479-480 Owengarriff, The, 201 Parades, 23-24, 457, 504, 505, 559-560 Parknasilla, 164, 416 Parnell, Charles Stewart, 12, 60, 217-219 Patrick, see St. Patrick Peat, see Turf Pembroke, Earl of, see Strongbow Pensions, 52-54, 196-197, 223 Perrot, Sir John, 480 Pettigoe, 413 Plantation of Ulster, The, 447-448, 476 Pleaskin, 485-486 Poor Relief, 363-368 Portadown, 535, 536 Portrush, 473, 476-477 Port Stewart, 476 Potheen, 181-182, 184 Presbyterians, 75, 486, 506-509, 510-511 Price, Archbishop, 104-105 Priests, 1-3, 56-57, 74-75, 77, 89, 155-161, 217, 305-309, 395 Prout, Father, see Mahony, Francis Sylvester Queen's College, Galway, 306-307, 352 Queenstown, 115, 136, 137, 138 Quoile, The, 519, 524, 525 Race-meetings, 113-114 Rafferty, Mr., 316-318 Railroads, 42-43, 59, 88-89, 250, 272-273, 415-416, 461-462, 535-536 Rain, 28, 66-67, 73, 111, 161-162, 179, 180-183, 185, 192, 224, 227, 406-408, 431-432 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 16 Rathdrum, 59, 60, 84 Rathlin Island, 489 Raths, 103, 258, 407, 519, 522, 524-526 Recess, 315-325, 416 Red Bay, 500 Red Branch Knights, 524, 537 Red Hugh, 423 Redmond, John, 471 Ree, Lough, 207, 273, 275, 279, 286, 377 Reilly, Willy, 180-181, 417, 420-422 Religion, 75-77, 208-210, 216-217, 257-258, 332-333, 447-455, 458-459, 467-471, 475, 506-509, 510-511, 520-521, 539 Repartee, 58, 68, 278, 500, 539, 554 Roads, 28, 61-62, 158-159 Rock of Cashel, see Cashel Roe, Henry, 35 Rolleston, T. W., 490 Roman Catholic Church, The, 30, 74-75, 155, 508-509, 520-521 Roscommon, 279 Rosnaree, 549-550 Ross Castle, 177, 186, 190-191 Rosshill, 345 Ross Island, 188-189 Round Towers, 42, 43-45, 65, 83, 103, 109, 199, 288, 553-555 Royal Irish Constabulary, The, 7, 10, 17, 88, 157, 184, 327-329 Ruins, 21-22, 65, 73, 76, 83, 99-112, 115-125, 193-196, 198-200, 229-234, 265-266, 268-271, 285-290, 346-347, 353-354, 379-382, 402-403, 422-423, 438-441, 442-443, 479-480, 499, 536, 550-558 St. Anne Shandon, 131-132 St. Brigid, 92-93, 108, 446, 519, 520, 522, 540 St. Columba, 436, 446, 460, 465, 519, 520, 522 St. Eugenius, 62 St. Fin Barre, 130, 139, 145-149 St. Finian the Leper, 199 St. Kevin, 62-84, 119, 248 St. Kieran, 286-291 St. Mary's Abbey, Howth, 21-22, 230 St. Molua, 259-262, 286 St. Patrick, 30, 34, 38, 39, 48-49, 62, 103, 107, 108, 115, 146, 150, 184, 221, 286, 372, 410, 427, 446, 465, 495, 519, 520-522, 528, 540, 543-544 St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, 26, 30-32, 35 St. Patrick's Purgatory, 219, 413, 414 St. Petroc, 62 St. Senan, 245-249, 410 Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, 12 Salthill, 309, 311-313 Sarsfield, Patrick, 204, 207, 208-210, 213-214, 237, 258-259, 454, 539 Saul, 521-522 Scarva, 536 Scattery Island, 248-249 Scenery, 42, 43, 59, 60-62, 65-66, 92-94, 99, 106-107, 113, 116, 145-146, 150-152, 162-166, 183-187, 195-196, 243, 266-267, 314-322, 325-326, 343-345, 354, 398-399, 417, 444-445, 466-467, 479, 482-486, 490-492, 535-537 Schomberg, Gen. Frederick Herman, 31-32, 502, 538 Schoolbooks, 359, 360-362 Schools, 46-47, 74-82, 358-363, 510-511 Scotch-Irish, The, 458-459, 479-480, 487, 520, 562-563 Shamrock, The, 46, 47-50, 67, 103, 107, 498 Shannon, The, 106, 205, 207-208, 212-213, 215, 227, 236-237, 240, 242-265, 273, 284, 285, 332, 333, 390, 448 Sheela-na-gig, The, 279-283 Sheen, The, 162 Shrines, see Holy Wells Side-car, see Jaunting-car Silken Thomas, see Kildare, Earls of Slane, 538, 543-544 Slemish, 521 Slievenamon, 94, 106-107, 389 Sligo, 378-385, 392, 396, 406, 411-412, 421, 442 Sligo, County, 377, 428 Sligo, O'Conor, 380 Slums, 9, 32-33, 132, 210-214 Smoking, 2-3, 194-195 Snakes, 111, 146, 184-185, 372-373 Statues, 10, 15, 35-36, 213-214 Stella, see Johnson, Mrs. Hester Stone Circles, 384, 389, 392, 406-408, 492, 494-495, 546 Strabane, 445-446, 450 Strangford, Lough, 521 Stranorlar, 445 Stranrear, 501 Strongbow, 26, 33, 34, 35-36, 220-221, 288, 447 Struell, 526-531 Suir, The, 99 Sullivan, Timothy, 221-222 Swift, Jonathan, 26, 30-32, 34, 92 Swilly, Lough, 427, 461, 466 Tara, 41, 107, 389, 390, 540, 543-544, 549 Taylor, Jeremy, 524 Tenements, 9, 13, 33, 210-214 Thomond, 251 Thomond, Earl of, 206, 265 Thurles, 94-99, 174 Tillage, 140, 266-267, 340-342 Timony, John, 441-442 Tipperary, Vale of, 90, 93-94, 103, 106, 113, 204 Tomies, The, 184 Tone, Theobald Wolfe, 509 Tonna, Charlotte, 453 Tore Cascade, 201-202 Trams, 16, 17, 28, 309-310 Trinity College, 10, 14, 40-41, 193, 307 Tristram, Sir Almericus, 22-23 Tuam, 2 Tullymongan, 545 Turf, 98, 142, 267-268, 300-301, 355-357, 388, 490-491, 529 Twelve Pins of Bunnabeola, The, 318, 319, 325 Tyrconnell, Earl of, 423, 440, 454 Tyrconnell, Lady, 539 Tyrconnell, Province, 427-428, 447 Tyrone, 427-428, 446, 447, 464, 465, 479 Ulster, 36, 86, 87, 155, 157, 197, 216-217, 424, 448, 449, 453, 455, 458-459, 461, 468-469, 486, 498, 502, 506-518, 521, 522, 529-530, 537, 539, 559-564 Union, Act of, 13, 35 Unionists, see Home Rule Vanessa, 92 Victoria, Queen, 137, 166, 201, 352, 517 Wages, 61, 84, 90-91, 98, 143, 222, 267-268, 281, 337, 409, 419 Walker, Rev. George, 450-451, 460, 538-539 Warbeck, Perkin, 131 Waterford, 454 Weather, see Climate and Rain Westmeath, 277, 280, 284 Westport, 369, 370-375, 377, 382, 445, 536 Wicklow, 18, 21, 59, 62 Wild West Films, 24, 396, 532 William III of Orange, 12, 76, 208-210, 294, 449-450, 453-455, 460, 470, 475, 502, 534, 538-540, 559 Wilson, Woodrow, 377, 441-442 Workhouses, 54-56, 84, 87, 143-144, 180, 375, 473 Workman's Insurance, see Insurance Wyatt, Henry, 16 Youghal, 138 * * * * * Transcriber's note: Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained. Obvious punctuation errors have been corrected. Page 215, "enought" changed to "enough" (enough to meet one) Page 298, "whereever" changed to "wherever" (have been built wherever) Page 425, "celebate" changed to "celebrate" (forbidden to celebrate Mass) Page 517, "visting" changed to "visiting" (which is worth visiting) Page 576, "Tyrconnel" changed to "Tyrconnell" (Tyrconnell, Province) 
43921	----	Transcriber's Note Certain typographical features, such as italic font, cannot be reproduced in this version of the text. Any italicized font is delimited with the underscore character as _italic_. Any "small cap" text is shifted to all uppercase. The occasional 'oe' ligature is given as separate characters. Fractions are formatted as, for example, "2-1/4". Illustrations, of course, cannot be provided here, but their approximate positions in the text are indicated as: [Illustration: caption] Please consult the more detailed notes at the end of this text for the resolution of any other issues that were encountered. ONE IRISH SUMMER [Illustration: AN ANCIENT CELTIC CROSS AT GLENDALOUGH] ONE IRISH SUMMER BY WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS AUTHOR OF "_The Yankees of the East_," "_Between the Andes and the Ocean_" "_Modern India_," "_The Turk and his Lost Provinces_" "_To-day in Syria and Palestine_," _etc._ _ILLUSTRATED_ [Illustration] NEW YORK _DUFFIELD & COMPANY_ 1909 COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY DUFFIELD & COMPANY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. CONTENTS PAGE I. A SUMMER IN IRELAND 1 II. THE CATHEDRALS AND DEAN SWIFT 15 III. HOW IRELAND IS GOVERNED 34 IV. DUBLIN CASTLE 53 V. THE REDEMPTION OF IRELAND 60 VI. SACRED SPOTS IN DUBLIN 77 VII. THE OLD AND NEW UNIVERSITIES 97 VIII. ROUND ABOUT DUBLIN 115 IX. THE LANDLORDS AND THE LANDLESS 130 X. MAYNOOTH COLLEGE AND CARTON HOUSE 143 XI. DROGHEDA, AND THE VALLEY OF THE BOYNE 159 XII. TARA, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF IRELAND 174 XIII. SAINT PATRICK AND HIS SUCCESSOR 188 XIV. THE SINN FEIN MOVEMENT 202 XV. THE NORTH OF IRELAND 209 XVI. THE THRIVING CITY OF BELFAST 222 XVII. THE QUAINT OLD TOWN OF DERRY 237 XVIII. IRISH EMIGRATION AND COMMERCE 247 XIX. IRISH CHARACTERISTICS AND CUSTOMS 260 XX. WICKLOW AND WEXFORD 268 XXI. THE LAND OF RUINED CASTLES 283 XXII. THE IRISH HORSE AND HIS OWNER 300 XXIII. CORK AND BLARNEY CASTLE 312 XXIV. REMINISCENCES OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 330 XXV. GLENGARIFF, THE LOVELIEST SPOT IN IRELAND 343 XXVI. THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY 366 XXVII. INTEMPERANCE, INSANITY, AND CRIME 391 XXVIII. THE EDUCATION OF IRISH FARMERS 404 XXIX. LIMERICK, ASKEATON, AND ADARE 417 XXX. COUNTY GALWAY AND RECENT LAND TROUBLES 432 XXXI. CONNEMARA AND THE NORTHWEST COAST 443 XXXII. WORK OF THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD 459 INDEX 475 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS An Ancient Celtic Cross at Glendalough _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE Queenstown 4 The Rock of Cashel, County Tipperary 8 Holycross Abbey, County Tipperary 10 St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin 16 The Tomb of Strongbow, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin 32 The Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1906-9 34 The Countess of Aberdeen 36 The Four Courts, Dublin 48 The Castle, Dublin; Official Residence of the Lord Lieutenant and Headquarters of the Government 54 The Customs House, Dublin 78 The Bank of Ireland, Old Parliament House, Dublin 80 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 90 Quadrangle, Trinity College, Dublin 98 Main Entrance, Trinity College, Dublin 102 Sackville Street, Dublin, showing Nelson's Pillar 116 Lighthouse at Howth, Mouth of Dublin Bay 122 Portumna Castle, County Galway; the Seat of the Earl of Clanricarde 138 Maynooth College, County Kildare 144 Carton House, Maynooth, County Kildare; the Residence of the Duke of Leinster 152 A Celtic Cross at Monasterboice, County Louth 166 Ruins of Mellifont Abbey, near Drogheda, County Louth 168 Carrickfergus Castle 180 St. Patrick's Cathedral at Armagh, the Seat of Cardinal Logue, the Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland 194 Cathedral, Downpatrick, where St. Patrick lived, and in the Churchyard of which he was buried 196 The Village of Downpatrick 200 Rosstrevor House, near Belfast, the Residence of Sir John Ross, of Bladensburg 210 Shane's Castle, near Belfast, the Ancient Stronghold of the O'Neills, Kings of Ulster 216 Queen's College, Belfast 226 Albert Memorial, Belfast 228 The Giant's Causeway, Portrush, near Belfast 244 Bishop's Gate, Derry 246 Irish Market Women 260 An Ancient Bridge in County Wicklow 268 The Vale of Avoca, County Wicklow 272 The River Front at Waterford 290 Lismore Castle, Waterford County; Irish Seat of the Duke of Devonshire 292 An Irish Jaunting Car 308 Going to Market 310 Queen's College, Cork 314 Blarney Castle, County Cork 322 Kilkenny Castle; Residence of the Duke of Ormonde 326 The Ancient City of Youghal, County Cork; the Home of Sir Walter Raleigh 330 Myrtle Lodge; the Home of Sir Walter Raleigh 338 Lake Gougane-Barra, County Cork 348 Chapel erected by Mr. John R. Walsh of Chicago on the Island of Gougane-Barra 350 The Pass of Keimaneigh through the Mountains between Cork and Glengariff 352 Glengariff Bridge 356 Kenmare House, Killarney 372 Upper Lake, Killarney 376 Ross Castle, Killarney 380 Muckross Abbey, Killarney 384 A Window of Muckross Abbey, Killarney 388 Treaty Stone, Limerick 422 Adare Abbey, in the Private Grounds of the Earl of Dunraven, near Limerick 428 Fish Market, Galway 438 Salmon Weir, Galway 442 A Scene in Connemara 444 Clifden Castle, County Galway 448 A Scene in the West of Ireland; Lenane Harbor 450 Barnes Gap, County Donegal 460 An Irish Cabin in County Donegal 464 The Old: A Laborer's Sod Cabin; The New: Example of the Cottages built in Connemara by the Congested Districts Board 470 Interior and Exterior of One-Story Cottages erected by the Congested Districts Board 472 ONE IRISH SUMMER I A SUMMER IN IRELAND For those who have never spent a summer in Ireland there remains a delightful experience, for no country is more attractive, unless it be Japan, and no people are more genial or charming or courteous in their reception of a stranger, or more cordial in their hospitality. The American tourist usually lands at Queenstown, runs up to Cork, rides out to Blarney Castle in a jaunting car, and across to Killarney with a crowd of other tourists on the top of a big coach, then rushes up to Dublin, spends a lot of money at the poplin and lace stores, takes a train for Belfast, glances at the Giant's Causeway, and then hurries across St. George's Channel for London and the Continent. Hundreds of Americans do this each year, and write home rhapsodies about the beauty of Ireland. But they have not seen Ireland. No one can see Ireland in less than three months, for some of the counties are as different as Massachusetts and Alabama. Six weeks is scarcely long enough to visit the most interesting places. The railway accommodations, the coaches, the steamers, and other facilities for travel are as perfect as those of Switzerland. The hotels are not so good, and there will be a few discomforts here and there to those who are accustomed to the luxuries of London and Paris, but they can be endured without ruffling the temper, simply by thinking of the manifold enjoyments that no other country can produce. And Ireland is particularly interesting just now because of the mighty forces that are engaged in the redemption of the people from the poverty and the wretchedness in which a large proportion of them have been submerged for generations. No government ever did so much for the material welfare of its subjects as Great Britain is now doing for Ireland, and the improvement in the condition of affairs during the last few years has been extraordinary. In order to observe and describe this economic evolution, the author spent the summer of 1908 visiting various parts of the island and has endeavored to narrate truthfully what he saw and heard. This volume contains the greater part of a series of letters written for _The Chicago Record-Herald_ and also published in _The Evening Star_ of Washington, _The Times_ of St. Louis, and other American papers. By permission of Mr. Frank B. Noyes, editor and publisher of _The Chicago Record-Herald_, and to gratify many readers who have asked for them, they are herewith presented in permanent form. About three hundred passengers landed with us at Queenstown. Most of them were young men and young women of Irish birth, returning after a few years' experience in the United States. Several had come home to be married, but most of them were on a visit to their parents and other relatives. Among those who disembarked were several older men and women who were born in Ireland, but had been taken to America in infancy or in childhood and were now looking upon the fair face of Erin for the first time. There is an astonishing difference in the appearance and behavior of the steerage passengers who are sailing east from those who are sailing west. A few years, or even a few months, in America causes an extraordinary change in the dress and the manners of a European peasant. You can see it in the passengers that land at Genoa and Naples, and those that land at Hamburg and Trieste. But it is even more noticeable in the Americanized Irish who land at Queenstown by the thousand every summer from New York. The Italian, the Hungarian, or the Pole who goes aboard a steamer to America with his humble belongings and his quaint looking garments is a very different person from the man who sails from New York back to the fatherland a few years later. And the Irish boys and girls who went ashore with us just as the sun was waking up Ireland were as hearty, well dressed, and prosperous looking as you would wish to see. And every young woman had a big "Saratoga" in place of the "cotton trunk with the pin lock" that she carried away with her when she left the old country for America the first time. I don't know what was in those big trunks, although one can get a glimpse of their contents if he stands by while the customs officers are inspecting them, but you can see the names "Delia O'Connell, New York," "Katherine Burke, Chicago," and "Mary Murphy, Baltimore," marked in big black letters at either end. And what is most noticeable, the trunks are all new. They have never crossed the ocean before, but will be going back again to America in a few months. Their owners will not be contented with the discomforts they will find at their old homes. Ireland is more prosperous today than for generations, but conditions among the poorer classes are very different from those that exist in the new world. The purser told me that he changed nearly $4,000 of American into English money the day before we landed, for third-class passengers alone. One man had $400; that was the maximum, but the rest of those who disembarked at Queenstown had from $50 up to $250 and thereabouts in cash, with their return tickets. Queenstown makes a brave appearance from the deck of a ship in the bay, even before sunrise. It lies along a steep slope, with green fields and forests on either side, and the most conspicuous building is a beautiful gothic cathedral, with an unfinished tower, that was commenced in 1868 and has cost nearly a million dollars already. The hill is so steep that a heavy retaining wall has been built as a buttress to make the cathedral foundations secure, and the worshipers must climb a winding road or a sharp stairway to reach it. A little farther along the hillside is an imposing marine hospital and group of barracks, from which we could hear the bugles sounding "reveille" as we landed. There are compensations to those who are marooned at Queenstown before daylight, and one of them is the picturesque surroundings of the ancient homes of the O'Mahony's, who ruled this part of Ireland for many generations long ago. The harbor is like an amphitheatre, entirely inclosed by hills, three hundred or four hundred feet high, that are covered with frowning battlements. Every hilltop is strongly fortified. The bay, which is four miles long and about two miles wide, contains several islands, upon which the government has built warehouses, repair shops, shipyards, and the other appurtenances of a naval station, guarded by Fort Carlisle, Fort Camden, and other modern fortresses. Upon Haulbowline Island is a depot for ammunition and other ordnance stores, and the pilot told me that on Rocky Island near by were two magazines--great chambers chiseled out of the living rock by Irish convicts who were formerly confined there--and that each of them contained twenty-five thousand barrels of powder belonging to the British navy. Queenstown has many handsome estates overlooking the sea and the bay from the hills that inclose the harbor. There is an old ruined castle at Monkstown that was built in 1636 by Anastasia Gould, wife of John Archdecken, while her husband was at sea. She determined that she would surprise him when he returned home. So she hired a lot of men to build a castle with only the material they found on the estate, and made an agreement with them that they should buy the food and clothing necessary for their families from herself alone. It is the first record of a "company store" that I know of. When the castle was finished and the accounts were balanced it was found that the cost of the labor had been entirely paid for by the profits of this thrifty woman's mercantile transactions, with the sum of four pence as a balance to her credit. Her husband returned in due time and was so delighted with his new home that he never went to sea again. His estimable wife died in 1689, and was buried in the churchyard of Team-pulloen-Bryn, where this story is inscribed with her epitaph. On Wood's Hill, overlooking the bay, is a handsome estate that once belonged to Curran, the famous lawyer and orator, whose daughter was the sweetheart of Robert Emmet, the Irish martyr. Her melancholy romance is related in Washington Irving's story called "The Broken Heart" and in one of Tom Moore's ballads. [Illustration: QUEENSTOWN] It is 165 miles from Queenstown to Dublin, and the railroad passes through several of the counties whose names are most familiar to Americans, for they have furnished the greater portion of our Irish immigrants--Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Queens, and Kildare. Most of the passengers who landed with us took the same train, and they were so many that they crowded the little railway station to overflowing and created a scene of lively confusion. Some of them had been met by brothers, fathers, sweethearts, and friends, who were waiting two hours before daylight, and the hearty greetings and enthusiasm they showed were contagious. The sweethearts were easy to identify. The demonstrations of affection left no doubt, but all the world loves a lover, and we rejoiced with them. In the long line that stood before the ticket seller's window at the railway station they chattered unconsciously like so many sparrows, their arms around each other, with an occasional embrace, a sly kiss and a slap to pay for it, tender caresses upon the shoulder or the head, and other expressions of a happiness that could not have been concealed. The home-bred young men gazed with wonder and admiration at the finery worn by their sweethearts from America, who, by the way, although they came third class, and were undoubtedly chambermaids or shop girls in our cities, were the best-looking and the best-dressed women we saw in Ireland. The pride of the parents at the appearance and the manners of their sons or daughters showed that they appreciated the accomplishments that American experience acquires. One of the younger passengers, a boy of twenty years, perhaps, told me that he had come from Ohio to persuade his father to send his two younger brothers back with him. They live in Tipperary, where "there is no show for a young man now." Another young man had a tiny American flag pinned to the lapel of his coat, and when I said, "You show your colors," the lassie who clung to his arm turned at me with a determined expression on her face and remarked: "I'll be takin' that off and pinnin' a piece of green in its place vera soon." "No, you don't, darlin'; none o' that," he replied. "I'm an American citizen, and I don't care who knows it. If you don't want to be one yourself, I know another girl who does." The country through which the railway to Dublin runs affords a beautiful example of Irish scenery. As far as Cork the track follows the bank of the River Lee, which is inclosed on either side by a high ridge crowned with stately mansions, glorious trees, and handsome gardens. Several of the places are historic, and the scenery has been frequently described in verse by the Irish poets. Father Prout, a celebrated rhymemaker of Cork, has described one of the villages as follows: "The town of Passage is both large and spacious, And situated upon the say; 'Tis nate and dacent and quite adjacent To Cork on a summer's day. There you may slip in and take a dippin' Foreninst the shippin' that at anchor ride, Or in a wherry you can cross the ferry To Carrigaloe on the other side." We could not see much from the car window, but we saw enough on the journey to understand why it is called "The Emerald Isle" and why the Irish people are so enthusiastic over its landscapes. The river is walled in nearly all the distance to Cork, and there are many factories, storehouses, and docks on both sides. Quite a fleet of steamers ply between Queenstown and Cork, and trains on the railroad are running every hour. Small seagoing vessels can go up as far as Cork, but the larger ones discharge and receive their cargoes at Queenstown. We couldn't see much of the towns because the railway tracks are either elevated so that only the roofs and chimney pots are visible, or else they are buried between impenetrable walls or pass through tunnels on either side of the station. But when the train passed out into the open a succession of most attractive landscapes was spread before us as far as the horizon on either side, and the fields were alive with bushes of brilliant orange-colored gorse, or furze, as it is sometimes called. They lit up the atmosphere as the burning bush of Moses might have done. Very little of the ground is cultivated. Only here and there is a field of potatoes and cabbages, but the pastures are filled with fine looking cattle and sheep, for this is the grazing district of Ireland, from whence her famous dairy products and the best beef and mutton come. Beyond Portarlington we got our first glimpses of the bogs, with which we are told one-sixth of the surface of Ireland is covered, an area of not less than 2,800,000 acres. Bogs were formerly supposed to be due to the depravity of the natives, who are too lazy to drain them and have allowed good land to run to waste and become covered with water and rotten vegetation, but this theory has been effectively disposed of by science. Everybody should know that the bogs of Ireland are not only due to the natural growth of a spongy moss called sphagnum, but furnish an inexhaustible fuel supply to the people and have a value much greater than that of the drier and higher land. The report of a "bogs commission" describes them as "the true gold mines of Ireland," and estimates them as "infinitely more valuable than an inexhaustible supply of the precious metal." The average Irish bog will produce 18,231 tons of peat per acre, which is equivalent to 1,823 tons of coal, thus making the total supply of peat equivalent to 5,104,000 tons of coal, capable of producing 300,000 horse power of energy daily for manufacturing purposes for a period of about four hundred and fifty years. With coal selling at $2 a ton in Ireland to-day, this makes the bogs of Ireland worth $10,000,000,000. The "bog trotter" is an individual to be cultivated, for when our coal deposits in the United States are exhausted we may have to send over and buy some of his peat for fuel. It is proposed to utilize these deposits and save transportation charges by erecting power-houses at the peat beds and furnish electricity over wires to the neighboring towns and cities for lighting, power, and other purposes, "for anybody having work to do from curling a lady's hair to running tramways and driving machinery." The writer refers to recent installations of electric works in Mysore, India, for working gold fields ninety miles distant, and quotes the late Lord Kelvin's opinion that the city of New York will soon be getting its power from Niagara, four hundred miles away. We saw them digging peat in the fields and piling it up like damp bricks to dry in the sun. Freshly dug peat contains about seventy per cent of moisture, but when cured the ratio is reduced to fifteen or twenty per cent. A peat bog is not always in a hollow, but often on a hillside, and sometimes at considerable height, which contradicts the theory that bogs are due to defective drainage. Science long ago determined that Irish peat was the accumulation of a peculiar kind of moss which grows like a coral bank in the damp soil, and continues to pile up in layers year after year, century after century, until it forms a solid mass, several feet thick, seventy per cent moisture and thirty per cent fibre, which burns slowly and furnishes a high degree of heat. We see bogs on all sides of us where the peat is three and four feet thick, and with a long straight spade that is as sharp as a knife, it is cut into blocks about eight or ten inches long and about four inches square. A sharp spade will slice it just as a knife would cut cheese or butter, and after the blocks have lain on the ground a while they are stacked up on end in little piles to dry. Then, when they have been exposed to the weather for three or four weeks, they are stacked in larger piles, from which they are carted away and sold or used as they are needed. [Illustration: THE ROCK OF CASHEL, COUNTY TIPPERARY] Four tons of peat are equal in caloric energy to one ton of coal. I noticed in the papers that a bill is pending before the House of Commons to grant a charter to a company to erect a station in a bog near Robertson, Kings County, twenty-five miles from Dublin, for generating electricity from peat, the power to be transmitted to Dublin and the suburban towns for lighting, transportation, and manufacturing purposes. Several other projects of a similar sort have been suggested for utilizing the peat at the bog instead of carting it into town. Beyond the peat beds rises a chain of low mountains with a curious profile that runs west of the town of Templemore. Like every other freak of nature in Ireland, they are the scenes of many interesting legends. The highest peak is called "The Devil's Bit," and the queer shape is accounted for by the fact that the Prince of Darkness in a fit of hunger and fatigue once took a bite out of the mountain, and, not finding it to his taste, spat it out again some miles to the eastward, where it is now famous as the Rock of Cashel. Cashel, at present a miserable, deserted village, was once the rich and proud capital of Munster. Adjoining the ruins of the cathedral is the ancient and weather-worn "Cross of Cashel," which was raised upon a rude pedestal, where the kings of Munster were formerly crowned. The ruins are more extensive than anywhere else in Ireland, for Cashel at one time was the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland and its greatest educational centre. Here the Pope's legates resided and here Henry II., in 1172, received the homage of the Irish kings. But what gives the place its greatest sanctity is the fact that St. Patrick spent much time there and held there the first synod that ever assembled in Ireland, about the middle of the fifth century. That is supposed to have been the reason for the erection of so many sacred edifices and monasteries in early days. St. Declan lived there, too, and commemorated his conversion to Christianity by the erection of one of the churches. Donald O'Brien, King of Limerick, erected another, and his son Donough founded an abbey in 1182. Holy Cross, beautifully situated in a thick grove on the banks of the River Suir, was built in 1182 for the Cistercian order of monks. It derived its name because a piece of the true cross, set with precious stones and presented to a grandson of Brian Boru by Pope Pascal II., was kept there for centuries, and made the abbey the object of pilgrimages of the faithful from all parts of Ireland. This precious relic is now in the Ursuline convent at Cork. Cashel was destroyed during the civil wars. The famous Gerald Fitzgerald, the great Earl of Kildare, had a grudge against Archbishop Cragh and burned the cathedral and the bishop's palace. He excused the act before the king on the ground that he "believed the archbishop was in it." A little beyond Templemore, at Ballybrophy Junction, a branch of the main line of the railway leads to the town of Birr, which is famous as the seat of the late Earl of Rosse, whose father erected an observatory there many years ago, with one of the largest and finest telescopes in the world. It is twenty-seven feet long, with a lens three feet in diameter. Some of the most important discoveries of modern astronomy have been made there, and Birr has been the object of pilgrimages for scientific men for more than half a century. The old Birr castle has been much enlarged and modernized by the late earl, who died in September, 1908, and is surrounded by an estate of thirty-six thousand acres, upon which is one of the best built and well kept towns in Ireland. He was a scholar and scientist of reputation, president of the Royal Irish Academy and the Royal Dublin Society, and interested in important manufactories and enterprises. He was especially active in developing the steam turbine. All of that section of Ireland covered by the journey between Dublin and Cork is associated with heroic struggles. It has been fought over time and again by the clans and the factions that have struggled to rule the state. Every town and every castle has its tragic and romantic history. Almost every valley is associated with a legend or an important event. The woods and the hills are still peopled with fairies, and local traditions among the humble folks are the themes of fascinating tales and songs. But the natives one sees at the railway stations do not look at all romantic. A sentimental person is compelled to endure many severe shocks when he comes in contact with the present generation of Irish peasants. [Illustration: HOLYCROSS ABBEY, COUNTY TIPPERARY] The people of Ireland are more prosperous to-day (July, 1908) than they have been for generations. Their financial condition is better than it ever has been, and is improving every year. The bank deposits, the deposits in postal savings banks, the government returns of the taxable property, have advanced steadily every year for the last ten years, and in Ireland, during the last ten years, there has been a gradual and healthful improvement in every branch of trade and industry. The people are more prosperous than in England or Scotland, except in certain sections where poverty is chronic because of climatic reasons and the barrenness of the soil. Nevertheless, they are not so prosperous as they ought to be under the circumstances, and it would require a book, and a large book, to repeat the many theories that are offered to explain the situation. It is a question upon which very few people agree, and they probably never will agree. There are almost as many theories as there are people. Therefore a discussion is not only disagreeable but it would lead immediately into politics. It is safe to say, however, that every Irishman who is willing to take a farm and cultivate it with intelligence and industry will prosper if he will let politics and whisky alone. Idleness, neglect, intemperance, and other vices produce the same results in Ireland as elsewhere, and under present conditions industry and thrift will make any honest farmer prosperous. The moral and intellectual regeneration of the country is keeping step with the material regeneration. All religious qualifications and disqualifications have been removed; the church has been divorced from the state, and each religious denomination stands upon an equality in every respect. The penal laws have been repealed and the tithe system has been abolished. Local representative government prevails everywhere. Nearly every official in Ireland is a native except the lord-lieutenant, the treasury remembrancer, and several agricultural experts who are employed as instructors for the farmers and fishermen by the Agricultural Department, and the Congested Districts Board. The primary schools of Ireland are now free; free technical schools have been established at convenient locations for the training of mechanics, machinists, electricians, engineers, and members of the other trades. Two new universities have been authorized,--one in the north and the other in the south of Ireland,--for the higher education of young men and women. Temperance reforms are being gradually accomplished by the church and secular temperance societies, which are working in harmony; the license law has been amended so as to reduce the number of saloons, and three-fourths of the saloons are closed on Sunday throughout the island. The Father Mathew societies are gaining in numbers; the use of liquor at wakes and on St. Patrick's Day has been prohibited by the Roman Catholic bishops, and the number of persons arrested for drunkenness and disorderly conduct is decreasing annually. Every tenant that has been evicted in Ireland during the last thirty years has been restored to his old home, and the arrears of rent charged against him have been canceled. The land courts have adjusted the rentals of 360,135 farms, and have reduced them more than $7,500,000 a year. More than one hundred and twenty-six thousand families have been enabled to purchase farms with money advanced by the government to be repaid in sixty-eight years at nominal interest. Several thousand families have been removed at government expense from unproductive farms to more fertile lands purchased for them with government money to be repaid in sixty-eight years. Thousands of cottages, stables, barns, and other farm buildings have been built and repaired by the government for the farmers, and many millions of dollars have been advanced them for the purchase of cattle, implements, and other equipment through agents of the Agricultural Department. More than twenty-three thousand comfortable cottages have been erected for the laborers of Ireland with money advanced by the government to be repaid in small instalments at nominal interest. The landlord system of Ireland is being rapidly abolished; the great estates are being divided into small farms and sold to the men who till them. The agricultural lands of Ireland will soon be occupied by a population of independent farm owners instead of rent-paying tenants. The Agricultural Department is furnishing practical instructors to teach the farmers how to make the most profitable use of their land and labor, how to improve their stock, and how to produce better butter, pork, and poultry. The Agricultural Department furnishes seeds and fertilizers to farmers and instructs them how they should be used to the best advantage. The Irish Agricultural Organization Society has instructed thousands of farmers in the science of agriculture and has established thousands of co-operative dairies and supply stores to assist the farmers in getting higher prices for their products and lower prices for their supplies. The Congested Districts Board has expended seventy million dollars to improve the condition of the peasants in the west of Ireland; to provide them better homes and to place them where they can get better returns for their labor. Thousands of fishermen have been furnished with boats, nets, and other tackle; they have been supplied with salt for curing their fish; casks and barrels for packing them; have been provided with wharves for landing places and warehouses for the storage of their implements and supplies; and government agents have secured a market for their fish and have supervised the shipments and sales. Thousands of weavers have been furnished with looms in their cottages at government expense, so that they can increase their incomes by manufacturing home-made stuffs. Schools have been established at many convenient points in the west of Ireland, where peasant women and girls may learn lace-making. The government furnishes the instruction free, supplies the materials used, and provides for the sale of the articles made. Work has been furnished with good wages for thousands of unemployed men in the construction of roads and other public improvements. District nurses have been stationed at convenient points along the west coast, where there are no physicians, to attend the sick and aged and relieve the distress among the peasant families, and hospitals have been established for the treatment of the ill and injured at government expense. II THE CATHEDRALS AND DEAN SWIFT St. Patrick's Cathedral is, perhaps, the most notable building in Ireland, and one of the oldest. During the religious wars and the clashes of the clans in the early history of Ireland it was the scene and the cause of much contention and violence. Its sacred walls were originally arranged as fortifications to defend it against the savage tribes and to protect the dignitaries of the church, who resided behind embattled gates for centuries. At one time St. Patrick's was used as a barrack for soldiers, and the verger will show you an enormous baptismal font, from which he says the dragoons used to water their horses, and the interior was fitted up for courts of law. Henry VIII. confiscated the property and revenues because the members of its chapter refused to accept the new doctrines, and nearly all of them were banished from Ireland. He abolished a small university that was attached to the cathedral by the pope in 1320 for the education of priests. For five hundred years there was a continuous quarrel between St. Patrick's and Christ Church Cathedral, which stands only two blocks away, because of rivalries over ecclesiastical privileges, powers, and revenues. Finally a compromise was reached, under which there has since been peace between the two great churches and relations similar to those of Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's in London. Christ Church is the headquarters of the episcopal see of Dublin, and St. Patrick's is regarded as a national church. The chief reason why St. Patrick's has such a hold upon the affections and reverence of the people is because it stands upon the site of a small wooden church erected by St. Patrick himself in the year 450 and within a few feet of a sacred spring or well at which he baptized thousands of pagans during his ministry. The exact site of the well was identified in 1901 by the discovery of an ancient Celtic cross buried in the earth a few feet from the tower of the cathedral. The cross is now exhibited in the north aisle. The floor of the church is only seven feet above the waters of a subterranean brook called the Poddle, and during the spring floods is often inundated, but in the minds of the founders the sanctity of the spot compensated for the insecure foundations. St. Patrick's little wooden building, which is supposed to be the first Christian sanctuary erected in Ireland, was replaced in 1191 by the present lofty cruciform edifice, three hundred feet long and one hundred and fifty-seven feet across the transepts. It was designed and erected by Comyn, the Anglo-Norman archbishop of Dublin, is supposed to have been completed in 1198, and was raised to the rank of a cathedral in 1219. There were frequent alterations and repairs during the first seven centuries of its existence, until 1864-68, when it was perfectly restored by Sir Benjamin Guinness, the great brewer, who also purchased several blocks of dilapidated slums that surrounded it, tore down the buildings, and turned the land into a park which not only affords an opportunity to see the beauties of the cathedral, but gives the poor people who dwell in that locality a playground and fresh air. Sir Benjamin purchased several of the adjoining blocks and erected upon them a series of model tenement-houses, the best in Dublin, and rents them at nominal rates to his employees and others. On the other side of the cathedral are several blocks of the most miserable tenements in the city, and sometime they also will be cleared away. A bronze statue has been erected in the churchyard as a reminder of his generosity. [Illustration: ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN] Benjamin Guinness was the great brewer of Dublin. In 1756 one of his ancestors started a little brewing establishment down on the bank of the Liffey River in the center of the city, which has been extended from time to time until the buildings now cover an area of more than forty acres. The property and good will were transferred by the Guinness family to a stock company for $30,000,000 in 1886, and since then the plant has been enlarged until it now exceeds in extent all other breweries in the world, represents an investment of $50,000,000, and turns out an average of two thousand one hundred barrels of beer a day. Sir Benjamin's son, Edward Cecil Guinness, was elevated to the peerage as Lord Iveagh and is the richest man in Ireland to-day. He is highly respected, has married into the nobility, is a great favorite with the king, is generous and philanthropic, encourages and patronizes both science and athletic sports, and is said to be "altogether a very good fellow." Another son is Lord Ardilaun, who is equally rich and popular, and owns several of the finest estates in the kingdom. Sir Benjamin expended $1,200,000 in restoring St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Lord Iveagh, his son, added $350,000 more. The driver of the jaunting car that carried us there told me how many billion of glasses of beer those gifts represented, and made some funny remarks about all the profit being in the froth. But if all men were to make such good use of their money there would be no reason to complain. St. Patrick's Cathedral is the official seat of the Knights of St. Patrick, and their banners, helmets, and swords hang over the choir stalls, while in one of the chapels is an ancient table and a set of ancient chairs formerly used at their gatherings. Since 1869 they have met at Dublin castle. Many tattered and bullet-riddled battle flags carried by Irish regiments hang in other parts of the cathedral, and if they could tell the stories of the many brave Irishmen who have fought and perished under their silken folds, it would be more thrilling than fiction. Ireland has furnished the best fighting men in the British Army, both generals and privates, since the invasion of the Normans. The king's bodyguard of Highlanders is now almost exclusively composed of Irish lads. In the north transept is a flag that was carried by an Irish regiment at the skirmish at Lexington at the beginning of our Revolution and at the attack on Bunker Hill. They brought it away with them to hang it here with the trophies of Irish valor of a thousand years. St. Patrick's is the Westminster Abbey of Ireland, and many of her most famous men are either buried within its walls or have tablets erected to their memory. John Philpott Curran, the great advocate and orator, and Samuel Lover, the song writer and novelist, whose "Handy Andy" and "Widow Machree," are perhaps the best examples of Irish humor in literature, are honored with tablets; and Carolan, the last of the bards for whom Ireland was once so celebrated. He died in 1788. M.W. Balfe, author of that pretty little opera, "The Bohemian Girl," and many beautiful ballads, including "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls," has a tablet inscribed with these words: "The most celebrated, genial and beloved of Irish musicians, commendatore of Carlos III. of Spain, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Born in Dublin, 15 May, 1808, died 20th of Oct., 1870." Balfe was born in a small house on Pitt Street, Dublin, which bears a tablet announcing the fact. The man who wrote that stirring poem, "The Burial of Sir John Moore," which begins, "Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried,"-- lies in St. Patrick's. His name was Charles Wolfe, and he was once the dean of the cathedral. In the right-hand corner of the east transept is a monument to the memory of a certain dame of the time of Elizabeth, named Mrs. St. Leger. She was thirty-seven years old at the time of her death, and, her epitaph tells us, had "a strange, eventful history," with four husbands and eight children, all of whom she made comfortable and happy. On the other side is a tablet to commemorate the fact that Sir Edward Fitten, who died in 1579, was married at the age of twelve years and became the father of fifteen children,--nine sons and six daughters. The famous Archbishop Whately, the gentleman who wrote the rhetoric we studied in college, and who once presided over this diocese, is buried in a stately tomb, and his effigy, beautifully carved in marble, lies upon it. The most imposing monument of all, and one which is associated with much history and tragedy, was erected in honor of his own family by Richard Boyle, the first Earl of Cork, who was a great man in his day. So pretentious was the monument that Archbishop Laud ordered it removed from the cathedral. This was done by Thomas Wentworth, afterward Earl of Strafford, who was sent over by King Charles with an armed force to govern Ireland. Boyle, who had himself designed and expended a great deal of money upon "the famous, sumptuous, and glorious tomb," which was to immortalize him and sixteen members of his family, was so indignant that he never forgave Strafford, and afterward caused the latter to be betrayed to a shameful death at the hands of his enemies. The most interesting historic relic in the cathedral is an ancient oaken door with a large hole cut in the center of it. It bears an explanatory inscription as follows: "In the year 1492 an angry conference was held at St. Patrick, his church, between the rival nobles, James Butler, Earl of Ormonde, and Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, the said deputies, and their armed retainers. Ormonde, in fear of his life, fled for refuge to the Chapiter House, and Kildare, pressing Ormonde to the Chapiter House door, undertooke on his honor that he should receive no villanie. Whereupon the recluse, craving his lordship's hand to assure him his life, there was a clift in the Chapiter House door pearced at trice to the end that both Earls should shake hands and be reconciled. But Ormonde surmising that the clift was intended for further treacherie refused to stretch out his hand--" and the inscription goes on to relate that Kildare, having no such nervousness, thrust his hand through the hole and without the slightest hesitation. Ormonde shook it heartily and peace was made. For centuries it was said that whoever might be Viceroy of Ireland it was the Earl of Kildare who governed the country. A long line of Kildares succeeded each other, and their living successor, better known as the Duke of Leinster, is now the premier of the Irish nobility, although he is still a boy, just twenty-one. Both the Kildares and the Earls of Desmond were descended from Gerald Fitzgerald, who in the thirteenth century founded that powerful clan known as the Geraldines. In the fifteenth, and at the beginning of the sixteenth, century they exercised absolute control in Ireland, and Garrett, or Gerald Fitzgerald, the eighth Earl of Kildare, known as "The Great Earl," had greater authority than any other Irishman has ever displayed in his native island since the days of Brian Boru. At one time his daughter, wife of the Earl of Clanricarde, appealed to her father from a quarrel with her husband. The old gentleman took her part, ordered out his army, and met his son-in-law in the battle of Knockdoe, where it is said eight thousand men were slain. Near the entrance to St. Patrick's Cathedral is a long, narrow, brass tablet upon which are inscribed the names of the fifty-seven deans who have had ecclesiastical jurisdiction there from 1219 to 1902. The most famous in the list is that of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., author of "Gulliver's Travels," "The Tale of a Tub," and other equally well-known works. He presided here for more than thirty years, and was undoubtedly the most brilliant as well as the most remarkable clergyman in the history of the diocese of Dublin. He was the greatest of all satirists, one of the most brilliant of all wits, and an all-around genius, but was entirely without moral consciousness, altogether selfish, inordinately vain, and one of the most eccentric characters in the history of literature. He was born in Dublin Nov. 30, 1667; educated at Trinity College, where he distinguished himself only by his eccentricities; was curate of two churches, and dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral for more than thirty years, although neither his manners nor his morals conformed to the standards that are fixed for clergymen in these days. He was more famous for his wit than his wisdom; for his piquancy than for piety. He spent most of his life in Dublin, died there, was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral by the side of a woman whose life he wrecked, and left his money to found an insane asylum which is still in existence. The house in which Jonathan Swift was born can still be seen in Hoey's Court, which once was a popular place of residence for well-to-do people, and has several mansions of architectural pretensions, but has degenerated into a slum, one of the many that may be found in the very center of the business section of the city. He came of a good Yorkshire family; his mother had aristocratic connections and was one of those women who seem to have been born to suffer from the failings of men. His father was a shiftless adventurer, following several professions and occupations in turn without even ordinary success in any. Jonathan went to the parish schools in Kilkenny for a time when his father happened to be living in that locality, and when he was seventeen years old passed the entrance examinations to Trinity College, Dublin. He was a willful, independent, eccentric person, of a lonely and sour disposition, and refused to be bound by the rules of the university. He would not study mathematics or physics, but delighted in classical literature, and furnished many witty contributions to college literature which gave promise of genius. He wrote a play that was performed by the college students with great success. His degree was reluctantly conferred by the faculty through the influence of Sir William Temple, a famous statesman of those days, whose wife was a distant relative of Swift's mother. Shortly after graduation he became private secretary to Sir William Temple and attended him in London during several sessions of parliament. While there, under some influence that has never been explained in a satisfactory manner, Swift decided to enter the ministry, and took a course of theology at Oxford. After his ordination in 1695 Sir William Temple got him a living in a quiet, secluded village called Laracor, in central Ireland, near Tara, the ancient capital, in a church that long ago crumbled to ruins and has been replaced by a modern building. It was a small parish consisting of not more than ten or twelve aristocratic families, among them the ancestors of the great Duke of Wellington. The young curate's congregation was not very regular in its attendance, and you will remember, perhaps, an amusing story, how the Rev. Mr. Swift, when he came from the vestry one Sabbath morning, found no one but the sexton, Roger Morris, in the pews. He read the service, as usual, however, and with that quaint sense of humor which cropped out in everything he did, began solemnly: "Dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places," etc. Coming to the conclusion that he was not fitted for parish work, Swift obtained the position of private secretary to Earl Berkeley, one of the lord justices of Ireland, but, after a while, got another church, and tried preaching again. But he spent more of his time in writing political satires than in prayer or sermonizing. He edited Sir William Temple's speeches and wrote his biography, and went to London, where he became a member of an interesting group of politicians and pamphleteers, who supported Lord Bolingbroke. He contributed to _The Tattler_, _The Spectator_, and other publications of the time, and soon became recognized as one of the most brilliant and savage satirists and influential political writers of the day. Through political influence, and not because of his piety, he was appointed dean of St. Patrick's, the most prominent and famous church in Dublin. He had not been in his new position long before he created a tremendous sensation and set all Ireland aflame by writing a political pamphlet signed "M.B. Drapier." In 1723 Walpole's government gave to the Duchess of Kendall, the mistress of George I., a concession to supply an unlimited amount of copper coinage to Ireland, and she took William Wood, an iron manufacturer of Birmingham, into partnership. There was no mint in Dublin and no limitation in the contract, so the firm of Kendall & Wood flooded the island with new copper pence and half-pence upon which they made a profit of 40 per cent. The coins became so abundant that they lost their value. Naturally the contract created not only scandal, but an intense indignation. Many pamphlets were published and speeches were made denouncing the transaction. The most telling attack came from what purported to be an unpretentious Dublin dry goods merchant, who told in simple language the story of the coinage contract and related anecdotes of Dublin women going from shop to shop followed by carloads of copper coins from the factory of the Duchess of Kendall. He mentioned a workingman who gave a pound of depreciated pennies for a mug of ale, and declared that they were so worthless that even the beggars would not accept them. The money was not really so much depreciated as Swift represented, but the merchants of Dublin followed the advice of the simple draper and refused to accept it any longer in trade. The government authorities made a great fuss and arrested many of the repudiators, but the grand juries refused to indict them, and on the contrary threatened to indict merchants who accepted the shameful money. The printer of the pamphlet was arrested, but never punished. The authorship became an open secret, but the authorities dared not arrest the dean, whose popularity was so great and who exercised such an extraordinary influence over the common people that they accepted whatever he said as inspired and paid him the greatest respect possible. His influence is illustrated by a story that is related about a crowd which blocked the street around St. Patrick's Cathedral one night to watch for an eclipse of the moon, and obstructed traffic, but promptly dispersed when he sent one of his servants to tell them that the eclipse had been postponed by his orders. He wrote "Gulliver's Travels" about this period of his life in the deanery of St. Patrick's, which was a part of what is now the barracks of the Dublin police force. The present deanery, a modern building near by, contains portraits of Swift and other of the fifty-seven clergymen who have served as deans of St. Patrick's. About the same time he wrote another masterpiece of satire upon the useless and impractical measures of charity for the poor adopted by the government. It was entitled: A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS BY FATTENING AND EATING THEM. He wrote several bitter satires on ecclesiastical matters, which would have caused his separation from the deanery under ordinary circumstances, but the archbishop as well as the civil authorities was afraid of his caustic pen. In discussing the bishops of the Church of Ireland at one time he declared that they were all impostors. He asserted that the government always sent English clergymen of character and piety to Ireland, but they were always murdered on their way by the highwaymen of Hounslow Heath and other brigands, who put on their robes, traveled to Dublin, presented their credentials, and were installed in their places over the several dioceses of Ireland. In 1729 the parliament of Ireland was installed in the imposing structure that stands in the center of the city of Dublin opposite the main buildings of Trinity College. Although the people had been demanding home rule and a legislature of their own for years, the new parliament soon lost its popularity. Its action provoked the hostility of the fickle people and it was attacked on all sides for everything it did. Swift took his customary part in the criticisms and christened the parliament "The Goose Pie" because, as he said, the chamber had a crust in the form of a dome-shaped roof and it was not remarkable for the intellect or knowledge of its members. One of his lampoons, directed at parliament under the name of "The Legion Club," begins as follows: "As I stroll the city, oft I See a building large and lofty, Not a bow-shot from the college, Half the globe from sense and knowledge. Tell us what the pile contains? Many a head that holds no brains. Such assemblies you might swear Meet when butchers bait a bear. Such a noise and such haranguing When a brother thief is hanging." This does not sound very dignified for the dean of a cathedral, but it was characteristic of Swift. He became a physical and mental wreck in 1742 and died an imbecile from softening of the brain Oct. 9, 1745. His will, written before his mind gave way, was itself a satire, and appropriately left his slender fortune to found an insane asylum. The original copy may be seen in the public records office in a beautiful great building known as the Four Courts, the seat of the judiciary of Ireland, where the archives of the government are kept. The insane asylum is still used for that purpose and is known as St. Patrick's Hospital for Lunatics. It stands near the enormous brewery of the Guinness company. It was the first of the kind in Ireland, and was built when the insane were restrained by shackles, handcuffs, and iron bars, but more humane modern methods of treatment were introduced long ago and it is considered a model institution. The corridors are three hundred and forty-five feet long by fourteen feet wide, with little cells or bedrooms opening upon them. Swift's writing desk is preserved in the institution. His whimsicalities are illustrated in the cathedral more than anywhere else and among them is the "Schomberg epitaph," found in the north aisle to the left of the choir, chiseled in large letters upon a slab of marble. Duke Schomberg, who commanded the Protestant army of King William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne, and was killed toward the end of that engagement, July, 1690, was buried in St. Patrick's at the time of his death, but his grave remained unmarked. His bones were discovered, however, in 1736, during some repairs, while Swift was dean of the cathedral. In order that their ancestor's character and achievements might be properly recognized and called to the attention of posterity, Swift applied to the head of the Schomberg family for fifty pounds to pay the expense of a memorial, which they declined to contribute. Then Swift, whose indignation was excited, paid for the slab himself and punished them by recording upon it in Latin that the cathedral authorities, having entreated to no purpose the heirs of the great marshal to set up an appropriate memorial, this tablet had been erected that posterity might know where the great Schomberg lies. "The fame of his valor," he adds, "is much more appreciated by strangers than by his kinsmen." Upon the other farther side of the church, between the tombs of the Right Honorable Lady Elizabeth, Viscountess Donneraile, and Archbishop Whately, the gentleman who wrote the rhetoric we studied at college, is buried the body of an humble Irishman, who was Dean Swift's body servant for a generation. He was eccentric but loyal, and as witty as his master. One morning the dean, getting ready for a horseback ride, discovered that his boots had not been cleaned, and called to Sandy: "Why didn't you clean these boots?" "It hardly pays to do so, sir," responded Sandy, "they get muddy so soon again." "Put on your hat and coat and come with me to ride," said the dean. "I haven't had my breakfast," said Sandy. "There's no use in eating; you'll be hungry so soon again," retorted the dean, and Sandy had to follow him in a mad gallop into the suburbs of Dublin without a mouthful. When they were three or four miles away they met an old friend who asked them where they were going so early. Before the dean could answer, Sandy replied: "We're going to heaven, sir; the dean's praying and meself is fasting; both of us for our sins." The epitaph of Sandy in St. Patrick's Cathedral reads as follows: HERE LIES THE BODY OF ALEXANDER MAGEE, SERVANT TO DR. SWIFT, DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN. His Grateful Master Caused This Monument to Be Erected in Memory of His Discretion, Fidelity and Diligence in That Humble Station. That long-suffering woman known as Stella, whose relations with Dean Swift have been discussed for a century and a half, and are still more or less of a mystery, was Mrs. Hester (sometimes spelled Esther) Johnson, a relative of Sir William Temple, whose private secretary Jonathan Swift, her inconstant and selfish lover, was for several years. Swift called her "Stella" because her name, "Hester," is the Persian for "star," and first met her while he was curate of a little village church at Laracor, where she lived with a Mrs. Dingley, a companion or chaperon, who seemed to be always by her side, whether she was in Dublin or London. From the beginning of their acquaintance she shared the inner life of Swift and exercised an extraordinary influence over him. When he left Laracor for London to become the private secretary of Sir William Temple their remarkable correspondence commenced, and he wrote her a daily record of his life, his thoughts, his whims, and his fancies. Those letters have been published under the title of "Swift's Journal to Stella," and the book has been described as "a giant's playfulness, written for one person's private pleasure, which has had indestructible attractiveness for every one since." She followed him to London and, when he became dean of St. Patrick's, returned with him to Dublin and lived near the deanery with Mrs. Dingley as her chaperon until her death. But Swift was not true to her. This eminent author and satirist, this merciless critic of the shortcomings of others, this doctor of divinity, this dean of the most prominent cathedral in Ireland, had numerous flirtations with other women, and Stella must have known of them, although there is no evidence that her loyal heart ever wavered in its devotion. In 1694 he fell desperately in love with a Miss Varing, but seems to have escaped without any damage to himself or his reputation, although we do not know what happened to her. A few years later he became involved in an entanglement with a Miss Van Homrigh, which ruined her life and effectually destroyed his peace of mind. The character of their acquaintance is shown by a series of poems which passed between them as her passion developed, and he allowed it to drift on uninterrupted from day to day, evidently giving her encouragement by tongue as well as pen. His poetical communications to her were signed "Cadenus," the Latin word for dean, and hers were signed "Vanessa," a combination of her Christian and surname. It was not a very dignified situation for the dean of St. Patrick's, and the flirtation caused a decided scandal in Dublin. It appears that Vanessa expected Swift to marry her and he undoubtedly gave her good reasons, while Mrs. Johnson was regarded as his mistress to the day of her death and bore the odium with uncomplaining resignation. Long after both of them were buried under the tiles of St. Patrick's Cathedral it was discovered that they had been secretly married in 1716, but why she consented to keep that fact a secret has never been explained except upon the theory that she was afraid of what Vanessa Van Homrigh might do. The latter, however, having lost her patience and becoming hysterical with jealousy, wrote to Stella, inquiring as to the real nature of her relations with Swift and demanding that she should relinquish her claims upon him. Stella replied promptly by sending Vanessa indisputable evidence that they had been married seven years before. Vanessa, who lived at Marley Abbey, Celbridge (now Hazelhatch Station), ten miles from Dublin, on the railway to Cork, sent Stella's letter to Swift and retired to the house of a friend in the country, where she died a few months later of a broken heart. Swift never replied; he never saw her or communicated with her after that day, and seems to have dismissed the affair with the same indifference that he always showed concerning the interests of other people. Five years later Stella died and was buried in the cathedral at midnight by Swift's orders, but he did not attend the funeral. She lived in the neighborhood of the deanery, and from one of its windows he witnessed the passage of the casket to the tomb. "This is the night of the funeral," he writes in his diary, "and I moved into another apartment that I may not see the light in the church, which is just over against the window of my bed chamber." He then sat down at his desk and described her devotion and her love for himself and her virtues in language of incomparable beauty. His tribute, written at that moment, is one of the most beautiful passages in English literature. He preserved a lock of her hair upon which he inscribed the words: "Only a woman's hair!" "Only a woman's hair!" comments Thackeray. "Only love, fidelity, purity, innocence, beauty; only the tenderest heart in the world, stricken and wounded, and pushed away out of the reach of joy with the pangs of hope deferred. Love insulted and pitiless desertion. Only that lock of hair left, and memory, and remorse for the guilty, lonely, selfish wretch, shuddering over the grave of his victim." Swift's extraordinary vanity is illustrated in the inscription he placed over Hester Johnson's grave and his selfishness by his neglect to vindicate her reputation by announcing their marriage. The mistress of a dean is not usually buried in a cathedral over which he presides, but no one has ever questioned the right of Stella's dust to be there. Her epitaph, which was written by his own pen, runs: "Underneath is interred the mortal remains of Mrs. Hester Johnson, better known to the world by the name of Stella, under which she was celebrated in the writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift, dean of this cathedral. "She was a person of extraordinary endowments and accomplishments in body, mind, and behavior; justly admired and respected by all who knew her on account of her many eminent virtues, as well as for her great natural and acquired perfections. "She died Jan. 27, 1727, in the forty-sixth year of her age, and by her will bequeathed £1,000 toward the support of the hospital founded in this city by Dr. Steevens." Although Swift did his best work after Stella's death, he was never himself again. He became sour, morose, and misanthropic. His soul burned itself out with remorse. The last four years of his life were inexpressibly sad, and the retribution he deserved came from inward rather than outward causes. He was harassed by periodical attacks of acute dementia, to which his wonderful brain gradually yielded, and before his death he became an utter imbecile. He seemed to anticipate and prepare himself for such a fate, because among his papers was found his will, in which he bequeathed his entire estate to found an asylum for just such creatures as he himself became. He prepared his own epitaph, which reads as follows: "Hic Depositum est Corpus. Jonathan Swift, S.T.P. Hujus, ecclesiae cathedrae decani ubi saeva Indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit. Abi viator, et imitare, si poteris, Strenuum pro virili libertatis vindiceim." A liberal translation reads: "Here is deposited the body of Jonathan Swift, dean of this cathedral, where cruel indignation can no longer lacerate the heart. Go, stranger, and imitate, if you can, his strenuous endeavors in defense of liberty." The vault in which the two bodies rest has been twice disturbed during repairs of the cathedral, in 1835, when casts of their skulls were taken, and in 1882, when a new floor was laid. It is now marked by a modest tablet of tiles near the south entrance to the cathedral. Upon a bracket near by is a bust of Swift contributed by Mr. Faulkner, the nephew and successor of his original publisher. Many anecdotes are told of Swift's peculiarities. He must have filled a large place in the life of Dublin during the thirty years that he was the dean of the cathedral. He was prominent in political, social, and ecclesiastical affairs during all that period and always welcome as a guest at the houses of the aristocracy in this neighborhood. In the suburb of Glasnevin was an estate called Hildeville, belonging to a generous but pretentious patron of the arts and sciences, named Dr. Delany, where the brilliant minds of that day used to gather for a good time. Swift is closely associated with the place and was one of Dr. Delany's most frequent and regular visitors. He called it "Hell-Devil," and chose for its motto "Fastigia Despicet Urbis," in which the verb is used in a double sense. Many of his most stinging satires were written there, including his ferocious libel on the Irish parliament. A reward was offered for the discovery of the author, and although a hundred members of the commons knew that it was from Swift's pen, no attempt was ever made to punish him and he was never even denounced publicly. And he wasn't above ridiculing his host, for here is an extract from an ode addressed to Dr. Delany of "Hell-Devil," when he was the latter's guest: "A razor, though to say 't I'm loath, Might shave you and your meadow both, A little rivulet seems to steal Along a thing you call a vale, Like tears adown a wrinkled cheek, Like rain along a blade of leek-- And this you call your sweet meander, Which might be sucked up by a gander, Could he but force his rustling bill To scoop the channel of the rill. In short, in all your boasted seat, There's nothing but yourself is--great." "Is it singin' yees want?" said the verger of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, when we entered that ancient sanctuary shortly before the hour for worship on a gloomy, drizzly Sabbath morning. "Then yees have come to the roight place. The choir of Christ Church is the finest in all Ireland, and mebbe in the whole wurrld, I dunno. Thay's twinty-four b'ys and min, and every mother's son iv thim is from the first families of Dooblin. The lads has been singin' frum their cradles, and they make the swatest music that ears ever heard; blessed be the Lord! Not as if they had no mischief in thim, for b'ys will be b'ys, singin' or no singin'; and thim that has the medals hangin' on their chists is the best behaved and the least mischaveous." We remained after the service to look about, and when the verger asked what I thought of the sermon I told him. "It's not of much consequence!" observed the cynic. And when I told him that the singing wasn't much better than the preaching, and that the boys sang out of tune, he replied apologetically: "I hope your honor won't think the liss of thim for that; they're all honest, well-meaning lads, an' what harm is it at all, at all, if they do sing out of chune betimes?" Christ Church is one of the oldest structures in Ireland, was originally erected in 1038 by the Danish king Sigtryg, "Of the Silken Beard," and in 1152 was made the seat of the archbishop of Dublin. In 1172 Strongbow, the Welch Earl of Pembroke, leader of the Norman invasion, swept away the original building to make room for the present edifice, which was fifty years in building. The present nave, transepts, and crypt are those that Strongbow erected, having been thoroughly repaired and restored by Henry Roe, a wealthy distiller, at a cost of £220,000, between 1870 and 1878. In 1178 Strongbow died of a malignant ulcer of the foot, which his enemies attributed to the vengeance of the early Irish saints whose shrines he had violated, and he is buried within the church he built. His black marble tomb is on the south side, with a recumbent effigy in chain armor lying upon the sarcophagus. A smaller effigy in black marble, representing the upper half of a human form, lies beside him and is said to mark the tomb of Strongbow's son, whom his father literally cut in half with his mighty sword for showing cowardice in battle. Sir Henry Sidney, who discussed the question at length in 1571, declares that there is no doubt that the remains of Strongbow were deposited here, but there is another tomb, with a similar effigy of one-half of his son lying beside it, in an ancient church at Waterford, where Strongbow dwelt in a castle and made his headquarters. The claims of the Waterford tomb are considered much stronger than those of Christ Church in Dublin, because that was where he died and where his wife and family lived after him. [Illustration: THE TOMB OF STRONGBOW, CHRIST CHURCH, DUBLIN] The interior of the church has many points of beauty, especially the splendid stone work of the nave and aisles and the graceful arches which, although very massive, are chiseled with such delicacy that their heaviness does not appear. The floor is covered with modern tiles which are exact copies of the originals, and in the restoration of the building the architect has shown similar conscientiousness in all his work. The great age of the stone gives it a rich and mellow tone, and although here and there one may come across evidences of decay or damage, it is in better condition than most of the modern churches of Ireland. Across the street and connected by a bridge with the cathedral is the Synod Hall, the headquarters of the general synod, which has control of the affairs of the Episcopal Church of Ireland since it was separated from the Church of England and made independent of the state by an act of parliament July 26, 1869. This was called "The Disestablishment"--a long and awkward word--but such words are common in English and Irish official literature. It is often difficult for an American to understand the meaning of the terms used in acts of parliament and reports of the officials of the government. III HOW IRELAND IS GOVERNED Ireland is nominally governed by a lord lieutenant or viceroy of the king, who, since December, 1905, and at present, is John Campbell Gordon, Earl of Aberdeen. He occupied the same position in the '90's, and has since been governor-general of Canada. Both Lord and Lady Aberdeen are well known in the United States, where Lady Aberdeen has taken an active interest in the work of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and many benevolent enterprises and social reforms. She will be particularly remembered as the promoter of the Irish village at the Chicago Exposition in 1893, and for her successful endeavors to introduce Irish homespun, lace, linen, and other products, and to make them fashionable among the American people. She is a woman of great energy, executive ability, and determination, and has been applying those qualities very effectively in Ireland in local reforms. She has organized societies of women throughout the island to encourage the virtues and restrain the vices of the people, to relieve their distress and advance their welfare, physically, mentally, and morally, by a dozen different movements of which she is the leader and director. She started a crusade against the great white plague, brought Dr. Arthur Green from New York as an organizer, while Nathan Straus of New York has been co-operating with her in setting up establishments for the sterilization of the milk sold in Irish cities. She is president of almost everything, has a dozen secretaries and agents carrying out her orders, and is altogether the busiest woman in the United Kingdom. [Illustration: THE EARL OF ABERDEEN, LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND IN 1906-8] The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland has very little to do except to open fairs, lay corner stones, preside at public meetings, give dinners, and look pleasant. He is nominally the head of everything as the representative of his sovereign, the king, and is supposed to rule Ireland in his majesty's name, but, like the Governor-General of Canada, the office is a sinecure. Its incumbent is allowed a salary of $100,000, a castle in the city, and a country lodge in Ph[oe]nix Park, a liberal allowance to maintain them and to expend in hospitality, a staff of secretaries and aids-de-camp, a full outfit of servants, and various other perquisites which would be appreciated by our President and all others in authority. And all this without any responsibilities, except to be tactful, amiable, and diplomatic, and to make friends with the people. The actual ruler of Ireland is the Chief Secretary to the lord lieutenant, who is a member of the cabinet of the king, and spends most of his time in London, where he devises and directs the political policy of the government toward that distracted but improving portion of his majesty's empire, looks after legislation in parliament, and attends to whatever is necessary for the good of the island. He is the Right Hon. Augustine Birrell, who is carrying out the lines of policy inaugurated by Mr. Bryce at the incoming of the present liberal government. The chief secretary is expected to spend a portion of each year in Ireland, so that he can keep in touch with affairs and get his cues from public opinion. He has a salary of $35,000 and a residence, fully equipped and appointed, near that of the lord lieutenant in Phoenix Park. The man on the ground, the general manager of the government, and the _de facto_ head of the executive administration, is known as the Under Secretary, who also has a handsome residence in Phoenix Park and all worldly comforts provided for him. He presides at the ancient castle in the center of the city of Dublin, surrounded by a staff of subordinates and clerks, and supervises the work of the several executive departments, most of them being scattered in rented quarters in different parts of the city. The government has long ago outgrown the castle and has appointed many officials and boards of commissioners and organized new executive departments without erecting buildings to accommodate them. Sir Antony Patrick MacDonnell, who resigned the office of under secretary, and was elevated to the peerage as Lord MacDonnell upon his retirement, is an Irishman who has spent his entire life in the service of his king, the greater part of it in India, where he was governor of four different provinces in succession and showed remarkable administrative ability. Retiring voluntarily, he came home to Ireland and was soon appointed to fill a vacancy in the office of under secretary, where he was very active, very positive in his convictions, and very determined in his methods. He made numerous recommendations that have not been adopted, and attempted to carry out a policy that was not acceptable to the politicians of Ireland, who rejected his plans for self-government and refused his overtures. [Illustration: THE COUNTESS OF ABERDEEN] Sir Antony MacDonnell was the author of what is called the "devolution policy." That's a big word and has little meaning in America, but in Ireland it is in common use and full of significance; first being applied to a certain political project in Ireland by Lord Dunraven in 1904. If you will look in the dictionary you will see that "devolution" means "the act of devolving, transferring, or handing over; transmission from one person to another; a passing or falling to a successor, as of office, authority, or real estate." In its application to the Irish situation devolution means the devolving upon the Irish people of purely local affairs, to transfer their management from the British government with a string tied to them, and that is what the Irish political leaders will not consent to. Their motto is _aut_ home rule, _aut nullus_. With the co-operation of the Earl of Dunraven and others, Sir Antony MacDonnell prepared a plan of limited home rule in 1907. It gave the government of Ireland entirely into the hands of the people with the exception of the police, the courts, and the lawmaking power, which were retained under British control. The proposition was discussed by the largest convention ever held in the country and was unanimously rejected on the theory that it did not go far enough. The Irish people will never be satisfied until they are permitted to make their own laws. There were many grounds of objection from the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical authorities and others, who declare that Sir Antony's plan of government, which was based upon his experience in India, could not be applied successfully to conditions in Ireland. Sir Antony is a very positive man, and when his solution of the Irish problem, to which he had given years of thought and study, was rejected, he concluded that he was not the man to rule that country and sent in his resignation, which was accepted with great reluctance by the government and with sincere regret by a majority of the people, who admire his ability and have confidence in his integrity and intentions. His successor is Sir John Dougherty, his chief assistant, who has been in the office of the under secretary in Dublin Castle all his life, and has been promoted grade after grade from an ordinary clerkship to his present position because of his ability and his sterling qualities. Although he is not a man of marked individuality and initiative, like Sir Antony MacDonnell, he is considered a safe, conservative, and judicious administrator. The next in importance, who, perhaps, should be ranked first of all, is a mysterious and autocratic official, known as the Treasury Remembrancer. He was described to me as "a lord over all, and the best hated man in Ireland. Nobody knows him or cares to know him. His fellow officials seldom hear or speak his name. He is a spy and a spotter and has arbitrary authority to disallow accounts, withhold allowances, and lock up the money chest whenever he likes. There is no statute authorizing his appointment, and there is no law or regulation defining his duties or limiting his authority, which he receives from the chancellor of the exchequer in London and to whom alone he reports." The office pays $7,500 a year without any known perquisites, although the remembrancer is supposed to have mysterious sources of revenue that have never been found out. He cannot, however, spend the money of the crown. His authority is limited to preventing expenditures. He is "the watchdog of the treasury" in Ireland, and combines in one the duties and powers which are intrusted to the comptroller and auditors of the treasury in the United States. He interprets appropriation bills, customs laws, and decides how much money can be expended for this purpose and that. He audits all accounts, rejects many, disallows overcharges, and makes everybody who has to do with government finances a great deal of trouble. Hence his unpopularity and his habitual reserve. In addition to these chief officials there are numerous secretaries and assistant secretaries, commissioners and boards of various jurisdictions, and executive departments, with corps of clerks similar to those in Washington. Each has its functions over some branch of the administration and all are subject to the supervision of the under secretary and the chief secretary in London. Their commissions are signed by the lord lieutenant, who knows nothing about them, has no authority over them, and acts only in a formal capacity, as the representative of the king. There is a great deal of complaint as to the excessive number of "civil servants," as they call them over there, although such a term would be resented by the employees of the civil service in the United States. All railway officials are called "servants" in Great Britain. Every salaried person comes within that designation. Any one who will look over the printed register of government employees in Ireland will conclude that home rule has already been adopted, because the treasury remembrancer is said to be the only Englishman on the pay roll, except the lord lieutenant, several of his secretaries, and the military officers at the garrison, and several Scotch experts in the employ of the Agricultural Department and Congested Districts Board. But what spoils it all to the people of Ireland is that these officials receive their appointments from what they consider an alien authority. The touch of the English giver poisons the gift. They will never be satisfied until their commissions are signed by an Irish name. Nobody in the employ of the government is loyal. Every man hates and loathes England, and doesn't hesitate to say so in public and in private, on all occasions, although he draws his rations from the British government. And when you remind him of that he answers promptly that the money comes from the pockets of the Irish rate-payers and England grabs £3,000,000 of it for herself. Ireland contributes an annual average of £10,500,000 in taxes to the imperial treasury and £7,500,000 of it is expended in maintaining her government and constructing her public works. The remaining three millions is her contribution toward the support of the British empire, the wages of the king, the expenses of parliament, the support of the army and navy, and the interest upon the public debt, which is not kept separately for Ireland, and for various other purposes. Ireland has twenty-three peers in the House of Lords and one hundred and two representatives in the House of Commons, of whom eighty-two are nationalists or home rulers. The remaining twenty are conservatives, unionists, and anti-home rulers, who believe in maintaining the present system of government and the existing relations between Great Britain and Ireland. The Irish members of parliament have been a thorn in the flesh of John Bull for many years, ever since Daniel O'Connell was admitted to the imperial legislature in 1829. They have fought fiercely for concessions term after term, have built fires in the rear of the government and have attacked it upon all sides until they have accomplished a great many reforms and are near to the point of achieving final success. If the liberal party wins at the next election every patriotic Irishman expects political emancipation, because its leaders are pledged to complete home rule on the same basis that Mr. Gladstone proposed several years ago, when he was prime minister. The Irish peerage, like that of Scotland, are not entitled to all the rights and prerogatives enjoyed by the British peerage, and have only twenty-eight seats in the House of Lords. The total peerage of Ireland consists of two dukes, ten marquises, sixty-three earls, thirty-six viscounts, and sixty-four barons, a total of one hundred and seventy-five nobles, of whom seventeen also have titles in the English peerage, nearly all by inheritance. The Irish peerage are represented in the House of Lords by twenty-eight of their members who are elected for life. As soon as one of these representative peers dies two or more of his colleagues notify the lord high chancellor of England of the vacancy. The latter thereupon issues a writ in the name of the king under the great seal proclaiming an election. Copies of this writ are served upon every Irish peer through the clerk of the crown at Dublin naming a date for an election. Each of the one hundred and seventy-five Irish peers has a vote, but they never assemble. They merely write to the clerk of the crown at Dublin, naming their choice, and forward a duplicate of the letter to the clerk of the House of Lords at London. Scotland has only sixteen representative peers, who are elected by an assemblage at Holyrood Palace at Edinburgh when notified of a vacancy. There is considerable formality in the proceedings, and every peer is required to present himself to answer the roll call before he is allowed to vote. There is a good deal of preliminary canvassing in both Scotland and Ireland, and that was particularly the case of Lord Curzon of Kedleston, who was elected to the House of Lords as an Irish peer after his return from India. The candidates for the vacancy usually visit their fellow peers personally and solicit their support. Social influences go a great way. Lord Curzon was handicapped in many respects, but was elected by a large majority because of the high esteem in which he is held. When the ballots are all in the clerk of the crown at Dublin makes up a tabulated statement which he sends with his report to the clerk of the House of Lords. The latter checks it off from his own records and announces the result to the lord high chancellor and to each of the Irish peers in person. The representative peers at present are the Earls of Annesley, Bandon, Belmore, Darnley, Drogheda, Kilmory, Lucan, Mayo, Rosse, and Westmeath, Viscounts Bangor and Templeton, and Barons Bellew, Castlemaine, Clonbrock, Crofton, Curzon, Dunalley, Dunboine, Headley, Inchiquin, Kilmaine, Langford, Massey, Musckerry, Oranmore, Rathdonnell, and Ventry. The premier of the Irish peerage is Maurice Fitzgerald, who is the Duke of Leinster and also is Marquis of Kildare, and represents the most distinguished and celebrated family in Ireland. His dukedom dates back to 1766. The second in rank is the Duke of Abercorn, James Hamilton, who is also Marquis of Hamilton. The third is James Edward William Theobold, twenty-seventh Marquis of Ormonde, and the fourth is Rudolph Robert Basil Aloysius Augustine Fielding, Earl of Desmond, who is also Earl of Denbigh. The oldest titles in the Irish peerage are the following: Baron Kinsale, created 1223. Lord Dunsany, created 1439. Lord Timlestown, created 1461. Viscount Gormanston, created 1478. Baron Louth, created 1541. Lord Dumboine, created 1541. Baron Inchiquin, created 1543. Viscount Montgarrett, created 1550. The Earl of Fingal, created 1620. Viscount Grandison, created 1620. Earl of Cork, created 1620. Baron Digby, created 1620. Earl of Westmeath, created 1621. Earl of Desmond, created 1622. Lord Dillon, created 1622. Viscount Valentia, created 1622. Earl of Meath, created 1627. Baron Sherard, created 1627. Viscount Lumley, created 1628. Viscount Taffe, created 1628. All the remaining peerages of Ireland were created later than the year 1700. The people as a rule are respectful towards the nobility, and treat them with a consideration which is not always deserved. The bitterness of politics is more intense in Ireland than in any other country, and, as Sydney Brooks in his recent book on "Ireland in the Twentieth Century" says, "Class distinctions are not mitigated by political agreement. Differences of creed are not assuaged by harmony of economic interests. The cleavages of racial temperament are not, as in other countries, bridged over by a sense of national unity. On the contrary, all the bitterness of caste and creed, of political and material antipathies and contrast, instead of losing half their viciousness in a multiplicity of cross-currents, are gathered and rigidly compressed in Ireland into two incongruous channels. Throughout the country you can infer a man's religion from his social position; his social position from his religion, and his views on all Irish questions from both; and nine times out of ten you infer rightly." That is strictly true. Nowhere in the world is a man's politics so influenced by his religion and his social position as in Ireland. Although you will find home rulers in all classes of the English population, you will never find them outside one class in Ireland. If you are told what business he is engaged in or what church he belongs to in Ireland, it is not necessary for you to ask his politics. While the ancient nobility of Ireland is gradually becoming extinct and their estates are being divided up among the farmers who till them, a new aristocracy is developing. The sons of what is called the middle class are invading the sacred haunts of the ancient aristocracy and are taking the places of the dukes and earls as the latter retire. Every peer that has been created in Ireland of late years has been a son of a manufacturer, a tradesman, or a country gentleman of the middle class, and at the present rate the descendants of earls and marquises will be compelled to stand back and give the sons of brewers, distillers, and other manufacturers their places at the front of the stage. A century or even half a century ago no Irish trader or contractor, lawyer or doctor, unless he could produce the proper sort of pedigree, could enter the social world or the best clubs of Dublin and other Irish cities or participate in the sports of the gentry and aristocracy. But to-day their grandsons have the entrée to that gilded gate which hangs upon broken hinges and will soon be entirely removed. This is the result of the decadence of one class and the advance of another. A brewer or a distiller who can obtain a seat in the House of Lords must necessarily be eligible to the clubs where his colleagues meet. Nearly all of the twenty-three peers created by the present government in England have sprung from families of humble origin and are sons of men who made their money in manufacturing and trade. And there is room for more of them in the peerage. You hear irreverent people talking about "breeding up the peerage of Great Britain," just as they talk about improving their cattle, horses, and swine, and in the clubs of London this subject is revived every time the son of a decaying family of the nobility marries the daughter of a wealthy tradesman, or the daughter of an earl weds the son of a wealthy commoner. In Ireland the shopkeeper now educates his son for a profession. The sons of contractors become architects and civil engineers. The sons of lawyers and doctors enter the army and navy and diplomatic service. Among the large families of the middle class you will find one son a lawyer, another a doctor, and the other two in the army and navy. In order to keep pace with them and be able to appear properly in the society which their brothers enter, and in order that they may be considered suitable wives for the sons of similar families who are on the upward grade, the daughters of the middle classes of Ireland are sent to the best schools and colleges and spend their winters in Paris. For these reasons very little is said about pedigree in Ireland these days. The army that is advancing does not look back. The decaying nobility dare not question nor criticise lest they may be trampled upon. The only people who talk about their ancestors are the peasants, who trace their descent from the Irish kings. Mrs. O'Leary met Mrs. O'Donahue one day and in the course of conversation asked if she had ever looked up her pedigree. "Phwat's that?" inquired Mrs. O'Donahue. "The people you sprang from," was the reply. "I'd have you know that the O'Donahues never sprang from anybody," was the indignant retort. "They sprang at 'em." Every influential leader of the liberal party is a home ruler. The Earl of Aberdeen, the present lieutenant governor, Earl Dudley, his predecessor, who is now governor-general of Australia, James Bryce, recently chief secretary for Ireland and now British ambassador at Washington, and many other influential men in high places, are earnest in supporting the Irish claims for self-government, and the national party, which, after the death of Charles S. Parnell, became demoralized and split into factions under the leadership of John Redmond, John Dillon, and others, has been a unit since 1900 and is working harmoniously. The liberal leaders have promised to make home rule the leading issue at the next parliamentary election, which will probably occur in two years or so. In the meantime the Irish party in parliament will continue to pursue the policy that has already been so successful in securing concessions for the relief of the people and the promotion of the welfare and prosperity of Ireland. The city government of Dublin is very much like that of London. The lord mayor is second in official rank to the lord lieutenant, and within the precincts of the city takes precedence of everybody except that official (who is the personal representative of the king), the royal family, and foreign ambassadors. He precedes the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the primate of England, the two archbishops of Armagh, the primates of all Ireland, the Archbishop of Dublin, the chief secretary for Ireland, and even the prime minister of England, while the lady mayoress has the right to walk before every duchess, marchioness, and woman of title in the kingdom except the royal family. The salary of the lord mayor is $15,000 a year, and he has a beautiful old house to live in--one of the most attractive in Dublin. It is situated on Dawson Street near Stephen's Green and is surrounded by a picturesque garden. Here in olden times the lord mayor used to entertain like a prince. It was a matter of pride that the Mansion House should never be outdone by the castle in the magnificence of its hospitality. But of late years the civic entertainments, as they were called, have been abandoned and the lady mayoress has not attempted to shine in society. The Right Honorable Gerald O'Reilly was Lord Mayor of Dublin when I was there in 1908, and he managed to look after his private business as grocer and liquor dealer at Towns End in connection with his official duties. He was elected to office by the nationalists and the labor element, who control the politics not only of Dublin but of all Ireland, and have elected his predecessors for many years. And they have been men of the people without exception. No aristocrat, no landlord, no member of the nobility could ever hope to become Lord Mayor of Dublin. Mr. O'Reilly was born, reared, and educated in County Carlow, where his father was a groceryman and liquor dealer like himself. When he became of age he came up to Dublin, went into business on his own account and prospered. He is not a rich man, but well to do, with a good patronage, a good reputation, and a large influence in politics. For twenty years he has served as a member of the common council and the board of aldermen, where he has proved his usefulness and his right to promotion. Mr. O'Reilly's predecessor was an actual workingman, G.P. Nanetti, a son of an Italian artist who came to Ireland fifty years ago to engage in his profession as a decorator. Mr. Nanetti was born in Dublin, educated in the national schools, learned his trade as printer in the office of that ancient and well-known paper, the _Freeman's Journal_, and was advanced from grade to grade until he became the foreman of the composing-room. In the meantime he went into politics, became a leader among the workingmen, was elected to the common council and then to the board of aldermen, and, after serving two terms as lord mayor, was elected to parliament as the representative of the business district of Dublin, which surrounds the Bank of Ireland and Trinity College. Before him Timothy Harrington was lord mayor for three terms, a longer period than any of his predecessors since the creation of the title by King Charles I. on the twenty-ninth day of July, 1641. He, too, was a great success in the office and was sent to parliament for the district which includes the docks. The Mansion House is well adapted for entertainment. The main room is a large circular chamber, adorned with statuary, which was built especially for the reception of George IV. when he visited Ireland. The Oak Room is entirely sheathed, floor, ceiling, and walls, with a rich reddish brown oak, delicately carved. Over the fireplace is a rack for the reception of the mace and sword which are the symbols of office, and formerly, when the lord mayor went about on official occasions, they were carried before him, but Mr. O'Reilly and his recent predecessors have abolished many of those interesting old ceremonies. There are some fine pictures in the Mansion House, portraits of Charles II. by Sir Peter Lely, George IV. by Sir Thomas Lawrence, the Earl of Northumberland by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the Earl of Westmorland by Romney. In the entrance hall are preserved the mace and sword carried by the lord mayor who fought for James II. at the battle of the Boyne. When he fled with the rest of James's forces he dropped the heavy insignia, which fell into the hands of the Williamites and were retained by them until a duplicate set had been furnished, many years after. Many famous men have been entertained at the Mansion House, including General Grant, who visited Dublin during the holidays of 1878; Capt. Edward E. Potter, commander of the United States man-of-war _Constellation_, which brought a cargo of food to the starving people of Ireland in 1880; the Hon. Patrick A. Collins, while he was Mayor of Boston, who, by the way, is recorded as a senator from Massachusetts, a distinction he never attained. The Hon. Richard Croker, formerly of New York, received the freedom of the city of Dublin several years ago, and has been a frequent guest at the Mansion House, although he moves about very modestly and puts on no airs. The Lord Mayor of Dublin is elected annually on the 23d of December by the aldermen and councilmen and must be one of their number. He has a deputy who exercises authority during his illness or absence. There are fifteen aldermen and forty-five members of the council, whose authority and powers are very much the same as in our cities at home. The headquarters of the mayor are in the City Hall, which was formerly the Royal Exchange, where merchants met daily to make bargains and sign contracts. It was used as a prison during the rebellion of '98, and has had other experiences. As you enter the building through the vestibule you pass into a large circular room, with a dome sustained by many columns, which was formerly the trading place, but is now the anteroom to the mayor's office and is usually filled with politicians and place hunters, which are quite as numerous in Ireland as they are anywhere else. The name of the capital of Ireland is a compound of two Gaelic words, Dubh-Linn, which signify "the black pool," and was bestowed upon it more than two thousand years ago. There is a complete history of the city since the year 150 A.D., when a warlike king called "Conn of a Hundred Battles," who had long been the overlord of all Ireland, was defeated by his rival, "Mogh of Munster," and compelled to consent to a division of territory, the line being drawn from High Street, Dublin, across to the Atlantic Ocean near Galway. Three centuries later St. Patrick stopped on his way from Wicklow to his home at Armagh. The people complained to him of the bad quality of the water they were obliged to drink and he relieved them by causing a miraculous fountain to spring up near the site of the present cathedral that bears his name. In 1152 Dublin became the seat of an archbishopric by a decree of the pope and, shortly after the landing of Henry II., became the seat of the English government. In 1210 King John visited Ireland again and conferred many privileges upon the city. In 1394 King Richard came over with an army of thirty-four thousand and lived in great splendor in Dublin. All of the Irish chieftains submitted to his conciliatory policy. The great O'Neill, King of Ulster; MacMurrough, King of Leinster; O'Brien of Munster, and O'Connor of Connaught, the four kings of Ireland, were knighted and promised allegiance, but no sooner had Richard returned to England than the country was again in confusion. In 1409 the "pale" (or inclosure) of Ireland was established, with the city of Dublin as its capital, a narrow strip of land thirty miles long by twenty wide, which alone was under English control and whose inhabitants alone in all Ireland could be relied upon to respect the royal commands. Dublin has been besieged, invaded by pirates, has been swept with plague and pestilence, and has been fought over by rival princes, but has kept growing, and in Queen Elizabeth's time reached such commercial importance that it was necessary to erect a custom-house and a lighthouse to show the channel to those who went down to the sea in ships. The people were famous for their wealth and fashion. An official band of musicians played three times a week through the chief streets, there was a city physician, a fire department, an attempt at sanitation and waterworks were introduced, each citizen being allowed as much water daily as would flow through a quill. In 1661 the people of Dublin spent $150,000, which was an enormous sum in those days, to celebrate the restoration, with banquets, fireworks, a pageant, and various other evidences of rejoicing. And the king, as an acknowledgment, sent the mayor a gold chain and conferred upon him the title of "The Right Honorable, the Lord Mayor of Dublin." Under the administration of Ormonde, Dublin expanded on all sides, and has since been growing, although from time to time there have been periods of distress and disorder. [Illustration: THE FOUR COURTS, DUBLIN] Gradually, however, matters settled down into civilization and order. Courts were established, and an imposing building called "The Four Courts" was erected to accommodate the four divisions of the judiciary,--chancery, king's bench, exchequer, and common pleas. In early times each term of court was opened by a religious service, when the choir of Christ Church would sing an anthem and the dean would offer prayer. One of the boundaries of the Four Courts was a dark, narrow passage, which a wit, struck with its gloom, nicknamed "Hell," and carried out his idea by erecting at the entrance a fantastic figure supposed to represent the evil one. A Dublin newspaper of that date contains an advertisement reading as follows: "Lodgings to let in Hell, suitable for a lawyer." You will remember Burns's line: "As sure 's the deil 's in hell, or Dublin city." Dublin now has 300,000 population, and, although it is not so enterprising as Belfast, is one of the few cities in Ireland that shows growth. The population is divided as follows: Roman Catholic, 237,645; Church of Ireland, Episcopal, 41,663; Presbyterian, 4,074; Methodist, 2,342. The means of grace are greater than the hope of glory. Promises of salvation are offered from fully eighty churches, as follows: Church of Ireland 20 Church of Ireland (chapels) 20 Roman Catholic 9 Roman Catholic (chapels) 6 Presbyterian 8 Wesleyan 8 Primitive Methodists 2 Independent 3 Friends' meeting-houses 2 Unitarian 1 Baptist 1 The "disestablishment" of the Church of Ireland, by which is meant the separation of the Protestant Episcopal denomination from the government, occurred in 1869 under the leadership of Mr. Gladstone as the price of peace and the termination of the rebellion in Ireland. It was demanded by the Roman Catholic bishops, who saw the injustice of compelling people of all denominations, without discrimination, to pay taxes to support an official church and the propaganda of a faith which they did not profess. So that branch of the Established Church of England which was found across St. George's Channel was forcibly divorced and given alimony amounting to £8,080,000, or about $39,000,000 in American money. This represented a commutation in advance of the stipends to which the clergy of that church were entitled under the ecclesiastical laws for a term of fourteen years, as well as a vast amount of real estate and other property which belonged to the Established Church and was transferred to the new organization represented by a commission appointed for that purpose. At the same time the Presbyterian church of Ireland received £750,000, the Roman Catholic College of St. Patrick at Maynooth, £3,372,331, the board of intermediate education for school purposes, £1,000,000, the pension fund for teachers in Ireland, £1,127,150 and the Congested Districts Board, £1,500,000. Since that time these funds have increased in value considerably, and the incomes from them are devoted to the purposes named. They were paid in lieu of the annual contributions from the Established Church which had been enjoyed for many years and were capitalized on the basis of fourteen years' income; that is, the government in order to satisfy everybody advanced in lump sums what it would have given in annual installments for the next fourteen years if the "disestablishment act" had not been passed. The general synod which controls the affairs of the Episcopal Church of Ireland is composed of the two archbishops, the bishops, the deans, and canons of cathedrals, and archdeacons of diocese. The property of the church has advanced in value until it is now estimated at more than £12,000,000, or $60,000,000, and the income is now more than $2,000,000 a year, which is very large in proportion to its numbers. Total population of Ireland (1901) 4,386,035 Roman Catholic 3,308,661 Church of Ireland 581,080 Presbyterian 443,494 Methodist 61,255 These are the figures furnished by the different church organizations, but you will notice they exceed the total population by the latest census and therefore are only approximately correct. At the time of the disestablishment in 1889 the adherents of the Church of Ireland numbered 693,347, which is a decrease of 112,258 since that time. This corresponds very accurately with the general decrease of the population of the island. There are now 1,628 churches and chapels belonging to the Church of Ireland, which is an average of one for every 350 people, and from my short experience I should say that the members of the church were very negligent in attending worship. The Roman Catholic church is the largest, the most prosperous, the most energetic, and has greater vitality than any other denomination, and is involved in all the politics and secular affairs as well as the ecclesiastical administration of the country, which is perfectly natural, because 74 per cent of the entire population belong to that denomination, and the number as reported--3,308,661--are divided among 1,084 parishes with 2,350 houses of worship, churches, and chapels. The constant stream of emigration which flows from Ireland to the United States, Canada, Australia, and other more progressive and prosperous countries comes chiefly from the Roman Catholic church, which lost 238,646 members, or 6.7 per cent of its numbers, between the last two official censuses of the country. The Church of Ireland lost 3.2 per cent from a total of 13 per cent, the Presbyterians 0.4, while the Methodists increased 11.7 per cent, the Jews increased 119 per cent, and other religious persuasions 9.1 per cent. But it is strange to say that the numbers of priests and monks and nuns are increasing every year, while the number of parishioners is falling off. In 1851, when the island had twice its present population, there were 2,291 priests in Ireland; in 1901 there were 3,157, of whom 4 were archbishops, 27 bishops, 392 monks, and the remainder parish priests, including chaplains and professors in educational institutions. The total of priests increased 307 during the last ten years. There are many monasteries, nunneries, and other monastic and educational houses in Ireland--93 for men and 242 for women. The Presbyterians are third in numerical strength, wealth, and influence, and are found mostly in the northern part of the country. The membership represents the manufacturing, mercantile, and commercial classes, while the Church of Ireland represents the landowners, the government officials, the aristocracy, nobility, and the gentry. The Presbyterians have a higher average of wealth than any other denomination. Their contributions to benevolent purposes in 1907 were $1,040,000, which is very large for a population of 443,494 and 106,000 communicants. There were 96,000 children on the roll of the Presbyterian Sunday schools in 567 churches, which are distributed among 36 presbyteries and 5 synods. The minutes of the recent general assembly show 650 clergymen of that faith. The Methodists are active and energetic, and ever since John Wesley appeared in Ireland in August, 1747, they have been strong in the faith. They are mostly in the cities among the middle classes, and the latest returns show 250 churches, 248 ministers and evangelists, 358 Sunday schools, and 26,000 scholars, for a total population of 61,255. There are several other denominational organizations. Friends' meeting-houses are found in several of the cities of Ireland, and the members of that faith have been here for centuries. Macroom Castle, in which William Penn was born, is still standing, and the Castle of Blackrock, the place where he embarked for America, is now a popular Sunday resort for the working people of that city. IV DUBLIN CASTLE Dublin Castle does not correspond with the conventional idea of what a castle should be. It looks more like the dormitory of an ancient university or a hospital or military barracks, although there are two ancient towers in which many men have been imprisoned and in which several patriots have died, and the south side of the pile, which overlooks a beautiful lawn in the very center of Dublin, has quite the appearance of a fortress. It has been the scene of much bloody history, much treachery and cruelty, and many deeds of valor have been done in the two courtyards. One of the viceroys of the sixteenth century, in a letter to the King of England describing its partial destruction by fire, wrote that he had "lost nothing but a few barrels of powder and the worst castle in the worst situation in Christendom". A certain portion of the building is reserved for the official residence of the lord lieutenant, and there are long suites of quaint old rooms with antique furniture, usually disguised with its summer wrapping of pink-flowered chintz, in which kings and queens and dukes and earls have been entertained for centuries. In olden times it was the habit of the lord lieutenant to permit his guests to go to the wine cellar with glasses in their hands and drink from whatever hogshead they pleased, and it is recorded that some gentlemen who were imbibing longer than usual sent the cellarer to the Duke of Ormonde, who then occupied the office, to provide them with chairs. With that true wit that distinguishes the Irish race, high and low, the duke replied that he did not encourage his guests to drink any longer than they could stand. This custom was abandoned by the Earl of Halifax, owing to the carelessness of certain bewildered gentlemen who left the wine running out of the spigot and lost him many gallons of precious Madeira. The present lord lieutenant, Lord Aberdeen, spends as little time in the castle as possible, because the viceregal lodge, his country residence, which is only half an hour's drive distant in Phoenix Park, is so much more comfortable and homelike, but all state ceremonies must take place at the castle, and their excellencies and the household usually bring in their court costumes early in February, for the season commences on the second Tuesday with a levee, a drawing-room on Wednesday, a reception on Thursday, and on Friday a banquet. During the ensuing week a state ball is given, and twice a week thereafter entertainments until the 17th of March, when the season is finished with St. Patrick's ball. The presentation of guests may be arranged for at the levees or the drawing-room, and everybody who has been presented can go to the ball. The inauguration of a new viceroy takes place in the throne-room, where also a farewell reception is held when he retires. The castle dates back to the days when it was necessary to have some stronghold, as the king said, "to curb the city as well as to defend it," and to provide a safe place for the custody of the royal treasure. It was located in the center of the present city of Dublin, but at the time was outside the original walls of the town, upon what is called Cork Hill, because Richard Boyle, the Earl of Cork, had his castle upon the slight elevation it now occupies. Meiller Fitzhenry, an illegitimate son of Henry II., designed and began the building. It was finished in 1213, and from that period has been the center of Irish history. Very little of the original structure remains--only a portion of the walls. The towers have been cut down and modernized. One of them is now used for a supper-room for social occasions, and a kitchen is on the lower floor. The other, which was originally a prison, and is the most complete surviving fragment of the ancient fortress, is a repository for historical documents and the records of the government for the last four or five centuries. There are three circular rooms, one above the other; the walls are nineteen feet thick in places, and four or five long, narrow cells are built into them like recesses and lighted only by a narrow strip at the far end. One of these cells has a secret chamber hidden in the wall, and accessible only by a revolving door, which is difficult to distinguish from the rest of the stone. [Illustration: THE CASTLE, DUBLIN; OFFICIAL RESIDENCE OF THE LORD LIEUTENANT AND HEADQUARTERS OF THE GOVERNMENT] The tower has not been used as a prison since 1798 and 1803, the rebellions of Emmet and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and the documents relating to their conspiracy are preserved there in the very cells where the men who were convicted by them lay awaiting trial and execution. The late Mr. Lecky, the historian, searched them thoroughly, and gave a surprising account of the character of the private papers that were seized with the effects of the patriots in those days. Love letters, poems, reflections on various subjects, rules of conduct, maxims of the sages, drafts of speeches, and proclamations in soaring language, and many attempts at literary work are mixed up with the reports of spies, informers, detectives, and officials,--some of them from comrades whose treachery was never suspected and which Mr. Lecky was not permitted to publish even at this late day. Some people think these malicious and incriminating documents should be destroyed lest they may sometime come to light and ruin the reputation of men who are highly esteemed by their fellow countrymen. But no one seems willing to give the instructions. In 1583 a "trial by combat" took place in the courtyard of the castle between Connor MacCormack O'Connor and Teague Kilpatrick O'Connor to settle the responsibility for the murder of a clansman. The weapons were sword and shield. The lord justices and the councillors, the governor-general, the sheriffs, and other officials were present to witness the trial. As was the custom and usage in trials by combat, each man was made to take an oath that he believed his quarrel just, and was ready to maintain it to the death. After a fierce struggle Teague cut off the head of his cousin and presented it on the point of his sword to the lord justices. For many generations the Irish parliament used to assemble at the castle. The first was called in 1328, another in 1585, another in 1639, and the accounts of the expenses of the lord lieutenant show that during the two weeks that parliament was in session the viceregal household consumed ten bullocks, forty sheep, sixteen hogsheads of beer, and various other refreshments to a similar extent. Oliver Cromwell, when in Dublin, resided at the castle, and in 1654 his youngest son was born there. While Henry Cromwell was viceroy he was driven from the castle and went to live at the viceregal lodge. In 1689, after the battle of the Boyne, in which William of Orange defeated James Stuart, the latter took possession of the castle, but slept there only one night. The court of Dublin has been insignificant but lively, and has reflected the characteristics of the Irish nobility, who were as fond of a frolic as they were of a fight, and never allowed their sense of decorum or the laws of etiquette to interfere with their pleasure. A hundred years ago ladies, upon being presented for the first time, were solemnly kissed by the viceroy, which was more or less agreeable to him, according to the age and attractions of his guests. One of them who was noted for his wit remarked that he got his kisses as a spendthrift borrows from a usurer, "part in old wine, part in dubious paintings, and part in bright gold and silver." With all its wit and brilliancy the court has at times been noted for a low state of morality, and at one period that portion of the castle which contains the state apartments was nicknamed "hell's half-acre" by a satirist. A figure of Justice which adorns the pediment of the main gate has been the object of much wit and satire for two centuries. Dean Swift once declared that she sat with her face to the viceroy and her back to the people. There are a few good portraits and other pictures in the residence portion of the building, including some pretty medallions in the wall of the throne-room, which are credited to Angelica Kauffman, but nobody knows when or how she happened to paint them. The mantel of one of the rooms is of black Spanish oak taken from the cabin of the flagship of the Spanish Armada which was wrecked on the Irish coast after the great sea battle of 1588. The finest of all the rooms is St. Patrick's Hall, which was designed by the great Lord Chesterfield when he was lord lieutenant of Ireland, and has always been much admired by architects because of its proportions and its lofty painted ceilings representing events in Irish history. The banners of the twenty-four knights of St. Patrick are suspended from either side, and the crimson draperies and upholstering of Irish poplin give the apartment an attractive color. Duplicates of these banners hang in the choir of St. Patrick's Cathedral, where the knights used to meet before 1869, but they have always had their headquarters in the castle, and the Ulster king of arms, the executive officer of the order, is the master of ceremonies at the castle, senior officer in the household of the lord lieutenant, the highest authority on rank and precedent in Ireland, and his seal is necessary to give legal value to patents of Irish peerages. He decides all questions of etiquette, nominates the persons who are presented at the viceregal drawing-room, arranges for all ceremonies, and in processions of state he rides or walks immediately in front of the lord lieutenant, carrying the sword of state as the emblem of the authority of the king. The office has been in existence since the Middle Ages. Its incumbent was formerly the custodian of the arms, the chief of the heralds, and the keeper of the royal jewels. He has an office in what is known as Bedford Tower, immediately facing the principal entrance to the viceroy's residence, with a large suite of rooms for his own use, and two or three clerks to look after his business. Otherwise the office carries no compensation except £20 a year and such few fees as are paid for searching the records of the Irish peerage and furnishing certificates of pedigree and title similar to those that are sought at the College of Heralds in London. The office was held for many years by Sir Bernard Burke, the most eminent of modern genealogists, the originator and author of "Burke's Peerage," which is authority on all questions affecting the nobility. His successor was Sir Arthur Vicar, son of the late Colonel Vicar, who commanded the Sixty-first Irish Fusiliers, and is a cousin of half the nobility of Ireland. Sir Arthur is a bachelor, a member of the principal clubs of London and Dublin, president of the Kildare Archæological Society and of the "Ex-Libris Society," whose members follow the fad of collecting book plates. He is the highest authority on questions affecting the Irish nobility since the death of Sir Bernard Burke, and is the editor of "Lodge's Peerage," a volume which relates exclusively to them. Sir Arthur has been a great favorite with everybody. He is an amiable, gentle, witty man, with winning manner, a charming conversationalist, has a keen sense of humor, and has been the confidant of half the peers of Ireland in their sorrows and their difficulties. In October, 1907, when preparations were being made to invest Lord Castledown as a knight of St. Patrick, it was discovered that the regalia of that order was missing, and no trace has ever been found of it, nor have the detectives obtained a single clew to the mystery. The jewels have an intrinsic value of quarter of a million dollars, but the historical and sentimental value of the articles stolen cannot be estimated. They were kept in a safe in the office of Sir Arthur Vicar as master at arms at the right of the entrance to his private quarters, and the room was usually occupied in the daytime by two clerks and carefully locked at night. This valuable property had been kept in that place for more than two hundred years, and nobody ever dreamed that it might be stolen. The discovery, which was kept secret for several months at the request of the police, caused a postponement of the ceremony, and the chief secretary for Ireland called for the resignation of Sir Arthur as master at arms on the ground that he failed to take proper precautions for the safety of the valuables in question. He was not accused or even suspected of having participated in the robbery, or having any knowledge of it, but there cannot be the slightest doubt that the theft was committed by some person familiar with affairs in the castle, and hence all the employees, everybody, from Lord Aberdeen down, has shared in the humiliation. Sir Arthur Vicar refused to resign, demanded a court of inquiry, and selected Timothy Healy, a member of parliament of the nationalist party from Dublin, as his counsel, and has ever since been appealing for vindication. V. THE REDEMPTION OF IRELAND While the circumstances of the agricultural class in Ireland are by no means ideal, a great deal has been done to improve them. At the present rate of progress, however, it will take from twenty to twenty-five years, if not much longer, to accomplish the results intended by the Wyndham Land Act of 1903, which was expected to bring about the Irish millennium. That act provides that an owner of a large estate may sell to his tenants the holdings they occupy, and his untenanted land to any one who desires to buy it, in such tracts and at such prices as may be agreed upon, corresponding to the income now derived from that particular property. No landlord can sell a few acres here and there of good land under this act, although, of course, he is at liberty to dispose of any part of his estate at any time at any price that he may consider proper. But the terms and privileges of the Wyndham Act can only be enjoyed by a community of tenants in the purchase of the whole or a considerable portion of an estate. A board of commissioners which sits in the old-fashioned mansion in which the Duke of Wellington was born, on Merrion Street, Dublin, is authorized to use its discretion in the application of the law and in granting its privileges to those for whose benefit it is intended. Nothing can be done without their approval. The landlord and the tenants may arrange their own bargains to their own satisfaction, but they must be submitted to the board before they are carried out. When such agreements are reached and approved by the commission, --including the area sold, the price, and other terms,--the government is expected to furnish the purchase money from the public treasury. The landlord is entitled to receive the cash in full, and the tenant, who pays nothing, gives a mortgage, as we would call it, upon the property to the government for sixty-eight years or less, and agrees to pay an annual installment of 3-1/4; per cent of the purchase price, of which 2-3/4; per cent is interest and 1/2; per cent goes into a sinking fund to cover the purchase money at the end of sixty-eight years. A purchaser may pay off the mortgage at any time he pleases, and receive a clear title to the land; or he may sell it whenever he chooses, subject to the mortgage, which follows the land and not the person. If he is unable to pay his annuities, the government can turn him out and dispose of the land, subject to the same terms and conditions, to another person. It can make no allowance for crop failures or cattle diseases. It cannot extend or modify its credits. Nearly all of the landlords are willing to sell their estates; many are glad to get rid of them, because the average tenantry in Ireland are a very determined class, and are always making trouble. There have been almost continuous disturbances over land questions of one form or another in Ireland since the beginning of time. The rents are low compared with the American standard, but have been difficult to collect, and when there is a failure of crops they cannot be collected at all. The landlords complain that all the laws that have been enacted of late years are entirely in the interest of the tenants; that the landlord has no show at all. And perhaps that is true, because public sympathy is invariably with the tenants, and they cast many votes, while the landlord has only one, even if he tries to vote at all. Since 1881 the land courts have adjusted the rents of 360,135 farmer tenants, involving 10,731,804 acres of land. The total rents paid for these lands annually before adjustment was £7,206,079. They were reduced by judicial order to a total of £5,715,158, a difference of about $7,500,000 a year in American money, in favor of the tenants. Therefore it is perfectly natural that landowners--and especially those who have had a good deal of trouble with their tenants--are anxious to dispose of their estates for cash, which they can invest to much better advantage. The Duke of Leinster, for example, who is a minor, has realized more than £800,000 in cash, which his trustees have invested in brewery stocks, railway bonds, and other securities which pay regular dividends and give him no anxiety. Mr. Bailey, one of the commissioners, told me that the good estates have been disposed of without difficulty. The disposition of the poor land has been more difficult, because the tenants are not as eager to get it, the owner is not always satisfied with the price, and the commission is not willing to make advances upon small bits of land among the bogs and rocks and other tracts of unfertile soil that would not be considered good security by anybody. The commissioners have treated these transactions very much as they would have done if they were mortgage bankers. They have refused to make advances on land that a banker would not have considered good security. They have not been willing to make advances on farms that cannot be made to pay. There have been complications in certain cases that have perplexed them, but, as a rule, the law has been working out in a most satisfactory and gratifying manner. The chief object of the commission and the purpose of the law has been to break up the great estates of Ireland so far as possible in farms of not more than one hundred acres, and sell them to the occupants, so as to create a nation of peasant proprietors, and that, he says, is being accomplished more rapidly than any one had reason to expect. Of course Mr. Bailey does not pretend that everybody is satisfied. That would be impossible. The millennium has not yet come, and the Wyndham Act has not brought it, although it has undoubtedly done more than any previous legislation to promote peace in this distracted country, and offers promises of future prosperity and contentment. Naturally some of the landowners have not been willing to sell their property, and their tenants have been trying to force them to do so. That accounts for the "cattle driving" and similar disturbances that you read about in the newspaper cablegrams from Ireland. It is to be regretted that the tendency of the newspapers is to publish sensational occurrences and unfortunate events. If a man commits a great crime it is advertised from one end of the world to the other. If he does a good deed very little is said about it, and a false impression concerning conditions in Ireland has been created by the widespread publication of every little outrage or disturbance that occurs over there, while the enormous usefulness and the satisfactory application of the Wyndham Land Act has been almost entirely neglected by newspaper writers. There have, however, been a good many little disturbances occasioned by the efforts of the tenants of certain estates, particularly those that are now devoted to cattle-breeding, to force their landlords to divide up the pastures and sell them. At present there is more money in the cattle and sheep business than in any other kind of farming in Ireland, and, as you drive out into the interior, you can see the loveliest pastures in the world filled with fat, sleek animals feeding upon the luscious grass. I do not believe there are richer or more beautiful pastures in any land, and Irish beef and mutton command a premium because of their flavor and tenderness. Hence prosperous cattle-breeders cannot be blamed for refusing to sell their pastures and go out of business, and there is no law to compel them to do so. But the rough and reckless elements in the villages, and in many cases among their own tenantry, often try to persecute them by cattle and sheep "driving," as it is called, until they are willing to cry quits. The popular method is to break down the gates or the hedges,--they do not have fences in Ireland,--turn the cattle and sheep into the road, and run them as far as possible away from their proper pastures, scattering them over the country. This is done in the night, and the next morning the owner is compelled to take such measures to recover as many of the strays as he can. Various means are adopted to prevent such outrages. Armed guards are employed who defend their cattle, sometimes at the cost of life and bloodshed, which, of course, provokes bad feeling and greater trouble. Hundreds of men have been arrested and punished by long terms of imprisonment, but "cattle-driving" still goes on in various parts of the country with some serious results. But it is comparatively insignificant when compared with the great good that is being accomplished by the breaking up of the big estates whose owners are willing to dispose of them. Thus far the Wyndham Act has been carried out without much friction; the chief difficulty having arisen from the eagerness of the landlords to dispose of their estates, which is so much greater than anticipated, that the funds provided have not been sufficient, and the landlords who have sold their property have been compelled to wait for their pay. In November, 1908, Mr. Augustine Birrell, chief secretary for Ireland in the British cabinet, introduced into the House of Commons a bill for the appropriation of more than $760,000,000, to be raised by an issue of bonds to pay for the estates that have already been sold and for those that may be sold in the future. That amount of money he asserted would be necessary to carry out the plans of the government under the Land Act of 1903. This proposition of Mr. Birrell is without doubt the most stupendous munificence ever offered by any government to its subjects. The money thus appropriated does not pay for any service performed. It is a direct appropriation from the public treasury to the people of Ireland for the simple purpose of relieving their poverty and placing them in circumstances which will permit them to enjoy life without the hardships and sufferings and fruitless labor which they and their forefathers have for generations endured. The advances of the British government to the Irish peasants, if this bill becomes a law, will reach nearly $1,000,000,000, but it is to be repaid by them in small installments. Mr. Birrell, in his explanation of the purpose of the bill to the House of Commons, stated that up to the 31st of October £25,000,000 in round numbers (which amounts to about $125,000,000 in our money) had already been expended by the estates commissioners in purchasing farms from the large landholders in Ireland for the benefit of the tenants who occupy them, and that £52,000,000 (which is the equivalent of about $260,000,000) is due to other landowners who have sold their estates under the Act of 1903. These transactions have been completed with the exception of payment of the price. The transactions concluded under the Land Act of 1903 up to Oct. 31, 1908, provide farms for about 126,000 Irish families, at a cost of $385,000,000 to the British treasury, which is to be refunded by the owners of the farms in sixty-eight years, with interest at 3-1/4; per cent. Three-fourths of 1 per cent of this annual interest, to be paid by the man who owns the farm, goes into a sinking fund to meet the principal of bonds which have been issued to provide the purchase money. The remaining 2-1/2; per cent is paid by the farmer in lieu of rent, and is used to meet the annual interest upon the bonds. Thus the farmer gets his land in perpetuity by the payment of sixty-eight annual installments of an amount equal to 3-1/4; per cent of its present value. The average cost of the 126,000 farms thus far purchased is $1,790. The British government advances the money and becomes responsible for the payment of the interest and principal. The annual interest is only a trifle. In some cases it is only a shilling a week, and it runs up to as high as a pound or two a week in special cases, the average being estimated at $59 a year for the 126,000 farms, or $5 a month for the purchase of a farm, and whatever improvements may happen to be upon the land. If these improvements are not adequate, if the house is not comfortable, and if barns, stables, fences, and other permanent improvements are needed, the government advances the money to provide for them upon the same terms,--sixty-eight annual payments of 3-1/4; per cent of the cost. Mr. Birrell in his explanation estimated on Oct. 31, 1908, that the additional sum of $760,000,000 will be necessary to complete the work, to provide every family in the rural districts of Ireland with a farm of their own, and with the intention of doing that he asks an appropriation of that amount, which will bring the cost of the Irish land policy of the British government up to nearly $900,000,000. This does not include the expenditures of the Congested Districts Board, which have been $440,000 annually for several years, and in the future are to be $1,250,000 a year. Nor does it include several millions of dollars which have been expended under previous land acts, to purchase farms for the tenant occupiers. Nor does it include the $25,000,000 appropriated several years ago upon the motion of James Bryce, now British ambassador at Washington, to build cottages for the agricultural laborers,--the farm hands of Ireland. Mr. Wyndham, the author of the Land Act of 1903, stated in the House of Commons that 159,000 farmers had applied for the assistance of the government to purchase their holdings, and that 176,000 more would probably apply, out of a total of 490,000 farmers in Ireland. His estimates are not so high as those of Mr. Birrell; he believed that $600,000,000, or $800,000,000 at the outside, would be sufficient, instead of $900,000,000, as estimated by Mr. Birrell. He is convinced that 20 per cent of the 490,000 farmers in Ireland would not apply for farms, and that the average price of the farms purchased would not exceed $1,500. Of the farms already purchased, the average price in Leinster province was £528 ($2,640); in Munster, £452 ($2,260); in Ulster, £242 ($1,210); and in Connaught, £211 ($1,055). Connaught is the poorest of the poor provinces, and in 1908, out of a total of 29,000 farmers who applied, only 2,000 came from Connaught. Taking the most liberal estimate that he could imagine, Mr. Wyndham stated that $800,000,000 would be the maximum required. The Wyndham Land Act is not the first experiment of the kind. It is not the first attempt of the government to break up the big estates of Ireland into small farms and homes for the people who are now working them under the present system. W.F. Bailey, one of the commissioners who are carrying out the provisions of that act, gave me an interesting sketch of the history of the movement from the date of the passage of what is known as "the Irish Church Act" in 1869, which was the original endeavor to create a peasant-proprietor system by the aid of state loans. "Under the Irish Church Act," said Mr. Bailey, "commissioners were appointed to sell to the tenants of lands belonging to the church their holdings at prices fixed by the commissioners themselves. If the tenant refused to buy on the terms offered, the commissioners were authorized to sell to the public for at least one-fourth and as much more as they could get in cash, and the balance secured by a mortgage to be paid off in thirty-two years in half-yearly installments. They sold farms to 6,057 tenants, and the government loaned the purchasers a total of £1,674,841 which was issued by the commissioners of public works. "In 1870, the following year, what is known as the Landlord and Tenant Act was passed by Parliament, under which the commissioners were authorized to advance two-thirds of the purchase money agreed upon instead of one-fourth, to be repaid in thirty-five years with 5 per cent interest, and all agricultural and pastural lands in Ireland were included in its provisions. Under this act 877 tenants purchased their holdings for a total of £859,000, of which the government advanced £514,526. "This act was amended in 1881 to provide that three-quarters instead of two-thirds of the purchase money might be advanced by the government on the same terms, and 731 tenants took advantage of it. The advances amounted to £240,801. "What was known as the Ashbourne Act was passed in 1885, appropriating the sum of £5,000,000 to enable the commissioners to purchase estates for the purpose of reselling them to the tenants and others, and they were authorized to furnish the entire purchase money, to be repaid in annual installments extending over a period of forty-nine years, with interest at 5 per cent. In 1888 an additional sum of £5,000,000 was advanced for the same purpose, and 25,368 tenants on 1,355 estates purchased their holdings with £9,992,640 advanced by the government. "These funds having been exhausted, Mr. Balfour in 1891 introduced a new system under which the landlord, instead of cash, was paid in guaranteed stock exchangeable for consols equal in amount to the purchase money, and running for thirty years with interest at 2-3/4; per cent. This stock was guaranteed by the Irish probate duty, the customs, and excise taxes, and certain local grants. The amount of stock that could be issued for any county was limited, however, and when that limit was reached the sales had to stop. The advances under this act were £39,145,348. "The Act of 1891 was amended in 1896 in various respects. The annual installments were fixed at 4 per cent, 2-3/4; per cent being for interest and 1-1/4; per cent to create a sinking fund for the repayment of the capital. The number of purchases arranged under this act was 36,994, and the total amount advanced was £10,809,190. "The following table will give the number of tenants who have purchased their holdings from their landlords with the assistance of the government under these various acts and under the Wyndham Act of 1903 from 1869 to the 31st of May, 1908: No. Amt. purchasers. advanced. Irish Church Act of 1869 6,057 £1,674,841 Act of 1870 877 514,536 Act of 1881 731 240,801 Act of 1885 26,367 9,992,536 Act of 1891 46,806 13,633,190 Act of 1903 46,576 17,657,279 ------- ----------- Total to date named 127,414 £43,713,183" The following table shows the number of tenant purchasers under the three land purchase acts of 1885-88, 1891-96, and 1903; the amount due from them annually, the number who were in arrears, and the amount of money unpaid on July 1, 1908: Number Install- Number Amount purchasers. ments. unpaid. unpaid. Act of 1885-88 25,382 £369,130 354 £2,900 1891-96 46,837 517,943 374 3,920 1903 44,773 561,858 305 3,312 ------ ---------- ----- ------- Total 116,992 £1,448,931 1,033 £10,132 This is an extraordinary statement. It shows that 116,992 Irish farmers have had farms purchased for them by the government, which they are under obligations to pay for by installments amounting annually to $7,240,000. Only 1,033, or less than 1 per cent, of them are in arrears in their payments, and the amount unpaid is only about $50,000. The statement shows that only 120 are in arrears for more than one installment. This is conclusive evidence that the peasant farmers of Ireland are carrying out in good faith the generous arrangement that has been made for them by the British Parliament. In addition to the actual tenants, the estates commissioners have provided farms for 2,647 persons who are not tenants, but are the sons of farmers or laborers upon the farms. These are called "landless" persons, and they are the ones who are making the trouble for the government in several of the counties by driving off the cattle and otherwise annoying the landlords and lessees of ranches that are being used for pasturage while they are without farms. To such persons 70,326 acres, an average of 35 acres each, have been allotted and paid for by the government. "The fortunes of the Irish peasantry will soon be in their own hands," said Mr. Bailey. "Ireland is soon to be like Denmark, a peasant state; and the wealth-producing capacity of the country will be in the hands of small farmers who own their homes and will have the entire benefit of the results of their labor. "It is often complained," continued Mr. Bailey, "that the farmers of Ireland are not good cultivators, and perhaps that is true in a measure, except down in Wexford and other parts of the east coast south of Dublin and in the north of Ireland. But there are very good reasons for it. The Irish farmers never had any instruction until lately. Before the famine they merely raised enough to supply their own wants and, having no interest in the land, did nothing to improve it. Since the famine, however, and within the last few years there has been a very great advance in agricultural conditions, and as the older generation dies off and the younger generation comes on there will be better farming, because they will know how to apply their labor. One reason for the lack of good farming and the carelessness and neglect was that there was no fixed tenure for the tenants, and as they naturally hated their landlords, they were not willing to do anything to improve the value of the property. Another reason is that they have been raising cattle so long that they have forgotten how to cultivate the land. The area of pasturage in Ireland has been gradually increasing and the acreage plowed has been gradually decreasing, until now, of the 20,000,000 acres of land of Irish territory only 2,357,530 are devoted to crops, and no less than 14,712,849 are devoted to meadows and pastures. The area under cultivation has been growing smaller every year. In 1875 it was 5,332,813 acres, in 1895 it was 4,931,000, in 1905 it was 2,999,082, while in 1907 it was 2,357,530 acres. "Another reason for poor farming is that the best element, the most active and enterprising of our people, have gone to America, which has increased the ratio of those who are physically and intellectually inferior. Then, again, it has become a matter of fashion to neglect the soil. Our people prefer to live in the towns rather than on the farms. The Irish are a social race, and, as has been demonstrated by the emigrants to America, they prefer a crowded tenement house to plenty of room on a farm." "That the farms of the tenant purchasers have largely improved in all parts of Ireland, as regards cultivation and general conditions, is unquestionable," said Mr. Bailey. "The exceptions to this rule are so few and of such a nature as to emphasize rather than detract from the good effect of the land reforms, as shown by the general condition of the farms we have been able to visit. In the great majority of cases we found that the purchasers have devoted their energies and their savings to the improvement of the land and of the buildings. In many districts, especially those in the provinces of Leinster and Munster, the tenants have hitherto been more anxious to increase the productive power of the soil than to add to their comforts or the appearances of their homes, or to make permanent improvements. But we found improvements in fencing, draining, in the cleaning of fields, in the re-making of farm roads, and in other respects, as well as by increasing the fertility of the soil by manuring and top-dressing. We found also that the actual productiveness of the land in many cases had been increased since its purchase, by improved management. "On some estates conditions have not improved, because of various reasons. Some lazy people, unfortunately, have no desire to change. They live a dull, commonplace life, without enterprise, energy, or ambition. Some of them are affected by their environment, as in the case of small farmers who are in the midst of a community of large cattle-growers. Again, the cost of labor is so great that many cannot afford to hire help to do what they cannot do themselves, and have postponed improvements until a more favorable opportunity. "However, that the dwellings, outhouses, stables, and barns of tenant purchasers have materially improved throughout Ireland is certain. The testimony on this point from every part of the four provinces is uniform and conclusive. A considerable number of new buildings have been erected either by home labor or capital already in hand, and many farmers are taking advantage of the loans offered by the board of works. This is particularly true in the counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, Waterford, and Wexford. On some estates there is a great deal of rivalry among the new purchasers as to which shall have the best showing in the way of buildings. In other cases, I regret to say, the houses and barns continue in a very neglected state. "It is also gratifying to be able to say that in the large majority of cases throughout Ireland the credit of the tenant purchasers has improved very considerably since they bought their holdings. Such is the universal testimony of local bank managers, shopkeepers, ministers of religion, and other representative persons whom we have consulted. And this improvement in credit is perhaps most marked in localities where farmers were worse off in former times. The explanation is that the farmers have now been started on new careers free from obligations, and are able to devote all of their attention and energies to improving their condition without being worried by financial and other troubles. "The 'Gombeen man,' the money-lender, the Shylock, who has been the curse of Ireland, has actually disappeared from many districts, and in others he is rapidly losing his business. The men who have bought their farms under the Wyndham Act do not ask for credit. They pay in cash very generally, and wherever they do borrow, they are able to get better terms, because they have something substantial behind them and are not likely to be thrown out into the street at any time as formerly. Those who are borrowing money now want it for improvements, and not to pay off old mortgages or meet previous obligations. "The first, and in many respects the most important, consequence of owning farms is the contentment that it has given to the people. Their minds are at ease. Their anxiety as to their future treatment from their landlord or his agent has vanished, and the misfortunes which often distressed them have disappeared. In their investigations the commissioners and the inspectors employed by them have met very few tenant purchasers who have any fault to find with the conditions under which they are now living. We have met several men who had lost their cattle by disease, and others whose crops had failed; but they seemed to be cheerful, and were confident that with care and industry they would soon be on their legs again. "In the poorer districts on the west coast of Ireland little improvement has been made, and little more can be expected for a generation; yet there has been progress, and the Congested Districts Board is doing a great deal by its liberal policy. The people are very poor, but they do not complain of their poverty. They freely admit that their standard of living has improved of recent years, and more especially since they became owners. 'Purchase has brought peace,' said a parish priest. 'People are more industrious, more temperate, more saving, and more cheerful.' In many places which had formerly been troublesome, the constabulary report that quietness and order and a supreme feeling of contentment and satisfaction with present conditions prevailed. At Fermanagh the parish priest said that the consumption of liquor had fallen one-half since the farmers had purchased their own farms, and that the money which had been spent for drink was now being saved for improvements on the farms, and for better clothes, for implements, and for other purposes, which show an increased pride in appearances and a sense of responsibility. "There is no question but that the standard of living in every respect has been raised since the people of Ireland have been allowed to own the farms they till," continued Mr. Bailey. "This appears in their personal appearance as well as in the food provided for their tables. It is due to the greater self-respect that has been inspired by a sense of proprietorship. The most important and fundamental benefit that the Irish people are enjoying from the ownership of their farms is the elevation of their own opinion of themselves--the self-respect and ambition that a proprietor always feels. They wear better clothes, they take better care of their persons, and they require better food. On many farms in the west of Ireland, where the people lived almost exclusively on porridge and potatoes, they now use bread, eggs, American bacon, and tea. American bacon is used in preference to Irish bacon because it contains more fat and makes a better dish for a large family when boiled with cabbage. The improvement in clothing occurs simultaneously with the improvement in food and farming tools, and both follow immediately after the title to the land is secured. People often explain that formerly they 'had to scrape together every penny to pay the rent, but now we can live decently.' "But the sanitary arrangements throughout western Ireland still need a great deal of attention. The manure heap is still in unpleasant proximity to the dwelling place, and the practice of keeping cattle, pigs, and chickens under the same roof and often in the same room with the family has not disappeared as rapidly as one might hope. We inspected a farm in Mayo where the family and the cow lived in the same room, but it was kept remarkably clean and tidy. Every part of the earthen floor outside the corner that was alloted to the cow was carefully swept, and the 'dresser,' the chief article of furniture in an Irish cabin, showed taste and neatness, and was well stocked with very good china in which the owner seemed to take great pride. When we remarked on the presence of the cow in the cabin he replied, 'Sure, I could not leave the poor animal out in the cold.' The tenant purchaser of a farm in Galway said she had to keep the cow in the house because she could not afford to erect a barn, and if the animal died she would be ruined. But the practice is being slowly abandoned, and since the land act was enforced many people who formerly sheltered their cattle, pigs, and poultry in the same dwelling-place as themselves in their long and severe winters have been building separate houses for them. We were told that this was the exception before purchase, and that it is now the rule. The tendency is undeniably toward neatness, good repairs, and sanitary improvements, and although it is slow it is certain. "The scarcity of farm labor and the high rates of wages that are now demanded are keeping back improvements that farmers cannot make without assistance, but the people are beginning to realize the advantages of co-operation, and are helping each other in such a way that it seldom becomes necessary to call outside labor. A holding that can only be worked by the aid of paid labor under present circumstances is not profitable, and a large farm cannot be worked to an advantage unless the owner has a son to assist him. Not only have the wages of farm labor increased, but its efficiency has decreased. Hired workmen now insist upon better food and better accommodations. "There was undoubtedly ample room for improvement in the wages, the food, and the treatment of farm laborers throughout Ireland. The laborers cannot be blamed for demanding it; but a higher standard in each of these respects meant an increase in the cost of cultivating the soil and a decrease in the profits of the farmer. The labor situation is due first to the emigration of the young men to America, and second to the migration from the farms to the cities. "The estates commission has received very little complaint of the regulations which require the punctual payment of installments and interest money to the government. Here and there a purchaser objects because he has to sell cattle or make some other sacrifice at an inconvenient time to raise the money, and asserts that under the landlord system he would have been allowed time; but such instances are extremely rare, and very few persons admitted that they prefer a private individual to the government as a landlord. The purchasers of farms almost unanimously agree that their annual installments due the government are very considerably less than the rents they were paying, and they now have to sell a much smaller portion of their produce than formerly to meet the rent. "It is right and proper that I should speak of the almost invariable courtesy that has been shown to the commissioners and our inspectors when we have visited the farmers," said Mr. Bailey in conclusion. "Very rarely has any suspicion been exhibited, and the fullest information has been given to us. This courtesy and good feeling was especially manifested by the smaller and poorer farmers in the west and south of Ireland. There was no spirit of cringing or cowardice. Both men and women spoke with dignity and independence, and almost invariably expressed themselves as gratified that a great department of the government should wish to learn how they were getting along. They were pleased that a government official should show sufficient interest in their welfare to come and talk with them sympathetically. Many of them inquired as to the workings of the new act in other parts of Ireland, and asked advice on various small matters, which to them were of importance." VI SACRED SPOTS IN DUBLIN There are many imposing public monuments in Dublin, the most conspicuous of which is a massive pillar, one hundred and thirty-four feet high, erected in 1808 in honor of Lord Nelson, hero of the battle of Trafalgar. In Phoenix Park another native of Dublin, equally famous as a fighter, is honored by a stubby sort of square shaft after the pattern of the Washington monument in Washington, and a little more than one-third of the height. On the four sides of the pedestal the Duke of Wellington's greatest victories are illustrated by battle scenes in bronze panels. Near this monument is the magazine in which the British soldiers keep their ammunition. It was the subject of Dean Swift's last epigram: "Behold! a proof of Irish sense; Here Irish wit is seen. When nothing's left that's worth defense, We build a magazine." There is a fine equestrian statue of Lord Gough in Phoenix Park, cast from the cannon taken by his command, and a bronze phoenix erected by Lord Chesterfield when he was lieutenant-governor. Daniel O'Connell's great services to Ireland are commemorated by the finest bridge over the Liffey River, and an imposing and elaborate monument facing it upon the principal street of the town. It is a little confusing because of the many figures that surround it. The statue of O'Connell is twelve feet high, and is surrounded by fifty small statues, all allegorical, the chief being that of "Erin" casting off her fetters and pointing to the liberator as if to say, "He told me to do it." Father Mathew is represented by a marble figure with a noble pose and an unusually expressive face. It was made by a woman, a Miss Redmond. There are also statues of Grattan, Curran, Edmund Burke, Thomas Moore, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Robert Stewart the musician, Smith O'Brien, Sir John Grey, William of Orange, George I., George II., George III.; and Queen Victoria sits in bronze upon a massive pedestal, surrounded by famous figures representing the various colonies of the British Empire upon which it has been frequently stated that the sun never sets. Of modern men, Sir Benjamin Guinness, the brewer, his son, Lord Ardilaun, and the late Archbishop Plunkett are honored, and some of the figures, particularly the latter, are very good. At the "top" of O'Connell Street, as they say here, corresponding to the O'Connell monument, will soon stand a tall shaft surmounted by a statue of the late Charles Stewart Parnell. The money was raised in America by John E. Redmond and Daniel Tallon, recently Lord Mayor of Dublin, and the monument was designed and the figure cast by the late Augustus Saint Gaudens. It was his latest and one of his most effective works. It was quite appropriate that Saint Gaudens, who was an Irish boy, should have been commissioned for this statue, which many consider the most beautiful of all the many monuments in Dublin. Parnell's grave in Prospect Cemetery is not neglected, although I have seen it stated repeatedly that such was the case. It occupies the most prominent place in the cemetery, on the western side of the memorial chapel, on a spot corresponding with that occupied by the towering monument of Daniel O'Connell on the eastern side. The grave is in the center of a large circle, surrounded by an iron fence, shaded by beautiful trees, and large foliage plants which were in full bloom. The turf is well kept, and here and there are memorial wreaths preserved under glass globes. In the center of the circle is a high mound, protected by a hedge of arbor vitæ, and ornamented by several rose bushes. The grave is in the center of the mound. At the head is an iron cross six feet high, and at the foot the name "Parnell" is worked out in large letters of box. [Illustration: THE CUSTOMS HOUSE, DUBLIN] One of the employees of the cemetery, who showed us around, said that it was the intention of Parnell's friends to erect a monument to correspond with that of Daniel O'Connell on the other side of the chapel, but after a discussion of several years they had decided to place the memorial downtown at the site I have already mentioned, where it would always be before the eyes of the public. O'Connell's body is buried in a crypt underneath the monument. His heart is in a casket in the chapel of the Irish College at Rome. Several other famous Irish patriots are buried in Prospect Cemetery, and I asked the guide where the body of Robert Emmet was laid. "That's a great sacret," he answered mysteriously, "an' I wouldn't tell it to yer honor avin if I knew; with all respict to yer honor. It woul' be the same as me life is worth. The soul of Robert Emmet has gone to God. His bones is in the hands of the friends of Ireland, but will remain in their prisint sacred hiding place until Ireland is free." Michael Davitt is buried in the town of Straid, County Mayo, where he was born and where his parents were evicted from their home during his childhood. The grave is marked with an ordinary stone. There has been no movement thus far for a monument in his honor. His widow lives at Dalkey, the lovely suburb of Dublin by the sea, which I describe elsewhere. She is in excellent circumstances financially, has a comfortable home,--much more comfortable than any she had during her husband's lifetime,--and is educating her four children, two boys and two girls, at the best schools. The oldest son, now a young man of twenty-two, is studying law, and promises to show much of the ability of his father. One bright day I made a pilgrimage to the birthplaces and homes of famous Irishmen in Dublin. It is to be regretted that the people of that city feel so little respect for the memory of their heroes as to permit the scenes that were associated so closely with their careers to become filthy whisky dives. Several of these sacred places are among the most disreputable saloons in Dublin. Henry Grattan was born in 1746 in a house on Fishamble Street, near the old church where Handel first produced his famous oratorio "The Messiah," and was baptized in the Church of St. John near by. He was educated in Trinity College, Dublin, and the trustees of that institution have erected a statue in his honor outside the old house of parliament, now the Bank of Ireland, which was the scene of his most eminent services. He is represented in the attitude of pleading with uplifted hands for the liberty of Ireland. The figure is the personification of eloquence. Grattan spent his early life in Dublin, was admitted to the bar in 1773, and entered parliament at the age of twenty-nine in 1775. He immediately assumed the leadership of the opposition to the government, and it was through his ability and able management that the king and the British Parliament were compelled to give Ireland free trade and the constitution in 1782. What was called "Grattan's parliament" lasted nineteen years, and its activity was tremendous and comprehensive, and the results may now be seen in every direction. It conferred innumerable benefits upon the city of Dublin and upon the country at large. During the nineteen years it was in session it made greater public improvement than occurred in any single century before. It built the two greatest edifices in Ireland,--the Four Courts and the customs house,--which are beautiful examples of the classic school of architecture, and each cost several millions of dollars. The Bank of Ireland was founded as the financial agent of the government, but Grattan, when he moved its establishment, little dreamed that it would store its gold and transact its business in the very chamber where the act was passed. The Royal Irish Academy was founded to promote "the study of science and polite learning and antiquities." Three great hospitals were built; the College of Physicians and Surgeons was incorporated and erected, a dignified and stately building upon Stephen's Green. The commerce of the country was developed and large warehouses and mercantile establishments were erected to accommodate it. Many new manufactories were established. Highroads were built in every direction, coach lines were inaugurated to accommodate travel, and sailing packets to carry passengers and mails across the sea. The canal was built, one hundred miles long, to bring freight to the city. Penny post was introduced. The Guinness brewery was developed, with a great profit to the proprietors, and began to send to England the beer it had been selling for local customers for half a century. [Illustration: THE BANK OF IRELAND, DUBLIN] Grattan was the leader of all this prosperity, and introduced many and advocated all of the laws to encourage it. As an acknowledgment of his services, Parliament voted him a gift of $250,000, which enabled him to settle down as a country gentleman at a seat called "Tinnehinch," near the town of Enniskerry, a few miles south of Dublin, near the watering-place called Bray. The British government offered him the viceregal lodge, now occupied by the lord lieutenant, in Phoenix Park; but Grattan declined it, for fear the gift might be misinterpreted. This period of self-government, which might be called "the golden age" of Ireland, lasted nineteen years, when "Grattan's parliament" fell, as so many other good things have fallen, because it became "vain of its own conceit." It is not expedient, it is not wholesome, for the same party to remain in control of affairs too long. Its members become corrupt, extravagant, selfish, intolerant, and indifferent to the public welfare, and Grattan's parliament acquired all of these faults. The great leader--and he was one of the ablest political leaders that ever came upon the theater of public affairs--was unable to control his followers. They became restless, they favored measures that he could not approve, and advocated a radical policy toward the British government that he opposed with all his energy and eloquence. He was soon displaced from leadership by the extremists, who demanded absolute separation from England and encouraged the revolutions of 1798 and 1803. These movements were undoubtedly encouraged by the example of the French Revolution, when the hot heads came into control. Ireland burst into rebellion, which was put down with the utmost severity, and William Pitt, Prime Minister of Great Britain, introduced the act of union which was adopted by the Irish house through bribery, bulldozing, and other disreputable measures. Grattan was very ill, but, leaning on the shoulders of two friends, and dressed in his old volunteer uniform, he entered the Irish house of parliament, now the cash-room of the Bank of Ireland, and made the greatest speech of his life. But he failed to change the destiny of his country. He did not change a vote, and the bond which now binds Ireland to Great Britain, and which the Irish people have been trying to dissolve ever since, was passed against his vehement protests. If his advice had been followed by the Irish parliament, if its members had listened to his pleadings, the disturbances, the distress, the bloodshed of a century would have been spared. William Pitt bought a majority of the votes and paid for them with pensions, official positions, titles of nobility, and other forms of reward. The debate provoked a duel between Grattan and Correy, chancellor of the exchequer. Shots were exchanged and Correy was wounded in the hand. Grattan pronounced the funeral oration of the Irish parliament in the words that are immortal: "I do not give up my country," he said. "I see her in a swoon, but she is not dead. Though in her tomb she lies helpless and motionless there is upon her lips a spirit of life, and on her cheek a glow of beauty-- "'Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there.'" It is true, as the man of the cemetery told us, that the burial place of Robert Emmet is unknown. Many people believe that his body was given to the surgeons of Trinity College after his execution, because if it had been given to his friends they would have erected a monument to mark his grave. No one of all the many people who admired and loved him has ever been able to obtain a clew to its disappearance. It is a popular belief, which the leaders of patriotic movements encourage, that the burial place is known and will be disclosed, as the man at the cemetery said, when the flag of freedom floats over "The Ould Sod," but there is no good reason for such a romantic hope. Several of those who would be informed if there were any foundation for such an expectation have told me that it is all romance; that Emmet's grave has never been discovered and probably never will be, because it doesn't exist. I went to the home of Robert Emmet in Marchalsea Lane, near the debtor's prison, where he used to meet his fellow conspirators while organizing the insurrection of the United Irishmen in 1803. Emmet was a brilliant, eager boy, only twenty-four, and had been expelled from the University of Dublin for sympathy with the revolution of 1798. He went to Paris, remained there for a while until things had quieted down, and then returned to Dublin, where he conceived a rash project to seize the castle and the fort. The authorities were taken entirely by surprise, but the country contingent which had been promised to support him failed to arrive, and Emmet, with less than a hundred men, armed with pikes--simply spearheads mounted on the ends of poles--marched against the castle and, of course, were immediately overcome. Many of his followers, who fled to their homes, were killed at their own doors, and Emmet became a fugitive. Robert Emmet was born in Dublin in 1778 and was a playmate and schoolfellow of Thomas Moore, the poet. His brother, Thomas Addis Emmet, born in 1764, was involved in the revolution of 1798 and fled to America, where he became eminent at the bar of New York, serving at one time as attorney-general of that State. He left several sons and grandsons. When Robert Emmet escaped, after the failure of his foolish attack upon the castle, he took refuge among friends in the Wicklow Hills, south of Dublin, to await an opportunity to cross over to France. Against their protests he went at night to say good-by to his sweetheart, Sarah Curran, daughter of the famous advocate, was arrested and tried for high treason. He conducted his own defense with extraordinary ability. His closing speech stands as one of the greatest examples of eloquence in the English language. He was condemned to death and hanged outside of St. Catherine's Church, upon the spot where Lord Kilwarden, an eminent judge of the highest integrity, was killed by some of Emmet's men while returning with his nephew and daughter from a visit to the country. Emmet, in his farewell speech, asked that his epitaph should not be written until Ireland was free, and that undoubtedly suggested the popular belief that his burial place is known and will be disclosed in due time. Sarah Curran died soon after in Sicily of a broken heart, and Tom Moore, one of Emmet's most beloved friends and also devoted to Miss Curran, enshrined the pathetic story in a touching ballad: "She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, And lovers are round her sighing; But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps, For her heart on his grave is lying. "She sings the wild songs of her native plains, Every note which he loved awaking; Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains, How the heart of the minstrel is breaking." Near by the place where Emmet and his fellow conspirators planned the revolution of 1803, is No. 151 Thomas Street, the house in which Lord Edward Fitzgerald, leader of the insurrection of 1798, was captured after desperate struggle, and it is a curious coincidence that he and Emmet should both have been arrested by the same man, a certain Major Sirr, in command of a regiment at the castle. Lord Edward's refuge was the house of a tailor who sympathized with the insurrection, as almost every other artisan in Ireland did, and sheltered him for several days before the arrest. The house is marked with a tablet and an appropriate inscription. Lord Edward was wounded in the shoulder by Major Sirr and carried away to prison, where he died before he could be brought into court. The Corn Market of Dublin is just beyond the house, and the name of the thoroughfare is there changed to Thomas Street, which is customary in Dublin. Sometimes there is a different name for every block, and it is very puzzling to a stranger. You walk from Clare Street into Merrion Street and from Merrion Street into some other; from Dame Street into the Corn Market, and from the Corn Market into Thomas Street, all unconscious, but the names are plainly posted on the walls of the corner houses both in English and Gaelic, so that he who runs may read. Thomas Street is very wide, and that is understood when you know it was formerly an open market-place outside the city walls for the sale of country produce. The octroi tax levied by the corporation on the farmers who brought in vegetables, butter, chickens, and eggs was paid in kind, a measure of corn from each sack, a pound of butter from each firkin, and one egg from every twelve, which was the origin of a proverb that eleven eggs make a dozen in Ireland. The taxes were farmed out to the highest bidder, who exacted every penny possible from the farmers and used every means of extortion that could be devised to increase his profit. The most odious of all the Dublin tax contractors in history was a woman named Kate Strong, and they hated her so that after her death the farmers erected a gross caricature of her person holding a large toll dish in her hand. It stood for several years. James Street succeeds Thomas Street on the same thoroughfare and runs down upon the river quay, where the enormous brewery establishment of the Guinness Company begins. Across the river from the big brewery is No. 12 Arran Quay, named for the son of the Duke of Ormonde, where Edmund Burke was born in 1729 of a Protestant barrister and a Catholic mother. He was educated at a Quaker school at Ballitore, County Kildare, and at Trinity College, where in 1747 he organized a debating club, which still exists. After finishing his course in 1750 he went to London "to keep terms at the Temple," that is, to finish his law studies and prepare for his examinations; but suddenly, owing to some disappointment, he conceived a strong distaste for his profession, and plunged into a wild career of dissipation. He was introduced by Goldsmith to that circle of Bohemians which gathered nightly at the Cheshire Cheese Inn and similar resorts. He was a close companion of Garrick, Johnson, and others, and became one of the many devoted attendants of his beautiful countrywoman, Peg Woffington, the famous actress. His dissipation gave his family great distress and caused his father to cut off his allowance. This compelled him to do something for himself. He went into politics, and soon made a reputation as a speaker and writer and political manager. He wrote a great deal that was serious and even sublime, and, mending his ways, secured the patronage of the Marquis of Buckingham, the prime minister, who opened the doors of the House of Commons for him. In a very short time he became the most effective debater and the most influential leader of his party. Then his abilities were fully recognized and his fame encircled the world. He was the ablest friend of the American colonies in England during the Revolution, and harassed Lord North more than any other man. He reached the summit of his influence at the impeachment of Warren Hastings for misgovernment and treason while viceroy in India; and then Burke's sun began to set. He retired upon a pension, and passed from history with the eighteenth century. One of his eulogists has said that "notwithstanding some eccentricities and some aberrations, he made the tide of human destiny luminous." Near Burke's birthplace is the oldest and the quaintest church in Dublin, built by the Danes before the English came to Ireland and consecrated to St. Michan, a Danish saint. Within its walls is the penitential stool, where "open and notorious naughty livers" were compelled to stand and confess their sins in public and make pledges of repentance and reform. The officiating minister, reciting the fifty-first Psalm, led the offending sinner from the altar to the foot of the pulpit,--barefooted, bareheaded, and draped in a long white sheet,--and placed him upon the stool of repentance to hear a sermon directed at his particular sins. The tower of St. Michan's dates from the twelfth century, and is one of the most beautiful things in Dublin. The view from the top of it includes all the city, which is divided into two almost equal parts by the River Liffey and spreads over an uneven surface from the dark green woods of Phoenix Park to the dark blue waters of the Irish Sea. Handel used to play the organ in St. Michan's Church, and it was there the public first heard the score of "The Messiah." The most remarkable feature of St. Michan's, however, is a peculiar preservative effect from the soil in the crypt upon the bodies that are buried there. They mummify before decay sets in and turn into a leathery brown, similar to the mummies of Egypt. The vaults are filled with remains that have lain there for centuries. Among them is the body of one of the kings of Leinster, and beside him is the corpse of a baby, from whose tiny wrists white ribbon has been hanging since its funeral in 1679. Every corpse in the crypt is mummified in the same way, and it is the only place in Dublin where this phenomenon occurs. Nor is there any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. The vaults are absolutely dry. The popular theory is that a subtle gas arising from the peaty soil suspends nature's law of decay. There will always be a controversy among Irishmen as to whether Edmund Burke or Daniel O'Connell was the greater man. They were so different in their characteristics that it is difficult to draw a comparison. O'Connell was not a native of Dublin. He was born at the humble village of Cahirciveen, in County Kerry, one of the most forlorn, impoverished, and hopeless sections of the west coast. He was the son of an exile who fled to escape arrest and entered the service of France, and from him O'Connell inherited an intense prejudice and hatred of everything English and Protestant. He was educated in Cork for the priesthood, but changed his mind and was called to the bar when he was twenty-three years old. He immediately made a reputation, and by the time he was thirty was regarded as the ablest advocate in Ireland, without an equal in oratory. Probably no man ever surpassed him before a jury. O'Connell is regarded by many as the ablest of all Irishmen, but, as I have said, this claim is disputed in favor of Edmund Burke. He was equally strong as a politician and undertook the cause of Catholic emancipation in his very youth. In those days all Catholics were disenfranchised; they could not hold office or even vote; the schools were closed to them, and a Catholic child could only be taught by a private tutor or governess. Daniel O'Connell organized the parish priests for the movement and was the first to bring the clergy into politics. Through them he organized the people, and regular contributions were collected in the churches to pay the expenses of the campaign. O'Connell was the first Catholic to enter parliament, and the Duke of Wellington confessed that this was permitted only to avert a civil war. In 1828 he was elected to the British House of Commons, but was not admitted because he refused to take the anti-Catholic oath. He came back to his constituents and was elected again, and they continued to elect him, just as the merchants and bankers in the city of London continued to elect Baron Rothschild, who was refused admission for the same reason,--because he would not take the oath. He was the first Jew, as Daniel O'Connell was the first Roman Catholic, to obtain a seat upon the floor. O'Connell was elected lord mayor of Dublin in 1841 and was the first Catholic to hold that office. At the height of his fame and power he might have been a lord protector or the king of Ireland, but he advocated peaceful revolutions, and, like Grattan, lost his influence because he would not consent to the policy and the methods of the radical and revolutionary element. In 1847 he went to address a meeting of his sympathizers at Clontarf, a suburb of Dublin, where Brian Boru won his great victory over the Danes in the last battle between Christianity and heathenism upon the soil of Ireland. The meeting had been forbidden by the authorities, and O'Connell was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to prison for two months. This broke him down. When he was released he left Dublin, started for Rome, and died at Genoa on his way. He is buried in Prospect Cemetery under a lofty tower. His will may be seen in the public records office in the Four Courts. He married his cousin, Mary O'Connell, and had four sons, all of whom were men of character and ability and have served in the British parliament. The anniversary of the birth of Thomas Moore is celebrated in Dublin every summer, and a programme of his "Irish Melodies" is sung by local musicians--sweet old-fashioned ballads like "The Harp That Once through Tara's Halls," "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms," and others like them. The proceeds of the concert are devoted to a fund which is to be raised to erect a monument in memory of this most popular of Irish poets, whose songs are heard in every cottage in Ireland. His most pretentious poem, a Persian epic called "Lalla Rookh," brought $15,000,--the highest price ever paid for a poem. Scott's "Lady of the Lake" and some of Tennyson's and perhaps Kipling's poems and other poets', have received larger sums in royalties, but no other man was paid so much for his verses in advance of their publication. Moore was born in a little house on Aungier Street, Dublin, which is unfortunately now a filthy saloon. He was educated in a little grammar school in Johnston's Court, off Grafton Street, near the Shelbourne Hotel, where Richard Brinsley Sheridan was also a pupil. Petty, the first great Irish scientist, who was also a physician and surveyor, was educated there. His book of surveys made for Oliver Cromwell is still used by the authorities. Tom Moore was a chum of Robert Emmet at Trinity College. After graduation he entered journalism and was connected with the _London Times_ and the _London Chronicle_. He went to Bermuda as British consul in 1803, and visited the United States before he returned. He was lionized everywhere because his plaintive Irish ballads, which he set to the music of the oldest peasant airs, were in the portfolio of every musician in the civilized world, and his social attractions made him a welcome guest. When he returned to England he was given a pension of $1,000 a year until his death. Volumes might be written concerning the literary reminiscences of Dublin. Addison was private secretary to the notorious viceroy Wharton, and the evidence indicates that his behavior was not so blameless as the readers of Macaulay's sketch of his life would infer. His official correspondence shows that he was not exempt from the usual weaknesses of humanity and not above making an honest penny out of his office. He seemed to be avaricious, and, although holding a position of the closest confidence to the lord lieutenant, took an interest in several commercial ventures that were not entirely beyond criticism. Samuel Lover and Charles Lever, those two greatest of all delineators of Irish character, were both born and educated in Dublin and did most of their work there. Their graphic sketches of Irish life may have been accurate in their day, and now and then, I am told, appears one of the rollicking types of the Irishman they describe; but, while the character of the race may not be changed, its habits and customs are quite different from those of the period they describe. There's a grammar school at which Tom Moore and Richard Brinsley Sheridan both received their education. Sheridan was born on the same block, and the house is marked by a tablet. Another tablet near the entrance of a house only a few steps distant shows where Sir William Hamilton, the great Irish mathematician, lived. Mrs. Hemans, that gentle hymn writer, whose lines were much more familiar to the reading public half a century ago than they are to-day, lived and died in the same neighborhood, and was buried in St. Anne's Church, near by. Her epitaph, taken from one of her own serene poems, reads: "Calm on the bosom of thy God, Fair spirit, rest thee now! Even while with us thy footsteps trod, His seal was on thy brow." [Illustration: ST. STEPHEN'S GREEN. DUBLIN] Near by the home of Mrs. Hemans is the Royal Irish Academy, occupying a fine old mansion, once the residence of Lord Northland. It is the oldest and most influential of the learned societies of Ireland, and possesses a large number of ancient manuscripts in the Gaelic tongue, most of them, despite their great age, beautifully clear and legible. The academy, according to its charter, was founded "for the encouragement of science, polite literature, and antiquities." There is a good deal of interest in the attempt to revive the Gaelic tongue, but the bitter partisanship of politics renders polite literature quite useless. There is a great deal that is green about Dublin, and the remark is not intended as a joke. There are several fine parks and breathing-places scattered about the city. Many of the residences have large back yards filled with trees and flowers that are hidden from the public by the high walls that guard them from the street, but one can see them from the tops of the tram cars as he rides about. The suburbs of the city are very attractive, with plenty of large trees and vine-clad walls and pretty gardens, and here and there a tennis court. As you look down upon the city from a tall tower there is almost as much foliage as in Washington. Phoenix Park is famous, and one of the largest public playgrounds in the world. St. Stephen's Green is a rectangular inclosure, twenty-two acres in extent and corresponding to four city blocks, in the fashionable quarter, and is surrounded by the mansions of the nobility and the homes of the rich. Lord Iveagh, the representative of the Guinness Brewery family, has a residence on one of the sides, and the archbishop's palace is on the other side, near the Shelbourne Hotel, which is the best in the city, and several clubs. St. Stephen's is handsomely laid out, and has what I have never seen before in a city square,--a bridle-path nearly a mile long around the interior of the fence, where several gentlemen take their exercise on horseback in the morning. Sir Walter Scott was entertained in what he writes was "a very large and stately house in Stephen's Green, which I am told is the most extensive square in Europe," and, writing to his wife, he said, "The streets contain a number of public buildings of the finest architecture I have seen anywhere in Britain." A few blocks away from St. Stephen's Green is another large park known as Merrion Square, which is a private inclosure like many of the small parks in the city of London, and is accessible only to the residents of the neighborhood, who, I understand, purchased the land and made it into a park two or three hundred years ago, so that the public has no rights there. Each of the leaseholders who are entitled to its privileges is required to pay $5 a year for maintaining it and "half a crown for a key to the gates," as I was informed by a policeman on that beat. It is a pretty place, with deep, lustrous turf such as you seldom see outside of the British Isles, and find in Ireland smoother and richer and greener than anywhere else. There are a pond and several tennis courts, cricket and croquet grounds, which are occupied every afternoon by the rich families in the neighborhood; and it makes you feel a little resentful to see the children of the poor, who need that breathing space more than the owners, peeking through between the iron pickets. It is said that this square plot of ground, which is equal to four ordinary squares in area, was formerly a pond, and that the Duke of Leinster in early days used to sail a boat upon it. But it was drained two hundred years ago or more, and the splendid great trees that are growing there now were then planted. Leinster House is in the neighborhood. The residences around St. Stephen's Green and Merrion Square are built of ugly brown bricks, but are spacious in their proportions, and were intended for large families of ample means, and the aristocracy have always occupied them. The Duke of Rutland has one of the largest, and in Merrion Street, just around the corner, at No. 24, in a large house now occupied by the land commission, the great Duke of Wellington was born. It was the town residence of the Earl of Mornington, his father, and her ladyship came in from Dangan Castle, twenty-four miles outside the city, and the country residence of the family, a few days before the event, which occurred on April 29, 1769. There is nothing either in the castle or in the town house to interest people to-day, except that they were the birthplace and the home of one of the greatest of Irishmen, and his fellow countrymen have raised a shaft, similar to that at Washington, in Phoenix Park in his honor. Across from Merrion Square is the National Gallery of Ireland, which was built in 1864, and contains a fine collection of paintings, numbering about five hundred, which have been presented and purchased from time to time. All of the old masters are well represented, and the Dutch school is especially strong. Attached to the gallery is the Metropolitan School of Art, which is liberally supported by the British government, and has a large number of students. Corresponding to the Art Gallery, on the opposite side of a quadrangle known as Leinster Lawn, formerly the garden of the Earl of Kildare, is the Science and Art Museum and the Museum of Natural History. Both are well arranged and full of interesting things, particularly Irish antiquities, historical relics, and examples of Irish industries. The most precious object is an iron bell shaped like an ordinary cow-bell and riveted on each side, which, it is said, St. Patrick used to carry about with him and ring to call the people together to hear mass. It is accompanied by a silver "shrine" or case for its protection, made in the year 1100 at the expense of Donald O'Laughlan, king of Ireland from 1091 to 1105. The "Annals of Ulster," written in the year 552, refer to this precious object as "The Bell of the Will," and its history is known from that date. It came into possession of the Archbishop of Armagh in 1044, and was among the relics in the cathedral there until it was brought to the museum in 1869. No one here seems to doubt that it is genuine. In the adjoining case is another "shrine," as the case or covering for sacred relics is called, that contains a tooth of St. Patrick, which, according to the tradition, was loosened and fell from his mouth on the door-sill of St. Brone's Church at Killaspugbrone in County Sligo, and can be accounted for all these years. A brooch formerly worn by the King of Tara is also shown as an example of the prehistoric work of the silversmiths of Ireland, with many other beautiful pieces of silver and gold which were dug up in the bogs. Between the museum and the library is a fine old mansion known as Leinster House, or Kildare House, erected by the great earls of Kildare, the leaders of the Geraldines, who chose this spot four hundred years ago for the location of the largest and at that time the most magnificent city residence in Ireland. It once stood in the center of large grounds, but they have been sold off from time to time, and nearly a hundred years ago the residence passed into the possession of the Royal Dublin Society, which has made it the center of activity during its long and honored career in encouraging and developing the arts, science, and industries of Ireland. The membership of the Royal Dublin Society for two centuries has included all of the famous men of this nation, and they have rendered a very important service. The Royal Library, the National Gallery, the Museum of Natural History, and the Museum of Antiquities owe their existence to this venerable institution, and its influence has gathered the greater part of the pictures in the gallery and the articles of interest in the museums. Kildare House is a severe pile of black stone, and the guide-book says that "the White House at Washington is largely a reproduction of its main features, though the American building has a semicircular colonnaded porch, which rather conceals the likeness." But a resident of Washington would find little resemblance between the two buildings, except that they are about the same size and both have windows and a roof. The corner stone bears a curious inscription in stilted Latin, which illustrates the lofty pride of the earls of Kildare. It is addressed to "The Casual Explorer, who may find it among the stately ruins of a fallen house, and bids him mark the greatness of the noble builders and the uncertainty of all things terrestrial, when the men who raise such splendid monuments can rise superior to misfortune." There are several other fine old edifices in the neighborhood, but unfortunately many of the historic houses are passing away from the families who built and lived in them, and are now being used for public offices or business purposes. About half a mile from Trinity College, on the road to Phoenix Park, is the ancient prison of Dublin, called Newgate, after a similar institution in London, and it has had a similar history. It has been the scene of horrible incidents; it has detained many of the purest and ablest martyrs for Irish liberty within its walls, and a hundred years ago it was frequently described in sketches of Irish life, in terms similar to those that were written of the Fleet Prison and Newgate in London. It was customary to have executions outside the walls in public, and the night before they were hung favored criminals were allowed to entertain their friends in a reckless, disgraceful carousal. Such a scene is described in a ribald song entitled "The Night before Larry was Stretched." "Then in came the priest with his book, And spoke to him smooth and so civil. Larry tipped him a Kilmainham look, Then pitched his big wig to the devil; Then raising a little his head, To get a swate drop of the bottle, And painfully sighing he said, O, the hemp will be soon round my throttle." Phoenix Park has about eighteen hundred acres of lawn, flower beds, forest, meadow, and pasture, and nineteen miles of perfect roadway. It is open to the public at all times and there are no restrictions. A horseback rider can gallop over the grass anywhere, cricket matches can be played wherever is most convenient to the players. Racing meetings are held on the turf several days in each month, the course being laid out by movable fences. Polo, hockey, football, and all other kinds of outdoor games are going on all the time, and almost the entire working population of Dublin may be seen scattered over the park during these long summer evenings, when one can read outdoors until after nine o'clock. There is no more beautiful park, and no greater enjoyment is found in any similar place in the world. The viceregal lodge, in which the lord lieutenant of Ireland resides nine months in the year, is in the center of the park, surrounded by an inclosure of fifteen acres with a garden, stables, and cottages for the servants. The chief secretary of Ireland and the under secretary have official residences in the same neighborhood, provided by the state. Immediately before the windows of the viceregal lodge Lord Frederick Cavendish, chief secretary for Ireland, and Thomas H. Burke, the under secretary, were assassinated in 1882. The assassination was witnessed by the occupants of the lodge, but before they could reach the place the assassins had escaped. The spot is now marked in an unobtrusive manner. Phoenix Park was formerly owned by the Knights of St. John. When their lands were confiscated by Henry VIII. at the time of the Reformation, the monastery was selected as the official residence of the viceroy. Additional grounds were purchased later by the Duke of Ormonde, when he was viceroy, and the great Chesterfield, when he held the office, did the landscape gardening, which illustrates his exquisite taste. The park is beautiful always, they say, but it could not be more beautiful than it is in May, when the hawthorn trees are white with blossom, the furze bushes are blazing with orange, and the rhododendrons, which grow to enormous size, are great banks of purple against the rich, deep foliage. Every flower that grows in that climate seems to be in bloom, and Phoenix Park looks as if it had just left the hands of the Creator. VII THE OLD AND NEW UNIVERSITIES Imagine a university and a campus of forty-seven acres of lawn and grove where Trinity Church stands in New York or where the post office stands in Chicago or St. Louis. In Washington we have something like it in the mall where the National Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Agricultural Department are. Trinity College, Dublin, has an equally expansive setting of green grass and grove and flowering shrubs, cricket grounds, and tennis courts, surrounded on all sides by business houses, clubs, and hotels. It is like an island of verdure in the midst of an ocean of trade and commerce. On one side of the campus the outside world is kept at bay by a continuous line of dormitories and lecture-rooms which overlook a busy street from the windows of one wall and a peaceful lawn from the windows of the other. On the south side the barrier is a high iron picket fence hidden in a wonderful hedge of hawthorn and laburnum bushes. On the other side of that hedge are shops, and a street-car line that leads to the more attractive part of the city. There are only two entrances to the college green, one at the east end and the other at the west, and it is nearly a half mile walk from one to the other across the green and among the buildings. The main entrance and the main buildings face the Bank of Ireland and look upon Dame Street, which is the Wall Street of Dublin. There is a little green crescent to divide the entrance from the street, with bronze figures of Edmund Burke and Oliver Goldsmith, two of the most distinguished of the alumni. The main building is a fine example of architecture, and the house of the provost, which adjoins it, is a gem of the Elizabethan type. The other buildings are unpretentious. They are rather low and long and plain, in excellent proportions, but without particular individuality, although the engineering building, which stands out on the campus, is an exquisite example of modern architecture, and Ruskin pronounced it the most beautiful modern structure in the United Kingdom. As you enter through a low archway under the main building you come into a quadrangle formed by a dormitory and an examination hall at the right. Beyond that is a library. Another dormitory stands on the left, and the chapel and the dining-hall (the last two have Grecian porticos), and directly before you a bell tower of beautiful and original design erected about one hundred years ago. Beyond the first quadrangle is another, which is gloomy and uninviting. The buildings are plain, and the dark stone of which they are made is not cheerful. The students call it "Botany Bay," because of the prison-like style of the architecture and its uninviting appearance. The buildings surrounding it are dormitories, and in one of them, No. 11, Oliver Goldsmith roomed. He wrote his autograph with a diamond upon one of the panes of glass, which has since been removed and preserved in the library, where it lies in a case beside the original manuscript of Handel's oratorio, "The Messiah," which was given there for the first time in 1745. A portion of it was written in England, but it was completed in Dublin and sung by a Dublin choral society immediately after. In "Botany Bay" is a pump of great age and much history. In early days it was the focus of academic disorder, and any policeman, sheriff, or bailiff who dared violate the sacred precincts of Trinity was purged of his guilt by a thorough ducking. The origin of this form of punishment is attributed to a famous Dr. Wilder, who for many years was provost of the college. He happened to be crossing the campus one day, when a bailiff, who had a writ to serve, was being baited by a group of students, and called out to them something like this: "Young gentlemen, be careful that you do not put him under the pump," and they took the hint. [Illustration: QUADRANGLE, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN] Another version of the story is that Dr. Wilder cried out, "Young gentlemen, for the love of God don't be so cruel as to nail his ears to the pump;" and certain authors have claimed that they interpreted him to mean the reverse, and did what he had forbidden them. But I am assured by competent authority that the former and more humane version is the true one, and all agree that ever since those boisterous days every officer of the law who has been caught within the college grounds has been given an involuntary bath from "Old Mary." The war between the students and the police has continued ever since the foundation of the college, and as the buildings are situated in the very center of the city these conflicts have been unexpected and more frequent than they might have been otherwise. In former days "Trinity boys" never went out of the grounds without their peculiar weapons, which were the massive keys of their rooms, about six inches long and weighing a half a pound or more, which they would sling in handkerchiefs or in the skirts of their gowns and use very effectively for offense or defense, as the case might be. On one occasion several students were captured and hustled off from their fellows to a butcher-shop, where they were hung from the meat hooks. The rumor ran like a prairie fire that the captives had been impaled, but when the rescuing party arrived it was discovered that they were hanging only by the waistbands of their breeches. The walls of Examination Hall are hung with portraits of eminent men, and in one corner is a full-length painting of Queen Elizabeth, the founder. There is a superstition among the students that the picture has an evil eye, and that whoever sits within her sphere of influence at examinations is bound to fail. Hence the benches in that neighborhood are empty. But a certain alcove in the library is quite crowded. Several full sets of examination papers are preserved from year to year in that particular alcove, and every day during examination weeks it is filled with students cramming from them. Across the quadrangle is the chapel. It is not specially interesting, although there is some fine wood-carving in the stalls. The students are required to wear surplices, and look very awkward in them, although the white gowns light up the room and make it much more cheerful than if they wore black. When I attended service Sunday morning two-thirds of the stalls were vacant, although attendance is supposed to be compulsory. I counted exactly one hundred and four persons present, including the preacher, the professors, and ten boys in the choir. These boys belong to the choir of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and are loaned to the college authorities in order to increase the interest of the Sunday services. It is considered the finest choir in Ireland, but that isn't saying much. The organ in the gallery has a curious history. It was made in the Netherlands for some church in Spain, and was on its way when the ship was captured in 1702. The Duke of Ormonde, serving in the fleet, claimed the organ as his part of the prize money, and presented it to the college. Many of the old pipes have been replaced, but the case remains the same. Another interesting relic is a great chandelier which formerly hung in the House of Commons when the Irish parliament occupied the building now used for the Bank of Ireland. Beyond the chapel is a curious-looking recumbent statue made of onyx, which has been crumbling so rapidly for years that it now bears very little resemblance to a human form, and the features are entirely effaced. The students claim that it was intended for Queen Elizabeth, the founder, but it was really a figure of Luke Chaloner, one of the first promoters of the institution. The grounds occupied by the college once belonged to All Hallows monastery, which was suppressed by Henry VIII. and the property confiscated. It stood well outside of the city walls and was unoccupied when, toward the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a number of Dublin scholars raised a fund of £2,000 to establish an institution for higher education. Queen Elizabeth gave the confiscated estates of several rebel chiefs and James I. increased the endowment, but it was not until the reign of William and Anne that the college was really prosperous. They were very generous toward it, and the Irish parliament made liberal grants. But many a time the fellows have been compelled to melt up the college plate and resort to other desperate means to find money to pay for food and fuel. During the entire history of the institution its faculty and students have been loyal to the British government and to the Protestant church. It has refused to receive Roman Catholics into the faculty, and for centuries Roman Catholics were prohibited from enjoying its advantages in education. Therefore it is not strange that it is under the ban of that church, and there has not been a Catholic student upon the rolls for many years. An Irish Roman Catholic gentleman remarked one day to a member of the faculty: "If I had wanted to send my son to Trinity I would have to fight first my priest, second my bishop, and third my wife. Therefore I sent him to Oxford." There are now five departments in the university,--the regular academic department, and schools of law, medicine, theology, and engineering. There are in attendance to-day twelve hundred and forty-one students. Although the institution is familiarly known as Trinity College, that is the title of the academic department, and with its affiliated schools it constitutes the University of Dublin. The charter bears date of March 24, 1591, under the title of "The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, near Dublin." Previous to 1873 the faculty, the fellows, and those who held scholarships must be members of the Church of Ireland. Since then all restrictions or disabilities have been removed, although the history and traditions of the institution will not permit any self-respecting Roman Catholic to send his son there. Rank is strictly recognized among the students. Noblemen, sons of noblemen, and baronets are matriculated as such under the titles of nobilis, filius nobilis, and equas; ordinary students are called pensioners. Sizars are students of limited means, who must make oath that their fathers' incomes are less than $500 a year, which exempts them from all fees and gives them their commons or meals free of expense. Pensioners pay $60 a year, fellow commoners $150, and noblemen $300. When a young man enters in either of these classes he selects his tutor and makes application for a room, which is assigned him as vacancies occur, and he is recorded. A deposit of from $40 to $150 is required as security against any injury to the property. The room rent varies from $20 to $100 a year. All students are compelled to attend chapel, both in the morning at half-past eight and in the evening at nine o'clock, and wear surplices, but upon certificates may be allowed to attend one of the Presbyterian churches. At half-past ten every Saturday morning the junior dean appears at the hall and reads out the names of all students who have violated the rules or neglected their duties during the week, and those who are present may offer excuses, which may or may not be accepted by the dean. If they are not accepted the student is fined a sum of money in lieu of other punishment, and these fines are added to the commons fund, which goes to pay for the meals of the students and is controlled by the "clerk of the buttery books." Fellow commoners pay seven shillings and sixpence a week for board, pensioners five shillings, and members of the nobility ten shillings. A fine of five shillings a week is imposed upon all students actually resident in college who do not take their meals at the commons. Ten students holding scholarships, called "waiters," are annually appointed to say grace before and after meat in the commons hall, which must be repeated in Latin in a form prescribed by the statutes of the college. All students are required to be in the college grounds before nine o'clock for roll-call. After roll-call no one is permitted to pass the gates without a written order from the dean. Those who do so are severely fined. [Illustration: MAIN ENTRANCE, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN] Trinity College is one of the few great institutions of Europe which give full degrees to women on the same terms as to men. There is no distinction in rules or conditions or in any other respect. Women are admitted to all of the several schools--arts, science, engineering, law, and medicine--on an equal footing. There are now about one hundred in attendance. At first the university gave degrees to all women who could pass the regular examinations, and they came here in droves from Oxford, Cambridge, and other institutions where they had been hearing lectures but are not given degrees. All they had to do was to enter the examinations and fulfill the requirements. But two years ago this practice was stopped, and now no degrees are conferred upon young women who do not take the full course at Trinity. The fees are the same as for men--$50. The women students are mostly Irish, although a few English girls, who are not satisfied with the certificates given them at Cambridge and Oxford, come over here from Girton and other institutions and work for the full degrees of B.A., B.S., Ph.D., and even for diplomas in law and medicine. To accommodate them the university has recently purchased a fine old mansion in Palmerston Park, where fifty or sixty girls are now lodged under the care of a matron, subject to rules similar to those which govern the men students in the dormitories on University Green. Twenty-two degrees were granted to women in 1908, and about the same number in 1907, chiefly in the department of arts, which is the same as our academic courses, and most of the recipients are intending to be teachers in women's schools and colleges. The story of the invasion of Trinity College by women is quite interesting. The charter, which was granted by Queen Elizabeth, recognizes no distinction of sex, race, or religion, and when Professor Sylvester, now in the chair of mathematics in one of our American colleges, was refused a degree at Cambridge because he was a Jew, he came here, passed his examinations, and was given one. This opened the gates, and several young women who had been denied degrees at Oxford and Cambridge came to test their rights. On June 9, 1903, the senate of the university passed a resolution "that it is desirable that the degrees of Trinity College, Dublin, shall be open to women, and that his majesty's government be requested to obtain a king's letter empowering the university to grant degrees to women on such terms and conditions as may seem to the board and council, within their respective provinces, on full consideration, to be most expedient." On January 16, 1904, "Edward VII., by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, sends greetings to all to whom these presents shall come, with information that by the advice of our Right Trusty and Right Well Beloved Cousin and Councillor, William Humble, Earl of Dudley, Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order; Lord Lieutenant General and Governor-General of that part of our said United Kingdom called Ireland, do by these presents authorize and empower the said Provosts and Senior Fellows and their successors in office, and the said Senate of the University of Dublin, and the Caput of the said Senate and all members thereof and all other persons or bodies whose concurrence is necessary for the granting of degrees, to interpret the charter and the statutes of said college in such a manner that women may obtain degrees in the said University, all previous laws, ordinances, and interpretations notwithstanding." Under this authority on May 5, 1904, the board adopted rules admitting women to all lectures, examinations, degrees, and prizes except fellowships and scholarships, their fees being the same as those for men, and all the rules applying to them equally, except that in the medical department "women shall practice dissection separately from men and medical lectures shall be given them either separately or in conjunction with men, as the professors may think best." In June, 1904, the senate also passed "a grace" for giving degrees to women who had attained a certain prescribed status in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and had passed all the examinations and fulfilled all the other requirements for the granting of degrees for men at Trinity. The regulations require that women shall pay the same fees except those for the commons (meals); that "except when entering or leaving college they shall wear caps and gowns upon the college grounds unless accompanied by a chaperon." They are not expected "to remove their caps in the presence of the provost and fellows, and may wear them during lectures and examinations." They are not permitted to visit the rooms of men students in college unless accompanied by a chaperon. They are examined separately; they are not required to attend chapel, and Miss Lucy Gwynn was appointed lady registrar to act generally as adviser to the women students and to report upon their conduct. Later it was decreed by the provost and senior fellows that scholarships should be established for women upon the same terms as men to the value of $150 a year and exemption from ordinary college dues, and several women have already obtained them. The library of Trinity College is one of the most interesting places in all Ireland and it has two relics which are incomparable in historic and artistic value. One is the harp of Brian Boru, the greatest king in Irish history. He ruled all Ireland for forty years, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and it is said that he was the only native that ever was successful in keeping Ireland in peace. This is "The Harp that Once through Tara's Halls," inspiring that beautiful ballad of Tom Moore. Its authenticity has been questioned, and some people assert that it once belonged to Henry VIII. of England, but no loyal Irishman will admit the possibility of such a thing. The other relic, which cannot be questioned, is a copy of the four gospels, known as "The Book of Kells," because it was made by the monks of a monastery founded in 546 by St. Columkills, or St. Columba,--the name is spelled both ways,--and the antiquarians think that it dates back very nearly to that year. It is often described as "the most beautiful book in the world," and one may easily believe such a claim to be true. About three hundred pages, eight by fifteen inches in size, are covered with the most exquisite pen-work that you can imagine, embossed with gold leaf and illuminated in brilliant water-colors with perfect harmony and marvelous skill. I have seen all of the great collections of missals in the world, but have never found so fine and perfect an example as this. There are many equally fine, but of smaller size, in the museums in London and the continental cities. Pierpont Morgan has several specimens of that sort of work, but the "Book of Kells" is unsurpassed both for its artistic perfection and the size of its pages, which are two, three, and four times larger than the best of the other works of the sort. Each page must have required months to execute; each is different in design and coloring, but is harmonious with the rest, and it is difficult to say which is the most wonderful and the most beautiful. The book was in the monastery at Kells in 1601 when that institution was raided by the Spaniards, and having valuable covers of gold, was stolen by some ignorant soldier who stripped it and threw the text into a bog where it was found coverless by a peasant a few days later and taken to Archbishop Ussher. He recognized it and kept it in his library until his large and unique collection of books and manuscripts was purchased by Cromwell and presented to Trinity College. There are other remarkable books in the collection, including several chronicles of the early history of Ireland, which are priceless, and one marvels at the artistic skill and labor that they represent. They are also important as illustrating the culture and learning of the people of Ireland at a period when England and the continental countries of Europe were still submerged in the barbarism of the Middle Ages. The library of Dublin University is one of several government depositories, under the Stationer's Act, and receives a copy of every book printed in the United Kingdom. By this method its shelves have been rapidly filled and the catalogues contain more than a million entries. There is another, known as the National Library, only a few squares away. It occupies a beautiful building erected at a cost of $750,000 to correspond with the National Museum, which occupies the other side of a quadrangle. It was opened in 1890 and has about three hundred thousand volumes. There is a reading-room seventy-two feet square, with a glass dome, where many people come daily to consult works of reference, and certain persons have the privilege of taking books away. A bill that had been pending in the British parliament for several years was passed in the summer of 1908 authorizing the establishment of two new universities, one at Belfast, under the auspices of the Presbyterian church, and the other at Dublin, under the control of the Roman Catholics, although both theoretically will be non-sectarian, and no religious tests will be required or allowed at either. The enactment of this law is a part of the contract agreed upon between the liberal government and the leaders of the Irish party in parliament, which is being carried out in good faith, and will be concluded at the next general election, when it is hoped that the question of home rule in Ireland will be submitted to the people of the United Kingdom. The Irish Catholics have been demanding a university of their own supported by the state for many years. There has been no institution for higher education at which a self-respecting Catholic could seek an education, because the University of Dublin represents the Church of Ireland, just as Oxford and Cambridge represent the Church of England, and until a few years ago placed a ban upon Catholics and would not permit them to have anything to do or say about the management. It was perfectly natural, therefore, that when the trustees of Trinity took off the ban, the synod of Maynooth should put it back, and Catholic students were forbidden to attend lectures there by what is known as Decree XXXVII. of the synod of Maynooth, declared in 1875 and confirmed by Pope Pius IX. Religious tests at Oxford and Cambridge were abolished in 1871, at the same time as at Trinity. In 1874 an attempt was made by the famous Monseigneur Capel, who is now living in California, to found a Roman Catholic university in England, but it failed, and since then the young men of that church have attended Cambridge and Oxford, by permission of the hierarchy, but the ban has never been removed from Trinity College, Dublin. And one cannot blame them for not removing it. They cannot forget the past. The Roman Catholics of Ireland were deprived of educational privileges for centuries, and under the penal statutes of Queen Anne were debarred from the learned professions. There are no religious tests in Trinity College to-day, it is true, and students who do not belong to the Church of Ireland are not required to attend chapel. But the atmosphere and the influences and every tendency at Trinity are naturally toward the Church of Ireland, which has a theological school as a department of the university. Three independent non-sectarian institutions, known as Queen's colleges, were founded by Queen Victoria about forty years ago, at Belfast, Galway, and Cork. These are known as "godless colleges" because they have no chapels, no religious exercises, and no religious instruction. Queen's College at Belfast, however, is distinctively a Presbyterian institution. Nearly all the faculty are prominent and active members of that denomination, and students who are intending to enter the ministry go from Queen's to Magee College, Londonderry, which is under the care of the Presbyterian general assembly. Therefore Queen's College, Belfast, occupies a relation to the Presbyterian denomination quite as intimate as that of Trinity with the Episcopalians. The same conditions apply to both the Roman Catholic theological seminary at Maynooth and the Presbyterian theological seminary at Magee. The students at both of these institutions will be excused from residing in the new universities, and may continue their studies exactly as at present, going up to Dublin and to Belfast only to receive their degrees. Several of the Roman Catholic colleges and the two "godless colleges" now supported by the state at Cork and Galway are to be made a part of the Roman Catholic university at Dublin, but Section 3 of the bill provides that "no test whatever of religious belief shall be imposed upon any person as a condition of his becoming or continuing to be a professor, lecturer, fellow, scholar, exhibitioner, graduate, or student of, or of his holding any office or emolument, or exercising any privilege in, either of the two new universities or any constituent college. Nor in connection with either of the new universities or any such constituent college shall any preference be given or advantage withheld from any person on account of his religious belief." It will be permitted, however, for religious denominations to erect chapels or other houses of worship in connection with either of the new universities with their own funds for the accommodation of students professing their faith, but no students shall be required to attend religious exercises or religious instruction, and they shall be entirely voluntary. It is well understood, however, and the bill is intended precisely for that purpose, that one of the universities shall be Roman Catholic and that the other shall be Presbyterian, just as the present University of Dublin represents the Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland. Education and religion have always gone hand in hand both in ancient and modern Ireland. The history of one is the history of the other. Instruction has always been given either by or under the supervision of priests and monks, and there have been regular teaching orders, like the Christian Brothers, which combine religious with secular instruction, with the catechism as their chief text-book. As early as the middle of the sixth century the monastery schools of Ireland were famous all over the world, and even at that date there were three thousand students at Clonarde College, and an equal number at Bangor, at Monasterboice, and several other centers of learning. The sons of kings, chiefs, nobles, and other favored classes lived in the monasteries with their instructors, but usually each ordinary student had a little hut of sod built by himself, and often those from the same locality or the same clan built houses for their common use. All of the more important schools had students from foreign lands. An English bishop, writing in the year 705, says that they came in "fleet loads" from Great Britain and the Continent. Many of them were princes of royal houses. Several of the early kings of France and other countries were educated in Ireland, which was for three or four centuries the most learned country in the world. Great numbers of Irishmen were employed as professors and teachers in the schools and colleges of England and the Continent. Charlemagne, Charles the Bold, and other monarchs of the Middle Ages called learned men from Ireland as guests and as tutors in their courts, and the influence of Irish scholars was greater than that of those from any other country. For four or five hundred years after the time of St. Patrick the monasteries of Ireland were the center and source of science, and art and learning of every kind and the literature of the Gaelic reached its highest glory. The Danish invasion destroyed these conditions and threw everything into disorder. The monasteries were sacked, the monks were scattered, the students fled to their homes, and the development of learning and art suddenly was arrested. There was another revival during the reign of Brian Boru, but that was interrupted by the Anglo-Norman invasion, and Irish learning never again reached its previous fame. During the Reformation all the monasteries throughout Ireland except in a few remote districts were suppressed. More than four hundred were entirely destroyed and their inmates were turned out upon the world by the agents of Henry VIII. Cromwell's governors were even more severe and cruel, and the parliaments of 1692 and 1695 passed penal laws forbidding the Catholic children of the country to be educated, either in schools or in private houses. Education practically came to a standstill, although many Irish Protestants all through the country did a great deal in a quiet way to provide instruction for the children of Catholic friends and neighbors. The Relief Act of 1782 allowed Roman Catholics to open schools of their own, and the present national system, inaugurated in 1831, afforded means of education for children of all denominations under the supervision of their own priests, although members of different denominations are required to receive religious instruction separately and interference with the religious principles of any child is forbidden. From that time to the present the number of schools has been gradually extended, their efficiency has been improved, and the government appropriations for education have been slowly increased from year to year. The schools of Ireland are now governed by an act of parliament passed in 1892, and Dr. W.M.J. Starkie, national commissioner of education, explained the system to me as follows: "We have eight grades of primary schools," he said, "from kindergartens, which receive pupils three years of age, up to the eighth grade, which corresponds very nearly to that of the public schools in America, with pupils fourteen or fifteen years of age. We have a compulsory education law, but it is enforced according to the local conditions of different districts,--a sort of local option which is applied where the people of the counties of the districts desire it. The schools are practically free. By the reorganization of 1892 certain schools were permitted to charge fees, but no more than 1 per cent of them do so, and they are all Protestant. No Catholic school collects tuition. "The schools of Ireland are controlled by a national board of twenty members, appointed nominally by the lord lieutenant, one-half Protestant and one-half Catholic, and an executive council in charge of administration, also appointed by the lord lieutenant, one of whom, that is myself, is always on duty at the headquarters of the board in Dublin. "Funds for the support of the schools are voted by parliament every year with the usual budget, which are absolutely controlled by the board, who make an annual report of their disposition. This year we have £1,600,000, which is equivalent to about eight million dollars in your money. The larger amount, which is about £1,250,000, goes to the payment of the salaries of teachers; the next for the construction of new buildings and repairs; the next item is for the maintenance of central model schools, which are object lessons. The rate of expenditure per pupil is about £3, or $15, a year, and has been gradually increasing from time to time with the allowances that have been given us by the government. Ten years ago the allowance for primary education was about £1,250,000 or $6,250,000 in American money, and the _per capita_ was about $12.50. "There are now about 8,600 primary schools in Ireland, with 16,000 teachers and an average daily attendance of 490,000 out of a school population enrolled of 730,000. "The following table will show the number and the average daily attendance at the different schools: No. Schools. Av. Attend. Ordinary schools . . . . . . . . . . . 8,100 401,000 Model schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 6,955 Convents and monasteries . . . . . . . 384 80,712 "The money is divided among these different schools as follows: Amount. Per Capita. Ordinary schools . . . . . . . . . . £1,038,854 £2 13s 10d Model schools . . . . . . . . . . . . 27,755 3 19s 10d Convents and monasteries . . . . . . 164,048 2 7s 6d "The average daily attendance seems very small, and is due to several reasons: first, the lack of accommodations and the long distances between schoolhouses in the thinly settled sections along the west coast of Ireland, where some families are many miles from a schoolhouse, and where the children have no means of conveyance to reach them. In all the poorer sections of the country, where the men of the family go off to England or Scotland to do labor, the children have to stay at home and look after the place. They take care of the cows and the sheep and the pigs. Many parents make their children work where the compulsory education law and the child labor laws are not enforced. In the factory towns of northern Ireland the laws prohibit children under eleven years old working, and they are pretty well enforced. "The following table will show the number of children of the different religious denominations enrolled in the national schools: Roman Catholic . . . . . . . . . . 541,638, or 74.4 per cent Church of Ireland . . . . . . . . . 87,904, or 12.1 per cent Presbyterian . . . . . . . . . . . . 82,434, or 11.3 per cent Methodists . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,387, or 1.3 per cent Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,794, or 0.9 per cent "Of the Catholic children a large number, perhaps 112,000, are in the convents. The Catholic families prefer to send their girls to be taught by the nuns. And about 10,000 boys are in the monasteries. "Every teacher is required to pass an examination prepared by the commissioner of education as a test of his or her qualifications, and the teacher is responsible to the educational department for the enforcement of the rules and the application of the methods of instruction that have received its indorsement. But, as a rule, teachers are nominated by the priests of the Roman Catholic church or the clergy of the Church of Ireland or those of the non-conformist churches, as the case may be. The consequence is that there have to be separate schools for each denomination, which naturally adds to the cost of maintenance. In two-thirds of the schools, however, you will find both Protestant and Catholic children. Any sect that can furnish twenty pupils can have a school of its own, to run it as it likes at the expense of the government and select its own teachers, provided the persons selected demonstrate their qualifications by submitting to the regular examinations. "Religious instruction, prayer, and other exercises of worship may take place before and after the ordinary school hours, during which all the children of whatever denomination may attend, but the regular school business cannot be interrupted or suspended for any religious instruction or worship or any arrangement that will interfere with its usefulness or cause any pupils inconvenience in attendance. "No pupil who is registered as a Protestant is permitted to remain in attendance during the time of religious instruction in case the teacher is a Roman Catholic, and no pupil who is registered as a Roman Catholic can remain in attendance during religious instruction by a teacher who is not a Roman Catholic, and further, no pupil can remain in attendance during any religious instruction whatever if his parents or guardians object. A public notification of the hours of religious instruction must be made in every school and kept posted in large letters for the information of the public as well as the pupils. No schoolroom can be connected with any place of worship; no religious emblems or emblems of a political nature can be exhibited in any schoolroom, and no inscription which contains the name of any religious denomination. "Thus we have, as you will see, all points guarded against religious proselyting. Monks and nuns are eligible as teachers if they pass the examinations, and any convent or monastery can be made a national school by accepting the regulations and observing them. "The salaries for men teachers range from £77 to £175, and for women from £65 to £141, according to length of service, experience, the grade of the school, and the number of pupils. "We are introducing some modern ideas similar to those you have in America. We have already introduced cooking into a thousand schools and are introducing Gaelic as fast as the teachers can be found, but they are very scarce. We furnish special instruction in the teachers' colleges, or normal schools as you call them, and to excite the interest of the children special prizes are offered for proficiency in Gaelic. "We are improving our school buildings generally, and parliament has allowed £40,000 a year for three years for building new primary schoolhouses. "Our secondary or intermediate schools are under the supervision of a different board, also appointed by the lord lieutenant, and they distribute £85,000 a year in grants to about four hundred different institutions, preparatory, collegiate, and university." "What is the ratio of illiteracy in Ireland?" "It has gradually been reduced from 53 per cent of the population in 1841, the first census taken after the establishment of the national school system, to 18 per cent in 1891 and 14 per cent in 1901. The ratio of illiterates is being reduced nearly 1 per cent per year, and it is calculated from five years old and upward. If the minimum age were made seven years the ratio would be very much less. It is the old people and the little ones under seven years who cannot read and write, and many adults claim that they are unable to do so for their own reasons." VIII ROUND ABOUT DUBLIN The street-car system of Dublin is excellent. It reaches every part of the city and all the lovely suburbs, and every line starts at a lofty column, which was erected many years ago in the middle of the principal street in honor of Horatio Nelson, the greatest of Irish sailors, the hero of the battle of Trafalgar. The cars are large and neatly kept, the conductors and motormen are very polite and love to give information to strangers, although they are paid only thirty and thirty-six shillings a week, which would certainly make men of their occupation very reticent in America. The roofs of the cars are arranged with comfortable seats, from which one can see everything within the range of human vision and gratify his curiosity about what is behind the high stone walls, green with lichen and ivy and overhung with lustrous boughs. There isn't much satisfaction going about in an automobile in the immediate vicinity of Dublin, because the roadways are mere tunnels between walls eight feet high and overhung with foliage, which makes a perpetual twilight, a damp, cool atmosphere, a dustless ride, and a picturesqueness that an artist would admire. The owners of suburban homes have shut themselves in so successfully that nobody can see what they are doing or enjoy the wondrous beauties of their private parks. But the seats on the top of a tram car permit the public to penetrate their secrets, give an abundance of fresh air, gratify the love of motion that we all inherited from our savage ancestors, and enable us to look beyond the barriers into beautiful gardens and groves. The River Liffey, as I have told you in a previous chapter, divides all Dublin into two parts and empties into a bay about four miles below the business limits of the town. The bay is famous for its beauty, and is closely embroidered with history, legend, and romance. One street-car line follows the river and the north shore as far as the ocean, and then turns northward to accommodate the population of several pretty watering-places and fishing-towns. Another line, also starting from Nelson's Pillar, follows the south bank of the Liffey and the bay and encircles a most picturesque and romantic landscape. It takes three hours to make a round trip by either of these routes, and one can spend an entire afternoon or indeed a whole day with profit on both of them. We will take the south side first. The track runs through the best residence section of the city and several of the prettiest suburbs down to the port of Kingston, where all deep-draft steamers have to receive and discharge their passengers and cargoes because the water is too shallow for them above. The turbine ferries that cross St. George's Channel from England land their passengers there and send them by rail into the city. Between the frequent villages along the train line are comfortable and spacious mansions surrounded by beautiful grounds owned and occupied by the wealthy citizens of Dublin, and occasionally there is a long row of "semi-detached villas" occupied by "the prosperous middle classes,"--brick houses of two and three stories built in pairs, with strips of lawn on either side and quite a little space for a garden at the back. Every house has a name painted on the gatepost as well as a number, and that is a matter of great importance, because, when Miss Genevieve says she lives at Heatherhurst, Princes' Crescent, it sounds a great deal more aristocratic than No. 1660 Rockville Road. Princes' Crescent is a long block of two-story brick houses on a curve in the street; Heatherhurst is one of them, situated about the middle, twenty feet front and sixty feet deep, with thirty feet of lawn in the foreground and a garden at the rear. And these houses are much more comfortable than any the city can furnish, and I do not know of any town so well provided with suburbs as Dublin. [Illustration: SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN, SHOWING NELSON'S PILLAR.] There are several historical places on the road. Beyond Booterstown is Blackrock, where an ancient granite cross in the center of the main street marks the limit of jurisdiction of the lord mayor. Many years ago it was customary for that official after his installation to ride out there and fling a dart into the waters of the bay, as a symbol of his right of admiralty; but these old-fashioned demonstrations of power and prerogative have been abandoned for stupid parades and long speeches. Just before entering Blackrock the tramway passes the entrance of a lovely estate christened "Frascati," after a favorite resort of Rome. It formerly belonged to the Duke of Leinster, and was an early seat of the Kildare family, and one of the strategic rendezvous of the Geraldines, for two centuries the strongest clan in Ireland. Frascati has a pathetic interest to every one, and particularly to all Irish patriots, because for several years it was the home of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Pamela, his mysterious French bride. It was there they spent their honeymoon and there he left that fascinating little person while he was off on political missions preparing for the Revolution of 1798. Her letters, full of domestic details and loving prattle, written during this period, have been preserved, and give us a charming impression of the character of a woman who suffered much for the cause of Irish liberty, even poverty and shame. Edward Fitzgerald was a brother of the Duke of Leinster and the Earl of Kildare, an amiable, high-minded, warm-hearted, gallant fellow of learning and culture and fine manners. He served as a major in the British forces during the American Revolution, and for a time was an aid-de-camp on the staff of Lord Howe. He was dismissed from the British army, however, for active sympathy with the French Revolution, went to France, and took refuge among the friends he had made there. There he met and married Anne Syms, better known as "Pamela," a woman of great personal and mental attractions, whose origin was involved in a mystery that was never revealed, and concerning whom many romantic stories have been written and told. It is generally believed that she was an illegitimate daughter of Philippe �galité, Duke of Orleans, sometimes called "Philip the Handsome," by an Irish woman named Syms, and was, therefore, a half-sister of King Louis Philippe of France. By Edward Fitzgerald she had three children: Edward Fitzgerald, who was an officer in the British army; Pamela, who became the wife of Sir Guy Campbell; and Lucy, who became the wife of Captain Lyon of the Royal Navy. Several years after Fitzgerald's tragic end she married John Pitcairn, an American, with whom she came to the United States, and lived in Philadelphia until her death in 1831. While he was in Paris Lord Edward met Wolfe Tone, the leader of the Revolution of 1798, Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Addis Emmet, an elder brother of Robert Emmet, and other fellow countrymen, who were conspiring with the French directoire for an attack upon Ireland. He joined the movement with great earnestness and enthusiasm, and finally arranged with the French government to send a fleet of forty-three vessels with fifteen thousand troops under General Hoche, Wolfe Tone being attached to the commander's staff, to attack the Irish coast simultaneously with an uprising of the people. Ireland was taken by surprise and thrown into a panic, but Providence intervened. A violent gale arose, the landing was postponed, the French fleet became separated, and each vessel found its way back to the Continent. Lord Edward remained in France until March, 1798, when he returned to Dublin, was betrayed by a man named Mangan, and a guard of soldiers was sent to arrest him in 151 Thomas Street, just below the Bank of Ireland. A tablet with an inscription now marks the house. There was a desperate struggle, in which the captain of the guards was killed by Lord Edward, and the latter received a bullet in the shoulder, from which he died in prison a few days later at the age of thirty-two. As everybody knows, the rebellion was a failure, and nearly all the other leaders were captured and executed. Wolfe Tone was betrayed by an old school friend and sentenced to be shot. He tried to kill himself in prison. The wound, though fatal, was not immediately so, and he lay ill for several months before death rescued him. Poor Pamela lived in poverty and distress for several years before she was able to return to her friends in France. "Frascati," her home, now belongs to a prosperous Dublin tradesman. A little farther down on the shore of the bay is a monument marking the spot where the transport _Rochdale_, carrying the entire Ninety-seventh Regiment of Foot, went ashore a hundred years ago, and the names of an entire regiment, officers and men, were instantly erased from the British army list. Since then an artificial harbor has been inclosed by long breakwaters of masonry, giving a place of refuge for ships in distress. The tram line terminates in a pretty and picturesque village, called Dalkey, which was a medieval stronghold and the scene of many fierce fights, first between the earls of the Pale of Dublin and invading Danes, and after that with the pirates who haunted this coast for a century. It was a Danish settlement for several centuries, and afterward the most important outpost of Dublin, defended by seven great castles, three of which still remain in partial ruins. One of them is now remodeled for use as a town hall. They are imposing piles of masonry, and thick mats of ivy conceal the ancient wounds. We took an "outside car" at the end of the tram line at Dalkey to drive around the shore of the bay, which the driver assured us was the most beautiful in the world and even surpassed the Bay of Naples, which it is said to resemble, and for that reason many of the names are the same. The resemblance might possibly be detected by a person with a vigorous imagination. Killiney Bay, however, is a lovely sheet of water, surrounded by high bluffs that are clad in June with glowing garments of gorse and hawthorn. The first is a low bush which has a brilliant yellow flower, and the hawthorn trees are as white as banks of snow. The land is divided into meadows and pastures on the slopes by hedges of hawthorn, and the turf is concealed by millions of buttercups as yellow as gold. It is a rocky coast. Rugged crags that break out give a stern expression to the picture, and sometimes rise a hundred feet or more in frowning precipices of black granite. Here and there the towers of a castle or the chimneys of a villa arise from banks of foliage, and, perched along the bluff above the seashore, like the chalets of Switzerland, are comfortable cottages and mansions in which rich people from Dublin dwell. Clinging to the side of the bluff and protected by a stone wall is a splendid roadway encircling the entire bay, quite as beautiful, although on a smaller scale, as the Corniche road from Nice to Monte Carlo. The deep blue of the water, the vivid green of the foliage, which seems more pronounced in Ireland than anywhere I have ever been, the great white banks of hawthorn, the yellow of the buttercups and the gorse give a brilliancy to the landscape that does not appear anywhere on the Riviera or anywhere else I know. The winding road with this wonderful panorama always before you leads finally through a glen into a park named after the late Queen Victoria,--a wild stretch of rocky woodland and pasture, which in ancient days was one of the principal meeting places of the Druids, and it was well chosen. The land was purchased by subscription to commemorate the queen's jubilee in 1897, and has been thrown open to the public ever since. From the number of people who are present every Sunday afternoon one would think the money was well invested. A winding path leads to the summit, which is cleared of trees, and in the center a shaft of stone rises about sixty feet, which, the inscription tells us in quaint and laconic manner, was erected by John Mapas, Esquire, June, 1742, in order to give employment to his less fortunate neighbors, "last year being hard with the poor." A hundred yards distant is a round, conical tower marked, "Mont Mapas." Nobody seems to know who erected it or what it is for. And there is a pyramid of seven tiers of stone thirty feet square at the base and eighteen feet high, with a flat stone at the top. There is a monument to mark the spot where the Duke of Dorset was killed by being thrown from his horse in 1815, and what is more interesting, four Druid judgment seats, formed of rough granite blocks about twelve feet long, two feet high, and three and a half feet wide at the top. They are situated in pairs some distance from each other, and tradition says that the Druid chiefs in prehistoric times sat in judgment upon them to settle disputes between their people and to receive petitions from the members of their tribes. Of course, we know that Ireland was held by the Druids once, and it is very certain that they could not have found a more appropriate or a lovelier place than this for their assemblies. We took our luncheon at the Washington Inn at Dalkey, where a large and familiar engraving of George Washington, a picture of Sulgrave Manor, the English home of the Washingtons, a pedigree of the family, and a representation of its coat of arms, showing its development into the Stars and Stripes, hung upon the wall. I asked the landlady the whys and wherefores of all this, and she told me that her name is Martha Washington and that she is very proud of it. Her ancestors came from Sulgrave, where they trace their relationship to the Father of our Country. Another trolley line, with cars marked "Howth" (pronounced Ho-th), starting from the same place, Nelson's Pillar, on Sackville Street, will take you entirely around the great island hill at the north entrance of the harbor of Dublin and for a mile or two on the shore of the Irish Sea. For the first fifteen or twenty minutes the car runs through the busy streets of the city, past the Amiens railway station, which, a friendly priest who occupied the adjoining seat told me, occupies the site of the house in which Charles Lever wrote "Harry Lorrequer," "Charles O'Malley," and other famous novels, and the good father sighed when he said that the reckless gayety and the jolly folks that Lever painted with his pen existed no longer. He was a most interesting companion was this friendly priest, and talked incessantly of the scenes and associations through which our little journey led. We passed a monumental gate supported by two classic columns. One of them was marked in large letters "Deo Duce" and the other "Ferro Comitante" (With God for my guide and a sword by my side), which, he told me, was the motto upon the coat of arms of the great Lord Charlemont, who had taken so active a part in the history of Ireland. It was a famous family, he said, although the present earls are decadents and have no place in public affairs. This ancient family seat, called "Marino," was built at a tremendous cost by a _dilettante_ earl who never allowed his expenditures to trouble him, but left the anxiety entirely to his creditors. The interior of the villa at the time it was built was the perfection of art and luxury. The floors, the ceilings, and the wainscoting were of mosaic. The walls were hung with the finest Irish poplin and decorated by the most noted artists of the time. The villa has been the scene of ghastly carousals and assemblies of the finest intellects in Ireland. The grave and the gay have gathered and dined beneath its roof, but the estate was sacrificed to the extravagance of the family, and its splendor, somewhat tarnished and rusty, to be sure, is now enjoyed by the students of the Christian Brothers, who occupy the beautiful villa for a school. On one side of the car line high walls shut out to the ordinary passer-by the beauties they are intended to protect, but from the top of the tram cars any one can share them for "tuppence." On the other side is the water, the Bay of Dublin, and, running parallel with the shore, is a long spit of land called the North Bull, which was formerly a terrible menace to the commerce of the coast. Nearly every winter's gale sent a ship or two to destruction, and the bodies of hundreds of poor seamen have been washed up where the children are now playing in the sand. Here and there the skeletons of dead vessels may yet be seen, but the North Bull is no longer dangerous. Modern devices protect navigation, and in the midst of the heather and the glowing yellow gorse golf links have been laid out and a clubhouse has been erected, surrounded by lilacs, laburnums, and hawthorns, now in the full glory of their bloom. It is only twenty minutes' ride by street car from the center of Dublin, and the business men can come out here to spend the long summer evenings at their sport. [Illustration: BAILEY LIGHT AT HOWTH, MOUTH OF DUBLIN BAY] A little farther on is a beautiful mansion built in 1835 upon the site and with the materials of Clontarf Castle, one of the oldest and most famous within the English Pale--which was an area sixty miles long and thirty miles wide around the city of Dublin. The castle originally belonged to the Knights Templar, and from them passed to the Knights of St. John. In 1541 it was surrendered to the crown by Sir John Rawson, prior of Kilmainham, who was created Viscount of Clontarf as compensation. The famous battle of Clontarf, the final struggle between Christianity and heathenism on the soil of Ireland, was fought here on Good Friday in the year 1014 between the Danes under Sigtryg, the Viking, and the Irish under Brian Boru. Eight thousand men were slain on one side and four thousand on the other, including every prominent chief. The Irish were victorious, and, although the Danes were not immediately driven from the island, it was the end of their domination. They came in a thousand boats all the way from Denmark, from Scotland, the Orkneys, and from the many islands of the north, and when their leaders were killed they fled to the water to regain their ships, which lay at anchor or were beached on the shore of Dublin Bay. The Irish warriors followed and continued to slay them until the sea was crimson with heathen blood. Brian Boru was not a myth, although we commonly associate him with fairy tales. He was the real thing, and it is often said that he was the only Irishman that ever did rule successfully over all Ireland. He was the first of the O'Briens and was King of Munster. His early career was very much like that of Alfred the Great, who lived but a short time before him in the middle of the ninth century, and he was not only the greatest warrior, but the greatest lawgiver and executive, and the greatest benefactor of his native country in the semi-savage days. His rival was Malachi the Great, the first of the O'Neills, who became king of Meath in 980 and reigned at Tara. To keep the peace Brian Boru and Malachi agreed to divide Ireland between them; but they did not get along well together, and Brian drove Malachi from his capital far into the north. Malachi finally submitted, and then all Ireland, for the first time in its history, was at peace under a single monarch for nearly forty years. Brian devoted himself to the development of the industries, the encouragement of agriculture, and the education of the people. He made wise laws and enforced them with justice. He founded schools and colleges. He encouraged art and science, he built roads in every direction, and he gave the distracted country the blessings of peace and prosperity. Instead of fighting among themselves, the people gave their attention to farming, cattle-breeding, trade and manufacturing, literature and the polite arts, and the historians say that another twenty years of Brian's reign would have changed the entire history of the country. Rare Tom Moore has given us a picture of Ireland in those days, when, according to his verses, a beautiful young lady, "Rich and rare were the gems she wore," traversed the entire country, from north to south and from east to west, without being molested. When Brian became an old man, Mailmora, king of Leinster, conspired with the Danes, the Manxmen, the chiefs of the Orkneys, and the Scots to overthrow him. Sigtryg of the Silken Beard arranged with them to consolidate their forces to overcome the Irish. Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, brought an army ten thousand strong. Broder, the great Viking of the Isle of Man, brought a fleet of two hundred ships and ten thousand men, covered with mail from head to foot, to meet the Irish, who always fought in tunics. Broder had once been a Christian, but had fallen from grace. He was the tallest and the strongest man of his time. His hair was so long that he had to tuck it under his belt. He wore a coat of mail "on which no steele could bite," and he had "no reverence for God or for man, for church or sanctuary." The venerable Brian Boru, then seventy-three years of age, was camped in what is now Phoenix Park, surrounded by twenty thousand warriors representing the different Irish clans. His sons prevailed upon him not to engage in the battle, and he gave the command to his son Morrough. But he led the column to the Hill of Clontarf on the morning of Good Friday, and when the invaders were in plain sight Brian Boru, holding aloft a crucifix, rode from rank to rank reminding his men that on that day their Lord had died for them, and exhorting them to smite the heathen hip and thigh for their religion and their homes. Then, giving the signal for the onset, he withdrew to his tent at the top of the hill, where he could observe the conflict. Battles in those days were a series of hand-to-hand encounters. The commanders selected each other for single combat. The fighting extended for two miles along the shores of the Bay of Dublin, and human beings were cut down like stalks of corn. The aged king remained in his tent engaged in earnest prayer for victory while the air was filled with the clash of steel, and the Danes and his own soldiers were dying by thousands around him. Toward nightfall the heathen gave way and began to retreat. Their commanders were all slain or desperately wounded. Brian's grandson, Thorlough, smote the Earl of Orkney with his battle-axe and cleft his head down as far as his neck. Broder, the great Viking, desperately wounded, was flying from the field when he recognized Brian of the Long Beard at the door of his tent. He rushed upon the old man with a double-edged battle-axe. Brian seized his trusty sword and they struck together. Brian's head was amputated and Broder's legs, one at the knee and the other from the ankle. At sunset when they returned from the battle, Brian's servants found their king dead and Broder stretched by his side. The body of Brian and that of his son Morrough were conveyed with great solemnity to Armagh and laid at rest in the cathedral, but their tombs have disappeared. The funeral ceremonies lasted for a fortnight, and all Ireland was filled with lamentation. Every petty chief and prince in the island tried to grasp the power. As the old song runs-- "Each man ruled his own tribe, But no man ruled Erin." And that condition continued for a century and a half, all Ireland being distracted by the rivalries of the several chiefs, the O'Briens, the O'Neills, the O'Connors, and the O'Loughlins. That part of the battleground lying on the shore of the bay has been built over, and behind it the land has been divided into small country places where the rich men of Dublin spend their idle hours. Their homes are encircled with high fences, and are divided by a maze of roads and lanes concealed by canopies of green foliage that overhangs the walls. A little farther on are the ruins of a church surrounded by a silent battalion of gravestones. It was the Abbey of Kilbarrack, and one of the tombstones, badly defaced, marks the burial place of Francis Higgins, a detested government spy who betrayed Lord Edward Fitzgerald to the government in the insurrection of 1798. He is known as "The Sham Squire," because for a time he succeeded in passing himself off as a country gentleman of wealth and was married to a lady of good family. When the fraud was detected he was sent to jail, and she died of shame and mortification. Being boycotted by all honorable men, he became a spy and informer, and popular hatred pursued him to the graveyard, which had to be watched because the people resented his burial in consecrated ground and would have thrown his body into the bay. The car line follows the curves of the coast down to the shore of the Irish Sea, where a monstrous mass of rocks, covered with heather and rhododendrons and gorse, now as yellow as gold, rises five hundred or six hundred feet, with here and there a dense mass of foliage. It is known as the Hill of Howth, and is considered one of the most picturesque places in Ireland. At its foot is the village of Howth, and on either side are the ruins of ancient strongholds, located so as to command the entrance to the harbor. The title of the Earl of Howth dates back to 1177, and was bestowed in battle. It has been held honorably by the Lawrence family, one of the oldest in Ireland. They won their name and their lands by the sword. The founder of the house was Amory Tristam, a Norman adventurer, who followed Strongbow to the conquest of Ireland, and has been immortalized in Wagner's opera, "Tristam and Isolde." While Tristam, loyal knight and true, was attending a red-haired Irish princess to her destined husband, the King of Cornwall, they drank by mistake a love potion which bound them forever in a frenzied romance. It ended with Tristam dying in his castle and Isolde coming over the sea to perish like Juliet upon her husband's lifeless form. Amory Tristam assumed the name of St. Lawrence, because of a great victory that he won over the Danes on the anniversary of that saint; and Howth Castle has been the seat of the family from the beginning. A long line of overlords lie under the shadow of a ruined old abbey, and the present earl, William Ulick Tristam St. Lawrence, must join them soon, because he is more than eighty years of age. He was a member of parliament in his younger days, succeeded to the earldom in 1874, and until he became too feeble was a famous sport. His son and heir, Thomas Tristam St. Lawrence, is a man of fifty, who married the daughter of Benjamin Lee Guinness, the great brewer of Dublin, and inherited many millions from her father. Many interesting legends are told of the hill and the Castle of Howth and of events that have occurred during the eight hundred years since it became a center of activity. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Princess of Connaught, Grace O'Malley, landed at Howth on her return from England and found the gates of the castle closed. The warder refused her entrance because the family were at dinner. Indignant at this breach of hospitality she returned to her ships, and meeting on the way the heir of the house, she picked him up and carried him off to Mayo, where she held him until she had obtained a pledge from the earls of Howth that they would never again close the doors of their castle against hungry travelers. And they have faithfully kept the vow. The Howth family holds the almost unique distinction in Ireland of perpetual loyalty to the English crown. Another trolley line runs out to Donnybrook, the scene of the famous fair, which was abolished, however, nearly one hundred years ago, even before the time of Sir Walter Scott's visit to Ireland in 1825, for he says: "We dined at Walter's, and in the evening drove to Donnybrook--the scene of the noisy fair which is now dissolved and abolished. It was a charming ride, thick with villas and all the insignia of ease and opulence; in fact, not to be distinguished from the innumerable hosts of jaunting cars plowing the fine road in every direction at a speed apparently most cruel." Sir Walter's description holds good to-day. Donnybrook is the most respectable and aristocratic of all the suburbs of Dublin. The tract of land where the cattle fair was formerly held in the fall of each year is still vacant and is used for a pasture. A "merry-go-round," or a "whirl-about," as they call it here, was the only diversion that we could find in the silent and orderly surroundings, but every year in August on the adjoining land and reached by parallel roads the Dublin horse show is held, and it is the great event of the season socially, and otherwise. It brings over from London and other parts of England large crowds of fashionable people, it draws the sporting element from every part of the kingdom, and all Ireland is represented. Donnybrook, originally Dombenach Broc, in Gaelic, is a small but rapid stream, which comes down from the hills of Wicklow and empties into the Bay of Dublin. The cattle-dealers of Ireland for two hundred years used to meet upon its banks for the sale, exchange, and exhibition of animals for eight days in the month of August annually, and drew around them saloon and restaurant keepers, peddlers of every sort, and shopkeepers, who went out from Dublin with stocks of goods and exposed them as a temptation to the men who had sold their cattle and had the money in their pockets. In addition to the tradesmen, itinerant shows gathered to entertain the ranchmen, strolling players, jugglers, Irish bards with harps and songs, bagpipes, and other public entertainers made it their rendezvous. Naturally these attractions called together the lads and the lasses, who flirted, danced to the music, and had a good time generally. "Donnybrook capers, that bothered the vapors, And drove dull care away." But the entertainments were not entirely innocent, and the fair finally became such a scene of disorder, thievery, and murder that the authorities were compelled to abolish the annual festivities. It attracted all the toughs and roughs and the desperate characters in Ireland, and the old rhyme says: "Such crowding and jumbling, And leaping and tumbling, And kissing and grumbling, And drinking and swearing, And stabbing and tearing, And coaxing and snaring, And scrambling and winning, And fighting and flinging, And fiddling and singing." More misery and madness, more crime and unhappiness, more devilment and debauchery, vice, and treachery was crowded into that little space for a fortnight annually than might have occurred during an entire year in any country of Europe. In those days fighting was a common pastime. But the "broth of a boy" with his "shillelah" of black bog thorn wood, is no longer seen dragging his coat over the ground at Donnybrook and inviting any gentleman present to step on the tail of that garment. Those days, as I say, are over, and Dublin is one of the most orderly cities on earth, except for the drunkenness. IX THE LANDLORDS AND THE LANDLESS The population of Ireland by the census of 1901 was 4,450,456, a falling off of 248,204 in ten years since the previous census. In 1848, before the great famine, the population was 8,295,000, which shows that it has decreased nearly one-half since that time, during the last sixty years. The area of Ireland is 20,157,557 acres, including bog and mountain. Of this area only 2,357,530 acres are under the plow, 14,712,849 acres are devoted to hay and pasture, of which it is estimated that 12,000,000 acres could be cultivated to crops. But it is a question whether such a thing would be desirable, considering the great demand and the high price for hay and cattle, beef and mutton. It would give employment to a large number of people if 12,000,000 acres more were plowed and planted, no doubt, but the experts assert that the profits on hay and cattle are larger than on grain and potatoes. Next to hay, the largest area, something more than 1,000,000 acres, is planted to oats and only 590,000 acres to potatoes, which is surprising when you consider that potatoes are the principal food of the Irish peasant, and, as some one has remarked, "are his food and drink and clothing." William F. Bailey, one of the gentlemen intrusted with the work of settling the land question and distributing the population of the island more evenly than at present, estimates that thirty acres of average land in Ireland is necessary to support a family, but the tax returns show that the 20,000,000 acres are divided among 68,716 owners; that is, one person in sixty-four is a landowner, with an average of 300 acres each, counting men, women, and children, although that is not a fair basis of calculation in Ireland, because so many of the young and middle-aged people emigrate and leave more than a natural proportion of old men and young children on the island. The tax returns show that the land in 1907 was actually divided among the 68,716 owners as follows: Owning 100,000 acres or more 3 Between 50,000 and 100,000 16 Between 20,000 and 50,000 90 Between 10,000 and 20,000 185 Between 5,000 and 10,000 452 Between 2,000 and 5,000 1,198 Between 1,000 and 2,000 1,803 Between 500 and 1,000 2,716 Between 100 and 500 7,989 Between 50 and 100 3,479 Between 10 and 50 7,746 Between 1 and 10 acres 6,892 The changes in the size of Irish farms has been remarkable. In 1841, 81 per cent of the holdings were less than ten acres. To-day, as you will see by the table, out of 68,000 farms, only 6,892 are of ten acres and less. The following is a list of Irish landlords who owned more than 30,000 acres each, and the average annual rentals collected from their tenants prior to the passage of the Wyndham Land Act of 1903, which authorizes the purchase with government funds of their estates, and the division into small farms for the tenants who occupied them: Annual Acres Revenue Law Life Assurance Company 165,804 £6,384 Marquess of Lansdowne 123,634 32,412 Marquess of Sligo 122,902 16,018 Marquess of Downshire 107,828 86,269 Earl of Kenmore 105,359 26,951 Lord Ventry 91,505 15,282 Earl Fitzwilliam 89,468 45,568 Viscount Dillon 78,898 16,933 Sir Roger W.H. Palmer 74,857 12,829 Earl of Bantry 73,360 11,628 Duke of Leinster 71,581 48,841 Marquess of Waterford 71,056 33,412 Lord O'Neil 65,857 45,308 Marquess of Hertford 63,265 75,699 Earl of Lucan 59,478 12,194 Earl of Kingston 54,165 32,565 Duke of Abercorn 51,919 26,689 Marquess of Clanricarde 51,006 18,472 Sir Charles H. Bart Coote 48,739 18,691 Viscount Powerscourt 47,551 13,563 Marquess of Ely 47,076 22,126 Earl of Bandon 46,129 20,438 Trustees of Kilmorrey Estate 46,054 20,663 Earl of Annesley 45,263 22,297 Capt. Henry A. Herbert 42,939 9,695 Thomas S. Carter 41,406 2,138 Earl of Leitrim 39,382 9,890 Lord Laconfield 39,048 16,558 W.H. and John T. Massey 37,241 9,001 Viscount Lismore 37,137 14,113 Lord Stuart DeDecies 36,788 15,473 Earl of Bessborough 36,372 22,649 Viscount Clifden 36,166 19,705 George Clive 35,513 836 Marquess of Londonderry 34,949 30,617 Lord of Antrim 34,493 12,600 H.L. Barry 34,376 26,464 Marquess of Conyngham 33,693 18,373 Lord DeFreyne 33,120 12,719 Earl of Devon 33,100 12,764 Duke of Devonshire 32,776 19,441 T.C. Bland 32,540 2,638 Hon. H.L. King-Harman 32,531 17,090 Sir George V. Colthurst 31,993 11,042 Lord Annaly 31,826 13,740 Marquess of Ormonde 31,794 17,457 Earl of Erne 31,069 16,758 Earl of Granard 30,725 15,816 Lord Digby 30,627 13,409 Earl of Caledon 30,502 15,725 Earl of Arran 30,346 7,111 Lord Farnham 30,191 19,347 Earl of Enniskellen 30,146 13,883 The owners of other large tracts and the persons who own between 10,000 and 30,000 acres are also nearly all noblemen. It would seem that titles of nobility and large estates go together over here. That is the rule in other countries, and is perfectly natural, because a poor man has no use for a title of nobility and a rich man is usually anxious to get one. A peer has just as much right to own land as anybody, and the complaints heard in Ireland are not on account of the rank or the station of the landlords, but because of their neglect of their interests and their tenants, especially because most of them do not spend the incomes from their estates in making improvements or for the benefit of their own people; they do not spend it in Ireland, but reside in London most of the time and spend the money there, where the people who earn it receive no benefit from it directly or indirectly. It is unnecessary to discuss the evils of large estates. They are too numerous to mention, especially when they are owned by people who live outside of the country. That is the great obstacle to the development of Mexico, where millions of acres in large tracts, granted to Spanish grandees before independence, still remain in the ownership of their descendants, who live in Spain or Paris, and spend the revenues there. It is true, also, of Russia, Poland, Austria, and of many other countries, and to a certain extent of Cuba, where a number of the valuable and productive plantations belong to families who are living in Spain, Paris, or New York, and never even visit them. A few years ago, by order of Parliament, an investigation was made to ascertain the habits of the large Irish landowners in connection with their estates, and the following table shows the result: Acres Rents Landlords owned collected Resident on or near the property 5,589 8,880,549 £4,718,497 Residing elsewhere in Ireland, occasionally on property 377 852,818 371,123 Residing elsewhere in Ireland 4,465 4,362,446 2,128,220 Residing out of Ireland but occasionally on property 180 1,368,347 601,072 Never resident in Ireland 1,443 3,145,514 1,538,071 Owned by charitable institutions or corporations, 161 584,327 234,678 Not ascertained 1,350 615,308 331,633 No country ever suffered so much from absentee landlordism as Ireland, and many great estates here have been entirely neglected, or practically abandoned and allowed to go to ruin by the owners who intrusted them to dishonest or incompetent managers and took no interest in their own property. No one can blame the tenants upon such estates for their enmity and resentment toward the proprietors, or condemn them for their refusal to pay rent when they received very little or nothing in return. But the system in Ireland has been very much improved of late years by various acts of parliament, and many people think that the tenants now have the advantage in every respect. Fifty years ago the landlord was the owner and autocrat of the soil and everything that stood upon it. The tenant had no legal rights beyond what was written down in his lease, and when that expired the landlord could raise or lower his rent or drive him off the land at pleasure. Nearly every one of the peers who has sold his estates in Ireland under the land act has taken the cash and has gone to London to live, and if home rule is ever granted to the Irish people there will be little room left for those who remain. Most of the Irish peers spend the greater part of their time in London. Some of them never come to Ireland at all except for the shooting season or horse show. Several prominent English peers have estates in Ireland inherited from ancestors who have intermarried with the Irish nobility. The Duke of Devonshire, for example, owns one of the largest and finest estates in the kingdom at Lismore, a few miles north of Cork. The late duke, who died in 1907, took a great interest in the property and spent a great deal of time there. Forcible evictions are things of the past. Several years ago the demands for "The Three Fs"--free sale, fair rent, and fixed tenure--were complied with, and to-day the farms in Ireland are subject to what is called "a dual ownership," peculiar to this country. No landlord can rob a tenant any longer. Disputes concerning rent are now settled by a tribunal which takes all the circumstances into consideration and decides upon the equities rather than the technicalities of the case. This has revolutionized the land system of Ireland, and by a succession of acts of parliament during the past few years the government has gone a great way toward equalizing ownership and creating a nation of peasant proprietors, which, according to their ideas over here, is the ideal condition. During the last quarter of a century from six thousand to eight thousand farmers have been evicted from farms in Ireland because they refused or were unable or neglected to pay their rent. Some of them have remained in the neighborhood and have squatted where they could, and waited their chance to recover their holdings; others have emigrated to America; others have gone into different parts of Ireland; others have engaged in business of various sorts. Between five thousand and six thousand have already applied for restoration under the Act of 1907, most of them through the agency of the United Irish League. Of these, 1,595 families had been restored up to July, 1908, most of them to the actual farms from which they were expelled, not as tenants, however, for they will never be asked to pay any more rent, but as the owners of the property and improvements, purchased for them by the government, with money to be repaid, not by them unless they choose to do so, but by their posterity in the year 1975, or thereabouts. The only financial obligation imposed upon them is to pay an interest of 3-1/2; per cent upon the purchase money, which has been borrowed by the government upon bonds running for sixty-eight years, at 3 per cent interest. The additional one-half per cent goes into a sinking fund to pay the bonds at maturity. About 75 per cent of the claims that have been filed under the Evicted Tenants Act have been genuine; the remainder are apparently fraudulent or in doubt, and some of those that have been already allowed are questionable. I heard of a case in which a tenant who was evicted in 1889 for refusal to pay his rent was restored to his old home under rather peculiar circumstances. His misfortunes were voluntary, and due to political reasons rather than from the lack of means, and when he was thrown off his farm he went into business as a cattle broker and became rich. But, in common with his former neighbors, he filed his claims under the act, was restored to his old home, and the generous agents of the estates commission bought a couple of cows, a few sheep, and hogs from his own pastures, paid him for them, and then gave them to him. He is now occupying the place and cultivating it by hired labor, and will be asked to refund the money the government has advanced for him in the year 1975. In the application of the provisions of the act no distinction is made between those who were evicted because of their poverty and those for political reasons. About one thousand evictions were the result of what is known as the "Plan of Campaign" adopted in 1887, when the National League determined to force the issue and organized a general strike among the farmers against the payment of rent upon certain estates selected because their landlords were habitual absentees, who spent the revenues they derived from their estates outside of Ireland and were oppressive to their tenants and generally offensive. As a rule, the tenants paid half a year's rent to the agents of the league for a war fund, so far as they were able. Most of them were able to pay, although there was a great deal of suffering and privation among about a thousand families who were thrown out of their homes during one land war which lasted for two or three years. Practically all of them have already been restored to their former farms. In 1901 another land war was inaugurated, under the direction of Dennis Johnston and John Fitzgibbons of the United Irish League, in Roscommon and neighboring counties, and a large number of tenants who had voluntarily agreed not to pay their rents were thrown off their farms as voluntary martyrs in a campaign which finally resulted in the enactment of the act of 1907, which was prepared and introduced into parliament by George Wyndham, chief secretary for Ireland under the late conservative government. This act authorizes the estates commission having in charge the administration of the Land Act of 1903 to acquire by force if necessary eighty thousand acres of land wherever they consider it expedient, to be sold under mortgages of sixty-eight years at 3-1/2; per cent interest to families who have been evicted from their former homes. The commissioners are required to investigate the claims of those who have been evicted, through their staff of inspectors, and if found genuine to serve notice upon the owner to vacate the farms from which they were evicted within a certain time. The landlord has the right of appeal, but every one of the owners of lands from which tenants were evicted has voluntarily consented to their restoration except the Marquess of Clanricarde, and a Mrs. Lewis who has a large estate in County Galway and has been one of the most vindictive and oppressive of all the landlords. She is a woman of very determined character, and will not even answer letters addressed to her by the officials of the government. The Marquess of Clanricarde is nearly eighty years old, very eccentric, a miser, dresses very shabbily, lives like a recluse and pays no bills. He has visited his Irish estates but once since he inherited them in 1874, He was in the diplomatic service as a young man during the 'fifties, and at one time was a member of parliament. His name is Hubert George de Burg Canning, Marquess of Clanricarde, Viscount Burke and Baron Dunkellin, and he has several other titles, but has no family--a childless widower. The Clanricarde estates lie directly west from Dublin in Galway County and were obtained by his ancestor, William FitzAnselm de Burg, the founder of the Burke family, under a grant from Henry I., and he founded the town of Galway. To this day the whole province of Connaught is dotted with the ruined castles of the De Burg family, monuments of four or five centuries of uninterrupted fighting with the O'Neills, the O'Donnells, the O'Flahertys, the O'Connors, and other powerful clans in the early history of Ireland. The battle of Knockdoe, fought in the fourteenth century between an undisciplined horde of native clansmen under the Earl of Clanricarde, was provoked by an insult he offered to his wife. She was the daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald the Great, Earl of Kildare, and her affectionate father in vengeance attacked his son-in-law with a disciplined force loaned him by his neighbors, the lords of the Pale of Dublin. It is said that eight thousand dead bodies were left upon the field. Those were strenuous days, and the earls of Clanricarde have been reckoned among the fiercest fighters from the time they came over from England in the fourteenth century. Sometimes they have been on one side and sometimes on the other, but like most genuine Irishmen, they have usually been "agin the government," whatever, policy it represented. There have been several earnest patriots in the line. An old Irish ballad begins with the line, "Glory guards Clanricarde's grave!" but the present earl is not the one referred to. The late earl was very popular with his tenants, and so liberal and lenient was he, according to the gossip, that they got into bad habits, and when the present earl came into the property in 1874 he pulled them up very sharply and demanded a prompt and full payment of all their obligations. Being unaccustomed to such stern measures, they were resentful, and a quarrel began which has lasted until now, and Clanricarde, convinced that he has right and justice on his side, has used the mailed hand. There have been more trouble and disturbance upon his estates than upon any other in Ireland. Every one of his tenants has been evicted, and sometimes a succession of them, and their farms have been let to what are called "planters,"--a term used in Ireland to describe families imported from a distance and planted upon land which no person in the neighborhood will rent because the previous tenant has been evicted from it. Every man on the Clanricarde estates is a "planter." After the passage of the act of 1907 the estates commissioners requested him to sell his entire holding under the act of 1903, but he not only rejected the proposition, but has declined even to discuss the subject, and has maintained that uncompromising attitude from the beginning, an embittered, relentless, vindictive old man. [Illustration: PORTUMNA CASTLE, COUNTY GALWAY; THE SEAT OF THE EARL OF CLANRICARDE] When the commission undertook to apply the compulsory clause of the Evicted Tenants Act and published the notice in the _Dublin Gazette_, the earl filed a protest. Mr. Justice Wiley of the Lower Court sustained the commission, but the Court of Appeals, composed of twelve judges, unanimously reversed the decision and decided that the estates commission has no power to forcibly dispossess any _bona fide_ "planter" from land already under lease. This decision technically justified the position that the earl has taken, and it applies to the estates of Mrs. Lewis also, so that the commissioners cannot go any farther in their work of restoring the evicted tenants upon those two properties. As soon as the decision was rendered a bill was introduced in parliament confiscating the entire Clanricarde estates. It is not expected to pass, but was intended to advertise the situation and create public opinion. The government, however, took the matter promptly in hand, and the Earl of Crewe introduced a bill authorizing the estates commissioners to take by force, after the usual legal proceedings, any occupied land they may think necessary and proper for the restoration of evicted tenants, provided they can obtain the consent of the occupant. This act was passed, and notice was immediately given in the _Dublin Gazette_ that the estates commissioners intend, under the Evicted Tenants Act, to acquire compulsorily upwards of eighteen hundred acres of land on the estate of Lord Clanricarde in County Galway. This means that the owner of the property is to have nothing to say about the matter, but a _bona fide_ tenant, who in good faith is occupying a farm from which his predecessor has been evicted, cannot be ejected without his consent. We are familiar with the methods of "persuasion" that have been used for years by the United Irish League and other patriotic organizations, and it is entirely probable that they will prove sufficient in all cases that will arise under this new provision. Therefore, as soon as the proposed act is passed, the tenants upon the Clanricarde estates will be looking for trouble. The Earl of Clanricarde cannot expect to live a great while longer. He is already an infirm old man and his heir, Lord Sligo of Westport, a nephew, is almost as old as he. Lord Sligo is one of the largest land holders in Ireland. He owns 114,000 acres in the north, which is mostly grazing land, and his tenants are miserably poor, living in squalid hovels scattered over the estate. He does nothing for them, and exacts the last halfpenny of his rent. His heir, who will soon come into both the Clanricarde and Sligo estates, is his son, Lord Henry Ulick Browne, of whom very little is known. He is fifty-eight years of age and lives at Westport Castle, Westport, Ireland. As he has had the management of much of his father's property for many years, it is generally believed that he is responsible for the harsh policy that has been followed toward the tenants, and that they can expect no better treatment when he becomes their lawful lord. The British Parliament has published a return (No. Cd. 4093) covering all the proceedings under the Act of April, 1907, to restore evicted tenants in Ireland; giving particulars in each case in which an evicted tenant, or a person nominated by the estates commissioners to be a personal representative of the deceased evicted tenant, has with the assistance of the commission been reinstated, either by the landlord or by the estates commissioners, or provided with a new parcel of land under the Land Purchase Act. It is a quarto pamphlet of forty-seven pages, and gives in fine type the names of all the farmers in Ireland who have been evicted since 1876, with the dates of the evictions, the area they formerly occupied, the rent they formerly paid, the arrears of rent due at the time of the eviction, the value of the property, the name of the landlord, the name of the estate, the name of the town and the county, the date of restoration, the price paid by the estates commissioners for each tract, the valuation of the buildings and other improvements on the property, and the compensation given to outgoing tenants who surrender their holdings under the law, to those who were formerly evicted from them. This report shows that forty tenants have been restored to the Blacker-Douglass estates in Armagh, thirty-two have been restored on the Charlemont estates in the same county; forty-four of those evicted from 1887 to 1889 by Lord Massareene in County Meath have been restored, and thirty-nine on the estate of the Marquess of Lansdowne in Queen's County. On the estates of Sir G. Brooke, in Waterford, seventy-eight families, evicted in 1887 and 1888, have been restored; twenty-six on the estate of A.L. Tottenham, Leitrim; thirty-four on the Vandaleur estates in Leitrim; thirty on the estates of C.W. Warden in County Kerry; thirty-three on the estates of the Earl of Listowel, and similar numbers elsewhere. So far as is known, every family in Ireland that has been evicted from a farm during the last fifty years for non-payment of rent, or for political reasons, has been restored wherever they are living, and, if the head of the family at the time of the eviction is dead, his heirs have been placed in possession of the place. And all this has been done by the government at the expense of the taxpayers as a vindication of the policy of the Irish Land League, the United Irish League, and other organizations which have conducted the land wars. The restoration of the evicted tenants was not voluntary on the part of the British government. It was forced upon the parliament by the Irish agitators. In a debate on this act in the House of Lords, the Marquess of Lansdowne, who had evicted a large number of tenants from his estates, admitted that he and other landlords accepted the proposition with great reluctance, and "only because the government had represented to them very earnestly, indeed, that the measure formed an integral part of a policy of pacification which they desired to bring about in Ireland, and if the landlords took the responsibility of rejecting this particular item, the entire programme was destined to failure. It is on the strength of these representations," said the Marquess of Lansdowne, "that we ask the House of Lords to agree to the restoration of all Irish tenants who have been evicted at any time for political reasons as well as for failure to pay their rents." The members of the National Party in Ireland concede this point cheerfully. They willingly admit that they insisted upon the restoration of all evicted tenants as the first and the most important proposition in the programme of pacification in Ireland, and they agreed with the Marquess of Lansdowne that it would have been a failure otherwise. It should also be stated that all arrears of rent for which families have been evicted from Irish farms have been cancelled, and the restored tenants have become the actual owners of the land, the houses, and all improvements. Instead of paying rent to a landlord, they become the landlords themselves. The purchase money in every case has been advanced by the government, and is to be repaid by the purchaser in sixty-eight years with interest at three and one quarter per cent per annum. This sum represents two and one-half per cent interest upon bonds issued to raise the funds and three-fourths of one per cent for a sinking fund to meet the bonds at maturity. X MAYNOOTH COLLEGE AND CARTON HOUSE Two-thirds and perhaps as many as three-fourths of the Roman Catholic priests in Ireland were educated at the College of Maynooth, which turns out one hundred and fifty or more earnest, zealous, able young clergymen every year, and is the most conspicuous and influential educational institution in Ireland. Comparatively few of the graduates go to the United States. Dr. Hogan, professor of modern languages and literature, explained that nearly all of the Irish priests who emigrated to America were educated at the missionary college of All Hallows, near Dublin, for the United States was until recently counted as a mission field by the holy see and was under the jurisdiction of the prefect of the propaganda of the holy faith at Rome. There are quite a number of Maynooth graduates in America, and during the recent visit of Cardinal Logue they gave a dinner in his honor in New York. Dr. Hogan took us through the buildings, which are spacious and surround two large quadrangles. They are built of stone, four stories in height, are entirely modern and fitted up with all the conveniences and accessories that belong to an up-to-date institution of learning. The chapel is also modern, built within the present generation and entirely conventional. It is not large enough to accommodate all of the students, and the underclass men attend mass elsewhere. Beyond the second quadrangle is a campus of seventy acres of lawn and garden and grove, where five hundred young men were engaged in taking their daily supply of fresh air and exercise when we passed through the archway. Almost every kind of game was going on, from croquet to football. There were several cricket contests in progress; others were playing at hockey and basketball; others were on the track running, and the lazy ones were lying stretched out on the velvet grass. There are now five hundred and sixty-two students, nearly all of them theologs, and one hundred and twenty graduated in 1908. They come chiefly from Ireland, a few from Irish families in England, a few more from Australia, but at present there is no representative of the United States. When I asked a group of young men how they got along without any Americans, one of them illustrated the quick wit of his race by replying promptly: "We hope never to have them here, sir; they are altogether too smart for us. If they keep on, the Americans will run the world." It costs very little to get an education at Maynooth. The fees are small,--$20 for matriculation, $25 for tuition, $150 a year for board, and other small fees for electric light, rent of furniture, etc., which brings the total up to about $225 a year. There are two hundred and seventy scholarships which have been founded by friends of the institution and societies in the different parishes, and they pay an average of $150 a year. There is a fine library with forty thousand volumes, and a gymnasium and everything else that is needed. The ancient castle of Maynooth, built by the Earl of Kildare in 1427, stands at the gateway of the college, and occupies the site of the original stronghold of the family, built in 1176 by the first Maurice Fitzgerald, who came over with the Strongbow at the time of the Conquest. It has been a ruin since 1647, and a beautiful ruin it is--one of the largest and most picturesque in the kingdom. [Illustration: MAYNOOTH COLLEGE COUNTY KILDARE] Until 1895, when the centenary of Maynooth College was celebrated, six thousand priests and prelates of Irish birth had been educated within the walls of that "mother of love, and of fear and of knowledge, and of holy hope," as her alumni call her. And now the number exceeds seventy-five hundred. Most of them have been, and those now living are still, doing pastoral work in Ireland, and nearly two thousand of the alumni have gone abroad into the United States, England, Scotland, Australia, South Africa, and other English-speaking countries. During the first three-quarters of the eighteenth century and for several hundred years before Catholic education was prohibited in Ireland, but it was not possible for the British authorities to prevent young men from crossing the sea, and during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a number of Irish colleges were founded in the Peninsula, in France, and in Flanders, and there most of the Irish priests of that long period received their education. It has been often asserted that the Catholic faith might have disappeared in Ireland but for the ardent piety and ambition of these young students, who found the preparation they needed for parish work from the Irish faculties of divinity schools on the Continent. In 1795, at the time Maynooth College was founded, about four hundred young Irishmen were attending such institutions, and in 1808 a printed report names twelve colleges with four hundred and seventy-eight Irish students. Most of these institutions were in France, and they were closed and desecrated by the French Revolution, which expelled their inmates, profaned their altars, and confiscated their possessions. The Irish bishops, in consequence, found themselves confronted with an alarming situation. The foreign supply of priests was entirely cut off and the laws of Parliament prohibited their education at home. In this extremity they applied to the government, asking permission to found seminaries for educating young men to discharge the duties of Roman Catholic clergymen in the kingdom. William Pitt, then prime minister, was persuaded that it was safer for England to grant this request than to permit the young priests to imbibe the hatred of England and the democratic and revolutionary principles that pervaded society on the Continent. Edmund Burke and Earl Fitzwilliam acted in behalf of the bishops, and the latter was instructed by the prime minister to supervise the establishment of a new institution. Dr. Hussey, confidential agent of the English government in Dublin, was appointed the first president. He is described as a scholar, statesman, diplomatist, and orator; he had a checkered and eventful career; he undertook many things and excelled in them all. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, a preacher of remarkable power, and the intimate friend of such statesmen as Edmund Burke. He had the confidence of William Pitt and was the trusted agent of princes and statesmen. He was a native of County Meath, was educated at the ancient University of Salamanca of Spain, and originally entered a Trappist monastery, but left it shortly after and became chaplain of the Spanish embassy in London. The British government, recognizing his ability and integrity, sent Dr. Hussey on two confidential missions to the court of Spain, and rewarded his success by granting him a liberal pension for life and appointing him as confidential agent of the government in its negotiations with the bishops, and afterward to be president of the first Catholic theological seminary in Ireland. After two years at the head of the institution he was appointed bishop of Waterford, where he remained until his death in 1803. Instruction was commenced in a private house belonging to an agent of the Duke of Leinster. The foundations of a new building were laid on the 20th of April, 1796, and seven months later it was opened with fifty students on the roll. The Duke of Leinster, although a Protestant, anxious to have the college on his estate, made very liberal terms, and successive generations of the house of Kildare, of which he is the representative, have been not only friendly but generous to the institution. Everything about the college reminds the student of the famous class of Geraldines. The ancient castle of the Kildares, built by Maurice Fitzgerald the Invader, and enlarged by John, the sixth earl, in the year 1426, stands at the gate, and on either side of the main walk are fine old yew-trees planted more than seven hundred years ago. According to local legends that vain and reckless youth, "Silken Thomas," sat beneath its spreading branches and played his harp three hundred and seventy-five years ago, on the evening before he started for Dublin to relinquish his trust as temporary viceroy and assault the castle. His five uncles were hanged at Tyburn mainly because they were Catholics. At the fall of the house the sole surviving heir was saved by his tutor, a Catholic priest, who afterward became Bishop of Kildare. Several generations later the earls of Kildare and the dukes of Leinster became Protestants, but they always advocated the emancipation of their Catholic fellow-countrymen, and have always been fair and honorable in their dealings with the institution. It was a difficult task to get a faculty in those days, as there had not been a Catholic college in Ireland for centuries. But the French Revolution had cast upon the shores of Ireland many competent exiles, who were placed in charge of the various departments, and among the clergy of Ireland were found a sufficient number of scholars to complete the staff of instructors. The Revolution of 1798 broke out two years after the college was opened, and many of the students were stirred by aspirations which caused their expulsion. It was a test that many felt to be very severe; but the faculty were determined to keep faith with the government, and sixteen students were expelled. In 1803, the year of Emmet's insurrection, there was a good deal of insubordination, which has been described as a "ground swell from the outside agitation." Six students were expelled, one of whom, Michael Collins, afterward became Bishop of Cloyne. The original grant of Parliament was $40,000 a year. In 1807 this was increased to $65,000, which was expended in buildings. It was afterwards reduced, and until 1840 was about $50,000. At that time there were four hundred students, who could not be properly accommodated. In 1844 the trustees drew up and forwarded to the government a strong memorial, which was read in the House of Commons by Sir Robert Peel, who declared that such a state of things was discreditable to the nation and that Parliament should either cut Maynooth College adrift altogether, or maintain it in a manner worthy of the state. In the face of resolute opposition of a majority of his own party, he carried through a proposal to give the sum of $30,000 for new buildings and an annual grant of $26,360 for the maintenance of the college. Mr. Gladstone supported the prime minister, Mr. Disraeli, then leader of the opposition, attacking the bill fiercely. Thomas Babington Macaulay and Dr. Whately, the rhetorician, both made eloquent and convincing speeches in its support. In 1869, when the bill to dissolve the relations between the Protestant church in Ireland and the government was passed, Mr. Gladstone, then prime minister, was compelled to treat Maynooth College on the same terms that he gave the Irish Episcopal branch of the Established Church, and the Presbyterian, giving each a sum of money equal to fourteen installments of its annual grants. The interest upon that sum at three and one-half per cent is not sufficient for the proper support of so large an institution, but the college has had many generous friends, and with economy has been able not only to maintain itself but to strengthen its position, enlarge its facilities, and give its students better accommodations and greater advantages year by year. The several bishops of Ireland have raised funds to endow many scholarships, so that the expenses incidental to student life have been very much reduced for those who are unable to pay the full fee. Nevertheless, there is great anxiety among the trustees and the professors to extend the buildings, add several chairs to the faculty, and obtain more endowments. Maynooth is the rendezvous of the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland, being conveniently located and accessible to all the bishops. They meet here frequently to discuss ecclesiastical matters and determine upon church policies. His Eminence Cardinal Logue is president of the board of trustees. His Grace the Most Rev. William J. Walsh, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin, is vice-president. The Archbishop of Cashel, the Archbishop of Tuam, and twelve bishops make up the board. The president of the college is the Right Rev. Mgr. Mannix, D.D.; the vice-president is the Very Rev. Thomas P. Gilmartin, D.D., and the deans of the different schools are the Rev. Thomas T. Gilmartin, D.D., Rev. James Macginley, D.D., and the Rev. Patrick Morrisroe. Religion is a live thing in Ireland, and the Roman Catholic churches are always filled to overflowing at every service with as many men as women, which is unusual in other countries. In Ireland the situation seems to be different, and the congregations are invariably composed about equally of the two sexes. The Church of Ireland is comparatively weak in numbers, and has more houses of worship than it needs, having inherited many of them from the confiscation edicts of the English kings. Naturally they are not so well filled, but the Roman Catholics are compelled to have three or four services every Sunday in order to accommodate the worshipers, and the priest is invariably the most influential man in the parish. He enters directly into the life of his parishioners, the parish boundaries are sharply divided, and his jurisdiction is so well defined that he knows all the sheep and all the goats that belong to his flock, over whom he exercises a parental as well as a spiritual care. They come to him in all their troubles and in their joys. He advises them about social, political, commercial, domestic, and personal as well as spiritual affairs, and is the court of highest resort in all disputes and family matters. No other authority reaches so far or is rooted so deep in the community, and this peculiar relation grows closer with years. I formed a high opinion of the Irish priesthood from the examples I was able to meet and to know. They impressed me as an unusually high class of men intellectually as well as spiritually, and every one must admire their devotion, their sincerity, and their self-sacrifice. Some of them naturally become dictatorial, for it is often necessary for them to assume an air of authority to preserve discipline in their parishes, but I think that is more or less the rule in other countries and in all denominations. You cannot talk back to a judge or a school-teacher or a parson. And that is undoubtedly the ground for the charge so frequently made that Ireland is "priest ridden." But the average of intelligence, culture, and efficiency among the Irish priesthood is probably higher than it is in any other country, and their influence is correspondingly greater. There is a great deal of criticism in certain quarters about the activity of the Irish priests in politics and that I found to be largely a misrepresentation. Many of the priests do take an active part in political affairs, but it is entirely a matter of individual taste and inclination, and the proportion is probably no larger than it is among ministers of all denominations in the United States. Those who are well posted on this subject assured me that about one-third of the total number of Catholic priests habitually interest themselves in political affairs, local as well as national; a still larger number take an active part in educational matters, and about one-half of them let politics entirely alone. This is probably a fair estimate and will apply to the clergy of the Church of Ireland and the nonconformist denominations with equal accuracy, although they are much less numerous than the Roman Catholic clergy. It is always interesting to attend mass at a Roman Catholic church on Sunday in Ireland, particularly in the smaller towns and country parishes, where everybody except those who are too infirm to come out is present in his best clothes, and, no matter how poor he may be, no one passes the man who stands with a box at the entrance without dropping in something, most of them only a penny or a halfpenny, but none without an offering. The appearance of the people, and particularly the women, is in striking contrast to that on week-days, and I am told that this depends very largely upon the priests, many of whom insist that every man, woman, and child shall have a suit of Sunday clothes and "wash up" before coming to the house of God. The Christian Brothers Educational Order of the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland was organized in Waterford in 1802 by Edmund Rice, a wealthy merchant who lamented the number of neglected boys he saw in the streets and consulted Bishop Hussey, the first president of Maynooth College, as to what he could do to rescue them. Mr. Rice sold his business and opened a free school in his residence while a large building was being erected for his use. The cornerstone was laid June 1, 1802. It was finished the next year, was called Mount Zion, and is still in operation, although very much enlarged. It has been the father house and headquarters of the Irish Christian Brothers from the beginning. Within a few years similar schools were opened in Dungarvan, Limerick, Cork, Dublin, and later in every city and town in Ireland. In 1820 the order was chartered by the Pope, and it has grown until there are now more than one thousand brothers, all engaged in teaching day schools of various standards, from primary instruction up to colleges. They have technical and trade schools, commercial schools, orphanages, and schools for the deaf and dumb and the blind all over the world, in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, India, Gibraltar, and one house in New York. It is independent of the American order of Christian Brothers, which was founded in France in the seventeenth century by St. John Baptiste de la Salle, a French abbé who was canonized by the Pope about four years ago. In Ireland the Christian Brothers receive no grant from the government, and all their primary schools are free. Tuition is charged at the secondary and technical schools and the remainder of the support comes from legacies, private and public contributions, collections in churches, and other sources. Edmund Rice died in 1844 at the age of eighty-two, and is buried in Waterford cemetery, with this simple epitaph: BROTHER EDWARD IGNATIUS RICE, Founder of Christian Schools In Ireland and England. Carton House, the seat of the earls of Kildare, is on the opposite side of Maynooth from the college. It is the present home of Maurice Fitzgerald, Duke of Leinster, a young man who came of age in March, 1908. He carries more rank and titles than any other person in Ireland, and has more money than any Irishman except Dublin's titled brewer. He spends much of his time at Carton House, which looks like a Florentine palace, but is completely modernized and fitted up with electric light, telephones, and elevators, and stands upon an eminence in the center of a park inclosed within eight miles of stone wall ten feet high. It is a drive of three miles from his front gate to the threshold of his front door, and there are more than thirty miles of macadamized roadway within the demesne. There are hills and dales, twelve lakes, and four waterfalls, one of them thirty-nine feet high. There is a garden of sixty acres laid out in the French style, with fourteen or fifteen fountains and many arbors, kiosks, and pergolas. There are meadows, pastures, vegetable gardens, and fields of oats and other grain, but three-fourths of the park is primeval forest, that has never heard the sound of an axe, and most of the trees are as old as history. I am told that no private park in the world surpasses the grounds of Carton House. Among other curiosities is a cottage built entirely of shells, to commemorate a visit of Queen Victoria, who describes her experiences in "Leaves from Our Life," and tells of jaunting cars, Irish jigs, and bagpipes. The shell cottage is now used as a museum to contain the family relics. The young duke has several other residences. One of them is Kilkea Castle, County Kildare, which came into the family in the thirteenth century, with ninety thousand acres of farm land, which has just been sold to his tenants under the Wyndham Land Act for more than $6,000,000. The Duke of Leinster has also disposed of his farming lands in the neighborhood of Maynooth for more than $800,000. The estates commission, which has the responsibility of carrying out the provisions of the land act, has purchased more land from him than from any other landlord, and he has received from them in payment nearly one-fourth of the entire amount of money that has been paid under the act by the government. He has a plain but spacious town house on Dominick Street, Dublin, and Mrs. John W. Mackay now occupies his London residence, 6 Carlton House Terrace, under a long lease. His wealth is estimated at $50,000,000. He is unmarried, and has no attachments so far as known. His accumulation of titles is even greater than his wealth. He is the sixth duke of Leinster, which title dates from 1761, and was bestowed by Queen Anne; he is the twenty-fifth earl of Kildare, which title dates from 1316; and the thirty-first baron of Offlay, a title that has been in the family since 1168. He is the premier duke, the premier marquis, the premier earl, and the premier baron; the head of the Irish nobility. And all this rank and responsibility is borne by a frail boy of twenty-one. [Illustration: CARTON HOUSE, MAYNOOTH, COUNTY KILDARE; THE RESIDENCE OF THE DUKE OF LEINSTER] He spent the winter of 1907-8 in America, incognito, under the name of Maurice Fitzgerald. He and his tutor visited Quebec, Montreal, and Ottawa, and all the principal cities in the United States. They inspected Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago, and Stanford University, for the young duke has recently taken a degree at Oxford, and was naturally curious to see some American institutions. He spent some time in New York, and was in Washington for a couple of days without disclosing his rank. He enjoyed himself immensely during the entire journey and escaped all the matchmakers, the lion hunters, and the society cormorants. He was not in search of a wife, but was seeking health and completing his education. I am told that he is an exceedingly sensible young fellow, modest, intelligent, thoughtful, and studious. He does not need to marry for wealth nor for position. He can pick his own wife, and has plenty of time to consider the choice. The duke has been very carefully brought up and educated. His mother died when he was nine years old. She was Lady Hermione Duncombe, daughter of the Earl of Faversham. His father died at the age of forty-two, when he was fourteen. The present duke inherits his delicate, frail constitution, and has symptoms of tuberculosis, which has been the death of many Geraldines. To preserve himself from its dreaded grasp he has lived an outdoor life under the care of a physician, and every preventive that medical science can devise has been used for his protection. Since the death of his mother he has been under the care of three aunts,--Lady Cynthia Graham, Lady Ulrica Duncombe, and Lady Helen Vincent,--his tutor, Rev. the Marquis of Normanby, and his trustee, the Earl of Faversham. He has had governesses and tutors, spent two years at Eton and three years at Oxford, although his studies have been frequently interrupted by sea voyages and camping tours in the mountains for his health. He has a brother, Desmond, two years his junior, and another, Edward, who is fourteen years old. The Duke of Leinster is prepared to take his proper place in public life, and has recently been appointed master of the horse to the Earl of Aberdeen, lord lieutenant of Ireland. His acceptance of this post indicates that he is a liberal in politics and a home ruler; and, indeed, the tendency of his education has been in that direction. His tutors and trustees are all home rulers and liberals. He is in training for the viceregal throne of Ireland, which so many of his ancestors have occupied, and that is his ambition. If Ireland should be granted autonomy under the plan proposed by Mr. Gladstone twenty-five years ago and demanded as their ultimatum by the Irish national party, the Duke of Leinster will be the most available candidate for lord lieutenant, and for many reasons his selection would be agreeable to those most interested on both sides of St. George's Channel. His advent in politics is an event of great importance, and therefore will be watched with anxiety. The mansion at Maynooth is an immense building of more than two hundred rooms, sumptuously furnished. There are fourteen drawing-rooms, and the banqueting hall will seat three hundred people. The library contains one of the largest and most valuable collections of books in Ireland, and the pictures are of great value as well as artistic interest. The Leinster coat of arms is a monkey stantant with plain collar and chained; motto, "Crom-a-boo" ("To Victory"). This is the only coat of arms, I am told, that has ever borne a monkey in the design, and it was adopted by John Fitzthomas Fitzgerald in 1316 for romantic reasons. While an infant he was in the castle of Woodstock, now owned by the Duke of Marlborough, which caught fire. In the confusion the child was forgotten, and when the family and servants remembered him and started a search they found the nursery in ruins. But on one of the towers was a gigantic ape, a pet of the family, carefully holding the young earl in its arms. The animal, with extraordinary intelligence, had crawled through the smoke, rescued the baby and carried it to the top of the tower. When he grew to manhood the earl discarded the family coat of arms and adopted a monkey for his crest, which has been retained to this day, and wherever you find a tomb of a Fitzgerald you will see the figure of a monkey at the feet of the effigy or under the inscription. Fitzthomas Fitzgerald, the child thus miraculously saved, was the hero of many romances and adventures, and for his eminent services to the crown King Edward II. created him the first Earl of Kildare, May 14, 1316. He was the ancestor of the famous earls, dukes, and marquesses of Ormonde and the earls, dukes, and marquesses of Desmond, although those branches of the family afterward became the rivals and the foes of the Kildares. The Duke of Leinster, by reason of the marriages of his ancestors and collateral members of the family, is related to almost every noble in the kingdom. The Fitzgeralds are descended from the Gherardini family of Florence, one of whom passed over into Normandy in the tenth century and thence to England, where he became a favorite of Edward the Confessor, and was appointed castellan of Windsor and warden of the forests of the king. In 1078 he is mentioned in Doomsday Book as the owner of enormous areas of land in England and Wales. In 1168 Maurice Fitzgerald, whose name was anglicized and who was the father of the Irish branch of the family, accompanied Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, better known as Strongbow, in the invasion of Ireland and was granted large estates. He died at Wexford in 1177 and was buried in the Abbey of the Grey Friars outside the walls of that town. One of his sons became Baron of Offlay, another became Baron of Nass, and Thomas, the third, was the ancestor of the earls of Desmond. The next earl was a man of great piety. In 1216 he introduced into Ireland the Order of the Franciscans and built them an abbey at Youghal. In 1229 he induced the Dominicans to send a band of missionaries and built them an abbey at Adair. And his son was equally devoted to the church. The castle at Maynooth, which for several centuries was one of the largest and strongest in Ireland, was built by Gerald, the fifth earl, in 1427, whose second son was the founder of the house of Ormonde and was created earl of that name. For sixteen generations the earls of Kildare were the most active men in Ireland, and the history of their adventures would fill a book as big as a dictionary. There was always "something doing" wherever they went; they were on all sides of all questions and were sometimes fighting each other as fiercely as the family foes. They led rebellions against their sovereign, have suffered imprisonment, and have been executed at Tyburn and the Tower. They have been the boldest and most powerful defenders of British authority in Ireland and several times have saved the island to the British throne. More lords lieutenants have come from the Kildares than from any other family, and among the long list of earls have been some splendid characters. The eighth earl subdued all the native chieftains and made them submit to English authority. An early historian describes him as "A mightie man of stature, full of honoure and courage, who has bin Lord Deputie and Lord Justice of Ireland three and thirtie yeares. He was in government milde, to his enemies stearne, he was open and playne; hardley able to rule himself, but could well rule others; in anger he was sharp and short, being easily displeased and easily appeased." Thomas Gerald, the twelfth earl, having incurred the enmity of Cardinal Wolsey, was called to England and committed to the Tower for treason. When he left Ireland he intrusted his official authority and responsibilities to his son and heir, familiarly known as "Silken Thomas," because of the gorgeous trappings of his retinue. The boy was then but twenty-one, bold, brave, patriotic, and generous, and became the victim of a plot devised by agents of Cardinal Wolsey, who spread a report that his father had been beheaded in the Tower. The impetuous young lord left the Castle of Maynooth, rode into Dublin, and, entering the chamber where the council sat, openly renounced his allegiance to the King of England, gave his reasons and laid mace and sword, the symbols of office, upon the table. Archbishop Cromer, the lord chancellor, besought him to reconsider, explaining that the rumor from London might be false, and the young earl was about to yield when the voice of the family bard, who had followed him to Dublin, was heard through the window singing the death song of the Kildares. "Silken Thomas" seized his sword, summoned the Geraldines, the family clan, which was the mightiest and most numerous in Ireland, assaulted the castle, and soon involved the entire country in a desperate revolution. When the old earl heard the news in his cell in the Tower he sent a message to Henry VIII. asking pardon for the rashness of his son and then died of a broken heart. All Ireland was in flames; three-fourths of Kildare County and the greater part of Meath was burned; thousands of innocent people died of starvation and thousands in battle before the rebellion was suppressed. Finally Kildare, who was then but twenty-four, surrendered upon a promise that he should receive full pardon when he arrived in London and renewed his allegiance personally to the king. This pledge was shamefully violated. Henry VIII. refused to receive him, and sent him to the Tower, where for eighteen months he lay neglected and in great misery. He wrote an old servant asking money for clothes, saying: "I have gone shirtless and barefoot and bare-legged divers times, and so I should have done still but that poor prisoners of their gentleness hath sometimes given me old hosen and shirts and shoes." Five of his uncles, although it was well known that three of them had remained stanch adherents of the crown, were hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn, Feb. 8, 1537, and orders went forth from Henry VIII. that the house of Kildare should be exterminated. Gerald, the baby heir, the only survivor of his race, was wrapped in warm flannels by Thomas Leverus, afterward Bishop of Kildare, carried across bog and mountain, and committed to the protection of the O'Brians, who by sending the infant from place to place were able to save its life. The O'Brians passed the child over to the MacCarthys, and Lady Eleanor MacCarthy, a widow, disguised as a peasant, conveyed him to St. Mels, France, upon a fishing boat. Even there he was pursued from one place of refuge to another, by detectives and adventurers in hopes of the great reward, until finally he obtained a safe retreat in Rome, where Cardinal Pole, a distant relative, protected and educated him. When he grew to manhood he entered the service of Cosmo de Medicis, the great Duke of Florence, with whom he remained until Henry VIII., the vindictive enemy of his family, was dead. He could then return in safety to his native country, and Queen Mary soon after pardoned him and restored his hereditary titles and estates. Fourteen generations of Kildares have passed across the stage since then, and the present Duke of Leinster represents a family that has had more exciting experiences than any other in the United Kingdom. XI DROGHEDA, AND THE VALLEY OF THE BOYNE One of the loveliest railway or automobile rides in Ireland is from Dublin northward to the ancient town of Drogheda (pronounced Drawdah). The railroad runs parallel with the highway along the shore of St. George's Channel. Both touch several popular seaside resorts, fishing settlements, and busy manufacturing towns, which alternate with beautiful pastures filled with sleek cattle and unshorn sheep, and here and there ivy-clad towers and little groups of chimney pots rise above the foliage. The pastures and meadows, when we saw them, blazing with yellow buttercups, looked like the Field of the Cloth of Gold. They are divided into small plots by hedges of hawthorn twelve and fifteen feet high, which in the early summer are as white as banks of snow, and so fragrant that the perfume floated into the car windows. Between the meadows and the pastures along the coast are plots of cultivated ground, gardens of potatoes, cabbages, and other vegetables and glorious groves. It isn't a bit like the Ireland one expects to see after reading newspaper accounts of the terrible conditions that the politicians complain of. It is not a country of downtrodden peasants and a wretched tenantry crushed under the heels of oppressive landlords. Right is not upon the scaffold in that section of Ireland, nor is wrong upon the throne. On the contrary, every evidence of prosperity and contentment and happiness abounds. The neatly whitewashed, straw-thatched cottages are surrounded with gay gardens filled with old-fashioned flowers, such as you see in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Large stables and storehouses are attached to almost every cottage, which indicates that the farmer has something to put in them. The traveler cannot see the mansions of the rich, because they are hidden in glorious parks and protected by high walls. Occasionally in the distance, however, he can catch glimpses of the towers of ancient castles, each having a romance or a tragedy, and sometimes several of both, contained in their history. At Malehide forty or fifty golf players alighted from the train, with kits of clubs over their shoulders, for there are two links near that village--one for an exclusive club of rich Dubliners, and the other for any one who is able to pay half a crown for the privilege of chasing a little gutta-percha ball over the grass. Malehide is a lovely place, situated on the seashore at the mouth of a little stream called Meadow Water, with hotels of all grades and prices, fashionable and unfashionable, and some of them are open for health seekers the year around. The chief attraction to tourists is the ancient castle of the Talbot family, who have owned and occupied it continuously for seven hundred years, an unusual record for Ireland or for anywhere else. The original castle, built about 1180, in the reign of Henry II., is still standing, although modern restorations and additions have changed it much. The exterior has suffered more than the interior. The dining-hall, a very large apartment, is considered one of the finest rooms in Ireland. The wainscoting and the ceiling are of oak, richly carved, and mellowed by exposure for more than six centuries. The chimney-piece, an exquisite example of fourteenth century carving, represents the Conception. From 1653 to 1660 the castle was inhabited by Miles Corbet, the regicide, and the very day he took possession of the place, according to tradition, the figure of the Blessed Virgin was mysteriously detached from the rest of the carving and disappeared until the night after the unholy tenant fled from the place, when it was miraculously restored. There is a fine collection of paintings in the castle, including portraits by Van Dyck and other famous artists, three panels of scripture subjects by Albert Dürer, which formerly belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, and were purchased by Charles II. for $2,000. The library is a treasure-house of old tomes and manuscripts, and upon the wall, in a heavy oaken frame, hangs the original patent by which the estate was granted to the Talbot family by King Edward IV. Within the roofless walls of an ancient abbey near by is the altar-tomb of Maud Plunkett, whose husband, Sir Richard Talbot, according to the epitaph, "fell in a fray immediately after the wedding breakfast, thus making her maid, wife, and widow in a single day." The village of Swords, three miles distant, has another ancient castle, where the bodies of Brian Boru and his son Morrough rested the first night after the battle of Clontarf while they were being carried to their final tomb at Armagh. All the little towns along the coast of the Irish Channel are associated with St. Patrick and St. Columba, who spent more or less time there, founding monasteries and building churches. One of the monasteries, called "the Golden Prebend" because it was so rich, was held by William of Wykeham in 1366 and was the seat of a cardinal for a century or two. A mile and a half from the main line, beyond Swords, is the village of Portraine, where Dean Swift's "Stella" lived for several years, and where a branch of the insane asylum he founded in Dublin has since been erected. It stands upon lands given by Sigtryg of the Silken Beard, the Danish king of Dublin, for the endowment of a Christian church. The house was occupied for many years by the nuns of St. Augustine, where "the womankind of the most part of the whole Englisher of this land are brought up in virtue, learning and in the English tongue and behaviour." The little town of Rush, famous for its early potatoes and its tulip bulbs, is called "Holland in Ireland." It has an old church, with beautiful pointed arches, which dates back to the sixteenth century, and contains a richly decorated monument to Sir Christopher Barnwell and his beloved wife, who died in 1607. Skerries is a fishing-town, where St. Patrick lived for several years, and a quaint little chapel, like many others in Ireland, is attributed to him, although it could not possibly have been built for several centuries after his time. But in the history of these ancient sanctuaries a few hundred years do not count. While ruins are picturesque and ivy-clad castles that date back beyond the Middle Ages have a fascination for tourists from a new world like ours, it was a relief when the chauffeur brought us up to the entrance of an old-fashioned factory in the compact little town of Balbriggan, which has given its name to a certain kind of knitted goods that are worn the world over. It is a quaint mass of high houses, built of stone and brick on both sides of narrow but neatly kept streets, which seems unnecessary when miles of green fields and glowing gardens encircle them and give them every chance to spread out. But you will find the same tendency to snuggle up as closely as possible in all the manufacturing communities of Europe. The men folks at Balbriggan fish and farm the soil, and the women work in the mills, but the law, which is strictly enforced there, prohibits child labor and compels the children to attend school for at least one hundred and twenty-eight days in the year until they pass their fourteenth birthday. The superintendents of the mills tell the same story that I heard in the cotton factories of South Carolina and Georgia, that they prefer adult operatives; that the children are careless and inefficient and seldom earn their wages, but they are compelled to employ them or lose the services of the parents. There are two factories in Balbriggan for the manufacture of knitted hosiery and underclothing by machinery invented here more than one hundred and fifty years ago and since imitated everywhere. Both factories still remain under the control of the families which founded them, but the shares are distributed among a larger number of people by inheritance from generation to generation. Scattered along the coast at intervals of two or three miles, and generally at the summits of hills overlooking the sea, are "martello towers," fifty, sixty, and sometimes ninety feet high, and from forty to a hundred feet in diameter. They were erected early in the nineteenth century as defensive watch-towers, when the country was in dread of an invasion by Napoleon. The name was taken from similar towers in Corsica and Sardinia, where they were erected for protection against pirates in the time of Charles V. These towers are said to have originally had bells which were struck by hammers to alarm the people in case of danger; hence they were called "martello" towers, that being the Italian word for "hammer." It makes a Protestant ashamed when he reads the history of Drogheda and sees the ruins that Cromwell left there. Thousands of men and women and children were butchered in the name of the Lord by Cromwell's soldiers when he took that quaint old town by storm in September, 1649. It was a ferocious massacre, and Cromwell admitted the facts while proclaiming himself the agent of the Almighty to punish a rebellious people. This is what he wrote with his own hand: "The governor, Sir Arthur Aston, and divers considerable officers being there, our men, getting up to them, were ordered by me to put them all to the sword, and, indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to death about two thousand persons. Divers officers and soldiers being fled over the bridge into the other part of the town, where about a hundred of them possessed St. Peter's Church steeple, some the West Gate, and others a strong round tower next to the gate called St. Sundays. These being summoned to yield for mercy refused. Whereupon I ordered the steeple of St. Peter's Church to be fired. The next day the other two towers were summoned. When they submitted their officers were knocked on the head and every tenth man of the soldiers was killed. The rest shipped for the Barbadoes. The soldiers in the other tower were all spared as to their lives only and shipped likewise for the Barbadoes. "I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches who have imbued their hands in so much innocent blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future." Two of the towers have remained these two hundred and fifty years just as grim old Oliver left them, and there is much else of interest to the antiquarian in the town, although today it is given up to linen factories, flour mills, tanneries, and soap works, and has a large provision trade with England. It is the center of a prosperous agricultural community, and everybody seems to be doing well. The greatest attraction is the ruins of Monasterboice, an extensive monastery, founded by St. Patrick, like every other ecclesiastical institution in this country, and three magnificent crosses which arise among them, about six miles from town. We tried to get a carriage instead of a jaunting car for the drive, because the latter allows you to see only one side of the roadway, but Mrs. Murphy, who has a livery stable and a tongue that is hung in the middle, could furnish us nothing else. It is a delightful drive. On the outward journey we saw what there is to see on one hand, and coming back we saw everything on the other. The ruins of Monasterboice cover a large area, for five hundred monks and several thousand students were there eight or nine hundred years ago. It was one of the largest educational institutions in the world, as well as a religious retreat. It dates back to the fifth century, and was probably founded by St. Patrick,--certainly by one of his disciples,--although there is no tangible evidence to prove that fact. A "round tower" still in good condition, dates from the ninth century. It is one hundred and ten feet high and fifty-one feet in diameter at the base. It was intended for observation, for signaling to the country around, for the storage of valuables and military supplies, and for defensive purposes. Strangely enough, it sits in a hollow, in the lowest part of an amphitheater, surrounded by hills, but the Irish monks as well as the Irish warriors of ancient times always built beside streams of running water and not upon the heights, like the Goths, the Huns, the Teutons, and the Romans. There are similar "round towers" at Cashel, Glendalough, Kildare, Antrim, and other places in the interior of Ireland which have long been subject of an irreconcilable dispute among archæologists. While no one knows definitely who built them, or what they were for, the most credited theory is that I have given above. Dr. Petrie, who is a high authority, believes that they were built between the years 890 and 1238, when the Danes were in the habit of invading Ireland and plundering the ecclesiastical establishments. One of the most perfect of these towers, at Antrim, is ninety-two feet in height and forty-nine feet in circumference at the bottom; the summit terminates in a cone twelve feet high, which, with the tower itself, is of undressed stone, the walls being two feet nine inches in thickness. The door is on the north side at a height of seven feet nine inches from the ground. The tower was apparently divided into four stories by timber floors, which, of course, vanished long ago. Each of the three lower stories is lighted by a square window, and the upper story by four square perforations opening to the cardinal points. It stands in the grounds of a mansion. The turf between the two shows the dim outline of buildings, supposed to be those of a monastery founded by Aodh, a disciple of St. Patrick, the earliest notice of which occurs in the year 495. It was destroyed during the Danish incursions. The walls of the chapel at Monasterboice are standing firm and strong, but without a roof, and the grounds surrounding them and the ruins of the monastery are still used for the burial of the families of the parish. It is a free cemetery and belongs to the government and not to the Catholic Church. Anybody--Protestant, Quaker, or Jew--can lay his tired bones down under the hospitable trees by application to the secretary of the board of public works. The oldest grave is that of Bishop O'Rourke, who was buried there in 982; the latest, marked by a clumsy wooden cross, was made in 1907. What people go there to see are three splendid Celtic crosses, the finest specimens of the kind in Ireland, and that means the universe. They are believed to have been erected in the fifth century in honor of St. Patrick, St. Columba, and St. Bridget. This, however, is questionable. One of them bears the inscription, "A prayer for Murriduch, by whom was made this cross." From the Irish Annals it may be learned that two men of that name have lived in this neighborhood, both of wealth and distinction, and they died, one in the year 844 and the other in 924. It is entirely probable that either of them may have erected the splendid monoliths. The largest is twenty-seven feet high, and all of them are covered with carvings of religious subjects. The crosses of Monasterboice have been photographed and reproduced many times, and models have been shipped to all parts of the world. Perfect replicas may be found in the museum at Dublin. Four miles further on are the ruins of Mellifont Abbey, which was founded in the twelfth century, and has had an important part in the political as well as the ecclesiastical history of Ireland. There are several drawbacks to motoring in Ireland, the chief of which is that the country is so short on good hotels and so long on showers. The next is the inability to see through or over walls of stone and hedges that rise twice as high as one's head. Nevertheless, wherever there is much to see and little time to see it in, one has to put up with some annoyances, and an automobile is no longer a luxury or a mere convenience, but an actual necessity. The Irish climate is like the Irish character. A witty native once said of his fellow countrymen, "They smile aisy and they cry aisy," and that describes the habits of the heavens also. Clouds assemble and do business in quicker time than in any other place I have ever been, but, although it will "rain cats and dogs" for fifteen or twenty minutes, the sun will be shining almost instantly afterward, as if nothing had happened. [Illustration: A CELTIC CROSS AT MONASTERBOICE, COUNTY LOUTH] Unfortunately the hotel proposition is not so easily disposed of. Most of the inns of the country districts and in the small cities are absolutely intolerable. It isn't so much because of a lack of luxuries and modern conveniences that the traveler finds in England, Scotland, and on the Continent at similar places, as it is the excess of dirt and bad smells. In the average country hotel in Ireland everything is in disorder and out of repair. The bells don't work; the furniture is crippled and decrepit; the mattresses are lumpy and half the springs are broken or out of joint; the bedrooms are seldom swept, the table cloths are seldom washed; sheets and pillow-cases, are seldom changed, and if a guest should call for a clean towel the landlord would be likely to ask what is the matter with the one he gave him a few days ago. The only alternative to stopping at a dirty hotel is to ride on until you come to a clean one, and that may be as far as the ends of the earth. The more practical, and indeed the only, way is to accept the situation good naturedly and get the best you can out of it. Any person who takes an interest in this subject can find further and accurate information in that charming book, "Penelope's Irish Experiences," by Kate Douglas Wiggin. It is asserted by those who know that there are only five good hotels in Ireland. We found nine, but did not keep count of the other kind. They are too numerous to mention. The road from Drogheda to Tara, the ancient capital of Ireland, follows the valley of the famous Boyne River, and passes through the famous battlefield where William of Orange, with thirty thousand men, in 1690, overcame James II. with twenty-three thousand, and deprived the latter of his dominion and his crown and gave the Protestants control of Ireland for the next two hundred and fifty years. A stately monument has been erected upon the field, and various small markers have been placed about to show where important incidents took place. The Valley of the Boyne is extremely beautiful. The banks are densely wooded for miles, and the river flows through many fine estates owned and occupied by rich people from London, Dublin, and other cities. The climate is agreeable and healthful for nine or ten months in the year. Only February, March, and April are unpleasant, because of the winds. The scenery is peaceful and attractive, the foliage of the groves and forests is rich beyond comparison, and it is difficult to conceive of more desirable surroundings for a summer home for men of wealth and leisure. To the antiquarian and the archæologist there is an unlimited field for exploration that has only been touched thus far. Only a few miles from Drogheda, and on the direct road to Tara, is a collection of tumuli which are unsurpassed in Europe or any other part of the world. They mark the location of Brugh-Na-Boinne, the royal cemetery of ancient Ireland, the burying-ground of the kings of Tara for centuries before the history of the country began. Although they do not show the same architectural skill or artistic taste or mechanical mysteries, and do not compare in magnitude with the pyramids and other tombs of the kings of Egypt, they nevertheless have an entrancing interest to those who love archæology and prehistoric lore. The tumuli are scattered over a large area, and, according to the theories of scientists who have explored them, contained the bodies of successive royal families of Ireland until the invasion of the Danes, when they were desecrated, looted, and nearly destroyed, just as the tombs of the kings of Egypt were stripped of their treasures by the Assyrians and other invaders. [Illustration: RUINS OF MELLIFONT ABBEY, NEAR DROGHEDA, COUNTY LOUTH] The most remarkable tumulus, at New Grange, has been described at length by several eminent antiquarians. It stands on elevated ground, and covers about three acres, the main part being two hundred and eighty feet in diameter and about one hundred and twenty feet high. It is now covered with dense vegetation. It is a vast cairn of loose stones, estimated at one hundred thousand tons, those at the base being very large--from six to eight feet long and four or five feet thick. They are arranged in a circle without masonry; simply laid in order and smaller stones placed inside and on top of them until an artificial cavern was created, which was reached by a passage sixty-two feet long, formed of enormous upright stones from five to eight feet high and roofed with flagstones of great size. This passage leads to a low dome-roofed chamber, nearly circular, whose ceiling is supported by eleven upright pillars. The ceiling is nineteen and a half feet from the ground. There are three other chambers, measuring eighteen by twenty-one feet in size, which at one time were doubtless filled with the bodies of the royal families. The archæologists compare them to the beehive tombs of Mycenæ, known as "The Treasury of Atreus," and find many resemblances. The surfaces of some of the stones are rudely carved with cryptographs and ornamental designs. There are several other tumuli in the neighborhood of different dates and dimensions and of absorbing interest to science; and all of them we know, from that accurate and comprehensive chronicle, "The Annals of the Four Masters," were plundered by the Danes in the year 801. Those vandals left nothing but bones and cinerary urns; they took away or destroyed everything else. The tumuli are now in the custody of the board of works, which is taking care of them, and is having careful scientific excavations and other examinations made by competent authorities. There are several other cemeteries in the neighborhood that are not so old, and they also are supposed to contain the dust of kings; but few of the graves have been identified. One of them, marked with two tombstones set with their tops together like the gable of a house, has been declared to be of greater antiquity than any other Christian tomb in Ireland, and is supposed to contain the remains of St. Eric, the first bishop consecrated by St. Patrick. He died toward the end of the fifth century. It is said that his custom was to stand immersed in the Boyne River up to his two armpits from morn till evening, having his psalter lying before him on the strand where he could read its pages, and continually engaging in prayer. In another grave lie the bones of Cormac, the greatest of the kings of Tara, who was a Christian, having been converted by St. Patrick. His death was brought about by the Druid priests, who cast a spell over him and caused a bone of salmon to stick in his throat. He commanded his people not to bury him at Brugh-Na-Boinne among his royal ancestors, because it was a cemetery of idolators, but to place his body humbly in consecrated ground, with his face to the east. These injunctions were clear and positive, but the king's servants required a miracle to induce them to obey. Three separate times they started from the palace at Tara for the royal burying-ground at Brugh-Na-Boinne, when the river miraculously rose to such a height that they could not cross. After so many warnings their stupid brains finally saw the light and they laid his majesty's ashes in consecrated ground, as he had commanded. The little antiquated village of Kells, with pleasant surroundings and glorious foliage, sleeps unconscious of its fame. It is of the greatest interest to Christian archæologists, because it was the home of St. Columba (or Columbkill), second only to St. Patrick in influence and in the work of evangelizing Ireland. He was born in Donegal in 521, of royal blood, being the great-great-grandson of King Niall of the Nine Hostages, founder of the O'Neill family. Having heard the truth of the gospel, he gave up his princely heritage for the service of his Master and became a monk. He traveled for sixteen years, preaching from place to place, founding churches and monasteries all over the country, which are still venerated by the people, and are among the most interesting ruins in Ireland. At Kells he built a famous monastery in the year 550, and the cost was paid by Dermot, son of Fearghus, king of Tara, at that time. St. Columba made his headquarters there for many years and then crossed the channel to the little Island of Iona, on the west coast of Scotland, which had been granted him by his relative, the king of that country. He founded a monastery there, from which he and his disciples traversed all Scotland and the Hebrides, preaching the gospel, baptizing the people, building churches and monasteries, until half the Scotch were converted to Christianity. The rest of Great Britain was converted from paganism by the missionaries he educated and sent out. After a life of extraordinary activity and usefulness he died at Iona in the year 597 at the age of seventy-six years and was mourned by every one on the shores of the four seas. His funeral lasted three days and three nights, and he was buried within the walls of the monastery of Iona, whence his remains were afterward removed to Downpatrick and buried in the same grave as those of St. Patrick and St. Bridget. A portion of the house of St. Columba still remains at Kells, half concealed by a cloak of wonderful ivy. There is a tower one hundred feet tall, and in the neighboring churchyard are several crosses of the Celtic fashion, similar to, but not so large or so fine as those at Monasterboice. They are, however, sacred in the eyes of all Irishmen and date back to the tenth century. The "Annals of the Four Masters" record many exciting incidents and important events that have occurred in the history of the town of Kells. It has been invaded and looted by Irish clansmen, Norwegian hordes, and Danish Vikings. It has been devastated many times by fire, sword, and pestilence. Sigtryg of the Silken Beard burned it to the ground in 1019, and Edward Bruce in 1315, but it has arisen serene and smiling as often as it has been destroyed, and prosperity has been restored again. It was in the great monastery founded by St. Columba that the famous illuminated "Book of the Gospels," preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, was made by the monks in the eighth century. Mr. Westwood, a very high authority, pronounces it "the most elaborately executed monument of early Christian art in existence." Kells was also noted for its metal work in the Middle Ages. At present it is merely an agricultural market and the seat of the Marquess of Headfort, who has a large estate and a beautiful chateau surrounded by a wooded demesne and a hunting preserve. There are several other delightful residences in the neighborhood, and if there were a decent hotel within walking or driving distance, Kells might have many visitors, but those who go there are compelled to hurry away to find some place to stay overnight. Navan, a neat little manufacturing town with a woolen mill and other industries, has a reasonably good hotel, but you have to come back about ten miles from Kells. There is another neat little town called Trim, where it is possible to stay overnight and even to pass a day or two. The country around Trim is lovely. The landscapes in every direction would fascinate an artist, and the ruins of "King John's Castle," built on the banks of the Boyne by Hugh de Lacy, are among the most extensive and beautiful in the world. The walls, four hundred and eighty-six yards long, with ten circular towers at nearly equal distances, are still well preserved and there is a lofty keep, seventy feet high, with beautiful turrets and flanked on either side with rectangular towers. There is nothing to surpass it in Ireland for picturesqueness, and its associations give it additional interest, for King John, Edward II., Richard, Earl of Ulster, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and other famous characters, have lived there. Henry of Lancaster, afterward Henry IV. of England, was imprisoned there; the parliament of Ireland met within its walls, year after year, and it was once the mint of the kingdom. In later days it was occupied by the Duke of Wellington, who received his early education in the diocesan school within the grounds. His name, you know, was Arthur Wellesley. He was a son of Lord Mornington, of an old Irish family. His mother was a daughter of the Earl of Dungannon of Tyrone, and she lived to see four of her sons elevated to the peerage of Great Britain, not because of wealth or political influence, but because of their ability and usefulness. Richard, the eldest, was that celebrated statesman, the Marquis of Wellesley; the second, William, was also eminent in politics and civil affairs as Lord Mayborough; the third, Henry, Lord Crowley, spent his life in the diplomatic service and made an enviable name, while Arthur, hero of Waterloo and of the Spanish campaign, the man who broke the back of Napoleon the Great, was the fourth and most famous of them all. Arthur Wellesley was born May 1, 1769, in Merrion Street, Dublin, in a house now occupied by the commissioners that are carrying out the land act, and he died Sept. 18, 1852. It may be said that no other Irish subject of a British king ever received greater honors or better deserved them. Dungan Castle, the home of the Wellesleys, is near Trim, about twenty miles from Dublin, and the nearest railway station is Summer Hill. Laracor, a secluded little village where Dean Swift was once curate and where Stella lived with Mrs. Dingley, is only a mile or two distant. XII TARA--THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF IRELAND In prehistoric times, before the conversion of Ireland to Christianity by St. Patrick, the clan system prevailed there, as it did in other countries of Europe. A "clan," or "sept," consisted of a number of families and was ruled by a patriarch, the greatest warrior, or the oldest man. A "tribe" was a larger group, consisting of several clans or septs more or less related to each other and occupying a distinct and separate territory under the command of a chieftain. Several tribes composed a nation, as the word is used among the North American Indians, ruled by a "ri," or king, while the "ard-ri," or over-king, a supreme monarch with jurisdiction extending to the remotest shores of Ireland, reigned and resided at Tara until the sixth century, with the province of Meath as his own exclusive demesne for the use and support of his family and his court. He received tribute from the local kings or "ri" and was elected by their votes. Occasionally at his call, or at stated intervals, the kings and chiefs would assemble at Tara to consider matters of importance to all, to adopt laws and regulations for preserving peace and promoting the welfare of their subjects and protecting their common interests. Several feasts, held there annually, were attended by the minor kings, chieftains, and nobles who were followed by large retinues. Their warriors engaged in games, sports, and tournaments to encourage the physical development of the race and teach the arts of war. From the throne of the ard-ri decrees were announced, laws proclaimed, justice dispensed, and prizes awarded. According to the annals of those early days, one hundred and forty-two kings reigned at Tara during a period of two thousand five hundred and thirty years, when the place was abandoned in consequence of a curse pronounced by St. Ruadhan of Lorrha for the failure to punish Hugh Garry for the murder of a monk. Until the time of Cormac Mac Art, greatest and most luxurious of all the ancient kings of Ireland, the rulers who sat at Tara were pagans, but he was converted to Christianity, and the annalists in glowing lines describe his piety and his devotions. According to the ancient laws, the king of Ireland could not have a blemish upon his person, and Cormac was obliged to abdicate power and authority and retire to the top of the Hill of Skreen, across the valley from the Hill of Tara, because his left eye was put out by an arrow shot by �ngus, a rebellious chieftain, who is believed to have been under the influence of Druid priests, to punish Cormac for accepting Christianity. Cormac's administration was the golden age at Tara, and although there was no pretense of architectural display in the wicker palaces that were thatched with straw, nevertheless he and other kings of that period possessed great wealth and made gorgeous displays at the ceremonies of their courts. An early writer describes a banquet given by Cormac Mac Art to one hundred kings, chieftains, astrologers, bards, and other distinguished men, who were seated at twelve tables, sixteen attendants at each table, and two oxen, two sheep, and two hogs were consumed, besides other and many varieties of food. "Beautiful was the appearance of Cormac," says the ancient manuscript, "flowing slightly, curling golden hair upon him; "A red buckler with stars and animals of gold and fastenings of silver upon him; "A crimson cloak in wide descending folds upon him; "Fastened at his breast by a golden brooch set with precious stones; "A torque of gold of curious design and richly graven around his neck; "A white shirt with a full collar intertwined with red gold thread upon him; "A girdle of gold inlaid with precious stones around him; "Two wonderful shoes of gold with runnings of gold upon him; "Two spears with golden sockets in his hand." In such attire did the king appear at the banquet given in honor of his chieftains: "The feis of Temur each third year, To preserve the laws and rules Was then convened firmly By the illustrious King of Erin." The last _ard-ri_, or king of all Ireland, was Roderick O'Conor, who died in 1198. The archæologists, judging by the ruins and the traces of the walls, find that the great banqueting hall was 759 feet long by 90 feet wide; the other buildings were circular or oval; and it is apparent that they were surrounded by walls of stone intended both for privacy and protection. No doubt the royal residences and other buildings at Tara were of wicker construction. Furthest to the south, on the ridge or hill of Tara, is the Rath Laoghaire (Leary), built by an old king whom St. Patrick tried to convert, but without success; and somewhere in the rampart on the southern side of this are the bones of Laoghaire. He was buried as he ordered--in the bank of his rath, standing erect, with his shield and weapons, with his face turned southward toward his foes, the Lagenians (Leinstermen). Next northward is Rath na Riogh (Rath of the Kings), probably the oldest structure at Tara, and the royal residence. It is oval, and 853 feet long from north to south. Within its inclosure are: Teach Cormaic (Cormac's House), a rath with an outer ring, probably built by Cormac Mac Art. Its diameter is about one hundred and forty feet. Next to the northwest, and joined to Teach Cormaic by a common parapet, is the Forradh ("place of meeting"). Its greatest diameter being 296 feet and the diameter of the inner circle 88 feet. To the north of these, but still within the Rath na Riogh, is a mound called Dumha na n-Giall (Mound of the Hostages), on the flat summit of which was probably a house wherein dwelt the hostages often required by the ard-ri of minor kings, of whose fealty he might have doubts. No doubt the hostages of Niall of the Nine Hostages were kept here. To the west of this mound are the remains of another, the Dumha na Bo, or Mound of the Cow. Outside the inclosure of the Rath na Riogh, on the north, is Rath na Seanaidh, or Rath of the Synods, so called because of the synods held there by St. Patrick and his successors, though it is of much older date. Upon the summit of the hill is a rude statue of St. Patrick carved in granite by Mr. Curry, a stone cutter in one of the neighboring towns, and erected at the expense of local contributors many years ago. It bears no likeness to any human being, but the motive which erected it was pure and patriotic, and in a measure it is appropriate because on Easter morning in the year 433 St. Patrick proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ to the pagan priests and the King of Tara and his court, standing upon the very spot now occupied by his statue. Father Mathew once delivered a temperance speech from that holy spot, and in 1843 Daniel O'Connell addressed a monster meeting, attended by a quarter of a million people, many of whom came fifty miles or more to hear him advocate the political emancipation of the Roman Catholic population of Ireland. The meeting lasted two days and O'Connell spoke twice. It was one of his last meetings before his arrest and imprisonment at Dublin. On or near the Mound of the Hostages, according to the best authorities, stood the "Lia Fail," or "Stone of Destiny," upon which for ages the monarchs of Ireland were crowned. This stone, according to tradition, was the pillow of Jacob when he dreamed his dream and when the angels descended and ascended a golden ladder at his head. It was preserved by fugitive Israelites at the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the tribes, was brought to Ireland with the Ark of the Covenant, and passed into the possession of the early kings. This stone was carried to Scotland and preserved at Scone until Edward I. took it to London for his coronation, and ever since his day it has been the seat of the coronation chair. All of the kings of England have sat upon it while the crown of sovereignty was placed upon their heads, from Edward I. to Edward VII., and any one may see it in the coronation chair at Westminster Abbey. Petrie, one of the highest authorities on Irish history, denies that the coronation stone of Scone, now in the coronation chair at Westminster Abbey, is the Lia Fail. He asserts that it never left Tara. And he believes it is now there--a stone pillar, standing erect on the Forradh, marking the place of the interment of a number of Irish who were killed in the rebellion of 1798. It is about eleven feet long, and about half of its length is in the ground, so that it appears but a rough, unhewn pillar, five feet three inches high. A similar stone was used by the Ulstermen to inaugurate The O'Neill. It was in a rath at Tullyhogue, near Cookstown, County Tyrone, and was broken up by an English expedition in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The Clannaboy O'Neills used an inauguration chair, a fragment of gray sandstone in the shape of a chair with a high back, without the mark of chisel upon it--evidently found somewhere just as it was. It was kept at Castlereagh, on the hills overlooking Belfast on the southeast. It was found among the ruins of the castle about seventy-five years ago, and is now in the Museum at Belfast. Joyce's "History of Ireland" gives an interesting story of the taking of the Lia Fail to Scotland: The Irish, or Gaels, or Scots, of Ulster, from the earliest ages were in the habit of crossing over in their currachs to the coast of Alban, as Scotland was then called; and some carried on a regular trade therewith, and many settled there and made it their home. The Picts often attempted to expel the intruders, but the latter held their ground, and as time went on occupied more and more of the western coast and islands. About A.D. 200, a leader named Riada (meaning the long armed), a grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles, and first cousin of Cormac Mac Art, settled among the Picts of Alban with a large following of Munster fighting men and their families. From him all this western portion of Scotland was called Dalriada (Riada's portion). There was also an Irish Dalriada named for him, comprising what is now the northern portion of County Antrim. The Venerable Bede, in his "Ecclesiastical History," also gives an account of Riada and his colony. About A.D. 503, three brothers, Fergus, Angus, and Loarn, sons of a chief named Erc, and all Christians (Erc was a direct descendant of Riada), led a large body of colonists over to Alban. They united with the previous settlers from Ireland, and took possession of a large territory, which they formed into a kingdom, of which Fergus, the son of Erc (hence called Fergus Mac Erc), was made the first king. The Lia Fail was taken over from Tara in order that Fergus might be inaugurated king upon it, and was never brought back. So, if this is true, the Stone of Destiny had been taken from Tara a generation before the curse of St. Ruadhan caused Tara to be abandoned as a royal residence. This Fergus is the reputed ancestor of the Scottish royal family, and from him, through the Stuarts, descended, in one of his lines of pedigree, King Edward VII. of England. Gradually the name of Scots, which was originally that of the people of Ireland, was transferred to the people of Alban, and the country of the latter finally assumed the name of Scotland. Carrickfergus (the Rock of Fergus) takes its name from this Fergus, the first Scottish king. He was troubled with some ailment, and went over to Ireland to use the waters of a well (presumably considered holy). He was wrecked off the coast, and his body drifted ashore on the strand by the rock on which the castle is now built; so the rock was named for him. Across the valley on the Hill of Skreen, where Cormac took refuge after his abdication, Father Mathew lived for several years, and the ruins of an abbey may be found there still. So firmly convinced were some antiquarians who have investigated this place of the truth of the traditions of the coronation stone that they have dug up the ground in various places and searched for the Jewish Ark of the Covenant, which they believe was buried here by the Irish priests to escape capture at the time the palaces of Tara were looted and destroyed. But they have never been able to find any traces of it. In 1798, during the rebellion, a battle was fought on Tara Hill between a body of about four thousand insurgents, composed chiefly of young farmers and peasant lads from the neighborhood, against nearly three thousand well-armed troops, who easily overcame them and put them to flight. The Tara of to-day is a cluster of cottages, a post office, a police station, a blacksmith shop, a general store, and the inevitable "public house"--the curse of Ireland. The usual group of loafers were sitting inside chatting with a slattern behind the bar. It was a filthy place, and smelled of spilt liquor and bad tobacco, but, as usual, everybody was very polite to us, and, when we climbed out of the automobile a lame, round-shouldered, toothless old man came hobbling up to us crying in a wheezy voice: "I'm the guide! I'm the guide! I'm the lawful guide, yer honors, and I'll show yez around." [Illustration: CARRICKFERGUS CASTLE] He was so deaf that he couldn't understand us, and he mumbled his words so that we couldn't understand him, except now and then a word, but he was so anxious to be of service, so eager to earn a tip, that he would repeat everything he said again and again, until we were able to comprehend it. With his crooked stick he pointed the way across the fields and we followed him. We wouldn't have got much information, however, had not Mr. Wilkinson, the first citizen of Tara, come to our rescue. He saw us as we passed his house, which stands a little way down the road, and, as he explained, "Having nothing better to do, and always enjoying an opportunity to meet Americans," he fortunately came over and joined our party and gave us intelligent and interesting explanations. He is a rugged old gentleman, is Mr. Wilkinson. Although more than eighty years of age, he "can do as big a day's work, six days in the week, and enjoy the Lord's day for rest as much as he did when he was only forty." His great-grandfathers as far back as he knows, like himself, were born in the cottage in which he lives, and "I've seen things come and go for many a day," he said. When Mr. Wilkinson had passed beyond hearing with the ladies, the old guide seized me by the arm, drew me anxiously to shelter and then in a whisper repeated several times until I was able to comprehend: "'E's the richest man in Tara and in all the country round about. 'E's worth three thousand pun if he's worth a penny, and he got it from his father before him. He's a good man, too, and I dunno what we'd do here without Mr. Wilkinson." They led us to the top of the hill, where we could stand beside the spot once occupied by the coronation stone and admire all Ireland, spread out like a cyclorama around us. It is one of the most beautiful landscapes in the universe. There are no mountains, except in the far distance; there are no rocks or other ungainly objects in view, but as serene and peaceful and fertile a tract of territory as can be found upon God's footstool. Ireland is the greenest country that ever was. The turf and the foliage have a brighter color and a richer luster than those of any other country. That, however, is not news. The fact was discovered centuries ago and has been disclosed by every son of old Erin who ever wrote poetry or prose. But nowhere is there such convincing proof that the Emerald Isle was appropriately named as is offered from the top of the Hill of Tara. You cannot transfer the testimony of the fields and the forests to paper, either with a pen or a brush, and certainly not with a typewriter. There are no words in the English language sufficient to convey to another mind what the eyes can see of this glorious landscape, and it is useless to multiply adjectives. "Some sez it's the place of the coronation chair," mumbled the guide, as we stood on the crest of the hill. "Some sez it's the king's chair; but I calls it a very commandin' spot. Two years ago," he continued, "some friends of Lord Dunsany came here. May be they have a son married to his daughter, I dunno, but she was a very dacent lady. She wouldn't walk any further than the hall, and she sez, sez she, 'Me man, bide here with me,' and I sez, sez I, 'Have no fear, me lady, sit here on the soft sod and I'll go with his lordship, for people are always comin' from Scotland and Ameriky, and I always shows them about.' There's none else that can do it so well as meself, and when they came back his lordship gave me two shillin', and he's a vera dacent man." Mr. Wilkinson gave us some interesting history, and repeated many traditions and legends of the place. He told us how many parties of archæologists had been here digging for the Ark of the Covenant and had found nothing but dirt and stone. He took us through the modern churchyard and opened to us the little sanctuary where Rev. Mr. Handy preaches every Sunday morning and baptizes into the Church of Ireland the babies of Tara, that are very numerous in the short, narrow street. He told us that Mr. Briscoe was the largest landowner in the neighborhood, and had inherited from several generations the sacred hill upon which we stood. He had fenced in the remains to keep the cattle out and kept down the grass so that the outlines of the ruins could be followed. Mr. Briscoe has recently disposed of nearly all his holdings, under the new land act, to his tenants, who occupy them, and now nearly every acre within the range of human vision from the Hill of Tara belongs to the man who tills it. After we had thanked Mr. Wilkinson for his attentions and parted with him on the roadside, a woman put her head out of one of the cottage windows and in a stage whisper said: "He's the best and richest man in Tara. He's worth every penny of ten thousand pounds." Cambrensis, one of the oldest and earliest writers of Ireland, says: "There is in Mieth a hill called the Hill of Taragh, whereon is a plaine twelve score long which was named the King his hall; where the countrie had their meetings and folkmotes, as a place that was accounted the high place of the monarch. The historians hammer manie fables in this forge of Fin Mac Coile and his champions." While Tara was the seat of authority for all Ireland, and the center of military education and display, it was also the place where the bards used to assemble in early times for competitions in poetry and melody. Each year the troubadours of Ireland gathered there to recite heroic epics in praise of their patrons and sing the ballads they had composed for prizes. These musical and literary tournaments reached their greatest fame and influence during the days when Cormac Mac Art was king. He was not only the greatest warrior, but the greatest scholar and legislator and judge that the Irish knew during the period of which Tara was their capital. The poems and chronicles of his time describe him as a model of majesty, magnificence, and manly beauty. He founded three colleges in the neighborhood of Tara, one for the teaching of law, one for poetry, literature, history, and music, and the third for military science. He organized what was known as the "Fena of Erin," a body of militia remarkable in many respects, which was under the command of Fin Mac Cool, his son-in-law, who of all the ancient heroes of Ireland is best remembered in tradition and combined the qualities of Hercules, Julius Cæsar, and Solomon. But no reference in literature to this sacred place is more familiar than one of the ballads of Tom Moore. Indeed, the great majority of people never heard of Tara from any other source: "The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled. So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er, And hearts that once beat high for praise Now feel that pulse no more! "No more to chiefs and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells; The chord alone that breaks at night Its tale of ruin tells. Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives Is when some heart indignant breaks To show that she still lives." The history of Tara, the proceedings of the nobles, kings, and learned men who met there at intervals, with the ard-ri at their head, to devise laws and promote the welfare of the kingdom, and to transact other important business, were all written down in a book called the Psalter of Tara. This book also contained a record of the "fes," or tournaments, both military and athletic, that were held there, and contained a list of the prize winners, but, although the Psalter of Tara is frequently quoted by early writers the original of the book was lost or destroyed ages ago. There are, however, many venerable tomes, epic poems, as well as history, that illuminate what are usually termed the prehistoric times in Ireland. The history of this country does not fairly begin until the time of St. Patrick and the introduction of Christianity and modern learning. Since then the records are practically complete. The many monasteries were filled with scriveners who kept a record of events with considerable detail and probable accuracy. But the more interesting period lies farther back, when the kings of Tara were in their glory and the sun shone upon the exploits of half-savage clans that lived by the chase and not by agriculture, as their descendants do. It is a familiar joke to say that one's ancestors were kings of Ireland, but there is more truth than witticism in such remarks. There is no reliable authority for the existence of any national military organization of professional or fighting men in Ireland other than chiefs, down to the reign of "Conn of the Hundred Battles," who was monarch at Tara from 123 A.D. to 157 A.D., in which year he was slain. Still, it is stated that Conn himself came to the throne from the command of the celebrated national militia, popularly known as the "Fianna Eireann," of whom the great Finn, Mac Cumhaill, and his father, Cumhaill, were the most famous commanders, just as many of the Roman emperors rose to the purple through the backing and from the command of the Prætorian Guards. This militia of ancient Ireland were accomplished athletes to a man, and their preparation and competition for enlistment were most arduous and remarkable. The name Fianna (hence the modern "Fenians") is explained in an antique glossary preserved in a volume of the famous "Brehon Laws." There were several severe conditions which every man who was received into the Fianna was obliged to fulfill. The first was that he should not accept any fortune with his wife, but select her for her beauty, her virtue, and her accomplishments. The second was that he should not insult any woman. The third was that he should never deny any person asking for food. The fourth was that he should not turn his back on less than nine foemen. No man was received into the Fianna until a wide pit had been dug for him, in which he was to stand up to his knees, with a shield in one hand and a hazel stake the length of his arm in the other. Nine warriors, armed with spears, came within a distance of nine ridges of ground of him and threw their spears at him all at once. Should he be wounded, despite the shield and hazel staff, he was not received into the order of the Fianna. No man was received into the Fianna until his hair was first braided. He was then chased by selected runners through a forest, the distance between them at the start being one tree. If they came up with him he could not be taken into the Fianna. No man was received into the Fianna if his weapons trembled in his hands. No man could be received if a single braid of his hair had been loosened by a branch as he ran through the forest. No man was received into the Fianna whose foot had broken a withered branch in his course. (This to insure light and careful as well as swift runners, who left no trail.) No man was received unless he could jump over the branch of a tree as high as his head and stoop under one as low as his knee. No man was received unless he could pluck a thorn out of his heel without coming to a stand. And finally, no man could be received until he had first sworn fidelity and obedience to the king and commander of the Fianna. It's a sin that there is no place for visitors to stay at Tara. The nearest hotel is seven miles away, and the lord of the manor cannot entertain every American tourist that comes along. I know of no lovelier landscape or more attractive site for a summer hotel, but I suppose the patronage would be limited, because Tara is a long way from the railroad and an automobile costs five guineas a day with an allowance of seven shillings for the board and lodging of the chauffeur and whatever gasoline may be used. We were sorry to leave the historic place. One is sorry to leave almost every place in Ireland. It is such a fascinating country. But the next stop will develop something else quite as novel and interesting as it did to us at Castle Dunsany, the ancient home of the Plunkett family. The "Annals of the Four Masters" relate that there were fierce lords upon the road from Dublin to Tara, and that if the traveler was not robbed by the Lord of Dunsany Castle he would be robbed by the Lord of Killeen, and if he managed to escape Killeen he was sure to be robbed at Dunsany. These two famous places stand on both sides of the highway not more than a mile apart, and, although both have been restored and remodeled for modern occupants they are still very old and associated with much interesting history. Dunsany Castle was built by Hugh de Lacy about the middle of the twelfth century. Killeen Castle was the seat of the Earl of Fingal. Both are surrounded by magnificent demesnes or wooded parks inclosed with high walls and filled with game, according to the Irish custom. Near by Castle Dunsany, in the midst of a glorious grove of trees that have been growing there for centuries, are the roofless walls of the ancient Church of St. Nicholas, rebuilt upon the site of an older sanctuary by Nicholas Plunkett in the fifteenth century and named in honor of his patron saint. His sarcophagus is in the center surrounded by other tombs of the Plunkett family for several generations. At Killeen is another church of similar age and in similar condition, and that also contains the monuments of the founder and his family for many generations. Hugh de Lacy was the original owner and occupier of the Abbey of Bective, one of the finest of the many ruins in this section, and in its time a very important establishment. He was a Norman knight of ancient French family, who came over with Strongbow at the first English invasion of Ireland and was given the Province of Meath for his possessions. Although not the greatest fighter, he was the wisest and best governor of all the barons who served Henry II. in Ireland. He built strong castles in all parts of Meath, including Castle Dunsany and Castle Killeen, and greatly increased his power and influence by marrying a daughter of the old king of this province, Roderick O'Conor. He was accused of conspiring to make himself King of Ireland, and did not live to clear himself of the charge. One day while he was superintending the building of a new castle at Durrow a young Irishman drew a battle ax that was concealed under his cloak, and with one blow cut off the great baron's head. The murderer afterward explained that it was done to revenge the desecration of a venerated oratory that had once been occupied by St. Columba and had been torn away by De Lacy. Hugh de Lacy's son and namesake, after his father's death, attempted to seize the throne of Connaught and was betrayed and killed in the Cathedral of Downpatrick on Good Friday in the year 1204, where, barefooted and unarmed, he was saying his prayers and doing penance for his sins. When he was attacked he seized the nearest weapon, a large brass crucifix, and dashed out the brains of thirteen of his assailants with it before he was overpowered. When the elder Hugh de Lacy was murdered his head was taken to the Abbey of St. Thomas, in Dublin, according to the terms of his will, made several years previous. The monks demanded the remainder of the body, but the abbot of Bective would not surrender it until he had been commanded to do so by the pope. XIII SAINT PATRICK AND HIS SUCCESSOR The little cathedral city of Armagh (pronounced with a strong accent upon the last syllable) is the most sacred town of Ireland. It is the ecclesiastical headquarters of both the Roman Catholic and the Protestant churches, the seat of the most ancient and celebrated of Irish schools of learning; the burial place of Brian Boru, the greatest of all the Irish kings; the home of St. Patrick for the most important years of his life, and the cradle of the Christian church in the United Kingdom. It was from Armagh that the message of the gospel was sent to the people of Scotland and England, and there was the genesis of the faith that is now professed by all the nation. Armagh is a quiet, well kept town of about eight thousand inhabitants, built on a hill around the cathedral founded by St. Patrick in the year 432, and the streets are steep and rather crooked. It resembles an English university town, and looks more like Cambridge or Winchester than the rest of Ireland. More than twelve hundred years ago it was the greatest educational center in the civilized world, and it still has several important schools, including a Roman Catholic theological seminary, a large convent for young women, a technological school, an astronomical observatory, a public library of twenty thousand volumes and a little old-fashioned Grecian temple of a building with a sign to advertise it as the rooms of the Philosophical Society. The houses are packed together very closely, as is the custom in all Ireland, although there is plenty of room for the town to spread out, if it were the fashion to do so. There are ranges of green hills all around, and their sunny slopes are closely planted to grain, and other crops. We saw them at harvest time when the song of the reaper and the mower was heard in the land. There are several linen factories in the neighborhood which furnish employment for the wives and daughters of the town, and a small automobile factory. The population is about equally divided between Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths. There are three Presbyterian churches and one Methodist, which assert themselves boldly even in the presence of an ecclesiastical see that is nearly fourteen hundred years old. 'Way back about the year 444 St. Patrick came to Armagh and built a church and a monastery upon the summit of a beautiful hill overlooking a most delightful country, where he established his ecclesiastical headquarters as Primate of Ireland. The land was given him by the King, whose royal palace stood there for centuries, and that estate has remained in the possession of the church ever since and is now occupied partly by the demesne that surrounds the palace of the Protestant archbishop and partly by the residences and business houses of the town, and the ground rents furnish a handsome endowment. The ancient episcopal palace is now occupied by the Rev. Dr. Alexander, Protestant Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of the Episcopal Church of Ireland. Across the valley, upon a similar hill, is another cathedral, also dedicated to the glory of God and St. Patrick, and behind it, in a much more modest mansion, is the residence of Cardinal Logue, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of Ireland and a member of the sacred college of Rome. Thus in the same little town we have two cathedrals of St. Patrick, two archbishops of Armagh, and two primates of the Holy Catholic church, both claiming ecclesiastical authority inherited from St. Patrick, founder of the Christian church in Ireland, and first archbishop of Armagh, through one hundred and fourteen generations of archbishops who have lived and prayed and reigned in this picturesque little place. In several cities there are two archbishops or bishops, one Roman Catholic and one of the Church of Ireland, and the duplication is often the cause of embarrassment and confusion. If you are seeking or even mentioning one of them it is necessary to make yourself clear by giving the name of the church or the name of the man as well as the title. I once addressed a letter to "His Grace, the Archbishop of Dublin," and it was returned to me from the post office for more definite address. The post-office authorities would not take the risk of delivering it to the wrong man. Archbishop Alexander and Cardinal Logue are the best of friends and see each other frequently, co-operating in works of charity and movements of public interest with cordiality and mutual esteem. When I was in Armagh Cardinal Logue had recently returned from a visit to America, where he went to assist in the celebration of the anniversary of the founding of the diocese of New York. He was enthusiastic about his reception and what he saw and did in the United States. He is a man of great dignity, ability, and usefulness, but with all has a keen sense of humor and a jolly disposition. The town of Armagh is surrounded by scenes of transcendent historic and ecclesiastical interest. On a lovely hillside is a holy spring where St. Patrick baptized his first converts. A little farther away is a large artificial mound, about eleven acres in extent, covered with aged hawthorn trees, where stood the royal palace of Ulster, and it was occupied for a century after the arrival of St. Patrick. Within the grounds of the Protestant archbishop are the remains of a Franciscan monastery and a well beside which St. Bridget lived for several years. Eastward of the town, upon the hills, was located the ancient Catholic University of Armagh founded by St. Patrick in the year 455, where as many as seven thousand students gathered for instruction in literature, the arts, and theology, and until the Reformation it was one of the greatest schools of Europe. Emania, now called the "Navan Fort," the residence of the kings of Ulster, was founded by Queen Macha of the Golden Hair, whose legend is most interesting. It was founded about 300 B.C. It was a royal residence for six hundred years or more. It was then destroyed by the three Collas, and has remained a waste ever since. St. Patrick came nearly a century after its destruction. The petty king, Daire, who gave a site to St. Patrick, was probably king of Oriel, or possibly of one of the tribes which composed the kingdom of Oriel, or Oirgialla. Professor Bury, in his "Life of St. Patrick" says: "King Daire ... dwelt in the neighborhood of the ancient fortress of Emania, which his own ancestors had destroyed a hundred years agone, when they had come from the south to wrest the place from the Ulidians [Ulidia is Ulster] and sack the palace of its lords. The conquerors did not set up their abode in the stronghold of the old kings of Ulster; they burned the timber buildings and left the place desolate." Patrick's first foundation was not on the hill where the old cathedral now stands. He asked that site of Daire, but the latter refused, and gave him a site at the foot of the hill instead. The original church of St. Patrick is believed to have stood somewhere about the spot whereon the branch Bank of Ireland now stands in Armagh. Bury says of the original structures of Patrick: "The simple houses which were needed for a small society of monks were built, and there is a record, which appears to be ancient and credible, concerning these primitive buildings. A circular space was marked out one hundred and forty feet in diameter, and inclosed by a rampart of earth. Within this were erected, doubtless of wood, a 'great house' to be the dwelling of the monks, a kitchen, and a small oratory." Ultimately, King Daire gave Patrick the hill he coveted, then called Drum-saileach, the "ridge of the willows." The story is quaintly interesting. Daire brought to Patrick a bronze cooking-pot, as a mark of respect. Patrick merely said in Latin, "Gratias agamus" ("I thank thee"). This sounded, in the unlearned ears of the king, like "gratzacham." Daire was annoyed that the pot should be received with no greater sign of satisfaction. So, when he reached home, he sent servants to bring back the cooking-pot, as something which the monk was not able to appreciate. When they came back with the pot, Daire asked what Patrick said, and was told "Gratzacham." "What," said Daire, "'gratzacham' when it was given, and 'gratzacham' when it was taken away! It is a good word, and for his 'gratzacham' he shall have his cooking-pot." Then he went himself with the pot to Patrick, and said, "Keep thy cooking-pot, for thou art a steadfast and unchangeful man." And he gave Patrick, besides, the hill on which the old cathedral stands. The name Armagh is derived from that of Macha of the Golden Hair. It is "Ard-Macha," that is, "Macha's Height." The legend is that she was buried on the hill where the cathedral stands, and that it was named for her in consequence. But some seven hundred years passed before Patrick obtained the hill; its name had been changed to "Drum-saileach"; but Patrick seems to have revived the old name. A spurious derivation is given by some--"Ardmagh," the high plain; but there is no "high plain" there, and the "Four Masters" give it Ard-Macha. Naturally, the object of supreme interest at Armagh is the ancient Cathedral of St. Patrick, the cradle of the Christian church in Ireland. The present building, however, dates back only to the seventeenth century, although portions of the walls were built as long ago as 830, when "the great stone church of Armagh" is described in detail in the "Annals of Armagh," one of the oldest of human records. The church was partly destroyed by fire in 1268 and rebuilt. In 1367 it was restored again. During the rebellion in the reign of Queen Elizabeth it was used as a fortress by Shane O'Neill and burned by him. In 1613 it was thoroughly rebuilt, and in 1834 was restored to its present condition by Lord George Beresford, the wealthy archbishop of that date. Although it has often been asserted that St. Patrick is buried in Armagh, no such claim is made here, and the authorities of both the Irish and the Roman Catholic churches accept the tomb at Downpatrick as genuine. But the old cathedral is the burial place of several other of the early saints, and somewhere under the tiling on the north side of the high altar lies the moldering dust of Brian Boru, the greatest of all the Irish kings, whose bleeding body was brought there after the battle of Clontarf in 1014, in obedience to his dying request. There is no trace of his tomb, which was destroyed centuries ago. All of the tombs within the church are comparatively modern. The oldest epitaph in the churchyard dates back to 1620, and most of the graves contain the dust of archbishops who have presided over this diocese. In the east and west aisles, in the center of the cathedral, are two beautiful sarcophagi of white Italian marble, carved by an eminent artist with effigies of two Beresfords, John George and Marcus Servais Beresford, father and son, who were successive archbishops of Armagh. The principal windows contain artistic memorials to their wives, Lady Catherine and Lady Anne Beresford. After the Reformation the few Roman Catholic residents of Armagh who remained true to the church of Rome worshiped in "the old chapel," as it is called, a humble structure erected in the seventeenth century to mark the site of the house where St. Malachi was born in 1094. And when the primatial see was revived at Armagh by the pope that old church was made the cathedral of Ireland. In 1835 Archbishop Crolly undertook to raise funds for a more appropriate building, and obtained two acres of land on the other side of town, adjoining Sandy Hill Cemetery, which is the oldest Christian burial place in the United Kingdom. His successors have since obtained seven acres more, and hope ultimately to secure a larger area. In 1840 Mr. Duff, a native architect, prepared plans for a cathedral of massive proportions, and the corner stone was laid on St. Patrick's day of that year. A building committee of laymen was formed and priests were sent through the length and breadth of the land, and, indeed, throughout the world, to collect funds. Generous gifts came from the United States, from Canada, from Australia, and from every other country where Irish emigrants have gone, and a great bazaar was held in 1865 at which $35,000 was raised. The exterior was not completed until 1873, when the finishing touches were added to the spires, and on the 24th of August the temple was dedicated, as the inscription over the entrance reads, "To the One God, Omnipotent Three in Person, under the invocation of St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland." Dr. M'Gettigan was archbishop then, and he lived until 1887, when he was succeeded by Michael Logue, who had been chosen as his coadjutor by the parish priests of Armagh. Cardinal Logue was born in County Donegal in 1840, graduated from Maynooth College and was ordained in 1866. For several years he was professor of theology and belles lettres in the Irish College at Paris. In 1876 he was made dean of Maynooth and professor of dogmatic and moral theology. The following year, at the age of thirty-nine, he was consecrated Bishop of Raphoe and for eight years labored among the people of his native county with great energy and usefulness until he came to Armagh. In January, 1893, he was elevated to the college of cardinals, a dignity never before attained even by the greatest of the long line of one hundred and fourteen primates since St. Patrick that have presided over this see. Immediately after going to Armagh in 1887 to assist his venerable predecessor, Cardinal Logue began to raise funds to complete the interior of the cathedral, which was then undecorated and fitted with temporary altars and seats. His appeals to Irish patriotism were responded to with great generosity, and in 1899 he organized the National Cathedral Bazaar, as it was called, which continued for two years and resulted in raising $150,000 to complete the cathedral, so that on July 24, 1904, the building was again solemnly dedicated with a great pageant and impressive ceremonies at which his Holiness, the Pope, was represented by his Eminence, Cardinal Bishop Vincente Vanuetelli. [Illustration: ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL AT ARMAGH, THE SEAT OF CARDINAL LOGUE, THE ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIMATE OF IRELAND] Cardinal Logue resides in a modest mansion in the rear of the cathedral, between the synod house and the theological seminary. Many a parish priest in Ireland and America lives in greater style. His manner of life illustrates the simplicity of his character and tastes. His lack of ostentation is one of his most charming traits. It seems very remarkable that St. Patrick, St. Bridget, and St. Columba, the three saints most venerated by Ireland, should be buried in the same grave in an obscure little churchyard at the village of Downpatrick, about twenty miles south of Belfast. There is nothing in the way of documentary evidence to prove that the bodies of St. Bridget and St. Columba were placed in St. Patrick's tomb, but the fact is stated in the earliest histories of the church in Ireland, and is frequently referred to by writers in the tenth century and later. And the claims of Downpatrick to this great honor are not seriously disputed. The "Annals of the Four Masters" refer to the death of St. Bridget in 525 as follows: "On February first, St. Bridget died and was interred at Dun [Down] in the same tomb with St. Patrick, with great honor and veneration." St. Patrick died in the year 465 at the Monastery of Saul, which he had founded at Downpatrick. It was his wish to be buried at Armagh, then, as now, the ecclesiastical headquarters of Ireland, and during the twelve days given up to mourning and funeral ceremonies a controversy arose between the monks of Armagh and those of Downpatrick, who claimed the body and insisted upon its burial in their cloisters. A wise old friar suggested that the decision be left to heaven, and after saying mass the coffin was placed upon a wagon and two young oxen were taken from the field and yoked for the first time. It was agreed that they should be started along the road to Armagh, and that wherever they stopped the grave of St. Patrick should be made. The oxen commenced their journey and the rival bodies of monks retired to their cloisters to pray. The "Book of Armagh," written in the year 802, and now in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, duly relates that, after proceeding for two miles down the road slowly, the oxen turned from the main thoroughfare and rested at Dundalethglass, the site of the present Cathedral of Down. The monks from Armagh submitted to the will of heaven, and there the sacred dust was laid. Shortly after this, about 495, a church was built upon the site now occupied by the present edifice. It was rebuilt in the twelfth century, a considerable portion of the original walls being retained and several interior arches. And those walls and arches remain to-day. It is therefore the oldest structure in Ireland and is entitled to the veneration it receives. It stands in a grove upon the summit of a hill, a plain, dignified pile of perfect proportions, with a square tower and four spires--in no way imposing, but beautiful in its simplicity. [Illustration: DOWN CATHEDRAL, DOWNPATRICK, WHERE ST. PATRICK LIVED, AND IN THE CHURCHYARD OF WHICH HE WAS BURIED] The interior of the church is said to be precisely as it was originally built, there having been no change in the arrangement. And most of the columns which sustain the arches and several of the arches were a part of the original building. The "Annals of Ulster" give the names of the abbots who had charge of the monastery that was built in connection with the church, as far back as the year 583, although there are several wide gaps in the records of the eighth, ninth, and thirteenth centuries. The abbey was plundered and partially destroyed on no less than eight occasions, between the years 824 and 1111, and the "Annals of Ulster" give the particulars of each invasion. In 1177 Sir John de Courcy, the most powerful and able lieutenant of Strongbow, who assumed authority over the kingdom of Ulster, made Downpatrick his principal residence and erected there a strong castle, the greater portion of which remained until about half a century ago. At his time the church and the monastery were occupied by Augustinian monks, who were driven out by De Courcy and replaced by Benedictines from the Abbey of Chester, England, and the church was rededicated in honor of St. Patrick, having previously borne the name of the Holy Trinity. And De Courcy gave the abbey a liberal endowment. He also erected a Celtic cross, which is believed to be the same that was recently recovered in fragments, carefully mended and placed in the churchyard. Among the endowments of the Downpatrick abbey were four of the principal ferries across the rivers of Ulster, forty-seven "town lands," which probably correspond to our townships, and every tenth animal upon the farms of Ulster. Of the extensive monastic building erected by De Courcy's generosity not a trace remains except the foundations, and these are covered with the accumulated débris of four centuries. The inhabitants of Downpatrick and all the country around have used the ruin as a quarry for building material. Nearly all of the old houses in the village are made of materials from that source. The monastery was plundered and burned by Edward Bruce, brother of Robert Bruce, the Scottish chieftain, who caused himself to be proclaimed King of Ireland in 1315. It was rebuilt and burned again in 1512. Lord Grey, who was sent over by King Henry VIII. to quiet Ireland, profaned and destroyed it, as he did everything else in this section, in his attempts to exterminate the O'Neills. Lord Grey was executed in the Tower of London in 1541. The fourth charge in the indictment against him was that "He rased St. Patrick's, his church, in the old ancient citie of Ulster and burnt the monument of Patricke, Brided and Colme, who are said to have been there intoombed. That without onie warrant from the King or Councill he profaned the Church of St. Patrick in Downe, turning it into a stable after plucked it down and ship the notable ring of Bels that did hang in the steeple, meaning to have sent them to England, had not God of His Justice prevented his iniquitie by sinking the vessels and passengers wherein the said bells should have been conveied." The "Annals of Ulster," under date of 1538, record that "the monastery of Downe was burned and the relics of Patrick, Columcille Briget and the image of Catherine were carried off." The oldest inscription in the church is on a tombstone erected to the memory of Edward, Lord Cromwell and Baron Oakham, no relative of Oliver Cromwell, but a great-grandson of Thomas Cromwell, the famous minister of Henry VIII., who, after the pacification of the country obtained possession of the Downpatrick estates, which continued in his family until 1832, when they were purchased by David Kerr, and in 1874 sold to the late Lord Dunleath, who now owns the largest part of the surrounding country. At the time of the Reformation, the monks of Downpatrick refused to subscribe to the new ordinances and were driven out of the monastery. The history of Downpatrick is quite vague from that time until affairs quieted down, but from 1662 the records are complete. Rev. John Wesley visited Downpatrick in 1778, and in his diary he describes the ruins of the Abbey of Saul as "far the largest building I have ever seen in the kingdom. Adjoining it is one of the most beautiful groves which I have ever beheld with my eyes. It covers the sloping side of the hill and has vistas cut through it every way. There is a most lovely plain very near to the venerable ruins of the cathedral." Wesley visited Downpatrick on four different occasions between 1778 and 1785, and during each visit preached in the grove he describes, using as a pulpit the pedestal upon which a statue of St. Patrick formerly stood. Perhaps the most celebrated resident of Downpatrick was Rev. Jeremy Taylor, who, while bishop of this diocese, wrote his famous book, "Holy Living and Holy Dying." Nothing but the irregular surface of the ground upon a hill about two miles from Downpatrick marks the site of the ancient Monastery of Saul, which from the time it was founded by St. Patrick in 432 was for several centuries one of the most celebrated and influential educational institutions in the world. Like the monastery at Armagh, only twenty miles away, which was also founded by St. Patrick about the same time, it was attended annually by thousands of students from England, Scotland, France, Spain, and other countries of the continent to hear and absorb the learning of the Augustinian and afterward the Benedictine monks. Unfortunately, however, no records remain of the institutions farther than an occasional reference in the "Annals of Ulster." The sanctity of the place, however, is recognized by Christians of every race and sect, although the grave of St. Patrick--and of two other saints--which is a hundred feet from the entrance to the old cathedral church, is marked only by an enormous granite bowlder, almost as nature made it, bearing no inscription except the word "Patric" in celtic letters beneath a celtic cross chiseled on the surface of the stone. It is a most appropriate monument in its simple dignity, and one that you might imagine that St. Patrick would have preferred rather than a lofty and ornate tower. It is rather curious, however, that no movement has ever been started to erect an imposing memorial here; there is no evidence that any monument of size ever marked the grave, although the three most venerated saints in the Irish calendar lie here together. A distich, said to have been written by Sir John de Courcy in 1185, says: "Hi tres Duno tumulo tumulantur in uno; Brigidam, Patricius atque Colomba Pius"; which is liberally translated as follows: "Three Saints in Down, one grave do fill; Saints Patrick, Bridget and Columbkill." Downpatrick is visited annually by thousands of pilgrims. The town is practically supported by them, and the tomb has to be guarded against vandalism, particularly on Sundays, Good Friday, Easter, and other religious holidays. Relic hunters have carried away tons of earth from about the grave, which they dig up with their fingers or trowels or sticks and consign to bottles, boxes, or baskets. As soon as the cavities become too large, the custodian hauls a cart of soil from the nearest field and fills them up. It is asserted in the guide book that St. Patrick was never canonized by the pope, and that he is recognized as a saint only by the Irish people. This is a singular assertion. The Roman Catholic prayer book used in Ireland mentions March 17, the feast of St. Patrick, as one of the holy days upon which there is strict obligation to attend mass and to refrain from all unnecessary labor. According to the best authorities, St. Patrick was born at Nemthur (the Holy Tower), now known as Dumbarton, Scotland, in the year 387, and his father, Palpurn, was a magistrate in the service of the Romans. When he was sixteen, in the year 403, Patrick was taken captive and sold as a slave. A rich man named Milcho brought him to Ireland and employed him to herd sheep and swine in County Antrim. At the end of six years of slavery he escaped, returned to his home and family and then went to a monastic school at Tours, France. After receiving his education and being ordained he went to Rome, where he was blessed by Pope Celestine and commissioned to go to Ireland as a missionary. He landed at the mouth of a little stream called the Slaney, only about two miles from Saul, and settled at Downpatrick, where the chief gave him the use of a sabhall or barn for divine service, and upon that site was erected the famous monastery which took its name, Saul, from the barn. He remained there for several years, teaching and training disciples, and then visited every part of the island, preaching the gospel to the kings and chiefs as well as to the poor half-civilized habitants of the mountains. He founded many churches and monasteries in different places and finally settled down at Armagh as Bishop of Ireland in 457, where he remained for eight years. In March, 465, when he was seventy-eight years old, while paying a visit to the monastery of Saul, the scene of his first ministrations in Ireland, he was seized with a fatal illness and breathed his last. The news of his death was the signal for universal mourning in Ireland, and thousands of the clergy and laity came from the remotest districts to pay their last tributes of love and respect to the greatest of missionaries. [Illustration: THE VILLAGE OF DOWNPATRICK] St. Bridget, who ranks next to St. Patrick in the veneration of the Irish, was the daughter of a nobleman, and was born at Fochard, a village near Armagh, in the year 453. Her great beauty and her father's wealth and position caused her to be sought in marriage by several of the princes of Ireland, but early in life she became a convert to the new religion, consecrated herself to its service, and retired to a forest near Kildare, about twenty miles from Dublin. She built herself a cell in the trunk of a great oak, around which grew a great religious community. She died Feb. 1, 525, at the age of seventy-two years. For many years the nuns of Kildare kept a light burning constantly in her memory. "The bright light that shone in Kildare's holy flame" was suppressed, however, by the Archbishop of Dublin for fear it would be interpreted as a pagan practice. The body of St. Bridget was originally buried at Kildare, but in the year 1185 was translated with great solemnity to Downpatrick, attended by the pope's legate, fifteen bishops, and a great number of clergy. Her head was carried to the convent of Neustadt, Austria, and in 1587 was removed to the Church of the Jesuits in Lisbon. St. Columba, or St. Columbkill, died while kneeling before the altar of his church on the Island of Iona, a little after midnight, Jan. 9, 597. He was originally buried in his monastery, and his body was removed to Downpatrick the same year as that of St. Bridget. XIV THE SINN FEIN MOVEMENT The Sinn Fein movement (pronounced "shinn fane") which promised so much is not making great progress. Some of its principles are admirable, and from a sentimental standpoint appeal to the patriotism of every Irishman, but the management is in the hands of impractical amateurs who have antagonized the Roman Catholic church, and that would be fatal to any movement in Ireland or any other country where three-fourths of the population profess that faith and the priesthood are as powerful as in Ireland. Furthermore, the young men who are directing affairs have gone into politics and have attempted to buck against the nationalist party, which controls three-fourths of the Irish vote. For these reasons the movement has suffered a setback, and it is doubtful whether it will ever recover the impetus it acquired two or three years ago. If it had been kept out of politics and out of religion like the Gaelic League, for example, which is aiming at a portion of the same objects, it might have done an immense amount of good. The leaders are earnest but inexperienced; they are long on ideas but short on common sense, and have more principles than votes, as has been illustrated at recent elections in Ireland. The leaders of the national party, bearing the scars of many political contests and familiar with all the tricks of their trade, regard the Sinn Fein advocates as enthusiastic schoolboys and play with them as a mastiff plays with a puppy. The Sinn Feiners have formally demanded that the nationalist party shall abandon its present policy and adopt their platform--a proposition which its leaders consider very amusing, but when you can persuade them to discuss it seriously they say that they have accomplished too much and are too near the goal of home rule to abandon the present programme and adopt one that is new and untried. Sinn Fein means "for ourselves," and those two Celtic words describe the policy and the purpose of the organization. It demands that Ireland stand alone and work out her salvation by her own efforts, absolutely boycotting the British government, which they declare is the only enemy of Ireland and the cause of all the evils and the ills that afflict the Irish people. It is an imitation of the policy adopted by Ferencz Deák in the contest with Austria for Hungarian independence from 1849 to 1867. He organized a vast movement of passive resistance. Under his leadership the Hungarians refused to pay taxes unless levied and collected by their own officials; they refused to send Hungarian representatives to the imperial parliament; they built up an educational and administrative system of their own, and in less than twenty years achieved practical independence for Hungary, the right to make their own laws and administer their own government. The chief weapon was a national boycott, and it was successful. In 1903 a young newspaper man named Arthur Griffith conceived the idea of applying the Hungarian policy to Ireland and boycotting the British government. He wrote a good deal for the newspapers, went around the island holding public meetings, organizing local societies, appealing to the patriotic sentiments of the young men of the country, and started a weekly newspaper as an organ of the cause. At first it was understood that the Sinn Feiners would abstain from politics like the Gaelic League, but the refusal of the politicians to join or assist them provoked animosities, and in retaliation the Sinn Feiners nominated candidates for several offices, who were in sympathy with them. This developed a positive contest, the Sinn Fein movement was placed under the ban by the Irish parliamentary leaders and soon became an independent political party. A similar collision occurred with the Roman Catholic church chiefly because the ardent young leaders did not consult the priests and obtain the indorsement of the hierarchy, which might have approved the programme with some revision. The misunderstanding was allowed to grow until now the Sinn Feiners are under the ban of the church as well as that of the United Irish League and the parliamentary party, and the opposition of those three powers cannot be overcome or even resisted. Therefore the movement is doomed to failure. Nevertheless, the Sinn Feiners have succeeded in electing several of their number to office on their own platform. They now have twelve out of eighty members of the Dublin common council and board of aldermen, and in other cities of Ireland they have representatives in official positions. Not long ago they nominated a candidate for the House of Commons in the North Leitrim district, notwithstanding the fact that the first plank in their programme demands the complete boycott of the British parliament. It was an Irish bull and naturally excited much ridicule, but the Sinn Feiners succeeded in polling 1,100 out of a total of 6,000 votes, which was a great deal more than any one expected. Some time ago the national council of the party devised a scheme for raising money to establish a daily newspaper. They printed and offered for sale very pretty postage stamps and asked everybody to buy them and place them on their letters in addition to the portrait of King Edward, which is required by act of parliament. It was a fatal error, because it was an absolute failure and disclosed the weakness of the movement and the insincerity of its members. I am told that less than five per cent of the stamps printed were ever disposed of. Some of the propositions in the programme of the Sinn Fein party, as I have already said, appeal very strongly to the patriotism of the Irish people; others are so fantastic as to destroy confidence in the judgment of its leaders. For example, they issued an urgent appeal to the newspapers and to the public to use no paper or stationery except of Irish manufacture, which might have been to the advantage of the country if there were any paper mills in Ireland. Again, they advocate Irish ownership of all public utilities. They want Irish capitalists to buy up the stock of all the railways and street car lines and other public enterprises and employ none but Irishmen in their administration, which might be done if there were a good deal more capital in the country; but as long as the Irish people are too poor to pay for the stock, it would seem a little premature for them to undertake to carry out the Sinn Fein recommendations. The first plank in the programme of the Sinn Fein platform is a national Irish legislature endowed with moral authority to enact laws and recommend policies for the adoption of the Irish people. This legislature is to be composed of the members of the county councils, the poor-law boards and harbor boards of all Ireland, to sit twice a year in Dublin, and to form a _de facto_ Irish parliament. Associated with and sitting with this body would be the present Irish members of the House of Commons and their successors representing the constituencies as at present defined. Before taking this step, however, it is proposed that the Irish members of the House of Commons should make a dramatic demonstration in parliament, to emphasize the significance of their retirement. They are to rise in their seats and formally decline any longer to confer on the affairs of Ireland with foreigners in a foreign city. Among other functions of the proposed Irish legislature shall be the assessment of a tax of one penny to the pound--that is, two cents for every five dollars' worth of property--without regard to present taxation, and thus acquire a fund "to serve and strengthen the country in bringing about the triumph of the Sinn Fein policy." This fund would be used in the payment of bounties to develop Irish industries, to establish libraries of Irish literature and museums of arts and antiquities; to establish gymnasiums for the physical training of the young people and schools for their moral training and discipline and instruction in Irish history. The first laws to be passed by the legislature would exclude all goods of English manufacture from Ireland, prohibit the use of foreign articles by the government, forbid the appointment of any but natives of Ireland to public positions, withhold support from newspapers which publish emigration advertisements, require the study of the Celtic language in all the schools for certain hours and prepare text-books so that no other language would be necessary in instruction, raise the standard of wages among workingmen, increase their proficiency by technical instruction, develop the resources and industries of the country, and extend the area of tilled soil and the planting of forests. After having accomplished these objects the Irish legislature, according to the programme of the Sinn Fein, should establish a national university, open and free to the poor as well as the rich, with none but Irish instructors and the Celtic language substituted for the English. Next a union of manufacturers and farmers for co-operation, both pledging themselves to use none but Irish goods and products so far as possible. In cases where an Irish manufacturer cannot produce an article as cheaply as it is produced in England or other countries he is to be paid a bounty or protected by a tariff similar to that which has advanced the prosperity of the mechanical industries of the United States. The next step is to establish an Irish mercantile marine similar to that of Scotland and Norway. Ireland has no steamers; Scotland has many and, according to the Sinn Feiners, there is no reason why there should not be as large a fleet sailing from that country. It is proposed to establish an independent consular service of Irishmen in the principal capitals and commercial centers of the world where a market may be found for Irish produce. These consuls are to act independently of the regular representatives of Great Britain and devote themselves entirely to Irish interests. The proposed parliament shall take immediate steps to plant trees all over the island, which, it is asserted, will result in raising the mean temperature at least four degrees and thus render the soil doubly fruitful. The tree planting is to be done under the direction of the poor-law boards, which are to employ the inmates of the poor-houses so far as their physical condition will permit, in planting, watering, and looking after the young trees. The parliament is to establish national courts of law entirely independent of the present courts which are to be entirely boycotted by the people. It is declared to be the duty of every Irishman to submit all disputes to the arbitration of his neighbors who are to serve without pay. The national courts are to be composed of the justices of the peace already elected by the people, who shall sit outside the regular legal hours and terms of court, so as to avoid complications. A national stock exchange is to be established which shall deal only in Irish securities, and a system of banks which shall limit their dealings to natives of Ireland and encourage the transfer of the $250,000,000 of Irish money alleged to be now deposited in the English banks and invested in English securities, to Irish banks and Irish securities, and to encourage its investments in active industries and public works, to develop the resources of Ireland and to give employment to Irish labor. One of the principal planks in the Sinn Fein platform is to boycott the British army and navy. It is asserted that Ireland supplies more fighting men for the British empire than England; that 354 Irishmen out of every 10,000 of its population are British soldiers, while only 276 out of every 10,000 in England go into the army. If the Irish would refuse to enlist it would paralyze the military service of the empire, and deal a serious blow to British prosperity by drawing a large number of the employees of the shops and factories into the army and navy. Another form of boycott recommended is for all Irishmen to refuse appointments in the British civil service and the constabulary on the theory that every Irishman who accepts employment from the British government takes up arms against Ireland and becomes the active enemy of his country, "being employed to keep a hostile country up, and to keep his own country down." A plank in the platform in which we are directly interested advocates an invitation of the natives of Ireland in America to invest their money in the development of Irish industries and resources. It says: "There are in the United States to-day thirty Irishmen or men of Irish blood whose names on a cheque would be good for £50,000,000. Few of these men take any public part in affairs, but all of them profess in private a desire to help Ireland. We invite them as men of business to undertake a work which will be mutually profitable to themselves and to Ireland." These propositions are embodied in a manifesto which has been printed and widely circulated throughout Ireland to explain the purpose of the Sinn Fein movement, and they have attracted a large number of active adherents to the cause and many silent sympathizers. But, as you may imagine, some of them do not appeal very strongly to practical men. If the Sinn Feiners had undertaken to do less, had kept out of politics and had avoided the enmity of the church they might have become a powerful and useful agency in promoting Irish industries and stimulating Irish patriotism, but the leaders have gone too far to retrace their steps. They cannot retract the unkind words they have said about the Irish parliamentary party or their bitter criticism of the interference of the bishops and the priests. It would be fatal for them to amend their programme by omitting the impractical portions. Hence it is not probable that the movement will gain much strength in the future, and, indeed, it is already on the decline. XV THE NORTH OF IRELAND The traveler from the south or west enters a zone of prosperity when he comes within forty miles of Belfast. The northern counties look like an entirely different world. The beautiful rolling landscape, with an occasional grove and flowering hedges, is similar to the rest of the east coast of the island, but the farms are larger and more thoroughly cultivated; very little of the land is given up to grazing, few cattle are seen, but fields of grain, flax, potatoes, turnips, and other vegetables take the place of pastures, and the large farmhouses are surrounded by well-kept gardens and big barns. There are no more filthy one-room cabins, with manure piles in front of the doors, and few signs of poverty or neglect. The people live in two-story houses and sleep in beds instead of on the mud floors; they have cook stoves and ranges instead of boiling their food in pots over a peat fire out of doors. There are no barefooted women; none with blankets over their heads. Every one seems to be well dressed and to have a pride of appearance as well as habits of neatness and bears evidences of comfortable circumstances. Tall chimneys rise from the centers of the towns. We see large factories in every village and square miles of linen cloth spread out upon the turf to bleach. The north of Ireland is as different from the rest of the country as New England is from Alabama, and there is a corresponding difference in the character of the people. They are not so genial and gentle and obliging in the North; they are not so poetic, but are more practical, and they are looking out for themselves. The manners of the people of Belfast are said to be the worst in the world. They are often offensive in their brusqueness and abruptness, and a stranger is sometimes repelled by their gruff replies. The Belfasters make no pretensions to politeness, and speak their minds with a plainness and directness that are sometimes disagreeable. But they have a reputation for honesty, enterprise, industry, and morality, which they consider virtues of greater importance and of a higher value than the art of politeness. There is a series of beautiful villages and towns along the coast south of Belfast, and one of them is called Rosstrevor because a gentleman by the name of Ross married an heiress by the name of Trevor, a younger daughter of the Viscount of Dungan. It is situated upon a height, with a background of wooded hills, plentifully sprinkled with villas. The village shows evidence of the fostering care of its late owner, Sir David Ross, and its present owner, Sir John Ross-of-Bladensburg, who is commissioner of police for Ireland, and is a person of great importance in his own estimation as well as that of others. He takes an active part in political and ecclesiastical affairs and is always occupying a front seat when anything is going on. He signs himself John Ross of Bladensburg, because his grandfather, Major General Ross, commanded the British troops at the battle of Bladensburg, and after one of the most bloody and important conflicts in the history of human warfare he led them triumphantly into the capital of the United States and destroyed the palace of the President, the parliament house, and the navy yard! All this and more appears in the much published biographies of the Ross family, and because of the glory thus acquired they added the word "Bladensburg" to their name when they were elevated to a baronetcy. [Illustration: ROSSTREVOR HOUSE, NEAR BELFAST, THE RESIDENCE OF SIR JOHN ROSS OF BLADENSBURG] The Ross family have erected an obelisk to the memory of their famous ancestor upon a promontory above the sea at Rosstrevor, and have inscribed upon it the following epitaph: The Officers of a Grateful Army, Which, Under the Command of the Lamented MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT ROSS, Attacked and Defeated the American Forces at Bladensburg on the 24th of August, 1814, And on the Same Day Victoriously Entered Washington, The Capital of the United States, Inscribe Upon This Tablet Their Admiration of His Professional Skill And Their Esteem for His Amiable Private Character. There are three other inscriptions of similar purport, one on each face of the pedestal. General Ross, it appears, is buried in Halifax. Belfast is the center of a great manufacturing district. Each factory is surrounded by groups of neat two-story brick cottages, with gardens, churches, schoolhouses, and shops, which are very different from the rest of Ireland, and are similar to those in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Belfast ranks high among the manufacturing cities of the world. It is proud of the title of "The Chicago of Ireland." The people are as boastful of their progress, their wealth, and their prosperity as those of its namesake. But for the strong Scotch accent one might imagine himself in Kansas City, Seattle, or Los Angeles because of their civic pride. Every man you meet tells you that a hundred years ago Belfast had only fifteen thousand population, while to-day it has nearly four hundred thousand; that its wealth has doubled six times in the last twenty-five years; that it has the largest shipyards, the largest tobacco factory, the largest spinning mills, and the largest rope walk in the world. When they take you up on the side of a high mountain and show you a view of the city spread out on both sides of the River Lagan, they defy you to count the chimneys and the church spires, which are as numerous as the domes of Moscow. Belfast is the most prosperous place in Ireland and an example of matchless concentration of power, industry, and ability. The people have good ground for their vanity, and while their claims are somewhat exaggerated, few cities have so much to boast of. One of the shipyards has produced more than four hundred ocean steamers, another built the first turbine that ever floated on the ocean, and together they employ fifteen thousand hands. The machine shops of Belfast are also famous. They provide spinning and weaving machines for all the linen mills in the world, and ship them even to the United States. The engines, boilers, and other machinery that is turned out from the shops of Belfast are shipped to every corner of the world, and the product of the linen factories' trade now amounts to more than sixty million dollars a year. The largest mill covers five acres, with 60,000 spindles, 1,000 looms, and more than 4,000 hands. A single tobacco firm pays $4,000,000 in taxes every year and a distillery has an annual output of $7,500,000. Belfast has sixteen factories for the production of ginger ale, lemonade, soda, and other aërated waters, which are famous the world over. It manufactures agricultural implements and machinery for every kind of industry, and much of the machinery is the invention of its own citizens. Belfast is no relation to the rest of Ireland. It is a Scottish town, and most of the people are of Scotch ancestry--all except the lowest class of labor, which has drifted in from the neighboring counties. The city lies at the head of a bay, or lough, as they call it there, nine miles long. The headlands at the mouth of the bay are only eighteen miles from the shores of Scotland, which may be seen very plainly on a clear morning. The shortest distance between Ireland and Scotland is only twelve and three-quarter miles--between Torrhead and the Mull of Kintyre. The shortest practicable crossing, between Larne, a few miles north of Belfast, and Stranraer, Scotland, is thirty-nine miles, and is made in two hours by steamer. The crossing from Belfast is sixty-four miles, and it is five hours to Glasgow. There are steamers several times a day--in the morning, afternoon, and at night--and the largest part of the business as well as the sympathies of the people are with the Scots. Since the tunnel under the Hudson River has been completed between New York and Hoboken, the plan for an "under sea railway" between Larne and Port Patrick has been revived. The engineers have reported that they can make a tunnel from Ireland to Scotland, less than forty-five miles, one hundred and fifty feet below the sea level, at a cost of $60,000,000, and some day, perhaps, it will be possible to cross by train under the Irish Channel, rather than by boat over it. The racial, religious, and political antagonisms between the north and south of Ireland are well known, and can never be removed. Three-fourths of the population in this section of the island are Protestants, mostly Calvinists of the sternest kind, and the portraits of John Knox and Oliver Cromwell hang on the walls of the houses rather than those of the popes. The religious feeling, however, is not so intense as formerly. A generation ago, the 12th of July (the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne, in which the Protestant army of William of Orange overcame and dispersed the Roman Catholic forces under James II.) never used to pass without a riot and many broken heads, but of recent years there have been very few collisions. Formerly, the Roman Catholics used to lie in wait at a certain bridge to attack the procession of Orange societies as it passed over, with shillalahs and stones. The Orangemen, who are mostly mechanics from the shipyards and machine-shops, always armed themselves with iron bolts and nuts for the fray, and missiles flew freely, leaving many unconscious and sometimes dead men on the ground. And on other holidays, whenever the representatives of either religious faith came out in force, the other usually attempted to interfere with them. But those days have passed. The rival religionists glare at and taunt each other now, but do not strike. One cannot blame the Roman Catholics for their bitterness. In the middle of the sixteenth century, in consequence of the rebellion of the earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, the heads of the great clans of O'Neill and O'Donnell, against the authority of Queen Elizabeth, the territory belonging to them and their followers was confiscated by the crown and sold to Protestants, chiefly from Scotland, just as the southern counties were distributed among the "undertakers" from England, but with a difference. The "undertakers" who were granted the estates of the rebellious earls in southern Ireland were mostly adventurers and speculators. Many of them never came to Ireland at all. Few of them settled permanently upon their grants, while nearly all of those who undertook to carry out the contract of colonization were indifferent to the class of settlers they brought in. In Ulster Province, however, which is the northern third of Ireland, after the "flight of the earls," their confiscated lands were taken up in small parcels by actual settlers from Scotland, whose descendants have occupied them until this day--a sturdy, thrifty, industrious, and prosperous race, and the children of these "Scotch-Irish" Protestants have borne as important a part in the settlement and development of the United States as the children of the Pilgrims have done. The "planters," who came over from Scotland, brought with them their morals and their religion, and most of them were Presbyterians. In 1637 the surveyor-general of the Ulster plantations reported to the king that there were forty Scots to one English, and fifteen Presbyterians to one of all the other sects combined. And the Presbyterians have ever since been the leading religious body in the north of Ireland. They are a stern, stolid, conservative race, stubborn of opinion, persistent of purpose, and fully conscious of their own rectitude. When William, Prince of Orange, invaded Ireland in 1689, after James II. abdicated his throne and fled from England, he landed at the little town of Carrickfergus, about six miles below Belfast, where he was received with great rejoicing. Here he unfurled his flag and displayed his motto, "The Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England I will maintain," and the people of Belfast have endeavored to maintain them with vigor ever since. The term "Orangemen" has ever since been applied to organizations of Protestants of a political character, and they have received more or less support from the church. Most of them are semi-benevolent, like the Hibernian societies among the Catholic population of southern Ireland, and they are found in every town and village in the province of Ulster. There are Orange halls in every parish of Belfast and the surrounding country. They embrace in their membership representatives of all the Protestant denominations, the Church of Ireland and the Methodists as well as the Presbyterians--but the latter are most numerous and in some districts you will find none but Presbyterians. The O'Neills were kings of Ulster in ancient times and their coat of arms was a red hand, whereby hangs a startling tale. According to tradition, the original O'Neill came over from Scotland with a party of invaders, among whom it was agreed that he should be king whose hand first touched the soil of Ireland. The boats were all stranded on the beach, and the captains and the crews were striving desperately to make the shore, when "The O'Neill," with the nerve that has always distinguished his clan, drew his sword, chopped off his own left hand at the wrist, threw it upon the beach and claimed the throne, which was accorded him. Hence a red hand or "Lamh dearg" is on the coat of arms of Ulster, being placed upon a small shield in the center of a large shield, upon which appears the red cross of St. George, thus signifying England's domination over Ulster. Neill of the Nine Hostages, who reigned from A.D. 379 to 405, was the most warlike and adventurous of all the pagan kings, and, with two exceptions, all the overkings of Ireland, from the time that Red O'Neill tossed his amputated hand upon the shore, to the accession of Brian Boru, belonged to this illustrious family. And they gave England a great deal of trouble. In 1551, Conn O'Neill was created Earl of Tyrone, and Mathew, who claimed to be his son, was given the right of succession. "Shane, the Proud," the legitimate son and heir, was a mere boy at that time, but when he grew to manhood he disputed his half-brother's parentage and apologized for his father's conduct with the remark that, "Being a gentleman, he never refused a child that any woman named to be his." After the death of Henry VIII. Shane O'Neill inaugurated a rebellion which cost England more men and more money than any struggle that has ever occurred in Ireland; an expenditure equal to $10,000,000 of our present money, besides tens of thousands of lives and millions of private property destroyed. After peace was restored in 1558, Shane was elected "The O'Neill," in accordance with the ancient Irish custom, and in 1561 he accepted the olive branch from Queen Elizabeth and went to London at her invitation, followed by his gallowglasses in their strange native attire--loose, wide-sleeved, saffron-colored tunics, reaching to their knees, with shaggy mantles of sheepskin over their shoulders, their heads bare, their long hair curling down on their shoulders and clipped short in front, just above the eyes. The last of the earls of Tyrone was Hugh O'Neill, a son of Shane, who organized another rebellion in 1584, and, being defeated, fled to his castle in the dense woods of Glenconkeine, and there awaited anxiously for Philip of Spain or Clement VIII., the reigning pope, to succor him. One by one O'Neill was deserted by all the Irish chieftains except Rory O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, and as they saw no hope of relief they made peace with England. Several years later, in 1607, being accused of a plot, they fled from the shores of Ireland with a party of ninety-four kinsfolk and retainers. They finally found their way to Rome, where Paul V., the reigning pontiff, gave them shelter and expressed his deep sympathy with the Irish exiles. The following year Rory O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, died of Roman fever, and in 1616 the last of the Irish kings bearing the name of O'Neill was laid to rest in the Church of San Pietro on the Janiculum, the same which claims the dust of St. Peter. [Illustration: SHANE'S CASTLE, NEAR BELFAST, THE ANCIENT STRONGHOLD OF THE O'NEILLS, KINGS OF ULSTER] The misfortunes which always followed Hugh O'Neill's footsteps continued to pursue his sons. Henry, the eldest, died in command of an Irish regiment in the Netherlands; John, his next brother, succeeded him and died in battle in Catalonia; Bernard was assassinated when but seventeen years old; Hugh died of Roman fever, and Conn, the youngest, who, for some unaccountable reason, was left in Ireland in the hurry of his father's flight, was arrested, taken to London, and imprisoned in the Tower, where he was lost sight of, and the male line of the O'Neills became extinct. The living representative of the family, Baron Edward O'Neill of Shane's Castle, Antrim, is descended in the female line. His name was Chichester until he was created baron in 1868, when he assumed that of his ancestors. He lives in the old castle, about fourteen miles north of Belfast. The lord of the county, however, is the young Earl of Shaftesbury, grandson of the famous philanthropist, who inherits many of his grandfather's traits and takes an active part in religious, philanthropic, political, and municipal affairs. He is very public-spirited, is always willing to do his part in charitable movements, has served as alderman and lord mayor of Belfast with great credit, and has held several other important positions. He was educated at Eton and Sandhurst Military School, was elected alderman in Belfast in 1905 and lord mayor in 1907. In 1899 he married Lady Constance Grosvenor, granddaughter of the late Duke of Westminster. He inherited Belfast Castle, the former seat of the Donegal family, which they have occupied ever since. It is about three miles from Belfast, and entirely modern. The state apartments and picture galleries on the main floor are very fine. A short distance from the castle is a beautiful little private mortuary chapel erected by the late Marquis of Donegal, as a burial place for the family. On the opposite side of Belfast Lough is the seat of the late Lord Dufferin and Ava, one of the ablest and most useful men in the British empire for many years. His figure in bronze under a marble canopy in the City Hall Park reminds the people of Belfast of his ability, his patriotism, and his public services. He was Viceroy of India, Governor-General of Canada, ambassador to France, Italy, and Turkey, and held other important positions and received unusual honors, but he died here in 1902 broken hearted because his reputation had been used by a swindler, named Wright, in promoting an enterprise that seemed to him proper and promising, but turned out to be the worst kind of a fraud. His situation was similar to that of General Grant after the Grant-Ward failure in New York. Lord Dufferin gave up all his property as restitution to the victims of the scheme and retired to the seclusion of his ancestral home here. Wright was convicted and sentenced to twenty years in prison, but committed suicide before he was sent to the penitentiary. The dowager marchioness still occupies the family mansion with her younger children and is actively engaged in charitable work. The young earl occupies an important position in the foreign office at London. He was born in 1866, and in 1903 married an American girl, Miss Florence Davis, daughter of John H. Davis, 24 Washington Square, New York City. Upon the loftiest eminence overlooking Belfast Lough is a tall, round structure known as Ellen's Tower, which the late marquis erected in memory of his late mother, Ellen Sheridan, a granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the dramatist. She was a woman of great ability and exercised a wide influence. She wrote books and poetry and songs and was the author of the old-fashioned ballad that was very popular in your grandmother's time: "I'm Sitting on the Stile, Mary." On the north side of the Bay of Belfast, about six miles below the city, is the ancient town of Carrickfergus, which is of peculiar interest to Americans, because the father of Andrew Jackson was born there and from there emigrated in 1765 and found a farm in the wilderness of North Carolina. It was there also that John Paul Jones, with the _Ranger_, fought the _Drake_, a British sloop of war, April 24, 1778. The _Drake_ was in the harbor near the Castle of Carrickfergus, when the _Ranger_ came in sight, and coaxed her out for an engagement, which occurred promptly in midchannel, and for a while there was very lively action on both sides. The _Drake_ carried twenty 4-pound guns and 142 seamen. The _Ranger_ carried eighteen 6-pound guns and 155 seamen, several of whom were Irishmen from Belfast and one from Carrickfergus. The _Drake_ was the larger vessel, but was not handled as easily as the _Ranger_. The fight lasted an hour and fifteen minutes when the _Drake_ struck her colors. Her captain, Burder, by name, was killed; Lieutenant Dobbs, the next in command, was mortally wounded, and her deck was covered with the dead and the dying. The _Ranger_ had only three killed and five wounded. Captain Jones remained in the bay for several days, making repairs, and sent all the wounded ashore to Carrickfergus. Lieutenant Dobbs died the morning after the battle and is buried in the churchyard of the little village of Lisburn near by, where he lies beside the great and good Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Armagh, who died in 1667. It was on the day before the battle that Captain Jones made his raid upon the castle of Lord Selkirk at Kirkcudbright, Scotland, across the Irish Channel, and carried away with him the family plate, which was surrendered by Lady Selkirk to avoid a mutiny among the crew. But Captain Jones, after five years of persistent work, recovered the entire collection and restored it safely to its original owners, even paying for its carriage to Scotland. Captain Stockton, the American military attaché at London, sent to the Navy Department at Washington, copies of several characteristic letters written by John Paul Jones to Lady Selkirk and to Lord Selkirk, concerning the matter. Belfast has had many distinguished sons in addition to those whom I have already named, but none more eminent and useful than James Bryce, British ambassador to Washington, who was born there May 10, 1838, and shares with Lord Kelvin the honor of being the most famous of all Belfasters. He went from there a young man to the University of Glasgow and there developed his extraordinary mental and physical energy. From Glasgow he went to Oxford, where he took his degree in 1862, and then to Heidelberg to perfect himself in German, of which he is a thorough scholar. We next find him studying law in London where he was called to the Bar in 1867 and immediately was recognized for his legal ability and learning. Only three years later he was invited to accept the Regius professorship of law at Oxford, which he held from 1870 to 1893. In the meantime he was the busiest man in England and engaged in the greatest variety of activities. He was writing history, exploring Iceland, climbing Mount Ararat, making records in the Alpine Club, studying Ireland, running for parliament, serving as parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs, and afterward as chief secretary for Ireland in the British cabinet and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. And all this time, when he was not doing anything else, he was writing books, and almost all of his works are regarded as the best books ever written upon the subjects of which they treat. "The American Commonwealth" is acknowledged to be the best account of our institutions ever penned by a foreigner. "The Holy Roman Empire" is a model of historical literature, while Mr. Bryce's other books, on a variety of subjects, are of equal rank in scholarship and in literary merit. The late Rev. Dr. John Hall, in his day the most eminent Presbyterian divine in America, was born at Armagh, where Cardinal Logue, the Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland, presides over the ancient see of St. Patrick. Dr. Hall was born in 1829, entered Belfast College when he was only thirteen years old, and although the youngest in his class, ranked first in scholarship and took the largest number of prizes. He studied theology at the Presbyterian Seminary here, and when he was only twenty-two years old became pastor of the First Church at Armagh, his native town. In 1856 he was called to Dublin as pastor of the Rutland Presbyterian Church, and was appointed commissioner of education for Ireland. In 1867 he was sent to the United States as a delegate to the general assembly, and created such a favorable impression that he immediately received a call to the pulpit of the Fifth Avenue Church, Presbyterian, of New York, which he accepted and occupied the rest of his life. XVI THE THRIVING CITY OF BELFAST Belfast has a population of 380,000, according to the most reliable estimates. The latest enumeration, in 1901, showed a population of 349,180, which is just double that returned by the census of 1871. Of this population 120,269 are Presbyterians, 102,991 are Episcopalians, 84,992 are Roman Catholics, 21,506 Methodists, and the remainder are divided among a dozen different religious denominations. It is distinctively a theological town. You hear workingmen discussing theology in the street cars instead of politics, comparing the eloquence of their ministers and their soundness in the faith. There is a remarkably large attendance at church. All the churches are crowded every Sunday. There is a difference of terms, however, with the several denominations. Catholics go to "mass" where a priest officiates; members of the Church of Ireland attend "service" which is performed by a parson; while the Presbyterians and other nonconformists go to "meeting" and hear the gospel expounded by a minister. The Presbyterian services are very long and heavy. They begin at 11 o'clock on Sunday morning and last till 1:30, and the Sunday school continues two hours. The congregation is never satisfied with a sermon less than an hour long, while an hour and a quarter is preferred, and they insist that their ministers shall expound doctrinal texts to their satisfaction or they criticise them freely and fiercely. The Irish are the most old-fashioned kind of Presbyterians, being stricter than the Scotch. Few churches allow musical instruments or hymns that rhyme, and the congregations follow a precentor with a tuning fork in chanting Rouse's version of the Psalms of David. The people remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy only until afternoon. There are no railway trains or street cars running in the morning, and you cannot find a cab or a jaunting car on the street. No boats arrive or depart from the docks on Sunday, and when I took a walk along the river front one Sunday I found the men who were accustomed to work there all sitting around eating "willicks," or periwinkles--a sort of water snails which are picked up on the beach of the bay and are peddled about by old women and small boys like chestnuts. You can buy half a pint of them for a penny. The peddler has a paper of long pins in his basket and gives one to each purchaser to pry the snails out of their shells. That seems to be the Sunday morning occupation. But Sunday afternoon everybody comes out for a good time, the streets fill up with promenaders and the cars are crowded with excursionists. The Belfast directory gives a list of sixty orthodox Presbyterian churches, and they are numbered from the First Presbyterian Church consecutively to the Fifty-eighth Presbyterian Church, with two extras, called the Strand Presbyterian Church and Albert Hall Presbyterian Church. In addition to these are five "nonsubscribing" Presbyterian churches whose members have refused to subscribe to some article of the confession of faith, but are otherwise orthodox and are numbered with the elect; four "Reformed Presbyterian churches," one "Original Secession Church Presbyterian," one "East Reformed Presbyterian Church," and one "United Free Presbyterian Church," making altogether seventy-two Presbyterian churches in a city of three hundred and eighty thousand inhabitants, an average of one Presbyterian church for every five thousand inhabitants. As I was passing under the archway of Queen's College with a Presbyterian doctor of divinity from Cincinnati he intercepted an old gentleman and inquired the name of the church with the handsome spire across the street. "That's the Fifth Presbyterian Church," was the polite reply. "And what church is that over yonder, whose spire we see beyond the college?" "That's the Twenty-seventh Presbyterian Church." "You seem to have an abundance of Presbyterian churches in Belfast; you ought to feel certain of salvation." "I'm not so sure of that," was the reply. "I'm not convinced that a Belfast Presbyterian is any more certain of salvation than the rest of us. We once had here a famous doctor of divinity. He was a great man and a good man, and you will see his statue in bronze down beyond the railway station in the middle of the square--Rev. Dr. Cooke. He was highly respected and revered by the community, but his son was a scapegrace and gave the old gentleman a great deal of trouble and anxiety. One Sunday morning the good doctor found Harry at breakfast and remarked pleasantly: "'I hope you are going to meeting this morning, Harry?' "'Well, I'm not,' replied Harry with a grouch. "'And why not?' asked his father. "'I'm never going to meeting any more; I never got any good from meetings.' "'You'll find no meetings in hell, sir!' said the doctor, solemnly. "'It'll not be for the lack of the ministers!', was Harry's reply." And the genial old gentleman smiled grimly and passed on. At least two of the public monuments in Belfast have been erected in honor of Presbyterian divines,--Rev. Dr. Cooke, of whom the above story is told, and Rev. Hugh Hanna; and one of the largest and most beautiful buildings in the city is the Presbyterian House, where there is an assembly hall that will seat twenty-five hundred people, smaller halls, and committee rooms, and the offices of the various missionary societies and other organizations belonging to that denomination. It was erected by private subscription and dedicated with great ceremony two years ago. It is the headquarters of Presbyterianism in the north of Ireland and its noble tower can be seen for a long distance. On the second floor of the building are clubrooms, reading-rooms, and amusement halls, and other attractions for the young men of Presbyterian families, a sort of denominational Y.M.C.A.; and, strange to say, the amusement-room is fitted up with two billiard tables, which I am told are in great demand every evening. The janitor in charge admitted that some of the stricter members of the sect had made urgent objections against this form of entertainment, but the committee "was not willing to let the devil have all the fun." The general assembly of the Presbyterian church holds its annual sessions in the big hall of the new Presbyterian building, and all the other denominational gatherings are held there. At the last assembly Rev. Dr. McIlveen, the moderator, reviewed the progress of that denomination during the last forty years. It was true, he said, that its numbers, as reported by the official census, had not increased. In common with other religious denominations, the Presbyterians had lost largely by emigration. Many of their members, especially the young and vigorous, had gone forth to seek homes in the colonies of the empire, or the great republic of the West. In the period to which he was referring the population of Ireland had decreased more than a million, and while in comparison with the other large denominations the Presbyterians had suffered less proportional loss, yet their membership had decreased fifty-five thousand. Yet they had four thousand more families than they had forty years ago and six thousand more contributors to the stipend fund. The givings of the people to various objects had more than doubled. There had been an annual increase of $100,000 in the stipend fund; $75,000 in the ordinary Sabbath offerings, and more than $90,000 annually to missions. During the same time there had been invested more than $5,250,000 in the erection and repair of churches, manses, and other Presbyterian buildings; the Church House at Belfast had been erected at a cost of $400,000, and $5,250,000 had accumulated in the hands of the boards of trustees of different benevolences as capital. In addition to the seventy-two Presbyterian churches in Belfast, the directory notes thirty-seven under the care of the Church of Ireland, thirty Methodist, eighteen Roman Catholic, seven Congregationalist, six Baptist, two Moravians, one Friends' meeting-house, one Jewish synagogue and two societies called Plymouth Brethren, who announce "breaking of bread at 11:30 A.M. and gospel at 7 P.M."--making a total of one hundred and seventy-six houses of worship. The working people of Belfast do not live in tenement houses as is the custom throughout the rest of Europe, but every family has its own separate cottage, and there are long streets of neat brick, two-story, five-room houses very similar to those that you find in Philadelphia, only the rents are very much lower there. For ten dollars a month a Belfast mechanic can get a neat and comfortable six-room dwelling, 20 feet front and 36 feet deep, with a garden 100 feet in depth. For five dollars and seven dollars and fifty cents a month he can get four or five roomed cottages that are equally comfortable. And the mechanics there take a great deal more interest in their homes than those in the rest of Ireland. If you will look through the windows as you pass through the streets you will see them draped with neat Nottingham lace curtains and linen shades. There are shelves of books and pictures, neat carpets and center-tables with a family Bible and photograph album and religious newspapers and periodicals. There are often books on theology,--more than anything else,--commentaries on the Bible and other denominational works, for the well-to-do Belfast mechanic is a Presbyterian and always prepared to defend the doctrines of that faith. The manufacturers, the merchants, and the middle classes generally are Presbyterians. The land owners, the professional men, the nobility, and the aristocracy are nearly all members of the Church of Ireland, while the common laborers are Roman Catholics. [Illustration: Queen's College, Belfast] When the Scotch "planters" came to the north of Ireland they brought their love of learning and their scholarship with their religion, and Belfast has always been an educational as well as a denominational center, more noted than any other city in Ireland for the excellence of its schools. Queen's College, founded nearly sixty years ago by Queen Victoria as a state institution, is at the head of the system and will soon be a university. Queen's is one of the "godless" colleges that we hear so much about in ecclesiastical circles, because there is no chapel, no religious exercises or instruction. But the atmosphere of the institution is thoroughly Presbyterian, and Rev. Dr. Hamilton, the president, who will also be president of the proposed university, is one of the most eminent ministers in that denomination. The buildings of Queen's College, six hundred feet long, are imposing in appearance and of solid construction, after the Tudor school of architecture, with a central tower and two wings, inclosing quadrangular courts. There is a school of law and a school of medicine, with more than four hundred students, and one of the most important in Ireland. Just behind Queen's College is the General Assembly's Theological Seminary, founded in 1853 to train men for the Presbyterian pulpit. It occupies a massive building of red sandstone that is simple and severe. Across the way from Queen's is a Methodist college with two hundred and fifty students, the building being after the same general plan as Queen's. These three institutions are entirely in sympathy and are working together, although they have no legal or official relation. The City Hall of Belfast is an imposing building, which cost a million and a half of dollars, and is very ornate for its purpose. It stands in the center of a large square, admirably located so that its fine proportions may be admired from all sides. The interior is very ornamental, the walls and stairways being of Carrara marble elaborately carved. On either side are handsome monuments. The building is 300 feet long and 240 feet deep; the façade is of the same design on each of the four sides, and there is a dome 175 feet high. There is a great hall for official ceremonies and public assemblies that will seat a thousand people, and several other state apartments handsomely decorated. In front of the City Hall is a recent statue of Queen Victoria in marble, and a very good one it is. On another side the late Lord Dufferin is represented in bronze wearing the robes of a Knight of St. Patrick, while Sir Edward J. Harland, founder of the great shipyards at Belfast, is honored in a similar manner. Not far away is the Albert Memorial, a clock tower, 143 feet high, of Gothic design, which was erected to the memory of the Prince Consort in 1870. There are several other statues of local dignitaries in different parts of the city and a soul-stirring memorial to the members of the Royal Irish Rifles who died in the Boer war. The business architecture of Belfast is unusually fine and in striking contrast to the rest of Ireland, where there has been very little building for a century. Belfast, however, is a distinctively modern city and up-to-date. There are no skyscrapers, and the limit of height seems to be six stories, but there is considerable architectural display; and the shopping streets are entirely modern, with large and attractive show windows. You hear a great deal about the weather of Ireland, and I have already quoted an old and common joke that it never rains on the 31st of February. People never go out without an umbrella or a mackintosh, because it is always safer to carry them. It rains in the most unexpected way. The clouds gather very suddenly and the predictions of the weather bureau cannot be taken seriously. But the natives don't seem to mind it. They are so used to getting soaked that it is a matter of no consequence, and over in the shipyards and elsewhere we saw men working on through a pouring rain without taking the slightest notice of it. Women who are compelled to weather the storms frequently line their skirts with rubber cloth or leather so as to keep their underclothing dry, and every man carries his mackintosh over his arm when he leaves home in the morning. [Illustration: Albert Memorial, Belfast] The official reports show that in the year 1907 rain fell on 232 out of the 365 days, and in 1906 there were 237 rainy days. In October, 1907, there were twenty-nine rainy days; in December, twenty-seven; in May, twenty-two; but in September there were only nine rainy days, which might be called a drought. In 1906 January had twenty-nine rainy days, August twenty-four, April twenty-three, and November and December twenty-two each. The average annual rainfall for the last forty years has been 33,523 inches. The highest temperature in 1907 was 79.8 degrees in the shade, and lowest, on the 30th of December, was 19 above zero. Belfast is a very healthy city, however, the death rate averaging about twenty per one thousand. It has been very much reduced during the last fifteen or twenty years by the improvement of the water supply and sewerage. The birth rate is very high and has sometimes run up to thirty-seven per one thousand of population. Last year it was thirty-one per one thousand. On Saturday and Sunday nights we saw a good many drunken men upon the streets. But I am told that there is a great improvement in this respect in recent years. The Orange associations of Protestants and the Hibernian and other friendly societies of Roman Catholics are both taking an active part in temperance work, from economical as well as moral motives, because they realize how much misfortune, poverty, sickness, and death--all of which increase their assessments--are due to drink. I have not been able to find out how much money is spent for whisky in the Protestant counties. There is no way to ascertain or estimate it accurately, but the sum must be very large. But everybody agrees that it is diminishing. There is a less number of saloons by twenty-five or thirty per cent than there was ten years ago, and a corresponding decrease in the amount of drunkenness. The number of arrests for drunkenness and disorder have fallen off noticeably during the last few years. This has given a great deal of encouragement to the temperance advocates. There is a much higher degree of intelligence and mechanical skill among the working people in Belfast than in any other part of Ireland, and the ratio of illiteracy is much lower in County Down and County Antrim than in any other part of the island. The highest degree of skilled labor is required in the machine shops and shipyards and commands the best wages that are paid to any artisans in Ireland. The women work in linen mills and shirt and collar factories. A technical school for the specialized training of boys for mechanics was established here in 1902, evening instruction in the applied sciences, drawing, sketching, and the other arts, and in mathematics, mechanical, electrical, and civil engineering, having been given for several years in classes maintained by voluntary subscriptions from citizens. Five such institutions were in existence at that time, having between seven and eight hundred students on their rolls. An act of parliament passed in 1899 authorized the consolidation of these schools, and a beautiful building in the very center of the city, admirably adapted to the purpose, was erected and equipped at the expense of $750,000. The school now has a stated income of $96,000 from regular taxation. In 1902 classes were opened with the total of 3,381 students. At present this number has been increased to 5,064 men, women, and children between fifteen and sixty-five years of age, representing all classes and castes, who are studying everything in the way of useful arts and trades. Thirty teachers are exclusively employed, with one hundred and thirty experts from different factories and machine shops, who give evening instruction or have special classes on certain days. Nothing is free. Everybody who enjoys the benefits of the institution is required to pay a fee ranging from one dollar a term upward to sixty dollars, according to the amount of attention required. The largest classes are in engineering, drawing, electricity, and the commercial occupations, but nearly every trade is taught in connection with the ordinary rudiments of English, mathematics, and geography in the evening classes to those whose early education was neglected. The municipality owns the building and supports the school. Sir James Henderson, editor of the _Daily News-Letter_, who was lord mayor of Belfast at the time that the school was established, is the chairman of the committee in charge, and is to be congratulated upon a great success. The attitude of the labor unions, which at first regarded the enterprise with distrust, is becoming more friendly, and they permit their members to avail themselves of the facilities provided by the school. The education of apprentices to trades without limitations is still a question of controversy. The attitude of the employers is more favorable, because nearly all of them recognized increased efficiency among their journeymen who have attended the school, and many of them are paying a part or the whole of the fees of all their workmen who will attend regularly the classes in their respective trades. The investment is, therefore, a good one for the city of Belfast. The technical school will certainly result in the improvement of the efficiency of the mechanics of the city. Belfast has quite a number of municipal utilities. The city owns the gas works, the electric lighting plant, and all the street car lines, as well as the water supply. The gas works have proven to be a very profitable undertaking, and gas is furnished for sixty-seven cents a cubic foot, with a fair profit to the city. A municipal electric plant lights the streets and furnishes power for the street railway lines and also pays a profit. The street railway line, however, is not a profitable investment and is running behind under municipal management for several reasons. The municipality also owns a large hall that will seat 2,097 persons, and a smaller hall that will seat 330. Each of these halls is rented for concerts, lectures, assemblies, exhibitions, conventions, balls, and for other purposes at a rate of twenty dollars per night for the smaller one and sixty dollars for the larger one, including light, heat, and attendance, and there is a good income from both. It also has a series of organ recitals in the large hall every winter, which are attended by audiences varying from six hundred to two thousand, who pay a nominal price for admission--from six to twelve cents, according to the seat--and thus the entertainments support themselves. The city also owns a number of private bathing houses, situated in different parts of the town, for which tickets can be bought for two cents and four cents, according to the accommodations. These are largely patronized by the working people, and are self-supporting. Altogether the municipal management of Belfast is admirable and affords examples which other cities may study with profit. The advantages of Belfast for the manufacture of linen goods, the very damp climate which softens the thread so that it does not snap in the spindles or the looms and enables the fabric to be woven closer and softer, and the purity of the water for bleaching, were recognized long ago; and, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, when six hundred thousand Protestants fled from France, a party of Huguenot refugees under Louis Crommelin were invited to come over and introduce that industry. Crommelin belonged to a family that had woven linen for four hundred years. He was a man of great business ability, common sense, energy, and perseverance, and they called him "Crommelin the Great." Belfast certainly owes him a heavy debt, and it has not been paid. Although the Irish parliament passed a resolution thanking him for his services in 1707, his grave in the little churchyard at Lisburn, a suburban village, is marked only by an ordinary slab of stone. There is no monument to remind the people of the north of Ireland what they owe to his ability and devotion. The business grew rapidly for the first century and a half, and as early as 1833 Belfast had eighty mills and was producing $25,000,000 worth of linen fabrics annually. In 1840 there were 250,000 spindles buzzing about this town, but the trade reached its maximum in the '70s, and has not increased much since. There are in all of Ireland about 35,000 looms and 900,000 spindles, all of them in this immediate vicinity, except two factories at Dublin, one at Cork, and one at Drogheda. These are divided among about two hundred factories with about one hundred and twenty thousand operatives, of whom two-thirds are women. Their wages range from three to four dollars a week, and for men from six to seven dollars a week, the week's work under normal circumstances being fifty-five hours the year around, beginning at six o'clock in the morning, with an hour off for breakfast from eight to nine; another hour from one to two for lunch, and then they remain at work until six o'clock. An act of parliament does not permit operatives in textile factories to remain in the buildings where they work during the breakfast and lunch hours for any purpose whatever. If they bring their meals with them, they must eat them outside of the factory, for the purpose is to give them a change of air and require them to take a certain amount of exercise. Many of the companies here feed their hands in dining-halls connected with, but apart from, the workrooms. Even these small wages have been increased from ten to twenty per cent within the last five years, and it is remarkable how people can live and support families upon such limited incomes. The wages are paid on Saturday noon--when a half-holiday is allowed, and the money is given to the hands in tin boxes. Each operative has his own number. As they pass the paymaster's window they call out their number, receive their box, take out the change, and throw the empty tin into a bin that is placed near the door for that purpose. There are not less than 78,000 persons employed in the linen trade and its allied industries in the city of Belfast, and not less than 130,000 people are dependent directly or indirectly upon that industry for support. The situation is quite different there from many cities, because the fathers and husbands can find work in the shipyards and foundries, and thus the whole family is able to get employment. The law does not allow children under fourteen years of age to work in the factories, but a large number of boys and girls between fourteen and seventeen are engaged at wages from one dollar to two dollars a week, and much is done in the way of embroidery, hemstitching, and other forms of finishing in the households. The patterns are stamped on the cloth and the pieces are given out to women and girls to finish in their homes. The employers exercise personal interest and have a paternal policy for the treatment of their employees, which does not occur often in the United States and other countries. This is largely due to the fact that generations have worked in the same mills for the same companies. Our manufacturing industries are not old enough for such an experience. Labor is not migratory as it is in the United States. It is customary for sons to follow the trades of their fathers, and when the daughters are old enough to go into the mill, the mothers leave it. The workmen there are satisfied with small wages; their standard of living is so much lower than in the United States that they can get along very well, as their fathers and ancestors have done for generations, upon their scanty earnings. Very few of them save any part of their wages. Not five per cent of the wage-earners of Belfast patronize the savings banks. They live from hand to mouth, and, knowing this fact, their employers are compelled to look after them in hard times. If they did not, the operatives who are out of employment would scatter and when work was resumed it would be difficult to fill their places. The work of the operatives in linen factories is very trying on the health, because the atmosphere of the rooms is kept as damp as possible in order to soften the threads and make them more pliable. Few of the operatives live past middle life unless they have unusually strong constitutions. More than half of the flax used in Belfast comes from Russia. Only about twelve thousand tons is raised in Ireland, and that entirely in Ulster Province, where fifty-five thousand acres are devoted to its cultivation. An average of forty thousand tons a year is imported from Holland, Belgium, and other countries, as well as Russia. S.S. Knabenshue of Toledo, the American consul, attempted to induce farmers in the Northwest of the United States, who grow flax for the seed, to ship over here the straw they throw away, but he has not succeeded in arousing any interest, although they might find a permanent and profitable market. Until recently the spinning of the flax into thread was done by separate companies and the thread was sold to the weavers, but several years ago a combine was organized and many of the spinning plants went into a trust, which has enabled them to command better prices and be more independent. The linen manufacturers, however, are practically dependent upon the United States. We take more than half the products of Irish linen. The average for the last forty years has been 51.1 per cent sold to the United States, 19.3 to the British possessions, and 29.6 per cent to other foreign countries. In 1907 the value of the linen shipped to the United States was $14,970,051 out of a total export of $26,895,014. In 1906 our purchases were about $1,000,000 less, but the proportion remains about the same, and American buyers may be always found at the Belfast hotels, although most of the big manufacturers have their agencies in New York. Belfast has the largest ropewalk in the world, which employs three thousand hands, and for years was under the management of the late W.H. Smiles, a son of Samuel Smiles, author of "Self-Help" and other well-known books. It is a model institution, and among other features the firm maintains a large cookhouse and dining-room, where the employees and their families can obtain wholesome meals much cheaper than they could be supplied at their own homes. Such a benevolence would serve to decrease the drunkenness of Ireland and Scotland more than any other measures that could be adopted. Medical authorities agree that the principal cause of alcoholism is insufficient nourishment and ill-cooked food, which creates a craving for stimulants, and argue that if the working people could have better food they would spend less money for drink. Belfast is the greatest producer of ginger ale, bottled soda, lemonade, and other aërated waters in the world, and ships them to every corner of the globe. There are sixteen factories engaged in that business. It is asserted there that soda water was invented in Belfast. Although there is no positive evidence to that effect, there is no doubt that ginger ale was first made by a druggist named Grattan in 1822, who started a factory here that is still running and has had many imitators. The great advantage found there is in the quality of the water, which is especially adapted to aëration, just as that at Burton-on-Trent is adapted to the manufacture of ale. Belfast has two celebrated shipyards which launched 137,369 tons of steamers in 1907 and 150,428 tons in 1906. The firm of Harland & Wolff launched 74,115 tons, and Workman, Clark & Co., 63,254. Harland & Wolff ranked fourth in the order of British shipyards and Workman, Clark & Co. stand ninth in the list. The latter firm built the first ocean turbine steamers and Harland & Wolff the first ocean greyhound, the _Oceanic_, in 1870, which was the pioneer of fast sailing on the Atlantic and a notable advance in the science of navigation. She was an epoch-making vessel from the point of view of naval architects, because of her general design and construction, being of much greater length in proportion to her beam than any that had ever been built up to that time, and she represented the first attempt to insure the maximum of comfort and luxury in ocean travel by sacrificing freight space to passenger accommodations and locating the saloons and cabins amidship. Since then all of the steamship companies have adopted the same plan, and the comfort and conveniences that are now found upon vessels have no doubt enormously increased the passenger traffic. XVII THE QUAINT OLD TOWN OF DERRY Londonderry, usually called Derry, is an ancient burgh, in which much history has been enacted, and is unique in several respects among all the cities of the earth. It does not look like an Irish city at all. It resembles Plymouth, England. If you were dropped down from a balloon you might easily imagine yourself in that driving seaport, which is perfectly natural because everything in Derry is English and there is no sympathy with the rest of Ireland, or relationship either in race, religion, commerce, or customs. And the town is the property of the city of London, which accounts for the name. It was called Derry in ancient times until King James I., in 1612, for money advanced him by the guilds of the city of London when he was hard up, gave them an area of two hundred thousand acres, confiscated from the O'Dohertys and the O'Neills for disloyalty. The grant includes every inch of land upon which Londonderry stands, "and the liberties thereof," which means jurisdiction over everything within a radius of two miles around. The aldermen of the city of London, that small but wealthy community which surrounds the Bank of England and the Mansion House in the world's metropolis, formed what is known as the Honorable Irish Society, composed of representatives of the different guilds, to hold the charter, and they hold it still. The aldermen of the city of London elect the governor of the society, who is now Sir Robert Newton, lord mayor of London, and the deputy governor, who is now a Mr. Gardiner, a resident of Londonderry, as is customary. The lord mayor's functions are nominal. The deputy governor exercises full authority, assisted by a council of twenty-four members, selected from among the most prominent residents. The municipal expenses are paid by the ordinary forms of taxation and the government is conducted like that of any other city in Ireland, but the Honorable Irish Society collects ground rent from every house within a radius of two miles. It also owns the fisheries in the River Foyle. The money is not devoted to the payment of ordinary municipal expenses, but goes into the treasury of the society in London, and a portion of it is devoted to public objects here. Magee College, the Presbyterian institution, receives a generous grant. Foyle College, a nonconformist institution, and the Roman Catholic college, each gets something, and liberal subscriptions are made for the benefit of hospitals and other charities and the churches of the city. The Irish Society was purely Protestant at the time of its organization, and is Protestant still, but it is impartial in its contributions to the different religious sects. There are two cathedrals, two bishops, one Roman Catholic, and one Church of Ireland, and the latter holds the ancient cathedral which, with an abbey, was founded by St. Columba in the year 546 and still is called by his name. In the pedestal of a group of statuary, known as "the Calvary," at St. Columba's Roman Catholic Church, is a famous relic known as St. Columba's stone, although his name is a misnomer. It is a massive block of gneiss, about six feet square, made with the prints of two feet, left and right, each about ten inches long. This stone has been improperly associated in some way with St. Columba by the common people, but it has an equally interesting history, having been the crowning stone of the O'Neill clan for centuries. At his installation the newly chosen king was placed upon this stone, his bare feet in the footmarks, a willow wand was put into his hands as an emblem of the pure and gentle sway he should exercise over his people, an oath was administered to him by the chief ecclesiastic that he would preserve inviolable the ancient customs of the clan; that he would administer justice impartially among them, that he would sustain the right and punish the wrong, and that he would deliver the authority to his successor without resistance at the command of the tribe. Having taken this oath, "The O'Neill" turned his face to the four corners of Ireland to signify that he was ready to meet all foes from whatever quarter they might come; kissed his sword and his spear to signify that he was ready to use them wherever necessary, and then descended from the stone and was hailed with wild acclamations as the chief of the O'Neills, while his knights knelt before him pledging their loyalty and devotion. At the time of Ireland's conversion to Christianity by St. Patrick that holy man visited Londonderry, where Owen O'Neill, the King of Ulster, was converted from paganism to the new faith and baptized. And, at the same time, St. Patrick consecrated this stone and blessed it for ever. The long line of the O'Neill ancestry was terminated in 1607 by the flight of Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, after his unsuccessful rebellion against Queen Elizabeth, and the O'Dohertys, who were not so powerful, were compelled to surrender to the English. They were expelled from their lands, with all the followers of the Earl of Tyrone. All of the county was confiscated and sold or granted to Englishmen and Scotchmen, who came in and took possession and hold it still. Large areas still belong to the guilds of London, to whom it was granted for money loaned by them to King James I. The Tailors' Guild owns the city of Coleraine, a clean, busy town of seven thousand population, famous for its whisky and linen. It is governed by officials appointed by the Tailors' Guild in London, which collects ground rents from all the inhabitants and derives a considerable revenue from the salmon fisheries. The Fishmongers' Guild owns the town of Kilrea, the Drapers' Guild owns Draperstown, and other ancient organizations of merchants in the city of London own other towns and villages in this country which they obtained in a similar manner. Londonderry is unique for being the only city in Ireland where the ancient walls and fortifications are preserved in the most careful manner and kept in perfect order with the antique guns mounted as they were at the time of the siege 225 years ago. They do not inclose the entire city, but only the ancient part of it, and are about a mile in length, twenty-four feet high and nine feet thick. The top of the walls between the bastions is laid out as a promenade and is the favorite resort of the inhabitants, who may be found there in large numbers every day after the close of business hours. Some of the business houses and residences open upon the top of the walls, as do several popular resorts. The walls are pierced by several monumental gates, which remain precisely as they were in ancient times, and the old guns, which date back to 1635 and 1642, are kept as relics, precious as the Declaration of Independence in Washington. The bastions have been turned into little gardens, and here and there in the angles shrubs and flowers have been planted. One of the guns which bears the name of "Roaring Meg" was presented to the city of Londonderry by the fishmongers of London and is the most precious object in the town, because of its effective work in the siege of 1689, when King James II., with an Irish army, besieged the city for 105 days, but its determined defenders succeeded in preventing his entrance. They suffered famine and pestilence, and were reduced to eating hides, tallow, and the flesh of cats and dogs. During the siege only eight of the defenders were killed by the enemy, but ten thousand persons perished from hunger, disease, and exposure in three and a half months. When the siege was lifted by the appearance of a squadron of ships laden with arms, ammunition, and provisions, King James and his army retired from one of the most important episodes in the history of Ireland. You can still see evidences of that terrible struggle. The cathedral is decorated with relics and trophies, including a bombshell which came over the wall, containing the terms of capitulation offered by King James. The laconic reply of the Rev. George Walker, rector of the Episcopal church, who was in command of the citizens, was "No surrender." A statue of Rev. Mr. Walker, whose courage, fortitude, and apostolic influence saved the city, was long ago erected upon the bastion which bore the heaviest fire during the siege. His noble figure stands upon the top of a shaft ninety feet high in the attitude which he is said to have assumed in the most terrible emergency, to revive and sustain the faltering courage of his parishioners. In one hand he grasps a Bible; the other is pointing down the river toward the approaching squadron of deliverance in the distant bay. At another point upon the walls is a Gothic castellated structure erected by public subscription as a clubhouse for the boys and young men of Londonderry. It is known as Apprentices' Hall, and was erected as a memorial to the courage and foresight of a group of thirteen young apprentices who, during the excitement caused by the approach of the king's army, had the presence of mind to drop the heavy gate without instruction from their elders, and thus made it possible to defend the city against the assault. Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Lundy, who was in command of the garrison at the time, was a coward, and insisted upon surrendering the city to the king's army, but was prevented from doing so by Rev. Mr. Walker, rector of the Episcopal church, and Adam Murray, an elder in the Presbyterian church. Lundy persisted in his purpose, carried on secret negotiations with the enemy, and was preparing to open the gates when his intentions were discovered. He escaped in disguise by climbing down the branches of a pear tree which grew against the wall on the east side. Twice a year, on the 18th of December and the 12th of August, the dates of the beginning and the end of the siege, the apprentice boys of the city lead a procession of all the Protestant organizations to attend divine service at the Episcopal Cathedral and then pass the rest of the day as we celebrate the Fourth of July. At nightfall an effigy of Colonel Lundy is always burned in a prominent place. These celebrations are deplored by thoughtful people, as keeping alive religious animosities, but of recent years the collisions which used to occur between the Orange societies and the Roman Catholics have been avoided. The population of Londonderry is very largely Protestant. The cathedral is an ugly old building, but quite interesting because of its historic associations and the relics it contains. Magee College, the leading Presbyterian institution of Ireland, occupies a beautiful site about fifteen minutes' walk from the center of the city. It was built and endowed by the widow of Rev. William Magee of Lurgan, was opened in 1865, and is under the care of the general assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church. There are several departments, a staff of seven professors, and an average of two hundred and fifty students, most of whom are studying for the Presbyterian ministry. Magee is the only college in Ireland which has been founded and supported entirely by private benefactions. It has never received a dollar from the state, although there is an annual grant from the Irish Society, which owns the city of Londonderry. Under a recent act of parliament it is united with Queen's College, Belfast, on equal terms in the new university bill. There is no religious test for students or professors, although the latter, upon accepting appointment, are required to sign a pledge that they "will not do, write, or say anything which might tend in any way to subvert the Christian religion or the belief of any person therein." Magee has always taken a high stand for scholarship, and although the building is small it is noble in design, massive in construction, and well equipped for its purpose. The principal business of Londonderry is to make shirts, collars, and cuffs, which are shipped to Australia, South Africa, India, and other British colonies. There are several large factories which employ about two thousand men to do the heavy work and twenty thousand women who do the stitching and laundering by old-fashioned methods. An American buyer I met in Belfast spoke rather contemptuously of the Londonderry shirt factories, which, he declared, "are not in it for a minute" with those of the United States. He insists that a single factory in Troy makes more shirts and collars than all the factories in Londonderry combined, and that by their modern machinery and processes the Troy factories can make and finish half a dozen shirts while they are making one there. Londonderry is unique for another reason. The ordinary relations of husband and wife and their domestic responsibilities are reversed here. Many women work in the shirt factories whose husbands stay at home, keep the house, do the cooking and washing and take care of the children, because there is nothing else for them to do. There is a large excess of women in the population. They number two to one man, which is not due to natural causes, but because women are attracted here from the neighboring towns and counties to obtain work in the factories, and the young men have to leave Londonderry and go elsewhere to find employment. Many of them go to the United States and Canada. Three lines of American steamers touch here every week--the Anchor Line, the Allan Line, and the Dominion Line--which offer low rates of transportation and carry many third-class passengers away. The Giant's Causeway, of which much has been written, for it is one of the wonders of the world, lies on the north coast of Ireland, about two hours by rail from Belfast, and there are several trains daily to the nearest town, called Portrush. There is an excellent hotel there, owned by the railway company, which ranks as one of the best in Ireland, and several other smaller hotels, inns, and boarding-houses innumerable for the accommodation of the crowds of people who go there every year as "trippers" and to spend their holidays. The Giant's Causeway, about five miles from Portrush, is reached by an electric railroad, which, I am told, was the first ever successfully operated in all the world. It was built in 1883, designed by the late Sir William Siemens, the celebrated electrician, and operated with power generated by the water of the Bush River. It was originally on the third-rail system, but was changed into an ordinary overhead trolley seven or eight years ago. The first trolley railroad was built in Richmond, Va., three years later than this. The most interesting object at Portrush is an ancient but well preserved Irishman of the type you see in pictures and formerly on the stage, who stands at the street corner, where the railway tracks take a curve, with a big dinner bell and rings it with almost superhuman energy whenever the cars approach from either direction. This occupation engages him from some unknown hour in the morning until some unknown hour in the night, and if he ever eats or sleeps or rests that fact is not easily ascertained by a stranger. There are no bells on the cars, no alarm can be given for some reason, but nobody ever complained that he was not warned of danger at the crossing by the bell ringer, who seems to have a profound sense of his responsibilities. It is a delightful ride along rocky cliffs that have been worn into fantastic forms by the incessant pounding of the ocean, and, although many people express their disappointment at the Giant's Causeway, it is well worth a visit because it is unique in geology. A stream of lava, at the most twenty-six hundred feet wide and about fifteen miles long, was arrested by some means upon the extreme north coast of Ireland, and in cooling took the form of detached columns from six to thirty feet long and from eight to twenty-four inches in diameter. There are more than forty thousand of these columns in three parallel terraces, standing upright and presenting a smooth surface, but they are all separate and no two of them are of the same size or shape. There is said to be only one triangle, only one nonagon, and only one of diamond shape in all the forty thousand. Most of them are pentagons and hexagons and octagons. [Illustration: THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY, PORTRUSH, NEAR BELFAST] In one place on the cliff there has been a landslide, which has thrown the pillars in that locality into horizontal positions, but elsewhere along the coast they are upright. At what is called the Giant's Loom the columns are exposed for about thirty feet, but the rest of them form a curious and extraordinary mosaic flooring, stretching out into the sea and extending for several miles with remarkable regularity. Each column is absolutely distinct from the rest of the forty thousand; none of them are monoliths so far as can be seen, but they are divided into drums about two feet in thickness, which fit into each other like a ball and socket. The geologists generally agree that these extraordinary forms are the result of the contraction and division of the lava in cooling, and the process may be illustrated by the experiments with ordinary laundry starch, which takes the form of similar miniature columns when it cools. Mr. S.S. Knabenshue, American Consul at Belfast, has been searching out the ancestry of the late President McKinley, who lived in the village Conagher in County Antrim in the north of Ireland. The family were Scotch Presbyterians and came over at some date unknown, and settled upon a little farm of forty-two acres. Generation after generation were born and lived and died there, leaving no record but that of honest, hardworking, God-fearing tillers of the soil. The family burying lot is in Derrykeighan Churchyard, where, among others, rest the remains of Francis McKinlay, who was executed for participation in the Revolution of 1798, and those of his wife and daughter. Francis J. Bigger, a widely known Irish archæologist and historian, has traced the descent of the late President from a great-great-grandfather who emigrated in 1743 and settled in York County, Penn. His son David McKinley emigrated to Ohio in 1814, and had a son named James whose son, William McKinley (Senior), was the father of the late President. The cabin in which the family lived for generations is now used as a cow-shed, the present owner of the property having built himself a more pretentious residence. It has three windows and a door facing on the street. The door opens directly into a large room, which was the dining room and kitchen; the two bedrooms on each side of the fireplace have been turned into cow stables, the windows being cut down and replaced by doors so that the animals can enter from the outside. In the Irish village at the recent Franco-British Exposition in London the McKinley cottage was reproduced, and the original doors, door frames, windows, attic floor, staircase, and the iron crane and the big pot from the fireplace all came from the real cottage, having been sold to the owner. Consequently there is nothing left of the original cottage except the stone walls and the thatched roof. [Illustration: BISHOP'S GATE, DERRY] XVIII IRISH EMIGRATION AND COMMERCE A gentleman from Erie, Penn., who had been traveling about Ireland for several weeks made a suggestion which seemed to me to be worth adopting, and I proposed it to several organizations for promoting the welfare of Ireland without exciting much enthusiasm. There seems to be an apprehension that somebody will make political capital out of it, and very little is done without such motives. Politics and whisky are the curses of Ireland. However, the plan is to apply to Ireland the principle of "the old home week" that has been so popular and successful in New Hampshire and other parts of New England, only it is proposed to make it a month instead of a week and have special days set apart for reunions in the different counties, at which as many natives of those counties and children of natives as possible may come over from the United States to visit their old homes and birthplaces. They can thus renew their acquaintances with their former neighbors and the playmates of their childhood, revive their interest in Irish affairs, and stimulate the patriotism and love of "the ould sod" which are marked characteristics of the race. It would be easy to make arrangements with the different steamship lines to give low rates, not only those which touch regularly at Queenstown, but also the Holland, Antwerp, Italian, Scandinavian, and other lines which go by but do not stop at Irish ports. The tide of emigration is westward and there are comparatively few steerage and second-class passengers going east on the Cunard and White Star steamers that touch at Queenstown. The steamship companies would make a low rate for the round trip which would give an opportunity for thousands of Irish-born citizens of the United States to spend a short vacation across the sea visiting their old homes and the homes of their fathers. The fact that everybody is doing the same would be a great incentive, and for a few weeks Ireland would be crowded with her former sons and daughters. A very important result of such a visitation would be to leave in Ireland large sums which would quicken business, increase the demand for labor, create a market for everything that is made or grows, and flood Ireland with money. Each visitor would contribute his share, although it might be a little, but the total of the expenditures of such pilgrims would be enormous and create a condition of prosperity greater than Ireland has ever seen. Five million dollars has been expended in New Hampshire by visitors from other States since the Old Home Week celebrations and the advertisement of abandoned farms were first undertaken. If that amount of money should be spent in Ireland it would be of everlasting benefit to the people. If ten thousand visitors came from the United States and spent only a hundred dollars each, which is a very low average, it would leave a million dollars in circulation here. It might be natural also, as has occurred in New Hampshire, that many natives who went to the States in their childhood and have become wealthy and are now approaching the period of their rest and leisure would purchase homes in Ireland and spend their declining years in the scenes of their youth as Mr. Croker is doing, and three or four other persons I met. There was a man at the hotel from Chicago looking for a country place. He expects to invest a hundred thousand dollars in an Irish home somewhere near Dublin. Then, think of the contributions that would be made in aid of the churches, the benevolent institutions, and other charities as well as to insure the comfort and happiness of individuals in whom the visitors might be interested. One might suggest many other ways in which Ireland might be benefited by such celebrations, and those who participate in them will certainly have a deep sense of gratification for their share. Perhaps the most important result would be to correct the misapprehensions that are almost universal concerning the material condition of Ireland. Things are much different in many respects from what Irish-Americans have been led to believe by newspaper articles and other publications, and it is right and necessary that misapprehensions should be corrected. If the month of July, three or four years ahead, were selected for reunions of the sons of Ireland, it would give sufficient time to make the necessary arrangements, and local organizations in the different countries could fix their own dates most convenient for reunions of those who would come from those particular localities. Irishmen in Australia, Canada, South Africa, and other parts of the world would be glad to join their American cousins in carrying out such a plan. I met an American priest at Cork who was enthusiastic over the suggestion and declared that twenty families in his own parish would undoubtedly come over on such an occasion to visit their old homes. And he expressed the surprise that I felt about the improved conditions of the Irish people and the prospects for peace and happiness and prosperity in the island. There are now nearly two million natives of Ireland in the United States, and nearly six million people whose parents were born there or who were born there themselves. The following statement will show the number of natives of Ireland in the United States as returned by each census since 1850: 1850 961,719 1860 1,611,304 1870 1,855,827 1880 1,854,571 1890 1,871,509 The census of 1900 shows 3,991,417 citizens of the United States both of whose parents were born in Ireland. Since the census of 1900 was taken the average arrivals from Ireland have been about thirty-eight thousand per year, which has added at least three hundred thousand to the total of 1900, and, making due allowance for deaths and departures, increased the number of natives in the United States to nearly two millions. The improved conditions in Ireland during the last few years have caused a considerable decrease in emigration. At the present time a smaller number of people are seeking work in other countries than ever before since the famine of the '40s. This is the most significant evidence of the prosperity of the country and the success of the government in promoting contentment and improving the condition of the peasants by the enactment of the land laws and the work of the Congested Districts Board, of which I have written at length in previous letters. Low tide in emigration was reached during the first six months of 1908, when the total number departing from Ireland was only 13,511, being a decrease of 8,713 in comparison with the corresponding period of 1907. Of these 9,974 went to the United States and 1,598 to Canada; 1,868 went from Leinster Province, 3,762 from Munster, 4,611 from Ulster, and 3,270 from Connaught. The total number of emigrants from Ireland in 1907 was 39,082, but unless something extraordinary happens the total for this year will fall below 25,000. During the last fifteen years the population of Ireland has decreased 292,370, and during the last fifty years it has fallen off three and one half millions. During the last fifteen years the population of Scotland has increased 689,825 and that of England and Wales has increased 5,461,197. The birth rate in Ireland is larger than it is in either England or Scotland, and the death rate is about the same, so that the decrease in population has been entirely due to emigration. Since the distribution of the great estates in Ireland among the tenants in small farms there is a growing complaint concerning the lack of labor; and the emigration of young men to the United States and the migration of farm laborers who spend from five to nine months in Scotland every year where wages are higher than in Ireland are creating a very serious problem. There are in Ireland about 400,000 farms, of which 165,000, embracing three-fourths of the total area, average more than thirty acres, and that is all one man can cultivate. All farms more than thirty acres in extent, and many of smaller area, require hired labor, which has usually received about 12 shillings per week until the last two or three years, when farm wages were advanced to 14 shillings and 16 shillings a week--that is, $3.50 and $4. The recent census shows that 217,652 men are employed as laborers upon these 165,000 farms and that an average of 76,870 extra hands are employed during the harvest. During the last three years, although the area under cultivation has been growing smaller annually, it has been difficult to obtain a sufficient amount of labor to carry on the harvests, and wages, in many cases, have advanced to 18 shillings a week. Notwithstanding the demand for home labor, 24,312 persons, including 750 women, left Ireland in May, 1907, and went to England and Scotland, where they remained to work on the farms until the following November. Most of them went from the northwestern part of Ireland, from counties Mayo, Roscommon, Donegal, Galway, and Sligo, which have the least land under cultivation in the country. An investigation made by the estates commissioners showed that 3,245 of these persons had holdings of five acres, 987 had holdings of between five and ten acres, 912 between ten and fifteen acres, 458 between fifteen and twenty acres, 471 between twenty and twenty-five acres, 93 between twenty-five and thirty acres, 102 between thirty and forty acres, and 75 had farms of more than forty acres. Most of them left their little farms to be cultivated by their wives and sons and daughters during their absence. Among the migrants were 9,308 sons of farmers, who work on their father's farms when they are in Ireland, but go to England and Scotland because they are able to make more money than by staying at home. The average wages of these migrants was 26 shillings a week, and they varied from 20 to 30 shillings, according to intelligence, with food, lodging, and in many cases their traveling expenses one way. It is customary for the Scotch and English farmers to pay the railway fare over and leave the migrant to buy his ticket home in the fall. Most of the migrants save the larger part of their wages. It is estimated that the average net savings was £12, or $60 per person, and that the total amount taken back to Ireland at the end of the season was about £275,000, or $1,375,000 in American money. These savings are sufficient to keep their families through the rest of the year with the aid of their small farms, fishing, weaving, lacemaking, and other home industries. According to the reports of the estates commission, the number of farm hands employed in 1871, in addition to the owners of the land and their families, was 446,782, or more than twice as many as are employed at present. In 1881 the number was 300,091. The number of occasional laborers or extra harvest hands employed in 1871 was 189,829, as against 76,870 employed in 1907, which indicates in a striking manner the decay of agriculture in Ireland. At the same time wages have increased 30 per cent and the cost of boarding farm hands has increased 40 per cent. The hands now demand better accommodations and better food, and everything they require is much more expensive than it was thirty years ago. The average wages for steady farm hands in Ireland with board, according to the official statistics, is $12 a month, while ten years ago labor was plenty at $9 a month. Wages of household servants are about the same and have advanced as rapidly. The census statistics of Ireland are quite interesting and show that for the last ten years the population has remained fairly stationary, the excess of births over deaths making up the loss by emigration. The latest vital statistics available are for the year 1905, which show a population of 4,391,565, an excess of births over deaths of 27,671; an emigration of 30,676, and a net decrease in population of 2,915. The following table shows the number of births, deaths, and emigrants for ten years: Years Births Deaths Emigrants 1895 106,113 84,395 48,703 1896 107,641 75,700 39,995 1897 106,664 83,839 32,535 1898 105,457 82,404 32,241 1899 103,900 79,699 41,232 1900 101,459 87,606 45,288 1901 100,976 79,119 39,613 1902 101,863 77,676 40,190 1903 101,831 77,358 39,789 1904 103,811 79,513 36,902 1905 102,832 75,071 30,676 ------- ------ ------ Average 103,811 80,731 39,549 Through the efforts of Mr. Boland, M.P., the foreign commerce of Ireland is now given independently in the statistical reports of the United Kingdom, and the following table shows the imports and exports for recent years: Imports Exports 1904 £53,185,523 £49,398,536 1905 54,793,183 51,174,318 1906 56,365,299 55,598,597 1907 60,521,245 61,617,225 It will be noticed that there was a considerable increase every year in both columns, but the increase in exports was considerably greater than in imports. This increase was particularly noticeable in live stock shipments to England. In 1905 there were 1,852,423 head of horses, mules, cattle, sheep, and swine shipped from Ireland to England, and in 1907 the shipments had increased to 2,025,292 head. The exports of butter also increased, and Ireland now has the lead among the nations that contribute to the British poultry market. In 1907 the value of the poultry exported from Ireland to Great Britain was £725,441. Ireland ought to furnish all the bacon that the British people eat. Irish bacon is the best in the world, and brings the highest prices, but, notwithstanding that fact, more bacon was imported into England from the United States, from Denmark, and from Canada than from Ireland. The exports of manufactured goods--linens, woolens, and other textiles--from Ireland during the fiscal year 1907, exceeded £20,000,000. The imports of similar articles amounted to £27,000,000. The Irish import a vast amount of bacon from the United States when they ought to supply their own market. The following table will show the commerce between the United States and Ireland during the last three years: Imports from Exports to Ireland Ireland 1906 $11,456,739 $10,824,350 1907 12,023,469 9,593,658 1908 8,899,799 10,101,065 The falling off of the exports from Ireland in 1908 was due entirely to the panic of that year in the United States, which caused an almost total stagnation of trade for several months. There is no limit to the demand for Irish agricultural produce at good prices, but the cultivated area of the island continues to diminish annually, and the area given up to pasturage and the breeding of cattle and sheep increases. The Irish farmer has an unlimited market for bacon, hams, butter, eggs, poultry, potatoes, and other vegetables in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, and other great manufacturing cities which are now very largely fed by Holland and Denmark. More eggs and poultry, more butter and bacon, are imported into England from Denmark than from Ireland, notwithstanding the difference in distance and cost of transportation. The provision dealers of the great manufacturing cities of England always have agents in Ireland, and the Department of Agriculture and the Irish Agricultural Organization Society are both active and efficient in securing and cultivating markets for Irish products. They are advancing large sums of money to establish co-operative dairies and to improve the dairy cattle, the swine, and poultry of Ireland, but many of the farmers are indifferent to their opportunities and with the happy-go-lucky characteristic of the Irish race are happy and satisfied so long as they have enough to feed their own mouths. Sir Horace Plunkett, who has been especially active in trying to improve the condition of the farmers of Ireland, says: "The settlement of the land question and the new system of governmental aid to agriculture are proceeding rapidly and doing great good, but along neither of those two lines of national advancement, nor along both combined, is agricultural prosperity to be attained. The result depends entirely upon voluntary individual effort and co-operation. The British market will take all the produce we can send, and the more we send of uniform quality--and this can be done by co-operation--the more it will pay for our produce. It follows that every dairy farmer in Ireland is not only interested in seeing that every farmer in his district forwards the best butter he can produce, but he is also concerned to see that farmers in other districts do the same. The ownership of the land by the occupier, which has been brought about by legislation, will not of itself give the Irish farmer the prosperity he hopes for. It is not only the farms, but the habits of the people upon the land which need improvement. Capable under certain influences of surprising industry, they lack the qualities which secure the fruits of industry, because their education and economic circumstances have not developed the industrial habit. They are surely clever in their resourcefulness and shrewd in their bargainings, but as a rule in the management of their farms and commercial dealings they display a total lack of the most elementary principles of either technical or business knowledge. In spite of a passionate devotion to their country, they emigrate to America whenever they can obtain the money to pay their passage, and seem to have no fixed purpose or ambition to develop the resources that lie around them." The factories of Ireland are confined almost entirely to the northern province of Ulster, although a few mills and other textile manufactories are scattered in other parts of the island. The textile and other manufacturing industries have enjoyed unprecedented and extraordinary prosperity for eight or ten years. Household industries, particularly the manufacture of handwoven tweeds and various kinds of lace, received a gratifying impetus from the advertising obtained at the Irish village at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893, under the patronage of Lady Aberdeen, who for twenty years had interested herself in the practical and successful development of lacemaking and hand weaving of woolen fabrics. Her energetic efforts have been supplemented by the Royal Irish Industries Association and the Royal Dublin Society, both of which hold annual exhibitions, offer prizes for excellence of design and workmanship, and provide agencies for the sale of homemade and convent-made products in London and other cities. The Congested Districts Board has given much practical aid and encouragement by loaning money to people who cannot afford to buy looms, by sending teachers in industries throughout the island into the households, by establishing fixed schools at central points, and by furnishing thread and other materials to lacemakers and weavers, for which it collects payments after the product is sold. All through the poor districts of Ireland, where for centuries there has been a desperate struggle for existence, thousands of looms and spinning-wheels may now be found in the cottages of the poor peasants, where both the parents and the children have been instructed in spinning and in weaving by government teachers. And in almost every village on the west coast there is a lace school attended by from twelve to fifty young women under the instruction of a patient and tactful teacher working with thread advanced to them without payment by the Congested Districts Board. The lace produced is sold for them at the agencies of the board, and they are thus enabled to contribute several pounds a month to the incomes of their families. It is a familiar joke that our principal imports from Ireland are priests, politicians, policemen, and baseball pitchers, but they are not all by any means. I do not know what other country has furnished so many famous Americans--generals, admirals, statesmen, politicians, financiers, merchant princes, actors, writers, lawyers, and other professional men too numerous to mention. If you will look through the list of the generals during our Civil War, if some one will make up a catalogue of millionaires and mining kings and empire-builders and captains of industry they will realize that all the Irishmen who have come to the United States have not gone into politics or pugilism or baseball teams. I must say, however, that the Irish have almost the monopoly of the prize ring and the baseball diamond. Cardinal Logue made a speech upon his return from America in 1908, in which he discussed this subject at length and related what he had himself seen of Irish millionaires and other successful business men in the United States. He spoke particularly of New York City, and alluded with gratification to the fact that the subway of New York City and the new tunnel under the Hudson River were both built by Irishmen. "I was proud to know," he said, "of the vast number of our countrymen who were honored citizens of the United States. They have asserted themselves, especially in New York, and occupy the leading positions there. You find Irishmen prominent in every walk of life, you find them among the most distinguished of the judges on the bench, you find them among the most successful barristers, you find them among the most eminent in medicine and in the other learned professions, and then I found that the largest contracts in New York [and he might have said in the entire country] had been allotted to Irishmen, because of their ability to organize and carry out great works. I visited the tunnel under the Hudson and was proud to think that that great work had been carried out by an Irishman who had carved out his own advancement and had made his own way in life by his native talent and genius. Then, again, when they were undertaking the stupendous work of building subways under the city of New York they gave that contract to an Irishman, who succeeded in completing it to the satisfaction of everybody, and it was one of the greatest works ever undertaken by man. "And they succeed in other branches of life also, equally well," continued the cardinal. "As I was sailing up the Hudson River one day we passed a city called Hoboken, and I was told that it was inhabited exclusively by Germans with the exception of two solitary Irishmen, and one of them, Lord, is mayor of the city and the other is prefect of police. That is an indication of how our people are going ahead in America. And even in the humbler walks of life I found them hard working, well educated, and giving every sign of having retained their own faith and that love for Ireland which is the characteristic of our race in every part of the world. Some of them of the third and fourth generations were as warm and as strong in their love for Ireland as those born in this dear old land of ours." Cardinal Logue forgets that the ancestors of the men he speaks of in America were once kings of Ireland, and they have the right to success; but I often wonder what would have happened if all the great Irishmen we read about--the Duke of Wellington, Lord Roberts, Lord Kitchener, General Sheridan, A.T. Stewart, John W. Mackey, John McDonald, Thomas F. Ryan, and the thousands of other famous Irishmen--had remained here instead of going out into a wider field of fame and usefulness. The result would be incomprehensible. And there is a good deal of truth in the joke about the kings of Ireland. At the time of St. Patrick and up to the Norman invasion in the twelfth century Ireland was divided into many little kingdoms in addition to the four grand divisions which correspond to the provinces to-day. The O'Connors were kings of Connaught, the O'Brians of Munster, the O'Neills of Ulster, the McMurroughs of Leinster, the Kavanaughs of Wexford, the O'Carrolls of Tipperary, the MacCarthys of Cork, the O'Sullivans and the O'Donaghues ruled in the southwest, the O'Flahertys in Galway--and so on through a long list. What is a county now was a kingdom then, and the descendants of the rulers still bear their names. XIX IRISH CHARACTERISTICS AND CUSTOMS If any one should write a book on Irish characteristics, I think he should rank good humor as the most prominent, and that makes up for a great many defects. We were on the island for nearly three months and visited more than half the counties, seeing a good deal of both city and country life, and coming in contact with all classes of people, and it is safe to say that no one uttered a cross or an unkind word to us, but everywhere and under all circumstances and from everybody we received a most cordial welcome and the most courteous treatment. And when we asked questions which many times must have seemed silly and unnecessary to the people to whom they were addressed, the replies have always been polite and considerate. Irish retorts are proverbial. For "reppartay" the race is famous, and we have had numerous illustrations. Wit is spontaneous. It doesn't take an Irishman long to frame an answer, and it is generally to the point. "Blarney" is abundant. Every old woman calls you her "darlin'," and every man calls you "me lud" or "yer honor." The insidious flattery that is used on all occasions does no harm to the giver or the receiver. It makes the world brighter and happier, though it may be flippant and insincere. [Illustration: IRISH MARKET WOMEN] The man who "always said the meanest things in such a charming way" must have been an Irishman, although I do not remember to have heard a mean thing said of anybody over there. The Irish race are not diplomatic in their actions; history demonstrates that, but no race is so much so in conversation, and the tact and taffy shown in the treatment of strangers are admirable. Nor does the Irish peasant wear his heart upon his sleeve. He may be frank and sincere in his expressions, but it is quite as probable that he is otherwise. He has the faculty of concealing the bitterest malice under the gentlest smiles and flattering compliments. It is always difficult to get a serious answer from a native in Ireland. The peasant is always suspicious, and, while he will make himself agreeable and amuse a stranger with his wit and humor, it is difficult to get deeper into his confidence and seldom safe to place any reliance upon what he says. This, I am told, is the result of centuries of persecution, treachery, and danger, so that the Irish race from necessity learned to wear the mask, until it is now a habit. Notwithstanding their ready replies and their apparent frankness, you are never satisfied with the information they give you when you question them upon serious topics. You are convinced that they are not expressing their real opinions. I make it a rule to discuss the land laws and political policies with car drivers and other people I meet of the working class, but have never been able to get an opinion from them. I have never yet heard an Irish peasant express an unkind opinion of anybody. After talking with them about politicians, landlords, and others, I feel like the child in the cemetery who asked where bad people were buried. But what you most admire is the witty and ingenious way in which they turn a mistake. A young Irishman stepped up to a gentleman the other day, and with a musical brogue inquired: "I'm thinkin', sir, that you are Mr. Blake." "You're thinkin' wrong," was the surly reply. "I beg yer honor's pardon; I sez to mysilf, when I seen you, sez I, that must be Mr. John Blake for whom I have a missage; but if it's not, sez I to mysilf, it's a moighty fine upsthanding young gintleman, whoiver he may be." Sometimes there is a tinge of sarcasm, as when an old hag asked: "Won't yer lordship buy an old woman's prayers for a penny; that's chape." "The hivins be your bed, me darlin'," was the way an old beggar woman expressed her thanks. Sir Walter Scott says: "I gave a fellow a shilling on one occasion when a sixpence was the proper fee. "'Remember you owe me a sixpence, Pat,' I said. "'May yer honor live till I pay ye!'" When he was leaving the ruins of the Seven Churches at Glendalough, Lord Plunkett, his escort, whispered to the custodian: "That's Sir Walter Scott; he's a great poet." "Divil a bit," was the reply, "he's an honorable gintleman, an' he gave me half a crown"--when the fee was a shilling. Very often we hear poetic expressions from the most unexpected sources. As we were driving down to Ballyhack from Waterford, the jaunting car driver pointed at a mile stone with his whip and remarked: "The most lonesome thing in Ireland; without another of its kind within a mile of it." The common use of the name of the Creator is often shocking to strangers and seems blasphemous, but it is an unconscious habit. The word is constantly on the tongue of the poor and not always in a profane sense. You hear, "God bless you," "God prosper you," "Praise God," and similar expressions continually. One neighbor seldom greets another good morning or good night, without an appeal to the Almighty or the Redeemer or the Holy Virgin. "Howly Mother" is the commonest of ejaculations, but Irish profanity is always associated with blessings and not with curses. You never hear the anathemas that are so common in the United States. Nobody ever damns you; if the name of the Almighty is appealed to it is always for his blessing and not for condemnation. Everybody in Ireland does not speak with a brogue. It has often been said that the purest English is spoken in Dublin and Aberdeen, but that is true to a very limited extent among the highly educated and the cultured classes with whom strangers do not often come in contact. In some places the brogue is so dense that a stranger requires an interpreter. It is difficult to understand an ordinary remark. And you hear the brogue in the pulpit as well as in the slums. There is no form of speech richer or more musical than the brogue of an eloquent Irishman, and his natural gifts of oratory enable him to convey the meaning of his words to the fullest degree by his accent. I never heard the service of the Episcopal church read in a more eloquent and impressive manner than by a young curate with a brogue "that you could cut with a knife," as the saying is. There is nothing to compare with it except the "sweet, soft, southern accent in the United States." When you inquire where the Irish got their brogue, the answer will be, "At the same shop that the Yankee got his twang." We know that one of the most conspicuous and charming traits of the Irish race is to have a pleasant word for everybody, no matter what is in their hearts, on the theory attributed to St. Augustine that a drop of honey will attract more flies than a barrel of vinegar. The Irish call it "deludering" and "soothering," both very expressive words. The pleasant way in which questions are answered is very gratifying, especially to a stranger. You never hear a gruff word in Ireland. An Englishman is brutally abrupt, but the Irish are always agreeable. The other day when I asked the guard of a railway train how soon it would start he replied promptly: "Not till yer honor is aboard, sir." When I complained to the hotel porter that it was raining all the time in Ireland he replied apologetically: "But it's such a gintle rain, sir." Some of the retorts you hear from the common people are highly poetic. When I bought a bunch of flowers from an old woman in the street the other day she replied: "God bless your kind heart, sir; your mother must have been a saint." "Good luck to your ladyship's happy face this morning," was the greeting of an old hag to my daughter. "Oh, let me poor eyes look at ye, me lady, and your voice is as swate as your face." In a little book I picked up one day, I found a dialogue between a farmer and fox, as follows: "Good morrow, Fox." "Good morrow, Farmer." "And what are ye ating, my dear little fox?" said the farmer insinuatingly. "Is it a goose you stole from me?" "No, my dear farmer, it is the leg of a salmon." One day I was speaking to the jarvey who was driving us about in the jaunting car, of a neighbor I had met, who had spent some years in America. He had returned to his native place with a "tidy purseful" of money, and was looking around for some business in which to invest his little capital. "He seems to think very well of himself," I suggested. "He acts as if he came over with Cromwell a thousand years ago, and he looks down on thim of us who was kings of all the counthry, even before the mountains was made." An American tourist said to his driver: "Why do you speak to your horse in English, when you talk Celtic to your friends on the road?" "Sure, an' isn't the English good enough for a beast?" was the reply. The term "himself" is used to describe the boss, the head of a family, the chief man in an association, the commander of a ship, or the colonel of a regiment. It is applied in the same way as the term "old man" that we are accustomed to in the United States. When a subaltern in the army speaks of "himself," you may understand that he means the colonel of the regiment. When an employee of a railway company alludes to "himself," it is the general manager. And when a sailor uses that term he means the captain of the ship. Wives use it to describe their husbands; children refer to their fathers in that manner and workmen to their superintendent or the boss of the gang: "Did himself give yez the order?" "I will not take any directions except from himself." "You'll have to wait till himself comes in," said a young boy behind the counter in a Dublin shop. "We're waiting for himself to come home to dinner," was the remark of a good wife, when I inquired for her husband. "Himself has not been very well lately." The word "Himself" is frequently written upon envelopes, where it has the same significance as the word "Personal" or "Private" with us, and is a warning that no one should open it but the person to whom it is addressed. But these ancient customs are being abandoned, and most of the superstitions are dying out. The Irish people are the most highly imaginative and superstitious in the world, and the national schools are blamed for the change that is taking place among them in this respect. John Dillon told me in Dublin that he was not quite satisfied in his own mind whether this was a good thing for the country. Personally, he would much prefer that the people would adhere to the customs and preserve the superstitions of their ancestors. But there is more than one opinion on that subject. The superintendent of the insane asylum at Killarney asserts that the most prolific causes of insanity here are the imagination, the superstitions, and the habitual use of strong tea. But the national schools and the Christian religion have not been able to banish some of the most baneful spirits like the Banshee, which still gives notice of approaching death, sorrow, and misfortune, and still commands the faith and confidence of the great majority of the Irish people. Even those who ridicule the Banshee and deny its omens hate to hear the cry. The superstition is inborn. It is like the evil eye in Italy. People who do not believe in it will nevertheless dodge a person who is accused of carrying such a curse. There is a great deal of regret, which all of us must share, that the common people of Ireland have abandoned many of the quaint and odd customs that gave them their individuality, and are taking up modern English notions instead. The old sports and games which were inherited from the Gaelic ancestors are becoming obsolete. The peasants never dance in the fields nowadays, and their festivals are very like those of the English yeomen. They are taking up cricket, golf, tennis, and other English games, which you see them playing in the parks and on the commons, instead of the distinctively Irish amusements that were so common in the past generation. The Celtic League is working for a revival with a little success. A newcomer is always puzzled by the large number of names on the map beginning with the word "Bally." In that amusing book called "Penelope's Experiences in Ireland," one of the girls suggested that in making up their itinerary they should first visit all the places called "Bally," and after that all the places whose names end or begin with "kill." That is the Gaelic word for a grove or a clump of trees. The word "Bally" means "town," and corresponds with the word "ville" in our geographical nomenclature. The map of Ireland is spattered with names with such a prefix. Here are some of them: Ballybain Ballybunion Ballyhiskey Ballybarney Ballycumber Ballyhu Ballybeg Ballydehob Ballyhully Ballybully Ballydoo Ballyknockane Ballybought Ballyduff Ballylug Ballyboy Ballygammon Ballymoney Ballybrack Ballygasoon Ballyhack Ballynew Ballyroe Ballywater Ballywilliam Ballydaniel Ballyragget Each of these names has a significance. Ballyragget means a town where there is a ford, Ballyroe is a red town, Ballysallagn is a dirty town. Ballybunion was named in honor of a man called Bunion, Ballydoo is a black town, Ballykeel is a narrow town, Ballykill is the town of the wood or the town of the woods. Kilcooly is the church of the corner, Kilcarne is the church of the carne or glen, Kilboy is a yellow church, Killduff is a church of black stone, Killroot is a red church, and so on. Almost every name in Ireland has some significance. I saw only one harp during the three months we were in Ireland, and that was being played by a man in the street, who had an excellent touch and good expression. Street singers have almost entirely disappeared. The love of music and the love of fighting, however, cannot be eradicated from the race that has possessed them since creation, and the Celtic League is doing much to revive the ancient popular airs like "Home, Sweet Home," "Annie Laurie," and "Way Down on the Suwanee River." All of these are adaptations from melodies that have been sung by mother and child among the peasants of Ireland for centuries. General Sherman used to tell of a joke on himself when he was visiting Ireland shortly after the war. Hearing a band coming down the street playing "Marching through Georgia" he naturally assumed that it was a serenade in his honor. He put on his other coat, brushed his hair and whiskers and sat down to await a summons which did not come. After the music had passed beyond hearing he asked his aid-de-camp to find out what had happened. Colonel Audenreid, who was with him, quickly returned to explain that a local military company had marched down the street to the music of an old Irish air which had been plagiarized for one of our war songs. The last of the bards was Carolan, who died in 1788, and whose memory is preserved by a tablet in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. The ancient bards were more influential than warriors or priests or statesmen, and stood next in rank to the king. The praise or the censure of a bard was alike potent. Their satire was as much to be feared as the malediction of a priest, and their approval was as precious as the gifts of the gods. XX WICKLOW AND WEXFORD South of Dublin, along the coast, is a string of summer resorts and bathing places which are attractive in their way, but ought to be very much more so. They are very different from what we are accustomed to. They look more like factory towns than summer resorts. Although land is cheap and there is plenty of it, the hotels and houses are built in solid blocks usually facing upon a highway that runs along the shore. There is no shade, no glorious groves like those which surround the country houses half a mile away; no lawns, no cozy green nooks; only masses of brick and mortar divided into tenements twenty-five feet wide, in the presence of the majesty of the sea. Across the roadway, on the beach, are rows of little frame houses painted dove color, that are called "bathing machines." Each is independent of the other and is about four feet square, with a narrow door and, inside, a seat made of board resting on cleats nailed to the side, and hooks fastened above it on which the bather hangs his or her garments. When the bather is properly clad in the bathing suit, the "machine" is picked up by two stalwart attendants, who run poles through the sides of the house and carry it down to the edge of the water, where my lady may step into the surf. [Illustration: AN ANCIENT BRIDGE IN COUNTY WICKLOW] Back from the seashore all the way down to Waterford on the coast of St. George's Channel is a succession of beautiful villas and mansions and farms, each surrounded by lawns and groves and, in some cases, primeval forests. It is the "Garden of Ireland" and there is no sign of poverty or oppression or unhappiness visible to the human eye. There is no lovelier land on earth. "The Fair Hills of Holy Ireland" are unsurpassed in gentle natural beauty, and about forty miles south of Dublin, in the Wicklow hills, is a little patch of Switzerland surrounded by mountains that rise as high as three thousand feet. You can go there by train from Dublin three or four times a day, taking a jaunting car at Rathdrum or Rathnew station. In the tourist season coaches await the arrival of every train and carry "trippers" through on excursion tickets and at very low rates. The more enjoyable way, however, is to hire an automobile at Dublin (five guineas or $26.25 a day) and run down to Glendalough by one route, stay over night at the hotel on the lake and return the next day by another. In the meantime circle around through the country and catch its beauties as you go. The only drawback, as I have said before, is the high walls that hide the beautiful estates. These were erected, generations ago, I suppose, because the proprietors were afraid of losing their property. But notwithstanding these massive protections many an Irish estate has slipped out of the hands of its owner. It is a habit they formed about the time of the conquest and the invasion of the Normans. Some of the most beautiful and valuable property in Ireland has been lost at the gambling table or at the race course; more has been sacrificed for political partisanship and more for religious causes. In the early days kings used to have a funny way of taking a man's property from him because he didn't go to the same church and confess the same creed. Half the land in Ireland has changed owners for this reason, and some of it several times. Henry VIII., as the newspapers might say, was a prominent real estate dealer along about 1540, and Queen Elizabeth did a large business about 1584, at the time of the "flight of the earls," and nearly half the island changed hands by her majesty's grace without the payment of a dollar. When the earls who had resisted her authority ran away to France, she calmly wiped their noble names off the books of the recorder of deeds and transferred their property to English "undertakers," as they were called, because they "undertook" to drive off the rebellious Irish occupants and repopulate the land with loyal English colonists. Many of the great landlords of Ireland of to-day obtained their property and their titles at this time. And then a gentleman named Oliver Cromwell went into the real estate business over in Ireland about the middle of the seventeenth century. He drove the inhabitants of a vast area from their farms and the towns in which they lived and compelled them to take refuge in other parts of the country, while he issued scrip that could be located upon the farms they left and paid his soldiers with it because he was short of cash. Many of his soldiers remained here and married and were the ancestors of the present population. Others sold their scrip to speculators who located upon large tracts and eventually disposed of them to men who had the money. These real estate transactions of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and Cromwell have been severely criticised, but they must have been right because we did very much the same thing with our Indians, the original owners of the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave." Whenever an Indian tribe has rebelled about something, just as the Irish have rebelled from time to time since the conquest of Henry II., we have driven them from the homes of their forefathers; have penned them up in reservations, and have sold their lands to immigrants from Ireland, Sweden, and other European countries, precisely as the English sovereigns disposed of the homes and the farms of the Irish. We did it in the name of civilization; they did it, very often, because they could not worship the same God in the same way. About an hour by automobile from Dublin, beyond Bray and Greystone and other summer resorts, is a lovely place that you will be pleased to hear about because there is a pretty story attached to it. It is an old Tudor mansion of the seventeenth century, covered with luxuriant ivy and half concealed by ilex, arbutus, hawthorn, and rhododendron bushes that are all in bloom in May. They call it "Hollybrook" and it is the seat of Sir Robert Adair Hodson, whose great-grandfather, Sir Robert Adair, a dashing soldier, was knighted by his king on the field of battle for the handy way he had of amputating the heads of his majesty's enemies. He afterward became a lieutenant-general and one of the most famous soldiers in the United Kingdom. But what interests us more is that he was the young gentleman for whom the song "Robin Adair" was written by Lady Katherine Keppel. She loved him very much, they say, and broke her heart for him. Just beyond the railway station of Rathdrum is the Avondale estate, the seat of the family of the late Charles S. Parnell, the Irish political leader, which has recently been purchased by the new Irish department of agriculture, as a school for the training of foresters. Here we enter that romantic region known as the Vale of Avoca, which has been described in a pretty ballad by Tom Moore, called "The Meeting of the Waters"--the rivers Avonbeg and Avonmore. Here was a meeting place of the Druids in ancient times. Their altars and seats of judgment remain, and you can see the hurling stone of the great Finn McCool, which is fourteen feet long, ten feet wide, and seven feet thick, but he was so strong that he had no trouble in tossing it about like a football. Beyond "The Meeting of the Waters," seven or eight miles over a very attractive road, are the Woods of Shillelagh, which gave their name to the traditional weapon of offense and defense, formerly carried by every Irishman, but long ago obsolete. You can buy genuine shillalahs at the curio stores, those that have been in actual use and "have cracked many a head," as the dealer will tell you. You will find them also put away in the cabins with other heirlooms, with the christening clothes of the gossoons and the confirmation dresses of the colleens, but that interesting and typical weapon of the Irish peasant has entirely disappeared. It was a blackthorn stick, about eighteen inches long, from an inch to an inch and a half thick and a knot at one end of it. The best material in Ireland was found in the woods that surround the ancient little village of Shillelagh--hence the name. Wicklow is especially fascinating to the artist and the antiquarian. The scenery is not so wild nor on so large a scale as that of the Alps, but bits of Switzerland in miniature are scattered about among the Wicklow hills and, indeed, several other very respectable mountains. Douce is 2,384 feet high, Duffhill 2,364, Gravale, 2,352, and Kippure 2,473 feet, and they rise immediately from the level of tide water within a few miles of the sea, so that they seem much higher. There are twenty-one mountains more than two thousand feet high, three more than two thousand five hundred, and one more than three thousand (Lugnaynilla) in this immediate neighborhood and within twenty miles of the coast. Concealed among them are several charming little lakes and rugged canyons and glens and dense forests. Nearly all of these are associated with religious history, with the lives of several saints who went there in retreat for meditation or lived like hermits in the caves and dells and prayed for the salvation of the world. This was the home of Laurence Sterne, author of "Uncle Toby" and "Corporal Trim." The record of his baptism is inscribed upon the registry of a quaint old church, and in 1720, according to the local traditions, he accidentally fell into a mill race and narrowly escaped being crushed to death by the water wheel which was working at the time. This was the land of the O'Tooles. The ruins of Castle Keven, the stronghold of the clan, are visited daily in the summer by hundreds of people. [Illustration: THE VALE OF AVOCA, COUNTY WICKLOW] Glendalough is known as "the ancient City of Refuge," and the weird, mysterious, somber scenery is associated with one of the strangest manifestations of human piety that may be seen anywhere. For there, within the shadow of gaunt and gloomy mountains, St. Kevin, "The Fair Born," a prince of the House of Leinster, which produced five saints in a single generation, three brothers and two sisters, built seven tiny churches in a group. It is known as the Valley of the Seven Churches. Each of them has its own individuality. Each of them is dedicated to a different saint, and all have been the homes and the places of worship and the object of pilgrimage for holy men and devout Christians for thirteen hundred years. As Sir Walter Scott says, they are probably the oldest buildings now surviving in any country in which the Christian religion was taught, and naturally have a corresponding interest and sanctity to all who love their Lord. St. Kevin died in 618 after a remarkable experience. The date of his birth is unknown. He stands in fame and sanctity among the Irish saints after St. Patrick, St. Bridget, and St. Columba only. His uncle, the Bishop of Ardstrad, was his preceptor, and, having renounced his claims to the throne of Leinster, and to all the pomps and vanities of the world, he retired to this retreat and here spent the rest of his life. His biography has been written several times, and as far back as the ninth century. It has recently been rewritten and published at the expense of the Marquis of Bute. One of the early writers calls him "A soldier of Christ in the land of Eire, a high name over sea and wave, chaste and fair, living in the glen of the broad line, in the valley of the two lakes." "Kevin loves a narrow hovel. It is a work of religious mortification To be everlastingly praying But a great shelter against demons." St. Kevin lived in a hollow tree for seven years and afterward in a narrow cave in a precipice of great height overhanging the lake, to which there is no access but by a boat. According to tradition he came here to escape from "Eyes of Most Unholy Blue," worn by a maid named Kathleen with whom he fell in love in spite of his monastic vows. The legend says that she traced him out, and when St. Kevin woke from his sleep one morning he found her sitting beside his bed. He rose and hurled her into the lake, afterwards whipping himself with nettles as penance. There are many other legends concerning him, but most of them are romance. There is no doubt, however, of his piety, and that he founded the Seven Churches. His feast is celebrated on June 3, the day on which he died, with great ceremony. The Seven Churches are all small and stand in a group around a cathedral, within sight of each other, except for the foliage. They are roofless and partially ruined, but of late years the board of public works has taken possession of them, repaired them, and is keeping them in order. Several monasteries have been maintained there from time to time, and a thousand years ago Glendalough was one of the most famous seats of learning in the world. Scholars and students went there from all parts of Europe to study. The cathedral, which is the center of interest, is probably the smallest sanctuary of that dignity in existence. The nave is only 48 feet long by 30 feet wide, and the chancel is 25 by 22 feet, but the masonry is massive. The Church of the Trinity has a chancel only 13 feet 6 inches long by 9 feet wide and a nave 29 by 17 feet. It contains the tomb of Mochuarog, son of Brachan, King of Britain, who was a disciple of St. Kevin and administered the last rites to him when he died. The Church of St. Savior is 45 by 19 feet; the Church of Our Lady has a nave 32 by 20 and a chancel 21 by 19; St. Chalaran's has a nave 18 by 15 feet and a chancel 8 feet 8 inches by 8 feet 4 inches; Reefert Church has a nave 29 by 18 feet and a chancel 14 by 9 feet. This was the burial place of the O'Tooles and contains several tombs dating as far back as 1010. What is called "Kevin's Kitchen" is an oblong oratory, 23 by 15 feet in size. There is a tower of imposing dimensions, 110 feet high and 52 feet in circumference, standing in the center of an ancient cemetery and surrounded by tombstones. There are several fine Celtic crosses of great age and sanctity before which pilgrims are constantly kneeling, and many other objects of great interest. What was once a beautiful interlaced cross has been half carried away by vandals in chips as "mementos" from the grave of a "rale oulde Irish king." One of the tombs has an inscription in Celtic, reading, "The body of King Mac Thuill, in Jesus Christ, 1010"; another is inscribed, "Pray for Carbre ma Cahail," but most of the inscriptions are obscure. A few miles down to the south of Glendalough, on the other side of the divide, is the village of Ennisworthy, where the great Grattan lived between the sessions of the Irish parliament, and where many scenes are associated with his memory. It was near Ennisworthy or Vinegar Hall that one of the fiercest battles was fought between the British troops and the Irish rebels on the 21st of June, 1798. The rebels threw up hurried earthworks around a ruined windmill and defended them with pikes, scythes, and other agricultural implements, for those were all the arms they had. The British assaulted the hill and massacred or captured the entire force. Five hundred are said to have been killed in the engagement. The little place is called Ferns, is a favorite resort of rich Dublin people, and has many interesting historical associations. It was the seat of government of Leinster in early times, and the home of Dermot MacMurrough, who betrayed Ireland to the Normans. His castle, which stood upon an eminence overlooking the town, is believed to date back to the sixth century and was besieged and burned and partially destroyed several times. Near by is the ruin of an Augustinian monastery, with a tower seventy-five feet high, which was founded by MacMurrough in 1160, and in which he is buried. The Protestant Church of Ireland has a cathedral here and an Episcopal palace built in 1630 by Bishop Ram, then in charge of the ecclesiastical affairs of this diocese. Being of very advanced age when he built the house, he placed the following inscription over the entrance: "This house Ram built for his succeeding brothers: Thus sheep bear wool, not for themselves, but for others." We walked from the station at Wexford along a very narrow street to a deceptive hotel called the White's. It has a dark, narrow, uninviting entrance, but extends back into the middle of the block like the roots of a tree, and contains comfortable beds, neat sitting-rooms, and a dining-room, wherein toothsome, orange-colored salmon just from the river and most excellent gooseberry tarts are served. Wexford is very different from Dublin and every other place in Ireland that we saw, because of its narrow streets, which are more like those of a Spanish or oriental town, some of them so narrow that you can almost shake hands through the windows with your neighbor across the way. And it is a very clean town. And furthermore, all the children we met looked as if they were just from a bath. We saw troops of them in the street on their way to school with "shining morning faces" and neat jackets and frocks and wearing shoes and stockings, which is a rare sight in Ireland, therefore a welcome one to see. The contrast in the dress and general appearance of the people of Wexford and those of Dublin is so striking as to cause comment. In a large plaza in front of the railway station is a monument in honor of John Edward Redmond, uncle of John and William Redmond, the present leaders of the Irish party in the British parliament. He represented this district in the House of Commons for many years and did a great deal for the town and the neighborhood. He got a breakwater, which makes the harbor safe, a bridge across the River Slaney, and an appropriation to construct a macadamized road along its banks. The Redmond family have lived here for generations and have been prominent in local affairs. Most of them have been engaged in the leather business and have had large tanneries. The inscription upon the monument to John Edward Redmond reads: "My heart is with the town of Wexford. Nothing can extinguish that love but the cold sod of the grave, and when the day comes, I hope you will pay me the compliment I deserve of saying that I always loved you." Last words of J.E. Redmond, 1865! A deputation of farmers which appeared before Mr. Russell, the secretary of agriculture, at Dublin, asserted that Wexford is "the most agricultural county in Ireland." There is every appearance of prosperity about Wexford. The people are well dressed, the cattle are sleek, the horses are the best we have seen, and we are quite prepared to believe the assertion that this is the "Garden of Ireland." There is a good deal of commerce at Wexford also, going out as well as coming in from a fine harbor which is formed by an estuary from the sea at the entrance to the Irish Channel. There is a long breakwater to protect the ships against storms; and quays, three thousand feet long, with double lines of railway track, and modern machinery for loading and unloading vessels. There are steamship lines to Liverpool, Bristol, and other markets in that hated and despised territory called England. Several sailing ships are now tied up at the dock which bring over coal and take back barley to make the British beer, for this is the headquarters of the barley trade in Ireland. Wexford has been the scene of much political disturbance. The people are intense in their hatred of England, and every baby in the cradle is a violent home ruler. Perhaps this unanimous sentiment is in a measure due to the influence of the Redmond family, which belongs here. On the site of an ancient bull ring is a bronze figure of a young man in a belligerent attitude with a long pike. He is called "The Insurgent" and the figures "1798" are on the pedestal--nothing more. "It's one of the patriots of '98," said the jaunting car driver. "They are putting up statues like that everywhere in Ireland now, to keep the events of the past in the memory of the people." There is a great deal of significance in that statue, and even more in the photographs and post cards of it which are hung for sale in the windows of every stationer and news stand and cigar-shop. Under the picture is printed in plain letters the words, "Who fears to speak of '98?" What are called "the twin churches" are two fine Roman Catholic houses of worship, exact duplicates of each other, within two or three blocks, with beautiful spires two hundred and thirty feet high. They cost $250,000 each and were paid for by the congregations of this city and neighborhood. It is astonishing how much money the people of Ireland spend upon their religion, and the twin churches of Wexford are illustrations of the display that is found in every part of the country. It is a common subject of comment and criticism that the bishops should permit such extravagance, but they reply that no man is ever poorer because of what he gives for his religion. It may be said, also, that all of the Roman Catholic churches are crowded on Sunday, early and late. St. Sellskar's Church is built upon the foundation of the Abbey of the Holy Sepulchre, which was established here a thousand years ago, and within it was signed the first treaty ever made between the English and Irish races. This was signed in 1169 by Dermot McMurrough, King of Leinster, and Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, better known by the name of Strongbow. And it was in this abbey that Strongbow resided, and in this church his sister, Bassilia de Clare, was married to Raymond le Gros in 1174. The Princess Eva, daughter of Dermot McMurrough, King of Leinster, who married Strongbow on the field of battle, is buried in a stone coffin at Bannow, in the suburbs of Wexford, down on the coast. It was formerly a populous and prosperous city, of which no traces can now be seen except the ruins of the church that contains her tomb. The rest of the town has been buried under the encroachments of the sea, and sand now lies ten and twenty feet deep upon the tops of the houses. Until a few years ago Bannow returned two members of parliament, although for many generations there was nothing for them to represent except the ruins of this church and a solitary chimney. However, for the loss of this franchise the British government paid £15,000 to the late Earl of Ely, whose seat is in the neighborhood. His ancestor, Rev. Adam Loftus, was lord high chancellor of Ireland during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He was one of the founders of Trinity College and the first provost. The romantic story of this extinct city is related in a novel entitled, "Eva, or the Buried City of Bannow," and contains a good deal of interesting history mixed up with the fiction. I suppose that sooner or later the energetic Normans would have found their way across the St. George's Channel, but their invasion was invited in 1169 by Dermot McMurrough, King of Leinster, who is thus responsible for the loss of his country's freedom, and subsequent centuries of bloodshed and distress. He was a good soldier, but the Christian influence under which he was educated did not remove all the savage traits from his system and he was guilty of many wicked, brutal, treacherous acts of tyranny and violence against his neighbors and his subjects. He kidnapped the wife of Ternan O'Rourke, King of Leitrim, and the latter persuaded the other kings in southern Ireland to join with him to punish the insult. McMurrough was driven from pillar to post and finally fled to the court of Henry II. in London, where he offered to betray Ireland to the English monarch. The latter declined to give Dermot any personal assistance, but permitted his vassals to do what they liked, and a number of British and Welsh barons of broken fortunes, under the leadership of Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, organized an invasion. In May, 1169, they landed at Wexford with a force of two thousand well armed Normans, Englishmen, Welshmen, and renegade Irishmen. Strongbow was given the leadership of the expedition with a promise of the hand of Dermot's daughter in marriage and the succession to the throne of Leinster. Before the invaders landed Dermot returned quietly to his castle at Ferns, and during the winter of 1168-69 pretended to do penance for his sins in the Augustinian monastery he had founded there, in order to throw his Irish enemies off their guard. The King of Connaught, Roderick O'Conor, who was the acknowledged suzerain of all Ireland at that time, collected a large army and marched against the invaders, and he might easily have crushed them, but he was a weak and credulous man, without the ability or vigor of Brian Boru, and Dermot fooled him completely, promising to expel the foreigners provided he was restored to his kingdom. As soon as Roderick had marched away, however, and Dermot felt himself strong enough to break his promises, he led his allies with fire and sword into the city of Dublin and the English have occupied it ever since. Strongbow's wedding with Eva took place Aug. 25, 1170, upon the battle field near Waterford, among the corpses of the slain. There is a striking picture of the scene in the National Gallery at Dublin. And the bridegroom continued his career of massacre and devastation until he "had made a tremblin' sod of all Ireland." Henry II., having heard of the conquest of Strongbow, became nervous for fear he might become too powerful, and prepared an expedition with which he landed at the little town of Crook, or at the still smaller town of Hook, near the mouth of the River Suir. Some said that he landed by Hook and some said he landed by Crook, and that was the origin of the saying that is heard to this day, "either by hook or crook." Henry II. had about ten thousand fighting men and they were so well organized and armed that resistance was impossible. Almost all the Irish kings and chieftains came promptly to make submission, and the Irish bishops, presided over by Lawrence O'Toole, met in synod and acknowledged him as their sovereign. Their action was based upon a bull issued by Pope Adrian IV., authorizing Henry II. to take possession of Ireland. Adrian IV. was an English monk named Brakespear, and he was influenced by an unfair and exaggerated account of the influence of the Church in England and by misrepresentations of the state of religion in Ireland. Some historians have questioned the genuineness of this edict; others have declared that it was a myth, but there seems to be no reason to doubt that Adrian IV. did authorize Henry II. to invade Ireland, believing that a strong centralized government there would be for the advancement of religion and for the good of the people. Troubles with the Holy See resulting from the assassination of Thomas à Becket called the king back to England before he had completed his plans of settlement, and he left Ireland in April, 1172, after remaining there less than six months. He had intended to erect a string of Norman castles at frequent intervals throughout the island and garrison them with English troops in order to overawe the native kings and chieftains, and so that his own earls might watch and check each other. But he left that work to his subordinates and rewarded them with grants of enormous area without regard to the rights of the native owners. Leinster was given to Strongbow with the exception of Dublin and two or three other towns on the coast; the province of Meath was given to Hugh de Lacy, and the province of Ulster to John de Courcy, and other tracts to the ancestors of many of the noble families of Ireland to-day. Under Strongbow, after Henry II. left, Ireland fell into a state of anarchy and confusion. He was tyrannical and unreasonable. The native princes rebelled and almost overcame him. They drove him to Waterford and besieged him there, where he was rescued by Raymond le Gros, who demanded the hand of his sister Bassilia as his reward. They were married here, as I have told you, in the Abbey of the Holy Sepulchre. Strongbow took up his headquarters at Dublin. He built Christ Church Cathedral and other churches and endowed several large religious establishments, although he had shown very little veneration for the relics of St. Patrick and other Irish saints. In 1176 he died of a malignant ulcer in his foot, which his enemies ascribed to a miracle of the Irish saints whose shrines he had desecrated. His sister Bassilia, who was a woman of strong character, concealed the fact of his death until she could communicate with her husband, Raymond le Gros, who was besieging an Irish king at Limerick, and prepare him to take advantage of the situation. As a letter might be captured and read, she sent him a courier with the message: "The Great Jaw Tooth, which used to trouble us so much, has fallen out--wherefore return with all speed." Raymond understood the meaning and returned to Dublin, took charge of the government and buried Strongbow with great pomp in Christ Church Cathedral, which he had founded, the famous Lawrence O'Toole, Archbishop of Ireland, conducting the ceremonies. But King Henry had had enough of the Strongbow family, and when he heard of the great earl's death appointed William de Burgo, founder of the Burke family, as viceroy. Raymond le Gros, with Bassilia, retired to their castle in Wexford, where he resided quietly until his death in 1182. And that is the way the English obtained possession of Ireland. XXI THE LAND OF RUINED CASTLES Waterford is a busy, clean, dignified old town with large shipping interests, which are conducted upon a wide quay that follows the bank of the River Suir and is faced with substantial walls of stone. The cargoes of the vessels are loaded and unloaded from the roadside. The commercial business consists of the export of bacon, which is famous, barley, and other agricultural produce. A good many live cattle are sent over the channel to feed the enemies of Ireland. The stores and shops are upon streets that run at right angles with the river. The professional men occupy blocks of former residences in the neighborhood of an ancient courthouse which faces a park, usually filled with babies and blue-eyed children playing on the grass. Back in the city the ground rises from the river to a hill that was once crowned with a castle, a cathedral, a monastery, and several other institutions of warfare, charity, learning, and religion. A "Home for the Widows of Deceased Clergymen of the Church of Ireland" occupies the site of the palace of King John. When I dropped a penny in the lap of an old crone, who squatted at the gate, she looked up at me with the winning smile of her race and said: "May you have a happy life, sor, and a paceful death and a favorable joodgment." There are few beggars in the Irish cities to-day, such as you read about in the tales of travelers who were here twenty or even ten years ago. There are two or three in Dublin hanging around the entrance of the hotel, usually with flowers for sale or something else to offer as compensation for your money, and when one goes into the slums he is apt to be approached by drunken men and drunken women. But outside of Dublin we didn't see a single beggar. Besides being famous for the best bacon in the United Kingdom, Waterford is the ancestral home of Field Marshal Lord Roberts and that intrepid sailor, Lord Charles Beresford, who was annexed to the United States at a Gridiron dinner during a visit to Washington several years ago. It has a population of about thirty thousand, was founded by the Danish King Sigtryg of the Silken Beard, and for centuries was the seat of the McIvors, the Danish kings, who arrived in 870 and ruled until Strongbow and the other Norman adventurers came over from England in 1169. At the principal corner in the town are the remains of a castle built by Reginald McIvor in 1003, and it still bears his name. The city has endured many sieges and attacks. At one time it was almost entirely destroyed. For centuries it was the most important city in Ireland after Dublin, and is now the fourth seaport. It was loyal to the king when the pretender Perkin Warbeck claimed the throne of England, and Cromwell was unable to reduce it even after a long siege. It was the only city in Ireland that Old Ironsides did not conquer, and thereby it earned its motto, "Urbs Intacta." Beside Reginald's Tower very few of the ancient walls remain, but there are two old churches of great interest. One of them, the Protestant Cathedral, stands upon the site of a church built in 1050 and the bishop's palace and deanery adjoin it. The present structure was erected in 1774 by John Roberts, architect, the great-grandfather of "Bobs," the hero of Kandahar, now Earl Roberts of the British peerage. He was the architect of several other important buildings in the city. In 1693 a colony of refugee Huguenots came to Waterford from France. They were kindly received and the bishop gave them the choir of an ancient monastic church as a place of worship. It became known as "the French Church" for that reason. Among the immigrants was a family named Sautelles, whose daughter married John Roberts, a rising young architect, in 1744. They had twenty-four children, and both are buried within the roofless walls of the chancel of the old church. One of the sons, Rev. John Roberts, rector of St. Nicholas' parish, married the daughter of his associate, Rev. Abraham Sandys. Sir Abraham Roberts, their son, married Miss Sleigh, the daughter of a family prominent among the gentry of the neighborhood, and died in 1874, leaving issue Frederick Sleigh Roberts, the present earl, who spent his happy boyhood in an old manor-house in the suburbs of the city. All of the Roberts family for several generations have been buried within the walls of the old French Church, and it is still used for the tombs of the passing generation of a few old families who possess that enviable privilege. The latest monument bears the date of 1881, and "siveral places are bespoke," the custodian told me. The ruin is kept with the greatest care. The ivy mantle that covers the walls is tenderly trimmed each spring and fall, the turf is cut frequently, the gravel walks are raked every day, and when I remarked upon this peculiarity not often observed in the crumbling castles and churches of long ago, the custodian exclaimed with pride: "It's all thrue, as yer honor has said, ivery wurrd of it, an' it's as dacent a ruin as you'll find in all Ireland." Several illustrious characters in Irish history are buried in the cathedral. Among them are Strongbow and his son who was carved in twain by his amiable father on the field of battle because he acted as if he was afraid of the enemy. It is entirely appropriate that so energetic and comprehensive a person as the first Earl of Pembroke should have two tombs, and no one has any right to complain. He is buried in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, as well as in the cathedral at Waterford, and lies quietly in both places. And only a few days ago I noticed that Edward VII., King of England, was paying a week's-end visit to his descendant, the present Earl of Pembroke, at his country seat, Wilton House, in Wiltshire. Everything in Waterford seems to be inclosed by high stone walls--even the bishop's palace and the poorhouse--and when I asked a man I met on the street why it was so, he answered: "They're old walls, sir, very old, and were put up when they were needed. They're not taken down, for they may be needed again. The poor guardians are afraid they'll lose a pauper, and the bishop some of his prayers." The jarvey who drove our jaunting car told us that there are nine hundred people in the poorhouse and nine hundred more in the insane asylum, the latter "bein' mostly women who came there from drinkin' too much tay"--and the excessive use of that herb is destroying the nerves of the feminine population. I have often been told to "Go to Ballyhack," and many a time I have heard people wish that somebody they were offended at might go there, but I never had an opportunity to do so until I reached Waterford. Ballyhack is quite an attractive place, a pretty little fishing village of about one hundred people on the bank of the River Suir, eight miles south of the city and nine miles from the sea. It is not considered profane to condemn a person to Ballyhack any more than to Halifax, although you may have a warmer place in your mind. It is a delightful excursion from Waterford in a jaunting car, through fertile farms and velvety meadows, to the town of Passage, whence a boatman will take you across the river to Ballyhack, which is a group of stone buildings, fish-packing houses, and tenements of the fishermen, with a tall, picturesque old tower rising from their midst by the roadside. The top is crumbling, the stones are loose, but the walls for sixty feet or more from the ground are yet perfectly solid and quite as firm as they were when they were erected by the Knights Templar a thousand years ago to defend one of the most convenient landing places on the river. It is believed that the tower of Ballyhack was intended as an outpost for the protection of these two monasteries against pirates and other marauders and that the monks stored their arms and munitions there and a supply of provisions. There is no dock. The fishboats are hauled up on the gravel beach and their cargoes are carried across a narrow roadway in big baskets to the packing-houses, where they are cleaned and salted or shipped fresh to London and Liverpool. Curragmore, the seat of the famous Beresford family, is twelve miles in the opposite direction from Waterford, over hill and down dale, and through a most delightful country. It is an ancient place, for the Beresfords are a very old family, descended from Sir Robert la Poer, who landed with Prince John at Waterford in 1185 and was given a vast tract of land that had belonged to an Irish earl who refused to submit to the sovereignty of the Norman king. That was the fashion in those days when people were not so particular about the rights of others as at present. In this highly moral and righteous generation there's a court sitting regularly to hear any complaints that a tenant may wish to make concerning the rent exacted for his farm or his cottage. A difference of opinion over a bed of turnips or a rabbit or "any other kind of bird" is argued one side and then the other by the lawyers, and many people are questioned to ascertain who is wrong and who is right. But at the date when the first Beresford arrived at Waterford from over the channel, his majesty the king decided the ownership of the territory in Ireland according to his whims. A frown could cost a man a farm and a smile could win him one. But life has not been all sunshine and taffy for the Beresfords. They have had their troubles like the rest of us. In 1310 the wife of John la Poer was burned as a witch--one of the grandmothers of that much beloved and hearty old sailor, admiral of the North Atlantic fleet of Great Britain, who visited us only a few years ago and made so many friends among the people of America. The motto of the Beresford family is not exactly what one would expect, knowing the character and disposition and habits of the men. It is: "Nil Nisi Cruce" (No Dependence but the Cross). I suppose it is all right for Lord Charles Beresford, the "Fighting Bob" Evans of the British navy, to wear those words upon his crest, but his words and his acts do not always conform to such a pious phrase. The people round here are very proud of him and of Earl Roberts also--"Both fighters from their very cradles," as a gentleman said. "And there was Bill Beresford," he continued, "a gallant soldier and the best horseman in Ireland--good, old 'Ulundi Bill,' as he was fondly known. There isn't a man between the four seas to-day that can compare with him, either for a fight or a frolic. Bill Beresford overtopped them all. He did more to improve and encourage horse racing in Ireland than any man that ever lived except it was his father, Lord Henry Beresford, the third Marquis of Waterford. They called him the Nestor of the Irish turf, and he did deeds of daring and devilment in every corner of the world. His lordship was killed in the saddle, the place where he would prefer to die, for he loved horses as much as men, and there was mourning in all Ireland. His son Bill took closely after him. As colonel of the Ninth Lancers, Bill saved the British forces at the battle of Ulundi and was given a big jeweled star and a Victoria Cross for the job. But Charley is just as good a man as Bill. The Beresfords are all fighters. No family in Ireland has drawn the sword so often or so effectively, even if you go back to the invasion of the Normans when they first came into the country. And what's the matter with the motto, 'No dependence but the cross'?" Lord "Bill" Beresford was laid to rest on the first day of the twentieth century and his obituaries said that he was the most popular man in Ireland. He was the third husband of that beautiful American woman, Lillian Warren-Hammersley-Churchill-Beresford, originally of Troy, N.Y., and afterward of Washington, widow of the late Duke of Marlborough and still one of the most charming women in London society. There was another brother, who recently died in Mexico, where he lived for many years as a ranchman, and left a large family of half-breed children. The present Marquis of Waterford, Henri de la Poer Beresford, was born in 1875 and married Lady Beatrice, daughter of the Marquis of Lansdowne, in 1897. He is a lieutenant in the Horse Guards at London, is said to be a fine young fellow, and is developing the hereditary traits of the family. He has a son--the Earl of Tyrone, born in 1901--and three daughters who are younger. Carrick Castle, which stands on the banks of the Suir not far from Waterford, is another beautiful place, built in 1309 by the great Earl of Ormonde. The Carricks were originally Butlers, and trace their descent as far back as Rollo, Duke of Normandy, grandfather of William the Conqueror. Edmund Butler was created Earl of Carrick in 1315, and his descendants have owned this estate ever since his time. The beautiful but unfortunate Anne Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII. and mother of Queen Elizabeth, was born in Carrick Castle and lived there until she was fifteen years old, when she went to England with Sir Thomas Boleyn, her father, and Lord Rochford, her brother, who was executed upon the same scaffold with herself. The Province of Munster might be called properly "the Land of Ruined Castles," for they are more numerous here than on the banks of the Rhine. You are scarcely ever out of sight of a crumbling tower or a useless gigantic wall wearing a mantle of ivy. Nearly all of these ruins are attributed to Cromwell and his army, who have no defenders, and the religious historians and local guides tell us that they were destroyed by that man of mighty prejudices and purposes in order to plant Protestantism upon the ruins of the papal power in Ireland. Cromwell was undoubtedly guilty of atrocious cruelty and devastation at the cost of thousands of innocent lives and hundreds of millions of property, but he could not have destroyed all these castles and monasteries if he had remained in Ireland ten times as long as he did, because many of them were in ruins when he arrived and many were not built until after his departure. Torna, the Druid, prophesied that a wind from the southeast would fell the tree that covered Ireland. And that was always a vulnerable shore. Agricola planned to cross with his legions from the Cornish coast and add Eire, as this country was then known, to the Roman Empire. The southeastern corner, the counties of Wexford and Waterford, with their harbors open and undefended, were the gates through which many foreign invaders came and brought death and devastation with them. The harbor of Waterford was called the Haven of the Sun until the Danes came, but was afterward known as the Valley of Lamentation, because of the mourning that followed the battles that were fought there. And even the invaders did not do so much damage as domestic strife. The kings and the clans, the Desmonds and the Geraldines, the O'Briens and the O'Donoghues, the MacCarthys, the O'Connors, the O'Sullivans, and other local chiefs who occupied the southern third of Ireland, were always attacking each other, besieging the castles of their rivals and often leaving them as we see them now--green wrecks and grassy mounds. And they spared not the monasteries that were built near all the homes of the great. This was a form of munificence as well as piety which prevailed also in Italy and France in the Middle Ages, where every robber baron kept a small army of friars and monks to do his praying, just as he kept squadrons of knights to do his fighting. Hence you will invariably find in southern Ireland the ruins of an abbey or a monastery beside the ruins of a castle, and most of them are the result of duels and feuds between the native chieftains and their clans, although many were left in flames and gore by the forces of William of Orange, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, as well as Cromwell. [Illustration: THE RIVER FRONT AT WATERFORD] Ireland has never been at peace until now. No soil has been fought over so often. The mysterious round towers that we see on the hilltops and in the glens in their lonely majesty are evidence that it was necessary for the overlords to build places of refuge for their servants, and provide means for lighting signal fires to warn them against the enemies that surrounded them. "In the Island o' Ruins remembrance o' grief Hallows the hills as, when summer is slowly Fadin' in darkness, the fall o' the leaf Makes the woods holy. "Green are the woods though the mountains are gray; Spring is too young to remember old doin's. Ah! but I wish I was roamin' to-day In the Island o' Ruins!" The little station of Doneraile is the getting-off place for visitors who would see one of the most attractive ruins in Ireland, both for its picturesque beauty and for its historical associations. A solitary tower, standing by a small river in a lonely and deserted glen, is all that remains of Kilcolman Castle, one of the greatest strongholds of the Geraldines, afterward and at the time of its destruction the home of Ireland's greatest poet, Edmund Spenser. He came here in 1580 as private secretary to Earl Grey, then lord lieutenant, and after one of the many rebellions he was given a little more than three thousand acres which surrounded this castle, confiscated from the Earl of Desmond, as one of the "undertakers," as certain speculators and adventurers were called who agreed to colonize the country with English settlers. It was here and in the neighboring town of Youghal, the home of Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1589 and 1590, that Spenser wrote the "Faerie Queene," which was published at the expense of Raleigh and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. For this honor the queen proposed to give him quite a liberal pension. Lord Treasurer Burleigh remonstrated, saying: "What? So much for a rhyme?" "Well, then, give him what is reason," said her majesty. Nothing further was heard of the matter, however, until Spenser sent the Virgin Queen the following epigram: "I was promised on a time To have reason for my rhyme. From that time, until this season, I've had neither rhyme nor reason." Elizabeth was so pleased that she instantly ordered Spenser's name to be put upon the pension rolls at fifty pounds a year. Spenser married an obscure relative of the famous Earl of Cork, a Miss Boyle, and lived in the old castle until 1598, when it was sacked and burned by the rebels in the Tyrone uprising. His youngest son perished in the flames and, heart-broken and beggared, he took the rest of his family to London and died within a few months from starvation and grief. He was buried in Westminster Abbey at the expense of the Earl of Essex. It is said that the sins of the fathers are sometimes visited upon their children and children's children, and this prophecy applies with singular aptness to the Spenser family, for the poet's grandson was driven from his home at Kilcolman by Cromwell's men, just as the Desmonds had been driven from the same place by Earl Grey. It was a cheerful change to find a castle without a scar or a crumbling stone and all the modern improvements at Riding House, the Irish estate of the late Earl of Devonshire. He was one of the wealthiest, the ablest, and the most influential of the British nobility, and a conservative leader in the House of Lords, and died, universally lamented, a year or so ago. He was one of the largest landowners in Ireland, having more than a hundred thousand acres rented to tenants, and managed to get along with them without much friction, which is the highest proof that he was a just, honorable, tactful, and conscientious man. There are good landlords in Ireland; there are many of them, and it is not true in every instance that the tenants show little or no appreciation of their generosity, although, unfortunately, there have been some conspicuous cases of that kind. Several large property owners, who have endeavored to treat their tenants with kindness, have lowered their rents and made generous concessions to them, have been accused of cowardice by the very people they tried to please, and have been treated very badly. But the Duke of Devonshire was not one of those. He had honest, brave, fair-minded agents on the ground and looked closely after the management of his Irish property himself. [Illustration: LISMORE CASTLE, WATERFORD COUNTY; IRISH SEAT OF THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE] Riding House is near the town of Lismore, and, on the principle that to him who hath shall be given, it was inherited by the Duke of Devonshire in 1753 through his wife, Charlotte, daughter of Richard Boyle, fourth Earl of Cork, who was a munificent patron of literature and the arts and the friend of Pope, the poet. The Cork family is one of the most famous in the history of Ireland, although not one of the oldest. The first earl lived on Cork Hill, where the Castle at Dublin stands. He was a native of Hereford County, England, and was born in 1566. He studied law at the Middle Temple, London, and was called to the Bar, but, having no clients, he embarked for Ireland as an adventurer. After a while he obtained the favor and protection of Queen Elizabeth, which enabled him to amass considerable wealth and won him his title. His brother Michael, who went to Ireland with him, became Bishop of Waterford. Richard, a nephew, became Archbishop of Tuam, and his son, Michael, became Archbishop of Armagh. The second Earl of Cork was a distinguished figure in camp, court, and in the literary world. He was lord lieutenant of Ireland under Cromwell. He was known as "the great Earl of Cork," and lies in the old Church of St. Mary at Youghal with his figure at full length in marble in the center of an enormous monument that covers a quarter of an acre of wall. There is a duplicate quite as large in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. The present Earl of Cork was the largest landholder in this section except the Duke of Devonshire, but has sold most of his estate under the provisions of the Wyndham Land Act of 1903. The Devonshire estate is still intact, and, as the late duke had no sons, was inherited by Victor Cavendish, his nephew. The late Earl, Richard Edmund St. Lawrence Boyle, was an aid-de-camp to Queen Victoria, with whom he had a warm friendship. He was devoted to her all his life and was her master of horse and master of buckhounds for many years. He married in 1853 a sister of the present Earl of Clanricarde, who is fighting the Wyndham Land Act so bitterly. His eldest son and heir, late the Viscount Dungarvin, was born in 1861, served in the army for several years, and commanded the Twenty-second Battalion of Yeomanry against the Boers in South Africa. The second son of the late earl, Robert John Lascelle, born in 1864, married Josephine Hale, daughter of J.P. Hale of San Francisco, and the son of this American girl is the heir presumptive of the great Cork estate. One sister of the present earl married Francis Henry Baring of the famous London banking house, and another married Walter Long, one of the leaders of the unionist party in parliament. He represents a district of the city of Dublin, although he is an Englishman and never lived there. "Tipperary is the deadest town in all Ireland," said a bookseller of that place, of whom we were buying some postcards. "I don't believe there was ever a deader town than Tip-rar-ry [for that is the way they pronounce it] and everybody is going to America who can get away." And that seemed to be the prevailing sentiment among the people I talked with. It is the most pessimistic community I found in the country, without even a single good word for their own town. "There's no business outside of cattle and dairying," said another merchant. "Trade is so dull that the shopkeepers are loafing half the day." But the people seem to keep up their interest in politics, and that they have some money left is evident, because at a meeting here, the day before my arrival, £95 was collected in a few minutes for the expense fund of the parliamentary Irish party. Outside, in the streets, there was a good deal of activity. It was market day and the farmers from all the surrounding country were in town to sell their produce and buy a stock of supplies for the ensuing week, but there was no vehicle, not even a jaunting car, at the railway station to take us to the hotel, and evidently nobody was expected. So we had to do the best we could and succeeded in persuading a farmer who was there with an "inside car" to carry us and our luggage, which he managed to do by sitting on the shafts himself. And afterward when we wanted to see the town we couldn't find a vehicle in the street, although Tipperary is a town of six thousand population, and the hotel proprietor sent out to a livery stable for one. Tipperary lies in the midst of a lovely country, more level than that we had been traveling through for the past three weeks, but there are only a few patches of timber and a few gentle slopes and no peat bogs so far as we could see from the railway train. The landscape reminded me of the Western Reserve of Ohio, with the exception that the Silievenarmick Hills rise in the background to the height of nine hundred and one thousand feet. The Aherlow River waters the plain and runs through the town. There doesn't seem to be much cultivated ground in the neighborhood, but there are long stretches of meadow in which the farmers were cutting the hay, and we can perceive the perfume as we pass through them if we stand at the open window of the car. Alternating with the meadows are fine pastures, where large herds of sleek and fat cattle and many yearling colts and foal mares are feeding. There are several large stock farms in the neighborhood, and, as it was the season for county fairs when we were there, the Tipperary farmers are raking in prizes for all kinds of stock. In the town is a creamery which, we were told, is the largest in Ireland. It employs one hundred and twenty hands and its butter is shipped almost entirely to London. The most interesting feature of Tipperary is the new town lying on the outskirts of the old, which represents an exciting incident in Irish history. During the land war of 1887 the leaders of the Irish party selected several landlords as examples for boycotting for the purpose of attracting attention to the conditions in the country and creating public opinion. This was called "The Plan of Campaign." Among the places selected as storm centers were the Ponsonby estate near Cork, the Vandaleur estate in County Clare, the Defrayne estate in Roscommon, the Massaure estate in County Louth, and the Smith Barry estate in Tipperary. These estates were selected as battle grounds because the landlords were treating the tenants badly, were very exacting and oppressive, and furnished excellent examples to illustrate the evils of the Irish land and tenantry system. Some of the tenants were behind in their rents and, being unable to pay, were threatened with eviction unless they settled on or before a certain date. Arthur Hugh Smith Barry, the landlord who was selected as an awful example at Tipperary, is descended from the Earl of Barrymore, whose title expired when the direct male line became extinct forty or fifty years ago. He came into possession by inheritance of a large tract of land near Cork and another tract covering between eight and nine thousand acres in this vicinity, which paid him an annual revenue of £7,368. His first wife was a sister of the present Lord Dunraven. His second and present wife was Elizabeth Wadsworth Post, a sister of former Congressman James Wadsworth of Geneseo, N.Y., and was the widow of a Mr. Post at the time of her marriage with Mr. Barry in 1889. They have a beautiful home at Fota on Fota Island, in Cork Harbor, near Queenstown, and a town residence in Berkeley Square, London. Mr. Barry has been a member of parliament and has served the government in different capacities with great credit to himself and usefulness to his country. For that reason the old title of his family was revived in 1902 and he was elevated to the peerage as Lord Barrymore. The courage and determination he exhibited during the fight that was made upon him by the Land League was one of the reasons for giving him the honor. The boycott was managed on behalf of the Land League by William O'Brien, then, as now, member of parliament for that district. Under the latter's direction between five and six hundred tenants of Mr. Barry stopped paying rent. Some were actually too poor to do so; others were perfectly able, but they all went in together and made a common cause and boycotted their landlord, who promptly took steps to evict them. Mr. O'Brien and other leaders of the Land League appealed to patriotic Irishmen all over the world and raised between £40,000 and £50,000--nearly $250,000--in America, Australia, Ireland, and elsewhere, with which they started to build a new town upon land belonging to Stafford O'Brien, who, by the way, is no relation of the member of parliament of the same name. Several blocks of tenement-houses were built of substantial materials and attractive appearance, and are models in their way. But when Mr. Barry got the machinery of the law in motion and wholesale evictions commenced, the managers put up cheap barracks of wood as rapidly as possible to accommodate those who were turned out of their homes. There was a general and generous response to the appeal to the patriotism of Ireland, and people in this country who had no money gave material and labor to help the cause. Carpenters and stone masons, bricklayers, and other mechanics came to Tipperary from all parts of Ireland to work on the buildings, without wages, and within a short time all of the evicted tenants of the Barry estate were comfortably housed, free of rent, while his revenues ceased entirely and the boycott was complete. It was a significant illustration of the unity of purpose of the common people of Ireland; but, unfortunately, the leaders of the party quarreled before the demonstration was complete. The death of Charles S. Parnell in 1891, about eighteen months after the boycott was undertaken on the Barry estate, caused a split in the Irish party which continued until a few years ago. The effect of this division was to demoralize their followers at Tipperary, and the tenants of the Barry estate began gradually to slip back to their old homes and resume paying their rents. The houses at New Tipperary which were built at that time now belong very largely to Stafford O'Brien, who furnished the land upon which they were built. Others are still the property of the Land League, and the rent, which is collected by a committee, goes into the parliamentary fund. Many people at Tipperary now declare that the "kick-up," as they call the quarrel between the leaders of the Land League, ruined the town, because it broke the boycott and compelled the tenants to surrender to the landlords, who have had them under their heels ever since. Several people told me that the "kick-up" ruined the butter business, but I could not get anyone to explain why. At any rate, Tipperary lost a great deal of its prosperity as well as its commercial importance immediately after that trouble, especially because it was followed by a large exodus to the United States. As many of the Barry tenants as could raise the money emigrated when the support of the Land League was withdrawn from them. They refused to stay and surrender to the landlords. All the young people in the county caught the emigration fever and left for the United States as fast as they could get money enough to buy steamship tickets. I was told that several of them had come back, bringing a good deal of money with them, and had bought farms in the neighborhood, but they soon became discontented. The experience of a few years in the United States unfits people for the primitive methods and the monotony of life in Ireland; and the eagerness of everybody to get to the United States is very significant. The jaunting car drivers, the hotel porters, the dining-room waiters, the chambermaids at the hotels, and everybody of the working class that a traveler comes in contact with, always ask questions about the expense of the journey, the probabilities of securing employment in the United States, and express their determination to emigrate as soon as they can. Tipperary also claims the authorship of that ancient and beautiful old air, "The Wearing of the Green." It is one of the oldest of Irish melodies, but only modern words are sung to it now, and there are several versions. That which Henry Grattan Curran, who is an excellent authority, claims to be the original, was written at Tipperary and runs as follows: "I met with Napper Tandy, And he took me by the hand, Saying how is old Ireland? And how does she stand? She's the most distressful country That ever yet was seen, And they're hanging men and women For the wearing of the green. "I care not for the thistle, I care not for the rose, When bleak winds round us whistle Neither down nor crimson shows; But, like hope to him that's friendless, When no joy around is seen, O'er our graves with love that's endless Blooms our own immortal green." The late Dion Boucicault used to sing another version in one of his plays, which he said was made over from a street ballad that he once heard in Dublin. He was not able to get all of the words and filled in what was lacking himself, as follows: "Oh, Paddy, dear, an' did ye hear the news that's goin' round? The Shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground: No more St. Pathrick's Day we'll keep, his color can't be seen, For there's a bloody law agin' the wearing of the green. I met with Napper Tandy and he tuk me by the hand And he said, 'How's poor ould Ireland and how does she stand? She's the most disthressful counthry ever yet was seen, For they're hangin' men and women there for wearing of the green.' "Oh, if the color we must wear is England's cruel red, Let it remind us of the blood that Ireland has shed. Then pull the shamrock from your hat and throw it on the sod, Ah, never fear, 'twill take root there, though under foot 'tis trod. When the laws can stop the blades of grass from growin' as they grow. And when the leaves in summer time their color dare not show, Then I will change the color, too, that I wear in my caubeen; But till that day, plaze God, I'll stick to wearing of the green." The Earl of Lismore is the Lord of Tipperary, and the head of the O'Callaghan family, who were formerly kings of Munster and are descended from a famous Milesian prince. The various generations have taken an active part in the affairs of Ireland since history began. They have been bishops, statesmen, lawyers, soldiers, sailors, and priests; they have married the daughters of the most prominent houses in the kingdom and their sisters have been the wives and mothers of dukes. They live at Clogheen, in the famous Sharbally Castle, and occupy land which has been in the family for many centuries. XXII THE IRISH HORSE AND HIS OWNER We attended the races at Leopardstown, about forty minutes south of Dublin by rail toward the picturesque Wicklow hills. The gate is at the railway station and the embankment upon which it stands gives an opportunity to see the entire panorama, and a beautiful one it is. One could not easily imagine a more peaceful, yet picturesque landscape, the race course being in the center of an amphitheater surrounded by wooded hills of lustrous green. I have said several times and will be apt to keep on saying--for it is the most interesting and the truest thing in Ireland--that the fields are greener and the foliage has a deeper tint than anywhere else I have been. And although it rains half the time and showers are more plentiful than sunshine, they make the grass and the leaves and the flowers more beautiful and rich in color and give old Mother Earth a brighter robe. The horses run on the turf, and there is no such thing as a trotting race. All of the entries are from breeding farms, not from sporting stables. The winner cares more for the cup than the money, for he enters his horses to increase the reputation of his stud rather than the size of his purse. There is a great deal of betting, both by owners and by the general public, but that is a secondary consideration. The chief end of a race is glory, and not gain. The course at Leopardstown is a perfect oval; the track runs between hedges instead of rails and is shaven like a lawn, but the grass is quite long in the infield, and cattle and sheep are grazing in bunches here and there. At one end is a group of vine-clad buildings, covered with red tiles, almost entirely hidden by overhanging boughs. A large stone house which used to be occupied by the farmer who owned this place is now the home of the caretaker, who sets a table for the trainers and the jockeys, and they sleep in the stables with their horses. I don't know exactly where or how they make their beds; perhaps they lie on the straw in the mangers, but it is the practice over here, and a groom seldom leaves his horse. There is little trickery on the Irish race course, because it is patronized by men of the highest social standing and integrity. They not only frown upon all forms of sharp practice, but there is no penalty too severe for a man that cheats or a jockey or a groom that violates the regulations. You read in novels of English and Irish life about horses being dosed with "knockout drops" and various other disreputable proceedings to make the situations more dramatic and startling, but it is asserted that there hasn't been a scandal of any consequence upon the Irish turf for the last ten years. As one enthusiastic horseman expressed himself, "It's run as honestly as the church, and more so than the government." The admission to the grounds is a shilling for all comers, but after the spectators enter they are classified according to the dimensions of their purses. Anybody can get a seat upon the bleachers for another shilling, and the larger part of the crowd go that way, because the grand stand prices are almost prohibitive to the working classes, being $1.50 for ladies and $2.50 for gentlemen. The grand stand is small and is not patronized by many people because the cheaper seats attract the crowd and the members' pavilion and clubhouse on the other side are open to all subscribers to the Jockey Club. As the privilege of membership can be had for a couple of guineas, nearly every gentleman of affairs who ever attends the races subscribes and that gives him admission to all the meetings and the privileges of the clubhouse. There were many carriages, motor cars, jaunting cars, and saddle horses in the infield, because the course is within driving distance from Dublin, and those who can prefer to come down that way. Under the grand stand is a restaurant, a tea-room, and a bar, all small and cozy and well kept, and the attendants are women,--cashiers, barmaids, waitresses, and cigar venders,--dressed in pretty liveries. The accommodations at the clubhouse are quite attractive as well as convenient, although they are closed to strangers like the ordinary clubs of the English and Irish cities. A member may invite a friend to luncheon or dinner, but he cannot put him up at a club in England and Ireland as we do in the United States. They are very selfish about such privileges. Behind the grand stand and the clubhouse is a large shaded inclosure accessible to the occupants of both, where the horses are brought before the races and the jockeys are weighed. The horses are brought there after the races also and the people stand in large circles around them to see them rubbed down. The paddock looks more like a garden party than a stable yard, for it is filled with ladies and gentlemen chatting gayly, promenading, and sometimes drinking tea, eating ices, or taking other refreshments on the benches, under the trees between races, or standing at the scales discussing the horses and talking to their owners. You have read descriptions of such scenes in society novels, no doubt, for many authors introduce the races as a feature. Here and there you can see a party with their lunch spread on a white cloth that covers the grass, and I have no doubt a good deal of flirting is going on, although it is more interesting to watch the horses and the crowd. There are many queer-looking people to be seen, in the oddest sort of clothes, from cap to boots. You cannot tell the rank of a person by looks, however. I have seen duchesses whose dresses didn't fit them at all, and countesses whose faces are so plain that they would stop a clock. I worshiped beside the wife of a "belted earl" at St. Patrick's Cathedral one Sunday, and her hat looked very much as if some one had sat upon it just before she started for church. The late Duke of Westminster, who was the richest man in the British Empire, had also the reputation of being the most slovenly. Dukes often look as if they were wearing "hand-me-downs," and the smartest-looking man in an assembly may be the worst rascal of the humblest rank. And that rule, I was told, applies to the race track as well as to other gatherings of mankind. I saw people who looked as if they had stepped out of the pages of Dickens or Thackeray, so old-fashioned were their garments, their hats, and their behavior. There were tall, gaunt farmers with fiery red faces; solid-looking burghers wearing silk hats and fringes of whiskers under their chins; jaunty military men, dashing young sports in riding habits, and hundreds of farmers in tweed and heavy woolen knickerbockers, nearly every one of them smoking a pipe. The stature of the men was noticeable. There are giants in Ireland in these days. Many of the women were very pretty and wore bright-colored gowns and sunshades that enlivened the scene. And several hideous old dowagers were very keen on betting, and pushed rudely to the front when the horses were running. You can always recognize a coachman, a groom, or a jockey in England or Ireland, and they were so numerous that they didn't interest us. The races were conducted very much like ours at home, and in the last one, as is usually the case, the horses were ridden by their owners. There was a field of sixteen, which caused confusion and delay at the starting post and a helter-skelter scramble along the track. Some of the gentlemen riders didn't come in at all, others were distanced, and the winners were greeted with tremendous applause by their friends and acquaintances, although very little enthusiasm was shown over the ordinary races. In no case did the winner receive a demonstration such as we consider essential in the United States. Mr. Richard Croker had two entries and should have won the second race, but Lucius Lyne, his Kentucky jockey, as the papers declared the following morning, went to sleep. He led the field easily all the way around and was cantering toward the wire without any show of speed when another horse under whip and spur overtook and overlapped him by a nose. As Croker's horse was the favorite with long odds, considerable indignation was expressed. He could have won the race without an effort; or at least that is what the men who lost their money on him say. Everybody bets on the races in Ireland, and the way in which the pink sporting supplements to the newspapers are grabbed on the streets by people in shabby garments indicates that the submerged section of the population feel an eager interest in the results of the races. An ordinary observer would infer that an equal number of people stake a similar amount of money in the United Kingdom and in the United States, but there seems to be no harm done there, or at least not enough to provoke the ban of the law. On the contrary, betting is "regulated." Bookmakers are all licensed by the government, and if they do not conduct their business honestly, or if they transgress the proprieties in any way, their privileges are taken away from them. They were scattered here and there among the spectators on the Leopardstown course, but there is evidently a rule requiring them to occupy a fixed place, because each of them stood upon a mat or a little wooden platform or a wagon cushion and never stirred from the spot. Some of them were dressed in a very conspicuous manner--indicating their individuality, I suppose, or carrying out some fad. One wore a bright orange suit that could have been seen a mile or two; another was in brilliant blue, a peculiar shade of that color I had never seen before, and his cap was of the same material. Another was in white duck, with his name painted in large, fancy red letters across his shoulders and across his breast. Each bookmaker wore a sash, upon which his name was plainly printed for identification, as well as the number of his license. Hence we knew that Mike Kelley, Joe Matterson, Timothy Burke, Patrick Sarsfield, George Bevers, and others, no doubt famous in their profession, were present. They were all in the open air in front of the stand, and each bookmaker had a book, a large one, in which he noted every bet as it was made and gave the bettor a ticket to identify it which corresponded with the number in the book. There is considerable clerical work in every transaction; and each bookmaker had a cashier beside him, wearing a leather pouch over his abdomen that hung from a strap around his neck. These pouches seemed to be uniform, and also bore the name and number of the man to whom they belonged. The cashier takes the money and makes the change while the bookmaker is booking the bet, and he cashes the tickets of the winners at the close of each race. When the bookmaker wasn't booking bets he was yelling like a lunatic to attract attention. When his lungs were exhausted his cashier relieved him, and in stentorian tones shouted his judgment as to the result of the next race. "Put your money on Cathie," one of them would yell. "Put your money on Desmond," came from a red-faced bookmaker a little distance away. "Bet your pile on the field," roared a third. "Even money on Baker's Boy." "I'm giving five to one on Sweet Sister." "I'm offering three to one on Silver Bell," and so on. The air was filled with similar cries, which were unintelligible, or at least without significance to a stranger, but we assumed that each bookmaker had favorites that he was booming to the best of his ability. Well-dressed, respectable-looking women were booking bets as well as men, and mingling with the crowd on even terms. There was no distinction of age or sex or rank or previous condition. And we were told that it was no sign of immorality and no violation of the laws of propriety for a lady to participate in the pools. Some of them, perhaps from a dislike to be jostled by the crowd, sent their escorts to book their bets, but messengers are evidently not allowed. I should judge that the stakes were small. I watched the cashing in of the winning tickets after several of the races, and it was mostly silver and a few pieces of gold that changed hands. I saw but one paper note passed, and you know that the lowest denomination of the paper money is £5. There was perfect order, although there seemed to be a great deal of drinking. There was always a large crowd before the bar between races, but no disturbance at all. The excitement seemed to occur just after the jockeys were weighed and while the horses were trotting slowly to the starting post. When the tapping of a bell told us they were off everybody was silent, and the victor received no applause when he passed under the wire. The winners turned their faces from the race track toward the bookmakers, cashed their checks, and the rest of the crowd strolled off toward the paddock to look over the candidates for the next running. Richard Croker, late of New York, lives on a beautiful farm of five hundred acres overlooking the Irish Channel, about nine miles south of Dublin, about two miles from the coast and four miles north of the ancient town of Bray, which has been celebrated so many times in song and story. It is an ideal country seat. He has shown the highest degree of taste in selecting the site and improving the property. He calls it Glencairn, and the name is chiseled upon the massive pillars that support a pair of iron gates. These gates are usually open, for he retains his democratic habits and is an excellent exemplar of Irish hospitality. Following a short drive between masses of rhododendrons, laburnums, and hawthorn trees, with friezes and wainscotings of glowing flower beds, one soon reaches a handsome and well-proportioned miniature castle of white granite of pleasing architectural design. And from a flagpole that rises at the top of the tower Mr. Croker sometimes unfolds the Stars and Stripes. Several people told me that there is no finer place for its size, and Mr. Croker's home is estimated among the first dozen of country seats in Ireland. It was a rough tract of land when he bought it from one of the judges of the Irish courts, and had been neglected for many years. At a large expense and a great amount of labor he has turned it into a little paradise. What was formerly a wild waste is now one of the loveliest landscapes you can imagine. The house is surrounded by a lustrous lawn and a garden of flowers and foliage plants, and behind it is a series of large hothouses in which he is raising orchids and early fruits and vegetables. About one hundred acres are in wheat, oats, potatoes, and other crops, about ten acres in garden, and the remainder of the five hundred acres is meadow and pasture. The interior of the mansion is handsomely furnished according to the conventional requirements of a wealthy country gentleman, and the walls are hung with paintings representing racing incidents and famous race horses of the present and the past. At one end of the portico at the main entrance is a large screen of white canvas covered with cryptograms of Egypt, cartouches of the Pharaohs and other designs which Mr. Croker brought back with him from his visit to the Nile last winter. And in the main hall are several other Egyptian souvenirs. All of the work upon the place has been done by local artisans, and all of the employees of the stock farm belong to families in the neighborhood, for Mr. Croker believes in practical home rule. His chief trainer is an Irishman, like all his grooms, but Lucius Lyne, a Kentuckian, has ridden his horses since 1906. John Reiff, a famous American jockey, rode Orby when he won the Derby, and Mr. Croker will not trust any but American jockeys in his saddles. Every one else about the place, however, is Irish. And Mr. Croker has been a veritable fairy godfather to the poor people in his neighborhood, although his old friends in New York will agree that he does not look the part. He has not only given employment at good wages to almost every man in that locality, but has assisted several families in a substantial manner. His generosity seems to be boundless. He gave every dollar of his winnings at the Derby to Archbishop Walsh of Dublin for the charities of the church, and it would amuse you to hear the enthusiastic terms in which his neighbors praise him for his good heart and his good works. He takes no part in local politics, although his sympathies are very strongly with the nationalist party, and at the last parliamentary election in 1906 he contributed generously to the campaign fund, and on election day loaned his automobile and his carriage to haul infirm and lazy voters to the polls. The contest was between Walter Long, an Englishman, who had been defeated for parliament by one English constituency and was sent over there by the conservative leaders in London to contest one of the Irish seats, and a labor leader named Hazelton, who had been nominated by the nationalist party. Mr. Croker took an unusual interest in the fight because, from his point of view, it was not only an impertinence but an indignity to set up an Englishman for the votes of an Irish constituency. And he was even the more indignant when Long was elected, as he claims, by the votes and influence of the officials and pensioners of the government and the soldiers of the garrison. He criticises the management of the nationalist committee for not looking after the registration of their voters. The registration laws are very strict over here and many of the poorer classes are disfranchised for not complying strictly with them. Mr. Croker says that if the contest had been in New York the Tammany leaders would have got out every vote and Long would have been defeated. Next time he will undoubtedly give the nationalist campaign managers some hints as to how an election should be conducted. Mr. Croker is an earnest home ruler, although he would prefer to see Ireland a republic, but he says that he does not intend to get mixed up in Irish politics. He considers his political career as finished and he intends to spend the rest of his life in the quiet seclusion of his present home with his horses and intimate friends. He says that the Tammany people in New York do not bother him much with political matters. Occasionally he receives a cablegram, or a letter asking his advice or his influence, and occasionally somebody comes over to confer with him, but he considers himself "entirely out of it and does not want to be bothered." Mr. Croker showed us around the place in his silent, matter-of-fact manner, but could not suppress the pride he feels in his horses and his satisfaction with the record he has already made upon the turf in Ireland and England with his own colts, for he doesn't own or race any but those that are foaled and bred and trained in his own stables. That is what he is here for, and that is his greatest gratification, and he likes it a great deal better than politics. He brought with him to Ireland a famous Kentucky mare named "Rhoda B.," which we did not see because she was down in the pasture, and from her he has been breeding a string of colts that have had remarkable success. Every one of them has been foaled at Glencairn. He has won the English Derby and two Irish Derbys, and the English Newmarket, which is the third in order of the great events on the English turf. Rhodora won the thousand-guinea race in the Newmarket, and Mr. Croker is confident that another colt called "Alabama" will win the Derby just as Orby did. [Illustration: AN IRISH JAUNTING CAR] Back of his mansion and his flower garden and his hothouses is a quadrangle of box stalls. In the center is a statue of Dobbin, the first horse Mr. Croker ever owned and for which he had great affection. There are a dozen stalls, and in the first he showed us Orby, a beautiful creature, as vain and conscious as a prima donna, that seems to realize the supreme importance of a Derby winner. Nailed upon the door is a gold plate properly inscribed and inclosed by one of the shoes worn in that race. Across the quadrangle were a number of two-year-olds named Lusitania, Fluffy Ruffles, Lady Stepaside, Lotus, Lavalta, and one or two others, all foaled on the place, and six yearlings which Mr. Croker exhibited to us with the pride of possession, and one or two others which he said "were no good." At the stable of Alabama he showed more animation and did more talking than those who know him would suppose him capable of. Mr. Croker has the reputation of being one of the most reticent and unemotional men in the world, as all American politicians know, and I never saw him warm up over anything before. He has a face like a bulldog, perfectly expressionless, and no one can ever tell whether he is pleased or displeased from the lines in his face or the tone of his voice, which is always low and deliberate. But when he showed us Alabama, the son of Americus and Rhoda B., he woke up and actually became animated as he described the fine points of the colt and told us what he had been doing and what he is expected to do. Mr. Croker has an even dozen horses and colts in training, and he showed us some yearlings of great promise. His two-year-olds and three-year-olds are all entered for races in Ireland, and those that do well will be sent over to England. In 1907 his horses won forty races in both countries, and his stable has altogether about three hundred to its credit since he came to Ireland. The horse show at Dublin in August is the greatest event in Ireland, and draws from the entire kingdom as well as from the Continent, thousands of horse breeders and horse owners and fashionable people. It is probably the most brilliant and important horse show in the world. There are three kinds of jaunting cars,--"outside cars," in which the passengers sit back to back with their feet on shelves over the wheels; "inside cars," in which they sit face to face with their feet in the middle, and "single cars," which have one seat accommodating two persons facing the horse. The latter are the most comfortable of all, but give the passengers a good shaking up, which we are told is excellent for the liver. It is a curious fact that the jaunting car, although it is distinctively Irish, and would not be tolerated in any other country, was invented and introduced by an Italian, Charles Bianconi, a native of Milan, who arrived in Ireland about the year 1800 and set up at Clonmel as an artist and picture dealer. Being struck by the absence of vehicles in the country, for everybody went on horseback in those days, he built a conveyance of his own design which immediately became popular and was imitated by every one who had the means to build or buy a box and a pair of wheels. Only in Dublin can you hire a covered carriage--four-wheelers or "growlers," as they are called in London; but in Waterford, Cork, and Limerick are "covered cars," which are without doubt the most uncomfortable vehicles that anybody ever rode in, unless it be a Chinese cart. They are "inside cars," with a hood of canvas or leather over them, supported by an iron frame or hickory bows. Imagine a large, square box with one end knocked out of it, and replaced by a step or two for the passengers to enter; two seats, one on either side, upon which the passengers sit _vis-a-vis_, clinging to straps suspended from the roof. There are no windows, no place for ventilation except the open back, which is covered with a curtain that may be raised or not, according to the state of the weather. [Illustration: GOING TO MARKET] Two things which everybody can commend in Ireland are the horses and the donkeys--the style, strength, beauty, and speed of the one and the uncomplaining endurance of the other. An Irish horse never gets tired, is never lazy, and never vicious--at least, that is what his breeders and owners say of him, and, of course, the Irish hunters are the best in the world. But the Irish donkey, who does the humble and insignificant traffic, who hauls the vegetables to market and does the teaming for the small farmers, is an object of universal admiration. Not for his beauty, of course, but for those higher qualities that make up character, for his strength of purpose, his untiring industry, his patient fidelity. They are the mainstay of the Irish poor, and, although the object of ridicule and wit, I think the people appreciate them, because they treat them so much better than the Italians and Spaniards and the peons of the Spanish-American republics of America. "Go back to your brother!" said a street urchin the other day to a costermonger who left his donkey by the roadside for a few moments. "Go back to your brother!" said the chauffeur of our automobile to a woman who was driving a donkey cart and came across to inspect our machine. "Go back to your brother!" said a policeman to a young boy who was driving a donkey cart and had jumped off his ordinary seat upon the whiffletree to resent the attack of some street urchin. And when I asked the policeman about the use of that phrase, which one hears continually, he explained that it was common all over Ireland for a donkey driver to call his beast "brother," and it deserves that name for its fidelity if for nothing more. XXIII CORK AND BLARNEY CASTLE Cork is a neat but an ugly town, which had a hundred thousand population twenty years ago and now has only eighty thousand. The missing ones, they tell me, have gone to the United States. It is one of the most prosperous and one of the cleanest cities in Ireland, and, although in former years strangers complained of pestiferous beggars, we have not seen a single one. The common people are much better dressed and the children are much neater in their appearance than those of the similar class in Dublin. They don't buy their clothing at a slopshop. They are more cheerful and happy, and the women show more pride and better taste in their apparel. The River Lee, which rises over on the west coast, in Lake Gougane-Barra, near Killarney, divides into two streams just as it reaches the city of Cork, and embraces the business section of the town between the two channels. They are walled up with masonry, and wide quays on either side furnish plenty of room for handling the commerce, which seems to be considerable. Large sums of money have been spent to deepen the channel and furnish conveniences for handling the trade, and vessels drawing twenty feet of water can come up to the very center of the city at low tide, where they discharge Welsh coal and English merchandise and receive agricultural produce, bacon, woolen goods, hides, and leather, and various other products of Ireland. The walls of the quay are hung with unconscious artistic taste every morning with fishing nets. The fishermen bring their catch up the river to the very door of the market and spread their nets over the gray stones to dry. The entire distance from these quays to the Atlantic Ocean at Queenstown, about twelve miles, is a panorama of beauty. For the river on both sides is inclosed between high bluffs that are clad with the richest of foliage and flowering plants, among which you can catch glimpses of artistic villas. Tom Moore called it "the noble sea avenue of God." All tourists like Cork. It is a cheerful city. The atmosphere is brighter and the streets are more attractive than in Dublin. The shops are large and the show windows are well dressed, and on St. Patrick's Street, which, of course, is the principal thoroughfare, there are several windows full of most appetizing buns and cakes and other things to eat. But the tradesmen are remarkably late about getting around in the morning. When I go out for my walk after breakfast, between eight and nine o'clock, most of the shops are still closed, the doors are locked, and the shutters are up. None of the retail merchants expect customers until after nine, and then they open very slowly. The markets do not commence business until nine o'clock and wholesale dealers and their clerks do not get down until ten. A gentleman of whom I inquired about this indolent custom declared that it was as ancient as the ruins of Fin-Barre Abbey. He declared, however, that although they lie abed late in the morning the business men of Cork made things hum when they once got started. Cork is a city of churches and some of them are modern, which is a novelty. The Roman Catholic Cathedral is an imposing structure and the interior is magnificent. One of the "Godless colleges" is in Cork--Queen's College--which occupies a beautiful situation upon a bluff on the outskirts of the city, entirely hidden among venerable trees and flowering plants, with a swift flowing brook at its feet. It was the site of a monastery established here by Fin-Barre, the patron saint of Cork, who came here about the year 700, built a chapel, and started a monastic school that became famous and attracted many students from the continent of Europe. The city grew up around that monastery and was first composed of students who lived in huts and cabins of their own construction while they carried on their studies. Then business men and farmers began to come in and Cork became a place of sufficient importance to attract the attention of the Danish sea-rovers who, after plundering it again and again, took a fancy to the place and settled down here themselves. St. Fin-Barre was buried in his own church and his dust was afterward taken out of the tomb and enshrined in a silver reliquary which was carried away by one of the O'Briens when he drove the McCarthys, who happened to be a power in 1089, out of his stronghold and looted the place. Over the arched entrance to the Queen's College are the significant words: "Where Fin-Barre Taught, Let Munster Learn." It is a modern college founded by Queen Victoria in 1849, together with two others of the same sort at Belfast and Galway, and the three are affiliated under the title of "The Royal University of Ireland." That gives the degrees bestowed upon their graduates a higher character and a greater value according to the notions of the people here. The buildings are pretentious and of the Tudor order of architecture. They look very much like those of the Washington University at St. Louis, and are arranged in a similar manner, only the damp atmosphere here gives the stone a maturity of color that no college in the United States is old enough to acquire. There are no dormitories. The students room and board where they like. There are only lecture-rooms, examination halls, a library, and a museum. There is no chapel, no religious services, and no bishops or other clergymen are upon the board of trustees. That is why the institution is under the ban of the Catholic church, and is not patronized by the people of the Church of Ireland. There are departments of art, science, engineering, law, and medicine, but no theology. There is a school, at which the applied sciences and the trades are taught, occupying the old building of the Royal Cork Institute and attended by many ambitious young men and women. It is a sort of Cooper Institute, founded by a brewer named Crawford, who made his money here. There is also an agricultural and dairy school, with an experimental farm of one hundred and eighty acres on the hills about half a mile from the city, where instruction is given in butter and cheese making and in general agricultural science. Cork is the center of the dairy trade of Ireland and exports a great deal of butter to London. [Illustration: QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CORK] There are several Catholic seminaries and convents and Protestant boarding-schools for boys and girls and preparatory institutions of various grades attended by children from all parts of southern Ireland, which make Cork an educational center. There is a handsome library presented by Mr. Carnegie, adjoining the City Hall, with twelve thousand volumes and about three thousand ticket-holders, who, according to the report of the librarian, borrowed 85,406 books last year, of which 63,902 were works of fiction. There is another library belonging to a chartered association that is available only to its members. There is an opera-house and several theatres, and all the advantages and attractions that one would expect in a city of this size, with a race course of two hundred and forty acres on the banks of the river, just outside the city limits. There is an attractive promenade, a mile long, called the Mardyke, sheltered by splendid old trees which form a natural arch overhead, which was fashionable for gossip and flirtation as long ago as 1720, but is now given up chiefly to servant girls and their lovers and nurses and children. The birds sing more sweetly in Cork than any place we have been, or perhaps we have noticed them more readily than we have done elsewhere. Irish birds are as cheerful and happy as Irish people. When we were wandering through the campus of Queen's College, just after a shower, the trees were alive with larks and thrushes. They had come out of their hiding places and were bursting with song. I met an old woman, bent and gaunt and gray, with bright blue eyes and a canny expression, and asked her the way to the house I was seeking. She answered with politeness, and I gave her a penny. "God welcome you to Ireland," she said. "An' may yer honor's visit be prosperous. Yer honor is from America. I kin tell that by yer fine looks and yer fine manners, and I've a son over there meself. I'm nothin' but a poor widdy on the edge of the grave, or I'd be follering him there at all, at all." And it is astonishing how many people we meet here, who have sons and brothers and sisters in the United States. Most of them seem to be in Chicago, Boston, and Brooklyn. Even a rosy-cheeked little newsboy from whom I bought a paper on the street recognized my nationality and remarked, "An' I've a brother in Brooklyn, meself, sor." At least one-fourth of the population of Cork have emigrated to the United States since the census was taken in 1891, and more are going by every steamer. The Protestant Cathedral is a fine, modern building with a lofty central tower and four smaller towers of the same design surrounding it. It was finished only a few years ago and cost half a million dollars, most of the money being derived from legacies. It stands on the site of an ancient church built by St. Fin-Barre. The grounds are large and beautifully shaded, with here and there a tomb of some distinguished man. The service and the singing are quite impressive, and we heard the best choir we have found in Ireland. But the church where everybody goes, which every tourist must visit, is St. Anne's, on the other side of the river, on Shandon Street, which was built in 1722, and is remarkable for an extraordinary-looking tower one hundred and twenty feet high, faced on two sides with red stone and on the other sides with white stone. It is exceedingly ugly, but the people of Cork are very much attached to it, and particularly to the chime of eight bells which hang in the tower and have been immortalized in a simple little poem by "Father Prout," who was the Rev. Francis Mahoney, and is buried in the churchyard in the tomb of his ancestors. "Father Prout" was the _nom de plume_ of this witty and sentimental clergyman, who was most prolific with his productions. He wrote odes to almost everything in Ireland--plain, simple, homely lines, but full of sentiment and the true poetic spirit. The common people admire them above all other literary works except the ballads of Tom Moore, and indeed Father Prout's verses rank with Moore's melodies in popularity. He also published a great deal of prose, stories and satires and anecdotes illustrating the thoughts and the habits of his fellow countrymen, and occasionally a political satire which involved him in a controversy with his bishop or some political leader. Father Prout in his famous lyric described the peculiar appearance of the spire of his church: "Parti-colored like the people, Red and white, stands Shandon's steeple." "With deep affection And recollection I often think of Those Shandon bells, Whose sounds so wild would In the days of childhood Fling round my cradle Their magic spells. Their magic spells. "On this I ponder Where'er I wander, And thus grow fonder, Sweet Cork, of thee, With thy bells of Shandon That sound so grand on The pleasant waters of The River Lee." Most of the streets of Cork are wide and well paved, although they are entirely devoid of architectural features and, with the exception of the cathedral, Queen's College, and the courthouse with a stately Grecian portico, there are no buildings in the city worthy of special mention. On the Parade, as one of the principal streets is called, is a conspicuous pile of carved granite that is intensely admired by everybody. It is designed like a shrine, and under a granite canopy is a rude statue of "Erin," leaning upon a harp. Outside, at each corner of the pedestal, are still ruder figures intended to represent Wolf Tone, Davis, O'Neill, Crowley, and Dwyer, heroes of the continuous struggle against British domination. The faces of the pedestal are closely inscribed with names, with these lines in English and Gaelic: "Erected through the efforts of the Cork Young Ireland Society to perpetuate the memory of the gallant men of 1798, 1803, 1848 and 1867, who fought and died in defense of Ireland, and to recover her sovereign independence. To inspire the youth of our country to follow in their patriotic footsteps and to imitate their heroic example. "And righteous men will make our land A nation once again." The breakfast-room at the Imperial Hotel one morning was filled with a lively and noisy crowd of gentlemen of all ages wearing red coats, waistcoats of startling pattern, jockey caps, leather leggings, and heavy brogans. I was told that they represented the nobility of County Cork, and had gathered to hunt otter along the River Lee and the creeks that feed it west of the city. There was one woman in the party, who wore a short skirt of gray tweed, a red jacket, a jockey cap, and high boots. In the stableyard was a pack of hounds in leash which had been brought in from the country. The Marquis of Conyngham was master of the hunt. Otter hunting in the summer along the swampy, muddy banks of the creeks of Ireland takes the place of fox hunting in the winter. The elusive otter is tracked to his hole by the hounds and is then stirred out by gallant gentlemen with pikes--long poles shod with iron tips--after they have chased him through the mud. They keep the skins for robes, stuff the heads for ornaments, and mount the tails for brushes. These hunts take place at least twice a week during the summer season and are sometimes attended by forty or fifty noblemen and gentry. Cork is a very orderly city. The laws are strictly enforced. I noticed by the newspaper reports of the police courts that people are fined for profane swearing and for boisterous behavior. We didn't see a drunken man or woman in Cork, and in Dublin they were common. This is largely due to the work of Bishop O'Callahan and the priests of his diocese and the influence of Father Mathew, the great apostle of temperance, who led a movement that reached every corner of the world about fifty years ago. There are monuments to Father Mathew in many of the cities of Ireland. There is one in Dublin on the principal street, between that of Daniel O'Connell and that now being erected to Parnell, while in Cork the statue of Father Mathew on St. Patrick's Street is the center and focus of all activity. It faces the entrance to the principal bridge over the River Lee and all the street-car lines terminate there. A memorial church has been erected to his memory here, and the Church of the Holy Trinity, of which he was the pastor, has been restored and enlarged. Father Mathew is buried in St. Joseph's Cemetery, on the outskirts of the city, which was formerly the Botanic Gardens, and was obtained by him for a burial place for his congregation in 1830. His precious dust is inclosed in a fine sarcophagus surmounted by the figure of an angel in white marble. Theobold Mathew was a Capuchin friar, born in Cork, and was attached to the Church of the Holy Trinity in that city. In 1838 he joined a temperance society that had been started by some Protestant gentlemen, chiefly Quakers, for the purpose of offering an example to young mechanics in his parish. He soon became the leading spirit of the organization, was made its president, and finally started upon a mission throughout Ireland to organize similar societies and to promote total abstinence among the people. From that time he devoted his life to the work, and being an orator of remarkable power and possessed of extraordinary energy, zeal, and devotion, he excited the interest of every class of people and of every community on the island. The influence of his agitation was felt in England, Scotland, Australia, America, and in every other part of the world until his name became a universal synonym for temperance. Father Mathew's Total Abstinence societies are still found in almost every city and town in which the English language is spoken. He addressed immense audiences and spoke twice on Tara Hill, which was the throne of the kings of Ireland before Julius Cæsar ruled at Rome. He administered total abstinence pledges to half the people in the country, and intemperance in drink, with its attendant evils and misery, almost disappeared from Ireland. The famine that followed his crusade destroyed much of the good effect, because it demoralized the people and many tried to drown their sorrows in drink. It has been said that Father Mathew died of a broken heart, because so many of his converts violated their pledges, but, since the days of Peter the Hermit, no individual has exercised such a moral influence. "Now, Terence, me b'y, tell the loidies and gintlemen all ye know, an' kape the rist to yoursilf," was the parting injunction of the porter of the Imperial Hotel to the jarvey of the jaunting car, as he tucked the rugs around our legs and started us off for Blarney Castle, which is five miles from town. It is a delightful drive, for the suburbs of Cork are surrounded by fertile farms and the pastures are illuminated with buttercups in summer, and inclosed in hedges of hawthorn that are bright with blossoms. All nature seems to be in a cheerful mood these days, and the frequent rains, which interfere considerably with motoring, give an appearance of freshness to all the vegetation and a vitality to the trees and plants and flowers and everything growing. That is peculiar to Ireland. It is true that showers come down and cease with surprising suddenness and frequency, and the rain falls as if it was very heavy and had dropped a long distance, but if you carry an umbrella, and that is the universal custom, you are none the worse for it. A narrow-gauge baby railway starts from outside the campus of Queen's College in Cork and runs to Blarney, a town of about eight hundred inhabitants, mostly farmers, who cultivate the surrounding soil and breed cattle, while their wives and daughters work in a woolen factory belonging to the Mahoney brothers, which is said to produce the best tweed in the kingdom. And you can buy suitings at the shops in Cork. Nothing is sold at the factory. Blarney Castle, as everybody knows, is one of the best preserved and most beautiful of the many ruins of Ireland, and is probably better known throughout the world than any other because of the marvelous qualities of a famous stone which forms a part of its walls. As Father Prout in one of his verses expresses it: "There is a stone there That whoever kisses, Oh, he never misses To grow eloquent. 'Tis he that may clamber To my lady's chamber, Or become a member Of parliament." The castle stands on the banks of a dashing stream called the Comane, full of trout and well protected, and is surrounded by a wonderful forest of cedar, birch, and beech trees that are centuries old. Their trunks are entwined with ivy, and the rocks and ledges upon which the castle stands are cushioned with the same material. I don't know that I have ever seen such luxurious ivy or such sumptuous vegetation out of the tropics, or such fragrant shade. There are natural caves and grottoes in the cliffs, all of which have served a useful purpose in ancient times, and are associated with various fascinating legends. There is a difficult ascent to a natural terrace that is called "The Witch's Stairs." A thoughtful owner of this glorious forest has placed benches at easy intervals, where visitors may sit and read the history, traditions, and legends of the place and imagine that he can see the fairies that dance by moonlight on the carpet of ivy that conceals the earth. Every step is haunted by a goblin or a ghost, and every dark and gloomy corner has been the scene of a tragedy. The castle is well kept, and Sir George Colthurst, the owner, makes it as pleasant as he can for the thousands of tourists who come here every year from all parts of the world, and of course a large majority of them are Americans. No tourist thinks of visiting Ireland without seeing Blarney Castle, and aside from the legends and the satisfaction of having been here it is well worth the trouble. The tower or "keep," which was the fortified part of the building, is almost intact except the floors, but the residential portions have crumbled and fallen away. The castle was built by Cormack MacCarthy, Prince of Desmond, who ruled all of Ireland south of Cork, in 1173. The Desmond clan fought the Geraldines (the followers of the Earl of Kildare, whose territory adjoined them on the north) until 1537, when a league was formed between the two clans, with other princes, against the English, who were kept pretty busy within the Pale, as the territory immediately around Dublin was called. Lady Eleanor MacCarthy saved the life of Gerald Fitzgerald, the son of Silken Thomas, Earl of Kildare, who rebelled against English authority. She succeeded in escaping from the country with him and taking him to Rome, where the babe, the only survivor of the vengeance of Henry VIII., was concealed and cared for by a cardinal who happened to be a distant relative. And it was thus, through the devotion of a brave woman, from its hereditary enemies, that the house of Kildare escaped extinction. In the time of Queen Elizabeth, however, upon the suppression of what is known in history as the Geraldine rebellion, the vast estates of the Earl of Desmond and those of the MacCarthys and one hundred and forty other chiefs and landowners in Munster were confiscated by a parliament that met in Dublin, and were given to English adventurers for two pence and three pence an acre and sometimes for no price at all, upon agreements that they would colonize the lands with Englishmen. The head of the house at that date was imprisoned in the Tower of London with Sir Walter Raleigh, accused of treason, and it was he who outwitted Queen Elizabeth with his "deludering" until she coined the word "blarney" to describe his fluent conversation. [Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE, COUNTY CORK] The famous Blarney stone is as well known as the King of England, and the superstition is that whoever kisses it becomes instantly endowed with wonderful persuasion of speech. But very few people and only the most daring athletes have ever tried the experiment. The miraculous stone is the sill of a window, which projects from the main wall near the top of the tower. As it is eight or ten inches below the level of the floor and across an open space of about twenty or twenty-four inches, it is not only difficult, but dangerous to attempt to reach it. A slip would send you head first to the ground, one hundred and twenty feet below. The only way in which it can be done is for the person who tries to support himself over the edge of the wall by straps from the top, and, with his face upward, draw himself across until his lips can reach the stone. Almost everybody that visits Blarney Castle comes home with a tale of the time he had in kissing the Blarney stone, but no one has seen him doing so for years, and it can only be done by carrying tackle to the castle. Mrs. Hanna Ford, a gentle and considerate old lady, who has been custodian of the place for more than thirty-six years, told me that she had never known but half a dozen people to kiss the stone in all that time. Sir George Colthurst, the owner, charges a sixpence of every visitor and collects scarcely enough to pay the expenses of keeping the place in order. The visitors average about one hundred a day during the summer months, but nobody ever goes out there during the winter. Kilkenny is one of the prettiest and most interesting little cities of the kingdom, and is simply loaded with historical associations, political, personal, military, and religious. No town has more fascination for a student of the history of Ireland, because here was enacted that extraordinary and outrageous code known as the statute of Kilkenny of 1367, which was intended to exterminate everything Irish from the face of the earth. According to this law intermarriage, trade, and relations of every kind between the English settlers in Ireland and the natives was forbidden as high treason, and the punishment was death. It was intended to separate the two races entirely and forevermore. If any man wore Irish clothing, or used the Celtic language, or rode a horse without a saddle, as the Irish were accustomed to do, his lands and houses were forfeited and he was sent to prison. The Irish were forbidden to follow their ordinary customs and habits, and were commanded to speak only English, a language they did not know. It was forbidden them to speak Celtic, it was forbidden them to sing native songs or to receive or listen to Irish bards or pipers; no native could become a clergyman, a lawyer, or enter any of the professions, and every possible connection with the past was obliterated. All Irish books and manuscripts were ordered to be destroyed, and if the intention of the parliament which passed that law in Kilkenny in 1367 had been obeyed, every event, tradition, and legend concerning the Irish race would have been forgotten. But it soon became a dead letter. It could not be enforced, and the English and the Irish continued to live in a friendly way, and intermarry and enjoy themselves as much as ever before. Then Kilkenny was the scene of the famous "Irish confederation," which met here in 1642 with the intention of reconciling all the conflicting interests in Ireland and doing exactly the reverse of what was proposed by the statute of 1367. It was desirable to unite the Irish with the English to sustain King Charles I., and to defend the Roman Catholic religion against Cromwell and the parliament. Therefore Kilkenny became the object of resentment and vindictiveness to the parliamentary army when it invaded Ireland. The destruction committed by that army may be seen all through this part of the country. Kilkenny is in the midst of a land of ruins, and this county has been fought over for ages--one of the most frequent scenes of conflict in all the universe ever since history began. There is an Irish town and an English town, as in Limerick, and the two are engaged in an eternal controversy, the racial prejudice being intense. This controversy, which at one time had nearly impoverished both communities, was illustrated by a writer two centuries ago by the famous story of the "Kilkenny Cats," which, by the way, is said to be true. In the sixteenth century, during the time of Queen Elizabeth, some soldiers of the English garrison at Kilkenny Castle amused themselves one day by catching two vagrant cats, tying their tails together and hanging them over a line. An indignant officer coming up in the midst of their hilarity endeavored to separate the animals, and, being unable to do so, released them by slashing off the tails of both with his sword; and as their paws touched the ground, they fled into oblivion. The waggish soldiers preserved the remnants of the tails and showed them as evidence of the combative abilities of the cats of Kilkenny, which fought until nothing was left but their tails. Kilkenny claims the most beautiful church in Ireland--the Cathedral of St. Canice, formerly Roman Catholic, but since the Reformation belonging to the Church of Ireland. It dates back to 1251, but was thoroughly restored in 1865, and is now in almost perfect condition. It is particularly rich in medieval monuments, and no other church in the country can compare with this for number, variety, artistic beauty, and historic interest. The Roman Catholic cathedral is also a gem and entirely modern, having been completed and consecrated in 1857. It is greatly admired for the symmetry and chasteness of its details. Kilkenny is also famous as an educational center, having several noted schools. One of them, known as The College, has had Dean Swift, Bishop Berkeley (who went to America in 1728, and established schools and missionary stations), Congreve, and other famous Irishmen as pupils. The Castle of Kilkenny, which was erected by William Le Mareschal, son-in-law of Strongbow, in 1191, is still in excellent condition, but has been added to and repaired from time to time during the centuries. It was thoroughly altered and restored about fifty years ago by the father of the present Duke of Ormonde, and has since been occupied the greater part of the year by the family. Fortunately, in the extensions and restorations, the original character of the structure has been preserved and its individuality has not been impaired. It forms three sides of a large quadrangle with three round towers, castellated in the style of the twelfth century. The dining-hall is one of the finest rooms in Europe and contains many pieces of gold plate, antique ivory, and china that have been in the family for centuries. The picture gallery is a splendid apartment, one hundred and twenty feet long and thirty feet wide, and contains more than one hundred and eighty pictures, including family portraits by Van Dyck, Holbein, Lely, Kellner, Reynolds, and others, and gems of Murillo, Correggio, Salvatore Rosa, Claude Lorrain, Tintoretto, and other great masters. In the drawing-room is a picture of the Virgin and Child, by Correggio, which was presented to the second Duke of Ormonde by the Dutch government in recognition of his services in the Low Countries during the reign of Queen Anne. The garden and the park are superb and the family are generous enough to permit the public to share in their enjoyment of them. The Ormonde family stands next to the Geraldines at the head of the nobility, and the two have always been rivals in power and equals in renown. Their history has been the history of Ireland and fills many interesting pages from the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion. The surname of the family, Butler, originated in the appointment of Theobold Fitzwalter, who accompanied Henry II. as chief butler to the king and was granted the prisage of the wines of Ireland--a very valuable monopoly. He returned to England with his sovereign but afterward accompanied Prince John into Ireland in 1185, and was granted large tracts of land for his services. The family grew in numbers and in power and wealth and the rivalry with the Kildares began in 1300, although they were intermarried in several generations. James Butler was created the first Earl of Ormonde by Edward I. in 1321, and married a daughter of the king. He was granted the regalities, libraries, etc., of County Tipperary and built his castle there. James, the second Earl of Ormonde, was also a man of great importance. He was called the noble earl, because he was a grandson of King Edward I. and was Lord Justice of Ireland from 1359 to 1376. [Illustration: KILKENNY CASTLE; RESIDENCE OF THE DUKE OF ORMONDE] The Castle of Kilkenny was built by James, third Earl of Ormonde, in 1391. His daughter married the Earl of Desmond. James, the fifth Earl of Ormonde, was created Earl of Wiltshire in the peerage of England by Henry VI., and was lord high treasurer of England for many years, but was beheaded at Newcastle by the Yorkists. His titles and estates were confiscated, but were restored to John, sixth Earl of Ormonde, who was ranked the first gentleman of his age. He was a complete master of all the languages of Europe, was sent as ambassador to all of the principal courts, paid a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and King Edward IV. once said that if good breeding and liberal qualities were lost to the world, they might all be found in the Earl of Ormonde. Thomas, the tenth in line and called from his complexion "The Black Earl," was lord treasurer for Queen Elizabeth, with whom he was a great favorite. James, the twelfth earl, was made Duke of Ormonde in 1610 and was for many years lord lieutenant of Ireland, administering that high office with consummate ability during the civil war. He was known as the Great Duke of Ormonde and is buried in Westminster Abbey. His son James was one of the first to join the standard of the Prince of Orange and, when the latter ascended the throne, was appointed high constable of England. He attended William to Ireland, fought by his side at the battle of the Boyne, and entertained his sovereign most sumptuously at the family castle at Kilkenny. He was made commander-in-chief of the army sent against France and Spain by Queen Anne in 1702; he destroyed the French fleet, sank the Spanish galleons in the harbor of Vigo, and remained as captain-general of the British forces until the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Two years later, after George I. succeeded to the throne, Ormonde was impeached of high treason, his estates were declared forfeited, all his titles and honors were extinguished, and a reward of fifty thousand dollars was offered by the British parliament for his apprehension if he should attempt to return from France, where he had fled for refuge. His wife was the daughter of the Earl of Rochester, and, unfortunately, he had no sons, but one of his daughters married the Duke of Somerset and the other the Duke of Beaufort, two of the most eminent men in England. Ormonde resided in seclusion at Avignon until his death, in November, 1745, when his remains were brought to London and deposited in Henry VII.'s chapel at Westminster Abbey. His brother, the Earl of Arran, claimed the estate and the title, but it was decided that no proceedings of the English parliament could affect Irish dignities, and he never enjoyed them, but lived in Scotland. In 1791 the House of Lords restored the ancient rights and estates to the eldest son of the eldest daughter. Walter, the eighteenth earl, in 1810 disposed of the prisage of the wines of Ireland granted to the fourth earl by Edward I., to the crown for £216,000, and the contract was approved by parliament. It was not until the coronation of George IV. that the family was entirely reinstated. James, the nineteenth earl, was then installed a knight of St. Patrick, was advanced to the dignity of a marquis of the United Kingdom, and was made lord lieutenant of Ireland. He had a large family and his sons and daughters married well. His son John, born in 1818, married the daughter of the Marquis of Annesley, and died Sept. 25, 1854, leaving two sons--James Edward William Theobold, the present marquis, and James Arthur Wellington Foley of the Life Guards, who in 1887 married Ellen Stager of Chicago, daughter of the late General Anson Stager, formerly president of the Western Union Telegraph Company. As the present duke has no direct heir, Nellie Stager's son will inherit the titles and estates of one of the oldest and most famous families of Ireland. At Clonmel, which claims to be the cleanest town in Ireland, is another fine castle over which an American girl presides--the wife of Lord Doughnamore. She was a Miss Grace of New York, a niece of the late William R. Grace and a daughter of Michael P. Grace, who owns and lives in that famous castle known as "Battle Abbey" in Kent County, England, near the city of Canterbury. Mr. Grace and Lord Doughnamore were partners for many years in what was known as the Peruvian Corporation--a company which assumed all of the foreign indebtedness of that republic and took over all of its railroads as compensation. XXIV REMINISCENCES OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH In the year of Queen Elizabeth's accession to the throne a terrible rebellion broke out in Ireland, led by the Earl of Desmond, chief of the Geraldines, the most powerful of all the clans, which was put down by Lord Grey of Wilton, who came over from England and laid the Kingdom of Munster in ashes. The great Earl of Desmond who had been master of almost half of Ireland and the owner of numerous castles, was defeated in many battles, his forces were scattered, his stronghold destroyed, and he was proclaimed an outlaw and hunted from one hiding place to another. In order to repopulate the country the vast estates belonging to him and one hundred and forty of his adherents were confiscated, and proclamation was made throughout all England inviting gentlemen to "undertake the colonization of this rich territory at the rate of two or three pence an acre." None but English settlers were allowed, and tracts of land of four thousand acres and upward were granted to favorites of the throne, to enterprising English noblemen, and to worthless adventurers, very few of whom ever saw the property, but some of them organized colonies and sent them over to Ireland in charge of agents. [Illustration: THE ANCIENT CITY OF YOUGHAL, COUNTY CORK; THE HOME OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH] Edmund Spenser, the poet, author of that famous poem, "The Faerie Queene," was private secretary to Lord Grey, and received twelve thousand acres in County Cork, including Kilcolman Castle, the ruins of which, near the town of Buttevant, are visited by tourists still. Sir Walter Raleigh got forty-one thousand acres, also from the Desmond estate, in the counties of Cork and Waterford, and made his home in what is now known as Myrtle Lodge in the ancient town of Youghal. His house still stands very much as it was when he left it, and is owned and occupied by Sir Henry Blake, recently retired from the governorship of the British Colony of Hong-Kong. Lady Blake is a relative of the Duchess of St. Albans, whose husband is descended from the illegitimate son of Charles II. and Nell Gwynne. He is one of the most influential peers in the United Kingdom and kindly looks after his kin. The previous owner of the property, curiously enough, was Sir John Pope Hennessy, the predecessor of Sir Henry Blake as governor of Jamaica, of Ceylon, and of Hong-Kong. Sir Walter Raleigh called Youghal his home from the time he first came to Ireland, twenty-eight years old, as a captain in the command of Lord Grey, and, according to the records, received a salary of four shillings a day for himself, two shillings a day for his lieutenant, fourteen pence a day each for four non-commissioned officers, and eight pence a day for every common soldier, all of whom were also provided with "good furniture," that is, suitable armor and trappings, at the expense of the government. They were mostly Devonshire men, like their captain, full of reckless courage and energy, like their captain, and the amount of damage they committed under Sir Walter's leadership was entirely out of proportion to their numbers and their pay. Sir Walter lived at Myrtle Lodge where he studied the chronicles of the Spanish and Portuguese explorers of South America, and started from there upon his ill-fated expedition to Virginia. He returned to this home whenever he could escape from the presence of his affectionate but fickle queen, and it was there that he wrote most of his poems and his letters and commenced his "History of the World." After he lost his power and influence and was committed to the Tower as a traitor, his property was confiscated. Lady Raleigh was deprived of everything he left her, including an estate called "Tivoli," in the neighborhood of Cork, and was actually in want of bread when James I., in response to a touching petition, gave her a pension of £400 per annum and a home for life. She was granted another special favor which she valued very highly. After Sir Walter's execution his head was sent to her. She had it embalmed and carried it about with her wherever she traveled. At her death the ghastly relic was left to Carew Raleigh, who treasured it as highly as his mother had done, but, fortunately for subsequent generations, stipulated that it should be buried in his coffin with him when he died. Raleigh's confiscated estates fell into the hands of Sir Richard Boyle, the second Earl of Cork, and were retained by that family after his death. Lady Desmond, the widow of the great earl, who until his treason, was the richest man in Ireland, and was known as "Queen Elizabeth's wealthiest subject," was also compelled by her poverty to apply for a pension. Upon the recommendation of Sir Walter Raleigh Queen Elizabeth allowed twenty-two pounds a year to "this lady of princely castles and fair gardens," whose gowns of cloth of gold are referred to in one of Raleigh's letters. The royal warrant granting the pension, above the bold autograph of Elizabeth, is now among many other interesting relics in the old house at Youghal. Lady Desmond is buried in the ancient Church of St. Mary's, which occupies the adjoining ground. She lies in a recess in the south wall with her effigy carved upon her sarcophagus. Her liege lord, the great Earl of Desmond, lies in a similar tomb in a similar recess in the opposite wall, although he lost his head in the Tower of London. Why the husband should rest on one side of the church and the wife on the other has never been explained. She must have been a very remarkable old lady, for, according to the records, she lived more than one hundred and forty years. She was born in 1502, married Thomas Fitzgerald, eighth Earl of Desmond, in 1520. His estates were confiscated in 1585; Raleigh first met her in 1589, and her pension was granted in 1598. Robert Sydney, second Earl of Leicester, refers to her about 1640, when he was ambassador at Paris, as follows: "The old Countess of Desmond was a marryed woman in Edward IV.'s time in England, and lived till toward the end of Queen Elizabeth, so she must needes be neare 140 yeares old. She had a new sett of teeth, not long afore her death, and might have lived much longer had she not mett with a kinde of violent death; for she would needes climbe a nut tree to gather nuts; so, falling down, she hurte her thigh, which brought a fever and that fever brought death. This, my cousin, Walter Fitzwilliam, tolde me." The wealth of the Earl of Desmond at the time of his rebellion may be judged from the fact that eight hundred thousand acres of his property were confiscated in County Cork, five hundred and seventy thousand acres in County Limerick, and over a million acres in Tipperary. All of this area, by virtue of a proclamation, reverted to the crown and was divided by Queen Elizabeth among her favorites and among the "undertakers" who agreed to settle the lands exclusively with Englishmen and to drive out the Irish from them entirely. There were other conditions, also. They were to encourage the English and discourage the Irish in every way possible and no natives of Ireland were to be allowed upon their possessions. The Earl of Desmond is said to have owned thirty castles and fled from one to another, accompanied by his faithful wife, who never left him except occasionally when she went to intercede for him with his enemies. His grandson, William Fielding, was made Earl of Denbigh, in the English peerage, by Charles I., as a reward for his loyalty, and the family have been known since by the latter title. He was mortally wounded in a sharp skirmish at the head of the king's forces against Cromwell in a battle near Birmingham and died soon after. His son attended Charles I. to the scaffold and received from his sovereign a few moments before his execution a ring in which his majesty's miniature was set. That ring is now in possession of the family. The present earl is Rudolph Robert Basil Aloysius Augustine Fielding, who was born in 1859 and married in 1884 to the daughter of Lord Clifford. He was a lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria for several years, until her death, and is now a lord-in-waiting to his majesty, King Edward. He served as aid-de-camp to the Marquis of Londonderry when the latter was lord lieutenant of Ireland. Canon Hayman, who was curate of St. Mary's Church at Youghal for many years and made a thorough investigation of the history of the town and the church and all the remarkable incidents that have occurred here from the beginning of time, tells us that the Countess of Desmond was one hundred and thirty years old when she went to see Queen Elizabeth about her pension, and that she walked all the way from Bristol to London because she was too poor to hire a conveyance. And the young man who showed us about St. Mary's Church added another interesting item to the already interesting story,--that her daughter, who was ninety years of age, made the trip with her, but became so weak and weary that the countess had to carry her on her back--which seems to be spreading it on a little thick. In the garden of Myrtle Lodge Sir Walter Raleigh planted, probably in the year 1586, the first potatoes that were brought to Ireland. Potatoes are natives of Peru and their merits were discovered there by the Jesuits, who accompanied Pizarro during the conquest. They sent samples back to Spain, as they did with quinine or cinchona bark, which was named in honor of the Countess of Cinchona, wife of the Spanish viceroy of Peru. They also sent potatoes to the Spanish colonies in the West Indies, where Sir Walter Raleigh obtained the seed that he planted in his garden at Youghal, and the fruit of that seed has fed the population of Ireland for nearly three centuries. The garden is also interesting because the first cherry tree in Europe was grown there. Sir Walter Raleigh brought the seed of the affane cherry from the Azores Islands, whence it is believed to have been transplanted to America. The cherry orchards throughout the United Kingdom can nearly all be traced to this source. You can run down to Youghal from Cork by rail in an hour, for the distance is only thirty miles and the train passes through a very pretty country. Shortly after leaving the station it dashes by Black Rock Castle, now a lighthouse and a storehouse for extra buoys and cables and lights for the harbormaster, the place from which William Penn embarked for America. His father, an admiral in the navy, lived at Macroom, about thirty miles west of Cork, where the great Quaker was born. On the other side, a little farther down, as we follow the banks of the River Lee, is Tivoli, an amusement resort, which was once the home of Sir Walter Raleigh, and Lady Raleigh lived there while he was off on his final expedition to America. "Wood Hill" was the home of John Philpott Curran, the great orator and barrister, whose daughter was the sweetheart of Robert Emmet. Youghal is a summer resort. There is sea bathing and boating and delicious salt air which gives one a lazy feeling and takes away his eagerness for antiquities and history. The only thing in the town to attract strangers is the home of Sir Walter Raleigh and St. Mary's Protestant Church, which is said to be the oldest house of worship in which service is regularly held in all the world. It remains practically unaltered from the eighth century, and one of the transepts dates from the sixth century. There are tombs dating back to the eighth and ninth and tenth centuries, and a slab of marble upon the altar is said to have been taken from a Druid temple which stood on the same site. Four holes about five inches in diameter have been made in the walls each side of the chancel about two-thirds of the way to the roof opening into large chambers within the walls. The verger told us that this was an invention to relieve an echo and had been entirely successful. I have never seen it anywhere else, and he insisted that it is unique. He also pointed out Masonic emblems on tombs of the twelfth century and several quaint epitaphs. One of them was as follows: "A burial for Cristas Harford Here is made, Where he and his intend For to be laid. His life is known Both what he was and is. Who hopes to end the Same in Heavenly Bliss. 1618. Mayor of Youghal and Knight, Knight of the Garter." The tomb of Sir Edward Villiers, brother of the great Duke of Buckingham, is decorated with his lance and his banner. He died "Lord President of Munster, Anno Domini 1620," and his epitaph reads: "Munster may Curse The time that Villiers came To make us Worse. While leaving such a Name Of noble Parts As none can Imitate. But those whose Harts Are married to the State. But if they Press To imitate his Fame Munster may Bless The time that Villiers Came." Mrs. Charles Fleetwood, daughter of Oliver Cromwell and widow of General Ireton, who died from wounds during the siege of Limerick, is buried in the center of the chancel. Cromwell had his headquarters here for some time and appointed his son-in-law, Fleetwood, lord deputy in 1649. Raleigh was twenty-eight years old when he came to Ireland from Devonshire in 1579 as captain of a levy of troops, and Youghal is the only home he ever had so far as we know. He sailed from there upon his last and fatal voyage on Aug. 6, 1617. There is still another association which will appeal with force to the majority of the masculine readers of these lines. From Myrtle Lodge Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco into the United Kingdom, having brought it home from the West Indies where the Spaniards found the natives smoking it at the time of the discovery of America. Columbus and his followers carried it back with them to Spain. Fifty years afterward Sir Walter Raleigh introduced it at the court of Queen Elizabeth and brought to Youghal the first tobacco ever seen in Ireland, which he smoked under a group of four wonderful yew trees while he read the manuscript of Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene," which had been submitted for his criticism by the author. A considerable part of the fourth book of the poem was written at Myrtle Lodge while Spenser was Sir Walter's guest, and the remainder at Kilcolman Castle on the River Blackwater. The poem was never finished, but its publication is due to Sir Walter, for he took the manuscript to London, placed it with the printer, and provided the means to pay the expense. He thought so highly of the poem that, in a double sonnet, composed while Spenser was visiting him at Youghal, he says: "All suddenly I saw the Faerie Queene, At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept." It is therefore very natural that Spenser should reply in these lines: "Thou only, fit this argument to write, In whose high thoughts pleasure hath built her bower, And dainty love learnt sweetly to indite." Spenser was a man of delicate sensibilities and great refinement of character, but lacked the masterful spirit, the ambition, the energy, and the dominating will of Raleigh. The latter, however, had rare literary taste. He is better known as soldier, adventurer, sailor, and explorer. Spenser called him the "shepherd of the seas," but some of his sonnets are immortal. They rank with those of Shakespeare in poetic fancy, delicacy of expression, and sublimity of thought, and his prose work, especially his history of the world, which was begun at Myrtle Lodge and finished while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London, ranked among the literary triumphs of his day and generation. Sir John Pope Hennessy, to whom I have already referred as the former owner of the home of Raleigh at Youghal, spent several years in an investigation of state papers and other historical material relating to the administration of Irish affairs during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and does not leave a fragment of Raleigh's reputation as a man of honor. He has written a book entitled "Raleigh in Ireland," which is begun and finished in an unfriendly spirit, and holds Raleigh responsible for all the troubles that occurred in Ireland at his time and since. If one-half that Hennessy tells of Raleigh's work in Ireland is true, he was a man of treachery, untruth, unbridled passion, and monstrous cruelty, but this is no place to discuss that question. Raleigh was a prisoner in the Tower of London with James, Earl of Desmond, successor of the man whose estates he confiscated and occupied. The death of the earl prompted Raleigh in a letter from the Tower to say: "Wee shal be judged as wee judge--and bee dealt withal as wee deal with others in this life--if wee beleve God Hyme sealf." [Illustration: MYRTLE LODGE; THE HOME OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH] Myrtle Lodge remains very much as it was when Raleigh lived there. Few historical houses have been altered so little or have been preserved with greater care. Sir Walter's study is hung with an original painting of the first governor of Virginia and a contemporary engraving of "Elizabeth, Queen of Virginia." The long table at which he wrote, an oak chest in which he kept his papers, a little Italian cabinet filled with old deeds and parchments, some bearing his seal; two bookcases of vellum-bound volumes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and all of the furniture dates from his time. We are assured that there is nothing in the room that was not in the house at the time he occupied it. The dining-room is one of the choicest examples of fifteenth century domestic architecture that can be found, having a deep projecting bay window and porch, an orieled closet, a wide, arched fireplace, and walls wainscoted with rich, ripe Irish oak. The drawing-room has a carved oaken mantelpiece which rises to the ceiling. The cornice rests upon three figures representing Faith, Hope, and Charity. In the adjoining bedroom is another mantelpiece of oak, and the fireplace is lined with old Dutch tiles. Behind the wainscoting of this room, while repairs were being made fifty years ago, an ancient monkish library was found, which, it was thought, was hidden there to escape the Covenanters at the time of the Reformation. A gentleman on our train to Youghal made the interesting statement that Sir Walter Raleigh was the first patron of Protestant foreign missions. He contributed £100 to start the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Lands. I had never heard of this fact before, but my informant said that it came out at the three hundredth anniversary of the organization of that society which was celebrated in London in 1906. Until the Congested Districts Board undertook the work, lacemaking was practically confined to the convents. There are two classes of true Irish lace--needle-point, which is made by the needle, and the bobbin lace--the threads of which are twisted around small bobbins of bone, wood, or ivory. Both of these laces are made entirely by hand, which is not true of the Limerick and Carrickmacross laces. Needle-point lace was first introduced into Ireland by the sisters of the Presentation Convent of Youghal, as a means of helping the famine-stricken inhabitants to earn money in the terrible years of 1847-50. It was imitated from Italian models, but has since been much developed and enriched both in design and execution so that it may be considered original. Irish point lace has its individuality as strong as Brussels point. The Presentation Convent was founded in 1833 by Rev. Mother Mary Magdalene Gould, a wealthy Irish woman, who had lived many years in foreign countries. She was distinguished for her benevolence and love for the poor, and consecrated her life and her property to the education of the children of the poor. When the famine occurred in 1847 she admitted to the convent every child that could be accommodated, and also gave asylum to many widows who were left homeless and destitute. In order to furnish her _protégés_ some occupation and and enable them to earn a little for their own support, she decided to teach them the art of lacemaking, which had been carried on for centuries in the convents of Italy. She took some of her own lace, examined the process by which it had been made, unraveled the threads one by one, and put them back again over and over again until she at last succeeded in mastering the intricacies of the construction of needle-point. She next selected the brightest and most deft-fingered children and women in the convent and taught each separately what she herself had learned. Most of the women and girls displayed an aptitude for the work, and after the necessities of the occasion were over and the emergency passed, she had about her many well-trained lacemakers. Some of them developed considerable ingenuity and taste, inventing new designs and easier methods of handling the needle. Other convents throughout Ireland imitated the nuns of Youghal, and the same lace is now made in every part of the island. Limerick lace is of two kinds, known as the "tambour" and "run lace." "Tambour" is made on net and the pattern is formed by working with a tambour needle in white or colored thread. "Run lace" is made with an ordinary needle and a more open stitch. Limerick lace is in disfavor at present, owing to the large amount of miserable specimens that have been hawked about the streets of Limerick and forced upon the London markets. Carrickmacross lace has been made in the neighborhood of that town, in County Monaghan, since the year 1820, when it was brought from Florence by Mrs. Grey-Porter, wife of the rector of the parish church, and introduced among the peasant women as a means of earning a livelihood. It is made upon a foundation of net. There are two varieties. In appliqué the pattern is traced out on fine muslin and sewed down round the edges to the net. So far it is not strictly a lace, but rather a sort of embroidery or net. Open spaces, however, are generally provided for, which leaves the effect and which are filled with lace stitches like those of flat point. In Carrickmacross guipure, much the same procedure as in appliqué is adopted, only that instead of the foundation being allowed to remain it is ultimately cut away, the figures of the pattern, which, as in appliqué, are wrought on muslin, being joined to each other by lace stitches known as "brides." A very interesting and striking development of Carrickmacross lace is found in a combination of appliqué and guipure, the main design being appliqué, while the panels of guipure are introduced into it. A little to the northward of Cork is the famous Trappist Monastery of Mount Mellery. It was founded here about thirty years ago upon the site of an ancient monastery by Cistercian monks who were expelled from France. They have about seven hundred acres of rich woodland, fertile pastures, and vegetable gardens, with large and comfortable buildings which they erected with their own hands. They maintain two schools, one free for poor children, and another for boarding pupils whose parents pay moderate fees for the instruction. There is a guesthouse in connection with the monastery, where all travelers are welcome to shelter, saint and sinner, Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Gentile, and no questions asked and no bills presented. Any person can have a bed with clean, sweet linen and a hard but comfortable mattress, coffee and rolls for breakfast, cold meat and milk for luncheon, soup and a roast and a tart or pie for dinner, without charge, although there is a box at the door where the guest at his departure is expected to drop a coin, large or small according to his means and disposition. There are limited accommodations for women, which are sparsely but comfortably furnished, and, what is more important, as clean as a Danish dairy--an unusual condition for Ireland. There are seventy monks who dress in white and maintain perpetual silence, living entirely upon a vegetable diet with water and skimmed milk as their only drink. About twenty lay brothers, dressed in brown, do the heavy labor and the menial work about the place. The white monks rise at two o'clock in the morning and spend four hours in the chapel in silent devotion. Then they take a light meal and go to their work in the fields, the gardens, or the schoolroom, where the rule of silence is relaxed only enough to permit of imparting instruction. At six o'clock they have dinner, consisting of vegetable soup, boiled vegetables, bread, and skimmed milk, after which they spend two hours at prayer in the chapel, and retire at nine. This is the only Trappist community in Ireland, but there are two in the United States. There has been very little trouble with the landlords in County Cork. Perhaps that is due to a considerable degree to the fact that the soil is rich and the harvests are good, and because the farmers are able to get a satisfactory return for their labor and their money. Nearly all the large estates are being broken up, however, and have been purchased by the tenants under the Act of 1903. Very soon County Cork and all the southern section of Ireland will be owned by the men who till the soil. Each farmer will have his own permanent home. XXV GLENGARIFF, THE LOVELIEST SPOT IN IRELAND It isn't far across the southern counties of Ireland and from Cork to Glengariff, the loveliest place in the United Kingdom and one of the loveliest spots on earth, only seventy-five miles. There are two routes. You can go by rail to the little old-fashioned town of Bantry at the head of Bantry Bay, which is the rendezvous of the British fleet and the place of their regular annual maneuvers, and from there by coach around the shore of the bay or by a little steamer across its matchless blue waters; or you can take the more interesting and picturesque route by rail as far as Macroom, and then by coach or carriage over the mountains, through the most picturesque canyon in Ireland and up and down the mountain sides. Glengariff is 'way down in the southwesternmost corner of Ireland, and as a gentleman said the other day in describing its location: "If you go jist one step further, there'll not be a dry spot to rist yer foot on till you enter the harbor of New York, bedad, or maybe Boston." The best route in every respect and one of the most interesting journeys that can be found anywhere is by way of Macroom, and it is such a favorite with tourists that during the summer season there is an almost continuous procession that way. The arrangements for taking care of travelers are perfect, and all you have to do is to buy your tickets and let the attendant look after the rest. The railroad carries you about thirty miles, an hour's ride from Cork, and there is a good deal of interest to be seen from the car windows on the way. The conductor sticks his head in the window every now and then and warns the passengers what to look out for. There is a castle on one side or a ruined abbey on the other or some sign of the devastation committed by Cromwell and his Covenanters when they were trying to convert the Irish to Protestantism, two or three centuries ago. I became very skeptical about the Cromwellian ruins. Every time we came across an abandoned limekiln or the roofless walls of some cabin from which a family has been evicted and burned out, they told us that the damage was done by Cromwell's soldiers. Kate Douglas Wiggin satirizes that situation in "Penelope's Irish Experiences" by having her party occupy rooms in Irish hotels where Cromwell, in the confusion of his departure, forgot to sweep under the bed. You can't convert people from one religion to another by the use of the sword, by burning houses and sacking monasteries, and murdering innocent women and children. That has been clearly demonstrated by the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, by Philip II. in Spain, and by Cromwell in Ireland. It partially restores one's cheerfulness to be able to realize that such means of evangelization have been abandoned. There are ruined castles and monasteries all the way from Cork to Glengariff, and nature has done her best to hide the shame and cruelty that are associated with them by the glorious mantles of ivy which cover their crumbling walls. Kilcrea Abbey, founded by Cormac MacCarthy, the king of this country in 1465, for the Franciscan friars, was the burial place of the MacCarthy family, the owners of Blarney Castle for two centuries or more. Several of the tombs are well preserved. A little farther along, at Crookstown, is another of the MacCarthy strongholds called Castlemore, and still farther are the ruins of Lissardagh and Clodagh, where they kept their forces and received the tribute of their dependents as they did at Blarney Castle, near Cork. Those ancient kings had strings of castles through their territories, each one of them in charge of a seneschal, who kept the place with a guard of retainers and received tribute from the peasant farmers of the surrounding country as payment for protection and blackmail. Within the thick walls the loot they brought from battle was stored; their prisoners were held for ransom, and there they entertained their allies and their friends, reveling for days and nights together in the spacious halls. The MacCarthys were energetic citizens and ruled the south shore of Ireland with a despotism that had no parallel in Ireland at the time. But they were as generous to their friends as they were vindictive to their foes. This country used to abound in fairies, gnomes, koboles, pixies, and all kinds of queer little people, but they are all gone now. Our jarvey, as the driver of a jaunting car is called, insists that they have emigrated to America, but when I asked him where we could find them over there, he confessed that he didn't know. He had no acquaintance with the place. There are all kinds of fairies, or rather there used to be in Ireland, friendly and unfriendly, good and bad, and they formerly appeared in a great diversity of form and for a variety of purposes, but they are seldom seen nowadays, even among the ivy-draped ruins of the castles and among the moss-covered rocks where they used to make their homes. Sidheog is a friendly fairy and Sidhean and Sheeaun are places where fairies live. Certain hills and forests which were thickly peopled with fairies in the early days can be identified by such names as Shean, Sheaun, and similar variations of the terms that are applied to haunted hills. There are "good people" and "bad people" who invade the privacy of those who dwell in mountain cottages and bring them blessings or treat them badly, as the case may be. At one time they were numerous up in these woods. The best known fairy, however, the busiest of them all, and an odd mixture of merriment, mischief, and malignity, is "Pooka," who is known in England, in Germany, and other places under the name of "Puck." Shakespeare describes him as "a merry wanderer of the night," who boasts that he can "put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes." This capricious goblin is known to every child in the mountains, and stories are told of him in every cabin. Carrig-Peeka, the Pooka's home in a great rock, can be seen two miles west of Macroom. It overhangs the Sullane River near the ruins of one of the MacCarthy castles. This rock is well known as the place where Daniel O'Rourke started on his celebrated voyage to the moon on the back of an eagle, and for generations Pooka made it his headquarters and used to play all kinds of pranks upon the peasants in that neighborhood. There is a hideous kind of hobgoblin called a dullaghan who can take off and put on his head at will; in fact, people generally see him with that useful member under his arm or absent altogether, and on such an occasion it is well to pass on as quietly as possible without disturbing him. Sometimes giddy and frivolous bands of dullaghans have been seen in graveyards at midnight amusing themselves by flinging their heads at one another and kicking them about like footballs. Down in this neighborhood there is a little lake called Lough Gillagancan, which means "the Lake of the Headless Man," because they are in the habit of haunting it during the long winter nights and playing their ridiculous games there. Cleena is the queen of the fairies, and once exercised a powerful spell over the peasants around Glengariff, but she is losing her influence. The national school board is opposed to her. The teachers have disputed her power and authority with such persistence that she cannot exercise them among the present generation as she did among those of the past. It is only among the schoolless communities, far back in the rocky glens along the seashore, where the people cannot read or write and do not have candles to illuminate their lonely cabins during the long winter nights, that she is remembered at all. In more thickly settled parts of the country where the national schools stand at three-mile intervals, the children even scoff at her and ridicule her and say that she may play all the pranks she likes with them and welcome. Cleena has been a favorite of the Irish poets for ages, and appears in many old-fashioned love stories. "God grant 't is not Cleena, the queen that pursues me; While I dream of dark groves and O'Donavan's daughter." Cleena often did a kindly act, and when Dooling O'Hartigan, the bosom friend of Murrough, the eldest son and heir apparent of Brian Boru, was on his way to the battle of Clontarf, she met him and tried to persuade him to stay out of the fight. But nothing could induce him to abandon his friends in such an emergency, particularly as the aged king had given Murrough the command of the army that day. Having failed to persuade him, Cleena placed a magic cloak around O'Hartigan and warned him solemnly that he would certainly be slain if he threw it off. He fought fiercely all day by the side of his friend and made fearful havoc among the Danes. The field was strewn with the bodies of the men he slew, and Murrough, observing the slaughter, but being unable to recognize the cause of it, cried out: "I hear the blows of O'Hartigan, but I cannot see him!" In order to console and encourage his friend, O'Hartigan threw off the cloak that made him invisible. The moment he stood unprotected an arrow from the bow of a Dane smote him in the temple, and he died for neglecting Cleena's words of warning. It is only occasionally that the fairies interfere with people nowadays. Then it is to make trouble for innocent men who are out later than they should be and get bewildered in their brains or suffer other lapses that they are not responsible for. A friend of mine told an amusing story of his coachman, who frequently suffered from the mischievousness of a fairy not long ago, and explained in the morning: "If yer honor will belave me, it's the most mystarious thing that ever happened to a mortal man. I was coming p'aceably home along the roadside when I saw the strangest sight that mortal eyes ever looked upon, an' the ground seemed to go away from me and funny little cr'atures were dancing from one side of the road to the other. Thin all at once I fell down, and I didn't know another thing until I picked myself up from out of the ditch in the morning. "Dhrinking, was it, ye say; divil a bit did I taste a drop at all, at all, that day, barring a few glasses I had wid me frinds on the way home." Macroom is a pretty village with a castle, of which Admiral Penn, father of the founder of Pennsylvania, was once in command, and where William Penn is said to have been born. The venerable old pile was built originally in the time of King John, more than seven hundred years ago, has been burned down no less than four times, and was besieged and plundered in the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries again and again. It now belongs to Lord Ardilaun, one of the sons of Benjamin Guinness, the greatest brewer in the world, who has erected a beautiful modern residence near by and occasionally occupies it. Lord Ardilaun owns so many castles that he would find it difficult to live in all of them the same year. He would be kept moving about like a commercial traveler. He has a beautiful estate on one side of Glengariff and a shooting lodge on the other, and his favorite residence is a stately château near Muckross Abbey on the shores of the Lakes of Killarney. He has a shooting lodge at Ashford, and another at Ross Hill in Central Ireland, a fishing lodge at Kylemon Pass in Connemara, and city residences on Stephens Green, Dublin, and at No. 11 Carleton House Terrace, London. The traveler bound for Glengariff changes from the railway train to an open coach at the railway station of Macroom. The coach is built for mountain travel, strong and heavy, and the seats, which extend from side to side, accommodate four people of ordinary dimensions. The handbags are stowed away under the seats and in a cavern which opens from the rear. A couple of steamer trunks can be taken along also. There is a roof to the stage, which is very much needed to keep off the rain, and it can be rolled up into a ridge in the middle of the supporting hoops in the sunshine. [Illustration: LAKE GOUGANE-BARRA, COUNTY CORK] The driver of a stage in Ireland doesn't flourish and crack his whip like the gentlemen who pursue that line of business in Montana and Colorado. He is usually a talkative chap, and tells interesting stories with a deep, rich brogue and quaint wit that is charming, but he drives quietly through the villages and pulls up at his destination as modestly as if he were on a cart instead of a coach full of tourists. In the Rocky Mountains the stage driver always "shows off" at the end of his journey, but he never tries to do anything of that sort in Ireland. The road follows along the banks of the Sullane River until it reaches a string of lakes called Inchageela, which are dotted with lovely little islands, and are said to be full of fish. There is not a tree to be seen, but the ground is covered with a rich, thick, velvet turf, and myriads of wild flowers of all colors and all varieties--a crazy quilt of bloom. No one ever imagined that there could be so many wild flowers or such beautiful ones. The little town of Inchageela is the lunch station, where we were served with a wholesome meal of roast mutton, potatoes, lettuce, and gooseberry tart that tasted as good as anything I ever had at the Waldorf, and the buxom, red-faced landlady gave us a hearty, cordial blessing as we climbed back into our seats to continue the journey. We passed several ruined castles, some of them near the roadside and the others picturesquely situated on the mountain slopes among the rocks. They all once belonged to the MacCarthys, who were kings in this country until they lost their power by foolish fighting, and to-day I have been assured that not one foot of sod in the County of Cork or in the County of Kerry is owned by a man of that name or clan. After a while we turned from the main road at a little village called Carrinacurrah, which is hardly as big as its name, and slowly climbed a picturesque hill to the mystic lake of Gougane-Barra, and stopped to rest the horses and ourselves at a neatly kept inn. As it was a holiday, all the people in the neighborhood were gathered at Cronin's Inn when the two coachloads of passengers drove in from Macroom, and several of them accompanied us across to Gougane Island and told us the history of that sacred place. There was an old man with bog-oak walking sticks to sell, and boys with post cards, for there isn't a spot in Ireland that hasn't been photographed and transferred to a post card in hideous colors. Mr. Benjamin Shorten, a man of importance in the community, had hailed the coach when it passed his house, and was therefore not only an entertainer but a fellow-passenger of the strangers within his gate. And it was a strange story that he told us of the restoration of the ruins and the erection, by Mr. John R. Walsh of Chicago, in memory of his parents, of the little shrine on the site of St. Fin-Barre's oratory which had been blessed by St. Patrick fourteen hundred years ago. Mr. Walsh could not have chosen a more beautiful or a more appropriate place for a memorial to his parents, and the work has been well done. It is a sacred as well as a most romantic spot. Gougane-Barra is what they call a "tarn," a jagged glen in the mountains nearly a mile long and about a quarter of a mile wide, almost entirely filled with water like a Norwegian fiord and entirely inclosed with walls of rock rising to a height of nearly eighteen hundred feet. The principal peaks are called Conicar (1,886 feet), Bealick (1,762 feet), and Foilasteokeen (1,698 feet). The cliffs cast a deep shadow over the water and add to the solemnity and mystery with which the place has been invested from its association with the patron saint of the city of Cork and one of the earliest apostles in Ireland. After heavy rains each mountain side becomes a foaming cataract, and the natives say that the sound of the water pouring down the rocks may be heard for miles. The lake is very deep and is the source of the River Lee, which runs sixty-five miles from here to the Bay of Cork. The island is approached by a narrow, artificial causeway, at the head of which is an arched tomb built into the side of the mountain, in which Father Mahoney, a recluse, was buried in 1728. He was the last of the monks to live in the little abbey. He is regarded by the peasants as next to St. Fin-Barre in holiness, and Fin-Barre is ranked next to St. Patrick, only a little below him in their veneration. When the old women passed Father Mahoney's tomb they knelt and kissed it and said their prayers. [Illustration: CHAPEL ERECTED BY MR. JOHN R. WALSH OF CHICAGO ON THE ISLAND OF GOUGANE-BARRA] The ruins of St. Fin-Barre's hermitage, which has been carefully restored, consist of a quadrangle of stone about thirty-six feet square, and there are eight cells with arched entrances in which the monks used to live. Over the entrance to each cell are modern plaster casts of the stations of the cross, and in the center, upon a pyramid of five steps, a plain wooden cross has been erected. The little chapel erected by Mr. Walsh upon the foundation of St. Fin-Barre's Oratory is thirty-six feet long by fourteen feet broad with a simple little altar and an altar rail. The remainder of the space is filled with wooden seats. There is no organ or other musical instrument, and the services that are held there every third Sunday in the month by an itinerant priest are of the simplest order. But the celebration of the anniversary of the saint on the 24th of September brings the peasants from all the country around and is attended with great solemnity. The people carry their rations with them, and camp upon the shore of the lake and along the roadway that leads down from the tarn. When we were there in June the entire island was a mass of rhododendrons in the fullness of their purple glory. If you searched the world over you could not find a more beautiful abode for a saint in peace and retirement. It has been the theme of many poems, and a native bard has painted with graphic lines the scene that is hallowed by so many pious associations and surrounded with so much natural beauty. It is one of the holiest places in Ireland, and the consecrated waters of a spring called St. Fin-Barre's Well, which has been carefully walled in, have the power to heal all kinds of diseases except those that have been caused by dissipation. At the annual festival of St. Fin-Barre the peasants bring their sick children and even their ailing animals to be cured. And the neighboring bushes that surround the well and the wooden crosses that have been erected there in recognition of relief are hung with votive offerings. A penitent who comes to be cleansed of his sins may find full instructions engraven upon a large slab of brown stone. It is said to be more than two hundred years old, but records the good deeds of Rev. Dennis Mahoney, who died in 1728. It is necessary to say five "aves" and five "paters" at the first station of the cross within the ruins, and add five more at each as they are passed, making forty "aves" and forty "paters" at the last cell. Of course, there is a legend connected with the well--there always is--and in this case St. Patrick, after banishing the reptiles from the country, overlooked one hideous snake. It crawled into the Well of Gougane to escape him, and it created serious depredation in the surrounding country, coming out at night to attack the flocks of sheep and the herds of goats and cattle, until St. Patrick came here and drove it out by sprinkling the well with holy water. "The ould enemy" vanished and has never since ventured to leave his loathsome slime upon the green banks of the island. In order to prevent his return St. Patrick sent St. Fin-Barre here to watch the well and exterminate the monster if it came again. But it has not reappeared, and as a token of gratitude St. Fin-Barre erected the Cathedral of Cork and founded a great monastery beside it, leaving several devoted priests here in his hermitage to keep watch of things. The driver gave us an hour to see this lovely and sacred place, and then we returned to the main road, resumed our journey, and soon entered the Pass of Keimaneigh, which divides these savage mountains in twain and permits people to pass from the former kingdom of the MacCarthy clan to that of the outlawed O'Sullivans. The mountains were split by some terrible cataclysm ages ago, but Nature has done what she could to heal the wound. The almost perpendicular walls were clothed with wild ivy, arbutus, hawthorn, laburnum, rhododendron, and other trees and shrubs, which were glorious in color and light up the gloom of the gorge with wonderful beauty. We have many grander canyons in the Rocky Mountains, and several of the fiords on the Norwegian coast are grander and inclosed by loftier peaks and more precipitous walls, but none of them that I have seen are anywhere near as beautiful. [Illustration: THE PASS OF KEIMANEIGH THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS BETWEEN CORK AND GLENGARIFF] Nor do I remember a panorama where the fiercer and the gentler moods of nature are expressed in such striking contrast. The eagles and hawks that soar in the narrow skyline, directly above our heads, and encircle the rugged and irregular peaks that rise on either side, look down upon an exhibition of wild flowers that was never surpassed, and the colors seem to be more brilliant than elsewhere. People always ask, How did they come there?--these blotches of scarlet and purple and pink and blue and gold against the dark gray surface of the rock. The wind was the landscape gardener here, and a wonderful artist he is. The dust that gradually accumulated in the crevices and scars of this mountain wall was carried, storm by storm, from some dry spot, upon the wings of the wind. And the same messenger carried the seeds, perhaps for many miles, and dropped them in the nest that he had already provided, where the sun and the rain could reach them and they could germinate and their souls could awaken. The germs of life that lay hidden in their tiny cells then reached out for air and began to grow and bloom and illuminate this stern and gloomy canyon with their smiles. As the journey continues the gorge grows wilder, the walls higher, and the vegetation less, except in the turf beside the roadway, where the violet, the forget-me-not, the belated shamrock, and that other modest little flower called "London Pride," sing a silent song of praise to Heaven. They call Glengariff "the Madeira of Great Britain," because its climate varies only a few degrees, winter and summer, and is about the same as that of the Madeira Islands, without a trace of frost or snow except up among the rugged mountains that protect it from the cold winds and make it an ideal resort for those who seek health, rest, or solitude. The name signifies "a rough glen," and that describes it exactly--a deep cleft in the mountains, a gash which some irresistible glacier made ages ago in the rugged rocks, about three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide, which terminates upon an exquisite little sheet of water, a branch of the Bay of Bantry, on the far southwestern coast of Ireland. The glen is filled with wonderful trees and wonderful flowers, which seem to bloom perennially. The surrounding mountains are of the wildest description, being naked moorlands covered with heather and gorse and huge gray bowlders and peaks which project into the air. Among them, it is said, there are no less than 365 little lakes, that number having suggested to the pious peasants, who attribute everything to apostolic interposition, that some holy saint prayed effectually for a separate one to supply water for each day of the year. The rocks reach far away to the westward and down into the cold blue of an uneasy ocean, which beats impetuously upon the outer walls, but the water is seldom disturbed by more than a ripple within the bay. For a combination of ocean, mountains, lakes, rocks, waterfalls, forests, and flowers I have never seen the like, and any one can easily understand why Glengariff is called the most beautiful spot in Ireland. The town of Glengariff is composed of fourteen houses, six saloons, a post office, a vine-covered headquarters for the constabulary, which looks altogether too picturesque and beautiful for such a practical purpose, a Catholic church, brand new and built with money from America, an old church where the Catholics formerly worshiped, now used as a school for teaching lace making, a pretty little Church of Ireland chapel, an ivy-clad rectory adjoining, and several comfortable hotels. There are four hundred inhabitants in the parish, mostly farmers, scattered within the glen and upon the surrounding rocks. They are mostly Harringtons, Sullivans, Caseys, and O'Sheas, and are nearly all related. All the population are Roman Catholics, except twelve families who belong to the Church of Ireland and are ministered to by the Rev. Mr. Harvey, who is paid a salary of £200 a year and is given a picturesque old manse in the midst of one of the loveliest gardens and groves you can imagine. Eccles Hotel has been famous for more than a century. You will find a flattering account of it in Mrs. Hall's book on Ireland, published in the '50s. And, by the way, that work contains a charming description of the country, although so much in detail that it fills three ponderous volumes that weigh four or five pounds each. There have been many changes since the book was written, but they concern only the people and their customs. Its historical references, its legends, and descriptions of scenery hold good to-day. The hotel, not the book, is a rambling, irregular structure with many gables and many chimneys, and is almost completely covered with a lustrous robe of English ivy. It sits at the foot of the glen where the rocks and the ocean meet and the prospect from the front windows is unsurpassed. The bay is enclosed like a wall with mighty mountains. Titanic rocks have rolled down into the water in some great cataclysm and now lie in picturesque shapes, here and there, as a tasteful artist would have arranged them, clad in vivid green. The outlines of the bay are irregular. Little arms of water reach up among the rocks that inclose it, and, when the tide goes out, it discloses deep beds of wondrous seaweed, curious vegetable and animal forms that Nature in her fantastic moods has designed in her studio under the waters of the sea. In the foreground at the right is a landing place for the little steamer that comes over from Bantry twice a day, and beyond it, rising from a rocky eminence, are the ruins of an ancient castle with a tower intact that was once a stronghold of the O'Sullivans, when they were kings in these parts. Now it belongs to the estate of the late Earl of Bantry. On the other side of the bay a long point of land protrudes across the horizon, and there it was that the French troops intended to land under Wolfe Tone and General Hoche on Dec. 26, 1796. There were 17 ships of the line, 13 frigates, 5 corvettes, 2 gunboats, and 6 transports, with about 14,000 men and 45,000 stands of arms, and it was expected that the news of their landing would be the signal for an uprising of the Irish people. Simon White, who lived near the point where the landing was to be made, was a man of quick movements and energy, and as soon as the fleet was sighted he saddled his horse and rode direct to Cork--sixty-five miles--in half a dozen hours to notify the military commander and other authorities of the invasion. For that the king made him the Earl of Bantry and gave him a strip of land around the bay twenty-two miles on one side and twenty-two miles on the other, stretching back into the mountains an average of six miles. The title has lasted through three generations, but has expired because the third Earl of Bantry left no son to wear it when he died a few years ago. Providence intervened, however, on the side of the English, and averted what might have been a disastrous struggle with France, with Ireland as the battlefield, as well as a civil war for the overthrow of British authority. A storm came up and dispersed the fleet. When the wind subsided, a dense fog overspread Bantry Bay and the ocean. When the air cleared the ships were so scattered that each sailed away on its own account during the next fortnight, and one by one they returned to the harbors of France. General Hoche, in the _Fraternitie_, finally reached Rochelle, after several narrow escapes, with his ship in a sinking condition. Several of the largest ships went upon the rocks, and about eighteen hundred sailors and soldiers perished. No Frenchman trod upon Irish soil with the exception of a lieutenant and seven seamen, who were sent out in a small boat from one of the ships during the fog to reconnoiter, and, running aground, were captured by James O'Sullivan. Bantry Bay is a magnificent inlet twenty-one miles long, and with an average breadth of four miles and an average depth of sixty fathoms, without a shoal or sandbank or any other peril to navigation. It is completely sheltered from the weather and is considered the finest harbor in Ireland. It is the rendezvous of the British North Atlantic fleet and the fleet of the channel, which come here regularly to practice maneuvers, to correct their compasses and regulate their range finders and do light repairs. The only town on the bay is a village of the same name, which has been described as a seaport without trade, a harbor without shipping, and a fishery without a market. There is a convent, a monastery, and a factory for the manufacture of Irish tweeds. [Illustration: GLENGARIFF BRIDGE] Adjoining the village is Bantry House, a stately mansion surrounded by a beautiful lawn and grove, which was the residence of the late Earl of Bantry, and was inherited by his nephew, Leigh White. Another nephew, Simon White, occupies the ancient Glengariff Castle, which is nearer the head of the bay--a large and gloomy-looking structure almost entirely hidden by the surrounding trees. Thirty-one thousand acres of land around the bay was inherited by these two young men, but it is very poor land. Three-fourths of it is bare rock, and the entire population upon their holdings is only about four hundred men, women, and children. A daughter of the late Earl of Bantry married Lord Ardilaun, who was Arthur Edward Guinness, a son of the great brewer of Dublin and probably the richest man in Ireland. The hotel is inclosed in a beautiful hedge of fuchsias, which flourish in this climate, and are commonly used for hedges. The grounds of the hotel extend over two hundred and fifty acres, mostly dense forest, with a beautiful garden of twelve acres or more. All the vegetables, poultry, eggs, and other produce are raised on the place, and the milk and cream and butter come from a private herd of cows, which is a great luxury. There is splendid fishing, both in the bay and in two small lakes, one hour's walk from the hotel, also boating, swimming, and any number of beautiful walks and drives through the woods and along the mountain roads. The only antiquity in the immediate neighborhood is a picturesque ruin called Cromwell's bridge. While the grim old Covenanter was passing up the glen with an escort to visit the O'Sullivans, citizens of Glengariff who had heard of the devastation he had created elsewhere tore down a bridge over a mountain gorge, hoping that it would turn him back. But after much trouble he and his men succeeded in crossing the canyon into the village, and there he summoned the inhabitants and told them that if they did not restore the bridge by the time he returned from his visit he would hang a man for every hour's delay. The bridge was ready for him, "fur they knew the auld villain would kape his word." The surrounding country is sparsely settled by a hardy, stubborn race, who fish in the winter and farm in the summer, like the people who live on the bleak New England coast. The children herd cattle, sheep, and goats upon the mountain sides; the pigs and the poultry share the ancient stone hovels occupied by their owners; the women cultivate a little spot of soil wherever they can find it in the crevices among the rocks, raising a few potatoes and cabbages, and look after the chickens and the babies. Scattered over the mountain side and reached by steep but perfect roads, are the roofless walls of what once were the homes of neighbors who have emigrated to America. The fate of those who remained seemed hopeless until recently, but the benevolent purposes of the government are brightening the lives and improving the condition of many of them. At Glengariff I got my first chance to observe the work of the Congested Districts Board through which the government is trying to relieve the distress of the poor and make life worth living for those wretched but courageous souls who dwell always in the mists of the mountains and among the moorlands and the peat bogs on the west coast of Ireland. They are the poorest, the least nourished, and the most helpless portion of the population. They are scattered widely. The arable soil is so scarce that they cannot live in communities and survive. Here and there among the rocks, where the kindly winds have dropped grains of earth during the ages, they are cultivating little patches of potatoes and cabbage. They follow a few cows and goats that nibble at the blades of grass that grow in the cracks of the rock and keep a few chickens, which share with them the roof shelter of a leaky, straw-thatched cabin built of rough stone and with a mud floor. The cabins are as comfortless as one can imagine, but they are no worse than thousands that may be found in our southern States, in the mountains of Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia. Thousands of "crackers" in Georgia have no better homes and no more consolations in life, but their cabins are more neatly kept and are not situated among such filthy and loathsome surroundings as those of the poor "bog-trotters" of Ireland. The interior of the cabins is quite as repulsive as the exterior. The chickens run in and out with the children, and they "kape the pig in the parlor" because that is the only room in the house and there is no other pen. The inevitable baby--you never enter a cabin without finding one--is always in its mother's arms and another is generally clinging to her skirts, while two or three more are playing in the filth around the door. There is only one room, where they all sleep, the elder ones upon rough benches, covered with pallets of straw, and the younger ones on the floor--grandparents, parents, children, pigs, and chickens--young and old, both sexes, lying side by side, with whatever covering their scanty earnings enable them to provide. There are no sheets or mattresses; no pillows, only comfortables that have been used for generations, and tattered blankets that are never washed. There is no furniture but a table and two or three stools. There are shelves, and a few nails and hooks driven into the walls. There is no stove, but a peat fire under the chimney where the mother cooks in pans and kettles when the weather is stormy and uses a rock outside for a kitchen when it doesn't rain or blow. There are few dishes, mostly broken china, and the covers of tin cans. The walls are windowless; there is no light but that which comes through the door, and during the long winter nights, when, in this latitude, it becomes dark at four o'clock, the family hibernate in the darkness because candles are beyond their means and burning peat gives no light. You can understand why so many of these poor wretches lose their wits. The insane asylums of Ireland are filled with unfortunates from this coast, most of them are hereditary and chronic cases caused by melancholia, nervousness, and starvation. I have been trying in vain to find out how they spend their time during the long winter evenings, but have been unable to get any satisfactory information on that point. Notwithstanding these conditions a stranger always receives a polite and a cordial welcome and usually an invitation to come in and rest and drink a cup of milk. There is no apology for poverty, or the appearance of things; there is no obsequiousness and no insolence, but a dignified, hearty handclasp at the coming and at the going and a cheerful invitation to call again. The Children of the Mist are invariably well behaved and polite. Although their clothes are ragged and their bodies are filthy with dirt, they have the same manners you would expect among the nobility. They are always obedient, deferential, and unselfish. They are kind and attentive to their younger brothers and sisters, and show perfect respect to their parents and elders. We have seen them in the cabins, in the fields, and in the schools. I have asked everybody where they get their manners, and who teaches them deportment in this barren wilderness of filth and bad smells. I asked Miss Walshe, the medical officer of the district, who goes from cabin to cabin as an angel of healing; I asked Miss O'Donnell, who has charge of the lace school; I asked the head constable at the police station; I asked the school-teachers and others, and they all say that the politeness of the Irish peasants, like their pride, is inborn and final proof that they are the descendants of kings. This pride is a strange thing, and it is most surprising. Every woman you find in a soiled and ragged dress in a wretched cabin receives you as her equal and talks with dignity and without restraint, and Mr. Duke, manager of the Eccles Hotel, told me this morning of a mountain peasant whose raggedness aroused his sympathy, but who would not accept a suit of clothes. Miss O'Donnell, the lace teacher, and Miss Walshe, the nurse, told us that the pretty young women we saw in the lace school and the boys and girls we saw in the national school, all come from such cabins as I have described. Some of the blue-eyed, bare-footed urchins have complexions that society belles would give their souls for, and long, beautiful coal-black hair, yet they sleep on a mud floor with pigs and chickens, and many of them walk three and four miles and back for the privilege of attending school. With a little training these children make excellent servants, faithful, obedient, and tactful, and almost without exception they go to mass and confession regularly, and they have a high standard of morals and a conscientious devotion to duty. Although it costs as much to get married as it does to buy a ticket to America, there are no unmarried people living together here; illegitimate births are extremely rare and chastity is the commonest of virtues. There is no compulsory education law, but the priests drive the children to school until they are fourteen and will not confirm them until they have passed a certain grade. A gentle, soft-voiced woman in a rude cabin in the mountain side told us the other day that her greatest trouble was that her daughter had been kept from school by sickness and she was afraid that the priest would not confirm her because she was so far behind the other girls in her lessons. The same rule applies to the lace school which has been established by the government through the Congested Districts Board in the old building used by the Catholic church before the new one was erected. The government pays a teacher and advances the material. The girls get the price their lacework brings when sold in the shops of London or Dublin or at the Eccles Hotel here at Glengariff. Miss O'Donnell tells me that Mrs. Duke, the wife of the manager of the hotel, is their best sales agent, and a stock of samples is always kept where the guests can see them. Fifty-one girls are now attending the school, and some of them walk seven miles and back every day. Father Harrington will not allow them to attend the lace school until after they are confirmed, and it is a great inducement to join the church because they are able to earn forty, fifty, and some of them sixty pounds a year, which secures them better clothes, better food, and some comforts for their families. Last year this little school sold nearly three thousand dollars' worth of lace, and the money was divided among fifty-one girls who made it. Every young person who can get money enough goes to America. And if it were not for the money they send back here many of their parents and younger brothers and sisters would starve. A gentleman who handles the postal orders in one of the most forlorn and wretched villages of Ireland told me that the Christmas gifts of money that came from America kept many a family in food during the winter. It is the ambition of every young man and woman to go to the United States, and only the lack of steamship fare keeps them in Ireland. A sturdy lad of eighteen who guided us across the moor to the roadway this morning told me confidentially that he was going to Arizona as soon as his uncle, who was doing very well out there, was able to send him the price. He asked many questions about that part of the country. His uncle is working in a gold mine near Tombstone and is "earning more than a pound a day, steady, six days in the week, and they pay him double wages if he works on Sunday." To a lad whose life is so barren and whose horizon is so narrow and who sees his father and his neighbors trying to wrest a scanty sustenance partly from the sea and partly from the land, and who scarcely catch enough fish or raise enough potatoes to feed the mouths of their own families, a pound a day looks like the income of an earl. The Catholic church at Glengariff is a brand new building of stone, and looks large enough for ten times the population of this parish, which has only about four hundred souls, men, women, and children. It was built with American money raised by Father Brown, the late priest, who went to Brooklyn, Boston, and several other cities of the United States, hunted up the relatives of the people who live here and those who went from these parts, and obtained £3,000. He was a good man and took a great interest in the temporal as well as the spiritual welfare of his people. Since his death Father Harrington has succeeded him and serves four churches in a radius of seventeen miles. We attended mass on Sunday. The church was crowded. All the aisles were filled with kneeling worshipers, up to the very feet of the altar and in the vestibule, or the steps, and around outside were forty or fifty men and women kneeling reverently upon the sod, although they couldn't hear the voice of the priest. One of the men told me that he believed every person in the parish was present and that they always came unless they were too ill to move, that no storm could stop them. As a rule they came from mountain cabins five and six miles away, in carts and on foot, and some of them carried children in their arms the entire distance. Notwithstanding their poverty they were better dressed than the working people of Dublin. Their clothes were neat and well brushed and mended. However ragged the garments they wear on week days may be, they always have a decent suit to wear to the house of God. The solemnity of the service was very impressive. To these people the church is the gate of heaven. Its decorations and ceremonies appeal to their imagination, to their senses of color and sound, and the mystic rites sink into their souls. Although there are six saloons for a parish of four hundred people the chief constable tells me there is very little drinking or disorder, and practically no crime. He hasn't had a case of robbery for a year, and except upon convivial occasions like weddings and wakes the people are very orderly. Most of the saloons, he tells me, sell very little liquor, and some of their licenses run back for years, being renewed annually to the same family for generations. A liquor license in Ireland cannot be taken away except for serious reasons, as long as the annual fee is paid. They can be sold or transferred, but if they lapse they are cancelled. In a neat stone cottage, surrounded by a well kept garden, among the rocky mountain sides that overlook Bantry Bay, lives Lacia Walshe, strong in body, strong in mind, and strong of purpose. She goes among the wretched hovels in this locality attending maternity cases which occur with amazing frequency, for the poorer the family the more children is the rule. Miss Walshe does not give her entire attention to midwifery, however, but treats every case of illness that comes within her ken, from sore fingers to delirium tremens. That is not a figure of speech, but an actual fact, for many a time at midnight has she been called from her cottage to some miserable stone hovel in the mountains to quiet with opiates a drunken ruffian who is haunted with reptiles and raving in his dreams. Miss Walshe belongs to the poor, and is kept here by a society with a name of fifteen words--"Lady Dudley's Scheme for the Establishment of District Nurses in the Poorest Parts of Ireland." She wears a badge the shape of a heart supporting a crown and in the center is a shamrock leaf encircled with the words of Another One who went about doing good as she does: "By love serve one another." The Countess of Dudley organized this work in 1903, beginning with two nurses in Geesala and Bealadangan, County Galway. And they did so much good that the number has now been increased to fifteen and they are located at as many places in the poorest districts of Ireland, where there are no physicians and where the people are too poor and the population too scattered to support a doctor if one could be induced to go there. The most distressing cases are those of confinement in cabins of only one room, into which sometimes six, eight, and ten men, women, and children are crowded, sleeping upon the floor. We went into a hut of only one room, not more than twelve by fourteen feet in size, which is occupied at night by nine persons,--father and mother, and grandmother and six children, the oldest being eighteen years of age. We visited another hut where there were eight children living, and were told of one where there were seventeen, the births of most of them not more than a year apart. To relieve conditions that may be easily imagined, Lady Dudley's society with the long name was formed, and is now doing an immense amount of good. Fifteen courageous and conscientious women are comfortably placed in localities where their services are most needed, at a cost of not more than a thousand dollars per year each, which includes a bicycle, the most convenient means of locomotion they can find, and an allowance for the hire of horses and jaunting cars when they can be obtained. Because it is impossible to find lodging and boarding places, it has been necessary to build cottages for the nurses, and in some cases the demands upon them are so great that they are allowed to employ assistance. They are equipped with surgical implements and medical stores. Each of the nurses has taken a course in surgery for emergency cases for they are frequently called upon to set bones and dress wounds and even to perform operations. They are also furnished with baby clothes, old linen, warm garments, stores of condensed milk and beef extract, and other delicacies, and although Florence Nightingale relieved thousands, her work did not compare in peril or privation or fatigue with the almost daily experience of some of these noble women. XXVI THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY The big stages that cross the mountains from Glengariff to Killarney are chiefly loaded with Americans. It is singular how few other nationalities are represented in the passenger traffic. The morning we crossed there were four great vehicles carrying twenty-four persons each, and every passenger, except one German bridal couple and a funny acting Englishman, was from the United States. In our coach were representatives from Cincinnati, Washington, St. Louis, Omaha, Texas, and Minnesota, and I suppose other sections were equally represented upon the three other coaches. Everybody who comes to Ireland takes this ride because it offers the grandest scenery and one of the most delightful experiences that tourists can enjoy. The coach begins to climb slowly through the beautiful glen as soon as it leaves the Eccles Hotel and continues climbing, up and up, for six miles through a dense forest of glowing green, until it emerges into a wilderness of rock and moorland, wild, picturesque, and almost entirely uninhabited. There is very little vegetation, only a few streaks and bunches of grass that grow along the cracks in the rocky surface, or in wind-carried soil that has been caught in crevices. It is one of the wildest places you can imagine, and as we go upward it becomes more so. The stage winds around the brow of a mountain that seems a solid mass of stone, and as far as one can see there is nothing else in the universe except a ribbon of silver that winds at the foot of the slope where we left a river when we began the journey. One has the sensation of awe that solitude often produces, but it is disturbed by the chatter of the passengers. It is as dreary and desolate and lonesome a place as the world contains. This is a comparatively new road. It was not built until 1838, but, like all the roads of Ireland, it is solid and perfect and made to last forever. The old road, and the principal line of communication between the counties of Cork and Kerry for centuries, ran along the slope of Hungry Mountain, so called because it is so devoid of vegetation that a goat would have to take his luncheon if he went up there. And from there it crossed to the mountain of the "Priest's Leap," which was named from a legend that grows out of persecution of the Catholics in Cromwell's time. The driver told it in this way: "Ye see, yer honor, in Cromwell's time there was a bounty of five pun' fer the head of a wolf and five pun' for the head of a priest; an' a dale of money was made o' both o' 'em. Well, bedad, one foine day a priest was ridin' over the hill, whin the Tories caught sight o' him (we called thim Tories in those days, the blaggards that did be huntin' o' the priests), and them that purshued him were jist to lay their bloody hands upon his blessed robe, whin he prayed to St. Fiachna. The blessed saint heard him, and the donkey he was ridin' gave a lape siven miles from one mountain to the ither, and yees can see the marks of the baste's hoofs in the solid rock to this day." It takes but little encouragement and a minimum of material to supply legends in this desolate and weird region, where every sound seems unnatural and the trembling of a leaf causes the nerves to tingle. The road resembles Brünig Pass in Switzerland more than any other that I have seen, with the Lakes of Killarney corresponding to Lake Lucerne, but it is less civilized and there are very few human habitations. The coach keeps climbing until we come to the grand divide, 1,233 feet above the sea, where the passage from the "Kingdom of Cork" to the "Kingdom of Kerry," as once they were called, is made through a tunnel about six hundred feet long and two smaller ones that are cut through the peak of the Esk Mountain. Until these tunnels were built travelers were carried over the rocks to the other end of the road on the backs of men. The country improves a little after the divide is crossed, and there is a gradual descent into a rather good grazing country which belongs to the Marquis of Lansdowne, but even here it is a good deal of a job for a cow to make a living, and there is a proverb that "A Kerry cow never looks up at a passing stranger for fear it will lose the bite." The Earl of Lansdowne, who has been governor-general of Canada, governor-general of India, lord of the treasury, secretary of war, minister of foreign affairs, and has held other important offices in the British cabinet, is one of the largest landowners in Ireland, although he spends very little of his time there. He has a long list of Irish titles inherited from his ancestors. In addition to being Earl Wycombe, Earl of Kerry, and Earl of Shelburne, he is Viscount Clanmaurice, Viscount Fitzmorris, Baron of Lixnaw, Baron of Dunkerron, and Viscount of Calstone, and his eldest son is the Earl of Kerry. He traces his lineage to Maurice Fitzgerald, who came over with Strongbow, who also was the ancestor of the earls of Kildare and the Duke of Leinster. The Lansdowne family have intermarried with the Leinsters, the MacCarthys, the Desmonds, the Ormondes, and other of the great families of Ireland, and, near or far, the marquis can claim relationship with nearly all the Irish nobility. Occasionally we saw a stone cabin in the far distance, from which a pale stream of smoke was arising, but until noonday, when we dropped into the valley and approached the little village of Kenmare, there was scarcely a human habitation. At Kenmare is an attractive hotel, at which a bountiful lunch is served for two shillings, and a little time is given the passengers to rest. Those who wish to do so can take a railway train here and run over to Killarney in three-quarters of an hour, but they will lose the most attractive part of the ride and some of the sublimest scenery in Ireland. The stage commences to climb again shortly after we leave Kenmare, and crawls along the mountain sides between the rocks and the heather all the afternoon. This country was fought over again and again ages ago. The mountain range was a sort of barrier between the warlike clans of MacCarthy and O'Sullivan, who met upon its rocky slopes and slew each other for any pretext, less for reason than for the love of fighting. The war cries of all the clans of southern Ireland, however, have been heard upon these rocks. "Shannied-Aboo" was the cry of the earls of Desmond; "Crom-Aboo" was the cry of the Geraldines, and the Duke of Leinster has it for the motto upon his coat of arms. The word "aboo" is the Gaelic equivalent to our "hurrah." The cry of the O'Neills was "Lamh-Dearg-Aboo" (Hurrah for the Red Hand, which was the crest of the O'Neills). The O'Brien cry was "Lamh-Laider-Aboo" (Hurrah for the Strong Hand). The Burkes cried "Galraigh-Aboo" (Hurrah for the Red Englishman). The Fitzpatricks, "Gear-Laider-Aboo" (Hurrah for the Strong and the Sharp). In the tenth year of the reign of Henry VII. an act passed by parliament prohibited the use of these war cries in the following quaint terms: "Item; Prayen the commons in this present parliament assembled; that for as much as there has been great variances, malices, debates and comparisons between divers lords and gentlemen of this land, which hath daily increased by seditious means of divers idle, ill-disposed persons, utterly taking upon them to be servants to such lords and gentlemen; for that they would be borne in their said idleness, and their other unlawful demeaning, and nothing for any favor or entirely good love or will that they bear under such lords and gentlemen. Therefore be it enacted and established by the same authority; That no person nor persons, of whatsoever estate, condition or degree he or they be of, take part with any lord or gentleman or uphold any such variances or comparisons in words or deeds as in using these words, Com-Aboo, Butler-Aboo, or other words like, or otherwise contrary to the King's laws, his crown, his dignity and his peace; but to call on St. George in the name of his sovereign lord, King of England for the time being. And if any person or persons of whatsoever estate, condition or degree he or they be of, do contrary so offending in the premisses, or any of them be taken and committed to ward, there to remain without bayle or maiprixe till he or they have made fine after the discretion of the King's Deputy of Ireland, and the King's Counsail of the same for the time being." The above is a sample of British legislation at the period that act was passed, and that conglomerate of words means simply that enthusiastic Irishmen were forbidden to excite their own emotions and the emotions of others by the cries of their clan and were admonished to use only the war cry of the King of England, who in battle is supposed to appeal to St. George. The first glimpse of the Lakes of Killarney is obtained as the coach comes around the point of a mountain, and a great green amphitheater with a body of glimmering water at the bottom is suddenly spread out before the passengers. The outlines are fringed with forests and the lakes are studded with tiny islands of different sizes and shapes, but all glow with a vivid color that is not found anywhere else. And this picture is before the vision until the stage plunges into a tunnel of foliage at the foot of the slope, near the ancient ruins of Muckross Abbey, and follows along through a tunnel made of high stone walls and overhanging boughs until the village of Killarney is reached. Long, long ago there were two giants, the giant of Glengariff and the giant of Killarney, and they were very jealous of each other. They kept up a continual controversy, each boasting of his own strength and valor and daring the other to cross the mountains. Finally, after everybody got tired of these threats and challenges, just as people do nowadays about the talking matches of pugilists, the giant of Killarney decided to go over to Glengariff and see what sort of a person his foe might be. Disguising himself as a monk, he crossed the divide, came down into the village, and was shown the way to his enemy's cabin. The giant of Glengariff, having heard of the approach of his rival, became very much frightened and hastily made a cradle big enough to hold his enormous carcass, and, lying down in it, ordered his wife to tuck him up with a blanket. And there he lay, pretending to be asleep, when the giant of Killarney approached the door and politely offered the compliments of the season to the lady he saw sitting on a three-legged stool with her knitting in her lap. Her hand was on the edge of a cradle twelve feet long, and she rocked it gently, crooning an old lullaby. "Hush, you spalpeen, lest ye wake the baby!" and she continued to sing the slumber song in a soft, sweet voice. "Let's see your baby," whispered the giant of Killarney, and she lifted the blanket gently from her husband's face. His enemy looked at him in amazement for an instant, and then, begging the good lady's pardon for the intrusion, started back over the mountain trail as fast as his big legs could take him. "If the baby's as big as that, how big must the ould man be!" Valentine Charles Browne, Earl of Kenmare, owns all of the Lakes of Killarney, all the land that surrounds them, and, according to the grant of James I., Feb. 16, 1622, "all the islands of, or in the same, and the fisheries of said lakes, and the soil and bottom thereof." He owns all the mountains round about, and one of his stewards told me that they comprised 999,000 acres. He owns the village and everything within it, even the ground on which the railway station stands. All of the hotels occupy his soil under lease, and the insane asylum, with its six hundred patients, and the poorhouse for County Kerry, with four hundred friendless and destitute creatures within its walls. Sir Valentine Browne, Knight of Totteridge, Lincolnshire, England, was constable, warden, victualler, and treasurer of Berwick in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who sent him with Sir Henry Wallop in 1583 to survey escheated lands in Ireland. He remained on the island, was subsequently sworn of the privy council, represented the County of Sligo in parliament in 1588, and in June of the same year purchased from MacCarthy More, Earl of Glencare, certain lands, manors, etc., in counties Kerry and Cork, and obtained by patents from Queen Elizabeth all the remainder of the Glencare estates. He was afterward quite useful to her majesty, as his posterity have been to her successors. Sir Valentine Browne, his grandson, was created Baronet of Kenmare in 1622 and received a grant, from which I have quoted, of all the lakes and all the lands and mountains round about them to the very bottom thereof. In 1689 these estates were forfeited by his son because of his fidelity to the unfortunate James II., but were restored to the family in 1720, and in 1724 Valentine, the fifth viscount, was made an earl. The late earl was one of the most devoted councilors and confidential advisers of the late Queen Victoria. She was very much attached to him, and he had charge of her household as vice chamberlain and lord chamberlain from 1872 to 1886, and was one of her lords in waiting until her death. His mother was Gertrude Thynne, a niece of the Earl of Bath, and is still living. The father died in 1905 at the age of eighty, after a useful and honorable career. The present earl was educated at Eton and Oxford, served for a time in the army, went to Australia as an aid-de-camp to the Governor of Victoria, was state steward to the Earl of Aberdeen during the first term of the latter as lord lieutenant of Ireland, and married Elizabeth Baring, daughter of Lord Revelstoke of the famous firm of Baring Brothers, bankers, London. He has a brother-in-law in New York. The Earl of Kenmare is the most prominent and influential Roman Catholic in the Irish peerage. He is devoted to the interests of the church, is devout in his habits, maintains a private chapel in his London residence and at his mansion here, and a family chaplain in the old-fashioned way. He never leaves his house in the morning without prayers at which all the household and guests are present and the servants are called in from their tasks. There is a cathedral of pretentious architecture upon his grounds in the village to which his father contributed a quarter of a million dollars. It has been built within the last few years by Bishop Mangan of this diocese, and is already being enlarged, although to a stranger it seems to be big enough as it is. [Illustration: KENMARE HOUSE, KILLARNEY] Kenmare House has one hundred and nine rooms. The grand reception salon is 135 feet in length and 42 feet in width, with a deep recessed fireplace and a massive oak mantel; the library is 48 by 42 feet, the state dining-room 52 by 30 feet, the drawing-room 36 by 24 feet, the smoking-room 25 by 17 feet, the family dining-room 21 by 16 feet, the earl's study 24 by 16 feet, her ladyship's boudoir 18 by 30 feet, the state bedroom 33 by 24 feet, and nine other state apartments of similar dimensions. There are sixteen family bedrooms, each with a bath attached, on the second floor, and twenty-six double and single bedrooms on the third floor, with a bachelor's wing of fifteen rooms entirely separate from the rest of the house and reached by a long corridor. There is a nursery and schoolroom 36 by 18 feet, a servants' hall 30 by 20 feet, and fifteen bedrooms for servants. Altogether there are eighty living-rooms, amply furnished, besides the kitchens, bakery, storerooms, pantries, and servants' quarters. There is a garage, and stabling for seventeen horses, a dairy, a fish hatchery which stocks the brooks with trout and the lakes with salmon; seven thousand acres of forest preserve with deer and other game, and, altogether, more than one hundred thousand acres of shooting upon the hills and mountains, the bogs and forests surrounding the Lakes of Killarney. In 1907 the game bag included 2,500 rabbits, 470 pheasants, 400 woodcock, 200 grouse, 150 hares, 100 snipe, and 40 teal ducks, 14 stags, 6 hinds, and 4 does. No account was taken of the trout and the salmon which abound in the lake and in the several rivers and brooks which feed it. It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and attractive estates in all the United Kingdom. The fishing is very good in the spring. An Englishman at our hotel brought in several beautiful ten and twelve pound salmon, which he caught with a fly, although it was warm weather and the poorest time of year for the fishing. His lordship charges a fee of five dollars for the privilege of fishing in his lake. That pays for a license of one year, but is not transferable. A transient guest at a hotel, however, can go out with licensed fishermen as often as he likes. In the spring, when the salmon are running, nets are used, and his lordship gets the proceeds of the catch. The fish are shipped to Dublin and London, and the returns are $3,000 and $4,000 a year. His lordship allows none but rowboats upon the lakes. He will not permit a steamer or motor launch or even a naphtha launch, and every one who has a boat has to take out a license, for which he collects ten shillings. But the boatmen make it up during the tourist season. The Earl of Kenmare will share his blessings, so far as his park is concerned, with you or any one else for a sixpence, and they are well worth it. I do not know any place where a lover of nature or one who is fond of strolling through the woods can get as much for his money. The demesne or park contains about nineteen hundred acres of forest and garden with many miles of walks and drives. The lodgekeepers at every one of the six gates are always alert to collect the sixpence and give you a ticket, numbered and stamped and good for that day only. But you can pass the gates with it as often as you like until they are closed at night, and a wise man will spend as much time as he can spare within the demesne every day. When we were there in June the trees were glorious; hundreds of acres of rhododendrons were in flower and made great banks of purple blossoms; the hawthorns, arbutus, laburnums, and other flowering trees and the woodbine were in their greatest glory. And when they fade we can admire the oaks and beeches that have been growing there for hundreds of years. Many of the trees were planted after designs. There are long avenues that are completely roofed by boughs, and at one place a magnificent cathedral of beeches has been devised of foliage, three wide aisles made by five rows of venerable beech trees more than three hundred years old, which were trimmed almost to the top when young and the branches trained to overlap so that they are almost a rain-proof roof. The trunks are smooth and almost straight, like the columns of a basilica, and the ground is covered with half decayed shells of beech nuts that have fallen during the centuries. But the most glorious part of the demesne is the garden, which surpasses any that I have seen for years. It occupies a terrace surrounding Kenmare House upon the highest eminence in the demesne and overlooks the lakes. It is laid out in the Italian style, and the gardener told us that it was designed by the Dowager Lady Kenmare when she was a bride. If that is true her ladyship must have been a very clever landscape gardener. The most striking feature is a tennis court inclosed within a hedge of cypress ten feet high and six feet thick, with the top trimmed to represent the wall of a castle, with arches for entrances and bays and recesses where benches have been placed to accommodate spectators. This unique wall of cypress is so dense that a tennis ball will rebound from it. Adjoining the tennis court is a croquet ground, and just behind them an exquisite little cottage where her ladyship serves tea every summer afternoon to her guests. I was told that no other garden in Ireland compares with this, and the only ones that approach it are those of the Duke of Devonshire at Lismore and the Duke of Ormonde at Kilkenny. Although those at Versailles and Fontainebleau are much more extensive, they are not so artistic. The Lakes of Killarney are three in number and, strangely enough, have no romantic names. They really are only one lake, the Lower, Upper, and Middle lakes being connected by narrow channels only a few yards long. The three are thirty miles in circumference and the extreme end of Upper Lake is eleven miles from the extreme end of Lower Lake. The Lower Lake is the largest, being about five and a half miles long and two and a half miles wide at the widest place; Middle Lake and Upper Lake are each about two miles long at the greatest length and about three-quarters of a mile wide at the widest point. They all contain numerous islands of different sizes. Somebody has counted them, and I think has found sixty-five, large and small. One of them, Innisfallen Island, was occupied by a monastery back in St. Patrick's time, and the famous "Annals of Innisfallen," one of the earliest and most authentic of the ancient Irish histories, was written there by the monks, who began the manuscript at least twelve hundred years ago. The original is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and is one of the most valuable manuscripts in the world, with fifty-seven leaves, closely covered with beautiful penmanship. The earlier portion consists of extracts from the Old Testament and a history of the world down to the arrival of St. Patrick in 432. From that time it treats exclusively of Irish affairs, terminating with the year 1319. It is evidently a record of certain facts which came to the knowledge of the monks of Innisfallen Abbey during a period of nearly seven hundred years until, in 1320, the abbey was plundered and the monks massacred by Maolduin O'Donaghue and the MacCarthys. It has since remained in ruins, a few broken walls covered with ivy, which are visited regularly by Augustinian brothers who come here on pilgrimages. The lakes are surrounded almost entirely by a range of mountains, except on the north, where they break into low hills. There are six peaks rising over two thousand feet, including Carran-Tuel (3,314 feet), the highest mountain in Ireland; Mangerton (2,756 feet), Purple Mountain (2,739), Devil's Punch Bowl (2,665), Toomies (2,500), and Torc (2,100). There are several other mountains which approach these in height, forming a mighty barrier between County Cork and County Kerry, and protecting Killarney from the cold southwest winds of the ocean. The Devil's Punch Bowl is an extinct volcano, and gets its name from an enormous crater near its summit which is filled with water and fed from subterranean springs. There is no bottom so far as people have been able to discover. The crater reaches down into the bowels of the earth somewhere and furnishes an inexhaustible reservoir of pure, cold water, which is now piped down to the village of Killarney. [Illustration: UPPER LAKE, KILLARNEY.] By a curious freak of nature these mountains are all detached and separated by narrow valleys and gorges, although at a distance they seem to be in a cluster. The passes are watered with streams that fall over precipitous rocks and form numerous cascades. We came through one of them on our way from Glengariff, and nearly all the others have hard, smooth roads which are utilized for excursions on coaches, and in jaunting cars. Some of them are impassable except on horseback. They furnish delightful diversions for tourists and people who are spending the summer at the hotels, and give a good opportunity to see the scenery and Irish life. The excursion system is well organized. It is only necessary to buy a ticket and to "follow the man from Cook's." There are many short drives also and visits can be made to the islands by rowboats. There are several romantic old castles and the Earl of Kenmare has built tea houses at different points which are greatly appreciated. There is no more delightful place in the world for rest and mild forms of enjoyment, but sporty people will find Killarney "beastly dull." It is not in the least bit exciting; there is no dressing and there is no dancing, and some of the hotels are without barrooms. The most thrilling excitement is found in tennis, golf, fishing, walking, driving, and listening to a phonograph in the evening. There is an active rivalry between the worshipers of the Scotch and the English lakes and the admirers of the Lakes of Killarney. They all have a certain resemblance, and the latter are like Alpine lakes in miniature--not so much mountain, not so much water, but a similar canopy of blue sky and green settings. The mountains were grouped by a competent Artist and are embroidered and fringed with foliage, but are bare as a bone on their slopes and peaks. They are good for nothing but scenery. The grass is so scarce that it doesn't pay to pasture cattle over them, and a goat would have nervous prostration from loneliness. There are said to be plenty of deer, but that is doubtful. But as features of a picture the mountains around Killarney, with their shifting lights and shadows as the sun rises and declines, are exquisite pictures. They appear at their best when the sun goes down and the mist rises and softens their outlines. The lingering twilight leaves deep shadows of purple and blue, and every evening we sit on a bench in the hotel garden and watch them fade away like a scene in a theater when curtains of gauze are dropped one after another. The vivid Irish imagination has furnished a volume of legends and superstitions about the lakes. Some of them have been handed down from the earliest generations. These attractions drew to them the lovers of the beautiful ages ago and they were originally known as "The Lakes of Learning," because at one time there were three monasteries there, attended by multitudes of students from all over the world. They have been a favorite theme of all the Irish poets, and the scene of innumerable romances. The legends, which account for the origin of the lakes, are not consistent. Some one neglected to close the entrance to an enchanted fountain in the mountains, which caused a flood and covered fair and fertile fields and splendid palaces with water. One of the ancestors of the O'Donaghues, who originally owned all the water and all the mountains, as the Earl of Kenmare does at present, full of skepticism and wine, defied the gods, who threatened destruction if a stone from a certain sacred well should be disturbed. With the bravado that was characteristic of his descendants, he carried the stone to his castle. When the people heard of this impiety they fled to a neighboring mountain, and in the morning when the sun rose they looked down and saw that the valley in which their homes had been was covered with water. The O'Donaghue is the hero of most of the legends. He is identified with almost every island and with almost every glen. The legends all agree that the men and women who inhabited the lovely valley did not perish with him, but The O'Donaghue lives at the bottom of the lake in a gorgeous palace, surrounded by congenial friends and enjoys feasting and folly as much as he did before the flood. Every seven years in the summer he comes to the surface, and makes a journey from one end of the lakes to the other, riding a splendid white stallion, in an armor of gold and a helmet that glitters with diamonds. He gallops through the town and around the mountains just as he did when he was the lord of the land, and will continue to do so until the silver shoes on the hoofs of his stallion are worn out. Blessings are showered upon every one who is fortunate enough to see him. If a girl can catch a glimpse of this brilliant knight as he makes his midnight journey she is sure to be married before the end of the year. O'Donaghue's horse, his prison, his stable, his library, his cellar, his pulpit, his table, his broom, and various other things that belonged to him are pointed out among the rocks upon the islands of the shore. Every freak of nature has some association with him. Scores of peasants may be found who have actually seen him, and half the population believe in his seven-year visits. Many curious stories of which O'Donaghue is the hero have been invented in the generations that have passed by imaginative mothers to entertain their children. When I asked a thoughtful jaunting car driver if he believed in the periodical appearance of the ancient lord of the lake, he answered: "Wall, I dunno', I dunno'; me mither tould me the tale wid her own blessed lips; me wife has tould it jist the same to our own children, and I am shure The O'Donaghue isn't in Killarney the rist of the toime, and why shouldn't he have the pleasure of comin' for one noight?" St. Patrick never came to Killarney, but the legend is that he climbed up to the top of the tallest mountain, stretched out his hands over the lakes and said: "I bless all beyint the reeks" (mountains). Fin MacCool kept his tubs of gold in the lake near Muckross Abbey and his dog Bran watched them. "One day a brute of an Englishman, an' a great diver intirely, came over to git the goold, and when he wint down into the wather the dog Bran sazed him by the trousers and shook the life out of him until he died, and his ghost has been wanderin' around there ivir sence." The shore of the lake under the windows of Ross Castle is strewn with curious-looking flat stones. They are the books of his library which The O'Donaghue threw out of the window when he was mad one day, and they turned to rocks. When The O'Donaghue was a slip of a boy and was sitting in front of the castle an old woman came running along shrieking that the O'Sullivans had come through the pass from County Cork and were stealing the cattle. "The O'Donaghue, thin only thirteen years old, bedad, seizes an oulde sword and kills every mother's son of the thaving blaggards, an' sticks their bodies up agin the wall as a warning to all the ruffians of the clans beyant the mountains. "When The O'Donaghue was a young man and went into his first battle he slew six hundred of his enemies in a single day. He fought so long and became so tired that his legs and arms would have fallen off his body if they hadn't been held together by his armor. "One day when Ossian, the poet, came to Killarney he met an old priest trying to carry a sack of corn on his back. Ossian relieved him of the burden. The priest called on the Holy Virgin to bless him, whereupon Ossian said, 'I help you because you are an old man and not for the sake of virgins or married women or widdies,' for Ossian was a hathen and he didn't know any better, an' how could he know what the holy father meant when he sphoke of the Blessed Virgin? But, nevertheless, the curse was on him, and in a minute he was an ould shrivelled, crippled crater, a dale oulder than the priest whose sack of corn he was carrying. And all this for takin' the name of Blessed Virgin in vain, and not knowing any better. But the priest, with a few words of prayer, relaved the enchantment and converted Ossian to Christianity on the sphot." [Illustration: ROSS CASTLE, KILLARNEY] Ross Castle was the stronghold of the O'Donaghues. It was built somewhere about the twelfth century by the celebrated Hugh O'Donaghue, who lives in the lake and rides about the country every seven years. It is an historic fact that he lived there once, although the legends that are told of him go back for centuries before its foundation. There is a massive tower or keep, about one hundred feet high and one hundred feet square, "and ivy clasps the fissured stones with its entwining arms." The walls of the tower are almost perfect. There is a long extension, however, entirely in ruins, but it gives an idea of the enormous dimensions of the castle. It was surrounded by outworks of great strength, and you can see traces of the round watch towers at the angles. A stone staircase leads to the top of the tower, where a beautiful view of the country can be obtained. Few ruins in Ireland are so extensive and so well kept. Everybody has to pay a sixpence to see Ross Castle, and the money goes into the empty pocket of the Earl of Kenmare. You have to pay to see everything in this country, however, and sometimes the petty hotel charges are exasperating. They are insignificant, but everything goes in the bill; every time you draw a breath or ask a question it costs twopence. If the hotel managers would make a straight rate per day to cover all these trifles they would make a great deal more money and save a great deal of temper. The only free ruins are those of the ancient Abbey of Agahadoe, which occupy a conspicuous site on the ridge back of the town where they were built in the eighth century by Finian, the leper saint. Ross Castle has withstood many a siege in its time, but was finally captured, dismantled, and left in its present condition during the civil war in 1652. It was attacked by General Ludlow with an army of four thousand footmen and two hundred horse, and defended by The O'Donaghue of that time. Finding it impregnable by land, Ludlow left a portion of his force to hold it in a state of siege, while he retired to Castlemaine and built a fleet of boats with which he made an attack by water. There was an ancient proverb that "Ross Castle will never fall until ships float in the Lake of Killarney," hence, the garrison remembered that saying when they saw Ludlow's flotilla approaching, and were so demoralized by the superstition that they abandoned it and laid down their arms. It was the last of the O'Donaghues. Their power and glory have never been regained. The village of Killarney is unattractive and untidy, but it is a busy place. One doesn't understand why in a country where there is so much room to spare, the villages should not be made up of detached cottages with gardens and lawns, hedges and shade trees, instead of sections of solid blocks that look as if they had been cut out of the tenement house districts of crowded cities. Killarney is a solid mass of brick and mortar, with stuccoed fronts, painted a dingy yellow, without the slightest thing to relieve the monotony until you suddenly pass the last house and the green fields begin. It is a great tourist center, and there are a dozen hotels and boarding-houses of different pretensions and prices. There are "licensed houses" and "unlicensed houses" and some of them are licensed for seven days in a week, which means that the proprietor has permission to sell whisky and beer from two to five o'clock on the Sabbath day. Cook's excursion parties come in like swarms of bees, buzzing around the hotels and shops where laces and other curiosities are for sale and carry off loads of queer things as souvenirs. They breakfast at seven o'clock in the morning and are piled into great four-horse coaches by nine and start off on excursions with their luncheons in baskets under the seats. They return at sunset completely tired out, but the next morning are off for Dublin or Glengariff. It is about as hard work to travel with an excursion party as anything I know of, for every moment must be economized and everybody feels under obligations to see everything. Killarney is quite an educational center also. There are several popular schools there and several monasteries. The Franciscans conduct a theological seminary and the Christian Brothers have a college in connection with the cathedral. There are two or three convents where young ladies are educated, and a large institution in which two hundred and ten girls are being taught by the nuns to make lace, which is one of the most profitable occupations an Irish woman can engage in. And they have a School of Housewifery, conducted by the British government under the supervision of the minister of agriculture at Dublin. Paternalism is carried farther in Ireland than in Switzerland, Germany, or any other place I know of, as you will admit when you hear that twenty-three rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed mavourneens are being educated at the expense of the taxpayers as domestic servants. They are rescued from the filthy cabins in the mountains, washed, and clothed in neat liveries, natty little muslin caps are pinned to their raven tresses, frilled muslin aprons are fastened to their frocks, and they are taught how to wash dishes and cook and make beds and do plain sewing, and dust the bric-a-brac in the drawing-room and say, "Yes, me lady," and "Yes, me lord," and courtesy when they are spoken to. They learn to mend and embroider, to do up hair, to fasten dresses and other duties pertaining to the jurisdiction of a lady's maid, and, after a year or so of this training, they are found positions in the households of the nobility, where they will spend their lives as servants and marry a footman or a gamekeeper, as will their children and grandchildren generations to come after them, because domestic service is a profession in Great Britain, and is followed by families who are trained for their work. This school is a great thing for the Irish girls in the mountain cabins, whose lives might otherwise be hopelessly sunk in squalor and filth that seem to be inseparable from the peasant population. I have never been able to find anybody to explain why an Irish farmer piles his manure in front of the only door to his cabin. It is an habitual subject of witticism, just as it is in Switzerland, where similar customs prevail, but with thousands of acres of bare ground all around the cabin, it would seem that some other place might be found. It occurred to me, too, as I was going through the School of Housewifery, that our government might do worse than establish similar schools in the Southern States for training colored girls in the same way, but I suppose the Supreme Court would pronounce such a scheme unconstitutional. A house by the roadside now occupied by a farmer named McSweeny is pointed out as the birthplace of Robert Emmet. Lord Kitchener was born about nineteen miles from here, at Crotto House, Tralee, where his father and mother were stopping for the summer. His father was a colonel in the army and was on leave from his regiment at the time of Kitchener's birth. The great Daniel O'Connell was also born in the neighborhood, and his nephew, Sir Maurice O'Connell, lives in a stately mansion that overlooks the lower lake in the middle of a beautiful grove. Muckross Abbey ranks with Melrose Abbey in Scotland and Kenilworth Castle in England as among the most picturesque and interesting ruins in the world. The walls and the Gothic windows, the tower and several other distinctive features are well preserved, and the ivy drapery makes it an exquisite picture. The abbey stands within the park of two hundred and ninety acres that surrounds Muckross House and is the property of Lord Ardilaun, who has many beautiful places in different parts of Ireland, and cannot possibly enjoy them all; but none is so beautiful as Muckross House. [Illustration: MUCKROSS ABBEY, KILLARNEY] He purchased the property of the Herbert family who inherited it from Florence MacCarthy More, who, in 1750 married Agnes, daughter of Edward Herbert of this county, and they had one son who was the last MacCarthy More in the direct line, and that famous family became extinct, for he died without issue in 1770, and the estate passed into the possession of his mother's family, being the nearest relatives. The Honorable Arthur Herbert died in 1866, and a beautiful Celtic cross has been erected to his memory upon the highest hill in the neighborhood, overlooking the park that he prized so highly, and where he enjoyed so much pleasure. His widow and daughters lived there for thirty years until they expired, when the place was offered at auction and Lord Ardilaun bid it in for £63,000 for the estate, and paid £10,000 more for furniture, pictures, live stock, and other property, making it cost him altogether about £73,000. And now he offers it for sale--the whole thing, a house of thirty-two rooms, a park of two hundred and ninety acres, the ruins of Muckross Abbey, and history and legends galore--for £75,000. And perhaps he would take less from the proper person. In 1907 a syndicate was organized to purchase the place and turn it into a Monte Carlo. They proposed to make the handsome old mansion a gambling-house and erect a large hotel with all possible allurements near by; but when Lord Ardilaun learned of the scheme, he instructed his solicitors to insert in the deed a clause stipulating that it should be used for residential purposes only, and that made it worthless to the syndicate. So Muckross Abbey and its beautiful surroundings are still in the market. The abbey dates back to the dawn of Christianity in Ireland, and its site was originally occupied in the fourth or fifth century by a monastery founded by St. Finian of Innisfallen and his monks. The present building, however, was erected by Donald MacCarthy More, Prince of Desmond, in 1330, and was finished by his son in 1340 for the Franciscan friars, who occupied it as a monastery and as a college. There was some kind of an institution on the same site between the monastery of St. Finian and the present one, for an ancient manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, gives an account of its destruction by fire in the eleventh century. The founder, Donald MacCarthy More, built the beautiful chapel as a burial place for himself and his posterity. It is also the burial place of the O'Donaghues of the Glens, and in the very center of the choir is a large square tomb in which was deposited the body of "The Great O'Donaghue," the chieftain of the lakes, of whom Mr. Maurice R. Moriarity, the custodian, gives many interesting legends in his history of the ruins. The O'Donaghues were connected by marriage with the MacCarthys, kings of Munster, and had their headquarters at Blarney Castle, near Cork. Twelve generations, so far as the inscriptions can be deciphered, of that proud family are lying there, and more than twenty generations of O'Donaghues. The last MacCarthy buried here was Florence, husband of Agnes Herbert, who lived in Muckross House until his death in 1770. The last O'Donaghue buried here was Donal, a direct descendant of The O'Donaghue of the Glens, who was a member of parliament and died in 1889. His son Jeffrey, "The O'Donaghue," as the head of the family is always called, is a barrister living in Dublin, a gentleman of high reputation and much influence, although he has lost almost everything but his proud name and a lineage that is interwoven with the history of Ireland since human actions were recorded. The grandfather of "The O'Donaghue" was a captain in the Munster Fusiliers, which were recruited in County Kerry and was stationed at Chester, near Liverpool, the home of Gladstone, in 1860, during a religious agitation. A band of rioters were making ready to burn an effigy of the pope when Captain O'Donaghue warned the leaders that if such an insult to the holy father was offered the Kerry men of his regiment would burn the city of Chester to the ground. When this threat became known the mob dispersed, and there were no more religious demonstrations while Captain O'Donaghue and the men of Kerry were in the Chester barracks. "The O'Donaghues were ginerally prayin' when they woren't foightin' or dhrinkin'," said the ancient oracle who gave me this information. "They feared none but God, and since Maolduin O'Donaghue burned the monastery of Innisfallen and murdered the monks in 1158 they have spint much toime doin' pinnance for his sins." It is customary for the heads of these old families to use the word "The" as a prefix to their names to indicate their rank, and I have seen letters signed in that way, without the initials of the writer. For example, "The MacDermott" is a barrister of importance in Dublin. "The O'Donivan" lives at Cork and retains a part of the ancestral estates. "The O'Shea" is a clergyman of the Church of England stationed at Manchester and makes much of his position as the head of the clan. "The O'Neill" is the Lord of Londonderry, and "The O'Connor" lives at Sligo--a brother of the late Sir Nicholas O'Connor, who was British ambassador at Constantinople at the time of his death. "The O'Flaherty" is a justice of the peace near Galway, and a man of importance. And members of other old families recognize the head of their clan in a similar manner, although it carries nothing but glory and gratification with it. "The O'Sullivans, the MacCarthys, and all the old families loike the O'Donaghues, are gone; played out, as ye moight say," remarked the oracle. "For tin cinturies the O'Sullivans ruled whole counties in Ireland, but they have lost their proid as well as their property, and are now contint to kape pooblic houses [saloons] and sit around complaining of the hard toimes. The whole country south of here is full of O'Sullivans. There's more of thim than of any other name. If anny wan were to sail across County Kerry in a balloon and cast out a bag of corn, ivery kernel would hit an O'Sullivan, but they are only proivates in the clan. The ruling line is extinct and no O'Sullivan now owns an acre of the old estates. Nor do the O'Donaghues; they're as poor as church mice, having lost all but the name and the spirit of the race. "Look at that grave there; it's filled with the bones of Black Jeffery O'Donaghue. They called him the Black Prince of the Glenflesk. He lived at Killaha Castle, situated five moiles from here and built on a rock standin' in the middle of a bog, and nobody could find the way but those who knew it. His spirit nothing could contain. He hated the English as no man ever hated thim before or since, and whin he saw an Englishman his temper would rise like the hair on the back of an angry dog. No Englishman ever came within soight of Killaha Castle and got home aloive. But Black Jeffery died in his bed after all, of tuberculosis; ye kin see the date on the tomb--1756, age 36. "Did yez ivir hear about the midnight marriage of the master of Blarney Castle which took place here in the ruined abbey in the year 1590, which Quane Elizabeth an' the intire parlymint did their best to prevint? It's a great story. The heads of the two branches of the MacCarthy family were thin united in the persons of Florence MacCarthy of Blarney Castle, the same gintleman that deludered Quane Elizabeth with his soft words and caused the invintion of the word 'blarney' that is used so much these days. Waal, he was in love with Aileen MacCarthy, his cousin, daughter of Donal MacCarthy Mor, Earl of Glencare. The two factions had been inemies, and it was the policy of the English to kape thim apart, because a reconciliation would bring them togither an' make thim more dangerous to British authority. And that was what Quane Elizabeth was trying to prevint. She feared that if the MacCarthy factions made frinds they would join Hugh O'Neill and the great Earl of Desmond, thin in rebellion, and so the marriage was forbidden by her majesty. An' that made Florence MacCarthy all the more determined to wed Aileen, who had been his sweetheart in sacrit for several years, and one day he crossed the lake wid Lady Aileen and her mother in a boat rowed by four lusty gallowglasses with their battle-axes lyin' where the oars had been. "They landed at midnight at the abbey, thin half in ruins, solemn and mournful, in silence and decay. The moon shone through the roofless walls and the broken windows of the crumbling shrine of Irrelagh, upon the blissed head of a vinerable friar, Florence MacCarthy's chaplain, who was awaiting thim himself--one of thim who, in the dark days of Henry VIII. was expelled from the abbey at the point of a Protestant sword. Wid him was O'Sullivan Mor, MacFinian, the Countess of Glencare, and the beautiful Lady Una O'Leary, and that was all. No bard was there to sing the bridal song, no harp to give swate sounds, no banner to wave, no clansmen to raise a joyous cheer, an' no spear or battle-ax gleamed in the moonlight, but the Blissed Virgin and all the saints were lookin' down all the while, approvin', through the roofless aisles, when Florence MacCarthy and Aileen MacCarthy pledged their vows. [Illustration: A WINDOW OF MUCKROSS ABBEY, KILLARNEY] "This sacred marriage was proclaimed an act of treason by Quane Elizabeth, and for that Florence MacCarthy went to the Tower, but he got the bist of it after all." The windows of Muckross Abbey are the most perfect of any ruin in Ireland, and the moldings of several of the doorways are in a fine state of preservation, so that the carving can be carefully studied. There is a cloister thirty-three feet square, encircled by a vaulted corridor seven feet wide and lighted by twenty-two arched windows, which is as good as if it were built yesterday. And in the center of the quadrangle is a venerable yew tree, said to be the largest in the world, having been planted by the monks at the foundation of the abbey in 1340. It was usual, so I am told, for Franciscan monks to plant yew trees in the courtyards of their monasteries, and they are found frequently in ruins. The trunk of this tree is smooth and straight to a height of twenty feet, and is about twelve feet in circumference at the base. The branches spread over the inclosing walls like an umbrella and darken the entire quadrangle, which never had any other roof. Several legends are woven around this majestic tree which, in the eyes and hearts of the people of Killarney, is an object of great veneration. If any one should injure it, even by breaking off a twig, he would excite popular indignation. They believe that such sacrilege will be punished by the death of the guilty person within a year, and it is a remarkable coincidence that such things have occurred several times. The kitchen, the refectory, the chapter-rooms, and several other apartments are in an excellent state of preservation and are well cared for, but the cells of the dormitory have almost disappeared. The tower stands as it was five hundred years ago, but is an empty shell, having no roof, flooring, or staircase, and visitors are prohibited from climbing the walls. Some of the graves are quite modern. Muckross Abbey is still open for the burial of members of four families, who have ancient rights. The latest grave was made in 1902. Several of the epitaphs are quite interesting, particularly those which bear testimony to the virtues and the happiness and usefulness of the women of the O'Donaghue and MacCarthy families. For example, one of them describes a beloved wife, "who, in her progress through life, fulfilled all its duties with uniform and exemplary prudence, whose respectful love as a daughter, whose affectionate kindness as a sister, whose fond and provident care as a mother, and whose endearing tenderness as a wife, were eminently conspicuous. Combining the discharge of social obligations with piety, edifying yet unobtrusive, she lived and died a Christian. To rescue her memory from oblivion, to preserve a remembrance of her virtues for the instruction and imitation of the young, this stone is erected by her disconsolate husband." If you want a description of Muckross Abbey that is worth reading you will find it in the works of Sir Walter Scott, who was there in 1825, and if you are pleased with that, and would like a little more of the same sort, read Lord Macaulay's account of his visit in 1849; in which he says that one of the boatmen on Lake Killarney "gloried in having rowed Sir Walter Scott and Maria Edgeworth about the lake when they were here twenty-four years ago, and said it was a compensation to him for having missed a hanging which took place in the village that very day." XXVII INTEMPERANCE, INSANITY, AND CRIME There is a great deal of drunkenness in Ireland. There is more in Dublin than anywhere else, but not so much as in Scotland. In Ireland a saloon is called "a public house" and a saloon-keeper is called a publican. All liquor selling is done under licenses granted by the justices of the peace upon petitions signed by the people of the community in which the saloon is to be located. There is no limit to the number of licenses; and there seems to be no particular rule about granting them, except that the fee of one pound must be paid annually. A license once granted is perpetual as long as the annual fee is paid and the police do not show cause why it should be revoked. Licenses are held chiefly by ordinary merchants, at what we would call country stores, by the wayside, at "four corners," where the peasants go to trade, and along highways frequented by teamsters, jaunting cars, bicyclers, and other people with vehicles. The publican usually puts a watering trough in front of his place, and thus affords refreshment for man and beast. In most of the rural districts licenses are held in families and handed down from generation to generation of storekeepers, who keep bottles on the shelves and manage to sell enough liquor to pay the fees. If the business is sold or inherited the license goes with the place, and many have been running for a hundred years or more. Until recently anyone could get a license by obtaining a few signatures of political influence, but a recent act of parliament prohibits the issue of new licenses except for hotels, genuine clubs, and new villages of a certain population. The effect of this legislation will be to gradually reduce the number of liquor sellers and prevent the extension of the traffic except as new towns may be started, which is not common in Ireland, as it is in the United States. In the five principal cities of Ireland, Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford, special licenses are necessary, and the fees vary from one pound to sixty pounds per year, according to the amount of business done. There are "six-day licenses" and "seven-day licenses." The latter permit liquor selling between two and five o'clock on Sunday afternoons and require an additional fee. The Sunday closing law is said to be well enforced throughout all Ireland, but in Dublin crowds of men and women can be seen standing around the "publics" during the open hours on Sunday afternoons. For the year ending March 31, 1907, a total of 23,835 licenses were issued in Ireland, of which 17,496 were granted to publicans, 2,510 to wholesale dealers, and 1,022 to wholesale grocers who handle wine, beer, and spirits to be consumed off the premises; and 2,807 special licenses were issued for temporary privileges. The public houses show a slight decrease. Ten years ago, in 1898, there were 17,407 licenses granted for them; in 1900 there were 17,596; in 1903 there were 17,749; in 1905 there were 17,571, and in 1907 there were 17,496, or an average of one to every 250 people. The licenses for the wholesale and grocery traffic also remain about the same. W.R. Wigham, a Quaker, who is secretary of the Irish Association for the Prevention of Intemperance, told me that there is less private drinking and less habitual drinking in Ireland than is generally supposed. The Irish are a convivial people, but comparatively few men or women drink for the love of the liquor. Most of the drunkenness is seen at the fairs and cattle sales, the festivals and wakes, although the use of liquor at the latter has been forbidden by the bishops and is now much less frequent than formerly. In England and Scotland drinking is more regular and general for the sake of the stimulant, while an Irishman very seldom drinks alone. In order to lessen intemperance from conviviality an anti-treating movement was started a few years ago. It was popularly known as "The League of the Lonely Pint," and for a couple of years was quite successful, but it did not last. The quantity of spirituous liquors consumed in Ireland is much less than in England or Scotland because the population is less, but the average is greater than in Scotland. The _per capita_ consumption in England for 1906 of alcoholic liquors was 2,090 gallons, in Scotland, 1,430 gallons, and in Ireland 1,614 gallons. The drink bill _per capita_ is less in Ireland. Taking all liquors into the calculation the expenditure _per capita_ for liquor in England last year was £3 19_s._ 9_d._, in Scotland £3 3_s._ 1_d._, and in Ireland £3 2_s._ 10_d._ The number of arrests for drunkenness and for crimes and offenses which may be attributed to liquor have been decreasing in Ireland for several years. In 1902 in all Ireland, 80,054 men and 11,163 women, making a total of 91,217, were arrested for drunkenness. In 1906 the figures were 68,656 men and 8,606 women, making a total of 77,262. This is a decrease of 11,398 men and 2,557 women and a total decrease of 13,955 in four years. In 1902 one person out of forty-eight was arrested for drunkenness in Ireland, in 1906 one in fifty-eight, which is a decided improvement; but think of 8,000 and 11,000 women being arrested for drunkenness! The number of arrests for assault during the year 1907 in all Ireland was less than ever before, being only 16,055, in comparison with 24,027 in 1896, 22,065 in 1900, and 16,666 in 1904, while the number of persons arrested for disorderly conduct decreased from 90,233 to 77,262 during the same years. There is a terrible side to the picture. Of the women arrested for drunkenness in Ireland last year more than one thousand were under twenty-one years of age, 118 between sixteen and eighteen years of age, while 156 were over sixty. The Sunday law is pretty well enforced, and during the last year, outside of the five principal cities, 2,289 persons were arrested for its violation. That is about the average for the last ten years. In Dublin there has been a decided falling off in the arrests for drunkenness on Sunday; the total in 1898 was 1,280, while in 1907 it was only 404. The number of arrests for drunkenness on Sunday in Cork decreased from 265 to 193 during the same period, and those in Belfast from 537 to 434. In the city of Dublin alone 1,772 women were arrested for drunkenness in 1907 and 2,941 men. In 1904, 1,976 women were arrested for drunkenness. I don't suppose there is any city in the world where there is so much drunkenness among women as there is in Dublin, except it be Glasgow and Edinburgh, although the number of drunken men arrested is not so much larger than the average in other cities of Europe and the United States. And what is even more lamentable, the public is so hardened to the repulsive spectacle that it does not attract as much curiosity as the appearance of an ordinary drunken man upon the streets of Chicago or New York. Women stagger from the doors of saloons along the sidewalks with disheveled hair and disordered garments without attracting any attention whatsoever. The Roman Catholic clergy are doing a great deal to suppress disorder and promote temperance by prohibiting the use of liquor at wakes. Cardinal Logue and the several archbishops and bishops are determined to abolish the disgraceful orgies that have been so common on such occasions, and have forbidden priests to officiate at funerals or even to say masses for the souls of the dead where liquor is offered to the neighbors and mourners who sit up with the corpse. Some of the bishops require the remains to be brought to the church on the day before the funeral. As a consequence, the scandalous custom of holding a carousal the night before the funeral is almost entirely obsolete except in the slums of the large cities and in remote rural districts. As a rule throughout Ireland, where friends now gather to "sit up" with the corpse as a token of respect and sorrow, they are furnished with no stronger refreshments than tea. The teapot is placed upon the stove or upon the peat fire and the mourners help themselves as they desire; but if a bottle of liquor is passed around it is done with the greatest caution for fear the priest will hear of it. Like the colored people of the United States, the peasants of Ireland are possessed with an ambition to have "a fine funeral." Among the poor this form of extravagance has been the cause of a great deal of distress and privation, and formerly poor families often deprived themselves of food to supply liquor that was consumed at the wake. This hospitable custom, however, is rapidly passing away. The Irish Association for the Prevention of Intemperance is composed of delegates from nearly all of the many temperance societies in Ireland, both Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Nonconformist, and Independent. There are many mutual benefit societies among workingmen which affiliate, and various associations of women and children. For the purpose of co-operation and economy and to avoid friction and duplication of labor, this central organization has been formed, and consists of one representative from every contributing society. The general council meets three times a year, has a complete organization, sends lecturers into the field, issues literature, makes investigations, and has committees to look after legislation that concerns the liquor traffic. The special work of the council is to secure temperance legislation and the enforcement of laws that are already on the statute books, especially the Sunday closing act and the law which forbids the sale of liquor to minors. Another object is to encourage the formation of temperance clubs throughout the country, to organize opposition to applications for licenses, to promote meetings, to educate the people as to the evils of the liquor traffic, and to create public sentiment against it. It also has committees to encourage the establishment of restaurants at which liquor is not sold, to encourage healthful recreation, and to provide local amusements that will keep the men out of the public houses. The president of the council is a Roman Catholic barrister; the secretary is a Quaker; the vice-presidents include all of the Roman Catholic and all of the Church of Ireland archbishops and several bishops of both denominations, the president of the Methodist conference, the president of the Maynooth College (Roman Catholic), the provost of Trinity College, the moderator of the Presbyterian general assembly, several earls and other members of the nobility, the leaders of the Irish party in parliament, and several other gentlemen of equal prominence and influence. "The Church of Ireland has a very strong organization," said Mr. Wigham, "but, of course, it is not so strong or so extensive as that of the Roman Catholics, because they constitute at least three-fourths of the population of Ireland. The Presbyterians and Methodists are also well organized and have a temperance society in every parish and connected with every chapel. Our central organization is supported by them all, and is entirely nonsectarian, as you will perceive upon examining our list of officers. "Nearly all the temperance work in Ireland is done by religious organizations, and whatever may be the differences of the denominational leaders over theology and other matters, they are united and harmonious in their opposition to the liquor traffic. I should say that the influence of Maynooth College is greater than that of any other institution. The temperance sentiment under the influence of President Mannix is very strong there, and the students have a society called 'The Pioneers,' the members of which take a pledge that they will abstain from all intoxicating liquors during their entire life. No man can join 'The Pioneers' until after two years of probation, in order that he may take the vows with his eyes wide open and with plenty of reflection; but more than two-thirds of the priests that come out of that institution are 'Pioneers.' "There has been a decided change in the habits of the priesthood of Ireland during the last generation or two. Formerly it was not considered improper, and, indeed, it was customary, for a priest to set out a bottle and a glass for the refreshment of all visitors of importance, and his parishioners would feel very much mortified if they could not offer similar hospitality to the priest when he came to see them. It was common for a priest to have wine and whisky on his table and to linger with the rest of the guests at a dinner party when the ladies had left the dining-room. But that is the exception nowadays. Those customs are obsolete and most of the priests would as soon think of offering a dose of poison to a parishioner as to hand him a bottle of liquor. The old-fashioned rollicking parson has entirely disappeared from both the Roman Catholic church and the Church of Ireland, and the priesthood is at present composed almost entirely of earnest, devout men, who abstain entirely from liquor and try to promote habits of temperance among their parishioners. A majority of the bishops have forbidden the use of liquor at wakes and will not allow anything stronger than tea on those occasions. A majority of them will not confirm a child that will not take a pledge of total abstinence until it is twenty-one years of age. Some of them put the limit at twenty-five. A great work is also being done by the Jesuits, the Capuchins, and the Franciscans, who have been asked by the bishops recently to co-operate in a great propaganda that is to include the entire island. "Dr. Walsh, the archbishop of Dublin, and other archbishops, have recently undertaken to secure the closing of all saloons on St. Patrick's day, and it is proposed to boycott the publicans who keep open doors. Last year Archbishop Walsh published a pastoral in his diocese in which he said, 'In certain districts, not a few of the licensed houses for the sale of intoxicating drinks are still kept open on that day. This continues to be done, although a number of the proprietors of licensed houses, indeed the majority of them, closed their establishments in honor of the holy festival of our national apostle. In so doing they did their part toward securing the observance of the national holy day that should not be marred by intemperance among the people. It is lamentable that the efforts thus made in so good a cause should be frustrated to a large extent by the selfish actions of those members of the licensed trade who are setting the healthy public opinion of the city at defiance and seem to make the praiseworthy action of others an occasion of profit to themselves. A vigorous combined effort should be made by the clergy to secure a general closing of licensed houses on St. Patrick's day.' "This patriotic action of Dr. Walsh has had a decided effect upon the celebration of St. Patrick's day," continued Mr. Wigham, "and it is now more of a religious festival than an occasion for carousing. Several other bishops have taken the same stand with similar results. "The labor party has also taken an advanced position in favor of temperance legislation," continued Mr. Wigham. "At the annual meeting of the labor unions last year a resolution was adopted in favor of local option. The resolutions declare that 'the liquor traffic is a frightful source of poverty, crime, and lunacy,' and demand a law 'giving the inhabitants of every locality the right to veto any applications for either the renewal of existing licenses or the granting of new ones, seeing that public houses are generally situated in thickly populated working class districts.' "The vote on the adoption of this resolution was 666,000 against 103,000. "The local option bill now pending before parliament applies to England only," continued Mr. Wigham. "It does not affect Ireland, but we expect to see the passage of a law prohibiting liquor to be taken from the premises on which it is sold and also forbidding a man to use the wages of his wife and children or to pawn the property of his family for drink." "What is the drink bill of Ireland?" I asked, and in reply Mr. Wigham gave me the following table showing the total expenditure and the _per capita_ expenditure of the people of Ireland for liquor annually for the last six years: Total. Per capita. 1902 £14,257,751 £3 4s 5d 1903 14,311,034 3 4s 10d 1904 13,816,318 3 2s 10d 1905 13,340,472 3 0s 10d 1906 13,787,970 3 2s 10d 1907 13,991,314 3 3s 10d The consumption of liquors in Ireland last year was as follows: Distilled spirits (gallons) 2,391,595 Beer (barrels) 4,574,263 Wine (gallons) 92,465 Other liquors (gallons) 25,000 --------- Total 7,083,323 Average gallons per capita 1,614 "The people of Ireland are drinking less spirits," continued Mr. Wigham, "and more beer. Ten years ago, for example, they consumed 4,713,178 gallons of spirits, which has been reduced to 2,391,595. During the same time the consumption of beer has increased from 2,903,915 barrels to 4,574,263 barrels. "Last year, by the official statistics, the Guinness brewery in Dublin produced 2,136,629 barrels of beer and other malt liquors, and paid £2,092,000 duty to the government, an average of £3,000 a day. Alsopps Company produced 1,125,178 barrels, another company 887,175 barrels, still another 827,997 barrels; so you see that the manufacture of malt liquors is very large and is increasing. Some people consider this a great improvement, but it is still very harmful, and it is a startling fact that the population of Ireland pay more money for whisky and beer than they pay for rents or for food or for clothing. The total income of the population of Ireland is given at £70,000,000, and, as you have seen from the table I have given you, they spent last year £13,991,314 for intoxicating drinks." The Guinness brewery is the largest establishment of the kind in the world. The buildings cover fifty acres of ground; 3,240 men are employed in them, and 10,000 people are dependent upon the wages paid. The brewery was founded in 1759 by an ancestor of the present owner, and did a purely local business until 1825, when the managers began to seek trade in England and Scotland. They undertook to secure a foreign market in 1860. At present the foreign trade is much larger than local consumption. Last year the total sales amounted to 76,540,000 gallons, which is an average of nearly two gallons _per capita_ for every man, woman, and child in the kingdom. An average of 3,600 barrels of stout are produced daily in one brewery and a new brewery has a capacity of 2,100 barrels daily. The duty paid in 1907 was more than $10,000,000--one-fourteenth of the entire revenue collected on liquor in the United Kingdom. The cold storage capacity of the establishment is 200,000 hogsheads of beer of fifty-two gallons each. One vat will hold 1,700 hogsheads. The main warehouse contains an average of 1,000,000 bushels of malt and similar amounts of other supplies are required. From eight to ten thousand empty casks arrive at the wharf of Guinness & Co. daily, chiefly from London, where all the beer, ale, stout, and porter is sent by steamer in the wood to be bottled, and the fifteen hundred new casks, required each week, are supplied by cooper shops on the premises. The life of a cask averages ten years. Although there is a deplorable amount of intemperance in Ireland, and according to the estimates of those who have made a study of that subject, at least one-fifth of the earnings of the people are spent for liquor, there is comparatively little crime. If the offenses growing out of the land troubles were deducted the criminal statistics would be very small and Ireland would rank, with Switzerland, Norway, and Denmark, among the most orderly and peaceful countries on the globe. It may be said also that in comparison with the United States the criminal statistics are very much in favor of Ireland. For example, during the year 1906 there were only four murders in Ireland to eleven in the District of Columbia, and only eleven assaults with dangerous weapons in Ireland to fifty-three in the District of Columbia. During the year 1907 there were eight murders in Ireland and eighteen in the District of Columbia and only seventeen assaults with dangerous weapons in Ireland to fifty-one in the District of Columbia, notwithstanding the difference in population. The population of Ireland is 4,398,565, and that of the District of Columbia is 317,380. During the year 1905 there were 9,728 persons indicted for crimes in Ireland; in 1906 the total was 9,465, and in 1907 it was 9,418, or 2.2 per 1,000 of the population. The same ratio is reported for 1897, and the average for the ten years was 2.5 per 1,000. During the year 1906 there were 372 persons indicted for crime in the District of Columbia, or 1.17 per 1,000 of population, and in 1907 there were 381 indictments, or 1.20 per 1,000. During the year 1906 there were 4,922 indictments found in Chicago (Cook County), with a population of 2,166,055, or less than one-half that of Ireland, the ratio to population being 2.27 per 1,000. For the year 1907 there were 4,699 indictments found in Chicago, which was 2.16 per 1,000 of the population. In Ireland, however, at least one-fifth, and usually more of the indictments, are for cattle driving, for attempts to burn crops, hayricks, and stables, for killing and maiming cattle, and for writing threatening letters. The authorities are very severe in their efforts to suppress the land troubles, and sometimes half the population of a village will be indicted for using popular methods of persuasion to compel the large landowners to sell their farms. A great many threatening letters are written, for which there is a heavy penalty, and when some ranchman who has refused to divide up his pastures into farms and sell them to the "landless" finds his fences broken down and his cattle scattered all over the country, every suspected person is indicted for moral effect. There are very few convictions. The people who are engaged in the outrage will not testify against each other and there are no other witnesses. In Ireland there are very few cases of robbery or burglary. Petty larceny is the principal item in the list of offenses. Grand larceny, embezzlement, forgery, and similar crimes are infrequent. The largest buildings in the county towns of Ireland are workhouses, almshouses, and insane asylums, and they are always well filled. I visited an insane asylum at Killarney, which is an enormous building, well arranged and equipped with all modern conveniences, under the direction of Dr. Edward Griffin, and surrounded by a beautiful garden and hedges in the midst of an estate of sixty acres. It was opened in 1852. The number of inmates in 1908 was 619, of whom 299 were women and 320 men. During the last six or seven years the number of women has largely increased. The average age of the inmates is about thirty years. There are more young men than old men in the institution. Dr. Griffin told me that many causes lead to insanity. Whisky, however, has little to do with the condition of the inmates. In 1907 only five men and two women were there for that cause. Tea has a large number of victims, destroying the nervous system by excessive use. The largest proportion come from the country districts, especially from the seacoast, comparatively few from the towns and cities. The greatest number are of the farming and laboring classes, who made up three-fourths of the inmates received last year--common laborers and poor farmers with two acres of land and two cows. Those from certain districts are generally related, predisposition to insanity being manifest in many families. The farming class, coming from the moors and mountains with their barren soil and great privations, are inclined to insanity because of their impoverished conditions of life. Their only food is often tea, bread, and tobacco. The first treatment at the asylum is to give them plenty of nourishing food and build them up. They are furnished meat every day except Friday. Religious delusions have disturbed the minds of many who fear that they are damned forever and cannot enter heaven. They are hard to cure and the slowest of recovery. The influence of the chaplain in these cases is most beneficial. Under his ministration they receive temporary consolation, but after he has left they often relapse into their former melancholy. The principal cause of insanity among those who come from the barren moors and desolate mountains is not so much their isolated condition or impoverished life, but their strange delusions. The mountain peasants are very superstitious and imaginative. They believe in fairies and bogies and hear strange voices in the air around them. They believe in leprecawns, which are little men that come out of the ground. They imagine that the fairies and goblins can come through the key-holes of their rooms in the asylum; they are ever hearing strange voices and seeing strange specters as they did upon the moors and mountains. Of both men and women now in the institution at Killarney more than two hundred have come back to Ireland after a sojourn in America. The superintendent says that the dissipations and excitement of their experience in the United States have caused their mental breakdown after the quiet life and habits of the early days in Ireland. But hereditary predisposition exists in almost every case and in time would have caused the same affliction even though they had remained at home. Hereditary influence and generations of poverty and privation are the general causes of insanity. Very few recoveries are found among those who have been born of insane parents. Most of those dismissed are soon back again, broken down as before by poor nourishment, poverty, and want. The number of readmissions is very large. There are two chaplains, one of whom is Rev. Mr. Madden of the Protestant Church of Ireland. There are very few Protestant patients, however, only twenty being in the asylum at present, the population of the district being largely Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic chaplain, Rev. D. O'Connor, is in constant attendance. XXVIII THE EDUCATION OF IRISH FARMERS In connection with the breaking up of the big estates into small farms and the introduction throughout Ireland of the system of peasant proprietorship, the government has wisely provided for the education of the farmers so that they may enjoy a larger reward for their labors. There was some scientific farming on the large estates, but until recently 95 per cent of the tenants throughout the country have been simply scratching the land to raise a few potatoes and vegetables to supply their tables and "laving the pig to pay the rint," as the saying goes. But now things are different. A department of agriculture has been organized, in some respects upon the lines of that in the United States, and after frequent consultation between Sir Horace Plunkett, who was the leader of the movement, and our own Secretary Wilson at Washington. The question of agricultural education was taken up seriously, and what is known as the "recess committee," formed by Sir Horace Plunkett, during the winter of 1896, suggested a definite plan. The committee consisted of himself, Lord Mayo, Lord Monteagle, John Redman, T.P. Gill, and others. They presented to the government a project for state aid toward the development of agriculture and mechanical industries with a minister responsible to parliament in charge, assisted by two councils--one for agriculture, the other for technical instruction, composed of gentlemen in touch with public opinion and familiar with the weaknesses and the requirements of the farmers and the small manufacturers. The act was passed by parliament in 1899 and a capital sum of $1,000,000 and an annual appropriation of $830,000 was made for its support. The department was promptly organized with Sir Horace Plunkett, the leader of the movement, at its head, and various other branches of the public administration not originally contemplated were placed under his jurisdiction, including the quarantine of animals, the regulation of railway freights on agricultural products, county fairs and markets, the enforcement of the pure food and drugs laws, the fisheries, the collection and publication of statistics, the suppression of frauds in weights and in the sale of agricultural requirements and products, the colleges of science and art, the art galleries, the Royal Museum and library, and all technical education throughout the island. The department very naturally took up first the work of aiding the development and introducing improvements in agriculture, horticulture, forestry, dairying, the breeding of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, poultry, and bees; the protection of game and fish, the cultivation of flax, home and cottage industries, such as spinning, weaving, lace-making, and similar household arts; the improvement of cooking and household economy, nursing, and various other occupations and industries pertaining to the common people and of the utmost importance for their health, happiness, and prosperity. An advisory council of one hundred and four members was formed, composed mostly of landowners and farmers, with a few merchants and clergymen, including the bishops of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland, and a board of technical instruction of a similar character, with several professional educators, the provost of Trinity College, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin, and representatives of the clergy of the Presbyterian and other nonconformist churches. After considering the problem of technical education, which had never been undertaken in Ireland to any extent, it was decided to commence by introducing ordinary instruction in the common schools, and the sum of $275,000 has annually been distributed, in proportion to population, among the various counties to train children in the secondary schools of the rural towns in trades and in the simple principles of the cultivation of the soil, the breeding of cattle, and other practical duties of farming life. In order to qualify teachers to give this instruction summer schools were established at Dublin, Belfast, Cork, and other central points, and in the cities evening schools were provided for those who could make use of them. Faculties of experts were employed for all these schools, and inspectors were sent about the island inquiring into the methods and reporting upon the competency of the teachers. The Metropolitan School of Art and the Royal College of Science, which have been in existence at Dublin for many years, were re-organized on a practical basis, inspired with new vitality, and brought into full activity for the instruction of young men and women in various forms of arts and handicrafts which were practiced by their ancestors for centuries, but have long since been lost sight of or neglected. The Science and Art Museum on Kildare Street, which was seldom visited except by tourists, is now a live place, and every morning is filled with young men and women eager to learn lace-making, designing, decorating, and other arts and industries which have been allowed to languish in Ireland. In connection with these schools instruction is given in domestic economy, in the chemistry of cooking, in nursing, in dressmaking, millinery, laundry work, and various other branches of domestic economy which have never before been taught in Ireland. For the benefit of those who cannot attend these schools twenty-nine itinerant instructors are sent throughout the country to give instruction to the wives and daughters of farmers and laborers, how to make the best use of foods and how to practice other economies in household administration; how to raise poultry and bees, do cottage gardening, the culture and the preserving of fruit, and other practical domestic sciences. This is something entirely new in Ireland, and the reports of the itinerant instructors and of the inspectors who have followed them to observe their work have been most encouraging as regards the interest taken by the younger women and girls and the improvement that has already been made in the conditions of the households of the working classes in the country, for these efforts are confined to the rural districts. There has been some attempt at reforming the sanitary conditions of the tenement houses of Dublin and other cities, but they have scarcely gone beyond the experimental stage, for the task is greater than the department would dare undertake at present. A large staff of itinerant instructors who are thoroughly posted and trained in agricultural science are employed among the farmers, and especially among those who have recently become the owners of small farms under the Land Act of 1903. A sense of the responsibility of proprietorship is being gradually developed. Heretofore those who have occupied rented lands have had no incentive to improve them or even keep them in good condition, because they never knew when they might be evicted. But to-day one-third of the farmers in Ireland own the soil they till, and when the government is able to furnish the money to pay for purchases that have already been arranged one-half of the entire number will have permanent homes and land of their own. Realizing this, they are willing and in many cases eager to learn how to make the best use of their possessions, how to get the largest returns for their labor, and how to increase the value of their property. The demoralized condition of the farming population caused by the frequent political agitations has made instruction in these lines of economy useless until recently; but now that the land wars are over and the causes for agitation are being removed, and the farmers of Ireland are coming into their own, they take a different view of life, and welcome every offer of instruction that will enable them to improve their situation. The itinerant instructors are practical men. They work among the farmers in the fields in the summer, and during the winter deliver lectures with practical illustrations in the schoolhouses, the town halls, and other convenient places. There have never been any agricultural schools in Ireland, and it would be difficult to persuade the farmers to attend them, even if they were established. Therefore the officials of the department have undertaken their work with the children of the farms in the secondary rural schools with the hope and confidence that the next generation can be persuaded to follow up this rudimentary learning by taking advanced courses in agricultural science. Indeed, many of them have already done so. There are to-day one hundred and twenty-eight young men, all of them sons of poor farmers, studying agricultural science in different institutions of Ireland, and many of them are being assisted financially to gain a technical as well as a practical education. The department has provided a system of pecuniary aid so that boys who have shown special aptitude in the secondary schools may pass on to the agricultural college, and the reorganized college of science, and even to the university. The itinerating instructors are introducing better varieties of potatoes, grain, and other crops. They advise farmers as to the selection of crops after making a chemical analysis of their soil; they encourage the purchase of the best qualities of seed, show how it should be planted, and conduct field experiments, inspect buildings and suggest improvements, show how simple remedies can be applied to diseases of live stock, explain the most approved methods of feeding dairy cattle and butter-making, fattening chickens for market, egg packing, and other little matters which are of the greatest value to those whose happiness and prosperity depend upon the intelligent application of their labor. In 1907, 8,394 farms were visited in this way by the instructors and 66,144 persons received instruction. More than two thousand lectures were given, with an average attendance of sixty-seven. To improve the live stock of the country the department loans money to competent farmers to purchase high-class stallions, bulls, rams, and boars, and takes their notes to be paid in annual installments. Last year eleven stallions, one hundred and thirty-five bulls, seventy-four rams, and a proportionate number of other animals were purchased in that way. And to encourage breeding it offers prizes for the best stock in the different counties, of a sufficient value to be an inducement for competition. It gives financial subsidies for the aid of stock, poultry, horticultural and agricultural exhibitions, plowing matches, implement trials, labor competitions, and for the best yields of potatoes, grain, corn, and other staples. It offers prizes in the different counties for the best gardens, the best kept poultry-yards, and the best butter, which has excited a widespread interest and resulted in a general advancement of conditions. As a result of prize competition a rivalry has sprung up among the cottagers all over Ireland to improve the appearance and convenience of their farms and buildings. The prizes are sufficiently large to make it an object to keep their residences and stables in repair and neat and clean, both inside and out. There is a similar improvement in cottage gardens for the same reason. Last year more than $25,000 was given in prizes in the different counties for the best kept cottages and house gardens. The department is encouraging tobacco and flax growing, and a very fair quality of tobacco is now being raised in Ireland. Special schools have been established for the instruction of creamery managers and attendants, and the department has inaugurated a series of inspections which are voluntary, but the certificate of the inspectors adds considerably to the value of the butter in the market. Last year 359 creameries invited inspection, as compared with 166 in 1906 and 82 in 1905. This indicates that the value of the inspectors' certificates is becoming appreciated. Forestry operations are being undertaken also, and eighteen young men are now under training for professional foresters. They are the first that have ever been known in Ireland. If anyone should attempt to distribute the credit and honor that are due to those who have accomplished the good and promoted the prosperity that Ireland is now enjoying, he would find himself in serious trouble at once. Rivalries are very keen. Nowhere else is partisanship so pronounced and so intolerant. People of different political theories and policies are seldom willing to concede honest motives to their opponents. The leaders of the national party insist that all the beneficial legislation that has been enacted by the British parliament has been yielded reluctantly by the government, not from any interest in the welfare of the Irish people, but solely to avoid a revolution. But I am sure that no one will deny that Sir Horace Plunkett has been one of the most active and disinterested and effective agents in bringing about the great reforms that have been accomplished there within the last few years. He rushes about like an American hustler, carrying out his plans for the welfare of the farmers of Ireland with intense earnestness, independent of public opinion, and as confident of his success as he is of his integrity. He was described to me by one of his friends as "the most transparently sincere man in the kingdom, thoroughly unselfish, disinterested, and patriotic, and with a sanguine disposition that nothing can discourage." He spends $10,000 a year from his own pocket in his benevolent work, and while he was at the head of the agricultural department he turned over his entire salary to the Irish Agricultural Organization Society, of which he is the founder and the president. Sir Horace Plunkett is the son of the late Lord Dunsany of County Meath, a very old Irish family, descended from the ancient Lords of the Pale, who have lived in the same house for seven centuries and have had an active part in the history of Ireland from the beginning of days. A famous old Irish book called "The Annals of the Four Masters" says: "There are many fierce barons in the Pale, and the traveler leaving Dublin must pass between the Baron Killeen and the Baron Dunsany," and Sir Horace referred to the reputation of his ancestors in a speech that he made not long ago, as follows: "I was reared in one of those old castles of the Pale, almost under the shadow of the Hill of Tara, where the Plunkett family for seven centuries have managed to cling to the same house. Of course, in the good old days, we fought for what we considered our rights, which was to treat the inhabitants of the country as mere Irish and to avail ourselves of their long-horned cattle without payment. I have never started a new creamery without a sense of restitution for their little irregularities. An old chronicle we have in the family runs thus: 'There be in Meath two Lords Plunkett, a Lord of Killeen and a Lord of Dunsany, and so it comes to pass that whoever can escape being robbed at Dunsany will be robbed at Killeen--and whoever can escape being robbed at Killeen will be robbed at Dunsany.' This shows that our family took an interest in the tourist traffic in those days, though our methods of developing it, judged by the polite standards of to-day, may appear somewhat crude. You will notice also the germ of the co-operative idea." (The point of this joke lies in the fact that Sir Horace Plunkett is the originator and the most active leader in establishing co-operative societies throughout the island.) He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and, when he got his degree, went to the United States and bought a ranch in Wyoming, which he still owns in partnership with former Senator Carey of that State. He also has large interests in Nebraska and lived there for more than ten years. He keeps up his acquaintance by annual visits. Sir Horace Plunkett came back from America to Ireland with his soul stirred by patriotism and an ambition to do something to improve the condition of his fellow countrymen. He realized the great disadvantages under which they were laboring in their antiquated methods of farming, their rude tools and their ignorance, and in 1894 proceeded to organize a nonpolitical movement to improve their condition by carrying instruction to them because they would not go anywhere to receive it. His enthusiasm and his activities attracted the sympathy and assistance of several other patriotic people, including Lord Monteagle and R.A. Anderson, who was then collecting rents and looking after the tenants of Lord Castledown. In 1894, their work having become too large to be carried on by individuals, they organized the Irish Agricultural Organization Society with about four hundred subscribers, mostly people who were not connected with agriculture. With the exception of Lord Monteagle, Colonel Everhart, Sir Henry Bellew, Sir Joslyn Bore Booth, and a few others, the landlord class took little interest in the movement, but they are beginning to recognize the value of the society and are giving it more sympathy and support than formerly. R.A. Anderson, the permanent secretary of the society from the beginning, told me the story as follows: "An adequate staff was first employed who went about among the farmers holding meetings, delivering lectures, talking with them privately, explaining the advantages of education and co-operation, and organizing local societies in every county and district to co-operate with the general society in Dublin. This work has been going on ever since until we have now about ninety thousand members, mostly small landowners and farmers, although in the southern counties we have several prominent ones. "The next step was to organize co-operative creameries, the farmers contributing the capital and sharing the returns, as in the United States. They deliver their milk at the creameries every day and receive credit tickets for it, which are settled once a month. This has proven to be a great economy over the old plan, where each farmer made his own butter at home, because it was badly made as a rule, brought a low price, and kept down the reputation of the dairy industry in Ireland. We have now in operation three hundred and fifty co-operative creameries to which forty thousand farmers contribute. The butter is exported to England and Scotland by the managers under the supervision of a committee. The reputation of Irish butter has been restored. It commands twenty-two cents a pound, about the same as the Danish butter, whereas farm butter used to bring only fifteen or sixteen cents a pound, and it is difficult to sell it even at that price in these days in competition with the co-operative creameries. "We have introduced the most modern methods of butter-making and machinery. Pasteurization is being generally adopted and our cooling machinery permits the ripening of cream much more accurately and the production of better butter with a lower per cent of moisture. The creameries are setting an excellent example in planting ornamental shrubs around the buildings and forest trees for shelter, while several have laid out attractive gardens. These external signs of care and taste make a favorable impression upon the public, and the creameries are being constantly visited by people from all parts of the country. "Our next step was to organize societies among the farmers for the co-operative purchase of supplies of various kinds, for the purchase of seeds, manures, feeding stuffs, machinery, implements, carts, harness, and everything a farmer needs but his live stock. We have one central agency at Dublin acting for about two hundred local societies in different parts of Ireland, representing about seventeen thousand families, who buy everything they want in that way at much lower prices than are charged by the local dealers. They are always sure of getting wholesale prices, the best quality of articles, and there is no possibility of being swindled. Every buyer gets what he orders, which is very important, particularly if it concerns seeds. A farmer who wants a machine or a lot of seeds or a new kind of potatoes, or a cart, or anything else, fills up a blank prepared for that purpose, posts it to the secretary of the society, and the latter orders the article from the central agency, to be paid for upon shipment in cash. This co-operative movement has been a tremendous success and is entering directly into the lives of the people. "The next step," continued Mr. Anderson, "was to organize co-operative credit societies from which farmers who are members may borrow money at low rates and keep out of the hands of the 'gombeen men'--the Celtic word for usurer--who bleed their clients in a merciless manner. The loans are made for productive purposes only--to buy better machinery, more cattle, sheep, swine, and horses, seeds and manures, and other things of tangible value. We do not loan money to pay debts or fines, or to get wild boys out of trouble, or to pay blackmail, or to provide dowries for marriageable daughters. All these things are prohibited, and the managers look to it that not a penny of the society's money is invested in any speculative enterprise. There are 270 of these Agricultural Co-operative Credit Societies in Ireland under the supervision of our organization with about 20,100 members, and they handle an average of $300,000 in loans averaging not more than $25, which amount shows that they are serving the purpose for which they were intended--to help the small farmer to improve his condition. "It is quite remarkable," said Mr. Anderson, "that none of these societies has ever lost a penny. They are managed by committees appointed by the members, who borrow their capital from joint stock banks upon the individual and joint indorsement of the board--each individual being responsible. They get the money for four per cent and loan it for five or six per cent, thus leaving a margin which pays the expenses and leaves a surplus which is carried to a reserve that may also be lent out. These societies also receive deposits from their members and other people in the district and pay three per cent interest, the same as the savings banks. They sometimes obtain loans of £50 to £100 from the Department of Agriculture or the Congested Districts Board at three per cent, which they loan to their members in small amounts at from five to six per cent interest. Last year they got about $60,000 from those two sources. "The great advantage of these credit societies, in addition to keeping their members out of the clutches of the gombeen men, is to teach them the proper use of credit, the difference between borrowing to make and borrowing to spend, to promote thrift by giving a fair interest upon deposits, to encourage sobriety and industry and to teach a sense of responsibility and the value of reputation, because a man's character is the sole qualification to membership, and everybody wants to get in. To be admitted to membership is an indorsement that is very highly regarded, and when a man is in his neighbors look after him. "There are various other co-operative societies," continued Mr. Anderson. "Last year we organized thirty-two new co-operative credit societies, twenty-two co-operative purchasing societies, twelve co-operative creameries, five flax societies to encourage the cultivation and handling of flax, and six co-operative bacon-curing factories, where farmers can send their hogs to be slaughtered and cured in a proper manner, which enables them to get a quick sale and a higher price for their pork. We also organized a large number of co-operative poultry societies to promote the raising of hens and chickens, the shipment and sale of eggs and poultry, so that the farmers can get better prices, have reliable selling agencies, lower freight rates, and sure collections. Eggs are sold here by weight instead of by the dozen, so that people who raise large eggs have the advantage. The eggs are all tested, graded, and packed according to the continental system, which we prefer to the cardboard arrangements which you use in the United States. These co-operative poultry societies are improving the breeds of hens, are teaching the members how to raise poultry, protect it from diseases, and make the best use of the feed. This is a very important industry, and we have brought it up so that now the average revenue from twenty hens is equal to that from one cow. "The farmers' wives are also taught how to raise bees, although for the last few years there has been no money in them. We have had the worst years on record for honey. "The latest attempt of the Irish Agricultural Organization Society is to introduce co-operation among the small farmers who have recently come into the ownership of their lands to assist each other in building more comfortable homes for themselves and better buildings for their cattle and the storage of their crops. This is in the line of self-help and mutual aid among neighbors and furnishes employment for many days during the winter season which otherwise would be spent in idleness. The most economical building material we have here now is cement blocks, which are easily made with a little instruction, and we are sending around instructors to show the farmers how to utilize their spare time in the winter in making a sufficient number of blocks of this artificial stone to build the walls of a house in the spring. The neighbors can then get together and help each other put them in place under the direction of the instructor of the society, just as your pioneers in America used to help each other put up their log cabins. There is a universal desire and ambition on the part of the two hundred and fifty thousand farmers who have recently become the owners of their places under the Land Act of 1903 to improve their dwellings, and the Irish Agricultural Organization Society is doing a great deal to encourage them in this way." XXIX LIMERICK, ASKEATON, AND ADARE Limerick looks like a medieval city, and it is one of the oldest in Ireland. There is an old tower that was built seven centuries ago, and portions of walls forty feet high and thirty-six feet thick which date back to the time of King John in the twelfth century. The castle is one of the finest Norman fortresses yet remaining in the kingdom and overlooks the River Shannon in a most formidable manner. The ancient gate is carefully retained and there is a bridge across the river approaching it that might have been built by the Romans. The Shannon is a good deal of a river, and has been walled in with cut stone and wide quays that are equipped with modern machinery for loading and unloading vessels, although there isn't much commerce. Occasionally a steamer loaded with coal arrives, but there is no regular traffic, and we saw a big four-masted bark discharging a cargo of wheat that was brought all the way around Cape Horn from California and will be ground up in the mills of Limerick, because it is cheaper to bring it that distance than to raise wheat on the farms in that vicinity. It seems incredible, because there is so much land given up to pastures that might be plowed and sowed with grain. We rode about Limerick County in an automobile for several days and didn't see a wheat field,--not one,--although there are several flour mills in the immediate neighborhood. In two grocery stores where I inquired they told me that they handled American flour or flour from American wheat almost exclusively, and that they were selling a good deal of bacon from the Chicago packing-houses, which also seems strange, because Limerick bacon is supposed to be the best in the world, and three big establishments, employing several hundred men, do nothing but cure bacon and hams. Each slaughters about ten thousand hogs a week, which doesn't seem a very large business in comparison with that of the packing-houses of Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City, but there it is something to brag about. Limerick bacon brings the highest price in the London market and sells at three or four cents a pound more than that which is imported from Chicago. In order to realize the difference the people of the city are willing to ship their bacon to England and eat the Chicago product. Limerick is also the center of a large butter trade and has the biggest condensed milk factory in the kingdom, using the milk of ten thousand cows daily, which is gathered morning and evening by enormous motors that go thundering around the roads like Juggernauts. They look like steam-rollers, and are built the same way with four wheels that have tires more than a foot wide, and they serve a double purpose by rolling the roads daily while they are hauling in the milk. Each of these ponderous vehicles carries a large tank that will hold a hundred gallons of milk and hauls a trailer that carries two tanks of similar size, thus making about three hundred gallons to the load, but it makes noise enough for ten thousand gallons. The big tanks are painted white and the machines are polished like the knockers on the front doors of the Limerick houses. There are three of these machines, which start out at daylight in the morning, and each goes in a different direction, picking up the milk that is left in cans by the farmers at convenient cross-road stations. When the tanks are all filled the Juggernaut comes rumbling into town, making more noise than the railroad train, discharges its load at the condensed milk factory, and then starts out in another direction. Limerick has a population of about forty thousand, which has been reduced from fifty thousand during the last ten or twelve years by emigration to America; and, as we find it the case everywhere, all the young men who can get money enough to pay their steamship fares are emigrating. Many young women go also, and "the best blood of the country is lost to us," one of the priests remarked. The city has not increased in numbers for centuries. It has merely held its own, and some historians contend that it had more population five hundred years ago than it has now. It was founded before the beginning of history. In 1168 lived and reigned Donald O'Brien, the last king of Limerick. He was fifth in descent from Brian Boru, and was among the first to swear allegiance to the Norman invader, King Henry of England, when the latter arrived, permitting an English governor to be placed in possession of the city. But after King Henry returned to England, Donald O'Brien lost no time in renouncing allegiance and declaring his independence. And from that time he fought the English with great energy until his death in 1194, after a reign of twenty-six years of almost continuous conflict. However, King Donald found time and money during the intervals of his wars to erect a splendid old church that still stands and is called St. Mary's, the Protestant Cathedral of the Church of Ireland. He erected several other churches and monasteries in Limerick County which bear witness to the religious zeal of Donald O'Brien. The ruins at Cashel, which are the most extensive in all Ireland, are reminders of his piety, energy, and generosity in the Christian propaganda. He is supposed to have been buried in St. Mary's Cathedral, and the most ancient and noteworthy monument in that venerable temple is a brown-stone slab covered with a Celtic cross and inscription that is supposed to be the lid of his coffin. This monument originally stood on the grounds outside the church and was moved inside in 1860. On the other side of the chapel in which this precious relic is preserved is a monument erected to the memory of the soldiers of the Eighty-fifth Regiment of the King's Light Infantry who have died in battle. And above it hang the flags which that regiment has carried during the last two hundred years, including the Crimean war, the South African, the war in Spain, the war against Napoleon, and the war for independence in the United States. Upon one of these flags is inscribed the name "Bladensburg," the battle, or rather skirmish, that was fought a few miles from Washington in 1813, and it was this regiment which entered the city and burned the capitol, then unfinished, the White House, and the navy yard. Gen. Frederick Maunsell, who commanded the regiment at that time, is buried near by. The old church was restored very carefully between 1879 and 1892 under the direction of the dean, Very Rev. Thomas Bunbury, D.D. The work has been admirably done at an expense of about $50,000, which was contributed by members of the parish and natives of Limerick, who are interested in preserving its antiquities. The present dean is Very Rev. Lucius Henry O'Brien, a son of that famous Irish patriot, William Smith O'Brien, who was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for treason in the revolution of 1848, but fortunately escaped that barbarous penalty. An interesting volume has been written concerning St. Mary's Cathedral and its history and the curious tombs that are found under its roof. Some of the epitaphs are unique. Here is one: "Johne Stretche, Aldermane, third son too Bartholomewe This monument made in Febrarye most true, Wher he and his heyres males resight theyre mortalle bons Tyll Chryste do come to judge all mans atte ons." Another curious inscription upon a gravestone two feet square reads: "Fifteen years a mayd, one year a wyfe, Two years a mother, then I left this life. Three months after me mine offspring did remain, Now earth to earth we are returned again." And here is still another in memory of Geoffrey Arthur, treasurer of the cathedral, who died in 1519: "Do thou excite the solemn train, And with the doleful trumps proclaim Eight times the mournful story Then to Eana oblation make Of eight prayers for the sake Of his soul in pergatory." One of the bishops of the eighteenth century, named Adams, is buried in the church, and his monument consists of two slabs, one above and the other below a space which was evidently intended to contain a bust. On either side the emblems of the passion--the reed, the spear, the scourge, and the crown of thorns--are engraved, and after the name and biographical information are the lines: "Sufficient God did give me, which I spent; I little borrowed and as little lent; I left them whom I loved enough in store, Increased the bishoprick, relivd the poore." One of the tombs contains this laconic epitaph: "Dan Hayes, An honest man, And a lover of his country." The bells of St. Mary's Cathedral at Limerick are famous for their sweet tones, and a very pretty story is told about them. It is said that they were cast in Italy at the expense of a rich Italian and presented to a monastery in Italy. In a few years the monks became very poor and sold their bells to the Bishop of Limerick for money to relieve their immediate distresses. The Italian nobleman who had given them also met with misfortune and became a wanderer over the earth. Coming up the Shannon River from a long ocean voyage one day, the first sound that greeted him was the chimes from St. Mary's tower. He instantly recognized the bells, the pride and the joy of his heart, and tried in vain until his death to recover them. Although this story is touching, it is not true. The history of the chimes is perfectly well known. They were cast in that city about 1660 by William Perdue, a resident of Limerick, who is buried in the cathedral with an appropriate epitaph: "Here is a bell founder, honest and true Until the ressurection lies Perdue. William Perdue Obiat III X Xbris Ao. Dini MDCLXXIII." The royal capital of the O'Briens is often known as "The City of the Violated Treaty." It was stoutly defended against Cromwell's army in 1651 by Hugh O'Neill, but after a six months' siege it was captured by General Ireton, the son-in-law of Cromwell, who became governor until his death of the plague the year following. The house in which Ireton lived and died stood next to the cathedral. It was torn down some years ago and the site added to the cathedral grounds. Limerick was also besieged in 1691 during the war between James II and William of Orange. The latter captured the city with an army of twenty-six thousand men and made a treaty with Gen. Patrick Sarsfield, who surrendered Oct. 3, 1691. The ninth article of the treaty of surrender provided that Roman Catholics could enjoy the same privileges as Protestants and were given immunity for all religious offenses in the past. This article, however, was repeatedly violated by the Protestant authorities, although it was no fault of William of Orange. His representatives made it so hot for the Catholics who had served under James that they fled from Ireland for France and formed the Irish brigade that was so famous in continental wars during the next twenty years. Sarsfield, who was one of the ablest and bravest soldiers Ireland has ever produced, was killed in battle in 1693, and it is estimated that during the next half century four hundred and fifty thousand other Irishmen died fighting for the King of France. A monument to Patrick Sarsfield has been erected near the Roman Catholic Cathedral with the following inscription: "To commemorate the Indomitable Energy and stainless honor of General Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, the heroic defender of Limerick during the sieges of 1690 and 1691. "Sarsfield is the word, And Sarsfield is the man. 'T would be a shame to let his name Like other names decay." [Illustration: TREATY STONE, LIMERICK] The treaty of Limerick was drawn by Sir John Browne, a colonel in the service of King James and the first Marquis of Sligo. It was signed upon a large flat stone which now stands upon a pedestal at the entrance to the ancient bridge that crosses the Shannon River. The women of the poorer classes in Tipperary and Limerick wear heavy woolen shawls made at Paisley, Scotland, and costing from five to ten dollars, according to the quality. They wear them over their heads in place of hats, and although it was very hot while we were there, it made no difference; they go around with their heads hidden in their shawls, as the Spanish women wear mantillas; and most of them are barefooted. Tipperary was the first place in Ireland where we saw barefooted women in the streets, and it isn't an agreeable sight. We saw more in Limerick, and it was still less agreeable. The workingmen do not go barefooted, although many of them have shoes very much the worse for wear, but it seems to be the custom for the wives and mothers and daughters of the working classes to go about without shoes or stockings and with heavy shawls over their heads, which, like charity, cover a multitude of sins and other things. Their dresses are tattered at the bottom and often ragged and always greasy, and their hair, so far as it can be seen under the shawls, is very untidy, which gives them a disreputable and repulsive appearance, so different from the women we saw at Drogheda, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Blarney, and other places we had been to. There is no occasion for the women of Limerick to dress as they do, because the town is prosperous and it used to boast of the reputation of having the prettiest girls in Ireland. Some poet who knew them long ago has written thus: "The first time me feet got the feel of the ground I was sthrollin' along in an old Irish city, That hasn't its aquail the whole wurrld around, For the air that is swate and the gurrls that are pretty. And the lashes so thick round thim beautiful eyes Shinin' to tell you its fair time o' day wid 'em. Back in me heart wid a koind of sorprise I think how the Irish girls has th' way wid 'em." Judging from what we saw on the streets, at church, and in the parks on a Sunday, when all the feminine population of Limerick seemed to be out, we would think that the beauties had gone to America with the fairies. There is "the Irish town" and "the English town" in Limerick, and between them is a good deal of animosity, which has continued for several hundred years and probably never will be entirely removed. The old castle built by King John in 1205, when the British first occupied Limerick, and considered one of the finest specimens of Norman military architecture in existence, is now used as an ordnance store for the military garrison. There is a romantic story associated with the old town and I cannot resist the temptation of telling it. Toward the beginning of the ninth century the Danish King of Limerick, Turgesius, by name, who occupied a fortification that stood upon the site of the present castle, fell in love with the daughter of Malachi, the King of Meath--the same who "Wore the collar of gold Which he won from the proud invader." Turgesius demanded her hand in marriage and Malachi, who was not in very good shape for a fight, dare not deny him. The girl, however, had her wits about her and suggested to her timid father a plan to outwit the odious lover. At her suggestion he entreated Turgesius that his daughter might be received by him privately and at night, and promised to send as her attendants fifteen of the most celebrated beauties of his kingdom. The arrangement was acceptable, and, at the appointed time, the princess and her fifteen ladies-in-waiting arrived at Limerick and were conducted to the apartments of the king, who was eagerly awaiting them. When Turgesius took the princess in his arms the fifteen ladies-in-waiting immediately threw off their disguise and the astonished king of Limerick saw before him fifteen of the stoutest and bravest of the Irish chivalry, each with a flashing sword in his hand. Before he could recover from his astonishment Turgesius was seized and bound, his guards were surprised, and the gates of the fortress were opened to Malachi and the men of Meath, who massacred the entire garrison and thereafter ruled in Limerick. The migration to America from County Limerick has been very large and every person we have met has one or more relatives in the United States. Every family is represented there and those who have not gone are anxious to go. Each spring and summer quite a number of young people return to their old homes, and the airs they put on and the raiment they wear are very amusing. We saw them at the railway stations, at church, on the streets, and elsewhere, surrounded by admiring and envious friends. More laborers' cottages have been erected by the government in County Limerick than in any other part of Ireland, and more are being built all the time. Any laboring man who wants a home of his own need only to make application for the assistance of the commissioner of the poor and express his preference for a site. The commissioners are not required to accept his choice, but usually do so when there is no particular objection, and he is entitled to an acre of ground for a garden. After certain legal preliminaries are fulfilled, they erect for him a two-story, five-room cottage, costing about $750, with an outhouse for fuel, storage, and the accommodation of a cow. They inclose the property in a stout fence and turn it over to the new owner without the expenditure of a farthing on his part. He, however, undertakes to reimburse the county for the investment it has made in his behalf at the rate of 3-1/4; per cent of the cost price, which usually amounts to about thirty dollars a year. The laboring class of no other country is so well treated. Before I left Washington a highly esteemed friend, and one of the most charitable and public-spirited citizens of that city, intrusted me with a mission which was fulfilled as soon as possible after arriving in Limerick. It was to leave with the parish priest of his native village of Askeaton a generous sum of money for the benefit of the poor, and you may imagine the pleasure that attended our visit there for that reason. Askeaton is an ancient village of seven or eight hundred inhabitants about twenty miles from Limerick, where the River Deel tumbles over ledges of rocks into the Shannon and forms a series of cascades, which make it the second best water-power in Ireland and perpetuates the name of a Celtic chieftain, concerning whom nothing else is known. We went down in an automobile, visiting several other places of interest by the way, passing Donmore, the seat of the Earl of Limerick, an ancient ruin in which a holy hermit lived several centuries ago, Dysart House, the seat of the Earl of Dysart, and a beautiful place called Holly Park, where resided a queer man by the name of Taylor. He inherited a fine farm and considerable wealth, but lived a bachelor until he was sixty years old, when he married his cook. There was nothing wrong with him except a mania for buying coats, and he used to haunt the second-hand stores of Limerick, Dublin, London, and wherever else he happened to go, picking up all the queer patterns and colors that he could find. He spent most of his time brushing and cataloguing them, and when he died last spring more than five thousand coats were found hanging on racks in the upper rooms and the attic of Holly Park. It took three big wagons to carry them away, for his wife, the former cook, got rid of them as soon after the funeral as she could arrange for. Askeaton used to be a place of some importance, and at one time returned two members of parliament, but it has lost population and trade, and many years ago the franchise was taken away and the sum of $75,000 was paid as indemnity to Lord Massey, who controlled the suffrages. It isn't far from the sea and there is a good deal of fishing, although agriculture is its chief dependence. There is a carbite factory owned by John B. Hewson, and a big flour mill, which, however, is idle because the people find it cheaper to buy American flour. The farmers here cannot compete with California wheat. They told me that it is more profitable to raise potatoes for market and turnips for cattle. Askeaton has one irregular street and old-fashioned houses of brick and mortar, hugging closely to the walls of an ancient castle which was the stronghold of the earls of Desmond and the scene of much fighting in ancient times. It is one of the largest ruins in Ireland, a monstrous pile covering more than two acres, and the walls of stone, now standing, are more than ninety feet high and ten to fifteen feet thick. The great hall measures ninety by thirty feet and is lighted by four great windows in a fair state of preservation. Over the first arch from the stairway is a small chamber measuring eight by seven feet, called "Desmond's prison," in which Gerald, the twelfth Earl of Desmond, imprisoned by Edmond MacTeig, who contested his succession, "for six years pined in captivity, shut up in the castle of Askeaton, till his release, which was obtained by the intercession of his wife, who was related to Edmond." A battlemented wall surrounds the entire structure, which could be entered only by a narrow pathway cut through the rock so that any attempt to force an entrance would be impossible. Askeaton Abbey, which was founded under the protection of the castle for the Franciscan monks in 1420, by the seventh Earl of Desmond, is only a few steps distant, and, judging from the huge masses of masonry, it must have been an extensive and solid structure. Some of the walls are twenty feet thick and the lightest are four feet and a half thick. It is kept with great care by the board of public works and the cloister is remarkably perfect, being inclosed by twelve pointed arches of black marble. It was destroyed at the same time as the castle, and many of the monks were murdered by the Irish troops under the Earl of Ormonde and Sir Henry Pelham. In 1641 an attempt was made to restore the abbey to its former magnificence, but it was abandoned shortly afterward. The parish church, which stands upon a hill on the edge of the village, was built by the Knights Templar, who had an establishment at Askeaton dating from the thirteenth century, but nothing remains of it now but a curious tower in the churchyard. With Sergeant Quirk, the head constable, we inspected the ruins under the very best auspices, and I found Father Edmond Tracy, the parish priest, a most charming companion. He is an ideal type of the Irish priesthood, a man of culture, learning, and charming personality. He accepted the trust I was instructed to place in his care and told me that, although Askeaton was fairly prosperous and the people of the neighborhood parish were well to do, he frequently had appeals for charity that the scanty revenues of the church made difficult for him to respond to. Upon our way back to Limerick we stopped at Adare, which is considered the model village and belongs to the Earl of Dunraven, who has the enviable reputation of being one of the best landlords in Ireland. The village of Adare has about six hundred people living in model cottages, which he and his father built for them, with vegetable and flower gardens and everything that an Irish peasant could ask for, including both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. The former was once "The White Abbey," founded by the Augustinians in 1230 and restored by the Earl of Dunraven in 1811 with great care. A portion of the monastery has been rebuilt for a national school and given to the Roman Catholics. The neighboring Franciscan Abbey, founded in 1315, was restored for use as the Protestant church in 1807. The Earl of Dunraven who lived in those days built a family mausoleum in connection with it, and turned the refectory of the monks into a schoolhouse for Protestant children. Although the earls of Dunraven have been members of the Church of Ireland, they have been generous and frequent benefactors of the Roman Catholic church, and there seem to have been successive generations of wise, thoughtful, and considerate men in that family. [Illustration: ADARE ABBEY, IN THE PRIVATE GROUNDS OF THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN, NEAR LIMERICK] The house of Dunraven enjoys the proud distinction of being one of the few of the ancient Celtic aristocracy to survive the vicissitudes of the centuries. The earl traces his lineage back to the chief of the Dalcassian clan of prehistoric days. He is of the same stock as the O'Briens of Limerick, who have a common ancestor in Cormac Cas, son of Olliol Olum, monarch of all Ireland at the beginning of the third century. And the present earl has a curious and interesting letter written by Thady Quin of Adare in the time of James I., giving the complete pedigree. Adare Manor, as the estate of the Dunravens is known, is one of the most extensive and beautiful in Ireland. There is a stately mansion of the Tudor school of architecture, begun in 1832, upon the site of a former residence of the family and built entirely of material found upon the estate, by artisans of Adare. The material is gray limestone, relieved by blocks of red, and the striking feature is a tower which rises one hundred and three feet from the level of the ground. The stone work of the parapet which surmounts the front façade is inscribed in old English letters with the text, "Except the Lord build the house, their labor is in vain that build it." The late earl seemed to be fond of inscriptions, for over the main entrance is carved in stone this admonition: "Fear God, honor the Queen, eschew Evil and do Good," while upon a panel set into the front wall is the coat of arms of the Dunravens and the inscription: "This goodly Home was erected by Wyndham Henry, Earl of Dunraven, And Caroline, his Countess Without borrowing, selling or leaving a debt." "This goodly home" is surrounded by one of the finest parks in the world--about three thousand acres of glorious native forests, meadows, and pasture lands, all inclosed within a high wall. There are lakes and ponds and a roaring brook whose waters alternately dash over cascades and lie spread out in calm pools where trout and salmon can be seen motionless upon the bottom under the shadows cast by the overhanging trees. Roadways several miles in length reach every part of the demesne and permit views of the most picturesque portions of the scenery. They cross and recross the river over ancient bridges and through undulating pastures where the famous Dunraven herds are feeding, and follow long avenues between colonnades of very old trees. There are several interesting ruins within the demesne, including those of the ancient castle of Adare, which was built some time before 1331, because a record of that date gives a description of its appearance. It was afterward strengthened and enlarged, and for several centuries was one of the most formidable strongholds in all Ireland. It was from this castle in 1520 that the Earl of Kildare, viceroy of Ireland, left for London to answer charges brought against him by Cardinal Wolsey, by whom he was imprisoned in the Tower. There are ruins of several monasteries which also date back to the fourteenth century and are kept in perfect order. The most beautiful was once a monastery of the Franciscan order, and is within a step of the mansion, in the midst of the golf links. The present Earl of Dunraven, Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, was born in 1844, educated at Eton and Christ Church College, Oxford, and in 1870 married Florence, daughter of Lord Charles Lennox Kerr, a member of parliament from County Wexford. Dunraven is one of the most active and versatile men in the kingdom, and is almost as well known in the United States, being soldier, sailor, horseman, sportsman, yachtsman, explorer, politician, newspaper correspondent, author, antiquarian, economist, and historian. After receiving his degree at Oxford Dunraven served for several years in the Life Guards, and in 1871 resigned upon succeeding to the title and estates. While he was in the army he gained the reputation of being the best steeple-chase rider in the kingdom. Upon leaving the army he became a correspondent of the _London Daily Telegraph_ and represented that paper in an expedition to Abyssinia and during the Franco-Prussian war. He then went into politics and was under secretary for the colonies during two of Lord Salisbury's administrations. He then went into parliament and made a reputation as chairman of committees on the sweating system and the housing of the working classes. He devoted much time and attention to horse breeding and has a stock farm adjoining his estate at Adare with "Desmond," the most famous stallion in the kingdom, at the head of his stud. He has been offered $150,000 for the horse. In 1874 Dunraven went to the United States with his wife and spent nearly a year in the Rocky Mountains hunting big game and exploring and climbing peaks and shooting buffaloes with General Sheridan and Buffalo Bill. He wrote a book giving an account of his experience. He then took up the Irish question, went into it very deeply, and has retained his interest until now. He has written several books on the land question and the other economic problems of Ireland. He has been a prolific contributor to the magazines, and was the inventor of what is known as the "devolution policy" as a substitute for home rule in Ireland, which Sir Antony MacDonnell worked up into the so-called "Irish councils bill," which proposed to give home rule in every respect except the courts, police, and legislation. His lordship went through Ireland making speeches in favor of the project, but the leaders of the Irish parliamentary party declined to accept it and it fell to the ground. The Earl of Dunraven is best known in the United States, however, as a yachtsman. For several years he was the leader of that sport in England, and in 1893, 1894, and 1895 sailed for the _America's_ cup with three successive yachts named _Valkyrie_. The third contest was a fiasco, as may be remembered. Lord Dunraven published a pamphlet setting forth his side of the controversy, which created a great sensation. His lordship has made a thorough study of the archæology of this section of Ireland, and has written several interesting volumes on the subject. XXX COUNTY GALWAY AND RECENT LAND TROUBLES County Clare and County Galway are the districts of the greatest unrest in Ireland; and the largest number of boycotts, cattle drives, and evictions have occurred there of late years because certain large landowners, chief of whom is the Earl of Clanricarde, stubbornly refuse to sell their estates under the Land Act of 1903 or restore the tenants they have evicted or divide up their pastures into farms. The Earl of Clanricarde carried the matter into court, where he was sustained in his refusal to sell, on the ground that the law is not compulsory, and it is probable that parliament will adopt an amendment, now pending and introduced since the decision, requiring every large landowner in Ireland to divide up his estates among his tenants at prices to be fixed by the courts. The disturbances that are taking place at present are gentle and mild compared with what have occurred during the land wars of the past, and they are confined to a limited area and a small number of estates. The methods of "persuasion" used by the tenants and the "landless" men, as those who are entirely without farms are called, are, however, very much the same as those adopted years ago, but they are not so effective as they used to be. They are severely punished by the courts, and the taxpayers are assessed for all the damages committed. If these assessments could be confined to the particular parish within which the outrages occur it would be very much better, for it is not fair to ask innocent property owners twenty and thirty miles from the scene to pay for the mischief of a few reckless and irresponsible persons over whom they have no control. County Limerick is usually quiet. There has been no trouble there and the best of feelings prevail between the landlords and their tenants, with a few exceptions. There was only one criminal case (of infanticide) at the dockets of the courts in July, 1908, when I was there, two boycotts, and twenty-one complaints of intimidation, which, however, did not all relate to land matters. There were thirty-four evictions in County Limerick that year, most of them being due to poor crops and the lack of remittances from America. Lough Rea, the seat of the Clanricarde, has been the residence of that family since the year 1300. Althenry, the neighboring town, is also very old, and has belonged to the earls of Clanricarde since 1238. There is a castle, a Dominican monastery, a Franciscan monastery, and several churches, all in ruins, destroyed by Red Hugh O'Donnell in 1596. The Earl of Clanricarde never visits his Irish property. He has never occupied his ancestral home and has been seen in the vicinity but once since he came into the inheritance thirty or forty years ago. The boycott was invented at the little town of Ballinrobe, a pretty village of about fifteen hundred inhabitants, on Lough Mask, about twenty miles north of Galway. Charles S. Parnell made a speech at Ennis, the capital of County Clare, Sept. 19, 1880, advising the people to punish those who did not sympathize with them by "isolating them from their kind as if they were lepers." This advice was first applied to Captain Boycott, agent for the estate of Lord Erne, near Ballinrobe, and he was a complete victim of the policy. The police could do nothing. There was no law under which dealers could be compelled to sell him food and drink, and all his supplies had to be shipped to him from Dublin. Nobody would speak to him, nobody would work for him, nobody would accept his money, and, as Parnell suggested, he was treated as if he were a leper. The plan was so successful that it was promptly adopted throughout Ireland, and has since been commonly used elsewhere under the name of the first victim. But boycotting is growing unpopular in Ireland. It is condemned by the bishops and the clergy generally. They are taking more and more positive grounds, and many refuse the communion to persons who are guilty of either boycotting or cattle driving, because they are contrary to justice and charity and are therefore sinful. I heard one of the bishops preach an impressive sermon on the subject. He condemned all combinations of persons to cause suffering or distress in their neighbors as inhuman, immoral, and unjust. He declared that boycotting was worse than murder, because it caused a greater degree of suffering. When a man was shot he usually died without agony, but when he was boycotted he suffered the worse sort of mental torture, and to cause such sufferings was one of the worst of sins. Father Gilligan, parish priest at Carrick-on-Shannon, preached against boycotting the Sunday we were there. He said, in introducing the subject, that he deeply regretted that many of his parishioners had joined in a boycott for which they imagined they had a good excuse, but nothing would justify a boycott. It was a crime, and those who had engaged in it would not be admitted to communion until they had sincerely repented. Every effort had been made by advice, by intimidation, and even by threats of violence, to keep the people from dealing with some of the most respectable merchants in the town. There were three degrees of boycotting--mild, medium, and savage--and all three had been condemned by the Church. "Have nothing to do with it," said Father Gilligan, "do not touch it with a pole that would reach New York." At present boycotting is applied to landlords and cattle men who are occupying their land that is wanted for farms. The cattle men have no permanent tenancy, they erect no buildings, they make no improvements, and the cattle business is so profitable that they are able to pay twice as much rent as the ordinary farming tenant. For those reasons, and because he has only one man to deal with, a landlord is always glad to rent his lands for grazing, and gradually Ireland is becoming one great pasture. Cattle driving is another weapon used by the same people for the same purpose, and that is condemned by the bishops and the clergy with equal emphasis. Archbishop Fennely of Tipperary recently preached a sermon in which he expressed the hope that before he closed his eyes in death he would see every acre of land in Ireland owned by the men who tilled it, but he could not sympathize with and he must earnestly condemn every form of violence and every unlawful measure that was used to secure that end. He gave his diocese a solemn warning that cattle driving, boycotting, and similar unlawful practices would not be tolerated by the Church. This form of argument, it must be admitted, is a great advance over the fierce methods that have been used in the past, when murder and bloodshed were quite common, and other damages that cannot be repaired by money or by the judgment of the court were suffered. It was a habitual jest to speak of the "closed season for landlords." The Irish never overlook the humor in a situation, and at a cattle drive which took place in 1908 at Tuam, which is a place of considerable ecclesiastical importance, being the residence of the Most Rev. John Healey, one of the ablest and most influential Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland, the following lines were pinned to the tail of one of the cows: GOD SAVE IRELAND. "Leave the way, for we are coming. And, on my soul, we got a drumming; They cleared us out so mighty quick, And, faith, they used their hazel stick. Well, now, Paddy, of you we implore, Don't put us through Cloomagh any more; For if you do you're bound to die, And we have the powder fresh and dry; God bless the Cattle Drivers." The taxpayers are compelled to pay damages for all cases of cattle driving, for loss of business in boycotting, and for other claims growing out of such outrages. Usually the courts assess one pound per head for cattle where no harm is done, five pounds per head where an animal is injured, and about one-third as much for sheep. Most of the cattle driving and the boycotting is committed by irresponsible young men who are led by mischief-makers with private grudges, and they never reason for themselves. It goes without saying that the love of fighting is one of the most conspicuous traits of the Irish character. The history of Ireland from the foggiest period of the past is a tale of continuous warfare. In the early days fighting was the chief end and aim of men, and women fought beside their fathers and husbands and brothers until St. Patrick forbade them to do so. And they thought very little of the consequences. The case was well stated in a little poem from an American paper that was shown me by a friend the other day: "'Who says that the Irish are fighters by birth,' Says little Dan Crone; 'Faith, there's not a more peacable race on the earth If ye l'ave them alone.'" But sometimes they won't be let alone. In the summer of 1908 there was a riot in the town of Thurles and a mob did a lot of damage in order to show its disapproval of legal proceedings that had been taken against a fellow townsman. Richard Burke, who was "licensed to sell spirits not to be consumed on the premises," was unable to meet his obligations and went into bankruptcy. The sheriff took charge of the establishment under the orders of the court, and the license, good will, and the stock in hand were offered for sale to the highest bidder. But the bids did not come up to the valuation of the court and were all rejected. A few days later a private offer from Mr. Cody, who has been competing with Mr. Burke to quench the thirst of Thurles for several years, to take the entire place for £2,000 was accepted. Mr. Burke, who has been in the habit of consuming too much of his own merchandise for the good of his business, became very indignant because his old enemy was going to step into his place, gathered together a few sympathetic friends, raided his own establishment, smashed the bottles, knocked in the heads of the barrels, and invited the whole town to help themselves, which they did with an energy that would have been commendable in another cause. Then, when almost every citizen of the town, young and old, was drunk, they started up the street smashing their own windows and doors and doing what is estimated at $15,000 worth of damages to their own property, besides $7,000 worth of destruction in Mr. Cody's place. Although Cody had signed the papers, he had not paid for Mr. Burke's former stock, and naturally he now refuses to do so, since it does not exist, so that Mr. Burke and his creditors suffer the entire loss of his own raid and hospitality, and the taxpayers of Thurles have been assessed to pay for the other foolishness. There are twenty thousand Galway people in the United States, or "across the herring pond," as a banker there expressed it, who have been in the habit of making remittances to their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters here in generous amounts, and many families are partly and a large number are wholly dependent upon them. Most of the Galway emigrants are in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other large cities, earning good wages, but they were out of employment after the recent panic and have had all that they could do to take care of themselves. Hence very little money has been received here from America for nearly a year. The postmaster told me that the American money orders cashed at the Galway post office have averaged £40,000 a year for the last eight or ten years, and in 1908 the total will not reach £15,000. An even larger sum of money has been coming in checks and drafts and the bankers say that the remittances in that form are not more than ten per cent of the usual amount. The merchants complain that their customers are not bringing in any American checks, which have been presented in payment daily for ten or twelve years. Christmas checks were very scarce in 1907, and that is the principal reason for the poverty. Wages are very low in Galway--ten shillings a week, and two shillings a day is the average for ordinary labor. The Allan Line steamers have been touching at Galway since 1881, and have carried to Quebec an enormous number of emigrants for the United States as well as Canada, but the faster boats, touching at Queenstown, have reduced the business considerably. The steerage passage is $27.50 and $30; the average emigrants are chiefly between seventeen and twenty-three years of age, and most of them go to Boston. Galway is a foreign-looking little town, unlike any other we saw in Ireland, and much of the architecture is Dutch and Spanish, departing from the plain, ugly brick front without cornice or eaves which is so common elsewhere. The streets are irregular and run all sorts of ways; some very narrow and some very wide, and they vary in width at different places, with occasionally an odd-shaped space at the intersection. Everything looks old and shabby and out of repair. It is queer as well as significant to see buildings half in ruins in the principal streets and others with the glass broken out of the windows. There are some smart-looking shops, however, and neatly kept residences, but they are not frequent. Nor is the town well kept. The Common Council evidently lacks a sense of the æsthetic, because the streets are dirty, the park is scraggly, and the grass and trees are very much neglected. It is altogether the untidiest public park I saw in Ireland. Many of the people we met on the principal streets, particularly the women, are repulsive in their rags and dirty faces and unkempt hair and bare feet. We saw a few barefooted women in Tipperary and Limerick, but in Galway none of the working women wears shoes, although the men seem to be well shod. The women cover their heads with thick shawls that are often greasy and torn, and their faces show evidences of sorrow and privation, and perhaps other causes have left a mark. [Illustration: FISH MARKET, GALWAY] The foreign appearance of Galway is accounted for by the fact that many Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Dutchmen were in business there in early times. The town was named from the Gauls, and for centuries an extensive trade was carried on with the Continent by foreign merchants and foreign fleets. Richard de Burgo, founder of the Burke family, was given the country of Connaught by the king, and, having in 1232 crushed the O'Connors, who were formerly kings there, he enlarged the Castle of Galway and made it his residence, calling around him a flourishing foreign colony. But the "tribes of Galway," as Cromwell called the natives, would not submit to him, and kept up a guerrilla warfare that was very annoying. The English took all the measures they could to protect themselves, and in 1518 a law was passed forbidding the people of the town "to recieve into their housses at Christemas, Easter nor no feaste elles, any of the MacWilliams, Kellies, Joyces, Lynches nor to cepte Elles without permission of the Mayor and Councill; on payn to forfeit £'5 and that no one called O' nor Mac shalle strutte ne swaggere thro the streetes of Galway." And the following inscription was formerly to be seen over the west gate to the city: "From the fury of the O'Flaherties Good Lord deliver us." There are some quaint old houses--one of them on the principal street, known as "the mansion," being elaborately decorated with carved moldings, drip stones, cornices, balustrades, medallions, crests, coats of arms, and other ornaments in which the lynx and the monkey, which were used upon the family arms, appear frequently. The same story is told to account for the monkey that is used to explain the appearance of that animal upon the escutcheon of the Earl of Desmond--that the heir to the house was rescued by a monkey when it was burning. The Burkes, the Joyces, and the Lynches were the leading families there. The records show that eighty-four members of the Lynch family have held the office of mayor. A tragic story of James Lynch, the second mayor after the charter of the city was granted by Richard III., is kept in the minds of the people by a tablet imbedded in the wall of a ruined house on one of the principal streets. It bears this inscription: "This memorial of the stern and unbending justice of the chief magistrate of this city, James Lynch Fitzstephen, elected mayor, A.D. 1493, who condemned and executed his own guilty son, Walter, on this spot, has been restored to its ancient site, with the approval of the town commissioners, by their chairman, the Very Rev. Peter Daly, P.P. and Vicar of St. Nicholas." The Rev. Mr. Daly has immortalized himself in this simple way, and his character may be judged by the fact that his name appears even more prominently on the tablet than that of the unnatural father whose act he perpetuates. The story goes that Mayor Lynch, being one of the most successful of the shipping merchants in the city, visited Spain in the very year that Columbus discovered America, to make the personal acquaintance of his customers, and, being treated with generous hospitality, invited the son of one of his friends to return with him to Ireland. The young man spent several months in Galway, as the guest of Mayor Lynch, and as the companion of his son, Walter. The latter, a great favorite in the city, was engaged to a young lady of good family, who behaved rather imprudently with the young Spaniard. This excited the jealousy of Walter Lynch, who murdered his playmate, and then, from remorse, gave himself up to justice. He was tried, convicted, and condemned to death by his own father, sitting as judge of the court, and when the sheriff, in obedience to public opinion, refused to carry out the sentence, Judge Lynch hanged his own son with his own hands. As there were other judges and courts in Ireland and as changes of venue were common in those days, as they are now, one cannot sympathize with this Spartan heartlessness. There is a quaint old church, built in 1320, in honor of St. Fechin, who was born about the year 600, in County Sligo, was the founder of numerous monasteries and churches along the western coast of Ireland, and was the first to bring the gospel to County Galway. Queen's College, supported by the government, has a fine Gothic building, copied after All Souls of Oxford, with about three hundred students, and there is another college, under the Christian Brothers, which is very prosperous. The most interesting sight in Galway is the thousands of fat salmon lying motionless on the bottom of the river which carries the water of Lough Corrib--one of the largest fresh-water lakes in the country--into Galway Bay. The river is short and swift and flows through the center of the city. Its banks are walled up with masonry and it is crossed by a series of ancient iron bridges. From the railings of the bridges one can see the salmon through the transparent water lying with their noses up stream so closely that the bottom of the river is hidden; and I am told that when they are running in the spring the stream is black with them. They come in from the sea and go up a ladder that has been built for them over the rapids into Lough Corrib. The exclusive right of fishing that river was granted in 1221 by King John to one of his favorites, and the monopoly has been recognized ever since. It has been sold many times. The last purchaser was an ancestor of a Mrs. Hallett, who enjoys the privilege at present, and lives in a big stone house on the river banks, surrounded by high walls. A series of traps extends from her garden across the river, covering four-fifths of its width, one-fifth being always kept open by act of parliament, so that the fish can go up and down freely, but as they are all strangers in Galway, and young and reckless, many of them run into the traps instead of the passageway and become the property of Mrs. Hallett. She ships them to London and makes three or four thousand pounds a year by selling them. The fishermen in charge told me that in the spring they often caught as many as two or three hundred a day in each of the traps. Any one who desires to try his luck with a fly can do so by getting a permit from Mrs. Hallett, for which the fee is $2.50 a day or $25 a year. Near the mouth of the river and at the head of the Bay of Galway is an ancient village called Claddagh, whose inhabitants have been engaged in the herring and salmon fisheries for ten centuries, and have lived apart from the world, having their own municipal organization, their own laws and courts and customs and manner of dress. From the beginning of time they have been ruled by one of their own number, elected by themselves for a term of years, who exercises executive, legislative, and judicial functions, from which there is no appeal. They have no written laws, no records of their judicial proceedings, but when there is a dispute between any of the fishermen they take it to their chosen umpire, who decides it according to the merits of the case. And his decision is always accepted. I am told that no citizen of Claddagh has ever been before a Galway court, either as a plaintiff or defendant. They live in low thatched cottages, grouped in irregular streets on the bank of the river, with a large and very modern-looking church, which they attend regularly. They are remarkable for their piety and their morals. They will not work, nor will they leave their village for any reason, on Sundays or religious holidays. They never allow strangers to live among them, their young men and women never marry outside of the colony, they take care of their own sick and poor, and, although they are only five minutes' walk from the principal street of Galway, they are as isolated as if they were on an island in the middle of the ocean. Formerly the Claddagh people wore a distinctive dress, resembling that of the fisher folks of Holland,--a red skirt, a blue waist, elaborate headdress, and bare feet and legs,--but this costume has been discarded by the younger women and is only worn by their grandmothers now. But all the women go barefooted. They never wear shoes or stockings. The men are engaged exclusively in fishing, although they do all of their own masonry, carpentering, and boat building. They pack their fish in the village, but carry a portion of each catch across the river to the fish market of Galway. There is an attractive resort for city people on the Bay of Galway, with a long promenade, several hotels, and a number of comfortable villas. [Illustration: SALMON WEIR, GALWAY] XXXI CONNEMARA AND THE NORTHWEST COAST Clifden is the extreme western point of Ireland, and for that reason Marconi selected it for his wireless telegraph station in communicating with Canada and the United States. It is 1,620 miles in a direct line of St. John, New Brunswick, and, as a native remarked, "There's not a spheck of droy land upon which a burrd could rist the sole of its foot bechune this blessed spot and Americky." If you will examine the map you will understand the situation better, and a geological chart of the island will show you that the western coast, from Mizzen Head to Bloody Foreland, is protected by a chain of mountains, bleak, rugged, and abrupt, which nature has placed as a buttress to support the rest of Ireland against the fierce attack of the Atlantic. They have terrible storms there, and a northwest gale several times a year that is terrific. The east winds, which we dread, bring good weather in Ireland, but the west wind brings storms and cold and mists that are almost as bad as the London fog. Connemara is the congested district, but it does not bear that name because the population is overcrowded, but because there are too many people for the inhospitable soil to support. The inhabitants are scattered over a vast area. I could see everything from one point as far as a radius of twenty-two miles, and there wasn't a human habitation in sight, nor was there any inducement to build one because the country was a bleak, barren, rocky wilderness without soil for crops or shelter for cattle. There is the greatest degree of poverty and suffering in Ireland, and there the government is doing its greatest benevolent work in trying to place the people upon farms that are large enough to support them, and finding them other occupations by which they can earn a few additional dollars. A railway was built from Galway along the edge of the ocean to Clifden a few years ago, and the track hugs the coast as closely as possible. An hour after leaving Galway nature begins to disclose her unfriendliness, the mountains begin to loom up to a height of two thousand and twenty-two hundred feet, the landscape becomes stern and forbidding, and there is no vegetation except heather, which, when in full bloom, adds a purple hue to the wilderness. Heather seems to be as brave, as enduring, and as self-reliant as the sage brush that decorates the arid plains of our western States, and nothing seems to discourage its growth. Alternating with the rocks are peat beds, in which both men and women spend much time getting out a supply of fuel for the next winter and stacking it in little piles to dry. The most prominent feature of the landscape is a group of mountains called the Twelve Bens--sometimes written the "Twelve Pins." They are so called because of their conical, dome-like peaks and the similar individuality of each. They rise almost from the level of the Atlantic, and for that reason look higher than they really are. The highest is Ben Baun, 2,393 feet, and the lowest is Ben Brach, 1,922 feet. Their sides are scarred with the wounds of terrestrial convulsions and glacial action, and they are composed very largely of quartzite, which frequently furnishes a white surface that glistens in the sunlight and adds to the picturesque effect. From these mountains comes the Connemara marble, the most valuable stone in the United Kingdom, often as fine in grain as the malachite and lapis lazuli of the Urals and the onyx of Mexico. It is used both for construction and for ornamental purposes, and the quarries are very profitable. [Illustration: A SCENE IN CONNEMARA] The landscape is dotted with little lakes and ponds which have no visible outlet, but are all connected somehow underground. Most of them cover only an acre or two, but Lough Corrib is the largest in Ireland except Lough Neagh, near Belfast. Lough Mask and Lough Cong are also several miles in length and two or three miles in width. There are said to be 365 lakes in Ireland, and one would judge that the larger number of them are in Connemara. They are fed by springs and rainfall and are said to abound in fish. The railway companies advertise this as the best fishing ground in the world, and announce that they have leased several of the loughs in order to provide free fishing to all excursionists. That is a great attraction for city people when they take their vacations, because elsewhere as a rule when a man wants to go fishing he is compelled to take out a license and pay handsomely for the privilege--from $2.50 to $5 a day. Therefore the advertisements of free fishing in Connemara, combined with the scenery, which is highly admired and considered second only to that of Switzerland, tempt a great many people there. But most of them are disappointed. There is plenty of water to fish in, there are plenty of boats to hire, but fish are scarce, and, no matter where you go, the oldest inhabitant always insists that he never knew a time when fishing was so bad as it is now. There are many skeptics and a few cynics about who give you a true statement of the situation. "Boots" at the hotel asserted that if anything could be caught in the lakes we might be sure that the fishing would not be free, and added sarcastically that the only reason it was free was that nobody ever caught anything. The O'Briens were once kings of that country and they were driven out by the O'Flahertys, who in turn were driven out by the English. You can see the ruins of Castle Bally Quirk, the principal fortress of the O'Flahertys, from the car window, and read the terrible story of how the chief of that clan was imprisoned in its keep in the time of Queen Elizabeth and starved to death. The O'Flahertys were always "agin the government," and were so impertinent in their replies and so arrogant in their demeanor that Queen Elizabeth decided to bring them to submission, and nearly exterminated the family before she did so. "The O'Flaherty," the head of the family at present, is a justice of the peace, who lives at Lemonfield, upon the ancient estates, but retains very little of them. If Clifden wasn't such a dirty town it might be made a popular health resort. The air is glorious; the natural surroundings are grand and would tempt many artists as well as admirers of scenery. There are excellent small hotels, but the town is decidedly unattractive, the streets are filthy, the walks in the neighborhood of the town are used so much by the cattle that they are quite unclean, and the people do not seem to have any idea of neatness or order. The principal business seems to be the sale of liquor, which can be purchased at thirty-three places within this little town of eight hundred people, as advertised by the sign boards. And they all look as if they were doing a good trade. There is considerable fishing at Cleggan, a neighboring village, which has been encouraged and assisted by the government, and large shipments of fish are made to Dublin every day. Early in the morning several ancient fishwives appear in a triangular space between the rows of houses in the center of the village with baskets of fish, and from our windows in the comfortable Railway Hotel we can see the inhabitants come strolling along in an indolent and indifferent manner to buy their breakfasts. They have the choice of a variety of fish, and the prices are remarkably low. A fine, fat mackerel costs a penny, a codfish sixpence, and for a shilling one can get a haddock big enough to last a large-sized family for a week. Upon the hillside overlooking the town is an imposing church which has an air of magnificence in comparison with the rest of the town; it is ten times as large and ten times as glorious for Clifden as St. Peter's is for Rome. It was built only a few years ago from the contributions of the peasants, the same people that the government is trying to make comfortable and aid in earning a living. It will seat nine hundred people and is filled twice on Sunday with devout worshipers. Father Lynch, the curate, told me that it was necessary to have two masses and sometimes three on Sunday to accommodate them all, and some of them come eleven and even twelve miles, most of them on foot, to attend worship. Here, as everywhere in Ireland, religion is the first and most important thing in life, and the church is the gateway to happiness and Heaven. There is also a Protestant church, much smaller, but not insignificant, which stands upon an opposite hill, surrounded by a graveyard, in which there are some venerable tombs. Clifden is the seat of several important families, including the Martins, who formerly lived at Ballynaninch Castle, a plain, large, stern-looking embattled building, which was the scene of Charles Lever's novel, "The Martins of Cro' Martin." It was the home of Col. Richard Martin, M.P., the inventor and organizer of the first society for the prevention of cruelty to animals in the world, and the author of "Martin's Acts," punishing those who are guilty of that offense. He spent large sums of money in the enforcement of this law and in organizing societies and establishing hospitals for diseased and wounded animals throughout the kingdom, but was otherwise extravagant and went through his fortune. Colonel Martin was the original of "Godfrey O'Malley," the hero of Lever's novel, and the sketch is said to be very accurate. He was a reckless, extravagant, but generous, warm-hearted man and died a sacrifice to his efforts to relieve the sufferings of his tenants at the time of the famine. His only child, Mary Martin, married an American, Colonel Bell of New York, and lived in that city until her death. Although she was known as the Princess of Connemara and inherited an empire in area, she was never able to maintain the state that her father was so proud of, and 192,000 acres of her vast domain was sold by the courts to settle his debts, being purchased by the Law Life Assurance Company. Richard Berridge, a London brewer, bought another tract of 160,000 acres and the young woman scarcely missed it, so extensive were her lands. But they were of little value, being mostly mountain peaks and barren moors. Colonel Martin once silenced the prince regent, who during the early part of Queen Victoria's reign was boasting of the famous Long Walk of Windsor, by scornfully declaring that the avenue which led from his front gate to his hall door was thirty miles long; and that was very nearly the truth. Clifden Castle is the seat of the De Arcy family, who built and owned the town of Clifden and were formerly very rich, but a very little is seen of them at present. Marconi's wireless telegraph station occupies a bleak, rocky promontory extending out into the sea about three miles from the village. It is surrounded by a large tract of barren moor and is inclosed in barbed wire fence, which no one is allowed to pass without a permit. There are several corrugated iron buildings, comfortable but temporary, for generating furnaces, offices, and dormitories for Mr. Marden, the superintendent, and seven assistants. There is a miniature railway connecting them with the harbor to bring up coal and other supplies from the bay, for it requires a lot of fuel to generate the tremendous voltage necessary to throw a message across the Atlantic Ocean. When the operators are sending a Marconigram the sound can be heard for half a mile--a deafening whirr and buzz like that of a sawmill, interspersed with sharp detonations, long and short, according to the dots and dashes of the Morse code. An ordinary operator could read the message a long distance away, but would not be able to understand it because every word is sent in cipher. This is the reason why people are kept out of the grounds and why so large an area is necessary for protection. The station is a profitable thing for the town, because about fifteen hundred dollars a month is spent for supplies and labor, and employment is given to a large gang of men. After several romantic engagements to American girls, Signor Marconi finally married a local beauty, Miss O'Brien, daughter of "The O'Brien," the representative of the family that were kings over this country in the early days. [Illustration: CLIFDEN CASTLE, COUNTY GALWAY] As Clifden is the terminus of the railway, we cruised around the rockbound coast of the Atlantic and across the bleak mountain sides to Westport, in what they call an "excursion car"--an exaggerated jaunting car on four wheels, drawn by two horses, with seats for six passengers on each side and a cavity in the center between them, opening from the end like a hearse, in which the baggage is carried. It is one of the most uncomfortable vehicles you can imagine. None of the passengers can see more than half the scenery, as they sit back to back and face out toward either side of the road. The ordinary jaunting car is quite as awkward and uncomfortable, and if you take a drive to see the scenery you have to go over the road twice because you can see only half of it at a time. The scenery in Connemara reminds one very much of Norway except in the lack of the cleanliness for which the latter country is famous. The coast line is cut by deep jags and precipitous cliffs, like the fiords, and the mountains have the same stern and stony appearance, and the peat bogs that lie between them are similar to those in the Scandinavian countries, although the climate is much milder here. The fuchsia plant is commonly used for hedges, which all summer long is loaded with blossoms of purple and red. I had never seen a fuchsia hedge until I came to Ireland. The first was at Glengariff, on the southern coast, but since then we have found them everywhere along the Atlantic shore, in the western counties, hundreds of miles of them, inclosing pastures, meadows, and gardens and growing with wonderful luxuriance. There is no fruit in Ireland, or at least very little. I didn't see a respectable orchard all summer and saw no fruit trees except a few cherries and plums in gardens. Gooseberries seem to be the only "fruit of the season" at the hotels, and gooseberry tart is served for luncheon and for dinner every day. There are a few strawberries, but they are very expensive and are sold by the pound. They are never served upon the regular _table d'hôte_ bills of fare, but are always extra. We were told the Connemara was very picturesque, and the most interesting section of Ireland, both in scenery, in local color, and in costumes, but it is a disappointment in all three respects. The scenery is grand, as mountains always are, but it is very monotonous; the people are so poor and so dirty that they repel, and we seldom see them at work, except in the peat fields as we pass. The Connemara peasant woman always wears a red skirt, goes barefooted, and covers her tousled head under a heavy shawl. She works alongside of the men and does her share of the heavy as well as the light labor. She is expected to do as much manual labor as her husband or her brother, and judging from what we observed in the peat bogs, they give her the heavy end of the load. We spent the night at Leenane, a little fishing village at the head of a fiord that comes up nine miles from the Atlantic into the mountains. There is a plain but good hotel, much patronized by fishermen. In the morning we continued our journey over the mountains through some very rugged country. We drove through the famous Pass of Kylemore, one of the most beautiful pieces of scenery in Ireland, and called "The Gem of Connemara." It was particularly interesting to us because Kylemore Castle is the home of an American girl, the Duchess of Manchester, who was formerly Miss Helena Zimmerman of Cincinnati and is now the wife of the Duke of Manchester. It is one of the most beautiful residences in Ireland, and is situated upon the banks of a lovely little lake and at the base of a mountain called Doughraugh, which rises 1,736 feet behind it as a background and is covered with the most beautiful foliage. The castle is in the center of the pass, between two lofty mountains, and the roadway for miles passes through a forest and between fields that are inclosed with fuchsia hedges. [Illustration: A SCENE IN THE WEST OF IRELAND; LENANE HARBOR] Kylemore Castle was built by Mr. Mitchell Henry, a home rule member of parliament in the '60's, about a hundred years ago, and cost him more than a million dollars. The chapel, which cost more than a hundred thousand dollars, was built by his son, who sold the place to the Duke of Manchester. As the latter was not able to pay for it, his father-in-law, Mr. Zimmerman, a railroad magnate of Cincinnati, president of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad, took it off his hands for £69,000 and presented it to his daughter, who spends most of her time there, because the climate is very agreeable throughout the entire year and she loves the seclusion. There isn't a neighbor for several miles, except the people employed on the place. There are fourteen thousand acres of shooting, several small lakes, and about forty acres in garden. This is the kingdom of Grace O'Malley, the famous Amazon daughter of Owen O'Malley, King of Connaught. She lived and reigned here in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and her castle is now used as a police barracks. While some of the legends of Grace O'Malley are doubtless fiction, many of them are founded upon fact. She was a real woman and a real queen with pride and power and all the other qualities that are attached to royalty. Queen Elizabeth, to whom she once paid a visit, offered to make her a countess, but Grace declined on the ground that the Queen of Connaught was the equal of the Queen of England, and could accept no favors. Her first husband was an O'Flaherty and her second was Sir Richard Burke. The second was a "trial marriage," and it was agreed that after the end of one year the union could be dissolved by either husband or wife saying, "I dismiss you," to the other, and Grace said it first. We passed around the base of the mountain Crough Patrick, which rises with great abruptness to a height of 2,510 feet, almost directly from the Atlantic Ocean, and has a flat plain about half a mile square upon its summit. There are the remains of an ancient chapel, and a large Celtic cross stands boldly in the foreground, where it can be seen from all the country round. This is one of the most sacred spots in Ireland, because, according to Monk Jocelyn, who wrote a life of St. Patrick in the twelfth century, and other historians, that most venerated saint "brought together here all the demons, toads, serpents, creeping things, and other venomous creatures in Ireland and imprisoned them in a deep ravine on the sea front of the mountain known as Lugnademon (the pen of the demons) as fast as they came in answer to his summons, and kept them safely there until he was ready to destroy them. Then, standing upon the summit of the Crough, St. Patrick, with a bell in hand, cursed them and expelled them from Ireland forever. And every time he rang the bell thousands of toads, adders, snakes, reptiles, and other noisome things went down, tumbling neck and heels after each other, and were swallowed up forever in the sea." A less reverent writer says: "'Twas on the top of the high hill St. Patrick preached his sarmints; He drove the frogs from all the bogs And banished all the varmints." It is a well-known phenomenon in natural history that there are no snakes, toads, moles, or venomous reptiles in Ireland, and the fact has always been accounted for in this way. St. Patrick's miracle, performed at the summit of the Crough, in County Mayo, in the year 450, is accepted with as perfect faith as the story of the creation, and on the anniversary, during the month of July, thousands of pilgrims climb to the ruined chapel, some of them on their knees, to pray to the patron saint of Ireland. As Westport is the nearest town of importance in Ireland to the United States, there have been several projects to take advantage of that fact by running a line of steamers from there. The distance to St. John, New Brunswick, is 1,656 miles; to Halifax, 2,165 miles; to Boston, 2,385 miles, and to New York, 2,700 miles, which in each case is much less than from Queenstown or any of the English ports. At the same time, however, passengers landing there would be subjected to a long railway journey and would be required to cross St. George's Channel, which is not an amiable streak of water. It is subject to the same moods and tenses as the English Channel, and whoever crosses it must make sacrifices to Neptune in the form of discomfort if not other tribute. A company was formed some years ago to build docks here and to build steamers, but nothing has been heard from it of late, and the invention of the turbine engine and the construction of the fast steamers like the _Lusitania_ make the voyage quite as short without the other drawbacks. The Marquis of Sligo has his seat at Westport and is one of the largest landowners in Ireland, but he does not spend much time here. He prefers his townhouse at 10 Hyde Park Place, London. The greater part of his land is entirely worthless. He owns many square miles of rock, moorland, and mountain peaks in Connemara, which furnish admirable scenery but are good for nothing else. As General Sheridan once said of another place, under other circumstances, "It would be necessary for a crow to take his rations with him," if he attempted to make the journey across his lordship's estates. There is more waste land to the acre in Connemara than in any other part of the United Kingdom, and the Marquis of Sligo owns the largest share of it. The Marquis of Sligo owns the town of Westport, and it is built around the entrance to his beautiful park. He is more generous than most of the earls, because he allows the public free of charge and without restriction to enjoy it with him. The gates are always open to young and old, rich and poor,--on foot, on bicycle, or in vehicles, except automobiles. He has a prejudice against them and they are not allowed to enter. Across the roadway from the main entrance and nailed to the wall of an old-fashioned house is an ancient signboard, upon which are inscribed the tolls formerly demanded by the Marquis of Sligo upon the sales of produce in the market of this town. He owns the place; the land all belongs to him, and that which is not occupied by his houses pays him ground rent perpetually. He owns the market place, and instead of charging rental to the farmers who come there to sell their produce he used to tax each sale a penny for a dozen eggs, a penny for a chicken, tuppence for a sack of potatoes, and so on. There is a long list upon the signboard giving the exact toll for every article and animal that entered into the traffic of the market place, fish, fowl, fruit, vegetables, grain, and all other things. He owns the fair grounds also, and in olden times collected ten per cent of all the premiums and prizes that were awarded, and a corresponding toll upon the cattle that were bought and sold at the monthly and annual fairs. And this custom prevailed all over Ireland, until 1881, when the people decided that they would not submit to it any longer, and therefore refused to pay the collector when he came around. Finally, after a popular agitation which resulted in a good many broken heads and some loss of life, parliament abolished the privilege, and the tolls collected in the market houses now go into the common treasury. Westport is the residence of Rev. J.M. Hannay, rector of the Church of Ireland here, who is better known to the world as George A. Birmingham, author of several political novels which have caused a great stir and have had an important influence upon land legislation. Mr. Hannay is an ardent patriot, but has the judicial faculty of looking upon both sides of a question, and in the vivid pictures he has drawn of the scenes and events and consequences of the land wars, stripping the screens from the motives of the leaders, he has convinced thousands of people where ordinary arguments would have entirely failed. His novel entitled "The Seething Pot" has frequently been recommended to me by the highest authorities as the best picture of Irish politics that was ever written. There has always been a good deal of literary talent up this way. The County of Longford, just south of here, was the birthplace and home of two of the most famous of Irish writers,--Maria Edgeworth and Oliver Goldsmith. It is quite remarkable that both should have derived their early love and their knowledge of the Irish character from the same identical parish. Both received their early education at the same school, and the little hamlet Pallasmore, where the author of "The Vicar of Wakefield" first saw the light, is still, as it was in his time, the property of the Edgeworth family. It is now only a group of humble cabins. The house in which the poet was born, Nov. 10, 1728, long ago disappeared and there is not a relic left of himself or his family. Later Rev. Charles Goldsmith, his father, removed to the rectory of Kilkenny West, six miles from the city of Athlone. There the poet spent his boyhood days, and there his brother, Rev. Henry G. Goldsmith, continued to reside after his father's death. And he was residing there when Oliver dedicated to him his poem, "The Traveler." A hundred years ago Maria Edgeworth was the most popular of English novelists. She was the daughter of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, an Irish literary man, and was born Jan. 1, 1767, in Berkshire, England, where her family was stopping temporarily. She made her reputation in 1801 by the publication of a novel called "Castle Rackrent," which was followed by "Belinda," "Leonora," and other novels at the rate of one a year until she closed her labors in 1834 with a charming story for children called "Orlandino," and died at Edgeworthstown, the family seat, which they still occupy, in 1849. Miss Edgeworth never married, although she is said to have been very attractive, and was an admired and courted favorite at the court at Windsor as well as among the peasants of Ireland. Her writings are noted for the simplicity and beauty of her style, originality of expression, truthfulness to nature, and the ingenuity of her situations. Rathra, near Frenchport, County Roscommon, is the residence of Douglas Hyde, the organizer and president of the Gaelic League, which is intended to revive and restore to common use the ancient language and the ancient customs of Ireland. Dr. Hyde is the son of a Protestant clergyman, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, a professional literary man, author of several books, and a lecturer and teacher at different times. Although he originated the Gaelic League movement, it was inspired by Prof. Hugo Meyer, a celebrated German linguist, who is familiar with forty languages, and in his studies, conceived a profound admiration for the Gaelic. He came to Ireland as a lecturer at the university, and there made the acquaintance of Douglas Hyde, who became his disciple, and by his advice and with his assistance inaugurated the movement which has since been so successful. Dr. Hyde visited the United States in 1908, dined at the White House, spent two or three evenings with the President and made a disciple of him. He is a man of slender stature, delicate health, and intense nervous emotional nature. He has the faculty of hypnotizing the people he talks with, and his fascinating personality has been very effective in his crusade. Irish ideals, traits, customs, and superstitions were fast disappearing; English sports, games, literature, and customs were being adopted. The legends and folklore of Ireland were being forgotten, and native ballads and melodies became obsolete with the harp, and, although a hundred years ago Gaelic was spoken by everybody up to the very gates of Dublin and Belfast, it has been practically forgotten by the people. The census of 1901 showed that 638,000 people could speak the language, but most of those could not read it, and knew only a few phrases and words they had learned from their grandmothers. It was ignored in the schools and in the printing houses. No Gaelic books had been published for generations. Since the time of Daniel O'Connell the Irish peasantry have been anxious to learn English so as to read his speeches. This was the situation when Hugo Meyer and Douglas Hyde undertook to revive an interest in the native language, literature, and customs, and in 1893 they organized what was called the Gaelic League, a nonpolitical, nonsectarian society, which has now more than nine hundred local branches with two hundred thousand members, sending delegates to the annual _ard-fheis_ or annual assembly. Since 1898 a weekly newspaper and a monthly magazine have been published in the Irish language, and both have become self-supporting; and the daily and weekly newspapers throughout Ireland, almost without exception, have a Gaelic department conducted in that language. The names of the streets are now posted in Gaelic in nearly all the towns and cities, and the English directions upon the signboards on the country roads are duplicated in that language. Gaelic is taught for an hour a day in all the national schools, although a fee is charged for it, which the league is now trying to abolish. In 1907 there were 33,741 children in the primary schools and 2,479 in the secondary schools receiving paid instruction in Gaelic, an increase from 24,918 primary and 2,029 secondary pupils in 1906. It is confidently expected that the fee will be abolished during the coming year. The commissioners of education have recommended it. Gaelic is taught in all of the normal schools and is required in the examinations for teachers. The league maintains fourteen organizers and lecturers who go about organizing classes similar to the Chautauqua circles in the United States, and more than two hundred thousand adults are studying Gaelic in that way. The movement is cordially indorsed by the Roman Catholic Church, by the Church of Ireland, by the Presbyterian general assembly, and the Methodist general conference, which is extraordinary. I am told that it is the only movement except temperance that has ever received the approval of all the religious sects. That indicates very clearly that its managers have carefully maintained the nonsectarian attitude which is one of the chief planks of the platform. And the fact that it has been kept out of politics is apparent from the indorsement it has received from the United Irish League and the Irish parliamentary leaders as well as the anti-home rulers. Dr. Hyde said the other day that "For the first time in history, and through the influence of the league, priest and parson, landlord and tenant, Catholic and Protestant, Orangeman and nationalist, are working together. It cannot be said that the league has all parties behind it, but there is no party in Ireland of which some of the members are not with us, and I expect sooner or later we will succeed in bringing all conflicting interests in Ireland together in the movement to restore the language and the customs and the spirit of our ancestors to modern Ireland. "In Toomebridge, in the north of Ireland, where for five generations the Protestant Orangemen and the Catholic nationalists have never met at a fair or a market without smashing each other and fighting with fist and stones and shillelah, all parties have come together peaceably at the assemblies of the league. They held a _feis_ there last year, at which I was present, and as I looked over the heads of the multitude I could not say which were the more numerous, the Catholics or Protestants, the nationalists or Orangemen, and the _feis_ adjourned with the best of feeling in everybody's heart and without a single angry word having been exchanged. I am told that this was the first instance where such a thing has happened, but it has been several times repeated in different parts of Ireland since." Dr. Walsh, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, commends the league in the very highest terms, and takes a great interest in the movement. He told me it has had a beneficial effect upon the character and the habits of the people; it has encouraged education, temperance, self-respect, and has revived an interest in literature, music, oratory, sports, folklore, and history. XXXII WORK OF THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD The term "congested districts" is used to describe those wild and rocky sections on the west coast of Ireland where fertile land is scarce and insufficient to support the population, who are compelled to eke out a miserable living by fishing and other employment. The population is not "congested" as we understand that word, but it is too numerous to be supported on that kind of soil, and the government is trying to remove a sufficient number of families to other sections of Ireland, where fertile farms can be found for them. In the newspapers and public documents these families are usually referred to as "congests." As one might naturally infer, the advent of parties of "congests" into localities where they do not belong is not welcomed by the local residents. On the contrary, there is a bitter and determined resistance from that class known as the "landless," which is composed of the sons of farmers who are ambitious to have farms and homes of their own and cannot obtain them either because there are none to be bought or they, unfortunately, lack the price. Instead of dividing up the big estates in such localities among the "landless," who consider themselves entitled to them because they are natives of the community and their families have lived there for generations and their ancestors once owned them, the government commissioners are giving preference to "congests." To ignore the claims of the "landless" means a fierce fight over every attempt at migration. The cattle-driving you read of in the newspapers is the latest method of persuading the landlords to sell, and the "landless" class--the young farmers who want farms of their own--is responsible for these outrages. Anyone who remembers the terrible passions which have been aroused over the land question in Ireland can imagine what may happen when "congests" from other portions of the island are forcibly brought into a community and placed upon farms which the former owners have been compelled to sell to the government in order that these aliens may have homes and be able to earn a living. What is called the Congested Districts Board was created in 1891 to improve conditions on the west coast, where the standard of living is at the lowest point and the people are in a chronic state of famine because of the inferior quality of the soil. This district consists of the province of Connaught, the counties of Donegal, Kerry, and Clare, and the districts of Bantry, Castletown, Schull, and Skibbereen in the County of Cork. The land in those localities is very poor and is estimated at an average of eighty cents an acre, while farm lands in the rest of Ireland have an average value of $3.12 an acre. The majority of the people live on small plots, where they manage to raise a few potatoes and cabbages and keep a few cows, goats, pigs, and sheep of worn-out breeds, which they drive wherever they can find pasturage. Most of them try to earn a little more money by going to other parts of the kingdom to work as laborers for a portion of the year or by weaving homespun, fishing, gathering seaweed, and other home industries. The act empowers the board to aid migration to other parts of Ireland, to assist in the improvement of live stock and the breeding of horses, cattle, sheep, donkeys, and swine, to encourage poultry farms, bee-keeping, basket-making, lace-making, knitting, and the manufacture of carpets, rugs, and other things that can be made at home, and to encourage the fishing industry by constructing piers and harbors and furnishing boats and gear. [Illustration: BARNE'S GAP, COUNTY DONEGAL.] Mr. James Bryce, British Ambassador to Washington, is the author of the act of parliament which authorized a loan of $22,500,000 to build laborers' cottages in Ireland, and under it, according to the latest official returns, 22,500 comfortable new homes have been provided in different parts of the island, and are now occupied by families of farm laborers and other workingmen in the rural districts. Each cottage has from an acre to an acre and one-half of land for a garden. Some of them have barns and other outhouses. They are built of stone and brick of the most substantial character, with roofs of slate or tiles. Most of them have four rooms, two rooms upstairs and two downstairs, with large windows furnishing plenty of light and plenty of ventilation. The cost varies from $750 to $1,000 for a cottage, and is paid by the government with funds derived from the loan mentioned. The tenants pay an average rental of £4 17_s._ 6_d._ a year, which is equivalent to about twenty-four dollars in American money or two dollars per month, which covers the interest upon the cost of the cottage, and an installment which will cancel the indebtedness at the end of sixty-eight years. If the tenant owner for whom the cottage is built desires to pay for the property and get a fee simple, he is at liberty to do so at any time, but I did not hear of any such case. Most of the tenants are willing to let their indebtedness run along indefinitely. They can sell, lease, or dispose of the property in any way at any time. The incumbrance goes with the property and not with the man, and is assumed by the purchaser. It is difficult to overestimate the vast amount of good this movement has accomplished. It is gradually changing the standard of life among the laboring classes throughout Ireland. It has not only furnished comfortable and decent homes for more than twenty-three thousand families, who have been living in miserable, filthy cabins for generations, but it has done much to improve their health. It will strengthen the physical constitutions of the coming generations by placing them in sanitary homes and clean surroundings. Mr. John Redmond, in a speech in the House of Commons, said that "the agricultural laborers of Ireland had been living under conditions which were absolutely fatal to health and the habits of cleanliness, and which, in almost any other country in the world, would have proved fatal to religion and morality as well. But the Irish agricultural laborers are a remarkable race of men, highly intelligent, keen and brave, patriotic, and self-sacrificing in their patriotism. They have preserved through poverty and squalor a deep religious, spiritual feeling, and the highest possible standard of morality." The Congested Districts Board devotes its attention entirely to the people living in the bleak mountain lands on the west coast of Ireland, and its agencies are established at different points from the extreme south to the extreme north of the island. The poverty, the privation, the suffering, are chiefly found within a few miles from the coast, where the territory is divided into vast estates of almost worthless land, and where it is very difficult for any person to earn a living. The same conditions have existed for ages. The west coast of Ireland has never been prosperous, the soil has never been fertile, the people have never had any more comforts than they have to-day, but they have continued to live there, century after century, clinging to the rocks and suffering from the weather and the lack of food, which has been their inheritance, refusing to leave their wretched hovels for a more favorable climate and better opportunities of making a living. It cannot be said that they remain there in ignorance, because thirty thousand or forty thousand men from the congested districts leave their cabins, their wives, and their families for several months every year and go to England and Scotland to supply the demand for labor in those countries. The migratory labor system has been going on for generations, and many of the men have gone to the same jobs generation after generation, spending half their time earning good wages in England and the other half looking after their little gardens and cattle and goats in Connaught Province, in Clare, Kerry, Galway, Sligo, and Donegal counties. It is one of the strangest phenomena in human life that they should cling as they do to their desolate, comfortless, filthy stone huts in these bleak mountains; but, be it ever so humble, be it ever so comfortless, there is no place like home. One of the functions of the Congested Districts Board is to remove as many as possible of these families to localities where they can make a living with less labor and find more of the comforts and happiness of life; but the most pitiful and difficult part of its task is to persuade them to go. Mr. O'Connor, the solicitor of the board, told me of a wizen-faced old peasant who occupied a leaky stone hut on the mountain side, without the slightest comfort within or attraction without. He had a few acres of sterile soil, on which, with the greatest difficulty, he was able to produce enough cabbages and potatoes to keep his family from starvation, and a small herd of goats, lean and gaunt, that were trying to find sustenance in the heather and the mosses on the rocks; and yet, even in this condition, the old man stubbornly refused to move. No inducement could persuade him to abandon the worthless, filthy habitation, because it was his home. With the pride of a prince he defied the inspectors of the board, charging them with some malicious intent of depriving him of property that had been the home of his family, he declared, for nine hundred years. And nothing could induce him to leave it for a comfortable cottage and a productive farm fifty miles in the interior. They told me, too, of a girl about eighteen years old, who, being injured by an automobile, was picked up and carried to the nearest hospital, which happened to be twenty miles or more from the place where she lived and the scene of the accident. She was being tenderly cared for in a neat, sunshiny ward, in a comfortable bed, with sheets and pillow cases of linen, with a nurse to attend her and every delicacy that could be furnished to eat, and yet she moaned and cried and begged to be taken home. Finally the Americans who had been in the automobile at the time of the accident, and had left a deposit of money to pay for every comfort and surgical attention that the girl could possibly need, consented to her removal, because the doctor said she was fretting herself into a fever. So they brought the automobile to the hospital, placed her carefully in a bed of pillows in the tonneau, and carried her back into the mountains to her "home," a one-room cabin of the most repulsive and wretched sort, which, as my friend told me, he wouldn't have kept his horse in. The walls were of rude stone piled one on another without mortar and the roof was made of straw. There was no floor but the earth, no furniture but a hard wooden bench, a table, and a three-legged stool. There was no window, and the only light that there was came through the door, which opened into a loathsome barnyard, where the filth was ankle deep and the stench almost insufferable. And yet when they laid the poor creature on the earthen floor she gave a long sigh of relief and satisfaction and thanked them for bringing her "home." It is true the world over that people prize things that are worthless if they happen to be all they possess. The less we have the more valuable it becomes; the more we have the less we value it. This trait may be found in the mountains of Switzerland, in Lapland, in Norway, and other countries where people enjoy the least blessings and comforts and where living is a constant struggle. The Congested Districts Board consists of Sir Antony MacDonnell, under secretary for Ireland, who has recently been elevated to the peerage as Lord MacDonnell of Swineford; Sir Horace Plunkett, a well known agriculturalist; Rev. Dennis O'Hara, a Catholic priest of County Clare; Henry Dorran, the chief inspector and executive officer in actual charge of the work, and Mr. O'Connor, the solicitor in charge of the office work. The board is constituted by an act of parliament and has a large staff of agents and officials in the field. [Illustration: AN IRISH CABIN IN COUNTY DONEGAL.] The work of the board may be classified as follows: 1. The purchase and division of estates into small farms and placing thereon families who are unable to earn a decent living in their present surroundings. 2. The enlargement of holdings by the purchase of neighboring property for those who cannot be moved. 3. The construction of decent and comfortable cottages for the poor, in the place of the wretched cabins they now occupy, and the repair of their present homes as far as possible. 4. The construction of public works, road building, the draining of swampy lands, and other undertakings that will furnish work and wages to the poor. 5. Aiding fishermen along the coast by furnishing boats and equipment and by securing them a market. 6. Instruction of the women in industries that can be carried on in the home, such as weaving, lace-making, and knitting. 7. Schools of housewifery for the training of mountain peasant girls for domestic service. 8. Loans of money to farmers to purchase cattle, sheep, and other means of self-support. 9. General improvement and repair of homes and the relief of individual distress through parish committees. In 1907 the board purchased 121,213 acres for the sum of £161,684, which it is now cutting up into small farms and moving to them families which are unable to make a living in the mountain districts. Thus far 544 families have been moved in this way and placed in comfortable homes at an average cost of $435 per family, not including the price of the land; 1,372 dwelling-houses have been erected, and 1,266 buildings on these and other farms already occupied have been erected at the expense of the board. In addition to furnishing a farm and a cottage the board gives its _protégés_, wherever it is necessary, cows, goats, pigs, and chickens. All this is paid for by money advanced from the public treasury, which is reimbursed by the beneficiary at the rate of 3-1/2; per cent a year. Of this 2-3/4; per cent is interest upon the investment, and three-fourths of one per cent annually goes into a sinking fund to redeem at maturity the bonds issued to furnish the money. The average annual payment by the families which have thus been removed is £17 10_s._ or $87.50 in our money. The people who have been benefited can sell their new homes or dispose of them by inheritance so long as the interest is paid promptly, but they cannot divide them. I have before me a statement showing each transaction, and find that the following figures represent the number of acres given: 176 acres 15 acres 206 acres 174 acres 438 acres 245 acres 362 acres 177 acres 34 acres 371 acres 76 acres 67 acres 254 acres 271 acres 249 acres 318 acres 311 acres 76 acres 240 acres 90 acres 152 acres 136 acres 66 acres 118 acres 119 acres 111 acres 106 acres These figures illustrate the size of the farms that are being provided, and the acreage varies according to the fertility of the land. The board intends to give each of its _protégés_ what is called "an economic holding"; that is, sufficient land to support his family and produce a surplus sufficient to enable him to pay his interest and lay by a little something for a rainy day. During 1908 it has moved eighty families from County Galway to County Roscommon and placed them all upon fertile farms, in comfortable new cottages of four rooms each, at an average cost of one thousand dollars, not including the price of the land. In addition to this most of the families have been granted loans varying from twenty-five to sixty dollars as working capital, to provide tools, implements, necessary furniture, and other articles. In addition to this general work in more than eight hundred parishes in counties Kerry, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Donegal, and Sligo, local committees have been appointed consisting of the parish priest, the Church of Ireland rector, the parish doctor, and one of the magistrates, who have immediate supervision over local conditions and make recommendations for the application of small sums of money for the improvement of the comforts and health of the people. These local committees are authorized to repair and improve the homes of farmers, fishermen, and other workingmen where it can be done economically, and to erect new homes for them whenever it is necessary, upon certain conditions, which involve a radical change in the habits of most of the Irish peasants. In order to secure benefits of this kind the family is required to remove the dunghill from its usual place in front of the door, to clean up all around the cabin and keep the place in order, to keep the pig, the cattle, and the chickens out of the house, and to keep the interior in a state of sanitary cleanliness. Materials are furnished to cottagers who are willing to make these improvements for themselves. It is astonishing that so many peasants will fight such improvements and often resist attempts that are made to clean up their places and make them more comfortable. The dunghill has always been in front of the door and the offal and garbage from the house have been dumped upon it for generations. They are accustomed to the sickening stench and, as one of the inspectors told me, they find it difficult to get along without it. "They wouldn't be happy unless there was a bad smell," he remarked. But in most cases the conditions are cheerfully accepted and the improvements appreciated. Last year 1,193 cottages were improved in this manner at a cost of £31,812. During the greater part of the year more than three thousand men are employed by the Congested Districts Board in the counties along the Atlantic coast, roadmaking, draining lands, fencing, building houses, bridges, and other improvements, and in planting larches and other trees that grow in this climate. This has not only kept them busy at good wages, but has made important permanent improvements. The total area of land drained last year was 12,089 acres at a cost of £11,391. The amount of money spent on roads, bridges, piers, docks, and other public works during the year was £7,102. One of the most interesting features of the work is the fisheries. There is an abundance of fish all along the coast and there is always a demand for them in the London market, either fresh or cured, but the peasants until recently have had no boats or nets and were unable to raise the money to provide them. The villages on the shores of the coves and bays had no landing places for boats, no facilities for storing or curing fish, and all of these things the board is now trying to provide. It has several methods of doing so. Wherever necessary docks have been constructed with warehouses, packing-houses, and cooper shops, and the board has agencies for furnishing salt, ice, and other necessaries for the fishing business at cost prices. Docks have been built at a dozen places costing from $500 to $15,000, which are free to the public and bring no return. The board will furnish boats, nets, and the rest of an outfit to a fisherman, to be paid for in five annual installments, and it has gone into partnership with the fishermen, in three hundred cases furnishing the outfit at an average cost of £350 and dividing the proceeds into nine shares. Six of these shares go to the crew and three to the government to pay the interest on the investment and create a sinking fund. When that fund has reached the total of the investment, the entire property is handed over to the crew. Nearly four hundred thousand dollars is invested in such partnerships by the government. The Congested Districts Board finds the market and supervises the sale of the fish. It also furnishes experts to instruct fishermen in the business and show them how to make their own barrels. In other chapters I have told you about the schools for lace-making and for training the peasant girls for house servants. There are altogether eighteen schools for servants and forty-three schools for lace-making and embroidery, besides crochet work, knitting, and weaving. I observe in the annual report of the board concerning the "domestic training schools" this sentence: "The pupils can very easily find situations in this country as domestic servants, and it is a mistake to suppose that the greater portion of them go to America after the course of training." The following table shows the amounts of money expended in this benevolent work by the Congested Districts Board since its organization in 1891 up to 1907: 1891-92 £3,660 1900-01 168,864 1892-93 50,266 1901-02 199,626 1893-94 47,259 1902-03 210,054 1894-95 74,886 1903-04 197,451 1895-96 81,907 1904-05 229,065 1896-97 87,196 1905-06 375,065 1897-98 99,200 1906-07 341,580 1898-99 107,082 ---------- 1899-1900 417,411 Gr. total £2,690,572 This expenditure is equivalent to $13,478,600 in American money. Denis Johnston, assistant secretary of the United Irish League, gave me several photographs which illustrate in a striking manner what is being done for the improvement of the poor peasants in the west of Ireland. He shows with the accuracy of the camera the appearance of the cabins in which human beings have lived for generations, and in one case from which they were driven out because they were too poor to pay the rent even for such a hovel as appears in the picture. On the other hand, he photographs the neat and comfortable cottage of artificial stone with slate roof which has been recently erected in its place by the Congested Districts Board. It is now the home of the same family that formerly lived in the miserable shack which was occupied by the fathers and grandfathers for several generations before them. These are not exceptional or isolated cases. They are types of habitations that once existed and in a large measure still exist on the large estates in the west of Ireland, and the second photograph shows the improvements that are being made as rapidly as the funds will permit. I have seen similar cabins, for many of them still exist, and are still occupied as homes by human beings. In some of them large families are crowded, six, eight, and often ten people, in a single room. I was told by a friend of one wretched, loathsome hovel that he found in County Kerry where nineteen human creatures were living. These photographs of Mr. Johnston show what has been and is being accomplished and illustrate the methods and purposes of the Congested Districts Board. "All this has been done by the pressure brought upon the government by the Irish parliamentary party," said Mr. Johnston; "and its members are entitled to the credit of what has been accomplished. Every concession that has been made, every reform that has been ordered, every dollar that has been voted for those improvements, has been obtained by threatening revolution, and the government has been compelled to yield. "In 1880 it was quite within the power of the landlords of Ireland to evict tenants from their holdings by merely serving them with a notice to quit. The Irish parliamentary party, with the organized forces of the Irish race behind them, in 1881 secured the passage of the Land Act of that year, which reduced the rents by nearly $10,000,000. Under this measure the tenant farmers of Ireland were first vested with a right in their farms. They had the power to enter a land court constituted under that act for the purpose of having fair and reasonable rents fixed upon the property they occupied at intervals of fifteen years, and they were practically secured from the interference of the landlords or their agents so long as such rents which were called 'judicial rents,' were paid. "In the following year, 1882, the Arrears of Rent Act was secured by the Irish parliamentary party under the leadership of Parnell, and that measure wiped off the slate in some cases ten years of unpaid rents and in others less. The act certainly benefited the people of Ireland to the extent of at least $15,000,000. Thus the rent question was placed upon a fair judicial basis and extortion was impossible as long as the tenant could appeal to a tribunal constituted for that very purpose against unfair and unjust claims by his landlord. What are known as 'judicial rents'--that is, rents fixed by such courts and based upon the quality, the value, and the productive capacity of the land--have since prevailed very generally throughout Ireland, and they are now being used as the basis for calculating the selling price of the farms that are being purchased by the tenants on the big estates under the Land Act of 1903. [Illustration: THE OLD: A LABORER'S SOD CABIN] [Illustration: THE NEW: EXAMPLE OF THE COTTAGES BUILT IN CONNEMARA BY THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD] "In 1883 was passed what is known as the Act for the Building of Cottages for the Laborers of Ireland. The benefits of that measure can never be calculated. Under its authority nearly twenty-five thousand comfortable and neat cottages have been built for laborers throughout the whole country, and the miserable habitations, hovels of stone with leaky straw roofs, in which thousands of honest, hard-working peasants have been compelled to live, have been torn down and replaced with such buildings as you see in the picture, with walls of cement and roofs of slate. In addition to the improvement in their habitations, an acre of land is given with each cottage on which it is possible for the laborer to raise vegetables sufficient for his household. No estimate in money can possibly be made of the benefits that the people of Ireland have enjoyed from that act. "In 1885 the Irish party secured the passage of the first Land Purchase Act and followed it up by winning the acts of 1888 and 1891, which went farther and still farther and benefited the country to the amount of at least one hundred and forty millions of dollars. "Next came the Act for the Establishment of the Congested Districts Board," continued Mr. Johnston, "expressly to deal with what are known as the congested areas of Ireland. These districts are not thickly settled, like Belgium, as one might have comparatively few population, but altogether more than the land will support. These are mountain districts along the rocky shores of the Atlantic Ocean where it is possible to raise a few cattle and goats that can find pasture in the narrow little valleys and up the mountain sides, but where there is seldom enough arable soil in a single patch to support an ordinary family. For these reasons it is difficult for the most industrious men to make a living there, and the inhabitants are the poorest, the most ill-nourished, and the most miserable in all the land. "The Congested Districts Board was instructed to buy all the lands it found necessary in such places, moving some of the inhabitants to other sections of Ireland, where they would be able to make a living, and distributing the lands among those that remained in allotments sufficiently large to enable them to live. In deserving cases the board is authorized to build comfortable houses to replace the wretched hovels, to restock the farms, to purchase implements where they are needed, to provide seed, and do whatever is necessary to give the family a fair start and enable them to enjoy the results of their labors. The board is also empowered to build new houses upon the locations selected for the families which are moved, and has done so in many cases. You will see in these photographs the character of the cabins that were formerly occupied by the poor people in the congested districts and the character of those which have been built to replace them, by the board." Mr. Johnston showed me an object lesson in the form of a photograph of a cottage in County Meath for which a rental of fifteen dollars a year has been paid by the tenant for many years. It has a single room, a mud floor, a thatched roof of straw, and is entirely without the simplest conveniences or comforts. He showed me another photograph of a cottage built under the Laborers' Act of 1906, which is now occupied by the same family with the same rent of fifteen dollars a year, with an acre of ground attached to it as a garden. It is a one-story structure of four rooms, with two fireplaces, three windows on each side, a slate roof, and walls of concrete. He also showed me a picture of the miserable hovel from which Bernard King was evicted in 1902. It stands on the De Freyne estate, near the town of Feigh, County Roscommon. King made a stubborn defense of his home, but the police finally ejected him. The Estates Commissioners have put him back, and in place of the miserable hut from which he was evicted, they have built him a neat two-story six-room cottage that is good enough for anybody to live in. There could not be any better illustration of the benefits of the evicted Tenants' Act, and this is a type of some two thousand cases. This humane work will be continued as long and as rapidly as the funds furnished by the British parliament will permit, and it is difficult to conceive of more direct and comprehensive benevolence. Ireland is thus being gradually redeemed, and although conditions are by no means ideal, the improvement during the last decade is a matter of congratulation to every Irishman and every sympathizer of the Irish race. [Illustration: INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR OF ONE STORY COTTAGES ERECTED BY THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD] THE END INDEX Aberdeen, Earl of, 34, 44, 54, 154. Lady, 34. Absentee landlords, 133. Academy, Royal Irish, 91. "Adair, Robin," 271. Adare Manor, 429. Adare, Village of, 428. Addison in Ireland, 90. Adrian IV, Pope, 280. Agricultural, Department, 13, 38, 404. education, 404. Organization Society, 13, 410. statistics, 251. Agriculture in Ireland, 209. Alexander, Archbishop, 189. All Hallows College, 143. American bacon, 417. flour, 417. Anderson, R.A., Secretary Irish Agricultural Organization Society, 412. Anecdotes, 260, 463. "Annals of the Four Masters," 169, 171, 186, 195, 410. Annals of Ulster, 196. Antrim County, 209. Archbishops of Ireland, 148, 189. Area of Ireland, 130. Ardilaun, Lord, 16, 348, 357, 384. Ard-Ri, The Irish, 174. Ark of the Covenant, 177. Armagh, Book of, 195. Cathedral, 192. City of, 188. Art education, 406. gallery, 93. Askeaton Abbey, 427. Village of, 425. Assassination of Cavendish and Burke, 96. Automobiles in Ireland, 269. Avoca, Vale of, 271. Bailey, W.F., Land Com'r, 62, 130. Balbriggan factories, 162. Balfe, M.W., memorial, 18. "Bally,"--use of the word, 266. Ballyhack, Village of, 286. Banks, Coöperative, 414. Bannow, Ancient town of, 278. Bantry, Bay of, 353, 355. Bards, The Irish, 267. Barry, Arthur Hugh Smith, 296. Barrymore, Lord, 296. Bassilia de Clare, 278, 281. Battle of Clontarf, 123. Battle of the Boyne, 167, 213. Beggars, Irish, 283. Belfast, Castle, 217. City Hall, 227. City of, 21, 231. population of, 222. Presbyterians of, 223. Religion in, 223. rope walk, 235. shipyards, 236. Technical School, 230. Benevolence of British Government, 460. Beresford, Archbishop, 193. family, 287. Lord Charles, 284. William, 288. Betting in Ireland, 305. Birmingham, George A., the author, 454. Birr Castle Observatory, 10. Birrell, Augustine, 35. Birth rate, Irish, 253. Bishops of Ireland, 148. Blackrock, Cork, 117. Bladensburg, Battle of, 210, 419. Blake, Sir Henry, 331. Blarney, Castle, 320. origin of term, 322. Stone, 323. Bogs, Irish, 7. Boleyn, Anne, 289. Boycott, Birthplace of the, 433. forbidden by priests, 434. of landlords, 16, 136. Boyle, Richard, Earl of Cork, 19, 54, 322. Boyne, Battle of the, 167, 213. Valley of the, 167. Brewery, the Guinness, 16. Brian Boru, 105, 123, 125, 188. Bruce, Edward, 197. Bryce, James, 35, 44, 219, 460. Buildings erected by government, 71. Burke, Edmund, 85. Burke, Sir Bernard, 57. Butler, James, first Earl of Ormonde, 326. Cabins, Irish, 12, 74, 358, 461, 465. Car, Jaunting, 310, 449. Carrick Castle, 289. Carrickfergus, 214, 218. Carrickmacross lace, 344. Carton House, 151. Cashel, History of, 9. Ruins of, 9. Castle, Dublin, 35, 53. Kilkenny, 325. Castles, Ruined, 289. Cathedral, at Cork, 316. at Armagh, 193. Christ Church, at Dublin, 15, 281. Downpatrick, 196. Kilkenny, 325. Limerick, 419. Londonderry, 242. St. Patrick's, Dublin, 14. Catholic, Roman, hierarchy, 148. Church in Ireland, 51. Cattle, breeding, 63. driving, 63, 434. Causeway, The Giant's, 243. Census of Ireland, 130, 252. Channel, Irish, 213. Characteristics, Irish, 260, 436, 461. Charity in Ireland, 360, 460. Charles I, 46, 333. Cherries, First, in Ireland, 334. Chesterfield, Lord, 57. Chief Secretary for Ireland, 35. Children, Behavior of, 360. Choirs, Church, 31, 100. Christ Church Cathedral, 32, 281. Christian Brothers' schools, 150. Churches in Belfast, 222. Church Land Acts, 50, 67. Church statistics, 49. City Hall, Belfast, 237. Civil Service of Ireland, 78. Clanricarde, Marquess of, 20, 137, 432. Clergy, Irish, 149. Clifden, Town of, 443. Climate of Ireland, 166, 320. Clontarf battlefield, 123. Coaching in Ireland, 367. College, Queen's, at Belfast, 227. Queen's, at Cork, 313. Queen's, at Galway, 440. Trinity, Dublin, 97. Magee, Londonderry, 242. Maynooth, 143. All Hallows, 143. Colthurst, Sir George, 321. Columba, Saint, 170. Commerce of Ireland, 253. Comyn, Archbishop of Dublin, 16. Condensed milk factories, 418. Confederation, Irish, 324. Congested Districts Board, 13, 38, 339, 358, 459, 465. Connemara, Poverty in, 443. Scenery of, 443. Cooke, Rev. Dr., of Belfast, 224. Coöperation among farmers, 412. credit societies, 414. Coöperative stores, 412. Corbet, Miles, 160. Cork, City of, 212. Earl of, 19, 292, 332. Harbor of, 6. Cormac, King, 169, 175, 183. Coronation Stone, British, 177. of the O'Neills, 238. Cottages erected by the government, 12, 425, 463. Courcy, Sir John de, 196. Courts, The Irish, 56. Creameries, Coöperative, 412. Crime in Ireland, 401. Croughpatrick, Mount of, 451. Croker, Richard, 3, 306. Cromwell, Oliver, 56, 163, 270, 284, 289, 336, 344, 357. Crops in Ireland, 130. Crosses of Monasterboice, 166. Cultivated area in Ireland, 70, 130. Curragmore Castle, 287. Curran, Philpott, 18. Curran, Sarah, 83, 84. Customs, Irish, 260. Dairies, Irish, 418. Dalkey, suburb of Dublin, 119. Davis, John H., 218. Davitt, Michael, 79. Death rate in Ireland, 253. Declan, Saint, 9. Derry, Town of, 257. Desmond, Earl of, 330, 332. Lady, 332. rebellion, 330. Devolution policy, 36. Devonshire, Duke of, 134, 292. Dillon, John, 44. Disestablishment, The, 33, 49. Disraeli, Lord, 148. Donkeys, Irish, 311. Donnybrook Fair, 128. Dougherty, Sir John, 37. Doughnamore, Lord, 329. Downpatrick Abbey, 197. Downpatrick Cathedral, 187, 196. Drogheda, City of, 159. Massacre of, 163. Druids, The, 169. Drink bill of Ireland, 392. Drunkenness in Ireland, 229, 391. Dublin, Castle, 53. City government of, 44. Lord Mayor of, 44. Name of, 47. Population of, 49. Sacred spots in, 77. University of, 102. Dudley, Countess of, 364. Earl, 44. Dufferin, Lord, 217. Dunraven, Earl of, 36, 428. Dunsany Castle, 186. Lord, 410. Earls, Flight of the, 214. Eccles Hotel, Glengariff, 354. Edgeworth, Maria, 454. Education, 12, 109. Agricultural, 404. Art, 406. at Maynooth, 144. at Belfast, 231. at Cork, 315. Expenditures for, 111. Roman Catholic, 101. Statistics of, 111. Technical, 405. Edward I, 177. Edward VII, 104. Electric railway, The first, 243. Elizabeth, Queen, 100, 103, 270, 291, 322, 331, 451. Ellen's Tower at Belfast, 218. Ely, Earl of, 278. Emigrants returning, 2. Emigration, 2, 134, 243, 247, 250, 253, 298, 360, 418, 437. Emmet, Robert, 79, 82, 118. England, Hatred of, 38. Epitaphs, Curious, 336, 420. Estates, Commission, Work of, 60. Sale of, 60. Eva, The Princess, 278, 280, 281. Evictions in Ireland, 134, 136, 138, 140, 142, 470, 472. Expenses of government, 39, 253. Excursions about Dublin, 115. "Faerie Queene, The," 271, 337. Fairies, Irish, 345. Farms sold by government, 65. Farms, Prices of, 65. Farm labor, 75. Farm lands, 130. Farmers, Education of, 407. Father Mathew, 77. "Father Prout," the poet, 316, 321. Faversham, Earl of, 153. Fergus, First Scottish king, 179. Fenians, The original, 183. Ferns, Town of, 275. Finances of land sales, 64. Fin-Barre, Saint, 314, 350. Fighting, Irish love of, 436. Fisheries, The, 13, 441, 445, 465, 467. Fitzgerald, Family history of, 155. Gerald, 10, 19, 137. Lord Edward, 84, 117, 126. Maurice, 146, 155. Fitzgibbon, John, 136. Flax culture, 234. Flour, American, 417. Foley, Captain James Arthur Wellington, 328. Four Courts of Dublin, 48. Frascati, Estate of, 117. French invasion of Ireland, 355. Fruit, Scarcity of, 449. Gaelic League, 455. Gaelic, Study of, 456. Gallery, National, 93. Galway, City of, 432, 438. Gambling in Ireland, 269, 305. George I, 22. Gerald, Thomas, 156. Geraldines, The, 157. Ginger ale, Manufacture of, 212, 235. Gladstone, William E., 39, 147. Glencare, Earl of, 371. Glendalough, Valley of, 272. Glengariff, Church of, 362. Legend of, 370. Town of, 345, 353. Goldsmith, Oliver, 454. "Gombeen Man," The, 72. Gougane Island, 349. Government, of Ireland, 34, 38. of City of Dublin, 44. Grace, Michael P., 328. Grattan, Henry, 80. Grave of Parnell, 78. Grey, Lord, 197, 291, 330. Griffith, Arthur, 203. Guinness, Benjamin, 16. Brewery, 399. Hale, J.P., 294. Hall, Rev. Dr. John, 220. Hammersley, Lillian, 288. Hamilton, Sir William, 90. Hannay, Rev. J.M., the author, 454. Harp of Tara, 183. Harps, The Irish, 266. Harrington, Timothy, 46. Headford, Marquess of, 171. Hemans, Mrs., 90. Handel's "Messiah," 87. Henderson, Sir James, 231. Hennessy, Sir John Cope, 331. Henry II, of England, 9, 47, 54, 280. Henry VII, 369. Henry VIII, 15, 100, 157, 270. "Himself," The title, 264. Historic spots in Dublin, 77. Hogan, Professor, 143. Hollybrook, 270. Home, Love of, Irish, 463. Home Rule, 11, 36, 39. "Hook or Crook," Origin of phrase, 280. Horse Show, Dublin, 310. Horses, Irish, 300, 311. Hotels in Ireland, 166. Housewifery, Schools of, 465. Howth, Earl of, 126. Village of, 121. Huguenots in Ireland, 284. Hussey, Dr., 145. Hyde, Douglas, 455. Imports of Ireland, 253. Improvement, in conditions, 73. in cottages, 465. Insane asylums, 25, 379. Insanity, Irish, Causes of, 265, 402. Intemperance in Ireland, 229, 391. Interest paid by land buyers, 61, 65. Invasion, French, 355. of Ireland, The first, 280. Ireland, Kings of, 290. Ireton, General, 422. Irish Academy, 91. Irish as farmers, 69. Irish in the United States, 257. Iveagh, Lord, 17, 91. Jaunting car, 310, 449. James I, 239, 331. James II, 213, 214, 240. Jewel robbery, The, 58. Johnston, Dennis, Ass't Secretary, United Irish League, 136, 469. Jones, John Paul, 218. Keimaneigh, Pass of, 352. Kells, Book of, 105, 171. Village of, 170. Kelvin, Lord, 219. Kenmare, Earl of, 371. House, 373. Lady, 375. Park, 374. Village of, 368. Kilbarrack, Abbey of, 126. Kilcolman Castle, 291, 330. Kilcrea Abbey, 344. Kildare, House, 94. Earl of, 10, 19, 20, 137, 152, 156. "Silken Thomas," 146, 156. Kilkea Castle, 152. Kilkenny Castle, 325. "Kilkenny Cats," Story of, 325. City of, 323. Statues of, 323. Killarney, Lakes of, 366, 375. Village of, 379. Killeen Castle, 186. Kings, Ancient, of Ireland, 174. Knabenshue, S.S., 245. Kylemore Castle, 450. Labor, Farm, 75. Lack of, in Ireland, 250. Lace work, 13, 256, 339, 360, 468. Lacy, Hugh de, 187, 281. Land Act, Wyndham, 60, 152. acts, Various, 68. disturbances, 432. Land League, 295. "Landless," The, 459. Landlord and Tenant Act, 67. Landlords, Irish, 60, 130, 131. Land troubles, 295. Land war of 1901, 136. Lansdowne, Marquess of, 141, 368. Laracor, Town of, 27. Lawrence family, The, 127. League, United Irish, 135. Lee, River, 6, 312, 350. Legend of the O'Neills, 215. Legends, of Ireland, 160, 191, 367. of Killarney, 370, 379. of Limerick, 424. Leinster, Duke of, 20, 41, 62, 92, 117, 146, 151. Leopardstown races, 300. Lever, Charles, 90, 121. Lewis', Mrs., land case, 137, 139. Lexington, Irish at Battle of, 18. "Lia Fail," Coronation Stone, 177. Library, National, 106. Royal, 93. Trinity College, 97, 105. Liffey River, 115. Limerick, City of, 417. lace, 340. Women of, 422. Linen, Manufacture of, 211, 232. Liquor, Consumption of, 400. licenses, 363, 391. Lismore, Earl of, 299. Town of, 293. Literary reminiscences, Dublin, 90. Logue, Cardinal, 143, 189, 194, 257. Londonderry, Apprentices' Hall, 241. shirt factories, 242. Siege of, 240. Statue of Walker, 240. Town of, 237. Wall of, 239. Lord Gough, 77. Lord Lieutenant, The, 34. Lover, Samuel, 18, 90. Lundy, Col. Robert, 241. Lynch, Story of Mayor, 440. Lyne, Lucius, Croker's jockey, 307. Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 148. MacCarthy, Cormac, 322. Eleanor, 158, 322. MacCarthys, The, 344, 385. MacCool, Fin, 379. MacDonnell, Sir Antony Patrick, 36. Macroom, Village of, 348. Magee, Alexander, Swift's servant, 27. Magee College, 108, 242. Mahoney, Rev. Francis ("Father Prout"), 316. Malachi the Great, 123. Malehide, 160. Manchester, Duke of, 450. Mansion House, Dublin, 46. Manufacturing in Ireland, 255. Marconi's wireless station, 448. Mareschal, William Le, 325. Marlborough, Duchess of, 288. Martello towers, 163. Martin, Col. Richard, 447. Mary, Queen of Scots, 161. Massareene, Lord, 140. Mathew, Father, 177, 319. Maynooth, Castle of, 144, 155. College, 108, 143. McKinley, ancestry, 245. cottage, 245. McMurrough, Dermot, 275, 278. "Meeting of the Waters," 271. Methodists, Irish, 52. Meyer, Prof. Hugo, 456. Migration of labor, 462. Missions, Protestant, 339. Monasterboice, Ruins of, 164. Crosses of, 166. Monastery, Trappist, 341. Monks, Irish, 51. Monument, O'Connell, 77. Nelson's, 77. Parnell, 78. Patriotic, at Cork, 318. Moore, Tom, 84, 89, 183. Motoring in Ireland, 166. Mountain people, The, 358. Muckross Abbey, 384, 388. House, 384. Municipal utilities in Belfast, 231. Museum, Dublin, 94. Music in churches, 31, 100. Myrtle Lodge at Youghal, 330. Nanetti, G.P., 45. National Irish League, 136. party, 36, 39, 141. Navan, Village of, 172. Nelson monument, 77. Newgate Prison, 95. Niall of the Nine Hostages, 170, 177, 215. Nobility, Irish, The, 41, 56, 131. Nuns, Irish, 51. Nurses for the poor, 360. O'Brien, Donald, King of Limerick, 9, 419. William, 295. O'Callaghans, The, 299. O'Callahan, Bishop of Cork, 319. O'Connell, Daniel, 39, 87, 177. monument, 77. Street, 78. O'Conor, Roderick, 187, 279. O'Connor, Solicitor Congested Districts Board, 463. O'Dohertys, The, 239. O'Donahues, The, 44, 378, 385. O'Donnell, Rory, 216. O'Flahertys, The, 445. Old Home Week, 247. O'Malley, Grace, Queen of Connaught, 127, 451. O'Neill, The Coronation Stone, 178, 238. Hugh, 216, 239. Owen, 239. Shane, 216. O'Neills, The, 215. Orangemen, The, 213. Ormonde, Earls of, 19, 325, 327. O'Toole, Lawrence, 280. O'Tooles, The, 272. Otter hunting, 318. Pale of Dublin, The, 48. Pamela (Lady Edward Fitzgerald), 117. Parks, Dublin, 91. Parliament House, Irish, 24. The Irish, 56, 81. Parnell, Charles S., 44, 297. Home of, 271. Grave of, 78. Monument to, 78. Passage, Town of, 6. Peat, Value of, 7. Peel, Sir Robert, 147. Peerage, the Irish, 39, 57, 131. Pembroke, Earl of, 279. "Penelope's Irish Experiences," 167. Penn, William, birthplace, 348. Phoenix Park, 35, 95. "Pig in the Parlor, The," 359. "Plan of Campaign, The," 136, 295. Planters, English, 138, 269. Scotch-Irish, 214. Plunkett family, The, 186. Sir Horace, 255, 404, 410. Population statistics, 130. of Belfast, 222. of Dublin, 49. Portraine, Village of, 161. Portrush, Town of, 243. Post, Mrs. Elizabeth Wadsworth, 296. Potatoes of Ireland, 130, 334. Poverty, in Limerick, 422. in Ireland, 358. Presbyterian House of Belfast, 224. Seminary, Belfast, 227. Presbyterians, Irish, 52, 214. Price of land, 65. Priests, Irish, 51, 144, 149, 397. Property owners of Ireland, 130. Prosperity of Ireland, 10. Protestants, Scotch-Irish, 213. "Prout, Father," the poet, 6. Queen's Colleges, The, 108. College, Belfast, 227. Cork, 313. Galway, 440. Queenstown, Landing at, 2. Surroundings of, 4. Racing in Ireland, 300. Railway, The first electric, 243. Railways in Ireland, 1, 343. Rain in Ireland, 166, 228, 320. Raleigh, Carew, 332. Lady, 331, 332. Sir Walter, 322, 330, 336. Rebellion, The Kildare, 157. Rebellions, Irish, 55. Redemption of Ireland, 60. Redmond, John, 44. Statue of, 276. Reformation, The, 198. Religion in Belfast, 222. in Ireland, 149. Religious antagonisms, 213. statistics, 49. tests in education, 107. Remembrancer, Treasury, 37. Rents, Land, 12, 61, 133. Reduction of, 12. Resorts, Seashore, 268. Reunions, Irish, 247. Revenues, 39. Revolution of '98, 118. Ri of Ireland, The, 174. Rice, Edmund, 150. Riding House, 293. Riots, Religious, 213. Roberts, Lord, 284. "Robin Adair," Song of, 271. Roe, Henry, distiller, 32. Romance of the Kildares, 157. Ropewalk at Belfast, 235. Ross Castle, Killarney, 379. Sir John, 210. Rosse, Earl of, 10. Rostrevor, Town of, 210. Rothschild, Baron, 88. Ruins, Cromwellian, 344. Kilkenny, 324. Sacred spots in Dublin, 77. St. Bridget, 195, 200. Grave of, 195. St. Columba, 195, 201. Grave of, 195. St. Columba's Stone, 238. St. Kevin, 273. St. Michan's Church, 86. St. Patrick, 47, 164, 169, 188, 195, 199, 239, 451. Grave of, 195. Knights of, 17, 57. Relics of, 92. Statue of, 177. Story of, 352. St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, 15. St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, 91. Salaries of officials, 35. of school teachers, 114. Salmon fishing at Galway, 441. Saloons in Ireland, 363, 391. Sarsfield, General Patrick, 422. Saul, Monastery of, 198. Scenery, Irish, 269, 353, 377, 443, 449. Schomberg, Duke of, 25. Scone, Stone of, 178. School for servants, 382. Schools in Ireland, 12, 109. Scotch-Irish characteristics, 213. Scotland tunnel, 213. Scott, Sir Walter, 91. Seashore resorts, 268. Secretary, Chief, of Ireland, 35. Under, for Ireland, 35. Selkirk, Lord and Lady, 219. Servant girls, Irish, 3. Servants, School for, 382. Seven Churches, The, 273. Shaftesbury, Earl of, 217. Shandon Bells, 317. Shillelagh, Woods of, 271. Shipyards, Belfast, 236. Shirt factories in Londonderry, 242. Showers in Ireland, 166. Sigtryg, The Danish King, 32, 123, 124, 161, 284. "Silken Thomas" Kildare, 146, 156, 322. Sinn Fein movement, 202. Skerries, Village of, 162. Skreen, Hill of, 179. Sligo, Marquess of, 139, 453. Snakes banished by St. Patrick, 452. Society in Ireland, 54. Soda water, Manufacture of, 212, 235. Soldiers, Irish, 17. Spenser, Edmund, 291, 330, 336. Stage drivers, Irish, 348. Stager, Miss Ellen, 328. Starkie, Dr., Commissioner of Education, 111. Statistics, Agricultural, 251. Religious, 49, 50, 222. Statues in Dublin, 78. "Stella," 161, 173. Stores, Coöperative, 413. Strafford, Earl of, 19. Street car lines, in Dublin, 115. Strongbow, 32, 278, 280, 281, 285. Students at Trinity College, 99. Irish, 144. Superstitions, Irish, 265, 345. Swift, Dean, 20, 24, 30, 56, 75, 161, 173. Swords, Village of, 161. Synod, Episcopal, 33. Talbot Castle, 160. Tara Harp, 105. Village of, 168, 179. Taxes, 39. Taylor, Rev. Jeremy, 198. Tea, Excessive use of, 265. Technical school, Belfast, 230. Temperance in Ireland, 12, 319. reforms, 12. Temple, Sir William, 21, 27. Tenantry, Irish, 66. Thackeray's comments on Swift, 29. Tipperary, Town of, 294. Tobacco, First, in Ireland, 337. Tombs, Ancient, 169. Tone, Wolfe, 118. Tourists, Habits of, 1. Towers, Martello, 163. Round, 165. Tracy, Rev. Father Edmond, 428. Trade education, 406. Foreign, 255. Tram rides of Dublin, 119. Trappist monastery, 341. Treasury, Irish, 38. Treaty of Limerick, 422. Trial by combat, 55. Trim, Village of, 172. Trinity College, Dublin, 21, 97, 99. Tristram and Isolde, original of, 127. Tumuli, Ancient, 168. Turf, The Irish, 300. Turgesius, King of Limerick, 424. "Twelve Bens," The, 444. Tyrconnell, Earl of, 214. Tyrone, Earl of, 214, 239. Ulster coat of arms, 215. Settlement of, 214. Undertakers, The, 214, 269, 330. United Irish League, 134, 139, 469. United States, Exports, 235. Irish population of, 249, 257. Universities of Ireland, 109. University, Dublin, 97. Van Homrigh, Miss, Swift's sweetheart, 28. Vanity of the people, 211. Vale of Avoca, 271. Vicar, Sir Arthur, 58. Viceregal Lodge, 96. Victoria Park, 114. Queen, 151. Wages, in Belfast, 233. in Ireland, 252. Wakes without liquor, 394. Walker, Rev. George, 240. Wall of Londonderry, 239. Walsh, Dr., Archbishop of Dublin, 397. Walsh, John R., builds shrine, 350. Walshe, Lacia, Miss, the nurse, 363. Warbeck, the Pretender, 284. War cries of the clans, 369. Waterford, City of, 283. Marquess of, 289. Washington Inn at Dalkey, 121. "Wearing of the Green, The," 298. Weather in Ireland, 228. Wellington, Duke of, 88, 92, 172. Wesley, Rev. John, 198. Westport, Town of, 452, 453. Wexford, Town of, 275, 276. Wicklow, County of, 268. Hills, 272. Wigham, W. R., Temperance advocate, 392. Wilkinson, Mr., of Tara, 180. William of Orange, 25, 213, 214, 422. Wit, Irish, 260, 283, 286, 315. Wheat growing in Ireland, 417. Wolsey, Cardinal, 156. Women, Drunken, 394. in Trinity College, 102. Whately, Archbishop, 19, 26, 148. Wyndham, George, 136. Youghal, City of, 330, 333. Transcriber's Notes On p. 167, the words 'good naturedly' appear without a hyphen, and are retained as printed. On p. 274, the village of Ennisworthy is referred to several times as the site of the battle of Vinegar Hill. This took place in the environs of Enniscorthy. The spelling is retained as printed. The following list contains those corrections that were made to the text as printed. p. 125 eats or sleeps or rest[s] Added. p. 260 'darlin[,'/',] Corrected. p. 262 Seven Churches at Glen[g/d]alough Corrected. p. 267 which had be[e]n plagiarized Added. p. 281 t[ry/yr]annical Transposed. p. 311 cha[u]ffeur Added. p. 334 M[ry/yr]tle Lodge Transposed. p. 413 ac[c]urately Added. p. 427 fifteen feet thick[.] Added.